acres of cars in various states of body condition and decomposition, skeletons of wrecks and rusting carcasses whose innards were being stripped a little at a time to patch up other cars. All along the edges of the property ran a chain-link fence topped by razor wire. Nasty to look at, especially since some of the barbs caught the moonlight just right and glinted shiny and menacing.
She figured there was a mean dog or two not far off. It wasn’t just junkyards that had them—in Stella’s experience every family compound out in the sticks had a few flea-bitten curs, bred to meanness with stick beatings and fights over scraps of garbage. When one got hit by a car or lost a fight or mangled a leg on a trap or fence and had to be put down, there was always some scrawny mutt bitch around ready to deliver a new generation of hardscrabble pups.
She turned back to Arthur Junior. “I knew a Benning or two. One of ’em was just a few years behind me in school.”
“That woulda been Earl. He’s probably about forty-five—he’s owned the place since his dad passed. But he has a partner. You know—an associate. Don’t know his full name but he goes by Funzi. Comes down from Kansas City with some of his guys and stays for a few days now and then; I think he has a place down on the lake.”
“
Arthur drilled her with that gaze again, and this time Stella did turn and look at him. In the moonlight his face looked pale as milk, his eyes deep sockets. And the boy looked scared shitless. “Uh-huh. Italian, like Alphonse. Mrs. Hardesty, you know what Italian means up in Kansas City, don’t you?”
Stella made the turn, a gentle curve on the scruffy remains of a farm road, and started back. The junkyard was on the driver’s side of the Jeep now, and she watched carefully as it rolled by. No signs of life anywhere, but the light in the windows of Benning’s house showed sheer curtains pulled shut. A blue flicker from one window probably meant a TV. Big one, no doubt—seemed like the humbler the dwelling, the fancier the TV these days.
“What are you trying to say, Arthur Junior? Benning’s mixed up with some sort of Cosa Nostra shit? The Family comin’ down here to the Ozarks for a little R and R?”
“It ain’t funny.” Arthur Junior’s voice was suddenly sharp. “You don’t mess with those boys.”
“I didn’t say it was funny, but you got to admit—I mean, I’ve never seen any godfather types around town, you know? Haven’t been any horse heads turning up in folks’ beds or anything like that.”
She could feel Arthur Junior’s gaze fixed solid on her face. “If you get to tangling with these guys, you’d damn well better be as good as they say you are,” he said coldly. “You have no notion what they’re capable of. I told Roy Dean, I begged him not to get mixed up with these guys, but he just can’t say no to a quick buck, not ever.”
Stella didn’t say anything until the junkyard was in her rearview mirror, and then she put a little steel in her voice, just like she used to when Noelle was a teenager sassing her about one thing or another.
“Now listen here, Arthur Junior. Unless Roy Dean took Tucker, there’s no reason for me to do so much as give Benning and his pals a cross-eyed glance. I’m real sorry your brother ain’t got a lick of sense, but he’s not the one that hired me, so I’m not going to go rattling any cages just for kicks.”
“I didn’t say—”
“So if you know anything about Tucker you aren’t telling me, any reason I should worry about him and Roy Dean, then you need to come clean and tell me exactly what’s going on. Won’t do anybody any good for you to keep giving me these little pieces of the picture, hear? Otherwise, your brother’s a big boy—he’s on his own.”
“I don’t know anything about Tucker, like I said,” Arthur Junior said, his voice flat and resigned. “Only… maybe you could just listen to me and, I don’t know… give Roy Dean some advice, or, or, like
Stella glanced at the dashboard clock: after eleven already. There was no way she was hiring on to talk sense into a blockhead like Roy Dean—she knew firsthand how futile such an effort would be. Still… she was a little bit moved by Arthur Junior’s fraternal loyalty. Sticking up for a sibling like that—well, that showed character. And character was rare enough that it might merit a few more minutes of her time.
Heading back to a bar to finish this conversation didn’t make much sense, though, and that only left one place she could think of. She turned back on Old State Road 9 toward town.
