Faded, wavy, grainy. Black-and-white. And from that he was supposed to know her, follow her, complete the assignment?
The boss treated him like crap. Totally took him for granted. Chill knew it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He’d tried. He’d gotten nowhere. The boss had cut him off before he said three words, and Chill immediately sensed that you didn’t mess with this guy. If you pushed, he’d push back. Harder.
Chill shifted his leg. He was sitting in his car at one end of Shelton Avenue. He was separated from her line of sight – if she looked down this way, which wasn’t likely – by four SUVs and an overgrown motor home parked along the curb. It was 5:45 A.M. the morning after the shooting. There was just enough light now to see a picture by, courtesy of a shy pink blush in the eastern sky. Chill had long legs, and his knees were crammed uncomfortably under the steering wheel. He hated compact cars. When he drove, it wasn’t so bad; he could stretch out his legs. But sitting here on a cold Sunday morning, engine off, calves cramping, watching an old house down the block, was not what he’d signed up for.
He’d started working for the boss about six months ago. ‘You?’ Chill had said, when the boss first asked him about it. This was not what he’d expected. ‘You?’ he repeated.
‘Yeah. Me.’
‘I thought—’
‘You thought what?’
‘Nothing.’
What could he say? That he’d expected somebody badder, somebody meaner? He’d expected, frankly, that the head of a major prescription drug operation, one that covered most of southern West Virginia and southeastern Ohio and Kentucky and was growing every day would be – bigger, somehow.
‘There a problem?’ the boss had said that first time, pressing him.
‘No problem.’
‘Good. ’Cause there’s a lot of guys who want to work for us, you know? Hell of a lot. You know what the unemployment rate is around here, right? Plus, this is good money. And no heavy lifting, understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘And so,’ the man went on, as if Chill hadn’t spoken, ‘if you have any doubts, if you’re conflicted, if you think you can do better someplace else—’
‘No, I don’t think that.’
‘—then by all means, Charles, you go. You go seek your fortune elsewhere.’
‘It’s “Chill.” I go by “Chill.”’
The man had already turned away from him, busy with a stack of merchandise, getting the packages ready. He liked to keep everything neat, orderly.
In a short time they’d gone from selling pills here and there, catch as catch can, to running a regular network, with deliveries coming in every few days, then going back out again. Clockwork. And there was no end in sight, no limit; they owned these valleys, they’d taken over dozens of small-time operations, one by one, yet the boss wasn’t satisfied. Chill could tell. The money was rolling in – sometimes it made Chill want to giggle, the stacks of fives and tens and twenties, nothing larger, it looked like the cash register in a goddamned candy store, all those small grubby bills, pulled out of kids’ sweaty backpacks or old ladies’ purses, one at a time – and still the boss was restless, agitated. He was never satisfied. He wanted more. Chill hadn’t been doing this long, but he knew a lot about appetite, and he recognized it in the boss: hunger. Nose in the air, sniffing. The more he got, the more he wanted. Anything that stood in his way, he quickly took care of – well, sometimes he told Chill to take care of it. And Chill did.
He pulled the picture back out of his jeans pocket, tearing it a little more. She was good-looking for an old lady, no doubt about it. She had to be close to forty. Close to his mama’s age. Chill, pondering, tucked in his bottom lip. He didn’t like that thought.
He needed a cigarette, but the boss had told him not to smoke on a stakeout – that was Chill’s word. The boss had used the word ‘assignment.’
People noticed smokers these days, remembered them, the boss said. Plus, you might have to peel out in a hurry, and you’d have to ditch the cigarette, and if you fling it out the window, it’s evidence.
So Chill sat in the car, irked, uncomfortable, knees jammed up under the steering wheel, fingering the small creased picture torn out of the Acker’s Gap Gazette. ELKINS SWORN IN FOR SECOND TERM, the caption read, and below that, in smaller