Джон Коннолли - The Dirty South

Together they walked from the bar.

‘I don’t want to get your hopes up,’ said Woolrich, ‘but I might, just might, have better news about Susan and Jennifer when next we meet. It’s a whisper, but it could grow louder over time.’

‘Should I come down to New Orleans?’

Parker heard the eagerness in his own voice, or the desperation.

‘No, not yet. If it sounds promising, I’ll let you know.’

The night was mild and quiet, but the town didn’t look much better in the dark than it did in daylight, and the air was feculent.

‘Why would anybody come here?’ said Woolrich.

‘I came.’

‘To hunt, not to settle.’

‘I’ll be moving along when this is over.’

‘Back to New York?’

‘For now.’

‘And after?’

‘Who can say?’

Woolrich placed a hand on the back of Parker’s neck. His palm was warm and damp.

‘Bird,’ he said – sadly, fondly. Woolrich was one of the few who still called Parker by that name. Parker had given up asking him not to, just as he had with the others who liked to use it. The sobriquet held no meaning, except to remind him of the seeming impossibility of any escape from all that bound him to this earth. Now, with Woolrich beside him, he felt something of the same sorrow that had overcome him in the parking lot of the Dairy Bell earlier that day. Without Woolrich and a handful of other men he would be entirely alone, and it struck him that all were older than he, as though he were seeking to create out of them some amalgam of a father.

‘Why are you helping me?’ said Parker.

‘Because I can. If you want more than that, you’re destined to be disappointed.’

‘Then “because I can” will have to do.’

‘It will, for both of us.’ Woolrich turned his back on Parker and ambled toward his car. ‘I’ll be seeing you, somewhere down the road.’

89

Upon returning home from his unsuccessful mission to put the investigator named Parker out of commission, Ryan Vinson had eaten a bag of Doritos, finished off what remained of the bottle of Crown Royal and, with nothing better to do, opened another. He then re-watched – for the hundredth time, or thereabouts – his worn copy of Chuck Norris’s Delta Force , and concluded that life, all things considered, was good: he had a truck, a home, a big TV, and friends on whom he could rely in times of crisis. The only cloud on his horizon bore the shape of Pruitt Dix, but Vinson knew Dix from way back and was confident in his ability to talk him around on the Parker business. If that didn’t work, Vinson would resort to pleading. He wasn’t proud.

Vinson went to bed shortly after 2 A.M., and set his alarm clock for six hours later.

Because he was, as has already been established, an optimist.

Ryan Vinson, the optimist, woke to the sight of a tall masked man standing over his bed, and another, smaller masked man seated to his left, the latter holding a gun to Vinson’s temple. Vinson wouldn’t have woken at all, even allowing for the touch of the gun, if the standing man hadn’t rapped him hard on the forehead with his knuckles. Vinson could only see the gun by moving his head slightly, which caused the intruder holding it to press the muzzle even harder against his temple. No one had ever pointed a gun at Ryan Vinson before, never mind poked him in the head with one. He really didn’t like it.

‘How you doin’?’ said the man who wasn’t holding the gun, and was therefore of marginally less immediate concern to Vinson. He sounded black, which didn’t make Vinson feel any better. Vinson didn’t have any black friends, and he guessed that this man’s presence in his life wasn’t about to alter that state of affairs substantially.

‘Not so good,’ said Vinson.

‘You ought to clean your house more often. I think I got bitten by a flea.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘Yeah, well, you should be more aware of your domestic and personal hygiene. Being bitten has put me in a bad mood, and I was already feeling sore. Is this your truck?’

He held up a gloved hand to show Vinson a photograph taken with an instant camera.

‘I can’t see,’ said Vinson. ‘It’s too dark.’

The man holding the gun turned on the bedside lamp with his free hand so that Vinson could see the picture better. It did indeed show Vinson’s beloved truck sitting in his driveway.

‘Yeah,’ said Vinson, ‘that’s my truck.’

‘No, it’s not. Actually, this is your truck.’

The black man dropped the first picture. The next one was also a photo of Vinson’s truck, except that it was no longer in his driveway, but was instead positioned worryingly close to the edge of a rocky precipice.

‘No, wait a minute,’ the man continued. ‘I tell a lie. I think this is your truck.’

Vinson’s truck was no longer on the edge of the precipice. In a demonstration of considerable photographic skill, the photographer had managed to capture the image of the truck in midair, its hood just beginning to tilt downward.

‘Okay, this,’ the man concluded, holding up the fourth and final print, ‘is definitely your truck. Look, you can see the paintwork bubbling.’

Vinson’s truck, or what was left of it, lay at the bottom of a quarry, which could have been one of any number in the vicinity of the Ouachita. The truck seemed to have only recently started burning, because Vinson could still make out the custom paint job amid the rising flames.

Ryan Vinson began weeping. That truck was the nicest thing he’d ever owned.

‘Don’t cry,’ said the man. ‘The good news is that you could have been in it when it went over, but I tossed a coin and you won. Admittedly, that was before I got bitten by one of your fleas. Now I’ve a mind to toss the coin again, and keep tossing until it comes up on a side more akin to my frame of mind.’

Vinson heard the sound of the pistol cocking beside his left ear. If he lived, he thought, he’d have to change the sheets.

‘Who told you to go chasing after the detective from New York?’ said the black man.

‘Pruitt Dix,’ said Vinson. This wasn’t the time for lying.

‘And who is Pruitt Dix?’

‘He works for Randall Butcher.’

‘And Randall Butcher is …?’

‘Randall owns some titty bars.’

‘And did either of these gentlemen tell you why they wanted the detective hurt?’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘Of course not. Why would you?’

‘It wasn’t personal,’ said Vinson. ‘I just do what I’m told.’

‘I’m sure that would have been comforting to Mr Parker had you successfully completed your task. Now I’m going to tell you to do something, and for my associate and me, this really is personal. Mr Parker is a friend of ours, and we like him just the way he is, which means unmarked. You call those two ofay assholes that were driving around with you, and you inform them of what has transpired between us. You let them know that if we have to come calling on them, we’ll burn their homes down around their ears, sow their land with salt, and kill all their pets. You understand?’

‘Yes. What do I tell Pruitt Dix?’

‘Tell him we may be paying him a visit. Same goes for the titty bar guy, because I do hate titty bars.’

The hammer clicked as the pistol was decocked. From the folds of his jacket, the gunman produced a pair of solid handcuffs, with which he secured one of Vinson’s hands to the frame of the bed. The bedstead was heavy and made of black iron. It would take Vinson a while to free himself. Otherwise, he’d be forced to yell until someone heard or find a way to disassemble the frame.

‘We’ll be on our way now,’ said the black man. ‘Remember what I said about cleaning up occasionally.’