David Levien - Where the dead lay

“Looking at you?”

“He would come out of the back office and just look at me. Not like he wanted to fuck me, but like he knew. It made me cold, like he could count everything I had taken.”

“And then Aurelio started coming in?”

“Yeah, he started coming in. He started asking me out. I really liked him…” She paused and looked into Behr’s eyes. “I did, I really did.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, “go on.”

“Then I found out he was the fighter. Kenny, the youngest brother, used to stay ten feet away from him. He treated Auri like a god, but he was afraid of him. I saw it right away. Even Charlie kept his distance. I figured they couldn’t fuck with Auri, he was so tough, so we started dating.”

Behr nodded, starting to understand the exit plan she’d developed for herself.

“He didn’t know or he never would have done it,” she said quietly.

“Done what?”

“I rigged him for a win. A big one. When he hit he was so excited. We went out to celebrate, and that’s when I told him about the Schlegels and my problem.”

“How’d he react?”

“He was mad. So mad. At first. He wanted to go bust them up. Especially Dean. But I calmed him down… and he gave me the money. The way it worked out, I didn’t have to skim anymore- paying Aurelio on a win was like paying myself, and no one would know it… not even him.”

“So you did it again,” Behr said, now asking questions the way an investigator should the first time: basically knowing the answer already.

“Yes.”

“He was in love with you.”

“I think so. He said he was.”

“And you?”

“It was still early.”

“So you were just playing him.”

“No. He was special. We had good times together.”

Behr stared at her, trying his best to read what was going on behind her eyes. They might as well have been the Dead Sea Scrolls for all he could make of them. “Then what? He moved you here so they couldn’t find you?”

“Yes.”

“And what, the Schlegels figured it out, caught up with him, and killed him?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What do you mean you don’t know!” Behr shouted, jumping up from the couch and causing her to cower back.

“I don’t, I swear it. I wasn’t there!” she said.

“What did you think when you found out what happened to him?”

“I was afraid. I thought… I knew.” She put her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. If she was crying, Behr couldn’t hear it.

“You’re going to be a witness,” Behr stated.

“I can’t be a witness,” she said into her palms.

“You can. You’ll see.”

“No,” she said, pointing her chin up at him in defiance, her eyes dry.

“Don’t go anywhere. I have to go take care of some things. I’ll be briefing the police. But I’ll be back and I don’t want to have to go looking for you. But you know I will, and you know I’ll find you.”

She nodded. “Can’t you… let me out of it? I’d do anything to stay out of it.”

Behr looked at her. “Is that right?”

“Yes. I know… how to do things… Give me a chance.”

Behr took her in, sitting there. He found himself feeling for her. She’d gotten herself all jammed up. She only had herself to blame, but she couldn’t have known the kind of animals she was dealing with.

“Like I said, stick around.” This time he said it with less conviction.

She nodded, sadly, and then quietly began to weep. She tried to hold it back, but the tears welled up in those black eyes of hers and spilled down her cheeks. “If it wasn’t for me, Auri wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

Behr felt his throat thicken. They’d both lost Aurelio, they were bonded in that, and he knew how she felt. He had an impulse to reach out for her, to give her some comfort and tell her it would be all right.

He was about to, when he suddenly felt like he was watching the moment from above the room, and in that instant he saw it for what it was. She was gaming him. She’d laid out the sexual suggestion, and when that hadn’t worked, came over the top with the tears. And dupe that he was, he’d almost gone for it.

“Stick around,” Behr said, his voice cold. “I’m not your mark.”

She looked up at him, pushed a strand of hair back, and wiped a cheek. The tears were done.

“I see that,” she said. Her voice was low and quiet, but colder than his nonetheless.

Charlie Schlegel didn’t give two loose shits about the Bully B-B-Q or whether their dogs took any honors. No, he was here for business, not for fun this time. He and Kenny stood by a table gnawing on the half-dozen corn dogs they’d bought, dropping pieces for their brindles, Mr. Blonde and Clarence. As always, Kenny couldn’t let it go at that. He got down on his knees and started feeding Clarence a corn dog out of his mouth.

