Kill 'Em With Kindness, page 9
“Hm,” Chad echoed. “You said it. A lot of it going on. I was too young to do anything about it, and she promised me to keep quiet. I did. But it wasn’t for her. It was for me. I knew another kid from school whose sister was taken away for someone diddling her. And I didn’t want her to go, you know? So I kept it to myself, but I’d still lay awake at night, wonder if she was hurting right then. Wonder what I could do about it, not able to do a damn thing.”
Nick shifted in his seat, wished there were some kind of confessional mesh between them. He felt the hot breath of one of the dogs as it sniffed at his collar. It made his hair stand on end. The radio was lit bright on the dash, a custom deck glowing in orange and blue. The volume was down to zero so it offered no relief from the silence. The silence itself wasn’t the problem, it was that the meant more talk was inevitable.
The truck glided off the highway alone and merged into the light traffic over the six lanes that made up Twenty-eighth Street. Though they weren’t that far from Horton, ten miles perhaps, Nick realized he hadn’t been out of the city limits proper in a very long time. The city looked familiar, but as if he’d only remembered it from a movie. He tried to see himself inside the bars and restaurants and stores that lined the street, places he’d been before fatherhood and responsibility. But it wasn’t him. It was a character who looked like him. With Grete. Was that even her name? Nick felt he was in a dream he wouldn’t wake from, and that inability to wake was what made it his nightmare. Nick asked himself how far back the nightmare went. Did it begin with losing his job? Death? Kimmy Flynn’s thighs?
They approached the neon glow of the crowded DeAnza Drive-In. The marquee glowed bright: THE LA5T PICTUR SHOW THANKS FOR THE MEMORYS
“Last show and then they close forever,” Chad said. “Perfect movie, right?”
Nick hadn’t been to the drive-in in years, didn’t know it was still open. He wondered what they were actually there for. “C’mon, tell me what’s up?”
Chad leaned close into the wheel, trying to see everything around the truck. He honked the horn as three teenage girls stumbled across the dirt drive to the concession stand. All three jumped then laughed and moved their too-young legs through the dusty cloud of dirt raised by the rumbling Ford.
“We’re going to see a movie, buddy. One of my favorites. And I chose to bring you with me, over every other person I know because I think you’ll appreciate it. Satisfied? It’s a friendly night out. Got something to do afterward, but for now let’s just pretend we’re friends with something in common, huh?”
Ushers with air traffic control wands directed the traffic toward available spaces. Chad was sent left, where he joined a row of too-tall vehicles, trucks like Chad’s, boxy SUVs of crying kids, a full-size van with, no doubt, converted beds behind the bead and macramé curtains.
Chad turned off the vehicle and sat staring at the empty white screen of the DeAnza. On either side of the forty-foot screen, a classic cartoon character peeked out at the people in the lot. On the left was an approximation of Disney’s Goofy. On the right it was an equally malformed Daffy Duck. Both had been defiled with spray paint—giant erect penises added to their charm.
Chad reached under the seat and pulled out two cold tall boys and a pint of Maker’s. He tossed a beer to Nick, uncapped the whiskey, took a pull then handed the pint over. Nick took a swallow and handed it back before taking down a long chaser of watery beer.
“I’m going to tell you a story. You want to know about the last time I was here?”
“Sure.” Nick took another drink from his can. He looked out the passenger window, his body language practically repelling the chance for conversation. Behind the men, the dogs had settled into licking themselves.
“I told you I loved her always. When we were thirteen I took her here. Saved up my money, got an older kid to give us a ride. I was going to tell her that I loved her. Well, the thirteen-year-old version of it anyway. I even brought us a blanket to set out on.” Chad pointed up to another small rise where young couples lay under the stairs, waiting for the movie to begin. Some were kissing, some barely daring to let their hands touch, some fearing nothing.
