Pitfall (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I
n any small town there’s one sure place to find out what was shaking. I knew where it was; I’d passed it earlier, a bar called Jerry’s Time Out. Reentering Harrisville, I circumnavigated the square, and then turned back the other way I’d come, down Main. After parking and locking the car in a space near the front, I walked under the faded hunter green awning, and strolled on inside.

The interior looked, and smelled, pretty much like any other run-down saloon you’ll find in America. I detected stale beer, cigarette smoke, depleted testosterone, and failed dreams. I removed my sunglasses, and a moment later my eyes had adjusted to the dim light.

Jerry’s was small, holding maybe eight wooden cigarette-burned tables, and replete with mismatched, worn-out, wood-and-leatherette chairs scattered around the room. The dingy-mirrored bar itself was on the left and ran the room’s length.

The original color of the gray, scuffed linoleum floor was anybody’s guess, and in the far corner an old Wurlitzer jukebox tiredly hulked, for the time being mercifully silent. The ceiling appeared to be darkened punched tin, the floor beneath it littered with an unappetizing mix of gummy spilled drinks, crushed peanut shells, and flattened cigarette butts.

And something else.

A stain had caught my attention, maybe four inches across, roughly circular, and the color of old copper. To my practiced saloon-fighter eye it looked like dried blood, and I nodded, my smile grim. Maybe this wasn’t Mayberry after all.

Behind the bar, mounted high up in the corner, the obligatory TV was going with the sound off. I glanced at the show: just some trash-talk episode of the usual, my-life-is-shit-may-share-it variety. I hoped the bartender would have enough decency to keep the volume down on the thing because, I’ll say this as genteel as I can: those shows make me puke.

The said barkeep, a medium-built, fortyish, toothpick-sucking balding guy with a filthy apron and a brass earring in his left ear, gave me a noncommittal nod as I took a ripped stool at the far end. Wandering over, he awarded the spot in front of me a desultory swipe with a malodorous piece of damp rag that could have been mummy wrappings for all I knew.

He squinted, his voice guttural. “What for ya?” No lie, that’s exactly what he said, like a Damon Runyon character straight out of the thirties.

I almost felt like replying out of the corner of my mouth,
“Gimme a shot with a beer back, and when do the dames come in?,”
but instead I said, “You Jerry?”

“That’s right.” He spoke in a monotone, and then said again, “What for ya?”

It seemed friend Jerry possessed all the charm of a jar of Cheez Whiz, but I kept that to myself. “I’ll have a draft. Whatever’s cold.”

Turning, he drew a beer from the tap, and set the foaming mug down on the bar with an unceremonious clunk. Not even looking to see where it went, he gave it a shove my way. A Wharton School of Business grad old Jerry obviously wasn’t.

I started to ask another question, but my stomach picked that time to begin snarling and muttering, reminding me I hadn’t eaten yet today. Granny used to call that sound the “airy urps.” Country wit, but think about it; that’s what it sounds like. Its rude noises didn’t seem to bother the other man.

“What kind of sandwiches do you have?” I asked. “Could you whip me up a grilled baloney and onion?” That sounded pretty good.

Jerry began walking down toward the other end of the bar, picking his tobacco-stained teeth as he went. “Don’t got any sandwiches.”

A place like this, out of sandwiches? Unless we were well into the second week of a nuclear winter, I found that hard to believe. “What do you mean? The sign out front says bar and grill.”

He gave me a lazy look. “The grill ain’t worked since Iran-Contra. The bar’s what ya see in front of ya.”

Maybe that was for the best; the health inspector most probably hadn’t paid a visit here since Iran-Contra either. “Got any munchies?”

The barkeep sighed like I’d asked him to perform differential calculus, and then reaching under the counter, he pulled out an old chipped bowl filled with something unknown. With a snap of his wrist he slid it my way.

I’ll have to admit the guy’s technique was good, the bowl stopping dead center in front of me. I glanced down. Salted peanuts in the shell. Probably the safest things he had to eat, considering.

Picking one up I shelled it, and popped the nut in my mouth. Just to get the ball rolling I remarked, “Kind of quiet in here, huh?”

He shrugged.

I swallowed and took a sip of beer, and shelled another nut. “Not much shaking in here mid-afternoon, I suppose.”

The guy just sucked his toothpick in response.

I pressed the point. “I bet it’ll pick up later, though. When the day shift at GeneSys gets off, I mean. Lots of thirsty people in this town at quitting time, huh?”

