Valknut the binding, p.11
Valknut: The Binding, page 11
Soo ignored Junkyard and eyed Lennie critically, taking in her dirt-streaked shirt, staring especially hard at her thin canvas shoes. Lennie felt like a frog in the shadow of a blue heron.
“Interestin’ choice of friends, y’got there, Junkyard. You didn’t take ’er on the road dressed like that, didja?”
“Nah, she caught onto a moving train all by herself, wearing those. I’m just trying to get her home in one piece.”
Now Lennie was irritated. He had made that point one time too many. “Quit talking about me like I’m lost luggage. I keep telling you, it was an accident!”
Soo raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, taking her time to respond. “You accident’ly caught onto a movin’ train? What, y’all were just standin’ by the tracks, mindin’ yer own business, and next thing you knew…”
“That’s not what I…” Lennie began, but there was too much to tell, too many reasons, and none of them made sense, even to her.
Junkyard took pity on her. “Hey, don’t mind Soo. She treats everyone like dirt.” He reached up and bumped the back of Soo’s hat, knocking it over her eyes. “I’d be more worried if she were nice to you.”
“It’s not that. It’s just all…”
Words wouldn’t come. Suddenly she felt tired. Ten years worth of tired, and the last day had nearly put her over the edge. She just wanted to do nothing, think nothing, for at least a week. She looked at the ground, letting loose curls hide her face.
Frowning, Soo shoved her hat back on her head. “Never you mind, sweetie. My mouth runs like a monkey after a banana wagon.”
She took Lennie by the arm and led her to the makeshift bench by the fire. “Are y’all hungry?” She rolled her eyes toward Junkyard. “Ah bet y’ain’t had nothin’ but Ho-Hos an’ Twinkies since you got on that train.”
Junkyard looked offended. “Hey, they’ve got nutritional content—”
“Fat, sugar, and preservatives cain’t keep the blood flowin’ smooth. Now sit down, girl, and Ah’ll dish y’up some of Bones O’Riley’s finest mulligan stew. We’ll hear your story all in good time.”
Lennie sat gratefully and leaned closer to the flames, finding their warmth comforting. Soo retrieved the ladle from the ground. Grit caked its bowl. She shot a dirty look at Junkyard, but he was studiously examining the company logo on the side of a refrigerator box.
“Lucky fer you, I got another,” she grumbled.
A moment later, Lennie held a steaming Styrofoam bowl in her hands. The beef-broth aroma of French onion soup filled her nose. The stew was loaded with meat cooked down to strings. She stirred it. Chunks of carrot and potato surfaced like sluggish fish. She burnt her mouth on the first spoonful.
Junkyard and Soo set up a folding table as she ate. She watched Junkyard move around the jungle, working efficiently, confidently, and with an easy, athletic grace. Nothing like the man she had followed through the University campus. Which one was the real Junkyard?
A spark popped in the fire, startling her, and she realized she had been staring. She looked away and found Soo’s intense gaze centered on her. Embarrassed, Lennie’s face grew warm. She pointed at her bowl.
“Stew sure is hot.”
Soo’s expressive eyebrows gave a visual snicker. “Fire does have a way of warmin’ things up.”
“It tastes really good, though,” Lennie said, trying to distract her. “Bones O’Riley must be some kind of gourmet chef.”
“Bones? A chef?” Some of the toughness left Soo’s face and she chuckled. Unlike her speaking voice, which was hoarse and dry, her laugh sang out in a rich, musical alto. “Oh, that’s a hoot. Ah think it’s time y’all met the boys.”
She rang the ladle against the pot like a dinner bell. “Hey, Bones! Hotshot! Git out here!”
A hollow thump shook a dryer box lying on its side nearby. A muffled voice grumbled, “Yeah, yeah, whaddaya want, already?”
“Come on out, boys, Junkyard’s here.”
There was no further movement. Soo winked at Lennie. “He brought a girl with him, ’n’ she’s got a story to tell us.” She paused, listening to the silence, then added, “She’s purty.”
Junkyard stopped working and watched the box with a grin. It shook and swayed with a lot of thumping and scraping sounds. Finally, a bald head popped out of the open end. Frowning, the man blinked blearily at Lennie and wormed out on his hands and knees. Still frowning, he brushed himself off and headed for the fire. Lennie made room for him on her log, but he chose to stand with his eyes down, flicking furtive glances that didn’t quite reach her face.
