Jake Caldwell Thrillers Read online

  Their names ran along those lines of hard living etched in her face. Luther, Nicky, Eli, Willis, Stony, Warsaw, Jake. The curl had disappeared from her bouncing mane over the years, like the hair straightened on its own from the weight of despair, the weight of knowing she would never leave Warsaw.

  “So, how is he?” Jake asked.

  Janey pondered the question. Her eyes were dark and heavy, once full of life, now full of something else. She kicked the cigarette butt into the overgrown grass.

  “Cancer is eating him alive,” she said. “We keep pumping him with drugs to deal with the pain, but he moans when he’s awake and groans when he’s asleep. Every third day or so he actually knows what the hell is going on. Ain’t any way for anyone to go.”

  “Some would say he deserves every ounce of pain he’s in.” Janey cringed as if he slapped her. Damn it. Why did he say that out loud?

  “Some would say that. I wouldn’t,” she said.

  Janey saw some of the shit he and Nicky had gone through, but didn’t experience it herself, which must have made it easier to fudge the memory and forgive. Stony didn’t necessarily like having a girl. Bitched about it all the time. But through the bitching and moaning, he treated her more humanely than his sons.

  “Where is he?”

  “In his chair in front of the TV. He seems to like having it on, like it gives him something to focus on besides the pain in his gut. I just need some help.”

  “Why don’t Gramma and Grandpa haul their ass up from Louisiana and help?” Jake asked.

  “They died years ago. I left you a message.”

  “Ahh, sorry,” he said. Asshole. “I don’t know anything about what to do.”

  “There’s a nurse who comes in the mornings, monitors his meds, changes him. Gives him a sponge bath every few days.”

  Jake sniffed the air wafting through the front door.

  “Doesn’t smell like she’s done it in a while.”

  Janey shifted, a hint of controlled impatience. He had no idea what she’d been through the last few years, and especially the last few months. He didn’t want to know then and was pretty damn sure he didn’t want to know now.

  “He’s dying, Jake,” she said. “He’s past the point where the home nurse and I can do much more for him. Maybe he needs to go somewhere. One of those Hospice Houses? Then again, I have trouble seeing him in one of those places on his last days. Hell, I don’t know. He doesn’t have much time.”

  “How much longer?”

  “The doctors won’t say. Anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks.”

  Jake leaned his head inside, then took a step back at the powerful smell. A musty mix of looming death and antiseptic cleaner. Maybe a hint of some lilac air freshener, its sweetness only adding to the nausea factor. He stepped inside and scanned the living room, memories washing over him. The fireplace where he and Nicky used to sit playing with their action figures, battling to the death on the brick mantle. The rocking chair where Mom would sit, sipping her tea, reading the Westerns she loved so much, occasionally knitting doilies that would adorn the coffee tables of her friends. Her brown eyes flitting between what she worked on and the front door. Waiting for Stony to come home from whatever bender he was on. She might sit for days at a time. Stony disappeared like that. He’d go to town on some errand and disappear for a week.

  The old man’s tool belt, covered in dust bunnies, lay abandoned in the corner by the fireplace. Stony used to build houses, the one thing at which he excelled other than drinking—and beating his wife and kids. Jake still had a scar on his temple from the ring. His tenth birthday when he had the gall to wear Stony’s tool belt for a school project. Most fathers would actually help their kids build a bird house, maybe swell in pride at the sight of their son wearing the tools of their trade. Most fathers.

  Jake resisted the overwhelming urge to run again. He didn’t need to be here, didn’t want to be here. To hell with the old rotting bastard. That wasn’t his father in there, Jake never had one as far as he was concerned. The feeling coursed through his veins, screaming and lighting his brain on fire, the same urge that raged through him at eighteen. He might have bolted had Janey not stroked the back of his arm, anchoring him. Besides, even if he bailed on Stony, he still had to fill his obligation to Keats.