He shrugged again and flipped his soggy toothpick to the floor, where it joined, I’m sure, hundreds of its cast-off brethren. Scratching absently at himself, he noisily let go some swamp gas. God, what a class act.

“Yep.” I bent a little lower over my mug, trying to ignore the sulphorous smell wafting my way. “Later tonight this place will be the hot spot of Harrisville. Am I right?” Although with Smilin’ Jack here behind the stick, maybe not.

He still said nothing, and I was done. Trying to pump him would take hours, time I simply didn’t have the luxury to waste. It appeared I’d shot my bolt here. Nearly five minutes I’d spent grilling the man, and for my trouble had gotten six sentences, two shrugs, and a fart. The talky, wisecracking barkeep: another stereotype, shot to perdition. Compared to this guy Calvin Coolidge had been an unrepentant rachet-jaw.

Shelling a final peanut, I considered the next course of action. Obviously my best bet would be to return later tonight, and hope somebody more forthcoming would be working. Or if Jerry was still here maybe he’d be more talkative with the local gentry pounding back happy hour drinks.

Either way, I was done. For now. Draining the rest of my beer, I set the mug down heavily on the bar.

“ ‘Nother?” he asked, as if he really didn’t care one way or the other.

“No thanks, I’m strictly a one-beer man. But the peanuts were outstanding. My compliments to the chef.”

Staring at me like I’d just beamed in from the Crab Nebula, Jerry reached in his apron for another toothpick. Taking that as my cue, I flipped a five on the bar and left.

*

The binoculars I was using were military grade, black and compact with a built-in digital camera, and the guy at the PX where I’d bought them had said you could almost see inside the moon’s craters with them. That was fine, but what I needed to do right now was scope out the workings of GeneSys.

After I’d left Jerry’s I’d checked in at the town’s only hotel, and then driven past the facility again, this time going another half-klick down the road before finding a secure place back under some dense growth sycamores to hide my car. Then I’d jogged back off-road toward the dome, at last coming to a small grassy hummock across from it. I found myself within a hundred yards of the complex.

Cautiously I took the Zeiss Conquest glasses from their case and peeped my head over the top. As I did, that weird otherness once again began prickling the back of my neck. Since it was obvious this feeling wasn’t going to be going away anytime soon, I guessed I might as well stop complaining about it and start using it.

I used the next two hours to slowly work my way around the perimeter, stopping several times to reconnoiter. Nothing. My last stop found me back at my original position, and I settled in. That was two hours ago, with nothing to show. Time had slowed to a crawl as I scanned. Sweat lazily meandered down my back, making the place between my shoulder blades itch like I had a bad case of jungle rot.

To take my mind off it, I began humming a snatch from Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
. For some reason it seemed to fit here.

The air was still blisteringly hot, even at nearly six p.m., as heavy and oppressive as wet wool. Granny used to call this “stormin’ weather,” the kind that can change things in a flash.

How can you tell? I’d asked her as a boy.

The trees
,
she replied. Check the trees when you feel the air get like this.

But check for what, Granny?

Leaves showin’ silver, boy
,
she said with a nod.

What she meant by that country term was that if the leaves on a tree turned over, revealing their silvery undersides, that meant rain was on its way, along with a break in the heat. Does it work? Maybe six times out of ten; as good as the local weather guy.

Pulling my eyes away from the binoculars I checked the tree line across the road. No silver there, not yet. Only the dark green foliage on the oaks and poplars sparsely growing between the twin rows of cyclone fence around the dome. The insects covering the branches screamed in unison like inmates at an asylum, the cadence bizarre and undulating.

The shift at the complex had changed an hour ago. While I’d watched, the two guards manning the security shack chain-smoked cigarettes and sniggered like eight-year-olds over a private joke. A few unmarked white panel trucks had come and gone through the gates, driving as slowly as if they were hauling dynamite. For the fifth time since I’d settled in I reflected on what a forbidding place GeneSys was.

And meanwhile the oppressive air mercilessly choked every pore.

Something was missing. All I was seeing were trees, fences, guards, and that sci-fi dome. Nothing else. Nothing. I felt my fists knotting. What kind of a factory was this, anyway? What—

Smokestacks.

I looked again. That’s what was missing. No smokestacks.

But so what? In a place this futuristic, smokestacks would have been an anachronism anyway. I stared through the binocs once more, realizing there were no vents on the dome of any kind, at least that I could see. Again, so what? Why was that important? I pulled the glasses away, my brain spinning.