“This here cue ball is Hotshot Bob,” Soo said. “He comes all the way from Oregon.”
He glanced up, like he expected Lennie to say something.
“Hello, Bob,” she tried. “Or, um, Hotshot. Hotshot Bob.”
He gave a brief, weak smile, then his face fell back into a frown. That must be his natural expression, Lennie decided. His cheeks just sag that way. He scooped the red blanket from the log and headed for the stew pot. As he passed by, his foot caught the guitar. It toppled with a jangle.
“Woody!” Soo flung the ladle at the pot and dove for the guitar as if Hotshot Bob had dropped a baby. The ladle hit the lip of the pot and rattled on the pavement behind her, forgotten.
“Shee-it!” She examined the guitar with her long nose so close she might have been sniffing for blood. Her pencil-like fingers stroked the battered wood as if to comfort it. Finding no new dings, she sat back on her haunches and looked Hotshot Bob up and down.
“Yer one lucky sonuvabitch, ye didn’t hurt ’im. This ol’ guitar—” she pronounced it GEE tar, “—has been played by the hand that wrote some of the greatest road songs ever. Mr. Woody Guthrie, himself. His signature’s right there, near the end of the fingerboard.”
Behind her, Junkyard lip-synced her words as if she had said the exact same thing a hundred times before. Soo turned on him sharply. “As fer you…”
He was saved when the side of the wooden crate nearest the fire fell open with a loud smack. A heavily bearded man with dark, matted hair crawled out.
“Woody, my ass,” he growled. “More like wood scrap. You ask me, that piece of junk looks like it’s been beaten more than played.”
“Nobody asked you, ya big galoot.” Soo gave the guitar a final pat and set it down. “Lennie, this here’s Bones O’Riley, the Happy Chef. No one goes hungry when he’s around.”
“Especially himself,” Junkyard added. He looked pointedly at Bones’s midsection, which spilled out the sides of his grimy overalls.
Bones labored to his feet and stumped over to the stew pot. Lennie thought he might help himself to a bowl. Instead, he leaned close, waved the steam toward his nose, and sniffed. Apparently, he didn’t like the smell. He gagged, letting his tongue hang out. “Who threw their stinking socks into my stew?”
“Stew’s fine, Bones.” Junkyard assumed an innocent expression that Lennie didn’t trust at all. “In fact, Lennie thinks you must be a gourmet chef. What do you say to that?”
The little bit of skin showing between Bones’s beard and eyes turned red. He glared at Junkyard and then at Lennie.
“Ignorant bitch.”
Lennie flinched. She began a sharp response, but Junkyard’s wink stopped her. Bones paced between them and the pot, grumbling and throwing his hands up.
“Damn meat’s too tough. Not enough onions, either. And I’ll crap up a tree if there’s any fresh sage to be found in this butt-hole of a town. Potatoes as wrinkled as my grandma’s ass. Carrots as flaccid as a castrate’s dick…you call that stew good, and you deserve to have your taste buds peeled.”
The more Bones talked the more agitated he became, and the more colorful his word choice. Lennie stared at him in amazement. He was literally frothing at the mouth, yet somebody actually considered him presentable enough to include in the festival’s hobo exhibit.
Soo and Hotshot seemed unaffected, but when he drew a breath for another round, Junkyard stepped in and took him by the shoulder. “I know it’s not your best effort, my friend, but those citizens—” Junkyard swung an arm toward the potential customers wandering among the exhibits and rides, “—they won’t know the difference.”
Mollified, Bones’s grumbling faltered. He dropped down on the other end of Lennie’s log and nearly jolted her from her seat. Crossing his arms over his belly, he stared at her as if she were a vegetable too rotten to add to his stew. Hotshot sat on a cement block near the fire and draped the red blanket over his shoulders. He sat motionless, staring at his feet.
“I think they’re ready to hear your story,” Junkyard said. Soo nodded and settled cross-legged on the ground next to the guitar.
