The Peripheral

37

She hadn’t decided to tell Janice everything that had been going on, she just did. Janice had been starting to make them coffee, in the kitchen, with one of Madison’s bandanas on her head, a black one with white skulls and crossbones. Macon had once said that Janice and Madison looked like schoolteachers with biker DNA, and Flynne guessed that that was close enough. She could tell Janice anything, and not worry about her telling anybody, except probably Madison, and Madison wasn’t going to tell anybody anything.

Janice had brought up the scene at Jimmy’s with Conner and the football players, said that Flynne had saved Conner’s ass. Flynne said that that was a major exaggeration.

“Those fuckers,” Janice said, meaning the football players, “they get me doing hate Kegels. Always have. New crop of them every four years.”

“It’s Conner,” Flynne said now, as Janice finished cranking the grinder, which she’d done with a practiced lack of hurry. “He gets them going. He’s the one bullying them.”

“I know that,” Janice said, dumping the ground beans into a jelly jar and weighing it on a scale like a drink coaster, “but they fucking don’t. They think they’re bullying him. I’m supposed to give them points for being stupid? Seen him since?”

“Over at his place. Just now.”

“Not that he’s crazy,” Janice said, transferring some exact number of grams of coffee to the beige paper filter in the ceramic funnel, which she’d already wetted down to get the chemical taste out, “but that he’s tedious with it. I know he’s got reason, but I’m tired of it.” She checked the temperature of the water in the kettle, then poured a little on the coffee, to let it sit awhile. “But you don’t look very happy, and I don’t think that’s much to do with Conner.”

“It’s not.”

“What is it, then?”

So Flynne told her, starting from Burton hiring her to sub for him while he went up to Davisville. Janice listened, continuing her ritual, which shortly produced two cups of very good strong coffee. Flynne had hers with milk and sugar, Janice took hers black, and Janice hardly asked her a question, just listened and nodded at the right times, and widened her eyes at the weirder parts, then nodded again. When Flynne got to the part about going out on Porter with Tommy and Burton, to the tent around the car she’d never seen, the four dead guys, Janice raised her hand, said, “Whoa.”

“Whoa?”

“Conner,” Janice said.

Flynne nodded.

Janice frowned, shook her head slightly, then said, “Go on.”

So Flynne told her the rest, not being specific about what she thought Macon and Edward had been up to at Conner’s, but seeing Janice got that too, and right up to Leon driving her over here, and how there’d been a pair of small drones, each with its square of aquamarine duct tape, spelling each other, watching them all the way from Conner’s.

They moved to the couch in the living room, the one where she’d played her last game of Operation Northwind.

“The man from Clanton,” Janice said, “the one who brought the bag of money. You know who he was?”

“No. A lawyer?”

“Name’s Beatty. Lawyers in Clanton.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Reece was over here a couple of hours ago to see Madison about some work. And now we’ve got our own piece of that money, down in the basement, in a hole behind the furnace.”

“You do?”

“Not into wishful thinking. Not that much, anyway.”

“What for?”

“Help with a drone. Big one. Conner’s got an Army quadcopter he wants Madison to fly for him.”

Flynne remembered the thing in Conner’s yard. “I saw it,” she said. “Looked like a gun platform.”

“That money in the basement is more than Madison and I’d make out of a year of Sukhoi Flankers.” This obviously not making Janice happy.

“What did Reece say?”

“Too much, from Burton and Conner’s point of view. Not enough, from mine. He’s a groupie, Reece. Loves a secret, has to tell it or you won’t know he has it. So impressed with Burton and Conner that he’s got to tell you their business. Impressed with Pickett too.”

The only Pickett Flynne could think of was the one who’d owned Corbell Pickett Tesla, which had been the last new-car dealership in the county to shut down. He was assumed to still be the richest man in the county, although you didn’t see him much. She’d seen him a couple of times in town parades, but not for a few years now. He’d sent a daughter her age to school in Europe, and as far as Flynne knew she’d never come back. “Corbell Pickett?”

“Corbell fucking Pickett.”

“What’s he got to do with Burton and Conner?”

“Where it gets funny,” Janice said.

“You think the money comes from Corbell Pickett?”

“Shit no,” said Janice. “Burton’s paying a lot of that Clanton money to Corbell. Reece was all jacked up from getting to take it over there with Carlos. Needed two shopping bags, he kept saying.”

“Why was Burton paying Pickett?”

“Those four dead men, on Porter. Get ’em lost track of. They’d be lost track of pretty fast anyway, here in the county. State Police have a little longer attention span, but Corbell has the statehouse juice to get that span shortened too, for a price.”

“He used to own the Tesla dealership and ride with the mayor in the Christmas parade. When we were kids.”

“In a brand-new Tesla,” said Janice. “I hate to do the tooth fairy thing to you, honey, but nobody builds so much as a gram of drugs in this county without Corbell’s getting his.”

“No way. I’d have heard before now.”

“Thing is, you don’t know your family and friends have all been taking care of you, basically by never so much as mentioning the fucker’s name. Which is how you forget about him so easy.”

“You don’t like him,” said Flynne.

“No shit.”

“But if they’re paying off the Sheriff’s Department, that means Tommy knows.”

Janice looked at her. “Not so much.”

“He either knows or he doesn’t.”

“Tommy,” Janice said, “is a good person, like Madison is a good person. Trust me on that. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Like you’re a good person. But here you are, up to your tits in some deal with people who say they’re in Colombia, but can fix the state lottery for Leon? That’s seriously funny, Flynne, but does it make you less of a good person?”

“I don’t know.” And she realized that she didn’t.

“Girl, you are not doing this crazy shit, whatever it is, in order to make yourself rich. You’re paying the cancer rent for your mom, down at Pharma Jon. Just like a lot of people. Most people, it can feel like.”

“It’s not cancer.”

“I know it’s not. But you know what I mean. And Tommy, he’s keeping this county together the best he can. He’s honest, believes in the rule of law. Sheriff Jackman, that’s another story. Jackman does whatever he does, keeps getting reelected, and Tommy’s the law here. The county needs Tommy the way your mother needs you and Burton, and maybe sometimes that means he has to work a little harder not to notice things.”

“Why didn’t I know this before tonight?”

“People do you a kindness, keeping their mouths shut about that shit. Economy here’s been based on building since before we were in high school.”

“I did know, kind of. I guess.”

“Welcome to the county, hon. You want more coffee?”

“I think I might’ve had too much.”