Bull Mountain (11 page)

“We have access to product here in Florida, if we so desired,” Wilcombe said. His voice was flat—uninterested
and unimpressed.

“I’m not here selling,” Gareth said. “But if I was, no one around here could compete. Not for the price, and not with so little hassle. I bet the Cubanos down here are always shuffling to hide product and transport from the feds. Am I right? Ask me how we’ve been steady growing for more than two decades without a single federal intrusion.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. How
are
you
keeping it from the feds? That’s a lot of land to hide from DEA helicopters.”

“Geography,” Gareth said, and smiled wide.

“Geography,” Wilcombe repeated.

“Yup. You see, my father built our entire family fortune on his ability to hide things in the woods. Back in the day, the stills had to run twenty-four-seven if they were going to generate enough shine to get us into the big leagues.
We couldn’t afford to have any of them found. Not one. And we didn’t. Knowing the lay of the land was essential to that fact. He got extremely good at it. Good enough to outsell those cousin-fuckers up in Virginia without taking any of the heat.”

“But three thousand acres is a little more difficult to conceal than an average whiskey distiller, correct?”

“Yes, it is, but my father, the
crafty sum’ bitch that he was, figured out that our mountain has some unique geographical positioning along the northern face. He cleared the forestry out in strips in a way that creates blind spots from the air. We can work those fields all day every day and wave at the federals flying overhead. Dumb bastards are none the wiser.”

Wilcombe looked genuinely impressed. “That is indeed something
to be proud of. How did you explain what you were doing to the contractors? How did you get the permits?”

Gareth scratched at his beard and sat back in the booth. “Contractors? We didn’t have no contractors. We had six men, myself included. And hell, I was just a boy. We cleared, primed, and planted that land, working from plans my deddy drew out with a pencil and a slide rule.”

“That’s
impressive, Mr. Burroughs.”

“I know.”

“And the processing of said product?”

“Is done completely in-house by men I’ve known my whole life. We grow it, cure it, dry it, bale it, and package it out all ourselves. No outside help.”

“Yet here you are, looking for outside help.”

“That’s right. Here I am.”

Wilcombe pushed his glasses up on his nose again. “Well, I’m not sure how
much our mutual friend told you, but if you’re looking for distribution into Florida, I hate that you came all this way just for me to tell you that isn’t something I can do.”

Gareth scratched at his beard again. “I’d hate that, too. Luckily for me, it’s like I told you. I ain’t here selling. I’m buying. We want guns.”

Wilcombe smiled. “I think that might be something I can help you with.”
He reached down beside him and laid the briefcase on the table. He spun in the combination on the small dials with his thumbs and popped the locks. He opened the lid and turned it toward Gareth so he could inspect the contents. Gareth reached into the form-fitted case and removed the collapsible pieces of an AR-15 assault rifle. He turned them over in his hands and clicked the stock into place.
“Well, if you can rustle up a few more of these, I reckon you
can
help me.”

“As many as you can afford, my friend. But they are not cheap.”

Gareth smiled.

“Bracken, bring Mr. Burroughs and me two fingers of Jameson.”

The big man looked unhappy but fished the bottle of Irish whiskey from the shelf. He poured the whiskey, picked up the glasses, and brought them to the table.

The top dog is still just a dog,
Gareth thought, and pushed the glass away.

“Make mine Evan Williams, Mr. President, and don’t forget to include my partner in the round.”

Bracken looked to Wilcombe, who nodded approval, then walked back to the bar. He returned and set a glass and a bottle of Evan on the table.

“Pour it yourself.”

“Thanks,
Brack-en
,” Gareth said, exaggerating the
sound of the man’s name. He poured the bourbon three fingers deep and drained it. Val, who’d sat silent until now, looked back at his friend and made a sound in his throat loud enough for them all to hear.

“I’m good, Val,” Gareth said. Wilcombe and Bracken exchanged a swift curious look as Gareth refilled and downed another whiskey like it was apple juice. He filled the glass a third time
and let it sit. Bracken took a seat next to Wilcombe.

“Brack-en,”
Gareth said again. “What the hell kind of name is that anyway?” The big man didn’t answer. Gareth put the gun on the case without bothering to break it down and slid it back across the table to Wilcombe. “So you built that?” he said, motioning to the gun.

“I suppose our mutual friend
has
been—how did you say?—talking out
of school,” the little man said. “It’s sufficient that I have them.”