If Arthur Junior was surprised to end up at Denny’s, he didn’t show it. Stella had the hostess seat them in a corner booth away from the handful of other customers. When the waitress came, Stella waved the menus away and ordered them both a Grand Slam and coffee. Any remnants of her earlier buzz were long gone, and she meant to ensure that she and Arthur Junior were alert for the rest of the conversation, and not fainting from hunger.
She dug out the fresh notebook she’d tucked into her purse before leaving the house. This one had a Hannah Montana cover, with silvery foil and sparkles on the gal’s picture. Hard to believe that Billy Ray Cyrus was old enough to have a teenage daughter; seemed like just yesterday Stella was dancing around the living room to that tune of his, laughing at Noelle as she shook her little-girl booty.
Once the waitress set their coffee down, Stella wrote the date and “Arthur Shaw, Jr.” and “Denny’s” at the top of the page and said, “I get that you’re worried about your brother… now shoot.”
Arthur Junior took a deep breath. “It’s cars, see, Mrs. Hardesty. Roy Dean jacked a car way back in high school, and he got caught and did some juvie time for it. But I guess the bug bit him good. He’s always been wanting a better ride than he’s got, even though he’s not willing to work regular to get it. Long about last January he comes to me and says some pal of his says they can make good money stealing cars from up in Independence and Kansas City and taking ’em to salvage yards to sell for parts. So I guess Roy Dean and him do this for a while and then Roy Dean comes to me and says, why don’t he and I team up? Takes two, see, because you drive up there together and then one guy watches out while the other one gets the thing started, then you got to drive your own car back along with the one you stole.”
“I thought you boys don’t get along,” Stella said. “Why would he want you to go in on this thing with him?”
“No’m, we don’t generally, but the way I figure it is, Roy Dean knew he could trust me. I’d never rat him out or anything. That ain’t the way we’re raised. Plus, I think his friend was wanting to always take the bigger half of the haul, it being his contacts and all.”
“What do you mean, contacts?”
“Well, there’s four, five salvage shops in the county. More if you’re willing to drive a ways. But not all of ’em will take a car without title, you know? And those that will, you gotta kind of build up a relationship with them, just like any other business. And if you really want to make some good money, you got to know what they’re looking for. See, there’s makes and models they need parts for more’n others.”
“Sounds like you know quite a bit about this, Arthur Junior, for a guy who didn’t want to get tangled up in it.”
Arthur Junior hung his head, looking sheepish. “Well, thing is… Roy Dean, he just wouldn’t let it drop. And you should’ve seen Mom. Roy Dean, dumbass that he is, tells her we’re going to start a fucking body shop together, fix up cars and resell ’em. Excuse my language. Sorry. And Mom was so happy, you should’ve seen her.… All she ever wanted was for Roy Dean to stay out of trouble, and here he’s got her thinking he’s gonna go straight and that I’ll be there making sure he keeps his nose clean.”
Stella remembered the weary look in Arthur Senior’s eyes when he talked about his boys. “What did your dad think of all this?”
Arthur Junior stirred his coffee with a spoon, eyes downcast. “Dad… well, I think he quit believing anything Roy Dean said back when we were kids, but you know, he just wants Mom to be happy.”
“That’s a female affliction for you,” Stella said with feeling. “Trying to believe one thing when all the evidence points in the other direction. If women weren’t so darn bent on fooling themselves… well, I guess that’s another subject. Go ahead, tell me the rest. Did you join up with Roy Dean or didn’t you?”
“I… well, I hate to admit it to you, Mrs. Hardesty, but I rode up to Independence with Roy Dean a couple times. I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe that I could talk him out of it or something, but—I mean it was just so damn simple. People leave their cars right out in the open without even locking the doors, and do you know how easy it is to hot-wire them? Especially pre-ninety-five, ninety-six, all you have to do is go under the steering column and get at the wires and touch them together. It’s not hardly rocket science, and Roy Dean always was good with that stuff, and the thing is these aren’t new cars. These are like old Camrys and whatever. It’s almost like a victimless crime, because with a car that age, people are done paying it off and the insurance company writes a check and, you know, they just go and get another car.”
Stella didn’t have much to say to that, especially because breakfast arrived. “Grand Slam,” the waitress said
