The Black Death (3 page)

“And they came through the glass,” said Matt. “I saw that part.”

“You didn’t see the inside of Lem’s, though. His store is trashed. Insurance will make good on it, but that’s the only place around here to buy things, and people are going to be limited on what they need until he restocks and gets the place fixed up. I think if he were a younger man, he’d move. He’s fed up. Not that I blame him. He shot a kid on his property a couple years ago, and even though it was a legit kill in the eyes of the law, he had to make it good with the Redneck Mafia.”

“That’s a real thing?”

“Yep, silly name and all. Bunch of idiots who are leftovers from bootlegging and Klan nonsense. They control most of the meth around here and I’m pretty sure are the sole supplier of this Plague crap. Shoot, they’re half the reason I need the DEA to come down and help. You’d be surprised at how many guys around here would never want anything to do with them as far as joining but will happily take some money or other favors to give a blind eye for whatever it is they’re up to. I’m convinced that’s how they get around all of the trafficking issues. I haven’t busted anybody who could be tied to them with any real quantity of meth, ever, and the folks I do bust they’re happy to see gone—less competition and no reason for them to hide a body. Anyways, I’ve bent your ear long enough. Here’s your stuff.”

Matt took the offered bag from Frank and was happy when he could feel the handle of the ax through it. He hated being away from it for even a few moments—the tool had served him so well against too many people corrupted by Mr. Dark.

“Thanks for all your help, Frank. It’s much appreciated. I’ll be staying in the shack behind Kenny’s station for a little bit, assuming my bike needs more time than today has left.”

“Good luck to you,” said Frank, “and thanks again. If you need any help while you’re here, don’t hesitate to let me know. As far as that goes, don’t take my ramblings the wrong way. I don’t talk to outsiders too often, and I was just venting. Most of the folks around here are good people. They’re just misguided at times, same as anywhere else.”

Mortimer’s was cleaner than Matt had expected it to be by a fair amount, though it was as dark as most small-town watering holes tend to be. Even more surprising, and quite welcome, was the central air-conditioning and lack of cigarette smoke. Matt walked past a sign that said Seat Yourself and did just that, ignoring the bar and sitting at a table in the corner. Matt chose a seat on the wall that would let him see the bar and the door and gave a look around.

There were three old-timers having a drink at the bar and watching baseball, and the man behind was so stereotypical bartender that it was hard to believe. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, both forearms glaring tattoos at Matt, one with the words
Death Before Dishonor
over a knife and the other of a hula girl. Around the barkeep’s waist was an immaculately clean apron, and when he saw Matt looking, he gave him a nod. Leaning back in the chair, Matt was fine waiting. The air was cool, and there was no angry drunk, zombified maniac, or black-eyed meth freak to deal with. All in all, pretty perfect. The bartender came by a few minutes later, and Matt read the embroidered name on his shirt: Mort.

“How you doing?” Mort asked before setting a glass of water in front of Matt.

“I’m doing all right. Had some bike trouble, so this might not be the last I see of you.”

“’S all right with me, especially if you brought cash.” One of the men at the bar howled with laughter, and the bartender spun, gave the man a look that went ignored, and turned back to Matt. “Those old buggers think that retirement means you just get hammered all day. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take the money, but it can be a little much. Can I get you a drink?”

“I’ll take a beer—whatever’s on draft is fine with me—and I’d look at a menu if you had one.”

“No problem. I’ll go wake up the cook and bring you that menu and a beer. Lake perch is nine dollars. I think he uses too much salt in the breading, but most of the folks around here seem to like it that way, so I let it slide.”

Mort went back to his bar with its drunks, and Matt took a drink of the water. It was cold, but that was about all it had going for it. The water had a metallic taste to it, and though the glass was clean, it had a grit to it, as if some of the soap still needed to be rinsed off. Assuming it was an old bar trick being used by an old bartender, Matt set the glass on the table. Mort returned a few moments later, setting Matt’s beer on the table and handing over the menu. Matt took it with
a nod, had a sip of beer from an unsurprisingly properly rinsed mug, and gave a look to the menu as Mort walked away. The food, just like Mort and the trick with the dirty glass, was exactly what Matt had expected.

