Waltz of Shadows Read online

  “By the way,” he said, “that Elvis thing behind you there. I got to let you know, I think that’s a piece of shit. Gal that was living with me put it up there and I never took it down.”

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  “Couple of years,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said, “me too. I think she did for me what your mother did for Dad. Before I met her, I just thought I was a man. But I guess some of my learning came a little late.”

  I didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so I changed the subject. “You use the cabin a lot?”

  “Hardly go out there,” Arnold said. “Used to quite a bit. Not these days. I keep the electric paid up, but I’m not sure why… Before you come up with more small talk, come on and help me with my gear.”

  Arnold got a thermos and an extra plastic cup and poured the coffee into the thermos, and we went out into the cold.

  11

  Arnold walked out back and I went to my truck. I took off my coat and youn=:pagebreaput on my Dad’s coat, joined up with him behind the double-wide.

  I watched him gather his gear: a tackle box and a couple of stout rods off the carport, and a bucket of something out from under a tarp. A smell came from the bucket that made me think of highway kill.

  Arnold gave me the bucket and a rod and reel to carry, and he got the rest of the stuff, and we started off walking toward the creek.

  “What in the hell’s in this bucket?” I asked.

  “Terminally spoiled chicken necks,” Arnold said.

  “What for?”

  “You forgot how to fish for channel cat?”

  “Guess I have,” I said. “I don’t think I ever used any chicken necks.”

  “I’m surprised,” he said, “that was Daddy’s way.”

  “Me and him didn’t fish much,” I said. “When we did fish, we didn’t use chicken necks.”

  “That might be because when you were growing up, he wasn’t working at the chicken processing plant where he could get ’em free.”

  “I didn’t know he ever worked there,” I said.

  “There’s lots of things you don’t know,” he said.

  We crossed the junk yard, and I was amazed at all the cars.

  “Ugly, ain’t it?” Arnold said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Pretty ugly.”

  We came to the creek and worked our way carefully down the bank. Arnold stopped at the edge and watched the water run. It was clear and cold looking and not deep at all. You could see the sand and gravel beneath the water and minnows above that and hardy water bugs swimming about on the surface.

  We strolled along the water’s edge, found a narrow place, jumped over, went up the bank on the other side and through the woods. We came to a clearing where the sun was bright and shiny on a pond the color of a dimming hazel eye, and it ricocheted off an aluminum boat turned over and pulled up in the weeds, made it flash bright as the little silver minnows we had seen earlier.

  We turned the boat over and put our gear in it, got water sloshed in our shoes as we pushed it onto the pond and jumped inside. Arnold got a paddle out of the bottom of the boat and shoved us into deeper water. I took off my shoes and socks, poured water out of the shoes and wrung my socks out.

  “Cozy yet?” Arnold said, as I slipped the socks and shoes back on. “Help me out here, would you?”

  I got the other paddle and stuck it into the water and reached the bottom and pushed until there was no bottom to reach. The boat began to drift lazily, gave that strange feeling of being on top of the sky.

  “Thing is, Arnold…” I started.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Let me be doing something I lisom" wke to do before you talk to me about something that might make me mad. That’s how it’s going to be, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not here to make you mad. I need a little advice.”

  “Advice?” Arnold said. “That’s rich. Thought you had decided I was a dumb redneck you ought to keep out of your life, lest your wife and kids think I’m kin to them. Which I am, I want to remind you. Just by half, I admit, but kin. You know, I’ve never seen my niece and nephew. Not even a picture. I’ve never had the chance to say more than three words to your wife, who, by the way, is too damn good looking for you.”

  He opened the bucket of chicken necks and got one out. The smell was almost enough to make me want to jump and swim for shore. He stuck the chicken neck on the big double crappie hooks and cast it toward a grouping of reeds and water plants. The chicken neck and the hook went in with a heavy splash and sought bottom.

  Arnold stuck his hand in the water and sloshed it around, then pulled out a pack of chewing tobacco, took a wad from it and poked it into his cheek. He chewed a few times, looked at me, said, “Go on. Fix up.”

  I got the spare rod and looked into the bucket, holding my breath as I did. I didn’t want to get hold of one of those necks. They were a little green looking.

  “Damn,” Arnold said. He got one of the chicken necks and fixed it up for me. “Think you can handle the casting part?” he said, “Or you want me to do that too?”

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “Don’t tangle my line,” he said.

  I considered whopping him across the back of the head with the heavy rod, but I figured that wasn’t going to repair things between us.

  I cocked the rod and flicked my wrist and let the reel spin. My line went way out, almost to the far side of the bank, into shallow water.

  “Nothing there,” Arnold said.

  “I know,” I said. “I just over cast.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I reeled the line back until it was in deeper water, let it hang there. The boat drifted and the sun dipped and the air cooled and a cloud bagged the sun and turned the pond water dark.

  “There’s people think fishing for cat is second best,” Arnold said. “Those people are full of shit. There’s people say the only place to catch a good cat is on the river, and they’re full of shit, too.”