It’s funny how the subconscious can sometimes bail you out. Because as I lay there fretting, suddenly, almost like a gift, an idea materialized. And with it, three distinct letters appeared in my mind:
EPA.

I smiled, nodding in understanding. EPA.

Chapter Fifteen

B
efore I left home I’d put a small Biltz badge-making machine, along with a laminator, in the car’s trunk. Several times in the past I’ve had to use them to make up phony IDs or security passes, as common sense tells me it would be stupid to ever involve local print shops in supplying these. The name of the game, always and forever, is keep the circle small.

I called Seth then, but got his voicemail; I supposed he was still with his family. As I’ve said before, prior to heading out on an op I usually tell him what I’m going to do (and to a lesser degree Marsh and Walt), but no more than that. As Ben Franklin once put it, “three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” Not that I’d ever want my friends out of the picture, but the analogy holds. You involve too many people in an operation, and the odds go up considerably that operation will fail. Probably catastrophically.

My dodge this time was I was the new regional inspector for the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, and had just assumed duties for this quadrant of the state. That persona seemed solid. You’d be surprised—or maybe not—at how far the average person will go to placate a member of the federal government. That probably doesn’t speak well of the trust we have in those officials, but I planned to use that fear to open closed doors.

*

Seven-thirty p.m., and Jerry’s Time Out was, as the saying goes, a happenin’ place. But then it would have to be: as near as I could tell, it was the only bar in town. I’d spent most of the day marking time, scoping out GeneSys from different angles. After my sweaty afternoon, I’d stopped back at the hotel to shower and change before heading over to friend Jerry’s.

Once there I found the room packed with hard-drinking, chain-smoking (obviously the enforcement of Ohio’s indoor smoking ban was being ignored), laughing-too-loud people. On the TV set ESPN2 was showing some weird, incomprehensible sport that appeared to be a combination of
jai alai
and field hockey. Ratings time again.

Predictably the jukebox in the corner had come to life. Lucky me. Somebody with a mean streak had loaded it with quarters, and now the thing was bellowing out country tunes with a bass line loud enough to loosen plaster. An aficionado once told me they call that stuff boot-scootin’ music, but nobody here was dancing. No room. Usually I would have felt right at home in such an establishment. Not tonight.

Sliding onto the only available stool, I waited my turn. Back behind the bar I noticed Jerry was raking in the money like they were about to recall it. Now I saw he had himself a couple of helpers.

The first man was busy drawing drafts and pouring mixed drinks. He looked to be nearly seventy, complete with the watery eyes and shuffling gait that sometimes affects the elderly. His ponderous upper lip lay buried under a huge, yellow-stained mustache that hung straight down from his nose like drapes. It was the kind of ‘stache the old men back in Gibbs used to call a “soup-strainer.” The gentleman was stooped and gray-haired, and I would have bet a nickel he answered to the nickname Pop. I couldn’t tell if Pop’s permanent squint was due to his age, or the haze of cigarette smoke hanging like studio fog in the room.

The other barkeep was a much younger man, black-haired, and well-built, not yet thirty. He had a quick smile and easy banter that the customers, especially the ladies, seemed to eat up. Working the room with nonstop chatter, he made his way around the tables with the economical moves and fluid grace of a wide receiver.

And then there was the third man, old Jerry himself. He seemed content to stuff the cash register, letting the other two do most of the chores. The system appeared to work.

During a momentary lull in the clatter the older barman came over and raised his eyebrows at me. It was as good a way as any of asking what I wanted to drink. This afternoon’s beer had been okay, so I thought I’d order another one.

“I’ll have a draft, Pop. Sam Adams if you have it.”

“Nope.” He blinked slowly. “Miller and Bud Lite’s all we got.”

“Miller then.”

“Okay …” He moved over and drew one from the tap. Setting it down in front of me, his look was quizzical. “You’re new in town, ain’t you?” His squint grew deeper as another thought dawned. “And how’d you know my nickname, anyway?”

Eyeing the creamy head on the beer, I figured I owed myself a nickel. “Lucky guess.”

Pop shuffled off, muttering.

I half-twisted around on the stool to check out the room. Sergeant VanDerBeek used to have a saying: “There’s three kinds of people in this world, John. Those who watch things happen, those who make things happen, and those who say, ‘what happened?’ ”

Inwardly I smiled at the memory because in a couple of minutes I was going to start asking these raucous barflies some questions. And then we would see what would happen.

Although taking another pull on my beer, I wondered if that would be a good thing or not. Because here was something disconcerting. Every so often, whether they meant for me to catch them at it or not, those same barflies would stare frankly at me, hold it a moment, and look away. And the looks I was getting were markedly unfriendly.

