The Witch Tree, page 7
He reached for his pants and dug out his cigarettes, jockeyed his shoulders into the box behind him, smoking.
He’d have to find Sally. He had seen her, after all. And what better time than now, when she’d be parked somewhere?
Tangletown, Whittier, Longfellow, he strode through one neighborhood after another. Even into darkest Loring Park. Long blocks, run down houses, old, falling down apartments. Here and there someone living in a car, but no Sally. No Cadillacs, rather early model Pontiacs, Chevys, Rice Burners, and the occasional badly rusted Volvo or Saab. Nightcrawlers. Stumblebums. Drunks. A dog walker, with a collie. And one diminutive figure who’d, from the distance of a block or so, been on him like an agaawateyaa, a shadow.
Pushing himself, he covered the area he and Joe had canvassed, even tried north of Augsburg, and when it was all but dawn and his feet were worse than sore, he headed back to the Evergreens.
Mounting the steps, he sensed someone behind him and turned, only to see – whoever it was – dart behind the Victorian across the street.
He’d have to look further west, he thought. And, if nothing else, he’d have to get Sally to leave for Seattle.
Or give her some protection until she could.
11
Sally
On a bench outside a donut shop, she studied the want ads in the Star Tribune folded over her knees. It was too cold to be outside, The Kruller’s bench still frosted where the sun hadn’t struck it, and the morning rush on so she was too nervous to sit at a table inside.
“Technician to sew labels on ball caps. That sounds interesting,” she said to herself, and with her pen, crossed it out.
Her knees drummed the paper from beneath, which made it hard to read, and she set her hand over them, pressing her heels flat. Up the block someone bent over her car, and she stood, and with a furtive shrug and a flip of his head, he moved away, her too new, canary yellow Eldorado all but a neon sign in this neighborhood. Break In. Vandalize this!
The print swimming, she tried to read, each line a vexing impossibility. Injection plastic mold operator. Must have three years experience…. Wonderful. Prep line fry cook. Hmmm. For… The Convention Grill? Sunny personality a must. She could try, but – fry cook?
Sally bit into her donut, still warm, rolled in cinnamon and sugar, and felt a wave of exhaustion.
Nights, the Cadillac’s windows fogged, which signaled she was inside, so she’d barely slept. Maybe she should get a place to live first, she thought, an apartment; but then, what if she couldn’t get a job?
A shadow crossed the paper, and she froze. When it didn’t move, she glanced up, expecting to see – a… midget?
His face set like some porcelain miniature in the peaked hood of his army coat, he smiled.
“Hello, little – person,” she said. And because she’d said it, she added, “I’ve got another donut if you’re hungry.”
He bumped up onto the bench beside her, swinging his booted feet, small as a child’s, the left misshapen. Her hands shaking, she wrapped a donut in a napkin and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said, in a reedy voice.
“You’re welcome.”
They sat eating, life going on around them, as if they did this daily, here some ritual, and the little man said,
“It’s you in the gold Cadillac, right? Saw it before, over at Little Earth. Was that you?”
Frowning, she said, “And what if it was?”
“Oh, it’s just that, if you were looking for a certain person, I can tell you, he’s been looking for you.”
“Michael?” When the midget nodded, she said, “I – I wanted to see if he was all right. And I thought – maybe he needed some of what I took from him; I felt bad, and… I wanted to give some of it back.
“Only, someone broke my window getting into my car, and I spent it all, having it repaired.”
She’d gotten a second coffee, to keep herself going through the ads, and she offered it to him.
“You’re most kind,” the midget said, taking it. He drank from the cup, his eyes on the street.
“Of course, we’ll have to find someplace better for you to park nights. Or – It’s Shorty, by the way.”
“Sally.”
Shaking hands, they sat back, having negotiated some kind of necessary formality.
“Shorty,” she said now, “have you ever asked yourself, ‘How did I come to be here?’” She glanced over at him. “Like your life went off somewhere and left you in this… place you don’t recognize? Or, yourself in it?”
