I didn’t know why he was telling me any of this, and I said so.
“Can’t blame you,” he said. “These men who wish us harm may come to see us or they may not. If that happens, we’ll confront them as necessity demands.”
He unfolded the paper bag and removed a heavy blue-steel sidearm with checkered grips stuffed in an army-issue canvas holster. “This is the 1911-model .45-caliber automatic. It’s simple to operate. Its effect can be devastating. You drop the magazine from the frame, you load the magazine by pressing these cartridges here against the spring, then you reinsert the magazine and pull back the slide. You do not take it from the holster unless you plan to shoot it.”
“Does Mother know about this?”
“She’s the one who told me to buy it. Aaron?”
“Yes, sir?”
“When you kill a man, his face stays with you the rest of your life.”
“Can I hold it?” I said.
He placed the .45 in my hand. The magazine was not in it. The frame and checkered grips felt cold and heavy. There was a reassuring solidity about its heft, a potential that was dreamlike and almost erotic. I put my finger through the trigger guard and aimed at a caladium in the flower bed my mother had dug along the neighbor’s garage wall, just as my dog, Major, emerged from the plants and stared at the gun’s muzzle and at me. He backed among the caladiums and elephant ears as though he didn’t know who I was.
“It’s all right, Major,” I said. “Hey, come out here, little guy. Don’t be afraid.”
My father took the .45 from me and shoved the magazine into the frame with the heel of his hand, returned it to the holster, and snapped down the flap.
“Why is Major scared?” I said. “He’s never seen a firearm.”
“They have an instinct,” my father replied. “It will be in the right-hand bottom drawer of my desk. It will stay there unless we have urgent need of it. Do not play with it. Do not show it to your friends. You with me on that?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “A woman named Cisco Napolitano came by the station today. She’s mixed up with the guys who run Las Vegas. She said Jaime Atlas won’t rest till he gets his pound of flesh.”
My father got up from the steps. “Good. Tell her thanks for the advance notice. If any of these criminals call, would you tell them I’m at the icehouse and I’ll have to get back to them?”
I LOVED MINIATURE GOLF, and I loved playing it with Valerie. It was fun putting down the lanes of pale red fabric, watching the ball rumble over tiny bridges and waterways and through the bottoms of Dutch windmills, then see it plunk neatly into the cup.
The evening was cool and breezy and smelled of water sprinklers and meat fires, and after we played nine holes, we ate watermelon at the stand across the street while Tommy Dorsey’s “Song of India” moaned from a loudspeaker in the fork of an oak with its trunk painted white. Then I heard a pair of dual exhausts that were like none other—operatic, deep-throated, throbbing like the motorized equivalent of a classic ode, produced by Saber’s homemade mufflers and the oil he had set aflame inside them. He pulled his heap to the curb and got out wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and half-top boots with chains on them, combing his hair with both hands, affecting a confidence I suspected would crumble any second.
I was happy to see him. I couldn’t bear to think of Saber as a Benedict Arnold. People like Saber died on crosses or were lobotomized but were never compromised or absorbed by the herd.
“Thought y’all would be here,” he said, his eyes going from me to Valerie.
“This is Saber, Valerie,” I said.
“How you, Miss Valerie?” he said, sitting down at the picnic table.
“You don’t have to call me ‘miss.’ ”
“I get it from Aaron.” His eyes went everywhere except on her face. Saber was a wreck around girls. One time he climbed out a second-floor window when a girl tried to drag him onto a dance floor.
“What happened to your arms?” Valerie said.
“Fell off the roof.” He folded his forearms and tried to cover the stripes on them. There was a fresh stripe on his cheek, the same shade of red as the ones on his arms, all of them the width of a belt. “I could stand some of that melon. Those are Hempstead melons. That’s the best kind.”
“Did your dad go after you again?” I said.
“He’s not thinking straight. He’s all right when he sobers up.”
“Your father did that to you?” Valerie said.
He looked straight ahead, trapped inside his shame. Valerie cut off a piece of watermelon from her slice and put it on a paper napkin and pushed it toward him. “Aaron says you’re the best friend he’s ever had. He says everybody respects you.”
There were strings of electric lights in the trees, and I could not tell if the shine in Saber’s eyes was from their reflection or not.
“How’d you know where we were?” I said.
“Called your mom. Krauser popped up today. He came by the house right after Jenks did.”
“What’s Krauser want?”
Saber looked at Valerie, not sure how much he should say. “He works part-time for the probation department. He says he knows I’m going to end up in Gatesville. He can get me into a youth camp of some kind that’ll protect me.”
“You mean summer camp?”
“No, it’s some kind of political crap.”
“What did your parents say?” I said.
“Neither of them finished grammar school. They think Krauser is big shit, the intellectual of the Houston school system.” He glanced at Valerie. “Sorry.”
She smiled at him with her eyes.
“Stay away from Krauser. Don’t listen to anything he tells you,” I said.
