“Hey,” the startled man with the light said, and it was Fitzgerald’s voice, and for a moment, time was suspended. Then time came loose and from behind Fitzgerald a monstrous shadow charged into the room, and I moved, and everyone else moved, and I realized then that someone was running away from the chifforobe room, someone who had been with Fitzgerald and his brother, someone who had panicked.
I started to go after him, but I couldn’t get past the Reverend, so I stepped in and hit him with a right cross to the jaw and he dropped the flashlight and staggered across the room and Gleason grabbed him. When I hit him, the flash hit the floor and went around and around, showing Gleason and the Reverend, then shadow, then light, then the flash quit rolling and pinned them.
The big shadow was T.J., of course, and when Gleason grabbed Fitzgerald, T.J. grabbed Gleason, got him by the head with his huge hands, held it like it was a basketball he was about to shoot.
I heard the one who got away fall through some boards in the front room, heard him grunt and scramble, then Gleason let go of Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald spun and hit Gleason in the stomach with a hook, and though I was already moving, and so were the others, it was all too fast. T.J. had Gleason good. He twisted Gleason’s head like he was screwing the lid off a stubborn pickle jar. Gleason’s sad toupee popped loose, soared above the light of the flash, then came back to it like a hairy UFO and slapped the floor. Behind it all, you could hear Gleason’s neck crack like a plastic swizzle stick.
“Stop them!” Fitzgerald yelled to T.J., and Charlie was on Fitzgerald, and Leonard stepped in and kicked T.J. flush in the groin and drove his palm up into the giant’s chin, and the giant grunted and reached for Leonard, and Leonard moved away into shadow.
Charlie flew into me unconscious, courtesy of Fitzgerald’s left hook. I eased Charlie aside, and me and Fitzgerald came together.
The rhythm of our punches and the constant kicking of Leonard against T.J.’s body filled the room. I hit Fitzgerald with a jab and he hooked me to the body and I felt a rib crack, but I’d had that before. It wasn’t poking through the skin, so it was a pain I could isolate. I bobbed in and jabbed again and threw an overhand right, but Fitzgerald had moved out of the moon of light the flashlight provided, and I threw my punch at movement instead of substance. He leaned away and landed another in my ribs, same spot; it hurt like a knife had gone there.
But I had something Fitzgerald didn’t have: a four-wheel drive. I kicked him hard in the side of the leg, just above the knee, and he wobbled into the light, and I could see him good now, and I hit him with a right in the face and kicked with a left roundhouse to his ribs. He faded back into the darkness and ran.
I turned to look at Leonard, just as Leonard scoop-kicked the inside of T.J.’s knee, then side-snap-kicked to the front of it. T.J. went down with a yell, hit the floorboards hard, rolled over and screamed, tried to get up, but the shattered knee wouldn’t hold him.
I heard Fitzgerald break through glass and kick out window struttings, then I heard him drop to the ground outside. I grabbed the flashlight and went after him, my ribs throbbing. When I got to the window and started through, I heard Fitzgerald scream like a man with a stick in his eye, then the scream turned to an echo, then a flat, soul-breaking whine.
I dropped to the ground and shone the light around. The rain was still pounding, and even with the light it was hard to see. I could hear him, though: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . Oh, Jesus, not this way.”
I went toward the sound, and it was coming from the old well. Fitzgerald had tumbled down there in the darkness. I cautiously slid up to the pile of rubble that had been the well’s rock foundation, bent over, and shone the light down.
Fitzgerald wasn’t saying anything now, he wasn’t making any kind of sound, but he was alive. I could see his eyes blinking at the rain. The well was not wide, and the fall had been hard, and there was all manner of rubble down there—rocks from the curbing, limbs and brush, stagnant water—and he had hit in such a way that his waist was twisted and his legs were turned at an angle only pipe cleaners should make.
“I’ll get you out,” I said.
But he wasn’t listening. He bent his head toward his chest, and his ruined body shifted and his chin went to his knees, which were too high up for anyone but an acrobat, then he was still. He eased slowly into the water, then hung on some kind of debris.
