Текст книги "The Call of the Mountain"

Автор книги: Sam Neumann

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

40

Months passed and winter came. Snow came in sheets, blanketing the hills around Otter Ridge in white. The town moved slower. Temperatures dropped. The canyon was quiet during weekdays, roads packed with snow and ice. Chimneys bellowed smoke from fireplaces. On weekends, the roads were abuzz with tourist traffic, cars and SUVs motoring through town with skis and snowboards strapped to the tops. Bars were full. It snowed every third day. It was a good time.

Snow in Otter Ridge was not snow in New York. Or Boston, or D.C. Snow in Colorado was welcomed with open arms and stuck-out tongues. Back east, the snow was a sign of depression, of winter, of the dark season, or inconvenience. Snow made life harder, the commute longer, and the locals ornerier. It fell as white flakes and turned immediately to black slush, dirtying up slacks and dress shoes and making roads slippery. Snow in New York was dreaded.

In Colorado, it still made roads slick and driving harder. You still had to shovel, to dig out your car and your sidewalk. But life moved slower, so none of these things mattered. Snow made the town prettier, and filled the water reserves with runoff for the spring. Snow meant high rivers and few fires. Snow meant powder days at the ski resorts, which meant smiles for the locals and money for the businesses. Snow was a blessing, an offering from above, and it snowed every third day.

With Vince’s business, I’d gradually settled in. The trust between us had slowly been built, starting with that dinner in the hills. Immediately Vince took me off the runs and reassigned me to a different task. He decided I knew too much about the operation to be comfortable and effective, and I agreed. I was moved to bookkeeping, where I kept track of numbers and made sure the money added up. Financials; just the job I’d run from in New York, but light years simpler and incomparable in scope. Days started at 10 a.m., and 5-day weeks were uncommon. The money was even better than driving. It was a much better fit for me to begin with, but I had to know everything.

It was also more incriminating. It required me to know—and influence—the cash flow of the business. I was more than an accessory now; I was a full-blown accomplice. I was a player in the heroin trade. This dawned on me quickly, but I saw no other option. One day, a man dips his toe in the mud, just to test and see how it feels. The next he goes a little further, and the next his whole foot is in. Each step is a small one, seemingly innocuous, but before long, the man is up to his neck in shit.

Slowly, day by day, the scope of what I was doing disintegrated from my grasp. It was a job now, and a routine one. The more I performed my tasks without seeing bags of brown heroin or a police raid or a murder or anything else I’d blindly associated with drug trades, the more it seemed normal. It was just a job. I kept my small apartment and made the rent payments myself. I maintained independence. I attended social gatherings sporadically, but saw no séance’s or cultish behavior. I began to understand Vince’s explanation of the community.

I slept with Adeline twice more. Both times she showed up at my apartment drunk and unannounced, and both times she assured me no one would find out. Both times, in the morning, I told her it could never happen again. There was too much risk. Both times she smiled, nodded, and told me not to worry, then she did what she pleased. I convinced myself it could not continue. But I knew, deep inside me, that if she showed up again I could not turn her down. She was powerful, in control, and the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. Seeing her darken my door made my knees weak.

I had drinks with Vince twice a week. We talked business and local happenings. We didn’t talk women.

One night I stopped into McNeil’s, the bar in which Suzanne had sung with piano accompaniment months ago, before I’d even moved to Otter Ridge. The room was just as I remembered it, lively with overworked bartenders, and the same man was playing piano. He was accompanied by a different woman, this one short and brunette. Her voice was flat and seemed empty. I had one beer and left.

I had tried Suzanne’s phone once after she disappeared, but my call went straight to voicemail. There was part of me that expected her to come back, that wanted her to come back, at least for a night, rather than just disappearing into nothing. It didn’t make sense, to leave like that. I asked Vince once if she’d tried to contact him, and he told me she hadn’t. After that, I didn’t think about her much.

I didn’t think about Damon much, either. I didn’t think about either of the people who had disappeared after a while. At first their memories were fresh, and my thoughts of them wandered, no matter which explanation I heard from Vince or others in the community. I wondered where they were, and what they were doing. But as time passed and they stayed gone, and they were not mentioned, the wonder faded. My thoughts of them went from every day to every other day, then once a week, then once a month. Time has a way of making strange circumstances seem normal.

