Stag, page 15
The smell that escaped was like poking a bloated dead animal. The odor got the best of Batey and he spun around and threw up into the grass. Fielding took a bandanna from his back pocket and held it to his nose. The wood of the stairs leading down looked punky and Fielding wondered which one would break on him. The night air was cold but a strange warmth spilled out from within. Fielding looked down the stairs. They disappeared into a darkness absolute. Into the throat of some beast without a name. Into the dark heart of the unthinkable.
Batey came up behind Fielding. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Fielding looked at him but didn’t say anything. He only nodded.
We go down there, Fielding said, we might not come back out.
You wanting to call it in? Batey asked. Get Marty out here? I’d be fine ending this nightmare.
Somethin tells me we call it in that chief of police might throw the book at me. Might throw the whole damn shelf.
I don’t think you’re wrong on that.
So we’re goin down?
Lead the way.
Fielding clicked on the flashlight and pointed it down the stairs. It made a white circle on the concrete floor.
Okay then, Fielding said.
Batey raised the gun and they started down the stairs. Each step creaked. The wood sounded like the moaning of a ship’s planks. At the bottom of the stairs and straight ahead the flashlight caught the image of a chair and a dead woman tied to the compression post. Her top had been removed. Her skirt hiked up and torn. Fielding seemed transfixed on her. Batey tapped Fielding on the arm. He said: Partner. Then he pointed.
Fielding swung the light around and caught a hanged man lifeless at the end of a rope. His face was blue and swollen. His eyes were glassed over and bulging in the skull. A shot man was collapsed on the floor. Fielding shined the light on the wall. It was covered in blood and gore and small fragments of bone. Shined it back on the dead man on the floor.
Mr Fairlane? Fielding said.
Your guess is as good as mine, Batey said.
Fielding shined the light back at the chair.
What do yeh think happened here? Fielding asked.
Haven’t a clue.
Looks like they did somethin to the girl.
You think that one shot the other then hanged himself?
Yeh better call this in, Fielding said.
Yep. And you better make yourself scarce.
What’re yeh goin a tell them?
Going to tell them I came out here alone on some anonymous tip about some poaching activity and that I found the cellar door open. I’ll call Marty and tell him. I’ll come back out here with him and let him find these three himself.
Seems thin.
Like new ice, Batey said, but I don’t think we got another way.
Batey went to the hanged man. Found his wallet in his back pocket. Opened it and saw all the money. Looked at his driver’s license.
Lot of money, Fielding said.
Too much.
Batey put it all back in the wallet and put the wallet back in the guy’s pocket.
Back outside they stood under the low clouds and the humming power lines and Fielding put his hands on his hips and looked out at the junk in the field and then down the cellar stairs and then at Batey and shook his head. He said,
None of this is right.
No it ain’t.
I mean it ain’t right. The three of them down there. One hanged, the other two shot. But here’s my question.
What question is that?
How are three people goin a slide that iron bar through the handles from the inside?
Hmm.
Yeah, Fielding said. Hmm.
A long moment passed and then Fielding said: They were put down there, weren’t they?
I’m starting to wonder.
That shoe we found. That was Eunice’s shoe. Eunice was in that basement at some point, wasn’t she?
Batey nodded. We got to find that girl.
Yes we do.
Fielding slid the iron bar back through the handles. He said: We’ll let Marty find it the way we found it.
Going back to the Bronco Fielding stopped at the Fairlane and opened the door.
What are you doing? Batey asked.
Nothin, Fielding said.
He reached in and grabbed the videotape.
I wouldn’t, Batey said.
I won’t.
But he knew he would. Fielding set the tape on the dash of the Bronco. Then they drove away.
36
THAT NIGHT A TERRIBLE DREAM. ONE IN WHICH THE LIGHTS OF the world were melting down upon him. The sun was a black dot and gave off a heat so intense that the very air felt a repudiation to breathing. He was cast about over the wet sand of low tide and the tidelands were infinite. It was snowing lightly despite the awful heat and the flakes were drifting down to the sand as if gravity did not hinder them. On closer examination, it was not snow but ash and he held out his hand to catch one and the falling ash appeared like sheds of dead skin. And within this the demented warble of a nameless songbird kept ratcheting out. It seemed to be heralding dawn but dawn could not happen here. Out in front of him there were figures lying in repose and spaced evenly at ten feet or so in a perfectly straight line. He walked away from the shoreline. In the tide pools there were neon crabs and balls of eels thin as pencils and barnacled flounders all huddled at the pool’s drying edges with mouths agape and sucking air on the surface. He walked on. Closer he came he saw the burned body of Molly Summers. Beyond her was the hanged man and further on he saw the bodies of the dead woman in the chair and the man who’d been shot and all of these bodies were lying naked over the sand.
