The Subtle Art of Brutality, page 5
“Mr. Buckner?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think they could trace this call if I asked them?”
“No. Again, as far as the police know, this adult woman left to enjoy the freedom America provides and she just called home to check in with her mother.”
“It’s just that...she won’t answer her phone or anything.”
“That’s not a crime. The police will tell you the hard truth just might be she doesn’t want to talk to you.” More crying. Sorrow. “You said it yourself: you don’t want to be part of the life Delilah left behind.”
I look Darla in the eye. She looks away. “But you might be.”
The only thing I hate worse than listening to an innocent woman cry is listening to a child cry. Darla shuffles through her box of pictures for a while. She singles a few out. Even smiles at one through her tears.
“Darla?” I say. Her name shatters the moment and her smile is stolen by the demons of her predicament. Sniffles. Breathing deep and jagged.
I ask: “Why would she not want you to tell anyone?”
“I have no idea.”
“Who would you talk to enough that would make her not want you to let them know?”
“I talk to everybody. Everybody. My baby girl has gone missing. Who wouldn’t I talk to?”
“I’d advise you against telling anyone.”
“Why?”
“Let’s assume she’s in trouble. She doesn’t know you’ve been talking to ‘everybody’ since she left. She just knows who you normally talk to. Whoever they are, don’t tell them. Play it safe.”
“But what if a friend or a relative hears from her? Knows something?”
“They’ll tell you. I’m going to question everybody through the course of this. Now, call the cops.”
“You said they won’t help.”
“I said this isn’t a crime. There’s a difference.”
“But you’ll help?”
“That’s what I do.”
“Find my baby girl, please. This is all my fault and I do not want her paying for my mistakes.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” I crush out my smoke and eyeball the bitter conditions outside. The sun has not been resurrected yet. The wind had become emboldened. I tighten my coat against its machinations and lay cash on the table.
“I’ll be in touch,” I say with finality.
“Where are you going now?”
“I’m going to shake down Pierce White.”
9
A note on the Vietnam War: not too long after Walter Cronkite told America and ostensibly the world that the Tet Offensive in Vietnam had failed when it hadn’t, the war drew to a close.
Seems our New World Benedict Arnold cast quite a wake. People listened. It’s all ancient history now. I was a sophomore in high school then. With the falsely preached abysmal failure of the Tet Offensive, the politicians running the war quickly lost their intestinal fortitude. Which is why generals are supposed to conduct war, but don’t tell Congress that. A month or two later, troops began to drift in back home, being peeled away from the frontlines in thin but consistent layers. It took America almost eighteen months to call all her boys home.
They stopped drafting when the first soldiers were recalled. When the last shipment came home to one degree of humiliation or another, to spitting and protesting, to joblessness and insults, I was a senior in high school.
The timing was a thing of unique coincidence.
A note on my war: the continent of Africa is nothing if it is not embroiled in dispute. Governments of nations constantly trading hands—many times through a blood spill—inhospitable conditions, violent seasons, thousands of miles dominated by nature and her fangs, broad groups of people who refuse to get along.
There’s nothing like a superpower nation broadcasting its failures over the news to invigorate its enemies. With ample footage of stupid hippies smoking dope and fucking one another in the dirt and rain, protesting the military with cart blanche, a small rebel army in the northeastern corner of African decided to strike while the fire was hot. Think the Rwandan Genocide. Same thing.
They were a half-militarized band of tribes, trained in part by Soviet defectors turned mercenaries and even some Arab military. They were collectively held together in part by religion, but mostly by a need to feed their power thirsts. It seems any third-world gang of monkey-fuckers will wear the same color beret, pick up a machete or mostly-functional AK-47 and begin slaughtering one another over some ancient blood feud or tribal rivalry.
Mostly they want to rape and pillage and butcher those who didn’t belong. So the enemy scavenged what munitions they could from the Soviets and started their death-mongering.
The new U.S. administration was eager to show the world it could still smash an opponent. The black eye left by Vietnam was still grotesquely swollen. This would be a quick fix. It would save face. And it was fine with me; rapists and child-murderers never warranted much beyond a horrific death as far as I was concerned. It’s all ancient history now.
I barely graduated high school on my eighteen birthday; the last Friday in May. Come Saturday: my draft notice. Marines. Boot camp started up the following Tuesday. Seems like the war machine issued one too many DD214’s between Vietnam and the African Conflict. I was infantry. They needed a lot of those guys.
It lasted for seven months, one week and three days before we had pummeled them into submission. It was never hard, per se, but there were so many of them.
I took two things from the war. One, since our enemies were plain clothed and looked just like everybody else, I got used to the idea of hunting for prey in a pack of lookalikes. It’s the same on the street: criminals don’t wear uniforms and march in order. They look like the very people they rape and rob.
Two, I learned that killing a man who is asking for it is only as hard as pulling the trigger.
Both have served me well.
First, I need a car.
The snow is a prizefighter: won’t quit and laying it on thick. By the time I wind up at the rehab clinic my feet are numb. I stay outside; I just lit another cigarette. Waste not, want not.
