Black House (Page 90)

When Wendell has covered about a tenth of a mile of the miserable old road, his concentration divided between gloating over all the money little Irma is going to siphon into his pockets and his fears of falling down and twisting his ankle, the uproar caused by the Thunder Five’s Harleys abruptly ceases. The resulting silence seems immense, then immediately fills with other, quieter sounds. Wendell can hear his breath struggling in and out, and also some other noise, a combined rattle and thud, from behind him. He whirls around and beholds, far up the ruined road, an ancient pickup lurching toward him.

It’s almost funny, the way the truck rocks from side to side as one tire, then another, sinks into an invisible depression or rolls up a tilting section of road surface. That is, it would be funny if these people were not horning in on his private access route to Irma Freneau’s body. Whenever the pickup climbs over a particularly muscular-looking length of tree root, the four dark heads in the cab bob like marionettes. Wendell takes a step forward, intending to send these yokels back where they came from. The truck’s suspension scrapes against a flat rock, and sparks leap from the undercarriage. That thing must be thirty years old, at least, Wendell thinks — it’s one of the few vehicles on the road that looks even worse than his car. When the truck jolts closer to him, he sees that it is an International Harvester. Weeds and twigs decorate the rusty bumper. Does I.H. even make pickups anymore? Wendell holds up his hand like a juror taking the oath, and the truck jounces and dips over another few rutted feet before coming to a halt. Its left side sits noticeably higher than the right. In the darkness cast by the trees, Wendell cannot quite make out the faces peering at him through the windshield, but he has the feeling that at least two of them are familiar.

The man behind the wheel pokes his head out of the driver’s window and says, "Hidey-ho, Mr. Bigshot Reporter. They slam the front door in your face, too?" It is Teddy Runkleman, who regularly comes to Wendell’s attention while he is going over the day’s police reports. The other three people in the cab bray like mules at Teddy’s wit. Wendell knows two of them — Freddy Saknessum, part of a low-life clan that oozes in and out of various run-down shacks along the river, and Toots Billinger, a scrawny kid who somehow supports himself by scavenging scrap metal in La Riviere and French Landing. Like Runkleman, Toots has been arrested for a number of third-rate crimes but never convicted of anything. The hard-worn, scruffy woman between Freddy and Toots rings a bell too dim to identify.

"Hello, Teddy," Wendell says. "And you, Freddy and Toots. No, after I got a look at the mess out front, I decided to come in the back way."

"Hey, Wen-dell, doncha ‘member me?" the woman says, a touch pathetically. "Doodles Sanger, in case your memory’s all shot to hell. I started out with a whole buncha guys in Freddy’s Bel Air, and Teddy was with a whole ‘nother bunch, but after we got run off by Miss Bitch, the rest of ’em wanted to go back to their barstools."

Of course he does remember her, although the hardened face before him now only faintly resembles that of the bawdy party girl named Doodles Sanger who served up drinks at the Nelson Hotel a decade ago. Wendell thinks she got fired more for drinking too much on the job than for stealing, but God knows she did both. Back then, Wendell threw a lot of money across the bar at the Nelson Hotel. He tries to remember if he ever hopped in the sack with Doodles.

He plays it safe and says, "Cripes, Doodles, how the hell could I forget a pretty little thing like you?"

The boys get a big yuck out of this sally. Doodles jabs her elbow into Toots Billinger’s vaporous ribs, gives Wendell a pouty little smile, and says, "Well thank-ee, kind sir." Yep, he boffed her, all right.

This would be the perfect time to order these morons back to their ratholes, but Wendell is visited by grade-A inspiration. "How would you charming people like to assist a gentleman of the press and earn fifty bucks in the process?"

"Fifty each, or all together?" asks Teddy Runkleman.

"Come on, all together," Wendell says.

Doodles leans forward and says, "Twenty each, all right, big-timer? If we agree to do what you want."

"Aw, you’re breakin’ my heart," Wendell says, and extracts his wallet from his back pocket and removes four twenties, leaving only a ten and three singles to see him through the day. They accept their payment and, in a flash, tuck it away. "Now this is what I want you to do," Wendell says, and leans toward the window and the four jack-o’-lantern faces in the cab.

12

A FEW MINUTES LATER, the pickup lurches to a halt between the last of the trees, where the macadam disappears into the weeds and tall grass. The Thunder Five’s motorcycles stand tilted in a neat row a few yards ahead and off to his left. Wendell, who has replaced Freddy Saknessum on the seat, gets out and moves a few paces forward, hoping that none of the ripe aroma of dried sweat, unwashed flesh, and stale beer emerging from his fellow passengers has clung to his clothing. Behind him, he hears Freddy jumping down from the back of the truck as the others climb out and shut the doors without making any more than twice as much noise as necessary. All Wendell can see from his position is the colorless, rotting rear wall of Ed’s Eats rising from a thick tangle of Queen Anne’s lace and tiger lilies. Low voices, one of them Beezer St. Pierre’s, come to him. Wendell gives the Nikon a quick once-over, removes the lens cap, and cranks a new roll of film into place before moving with slow, quiet steps past the bikes and along the side of the ruined structure.

Soon he is able to see the overgrown access road and the patrol car astride it like a barrier. Down close to the highway, Danny Tcheda and Pam Stevens wrangle with half a dozen men and women who have left their cars strewn like toys behind them. That’s not going to work much longer: if Tcheda and Stevens are supposed to be a dam, the dam is about to spring some serious leaks. Good news for Wendell: a maximum amount of confusion would give him a lot more leeway and make for a more colorful story. He wishes he could murmur into his recorder right now.