Runt Wade

By Robert Rogers

After an honorable discharge from the Army, Vietnam veteran and sociopath Runt Wade makes a living scamming banks and senior citizens and laundering drug money from a CIA splinter group headed by his commanding officer. He loves, Mai Linn, a "gift" from Wade's Montanyard fighting companion, who shares his home. He also takes care o

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643673899

Robert Rogers

Robert (Bob) Rogers is a retired professor of forestry at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point where he spent more than 30 years educating the next generation of forest managers. In the 1990s he and Paul Johnson developed the initial concept and outline for a project that eventually became the first edition of the Ecology and Silviculture of Oaks. Bob's areas of expertise include how soil-site relationships affect forest development and the application of quantitative methods to manage forests

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PROLOGUE

Out of the blue, Buffalo Wade announced plans to take his son fishing. It was a surprise to Mason because his pa hadn’t gone out like that since his younger son killed himself in a car he’d taken from Buffalo’s used car lot.

Billy Ray Wade was his name, but people called him Buffalo because of his burly shoulders and flat behind. He had a broad, roughly handsome face, with wide set dark eyes, a cruel smile, and brown hair streaked with white that brushed his shoulders like a stallion’s mane.

His binges with bourbon after the accident cost him the business, so he worked at a lumber mill and moonlighted as a collector for a finance company to make ends meet. At six two and over two hundred pounds with shoulders like football pads, Buffalo had little trouble with deadbeats.

Me ’n Runt’ll stay the night at the creek. Don’t suppose you want to come, huh, Helen? Buffalo shouted to his wife at the back of the house.

No, she called back. Don’t know why you even ask.

Along the way, Buffalo told his son, Just so’s you know, I don’t give a rat’s ass about fishing with you. I’m just using this as an excuse to get away from that damn iceberg of a ma you got.

Mason flinched, hurt by his pa’s blunt announcement. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, his eyes filled with tears. He was sixteen.

Must have been fucked dry or drunk on rotten pop skull the night I fertilized you. Now, Ray was a boy, a real boy. Shit, he was… He stopped and looked at Mason from the corner of his eye. I ain’t sure you’re even mine. Likely not. Your ma must’ve been messing around. He glanced at Mason with an affirming shake of his head. Ain’t no runts in my family.

The slur slashed through the boy’s thought with an angry flash. He wiped his nose and shouted, Well, I’m yours, all right! I got your flat ass. I hear about it all the time. The gone ass, the school kids called his flat behind. As angry as he was, the recollection made him cringe.

Watch your mouth, boy.

Mason felt satisfaction at having back talked to his pa. He’s just like the rest of ’em, making fun of me. Bastards! Tears formed in his eyes again. He stared out the truck window so his pa couldn’t see. I hate ’em all.

Mason’s hair, unruly and in need of cutting, was bleached sandy brown, and his face was tanned to polished leather. His eyes were dark brown. He was slight like his mother, but his curse was his flat behind. Both gave rise to the nickname shouted at him by his classmates: Hey, Runt! Runt Wade! If it wasn’t that, it was the other one: gone ass. He hated both. There was never a day that he didn’t wish them all dead.

Buffalo turned into a narrow, tree-shrouded dirt lane bounded on both sides by a dense swamp. Jagged gray stumps caught shafts of sunlight and poked up from black mirrored swamp pools like the snaggled teeth of something dead. Pungent smells, like the bad breath of an evil thing, crept inside the cab of the truck.

Buffalo braked at a small circular clearing that sloped off to Possum Creek and into the swamp around it. Get out, he ordered. I’ll be back later. Mason looked at his pa. I don’t know what—? He wanted to say he was scared but wouldn’t let himself admit that to his pa. Get out! Take the gear.

Mason reluctantly did as his pa ordered.

As soon as the gear cleared the truck bed, Buffalo drove off. Mason stared at the truck as it disappeared around a bend. His stomach, which had momentarily fluttered with joy when Buffalo announced the fishing trip, now twisted into a knot. He wanted to roll up like a pill bug and hide under a leaf.