“A long time ago,” Shorty said, “life called in the form of an elephant, Sweetie was her name.”
“You’re funny.”
“Oh,” Shorty said, “it was a very real elephant.” He lifted his left foot, regarded the oddly misshapen boot there.
“I’m sorry.” Sally felt herself blush, said, “I didn’t mean to be–”
“You weren’t. Rude. Or nosey. And, anyway, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
“Which is where?”
Shorty gestured to The Kruller, made a sweeping gesture with his hand, taking in the neighborhood.
Sally felt her throat burning. Her eyes glassed up, and she wiped her tears away. She was crying, and couldn’t stop it. It all just came at her, the true awfulness of her situation.
She turned to him, the little man on the bench in his strange clothes. He was studying her face. After a time, he said,
“What?”
“I stink. My clothes are dirty, and – you can’t know how barely I’m here, really. But I’m not going back. They can’t put me away again. And I’m not going to take their drugs. I’ll die first.”
“Maybe there’s something else, not the ‘false dichotomy’ you’re thinking you’ve been reduced to,” Shorty said.
“What is?”
“Being put away or dying.” He tapped her paper with his finger. “What are you so intent on there?”
“What’s a ‘Rusticator’?”
“No idea,” Shorty said.
“How about this: Pipe Fitter’s Apprentice. Must understand dynamics of pipe sweating, brazing, and joining.” She lifted her head and grinned. “Can’t you just see me with one of those little… torch thingies? Kinda like… Rosie the Riveter, wasn’t that somebody?”
Shorty slid closer, bent to the print, said, “Darling, that was long before your time, but how about this one?”
The job was in Old Town, just off the Mississippi, here warehouses built in the late 1800s, like sailing ships, a fleet of them, and one larger than the others, in it scores of windows, all of which faced them now, part of the world’s-once-largest grain business, Crosby Milling.
“That’s it?” Sally said.
“One and the same,” Shorty replied. Even sitting on her suitcase, his head barely reached the dashboard.
“Well, good, now I know where it is,” Sally said, “we accomplished that, didn’t we?”
“Sweetheart,” Shorty said, “really?”
Sally smirked; it wasn’t something she did often, but sometime people just didn’t get her.
“Moving kind of too-fast-for-you?” Shorty asked.
“No, I’m not dressed.”
“And you’re going to be dressed and ready… when? You’re going be ironed and pressed – what? – tomorrow?”
“Everyone says I’m crazy. So–”
“Oh, that’s good. So, if you’re a… little crazy, you don’t need a job? You don’t think other people are… a little crazy? On the edge, stressed out, broke, beaten down, ruined a little?
“Sally, you’re more sane than the whole lot of them,” Shorty said. “That’s why they’re telling you you’re crazy.’”
She could see he was thinking to tell her something, then decided against it. She’d ask him later.
“So, I’ve got to go, that’s what you’re saying,” she said. “Like… right now, right here,–” she ran her hands down her chest “–like this?”
“No,” Shorty replied. “You want to go. And, anyway, aren’t you curious what would happen if you did?”
12
Buck
While they were eating breakfast, a quiet fell over the table, something going on between Eli and Jenny, and she set her forehead in her palm, then said, in a voice all too weary,
“Eli, you promised.” She glared at him, then pointed with her fork. “So, do I have to do it?”
“What?” Buck asked.
“Lester called,” Eli replied, nodding significantly, “said he wanted you all the way in. You up for that?”
“Be careful what you ask for,” Jenny said, and took her bowl to the sink, where she rinsed it out.
He didn’t dare look at her.
“When we go in,” Eli said, “no matter what, you follow my lead. Think you can you do that?”
“Yeah,” he said, he could do that. But it didn’t mean he would.
13
Just before eight, they parked the car in the Paradise lot and got out and stretched their legs. They went around the side of the building to the front door, a harsh, metallic clatter coming through it.
“How come there’s no sign?” he asked.