I didn’t need an M.D. to tell me the Reverend Fitzgerald had passed into darkness. I held the light on him for a time, watched the rain beat him, realized that the way he was now, he looked like nothing more than a peaceful embryo waiting for birth.
I went back to the house by the porch and window. I didn’t see anyone lurking about. I found where the one who had gotten away had fallen through the boards, and down there I found something else too. Lying on his side on the ground, a black bag over his head, hands bound behind his back, ankles tied, was a child.
I got the boy out of there and pulled the bag off his head. He had a bandanna around his mouth, and under that something stuffed in his mouth, and he was having a hard time breathing. I got the thing out of his mouth and saw that it was a sock. I sat him on the side of the floor where the boards had given away, let his legs dangle. He looked at me. He was shaking.
“Please,” he said.
“It’s OK, son. I’m not one of them.”
“Please.”
I saw there was something else down in the hole, and got back down in there and grabbed it. It was a large piece of cloth, and under it was a book of the Psalms. I wrapped the book up in the cloth, which wasn’t just a cloth at all, and picked the boy up and made my way around the gap in the boards and carried him into the kitchen. He was stiff and frightened. I sat him on the floor with his back against the wall. He saw T.J. twisting on the floor, and he started to struggle, but the ties on his hands and feet prevented any real movement. He merely fell over and lay still.
“Easy,” I said. “You’re OK now.”
I glanced over and saw that Leonard had gotten Charlie’s handcuffs and was putting them on T.J. T.J. kept yelling over and over, “Bubba. Bubba.”
When Leonard had T.J.’s arms cuffed behind his back, he limped over to where me and the boy were.
“The runner lost the prizes,” I said, and lay the cloth and the Psalm book on the floor.
Leonard got out his pocket knife, and the boy flinched and made a sound like something dying.
“It’s OK,” Leonard said, and he cut the boy’s hands and feet free. “We got ’em for you, boy.”
Free, the child lay on the floor with his knees drawn to his chest. “They hurt you?” Leonard asked him.
The boy didn’t answer. He stared at Leonard. Leonard stroked the boy’s head. “Gonna be all right.”
I checked on Gleason. It didn’t take much of an examination to determine he wouldn’t be coming around. His head was twisted at such an angle it made my throat hurt. I found his toupee and stuck it on his head as best I could.
I went over then and looked at Charlie. He was lying on his back, conscious, but weak. “Where’s it hurt?” I asked.
“My head,” Charlie said. “Jesus, what a lick. The world’s spinning. I’d rather you hit me with the flashlight again.”
“Left hook,” I said. “He had a good one. He hasn’t got anything now.”
“You kill him?”
“The old well took care of him.” I worked Charlie’s coat off of him, folded it up and put it under his head. “Man, you going to have to go shopping. This suit coat is ruined. Pocket’s ripped clean the hell off of it.”
“Got his hand caught in it,” Charlie said. “Think Kmart’ll take it back?”
“Even they got to draw a line somewhere.”
“Gleason?”
“Afraid not. Take it easy, now. You might have a concussion. I’ll get some help.”
“Hanson don’t hear from us in a while, he’ll be up here.”
“I
’m not going to wait that long, Charlie.”
I went back to Leonard. He said, “My ankle’s bad twisted. I’ve got down here now and can’t get up. It’s swollen from me kicking that big devil. I must have hit wrong. I think I’ll have to cut off the shoe.”
“Leonard, it’s not over yet.”
“I know. You’ll get him, won’t you? For me and you, and Uncle Chester?”
“You know it.”
“And Hanson for that matter. Boy is he gonna be pissed.”
“That’s how I like him best. Pissed . . . You’ll be all right?”
“Get him, Hap. Get him now.”
I folded the cloth around the Psalmbook and went away.
* * *
It took me a while to get from the Hampstead place back down to Uncle Chester’s, but not as long as it had taken us to go up there. I wasn’t trying to sneak and the rain had subsided. I thought all the way down. I thought about how stupid I’d been. I was so mad my ribs didn’t even hurt.
