Every Dead Thing

I stood up to leave, placing two dollar bills on the counter.

“For the welcome,” I said. “Put it toward a new sign.”

I turned to find a small, rat-featured guy in a worn blue denim jacket standing in front of me. His nose was dotted with blackheads and his teeth were prominent and yellow-stained like walrus tusks. His black baseball cap was marked with the words Boyz N the Hood, but this wasn’t any logo John Singleton would have liked. Instead of homies, the words were surrounded by the hooded heads of Klan figures.

Beneath his denim jacket, I could see the word Pulaski under a seal of some sort. Pulaski was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan and the site of an a

But there was probably still a place for Rat Features in the new Klan. Every organization needs its foot soldiers, and this one had ca

Behind him, the bearded pool player loomed, his eyes small, piggy, and dumb looking. His arms were enormous but without definition, and his gut bulged beneath a camouflage T-shirt. The T-shirt bore the legend Kill ’em all-Let God sort ’em out, but the big guy was no marine. He looked as close to retarded as you can get without someone coming by twice a day to feed you and clean up your mess.

“How you doin’?” said the Rat. The bar was quiet now and the group of men at the pool table were no longer lounging but stood rigid in anticipation of what was to come. One of them smiled and poked his neighbor with an elbow. Obviously, the Rat and his buddy were the local double act.

“Great till now.”

He nodded as if I’d just said something deeply profound with which he had a natural empathy.

“You know,” I said, “I once took a leak in Thom Robb’s garden.”

Which was true.

“It’d be better if you just got back on the road and kept driving, I reckon,” said the Rat, after a pause to figure out who Thom Robb was. “So why don’t you just do that?”

“Thanks for the advice.” I moved to go past him but his pal put a hand like a shovel against my chest and pushed me back against the bar by flexing his wrist slightly.

“It wasn’t advice,” said the Rat. He gestured back at the big guy with his thumb.

“This here’s Six. You don’t get back in your fuckin’ car now and start raisin’ dust on the highway, Six is go

Six smiled dimly. The evolutionary curve obviously sloped pretty gently where Six came from.

“You know why he’s called Six?”

“Let me guess,” I replied. “There are another five assholes like him at home?”

It didn’t look like I was going to find out how Six got his name, because he stopped smiling and lunged past the Rat, his hand clutching for my neck. He moved fast for a man his size, but not that fast. I brought my right foot up and released it heel first onto Six’s left knee. There was a satisfying crunching sound, and Six faltered, his mouth wide with pain, and stumbled sideways and down.

His friends were already coming to his aid when there was a commotion from behind them and a small, tubby deputy in his late thirties pushed his way through, one hand on the butt of his pistol. It was Wallace, Deputy Dorito. He looked scared and edgy, the kind of guy who became a cop to give him some sort of advantage over the people who used to laugh at him in school, steal his lunch money, and beat him up, except he found that now those people still laughed at him and didn’t look like they’d let the uniform stand in the way of another beating. Still, on this occasion he had a gun and maybe they figured he was scared enough to pull it on them.

“What’s goin’ on here, Clete?”

There was silence for a moment and then the Rat spoke up. “Just some high spirits got out of hand, Wallace. Ain’t nothin’ to concern the law.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Gabe.”

Someone helped Six to his feet and brought him to a chair.

“Looks like more than high spirits to me. I reckon you boys better come on down to the cells, cool off for a time.”

“Let it go, Wallace,” said a low voice. It came from a thin, wiry man with cold, dark eyes and a beard flecked with gray. He had an air of authority about him and an intelligence that went beyond the low cu

“Okay, Clete, but…” Deputy Dorito’s words trailed off as he realized there was nothing he could say that would matter to any of the men before him. He nodded to the crowd, as if the decision not to pursue things any further had been his to make.

“You’d better leave, mister,” he said, looking at me.

I stood up and walked slowly to the door. No one said anything as I left. Back at the motel, I rang Walter Cole to find out if anything had developed in the Stephen Barton killing, but he was out of the office and his machine was on at home. I left the number of the motel and tried to get some sleep.

19

THE SKY WAS GRAY and dark the next morning, heavy with impending rain. My suit was wrinkled from the previous day’s travel, so I abandoned it for chinos, a white shirt, and a black jacket. I even dug out a black silk-knit tie, so I wouldn’t look like a bum. I drove once through the town. There was no sign of a red jeep or the couple I had seen driving it.

I parked outside the Haven Diner, bought a copy of the Washington Post in the gas station across the road, and then went into the diner for breakfast. It was after nine but people still lounged around at the counter or at the tables, mumbling about the weather and, I guessed, about me, since some of them glanced knowingly in my direction, directing the attention of their neighbors toward me.

I sat at a table in the corner and sca

“That’s me.”

She nodded in satisfaction.

“I’ll give you your breakfast for free, then.” She smiled a hard smile, then added: “But don’t you go confusin’ my generosity with an invitation to stay. You ain’t that good lookin’.” She strolled back behind the counter and pi

There wasn’t much traffic on Haven’s main street, or much human activity in sight. Most of the cars and trucks seemed to be passing through on their way to someplace else. The town seemed to be permanently stuck in a grim Sunday morning.

I finished my food and left a tip on the table. Dorothy slouched forward over the counter, her breasts resting on its polished surface. “Bye now,” she said as I left. The other diners briefly looked over their shoulders at me before returning to their breakfast and coffee.

I drove to the Haven Public Library, a new single-story building at the far side of the town. A pretty black woman in her early thirties stood behind the counter with an older white woman whose hair was like steel wool and who eyed me with obvious distaste as I entered.

“Morning,” I said. The younger woman smiled slightly anxiously while the older one tried to tidy the already immaculate area behind the counter. “What’s the local paper around here?”