Currency of Souls (17 page)

"Trust you? Trust the guy that psycho priest said was supposed to kill me? The guy who left me with The Man with the Flaming Hands and buried my girl in a shallow grave behind a dive bar? Yeah, shit, Sheriff, we're the next best thing to pals, you and me. Let's not even start in on the whole you being a cop thing."

"Just listen."

"Go right ahead."

"I have no interest in turning you in."

He scoffs. "That so? Jeez, the handcuffs might not have been the best way to show that."

"I
did
, sure. But not anymore. All I care about now is getting to my son in time to help him. He's in trouble."

"That doesn't surprise me. Guy likes to ventilate skulls that much is bound to get his ass handed to him sooner or later. Hell, I know what that's like. I'll be lucky to live to see the Mexican border, and I'm all right with that. But what I can tell you right now is that I'm sure as shit
not
going to be run down in a backwater hole like this. So I'm taking your truck, Sheriff, and whether or not I leave you as a corpse in the dust all depends on what you do in the next five minutes."

"You can go. I won't stop you. I give you my word on that."

"Good."

"But you're not taking the truck."

"Say again?"

"I need it. It's the only way I can get to Kyle."

"Yeah well, that's touching as all hell but you're not going to be in much shape to do anything for the little prick if your head's no longer attached."

Our eyes meet in the mirror. Both of us are sweating, for different reasons. He's getting ready to kill me; I'm getting ready to die.

"Take the truck," I suggest then. "Just take me with you as far as Hill's house. After that you can get gone and you'll never hear from me again."

"No dice."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I don't like you." The blade pins my Adam's apple in place, biting the flesh there, drawing blood I can feel trickling down into my shirt.

"We did everything we could for your girl." I'm hoping shifting the focus of the conversation might buy me some time. That's not something I was trained to do; it's just plain old common sense.

"It wasn't enough."

"Hey, you brought her here. If you hadn't—"

"Don't feed me that bullshit. We were here tonight because we were supposed to be here. I don't much like the idea of not being in control of what I do, but that's pretty much tough titty right now, right? Whatever juju you and your friends were doing up in that bar, it was what decided where we'd be, who would die and..." He shakes his head. "I'm getting out of here now."

Trying to grab hold of a coherent thought right now is like to trying to find a licorice whip in a bucket of snakes, so I quit trying and let myself relax. He's not getting the truck; that much I'm sure of. Everything else is up in the air, so I decide I'm going to end this, right after I ask him something that's been on my mind since last night. "Did you kill Eleanor Cobb on purpose?"

"I didn't kill her at all."

"How's that?"

"
She
came at
us
. Almost as if she was sitting there around that corner, engine idling, waiting for the first sign of headlights coming in the opposite direction so she could plow into them. Into us. Crazy old bitch."

No
, I think and close my eyes.
Not crazy
. Lost. Stuck with a husband who grew older every time he took someone else's pain away, a man afraid to love her too much because he was going to die soon, whether because of his gift, or because of his sins and Hill's regulating, it didn't matter. She was going to lose him soon, and both of them knew it. Hell, everyone knew it. So she went first, and he followed.

"I have a favor to ask."

The kid frowns. "What?"

"I want to turn on the radio."

"For what? You're getting out."

"That's the thing. I'm not getting out. I can't, so I'd appreciate you letting me have the radio on. That way I don't have to hear you breathing when you do what you have to do."

Brody scowls at me. "Are you out of your fucking tree completely, or what?"

"No, but it looks like we've reached an impasse here, and you're the one with the knife. All I want now is some music."

"Just like that, huh?"

"Just like that."

He holds the knife away from my throat, just enough for me to see that it's a big son of a bitch, thick-handled, with a curved blade on one side, a serrated one on the other. The kind of knife my father used for skinning bucks.

He's breathing quickly, sweating more. "You and Carla and the goddamn music. I don't have this kind of time to waste."

"So don't."

I reach for the stereo, leaning into the blade. Flip the switch, and sit back.

A moment passes. Wintry is a helpless shadow beyond the window.

I start to tremble all over. My guts squeeze bile into my mouth. Brody's going to assume it's because of him, because of what we both know he's about to do. But it isn't that at all. I'm not afraid of him.

It's the goddamned stereo.

I'm afraid of the radio and what's going to happen because I've turned it on, something I promised myself I'd never do again. Not in this truck. Not after the last time.

Brody curses, brings the knife back to my throat, positions the serrated side beneath my Adam's apple but doesn't start cutting. Cold metal teeth nip the skin. I figure maybe out of respect he's waiting for the music to start. So we watch the stereo.

The green CD light blinks on. The disk begins to spin with a faint whirring sound.

Then at last, after what seems like years of silence, the music starts. Patsy Cline. "Crazy".

And with a sigh that might be regret, anger, or relief, Brody begins to cut my throat.

* * *

"We're closed."

Confused and struggling to accept that somehow his mind has been playing tricks on him, Vess lingers in the doorway of a tavern memory tells him burned to the ground last night but his eyes swear is still here, untouched by fire on the outside, only slightly blackened on the inside. Near the far end of the room, by the bar, a svelte woman clad in gray tempers a carpet of soot and ash with short sharp smacks from a ragged looking broom. The air smells faintly of smoke.