“It was the middle of the movie and I heard these voices coming up the rise. They were loud. They came to us and sat with us, got in close and they smelled of alcohol. ‘What are you doing with this asshole’ they said to her. I didn’t know what to say. I was just a little shit and they were three kids old enough to get drunk and fuck with little shits. One of them started asking a lot of questions of Kimmy. Where she was from? Where she went to school? If she knew so and so? I figured I had to say something so I said, ‘This is a date, guys. Can you leave us alone?’ There was a silence and I thought, man, maybe that’s all there is to it, but it wasn’t. ‘This a date?’ the one talking to her asked. She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He moved in and gave Kimmy the kiss on the mouth that was supposed to be mine. ‘Don’t look like no date to me,’ one of his buddies goes. And then the pair of them dragged me off the hill. I called after her but she kept on lip smacking with that boy, ignoring me, and that’s the last I saw of her that night. I was stupid enough to think maybe she’d just been scared. I hoped she wasn’t going to get the same as I was, which was my ass stomped behind the concession building. I didn’t even know those guys. After they were done with me, we were close though. You think Kimmy looked bad? Shit. Dad’s the only one to see me in the hospital. Asked if I knew who did it. Told him no. I knew he’d take care of it if I told him, and I didn’t want that. I was going to get it, myself.
“Kimmy never came to see how I was. Next time I saw her that kissing boy was picking her up from her mom’s in his shitty Camaro.” Chad stroked the gleaming steering wheel in the dark, loving it like it was proof of his own worth. “She made her choice. Found her a man she wanted. Didn’t matter to her mom that he was twenty years old. I mean, the girl didn’t even have tits until the summer before! But that was old enough as far as she was concerned.” Chad drained his can and took another pull from the whiskey. “You remember that story, okay? Movie’s starting.” And upon the screen appeared the words: The Last Picture Show, in big white letters on black. And the black faded into a street—bleak and grit covered. The camera panned across the dusty, windblown street, from one side to the other over a virtual ghost town.
“Jeff Bridges is in this, you know that?” Chad said.
“I didn’t,” Nick said. “Must have been young.”
“Shh. Shut up. There he is.”
It was after 2 a.m. when the last car pulled out of the lot, leaving only Nick and Chad and the dogs. Chad removed the borrowed speaker from his window, let it drop. He turned the vehicle around in a quick reverse U that had Nick grabbing for the ‘oh shit’ handle. Chad revved the engine in neutral and threw it into gear. The truck stomped forward, over the speaker boxes on their wood posts, making as the crow flies toward the concessions and theater offices, splinters flying off the titanium grill of the truck. Just shy of the front door he cut left and stopped fast, nose end toward the open gate.
“Let’s go, boys,” Chad said.
Nick opened his door while wondering if he meant him and the dogs or just the dogs. He figured he wasn’t there for his looks and was glad for the piece, though he hoped he wouldn’t have to pull it out let alone use it.
He followed Chad and the dogs through the door and into the brightly lit lobby. Three men looked up from behind the glass counter. They were gorging themselves on Chuckles and Milk Duds as the popcorn machine did its thing behind them. The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” played tinny on the AM/FM/8-Track mounted on the wall beneath a Coca-Cola brand clock/menu board.
The one in the middle was full of girth and gray, and he looked at them with loud white eyes that bugged out to half orbs resting in the black soup of the sockets. He smiled and his teeth were yellow with neglect and red with jelly candy.
“Chad. Who’s the friend?”
“It’s Nick, but don’t worry about that.” Chad rubbed his dogs behind the ears, but they didn’t take their eyes off the man in the middle. He backed up from his counter slouch and rested his ass on the counter behind him. His boys did the same, though their eyes were less calm as they looked at Chad and the beasts. Chad didn’t seem interested in them, keeping his eyes on the man between them. No one spoke for a long time until finally, the middle boy shrugged. “Damn busy night. If they’d have shown up in half these numbers in the past we wouldn’t be shutting down.” His posture loosened and he shook his head, still smiling.
“Ain’t that something,” Chad said. It was quiet again.
Nick felt the pull of his piece, almost in connection to the gray boy’s movement. He stood back watching the scene play out in slow motion, then he was eyeing the back of Chad’s head. One shot. Then unload on the dogs. He could make it out the door with three witnesses to animal cruelties and a murder two, and that was if he made it before that old boy found whatever he was reaching for.
