Bentley Little - The Association

He turned back toward the others. "Why are we sitting in the house?"

he asked. "Let's go upstairs, sit out on the deck and plan our strategy there. Mo and I bought this place for the view, why don't we take advantage of it?"

"Yeah. Right. Sounds like a party." Dylan yawned, stretched. "So where's this bridle trail where the freak hangs out?"

"Stumpy?"

"Yeah."

"Follow me." Barry led the way up the steps and across the open space adjacent to the dining room. He opened the sliding glass door and walked onto the deck. "Around that area," he said, pointing. "You take the road to the first street on the right, then walk down a bit. The trailhead's on the right. It's pretty well marked."

Dylan nodded, grinned. "I think I'll go for a walk."

Barry hesitated, not sure how to articulate what he was thinking. "It's not... fun," he said. "Stumpy--uh, Kenny-is..." He sighed. "Well, he's spooky, to be honest with you."

"You think I'm a pussy?"

Barry had to smile. "Always."

Dylan laughed. "Don't worry, bud."

"I'm serious, Dyl . It may sound interesting and neat while you're up here, but when you're down there by yourself in the woods, all alone, and you hear Stumpy-Kenny--coming toward you through the bushes, it's creepy."

"Cool."

"Take Jeremy with you. Or Chuck."

"Hell no. And you can't come either." He patted Barry's shoulder.

"Don't worry. I brought a change of underwear in case I brown my shorts."

Dylan walked back inside to put on his hiking shoes, and Barry leaned on the rail, looking out over the trees, listening to the music. The glass door slid open, and Chuck and Jeremy came onto the deck.

"Good CD," Barry said.

Chuck nodded.

Downstairs, the front door slammed. A moment later, they saw Dylan on the road, heading down the hill. They each yelled obscenities at him and received the finger in return.

"You think Pussy Boy's hiding in the bushes and writing this down on his clipboard?" Chuck asked, grinning.

Barry laughed, nodded. "I'm sure I'll get a full report and a recommendation to attend a language etiquette course."

"Recommendation?" Jeremy said, eyebrow raised.

"Order," Barry amended. "Hell, I already got a warning about my music being too loud." He snorted. "And I was listening to Joni Mitchell."

"Joni Mitchell?" Chuck laughed. "They're going to love Tom Waits."

"Don't worry. I'll hear about it."

The women returned soon after--Barry could tell because the music was suddenly turned off--and he, Jeremy, and Chuck went back inside, where Maureen filled him in on what she'd learned from Liz and Tina. "They're like a law unto themselves here," she said. "They're judge, jury, and executioner."

Jeremy nodded solemnly. "They seem to think they're a mini government and that they have all the rights and powers that entails. I don't care how many courts have upheld homeowners' associations'

restrictions, that does not allow them to assault and harass people."

"Or kill people," Barry said.

"That goes without saying. What I'm thinking we should do is put together a chronology of events, lodge a criminal complaint with the local authorities--"

"A lot of good that will do."

"Let me finish. Then we go up the chain all the way to federal law enforcement. Justice Department. File discrimination complaints.

Simultaneously, we hit them with a civil suit, a class action on behalf of all current and former homeowners who have been psychologically intimidated or physically threatened."

Lupe was nodding, and Barry had to admit that it made a kind of sense.

"We'll attack these assholes from all sides, and I'll be throwing so many briefs at them they won't know what hit them." He held up the copy of the C, C, and Rs that he'd brought in with him. "But we need to map out a specific sequence and strategy. This Kenny Tolkin who got his arms and legs chopped off. You think we could get him out of here, show the FBI or whatever law enforcement agency we approach what's been done to him?"

Barry nodded grimly. "If worse came to worst, the four of us could track him down, pick him up, and put him in a car."

"He wouldn't come voluntarily?"

"I don't think he'd understand. His ... something's happened to his mind as well. Shock I suppose. And he can't communicate because he has no tongue. It's ... I don't know of any other way to do it."

"We can't just kidnap him."

"I have my palmcorder Chuck said. "We'll tape him."

Jeremy nodded. "Not a bad idea. And this is exactly what we have to do over the next few days. Figure out everything the association's done and find a concrete way to document it, plan out both our criminal and civil cases against them."

Barry looked over at Maureen and saw in her face the same hope he felt himself. In addition to being more than a little paranoid, Jeremy was obsessive and thorough; good qualities in both a lawyer and an adversary.

Lupe headed toward the bathroom. "A lot of iced tea," she explained.

"Yes it was," Danna agreed. She went downstairs to the other bathroom.

"Can we use your computer?" Barry asked Maureen.

"Go right ahead." She smiled. "Anything for the cause."

"Jeremy," Barry said. "Why don't you put together an outline of what we need? I'll tell you what I can, and we'll fill in the blanks later."

The three men headed down to Maureen's office, while she waited upstairs for Lupe to get out of the bathroom. "It was a lot of iced tea," she said.

Barry's directions were easy enough to follow, and Dylan soon found himself heading down a narrow footpath between tall trees and high bushes.

What was this? A hollow? A gulch? He wasn't up on his nature lingo, but the trail wound down between two close and heavily wooded hills, and whatever it was, it was pretty damn cool. Ahead, an obnoxious bird cawed in one of the trees and at his approach flew noisily into the air. A blue jay.

He had no idea where this path went or how far into the woods it extended, but it seemed to be heading away from Barry's hill and the roads where the houses were, into uncharted territory.

Where was the freak?

He should have asked Barry how far in he needed to go. He'd been walking--what?--five or six minutes. Was he supposed to go ten?

Twenty? Thirty? The trail dipped again, passed over what looked like a dry creek bed, then followed the bottom edge of a dark rock bluff. In a section of forest where the pine trees grew between huge standing boulders, the path forked.

Dylan stopped. He was getting tired. And bored.

"Stumpy!" he yelled.

A bird called out, but otherwise the woods were silent.

"Anybody out here?"

Nothing.

"I got a big dick!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

He studied the diverging paths. The one to the right seemed to head up a hillside and into the hot sunlight. The one to the left sloped down into another hollow or gulch or whatever. He considered turning back, but he wanted to see the freak and he figured he should give it another ten minutes. Besides, he didn't exactly feel like spending the entire afternoon listening to Barry and Jeremy try to pick apart obscure rules and regulations.

He started down the left trail and was rewarded with an immediate drop in temperature as the trees and bushes closed in around him, blocking out nearly all of the afternoon sun and throwing the area ahead of him into shadow. He began jogging over the hard-packed dirt, hoping to cover more territory, yelling "Hello!" every few seconds in order to flush out Stumpy or Kenny or whatever his name was.

Ahead, he thought he saw a building through the trees, and Dylan slowed down. He was out of breath already--not used to this high altitude--and he stopped for a moment, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

It was a building, he could see now, a long low structure made of wood and rock that corresponded to that of the forest and effectively camouflaged the place from anyone who wasn't almost on top of it.