Hunting Season (7 page)

"When will you be ready to operate, Jose?"

Jose did not let the opportunity pass through his hands.  He picked up the bread knife and went into surgery.

THE HOOKER IN THE BACKSEAT

The morning the state released me from prison, cold air, gray sky, and my no good, piece of shit father waited for me outside the concrete walls.

Before I stepped through the doors to freedom, I opened the manila envelope holding my personal possessions.  The guards had confiscated them right before they handed me my prison uniform the day I arrived.  Now I had them back and couldn't remember what they'd taken.

I looked inside.  One cheap wrist watch with dead battery: trash.  A picture of my now dead Bull Terrier Brutal: trash.  Three sticks of petrified chewing gum: trash.  One Swiss Army knife: a reminder of my childhood before life sucked.  Dad gave it to me when I was five.  He started running drugs two years later.

I pocketed the knife and tossed everything else.  Tossed it away with the rest of my past and took my first step into a new existence.

The door behind me shut, the guard on the other side twisted the lock home, leaving me and my father alone for the first time in five years.  He leaned against the hood of his cherry '67 Chevelle, cocked his head to a forty-five, and took a deep drag on a Marlboro.  Five years and forty feet stood between us but the son of a bitch looked and smelled the same.

"Hello, son."

A thick cloud of smoke rode his words and drifted up around his leathery face.

Only one response found a way out of my throat.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

I had a pretty good idea why but figured playing dumb might work long enough for me to get out of town.

"Now what kind of way is that to greet your old man?"

"I don't pay politeness to pieces of shit."

I unstuck my feet from the position they seemed glued to and walked toward the bus stop.  Just wanted to catch the bus and make arrangements for my trip west.  I had enough money for the fare.  Didn't know where I'd go and didn't care.  But I did know west was far away from all this shit.  Far away from Dad.

As I neared the Chevelle, he pushed off the hood and blocked my path.  I figured Dad knew I had more than enough money for bus fare.  That or he wanted me to work for him again, which was just his way of keeping me under his thumb.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dad said.

"You know exactly what that means."  He looked the way he did the last night I saw him, the night he plowed a Ford pick-up through Walter, right down to the same damn smirk.  "Look behind me.  See that large structure?  I spent five years there for you."

"No you didn't."

"Fuck you.  Hit the road, Pop."

"I got work for you."

"I don't want anything to do with your work or you."

"I got a place for you to stay.  Don't reject me without hearing what I have to offer."

"I'm done with you.  I said my goodbye the day they sent me here."

"This work is legit.  I don't run powder anymore."

"Am I supposed to respect you now?  You don't run powder.  Great.  You probably cook meth instead."

"I'm offering you an honest job, good pay, and a bed.  Why not get in the car and hear me out?"

"You know why.  You know exactly why."

"Call it a peace offering.  You helped me out.  Now I help you.  Square the house."

"You don't know when to quit."

"Look, get in the car and hear me out.  If you like what you hear, then you get a place to stay tonight.  If you don't you get a free ride into town and I leave you alone."

"Consider this a formal rejection.  I'm not getting in your car."

I tried to step by him but his hand clenched me by the bicep, thumb splitting the muscle from the bone.  Still had the iron grip.

"Yes, you are."

Dad's face tightened, his lips curled into a sneer.  His tone lost its diplomatic cut.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"What makes you think I will?  Peace offerings?  False promises?  I've heard this bullshit before."

Dad cocked his head toward the back seat of the Chevelle.  A woman, bound and gagged, lay in the back.  Her wide eyes stared at me.  Blood had colored the white rag with red blotches.  Her skirt had been hiked up over her hips, revealing what God gave her.  Maybe she'd pushed it up involuntarily by squirming around on the seat.  Maybe Dad had raped her while waiting for me to walk out.  The latter probably more likely than the former.  He'd get a kick out of doing it right in front of a prison and not getting caught.

"You know what I'll do to her if you don't."

"What do I care about a two dollar whore?  Your business with her doesn't have anything to do with me."

