The More They Disappear (24 page)

Harlan crossed the dock and climbed aboard. A lone girl was tying off black plastic bags she pulled from metal trash cans bolted to the deck. The ship's railings were eight feet tall to keep people from tossing their empties into the river, or to keep desperate gamblers from ending it all. High above Harlan the red-and-white wheelhouse preened.

He ducked into the stateroom where gaming tables sat around a horseshoe-shaped bar. A handful of employees were setting up for the night. A croupier spun her wheel distractedly and waited for the ball to drop. A dealer flipped hands to an imaginary table. Harlan asked the bartender where he might find Mr. O'Malley and was pointed to a door marked
RESTRICTED
.

He climbed a circular staircase to the wheelhouse and found Little Joe in the captain's seat wearing a pressed suit and bolo tie. “Sheriff,” Joe drawled, pivoting in the swivel chair and putting out his hand. “I saw you come aboard.” O'Malley had cauliflower ears and a cloudy eye from years taking jabs to the head. Back in his day he'd been a tough son of a bitch, and eventually he'd earned himself a couple of paychecks as a punching bag for young contenders. After he retired from the ring, Little Joe bought himself some pristine dental work—a full smile of big white chompers—and took the job with the Silver Spoon.

Harlan studied the boat's control panel. It seemed unnecessarily complicated given a leather-wrapped wheel steered the damn thing. “Nice setup you got here,” he said.

“It's decent,” Joe replied, flashing those pearly horse teeth. “So tell me what can I do for you.”

“I'm out here to get information about one of your—what do you call them—guests?” Harlan pushed against the steering wheel until it turned. “Suckers?”

“We call them patrons.”

“I'm here to ask about one of your patrons.”

Little Joe leaned forward, returned the steering wheel to its previous position. “Go on.”

“I heard Lew spent time out here and I'd like to know more.”

“Why would I talk about that?”

“I figure it isn't bad business to help me since I'm in charge now.”

“I don't necessarily agree,” Little Joe said. “You're in charge short-term, but I hear long-term may be a different story.”

Harlan took a deep breath. “Even if I lose the election, I'm sheriff until the end of the year. We've already asked the state police for extra manpower. Maybe I can have one hang out by the docks and give sobriety tests.”

“We're a legal business.”

“That doesn't mean your patrons wouldn't notice us, drink a little less, make fewer bad decisions.”

“You might have me there.” Little Joe slapped his knee. “I stopped drinking when I left the ring and never once regretted it.” He stood up. “Why don't you come down to my office and we'll talk proper.”

O'Malley walked Harlan back through the stateroom, making banter with the employees as he went, led him belowdecks to a keypad-locked room filled with screens for the security cameras and an expensive vault. “This is the operations center,” Joe said. “Aka my second home. At night we have two armed guards protecting me. Or, well, protecting this.” He slapped the vault.

“Impressive.”

“So Lew. What do you want to know?”

“Let's start with the basics. How often was he here? How much did he lose? Who did he come with? Those sorts of things.”

Little Joe titled his head back and forth like he was amping himself up for a fight and launched into the story. “Lew was a good patron, which means he lost. A lot. And often. It didn't start out that way. I remember his first night he cleaned up at the craps table. Sometimes that's the best thing that can happen. Lew won five grand and he was hooked. He kept buying drinks and flirting with the waitresses, giving them hundred-dollar tips and pats on the ass. More than a thousand of his winnings went right back into our pockets. That must've been two, three years ago. He started coming out every week or two but he didn't like people seeing him here, so we invited him to our high-stakes poker games, where most of the patrons are from out of town. Anyway, when Lew ran out of cash, he'd ask me to extend credit. Usually he was good for it, but he started taking on more than he could handle. He was the worst kind of poker player. He had a short attention span and he bet with a chip on his shoulder, like the game was personal.”

“How much did he lose?”

“By the end? Tens of thousands. And pretty consistent.”

“And you kept extending him credit?”

