April Smith - Judas Horse

I am sitting on top of the picnic table, listening with admiration and relief as Angelo and Donnato plot Laumann’s murder. I scold myself for mistrustful thoughts. These two are pros.

“You’re saying we should take Herbert Laumann out of the picture?”

“If we don’t,” Angelo says, “Stone will have it done.”

“Headquarters will have to authorize the hit. Something this sophisticated would go to the director and the attorney general. It could take weeks.”

Angelo is dismissive. “Someone at headquarters will have to bite the bullet.”

“I know what they’ll say.” For some reason Donnato won’t let it go. “‘What is L.A. trying to pull off now? It’s another argument to stay in longer. What’s the Big One? What the hell does that mean? What are you creating just to keep the operation going?’ Peter Abbott will have to weigh in, and that’s a crapshoot.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn,” Angelo snaps. “What the hell do I care? This will prove her loyalty beyond a doubt. Ana? Are you with us?”

“No screwups,” I say. “No budgetary crap.”

Angelo waves a hand and the sapphire ring glints pink.

“Done it a million times. The Hollywood studios are good at this; they love to help us out. They can do it so it looks like the guy is dead and we fed him to the sharks. You walk up, shoot the victim at close range. He’s got squibs inside his clothing, it’s a big bloody mess, he dies an agonizing death, and we relocate him and his family in the witness protection program. No worries, and Dick Stone thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced cheese.”

“Believe me,” says Donnato, warming to it, “Laumann will go — happily. But we have to put a fence around the family. They need to be protected twenty-four/seven.”

My mouth has become dry as the pine needles. The hot bleached sky seems to swirl.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Angelo asks, reading me perfectly. “I mean, we all know what you’ve been through.”

The shooting incident.

“I think I have a fairly good handle on reality, Angelo. This is acting. The bullet is a blank.”

But my thinking mind goes vacant as my senses seem to cut off one by one — except for the slight scent of burning brake lining, and a high-pitched chatter, like headphones at full volume pressed against my ears.

Angelo consults his watch. His voice sounds faint. “We can catch the three forty-five to L.A. if we leave right now.”

As they head back toward the car, Donnato says something about scheduling the psychological evaluation.

“ You’re going to fake a killing, and I’m the one who needs to see a shrink?” I say, managing a grin through the deafening clamor of the two red squirrels, jumping branch to branch.

Cars are parked way up the road. It is the midsummer festival at Willamette Hazelnut Farm. Megan is sticking close to Stone, who presents himself tonight in a neatly pressed western shirt, the red suspenders, and a crisp straw farmer’s hat — your happy host to the alternative lifestyle, urging people to gather in the large bubble shed, where a borrowed sound system plays a cheerful band out of Austin, Texas. Stone told me they had poured the concrete floor just for dances, which sounded pretty goofy, but with the silver blow-up panels animated by moving shadows and the doors thrown open, warm yellow light tumbles across the gravel road, illuminating the American flag, and you can believe in country music.

It is an eclectic blowout — a mix of neighboring farmers, “kindreds” from the pagan community, straitlaced hazelnut distributors from Portland, and random tourists from the local B and Bs, all happily passing the traditional Asatrú libation, great huge horns of beer.

Slammer is standing on the roof of the farmhouse with the local boys, totally hammered on rum. That has pretty much been his MO since the burial attempt, despite empty threats to beat the crap out of Allfather, which came in a whispered confab with Sara. They were huddled like frightened children at the foot of the stairs as Slammer struggled out of his filth-encrusted clothes. Sara quickly balled them into her arms, as if to shrink an unthinkable humiliation down to the size of a load of laundry.

“You can’t let him do that to you.”

“That’s him, dog.”

“We should get out of here. We should call the cops.” “Are you serious? You want to go home?”

“No, but…He scares me.” Sara flushed pink and began to hiccup with tears.

“Poor little princess.”

“Guys!” I stepped between them. “Don’t get on each other.” Sara had dropped the clothes and was staring at me defiantly.

“Slammer, you have every right to call the police,” I said. “Is that what you want to do?” Slammer’s eyes went vacant. “Actually,” he said, “I’m kind of hungry.” After that, you could hear pickups burning rubber at two o’clock in the morning and raucous male shouting as Slammer came and went with the locals. Nothing changed on the farm. Maybe Stone had made his point. Maybe he was waiting to make another.

I see Sterling McCord has arrived and is talking to Sara, who doesn’t want to stand still and listen. He’s been on her case about Geronimo — how it would do her good to care, really care, for an animal, get up at dawn and muck the dung, not just mouth off about it — but she’s laughing, tossing it off, flirting instead. Incapable, is more like it. Meanwhile, McCord has the loosest pelvis on the planet. He’s standing tilted back on his heels, as if in the saddle at a trot. He’s wearing a silver conch belt and his usual washed-out jeans, a midnight blue shirt open at the chest.

I have noticed that you can’t go wrong on wardrobe if you’re a cowboy.

The sorting equipment and red tractor have been moved outside, so there is room for line dancing. The song is something about “old Amos.” I draw back from the doorway and the shining, eager faces go past the American flag and into the colder shadows. Sara and McCord are free to get it on — but me, I’m on the job. Undercover work — this is how it gets to you. The loneliness digs down like fast-growing roots and cracks your resolve. This is exactly when you are supposed to call your contact agent. Dose of reality. Remember who you are. It is 9:36 p.m. and Donnato is most likely home with his family.

Candles are still burning in jars on a half-cleared table near the orchard, illuminating a forest of smudgy fingerprints on abandoned wineglasses. An older couple is camped out at one end, picking at brownie crumbs in an aluminum pan. I move past, fishing out the last Heineken from the frigid waters of the cooler.

“Looks like Noah’s ark,” Sterling says from behind.

I turn toward the lighted shed and smile.

“They’ve got all the animals, right?”

“And they’re all gonna be saved. Any more beers?”

I give him the Heineken and pull out a Coors.

“I could use a set-down,” he suggests. “How about yourself?” At the other end of the table, in the half dark, an enormous white man is holding forth to a slight man of color — the first black face I’ve seen in Oregon. As we sit, I recognize the voice: like a sixteen-wheeler groaning uphill in second. That’s when I realize the fuzzy shape in the diffuse light is Mr. Terminate.

“John! It’s Darcy! From Omar’s bar.”

The other couple take a good look at John and decide to get out of there, leaving us with the dour biker, massive thighs dwarfing a folding chair, clutching a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He has left the black top hat at home, revealing long, thin tresses trailing off a half-bald dome.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.