The Boulevard Monster, page 6
“But for me and you,” he said, angling his head down and eyes up, “I have something better in mind.”
An uneasy feeling stirred in my stomach. “What?”
He took a slip of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to me. “I have a cabin in Colorado. I want to take you there for the weekend.” He tapped the paper. “That’s all the information you’ll need to buy a plane ticket, get a rental car, and get to the cabin.”
I gulped down the uneasiness that was pushing its way up my throat. “I can’t just leave for the weekend. What would I tell Brianne?”
“For such a smart man, you sure have problems coming up with excuses for your lady.”
“I told you, I don’t like lying to her.”
“Then don’t. Tell her you’re going to meet with the other EnviroTek investors, which isn’t a lie, and that we’re going to discuss advancements in the business and 401K options, which we can do so that won’t be a lie, either. You’ll only be gone one night.”
I looked down at the piece of paper and listened to the rain slow down as quickly as it had sped up as I gathered the courage to ask: “How do I know that?”
“Know what?”
“That I’ll only be gone one night.”
When I looked up, he leveled his eyes at me. “You think I would help you the way I have just to take you out there and kill you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing will happen to you as long as you keep your end of the bargain. Simple as that.”
“Randy kept his end, and…”
Luther’s eyes lit with fury, the blue seeming to glow a bit. “I was lenient with Randy. He was lazy. Sure, he didn’t tell you about the trash, but he wasn’t even supposed to have it with him. It was supposed to have been buried the night before. By being careless enough to allow you to find it, he broke the deal. In my book, it was the same as telling you.”
Quick as a snake strike, he grabbed the back of my neck. His fingers were fire hot. A surge of shame and guilt seized me. I couldn’t think or move. Only feel. Emotionally. Feel what he wanted me to feel. Like a school boy who was wrong to falsely accuse authority. A school boy fearful of what punishment he’d earned for daring to question his master’s actions.
He removed his hand, took his leg off the seat, and turned his attention east, toward the backend of the storm. The clouds lit bruise-purple with each lightning strike. “You will return home happy and healthy as long as you don’t do anything stupid. Are we good?”
Emotionally rattled, I couldn’t find my voice to answer. He took my silence as a confirmation, which it was.
He opened the passenger door. A cool breeze carried in a thick rain scent. The temperature outside had dropped ten degrees or more. He stepped out of the truck and looked back over his shoulder, that unbreakable smile decorating his face. “Don’t worry. We’ll have fun,” he said, and walked away.
Ten
The Naked Colorado Man
I’d never flown on a plane before, or visited Colorado. Hell, I’d only crossed the Texas border three times: the three trips I took with Mom to Oklahoma in our brown Station Wagon to clean out Grandma’s house and settle her affairs after she died.
Brianne had never been on a plane or to Colorado, either. Many times while lying in bed at night we’d talked about using some of our money to go on a vacation. A real vacation. Not camping at Jim’s Lake or hiking in Palo Duro Canyon. Her dream destinations were the classics out east—the White House, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, places like that—but when I told her about the Colorado EnviroTek trip, her mouth parted in surprised joy, and she said Colorado sounded great, too. “Me and Sera can go with you,” she’d said. “We’ll shop and go sight-seeing while you’re in meetings, and then we can all spend the evenings together. Eat at fancy restaurants. Buy cheesy souvenirs. It’ll be fun.” It was hard. I didn’t want to go alone, and I didn’t like upsetting her, but I told her that I had to go alone. “My plane ticket is already purchased, and the rented cabin isn’t big enough for our families,” I’d lied. I promised to take her and Sera to D.C. for Thanksgiving to make up for it. She liked that.
The plane landed at Denver International Airport mid-morning on a Saturday. Avis’s rental booth was right next to the baggage claim. I’d arranged to rent a four wheel drive Tahoe because the weathermen had predicted a snow storm Sunday morning.