I did not see Suzanne, and I did not see Damon, and I did not think of them much. They were gone; starting new lives, hopefully, each content in their own way. I assumed this and didn’t give them much more thought, until one evening, in the dead of winter, she returned.

41

It was an overcast winter afternoon. The sun had not peeked out that day, leaving the landscape a dull gray. The last week had been warm, temperatures climbing well above freezing and melting much of the snow that covered the town. Now the sun had gone away, the cold had returned, and the exposed ground was a pale brown.

I went to my apartment after completing my work for the day, which I did in a small building near Vince’s house. At one point, it had been someone’s home, but had since been converted into the business center for Vince’s operation. There were three small rooms with desks, a large meeting room, a dry bar, and a porch with mountain views. It was not a bad place to spend time. On a typical day, I was joined by a handful of other men; paper pushers with pleasant but reserved personalities. I hadn’t quite figured out what they did, and we didn’t much discuss business between us. My reports went straight to Vince.

It was late in the afternoon, not long before sunset, when she appeared. At first I didn’t believe it was her. At first I thought I was hallucinating. At very first, I didn’t even recognize her. She stood in my doorway, broken and shivering, and only her posture gave her away. She said nothing, just looked up at me with dark eyes and waited.

There was a knock on my door and I answered it. That was all that happened. I was sitting on my loveseat with the TV on, having a beer after work, and there was a knock on my door. My first thought was Adeline, but it had been nearly a month since she had come by, and it was too early in the day. I was curious, so I opened the door quickly, and there she was.

Suzanne, but not the Suzanne I remembered. Her skin was pasty white and showed open cuts. Her lips were chapped and quivering, and her once glowing red hair had been hastily dyed black.

“Suzanne,” I said. “My God, come in.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.” Her voice was faint. Where once was a strong, boisterous woman, stood a shell.

“What?”

“I can’t,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t even be here.” Her words barely made it out.

I grabbed her and pulled her inside without much resistance, then shut the door. She felt lighter. I led her over to the loveseat and sat her down.

“My God,” I said again, “what in the hell happened?”

She looked at the floor and shook her head. “A lot. And nothing.” She looked up, and her big dark eyes examined me. They were the same eyes I knew. They were the only part of her that remained unchanged.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Listen, I need to tell you some things.”

“Suzanne, we need to get you taken care of first. Let me get you something to eat.”

“No.”

“Yes,” I said, standing up, “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“I’m not hungry. Listen, Julian, there’s no time.”

“Let me get you a blanket at least.”

She didn’t respond, so I grabbed the comforter off my bed and put it on her. She pulled it over her shoulders but kept shivering.

“Where in hell have you been?” I asked.

“You need to know some things,” she said.

“Okay. But first tell me what’s going on. Where did you go?”

She took a breath. “That’s what I’m here to talk about.” She stared straight ahead, put her hands around her face, and steadied herself. Then she spoke again.

“You’re not safe,” she said. “I’m not safe. None of us are.”

“What happened?”

She took another breath. “Okay. That night at the restaurant. I left because I was mad at you, and mad at them. So I left and called Willa.”

“Suzanne, I didn’t…”

“Shut up,” she said. “None of that matters now. Just shut up and listen, okay?”

I nodded.

“I called Willa to give me a ride, and she did. She gave me a ride back to my apartment. Jess was home—my roommate, remember?”

I nodded. I’d met her roommate a handful of times. She was part of the community. Gardener or something.

“She could tell I was upset, and she asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t want to talk so I just went in my room. I smoked some weed and went to bed. That was it till later. I was just upset, you know?”

Her eyes were the same, but the skin around them was dark, almost bruised. Her tiny frame was engulfed by the blanket; she’d lost more weight than she could afford to lose.

She told me the story. Usually measured in her words, they spilled out of her now, less flowery and more layman than ever before. A scared girl telling her story.

It was in the middle of the night when it all went down. She woke up in the darkness to men pulling her out of bed. She was on the floor in her evening gown before she knew what was happening. Her first thought was rape. One put his foot in her back and tied her hands together. Then they forced her to move.

