and to Aaron this one was priceless.
'Give me that!' he cried, straining against his bindings. 'That's mine!'
Souther had gotten a brief look at the boy's mother back at the apartment, but it had been dark, and he could see that she was much more beautiful — and desirable — than he remembered.
'I can see where you get your good looks, kid,' he said. 'How old's the photo?'
'I don't know,' Aaron said stubbornly. 'I want it back.'
Souther turned away and studied the photo. Ashley's large eyes looked straight into the lens, her lithe body was turned slightly toward the camera as she leaned into her man, her slender arms around his neck, a breast pressed lightly against his powerful bicep, a bare foot raised a few inches off the grass, her shorts and halter top seemingly airbrushed on. Souther felt a stirring in his loins as he took it all in.
'We'd better get moving,' Needles said.
Souther took a moment to archive the delicious image… then he tossed the photo to Needles. Needles stared at Ashley for a long moment. Beeks took a look for himself over Needles's shoulder.
'Her name's Ashley Quinn,' Souther said, using the name from the electric bill. 'You know what to do…'
'We'll find her,' Needles said.
'On your way out, drop by the apartment and clean up the mess on the stairs,' Souther said.
'Will do,' Needles said. He pocketed the photo then climbed into the white van and fired up the engine. Beeks opened the large roll-up door, then jumped in with him.
Souther called to Needles. 'Don't lose that picture… I want it back.'
Needles smiled to himself, thinking, Like that would ever happen.
Then the two thugs headed out into the city.
Chapter 17
Souther rolled the big door closed, then walked over and cut Aaron's restraints. He picked up the lamp and led Aaron to the cannery's main floor break room: a space the size of large bedroom with a kitchenette; a legless, maroon-velvet sofa; and a large, heavy wooden table.
There was a small door in the back of the room that Aaron and Willy had always been too afraid to open. Souther didn't have that problem, of course. Without hesitation he turned the knob and opened the door wide.
A clammy vapor wafted up into Aaron's face, smelling of mold and urine. It was icy cold and damp against his skin, contradicting the Biblical fire-and-brimstone he had expected to encounter in hell.
'Go on down,' Souther said, gesturing with the lantern.
Aaron could only imagine the myriad of horrors waiting for him down those stairs. He stepped cautiously through the low door and started down the steep steps. Souther followed closely, his lantern casting a hazy gloom over the forbidding space as they descended into thickening darkness.
At last Aaron's shoes found the packed earth of a dirt floor, and he paused to look around. The room was basically a rough concrete cube, about ten by ten feet, and mostly empty.
Souther set the lantern on a box and pointed to a corner. 'There's a coffee can over there if you need to pee,' he said. 'When you're ready to talk, bang on the door and someone will hear you.' Then he turned and climbed back up the stairs.
Aaron sat down heavily on a blue plastic milk crate. There was a fresh bottle of water sitting in the dirt next to him. He looked at it for a moment. They say you can last three weeks without food, he thought, but only three days without water. Then he twisted it open and drank deeply.
Souther paused near the top of the stairs. 'I'll find your mother with or without your help, kid,' he said. Then he ducked through the door and locked it behind him.
Aaron screwed the cap back onto the bottle and set it in on the box with the lantern. Then he leaned back against the cold concrete wall and fell asleep.
Chapter 18
Needles and Beeks were in the white van heading back to the cannery. They had succeeded in cleaning up the apartment and had Tom's body stashed in the back of the van.
Beeks rode shotgun. 'I'm hungry,' he announced.
'You're kidding me,' Needles said. 'Fifteen minutes ago I watched you down five beef n' cheese burritos, two sides of beans, and a boatload of chips.'
Beeks thought about that for a moment. 'I only had one thing of beans,' he said, 'and them burritos was plain — no fuckin' cheese.'
'How would you know? The whole meal only lasted thirty seconds.'
'Yeah… well, I know one thing, motherfucker, you're wrong about what I ate, and I'm fuckin' hungry.'
'That's two things, dumbass. And I'm never wrong.'
'The hell you ain't.'
Needles paused, then said thoughtfully, 'Yeah, well, I thought I was wrong once… but it turned out I was right. So, I guess I was wrong about that.'
'Fuck you.'
'Well, I'm not stopping again.'
'I'm starving, and you could give a shit,' Beeks said.
'Doesn't your wife ever feed you?'
'No.'
'So why'd you marry her?'
'Does your wife feed you?'
'She would if I had one.'
'Kiss my ass.'
– Johnny Souther hated to be cold, an obsession he picked up after many chilly years in Northern prisons, and his men were instructed to keep the cannery furnace firing full blast. The heat came from radiators supplied by steam from a natural-gas-fired boiler, as the city had neglected to shut off the gas when condemning the building. The current boiler, housed in a brick-and-mortar boiler house attached to the rear of the cannery in the area of the shipping yard, was installed as part of the 1907 reconstruction following the accident that destroyed it in 1905.
Needles and Beeks entered the boiler house struggling with the dead-weight of their load. Beeks had the shoulders and Needles the feet.
'I got the heavy fuckin' half,' Beeks grunted.
'Like hell you did,' Needles said, gritting his teeth.
The huge welded-steel replacement boiler (converted from coal to gas in 1965), was 17 feet long and six feet in diameter and nearly filled the space. Years of greasy soot clung to every surface and caulked every crevice. Shafts of firelight flashed through the boiler-oven's vent slots, generating brilliant patterns on the blackened brick walls.
The thugs dropped the body in front of the furnace, creating plumes of ash. Beeks yanked on the lever and when he pulled the massive cast-iron door open a blast of super-heated air knocked them both back a step.
'Son-of-a-bitch!' Beeks exclaimed, feeling his forehead. 'I think I'm missing a damn eyebrow.'
'As if you had any to begin with,' Needles said.
'Bite me,' Beeks said.
They hefted the body again and shuffled up to the brink of the inferno.
