Chapter Sixteen

Rob’s

ROB’S WAS ON the corner of a deserted residential street. They wouldn’t have found it without Google Maps. The paint on the sun-bleached sign over the long rectangular building was peeling, leaving only “b’s.” The gravel lot beside the building was filled with cars, trucks, and motorcycles in various stages of rust and decay. Everything about the place warned of trouble.

James stared out of the window at the entrance. “You sure this is it?”

“Yep.” Vincent parked at the end of one of the rows next to the road in case they needed to make a speedy escape.

He’d relayed Liz’s story to James, who’d agreed that they should head straight there from Blue Moon, but Vincent had omitted her comment about the regulars wanting to either fuck or fight. James was guarded enough.

“We’re just gonna go in there and see if we recognize anyone. If we do, we’ll leave and call the cops. If not, we’ll ask around a bit. No big deal,” he said, as if they hadn’t discussed the plan at length on their way over.

“No big deal,” James repeated without any of the false enthusiasm Vincent had injected into the phrase to mask his rising concern.

The whole thing was a long shot, so he wasn’t sure why it made him so nervous. This would inevitably lead down another dead end like everything else they did. It wasn’t like they were going to go in there and find the tall man finishing off a lager. The scenario was so preposterous he couldn’t even picture it in his mind.

What was less preposterous, however, was the connections between Liz’s story and their own. Undesirable. The hate had dripped off each syllable. As hard as it was to picture their attackers outside of dark tunnels and sketchy alleyways, he supposed this looked like a place the tall man might frequent.

There’s a chance, he admitted.

Wasn’t that why a rush of excitement came over him when he heard the woman’s story? Because there was a chance Vincent and James could find them. A chance their attackers’ hatred could have started with keying a car with a rainbow Star of David at a local bar and escalated to taking care of those who they deemed undesirable. A chance they could end this strange limbo they had been floating in since the attack. An amazing chance…until he realized it involved facing those bastards again.

Vincent would face them, though, if it meant getting their old lives back. He turned to James. “You ready?”

James must’ve come to a similar conclusion about crossing paths with their attackers. His pensive expression had gone grave; forehead wrinkled and lips drawn in a thin line. “You should stay here.”

“No,” Vincent said without hesitation. There was no way he was letting James go in there alone. Ever since the attack, James had been ready to fight anyone who looked at either of them the wrong way. If he tried to pull that in a place like this, he could get himself killed.

“It’s not safe. You should—”

“I know it’s not safe,” Vincent interrupted. “I’m going.”

“They think I’m dead. They won’t be looking for me.”

Vincent opened his mouth to dismiss him, but he couldn’t find a simple way around that point. “I don’t care. I’m going. Let’s go.”

Vincent got out of the car before James could say another word. James didn’t stop him, but he didn’t look happy about it. They crunched through the gravel to the front door. Shards of glass and cigarette butts littered the ground. The windows that weren’t boarded up with plywood were lined with posters and signs giving no hint to what they were to expect inside.

Vincent gripped the handle. There was a small chance they would find what they were looking for, and whatever risk was involved in that chance was worth taking if it meant ending this nightmare.

He steeled himself and pulled open the door. Smoke rushed out to greet them. Through the haze, dim lights hung over a bar that stretched across the length of the building. To their left was a small table filled with bikers dressed in leather and denim. To their right was a busted pinball machine and a group of men throwing darts at a bullseye on the wall.

Vincent searched for bald heads and stocky frames—the kid seemed too young to be allowed in such a place. He managed to examine and dismiss the bikers and the men playing darts in a matter of seconds. Too short. Too thin. Too much hair. No tattoo. He was having a little more trouble with the men who were sitting with their backs to them at the bar.

An old man who was hunched over in his seat glanced back at them. A crooked grin spread across his face, revealing yellowed teeth and black gaps where some of them must’ve rotted away. He tapped the man beside him who was too large to be either of their attackers. The man looked at them and chuckled. It was clear Vincent and James didn’t belong there. The age gap between them and the mostly silver-haired patrons was only part of it. These were grizzled, working men, and two gay fresh-faced college students didn’t fit into that equation.

Vincent spotted an opening at the end of the bar behind the table of bikers. Maybe they could fit in a little better over there. He led James to the corner. If one of those fuckers was at the bar, he didn’t want them spotting him and James before they identified him.

The red-haired man beside them was tall and thin. Another no. Vincent craned his neck to look down the bar. He’d made it through half of the faces when the bartender, who seemed to be one of the few women in the place, interrupted him.

“Hey, baby dolls, what can I get you two?” Her face was covered in lines that contrasted the taut flesh sticking out from her low-cut shirt.

“Waters would be great,” Vincent said.

“And?” She tapped her acrylic nails on the bar. Just a water wasn’t going to fly here.

“And…” Vincent repeated to give himself a minute. The red-haired man beside them had his scabbed knuckles around a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “And two Pabst Blue Ribbons.”

“Be right up.”

