They stared at one another for a hard moment. Paco had his automatic in his fist and Soldier’s was still in his pants. He had his hand resting on it.
“This is some shit, Paco,” Soldier said. “You and me trying to showdown on one another. We’re partners. Right, huh? Right?”
“Close enough,” Paco said. His voice was firm but I could see his legs were vibrating slightly.
“Let’s don’t say some things we’ll regret,” Soldier said. “Let’s go on to the house, talk a little. Trudy here, she’ll see to reason. Won’t you, Trudy?”
“I’m not telling you where the money is,” Trudy said.
“All right,” Soldier said. “You’re not telling. Not now. Things can change, though. You, Happy Man. You and the nigger. Get what’s his name, Howie, Howard, whatever the fuck. Carry him to the house.”
We put Howard on the couch and Trudy and Paco took chairs and me and Leonard sat on the brick hearth before the fire. Angel stood in front of us with her gun. She seemed as natural as part of the furniture.
Soldier sat at the kitchen table and called out to us. “Maybe Paco’s right. We all get a little something to eat, we’ll feel better. More cooperative, you know. He awake?”
Angel went over to the couch and turned Howard’s head with her hand. I could see a knot the size of an orange at the front of his ear and the middle of the knot was cut and oozing blood.
“No?” Soldier said. “Well, we can save him a little something for later. Paco, what say you make the sandwiches? Am I bossing again, huh?”
“I’ll do it,” Paco said.
He did. We had sandwiches made of leftover meatloaf. I don’t really remember eating it, which, considering Leonard’s meadoaf, is no loss, but I certainly needed it. I felt a small measure of strength return.
“Everybody eaten now?” Soldier said. “All right. We got that out of the way. We’re all feeling less grumpy, am I right? Doody, come over here and see me.”
“Trudy,” Angel said.
“Trudy, then, whatever. Just get over here.”
“I’m not telling you where the money is.”
“Come here anyway. Angel, give her some help.”
Angel pulled Trudy to her feet, pushed her toward the kitchen table. Trudy went over and sat in the chair across from Soldier.
Soldier smiled at her. “Not still hungry, are you? Need a glass of water? No. Good. Now listen here. What we got is a simple problem, but you’re making it into one of those whatya call its … Angel, help me out here.”
“Dilemmas.”
“Yeah. One of them. It’s really a lot more simple than that. You give me the money, and we go away. You don’t give me the money, I shoot you. And all your friends too. The nigger and Happy. All of you end up like the fat boy back at the Apache. Brains on the wall. It’s not a good way, Trudy.”
“You’re going to kill us anyway,” Trudy said.
“No. No. I’m going to let you go. I’ll take the money, get long gone, and hey, next day you’re back to whatever you were doing before we came together here.”
“I tell you where the money is, you’ll kill us,” Trudy said. “And if you’re going to kill us anyway, I’m not going to tell you where it is. If I’m going to die, it’s knowing you haven’t got the money.”
“That’s tough, Trudy. You’re a hard little cunt, I give you that. You seen a man’s brains blown out and one get it with a shovel, and you’re still talking to me like we got some negotiations here. Last time you and, what’s his name, Howie, Henry …”
“Howard,” Angel said.
“Yeah, him. Two of you didn’t do so good, you know? I mean, you got no guns. You got nothing.”
“And you don’t have the money,” Trudy said. “That money was for an idea, an important one—”
Soldier made a fiddling motion with his left arm and right hand. His lips drooped at the corners and pursed.
“—and you just want it to spend.”
“You think all I want is to spend this money? Any fool can spend money. Buy a gallon of milk, a pound of butter, new economy car. Trip to Tahoe. Bullshit. There’s spending, then there’s spending. I’m a regular goddamned cona … What am I saying here, Angel?”
“Connoisseur.”
“That. You see, baby, I’ve made more money in a day than you got hid out there. This bit of shit, four hundred thousand or so, that’s nothing. But this is supposed to be an easy score, see, and you’re making it not so easy, and I’m getting hardheaded about it.
It’s the principle of the thing now. How do you think I’m going to feel about myself I let this go? I said I was going to get the money, and I’m going to get the money. Takes a little time, it takes a little time. But if it takes time, it’s going to seem a hell of a lot longer to you, Doody. Hear me? And in the end, no matter what, I’m going to get the money.”
“Not if I don’t tell you,” Trudy said.
“You’ll tell me. Look, here’s what I’ll do. To show I’m no hard guy.” He pulled out the five thousand Howard had given him and put it on the table. “I give this back. Yours. Not to split with anyone else. All yours. Buy you a little something nice, new dress. Get your hair done. Whatever. Your money. All you got to do is tell me where the main pile is. You give me the big wad, I let you and everyone else go. The nigger too. And you make a little change. And I tell you, I’m in a good mood when I get the money, I might toss in a little bonus for everybody. Whatda you say? We got a deal?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Soldier’s sweaty face went red. “Have it your way.”
He got up and walked around the table. Put his hands on the back of Trudy’s chair, bent so that his chin touched the top of her head. My muscles bunched in the center of my back like a knot being tied.
“You’re sure?” he said.
