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“We’d never find it: there must be two thousand of them,” Climpt said.
And Lucas said, “Wait a minute,” went back down the stairs and looked toward the propane burner.
“If that’s the coal room, shouldn’t there be a coal chute?” he asked.
“Yeah, there should,” Climpt said.
They found the chute door set in the wall behind the propane burner, four feet above the floor and virtually invisible in the bad light. Lucas reached back, unlatched the door and felt inside. His hand fell on a stack of paper.
“Something,” he said. “Paper.” He pulled it out. Three glossy sex magazines and two sex comics. He handed them to Climpt, reached back inside for another quick check, came up with a small corner of notebook paper, blank, that might have been used as a bookmark. Lucas stuck the paper in his pocket.
“Porn,” said Climpt, standing under one of the hanging light bulbs. They shook out the magazines, found nothing inside.
“Check ’em,” Lucas said. “We’re looking for a picture of a kid on a bed.”
They flipped through the magazines, but all of the pictures were obviously commercial and involved women. The Mueller kid had described the photo he’d seen as rough, printed on newsprint.
“Nothing much,” Climpt said. “I mean, a lot of pussy . . . Goddamn Shelly’d have a heart attack.”
Lucas went back to the coal chute for a final check, reached far inside, felt just a corner of a piece of plastic. He had to stretch to fish it out.
A Polaroid.
Climpt came to look over his shoulder.
A young boy, slender, nude, standing in front of a crouched woman, pushing into her mouth. His hands were wrapped around her skull. All that was visible of the woman was her dark hair, the lower part of her face from her nose down, and part of her neck. She was obviously older, probably in her forties.
The boy’s left hand was visible and a finger was gone.
“Don’t know the woman, just from that,” Climpt said. “But that’s Jim doin’ her.”
“Hey, Lucas,” Lacey called from upstairs.
“Yeah?”
“It’s like . . . ah, Christ!” Lacey blurted.
Lucas looked at Climpt, who shrugged, and they headed up the stairs. Lacey was standing in the door to the living room, his face dead white. Harper sat in a chair, a half-amused look on his face. They were looking at the television. The video was cheap, clear enough: two men were lying on a bed, fondling each other.
“You sell this shit?” Climpt growled at Harper.
“I told Henry—it all belonged to Jim. I don’t look at homo shit.”
“Found it in the wardrobe,” Lacey said. “There weren’t any labels.”
Lucas handed Lacey the Polaroid.
“Sonofagun,” Lacey whispered.
“Yeah,” Lucas said. “You want to look at this, Harper?” No more Russ or Mr. Harper. He held it out in front of Harper, who reached for it, but Lucas pulled it back. “Just look—don’t touch.”
Harper peered at the picture and drawled, “Looks like Jim, gettin’ him some head. Damn, I wish I knew her—she looks like she knows what she’s doing.”
He still had the slightly amused look on his face. He was about to say something else when Climpt stepped past Lucas, grabbed Harper by the shirt, and hauled him out of the chair. “You motherfucker.”
Harper covered his gut with his elbows, kept his hands up in front of his face. He didn’t want to get hurt, but he wasn’t scared, Lucas thought.
“Hey, hey,” said Lacey, trying to intervene. “Let him . . .”
Climpt shoved Harper at Lucas, who caught him, still off-balance, said, “Fuck, I don’t want him,” and spun him into the wall. Climpt caught him on the rebound, dragged him backwards by the collar and as Lacey shouted, “Hey,” banged the back of Harper’s head against the opposite wall, then pulled him forward, letting go as Lucas put his hand in Harper’s face and snapped him backwards into the chair.
“Knock it off,” Lacey said.
“Set your own kid up for this shit, didn’t you?” Climpt said, his face an inch from Harper’s. Harper spit at him, a spray of spittle. Climpt caught him by the shirt collar and the skin under his neck and hoisted him a foot out of the chair. “Sold his ass to faggots and anybody else who wanted some young stuff. You know what they’re go
Lacey, face red, had Climpt by the shoulder, pulling at him. Lucas put his arm between Harper and Climpt, said, “Gene, let him go. Gene . . .”
Climpt looked blindly at Lucas, then dropped Harper back in the chair, turned away, wiped his face with his forearm.
“Motherfucker,” Harper said, pulling down his shirt.
Lucas turned to Lacey. “Could you get Shelly on the radio? Don’t mention the Polaroid directly, but tell him we got something. And we need to see him.”
Lacey stepped back, reluctantly. “You guys won’t . . .”
“No, no,” Lucas said. “And listen, ask him about the Mueller kid, if there’s been any progress.”
“What about the Mueller kid?” Harper asked.
“He’s missing,” Lucas said, turning back to him.
Lacey was walking out through the kitchen. When the back door banged shut, Lucas stepped up to Harper. “I believe you spit on deputy Climpt, and I feel kinda shortchanged, you know. You didn’t spit on me.”
“Fuck you,” Harper said. He looked from Lucas to Climpt and back. “I got my rights.”
Lucas took him by the shirt as Climpt had, jerked him out of the chair, ran him straight back at the wall, slammed him against it. Harper covered, still not ready to resist. Climpt caught his right arm, twisted it. Both Lucas and Climpt were bigger than Harper, and pi
“Remember what you said about your vise?” Lucas asked, face half-turned to Climpt. Climpt grunted. “Watch this—this is nasty.”
He caught the flesh between Harper’s nostrils by his thumb and middle fingers and squeezed, his fingernails digging into the soft flesh. Harper’s mouth dropped as though he were going to scream, but Climpt’s hand came up and squeezed his throat.
Lucas squeezed, squeezed, then said, “Who’s the woman in the picture? Who is it?”
Harper, his body bucking, shook his head. “Better let go of his throat for a minute, Gene,” Lucas said, and he let go of Harper’s nose. Harper groaned, thrashed, sucked air, and Lucas asked, “Who is that, asshole? Who’s the woman?”
“Don’t know . . .”
“Let me try,” Climpt said, and he caught Harper’s nose as Lucas had, his thick yellow fingernails squeezing . . . .
The sound that came from Harper’s throat might have been a scream if it had been pitched lower. As it was, it was a kind of blackboard scratching squeak, and he shuddered.
“Who is it?” Lucas asked.
“Don’t . . .”
Climpt looked at Lucas, who shook his head, and they both released him at the same moment. Tears were ru
“You know some stuff,” Lucas said. “You know the woman or you know somebody who knows the woman.”
Harper got one foot beneath him, then heaved himself up. His eyes were red, and tears still poured down his face. “Motherfuckers.”
Climpt cuffed him on the side of the head. “You ain’t listening. You know who this is, this woman. If you don’t spit out the name . . .”
“You’re go
“Yeah, you put a fuckin’ lawyer out there and I’ll pin this fuckin’ picture on the bulletin board at the goddamn Super Valu with the note that you sold Jim’s ass,” Climpt said. “They’ll find your fuckin’ skin hanging from a tree out here, and you won’t be in it.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Harper snarled. There was blood on his upper lip, trickling down from his nose.