A Fountain Filled With Blood

The way he said the word bonuses was a tip-off. “Drugs?” Russ asked.

“Yeah. Chris handed it out—ecstasy, meth.”

“Did Chris work with you? Had he ever met your boss?”

“Nah. He works at the Shape warehouse, doing inventory. You know, punching in the numbers on a handheld.”

“How do you know him?”

“We went to school together.”

Russ nodded. “Okay. So Chris said you could get paid for finding a gay guy and beating him up. Then what?”

“Chris said we needed to find someone else to help us. That we needed three all together.”

“Your friend Nathan was out, I take it.”

“Oh yeah. Anyway, I knew this guy Jason Colvin, from when I hung around with Arnie Rider. I thought Jason might be game. So I talked with him, and he was down with it, so we were ready to go.”

“What happened next?”

“Chris told us about the fags running the inn on Route One Thirty-one, down a ways from where I work. He thought that would be a good place to find somebody. He told us he would let us know when. We made a couple drive-bys on nights when we had been partying, just jerking them a little. And then Chris gave me a call that Wednesday and told me we were on for that night.”

“He picked that night particularly?”

“Yeah, which I thought was kinda weird, since we all had to be at work the next day.”

“What did you do?”

“We got together in the woods first, partied a little. Chris passed out some meth, so Jase and I were feeling pretty pumped. Then we drove by, and we saw a bunch of guys out in front. One of ’em was getting into this Chrysler convertible—you know, your typical old rich dude car. So we went down to Route One twenty-one and pulled off to the side, figuring he had to come that way and we’d be able to see him in time. I was at the wheel, ’cause it was my truck, and Jase and Chris were keeping watch. We all were smoking a little more. My idea was to force the guy off the road, but Jason yelled that the lights were coming and it was too late to get all the way back on the road. I was backing up, so he wound up hitting my truck, which really burned me. I put a lot of money and time into that truck.”

Russ’s throat tightened. He nodded for McKinley to go on.

“So we did him. It felt kind of righteous.” He stopped. “Man, can I have a cigarette?”

“Officer Entwhistle, bring Elliott a pack and an ashtray.” Noble unlocked the interrogation room and disappeared around the corner.

“You know,” McKinley said in a confiding tone, “I probably wouldn’t have done all this stuff if I hadn’t been high while I was doing it. Chris was handing out shit like it was candy. He was calling the shots. I was, like, just along for the ride.”

“Yeah.”

Noble reappeared and handed Russ a pack of Marlboros and a disposable aluminum ashtray. Russ slid them across the table to McKinley and fished in his pocket for his dad’s Zippo, circa 1945 and still working great.

“You smoke?” McKinley asked, proffering the pack.

“Not anymore. But I always carry this lighter. Comes in handy.” He lighted McKinley’s cigarette and clicked the Zippo closed, running his thumb over his father’s initials, which were engraved on the case. A tiny reminder linking him to a world where beating men half to death wasn’t part of anyone’s recreation. “Go on. You were saying you did the man in the convertible. Did you know who he was?”

“Nah. But Chris said he knew he was gay, because there wasn’t anybody but queers staying at the inn that week.” “Did Chris tell you that Bill Ingraham lived at that inn when he was in town?”

McKinley sucked hard on his cigarette, his eyebrows wrinkling together. “No, he didn’t. Ingraham was there? No shit?”

“You didn’t know?”

“How the hell would I know? It wasn’t like we socialized.”

“Okay. What happened next?”

“Chris said I probably ought to keep my truck out of sight until I could fix it. I got a cousin who does his own bodywork out of his barn over to Fort Henry. I parked it in there. Haven’t had a chance to straighten out the fender yet.”

“Who came up with the idea to hit the video store owner?”

“That was Jason,” he said quickly. “Jason had known him in school and knew he was queer. He said it would be easy, ’cause we would know right where he would be. Chris said he’d check it out, and then that Friday we all got together. His friend had said okay, but we couldn’t rob the place. And we were supposed to wear gloves so we wouldn’t leave any fingerprints around.”

Russ thought of the prints they had left on Emil Dvorak’s Chrysler. “Did you?”

McKinley made a face. “Hell no. It was a video store, for Chrissakes. There would be, like, hundreds of fingerprints all over the place. And there we’d be, walking in with rubber gloves on. Might as well come in and announce, ‘Call the cops,’ right? That’s when I knew his friend with the money was an amateur.” He glanced at Russ. “Not that I’m, like, a professional. I’m not.”

“It’s just your hobby,” Russ said.