When I got to Uncle Chester’s, I went on past and across the street to MeMaw’s. The porch light was on, and Hiram’s muddy van was in the driveway. The porch overhang was dripping water like rain off the bill of a cap. I climbed on the porch and knocked on the door. A full minute passed before Hiram answered. He was wearing a different set of clothes than I had seen him wearing at the carnival. His hair was wet and his face was flushed and sweaty. He was a little out of breath. He had his van keys in his hand.
I said, “How’s MeMaw?”
“The same,” he said. “I’m going up there.”
“Can I come in?”
“Man, I don’t mean to be rude, but I got to run. I was just going out.”
“I just need a minute,” I said and pushed my way inside, and he closed the door. The house had the faint and pleasant aroma of home cooking. I looked at the photographs on the wall, the picture of Jesus behind the stove. The cheap, yellowed curtains. The place seemed a lot less clean than when I had seen it last, and smaller, and darker.
Hiram said, “You look like hell.”
“I been busy. I bet you’re fixing to light out, aren’t you?”
“What I was saying. I got to get back to the hospital. I need to get on back right now, spell my sister.”
“I think you think the Reverend’s going to do some talking. I don’t think you’re going to the hospital. I think you’re going to run like a goddamn deer.”
He looked at me, trying to think of something to say. “The Reverend?” he said.
“Did you know you and I just missed each other?” I said.
“How’s that?”
“I got something for you that’ll explain.”
I went over to the kitchen table, took the cloth out from under my arm, and shook the book of Psalms out of it. I took the American flag, popped it wide, let it float down over the table and the book.
“I believe you dropped this,” I said. “At least it wasn’t the Texas flag. . . . You were going to wrap a child’s body in it, weren’t you, Hiram. Stick a sheet from the Psalms in one of the magazines hidden up there. That day I was over here, you quoted part of a Bible verse. That was from the Psalms, wasn’t it? MeMaw saw you got religious training.”
“Hap—”
“You didn’t know I was at the house, Hiram. You thought the Reverend was caught and going to talk, and you were just about to make a run for it. You know what? Fitzgerald’s dead. And T.J., hell, he wouldn’t remember you an hour from now. Not so it’d cause you any trouble anyway. But you panicked, and that’s what nails you.”
“Hap—”
“Oh yeah, there is someone who’ll remember you. You dropped the kid too. The one you were watching at the petting zoo. I bet he got a good look at you, seeing how it wouldn’t have mattered had things gone according to plan. Simple plan, huh? Fitzgerald loaded the kids back in the bus, said he had to stay for some reason, would catch a ride, whatever, then you helped him grab the boy. Or rather you helped trick the boy. He was someone Fitzgerald knew from the church, someone he gave a free pass to, someone he was acting like a father to, one of the lost ones. And T.J., he was on the bus, but he got off too, to help. He’d do anything for his brother.”
“You got to understand, Hap. I didn’t start any of this.”
“I don’t need to understand anything. All I understand is you and Fitz and T.J., every year, killed a young boy, cut him up and buried him under that house. That’s all I need to understand. The why of it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“I was going to stop. Really.”
“No. I don’t think so. And it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Hiram seemed to consider a moment, then whirled and snatched up one of the kitchen chairs and came for me. He brought it around and hit me on the side, and my injured ribs exploded with pain, but I moved into him as he swung, and cut the force of the blow. I grabbed his face with both my hands and slammed my forehead forward, into his nose, and he jerked back, spewing blood. He dropped the chair, fell leaning against the stove. The impact shook the wall, and the picture of Jesus rocked on its nail and came loose and fell on top of the stove and the glass shattered.
He came at me again, but I moved in with a right to the stomach, hooked a left to his head. It wasn’t a good left. My ribs hurt too bad to put the torque into it. He hit me high above the ear, not a good shot, but all those blows I’d taken from Fitzgerld were wearing on me. I could feel my legs going rubber. I covered my face with my arms and fist and let him chunk a while. He wasn’t any better a boxer than he had been before, just a scrapper, and his wind wasn’t any better either. The blows stung a little, but Leonard gave me worse when we sparred.