Cell phone out. I dial the number.
“Hello?” the receptionist says. Looking through the front window, I can see her behind her small desk. Red hair, bold green dress and just, in general, rather hideous. Her tone huffs, annoyed. She sounds extremely thrilled that her life led her to answering phones in an addiction rehabilitation clinic in a bad part of a bad town.
“Jeremiah Cross, please.”
“One moment.”
The hold music is New Age jazz done on synthesizer. Instead of relaxing me it stokes a deep, stomach-acid fire of annoyance. I almost hang up. Twice. I hear Jeremiah paged over the speaker system, while on the phone some retard with a basement and a jazz dream flits his fingers over plastic ivories as he maims bar after bar of some lost 8th and Vine song.
God I hate New Age anything.
A note on Jeremiah Cross: while there is a broad range of burnouts in the world, my personal favorites have to be burnt-out medics.
No one comes close. Think about it: a burnout on an assembly line starts not putting things together right. They don’t tighten their bolts, they intentionally forget their gaskets. They make a game of risking their customer’s lives in poorly constructed vehicles.
A burnt-out 911 operator takes nothing seriously. Kids call and request help and the operator demands to speak with a parent. They refuse to believe that the parent is dying and the kid is trying to save mommy.
But a burnt-out medic? Why, they wave severed limbs to gawkers driving by, slowing down to catch a glimpse of the wreck. They steal dope from their drug kits. They steal prescription pads and write their own medications. They’re the ones who make saving your life a funny little game in the back of a cramped ambulance while you’re racing down a bumpy road.
Jeremiah was a paramedic in Savannah for years before he went over the edge. He said it was one hell of a thing. “Richard, it was the kind of thing that, when it’s over and the dust settles and you’re lookin at all the bridges you’ve burned, you realize you’re not in prison, on skid row or dead and you get the fuck outta Dodge. It was that kinda thing.” That’s all he’d say about the event that ended his career there.
Over beers one night he did tell me about how he wandered from city to city, paying the fees to get his EMT license reinstated. Eventually he realized the burnout followed him from ambulance to ambulance, no matter where the city is located. Macon, Chattanooga, Gulfport, Fort Worth.
Demons are like that. When they find something tasty they’ll follow the scent wherever the tasty thing runs.
So he wound up here, in Saint Ansgar. Far west from where his demons where born.
“Yeah?” Jeremiah says.
“Hey. It’s RDB.”
“What’s up! RDB. You never call anymore. You just use me and go somewhere else!”
“I know. I should send you a flower bouquet or something.”
“More than that.”
“Listen, I need something. And fast.”
“I know better than to get involved with you again, but you had me at hello. What is it?”
“Two things,” I say, staring through the glass at the redhead. I decide she might look good naked. “Number one: stop talking to me like we’re homos.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Two: I need your car.”
“Sorry, I’m busy right now.” I can hear him start to hang up and I shout to keep him on the line.
“C’mon. My car is in the shop and I’m on a case.”
Quiet, quiet. Then: “So?”
“So there is a time limit involved. Missing persons case.”
“Then what you need to do is go consult a genie or a palm reader or something. My Auntie Janel found a baby she put up for adoption twenty years ago with the help of a palm reader. There’s this Indian chick—Indian with a dot, not Indian with a feather—who works about three blocks from here that screwed me out of seventy bucks but I swear she knew things about me that no one would—”
“Drop what you’re doing and hook me up, please.”
“What I’m doing right now is administering medications and spraying shit out of the seclusion room.”
“So a break would be nice,” I say. “A smoke break.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. Tell you what, you fight some coked-out bitch who needed a damn spit mask and restraints and enough Halidol to kill a horse and then see how generous you feel. Then, that coked-out bitch took a shit all over the—”
“Do it, Jeremiah. Tomorrow you’ll get a new junkie forcibly incarcerated and he or she will get the DTs and shit all over the seclusion room just like whoever did it today. What’s the difference if you hook me up now?”
Silence.
“GIVE ME THE FUCKING KEYS,” I say, loud enough for an echo to repeat me. “PLEASE.”
Jeremiah sighs. Quiet. The wind blows icicles down my back and I drag off my smoke just to replace the warmth inside the breeze is stealing away.
Eventually Jeremiah says: “Fine. But I barely put helping you out above spraying a garden hose on human feces.”
“You’re the best, Jeremiah. Where are you?”
“Sixth floor.” I step under the window I know he’s near.
“Near the break room where you guys open the window and smoke?”
“Yes.”
“So just open the window and drop the keys. I’m under you. I made it convenient.”
“Oh, well thank you. Tell me why, though.”
“I told you. A case. I’ll need the car for an hour, tops.”
“That’s not much of a case.”
“Okay, I’ll probably need it all day.”
“Tell me why.”
“Sorry. Client/detective confidentiality.”
“Goddammit, RDB, why—”
“I got you out of a drug rap. Give me the keys.”
“That was almost ten years ago when you still had juice with the department—”
“Keys.”
“I swear, if there is a dead dude stuffed in my trunk when I get off work tonight—”
“I wouldn’t do that to you, Jeremiah.”