Nick pulled and cocked the piece so quick even the dogs flinched, but the boy held still, arm dangling lower.
“He’s going for something.”
The boy panicked and stood tall, hands up. “I don’t have shit!”
“Don’t you?” Chad said. “Move. You two boys, come around where we can see you. Then I’m going to have a conversation with your friend. Nick, shoot them if they try to get cute.” Chad stepped back to allow the two men out from behind the glass to the small lobby. Chad pointed the them to a small table for two near the window. “You boys got anything?”
Each of them patted themselves down and shook their heads. They were a pair. It was only then that Nick took them for twins, fat and squat twins, both with a haircut like a plate of scrambled eggs. One wore a beard and the other thick glasses tinted rose.
“We’re just here on business,” the bearded one said.
“Me too,” said Chad. “What’s your business?”
The bearded twin looked at his brother and continued to speak for them both. “We’re buying the drive-in.”
“Chad, your business was with my dad, not me. I can give you a cut of what we took tonight, but I just can’t pay out. You know that. How many times you talked to my old man?”
“More times than I should have,” Chad said. “But he’s dead and this place is yours and we do indeed have business. But probably not what you’re thinking. I’ll take that cut and then some, but I was ready to call it a wash.” Chad’s eyes found the twins. “This deal go through?” The twin with the glasses nodded and his brother punched him in the cock for it. Chad smiled. “We’ll talk soon, give you time to set up shop. Got some speaker poles need fixed.”
“Can we go?”
“No,” Chad said. “You need to see this.” “What do you think this old boy’s name is, Nick?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said.
“Have a guess!” Chad said, smiling.
“Mud.”
“Ha! You’d think. And maybe. But this thing goes by the name of Billy Ray. How about that? A real good ol’ boy. Aren’t you, Billy Ray?” Billy Ray said nothing. “He’s a bit shy, wants to downplay it, how much of a redneck motherfucker he is.” Chad’s smile left and his eyes grew cold, skipping the calm-eyed sizing up Nick had seen for himself.
“Billy Ray the name on your birth certificate?” Chad asked. “Please tell me your dad had the decency to make it William on the dotted line. Fucking Billy Ray!” Chad turned to Nick. “Remember the story I told you in the truck tonight? About me and Kimmy and what happened when we came here last?” He didn’t wait for Nick to answer. “This is one of the two sons of bitches worked me over. The other one died in a car wreck, not a week later, didn’t he? You know, Billy Ray, I remember seeing the news and wondering why it wasn’t you. Why do you suppose I’d think like that, Nick? Both boys were responsible for putting me in the hospital. Why do you think I’d rather see this one dead?”
“Couldn’t say,” Nick said. “Or did you want me to guess?”
“You remember, Billy Ray? You do. You remember that night. After we left Tommy alone with Kimmy. Remember? You’re getting hard just thinking about it.”
The gun lowered in Nick’s hand, pointed at the boy’s heavy belly hanging over his belt buckle. He knew he wouldn’t have to shoot him. Whatever he’d done had warranted a wrath far beyond that of tag-along muscle. As if reading his mind, the boy looked at the dogs.
“The other boy, he beat on me and left. But you stayed. Didn’t you?”
The man nodded. “I stayed back.”
“And did what?”
The man shook his head. Defiant as a man can be at his certain demise. “I stirred your little pot.”
“How many other pots you stirred the years your dad ran this place?”
He shook his head again, laughed lightly and looked up from the floor to meet Chad’s eye. “I played some games but nothing like with you. You were the sweet one. And we only had the once. I prayed, honest to God prayed that you’d be stupid enough to come back. I waited for you.” The man smiled. “That sweet boy’s face the one I call on when I can’t do it for my lady.” Chad remained silent, showed nothing and had nothing but the dogs.
“So let ’em eat me. I heard what you do. You know what I’m going to be thinking about.”
Chad looked disappointed. In himself or the man? Probably both as final confrontations go. The guilty defiant, meeting his end on his own terms. But what the defiant Billy Ray didn’t count on was surviving.