The driving directions on the slip of paper Luther had given me led me southwest of Denver on Highway 285, deep into the Rockies. I wound through the mountains for about an hour before I reached the Pike National Forest sign and souvenir shop where I was supposed to stop. When the ten-foot-tall sandstone sign came into view, I saw Luther standing in the shade of a conifer tree in the souvenir shop parking lot to the right of it. His arms were crossed, and he was wearing a bright blue coat, black ski pants, and a wide-brim hat. Clouds of white breath blurred his face with each exhale. I pulled up next to him and he got in.
“Glad you made it,” he said. “How was the flight?”
“Fine.”
He nodded and smiled.
“Where are we going now?” I asked.
“Just keep heading south. I’ll show you where to turn.” As I pulled out onto the highway, he tilted toward the middle console, out of the sunshine cutting through the passenger window, and turned on the radio. He stopped on Steve Miller Band’s Joker. “I love satellite radio. I couldn’t pick up any stations out here before. You like classic rock?”
“Some of it,” I said, shifting closer to the driver’s door, away from him.
Eleven classic-rock songs later he had me turn south onto a thin paved road with a steep incline, then right onto a dirt road that wound up the mountainside. We eventually passed a faded PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING sign and made a left. As we navigated the maze of dirt roads, taking a left here, a right there, he sat perfectly still, whistling to tunes by The Doors, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and others. He seemed free as a bird, just like the Skynyrd song. I felt the opposite. Like a prisoner.
Shortly after we took another right, he pointed at a rectangle-shaped, two-story cabin and said, “There it is. Park on the side, under that carport.”
The cabin faced west, the second floor balcony looking out over a forested valley that was large and deep enough to conceal a herd of elephants. Staring at the sun shining down on the endless mountains in the distance as we headed toward the front door, I stumbled over a stone and dropped my duffle bag. He chuckled. “Be careful. This place can be hypnotizing.”
He led me inside and to a bedroom next to the staircase, told me I’d be sleeping there, that he was going to change clothes, and that I could look around if I wanted. I tossed my coat and duffle bag on the queen-size bed, quietly checked the dresser drawers and closet and found them empty, did the same with the medicine cabinet and drawers in in the en suite, then peed and headed upstairs.
The upper level was one single area—an open concept kitchen/living room. The kitchen had two ovens, a large oval island, and a walk-in pantry. The granite counter tops and stainless steel sinks looked brand new. Two white leather couches, a matching recliner, and a flat-screen on the wall decorated the living area. A wall of floor-to-ceiling double-paned windows looked out onto the balcony, the valley, and the mountains beyond.
After glancing down the staircase to make sure he wasn’t coming, I quickly nosed around a bit, opening cabinets and drawers in the kitchen, checking the pantry which was filled with enough food for a family of ten, and then walked to the balcony windows and gazed at the endless wall of mountains in the distance.
“What were you looking for?” Luther asked when he appeared at the top of the stairs. “I heard you opening and closing drawers.”
I looked back over my shoulder at him. He was buttoning the top button of his Guayabera. “Just looking around,” I said. “Checking out the quality of the materials. You know, construction worker habit.”
“I see.” He opened the pantry door. “You hungry? We got tons of food.”
I turned my attention back outside and noticed a blue jay standing on the balcony ledge. “No,” I said.
“Thirsty? I got whiskey, beer, water?”
“Beer’s good.”
I watched a second bird land on the ledge, and watched them watch me until Luther tapped my shoulder and handed me a bottle of Dos Equis. “Thanks,” I said.
He nodded and took a pull from his bottle. I chugged half of mine, sat down on the couch, and chugged the rest. He brought me another, then sat in the recliner. “Want to watch some TV? The satellite usually works well out here.”
I shook my head.
“Play darts? I got a board in the garage.” He thumbed toward the staircase.
I shook my head again and took a swig, watching the birds out on the balcony. There were four now. He followed my gaze. “You want to ask me something about the birds?”
