John Miller - Smoke and Mirrors

Winter wondered if the Adams family already knew that the casket would have to be closed.

John put a hand on Brad’s shoulder, smiled affectionately, and turned his attention to a cluster of women with plates of food coming up the sidewalk toward the house.

Cynthia Gardner spent ten minutes with Dr. Barnett, had some blood drawn, and left the doctor’s office. She didn’t want to go straight back home and sit there with the gloom and doom, but most of her friends were either still at school or townie losers she’d rather not see. She was headed to her car when her cell phone beeped, indicating a new text message.

U meet me big river barn now? J.

Cynthia smiled as she typed a reply.

sure n 20

She climbed in behind the wheel of her Toyota, which her mother hadn’t allowed her to have at LSU her freshman year. As she started it, she wondered if this was a good idea. With everything so crazy over Sherry’s death, she wasn’t sure if meeting the older man was smart. But she wanted to find out what was up, and he was great in the sack. She hadn’t enjoyed his energetic charms since that summer, and she was eager to see if he was just as good as she remembered. Older men just knew more about pleasing a woman-it was a shame, but they really did.

Putting the car into gear, Cynthia snapped on her seat belt and flew out of the parking lot. As she drove, she picked up her phone and called her mother.

“Hi, Cyn,” her mother said. “What did the doctor say?”

“Everything’s totally cool. He said to just keep doing what I’m doing. Listen, I’m going to run to Memphis.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Leigh said. “With everything that’s happening. You come home.”

“I need to get a dress for Sherry’s funeral. It’s not like I go to many funerals. I want to look-you know-right.”

Her mother sighed. “Simple black dress. Nothing fancy.”

“And nothing expensive. I know, Mother. I’ll hold it to a buck fifty.”

“One hundred max. And straight home.”

“I need to go see Grammy too,” Cynthia said. “It’s been months. I’ll stay over tonight.” Cyn doubted that her mother could very well deny her a visit with her grandmother, even though the two women hated each other. Truthfully, Cyn didn’t care much for the old bat either.

“This is a bad time. Hamp and I will go along.”

“God, Mother. Shop with him along! Please!”

“You call me and tell me what you are doing. I mean it. My plate is piled to the clouds right now,” Leigh said with resignation.

Cynthia hung up, and drove out of town. After a few miles, she turned on a gravel road passing through the opened gate, through a hundred yards of trees, and down a dirt road to the massive equipment barn she’d been to on one other occasion. The building and its graveled parking lot were surrounded by tall hurricane fencing. She recognized the white van parked near the personnel door, to the right of the massive retractable doors through which heavy equipment came and went. She parked, leaving her purse in the car, and patted her hair as she walked to the door.

The interior of the building was half the size of a football field and the roof rose to a peak fifty feet above the packed-earth floor. Scores of bulldozers and other pieces of land-clearing equipment were parked shoulder to shoulder in the interior before her, like soldiers preparing for another assault on the land outside. The last time she’d been there, the recently constructed steel building had been empty and their loud lovemaking had echoed eerily.

It was so cold she could see her breath in the still air that reeked of grease and diesel fuel.

“Jaa-ckeee,” she called out, laughing. “I’m hee-ere!”

Cynthia straightened at the sound of someone behind her and turned to the sight of a wholly unattractive stranger with his hands in the pockets of his coat.

“Who are you?” she demanded, remembering that she was trespassing. She didn’t even know the name of the company that owned the structure.

“You can call me Pablo,” he said, smiling. “Jack’s on his way.”

“You don’t look Mexican to me. What are you, like a night watchman? So where is he?” she asked.

“There’s no need to pay anybody to guard this building, is there? I mean, stealing a bulldozer takes real professionals and big trailers,” the man said, staring into her eyes.

Something about the man’s flat delivery and emotionless eyes filled her with dread.

She froze when he took his hands from his pockets and moved at her with animal swiftness. Pinning her wrists behind her, he met her eyes and smiled. “Jack told me you are one delicious young lady.”

Too frightened and shocked to move, she could only close her eyes as his broad and wet tongue ran from her chin up her face to her forehead.

Paulus Styer put the bound and gagged Cynthia facedown on the mattress located in the van outside before he took a tarpaulin and draped it over her still form.

“Cynthia, I have a lot of driving around to do. If you move a muscle without me telling you to do so, I will throw you into the Mississippi River. I want you to understand that, because I do not make idle threats. Just nod if you understand.”

The trembling girl nodded, and Styer took her lover’s cloned cell phone and tossed it into a garbage bag.

He moved out to Cynthia’s Toyota, drove it over to the far side of the barn near the mechanic station, and covered it completely with an old tarp.

Climbing back into the van, Styer cranked it and drove out of the structure into the stark, flat landscape. Now he could get on with his employer’s primary operation, and take the next step in wrapping up his own.

Pierce Mulvane eyed the action at the high-stakes blackjack tables the way a farmer surveys a field for signs of sun damage or pest infestation. A dark-haired, clean-cut young man was winning steadily. He was up over forty-five thousand dollars and, despite the fact that the pit boss had changed dealers on him twice every hour, he showed no signs of a reversing fortune. The kid was cocky, and his success had drawn a crowd. It was both good and bad that people were watching him. It was good because it would encourage them to gamble. It was bad because asking him to leave would attract attention and put a damper on the audience. He’d let the boy win and have Albert White deal with it later.

Pierce thought back to the first cheater he’d caught in Atlantic City, a young man with tattoos covering his arms. The backs of his fingers spelled LOVE on the left hand, and HATE on the right. Using a pair of pruning shears, Pierce had edited the tattoo to read, LOVE HAT. The memory always made him chuckle. He hated cheaters.

After five minutes of watching the young man, Pierce turned and walked slowly through the playing floor, shadowed by Tug Murphy. He paused at one of the craps tables to watch a pig farmer from Arkansas named Jason Parr, whose one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar line of credit Pierce had personally approved. The year before, he had lost sixty thousand and paid it back within a week. Today Parr was dressed in a T-shirt under a tailored leather jacket, faded blue jeans, and shiny black wing-tips. Pierce watched with an inner glow as the farmer placed stacks of twenty-dollar chips on several numbers. He was chasing his losses, which, according to the floor boss, totaled twelve thousand dollars.

The pig farmer spotted Pierce, waved, and yelled, “Hey there, Mr. Mulvane!”

When the dice stopped rolling on seven and the farmer’s chips had been collected, Pierce walked over and rested a hand on Parr’s shoulder. “Nice to see you, Mr. Parr,” Pierce said, turning on his warmest smile. “So nice to have you with us again. How is everything going?”