Yellow Medicine Read online

  “That the way it is? I hurt your feelings and I pay forever?”

  He pounded on the door, said something to another agent I couldn’t hear because I was shouting, “I will rip your fucking heart out! I will eat your fucking heart!”

  The agent handed him something. A gun. No. Not a real gun. Goddamn stun gun. As he lifted it and aimed at me, I thought, Oh, that’s not good.

  You don’t plug fifty thousand volts into a guy whose wrists and ankles are bound by steel and shackled to a steel ring on the floor. You just don’t do it. Unless you’re a goddamned sadist.

  And it was all my fault.

  Lightning strike. But it wouldn’t end. Stiff, unable to move or breathe. The prongs felt like rattlesnake teeth pumping fire inside me. If I’d ever been afraid of death before, the stun gun changed my mind. I wanted to die. I looked forward to being dead. Anything to stop the pain.

  When it finally stopped, I was hoping that the room was just an afterthought. What I was seeing was only an echo of my life. Any second the pain would flitter away and my soul would give up looking for heaven and hell and just fall asleep and that’s all she wrote. My story would be over.

  But I kept breathing and jittering and burning—smoke rose from my wrists, circled with charred skin. I don’t remember falling to the floor, one ankle twisted badly in the snarl of short chains. I was alive, and I hated it.

  Rome knelt beside me. Maybe he looked sorry for me, I don’t know. He said, “Bait me all you want. It won’t stop what’s next. Tomorrow I’m taking you back to Yellow Medicine County, let you to see firsthand the damage you’ve done. We’ll need you to take us to the bodies, show us where the Malaysians were hiding out. See how much of a badass you are then, boy.”

  I let him have the moment. I pictured the streets of Pale Falls in my mind, terrified of what Rome had waiting for me there. I’d come full circle. Home sweet home.

  TWO

  Three Weeks Ago

  Drew joined me at the bar after her band finished its set. She played bass for a psychobilly group called Elvis Antichrist. They were too good for empty bars during snowstorms here in rural Minnesota. I told her they should take that act to the Twin Cities. She told me they tried, got turned away with, “Psychobilly is deader than Elvis.”

  It was mid-March, the melt still weeks away. She sidled up to me, asked the bartender for a glass of Chardonnay, then, “Billy, I need help.”

  Must’ve been hard for her to say that. She knew the cost of asking. I was the one who taught her how to fuck on prom night last sping after arresting her drunk date. Now they say, Don’t let Deputy Lafitte get you, boys, or he’ll steal your girls. A few have tried to catch my eye, encouraged their guys to drink more.

  Drew was a special case. As long as she understood my price.

  Better than chasing divorcees my own age. I had enough baggage from when I was married with kids.

  Drew repeated that she needed my help.

  “What kind of help?”

  “Big help.”

  Probably meant someone needed to be punished. I looked her over—the too-dark mascara and thick stage make-up, the black hair with canary yellow streaks, her ample figure in a black goth dress and knee-high boots. Hot damn sexy freak of nature. On prom night she had worn a maroon gown that bared most of her back. Her hair had been a boring brunette and you wouldn’t think she’d ever heard of psychobilly. She even won the state spelling bee once.

  I spun off the volume on my radio, not expecting a call in this weather. I often lazed through most of my shift at this bar, fully uniformed, drinking beer and listening to half-assed local bands. Took a swig and turned on my stool to face her. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s Ian.”

  Shit. Her boyfriend since July. He was into dealing meth, but who wasn’t? I’d arrested him for possession several times and finally decided it was easier to take a “fine” from him than carry his skinny ass to jail for the night, since his father would just guilt the sheriff—my ex-brother-in-law Graham—into setting the boy free anyway. What a washout. Twenty, acted fifteen, thought he was going to make a fortune organizing “raves” on the prairies. Dropped out of the university in Marshall. He couldn’t better himself and didn’t have enough sense to take over his old man’s farm one day, so drugs suited him just fine.

  Why oh why did bright and sparkly little Drew go nuts over that loser?

  I said, “I’ve already helped that asshole more than I ever intended. You’re not winning me over, sweetie.”