“I saw Jess in the living room. She was standing in the corner watching, scared—she was definitely scared—but she didn’t say anything. I yelled at her, asked what the fuck was going on, but she still didn’t say anything. That’s when I knew. When she watched and didn’t do anything, didn’t even say anything.”

They drug her outside, kicking and flailing, and threw her in the back of a car. She was still in her evening gown, hands tied behind her. She asked where they were going and they hit her. She tried to sit up and they hit her. She asked about Vince and they hit her harder. Every time she moved or spoke, they hit her, so she stopped moving and speaking.

They drove and her mind raced. They drove for a long time. She felt the car turn off the paved highway on to a smaller dirt road. Her hands were sweaty. It was cold outside but her hands were bathed in sweat, and the tie-job on her wrists was loose and sloppy. Her mind slowed enough to realize the opportunity. She lay in the back seat, listening to car tires roll across the gravel, and started wiggling. The rope loosened, slowly at first. Her hands moved back and forth, the sweat lubricating like oil between pistons, and the rope loosened slightly. She could feel a tiny gap between her wrists. The car continued, making a right turn, and the rope loosened more. Soon the gap widened, and she could feel cool air around her wrist.

“Finally, I got one free. I could feel the car slowing down. I got my hand free and swung the door open. It wasn’t even locked, thank God, because I wasn’t thinking of that. I was just thinking of getting out. So the door swings open and the guy in the passenger seat is hitting me and trying to grab me. And I can feel the cold air from outside, rushing past, and I just feel how fast it’s going, you know? So I don’t want to jump. We were still going too fast. But then he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked me toward him, and started to suffocate me. I don’t know if he was trying, but he put his other hand over my mouth and nose, and held them there. And he was strong—strong—so I couldn’t move. He just sat there and pushed harder.”

His hand was covering her mouth, and she was able to bite it. She got her teeth around a finger and bit hard.

“I bit down so hard, Julian. As hard as I could. And then he let go with his other hand, and then I jumped out of the car.”

She ran into the woods, she said. It was dark and branches smacked her legs, arms, and face, but she didn’t trip. The woods were dense. She heard them follow after her, but she had a sizeable lead, so after a few minutes she found a pile of brush and lay down next to it. She heard their voices—yelling, blaming each other, cursing her—and periodically saw the beams of their flashlights. Once, they came close enough to hear the crackling of twigs beneath their feet. And in that time, she told me, she heard one distinct sentence.

Vince is going to be so pissed.

“They said it; I know they said it,” Suzanne said.

“You’re sure they said, ‘Vince?’”

“Positive. That’s when it made sense. Of course it was him.”

“So, because you stormed out of dinner, he had you kidnapped?”

She shook her head. “It’s more than that. He knew I wasn’t happy for a while. He’d been threatening me, saying, ‘bad things can happen’ if I didn’t shut up and get in line. He doesn’t like differing opinions.”

I thought about it and looked her in the eye. She’d stopped shivering.

“People have disappeared before,” she said.

“Like Damon?”

She nodded.

“And what do you think happened?” I asked.

“Dammit Julian,” she said, standing up and throwing off the blanket, “they killed him.”

42

“I need to go,” she said, walking toward the door. “I’ve already stayed too long.”

“Where?” I asked.

“I can’t be here.”

They killed Damon. She was sure of it. She told me this and the two of us cobbled together what we knew about his disappearance. Before Suzanne went away, I’d been careful about what I said to her. She was one of them, so I had to be careful. It was different now. It was different when she walked in to my apartment with white skin and blue lips and black hair.

She knew about Damon’s arrest, and I told her about Vince’s explanation to me. This cemented her opinion. They paid off the police, got him out of jail, drove him somewhere and killed him. There was no new life in Arizona. They just killed him, to get rid of the problem. The killed him and stopped talking about him, so we’d stop thinking about him. They killed him, just as they had probably done to others, they were going to do to her, and they would do to anyone else who caused problems.

“Still,” I said, “it doesn’t make sense for them to kill you over something so small.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know how they are. They’re crazy about little things. Vince takes things very personally.” She looked down. “I’d been thinking about leaving the community for a while. I just didn’t know how to do it. I was afraid. You haven’t seen his violent side.”

I nodded. “I have, actually.”

“When?”