By the time she returned with two bottles, Vincent had gone down the bar and back, and he was pretty sure their attackers weren’t there. None of the men coming in or out of the bathroom matched their descriptions either. He didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved. Probably a little bit of both.

The bartender set the beers down in front of them. “That’ll be six bucks.”

“Thanks.” Vincent handed her a ten.

“Thank you.” She stalked off and didn’t return with his change.

Vincent tried his beer and had to force himself not to spit it out. He didn’t think he’d had a beer since he snuck a few from Henry in high school, and something told him this wasn’t the cream of the crop. Swallowing hard, he turned to James. “I don’t think they’re here.”

James held the bottle, but he didn’t bring it to his lips. “Neither do I.”

“Well, we should probably make this worth our while, then.” They couldn’t, however, take the same approach as they had at the gay bars. Not in this kind of place. “We can at least see if anyone knows them or has seen people in the bar who fit their descriptions.”

James turned around to face the bikers. A fight that started with a crude comment and ended with him and James getting dragged down the street on chains attached to the back of motorcycles played out in Vincent’s mind. He leaned in close to James. “Maybe we should do this together.”

James turned back around. “Okay.”

Vincent started with the redhead. “Excuse me, I was wondering if—”

“No,” the man said without looking up from his drink.

They went a little further down the bar and tried again with similar results. Several men were noticing them. Whispers were exchanged. They didn’t blend in well with this crowd, but did it go deeper than that? Could these men somehow tell they were gay by the way they held themselves? He didn’t want to wait to find out.

He set his beer down on the bar. “We should go.”

“We should,” James agreed.

Only when they were back in the car with the doors locked did Vincent speak again. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if they came here.”

“Me either,” James said.

“But it’s not like we can just wait around for them here.” Liz was right. Those men looked like they were asking for any excuse to hit something.

A car pulled up behind them. The headlights flooded the car, blinding them with yellow light. Neither of them spoke until they saw that the driver’s hair was too long to be the tall or stocky man.

“We could watch from the car,” James said.

Vincent thought it over. Sitting in the parking lot each night. Looking over the patrons as they made their way inside. “We could, but wouldn’t people get suspicious after a little while?”

“They would.” James looked down at his lap.

Vincent could see the cowlick on the top of his head. The same vantage point he got of Sam in the security footage—her messy blonde hair pulled into a bun that bounced as she knocked on the door. “I meant to tell you Sam stopped by the apartment earlier.”

He opened the app and showed James the clip. James’s face didn’t betray whatever he thought or felt about it. Vincent watched the footage again. The answer to their problem was so obvious he wasn’t sure how neither of them had thought of it sooner. “We don’t have to be here every night to see who’s coming and going.”

They just needed a camera.

 

THE FIRST HURDLE was a power source. It wasn’t like there was an outlet on the side of the building beside the dumpster they could use to plug in a camera, and even if there was, it’d hardly go unnoticed. They needed to find something else to see who was coming and going from Rob’s parking lot.

A few quick internet searches brought Vincent to game cameras. He didn’t know why he didn’t think of it before then—Henry had one he used during hunting season back when his knees bothered him less. Unlike Henry’s camera, which needed to be taken down and manually uploaded to a computer, there were several newer game cameras that could send images straight to Vincent’s phone like the security camera outside their door. He found one with infrared night vision that took footage and images without using a flash. It also had a battery life of a few weeks. The camera was kind of pricey—a little over a hundred dollars—but well worth it.

He ordered the camera that night, and in two days, it arrived in the mail. He was surprised by how small it was. A little camo box he could easily hold in one hand. They tested it in the apartment at night with the lights off. The scope captured so much of the room they only needed to place it waist high to get everything in the frame. The video was lower quality than the images, so he set it to take a picture each time motion was detected. The images were somewhat grainy, but it would be easy to identify a face or a license plate with it, which was the goal. If they could identify the tall or stocky man along with their license plates, they could take the pictures to Ralbovsky and Tillman and wash their hands of the whole mess.

The bar closed at two in the morning. They drove past at three, but there were still a few vehicles lingering in the gravel parking lot. By four, it was empty. They parked next to the side of the building that faced the parking lot.

The headlights shone on a rusting, army-green dumpster and a stack of wood pallets beside a steel door marked, EMPLOYEES ONLY. The door and the surrounding brick wall of the building were covered in graffiti. A royal-blue peace symbol. White cursive letters that were illegible. A tiny black alien in a flying saucer. Not a lot of places to hide a camo game camera.

They got out of the car to look around. The dumpster was the obvious choice because of the color, but when it was emptied, the camera could be easily damaged or trashed. Vincent was a little worried about hiding it in the pallets in case the employees used them for shipments or something, but the ice frozen to the top of the stack indicated that they weren’t used too often.

Just then, a car passed, bathing the parking lot in light. Shit. Vincent grabbed James and crouched behind the dumpster. The car continued on without stopping, but they waited another minute or two before they stepped back out in the open. He didn’t want to know how many laws they were breaking, and he’d rather not have Ralbovsky and Tillman tell them.