“That wasn't my decision. The bosses in Huntington told me to keep letting Lew borrow. Maybe they were keeping the peace. Toward the end things soured. Lew started telling me if I didn't forgive his debt he'd shut us down and make my life a ‘living hell'—his words, not mine. I told him he didn't have the balls to mess with me and that I wasn't scared of some small-town sheriff. Same as I told you. But maybe I wasn't so polite with Lew.”

“He didn't respond well to politeness?”

“I've dealt with tougher men.” Little Joe cast a cloudy eye toward Harlan.

“How was Lew coming up with the cash?”

“I don't know and I don't care. I'll tell you this, though. I got tired of dealing with him. One night he got drunk and threw a punch at me. Can you imagine? My days of throwing punches are over, so I threatened to tell the newspaper about his gambling and complained to the bosses. I was tired of the bullshit. Next day out comes the father of that pretty girl Lew's son married carrying an envelope of cash. Motherfucker tells me he'd like it if I could keep his friend from losing so much. Like he doesn't understand what business I'm in.”

“This is Trip Gaines?”

“Yeah. The doctor. Real cool customer. I wouldn't trust him to take my pulse.”

“How much are we talking?”

“Fifteen G's at least.”

“In cash?”

“Banded fucking bills.”

“Did Lew mention anything about it?”

“Nope. Next week it was more of the same. I comped Lew a few vodka tonics to loosen him up and watched as he frittered away the coin.” Little Joe cracked his knuckles like he was back in his prime, all pumped-up bravado.

Harlan could understand helping a friend in need, but Trip Gaines's benevolence went above and beyond. “You ever feel guilty about taking people's money?” he asked.

“Not my problem.”

“Mabel Mattock might lose her house.”

“If that's true, I feel for her. Truly, I do. But I didn't put her house on the line. Lew should have come to me for advice. I put my money in a portfolio and let some business school fucker handle it, live off the dividends. Everyone out here on the river trying to get rich quick should wise up and do the same.”

Harlan stood up and shook O'Malley's hand, said he could show himself off the boat.

As he walked down the ramp, Harlan caught sight of divers downriver and made his way over to watch them pull mussels from the bottom. “So what's the story?” he asked a woman in a wet suit.

She handed him a three-inch pumpkin-colored mussel with wart-like spots and a swirl of white at its base. “That's an orange-footed pimpleback,” she said. “They're being killed off by zebra mussels and that albatross.” She nodded in the direction of the Silver Spoon.

“I read today the boat might have to find a new home.”

The woman held out a bucket of brown water that smelled like rot. Harlan placed the mussel back with its kin. “Depends on how hard the casino fights in court,” she said, shaking the bucket and admiring her treasures. “A lot of damage can happen in the time it takes for a judge to make up his mind.”

Harlan looked west, past the woman. The river wended through a series of bluffs where persistent scrub trees anchored into the rock face and managed to survive against all hope or expectation. It was almost enough to believe the mussels would survive as well, that no matter how hard man tried to fuck it up, the river would endure.

*   *   *

The sheriff's department looked no different to Lewis than it had when his father took over in the eighties. Even Holly, sitting behind the front desk, seemed unchanged. As a kid, she'd taught him to play solitaire, and, later, Texas Hold'em.

“Surprise,” he said.

“I'll say. You come down here to visit an old woman?”

“Actually, I was hoping to catch the sheriff.” On the wall newspaper clippings of his father hung in frames. “You look exhausted,” he said.

“You sure do know how to charm a woman.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she said. “I've looked in a mirror. I don't know whether to blame Harlan or all the knuckleheads running around breaking the law.”

“Dad's murder to boot.”

“That's a big part of it.” She paused. “We're going to miss him.”

“How's the investigation going?”

“I don't know. You should talk to Harlan so long as you two stay civil.” She pointed him toward the sheriff's office. It still had his dad's name stenciled on the glass.

He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. “You got a moment, Sheriff?”

Harlan was drawing on a cigarette by the window, his ball cap tilted down low as if he were napping. “What's on your mind, Lewis?”