  In the far corner of the living room rested the old brown recliner, the Styrofoam stuffing peeking through the worn armrests. Dad’s chair that nobody but him could sit in. You might manage a spell in it while he was gone, but he’d know. The second he dropped his bony ass in his chair he’d sense some change in the cushion or smell something funny. His eyes would fire up and dart from family member to family member until he found the guilty party. He’d give a tight-lipped smile, and nod, a bobblehead on a tight spring. He wouldn’t do anything then, but he would remember.

  An old floor lamp cast a glow on to the yellowed skeleton in the chair. The legs and torso covered with a thick afghan blanket, howling, white timberwolves on it. One of those blankets spied in a thrift shop with wonders of why the hell anyone would buy something like that. The hands twitched on the armrests, scratching at the emerging stuffing; mere bones covered by paper-thin skin. His thick, red hair replaced with white wisps hanging limply against a sunken face. His once lively eyes cast a dull, uninterested gaze toward the television sitting in its usual place against the wall. The five o’clock news from Kansas City on the tube with no sound.

  The shock of his father in this helpless condition pulled Jake across the threshold. Janey placed her hands on either side of the doorjamb as he approached. With each deliberate step, the old man’s labored breathing grew louder, a rattling sound as the air bounced off his mucus-lined lungs. His jaw hitched open and shut, lips pulled in against toothless gums. Jake stopped at the chair and squatted, unsure what to do.

  The memory movie rolled, flashes of times long ago. Over the years he only focused on the bad times, the beatings and the verbal rants. Lashes with the belt, a tree switch, or whatever else his father could get his hands on. As he took in what remained of his father, other things surfaced. Helping Stony fix the car of a couple with a young baby who couldn’t afford to get it towed to town. Playing catch with Jake and Nicky in the back yard, showing them how to throw a curveball. Patiently helping Jake thread a worm on a hook when they went fishing at the pond, not even getting angry at Jake’s squirms as the worm drew back on itself when pierced with the hook. A high five and a rare hug when Jake shot his first deer. Another one when Jake broke the school record for touchdowns in a single season in high school.

  His father struggled to breathe, and Jake’s mind drifted to the comic books he had as a kid. One of Batman’s arch enemies. A split personality. One side of the villain’s face was the dashing district attorney do-gooder Harvey Dent. The other side, the scarred and crazed villain Two Face. You could look at Harvey Dent and try to justify the things Two Face did. Stony had his share of Harvey Dent moments, but his Two Face moments greatly tipped the scales. The bad always outweighed the good. In the end, the bad was all that mattered.

  Stony’s head stirred, shaking almost imperceptibly from side to side. A few rapid blinks over the vacant eyes. They moved to his lap and slowly to Jake. Jake’s heartbeat fast as those eyes pulled focus and saw him, really saw him there. His father’s thick, eyebrows furrowed together, and recognition flickered. Jake was unsure if he wanted to reach out and touch his hand or walk out and drive back home. Maybe he had a little Two Face in him as well.

  “Hey, Stony,” he said at last, hands clenched tightly together on top of his knees. What else could he say?

  Stony grunted and whatever electrical circuits fired in his brain to bring him briefly to life clicked off and the vacant gaze returned. His head rested back against the tattered recliner and the rattled breathing started up again.

  “I gotta get to work, Jake,” Janey said behind him. “There’s food in the fridge and he shouldn’t need any medication for a while. I wrot
e the meds down on a list on the table. I’ll swing back on my dinner break to check on you.”

  Jake focused on the howling wolves on the blanket covering his dad’s legs.

  “Call if you need anything,” Janey said.

  It wasn’t until her car started and crunched over gravel did the tears roll down Jake’s face.

  Chapter Nine

  The cook house was a shit-heap that passed the state of condemned two decades ago. Willie took in the sagging, rotting front porch of weather-beaten wood forming a creepy grin under a pair of broken windows. Gray paint peeled off in long strips like flayed skin. Overgrown trees and thick bushes on the side hugged the tiny ranch like the place would collapse if you cut them away.

  Bub climbed out of the truck. “What a creep hole.”

  “Yup,” Willie said. “The location’s perfect, but I got a feeling we’re gonna get dirty as hell trying to clean it out to get ready to cook.”

  “Place looks haunted.”

