The More They Disappear (9 page)

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. Frank Pryor.”

“That fat-ass probably deserved it.”

Leland was sharp; he knew Harlan wouldn't lose sleep over Frank's black eye.

“Look, I know why you're really here,” Leland said.

Harlan leaned forward on his elbows. “Enlighten me.”

Leland grabbed his wallet off the coffee table and pulled out a couple hundreds. “This should cover me for a week or so. Lew was by not too long ago, but I figure you gotta pay the new piper and all.”

Harlan didn't reach for the money. “You've got the wrong idea.”

Leland folded the bills back into his wallet. “Whoops,” he said.

“Let's start again. Do you know anyone who had it out for Lew? Hear any gossip around the track?”

“I don't know anyone personally, but I'm sure I wouldn't have to search hard. Lew threw a lot of people in jail. And then again, there's a lot of people Lew didn't throw in jail.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Leland shrugged. “I mean what I mean.”

“What about guns?” Harlan said. “You own any rifles?”

“Man, you know I don't truck with guns. It's in my parole agreement.”

“You buy your way out of trouble?”

“I practice nonviolence.”

“What was your deal with Lew?”

Leland shrugged.

“I could book you right now for bribing an officer, and given your past, that's not a good thing, so why don't you talk. Besides, I don't feel like handcuffing a man in all his God-given glory.”

Leland glanced down at his member and lifted the newspaper to give Harlan a better look. “Depends on how hard up Lew was for money,” he said. “A couple hundred would usually buy me a week of peace and quiet. It wasn't exactly a steady trade, more as-needed.”

“Why pay him off? You dealing drugs?”

“Man, I don't mess with that trash.” Harlan rolled his eyes, and Leland shrugged. “I don't go kicking people off my property either. See no evil, hear no evil. But me, I live off the gate receipts and enjoy the festivities. It's a simple life. There's easy pussy and plenty of booze. I paid Lew to make sure I got to keep living that life.”

Harlan stood up. “I'm gonna shut you down, Leland.”

“Come on, Harlan. You and I both know this place helps you keep the peace. You can't patrol the whole county with four deputies.”

“Is that what Lew told you?”

“That's just the truth. Lew came here trying to bully me same as you, but he understood what was in his best interest.”

“I'm not Lew.”

“That's too bad.” Leland turned the TV back on. “But I'd think about it first. You close me down, you might not like the results.”

Harlan slammed the door on his way out, the sounds of fake pleasure following him. Paige was sitting on the hood of the cruiser, waiting for a report like she was the boss. “So?” she asked.

“Maybe it's time to start making life harder on Leland.”

*   *   *

Lewis fought off his hangover with increasing doses of aspirin but still the girls' tinny laughter and applause from Sophie's talk shows bored into his temples like a blunted drillbit. He swallowed the harsh words he wanted to say about Sophie's choice in television, bit his tongue when Ginny pulled Stella's hair. In his hands he held a copy of the
Herald-Leader,
the Lexington daily, which had a photo of his father as a young man printed below the fold and a short article about his death. There'd been phone calls from reporters but nothing Lewis said made the story. He'd tried to come up with the sort of feel-good anecdote you share with strangers but none of the stories that popped into his head had been of the feel-good variety. Most were tinged with disappointment and broken promises. The television cut to commercial just as Stella stole Ginny's favorite stuffed squid, Mr. Inkhead. Rather than arbitrate, Lewis escaped to the backyard and let himself be blanketed by the cool wind.

He untarped a cord of wood he'd bought off a down-on-his-luck farmer and grabbed his ax from the toolshed. He felt so lost. How were you supposed to mourn a father? A man you'd both loved and hated? He raised the ax and the muscles stretched down his back. He pictured Sophie in front of the television, and chopped down. Pictured Stella throwing a fit, and chopped down. Pictured Ginny staging a hunger strike, and chopped down. He pictured his mother, all alone in her house, and chopped down. Then he pictured the faceless killer of his father, and chopped down. The face of his father, and chopped down. He chopped until his arms shook and his wrists rang, until he'd made a heap of kindling.

