Damaged Goods (31 page)

When he got home, he finished working on the Porsche and let it idle in the driveway for fifteen minutes before taking it out for a test drive. It was loose in the steering, and it rattled like a tin can, but he reckoned it was safe enough. The smell of fuel seemed to linger, and he made a mental note to check that. When he reached Scholls Ferry Road, he turned left before thinking about it. He hadn’t planned to drive past the South Store, but then he guessed Silvie was too busy to notice the cars that passed the front of the building. He made a loop through Hillsboro, bypassing the store. He would not give her the car as he had promised—not yet. Things were going to get dangerous, and he needed to know exactly where she was every moment.

Silvie worked to hold back tears through the day. The lunch crowd at the South Store was light, and Karen had Silvie bleach down the tabletops. The visit to the migrant camp had made real for her that Carl was dead. Everyone seemed to know it, even though no one had proof. She wanted to call her mom, listen to her voice. In the early months after Silvie’s father left, Melody had sung to her daughter at night. She had a soft voice that smoothed out the edges of the words, left them unarticulated and sleek, like strands of soft pearls—wet and indistinct syllables. It had eased their loneliness. For a time, anyway.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more for you today,” Karen said from behind the counter. “I wish I could keep you on for another hour or two, but there just isn’t enough business.”

“That’s okay,” Silvie said. The understanding that she’d sent Carl on his death errand was too large a burden for her to care about the job anymore. She’d spent the afternoon working out her plan for Kyrellis. All she needed was a car. She glanced at Karen. The soft lines at the corners of her eyes had been etched there by a million smiles. She was a kind woman.

“Do you think I could ask a really huge favor?”

“What’s that?” Karen asked, retying her apron.

“Could I borrow your car to run up to the store?”

Karen didn’t answer right away, taking her time to consider it. “Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Sure, wanna see it?”

“No. That’s fine. You won’t be gone long, though, right?”

“An hour maybe. No more.”

Karen disappeared into the kitchen, returning with her keys. “It’s not much.”

“Thanks. I promise to return it just like it is.”

The ten-year-old Corolla was a stick shift and Silvie popped the clutch, spraying gravel across the parking lot as she pulled out. She hoped Karen wasn’t standing at the window, regretting the favor.

Silvie missed a turn as she searched for the Walgreens store she’d passed on her way to find shoes, but after a few circles around the southern end of Hillsboro she found it again on the corner of Tualatin Valley Highway.

Inside, she wound her way to the personal items and inventoried tubes of lubricating jellies and massage oils. She gathered up three bottles of motion lotion in varying scents and colors.

As she returned, her purchase stashed in her backpack and fifteen minutes to spare on the hour she’d promised Karen, she glimpsed a small orange car, just like the one Hershel owned. As it neared, she craned to see the driver. It was him. He’d gotten it running finally.

The day remained dry and cloudless, a strange break in the Oregon winter, both unexpected and intensely rejuvenating to the landscape. The sweep of marshlands below Hershel’s house colored up the way it looked in spring, with vibrant green and auburn. Branchy trees along the Tualatin River attracted a family
of blue herons, which perched in the canopy today instead of wading the murky waters along the bank. Upstream from where the police had removed the body.

His phone rang. Kyrellis. He let it ring two more times, contemplating whether to let it go. “Swift,” he said, flipping the phone open.

“Have you considered my offer?”

Hershel stiffened.

“Better they go to you, so you can destroy them, than back to Castor.”

“They found a body in the river yesterday.”

“I heard.”

“You know goddamn well who it was,” Hershel said, seething.

Kyrellis sighed into the phone.

“Why did you kill him?”

“Swift, listen to me. He was set to double-cross you. There was no loyalty there. You should be grateful to be rid of him.”

“What did he threaten you with?”

“You never should’ve let a man like that into your business, Swift. He had records of every gun transaction you’ve ever made, and I’m not talking about the legitimate ones.”

Hershel’s chest tightened. He wanted to believe that Carl wouldn’t have sold him down the river, but why wouldn’t he? Hershel had never done a kind thing for the man.

“If you must know, he wanted some of the money for the photos … in exchange for his silence.” Kyrellis exhaled, as if exhausted from trying to convince Hershel. “He threatened to go to the authorities if I didn’t cooperate. But you and I both know it wouldn’t have ended there. He’d have had us both over a barrel if we accepted those terms, and then what? Believe what you want about the man, Swift, but he was up to no good, and we both would’ve paid dearly.”

“Why did you cut off his head?” Hershel’s stomach lurched at the mention.

“Honestly, Swift. Must we? He was testing the water. If he could get the photos, he could get anything.”

Hershel thought of the migrant camp, and the dozens of notes pasted to Carl’s vacant door.

“I think you were mistaken,” he said quietly.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Kyrellis replied. “But if you feel inclined to talk to the authorities, it’ll behoove you to remember Albert Darling—if you
can
remember Albert Darling. Now, about the photos—”

“I don’t want them. Sell them back to your sheriff in Wyoming.” He hung up before Kyrellis could respond. Out along the river a pair of ravens were dive-bombing the herons, causing them to spread their enormous wings to stay afloat in the tree branches. The herons endured strike after strike, but they relinquished nothing.

Hershel fingered his cellphone, then punched in the numbers that had never been lost to him. Odd, he thought, that he could remember these when so much else was missing. He listened to the ringing on the other end as he repeated the numbers to himself, just in case.