“Think about whatever you like,” Chad said. Then, “Fuck him, boys.” And Nick saw, before common sense overtook initial shock, that the dogs were as well trained as Kimmy’s crows, biting and mounting Billy Ray on both ends, chewing and ripping apart the man’s cock as they raped him.
Nick stumbled out of the concession stand with the twins on his heels. The muffled squeals and growls were little relief from the act. Soon it quieted and was little more than crying. Chad stepped out with a bag of cash, the take, and tossed it into Nick’s arms. “Get in,” he said. “They’re near finished.”
Nick looked in the open bag and it looked like what it was said to be, the take of the drive in, crumpled small bills mostly, not much more than burning money for Chad Toll. But it was the principle of the thing. You had to take everything that mattered, let a man keep his life. Especially if it belonged to you anyway.
Chad jumped into the driver’s side and soon enough the dogs trotted out. Nick realized his missed opportunity and how long of a timeline he and Chief were working with. Chad pressed buttons on the dash steering column and the truck’s suicide back door opened behind Nick and the dogs.
He pulled away from the drive-in. A moment later the smell crept up on them. Chad lowered the windows and laughed. “Jesus Christ!” he said. “I’d tell you that he’d be fine but my god! Get that man to the ass doc because he’s got something dead up there! Or did you get it for him, boys?”
Soon the smell was gone but the air had become cold and biting. Nick tried in vain to light a cigarette before tossing the wind broken tobacco stick out the window.
“Need you to do something in a couple days!” Chad yelled over the wind. “You’re taking Kimmy up to Iron Mountain.”
“What’s in Iron Mountain?”
“You’ll just see!” Chad said, then out the window, to the heavens. “You’ll just see!”
They drove and Nick thought about the crime, what the older boys, men, had done to Chad. In the end the knowledge was nothing more than more liability. Chad Toll had been keeping a dark secret for a very long time. But now he was free, having Nick as a witness to his revenge, to carry the burden of what had happened those years ago.
Nick worked on another cigarette, cupping his hand against the wind. Chad didn’t need to tell him. He knew damn well what was waiting in Iron Mountain. He was going to meet the boy that ruined Chad’s life.
The lighter sparked to life long enough to breathe death into Nick’s lungs. Before he could take a real drag Chad plucked it out of his fingers and put it to his own lips.
ELEVEN
THE FIRST PART of the Kurt DeVries job was easy enough to figure out; Nick had all the contraband he needed growing in his basement. He retrieved an ounce of a strong sativa from the basement and when he returned to the main level of the house, Kimmy was waiting at the kitchen table, a glass of water and a sleeve of crackers in front of her.
“I’m busy,” Nick said.
“Doing what?” she asked. She didn’t look at him, just stared into the sleeve of square crackers as if they held all the answers. Nick took a seat at the table and looked at her glassy eyes. She looked up at him for a moment before finding the water glass and downing it in a series of long gulps that spilled water from the corners of her mouth and down her chin, spotting her pink shirt and cleavage.
“What are you on?”
She laughed. “Does it matter?”
Nick ignored the question and took her glass as she nibbled on a cracker. He moved to the kitchen, filled the glass from the sink and put it in front of her. He took his seat. She sniffed, smiling as she smelled the aroma of the illicit buds wafting from his jacket pocket.
“Thought you didn’t smoke.”
He didn’t answer and Kimmy continued staring at the water glass, nibbling a cracker and dropping crumbs on the table. He resented her and cared for her at the same time. He knew it wasn’t love in any real sense, nothing more than run of the mill suppressed lust coupled with projected guilt, twisted and spun around. A little bit processed, like factory food enriched with additives that addicted him to her taste, her company.
His gaze drifted to her smooth legs and back up to her face. The swelling was going down, her screw holes had been cleaned and she smelled sweet like the strippers he remembered from his Las Vegas bachelor party, like candy. He breathed her in despite himself. Closing his eyes, the candy and cannabis together put him in a youthful place.
