Dennis Yates - Red Mountain

“Maybe you can tell me what this is all about?”

There was a long pause. Robert heard a door shut and the torching-up of a cigar.

“I’m not supposed to say anything until the game is over, Mr. Crain. However I’m not the horrible monster you probably take me for. I too am limited by what I can and cannot know.”

“How the hell can you say that? It sure looks to me like you hold all the cards. Come on… This game you’re playing with people’s lives has got to be for a reason.”

Walker cleared his throat. “This whole matter goes much deeper than you can imagine. It’s not about revenge or sadistic pleasure or any of those things. I’m only coordinating a process that has been in motion for a very long time.”

“Process? What the hell does that mean?”

Walker lowered his voice to a whisper. “All I can tell you is the contestants were not picked at random.”

“So there’s something that connects us?”

“Believe me, Mr. Crain. I wish I could tell you more, but I am risking my own life by revealing this much.”

“Then can you tell me who you’re taking orders from?”

“I would be crazy if I did. You have no idea of what kind of power is involved.”

This is just more bullshit, Robert thought. He’s got nothing to fear except for the day I find him. The son of a bitch just wants to mess with my head.

“Who is it?” Robert shouted into the receiver.

Walker fell silent again, as if truly worried someone might be listening in on his conversation.

“I cannot say. It wouldn’t even make any sense to you if I could.”

“Try me.”

“I have already explained this to you. If you prevail, things will be fully explained. Right now we are simply separating the wheat from the chaff as it were… I’ll be calling you again soon, Mr. Crain.”

The line went dead.

Robert, crazy with rage, threw the phone across the room. Then the doorbell rang, and he went and fetched the revolver from under his pillow before going to see who was there…

****

“Holy shit Bobby, you look like road kill.”

Robert fell back on the couch as Will walked into the kitchen and dug in the freezer for some ice. He came out and handed Robert an ice pack.

“Put this on you face and hold it for awhile.”

“Yes, Doc.”

“How many were there?” Will asked.

“I don’t know. The light was bad, and I was half drugged. There might have been three or four of them.”

“Those fucking crackheads must have gotten their addresses screwed up… Wish I’d been here to help you out. How’s Peggy and the boy?”

“They’re doing okay. Thank god they were visiting Peggy’s mother. They’ll just stay a few extra days while I try and get things straightened out. I don’t want to worry about those bastards coming back. I know I must have sent a couple of them to the hospital.”

“Oh they won’t be back,” Will assured him with a cold grin.

“You’re probably right.”

Will found a chair and sat down. “Do you want me to do a little sniffing around? I could try to find out where they live and we could pay them a friendly visit. When you’re feeling better, of course…”

“No. I think we better just let this one go. It had to be a mistake. I can’t think of any other reason. The cops will take care of it.”

Will shrugged. “Yeah, but will they really take care of it?”

“I don’t want to go down that road, Will. I’ve got a whole new life now, a family to think of.”

Will gazed at the floor for a moment and chewed pensively on a toothpick. “It’s up to you, buddy… Have you had time to go over everything, find out what they took? Because it looks to me like they just trashed you and the house.”

Robert felt a thick wave of heat move up into his aching face. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was lie to his best friend. But he just couldn’t take any chances. Not until he knew for sure where Peggy and Connor were being held. Then and only then would he consider some outside help.

“They got Peggy’s jewelry and some cash I had in the dresser…”

Will closed his eyes and shook his head softy side to side. Robert could sense some hurt feelings and he hated himself for it. Will was someone who’d take a bullet for him.

“So why didn’t you call me, bud?”

Robert shifted the ice pack to the other side of his face. If they hadn’t shot him up with dope he would have called Will, although it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

“I was going to. I guess I was walking around in a state of shock after the cops came and left. I’m sorry Will. This whole thing just blindsided the hell out of me. I guess I believed I’d been through enough shit, that I’d paid my dues or something. I guess I thought I’d finally developed some kind of immunity to it...”

Will stood up and began to pace around the living room. Robert noticed fine grains of glass clinging to the soles of Will’s worn cowboy boots—the same leather boots his friend had bought in Mexico ages ago. Back when they’d gone to rescue his father and Uncle Barney…

“It doesn’t work that way, Bobby. Once the snake has bitten you it just wants to keep coming back. Sure, you can force it to go back down under a rock for awhile, and you might even walk past it several times before it makes up its mind to strike again.”

“I thought they were going to kill me, I really did.”

“And you’ve driven them back under the rock they came from. Listen to me, please. If you did send any of them to the hospital, I’ve got a cop friend who can check emergency room records for me. It might be a good place to start.”

“I appreciate the offer, but there’s no need.”

“Come on Bobby. You know this kind of stuff bugs the shit out me. Throw me a bone. There’s got to be more I can do for you than bag ice.”

“We could go get a beer somewhere.”

Will smiled and directed the ice pack in Robert’s hand to another place on his forehead. “I don’t know, champ. It’s not Halloween and I don’t think you’d even blend in very well at biker bar.”

“We could go to the shop. I keep some cold ones in the fridge. I need to pick up Nugget anyway.”

****

They sat on some old overstuffed chairs and drank a few beers together in the near darkness of Robert’s office, listening to music on the radio. Nugget lay on the floor with her back pressed against Robert’s legs. She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight anymore. Robert drifted in and out of sleep. Will sat quietly and watched him with growing concern.

“Do you want me to go pick us up something to eat?” he asked.

Robert shook his head. His stomach was churning in on itself. Food was out of the question. Whenever he closed his eyes he’d see Nolan’s face.

Will got up and removed another beer from the small fridge and slowly cracked it open. Robert felt an electric charge in the air, the feeling that everything he said, every movement he made, was being scrutinized by Will’s mind. He’d thrown up a wall the best he could, yet he knew Will had a gift for finding the little cracks and weaknesses that escaped most people’s detection.

“I’ve got the feeling you’re not telling me everything,” he said. “There’s something you’re holding back from me, man, and I want to know what it is.”

Robert opened his eyes and stared back at his friend.

“I’ve told you everything, Will. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Will glanced outside at the rain bouncing off the damaged cars sitting in the fenced lot behind the shop. Ben was leaning under a raised hood smoking a cigarette as he studied the engine.