Season of Death (12 page)

“What is all this?” Billy Bob asked cluelessly. “Looks kinda like poison ivy.”

Headcase chortled, right eye twitching madly. “
Cannabis sativa,”
he confided. The Latin term rolled from his tongue lyrically, as if it represented the name of a goddess. When this drew a puzzled look, he added, “MaryJane.”

Billy Bob’s eyes grew big, his bunny teeth making an unscheduled appearance. “This here is … is … it’s …” He seemed unwilling to verbalize the word.

“Hash, man,” Headcase declared, grinning. “Best dope this side of the Orient.”

“But … but you cain’t … you cain’t …” Billy Bob stuttered.

“Cain’t what?” Headcase wanted to know. He winked uncontrollably. “Cain’t sell this stuff?” He swore. “The heck I cain’t. Been doin’ it for about a decade now.”

“But it’s … it’s illegal,” Billy Bob exclaimed, as if the man hadn’t realized this.

“No kiddin’? Since when?” Headcase laughed, inciting a coughing fit.

As he struggled to recover, Ray nudged Billy Bob and shook his head at him. “Not now,” he mouthed, hoping the message would be received by the cowboy’s less than agile brain. This wasn’t the time or the place to make an arrest.

“Anyhow … welcome to La Grange, North. Ain’t got no girls. But I got plenty a beauties.” He reached for a straw cowboy hat that was hanging on a wooden stake and traded it for his camouflage cap. Then he flicked a wall switch. High-decibel rock music thundered through the hothouse. “ZZ!” he shouted over the chest-thumping bass and searing electric guitar. “Helps ‘em grow bigger, faster.” He gestured toward the rear. “Let me show ya my lab.”

They paraded through the crops, stepping to the bombastic beat. When they reached the rear of the greenhouse, Headcase stooped at a small, solitary boulder. Leaning it up with one hand, he used the other to punch numbers into an electronic keypad that was flush with the ground. The device chirped like a happy songbird and a four-by-four section of dirt in the corner of the building slid back with a whoosh.

“Go on,” he insisted, pointing at the square black hole with the gun.

“You want us to get in there?” Ray asked. He peered into the hole warily.

“Ain’t nothin’ in there’s gonna bitecha,” he consoled with a vicious twitch.

Ray sighed, shot a glance at the rifle, and begrudgingly lowered himself into the opening. Clinging to a fixed ladder, he began a careful, studied descent into the earth. His first thought was that this was an old mine shaft. If so, Headcase had obviously refurbished it. Even in the darkness,he could tell that the sides were aluminum, the rungs fashioned from steel rebar. As he clanked along, vibram soles gripping the rebar, the moist air of the greenhouse was replaced by a fresh, almost antiseptic smell. Odd. Mines were usually musty and damp. Thirty seconds into the climb, his eyes made a pronouncement: light! The change was barely perceptible, just a dull sense that the blackness was gradually dissipating.

Staring down between his feet, Ray noticed a dull glow: the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. After another minute, the glow swelling to a brilliant white radiance, Ray discovered a solid platform beneath his feet. Releasing his grip on the ladder, he turned around and found himself in a space the size of a studio apartment. The walls were cinder block, the floor steel-reinforced concrete, like that of a military bunker, or a bomb shelter. The room had been cordoned off into three distinct sections. The one closest to Ray contained a six-foot block of monitors, black-and-white screens linked to a control board. To one side was an elaborate stereo system. Behind it a huge Confederate flag had been nailed to the wall.

The second area contained two long chrome tables and a pair of deep, freestanding industrial sinks. The tables bore a Bunsen burner, several pair of scissors, pruning sheers, a spread of knives, a dozen clear plastic bags … Beneath one table was a stack of flat cardboard boxes, ready to be assembled. Under the other was a large crate marked
HEFTY.