“Oh. Right.” Lennie dug the photograph from her pocket. Her throat tightened a little, as it always did when she looked at the photo. Her father grinned toothily, holding that little walleye out like it was the biggest fish in the world. The picture had been taken just one month before he left.
She passed the photo to Soo and folded her arms to hide her tattooed hand. It might be best to concentrate on her missing father and leave out the more…fantastic events.
“My father disappeared ten years ago,” she began, and she told them the barest facts. They didn’t need to know about the whiskey her mother added to her morning coffee and the half-pint of gin that finished her day, or the repo man and the unpaid medical bills. They certainly didn’t need to know about the hours Lennie had spent in front of her bedroom mirror, thinking that, if she had been a boy, had straighter teeth, been taller, or maybe cleaned her room more often, her father would have stayed.
No, the facts were all they needed. As she talked, she watched her audience for signs of recognition. Soo studied the picture and listened with interest and sympathy. Bones was harder to read. His beard covered his face like a mask, from his throat almost to his eyes. His only response to the photo was a shrug, though some of the hostility faded from his eyes.
Hotshot’s reaction was different. He almost dropped the picture after barely a glance. For the first time, he lifted his head and looked directly into Lennie’s face. Fear screamed from his eyes. Whatever he knew couldn’t be good.
“So here I am,” Lennie concluded. “I know it’s an old picture, but I was hoping someone would recognize him and tell me where he might be.” She looked directly at Hotshot, but he had gone back to staring at his feet.
“Sorry, honey,” Soo said. “Ah’d like to help, but cain’t say Ah recognize your daddy. Bones and Hotshot, though, they been traveling longer and harder’n me. What about it, boys?”
“Can’t say I’ve seen him,” Bones said. “Can’t say I haven’t, either. Nice fish, though. You take the fillets and cook them up in tinfoil with some butter, fresh lemon, salt, maybe some basil or marjoram, and you got a tasty dinner. Or fish stew. I made a fish stew once that—”
Junkyard nudged him with his foot and the big man broke off, muttering to himself. Lennie never took her eyes off Hotshot. Tension had drawn his shoulders high, and he kept swallowing as though he had a fish bone stuck in his throat.
“What about you?” she said softly.
He didn’t answer right away. Lennie waited, driving her nails into her palms to keep from yelling at him. Blinking rapidly, he glanced up without meeting her eyes. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen him before, either.”
“Oh, come on!” Lennie shot to her feet. Hotshot cringed under his blanket, looking miserable and more frightened than before, but she didn’t care. “You know something. Something bad. You’ve got to tell me—it’s my father!”
Hotshot only hunched lower, as if he were trying to hide behind the fire. “Don’t know nothin’.”
His lips clamped together as though he planned never to open his mouth again. Lennie took a step toward him, fists clenched. She opened her mouth, ready to start yelling. Junkyard put up a hand to stop her. “Mood you’re in, you’ll just scare him more.”
He squatted next to Hotshot. “It’s okay, Bob. Nothing can hurt you, here.”
The bald man snorted. “Lot you know. I’m not sticking my neck out to tell you anything.”
He pivoted on his seat, putting his back to Junkyard. His reaction hit Lennie like ice water. She forgot her anger and watched numbly while Junkyard rested a hand on Hotshot’s shoulder.
“Come on, Bob. Help the lady out. Tell her what you know.”
Hotshot gave a short shake of his head and rose from the cement block. He shuffled across the jungle and crawled back into his box, pulling the cardboard flap closed behind him.
Bones whistled low. “Check his seat for a puddle, Junkyard. I think Hotshot peed his pants.”
Junkyard ignored him and spoke to Lennie in a low voice. “I’d sure as hell like to know what your father was into, to get a reaction like that.”
“Me, too.” Lennie rubbed the tattoo surreptitiously. She laughed bitterly. “I suppose we’ll try to talk with Hotshot later—right after we talk to Bill.”
“Maybe so. There’s always the poetry reading. There’ll be a lot more ’bos there, tonight. If you can get any of ’em to talk.”
***
Soo watched Lennie and Junkyard cross the parking lot, hands on her hips, her concern apparent in the s-shape of her brows. When they turned a corner, she strode back to her truck to unload supplies.
Bones O’Riley hoisted himself up from the log and leaned over the pot to check the stew. He dipped a finger and stuck it in his mouth. His face twisted in disgust.