When he went back inside, nothing had changed except the show on TV. Lewis needed to leave before he said something he'd regret, so he told Sophie he had to check in at the office. She mumbled goodbye and offered him a cheek to kiss, though her eyes never left the flickering screen.

He sped down the curved roads of his neighborhood, ignoring the ridiculous 24
MPH
speed limit signs the developer claimed made streets safer, flew past the unmanned guard post, and after a mile of open road, pulled up to Riverside Security, where his partner, John Tyler, was locking up. “What are you doing here on a weekend?” Lewis asked.

John Tyler was an old high school buddy, a fellow football player who'd let himself go soft after knocking up his then-and-still girlfriend. “I gotta do a fucking install,” he said.

“You?” Lewis let his jaw drop comically low. When they started the business, he and John Tyler installed the security systems themselves, but a good reputation, the Mattock name, and financial help from Sophie's father changed the game. They ended up hiring two employees away from Diebold in Cincinnati and became office men. Ever since they'd spent their days behind desks watching ESPN and making the occasional phone call.

“We're swamped,” John Tyler said.

“In just the past couple days?”

“Think about it, Lewis.”

“What?”

“Your dad.”

“What about him?”

“I don't want to be unfeeling or whatever, but it turns out the sheriff getting shot is good for business. It sets people on edge.”

Lewis didn't know how to respond, so he asked John Tyler if he needed an extra set of hands.

“I don't even know why you're here,” John Tyler replied. “You should be with your family.”

“I was.”

“I get it. When my mom died … it's like … you don't know what you're supposed to do.” He clapped Lewis on the back and pulled him into a half hug. “But I don't think it's installing security systems. There's beer in the fridge if you want to hang.”

“You going to the funeral?” Lewis asked.

“You know I am.” John Tyler picked up his toolbox. Lewis wished he'd stick around so they could talk about the Cats or watch football, but he didn't want to seem needy. “Your old man gave 'em hell,” John Tyler said and put out his fist for the bump they'd used as hello and goodbye ever since they were dopey-eared kids. Lewis met him knuckles on knuckles.

Inside the office, he cracked open a Bud Light, and when he couldn't find the remote, he walked up to the television to turn on the Bengals game. He paused at his reflection in the black glass. Everyone told Lewis he was the spitting image of his father, and growing up it had seemed like his dad was training him to become the second coming, that one day he'd drop the
is
from his name and take over. What did it matter that he hadn't lived up to expectations? That he'd never stopped being a boy cast in his father's shadow? He'd tried to make his dad proud and that counted for something. That was a type of love.

Lewis took a long, hard swallow of beer. Even after the funeral, there'd be no closure. He imagined himself tracking down his father's killer, bringing him to justice, but that was just a daydream—the sort of make-believe his father abhorred. Because living in an imagined future was just as bad as living in the past. If his father taught Lewis anything, it was that a man defined himself by his actions in the here and now. The present was his burden.

*   *   *

Built in the seventies, Marathon's medical plaza was an L-shaped single-story with space for five practices, though only two—the dental offices of Spiller, Wise, and Toth and Trip Gaines's medical clinic—had managed to stay in business. As Mark pulled into the parking lot, his tires rumbled over potholes and broken concrete. He parked next to a tree that had died before growing tall enough to offer shade.

As a kid Mark had failed to notice the sad state of the medical plaza; he didn't yet have an understanding of the word
shabby
. They'd moved to Marathon from Cincinnati when he was just three, and he didn't remember that previous life, though his sister, Sophie, often told him how much better things had been in Ohio. There'd been the zoo and the children's museum and a big brick house with a swing set in the back. There'd been a mom, too, though she left not long after Mark was born. When Sophie felt like being especially cruel, she would tell Mark he was the reason Mom left, that before he came along their parents had been happy. Growing up the dead look in his father's eyes told Mark all he needed to know about his guilt.