"You skipped your parole boards and did your full five years.  Why?  Were you afraid they'd let you out?"

I didn't say anything.

"Or was it because you didn't want to be on a parole officer's leash?"

Dad was a step ahead of me but I stayed silent.

"You see, I think you did your full sentence so you'd be free and clear the day you got out.  That way you could walk right over to that bus stop and leave town for good without fear of being chased by the Feds.  But if you did that, you'd leave without seeing me and I'm not ready to let you go yet.  You see, son, I don't want you to leave.  I want you to get in the car so you and I can have a nice little talk about your future."

I should have seen this coming.  Should have known Dad wouldn't let me leave town easily, whether he knew about my stash of money or not.  He wanted to keep me close but beating up or killing some whore wasn't enough to keep me around.

"I've got a bus to catch," I said.

"You'd turn a blind eye to that poor girl and let her wind up dead just so you can be free of me and this town?  The joint didn't soften your heart, huh?"

"That's right."

"Well, then I guess I need to remind you I've got other negotiating tools on me."

He didn't need to say anymore.  Dad carried a .357 and a switchblade all the time.  The gun didn't scare me because Dad wasn't dumb enough to pull it in front of a prison.  But I knew he wouldn't hesitate to gut me and leave me to die where I stood.

"Why all the talk of going legit?" I said.  "Why not threaten me right off the bat?"

"Because I wanted to get you in the car nicely.  Wanted to maintain a civil tone out in front of this nice prison."

"God damn you."

"Get in the car."

"You mother fucker."

"Get in."

My fists clenched, ready to fight.  But I knew my dad.  Nothing had changed about him.  Which meant he had the switchblade ready.  Knew he'd split me from my belly to my dick if I made one ill move.  Then he'd kill the whore for good measure.

I looked at her, saw the panic in her eyes, and then thought of his knife and accepted the son of a bitch had me cornered.

"Get in."

*  *  *  *  *

Dad drove at a safe speed down wooded County Road 9.  I tapped my thigh and tried to figure a way out of this mess.  Needed to get out of this without getting any blood on my hands.  Couldn't risk another stint in the joint.  The whore moaned in the back.

Not once had Dad made reference to the money.  Maybe he didn't know.  After all, he never reached out while inside.  But then why use the whore to get to me?  He knew I didn't give a shit about her or anyone else.  The only person I had connections to was him and I wanted those severed as soon as possible.

"Who's the whore?" I said, probing for any hint.

"Hooker, son.  Whores do it for free."

"And what does she have to do with whatever you're doing?"

"It's a simple matter of trust.  I don't trust you."

"I did five years in prison.  Isn't that enough assurance?"

"No."

"God damn it, I took the rap for you.  Five fucking years for what you did.  That should be enough proof I want this dead and buried with that poor bastard you ran down."

"I need to keep you close, son.  You doing time in the joint ain't got nothing to do with me."

"I was there for you."

"You were there for you.  You didn't rat me out because you felt guilty.  Because you didn't stop me.  You believed you deserved punishment for letting me drive my truck through Walter's chest."

"I didn't let you do anything.  Walter was all you."

Dad chuckled.  "Yeah, you did.  You knew god damn well why I was going to see Walter.  And you knew damn well what I'd do to him.  It wasn't the first time you'd seen me take it out on someone who couldn't pay."

"I knew you'd be dead the moment they put you in the pen.  All the enemies you've got almost got me killed just for sharing the same name.  I saved your life."

"I know what you did and it didn't have anything to do with me.  Doing time was your penitence.  Doing your full sentence was your ticket to freedom but I can't let you go."

"Fuck you."  And your mind games.  Dad kept his cards close to his chest and spun webs like a bullshit spider.

"If you did it for me, if you did it to protect me, then you shouldn't feel any ill will toward your dear old dad or mind sticking around and hanging out with him.  After all, it was such a selfless act.  Yet you're ready to jump on the first bus out of town.  Can you say you feel no ill will toward me?  Can you say you love me?"

"No."  Whatever game he decided to play, he'd decided to string it out rather than cut to the chase.