Even if the driver didn’t see them, someone else could. They worked fast after that. James lifted the top third of the pallets, and Vincent strapped the camera to the wood. Once James put the stack back down, he readjusted it so that the lens looked out of an opening in the grates. Then, he turned it on and waved his hand to test it.

No flashing lights or sound. A few seconds later, he received a notification. A green photograph of him and James. They stepped back to where the car was parked. Their faces were still identifiable, and the license plate was easy to read. It had taken five more pictures by the time they got back in the car and drove off.

“At least we know it works,” Vincent said.

 

IT WASN’T LONG before the number of images became overwhelming. Hundreds upon hundreds. Cars coming and going. A stray cat skittering across the gravel. Blank photos that, at least according to Vincent’s superficial Google searches, might’ve been caused by a heavy wind. Nights were far worse, naturally, when business picked up at the bar.

The first few nights, Vincent tried to balance continuing to visit gay bars with checking the images. But with each night at bars bringing no new leads, and the number of new patrons shrinking, they agreed to focus on looking through the images. They worked on the couch, passing Vincent’s phone back and forth every couple of hours to give their eyes a break.

James had just given it back to Vincent one night when there was a knock at the door. A notification appeared on his phone from the security camera. He opened the live feed. Sam stood on the landing.

“It’s Sam,” Vincent said.

James got to his feet. “I’ll get it.”

“You can’t,” Vincent said automatically. He had to remind himself that, unlike the rest of the world, Sam already knew he was alive. “Sorry. Force of habit. Yell if you need me.”

His phone vibrated. A new image from the parking lot. He opened it. A still of an old man getting back in his beater. He’d been there since the bar opened at four, and he had to be smashed by this hour, which was a little after ten. In the next image, his silhouette could be seen through the back window of his car, and then the car had just about disappeared out of the frame.

Another notification from the front door. Vincent went to the live feed without thinking. James stood out in the hall with Sam. It was strange going from static green images to live footage in color. Sam’s hands moving as she spoke almost looked uncanny. James might as well have been in a picture—he just stood there, his back to the camera, listening. Vincent hoped something more productive came from this meeting than the last one, for James’s sake.

A new image from the bar. A light-colored truck, probably white, was pulling into the spot the other guy had just left. The driver was backing into it, so no license plate. Quite a few patrons at the bar backed into the unofficial parking spots that were formed by other cars in the gravel lot. He’d been wondering if they should get another camera to deal with this problem. There was a tree beside the sidewalk where they could easily conceal it. He probably would’ve already bought another one if money weren’t an issue.

He switched back to the live feed of the front door. Sam was hugging James and whispering something in his ear. The moment seemed too intimate to intrude upon. He closed the app. As terrible as Sam and Tyler’s reactions were to the news that James was still alive, James could probably use as many friends as he could get at the moment. Maybe having Sam’s support might help him return to his old self.

Another image from the bar. A man stepping out of his truck. He was so short that only the top of his hair stuck out from the open door. Another image. He was walking toward the building. He must’ve been moving fast because his image was blurred. Vincent didn’t need the details to recognize him though. Broad shoulders. Solid build. He’d seen him before. Watched his shadowy figure advance on them in Panther Hollow.

The stocky man.

He was at Rob’s.

Vincent went to get up to collect James, but he couldn’t move. His body was fused to the couch. And his heart—it was racing so fast he expected to have a heart attack any second now.

Oh God, we found him.

He brought his hand to his chest to keep his heart from bursting through his ribcage.

Images flooded his mind. Not of the stocky man at the bar. But him on the trail. His shadowy smile. His hands wrapped around the crowbar. Bringing it down on James in the tunnel.

The front door shut.

Vincent looked over the back of the couch at James. The horror must have been written all over his face. James ran down the hall to him. “What’s wrong?”

“I found one of them.” He held up the phone so that James could see him.

James’s face darkened. “We should call the police.”

“We should.” Vincent looked at the image. “But it’s not clear, and we don’t have his license plate.”

“Does it matter? He’s at the bar now.”

“He is but…” But after his last meeting with the detectives, he was pretty sure it did matter. He had a feeling they wouldn’t send the cavalry just because he told them he’d found one of their attackers in a blurred image from a game camera they had illegally set up in the parking lot of a dive bar. Plus, they didn’t have his license plate. If his truck was gone when the police got there, then they’d be back at square one, and the detectives would think he was even crazier than they already thought. No, they needed the license plate at the very least if they were going to catch this bastard.

Vincent forced himself to his feet. “We have to go.”

“There is no way you are—”

“I’m just gonna take a picture of the license plate, and we can leave. We don’t even have to get out of the car.” Vincent didn’t wait for an answer. He started down the hall to get his keys from the dish beside the door. He wasn’t going to let him get away. They were going to finish this tonight.

James followed behind him. “It’s too dangerous.”

“There’s no time to argue.” Vincent plucked his keys from the dish. “You don’t have to come with me, but I’m going.”

James bit back whatever he was thinking. “Let’s go.”