John Connolly - The Unquiet

Angel was at the bar, a beer before him. He was sitting on a stool, reading a newspaper. He didn’t acknowledge me, although he saw me enter. There were two men to his left. One of them looked at Angel and whispered to his friend. They laughed unpleasantly, and something told me that this exchange had been going on for a time. I drifted closer. The one who had spoken was muscular and wanted people to know it. He wore a tight green T-shirt crisscrossed by the suspenders attached to his orange hunter’s oilskins. His head was closely shaved, but the ghost of his widow’s peak stood out like an arrow upon his forehead. His friend was smaller and heavier, his T-shirt worn bigger and looser to hide his gut. His beard looked like an unsuccessful attempt to disguise the weakness of his chin. Everything about him spoke of concealment, of his awareness of his failings. Although he was grinning, his eyes flicked uneasily from Angel to his colleague, as though the pleasure he was taking in the casual tormenting of another was tinged by relief that he was not the victim this time, a relief qualified by the knowledge that the muscular man could turn just as easily on him, and if he did so, it would probably not be for the first time.

The big man tapped a fingertip on Angel’s newspaper.

“You okay, buddy?” he said.

“Yeah, I’m good,” said Angel.

“I’ll bet.” The man made an obscene gesture with his hand and tongue. “I’m sure you’re real good.”

He laughed loudly. His friend joined in, a puppy barking with the big dog. Angel kept his eyes on his newspaper.

“Hey, I don’t mean nothing by it,” said the man. “We’re just having a little fun, that’s all.”

“I can see that,” said Angel. “I can tell that you’re a fun guy.”

The man’s smile died as the sarcasm started to burn.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “You got a problem?”

Angel sipped his beer, closed his paper, and sighed. His main aggressor moved in closer, his friend muscling in alongside him. Angel spread his hands wide and patted both men gently on the chest. The barman was doing his best to stay out of the affair, but I could see him watching what was taking place in the mirror above the register. He was young, but he had still seen all of this before. Guns, beer, and the smell of blood was a combination guaranteed to bring out the worst in ignorant men.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” said the first man. “I asked you a question: you got a problem, because it seems to me like you have a problem. So, do you?”

Angel seemed to consider the question. “Well,” he said, “my back aches, I’m stuck in the boonies with a bunch of crackers with guns, and I’m not always sure that I’m with the right man.”

There was momentary confusion.

“What?” said the big man.

Angel mirrored his expression, then his face cleared. “Oh,” he said. “You mean, do I have a problem with you?” He made a dismissive gesture with his right hand. “I don’t have a problem with you at all,” he said. “But my friend behind you, on the other hand, I think he may have a big problem with you.”

The larger man turned around. His buddy had already backed away, giving Louis space at the bar.

“How you doin’?” said Louis, who had entered the bar shortly after me, and had spotted what was happening just as quickly as I had done. I was now standing alongside him, but it was clear that he was the main attraction.

The two men took in Louis and weighed up their options. None of them looked good. At least one of them involved a world of hurt. The alpha male made his choice, opting for the loss of a little dignity over something that might ultimately prove terminal.

“I’m doin’ good,” he said.

“Then we all happy,” said Louis.

“I guess so.”

“Looks like they about to serve up dinner.”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“I guess you better be getting along. Wouldn’t want to miss your vittles.”

“Uh-huh.”

He tried to slip past Louis, but came up short against his fat friend, who hadn’t moved, and was forced to elbow him out of the way. His face was growing purple with humiliation. The friend risked one more look at Louis, then trotted along after the bald man.

“Looks like you picked a good place to stay,” I said to Angel. “A little heavy on the testosterone, maybe, and you could have some trouble filling your dance card, but it’s cute.”

“You took your fucking time getting up here,” said Angel. “You know, there’s not a whole lot to do once night falls, and it gets dark like someone just threw a switch. There isn’t even a TV in the room.”

We ordered hamburgers and fries, opting not to join the parties of hunters in the next room, and moved to a table beside the bar.

“You find out anything?” I asked Angel.

“I found out that nobody wants to talk about Gilead, is what I found out. Best I could get was from some old ladies tending the cemetery. According to them, what’s left of Gilead is now on private land. A guy named Caswell bought it about fifteen years ago, along with another fifty acres of woodland around it. He lives close by. Always has. Doesn’t entertain much. Not a Rotarian. I took a trip up there. There was a sign, and a locked gate. Apparently, he doesn’t like hunters, trespassers, or salesmen.”

“Has Merrick been here?”

“If he has, then nobody saw him.”

“Maybe Caswell did.”

“Only one way to find out.”

“Yeah.”

I watched the hunters eating and picked out the two men who had targeted Angel. They were seated in a corner, ignoring the others around them. The bigger man’s face was still red. There were a lot of guns around the place, and a lot of machismo to go with them. It wasn’t a good situation.

“Your friends from the bar?” I said.

Angel nodded. “Phil and Steve. From Hoboken.”

“I think it might be a good idea to send them on their way.”

“It’ll be a pleasure,” said Angel.

“By the way, how’d you know their names?”

Angel slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. They emerged holding two wallets. “Old habits…”

The lodge was constructed around a hollow, with the bar and reception building on the higher ground by the road, and the rooms and cabins at the bottom of the slope beyond it. It wasn’t difficult to find out where the resident homophobes were staying, as each guest was forced to carry his key on a fob cut from the trunk of a small tree. The key had been lying in front of the two guys as they taunted Angel. They were in cabin number fourteen.

They left the table about fifteen minutes after their meal was over. By that time, Angel and Louis were gone. The two men didn’t look at me as they departed, but I could feel their anger simmering. They had drunk seven pints of beer between them during and after their meal, and it was only a matter of time before they decided to seek some form of retribution for being bested at the bar.

The temperature had dropped suddenly with nightfall. In the shaded places, that morning’s frost had not yet melted. The two men walked quickly back to their cabin, the bigger man leading, the small bearded man behind. They entered to find that their hunting rifles had been disassembled and now lay in pieces on the floor. Their bags were beside the guns, packed and locked.

To their immediate left stood Louis. Angel was seated at the table beside the stove. Phil and Steve from Hoboken took in the two men. Phil, the larger and more aggressive of the two, seemed about to say something when he saw the guns in the hands of the two visitors. He closed his mouth again.

“You know there isn’t a cabin number thirteen?” said Angel.