“Professor don’t normally do his own shit work, or even be around it, but that night, he was there. What happened out there to that kid. Not my style.”
“I think something like that could get to be your style,” Leonard said. “Cowards can go any kind of way the wind pushes them.”
George turned his head, looked at Leonard. “I think I could take you. I don’t think you’re so tough. Ace, now, he was tough.”
“With you sneaking up behind him with a hatchet, you never really got to find out,” Leonard said. “I did find out, and I handed Ace his ass. And without a hatchet.”
“Sure you did,” George said.
Neither Leonard nor I said a word. We just looked at him. I saw George’s face change.
“Want to take on the man who whipped Ace’s ass?” Leonard said. “You up for that? Maybe I ought to give you a hatchet to even things out.”
Leonard gave me the pistol and stood up.
“Oh yeah, you’re going to play it tough,” George said, “but you got your boy here with my shotgun.”
“He ain’t going to do nothing but keep the peace in case you decide to run. I think that’s a possibility.”
George’s face darkened.
“You want to talk tough, now I give you the chance to be tough,” Leonard said. “You’re still going to end up with the cops, but before that, you’re going to get a beating.”
“You said no cops.”
“We lied,” I said.
“You can’t do that,” George said.
“What do you think this is?” I said. “A sport?”
“Here’s what you can get out of this deal, George,” Leonard said. “And it’s all you’re likely to get, and it ain’t that likely. You beat me, you get that satisfaction. I beat you, I get that satisfaction. Whatever, you still end up in a jail cell. And I tell you right now, you want to fight or you don’t, you’re going to take a beating.”
George looked at me.
“What he said,” I told him.
“Why?” George said.
“We don’t like you,” I said.
“No, we don’t,” Leonard said. “You need to take better care of dogs.”
“What?” George said.
“You heard me,” Leonard said.
“You took Rex, didn’t you?”
Leonard merely smiled at him.
“Sure you want to bother with this?” I said to Leonard.
“Right now, it’s all I want to do,” Leonard said. “Get up, cracker, you and me are going to dance a bit.”
George stood up slowly, dropped the cigarette on the carpet, and put it out with his sock-covered heel. I guess he was showing us how tough he was. He was certainly a big boy. His mouth twisted in a smile as he gave Leonard a hard look. It wasn’t that confident a smile or a look, actually. Fear lived behind that mask.
Leonard locked the front and back door and moved to the center of the room. He stretched slightly to get the kinks out, bent his head from one side to the other. When he did, his neck made cracking sounds.
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “Now I’m good.”
George eased to the center of the room with Leonard, his hands up.
I kept my place on the stool.
George went for it, let one loose, a big looping right. If it had made solid contact, it could have dropped an ox, but making contact is the trick.
Leonard ducked the meteor, and then he was in on the bigger man, striking a series of quick punches low and to the kidney and bladder. George made a huffing sound, and then he hooked a left, and that caught Leonard, but Leonard turned with it. He’d have a bruise, but no bones were broken.
George came with a series of them now. Leonard slipped or ducked them all, and then he opened up.
George was easy. He was nothing. He was free pie.
Leonard worked the body so hard and fast, George couldn’t put any punches together, not anything good, anyway. And when he bent low to cover the spots Leonard was hammering, my man opened up on George’s face with a series of fast uppercuts. Leonard might as well have had a meat cleaver in his hand or that hatchet George had used, way he was cutting George up.
George staggered forward, tried another looping right, missed. Leonard slipped under it and to the side and swung a left deep into George’s belly. George dropped down on his ass. Leonard kicked him in the face and knocked him on his back. George peed himself. It was an acid smell and the piss stained George’s pants and the carpet.
George acted like he was going to try and get up, but then he shook his head, said, “No more,” and laid out on his side, breathing hard.
“You are one of the easiest nuts I ever cracked,” Leonard said.
That’s when headlights shone through the dingy curtains.