“Well, I like my people to keep me
apprised
, and all that, too. So . . . you build these?”

“I do,” Wilcombe said.

“You don’t steal them?”

“They’re not stolen.” Wilcombe looked insulted. He quickly slid the case over to Bracken, who picked up the gun, disassembled it, and returned it to the foam-rubber inlay. He
clicked the case shut and set it at his feet.

“Motorcycle parts, right?” Gareth said, mulling it over. “That how you hooked up with the Hells Angels?”

Bracken twisted his weight in the booth and began to say something, but Wilcombe put a hand on his forearm to remind him whose conversation this was. “Mr. Burroughs, I’m quite sure you understand better than most the concept of respect,
as was demonstrated by your friend at the bar earlier on Mr. Pinkerton. I backed your move there, because I believed you and your associate were righteous in your action, but now you are bordering on disrespecting me and the people I consider to be my family. Family is important to you?”

Gareth didn’t speak, but Wilcombe didn’t wait for an answer, either. “My father, God rest his soul, and
Mr. Leek here started this club in 1965, and since then the Jacksonville Jackals have been an integral part of creating and sustaining the very business that has brought you to our door. They are men of honor and deserve to be treated as such. Are we on the same page here?”

Gareth finished the bourbon in his glass, swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing it. “Fair enough,” he said.
“I want two hundred to start.”

“I can do that. I’ll need twenty-five thousand up front and another twenty-five on delivery.”

“I can do that.”

“I can assume you brought the money with you?”

Gareth smiled. “It’s close. I’ll have it when I need it.”

Bracken reached into his jacket. Val took notice, tensed and readied himself. “Relax,” Bracken said, and slowly removed his hand,
bringing out a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes. He shook one out and laid the pack on the table. Gareth took one and waited for Bracken to light it. He didn’t.

“There’s a warehouse off the highway I use for these kinds of transactions. Mr. Cartwright knows where it is. You did bring Mr. Cartwright with you?”

“He’s around,” Gareth said.

“Meet Mr. Leek there tomorrow morning with the
money, and your problems at home are as good as solved.”

Bracken stood up and Wilcombe slid from the booth. He nodded to Gareth and then to Val, straightened out the creases in his suit, and left, leaving the briefcase on the table.

“Eight-thirty sharp,” Bracken said.

“We’ll be there.”

Gareth motioned to Val and they followed Wilcombe out the door.

CHAPTER

G
ARETH
B
URROUGHS

1973

1.

The motel room was a cold, filthy box. Gareth had stayed in one like this before to handle some business up in Huntsville and it looked exactly the same. He imagined that, aside
from bars on the door, there was no difference between a room like this and a prison cell. He stood naked in front of the full-length mirror running up the wall next to the vanity, holding a bottle of whiskey, looking at his reflection in the glass—really looking—taking himself in. He rarely stopped to see the toll his life was taking on him. His body was taut and cut, like a boxer’s, cords of
sun-reddened farm muscle toned by years of hard work. Work he was proud of. Not the kind of work that resulted in cardboard boxes like this room, it was the kind that resulted in empires. The kind of work his father had taught him how to do. He took a drink from a bottle that was practically empty and stared at the collection of scars from various scraps and foolish ideas. Fights born of both anger
and good times. The most foolish idea being the tattoo on his chest that spelled
Annette
in cursive letters above his left nipple—where his heart was supposed to be. He snorted to himself. It was her idea to get it done. Jimbo knew a fella who did it right out of the back of his trailer with a homemade rig made from a car battery and a spool of copper wire. He got it done on their first wedding
anniversary. They were supposed to get it done together, hers and his brands meant to prove their love to each other, but Annette chickened out in the chair. Follow-through was never her strong suit. It wasn’t the first promise she’d broken—or the last. Probably best she didn’t get it anyway. Less explaining she’d have to do to the next poor soul she latched herself on to. He rubbed his thumb over
the raised ink in the tattoo and used the rest of his hand to knead the thick muscle in his neck.

He carried his share of scars, but for the most part managed to keep his body whole and in pretty good shape. His face, on the other hand, looked like it belonged to someone else entirely, and maybe it did. It was haggard and weathered like saddle leather. His eyes were disappearing more and more
every year behind the crow’s-feet branching out from the corners of his narrow sockets, and the skin under his eyes was loose and dry. It was an old man’s face.