He turned slowly around, half expecting to see something lurking in the woods, watching him, ready to strike. Nothing’s there. He let out a slow sigh, then turned again to make sure. There was nothing.

Fearful that a fire might attract unwanted attention, Mason spent the night without one in a moss-covered live oak beyond the clearing and watched for his pa’s truck lights, listening for intruders. Escaped convicts were said to hide out in the swamps along the creek. The screams of wild animals and birds, swarms of hungry mosquitoes, and splashes in the creek added to his fear.

When Buffalo returned the next day, he smelled of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and cheap perfume. Mason sat on a log and stared into an old fire pit. He said nothing as the stoop-shouldered man walked up and urinated into the pit’s black coals.

He grinned. Catch anything, Runt?

Ain’t tried. Ain’t knowed if you was coming back or not.

You ain’t been scared, have you? Wouldn’t be surprised. Little runt like you. He pointed at Mason, rocked back on his heels, and laughed.

Mason jumped up and shouted, You bastard! Out whorin’ and boozin’, ain’t give a damn about me!

Buffalo backhanded him over the log. Watch your mouth, Runt!

The next weekend, Mason again spent a scared first night in the oak tree. Strangely, though, when he climbed down the next morning, his fear was gone. Nothing had happened! The creatures that had come close had backed away when they saw him. They were afraid of me! It was a new experience for him.

That day, he piled up limbs and knots for a fire, fished the creek, roasted what he caught, and explored. All the time, he whistled and hummed an old song.

The swamp was steamy and smelly and crisscrossed with mushy trails covered in shade, enveloped by lush undergrowth and surrounded by tranquil pools of clear water. Over time, he began to feel strangely comfortable, even protected by the cloistered environment. Like him, it seemed as if nobody cared about it. But I’m in charge.

He stopped, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, I’m in charge! Nothing challenged him.

Over that summer, he bashed anything within reach of a hickory club he’d made and hung the carcasses from the limbs of a dogwood tree at the edge of the clearing. Each time he bashed something over the head, he saw the face of one of the boys who’d called him a name or laughed when he walked past. All slights were redressed. By summer’s end, the tree held the decayed remains of snakes, rabbits, squirrels, a small gator, and every son of a bitch who’d ever called him a runt or laughed about his gone ass.

Buffalo brought his women and booze to the camp, usually a different one each weekend, though there were repeats—namely Ruby, a thirty- something, scrawny bleached blond with tits that sagged.

Cheaper than a room and ain’t no husbands sneaking about, he told

Mason. Keep your mouth shut, and maybe I’ll let you have some.

Don’t want any ’a your seconds.

Suit yourself.

The first time Ruby showed up, she pointed at Mason and laughed. You must be Buffalo’s runt! Whoopee!

She went on Mason’s long list of people he hated. Another snake who’s head he’d bash in.

Well, ain’t you something? She sidestepped to where he sat on his haunches and flipped up the back of her dress. She wore nothing underneath. When Mason failed to acknowledge, she lifted the front and waved it back and forth. Still no response from Mason. Buffalo staggered sideways, laughing.

Next, she rubbed her crotch and said, The runt can’t tell one end from the other, I reckon, Buffalo!

Mason nodded. Guess you’re right. Can’t tell your mouth from your asshole. Front hole looks wore out, though, like your face.

She flew at him with such fury, he had to roll down the bluff to escape. That was the last time they had spoken.

Late that summer, a half moon’s luminous shine drifted over Possum Creek’s gentle swirls and ripples. Bats swooped and dipped low over the creek like a concert of yo-yos to snatch up errant bugs. Now and then, a snout-toothed gar ended its chase for fresh meat with a noisy splash. Swamp creatures called and shrieked into the night.

The embers of a campfire cast an orange glow over two blanket-covered mounds. Mason was under one, Buffalo and Ruby the other.

I’m cold, Buffalo. Ruby pushed at Buffalo’s arm.

Huh? He threw back the blanket and rolled to his feet. Except for a blue calico shirt and socks, he was naked.