“Like I said, it’s all done through insurance,” Eli replied, “so there’s no need to advertise.” He grinned. “And don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, all right? You said you were here, earlier, but that was after closing. What the hell – there’s no use trying to explain. You’ll see.”
On Eli’s heels, he stepped into the too dark garage, temporarily blinded. An artificial sun threw crazed shadows against the paint-splattered walls and, everywhere, there were cars up on hoists, at odd angles to each other, jacked-up in the front or rear. From a corner there came a high-pitched, grating whine, like a garbage truck would make. A car shuddered there, thick metal arms working opposite each other, the car coming unbent, shrieking. The smell of the place stuck to the roof of his mouth: paint and plastic, scorched oil, and now – something like too-ripe banana, but the smell chemical. The floor thrummed, as if it were alive, was covered with a skin-pink talc, slippery under his boots, so he seemed to glide across it, as if he were in the gut of some nambiza, a water monster.
A car pulled up to one of the street-facing doors, the driver laying on his horn, until the squat, pock-faced Indian he’d seen the day before, the one in the cobalt welding goggles, came out, his hands tattooed over his knuckles and his braids knotted with red cloth.
“Hey, what’s the rush?!” he shouted.
They went up an aisle – by coiled exhaust pipe of all diameters, wheels, and tires; by fenders, and trunk lids, and hoods; by windshields, and windows of all sizes, each marked in fluorescent crayon – to the office.
To the right of the office door, a time clock glared, its face spiderwebbed glass where someone had struck it.
Eli plucked a card out and punched it, then all but shouted over the din, “DON’T SAY ANYTHING! OKAY?!”
Inside, Eli pulled the door closed, and they stood, waiting. Lester, and Cleve, bent over something on Lester’s desk, a third man to their right lifting his head to see who’d come in, his eyes different colors – one agate blue, the other an arresting white, for the cataract in it. As the woman at Little Earth had said, weird. Cleve and… whatever his name was, identical twins.
“So, you’re back,” Lester said.
“This is Buck,” Eli replied. “Like I said, he can do anything. He’s good with his hands.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Lester said. “Again,” as if their having met earlier had been any kind of pleasure.
He introduced Cleve and Vern.
“Ya’ll seem familiar,” Vern said, and gave Buck a sidelong look, his drawl thick. “We met?”
Buck said he thought not.
Lester reached for a clipboard on the desk. The desk was covered with forms. Some bore the names of insurance companies in bold letters, Aetna, Farmers, State Farm.
“So,” Lester said, checking off something on the clipboard. He turned to Buck. “You’ll work the rack for now.” He rapped his pen on the clipboard. “But you’re on for the big money later, right?”
“Yeah,” Buck replied. “I’m all about the money.”
He stood with Eli to one side of the rack, a car in it, one that had been hit in the side.
“Ambrose!” Eli shouted.
Ambrose, squat, moon-faced, thick-fingered, came scuttling out from behind the controls. He’d tucked his braids under his collar, had on a greasy corduroy hat, across the crown in red letters, CAT DIESEL POWER, had on his cobalt-lensed goggles. It gave him the appearance of a pukwan, a troll, now saying what, you couldn’t make out over the racket.
“Shut- It- Off!” Eli bellowed.
Ambrose shut the machine down and jumped from the controls. “This the new meat?”
Eli saluted, then marched off into the dark maw of the shop, leaving Buck to watch him go, Eli light on his feet. Like he’d just won something. When all around him was this – nightmare.
“You gonna stand there, or are we going to get to it,” Ambrose said. He hadn’t taken his goggles off.
“Yeah,” Buck replied, “why don’t we?”
He lay under a car, working a cable into the frame. The space was too narrow, a greasy frame rail pressing down on him so he could barely breathe. Ambrose put his head under.
“Ready?” he asked.
He turned to say no, but Ambrose had gone. The cable started to tighten. He spun out from under the car, shouted, “I’m not ready!” then got under it again, hung the trouble light from the A-frame. He had one more cable to attach. He got the cable doubled back and set the hook. Gave the cable a tug for good measure, then realized, with a terrified jolt, Ambrose had started the machine already, the cable tightening over his wrist. He tried to jerk his hand out from under and his glove caught on a broken strand of the cable.