After a few hits Hiram began to breathe hard through his mouth, gulping air like a whale gulping plankton. I broke my cover and hooked between his hands with a solid right and took out what breath he had left, then put him down with a swinging elbow. That last technique made my injured rib move a way it wasn’t supposed to move, and I felt it stab against my side. The damn thing had been cracked, and now it had broken loose. I couldn’t help but lean against the sink and feel sick, and when I turned to look at Hiram, he was up. He’d gotten a butcher knife off the cabinet, and he lunged at me with it. He wasn’t any better a knife fighter than he was a boxer.
I parried the lunge to the outside with my arm and grabbed his wrist and pulled him off balance and tugged him against the sink counter and used my free hand to strike him behind the head with my forearm, driving him down into the porcelain sink. His head made a sound like a clay jar breaking and he went out, would have hit the floor if his chin hadn’t hung on the edge of the sink. I kicked his feet out from under him and he went down, sprawled on the floor with blood running out of his mouth. His hand opened slowly, like a flower blooming, and the knife lay free in his palm. I kicked it away. I stood over him a moment, feeling something I couldn’t put a name to.
Finally, I leaned against the sink and tried to get my breath. I was starting to lose it. MeMaw’s kitchen was spinning like a Disney World ride. I turned on the faucet and ran some cold water into my hands and splashed it on my face and rubbed it through my hair. That didn’t help much. I held my head low in the sink beneath the faucet and let the water run over my neck and the back of my skull. A few minutes later the spinning stopped and my rib really began to ache.
I eased my way over to the phone and called the law, asked them to patch me through to Lieutenant Hanson, and to tell him his good buddy Hap Collins was on the line with a murderer in tow.
39.
Four nights after Hiram went down, MeMaw died, and two months later I was still thinking about her. I was glad she never woke up. Never knew. Hiram had lied about his sister being with MeMaw. He’d never called anyone. The need to kill had been so strong inside him, he’d left his dying mother’s side to do what he felt he had to do. The whole thing haunted me like a ghost.
I was thinking about this one warm but pleasant afternoon while me and Leona
rd were out on the lake fishing, not catching anything, of course, just drifting around in the boat, untangling moss from our lines and watching birds fly over.
At least most of the mosquitoes had called it a season. It was still warm enough that a few of them came out on scouting missions, looking for a place to land, a place to refuel, a place that generally seemed to be located somewhere on the back of my neck, but an occasional quick slap took care of that matter.
“Get your mind off of it,” Leonard said.
“What?”
“You just took the bait off your hook and cast the empty hook back in the water. I’d say you’re thinking about Florida or Hiram.”
I had been thinking about Florida earlier. And Hanson. They were going to get married. Florida had invited me to the wedding. By mail. She said she hoped I’d come. Word from Charlie, who still shopped at Kmart, was that Hanson was hoping I’d stay home. I kept thinking I ought to wish Florida and Hanson well and be happy for them. That was the right thing to do, but I kept hoping she’d miscalculate and get her period on her wedding night. It was the least fate could do for me.
“It’s Hiram,” I said. “The whole mess.”
I reeled the line in, gingerly. My ribs were a lot better, but I still found simple things painful. The doctor had wanted to put a body cast around me, but I’d had broken ribs before. After he helped me get them set, I’d insisted on an Ace bandage, wrapped tight. I figured another month from now I could put on a Chubby Checker record and do the twist. Leonard had recovered just fine; the sprain had gone away within a week.
“You know,” I said, “I kinda liked Hiram. He had a good side.”
“You kinda liked his bullshit. There’s no balance in having a good side when you got the other side he had. Hell, you don’t know he had a good side. He had a good front, man. That guy had more masks than a gaggle of trick-or-treaters. Look the way he went off and left his mother so he could kill that kid.”