His
old man’s face.

He wasn’t completely sure why, but he was beginning to hate it. His father used to be the cornerstone of everything. Now he was just a crazy, feeble old coot, more embarrassing than anything else. Gareth wondered
how long he had before he would follow the same path.

The young girl sprawled out behind him on the queen-size bed rolled over onto her belly. She was a gift from his new partner. She just showed up at the door with the bottle of whiskey—the same brand he’d drunk at Wilcombe’s bar. He wasn’t a cheater, but Annette was gone, so it didn’t matter. He was drunk and angry, and a go at this one
was just what he needed. Now, though, he was ready for her to leave. He hadn’t bothered to clean the slick of her off himself. He just crawled off her, laid a couple of twenties on the table, and went back to drinking. He hoped she would take his money and silence as a hint to collect her things and shove off. She didn’t. That made Gareth angry, but then again, everything made him angry. Anger was
the only constant he had these days. He should be thrilled to have a huge problem taken care of after this deal with Wilcombe and his guns. He should be relaxed after bedding this sweet, young piece of tail, but he wasn’t. He was angry, and he felt the slow burn of it right underneath his skin. Every sip of whiskey brought it closer to the surface.

“Oh, Papa, come back to bed,” the girl said.
“Let me rub some of that tension out of your shoulders. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at it. Back in Mobile, I took some classes. I thought about doing it full-time, but you know, life and all.”

Gareth took another pull from the bottle and rubbed the tattoo. “You mean whorin’ and all?”

“Well, you ain’t gotta be all mean about it, Papa.” She pulled the motel’s scratchy wool blanket over
her bare ass and patted the bed next to her. “Come sit yourself down right here.”

Gareth pictured himself dragging her out of the bed by her hair.

She called herself Angel, but Gareth knew that was her working name. She was more likely to be a Betsy, or a Ruth Ann—something painfully ordinary. He watched in the mirror as she squeezed at one of the pillows, sinking her bleached-blond head
into the starched cotton. Gareth sneered and curled his lip in disgust. He wanted her gone. He was done with her. But there she was, frolicking in the sheets like it was Sunday morning and he was going to cook her up some pancakes and bacon. Gareth picked up his smokes from the vanity and lit up. Angel came up behind him and took over rubbing his neck. Her skin was like milk—pale, scarless, and
perfect. Nothing stretched out or ruined by childbirth, like Annette’s. Her mouth was small and round, and Gareth thought about kissing it just a few minutes earlier. She tasted like hard candy. The kind his grandma kept in little dishes around her house, all sticky and tart. Nothing like Annette, she tasted clean—like rain.

“Hey, baby, you in there?” Angel said, and waved a hand in front
of Gareth’s blank expression. He looked at her pressed up behind him in the mirror and she smiled crookedly, her lips curling up on the left side. She started to rub the muscles in his shoulders. It was like trying to soften granite. She rubbed her hard raspberry nipples across his back, but he was over her and it did nothing but irritate him further.

“You’re bound up tight, sugar. I could
have sworn you just had wild sex with a pretty girl. I got you off. I know I did. I normally don’t let a man come inside me, but you were so into it. I know I was. That must make you special. Not like all these boys around here.”

“Stop talking,” Gareth said, and took a swig from the bottle.

“You’re starting to hurt my feelings,” she said.

“You’re starting to irritate me with all the
mouth.”

Angel moved her hands down his back and scratched her way up, using pink lacquered fingernails to follow the curves of his back. “I know it’s none of my business and all,” she said, “but you can talk to me, too, you know. That’s part of the package.”

Gareth took another hard gulp from the bottle, finishing it off, and set it down on the vanity. Angel took notice of the tattoo on
Gareth’s chest and leaned in over his shoulder to get a better look. “Who’s Annette? Your girl back home?”

Gareth shook her hands off him hard enough for her to back off toward the bed. “None of your business,” he said. He picked up the bottle, forgetting it was empty, and slammed it back down on the vanity with enough force to break it. The glass cut his hand. He put the bleeding edge of
his palm in his mouth and Angel backed away. She quickly wrapped herself with a sheet from the bed.

“I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

Gareth glared at himself in the mirror. Seeing his father. Hearing his wife. Tasting his own blood. The sudden eruption of tears down his flushed cheeks surprised him as much as it did her.