Runt, he shouted. Give me your damn blanket! Ruby’s cold.

Ruby rolled onto her elbows to watch. She wore a flimsy robe, open in front. Mason sat up. She ain’t cold! And I’m tired of you calling me Runt!

Buffalo put his hands on his hips. I ain’t asking for the blanket, Runt. I’m telling! His bare behind and flowing mane gleamed in the moonlight.

Well, I ain’t giving her shit!

The big man snatched the blanket and tossed it to her. Ruby watched with a wry smile. Mason sprang to his feet, fully clothed, his habit since the first night in the swamp. He grabbed for the blanket, but the big man shoved him aside.

I’ve ’bout had enough of your mouth, boy. This is as good a time as any to beat your runty ass.

He lashed out and knocked Mason in a roll over the campfire, spraying out red sparks and streamers of smoke. Mason shook off the hot embers, stepped out of range of Buffalo’s fists, and unleashed a barrage of lefts and rights against his pa’s face. Buffalo laughed and knocked him down again.

The woman clutched the blanket to her chest and shouted, Kill ’im, Buffalo. Kill ’im!

Whereas before, the swamp had been filled with the sounds of wild creatures, it became strangely silent, as if all the animals had crept in to watch the fight.

Time and time again, Mason hurled himself at the big man, only to be knocked flat each time. When Buffalo missed with a wild right, Mason butted him in the stomach with his head and rocked him back a step. The man snorted like a wild bull and knocked his son sprawling into a pile of beer cans. He tried to stand but could only get to his knees.

Think you a man, do you? Takes more than hanging snakes in a tree to be a man. Hell, yore ma hits harder than you! Get up, Runt! Buffalo said.

Blood rolled down Mason’s face from gashed eyebrows and burned his eyes. His lips bled, and each breath came with a sharp pain. He stumbled to his feet, but his legs were like jelly.

Give me my belt, he told the woman, who complied. He ain’t no man. Might as well whip him like a boy. Buffalo twirled the broad leather belt over his head.

Mason fell to his knees, and the belt’s sharp edge missed him by inches. As he readied himself for the next blow, his hand touched the hickory club that had become his constant companion.

When Buffalo’s belt began its next downward slice, Mason reared up like an angry bear and swung the club against Buffalo’s right knee. The big man fell to the ground and filled the night air with curses. His belt flew off into the darkness.

Ruby grabbed the end of a burning limb from the fire and threw it at Mason. It made an orange arc over his head and fizzled as it hit the creek. When she reached for another, Mason knocked her down with a hard poke in the stomach with his club.

He’s done hurt me, Buffalo, she cried.

Buffalo staggered to his feet and snatched a switchblade from his pants. Its sharp blade clicked open. I’m gonna kill you now, you little shit ass! He thrust the blade toward Mason’s stomach but was a second too late.

Mason’s club was already in the air. It hit the man’s head with the hollow thud of a ripe watermelon dropped on hard ground. The knife slid from Buffalo’s hand. His eyes blinked, as if trying to comprehend what had happened. His knees slowly buckled, and he crumbled to the ground, face forward, dead.

The woman screamed. You murdered him!

Mason readied the club to finish her, but the pink tips of her breasts glowed in the moonlight, and the curled hair at her crotch stopped him. He pushed her to the straw mat, unzipped his pants, and unleashed his rage into her body. Strangely, she smiled when it was over.

I don’t reckon you think I’m Pa’s runt now, do you? Whore. He choked her to death.

Mason stared at his still father. The dead man’s eyes seemed fixed on the fire. Tears flowed down his face. He fell to his knees and touched his father’s hand.

Why didn’t you like me, Pa? His frame shuddered as he wept without restraint. I just wanted you to like me. I just wanted you to… The word love choked in his throat.

What’s Ma gonna say? What’s she gonna do for a livin’ if I go to the pen? After considering his options, he dragged Buffalo to the truck and returned for Ruby but stopped. If he took both bodies into town, his mama would know his pa had been whoring around. ‘N ever’ body’ll be laughin’ at her like they do me. He threw her body into a bog along with his club and drove his pa to the hospital.

