John Sandford - The Empress File

LuEllen slumped in a chair. "I'm feeling pretty bad for a cowgirl."

LuEllen had processed both the negatives and the prints wearing vinyl gloves, and I carefully avoided touching them, even when they were dry. Photo material is notorious for picking up and preserving fingerprints. When I was done looking at them, we sealed the prints inside a plastic garbage bag and taped them to the underside of a drawer.

Marvel called every hour or so. Finally she decided she had to see us. We'd meet at the Holiday Inn, at John's room, in an hour.

She and John were waiting when we arrived.

"Not a fuckin' thing," she said, pacing the room. "Can't even find his car. What do you think?"

"He wouldn't go off by himself?"

"No, of course not," Marvel said angrily.

"Then. I think. he may be dead."

She stopped, looked at John, and a tear ran down her face. "I think so, too," she said. "They couldn't just grab him and let him go later."

"No." I turned and looked at LuEllen, and her face was like a rock.

"Oh, God." Marvel sighed. She was standing close to John, and he slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed her.

Jesus, I thought, these people trust us.

With nothing more to say, we left Marvel to continue her search and made a pro forma stop in the bar. Bell, the city councilman, was sitting at a table with a pretty, freckled blonde. He raised a hand to us, and LuEllen waved, but we turned away, found a corner table, and ordered.

"What's next, boss?" LuEllen asked with a light overlay of sarcasm.

"Just keep cranking," I said. "But now we've got to put a little extra on Hill and St. Thomas. Dumping the machine isn't good enough anymore."

"I don't know," she said, now serious. "When I mess with you, things seem to turn violent. Before that time in West Virginia, I don't know if I'd ever seen a killed person."

"It's not us, not me-"

"You keep saying that."

"I've got to believe it," I said.

We talked for twenty minutes, through two drinks. Two is about as many as I can take before my lips start going numb. We paid, and LuEllen waved again at Bell. Bell nodded back, tipped up his glass, finishing a drink, and dug in his pocket for cash.

We were halfway across the parking lot when two car doors slammed with the kind of aggressive impact that makes you look around. Duane Hill was there, drunk, with St. Thomas on the other side. They each had a longneck beer.

"Hey, artist fuckhead," Hill yelled, wandering toward us.

"Keep walking," LuEllen said.

But I had the two drinks in me and, instead of walking, slowed down and stopped. Hill swaggered across the parking lot from his van, St. Thomas a step or two behind him. Two guys in broad-rimmed hats and cowboy boots had been sitting on the hood of a pickup down the lot. Now they hopped down and sidled over to watch.

"Where's that old bitch Trent? You trade her in on some younger cunt?" Hill asked.

"Fuck you, asshole," LuEllen said in a tone of pure ice. For a second Hill stopped, nonplussed. He was a brawler, tuned to danger, and he heard it in LuEllen's voice. He didn't know quite how to take it.

"Gonna let the pussy do your talking?" he said after a minute, trying to recover. He was about fifteen feet away. He half turned to the two onlookers, to catch their reaction to this witticism.

I gave him my best southern smile and got my right foot planted, slightly splayed to the right. The most dangerous man in a fight is the one who likes it the most. Watching him, I decided he'd be a grappler; he'd come storming in and try to throw me, rather than punch.

"I do hang around with nice-looking women," I said. "Mrs. Trent said you mostly hang around with some guy named Arnie."

The words hung in the air for a moment; then I leaned a little to the left, peering around him at St. Thomas, and shook my head. "Can't say I like your taste, Duane. He ain't got that much of an ass on him."

One of the cowboys let out a happy "Whoa," while Hill bellowed something unintelligible, dropped his beer, and charged, his head down, his hands out, and his legs churning. I was ready, my right foot grounded, and I whip-kicked him with my left foot, catching him on the side of the face. He went bellydown on the parking lot, landing on the blacktop like a racing driver. The fury climbed on top of me, the image of the killings, and I punted him once in the ribs, and again, as he rolled away, then pivoted toward St. Thomas. St. Thomas was an older guy, out of his fighting days. He wasn't moving, but Hill was trying to get up.

"What's going on here?" We all turned, and Bell was striding across the parking lot.

"Your town thug decided to beat me up," I said as Hill got slowly back to his feet. His nose and upper lip were bleeding heavily, the blood glistening on his teeth and dripping down his chin. He wanted to come for me again, but his ribs were holding him back. Every time he moved, the pain flared in his eyes; I'd give odds that I'd cracked a couple of his ribs.

"What about that, Duane?" Bell demanded.

One of the cowboys, with the insouciant lack of fear that seems to mark the breed, cleared his throat. "Duane sure started it," he said cheerfully. "Called the young lady there a real bad name."

Bell looked us over again and then nodded. "Y'all go home and sober up," he said. "Fightin' in a parking lot doesn't do credit to anyone. And Duane, I'll see you at City Hall tomorrow, ten o'clock sharp. Now git."

Hill, snarling, turned away, still favoring his ribs. Bell watched him go, then nodded at LuEllen, gave me a measured look, and headed toward his car, where the blonde waited with folded arms.

"Goddamn, this country is goin' to hell in a handbasket," one of the cowboys said, taking a hit from his beer bottle. He looked me up and down, taking in my artist's getup and beard. "Somebody's gone and taught the fuckin' hippies how to fight."

The next morning Marvel asked if we could meet her at the farm home of a friend, out in the country, well away from the river and the prying eyes of Longstreet.

"It's safe and quicker than Greenville, and nobody will see your car," she said. "Half an hour?"

"I'll be there."

LuEllen again decided to stay with the boat, away from new faces.

"You gonna be here when I get back?" I asked.

"Of course," she said gravely. "I'm not leaving until we find some way to grease Hill and St. Thomas."

Marvel's friend's name was Matron Carter, a plain, cheerful woman with short hair and good moves. She was shooting basketballs at a netless hoop hung on the side of a swaybacked, free-standing garage when I pulled into her yard. Marvel's car was around back, next to a vacant chicken coop. A rusty forties-style power mower appeared to be permanently parked in knee-high grass under lilac bushes at the edge of the yard, and a pear tree and a half dozen aging apple trees marched in military file down the edge of an overgrown field.

"They're waiting for you inside," the woman said, dribbling the ball as she talked. She faked one way, turned the other, and popped a fifteen-foot jump shot.

"Nice shot," I said.

"Do it for a living," she answered, running down the ball. Marvel told me later that she was a gym teacher at Longstreet High School and coached the girls' basketball teams.

The house was tired but comfortable. I went through the back door, through a kitchen, and into a small living room, where Marvel and John were sprawled on a broken-down couch.

"Harold's dead," Marvel said. She stopped me in my tracks.

"You found him?"

"We found his car. At Wal-Mart," she said wearily. "And he's gone. I can feel it. The motherfuckers took him someplace and killed him."

Tears started running down her face, and John said quietly, "They go back to when they were babies. They were raised together."