  “It’s not a legal problem exactly. It’s that some guys he was, um, considering working with. He lost something of theirs. It wasn’t Ian’s fault. Could’ve happened to anyone, eh?”

  “Not anyone.”

  “Look, I know he’s into some bad stuff, and I’m trying to straighten him out. He’s got a good heart and all. Thing is, these guys, they already gave him a warning.”

  She got my attention. It didn’t matter that Ian was a pain in everyone’s ass. He was my problem—I was the enforcer around here. Nobody pushed my people around.

  “What type of warning?”

  She frowned, her cheeks droopy, eyes on the bar. A sad sight. “They burned him. They put a brand on his ass.”

  I didn’t know whether to be pissed or to laugh. I spewed beer and tried to look concerned. The bartender shouted at me. I flung a coaster at him.

  “With a real brand?”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t know where they got it. It’s an “F” and a quarter moon. He’s lucky it didn’t get infected.”

  “And I take it he had a great nursing student with a good bedside manner helping out, right?”

  Drew blushed. Once she outgrew the crazy costumes and cult-music, she was going to be a lifesaver. The yellow dye would always wash out, the goth look her nighttime mask only. It suited her, but then so did the shyer aspect of her personality. She truly lived two lives. I planned to be Drew’s guardian angel until the day I died, and even then for long after.

  She said, “Can you get these guys off his back? Yes, I know that drugs and all are wrong—”

  “This was drugs he lost?”

  After a quiet moment, she scrunched her eyebrows and said, “I don’t really know. He won’t tell me more. I assumed.”

  “Either drugs or money, right?”

  “Guess so.”

  I snapped my fingers at the bartender. “Hey, put Drew’s next drink on my tab.”

  He shrugged like I missed the joke. Drew had barely touched her wine anyway.

  I told her, “I’ll talk to Ian tomorrow, all right? We’ll get this taken care of.”

  That brightened her whole face, more babydoll than vampire, and she hugged me awkwardly. “I knew you would. Thanks so much.”

  “Why didn’t he ask me himself?”

  “You know. You and him, right? Don’t let him know I said anything.”

  The kid probably put her up to this anyway. With that in mind, I felt bad about the next part, the thing she knew was coming. That’s why she was hanging around, pretending to study the bottles behind the bar, waiting for me to ask:

  “Busy after the gig?”

  She shook her head. “Might need a ride home in this storm.”

  You’re thinking I’m a bastard. A real nasty piece of work. All I can say is that I don’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want. I’m willing to risk my neck night in and night out to protect my citizens, so if I go above and beyond to help a young lady in need, how she shows her gratitude is entirely her decision.

  Still, something about Drew, about this night, this favor, made me cautious. I was willing to check into Ian’s situation without getting anything in return. That branding shit wasn’t right, some upstart hicks trying to bite a piece of my pie. The other thing was the way Drew made it seem like a direct tit-for-tat. Goddamn it, I’m not supposed to feel bad about taking home a girl who’s telling me she’s willing.

  I did this time.

  So when the phone behin
d the bar rang and the bartender brought it to me, saying, “Dispatcher,” I breathed a little easier.

  I took the handset. “Yeah?”

  “Jesus, did you turn off your radio again? What did I tell you about that?” The dispatcher was Ms. Layla, who reminded me of my dad’s sisters. They acted like traditional aunts, full of advice and cookies, but they chain-smoked and gambled a lot.

  “Sorry. I had to take shelter. It’s loud in here—”

  “All I asked is for you to keep the damn radio up in case…forget it. Get over to the casino. They’ve got a problem with Doctor Hulk.”

  “I’m on it. See you soon, Ms. Layla. And I do apologize—”

  “You can bring me a roast beef sandwich if you really want to be forgiven.”

  I handed the phone back to the bartender. Drew had gotten the gist of the conversation and was standing. I jerked a thumb towards the door.

  “We’ll talk later, and don’t worry about anything. I’ll handle it tomorrow.”

  She wrapped the fingers of both hands around her wine glass, as if she were about to offer it to me. “Really? Don’t worry?”

  “You guys be careful. Call me if you need me.”

  After she headed back towards her bandmates to help dismantle the stage gear, I said to the bartender, “You laughing at me earlier?”