I told her the whole thing. How I found out about the drugs. About the meeting with Vince. About what he told me when I threatened to go to the police.

You’d be dead before you reached the station.

She massaged her temples. “Drugs. Of course.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Not specifically,” she said. “I knew something strange was going on, something that probably wasn’t right. Something they wanted more people for. But they’re very careful to keep specifics from us. Adeline; when she started being his…leading woman or whatever. She started being very discreet about the things that went on. She never told me any specifics about the operation. I was always curious, but she never told me anything.”

“Where have you been living?” I asked.

“I need to go,” she said again. She looked at the door, then looked at me, and reached over and touched my hand. Her fingers were ice cold.

“Julian,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For bringing you into this. It’s my fault.”

“No it isn’t,” I said. “I came up here on my own.”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Yes, really.”

“No,” she said. Her eyes were solemn. “It wasn’t complete chance.”

I sighed. “Call it forces of the universe or whatever you want, Suzanne, but we make our own decisions. I decided to move here, and I decided to work for Vince. I’ll deal with the consequences of my decisions.”

“It wasn’t chance, that night, in Boulder,” she said.

“This is not the time to ponder the metaphysical properties of the universe.”

“I was a recruiter.”

“We need to find out how to get you… what?”

She nodded. Her demeanor was timid, shameful.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“A recruiter. That was my job in the community. I recruited people.”

I tilted my head. “A recruiter.”

“Yes. Men mostly.”

The truth was in front of me now, undiluted by guesses and intuitions. The truth. Finally.

“Okay,” I said, processing. “How many?”

“Enough,” she said. “And that’s what I did to you. I brought you in to work for Vince. You need to know this. You need to understand.”

I put my hands on my head to process, then stood up. I thought for a long while, processing what it was she said. Recruiter. I examined what that meant, or tried to, and then I stood. I stood and got mad, because I had earned that right.

“So what are you, a whore?”

She winced. “No. But if that’s what you need to call it…”

“That is what I need to call it, because that’s what it is,” I said, raising my voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“So all that was bullshit?” I asked, pacing the room now. “The whole thing? Just a ploy.”

“No,” she said, standing up and moving toward me. “It was at first, but not at the end. I really did have feelings for you.”

“Bullshit.”

“I did, Julian, and that’s why I’m here,” she said. “It wasn’t like with other men. You were different.”

“Other men?” I became incredulous.

“I told you…”

“Shut up,” I said, and turned away.

She took a step toward me. “I loved you, Julian. I do love you.”

I exhaled and looked at her. It was an irrational statement, but nothing had been rational for a long time. Maybe it was my surroundings—the town, the valley, the people—or maybe it was me. Maybe I was going insane, slowly and quietly, and I didn’t even know it. Do the crazy know they’re insane?

I put my hand up to stop her. “I don’t even know who you are, honestly.”

“Yes you do.”

“What can I do?” I asked, palms up. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

We stood there for a minute. Both of us stood there until I calmed down. The volume in the room lowered.

“What can I do,” I said quietly, “to help you?”

“Nothing. I made my bed, and I’m trying to prevent you from doing the same.” She walked toward the door. “Get out, Julian. Find a way. Be careful, but get out, somehow.”

“I’m trying,” I said.

She opened the door. “Try harder.”

43

Suzanne left me for good that night. She gave me one more apology, one more warning, and one more piece of affection.

“I’m sorry,” she said, holding the door halfway open. “I really am.”

“For what, Suzanne? You didn’t kidnap me. Sorry for what?”

“I don’t know. All of it? At least some of it.”

“Where are you going?”

She shook her head.

“Answer me,” I said.

“I won’t burden you with anything more. Now, I must go.”

“Stay here,” I said. “Just stay here, for a little while. We’ll get it figured out.”

She shook her head again. “Do not worry about me, please. I’m resourceful.”

“Where are you going?”

“Away, finally. Hopefully.”

“Let me drive you somewhere.”

“It would be suicide. And I do not deserve your help.”

We looked at each other in the doorway.

“Julian, listen to me one last time. Vince likes you. He sees value in you, and he has plans for you. He will offer you many nice things to stay working with his business. If you stay, you will advance, and you will be pulled into his web of deceit. You will be indoctrinated into the evil, and you will have to do many bad things, evil things, but they won’t seem that way. Because he will justify them, and eventually, so will you.

