PART THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
This Is Where Randy Hawkins Dies
Nobody knows who Randy Hawkins is, because he is a big old nobody.
He's certainly not an attractive man: pig's nose, curly red hair, a denim jacket that was in style maybe two decades ago. His shoes are still on, but if one were to see his feet, one would note that they match his nose: pig hooves. They totally look like pig hooves.
His job isn't notable. Right now he works the meat counter at the Giant supermarket, but that's a pretty recent gig. Last job was as a gas station attendant, and his job before that was as a gas station attendant for a different gas station. Once he thought he could be a rock drummer, but he eventually puzzled out that it really helps to have drums and to know how to play them.
Maybe it's his attitude? He's mild, despite his habits. Quiet. In his own head, he's the furthest thing from boring, but to everybody else, he's dull as primer paint.
If he were a bagel, he'd be plain.
What is it, then, that makes Randy Hawkins special? Special enough to be hung by his hands in a meat locker, dangling next to cold slabs of beef?
Two things.
One, it's one of those "habits" mentioned previously.
Two, it's who he knows.
See, Randy does meth. Mostly, it's so he can stay up late and watch cartoons or bad movies. One might argue that Randy fears death and sleep to him is a neighbor of death – moreover, sleep wastes life, which only ushers one more swiftly toward death. Really, though, Randy isn't even aware of this fear of his. Besides: who doesn't fear death?
Problem is, Randy's meth habit – perhaps unconsciously meant to afford him a stay of execution – is only going to get him killed a lot sooner. See, Randy's dealer has been tweaking prices. The cost of crystal meth has ticked up, up, up. Randy's not the type to rock the boat, and he's definitely not the kind of guy to be proactive enough to seek out a new dealer…
…but what if a new dealer sought out Randy?
This new guy comes along. He says he has product. He says he's ready to sell, and for bargain-basement prices, prices lower than a worm's belly in a wheel rut. This new guy, he's smooth; he's smiling like he's come to wheel and deal. Even though Randy thinks the guy's a bit too smiley, like maybe this dude's been using his own product, that's fine. Randy likes low prices.
Randy stops going to his old dealer and starts hooking up with the new guy.
And that's where Randy's exceptional nature ends.
At least, as far as his captors are concerned.
The door to the meat locker rattles hard, then opens. It startles Randy, and he blows a snot bubble – a bloody one – and almost shits his pants.
The two people who kicked the crap out of him – the squat woman (who Randy can't help but find a little attractive) and the tall man – enter, but now they've got a third.
The third man is broad-shouldered, but thin – too thin, like a skeleton used to hang a white suit – and weirder still, he's hair less like a skeleton, too. Bald head given a gleaming spit-shine. No eyebrows. No eyelashes. Every part of his skin – which has a faint, unhealthy tan, not chemical but more like the color of spoiled chicken – is smooth, slick, glistening as if oiled.
"Randy Hawkins," the man says, but his accent definitely isn't From Around Here, especially if "around here" is meant to include, say, the entire North American continent. Maybe the man is German. Or Polish. Or from some other nebulous Eastern European country. Randy Hawkins does not know the term Eurotrash, but if he knew it, he'd use it. The man points and asks, "This is him?"
Randy tries to say something but can't, because his own bloody sock is stuffed in his mouth and sealed there with electrical tape.
Harriet nods. "I worked him over."
Ingersoll nods as if admiring a painting. He runs a spidery finger up Randy's jawline, through the crust of blood there, to the ear that's swollen like a cauliflower, and then across the forehead where a number of horizontal hash-marks (made with razor, not pen) line up.
He lifts Randy's head. Sees the chewed up skin on the back of his neck.
"This is interesting," the thin man says. He rubs his fingertip across the scabby, abraded flesh. Scritch, scritch. "A new technique?"
"New tool," Harriet explains. "I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and picked up some items from the kitchen department. That's from a cheese grater. I also broke three of his fingers with a garlic press."
"Innovative. And culinary."
"Thank you."
Ingersoll looks Frankie up and down. "And what did you contribute?"
"Donuts."
Ingersoll gets a sour look on his face. "Of course." It is not an unfamiliar look.
"He's ready to talk," Harriet says. "I knew you wanted to be here for it."
"Yes. It's time I am involved fully. This has gone on too long."
Ingersoll pulls a small satchel from his pocket and kneels by Randy's feet. He presses his face against the beef slab hanging to the right, feeling the cool sensation against his forehead. Then Ingersoll opens the pouch and upends it onto the floor.
Little bones – most no bigger than marbles, some like long teeth – spill out. These are hand bones: carpals like driveway gravel, metacarpals like Lincoln Logs, phalanges like dog treats or the tips of umbrellas. All pale, bleached, clean.
Ingersoll does not touch them. His own finger drifts above them, as if he is following along with the text of a children's book or a Bible page. He nods and mumbles something in the affirmative. To everyone else, it's inscrutable, but to him, it's something as plain as day, no less clear than the big, white, fluffy letters of a sky-written message.
"Good," he says, obviously satisfied. He scoops the bones back up and places them in the pouch once more. He kisses the pouch the way he might kiss his mother.
He stands again, and looks in Randy's red, raw eyes.
"You stopped buying from us," Ingersoll says. He licks his lips, shaking his head. "That is a shame. I like to think we offer a solid product for reasonable prices. But you can save yourself here, you know. You will whisper in my ear all you can tell me of your new supplier. If I am satisfied, if you tell me what I want to know, then I will spare your life and instead take only one of your hands. Are we clear?"
Whimpering behind his own blood-caked sock, Randy nods.
Ingersoll smiles, plucks out the sock between his delicate thumb and forefinger, and presses his own ear to Randy's mouth.
"Speak," Ingersoll says, and Randy spills it all.
Outside the meat locker, Ingersoll towels off.
The white towels, handed to him by Harriet, swiftly grow red.
Ingersoll hands over a plastic baggie. Contained within are two hands severed at the wrists.
"Boil them," Ingersoll says, "till the meat falls off. Like osso buco. Once you have the bones free from the meat, bleach them. Purify them with sage smoke. Then give them to me. I will choose which ones if any belong in my satchel."
Harriet nods, takes the bag. Frankie has a look like he's already tasting bile.
"You," Ingersoll says, thrusting his finger against Frankie's sternum. The finger is thin, delicate, like an insect's leg, but it still feels to Frankie like it might punch through his breastbone and puncture his heart. "Dispose of the body."
Swallowing a hard knot of what might be puke, Frankie nods.
"Now we know where Ashley Gaynes lives," Ingersoll says.
But he knows now that Gaynes is only the secondary prize. The girl. She's the one he wants. He reaches in the pocket of his white jacket and gently runs his hands across the binding of Miriam's diary.
He has some questions he'd very much like to ask her.