The far corner of the room was consumed by a wide-mouthed oven worthy of a professional bakery. It was boxed in by a set of cabinets. An appliance—a grinder?—was plugged into the wall. An aluminum shoot jutted from the wall, emptying into an oversize garbage bag. Closer to Ray two flush-mounted steel panels betrayed the presence of a mini-elevator or dumbwaiter. Two buttons, an arrow up, an arrow down, confirmed this.

It was an impressive setup. Bathed in the light of three overhead fluorescent banks it looked clean, sterile, efficient. Aside from the tables and the flag, nearly everything was white: the oven, the cabinets, the monitor console, the walls, the floor … And the surfaces were spotless.

Behind him, Billy Bob slipped and dropped the last four feet.

“Watch yer step,” Headcase encouraged. He completed the descent, rifle aimed directly at their chests.

Headcase reached to flick a switch and the music that had pummeled them up in the greenhouse instantly erupted from a pair of four-inch Bose speakers. Adjusting the volume to an acceptable level, he gestured at the monitors. “Nice, huh?”

“Great,” Ray grunted, unsure what it was Headcase was so proud of. He was ready to leave. Being underground with a gun-wielding psycho wasn’t his idea of a good time. “Thanks for showing us around.” He turned and reached for the ladder.

The rifle tapped him on the shoulder, demanding his full attention. “This here is how I knew you was comin’.” He fell into a chair and pointed at the screens. “Got cameras all over the woods. A fella cain’t get within a half mile a here without me knowin’ about it.” His hand patted a unit that looked like a VCR. “Got me some motion sensors too. If you was to somehow beat my cameras, ya couldn’t beat the sensors, no way, no how.” He rose and led them to the tables. “This is where we prepare the crop.”

Ray stared vacantly at the workspace. Nothing like a guided tour of a drug complex. Old Headcase was probably one of the biggest suppliers north of Bogotá. He was reflecting on this, ignoring the man’s glowing description of the packaging process, when it struck him:
we?
This is where
we
prepare the crop? So it wasn’t just a one-man business. That made sense. Something this big would require a support crew.

What didn’t make sense was why Headcase was sharing all of this with them. Was meeting a fellow Texan really cause for this level of hospitality? Or was he simply patronizing them, with the intention of shooting them both when the little game was over?

“The growin’ season up here above the Arctic Circle is somethin’ else,” he was saying. “Short as all get out, just a couple a months outdoors, three or four in the hothouse.But shoot-fire! Them months is the best on God’s green earth. My plants grow big as anybody’s, faster ‘n anyone’s. And healthy …!” He tried to whistle, but it got stuck in his throat. After pausing to swear, he exclaimed, “Ain’t nobody grows better hash. Alaska Bush has a rep, worldwide.”

This was absolutely ridiculous, Ray decided. Two cops, two by-the-book, straight-as-an-arrow law-enforcement officers, standing in a high-tech cellar, listening to a self-confessed felon boast of his exploits. This bozo was begging to be busted. And if he hadn’t been clutching a 30.06, Ray would have obliged him.

Headcase stepped to the cabinets and removed a thick package of dope. Using his knife he jabbed a hole in the plastic and tore a wide gap with his fingers.

“Take a whiff,” he said. “Tell me if that ain’t a beautiful aroma.”

Billy Bob sniffed and nodded. Ray did the same. “Yep. That’s dope all right.”

Headcase put it to his nose, sighed longingly, then he opened a drawer.

“We really have to be going,” Ray insisted. “We have a friend waiting to meet us.”

This statement seemed to jolt him awake. “Friend?” Back rigid, rifle gripped in two hands again, his head swung to the monitors, then to Ray. “Where is this friend?”

“Downriver.”

Headcase considered this for a moment, lips pursed, right eye twitching open.

Ray chided himself for letting the information slip. It had been a meager attempt at pushing the man’s hand. And it had failed, backfiring miserably. Now Headcase was paranoid again. His response did, however, shed light on his intentions. With all the security precautions, why would he care if they had a friend out there? Answer: he wouldn’t. What he cared about was the fact that someone was waiting on them, someone who might come looking for them, who might notify the authorities if they didn’t show up.

