The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 Page 9

  Quarryville was a two-day ride from Columbus, a distance not much different than that from Columbus to North Dakota, a ride he had made several times with the Lords of Ohio to attend the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. He likely had only a few days to decide where he wanted to go and who he wanted to be before the U.S. Marshals Service came for him. He was considering the Pacific Northwest when he finally rolled up the service-bay doors to find Tommy sitting at one of the picnic tables outside.

  Tommy rose, tucked the magazine he’d been reading into his back pocket, and headed inside. He placed his usual order and added, “You aren’t planning to throw pickles at me this morning, are you?”

  “I should charge you extra for them,” Beau said as he filled a Styrofoam three-compartment takeout container with Tommy’s lunch order.

  “Fat chance you could collect it.”

  Beau slid a cold can of Dr Pepper across the counter and Tommy slid back exact change.

  There were no other customers in the smokehouse and none approaching as far as Beau could see. “Yesterday you said there was nothing for you at home,” he said, “but why do you keep coming here?”

  “When I retired, I came home to care for my mother because she was all I had in the world,” Tommy said. “She died a couple of years later, and I planted her in the Methodist cemetery, next to my father. I was spending every afternoon in the Watering Hole, drowning my sorry ass in cheap beer, before you opened this place.”

  “You chose brisket over beer?”

  “You’re better company than a bottle of Lone Star,” Tommy said.

  “What about your old friends, the people you grew up with?”

  “The few that didn’t move away are dead or as good as,” Tommy said. “These days you’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve got.”

  Unsure how to respond, Beau stared across the counter at his customer.

  “I never hear you talk about your people.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Beau said. “They’re gone.”

  “That’s a damn shame,” Tommy said. “Good thing you found Bethany. When I had to put my mother’s cat to sleep a couple of years ago, your Bethany held my hand. That’s a good woman you have there. Worth fighting for, don’t you think?”

  Without waiting for a response, Tommy picked up his lunch and carried it outside. A lone biker drifted by on the highway, the potato-potato-potato sound echoing into the former showroom until the door swung closed. Beau stiffened.

  Beau waited until he was in the privacy of his own home that afternoon before dialing the number he had memorized all those years earlier. After identifying himself to Deputy Marshal Arquette, Beau asked, “Have you heard anything?”

  “Nothing,” Arquette replied.

  “Are you planning to relocate me?”

  “Not at this time.”

  “I have people now.”

  “That complicates things.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I’ll be away from the office tomorrow and Friday,” she said, “but my calls will be forwarded to my cell. Let me know if anything changes.”

  “Yeah,” Beau said. “I’ll call when I’m dead.”

  He stabbed the phone’s disconnect switch with his finger and began pacing the living room. His first thought the previous day had been to abandon this life just as he had abandoned his previous life, but Bethany and Tommy had made him realize he had more to lose and nothing he wanted to leave behind.

  He was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a bottle of Dos Equis when Bethany returned home from the veterinary clinic. He reached into the refrigerator behind him and brought out a second bottle. As he held it out to her, he said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

  “You should be.” Bethany took the bottle and settled onto a chair on the other side of the table.

  During preparation for relocation, William Secrist and other deputy marshals had promised that no one who followed their instructions had ever been hurt or killed while in the Witness Security Program under the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service. One of those rules was never, ever to divulge his prior identity, not even to a lover who entered his life after relocation. Too many relationships turn sour, and a spiteful ex who revealed his identity would endanger his life. Beau knew he had to risk that possibility.

  “You know who I am,” Beau said, “not who I was. I’m not that man anymore.”

  “Does this have something to do with your tattoo?”

  Tattooed on Beau’s left upper arm, usually covered by his shirt sleeve, was a skull with a crown of thorns and the phrase VENGEANCE IS MINE written in Old English script in a ribbon below the skull.

  He nodded. “I was an enforcer for the Lords of Ohio.”

  She shook her head.

  “Hell’s Angels. Banditos,” he said. “Like them, but a much smaller organization.”

  “Organization?” Bethany said. “You mean gang? You’re in a motorcycle gang?”

  “I was, a long time ago. I’m not now.”

  “So how do you quit? Do you just mail in a resignation letter?”

  “I wish it were that easy.” He told her about his arrest and the deal he’d made to roll over on his fellow Lords of Ohio. “The feds had me dead to rights,” he said. “I was facing life in prison with no possibility of parole.”

  Bethany listened without interruption.

  “The feds dropped all charges in return for my turning state’s evidence, and they put me in the Witness Security Program, relocating me here when all the trials ended,” Beau explained. “Eighteen members of the Lords of Ohio went to prison because of my testimony. Chainsaw Roberts must be out by now.”

  Chainsaw had not been convicted of any of the murders Beau had witnessed in his previous life, the evidence too circumstantial despite Beau’s testimony, and had gone away for ten years on a combination of lesser charges. Beau told Bethany the big man used a chainsaw for easy disposal of bodies while leaving behind copious amounts of physical reminders attesting to the deceased’s violent end to discourage the deceased’s friends and family from pursuing matters further.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Bethany said under her breath. She opened her bottle of Dos Equis and downed half of it before she spoke again. “So you were just going to walk out on us?”