  “I’ve caught catfish before, Arnold.”

  “But you don’t understand the spirit of catfishing, boy. You’re more of a bass man, or a trout man. That’s bullshit. The real stuff, the real essence of fishing is the cat.”

  “These days, I’m more of a fish dinner at a restaurant.”

  “Figures,” he said. “Thing is, catfishing is like Zen. It’s basic and clean and to the point. A catfish is like nature itself. It just is. It hasn’t got haes,any morals about itself, just blind persistence. It keeps on coming because it doesn’t know anything else and doesn’t understand what it does know.”

  “So, you do read those Zen books?”

  “Without moving my lips even once, grasshopper. Those Japs have some pretty good thinking going.”

  “That’s quite a recommendation. Maybe you could get a job as ambassador to Japan.”

  “Zen is good stuff. It calms me. Particularly when I’m in a special kind of mood, like seeing you, and suddenly being overcome with a nonconstructive urge to stomp your ass. Times like that, I like to find my center. Get out here on the water. We fought here, it would turn over the boat. I’d get wet and you’d get wet. I wouldn’t like that. What the fuck do you want?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Think it’ll come to you?”

  “I want to say I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Hey, I feel better. Here we are some thirty years after the fact, and except for ten years ago when I saw you at a funeral, and later when you came by to help me move a fucking chair, we haven’t spoken or had any contact… No, that’s not true. Let’s be fair. You’ve waved at me a couple times in town, I think.”

  “That was someone else Arnold. I haven’t seen you in town.”

  “Perfect. Pour us up some coffee, would you?”

  I put the rod down, poured his into the thermos cup and mine into the spare cup. “I’m going to be blunt with you. I did what I did to you
those years ago because I’m a jackass. I didn’t really admit to myself I was a jackass until just the other day. I knew it, but I hadn’t really admitted it. I was young when it happened, Arnold. My judgment wasn’t good… and I do think about you. I just didn’t think there was any use opening old wounds.”

  “Boy, I feel better. Things are all right now.”

  “I stayed away at first because I was scared, then because I ought to, and finally because I just didn’t know what to say. I made you out to be worse than you are so I could be more than I am. I know I’m a hypocrite, and I know you never said a word to anybody. You just took your medicine and drank mine too.”

  “Let’s don’t make that much out of it,” Arnold said. “I’m lucky I didn’t get the pen and a lot more time. What hurts is the way you did me after it was all over. Family ought to mean something.”

  We floated for a while. My feet felt very cold. Arnold looked at me sideways. “You know, I rent from one of your stores, one over on Main.”

  “I’ve never seen your name on the rental cards,” I said.

  “Do you look?”

  “No,” I said. “I mainly work at home, in the study. I order movies. Pay bills. Now and then I drive out and check on things.”

  “Enough,” Arnold said. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell d Ick you if I want to do anything.”

  I told him everything I knew. While I talked, his eyes widened, and he started to interrupt me a couple of times, but when I paused to allow him, he waved me on. When I finished, he said, “It’s clear you ain’t seen the news today. I caught a bulletin about noon. They found Doc Parker’s wife. Doc was gone off somewhere when it happened. Story is some nuts broke in and killed her. They’re saying it was some kind of Satanist cult. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Jesus,” I said.

  “Said the law found most of the ones did it, but they were all dead in a house somewhere. Chief of Police said he figured one or more of their group got whacked out on drugs and killed the others.”

  “One, or more?”

  “That’s what it said. Only names mentioned were the Doctor’s and his wife’s. Christ, the guy they’re looking for is Bill?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Hard Dick Bill.”

  “You got a right to be jacked around, Hank, but I don’t see why you’ve come to me with this.”

  “Guess because you’re family, and I wasn’t ready or willing to talk to Beverly yet.”

  “And you knew I had been in trouble and ran around with a tough crowd, and might have some insight into all this.”

  “That crossed my mind.”

  “Well, nothing I know is gonna be much help to you. Let’s go on up to the house. We ain’t gonna catch nothing. Fuck Zen.”

  Arnold dumped the chicken necks overboard. “They can have these for free this time,” he said. “I keep ’em around the house anymore, they’ll grow together and come get me.”

  We paddled back to shore, got our gear and walked back to the double-wide. Inside, Arnold poured us coffee from the thermos and got me some of his socks to put on. When I felt warm enough, I went out to the truck and got the photo album, let Arnold look at it.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” Arnold said. “You think Bill was telling things straight?”

  “He might have made himself come off prettier than he should have, but he was too scared to be lying.”

  Arnold closed the album and gave it back to me. He poured us more coffee.

  Arnold said, “I think maybe you got the best game plan already. Go see the lawyer. Something’s fishy with the cops.”

  “Thanks for listening. I guess that’s all I wanted. Someone to listen.”

  “So you came to me, not having talked to me in ten years. That’s some kinda thing to break the ice with, pal.”

  Arnold walked me out to my truck, cussing the dog off of me. I put the photo album in the inside pocket of my Dad’s old hunting coat, slipped it off, and put on my newer one. I stood by the truck and listened to the wind in the bottle tree.