“Tell that to my old man. He eats up Krauser’s war stories. ‘Ole boy from South Carolina blew the treads on a SS Panzer and put a flamethrower on it. We nicknamed him Hotfoot.’ ”
“You okay, Sabe?” I said.
“Sure.”
“You could fool me,” I said.
“I think I’m going to turn myself in,” he said.
“You’re sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Jenks says they found the brick and they’re going to dust it for fingerprints.”
“Then why tell you about it?” I said. “Why not just bring you in?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
A car passed. It had straight pipes, and the engine roared like a garbage truck. The guys inside it were big, their arms tattooed and hanging out the window, the sleeves cut off or rolled to the shoulder. One of them yelled something. Saber kept his eyes on the car until it turned the corner at the end of the block. “You know who those guys are?” he said to Valerie.
“I couldn’t see their faces.”
“How about the car? A ’49 Hudson.”
“No, I don’t remember seeing it,” she said.
“Did you recognize them?” he said to me.
“No.”
“They look like bad news,” he said. He stared at the street, then at me. “I think they’re dogging us.”
“They’re just guys. If they wanted a beef, they would have stopped.”
“You don’t know that.”
“What’s going on, Sabe?” I said.
“Nothing. I don’t take guys like that for granted. I’ve had my fill of them.”
“You want to play a round of miniature golf?” I said.
“No, I got to get home. I don’t feel too hot. I got to get off the dime. You don’t let the enemy take the high ground. Rule one of the Army of Bledsoe, right?”
“Why not spend more time with Aaron and me?” Valerie said.
“Me?” he said.
“The rodeo and the livestock show are coming up,” she said. “My 4-H club has some exhibits.”
“That would be pretty simpatico,” he said.
“Can I tell you something?” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“Quit figh
ting with these people,” she said. “One way or another, they’ll all disappear.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“Yes, it does. Don’t go seeing things, either,” she said. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. I think she almost had him convinced.
The car loaded with big guys came by again, slower this time, one guy sitting up on the passenger window bare-chested, shooting us the bone across the roof. Saber stood up from the table. A narrow object protruded from his boot, stiffening inside the leg of his jeans.
“Sit down,” I said.
“I’m tired of these guys,” he said. He gave them the Italian salute.
The car kept going, crossing the intersection, its straight pipes shaking the air. I pulled up the cuff of his jeans. “What are you doing with that?”
“Taking care of myself. Not taking any more shit. Sorry, Miss Valerie.”
“Give it to me, Saber,” I said.
“I’ll give it to you when people like Krauser and guys like that bunch in the Hudson get off our backs.”
He had a sheathed British commando knife strapped to his calf. It was doubled-edged and dark blue and made of steel, including the handle, the blade tapering to a razor-sharp tip, an absolutely murderous gut-ripper you could buy for $2.95 and a coupon from any men’s magazine.
Saber wiped his place clean and threw the napkin into a trash can.
“Stay with us,” Valerie said.
“Thanks. See y’all later,” he said. “Let me know if those guys come back. Maybe get their license number. I think it’s time to start doing some home calls.”
He lit a cigarette as he walked to his car, not even bothering to hook his pants cuff back over the knife’s handle, flicking the match angrily at the air.
Valerie stared at me. “He said Jenks?”
“That’s the detective who’s been giving us a bad time since Loren Nichols’s car was torched and the Mexican girl was killed,” I said.
“Merton Jenks?”
“Yeah, that’s his name. You know him?”
“Jenks was in the OSS with my father,” she replied.
Chapter
12
I HAD NEVER WORN handcuffs before. Or been pushed face-first against a car and probed under the arms and in the crotch. It happened at the filling station the next morning in front of my boss and our customers. A plainclothes detective pulled my arms behind me and snipped the steel tongs into the locks and squeezed them into my wrists, bunching the skin, then turned me around and set me on the backseat. “Stick your feet outside.”
“Outside?”
He had a narrow face and large ears and nicotine breath and a level of irritability and malevolence in his eyes that seemed disconnected from the situation, as though he carried an invisible cross and wanted to visit as much damage on the world as possible. “You go to school. You don’t understand English?”
“You want my legs outside the car?”
I looked at his eyes again and didn’t wait for an answer. I hung my legs out the door. He pulled off my shoes, glanced at the soles, and dropped the shoes into a paper bag.
“Sir, what are we doing?” I said.
“Watch your feet,” he said, and slammed the door.
It was a short ride to Mr. Krauser’s house. A cruiser and a cage truck from the SPCA were parked in front. I could see Saber’s head through the back window of the cruiser. Krauser was standing in the front yard, wearing tennis shoes and a yellow strap workout shirt and slacks dotted with paint, his shoulders and upper arms ridged with hair. His face was dilated, as though it had been stung by bees. The man who cuffed me was named Hopkins. He had taken off his hat inside the cruiser; there was a pale line across the top of his forehead. He looked at me through the wire mesh. “I talked about you boys with Detective Jenks. I don’t know why he’s put up with you. But that’s him, not me. That man standing in the yard has the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. Somebody should beat the shit out of both y’all. Your buddy in the cruiser says it was your idea. Is that true?”