“You cannot become him, Julian,” she said. “There is too much at stake. Please, if you believe one thing about me, believe this.”

She stepped forward and kissed me. Her lips were dry, chapped, but her kiss was strong. I let it happen.

Suzanne told me goodbye, slipped out the door, and disappeared into the mountains.

I slept sporadically that night. I wanted her to come back, but knew she wouldn’t. Once, around midnight, I stood at the window near my bed and hoped to catch a glimpse of something outside. The sky was clear, the moon was full, and silver rays shone down between the pines and reflected off the snow. The night was bright but still; nothing moved. I wondered where she was.

In the morning I bought a gun. There was a small shop in Silverthorne, a half hour drive from my apartment. I drove there and asked the man behind the counter about pistols.

“Whatcha need it for?” he asked. He was a heavyset fellow in suspenders. I could smell his breath from across the counter.

“Self-defense,” I said.

He nodded and looked down into the case. “Your main choices are a nine or a forty-five. Nine’s gonna be less powerful, but give you more control, be more forgiving. Forty-five’s gonna kick a little more, but does more damage, too. How good are ya with a gun?”

“Good enough,” I said. It was a lie.

We decided on a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson and a small box of hollow-points. I gave the man six one hundred dollar bills and took the gun and bullets. I had read there was a mandatory waiting period, but it was never brought up. The whole transaction took less than ten minutes.

In my car, I examined the weapon and ejected the clip. It was silver in color; brushed steel that caught and reflected the sunlight at certain angles, and bigger than I’d expected. It felt out of place in my hands. I put it in the glove compartment and drove.

Again heading west on I-70, I mulled my options and realized leaving town was no longer one of them. It had been, when this was just about me, but that was no longer the case. The stakes were bigger now, and I was partially responsible. They’d find me, anyway. That was painfully clear now. It would probably take a while, but eventually, they’d find me. I knew too much now.

After an hour, I pulled into the parking lot of the Eagle County Police Department. I parked on the far side, facing a small aspen grove, away from the few cars that occupied the lot. I double-checked the glove box, looked at myself in the vanity, and walked inside.

The same young cadet sat at the front desk in a blue uniform. This gave me comfort. Finally, something went my way, no matter how little. I approached him and he looked up from the computer.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

“I was in here a few months ago.”

“Okay,” he said, “what for?” His smile did not go away. He was a Ken doll.

“No, not for anything. I was just inquiring about someone.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, how can I help you?”

“I…” I looked around to make sure no one was listening. The only other people in the waiting area were a woman reading a magazine and a boy listening to headphones, both sitting in chairs against the far wall. Still, I lowered my voice. “I think I need to make a missing persons report.”

His eyebrows raised and he searched for a paper and clipboard. “I can take that info. When was the last time you saw the missing person?”

“A few months ago. The last time I was in here.”

He looked up at me and put his pen down. “You haven’t seen him or her in a few months?”

“Him. That’s correct.”

“And have you filed a report already?”

“No. Not yet.”

He shook his head and looked back down at the paper. The smile was gone now. “Okay. Where was the last place you saw him?”

“On I-70 outside of Eagle. He was in a different car; we were both driving east.”

He scribbled it down. “Was there anyone with him at the time he disappeared?”

“Well, no,” I said. “He was alone. But…he got pulled over by the police. And he was supposed to be here. And that’s why I came here.”

He looked up at me again. His face was blank.

“Listen,” I said, “I think I might know someone who was…involved. In the disappearance.”

His brow wrinkled. “Okay,” he said, hopelessly, “what’s the person’s name?”

I looked around the room again and lowered my voice more. “Vincent Decierdo.”

He put the pen down. “Come again?”

I repeated the name slower.

The officer exhaled and looked straight ahead, dropping his chin a few inches. He did not speak for a long time.

“Shit,” he finally muttered, barely audible.

“What?” I said.

He shook his head and flipped the piece of paper over, then tore off a small piece. He wrote something on it and handed it to me. The handwriting was sloppy.

Meet me at Earl’s at 9:15. Down the street.

He went back to his computer without a word, and I walked out the front door.