  He told her about the magazine article and how he thought the photograph outed him.

  “I thought if I left, you and Amanda would be safe.” Beau didn’t mention that the U.S. Marshals Service had not yet committed to relocating him. “I realized today that if I walk away, I leave behind everyone and everything I’ve ever loved. I couldn’t leave without you knowing why.”

  “No,” Bethany said. “You’re staying. We’ll get through this. Somehow, we’ll get through this.”

  Amanda, a young woman who resembled photographs of Bethany at the same age, opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen. Her presence ended their conversation.

  Tommy ordered his usual lunch on Thursday. As he paid, he said, “You didn’t exist until you moved here, and you barely exist now.”

  “How’s that?” Beau asked.

  “I spent some time on the Internet yesterday. You’re not on social media, don’t have an email address I can find, and I’ve seen your cell phone. All it does is make calls.”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “A man has a right to privacy,” Tommy said. “But your reaction to the magazine article got me to thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About why a man might be hiding. About why a man might have no past to speak of,” Tommy said. “I worked in the oil fields with men like you. Quiet men. Just wanted the world to leave them alone.”

  “And?”

  “Some were good men,” he said. “Some weren’t.”

  “And what do you think I am?”

  Tommy smiled. “I haven’t decided.”

  He took his food outside, and Beau watched Tommy through the front window until a pair of te
llers from Quarryville Bank & Trust interrupted his contemplative observation with an order for seven lunch plates to go.

  The rest of Beau’s day was uneventful. Dinner that evening consisted of the last of the deer stew, and Bethany joined him in bed that night for a physical reminder of what he risked losing.

  Friday was different from Thursday only because Beau received his weekly meat delivery at 10 a.m. and dinner that night came from the Dairy Queen because Bethany was too tired to cook.

  Saturday brought a slew of unfamiliar faces to the smokehouse counter, people who had seen the magazine article and had ventured out of their way to experience Quarryville Smokehouse’s limited menu. The phone also rang more than usual, with people phoning for directions or asking questions. Amanda answered most of the calls.

  Just before 2 p.m., after they had sold out of ribs but still had brisket and coleslaw, Amanda picked up the ringing phone, listened for a moment, and then said, “There’s no one here by that name.”

  After she hung up, Beau asked, “What was that about?”

  “Some guy wanted to speak to ‘Stick.’”

  Beau looked out the window, saw nothing unusual, and then told his girlfriend’s daughter, “You should head home.”

  “But you still have brisket.”

  “Not much,” he said. “I can handle the last few sales.”

  Amanda removed her apron, hung it by the office door, and was on her smartphone to one of her friends before she stepped outside. She turned back just long enough to wave her fingers before sashaying down the street toward the Dairy Queen, where her best friend had yet to master the art of making dip cones.

  Beau watched her walk away, glanced at Tommy sitting at one of the picnic tables outside, his nose buried in yet another magazine, and examined the other remaining customers—a young couple outside making goo-goo eyes at one another over a single lunch order of chopped brisket, and a somewhat older couple wrangling two young children at a table in the service bays.

  Deputy Marshal Arquette had been in Midland Thursday and Friday and was returning to the San Antonio office when she decided to take a slight detour to check in on Beau James and taste his brisket. Her unmarked black SUV entered Quarryville from the north, avoiding the east-west state highway that bisected the town. In a rush, she parked behind the Quarryville Smokehouse, climbed out, and hurried into the women’s restroom.

  The veterinary clinic closed at 2 p.m. that day, and Bethany was almost home when she saw a dozen motorcycles pulling into the Quarryville Smokehouse parking lot. The colors affixed to the backs of the bikers’ jackets matched the tattoo on Beau’s arm.

  As the bikers parked and silenced their motorcycles, Beau stepped out of the former showroom and suggested the couple with children clear out. They didn’t hesitate. The couple at the outside table also wrapped up their things and slipped away. Tommy Baldwin closed the magazine he’d been reading and watched as the bikers dismounted. None of the bikers paid attention to him as he slid the pistol from the holster at the small of his back.

  As Bethany pulled her pickup into the driveway at home, she retrieved her smartphone from her purse and dialed the number Beau had made her memorize.

  The roar of the motorcycles brought Amanda and her friend out of the Dairy Queen, and they captured the scene with their smartphones.

  Two of the bikers entered the showroom, where Beau stood behind the counter. The others began overturning the tables in the service bays and tearing apart the limited decorations.

  Bethany ran into the home she shared with Beau and shoved her smartphone into her pocket before she unlocked the gun cabinet and retrieved her deer rifle. She loaded it as she ran back outside and braced her arm on the hood of her pickup. She peered through the scope at the two men inside the showroom with her boyfriend. Both were armed. Beau had one hand beneath the counter.

  “Been a long time, Stick,” Chainsaw said. “You’ve put on weight.”