The sheriff believed Mason’s story that they’d been attacked and robbed by two men in a boat but was suspicious when he couldn’t find evidence that any men were on the creek that night. Even so, he was about to close the file, when Ruby’s estranged husband reported her missing. He soon found out that she had camped with Buffalo and the runt now and then, possibly the night Buffalo was killed.

The sheriff worked the site with hounds using one of her old dresses, but her smell was gone by then, and nothing significant turned up. Absent tangible evidence, the sheriff had no choice but to close his file. Besides, Mason Wade, his only witness, had enlisted in the Army and was headed to Vietnam.

CHAPTER 1

Colin Campbell let his diesel Mercedes roll to a halt along the curb behind the equally old Pinto that belonged to his tennis partner, Ben Shafigi. Colin saw with a glance the short, slight man with thin, graying hair quick stepping up the sidewalk toward the tennis courts at Alsahia Park, a tennis bag swinging in his right hand. Shafigi didn’t slow his pace or turn to see who had pulled up behind him. No surprise to Colin. His friend’s hearing wasn’t what it had been.

Without thinking, Colin registered the gaunt look of age on Shafigi’s face, when men’s bones dominated their flesh and poked out with telling prominence; his eyes fixed with a look of no-nonsense intensity. Not that the imminent tennis match had anything to do with it; Shafigi’s face always looked that way. He had told Colin it was his public look.

To show I care about whatever problem I’m facing, he said. I can smile if I have to.

He had been a banker before retiring. Consumer loans. Smiles came after loans were funded and bonuses secured.

The sun was not yet over the horizon, but it was plenty light enough for tennis, and the mid-July air was cool, just right. Even so, in obvious anticipation of the perspiration that was to come, Shafigi had worn a blue headband. It complimented his blue tennis togs.

Colin smiled at the sight of his friend’s hurried gait. When Ben got focused, nothing else mattered, and he was focused when they played tennis. Colin grabbed his tennis bag and bucket hat from the back seat of his car and began a relaxed walk toward the courts. No need trying to catch up, he thought with a laugh that didn’t make it out of his thoughts.

Colin was a whisper over six feet tall and a few years younger than Shafigi, who was in his mid-sixties. Unlike his thin-as-a-rail tennis partner, he carried a few extra pounds around his mid-section that was offset by strong shoulders, thanks to a weekly regimen of tennis. Both men lived in Retirement World of Orange County, a few blocks away, in Laguna Hills, California. Both were widowers.

Ahead, Shafigi pulled the court gate open and walked through with an adrenaline-fueled briskness.

Ben’s ready to play, Colin thought, his easy smile showing. He paused to flip his bucket hat onto his head. The brim would shield his eyes from the sun and protect what was left of his thinning, light brown hair. It had receded to a narrow point aligned with a deep crease in his forehead. His eyes, emerald green, were wide set and flanked a slightly crooked nose, which, when coupled with his square jaw and age wrinkles, gave his face a rough-hewn look. The beat-up old glasses he wore when playing tennis added a studious look.

As Shafigi entered the court, a solitary black crow, perched atop the high tennis court fence, hopped along the fence but paused between hops to squawk and flap his wings. The slight man stared at him with a shoo, without success. The bird responded with a stare of its own, leaning forward as he did.

Eerie. Like the damn thing’s talking to me. Shafigi shook his head, as if to rid himself of the unsettling sight. He dropped his bag beside the bench and sat down to tighten his shoelaces. The bird’s black eyes stayed fixed on him.

Morning, Ben, Colin called as he pushed through the gate.

Shafigi, half-waved, half-answered. That damn bird had unnerved him. Is the damn thing going to hang around for the match?

He barely took notice of Colin adjusting his hat and turning his focus on the net. It always looked a little low, but one or the other would check it out of habit. They liked it a little low anyway. Kept the balls in play longer. Colin pulled his racquet from the bag, threw the bag against the fence, and walked toward the net to measure.