39
Not the newspaper boy, I assume,” Leonard said.
“Think it might be our dear friends Jimmy and Lou,” I said.
“I been wanting to see them again,” Leonard said.
George lifted his head, said, “You son of a black bitch.”
“Most likely,” Leonard said.
“George,” I said, “you move, I’ll shoot you.”
“I’m laying in piss,” he said.
“And whose fault is that?” I said.
I was looking out the gap in the curtains as I talked to George. I saw two men get out of the pickup. Yep. Jimmy and Lou. You could tell Jimmy right off, the way he held his head, as if someone had screwed it on crooked.
They had what looked like shotguns.
Not good.
Leonard slipped to the other side of the door where there was another window, pushed back the curtains, and looked.
“Maybe I need to get my pistol back,” he said.
“My pistol,” I said.
“Tomayto, tomahto,” he said. “Besides, you got the shotgun.”
He walked briskly over to me and took the pistol.
That’s when we heard the back door of the trailer swing open, and George was out of there in his sock feet.
“Goddamn it,” Leonard said. “I must be losing my touch. I hit him really hard.”
“Lock the doors,” I said.
Leonard did that. I saw George out the front window, coming into view. He had come around the trailer, moving awkwardly, nursing his kidneys. He had his hands above his head, waving frantically at Jimmy and Lou.
“It’s me,” he called to them. “It’s me.”
Jimmy spoke over the rain.
“I know who you are.”
And then Jimmy and Lou lifted their shotguns and fired. The blasts hit George and tore him up. Little dark spots jumped from his body and disappeared beyond the glow of the yard light. George hit the ground so fast, it looked like a circus trick.
Lou walked over to him and shot him in the head, just in case there were still a couple of brain cells stirring.
Jimmy called out to the house, “Hap. Leonard. Know you’re in there. Why don’t you come out and let’s get this over with?”
Leonard gently unlocked the front door and cracked it open.
“Hell no. It’s nice and cozy in here, except for the stink where George pissed himself. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of my black ass, you crook-neck shit-ass?”
Jimmy grinned wide.
“You done hurt my feelings, talking about my neck. Don’t be a coward. Come out.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Leonard said. “You boys come on up in here and get us. Let me see I can straighten that neck out for you.”
“That’s the way it’s got to be, we can come on up in there,” Jimmy said.
“Can you?” Leonard said. “Well, come on in. The bullets are fine.”
Jimmy turned and trotted back to the pickup. He and Lou got inside, and Jimmy gunned it.
The crazy bastard was racing straight for the trailer.
40
The truck was flying right at my position at the window.
I did a kind of quickie two-step a
nd dived across the room. That’s when the truck hit the trailer and there was a loud collision, like the heavens blowing a bean fart. The window glass was knocked out, the window frame caved in, and the front of the truck came inside the mobile home. A light fixture fell from the ceiling, crashed on the floor near me, and the home heaved off its foundations and dropped on one end, sent me sliding with Leonard tumbling after me.
I lost the shotgun for a moment, and then I had it again. I almost managed to get to my feet, but unless I was a fly, I wouldn’t have been able to actually stand, so I fell to the ground on my belly, rolled to the side, pumped one into the sixteen-gauge chamber.
The mobile home was still moving but in slow motion now as it continued to swivel off its foundation blocks. The lights went out, except for the light on the post outside and the truck lights that were shining right at me; they lit the inside of the home pretty well.
I heard Leonard behind me cussing.
I glanced back. He had rolled into the bedroom door and knocked the hinges off, loosened up a plastic fuck doll from somewhere. It lay across his back where it had fallen, as if trying to mount him. Leonard still had the pistol in his hand.