“Come on, boy,” Kenny said, “grrr.” The dog took the meat, lapping saliva all over Kenny’s face. But Kenny kept the stick clenched between his teeth, and the dog clamped down on the other end. Then Kenny and Clarence commenced a vicious tug-of-war. “Let’s go, Clarence,” Kenny urged between gritted teeth. The dog’s muscles rippled under his shining coat as he hunched his shoulders and pulled.

“Get up, you dipshit,” Charlie said. He didn’t listen, and Charlie gave Kenny a kick to the ribs. “Come on, knock it off.” Kenny transferred the stick from his mouth to his hand, then pushed Clarence’s nose back until he let up on the stick.

“What, man?” Kenny said.

“The point’s gonna hurt his mouth,” Charlie answered.

“Nah. His mouth is like leather.”

“Nah. His mouth is soft.”

“Whatever,” Kenny said, dusting himself off.

“There they are.” Charlie pointed. Coming across the tented area, with a measly blue bull pup on a thick leash, were Peanut and Nixie.

Charlie handed off the leashes to Kenny and walked toward them, Kenny following. When the two groups came together, the dogs greeted each other with friendly curiosity, sniffing and circling. The men weren’t so civil.

“What is that thing, a squirrel on a leash?” Kenny asked, for the moment able to keep the smirk off his face.

“Man, shut the fuck up. That’s a pedigree dog,” Peanut said, taking the bait. Nixie’s narrowed eyes just went deader than they’d been in the first place.

Kenny shook his head. “If you bought that, you got took. Hope you used food stamps.”

“What about your mangy-ass mutts?”

“No, these beauties are pure class,” Kenny said. And now the smirk followed. Nixie stepped forward and squared with Kenny, who stuck his chest out and went eye to eye. He also let the leashes drop from his hand and Clarence and Mr. Blonde took the opportunity to light out across the tent.

Charlie shoved Kenny in the shoulder, breaking the stare-down. “Get the fucking dogs, would you?” Kenny shook his head and walked off after them.

“You pricks finally ready to do this?” Charlie asked. Peanut nodded and slid a wad of money up from his pants pocket so it was just visible.

A lot of barking and an angry “Tend your damn dogs!” reached Charlie from the owners’ pens. In another few minutes he’d be dealing with a chewed-up dog thanks to Mr. Blonde or Clarence, or Kenny beating the shit out of some owner or enthusiast.

“Good,” Charlie said, “let’s put the dogs up and figure a place to meet.”

Knute Bohgen hated being right. And that was the thing of it-he usually was. He thought Terry’s pea-shake play sounded nuts when he’d first heard it, but then he thought maybe shit had changed while he was inside and he was out of step, and then he had gotten swept up in the ambition, so he went with it. Now they had a nice mess on their laps. Knute lived in the back unit of a two-family house, but he was currently in the front kitchen fixing a peanut butter sandwich. The couple that usually lived in the unit had gone away for the rest of the summer after the Brickyard 400, so Knute had let himself in and had the run of the place. He preferred it to his own, which was an under-furnished rathole, and wondered what he was going to do when the couple got back. He crossed to a recliner that was in front of a thirty-six-inch flat-screen. He supposed he could get some of his own stuff, but he wasn’t particularly flush at the moment-especially after last night. That little pecker Kenny had busted him out in the poker game. Knute thought he’d caught the kid with his hand in the cookie jar raising from the small blind, and went all in pre-flop with a wired pair of fours, but Kenny called and showed a pair of Kokomos that stood up when no one improved. The rest of them had howled when he lost his three hundred. He would have paid double that to skip the ribbing. He shouldn’t have even been playing, drunk and distracted as he was with today’s task-booking the Chicago guys as soon as Terry got his ass here.