In Cincinnati his dad had been a surgeon, but around the same time Trip Gaines's ex-wife remarried—to a former family friend—he was served with two malpractice suits amid rumors of surgeries performed under the influence. He nearly bankrupted himself settling out of court and joined A.A. The hospital fired him anyway and the state's medical board took his license. Given his past, Trip had limited options. When the lone GP in Marathon died from a heart attack, he packed the remains of his family and zeroed his bank accounts to lease space in the medical plaza. The state of Kentucky issued him a medical license—they needed doctors in rural places, after all—but revoked his right to perform surgery. The clinic in Marathon was less a second chance than an exile, a precipitous drop for a man who'd once dreamt of hospital wings named in his honor. Mark was a dutiful son, willing to do whatever was asked of him in the hopes that it might bring him and his father closer together, but his dedication never seemed to make much difference. He grew up feeling like a stray, as fatherless as he was motherless.

The landscaping in front of the medical plaza was littered with cigarette butts, and inside the lobby's fluorescent lights hummed and flickered as if browning out. Computer-printed signs pointed left, toward the dentist, and right, toward the clinic. When Mark walked in, his father's longtime receptionist, Bea, started peppering him with questions. He assured her he was studying hard and that, no, he hadn't met a pretty girl to bring home. To his left two patients waited, a man in a wheelchair breathing oxygen from a tank and an overweight woman sitting on a pillow. In the corner, an undersized plastic table and chairs bowed beneath a mess of broken toys and battered
Highlights
magazines.

Mark spent most of his childhood at that table, being watched over by staff while his father worked. Sophie hated the clinic because of the germs and “gross” patients, so she got to spend her time in after-school programs for dance and piano. Mark had wanted to take his own after-school classes, but his father invoked the cost and reminded him that it was free to have Bea watch him. Trip Gaines didn't seem to care about the discrepancy between son and daughter. And so Mark was the kid who sat silently at the sad table and waited for his dad to finish so they could drive home in further silence.

He took a seat in the waiting room and buried his head in a magazine as the fat woman farted into her pillow. His dad came out a minute later, patient in tow, and did a double-take. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was hoping you had a minute to chat.”

Trip checked his watch as if it would confirm he was too busy, but Bea stepped in and said, “We're ahead of schedule, Doctor,” despite the two patients in the waiting room.

When they were alone in his father's office, Mark pulled the envelope of cash from his backpack. “Five thousand from Chance,” he said.

Trip reached his hand out for the envelope. “That's good but this could have waited. All things considered.”

Mark did know. All things considered. His dad never seemed in a rush to do anything that might benefit him. Trip took the money that Mark “earned” dealing and put it in an account that only he could access. Mark's nest egg, he called it, though Mark doubted he'd ever see a dime. For so long Mark had been too afraid to question his father, had been conditioned into submission, but now he was prepared to demand what he was owed.

He pulled the envelope back from his dad's open hand. “The way I figure it you still owe me twenty thousand, even if I keep this.” It sounded ridiculous when he said it. Like he was some street tough. His father grinned and Mark tried not to wilt under the sheer amusement in his face. Even the amount sounded childish. He and Mary Jane had calculated that twenty-five thousand was enough for them to live on for a year. At the time it had seemed a fortune.

All of a sudden Mark felt small, demanding so little for something so great, and he got the distinct impression his father could tell as much. Trip paged the front desk. “I'll be a few minutes here, Bea. Please put my next patient in the examination room.” He lifted his finger off the intercom and turned back to Mark. “Hand it over,” he said, as if Mark were nothing more than a dog, as if when he said “lie down” Mark would abide.

Mark clenched the envelope in his left fist and placed it back in his bag. “I'm keeping it.”

“Keep that money and I won't pay for your college or your apartment or the lease on that ridiculous car you drive. You do the math.”

“And maybe I'll stop selling to Chance. How would you like that?”