I felt a little bit like Marshall Will Kane, Gary Cooper’s character in
High Noon,
waiting for the killers to arrive. Or maybe Sean Connery in
Outland
(which was nothing more than a remake of
High Noon
, set in outer space).

Turning to the patron on the stool to my left, I nodded toward the room. “Some place, huh?”

The man ignored me while he stared at the bar, slurping his drink. “It is what it is,” he then stated in a flat tone.

Oh, good, a philosopher. Maybe later we could discuss the finer points of Plato’s
Republic.

“You’re right about that, friend,” I agreed amicably, and pointed at the drink in his hand. “Can I buy you another?”

The man turned his attention from his highball to me, and I got my first good look. It wasn’t a world-class experience. If you looked up “thug” in your Webster’s, you’d find his picture beside it.

He was about my age, dressed in scuffed biker boots, dark black jeans, and a worn green plaid shirt. He was beefy going to fat, and what few hairs he had left on his bald pate he’d glued down as flat as pencil lines.

Below black wooly caterpillar brows the man’s eyes were as gray and merciless as the North Atlantic. Judging by his pebbled skin, he’d obviously battled acne in his youth; just as obviously, he’d lost that war. His face was littered with cratered scars, and idly I wondered if he’d mind if I brought in my binoculars to explore them. Probably.

“I’m not your friend.” His voice was as grating and hollow as Vincent Price’s had been in
The Abominable Doctor Phibes.
“And no, you can’t buy me another. I don’t like you.” By his slurring, my guess was he’d been here a while.

“Not a problem. Just trying to be neighborly. But let me give you two parting words.” I leaned closer. “Belt. Sander.”

For the first time, he smiled. That allowed me to get a peek at his teeth, and I wished I hadn’t. I’d never seen anything quite like them. They were snaggled, tiny, and very white, like broken baby pearls.

Not taking his eyes from me, the man—call him Dead-eyes—addressed a guy on his left, a dark-haired, skinny dude with a profile like the hood ornament on a ’37 Pontiac.

“Did you catch that, Chet?” Dead-eyes chuckled. “It appears we have us a com—” He belched. “A comedian.”

The hood ornament laughed, “A-hyuk-hyuk-hyuk,” like a Tex Avery cartoon.

I grinned back. “Yo, Chet. I hear Warner Brothers needs a new mascot.”

Chet quit laughing and looked at Dead-eyes, clearly not getting it. It was plain who the brains of this duo was. That wasn’t saying much.

Dead-eyes regarded me. “You know, I don’t much care for your mouth.”

“Neither do I. But it keeps my nose from flopping down onto my chin.” Part of me wondered just what it was I thought I was doing.

“Is that supposed to be funny? Are you some kind of a funny man?”

“Yeah, I am,” I admitted. “Funny girl was already taken.”

Why on God’s green earth was I baiting this guy? I didn’t know, but there was something about him, about this whole place, that set my internal radar to flashing. Edgar Allen Poe had called what I was doing “the imp of the perverse.” As good a term as any.

Shooting me a contemptuous look, Dead-eyes stood, picked up his drink, paused, and tossed it back. Carefully placing his empty glass on the bar in front of him, he began walking away, Chet aping him. These two.

“Stay loose, funny man,” Dead-eyes said over his shoulder. “We’ll meet again.”

I almost sang in a harsh deep baritone to his back, “Don’t know where, don’t know whennnn …,” but I didn’t. Taking another measured pull of my beer, I considered my options. There didn’t seem to be all that many.

About that time the younger bartender sidled up to me, a tray of empties in his hands. “I’d rethink trying to antagonize Blakey Sinclair if I were you,” he muttered.

It was nice Dead-eyes had a real name. He had enough handicaps in his life as it was.

The server continued, “He’s one of Eli Cross’s enforcers. A real hard guy. He’s tougher than any man around here. So he says.”

“Could be. But I’m not from around here. Who’s Eli Cross?”

The young guy shook his head. “Look, fella, whatever you do, just take it outside, huh?”

“Sure. No sense adding to the blood already on the floor.” I pointed at the stain I’d spotted earlier that day, right by the stool’s leg. “Is that some of Blakey’s doing as well?”

“Come on, man.” The waiter’s words were plaintive. “I need this job.”

I held up a placating hand. “I’ll be good. Promise.”

Right then I heard movement behind me, and I swiveled around to see.