I heard the truck doors slam, and then Jimmy appeared on the hood of the truck, which was poking through the remains of the window like an anteater’s nose. He was standing there with his head at that odd angle, like he was being inquisitive. His shotgun roared, and as I was in a precarious position, he had me, but that’s when the sagging mobile home slipped completely off the blocks and fell, throwing off his aim. The shotgun blasted the wall behind me. The home dropped hard, and when it hit the ground, the impact sent Jimmy flying off the hood and into the home, banging him up against the couch, which was slow-sliding across the floor.
The drop jarred my teeth, but now the home was mostly flat on the ground. I came up on my knees as Jimmy, still clutching the shotgun, tried to regain his composure. I didn’t let him. Here’s a tip in life-or-death struggles: Unlike the Lone Ranger, you don’t shoot guns out of people’s hands. You shoot them solid and you shoot to kill, and a shotgun in that situation is sweet.
I cut down on Jimmy just as he was about to cut down on me. He wasn’t more than ten feet from me, maybe less. My blast was first, and when he was hit, his shotgun rode up and fired into the ceiling.
I thought for an instant I could see light through Jimmy, but it could have been an illusion. His crooked head even straightened slightly, and then he toppled onto his face and his butt went up in the air and wiggled a bit, and then he came down on his stomach, squirmed like a snake on a hot stove, then went still. Debris from the ceiling sprinkled him like snow.
His head had fallen so that his chin was supporting him. His eyes were looking right at me. I felt as if I saw his life wing its way out of him, through his eyes and into the shadows, like frightened quail scattering into the brush.
Leonard was on his feet now, stepping past me.
Lou was entering through the window with his shotgun. When he saw Jimmy’s dead ass, he made a noise. It was a cold and horrible sound, like a rabbit dying. Before Lou could get a bead on either of us, Leonard let off a shot from the pistol.
I couldn’t tell where the shot hit Lou, but I heard a smacking sound and saw dark liquid fly up, momentarily framed by the pole light outside; the drops seemed to fall in slow motion.
Lou went sideways at a stumble, through the gap in the wall, back onto what remained of the hood of the truck, which looked like an accordion pushed in. The crunch in the hood caught his foot, and he fell, toppled out of sight.
Like a juggernaut, Leonard went after him, springing through the gap and onto the hood. I heard a shot from the handgun. I came out right behind Leonard, and when I got there, Lou was running toward the road, wobbling. He had dropped the shotgun.
Leonard jumped off the truck and walked after Lou like the angel of death about to collect a soul. The rain was still coming down.
Lou stumbled and fell. He fell hard. He started to crawl, clawing his fingers into the wet dirt.
I came up quickly behind Leonard, and now Leonard was right on top of Lou. He lifted the pistol. I gently pushed it aside.
“No need for that,” I said.
Lou was still crawling.
“Maybe I ought to pop him one for mercy,” Leonard said.
“I don’t think you’re feeling all that merciful,” I said.
“You’re right. I just want to pop him.”
“Leave the poor bastard be,” I said.
The decision was taken out of our hands as Lou shivered slightly and quit crawling. He collapsed slowly, lay with his face in the wet dirt, let out his breath, and was as still and silent as his brother.
In the distance, we could hear dogs and coyotes howling, disturbed from their nightly activities by the sounds of our gunfire, and most likely the stench of death.
41
Delf said, “Dead? Both of them?”
“Yeah,” Leonard said.
“They tried to kill you?”
“Yeah,” Leonard said.
Delf was sitting behind his desk in the police station. Me and Leonard and Pookie were standing in front of his desk. We had already told him the story of what George had told us, how his brothers died.
“How again, exactly?” Delf said. He looked so stunned, so sad, it was painful.
“We’re sorry,” I said, but I didn’t tell it to him again.
“Jesus,” he said.
Eula came in from the front desk and rolled a chair over next to Delf, put her hand on top of his, which was lying on the desk like a dead bird.
“I knew it was coming, I guess,” Delf said, “I even thought you guys being in town might lead to it. I should have encouraged you not to come back.”
“We had no choice,” I said.
“And why were you not there?” Delf said to Pookie.