“Shit soup.”
He pulled a box from his breast pocket, extracted a large pinch of dried leaves and crumbled them into the pot. He gave the stew a stir and leaned over the steam for a sniff. Shrugging, he dumped in the remaining contents of the box.
“Shit soup with flavor.”
Nodding in grim satisfaction, he stumped back to the wooden crate and crawled inside.
Flies buzzed around the empty jungle. A breeze sent a napkin tumbling into the fire for a brief, bright ending. Nothing else moved.
Then there was a scrape of denim across pavement and a grunt. The Ragman squeezed out of the space between battered garbage cans. He peered around. If anyone was looking, they might have puzzled over the yellow glint in his eyes. But no one was looking. He sneered and strutted away from the jungle, a paint-stained bandana trailing from his back pocket. When he reached empty pavement, he hesitated, glanced around, and disappeared into shadow.
Fenrir waited in the smoky darkness. The hollow old man stood behind him, ignored. Fenrir had no need to hear the Ragman’s report. He had watched One-Eye’s pawn through the Ragman’s eyes and listened to her story with the Ragman’s ears.
A cruel grin twisted the gangbanger’s mouth. “Do you want me to kill her?”
Fenrir considered. It might be prudent. Unlike her father, a nervous, weak-willed man who had fallen to Fenrir ten years before, the daughter had proven herself surprisingly resistant to his control. She could pose a substantial nuisance. And he would not need to touch the Ragman’s mind to push his hatred of the woman into murder.
But the Ragman was not a fit executioner for this subject. He would kill her by ordinary means. A waste. It would be more useful for her to be bound in the remnants of Fenrir’s own bindings, with a bronze blade thrust through her palate, as One-Eye had done to him millennia before. It appealed to Fenrir to use One-Eye’s own tool as another gauntlet thrown at his feet. Would the coward face him then, when the last of his champions was dead?
But Fenrir felt an odd, almost instinctive reluctance to order her execution. She could become dangerous, yes, but the depth of her emotions made her both valuable and vulnerable. Surely he could make better use of her alive.
“No,” he replied. “Do not harm her.”
“But she—”
Fenrir growled and felt the Wolf rise into his eyes. “I said no.”
The Ragman flinched and fell silent. His expression remained hard and uncaring, but Fenrir sensed the fear crawling across the surface of the gangbanger’s mind. Satisfied, Fenrir forced the Wolf to recede.
“Find Monte.” The growl in Fenrir’s voice was as smooth as a purr. “Tell him to meet me at the warehouse at seven o’clock tonight. I have a job for him.”
Then, seeing through the Ragman’s eyes, Fenrir watched himself vanish. His tailored suit and pressed shirt collapsed, disappearing before they hit the pavement. He felt the Ragman’s astonishment, for a falcon sat on the ground where Fenrir had been. It fixed the Ragman with yellow eyes and opened its hooked beak. Then it stretched its wings and took flight.
The shadow dissipated with Fenrir’s departure.
“What the fuck?” The Ragman had seen a lot, working for El Lobo, but this shit was the craziest, yet. Feeling exposed and uneasy, he eyed the hollow man, whose face shone with snot from nose to chin. All the stupid burro did was stare off into space. His brain had done a ghost long before the Ragman had ever seen him. In some ways, the sight of him put more fear into the gangbanger than El Lobo himself.
“What the hell you do to make El Lobo hate you so bad?”
The hollow man only blinked. One eyelid stuck, opening a few seconds after the other.
“Chingao!” The Ragman shuddered. “Vato loco.”
He set off at a fast walk to do as Fenrir ordered. He had no wish to earn himself the same fate.
A moment later, the hollow man’s limbs came to a stilted, haphazard form of life. Face slack, eyes unfocused, he shuffled after the Ragman, moving as if powered by cogs and levers.
Chapter 9
Briggs hung up the phone. Adrenaline slogged through his sleepy veins like an infusion of amphetamine. He had a name.
The Des Moines police had fumed a clean partial off the knife that killed Peter Olson. They’d found a match on AFIS. No guarantee that it belonged to the killer, but at least he had a name: James Tuttle. After almost a year of doing little but counting bodies, it was a start.
