Copperhead Springs-at Nitko, specifically-and Matt wanted to know why.
So far, he didn’t have a clue.
“Eat up,” Shelly said. “We need to get going in a few minutes.”
Matt took a bite from the pancake stack and washed it down with some coffee. There was something very satisfying about being here with Shelly, yet something disturbing as well. She projected a genuine warmth Matt hadn’t experienced in a long time, but occasionally she would stare into the distance as though entranced by some faraway vision. Matt wanted to know what it was she saw, but every time he brought it up she changed the subject.
She brewed another pot of coffee and filled a thermos with it. She wore jeans and steel-toed boots and a chambray work shirt. Her dark brown ponytail dangled from the back of a red Nitko ball cap. She sat at the table across from Matt.
“I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already,” she said. “So what are your plans, Mr. Matthew Cahill? You just going to wander around aimlessly forever?”
Matt had been traveling around the country for a while now. For the last few weeks, he’d been sleeping under the stars, bathing at filling-station restrooms, and dining on beans and Spam and bologna sandwiches.
“What makes you think my wandering is aimless?” he said.
“Ah. Let me guess. You’re searching for your soul. You’re trying to find the true meaning of life.”
“Or the true meaning of death,” Matt said. He took a bite of bacon.
“Ever think about settling down?”
“Sometimes.”
“You might be able to get on permanent at the plant. I know for a fact there’s an opening in Waterbase. One of the guys there got fired last week. It’s hard work, but the pay sucks.”
Matt grinned at Shelly’s joke, but the thought of signing on full-time at Nitko made his stomach tighten. Shelly had driven him there Monday morning and had led him up a set of concrete stairs and in through one of the loading-dock doors. Sweat beaded on his forehead almost immediately. Huge electric ventilation fans hummed high on the corrugated steel walls, but they didn’t move enough air to cool the building much and they didn’t adequately lift the blanket of chemical fumes. Shelly guided him through a labyrinth of industrial shelving stacked twenty feet high with cardboard boxes, five-gallon jugs, and fifty-five-gallon drums. Some of the containers were marked with labels that said, “Fire,” others with labels that said, “Ice.” Fire and Ice were Nitko’s flagship fountain solutions, Shelly had told him. They were top-of-the-line cleaning products for the printing industry, considered to be the gold standard worldwide since the mid-sixties. Fire was acidic and the color and clarity of orange soda, while Ice was alkaline and a shade or two darker than Windex.
In the distance electric motors whirred and pneumatic pumps pulsed and human beings shouted instructions at one another. Forklifts darted to and fro like confused squirrels, picking up pallets of product here and dropping them off there.
Matt and Shelly made it through the maze to the north side of the building, where there was an employee break room and men’s and women’s locker rooms and a Kronos electronic time clock. Shelly swiped her badge, and from there she took Matt to Human Resources and then to the main production area to talk to the foreman. The air was even hotter there, the fumes thicker and the din exponentially louder. The workers’ grim expressions spoke volumes. Stories of missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams, of being stuck in a long and arduous never-ending journey to nowhere.
The conditions were horrible, the pay obscene. Matt felt sorry for Shelly and everyone else who depended on Nitko for a paycheck. Anyone unlucky enough to be born in Copperhead Springs stood a good chance of ending up in that hellhole, and it just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. No, Matt had no intention of working there permanently, but he did want to extend his job as a temp. He needed to find the reason behind that rotting face on the billboard.
He sipped his juice. “I like you a lot,” he said, “but I have to be honest with you. I’m just not ready to settle down yet.”
Matt saw Shelly’s hand tighten around her coffee cup. The muscles flared in her wrist and then relaxed, some battle surrendered without a fight.
“Typical man,” Shelly said. “Unable to commit. Come on. Let’s go to work.”
7:21 a.m
An administrative assistant who worked in Human Resources stood at the cluster of vending machines outside the security office, trying to decide which brand of soda to buy.
K-Rad stood behind her.
The woman’s name was Kelsey Froman. K-Rad had known her since elementary school. She’d been a homely little girl-thick glasses, metal braces that made her breath smell like the lid of a sardine can, hair the color of dirt. Cruel little monsters that they were, the other children nicknamed poor Kelsey Froman Frog Man, and they bullied her and teased her and reduced her to tears almost every day of fifth grade. She had blossomed at some point, though, and had morphed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Now she had a great body and a killer smile and contact lenses that brought out the blue in her eyes. Her long brown hair was expensively styled and streaked with highlights the color of bourbon. K-Rad had asked her out for a drink one time, and she had stifled a laugh and made up a lame story about her cousin being in town. Her loss.
Pepsi or Mountain Dew? Which one would it be? Kelsey Froman chose Mountain Dew. K-Rad’s favorite! She pressed the button, and her selection clattered to the receiving tray. When she bent over to retrieve it, K-Rad blasted a hole the size of silver dollar through the left cheek of her shapely ass. She fell to her hands and knees and retched, like a cat trying to cough up a hair ball. K-Rad lifted the back of her skirt, positioned the Beretta’s muzzle between her legs, and fired twice. She fell to the floor and stared blankly at the bottom of the drink machine. K-Rad opened the Mountain Dew and chugged it.
“Have a nice day, Frog Man,” he said, and walked on.
7:27 a.m
A six-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and razor ribbon guarded the perimeter of Nitko’s property. Employees were required to scan their badges and enter a password into an electronic keypad to open the double set of gates to the parking area. There was one way in and one way out. It reminded Matt of a prison.
Shelly tooled around the parking lot in her 1995 Ford Taurus station wagon, ignoring the five-miles-per-hour speed limit, her head bobbing to the beat of an AC/DC song on the radio. She finally whipped into an open slot and braked to a stop with an abrupt jerk.
“I have a question,” she said. “Why do you bring that ax to work with you?”
Matt had stowed the tool on the floorboard between the front and back seats. He didn’t take it inside the plant with him, of course, but he liked having it nearby. “It’s my talisman,” he said. “My good-luck charm. I don’t go anywhere without my ax.”
“That’s not much of an answer,” Shelly said. She went into one of her spells then, staring through the windshield at something beyond the horizon.
Matt had to tell people something when they asked, but the ax was really much more to him than a good-luck charm. It was an heirloom, for one thing, and the only remaining connection to his former life in Washington. His grandfather had wielded it, and his father, and he hoped to pass it along to his own son or daughter someday. And there was something else about it, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was the only worldly possession he cared anything about, and he felt extremely uncomfortable when it wasn’t with him. Or at least within walking distance.
After a few seconds, Shelly snapped out of it and looked at her watch and said, “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