“What idea?”
“Last chance. It’s you or him or both y’all. He’s already put your tit in the ringer.”
“Saber said I committed a crime?”
“His words were ‘It was Aaron’s idea. I just went along.’ ”
“It looks to me like he just got here. When did you talk to him?”
His gaze went away from me. “Saw your belt buckle. Don’t try to ride this one to the buzzer. You’ll end up in Gatesville.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You’ve already got a jacket, boy. You think your shit don’t stink? You think you’re going to get away with this?”
“With what?”
I could see the hair moving in his nostrils. He got out and pulled open the back door. The pupils in his eyes looked like burnt match heads. He fastened his hand around my bicep. “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” he said. “Don’t be eyeballing, either.”
Krauser stared at me as we went up the driveway. His face was razor-nicked, a piece of blood-spotted toilet paper plastered to his chin, one of his eyes bulging and the other recessed and watery, as though diseased.
“I don’t know what happened here, Mr. Krauser, but I didn’t have anything to do with it,” I said.
“Broussard?”
“Yes, sir.”
He blinked and looked at Hopkins. “What did he tell you?”
“Maybe you should go inside and cool off, have a glass of water,” the detective said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get the truth from these boys.”
“Bledsoe is the ringleader,” Krauser said. “He belongs in a juvenile facility. This one here is a snake. Don’t turn your back on him.”
The other cops were taking Saber out of the cruiser. He was handcuffed and barefoot, his T-shirt stretched out of shape on his neck, one knee grass-stained, his elbows raw and bleeding. Hopkins pushed me up the driveway.
“I want to call my parents,” I said.
He didn’t answer. I stepped on a bottle cap or a rock and had to hop on one foot. Then we rounded the corner of the house. The yard was in full sunlight, the humidity like spun glass, the air thick with the smell of feces. Flies buzzed around the trash can. The Doberman was stretched out on the grass, inches from an empty water bowl. A piece of butcher paper streaked with a copper-colored liquid had blown against the chain-link fence.
“You think we did this?” I said.
“You wear a ten and a half?” he said.
“Shoe?”
“No, your hat size.”
“Yes, a ten-and-a-half shoe.”
“Go up the steps.”
“The Harrelsons or the Atlases are behind this.”
“The who?”
“If you talked with Jenks, he told you about them.”
“What he told me is you boys may have caused a boy to lose his eye. Now, get your ass inside.”
“I want to call my parents.”
“You don’t make the rules, boy.”
“I’m not going to cooperate with this.”
“You’re going to do as you’re told.”
The back door was open. So was the screen, slashed diagonally by a sharp knife or a box cutter. The dead bolt had been prized out of the doorjamb. Hopkins pressed his knuckle into my spine. Sweat was running down my nose; the sun was the hot yellow of an egg yolk, the heat from the concrete and St. Augustine grass a wool blanket on my skin. I could feel my wrists peeling and salt running into the cuts, when I tried to twist them inside the cuffs. Hopkins worked his knuckle into my spine again.
“You son of a bitch,” I said.
“Didn’t quite catch that.”
My nose was dripping, my eyes burning, the yard and house slipping out of focus. “I apologize.”
“Get inside,” he said.
“What for? I was playing miniature golf with a friend last night. I went from my house to work this morning. I couldn’t have done
whatever it is that happened here.”
“Inside, boy. I won’t say it again.”
“I want a witness.”
“Witness to what.”
“Whatever you’re going to do.”
There was no one else in the yard. I could hear Saber and the other cops out on the driveway. Saber had either fallen or sat down and was making them drag him into the backyard. Hopkins lit a Camel and took a puff and let the smoke out slowly. He looked at his cigarette, then raised his eyes to me. “You smoke?”
“No, sir.”
“Good for you. I got to quit these things one day.”
He stiff-armed me through the door. I stumbled against the wall. “I never did anything to Mr. Krauser. You probably cost me my job. Everybody in school hates Mr. Krauser’s guts. He’s a cruel, mean-spirited shithead, and everybody knows it. I want my damn phone call.”
“You’ll get it at the jail.”
I knew that nothing I said would make any difference. He belonged to the huge army of people who believed that authority over others was an achievement and that violence was proof of a man’s bravery.
Hopkins flipped his cigarette through the ripped screen into the yard and led me into a foyer shiny with fresh paint and tracked with shoeprints. He stood on the edge of the foyer and took one of my shoes from the paper bag and squatted down and fitted it inside a print. Then he did the same with the other shoe. “Both shoes fit, wouldn’t you say?”
“What does it matter? I didn’t walk through that paint. I wasn’t here. At least not yesterday or today.”
He didn’t answer. The other cops brought Saber through the back door, one of them carrying his shoes. The cop handed the shoes to Hopkins. It took three tries before Hopkins could fit one of Saber’s shoes into a print. Then he pressed the other shoe inside another print and stood up, flexing his back. “Neither one of you were here? That’s your story?”