“I’m an officer of the law, same as you. I couldn’t take a confession illegally. Hap and Leonard could. It’s worth what it’s worth to a jury, but I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t know your brothers were going to show up or I would have stayed. I think it would have come out the same way.”
Delf shook his head.
“Oh Jesus. I’m glad Mother isn’t alive. She would be devastated. Christ, I’m devastated.”
“Again, sorry,” I said.
Leonard had not said sorry once. The reason he hadn’t was he wasn’t sorry. He could kill you and sleep like a baby if he’d felt he had to do it, felt you had it coming. He thought a lot more people had it coming than I did.
The door opened and Johnny walked in. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. Like Eula, he had heard the story earlier, when we reported it. They had called Delf at home, had him come in.
“I guess we need a formal statement, and then I got to go look at the crime scene,” Delf said.
“I sent what passes for our forensic team out there,” Johnny said. “You don’t need to see that shit, Chief.”
“Yeah,” Delf said. “Maybe not.”
Delf’s face looked as if he had just bit into alum, and suddenly he got up from behind the desk and came around quickly, heading right at me, as I was the closest. Johnny grabbed him and turned him and guided him like a child back to his chair. Delf sat down and put his head in his hands.
“Did you have to kill them?” he said through his fingers.
“Yep,” Leonard said. “That’s getting to be an old question. It was us or them. They came to kill George, and did, and when they saw our car, knew we were there, they thought they’d get a three-fer.”
“If it’s any consolation,” I said, “Jimmy died like a man.”
“It isn’t,” Delf said. But then he dropped his hands and looked at Leonard. “Lou. Did he die well?”
“No one dies well,” Leonard said. “I gut-shot him twice. I meant to kill him right off but didn’t. I won’t kid you. I wanted to shoot him again when he crawled away from us like a fucking
snake in the grass. And let me warn you, you get up to hit me or Hap, law or no law, I will knock you down.”
“Hey,” Johnny said, and moved away from the wall.
“Take it easy,” Pookie said. “I have to knock you down and Leonard knocks Delf down, it’ll be hard to move around in this little room.”
“You boys quit posturing,” Eula said.
Johnny and Pookie exchanged glances, then Johnny leaned back against the wall. Pookie stood where he was, didn’t bat an eye or move a muscle.
“Delf asked how Lou took it,” Leonard said. “And I told him.”
“I did,” Delf said. “I did indeed. What I’m going to do is ask Johnny here to take you two to the interrogation room. Officer Carroll, you are free to go.”
“I’d rather stay,” Pookie said.
“Have it your way,” Delf said. “Johnny will see all of you get coffee.”
“No, I won’t,” Johnny said.
42
In the interrogation room we sat without coffee at the table where we had sat before. Johnny was standing, leaning against the wall in the same way he had leaned against the wall in Delf’s office. Pookie was leaning against the opposite wall. Johnny and Pookie studied one another from time to time, sizing up who had the biggest dick, I guess, and who could swing theirs the hardest.
“You had to kill those two assholes?” Johnny said to us.
“On a loop here,” Leonard said.
“Damn,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “Sure. Sure. I know they had it coming. I know that. Just don’t like seeing Delf like that.”
“Then quit asking us about it,” Leonard said. “Do what you’re going to do. Charge us. Send us home. Fuck us in the ass and call us Daisy, but ask any more questions, we call a lawyer. We got a good one named Veil. Course, we’ll have to fly him in from Oregon.”
“There’ll be questions, but not by me,” Johnny said. “Not anymore. Ah, hell. It could just as easily have been me. I thought once they were going to go for me. I saw them and they saw me one time out by the old spillway. I wasn’t on duty. I was fishing. I thought they were going to take me out, way they looked. They had guns with them, wearing them on their hip. Ain’t that shit when the law allows that and they aren’t law or military? Can you imagine a coincidence like that? Me there and them there.”