Another squawk. That’s it! Shafigi opened his mouth to shoo the bird away again, but a dull twang from a tree beyond the fence drew his attention. He saw a silver streak flying at him. Though he could not comprehend what it was or why it was headed at him, he instinctively knew he had to move or die.

My God! he said, barely above a whisper, and tried to stand. He never made it.

Colin also heard the twang but didn’t give it much credence. Sounds came all over in and around the park. Ben’s whispered utterance caused a cautious alarm to sound in his head, but it took a second or two before his brain processed it. When it had, he turned sharply to see Shafigi topple face down in front of the bench. The razor sharp tip of an arrow burst through the back of his shirt with a sickening pop. A small circle of red spread around the exposed shaft.

What the hell! Ben!

Shafigi didn’t answer and didn’t move. An arrow? How could that be? They were inside a fenced tennis court.

Colin bolted over and dropped to his knees to check Shafigi’s neck for a pulse. There was none. His thoughts exploded in an avalanche of concern. He glanced around instinctively to see who might have shot the arrow. He saw no one.

He wouldn’t have. From the instant the bolt was launched, the shooter, careful to stay behind the tree’s trunk, dropped from his tree perch, limb by limb, with the agility of a fleeing monkey. By the time Colin looked around, the shooter had hit the ground and rolled out of sight over the berm directly behind the tree.

Colin’s thoughts searched for a reason why his friend had been shot, searched for something—anything—he could do to change the obvious. He pressed harder for a pulse. Still none. His thoughts ended the same way, with nothing. His instinct was to pick him up and rush him to the hospital, but he’d practiced law long enough to know he should call the sheriff. Retirement World came under the sheriff’s jurisdiction.

He sprinted to his car to get to a phone. Not that it made any sense to hurry… Ben Shafigi was dead. It just seemed the thing to do.

From the cover of an oleander hedge along the berm, a man in baggy, dirt-stained clothes and wrinkled Dodger baseball cap, the shooter, watched Colin’s gray diesel speed away from the park. His gray-brown hair hung in greasy looking strands, almost to his shoulders.

On his way to call the cops, the man thought as the old car turned the corner to leave the park. He calculated that he’d have fifteen or twenty minutes to get out of the park. Plenty of time without rushing. He had learned over the years never to panic in the face of pressure.

He collapsed his custom-made crossbow and stowed it along with a second bolt in the frayed green knapsack at his feet. He’d brought the extra bolt in case he had to kill both men, a last resort. His first choice would have been to postpone killing Shafigi. Less risk that way.

His plan had been to make the kill before the other guy got in the way. For the past two weeks, Shafigi had arrived early to practice his serve. This time, they’d arrived almost together. Son of a bitch! And that damned bird kept hopping about, blocking his shot. Finally, though, when the other guy turned his back to check the net, the bird moved, and he took his shot. He had only needed the one.

The look on the old man’s face haunted him, though. Shafigi was the first innocent man he’d killed, and he’d killed plenty during the Vietnam War. He had no guilt whatsoever about killing his father and the woman who had called him a runt. None. Shafigi was different.

Major Slater’s kill, he told himself. Don’t bullshit yourself. Slater dangled the carrot, but you grabbed it.

The man’s name was Mason Wade.

Slater had commanded the Mobile Strike Force to which Wade had been assigned during the Vietnamese War. Like others in the strike force, Wade had teamed with Montagnard tribesmen, shortened to Yards by the Americans, to harass North Vietnamese troops on the Ho Chi Minh Trail where it crossed Cambodia into Vietnam. It had been part of the military’s plan to get down and dirty with the enemy, and the Montagnards had been more than willing to be part of that plan.

Wade’s fighting companion had been Tran Dai, a Montagnard village leader. Together, they’d regularly assassinated Vietnamese brass using crossbows; Wade had used one that he’d had custom made in Hong Kong, collapsible to a slim profile to avoid snagging on jungle flora when running for his life.

A little over three years ago, ten years after Wade had mustered out, Slater had showed up with a deal: lots of money and a huge challenge. Wade had accepted in spite of his dislike of the man and then made it happen, but after it was up and going, the unexpected hit. Shafigi hit and had to be killed. Wade hadn’t liked the choice that faced him but had forced himself to accept the reality. It was either him or me. Shafigi lost.