Lewis shut the door behind him. “I heard you spoke with my mom.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Shouldn't you be looking for the man who killed my dad?”

“What do you think I was doing?”

“I don't see how making her dredge up bad memories helps you.”

“Are you worried about how I'm handling your dad's murder or are you worried about your campaign?”

Lewis felt the blood rise to his face but Harlan just set there sucking on his cigarette like it was his only care in the world. “Go bother the criminals, Harlan. Leave my family alone.” Lewis turned to go but stopped short at the door. “Dad always thought you were an idiot,” he said. “He was afraid if he promoted someone worth a damn, they'd campaign against him. Guess the joke's on him, huh?”

Harlan stabbed his cigarette into a soda can. “Your dad wasn't a saint. I suspect you know that better than most.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Harlan lifted his hat. “What do you know about your father-in-law?”

This caught Lewis off-guard. “Trip?”

“Were he and your dad close?”

“Why?”

“Your dad lost a lot of money gambling. We both know that. But your father-in-law paid a big chunk of his debt. Now why would he do that?”

Lewis didn't follow. His father and Sophie's were never more than cordial. If anything, they'd seemed annoyed by one another.

“Tell you what,” Harlan said, rolling another cigarette. “If you find out the answer, come talk to me. In the meantime, don't worry about me using your dad's gambling as campaign fuel or whatever. I'm not the sort of man to speak ill of the dead or make empty speeches.” Lewis started to defend himself, but Harlan wasn't interested. He pointed to the door and said, “Close that on your way out.” Lewis, flummoxed, did as he was told and staggered out the door, trying to decide where he should go next.

*   *   *

Harlan followed Lewis away from the sheriff's department. He figured there were only a few destinations Lewis might be headed, and when Lewis passed the turn that went up to Trip Gaines's place, Harlan guessed he was on his way to the Silver Spoon. He eased the cruiser back and pulled into the boat's parking lot a few minutes after Lewis. The dumb lug was talking to an employee on the deck, getting more and more animated as he talked, his arms flapping up and down like a fat bird that couldn't fly. If Harlan were a betting man, he'd wager his future held a phone call from Little Joe O'Malley asking him to not spout off about their private conversations.

Harlan backed the cruiser away and pointed it toward Trip Gaines's. He was glad Lewis hadn't run straight to his father-in-law. It meant Lewis was just as in the dark about what was going on as Harlan was. Harlan didn't really know Trip Gaines, but he didn't like what little he'd found out. He didn't like finding him in the judge's chambers or outside the bank, and he didn't like the way Gaines talked about the election or trust that he'd paid Lew's debts out of kindness. The doctor was the sort of man on whom even honey wouldn't stick. He lived in one of the ridgetop subdivisions that seemed in perpetual construction. Harlan realized he'd driven by the place the day after Lew's murder. Gaines's house was the nicest in the community—a newly built colonial made to look like an older colonial—but it stunk of fakery. The brick was only decorative and the siding a painted Hardie board. The driveway was newly lined with thin-trunked pin oaks cabled to keep them upright and it would be years—decades even—until the trees gave off the stately effect intended.

Gaines came onto the front porch and crossed his arms like a security guard. Harlan reminded himself to be cordial, apologized for the unexpected visit, even wished Lewis luck in the election. None of it softened the doctor. “What are you doing here?” he asked

“Money,” Harlan said. “I'm trying to track a bit of money you gave the Silver Spoon.”

“I'm not sure I can help you.”

Harlan took out his wallet and looked inside. “I'm trying to imagine fifteen thousand dollars. Is it banded in hundreds?”

“Is that what you want to ask me? What money looks like?”

“That's a lot of cash to carry around.”

“I'm not poor.”

“Even for a doctor.”

Gaines uncrossed his arms. “I paid a portion of Lew Mattock's gambling debts if that's what you're hinting at. And I can show you a loan contract that proves he still owes me that money.” He rapped his knuckles against one of the porch's decorative columns, let the hollow sound ring out.