Blakey and Chet were standing beside a table for two that held a college-age kid and his equally youthful date. Neither the boy nor his girl appeared to be a day over twenty, and both were studiously ignoring the two thugs hulking over them like turkey vultures.

“Looking good, Diane,” Blakey grated, blowing boozy breath. “But how is it you don’t seem to remember what I keep telling you? Didn’t I tell you I don’t like you hanging around with this guy? Didn’t I say that?” He turned his gaze on the boy. “Leave. Now.”

The kid hunched his shoulders and stared at the table, not answering.

Blakey glowered while Chet jiggled his fingers and bounced on the balls of his feet, jazzed and plainly ready for whatever. The bar’s noise level dropped by half as the patrons watched the drama unfold; the jukebox even picked that moment to finish its song.

Blakey reached down and clutched the back of the boy’s arm, his knuckles turning white with force. I’ll have to give him this, he didn’t cry out, but simply stared around the room, seeking help from any quarter. There didn’t seem to be any forthcoming.

As for me, I wasn’t ready to throw in. Yet.

Still bent low as he squeezed, Blakey’s voice was even. “You’re not listening to me, sweetcakes. I told you to leave. That wasn’t a request.”

Fighting back tears, the boy violently shook his head.

The girl, Diane, picked that moment to jump up. “Leave him alone, Blakey!” Her voice rasped raw, her cheeks wet and flushed with embarrassment and anger. “You’re bigger and older than Danny. Just leave us
alone!”

“And you’re out of line, Diane. Again.” With that the older man’s left fist rocketed out, as quick as a mamba, and hooked the girl like a ball bat directly under her left eye.

The cracking sound of it was harsh, an obscenity of noise. Shrieking like she’d been shot, Diane fell, slamming to the floor with a crash. I balled my fists at the sight, but stayed mum, letting it play out. The boy, Danny, needed the chance to redeem himself.

And I guess finally he’d had enough. Leaping to his feet, red-faced and screaming with rage and shame, he faced his tormentor. To no avail. The creep effortlessly grabbed the kid by the front of his shirt and lifted, and still nobody in the bar moved a muscle to help.

Okay.
Now
I was ready.

“Hey, Blakey,” I said. He cranked his head my way, his eyes now alive and burning.

“You’re mighty tough with children, son.” My tone was deceptively breezy. “As John Wayne put it, how are you when they come a little bit bigger?”

Releasing the boy with a hard shove, Blakey favored me with a measured gaze. “You know, sport, I had the feeling the two of us weren’t done. Let’s just see.”

Grinning like a rhesus monkey, Chet bobbed his head at us both, going “a-hyuk-hyuk-hyuk” again. That could grow wearisome over time, I bet.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Pop pick up a phone from beneath the bar. But that was all the consideration I could give him, because suddenly Blakey was right there, his fist flying toward my face at half the speed of light.

I danced away, barely managing to slip the punch, the patrons screeching their chairs back to give us more room. I noted their eyes were alight with pleasure, and I didn’t much blame them. In a small town, as they say, fun’s where you find it.

“Not bad.” I went into a defensive posture. “You’ve had some training.”

“Glad you approve.” Blakey’s next haymaker, a left hook, whistled past, missing my nose by inches.

“Just not good enough training, I’m afraid,” I said.

That was a lie. I could tell by the way he was pacing himself Blakey had been taught well by someone. But the liquor was making him cocky, exaggerating his moves and slowing him down. I hoped to capitalize on that. There’s training, and then there’s experience.

My tone was carrying. “Are you really sure you want some of this?” 

“Yeah I do.” Blakey rotated his fist a quarter turn. “Marine Force Recon. And I’m about to wax your ass.”

Grunting again, he swung another heavy one at me. I pedaled back once more, only this time I stumbled over somebody’s outstretched foot. As I did Blakey’s ham-like fist grazed my left temple, nearly ripping the hair free. Glancing though it was, there was still enough force backing the blow to make sparks jump behind my eyes.

Regardless of the pain from my war injuries, my daily workouts had stayed constant. And that was good. But lately the only martial arts one-on-one sparring I’d done was with Seth, and he’d gone easy on me. And that was bad. Because from his tough, bullying manner, Blakey probably got involved in some real world dust-ups every week. In other words, unless I was very good or very lucky, this boy could clean my clock.

I didn’t plan on giving him that chance as I kept moving away, just out of his reach. I figured I’d make my own chance happen. Granny always told me it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

“Marines?” I taunted. “That’s funny. I didn’t know the Corps took derelicts.”