  He crossed his arms. “You wanted to pay for her drink. The band drinks free. Especially her.”

  Son of a bitch was getting territorial. I said, “Oh yeah, Clark. Like you’ve really got a shot. Whatever fantasy keeps you warm at night, go with it.”

  Clark shrugged, turned away, wiped down the far end of the bar. I’d taken the fight out of him, which made me feel pretty good. Being feared had its perks. I lifted my hat from the bar and snugged it on, ready to face the snow.

  THREE

  I had time to think about Drew and Ian’s problem on the way to the casino, which was on the Upper Sioux reservation at the edge of the prairie across the street from an endless field of corn. They called the joint Jackpot Harvest, slightly better than a bingo hall or slot room, but not up to big-time resort standards. Dr. Hulk was a gynecologist from Cottonwood who worked in Marshall, a larger town to the south. His real name was Hulka, but when he drank, he turned green—envy, jealousy, vomit stains, all of them.

  The snow was wet and slushy, making the drive slippery. The cruiser had good tires, a good engine, handled well, but I wished I had my Ram 4X4 instead. In a few weeks this would all start to melt, flooding the river I lived on and filling the lakes all over the state, leaving us thick with muck.

  My guess: Ian was trying to open a franchise for some larger players. Too bad. He was the last person even drug dealers should trust. For a minute or two, something to take my mind off the snow, I thought about lending him a hand, doing all the talking to these guys and making sure we got a fair cut. Plus, with the law involved, I could guarantee safety for drops and meetings, provide an abandoned farmhouse for a lab.

  I laughed, thinking like I did in the old days, the sort of shit that got me fired in Gulfport, Mississippi after the big hurricane. Lost my job, my wife and kids, and a lot of money. The whole point of taking the job in Minnesota was to make a clean break, start all over. Sure, I still took the handouts, worked the angles when it didn’t seem too out-of-bounds, but I’d say my hands were mostly clean these days.

  Nothing that would hold up in court, I mean.

  *

  The head of security at the casino was waiting for me at the entrance. Name was Rome, and he was tall and black, skinny as hell. Classy in a suit while he held his bulky radio. Part Sioux, of course, but the truth is they hired him to avoid a lawsuit. He had friends in The Cities that helped out, made a few threats. I don’t know why he wanted to work at a dump like this. There was something deeper, but since it hadn’t elbowed into my space yet I wasn’t digging.

  He held Dr. Hulka by the collar. White shirt covered with a patch of vomited taco and whiskey. Some blood, probably his own from the scratch on his cheek. I climbed out of the cruiser at the covered entryway, empty of guests. Everything was too bright, our little pocket of light you couldn’t see ten feet outside of. The wind was a steady screech.

  “The usual?” I said to Rome.

  “He’s friskier. Drank more than he typically does. It started with some blackjack dealer he was hitting on, just a kid. Maybe twenty-three.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I put a stop to it because she was getting nervous, forgetting her routine. She’s new here.”

  Hulka tried to grin. It wasn’t good. The way he bobbed, you’d think he was on a boat.

  I said, “What else?”

  “Then he moved over to slots, shouted at a cocktail waitress that we were dirty Indian thieves, and grabbed the server’s buttocks.” Rome was all business like that, and probably religious. The rumor was that he sometimes witnessed to the big losers, trying to get them to accept Jesus. “That was the ball game.”

  I pointed to the blood on the doctor’s pants and shirt. Hulka’s forehead was half-covered with a bandage. “Eh?”

  “He didn’t want to listen to reason. As I tried to accompany him to the office, he walked into a column.”

  What I wouldn’t give for the videotapes. Rome’s stories about his battered patrons always involved walking into a column. None of the bruised troublemakers disputed him once they were sober.

  Hulka swung towards me. Rome tightened the grip on the collar until the doctor gagged. He rasped at me. “I wan’ press sharges.”

  “Excuse me?” Either the alcohol or the fat lip. Couldn’t tell.

  “Guy here, abuse, tha’s what it is. Nigger thin’s he can take me on.”