"You see, you went to prison a guilty wreck, sorry for what you did.  Took the rap.  Vehicular manslaughter.  Dark foggy night and Walter high out of his mind.  Your baby face sold that bullshit to the jury.  But you thought you deserved more, not less.  In the joint, you found God, Buddha, or maybe learned to love a man in a spiritual way.  Now you're a changed man.  You did your time and made peace with yourself and decided when you got out you'd leave for good.  But you still know stuff about me."

"What do I have on you, Pop?  Not a fucking thing.  All that time in the joint, I didn't say one thing.  And trust me, the opportunity was there.  But my knowledge of your life died five years ago.  That's the way I want to keep it.  There's nothing I can pin on you."

"You know shit you couldn't possibly forget.  More than I'm comfortable with.  I know all about the deals the DA offered you.  I kept tabs with people inside still friendly.  But guilt is strong and it did a good job keeping you quiet.  Now you're out and I need to see for myself what kind of man you've become."

Maybe he actually believed the shit he spouted.  Yeah, I felt a little guilty about letting him kill Walter but I took the rap because it got me away from him.  Prison was the first freedom I'd ever enjoyed.

"And her?" I said.  "Threatening her is useless.  Gonna kill her now since she serves no purpose?"

"Something like that."

The hooker screamed around her gag.

"Let her go.  You've got my word.  Everything I could ever use against you is now forgotten.  But I won't work for you and I won't stick around to be your puppet.  You'll have to kill me first."

"I guess we'll see then."

"How does this play out?  Huh?  Spell it out!"

"I will soon."

"Now."

"Soon."

I punched the dashboard a couple of times and yelled a bunch of shit but all of it bounced right off him.  His game, his rules.  Dad kept driving and I looked out the window at the woods passing by.

"Where are we going?"

"We'll be there soon enough."

*  *  *  *  *

Thirty minutes of silence passed.  Well, not silence, just no talking.  Dad hummed.  I tapped my thigh and the hooker moaned weakly around her gag.

I'd failed to talk my way out of this, whatever this was.  Dad had planned something to ensure my trust to keep me local.  I didn't care about her anymore than an ant.  But I didn't want to watch him kill another person.  Did I have a choice?

We arrived at a beat-up old cabin in the middle of Blackwater Forest.  I'd never been there before but had a sickening feeling Dad had many times.  The cabin had only one purpose and vacationing wasn't it.  He used to have a beat up trailer near the beach for this type of work.  Apparently, he'd gone rustic since I gone into the joint.

"Let's go in."  Dad killed the engine.  "I'll grab the hooker."

He did, dragging her kicking and whimpering body inside.

The cabin smelled of fresh animal piss and death.  Dull sunlight spilled through grime-covered windows.  Mold had spread across most of the ceiling and down the knotty-pine walls.  Blood stains covered the floor.  As soon as I took in my surroundings, I understood how dad planned to gain my loyalty.  I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before.

"I'm not going to kill her," I said as Dad dropped the hooker between us.

"What?"

"You want her blood on my hands but I won't kill her."

"Is that a fact?"

"I know that's what you want.  I kill her and then you've got one thing you can always hold over me.  That's the loyalty you want, right?"

Dad chuckled.  "No."

"Then what, you piece of shit?"

He reached behind him and pulled out the .357 which he had tucked in the back of his pants.  Dad pointed the gun at the hooker's head and cocked the hammer.

"I'm gonna kill her.  Not you."

"What?"  I stepped forward, a foot away from him

"I kill her in front of you.  If you decide to rat me out, you'll be a murderer."

"Bullshit."

Then I noticed Dad was wearing gloves.  He must have pulled them on before bringing in the hooker. 

"The piece look familiar?" Dad said.

The .357 looked no different than-

Mine.  The one Dad gave me when I turned eighteen.  Just like his but my initials on the handle.

"You kept it in your car," Dad said.  "I got it before the cops came.  I made sure not to touch it with bare hands."

Which meant it still had my prints on it.

"Still has the three rounds you left in it last time you took it shooting."