"Of course you're closed, but she's looking for him," Vess explains, but moves no further into the long narrow room. A single hurricane lamp has been set up on the counter, creating a murky twilight through which the woman moves like a delicate ghost. Thin shadows twitch spasmodically around the rows of bottles behind the bar. "The Sheriff I mean, of course. That might not have been clear. I don't always say what I mean the way I mean to say it. Means I usually have to elaborate. I don't—
Hassak!
" Annoyed with himself, he wrenches the hat from his head and tugs at it, forgetting its contents until the bones hit the floor like pebbles and skitter away from him. "Oh." He drops to his haunches, stretches his upper body as far as he can over the threshold to avoid stepping foot into the room and therefore risking the woman's ire. A single phalange remains maddeningly out of reach.

"
Not here
," whispers the finger.

"What are you doin'?" the woman asks, and he jerks back. She has approached without his hearing her. He looks from the kernel of bone at her feet to her face and smiles involuntarily. She is without a doubt one of the most beautiful creatures he has ever seen, with her auburn hair and light green eyes. Often, on the endlessly lonely nights beneath the stars, he has dreamed—not of this woman—but of women like her. Maybe in his imaginings they were less severe looking, not so hard of eye or tight of mouth, but the basic model is the same. He finds his already muddled thoughts scrambling, his mind exploring fantasies he will never live to see made real, even if the same stars he sleeps under were to align and the woman decided to court a pauper.

"I asked what you were doin'?"

"Sorry," he splutters, attempting a half-bow despite his posture already being an approximation of one. It's an awkward feat that almost sends him sprawling, so he quickly steadies himself and rises, the last fragment of finger forgotten.

"I'm Kirk Vess."

"I know who you are," the woman responds icily. "I barred you from here, remember?"

He doesn't, but nods.

"What do you want?"

"A woman's finger brought me here," he says, nodding pointedly at the phalange two inches from her shoe. "To find the Sheriff."

"A finger?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Whose is it?"

"I don't know. Just...a woman. A pretty lady, I'm guessing. She...she was in a fridge."

The barmaid's gaze is penetrating. Vess feels himself growing warm from the inside out, the color rising to his cheeks.

"A fridge?"

"Yes, like a white coffin or... They put her in it as if it was a boat."

Gracie frowns. "What?"

Vess squints, fearing his thoughts are squirming free of him and desperately tries to catch them. He runs the tips of his index fingers over his eyebrows and takes a breath. "Stuck in the mud," he says slowly. "That's where she was. I thought it was the box but it was only a fridge. Poor lady." He clucks his tongue. "She wants me to find the Sheriff. I tried Doctor—"

"Understood," Gracie says, her expression softening just a little. "You found a body."

Vess nods eagerly. "Her finger brought me here."

"Not here," whispers the finger. "
Not
here."

"I
know
he isn't," Vess whispers back, eager to silence the dead woman. Immediately he feels guilty for thinking her an intrusion into this unexpected scene, and grimaces. "May I...collect them?"

Gracie nods. "The bones? Go ahead."

He does, stroking each segment by way of an apology before depositing them into his pocket.

"The Sheriff ain't here," Gracie informs him, and heads back to the bar. "But chances are he will be before long."

Vess smiles. "I'll come back. I'll bring the finger."

"You could wait."

"Yes."

"Want a drink while you do?"

Vess immediately begins to question what he thinks she said, for he has never been welcome here, or any other bar for that matter, with the exception of the kinds of places where no one with any sense would go, places where people still get killed over cheating at cards and old men in expensive suits sit in shadowy corners discussing the undoing of their enemies. Vess has never been welcome anywhere, which is why he exists to be elsewhere. With that in mind, he decides jumping at what he is not convinced was an invitation is not the wisest recourse, so he doesn't, simply stays where he is and grins uncertainly.

"Well?"

"Think I heard wrong. Sorry. My hearing of things is like my speech. Trying to explain is—"

"Come join me for a drink while you wait."

The smile almost splits his face, and certainly adds deep wrinkles where there were none before. He almost floats across the floor to the bar, so elated does he feel by this offering of kindness from so magnificent a lady. A drink in a place he should not be, in the company of a woman he should not know, stews his mind further, until it sends tremors of confused pleasure though his limbs.

"Sit." She indicates a stool, and he takes it quickly.

Gracie produces two shot glasses from beneath the bar, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Thought the place burned," Vess says. "There was a lot of light up here. Must have been imagining things. I do that sometimes, especially when my mind gets tired."

"You weren't imaginin' things." She fills the glasses to the top, slides one before him. "It burned all right."

"Oh. Wasn't too bad then." He sips the drink, savoring it and the moment. Accustomed as he is to cheap wine, the bourbon tastes like tears from Heaven. His mouth buzzes, tongue pleasantly scalded by the liquor. He coughs. "Bit of black and burnt, but still all right."

"I was bored," Gracie says, crossing her elbows and leaning on them, her face close to his, chin hovering above their drinks. "So I started to rebuild it. I'd rather be stuck in a room, no matter how miserable it might be, than a hole full of charred wood."

He raises his glass in agreement and takes another sip.

"Not that I intend to be here for much longer." She raises her own glass, starts to drink. Vess watches her, follows the single drop of bourbon that escapes her lips, winding its way down over her chin and throat until it disappears into the opening of her blouse. A new kind of heat flourishes within him and he grins.

"I'm movin' on," she announces, with obvious excitement. "After all these years in this goddamn town, I'm gettin' out, leavin' all these wretched people with their wretched lives behind."