UnSouled

“Talk to me, Argent,” Nelson says. “Tell me everything Lassiter said while you had him in your basement.”

It’s day one: They’ve just left Heartsdale not half an hour ago, heading north. This man behind the wheel—this parts pirate—is intelligent and knows his business. But there’s something about his eyes that hints that he’s lingering near the edge of the world. Balancing on the brink of sanity. Driven there, perhaps, by Co

“Tell me anything you remember. Even if you think it’s insignificant, I want to know.”

So Argent starts talking and doesn’t stop much. He goes on and on about the things Co

“Yeah, we got to be tight,” Argent brags. “He told me all this crap about his life before. Like how his parents changed the locks on him during his last stint at juvey, before they signed the unwind order. Like how he resented his kid brother for being such a goody-goody all the time.” These are things Argent had read about the Akron AWOL long before he turned up to buy sandwiches at Argent’s register. But Nelson doesn’t need to know that.

“You were so tight that he cut up your face, huh?” Nelson says.

Argent touches the stitches on the left side of his face—bare now that the gauze has been removed. They itch something terrible, but they ache only when he touches them too hard. “He’s a mean son of a bitch,” Argent says. “He don’t treat his friends right. Anyway, he had places to go, and I wouldn’t let him unless he promised to take me with him. So he cut me, took my sister hostage, and left.”

“Left where?”

Now comes the part Argent has to sell. “Never talked much about it except, of course, when we were high on tranq.”

Nelson looks over at him. “The two of you smoked tranq?”

“Oh yeah, all the time. It was our favorite thing to do together. And the good stuff too. High grade, prime tranq.”

Nelson eyes him doubtfully, so Argent decides to pull back on his story a little bit. “Well, I mean, as prime as you can get in Heartsdale.”

“So he talked when he was high. What did he say?”

“Ya gotta remember, I was buzzing up there too, so it’s all kind of fuzzy. I mean, it’s still up in my noggin, I’m sure, but I gotta tease it out.”

“Dredge is more like it,” Nelson says.

Argent lets the insult slide. “There was this girl he talked about,” Argent offers. “ ‘Gotta get there; gotta get there,’ he said. She was go

“Risa Ward,” Nelson says. “He was talking about Risa Ward.”

“No, not her—I would have known if he was talking about her.” Argent wrinkles his brow. It hurts to do it, but he does it anyway. “It was someone else. Mary, her name was. Yeah, that’s it. Mary, something French. LeBeck. Or LaBerg. LaVeau! That’s it. Mary LaVeau. He was go

Nelson is silent after that, and Argent doesn’t give him anything more. Let him chew on that for a while.

•   •   •

Day two: Crack of dawn. Cheapo motel room in North Platte, Nebraska. To be honest, Argent had expected better. Nelson wakes Argent when the sky is still predawn gray.

“Time to go. Get your lazy ass out of bed; we’re turning around.”

Argent yawns. “What’s the rush?”

“Mary LaVeau’s House of Voodoo,” Nelson tells him. He’s been a busy boy doing his research. “Bourbon Street, New Orleans—that’s what Lassiter was talking about. For better or worse, that’s where he’s headed, and he’s got a week-long lead. He’s probably there already.”

Argent shrugs. “If you say so.” He rolls over and presses his face into the pillow, hiding his smile. Nelson has no idea how thoroughly he’s been played.

•   •   •

Day three: Fort Smith, Arkansas. The blue piece-of-crap van breaks down in the afternoon. Nelson is furious.

“Cain’t get parts for that on a weekend,” the mechanic says. “Gotta special order it. Get here Monday, maybe Tuesday.”

The more Nelson blusters, the calmer the mechanic gets, extracting a kind of spiritual joy from Nelson’s misery. Argent knows the type. Hell, he is the type.

“The way to deal with this guy is to beat the crap out of him,” Argent advises Nelson, “and tell him you’ll do the same to his mother if he don’t fix the car.”

But Nelson doesn’t take his sound advice. “We’ll fly,” he says, and he pays the mechanic to drive them to Fort Smith Regional Airport only to find out that the last flight out—a twenty-seat puddle jumper to Dallas—leaves at six, and although there’s four open seats, the airport’s security gate closes at five. TSA officers are still in their office eating corn dogs, but will they open security for two passengers? Not on your life.

Argent suspects Nelson might kill them if they didn’t have weapons of their own.

In the end Nelson uses one of his false IDs to rent a car that they have no intention of returning anytime soon

•   •   •

Day four: Bourbon Street after dark. Argent has never been to New Orleans, but had always wanted to go. Not a place he could take Grace, but Grace isn’t his problem anymore, is she? He strolls down Bourbon Street with a hurricane in his hand and beads around his neck. Raucous catcalls and laughter fill the street. Argent could do this every night. He could live this. Half the hurricane is already swimming in his head. Imagine! Drinking in the street is not only legal, but encouraged. Only in New Orleans!

He and his buds talked about coming here for Mardi Gras, but it was always just talk ’cause none of them had the guts to get out of Heartsdale. But now Argent has a new bud. One who was more than happy to take a road trip to New Orleans, thinking it was his own idea. Argent’s apprenticeship won’t last for long, though, if he doesn’t earn his keep. Prove himself useful. Indispensable.

Argent isn’t sure where Nelson is now. Probably harassing whoever runs Mary LaVeau’s House of Voodoo. He will find no answers there. No leads as to the whereabouts of Co

“Hey, you’re the one who said go to New Orleans, not me,” will be Argent’s response, but Nelson will still hold him responsible. So Argent needs a peace offering. One that will open Nelson’s eyes to Argent’s true value.

Instead of going back to their Ramada, which smells like disinfectant and burnt hair, Argent looks for trouble. And finds it. And befriends it. And betrays it.

•   •   •

Day five: Nelson sleeps off a binge of the alcohol and painkillers he doused himself in when his search for Co

“I got something for you. Something you’re go

“Get the hell out of here.” Nelson is not cooperative. Argent didn’t expect he would be.

“It won’t keep for long, Jasper,” Argent says. “Trust me on this one.”

Nelson burns him a killer gaze. “Call me that again, and I’ll slit your throat.” He sits up, only slightly successful in his battle with gravity.

“Sorry. What should I call you?”

“Don’t call me anything.”

After pumping a pot of hotel room coffee into the man, Argent brings Nelson to an old burned-out bar in a crumbling neighborhood that looks postapocalyptic. Probably hasn’t been inhabited by legitimate folk since the levies last failed.

Inside are two AWOLs, bound and gagged. A boy and a girl.

“Made friends with them while you were dead to the world,” Argent proudly tells Nelson. “Convinced them I was one of them. Then I used my choke hold on them. Same hold I used on you-know-who.”

The two AWOLs have since regained consciousness. They can’t speak through their gags, but their eyes are a study in terror. “They’re prime,” Argent tells Nelson. “Gotta be worth good money, you think?”