The curious, imaginative, Lurth-loving kid in me had a hundred questions to ask. Like how exactly he was connected to them, how he controlled them, if he could read their thoughts, if they understand his words, if he could see through their eyes and hear through their ears like that guy on Beast Master. But the fearful adult in me wanted to know as little as possible, wanted to forget they existed at all. “I think I know enough about the birds.” Another swig.
A sly smiled creased his face. “Oh, you do, huh? What do you think you know?”
I finished my second beer. My legs were jittery, eager to move. I went to the fridge and grabbed another. “I know they work for you,” I said as I popped the top and made my way to the large windows. “That’s all I really need to know.”
Luther stood and stepped to my side. “I prefer the term with me, not for me.” He touched my shoulder, and I snapped my head sideways. “They won’t hurt you,” he whispered softly, as though revealing a sensitive secret. I tried to step away from him but he squeezed my shoulder tight. “You need to relax,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you, either.” His breath was cool on my sweaty neck.
Beneath his hand my skin warmed and a feeling of comfort washed over me. A soothing, secure, protected feeling I hadn’t experienced since I was a kid and my mom would snuggle with me in bed after I’d had a nightmare or when I was sick. My paranoid thoughts settled. My tense muscles relaxed. Consumed by peace and relief, I took a slow breath up my nose and let it fall out my mouth. I felt like I’d just arrived home from a long treacherous journey and laid eyes on Brianne’s and Sera’s smiles for the first time in years.
“We could be friends if you’d allow it,” Luther whispered.
I raised my bottle and took a small sip. “Have you always been able to do this to people?”
He removed his hand, opened the balcony door, and walked to the ledge where the blue jays waited as though I hadn’t spoken. One of them hopped into his open hand and nuzzled its head against his raised finger. He stroked the bird’s back with all the gentleness of a mother caressing a newborn and whispered something I didn’t understand.
With the calm feeling he’d forced into me fading, I finished my beer and headed to the fridge for another. When I came back, he was still petting the bird. I stepped out onto the balcony behind him and ducked my head so my lucky Rangers cap would block the cold wind nipping at my face. He set the bird on the balcony ledge and turned to me. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I’m getting cold.”
He went into the kitchen, and I sat on the couch and drank my beer. A few minutes later, he brought me a glass filled with Southern Comfort and ice to replace my beer. He sat in the recliner, and we drank and looked out the windows for a long while, watching the sun set and the stars reveal themselves. Eventually, he swirled the ice cubes in his empty glass and raised it head-high. “You want another?”
“I’ll get it.” I stood and took his glass. “I need to pee anyway.” When I returned, all the window blinds were closed. Luther was lightly rocking in the recliner. I handed him a glass of whiskey and sat down on the couch.
“You don’t have any siblings, right?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Do you?”
“Used to. An older brother.” He took a big swig, and I copied him.
Over the next hour and a half, we drank and drank, and unprompted, he talked and talked, gazing at the blank wall to my left with a fond smile on his face most of the time as if he were watching the memories he recalled play out on an invisible screen, a screen privy to his eyes only.
He told me how he and his older brother Sam had spent most of their afternoons and evenings at a pond by their farmhouse. He told me about the giant, one-eyed catfish they’d caught and cooked over a fire on the bank, how Sam had convinced their friend Shelly to meet them there and give them both blowjobs in the tall grass, and how Sam had smuggled one of their dad’s whiskey bottles out of the house and given Luther his first taste of liquor under the shade of a giant willow tree , causing him to puke his guts out in the water, bringing a gang of catfish to the surface to feed on his partially digested peas and bread.
He looked away from the wall and at me only when he recalled Sam’s death. One summer afternoon, Sam had jumped off one of the giant willow’s branches that dangled over the water—the same one he and Luther had jumped off of a hundred times—and hit his head on a rock and drowned. Luther had dived into the pond, dragged his brother to the bank, and ran home for help. But when he returned with his dad, Sam was dead.
A long silence spooled out after he finished that story. When I broke it by asking him where he’d grown up, he walked into the kitchen, refilled both our glasses with whiskey, came back, and changed the subject.