“Stop!” he shouted.
The cable went on tightening, and he scrambled under the car, trying to get his hand free.
“HEYYYY!” he shouted. “STOP!”
The cable pressed down on his wrist, the cable tightening further yet. He got his leg out from under and kicked desperately at the side of the car and the cable slowed and stopped.
He jerked his hand from his glove, then spun out from under, held up his hand, blood running down it. Shouted,
“YOU ALMOST CUT OFF MY HAND, ASSHOLE!”
“GET YOUR SIGNALS STRAIGHT!” Ambrose shouted over the machine, adjusting his goggles, a fuck you in it.
A Lincoln, two BMWs, and a Mercedes. They rolled the cars in from the lot, some with blood spattered on the windshields inside, or pooled and dried on the upholstery and carpets, smelling of violent injury and death. In some, a tchibai lurked about, a ghost. They worked from a book of measurements set on a waist high post, in it symbols in a code as arcane as hieroglyphics. Ambrose tore through the book, licking the tips of his gloves, the fingers blackened. “Not enough!” he’d shout. “Too much!” “Too wide!” The air was hot and smoky and his throat burned. When he blew his nose on his sleeve, it left a streak of black slime, residue of the oxyacetylene cutting torch and who knew what all else.
Now and again, when he had a chance, he’d turn full circle, taking in the Paradise.
Found one electric eye near the front door, another near the back, but that was all he could make out. No cameras – but, it being a chop shop, they wouldn’t want one inside, though there was a cable over the door – so, outside. The doors all had deadbolts, with magnetic trip brackets – simple stuff, all of which he’d dealt with before. And he hadn’t seen cameras in the office.
Breaking in would be easy, he thought, only it seemed too simple, their security, or lack of it. And, now, hours into the day, when he slid out from under a car, he eyed the fountain against the far wall, parched. He’d get a drink, but Ambrose was after him, punishing.
“Thirsty,” he said finally.
“You know where the fountain is,” Ambrose replied. “You just go ahead and be my guest.”
Ambrose grinning at him, he pressed the fountain lever and a brownish-red stream of water trickled out.
It was not something he would drink even were he able to get to it. Which, of course, Ambrose had known.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take another minute, Ambrose caught him by the arm, reached into his pocket and pulled out a watch on a chain, initials engraved on the lid. A W Jr.
Behind them the compressor came on, huffing and woofing like some underworld creature.
“Break!” Ambrose shouted, tapping his watch.
He followed him into the lot, where Ambrose ducked into his car, the car stem to stern dented, the body different colors, metallic green, navy blue, red, and the windshield spider-webbed in sun-catching, glittering fractures. A dream catcher hung from the rear view mirror, a feather dangling from it.
Quick on his feet, Ambrose was out of the car with a thermos, poured from it into the cap.
“Want some?” he asked, holding the cap up.
“Sure,” Buck said.
Ambrose grinned, pointed up the street with his chin. “Donut shop’s two blocks up and across the street.
“Thermos runs two bucks. Don’t be late coming back, we’ve got cars to get to yet, hey?”
14
The shop smelled of yeast, and cinnamon, and apples, and he realized he was as hungry as he was thirsty. There was a long line and he got into it, thinking on what he’d seen in the shop. Maybe he’d get lucky and find what he needed in Lester’s office, a paper trail? Now, an old woman in a quilted jacket leaned into the counter, her head craned up combatively.
“So, is that jelly inside?” she demanded. “I don’t like jelly. Not unless it’s raspberry jelly. You’re sure you don’t have raspberry?”
“No,” the woman at the counter said, something Eastern European in it, or Russian, he thought. That was it. “Don’t have.”
The line inched forward. Crackling bags. The harsh ding! of the register. A big fan turning overhead. A tiny, misshapen man in a cut down army jacket ducked into the line behind him.