The air was still and the only sound was of the bird somewhere in the distance. He knelt beside the body of Molly Summers. Her skin was no longer burned; she looked almost peaceful, like she was sleeping. The warble of the bird grew louder and with it the dull roar of water. He stood and looked toward the black sea. A gnashing line of white spilled toward him. He took a step toward it in disbelief. It seemed miles away and then all at once it was upon him. He turned to run. The water rose up. His feet pounded over the wet sand. He turned once and saw the wave lift up the body of the girl. The bodies of the two men and the woman. The dead limbs flailing like kelp. The birdsong was gone. There was only the water. The black sun’s heat raging in his lungs. Then like a giant hand it scooped him up and he rolled in the water. His eyes were closed and it boomed all around him. Then it all went silent and he opened his eyes and looked down at his feet to a deep ocean where no light could reach. He saw the corpses suspended in the water, their limbs and hair lifting and falling in slow undulation. And then as if on a timer their eyes snapped opened and they started swimming toward him and the fright made him take in a bellyful of water. And then he woke up.
37
HE AWOKE WITH A START. HE WAS SWEATING. THE SHEETS were damp and his hands were trembling. Sara, he said. Sara. But when he looked at the bed next to him she was not there and he remembered she never would be again.
He swung his feet out of bed and put them on the floor. The heeler was asleep at the foot of the bed and did not move. Fielding went to the bathroom for a drink of water. He drank a glass and then another. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. There was a little rain tapping on the glass. He knew he should go back to bed but the haunted world of that dream had left him wary. So he put on his robe and went downstairs and made some coffee.
The clock on the wall read 3:49. The coffee maker was starting to bubble. He stood looking through the big windows out at the darkness. Nothing to see there but looked anyway. Kept looking until the coffee was done. He went to the cupboard and took down a mug. That’s when he remembered the videotape he’d taken from the Fairlane. A sinking feeling came over him. Its very existence frightened him. He put down the mug and went to the front door and pulled on his boots and dressed in his slicker and put on his hat and went out into the rain. He crossed the drive toward the truck. The dirt of the drive had turned to mud. His boots made sucking sounds as they pulled free. He opened the door of the truck. Right where he had left it after Batey dropped him off. The danger it seemed to possess. Like coming across a sleeping pit viper.
Back in the house he stood looking at it while his coffee steamed in the air. Going this far, he knew, had already started it. It was like nudging a boulder from a mountain. It would only stop when it reached the very bottom.
He took the tape into the living room and slid it into the VCR and turned on the television. An awful unsettled feeling washed over him. He hit the play button. A static line fell down the screen like a theater curtain. There was no sound to it. At first Fielding didn’t know what he was looking at. His heart was pounding against his ribs. It was like it wanted to flee his body. To have no part in this.
The video opened on a dark room. Nothing but darkness. So black anyone watching might make the mistake of checking the VCR to confirm the video was even playing. Then came the switch of a breaker and there she was. The pale subject. Drugged looking and naked, but somehow alert. Her head turned about like it was chasing a hummingbird. She’d been decorated with feathers and what looked like twigs of sagebrush done up in her hair. A halo on her head. The same kind he had seen on Summers. Her eyes were painted black. Like a kind of mask. She appeared to be alone in the room. There was a long close-up of her breasts, like some obscene art house film. The same kind of shot between her legs, the skin smooth and hairless. The last close-up was of her face. She was crying and the tears streamed through the black paint and the tears mixed with the paint and ran in black rivulets down her face.
There was a smash cut to an abandoned factory. All the large boilers and bent and twisting pipes looked to have been out of use for years. In the middle of the wide concrete floor was a wooden table and on the table was the same naked girl. Fielding felt his palms go slick with sweat. His stomach balled up. Everything was humming. The camera closed in on her. She was tied to the table and she had a piece of black cloth tied around her eyes. The camera backed up and from the dark voids of the factory a parade of six figures emerged. They were holding candles and the votive flames seemed suspended of their own volition. The men too were also naked but their faces were hidden in grotesque carnival masks painted wildly like something out of Dante. They came and surrounded the table like acolytes. They stood motionless. Some fat, some skinny. The girl on the table writhed sluggishly. The flames of the candles leapt about like moths.
Another smash cut to the girl’s tortured face. All the sound had been removed and she was crying out in silence. Then one by one each of the men moved toward her. They tilted their candles to spill the hot wax over her isabelline skin and then one by one they took their turns.
When the last of them had stepped away a towering figure came forward. The mask he wore was made out of some kind of animal skin. Some stiff mangy hair coming off the chin like a billy goat. A broad set of antlers with feathers and sage dangling like distorted ornaments. Holes cut for eyes, but no mouth. Just the mindless facade of a nightmare that plagues a soul’s empty corners from the moment a soul is.
The antlered one approached her. He stood behind her. Her supine head level with his waist. He removed the blindfold. In a distinct moment of awe the girl looked up and did not cry. She did not scream. Only for a moment she went totally still. Completely calm. As if in recognition. As if in awakening. Her eyes gleamed with a crazed light as though the flames of every votive candle in that room were captured within her black pupils. And for a moment it was not fear in her eyes but salvation.