When Mort came back a few minutes later, Matt’s beer was empty, and he ordered another draft and the perch special. As he was ordering, three men of the type Matt had expected to see holding down stools came in and sat at the end of the bar away from the old-timers. The first of them howled like a wolf, and Mort got a cross look on his face that disappeared as fast as it had arrived.

“I’ll get him cooking that perch, but the draft will be a few minutes.” Mort jerked his shoulder toward the new arrivals, and Matt gave him a nod back, then watched Mort walk to the men, shake their hands, and then clap one of them on the back. Matt hadn’t noticed at first, but all three men had black bandannas hanging out of their back left pockets, and all looked as if they could probably throw their weight around if they felt it necessary. Without being told, Matt got the sort of feeling he always trusted, and he knew that these men were either in that Redneck Mafia the sheriff had mentioned or were somehow associated with it. Cautious to observe without looking as if he was doing so, Matt began to gather what he could about the men.
Probably going to be a here a few days, in any case. May as well give a look to the local wildlife.
That look was tempered as a beer and a plate of golden perch fillets, fries, and tartar sauce arrived at Matt’s table.

As much as he wanted to continue to observe the men, food mollified him, and Matt set to eating. For their part, the men at the bar didn’t have a whole lot going on, either. They were drinking beer, doing shots of whiskey, and watching the same ball game as the old men. Had Matt not seen the kid with dead eyes attacking people like an animal in the street, he would have thought that maybe Kenny was right and that Sheriff Frank was overstepping the odd boundaries that a small-town lawman can find all around him.

The black eyes, though, they changed things. So did that sure feeling that the men sitting at the bar were part of the Redneck Mafia. Matt was used to that sort of sure feeling. He’d felt it before. It usually happened right before people with rotting flesh started to try to kill him and every innocent person around him. He’d known that, when he eventually got off the bike, he was going to find trouble, but he hadn’t expected it to be like this. He smiled as he folded a piece of perch into his mouth.
Not the worst problem to have, too much normal.
Deciding that he’d had
enough perch, beer, and work as a detective, Matt walked to the bar, where Mort the bartender was talking to the three rough-looking guys.

“I need to settle up when you get a minute,” said Matt. “The food was great, but I need to see if Kenny can give me an update on my ride.”

All three of the men sitting at the bar turned to look at him as Mort walked away from the bar, and the one closest to him said, “What brings you in here? There are definitely better shitholes out there, and I mean in any given direction. Right, Mort?”

Matt was holding his bag under his arm, and he could feel the ax handle inside it. It was comforting in a small way, but the ax in his hand would have been a measure of security that was almost incomparable.

“If I could have picked a spot, I’m not sure where I would have landed,” said Matt, “but something on my bike died and said I was going to be stuck sitting here for a bit.”

The man nodded. The other two had already lost interest and gone back to drinking and watching baseball. Mort came back to the bar and slid a handwritten bill across it. The paper was set in a little plastic dish, and Matt dropped a twenty in it.

“You can keep the change,” Matt said to Mort, then turned to the other man and said, “You fellas have a nice day. I’m going to go see if my engine trouble has been diagnosed.”

“Best of luck,” said the man, turning and winking at Mort, “and if you get bored while you’re waiting on that moron to fix your wheels, have old Mort here give me a call. My name’s Free, and I can set you up with a few different versions of a good time.”

“That sounds good,” said Matt, “real good, as a matter of fact. I’m Matt Cahill, and I’ll see you around.”

Matt was almost stammering the words as he backed away from the man. Only the timing of a home run in the baseball game kept attention from being set upon him. When Free had turned toward Matt, he could see that a small tendril of rotten flesh was creeping up his neck. The exposed and raw skin made several of the tendons in the man’s throat look broken and ruined, and Matt knew that no matter the condition of the bike, he was going to have to find Free again.

***

There was undoubtedly evil in Free. Matt could see that, and probably even somebody without his unique vision could, too, though not as vividly. But the nastiness infecting Free’s
soul hadn’t consumed him yet. There was a chance Matt could still save him, or at least prevent Free from doing something awful to someone else.