Wade shrugged it off, stood, and trudged along behind the row of oleanders toward a white, lattice-covered gazebo on a little hilltop a safe distance beyond left field of the park’s softball field. His shoulders slumped forward, as if resigned to an unjust fate, the homeless look. The knapsack bounced up and down with each step he took.

He looked across the softball field to the green expanse beyond third base. Homeless men and women shuffled in from where they slept under bridges, in crates or storage sheds left unlocked, or any other warm place with a crack large enough for a man to squeeze through. All wore dirt- stained, baggy clothes that looked much like his.

Each Sunday morning, they gathered in front of the white, lattice- covered gazebo to hear the words of Brother Antoine Clay, a self-proclaimed new age minister. Afterward, they received a sacrament of whatever food stocks he had cadged and wheedled from merchants and restaurants and any other charitable source receptive to his solicitations.

Wade deliberately overshot the gazebo before turning back to approach it casually with the last of Antoine’s followers. A homeless man going against the flow would surely attract attention, something he wanted to avoid. He would slip away after the sermon had begun, when all eyes were forward, but before the cops arrived. Plenty of time.

A soft breeze stirred through the forgotten souls sitting or standing in shaded patches in front of him. A will work for food sign hung around one man’s neck. Stragglers searched for gaps near the front. The gazebo held benches, but nobody ventured there. The gazebo was for Brother Antoine. God’s place, some said.

A tall stoop-shouldered black man pushed a grocery cart piled high with cans and boxes of food along the third base line toward the gazebo.

Brother Antoine’s coming, somebody whispered.

He wore a stained khaki shirt, a pair of worn-out jeans, and scuffed brown leather boots. Even with the ungainly, wobbly cart, he moved with an easy stride. News of his appearance rippled through the crowd. All faces turned, some grizzled, others pasty gray and hollow. All mustered up excitement and anticipation.

Looks like the preach done real good last week, one observed, a sentiment echoed by others. Sometimes, Antoine showed up with only a single sack over his back. On those weeks, a handout might be as little as few crackers from an opened box. Usually, though, it was more.

Antoine Clay, fifty-seven years old, stood about six and a half feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds, a lot of it around his waist, but he still looked tough enough to handle himself in a bar room brawl. A career soldier, he’d served in the early years of the Vietnam War. The stress of crawling into underground bunkers and killing armed children left his huge face, once full of life, with the hardness of a man whose soul had died. His dark eyes, blood shot from lack of sleep, peered out from the shadows of his heavy black eyebrows. His hair, mostly gray, was tied in a ponytail. In 1980, he took what money he had and, aided by his veteran’s preference, bought a one-bedroom bungalow unit along the street facing the park. Some years later, when he wasn’t drunk or so depressed he couldn’t get out of bed, he stood or sat on a stump in front of the gazebo and preached to anybody who’d listen about the most recent thing to piss him off.

In the early years, only a handful turned out, but they had gone forth and spread the word about Brother Antoine’s eatin’ meetin’s, and the word must have been good, because the flock multiplied to well over fifty and increased monthly. They rolled off their newspaper bedrolls early to get a spot close to the hand that would feed them.

Brother Antoine parked the cart in front of the gazebo and sat on a pine stump to face those who’d come to hear him. The curled stubble on his face was at least three days past due for a shave, but nobody noticed that. If he smelled of dried perspiration, as he did, nobody cared. One body odor blended with another on that hilltop.

Our scripture today is about legalized fucking. Antoine’s voice was soft and gentle, unlike his appearance.

All faces snapped to attention.

Not what you think. The self-proclaimed preacher smiled. It’s about us getting fucked by the rich bastards running the corporations in this country, those self-appointed gods to whom all our blessings flow! His words rolled across the park in deep, clear waves. The people across the street knew the sermon had begun. Some drank coffee and listened from their front room sofas. Some turned up their televisions to drown him out. "Corporations