“You already did, motherfucker.”
“I meant I wouldn’t do it again. I forgot about the last time.”
“Whatever. You forgot until I smelled the dirty bastard and surprise, surprise. RDB at work.”
“I got rid of it. I don’t have time for this.”
“What if I got pulled over? How would I explain that?”
“You didn’t.”
“You’re an asshole. I don’t know why I get involved with this shit.”
“Yes. Now drop them.”
The phone clicks off and I hear the window yank open. It wrenches with a creak the way a medieval tomb would. The keys fall down, landing right into my hand.
10
Pierce White’s office placard bears only three words beneath his name: Assistant Regional Manager.
The company Pierce works for has a large complex in downtown Saint Ansgar but White’s office is located in a satellite building ten miles north. From the outside, the single-story building is non-descript, the way business parks that don’t rely on foot traffic are: neutral earth tones, subtle landscaping, glass and store front signs designed to label as opposed to advertise.
I walk up to the receptionist and say: “Pierce White?”
She looks up from her Hollywood gossip rag and says, “Who? Me?”
“Which way to his office, sweetheart?”
She looks to her left and stammers. I just start walking that way. Corner office. Vertical blinds opened behind floor-to-ceiling windows that flank his closed door. Pierce White, Assistant Regional Manager.
I knock. See him through the glass. He stirs. Looks up. Perplexed. Thinks about not answering his door.
Pierce White: white guy, spends time at the gym but he’s not hard. That much is obvious by how absolutely beautiful his hands are. Dark, thick hair. Fat black slashes for eyebrows. Wire-rimmed glasses that say, Hey, I’m studious.
I stare at him. His eyes dart away. I knock again; a ram on a castle door. A picture falls from his inside wall. Two heads poke out of cubicles. He gets the message. Stands. Spends a long moment behind his desk, weighing options. Finally he subconsciously adjusts his tie one-handed and comes around the desk. Opens the door.
“Yes, Mister ...?” He adjusts his glasses with his left hand. Shiny wedding ring on the third finger.
“Boy, you bounced back after Brandy Medco.” Shove past him. Tour the office space. Smells like Pledge and Old Spice. I whistle and pretend I’m impressed. Weasels like him always bounce back.
“Excuse me, but I don’t know what—”
I turn and square up to him. Imposing. “When was the last time you spoke with Delilah Boothe?”
“Who do you think you are just barging in here—”
“My name is Richard Dean Buckner. I’m a detective looking for Ms. Boothe. Now answer me.”
“Hold on a minute now, do I need my lawyer?”
“Will he take an ass-beating for you?”
“I—uhhh...no.” Leary. Guarding now. His body language shows he’s afraid. Good. He leans back, half-cowering over his desk. Making distance.
“Then I don’t see what help he would be to you.”
He straightens up. Tries to be big. It doesn’t make him any manlier.
New angle: “Married again?” I point to his hand. “Moved on past Janet?”
“How do you know my ex-wife?”
“I am looking for the woman that caused Janet White to revert back to her maiden name. Richley, right? Janet Richley?”
Sweating now. Looks about.
“When was the last time you saw Delilah Boothe?”
Calm. Too calm: “I haven’t seen Delilah in quite some time.”
“You blew up after she squawked about your affair at the wrong water cooler?”
Straightens his tie again. Red rises in his neck and ears at the mention of his old catastrophe. Then: “I was justifiably angry when the girl I was sport-fucking told every blabber mouth in the office of Brandy Medco that one day she and I would be married. I never said I cared for her, let alone love her. Let alone marry her. Whatever delusions that split-tail conjured up while I was wasting time with her...they’re her own business. But, she made them my problem.
“Yes. I got just a tad angry.” He rolls his shiny new wedding ring around and around on his finger while he says this.
Read on Pierce White: Grade-A cocksucker. He’s scared of me, but he’s also sure he was slumming with Delilah and assumes everyone else thought so as well. And since he’s slumming, there should not have been repercussions like a divorce and getting fired.
“Married? Again?” I say.
“Yes.”
“That makes twice now?”
“Yes. A total of two, yes.”
“Why so bitter and spiteful towards Delilah?”
Cocky smirk. “You know, she just has a way of bringing it out in me.”
“Threatened her, right?”
“Now hang on. Are you police? You said ‘detective’ so I—”
I step into his personal space the way a bear does when the last thing you see is it swiping down. His breath is tinged with evergreen mint and the metallic smell of adrenaline. Fear. Fight or flight.
I stab a finger in his chest. “The last time you have seen her. Tell me now or I will knock that high-dollar nose job of yours right back to ugly-as-fuck.”
He actually touches his fingers to his nose, caresses. It’s as rare as Haley’s Comet to find vanity running this thick through a man who likes pussy.
“I saw her a few days before Halloween.”
“This Halloween?”
“Yes.”
A week or so before she went AWOL.
“Go on.”
“We...met at a hotel. Spent the night.”
Really.
“What hotel?”
“Boulevard Grand. You know the one, correct?”