Staring at the wall again, he told me about a boy named John who lived on a farm near his family’s and had constantly picked on him, partly because he was an easy target, small and perpetually sick, but also because his mother was known in the community as a former whore. One day Sam had convinced Luther to stand up to John, and Luther had told John to shut up, that his mom had been baptized and “born again,” but John had spat in his face and called him “whore child” like always. The day after, Sam and Luther cornered John in his cornfield and beat the shit out of him with sticks as fat as baseball bats, spitting on his bloody face and hollering insults at him as he lay moaning in the dirt.
He also told me about his first girlfriend, Dolly. At thirteen he’d been knee-deep in love with her. He’d written her poems, picked her wild flowers and left them on her porch at night, made out with her and fingered her under The Monster, but then one day on his way to her house, he saw her fucking Jack Clawson on a blanket in the field behind her barn. Jack—the only fourteen-year-old in the county with chest hair and a beard— was on top, pounding her, but without Sam by his side, he didn’t have the courage to confront them. Dolly broke up with Luther two days later and according to him, went on to fuck every boy he knew over the next few years. She died shortly after her eighteenth birthday, about a month after Sam. Luther didn’t say exactly how, but based on the Luther I knew, I had a good guess.
By the time Luther finished talking, the whiskey had dulled my senses and slowed my thought process quite a bit, but not enough that I overlooked the contrast between his apparent age and dated stories. By his physical appearance, I figured he could be much older than thirty, possibly a young forty, but he talked as though he grew up in the 1800s. His stories had no TVs, no vehicles, no phones, no computers.
I was staring at the floor, struggling to rationalize the contrast, debating whether I should mention it or not, whether he’d give me an answer or not, when he asked me a question. “Do you think Brianne would ever cheat on you?”
I looked at him. He was still staring at the wall with a faraway look in his eyes. “No,” I said. “She’s not the type.”
“What would you do if she did?”
“I don’t know.”
He smirked, finished his drink, and stood. “Well, I’m going to get some sleep. You should, too. I have something important to show you in the morning.”
I followed him downstairs, went to my room, and shut the door. I flopped onto the bed without undressing, brushing my teeth, or calling Brianne. I’d texted her after the plane had landed and she’d texted back twice, asking me to call her later. As I lay in the darkness drifting off, I wondered what she was doing, what I would do if she cheated on me, if she ever wanted to, if she already had. With who? She’d forgiven me when I’d drunk-fucked that Mexican girl after a fight early in our relationship. I honestly didn’t know if I could do the same.
Luther shook me awake at 4AM. I shot upright and didn’t remember where I was or who he was for a moment. He turned on the lamp on the bedside table. He had his blue coat and ski pants on again.
Luther. Colorado. Shit.
“Grab your coat and let’s go,” he ordered.
Still buzzed and a bit disoriented, I did as instructed and followed him to the front door where he handed me a flashlight.
“Keep up,” he said, and led me out into the darkness.
The frigid air stung my exposed skin. I pulled my hood up over my lucky Rangers cap, turned on the flashlight, shoved my free hand in my pocket, and mindlessly followed him.
We moved downhill into the large valley, weaving through the blanket of conifers, dodging drop-offs and trees and thick thorny brush areas. We moved at a brisk pace, and I had to call out for Luther a couple of times when I lost sight of him. I’m not sure exactly how far we’d walked by the time we came to the clearing, but I figure it was a couple of miles.
The clearing was covered in a thin film of snow, a crescent moon directly overhead shining bright. When I stopped next to Luther, I tucked the flashlight under my arm, and blew into my cupped hands to warm them. The fingers on my right hand, my nose, and cheeks were numb. Luther stared toward the tree-line at the opposite end of the clearing, about twenty-five yards away.
“What are we looking at?” I asked.
He glanced at me, back at the tree line, then marched to the center of the clearing. As I followed him, a muffled scream shot across the night air. I stopped mid-stride and shined my flashlight beam at the back of Luther’s head. He faced me and pointed to my left, the direction the scream had come from. “Shine your light over there.”