“Hello?” Her voice was hoarse—a smoker’s rasp, coupled with advancing age.

“Why didn’t you come?”

An audible catching of breath as Hershel held his. A long strand of silence stretched between them, so fragile he could almost see it fray and pull apart.

“My heart was already broken,” she said, and hung up.

She’d spoken to him.

Carl remained on Hershel’s mind while he drove to the restaurant to pick up Silvie.

“Where is the car?” Silvie asked as they pulled in next to the house.

“I put it back in the garage,” he said.

“You got it running.”

“No. I think it’s beyond repair.”

She gazed at him curiously from the other side of the cab.

“We’ll get you some wheels, don’t worry.”

Silvie wandered outside and sat on the front porch, quiet and downhearted. He watched her go, wishing he could recapture the excitement of only a day ago. Now they seemed a pair of perfect strangers, even in their shared pain.

She sat with her back against the window, looking out at the same river scene he’d inventoried earlier, her jacket wrapped around her and her hands tucked in. He joined her.

“It quit raining,” Silvie said.

“I don’t think you should go to work tomorrow.”

She tipped her head back against the chair, unsurprised.

“Kyrellis is dangerous, and he’s contacted—” The name fell away. He had trouble articulating it in her presence, as if its sound would crush her.

“Okay.”

He smoothed her hair. Squeezed her shoulder. “Trust me. This will be over soon.”

She turned her eyes on him, pale and full of worry. “What are you planning to do?”

“Just trust me.”

“You won’t hurt Jacob, will you?”

Her question sliced through the center of him, a burning sting.

“I mean, there’s no reason to do that. If he gets his pictures back, he’ll be satisfied.”

“Will he?”

She stared through him. She wouldn’t answer.

Kyrellis hadn’t slept well, his limbs abuzz with anticipation of Silvie’s smooth skin, mixed with erratic dreams of Carl Abernathy demanding money from him, as if the man would return from the dead and join forces with his creditor. He’d gotten up shortly after three and vacuumed, dusted, mopped. Pine cleaner mingled with the faint smell of leather conditioner.

He pulled down the shades at the front window, letting in a filtered light. It was almost a shame to block out the sun, so rare and uplifting this time of year. But she might be shy about these things. He’d laid ten photos out for her to choose from. He imagined that she wanted the bondage shots. They weren’t his favorite. He’d spoken the truth when he told her that he didn’t find pleasure in pain, and they gave him a bit of a sick stomach. All the same, he was careful in his selection; she wouldn’t get the bondage photos. He needed to maximize his bargaining leverage.

Kyrellis’s plan was set. After Silvie had performed her favor, he would offer her a second deal. Return Tuesday night while Hershel was conducting his sale, but this time she had to let him tie her up. In exchange, she’d receive the balance of the stash when he was finished. It sounded plausible, he thought. She’d let Castor tie her up, after all. It wasn’t like he was the only man alive with
that
fantasy. The difference was that he wouldn’t let her go. Castor could be here by then. They’d meet at the Starbucks on Murray Road, south of Portland. A public place with too many witnesses for the sheriff to get any stupid ideas. He’d collect the money and, in exchange, give Castor directions to the Kinton School, a derelict nineteenth-century relic on Scholls Ferry Road. It was now being used as a sheep barn. There Silvie would be waiting for him.

Kyrellis had decided to let Castor have the photos, too. The sheriff had taken on an Old West persona in Kyrellis’s imagination, appearing in his dreams with his pistols drawn. Kyrellis figured he’d better not press his luck.

He hummed a tune from his childhood as he cooked himself an omelet stuffed with wild mushrooms and Swiss cheese. The aroma of melted butter made his mouth water. His appetite was finally returning, a good sign. He’d have the money for his creditor, and life could resume some semblance of normalcy. He’d hire a manager for the nursery, someone to call on his customers, take orders, oversee deliveries. He could make this work; he was certain of it. And when his new hybrids hit the market in the spring he’d be inundated with orders and he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand.

“Ah, Silvie, we’re going to have a wonderful time,” he sang to himself.

Hershel listened from the living room as Silvie called the South Store and asked to be excused from her shift. She claimed an upset stomach and apologized for the inconvenience. He wished he could do the same, but if he didn’t receive this load of furniture from the wholesale antiques shop that was going out of business there wouldn’t be a sale on Tuesday. It was the bulk of his inventory this week, and he had already run the advertisements. The shop
owner estimated six large truckloads and had a crew of four men and two vehicles. With travel time from Aurora to Scholls, it would likely take half the day to get everything in and organized. He’d tried to get Henry to come down and help, but the man was a Tuesday-night-only employee and claimed to have a previous engagement. Unlikely, but what could Hershel do?

He figured Castor was already in town; he’d have to handle his end of the agreement by tonight. Hershel toyed with the idea of calling Kyrellis to see if he was still alive. He’d suffered twinges of conscience over what he had done, which had caused him to sleep poorly—waking every twenty minutes, eyeing the clock. Did Kyrellis really have to die? Did anyone
have
to die? He wished he could see some other way through this mess, but he and Silvie were ensnared by these two men with no way out. And he couldn’t fathom how the world could possibly be any worse without either of them. He’d thought this through. If Castor didn’t kill Kyrellis, Hershel would have to do it himself.