“Moving in,” I said to my radio.
“Copy. Advise when en route.”
“Wilco. Out.” I turned off the radio and hid it in my jacket.
I waited a while longer. Dills usually spent an hour or so eating and nursing a few drinks before walking home for the night. When I thought he would be halfway done, I turned down the street and entered the tavern.
It was much more crowded this night than the first time I had come here. It was also much earlier in the evening, and I was not waking up from my second drunk of the day. Despite my recent efforts at sobriety, which is to say, weaning myself off the booze, I could feel the first tremblings of withdrawal kicking in. Not as bad as a couple of weeks ago, but enough I felt compelled to have a drink to settle my nerves. It would not do to let the anxiety and paranoia that came in absentia of alcohol rattle me into making a mistake.
Dave the bartender did not recognize me. A shave and a haircut and a couple of weeks of not trying to drink myself to death had altered my appearance. I had gained back some of the weight I lost, and my eyes no longer looked like dim blue lights at the end of a long dark tunnel. So when I gave him the name Bacchus, he blinked a couple of times.
“Well I’ll be damned. You’re looking a hell of a lot better.”
“Semi-clean living, my friend. You still have my bottle back there?”
“Sure do.” He retrieved it and brought it to me.
“Thanks.” I took the bottle to a table on the other side of the room and sat down near the fire. From there, I could watch the bar without arousing suspicion.
It is difficult to explain what that first drink feels like when you have been abstaining for a while. I was at the point if I did not drink at all for two or three days, the withdrawal would cease to plague me. Not the cravings, mind you, just the worst of the symptoms. But when I poured a glass of grog and sipped it a few times, and the burn hit my stomach, and the pace of my heart slowed, and heat spread through my limbs and face, it was like a warm hug from a dear old friend. A tension I did not realize I was feeling began to ease.
The urge to empty the glass quickly and pour another tall one was strong. It would have been very easy to pound the half-bottle, order another one, and see how fast I could drink it. Tom Dills was not going anywhere, after all. I could take him any time I wanted, and-
NO.
The time for waiting was over. No more drowning myself. I had a purpose now. And besides, Tyrel had paid good trade for the horse and cart. If I screwed this up because I got drunk, he would probably shoot me. Or at the very least dole out a sincere ass-kicking.
I nursed my drink, felt it settle my nerves, and waited. If anyone sitting at the bar had turned and looked at me, they would have seen a young man sitting alone staring at the fire. Several other people at nearby tables were doing the same thing, further reinforcing the illusion. But the fire was the last thing on my mind.
Tom Dills, or whatever his name was, finished a bowl of stew and ordered a drink. He sipped it slowly until it was empty, then ordered another. I palmed the Rohypnol pill in my pocket, dropped it into the last of the grog in my bottle, let it dissolve, and carried it to the bar.
All the stools were taken, a few patrons standing behind them waiting for drinks. Dave worked busily to fill the orders, sweat standing out on his bald pate. I pushed in next to Tom Dills, bumping into him a little to get his attention.
“Hey Dave,” I shouted, slurring my speech. “I’m done with this shit. You want it?”
He looked up, flipped a hand at me, and went back to what he was doing. I looked at Dills. “What about you man? You want the rest of this? I’m done with it.”
He blinked at me, eyes going to the bottle. “You sure, man?”
“I gotta quit drinking this shit. It’s fuckin’ killing me.”
Dills shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take it. Thanks.” He took the bottle. I backed away, shouting something about the dangers of grog to Dave the bartender, who studiously ignored me.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Dills uncork the bottle, sniff it, shrug, and pour himself a glass. He tossed it back in a single gulp. Inwardly, I laughed.
Perfect.
There was only enough left for two drinks, so I probably would not have long to wait. I went outside and took position across the street, leaning against the side of a building. A few minutes later, Dills emerged from the tavern looking unsteady on his feet.
Time to move.
I tailed him for a couple of blocks, threading through the crowd, staying close. His steps began to waver, leaving a serpentine trail in the snow. Finally, he stopped to lean against a doorway. He shook his head a few times and tried to move on again, but lost his balance and fell over.
“Hey, easy now buddy.” I grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet. He turned to look at me with bleary, unfocused eyes.
“S’wa doon?”
“Come on man, you can’t pass out here. Let me help you.”
I put one of his arms over my shoulders and gripped him by the belt. He offered no resistance. A policeman up the street took notice of us and made his way over.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“Sorry officer. My friend here had a few too many. I’m gonna walk him home.”
He eyed Dills with a mixture of pity and irritation. “See that you do.”
“Yes sir.”
As we stumbled away, I smiled.
SIXTY-ONE
I let Tyrel handle the unpleasant part.
The Navy trained him for that sort of thing, after all. Interrogation was a particular skill he and the others never went into with me. I did not blame them. It is not exactly the kind of thing you teach a young child. “Here, Caleb. This is how you heat an iron over a fire. This is how you drill a hole in someone’s kneecap. This is how you twist skin with a pair of pliers until it bleeds. Tomorrow, we’ll do an introductory course in waterboarding.”
Not that I was above it. If I was right about Tom Dills, and where he got his medallion, those were the least of the agonies I would inflict upon him. It was not squeamishness that kept me from participating. Tyrel knew me well, and he did not want me doing something drastic unnecessarily. We needed Dills alive for the moment.
There was not much screaming. A little, but not much. Ty had to make sure Dills knew he was not messing around. He wanted answers, and if he was not satisfied with what he heard, consequences would follow. That was the key. Consequences.
I sat on the ground in front of a round stone fire pit and poked the coals with a stick. The cabin behind me had once belonged to Tyrel’s grandfather. Ty supplemented his income by renting it out as a hunting shack before the Outbreak. We were on the side of a mountain somewhere west of Pike’s Peak. If I had paid more attention, I could probably have memorized the route we took to get here. But on the ride over, I had been too preoccupied with the unconscious man under the tarps, and what he knew, to concern myself with logistics.
Presently, Tyrel emerged from the cabin and took a seat next to me. It was dark outside, and cold, the stars shining brightly above. The hanging road of the Milky Way was a broad swath of purple-white cosmos floating against the endless black of the sky. Ty poured some water over his hands and I watched red stains sizzle into the coals, turning them dark, extinguished. The wind shifted direction, blowing smoke into my eyes. My breath steamed in the air when I said, “What did you find out?”
The firelight cast shadows under the crags and valleys of Tyrel’s sharp face. “You were right.”
“So he was part of the group that ambushed us in Boise City?”