It would be nice if Matt didn’t have to kill him.

Matt pondered the thought as he made the short trip to Kenny’s garage, crossing in front of the sheriff’s office, his heart still racing in his chest. It seemed that if it was possible, then perhaps he was arriving before Mr. Dark’s assimilation was complete. Kenny calling to him made Matt jump, and he headed toward the voice and the gas station.

“I was right, Matt,” said a somehow filthier Kenny. “Tranny is fucked. Which is good news on one hand, and bad on another. Shouldn’t be too expensive of a fix—bikes like this are a dime a dozen, so parts are easy to come by. As far as money goes, you’ll be lookin’ at about a thousand, at the high end maybe twelve fifty.”

“Well, that all sounds good. What’s the bad part?”

“Bad part, assumin’ the money wasn’t already the bad part, is that it’s gonna take me a day to do the job, and I won’t have parts to start until tomorrow night. So, at minimum, you’re gonna be lookin’ at two days stayin’ out back, eatin’ at Mortimer’s, and not doin’ a whole lot besides that.”

Matt, quite sure that on a few of those things Kenny was right, was also fairly certain there were a number of things that were going to be occupying his time over the next few days.

“Yeah, that’s all right. I can use some time off the road, to be perfectly honest. Might not be much to do here, but I figure I’ll make do.”

“It’s not all bad,” Kenny said, shrugging. “You get drunk a couple of times, it’ll seem like you were never even waitin’.”

“Hey, I had a question for you, because you strike me as somebody who probably knows just about everybody here.”

“Shoot.”

“You know a dude named Free? Stands a little taller than me, seems to be in some sort of bandanna club with his buddies?”

Kenny gave a look over his shoulder, almost as if he thought Matt were setting him up for a very unfunny joke and Free was going to be standing right behind him and pissed off if he said the wrong thing.

“I know him,” said Kenny. “Why are you wonderin’ about that dude?”

“I met him over in Mort’s place. Seems like an okay guy.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. He’s an okay guy. Hooked up, too. In real tight with some of those high-dollar boys that like to go a little wild at Sally’s.”

“Sally’s?”

Kenny leaned in real close to Matt, as though he were sharing some deeply private information. “A whorehouse, couple miles from here. Rumor is...Well, rumor is guys with some real money have their fingers in the pot. Like I said, a guy like you or me could spread some money around, wind up gettin’ some tail, have a good time. There’s a couple of cats that run with Free that have
real
money, real connections, too, and if you believe the rumors, they like to do more than screw around in there. They run a lot of what happens around here.”

“When you say connected, do you mean the Redneck Mafia?”

“That’s exactly what I mean, only they aren’t somethin’ that you talk about. Rumor is they had a sheriff killed a few years back, and nothin’ come of it because they got the state boys wrapped up, what with money and Sally’s. That’s what I meant earlier when I said Frank needs to keep out of people’s business. This little shitburg town, this whole county, even—this is mafia turf, and that’s why what they say goes. I heard about that kid Frank brought down earlier, all fucked-up on that new meth? That’s them just trying somethin’ new, and Frank is gonna get on his high horse and try and do somethin’ about it. Here’s the problem. They don’t want dudes reactin’ like that, either, and I personally guarantee you that they’ll get that new flake gone long before Frank can do anything about it.”

“That’s a lot of drama for a small town.”

“Ain’t the size of the thing—it’s money. We’re about as dick deep on the edge of the real Mason-Dixon Line as a community could get, and there ain’t nothin’ out here. There’s big money to be made in meth, whores, and security. The reason people like the mafia is because they make it safe. We’re not some town with two gangs fightin’ over turf. We have a safe place to live. The sheriff needs to remember that his job number one is keepin’ us safe. Everything else doesn’t matter. The mafia keeps all the undesirables out, and Frank needs to remember that traffic stops and some guy beatin’ on his wife are about all he’s needed for.”

“I can dig it. You think two days?”

“Can’t see why not. If you head to Sally’s, ask for Renee. Trust me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Matt watched as Kenny walked back into the shop, presumably to make a call to whatever parts shyster he dealt with, and giving a look to the empty street, Matt walked to the sheriff’s station.