  “Ain’t no such things as ghosts, Bub. Shane picked the place. We might as well get busy gettin’ it ready. Be hell to pay if it isn’t.”

  Willie moved to the porch, testing the wood before putting his full weight on it. He kicked away empty beer cans and cigarette butts. Someone had been using the place as a hangout. Probably local kids doing some daytime drinking. Willie sure wouldn’t come out here at night. If Shane worried about any foot traffic, he wouldn’t have picked the site in the first place.

  Shane was dead on about the location. The house sat a quarter mile down a rutted lane off Poor Boy Road. A rusted, four-railed, green gate overgrown with foliage guarded the entrance. They drove by twice before finding it. A footpath ran along the side of the house and disappeared into the woods. Willie didn’t know where the footpath led but would scout it himself tomorrow.

  He touched the rusty front doorknob, afraid it would crumble in his hand. The door resisted but eventually gave in with a ghostly groan. The movement kicked up a thick layer of dust that Willie let settle before he moved inside. Something squealed and scurried away in the darkness.

  “This place makes my trailer look like the Taj Mahal,” Willie said.

  “What the hell is the Taj Mahal?” Bub asked behind him. Willie rolled his eyes and stepped in.

  An old dust-covered sofa with rat-eaten cushions occupied most of the space in the tiny living room. A couple of folding chairs sat around a beat-up coffee table, littered with beer cans and an overflowing ash tray. An old console television with half a red brick protruding from the broken screen rested in the corner. A floor lamp stood in the other corner with a yellowing pile of the Benton County Enterprise at its base. Willie checked the dates on the newspaper. Two and a half years old.

  A narrow dining room with a cheap card table surrounded by four mismatched chairs lay across from the living room. An old china hutch towered behind it, empty except for a few chipped plates and a black and white picture of a rail-thin man in a ragged shirt and a fat woman in an awful diamond-patterned dress, both wearing expressions of equal misery. Willie picked up the picture, wiping the dust layer away with the side of his hand.

  “Who is it?” Bub asked from the doorway.

  “Royce Weathers,” he said. “Always wondered where the old asshole lived.”

  “Royce? He’s been dead for years.”

  “Gotta be at least five. He used to tear it up with my old man. Wonder what happened to the wife? Can’t remember her name.”

  “Mable, I think,” Bub said, the wood floors creaking under his weight as he stepped inside. “She bailed town two seconds after they threw the first shovel of dirt on his coffin. Used to see her around but haven’t seen hide or hair of her in a couple years.”

  “Can you blame her? I wouldn’t want to come back to this shithole, either.”

  Willie tossed the picture back on the hutch and walked the short hall leading to the kitchen. A few black-crusted dishes lay abandoned in a sink covered with mold. Next to it, a grimy, white refrigerator Willie vowed not to open. He returned to the kitchen and flicked a light switch up and down a few times with no effect.

  “Gonna have to get some lights up here. Only a couple hours till dark,” Willie said, inwardly groaning at the prospect of hefting the bulky generator. He worked the faucet handle at the sink, getting nothing but a shudder of pipes and no water. He pulled out a notepad, making a list of supplies they’d need, and handed it to Bub.

  “Go to Walmart and pick these up.” He reached into his pocket and peeled off a few twenties. “Pick up Howie and Bennett on your way back. It’s gonna be a long, dirty night getting this place ready.”

  Bub trudged like a little kid asked to clean his room but had to figure driving back to town would be better than hanging out there. Willie followed him out to the truck and grabbed a few brooms and trash bags he brought with him. Bub wedged himself behind the wheel, fired up the truck and took off toward town. A breeze rustled through the trees, branches scraping the old shingled roof. Thinking about the money, Willie got busy.

  Chapter Ten

  After an hour sitting in his mother’s rocking chair, his attention alternating between his father’s labored breaths, ways to track down Langston and the Royals game on the muted television, Jake got up and wandered through the house. The kitchen hadn’t changed in twenty years. The same dishes he ate off as a kid dried in the dish rack next to the sink. He opened the fridge. Pre-packaged lunch meat, some lettuce, a jar of pickles and a six-pack of Budweiser. He shut the door and wandered past the living room and down the hall.