  Rome’s lips curled. He was enjoying this. Hulka would sleep it off, get back to work, then after a week or two cooling off, he’d be back. That’s when Rome would request a little chat, remind him who’d got the upper hand—maybe show him edited portions of the tape, especially this part. Tuck a favor away in your pocket, that sort of thing. Maybe a nice contribution to Rome’s Baptist church.

  Hulka gagged on another threat and let loose on the concrete, more alcohol and bile, the hot sick smell like a slap in the face, splashing onto my shoes. I stepped back, took a look down there. The drops had nearly frozen on impact, an abstract pattern. I’d seen worse.

  When he was done, I cuffed him and asked Rome, “What do you want me to do?”

  We’d been through this before. “Keep him away for the rest of the night. Keep him safe.”

  “You got his keys?”

  Rome spread his hand on his chest. You think I would take the man’s Lexus? “I heard them in his pocket.”

  “Have a good one.”

  “Same to you.”

  *

  Hulka puked in the cruiser. I watched in the rearview as he tried to aim some at the back of my head, but wasn’t strong enough to lift his neck that high. In small towns and rural counties like ours, it’s a blessing and a curse to be as addicted as the doctor. Everyone knew, but they were too polite or repressed or embarrassed to say it to his face. Because of that, he lived a daytime life and a nighttime life, neither having much to do with the other. I’d heard he was married, but to a wife who was never home. Also heard he had a couple kids, one in college and one in high school. People said his son was just like Hulka, and that didn’t make either of them very happy.

  I didn’t plan on taking him to the station or leaning too hard. Easier to drop him off at home, help him inside, and let him forget it ever happened. That was before he started talking.

  “Thin’ you’re pretty powerful, don’t you? Got the whole county wired.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Too goo’ t’ talks to me now?”

  Glanced in the rearview. Caught his eyes. “Let’s just get you home, doc. Don’t want to make your headache worse.”

  “Fuck it. Jus’…treating me li’ a child, put me in cuffs. Get you fired for that shit.”
/>   “Nobody’s getting anybody fired. Five more minutes.” It was getting harder to see, the snow blowing and spattering into slush on the windshield, gathering on the sides where the wipers missed. Mostly two lane roads out here, had to be careful, especially making a turn, and the turn to Cottonwood wasn’t too far away.

  “Everybod’ feel sorry for me. All feeling sorry, the poor drun’ doctor. They got sticks up their asses. Here’s wha’ they don’t know. Wanna hear a sec..rrrr…secret?”

  Of course I did. If it weren’t for all the secrets I knew, I wouldn’t have been the deputy I was. “Lay it on me.”

  He leaned forward, lost balance and scraped his face against the divider screen. Heaved a few breaths. I thought he might puke again. Then he said, “I fuck all their wives.”

  Well, goddamn, that wasn’t much of a secret. I just assumed. “While you’re examining them?”

  “Wha’? No, no. Ew, tha’s tha’s th…tha’s just gross, man. Not like that. I mean, like, we’ll get to talking an’ these women just want a man to talk to, y’know? They star’ telling me when to come over, the husban’ out town. They wan’ be treated like sluts.”

  “Remind me which road it is after we turn.” I clicked the turn signal. Disappointed, actually. I didn’t believe him. A drunk rich guy boasting, nothing more. Maybe he’d slept with one or two waning socialites, but Hulka wasn’t the monster gigolo he imagined himself to be. “I can’t remember the street name.”

  “Don’t change the subjec’. Ask me for names. You wanna know.” He slumped back on the bench, tumbled to the side. The vinyl stuttered. “I fucked your wife, too.”

  That was his mistake. I gripped the wheel tighter, cleared my throat. “You did? Tell me about it.”

  “Said her cop husban’ only had one big gun, an’ not in his pants.”

  “She did?”

  “Oh, geez, I rode her int’ the ground. Broke the bed.” Lowered his voice, tossed some attitude into it. “I fucked her in th’ ass, yeah. I came all o’er her face.”

  Drunk boasting, all lies. My ex-wife was originally from South Dakota, but she lived in Mobile, Alabama. She moved back home with her folks after the hurricane. After what I had done. She filed papers, didn’t even want my explanation. That’s what I deserved, though, for marrying a strict evangelical Christian. Thought she could change me. I let her think she had, until the storm ripped my mask clean off.