But there was no salvation and this was no awakening. This was the first dimming of the eyelids’ closing that shuts out all light to come. A darkness that would be forever. Infinite. And with one hand the man held the girl’s chin. Then Fielding cried out as the blade winked in the candlelight and erupted a thin crescent across her throat and the black blood pumped onto the table, to wash over the wood like wine and spill finally to the cold floor. Her eyes glazed over and eventually went flat. And one by one each man came to the table and buried his face into her throat.
38
HE DID NOT SLEEP. NOT A SECOND. NEVER EVEN CLOSED HIS eyes. The light was grainy with the coming dawn. The doves in the maple trees were waking and beginning to call. Buckshot was standing in the pasture with his head turned eastward to watch the morning come up. Fielding was sitting in a chair looking west over the flat green country. He glanced at the television screen. It was gray and lifeless. The videotape sat on top of it. He checked the wall clock. Seemed late enough to call Batey.
Later that morning Fielding stood at the window of Wilson’s hotel room with his arms crossed chewing on his thumb while Batey and Wilson watched the video. Fielding looked down at the traffic. Down at the people walking back and forth on the sidewalk. Mothers with small children. Men taking their coffee at the café. All of them ignorant to what was happening on the screen.
Neither Batey nor Wilson uttered a word. Wilson sat there jotting notes. He was watching it like some instructional workplace video. When the screen went black Wilson hit pause and turned back to Fielding at the window.
How many times have you watched this? Wilson asked.
Just the once.
And how did you happen to come across it?
Bad luck.
I am going to need you to be very specific on this, Wilson said.
I told yeh that already. Side of the road.
That sounds awfully suspicious.
I know how it sounds.
Wilson stood and went to the bureau. He straightened his tie. He brushed his hair over with his fingers. He poured a little bourbon into a crystal tumbler and brought it to Fielding.
It ain’t even noon yet, Fielding said.
It is somewhere, Wilson said. Somewhere it is.
Fielding took the glass but he did not drink it. Wilson went back to the television. He pressed rewind on the VCR.
He backed up to the point when the men started drinking the woman’s blood. Then he hit play. Each man would remove his mask momentarily before lowering his head. The image was a little fuzzy. It was hard to make out any discerning qualities.
Do any of these men look familiar? Wilson asked.
Most of them have their backs turned, Batey said.
Wilson said, Say you saw Mr Fielding walking down the street. You were behind him. Would you know it’s him?
Sure, Batey said. But that’s because I know him. I don’t know any of these men.
But maybe you do, Wilson said. And you just don’t know it.
What are yeh gettin at, Wilson? Fielding said.
Same thing you are.
And what’s that? Fielding asked.
Truth, Wilson said. These men on the tape, they’re not make-believe. Neither was that girl. And what they did to her really happened. All of this is real. That’s what I’m getting at.
Alright, Batey said.
Alright what? Wilson asked.
Roll it again.
Wilson nodded and rewound the tape. Then he pressed play.
Fielding and Batey were seated at a bar with a neon Rainier sign glowing above them. Leaning on their elbows. Not talking. The barman came and took their empties and brought fresh ones in their place and then he went away without saying a word. Better part of an hour must have gone by before Fielding said,
How’s yer club soda?
Sucks, Batey said. How’s the Rainier?
Sucks.
You know what I’ve been thinking about this whole time?
What have yeh been thinking about?
You think those guys we found in the cellar had anything to do with that tape?
I don’t know, Fielding said.
I had Marty run their names.
What did yeh tell Marty?
Told him I went out there on a poaching claim. Told him what I found.
Well, Fielding said.
Does it make sense to you that two guys with no criminal record would find themselves shot and hanged with a dead stripper?
No, Fielding said. No it does not.
I don’t think so either, Batey said. You know what else makes me think these guys were in the wrong place at the wrong time?
What’s that?
I think I know where that video was taped. And anyone without a criminal record would have no business being there.
What do yeh mean?
I think I know where that factory is. Where that video was made. I think I’ve seen it. Hell, I think I’ve been there.
Yeh gettin spooky on me? Fielding asked.
Might be spooking myself.
How do yeh know it?
Past life, Batey said. My DEA days. That factory shut down in 1956 and has been empty since. Old paper mill. Fifteen years ago we had some entry-level dope runners setting up in there. Some kind of hideout or something. Stashing the stuff coming in from Canada.
It’s by the water? Fielding asked.
Everything is by the water around here.
Why didn’t yeh mention this to Wilson?
Same reason you told him you found the tape on the side of the road.
Fielding nodded at the back mirror. Not at anyone in it. Just at it.
Okay, Fielding said. Well.
Well what?
This factory have a location or do yeh want me to guess?
Down in Tacoma, Batey said.
Are yeh proposin somethin here?
I don’t know what I’m proposing.
I think they’d call this an obstruction of justice.
I’d say that’d get us five to ten.
We’re building up quite a rap sheet between us, Fielding said. Aren’t we?
39
WILSON CALLED RAWLINGS’S OFFICE AND EVELYN SAID THEY were out.
They? he asked.
Yes, Evelyn said. Deputy Rawlings and Chief Price.