  He ran his hand along the wall where he and Nicky first attempted dry walling. A fight over something stupid that spilled into the hallway. Jake got Nick into a headlock, swung him around and put his head into the wall, punching through the plaster below the framed school pictures of them from a couple years before.

  Nicky’s face and hair were covered with white powder and chunks of dry wall, looking like some sort of half-assed ghost. They alternated wary glances between each other and the hole, wondering how bad Stony would whip their asses.

  Jake took the worst of the whipping. Not because he had to, but because he could take it more than Nicky. They both learned how to tape, mud, sand and paint the next day. Over and over again, day after day until they more or less got it right, or until Stony got too drunk to really care. Mom came in when Stony went on a beer run and switched out the bright light bulb for a dimmer one to help hide the tape seams.

  He stood by the closed door. Mom and Dad’s room. Jake remembered running in there and climbing in bed with Mom during thunderstorms when Stony was gone. If Stony was home, Jake just trembled beneath the blanket in his own bed. He once tried to crawl in with his parents, but Stony shoved him to the floor and called him a pussy. Jake passed his parents’ door without opening it. He hadn’t been in the room since Stony made him go in there with Nicky to pick out the dress Mom would be buried in.

  There were two doors on the right. One for Janey’s room, one for the room he and Nicky shared. He peeked into Janey’s. No remnants of her childhood, just a pitted, black-iron bed frame and a twin mattress next to a tiny lamp with a timeworn cone shade and a copy of the Bible perched atop a scarred nightstand. Her old dresser retired to the corner of the room under the only window, a thin gray layer of dust gathered on its barren surface.

  Jake stood at the closed door to his old room, one he’d opened and shut thousands of times. He placed his hand on the knob and jerked it away on contact as if the knob was red hot. Too early to tackle that one. Instead, he returned to the living room.

  Stony slept, drawing in hitched, raspy breaths. Jake went to the refrigerator, drew out one of the cans of beer, and went out the side door, past the carport to the back deck. The deck looked down the hill toward the pond a hundred yards away. The algae-covered water partially hidden by a row of untrimmed evergreens, lit up by the bright moon. He cracked open the beer, took a deep pull and dropped into a yard sale, plastic-strapped
chair at a damaged wood table that saw its best days twenty years ago. Stony never believed in throwing anything away.

  He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contact list. He made three calls—one to a dirty cop he knew in Kansas City, one to a dope head in Independence and one to a mid-level gorilla named Matthews who worked for one of Keats’ competitors in St. Louis. The cop and the dope head never heard of Langston, and Matthews didn’t answer. Jake left a message, but doubted he’d get a call back. The last time he saw him, Jake broke both his legs with a sledgehammer after trashing two of his cronies. He tossed the phone on the table and stared at the black water of the pond.

  He and Nicky used to fish at the pond every chance they got. Stony kept it well stocked, one of the few nice things he did for them. He and Nicky would dig up fat earthworms as thick as your pinky in the muddy banks. On the constant lookout for snakes hiding in the overgrown weeds. Skipping rocks to see whose could make it all the way across on the days the fish weren’t biting. Pulling out long catfish and feisty crappie and flinging the guts at each other while cleaning them under the carport.

  The pond where Janey found Nicky three years ago. Sprawled out on the sun bleached dock with its cracked boards and rusty nails, fishing pole dangling in the murky water, an empty heroin syringe next to him. Track marks up and down his arm, a ghost of a smile on his acne scarred face, and glassy eyes staring to the heavens, forever lost in the gray skies above.

  Janey eventually got hold of Jake. He’d spent the day staking out the place of a derelict who owed Keats a grand. After six hours sweating in his truck, Jake picked the lock on the back door of the grungy two story the guy lived in, searched the place and found over thirty-six thousand dollars hidden under a floorboard in a bedroom. Jake gave Keats the grand the guy owed him and kept the other thirty-five for himself. He’d been on cloud nine with his newly acquired wealth until his cell rang ten minutes later. From top of the world to hell in the span of sixty seconds. He still regretted staying in his truck throughout the funeral. Coward.