  ="0s o

  Arnold knew what I was thinking. He said, “Gal lived with me, Kinley, she put them bottles up there. Bet it took her month to fix it that way. She was a passin’ woman, had some negro blood in her… Believe that? There’s a change for you. Until a few years ago, I called negroes niggers, then I met this gal and she didn’t look negro, and I got in tight with her and found out, and suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “It finally quit working out. She moved off to Memphis… But I was saying about those bottles. Kinley had her some hoodoo beliefs. Said those bottles caught the bad mojo around you, bottled it up. Got a hunch you might ought to make one of those up for your yard.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “None of this sounds right, from the top to the bottom. You watch yourself, cause the mojo around you is pretty goddamn dark.”

  “I’ll watch,” I said. I got in the truck and cranked it. I pulled around in the drive and drove away.

  · · ·

  I hadn’t gone far when I heard a horn. I looked in my rear view. It was Arnold’s pickup. He was driving fast. I pulled over and got out. He screeched the tires and stopped beside me. He got out of his truck and walked around front and came over to me. I didn’t know the expression he wore.

  He stood in front of me, said, “You stupid sonofabitch.”

  Then, as if he didn’t have any say in the matter, his hand came up and he hit me on the side of the head with an open palm.

  I rolled against my truck and spun and came up swinging. He caught my arm and grabbed my head in the crook of his elbow and pulled me to him and started squeezing.

  I slammed a couple of low, awkward ones in his gut. It was like punching a side of beef, and the truth of the matter was, I didn’t have the heart to fight him. He yanked me in closer, and let go of my head and grabbed me in a bear hug, trapping my arms, lifting me off the ground. He held me to him and squeezed until I thought I’d scream, then he shoved me back against my truck and stood panting, looking at me. “You fucking stay out of my life all these years and you want me to take you in like there was never any bad blood between us. Well, fuck you, asshole. Fuck you.”

  A trickle of blood oozed out of the corner of my mouth and ran down my face. I reached up and wiped it off with the back of my hand.

  Arnold walked over to me, his big hands dangling at his sides. He stood directly in front of me. “Goddamn you,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. Worse. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “It didn’t do a thing for me.”

  “It didn’t do much for me either. You going to do it some more?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  He cam="lp>

  “I know,” I said, and hugged him back.

  12

  Cold and dark, a big piece of yellow moon, purple tree shadows flying across the hood and windshield of my truck. Me driving the back roads and talking and Arnold riding and talking and hunkering close to my old humming heater, nursing the warmth.

  The years weren’t brought back, but maybe a few moments were, and when I returned Arnold to his truck and let him out, we shook hands and he clapped me on the shoulder and called me Bubba. I drove away feeling good about something, and not knowing why, way things were with Bill, but feeling good just the same, and thinking the world wasn’t such a bad place after all, and everything that had happened, crazy as it was, was going to work out. Order would soon be restored to the universe, and I would feel like the fine-tuned mainspring of the cosmic clock.

  But a fella can be wrong about things.

  Part Two

  Fat Boy

  13

  I knew Bev was going to be on the unpleasant side when I got home. My mother usually called about two hours after I left, to see if I was home yet. It was her motherly way of checking on me.

  That motherly habi
t would reveal I had left Tyler some time ago, and should have been home.

  I stopped off at a convenience store and bought a cup of coffee and the evening paper. I figured I was already in deep shit, so a few more minutes wouldn’t matter. I sat in my truck with the engine running and the overhead light on, draped the paper against the steering wheel and read it while I sipped the coffee.

  The discovery of Mrs. Parker’s body was front page. SOCIALITE VICTIM OF GRUESOME SATANIST MURDER, the headline read. There was a photograph of her smiling at the camera, sitting next to her husband at some social event.

  Seemed the Doc’s housekeeper had discovered the body. The Doc was notified at an out-of-town hotel—someplace in Colorado—where he was supposedly conducting business at some kind of seminar for his profession.

  Due to the circumstances, and knowing it would come out sooner or later, and realizing, in a case like this, he’d be a suspect, the Doc admitted a lot of his business activities had been frolicking with a certain young lady who came forward to offer an alibi. It was also noted in the article, that numerous others had seen the Doc and the girl together, including at the time the murder had taken place.

  I paused in my reading and thought that one over. A bell was ringing somewhere in the back of my mind, and I had the disconcerting sensation that there was something very obvious in all this, and I ought to pick up on it right away. But whatever it was, the sensation of it about to tumble to the forefront departed, and a moment later I sat there feeling empty and stupid. I read the a="lp>

  I put the empty coffee cup in the trash bag hanging from the radio knob, and drove home.

  When I unlocked the back door, Wylie came rushing at me, the hair on his neck bristling. I was glad as hell when he recognized me. He was one scary looking dog when he was like that. If you weren’t a family member, Wylie hated you on general principle and would go for your throat. We had company over, the kid’s friends, he had to be put away in his travel kennel in the washroom.