Trailer Park Noir

“I hope you don’t mind me comin’ in here and waitin’ for ya,” the man said.

“No, not at all,” Reznick said. “In fact, I’m glad you did.”

He was built like some kind of comic book superhero – his muscles seemed to have muscles. But he didn’t quite look like a body builder. Reznick guessed he was in construction, or the timber industry, something like that. His short hair had a sandy color, and he had one of those mustaches that drop down from the corners of the mouth to the edge of the jaw on each side of the chin. He wore work boots, jeans, a long sleeve plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the front unbuttoned, with one of those shoulder-strap undershirts on under it.

“Are you Mr. Reznick?”

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“My name’s Morris Carey, but everybody calls me Mo.”

“Have a seat.”

Reznick went behind his desk and sat down. He put the white bag containing his lunch on the desk. His stomach gurgled.

“Well, Mr. Carey, how can I help you?”

“I’m not sure you can, see, that’s the thing. I never been to no private investigator before, so I don’t even know if this is the kinda thing you handle.”

“Why don’t you let me decide.” Reznick smiled at him.

“Yeah, okay, I can do that. See, it’s my wife.”

“If it’s your wife, Mr. Carey, then I can assure you that it’s the kind of thing a private investigator would handle.”

“Really? Okay, then, I guess I was right in callin’ on you.”

Reznick leaned forward a little, genuinely interested. “Tell me, Mr. Carey – what made you choose me?”

“‘Cause you was in Anderson,” Carey said. “Anderson’s closer to me than Redding. I’m in Happy Valley.”

For a moment, the smile dropped off Reznick’s face. He had a bad memory of Happy Valley – a wooded, rural area west of Anderson – and had not returned there since he’d made that memory. He’d been hired by a couple middle-aged parents who drank too much and probably paid little attention to their children, who wanted him to rescue their son from the bad crowd into which he’d fallen. He’d run away from home, they said, and they wanted him found and brought back. They suspected they knew where he was – they gave him the address. They asked him if he carried a gun, and he said yes. They said he might need it.

Reznick had gone to the address that night, which had been in Happy Valley. It was right off Happy Valley Road – a long gravel driveway led to the house, with glowing windows some distance from the road. There were several cars parked around the house in a big clot. Reznick did not turn down the driveway. He went on and pulled over on a narrow shoulder. He got out of his car, locked it, and crossed the road. He started down the long driveway.

Halfway there, he was accosted by an ugly, familiar smell – a smell like someone painting a car. It was the smell of a meth lab in operation.

“Holy shit,” Reznick muttered.

Reznick was not a coward, and he was willing to take a risk now and then when it was necessary. But he was no idiot. He did not mess with people who had meth labs. He did not mess with the meth freaks.

He turned around and found himself looking down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun.

“Who the fuck’re you?” the dark figure holding the gun said. That’s all he was, a dark figure with what looked like long straight hair, broad shoulders – and that gun somehow sticking out of the dark, vivid in front of Reznick’s face.

“Marcus Reznick, private investigator. I’m looking for a young man named Rodney Pope. I was told he might be here. His parents want him to come home. I’m not here to make trouble.”

“You a fuckin’ cop?”

“No, not at all, I’m a private investigator, I’m not affiliated with law enforcement in any way. In fact, I usually have an adversarial relationship with them.”

“Stand right where you are.”

“All right.”

The tall shadow moved around him, then poked him in the back with the shotgun. Reznick started walking.

“You get the fuck outta here, you hear me?” the man said.

“Yep.”

“You come back here, I’m gonna be the first one to find ya, and I’m gonna blow you in half, you unnerstand me?”

“I understand perfectly.”

The man moved his face close to Reznick’s ear and said quietly, “I mean it – right the fuck in half.” His breath smelled of garlic.

“You’ll never see me around here again,” Reznick had said.

“You just keep walkin’.”

He’d never walked faster.

Meth-heads were utterly unreasonable and dangerously violent, usually psychotic. Reznick had no intention of getting near any again, and if he suspected he might, he would turn the case down, no matter how much he needed the money.

Rather be poor than dead, he thought.

“Where in Happy Valley?” Reznick said.

“Right off Happy Valley Road.”

Reznick nodded. “A lot of people live right off Happy Valley Road.”

The warm, tangy aroma of the barbecue filled the office. But there was something else – Reznick could smell the baked beans, too. Not as strong as the barbecue, but it was there. It was making his stomach growl its head off.

“Have you had lunch, Mr. Carey?”

“Matter of fact,” Carey said, “I haven’t. This is my lunch hour, but I’m skippin’ it to see you. Is that barbecue you’ve got in that bag?”

“It sure is.”

“‘Cause it’s makin’ me crazy.”

Reznick laughed and said, “Yeah, me, too.” He quickly cleared away most of the top of his desk, then reached into the bag and brought out two dinner rolls wrapped in plastic, the Styrofoam cartons and the foil-wrapped ribs. Also in the bag were napkins, a plastic fork, toothpicks in plastic and a chocolate mint. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “This is a pretty generous order for one.”

Reznick got up and went to the cupboards, got a couple plates, a couple forks, a couple paper towels, and returned to his desk. A few minutes later, the only sound in the office was that of two men eating – teeth tearing meat, lips smacking, forks clacking against plates.

Finally, Reznick said, “Is this the best barbecue you’ve ever had?”

“It’s fuckin’ delicious, if you’ll pardon my French,” Carey said. “Where’d you get it?”

“Two doors down, Uncle Leroy’s Homemade Barbecue. There’s a stack of business cards. When your hands are clean, take a few and pass them out to friends. Stop and get some, take it home for the wife so she doesn’t have to cook.”

“Don’t worry, she probably won’t be around long enough to cook.”

“What’s the problem, Mr. Carey?”

“Oh, you can call me Mo.”

“I’m Marc.”

As they discussed Carey’s problem, they continued to eat.

“The last year or so, see,” Carey said, “my wife Alicia’s been goin’ out with her girlfriends.”

“What do you mean by that?” Reznick said. “Where do they go?”

“Well, she always told me they’d go out to a bar, or maybe to the Win-River Casino. A concert once in a while. Always drinkin’, they always go to a bar or club and drink.”

“Do you have children?”

“We have a little four-year-old girl.”