“How far downriver?”

“A little way,” Ray said. “He’s expecting us.”

The moment of indecision passed and Headcase held up a quart-sized plastic bag filled with short, crooked cigarettes. Removing three of the smokes, he handed one to Ray, another to Billy Bob, and balanced one between his lips.

He produced a lighter, flicked it to life, and stared at the flame. “Well, now … That there friend will understand if y’all are a little late now, won’t he?”

THIRTEEN

“G
O ON, NOW!”

Ray reluctantly accepted the joint. Thick gray smoke curled lazily from the lit end, carrying with it a pungent, sickly-sweet smell. Ray wasn’t a smoker. Never had been. As for marijuana, he had sampled a housemate’s hash in college once. Once was all it took.

“Take a toke!” Headcase insisted. He sucked on his own joint, closing his eyes and grimacing as he held the smoke in his lungs.

Ray eyed the rifle. It was cradled lovingly in both arms, like an only child. His mind began racing, struggling to come up with a way to escape from this loon.

“Take a toke!” Headcase repeated in a wheeze. “Here!” He shoved it at Billy Bob.

The cowboy looked horrified. Holding the lumoy, contraband cigarette at arm’s length, he glanced at Ray for direction.

Ray shrugged. There was little choice. He put the joint between his lips and pretended to inhale. “Mmm … Good stuff,” he lied.

Billy Bob sampled his cautiously. He made the mistake of pulling the smoke into his lungs and was rewarded with a coughing fit.

Headcase laughed at this. “Bush Thai … Best in the West,” he boasted. He took another long, enthusiastic draw, then sat like an overinflated balloon, poised to burst.

“You’re right,” Ray agreed, lifting the joint like a glass of champagne. “Best in the West. Now … we really have to be …”

“Not yet,” Headcase said, still holding his breath. His left eye began to bulge, his right eye spasming demonically. When he finally exhaled, it came out in a low moan of contentment, the sound of a man consumed by pleasure. “Take another toke.”

“Really, we have to be going,” Ray said. He reached to extinguish his complimentary sample of La Grange produce.

“Not so fast,” Headcase said, catching his arm. “If I were you, I’d make that smoke nice ‘n long. I’d savor that thang fer all it’s worth.”

“Uh-huh,” Ray grunted. A warning alarm was sounding inside his head. “And why’s that?”

“‘Cause it’ll be yer last,” Headcase said nonchalantly.

“Our
last
…?” Ray tried not to panic. Maybe Headcase meant they wouldn’t have the privilege of smoking this particular crop again. Maybe he wouldn’t be growing Thai next season. Or maybe he was going out of business. Or maybe …

“Soon as yer done …” He paused to take another long toke, then whispered breathlessly, “I gotta shoot cha.”

Billy Bob’s jaw dropped. “But… But you cain’t … you cain’t just …”

“Sure I can. Didya think I’d let cha see my operation, then let cha waltz on out?”

The cowboy was sweating, partially from the toxin he was being forced to ingest, partially from this shocking pronouncement, Ray decided. Feeling warm himself, he scrutinized the room again—gun, oven, console, ladder exit—hoping to discover a means of escape that he had previously overlooked. But there didn’t seem to be one.

“Nothing personal, mind ya,” Headcase assured. “I kinda like ya’ll. Least, you,” he said, looking at Billy Bob. “Being a fella Texan and all.”

“What about me?” Ray asked. If they were about to die, why not be forthright?

“Well …” Headcase made a face. “Ain’t much for klooches, pardon ma French. Never have been. Like ‘em ‘bout as much as wetbacks and in-juns. Cain’t never trust ‘em.” He studied Ray intently. “Yer one heck of a big Ez-kee-mo.”