Richard House - The Kills

‘Would you go back?’

‘Iraq? No.’

‘Me neither.’

They could make it to St Louis before dark, find a motel on the other side of Memphis. It wouldn’t be beyond him to drive all night, he said. ‘We make Highway 10 at Baton Rouge.’ Once in Louisiana they would soon be in Texas. Sealy first, then up to Austin, after which, who knows.

At Sealy they would locate Cathy. Find her at her parents or her sisters. ‘She’s sending you this information. She’s still thinking about you. See?’

Rem rolled in and out of sleep. Santo opened energy drinks, answered his own questions and did not seem to mind if Rem was or was not listening. The smell, nutmeg and honey, of cold spice, brought back memories of Fatboy, and Fatboy’s small room — the cab of Santo’s car feeling almost as tight and airless.

‘Your parents alive?’ He’d never asked Santo about his family, but understood it to be large, that the Hernandez family were spread generously across North Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, St Paul.

‘At one point we lived close. My grandparents, aunts, uncles. There was a fire, but up until then we were all together. After the fire my father had to start over. His business was destroyed, so he had to find work elsewhere. After the fire we started moving around, things were spread about. It happened quickly, but I don’t remember much. To me there was this fire and then people left, and there were new people about us who we called aunty and uncle. Things were hard for a time.’

Santo smoked, opened the window to flick out his ash. Commented on the landscape.

‘This place needs hills. Seriously. It needs landscaping. It needs the Hernandez family to sort it out. You know, there’s some pyramids out here. Maybe Indian, I don’t think they even know, but they found these chambers where they’d buried people alive. I don’t know how they know this, but there were these stone chambers underground that you could get into but not out. Like a sacrifice or something. A slow sacrifice.’

Rem half-listened, looked out at the fields of corn stubble.

* * *

Across the road from the parking lot Santo found a private members’ casino. He won $50 in his first game and then lost every time after. Nevertheless his mood lifted, Rem could see it in his gestures, how he became broader when he was playing, his arms widening to express his failing luck. He accepted the free drinks, sent beer over to Rem who sat apart, alone, the appeal of the place not extending beyond the ring of tables and slot machines. Sat next to a sticky wall in a vast half-darkness, Rem drank and waited, tapped his foot along with an entertainer who sang to a backing track, and wondered how the police didn’t shut the place down, and realized, it was all police — the gamblers, the drinkers, the investors.

When Santo came back, smiling, he shook Rem by his shoulder. ‘I know exactly what you need,’ he said. ‘After tomorrow, you’re going to feel better.’

As they walked out Santo leaned on Rem for support.

* * *

The countryside out of Santa Fe appeared contradictory, the air thin, mountain-like, but the land flat and stony, a desert, sure, but not the desert of Al-Muthanna. Here there was scrub, spiny and dusty-green, even some grass in place, piñon trees, larger boulders, a substantial flat plate of sky, a numb blue, a breathless blue, and the definiteness of the rocks, their honey colour, their solidity.

Despite Rem’s questions Santo still wouldn’t explain himself. This wasn’t Route 10, it wasn’t Louisiana, this desert wasn’t the swamp. Not even close. They were so far from Louisiana, he said, he couldn’t even imagine it. The further they drove the dryer and more weathered the land became, and as they turned off the highway and came slowly through a gate Santo hitched forward in his seat and drove with more attention. ‘Not long now,’ he said, and appeared to look for clues. ‘This is Peterstown.’

‘This is where Geezler lives?’ The name struck Rem in an instant.

‘Not quite. This is where he had a house.’ Santo couldn’t hold in his smile. ‘You think we might call in?’

‘He won’t be here. Neither will the house. This whole situation is five years old. The house will be gone. Besides, it’s a bad idea.’

‘It’s here all right. I looked it up. The man just can’t live in it. And anyway, we’ve arrived.’

He pulled the car round a long curve, the land opening out to a gravel paddock, and a low-lying building, roofless, but with long tan adobe walls.

‘The man likes horses. Can you imagine? And what was he? A deputy? An assistant? This was going to be a stud farm. He fucking breeds horses.’

Not a picture to keep in your head, Rem agreed.

‘I had to see this. I love this story. He built this house, and then they made him take it down — only one floor though. So that’s it. That’s what he has. One floor of nothing.’

‘Why are we here?’

‘It’s no accident. We’re not calling because we happen to be close. You think we’re the only people he fucked with?’

He let Santo get out of the car, watched him walk to the boot, take out a crowbar, then saunter toward the building and clamber over one of the low-lying walls. He waited, determined not to follow, but also curious.

* * *

The land split in front of the house, a vast narrow canyon, so that the house topped one side. The rooms were laid out, concrete, cleaned, and roofless. The walls had been cut, so the entire house held the appearance of being sawn horizontally in half. The range of the rooms, laid out like a villa, something you’d see on a holiday programme, where the presenter would speak about the possible activities that might once have happened in such a place, evoke a lifestyle by looking at stunted walls, views and prospects.

In what Rem took to be the lounge, the largest defined space, a staircase, a clean oblong dropped through the concrete.

‘Get this,’ Santo called up. ‘There’s more down here.’

Rem came carefully down the steps and found Santo in a concrete chamber, working on the door. With nothing else to take out his frustration on, he swung the crowbar and knocked off the handle. Still inside, he let the door close.

Rem stood on the bottom step. Santo, unable to get out, banged, first with his fist, then with the crowbar. The sounds seeming soft, distant. Rem had to push hard to open the door.

‘That’s not funny.’ Santo stepped out, alarmed. ‘There’s no windows. You know how dark it is in here?’

‘Shouldn’t have messed with the lock.’

Rem returned up the stairs, there was nothing to be gained by looking at this place.

He sat in the car and waited for Santo.

‘There’s one thing I don’t understand.’

Santo dug in his pockets for his cigarettes.

‘Kiprowski. He didn’t have to go to Amrah. I don’t see why he did what he did.’

Santo set the cigarette on his lap. ‘He wanted to go. He had his own reasons.’ He found the lighter and tested the flame. ‘You remember that map? The road that didn’t exist.’

‘It came from CIPA.’

‘CIPA funded projects just to get rid of money. That road where the translator died — it used to be straight. They had a roadwork project that was supposed to improve connections between remote villages. Only they didn’t do anything. They dug up roads and re-laid them. They put a curve in a road that used to run straight.’

‘How did he know this?’

Santo lit the cigarette. ‘He asked Howell. Said the road was straight on all the maps. Howell came right out with it, told us about a number of projects just like that. None of them any use. Just a way to spend money.’

‘We’re here because of a curve in a road?’