  Though they were of similar height, Chainsaw weighed more than twice what Beau weighed, heavy muscle hidden beneath rolls of fat. He wore a sleeveless jean jacket revealing arms liberally decorated with violent tattoos, and a crown of thorns was tattooed on his bald head. A chainsaw hung from his left hand, a .38 from his right.

  Beau replied, “Not long enough.”

  Chainsaw glanced around. “Looks like this here’s your last supper.”

  The deputy marshal in the women’s restroom looked down at her cell phone when it rang. A call was being forwarded from the office.

  Chainsaw raised the .38 he carried in his right hand and aimed it at Beau.

  Bethany had Chainsaw’s head squarely in her crosshairs. When he pointed his revolver at Beau, she squeezed the trigger, hoping the window separating them would not deflect her shot.

  Before Arquette could answer her phone, she heard gunfire through the concrete wall. Then she heard the roar of a shotgun.

  At the sound of the first shot, the ten bikers tearing apart the seating area in the former service bays drew their weapons.

  The sounds catapulted Arquette, her sidearm drawn, from the restroom and around the building into a firefight involving a gang of bikers hiding behind overturned picnic tables in the former service bays, Beau James behind the smokehouse’s counter, and an old man hiding behind one of the pillars supporting the canopy outside. What she didn’t see was the woman on the far side of the railroad tracks using a deer rifle to pick off bikers.

  The bikers had superior firepower, including automatic weapons, but expecting no resistance they had trapped themselves in a box. The entire melee lasted less than ten minutes and left the Quarryville Smokehouse riddled with bullet holes and every biker dead or dying. Sorting out the chain of events took much, much longer and involved the use of video provided by Amanda and her friend.

  The coroner was unable to determine if Chainsaw was killed by the single shot to the head or by the dual shotgun blasts to the abdomen. Slugs retrieved from the other bodies also came from more than one weapon.

  No charges were brought against Bethany or Tommy, and after intervention from the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. attorney’s office declined to pursue charges against Beau for possession of a sawed-off shotgun without proper tax-paid registration.

  When the smoke cleared, Beau James refused the U.S. Marshals Service’s offer to relocate him. He had survived being outed, and the Lords of Ohio had disbanded, the few remaining members in Columbus absorbed into the local Hell’s Angels chapter.

  At Bethany’s insistence, Beau did not patch any of the bullet holes before reopening the smokehouse. A significant increase in business followed, not just from being named the ninth best barbeque joint in the Lone Star State, but also from the notorious reputation the smokehouse had gained from the shootout.

  The smokehouse had been highly rated for the quality of its brisket and ribs but lost points for the limited menu. So Beau added two sides—macaroni and cheese, made from Bethany’s recipe, and potato salad made from Tommy’s mother’s recipe.

  Business increased so much that Beau could no longer handle it all himself. Each morning at eleven, Tommy rolled up the service-bay doors and worked behind the counter with him until closing. On weekends Amanda and two of her high school friends waited tables.

  And at the end of every day Beau returned home to his new wife, Bethany. She still knew him only as Beau James, the man he was, and not the man he had been.

  James Lee Burke

  The Wild Side of Life

  from The Southern Review

  The club where the oil-field people hung out was called the Hungry Gator. It stood on pilings by a long green humped levee in the Atchafalaya Basin, a gigantic stretch of bayous and quicksand and brackish bays and flooded cypress and tupelos that looked like a forgotten piece of Creation before fish worked their way up on the land and formed feet. There were no clocks inside the Gator, no last names, sometimes not even first ones, just initials. By choice most of us lived on the rim. Of ev
erything. Get my drift?

  I liked the rim. You could pretend there was no before or after; there was just now, a deadness in the sky on a summer evening, maybe a solitary black cloud breaking apart like ink in clear water, while thousands of tree frogs sang. It was a place I didn’t have to make comparisons or study on dreams and memories that would come flickering behind my eyelids five seconds into sleep.

  I worked on a seismograph rig, ten days on and five days off; on land, I sometimes played drums and mandolin at the club and even did a few vocals. My big pleasure was looking at the girls from the bandstand, secretly thinking of myself as their protector, a guy who’d been around but didn’t try to use people. The truth is I was a mess with women and about as clever in a social situation as the scribbles on the washroom wall.

  I’d blank out in the middle of conversations. Or go away someplace inside my head and not get back for a few hours. People thought it was because I was at Pork Chop Hill. Not so. I was never ashamed of what we did at Pork Chop.

  I was thinking on this and half in the bag when a woman at the bar touched my cheek and looked at me in a sad way, probably because she was half jacked on flak juice too, even though it was only two in the afternoon. “You got that in Korea?” she said.

  “My daddy made whiskey,” I replied. “Stills blow up sometimes.”

  Her eyes floated away from me. “You don’t have to act smart.”

  I tried to grin, the scarred skin below my eye crinkling. “It wasn’t a big deal. On my face it’s probably an improvement.”

  She gazed at herself in the mirror behind the liquor counter. I waited for her to speak, but she didn’t.