“Oh, Papa. Don’t cry. Let me make it better.”
She came back up behind him. “I can be Annette if you want me to.”

Gareth stiffened and went cold. The tears disappeared as quickly as they’d come. He rubbed his thumb over the tattoo again. “You want to be Annette?” he said, and raised the broken bottleneck to his chest. Using the sharpened edge, he sliced into the skin above his nipple and carved through the letters inked into his skin.
Blood poured down his chest and Angel jumped back.

“Jesus Christ. You’re crazy,” she said, and scanned the room for her clothes.

“You want to be Annette?” he said again, turning to face her.

Angel grabbed her dress, panties, and shoes from the floor and held them out in front of her.

“Hold on, mister, I didn’t mean nothing by it. I’m just here for a good time. I can go now, okay?
I can walk right out.”

“Annette’s a no-good bitch that thinks she can do better than me. She thinks she can say and do whatever she pleases and up and leave whenever she wants.”

“I’m real sorry about that, mister. That sounds really awful, but . . . but I ain’t Annette.”

Gareth pulled down a hand towel from a silver ring on the wall and wiped the blood from the fresh gash on his chest.
“Yeah, but you want to be.”

Angel grabbed her purse from the side table and made a dash for the door, but, despite being blind drunk, Gareth was much faster. He reached out and grabbed a handful of white-blond hair. She dropped the purse, and makeup, cigarettes, and several unused condoms spilled out on the carpet.

“Ow. Please, Papa, I didn’t—”

“—mean nothing by it. I know. And I’m
not your fuckin’ papa.” Gareth pulled her back and tossed her petite naked frame onto the bed. She kicked and flailed her legs, bunching up the sheets, trying to slide out of the reach of the broken bottle, but once he was on top of her, she couldn’t move. He straddled her, putting all of his weight on her chest, crushing the wind out of her, pinning her arms.

Angel screamed. He let go of
her hair and slid his hand, slick with his own blood, over her mouth. He leaned in close when he spoke to her. The stink of whiskey and sweat coated her face like a film. She wanted to throw up.

“So,
Annette
, I was thinking about the last time you got lippy with me. You remember?”

Angel just stared back, wide-eyed, unable to answer or breathe through her mouth.

“The last time I had
to straighten you out. I hit you right here.” Gareth held the edge of the broken bottle to the side of Angel’s nose. “Do you remember,
Annette
?”

Angel struggled to push her head down deeper into the pillow and out of the bottle’s reach, but Gareth pushed down harder. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the glass press into her skin. She screamed through his hand, but no one could hear her.
Blood spilled onto the sheets on both sides of her head, forming Rorschach wings on the cotton as he dragged the broken glass across her face.

When he was finished, he got off her and tossed the bottle to the floor. He walked back to the mirror and stared at the blood smeared across his arms and chest. He turned on the faucet and held his hands under the water until it was scalding.

Angel
pulled herself to the floor and slowly crossed the carpet toward the door.

“Aw, now where you going?” Gareth said, and she stopped cold. “You don’t wanna be my friend no more?” He squatted down and looked at her with the curiosity a hunter would give a wounded animal. “You can’t leave until you get paid,” he said. “I mean, you
are
a whore after all, right?” He swiped up the two twenties he
had laid on the table earlier, crumpled the bills in his hand, and stuffed them into Angel’s mouth. She gagged. He stood her up, opened the door, and threw her battered figure into the second-floor guardrail right next to where Val was standing.

“What the hell, Gareth?” he said.

“Get this bitch outta here,” Gareth said, and closed the door.

Within minutes he was asleep.

2.

Val came back out on the breezeway with a bath towel, a wet rag, and a thousand dollars in cash. “Hey, can you hear me?”

Angel shrank back from his voice, lifting her shoes and dress to block her face from this new threat.

“Don’t be scared, girl. I’m not gonna hurt you. I want to help you, okay? I want to help.” He held out the towel. She hesitated but finally lowered her shoes, snatched
the towel from his hands and covered herself the best she could. The left side of her face was on fire and it hurt to breathe. Her ribs felt broken.

“You’re . . . his . . . friend,” she said between short, stuttered breaths.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He cut me . . . my face.”

Val went to touch her cheek, but she winced and pulled away. “It hurts.”

“Yes, ma’am. Here, put this on it.” He
handed her the wet rag. “Keep pressure on it like this.” He took her hand in his and pressed the rag down on her wound.