“I’m as sure as I’ve ever been,” Trudy said.
Soldier straightened up, looked around the kitchen. He went over to the cabinet Leonard was building and got the hammer, took one of the long nails from the paper bag. He went back to his chair at the table, said, “Angel. Can you come over here a moment? I’m going to need your help.”
“Soldier,” Paco said. “Don’t.”
“Paco,” Soldier said, “I’ve let you fuck with me a lot. Don’t think my good humor’s going to hold out forever. There’s money and I want it. You want it, don’t you? Want what I can do for you?”
Paco paused.
“Well?” Soldier said.
“Yeah,” Paco said, and he was barely audible.
“Then,” Soldier said, “we’ve got to get this show on the road.” He took off his hat and tossed it in the corner. “Angel, take hold of her left hand.”
25
I had only thought I had been helpless before. I could see what was coming and I wanted to stop it, wanted to do something heroic like leap over the couch and go for Soldier and break his neck. I had the ability to break his neck, but I had no reason to believe I could reach him. Paco might not want things to be like they were, but he had cast his lot, and would shoot me before I had gone six feet. And if he didn’t, there was Angel. She had her gun in the waist of her jogging pants, but she was far enough away she could draw and fire. And then there was Soldier.
If I died, that left Leonard and Howard and Trudy against this bunch, and Trudy wasn’t going to be worth much in a moment. Howard was out of it. I had to bide my time.
I could tell them I knew the money was along the creek, but even so, I didn’t know where. Bottom line was I couldn’t lead them straight to it, and I couldn’t depend on luck. And even if they got the money, Trudy was right. Soldier was going to kill us.
“Open your hand and put it on the table,” Soldier told Trudy.
Trudy didn’t move. She sat with her hands in her lap staring straight ahead.
Angel took hold of Trudy’s hand. Trudy made a fist. Angel slapped her. Trudy let out a cry. Angel opened Trudy’s hand with both of hers and pushed it fl
at against the table, palm down, and held her by the wrist.
“Do it, you pig,” Trudy said. “Do it!”
Soldier put the nail against the back of Trudy’s hand and the hammer came down quick and the nail went through and Trudy screamed and the table rocked. Her fingers thrashed like heated caterpillars.
Angel let go of Trudy’s hand and stepped back from the table. She turned to look out the kitchen window, as if distracted by a bird.
“Now,” Soldier said. “The money. Or the other hand.”
Trudy opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
“That’s all right,” Soldier said. “Rest a little. You’ll get your voice back. But you don’t tell me about that money, it’s the other hand. That don’t work, we got to do a tit.”
I had stood up when the hammer came down, but there was nowhere to go and nothing to do that wouldn’t get me killed.
“Sit down,” Paco said.
I sat down. I felt small in my clothes. I could see the side of Trudy’s face. Her eyelid was fluttering rapidly. Soldier said, “That had been me, I think I’d have passed out. You got balls on you, sister. I give you that. But hey, this has got to hurt. Am I right? Let’s stop this unpleasantness. I want you to stop being obstrap, ob … What am I going for here, Angel?”
“Obstreperous.”
“There you go. Obstreperous. Where’s the money?”
Trudy’s voice was a rasp, but the words were clear. “Eat shit.”
Soldier leaned over the table and slapped her. She fell back out of the chair and the table turned over and the edge of it hit her in the neck. The fall stretched her hand to the limit the nail would allow. She lay there and made little sobbing noises while the five thousand dollars fluttered all over like a shattered head of lettuce.
In that instant I wanted her to tell what she knew. Let them have the money and shoot us, get it over with, and in that same instant my survival instincts rose up in me and I knew I had maybe one card to play, and I had to play it now or fold and count the lot of us out.
“I know where the money is,” I said.
“What?” Soldier said. “You, Happy Guy. What’s that?”
“I know where the money is.”
“He’s lying,” Paco said. “He never left this house. He wouldn’t know where she buried it. If he did, he wouldn’t have let her go through with this. He’s stalling.”
Leonard was watching Paco like a dog watched a favorite bone. All right, Paco was Leonard’s. I’d count on that.
That left Angel and Soldier.
“It just came to me where it is,” I said. “I remember when she came in, what she had on her shoes.”
“Shoes?” Soldier said. “We’re talking shoes? I’m talking money, I don’t know from shoes, Mr. Happy. Money, the moola, the green.”
“I know where the money is because of her shoes.”
“I see,” Soldier said. “One of those clue things, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said. “Give me a shovel, and I’ll give you the money.”
“Hey, there we are,” Soldier said. “Angel. He’s going to give us the money. Hear that?”
Angel nodded.
“You’re all right, Happy. I could get to like you.”
“I don’t want to like you,” I said. “I want to get this over with. I give you the money, and you let us go.”
“Have I ever said different?” Soldier said. “This’s the deal I been trying to shake all day. Give me the money, I let you go. That’s what I been saying, right? That’s right, isn’t it Angel?”
“That’s right,” Angel said.
“Let’s go, Happy,” Soldier said, “you and me.”
“All of us,” I said.
“All of us?” Soldier said. “You’re telling me, all of us? Everybody’s a boss here. I mean, I’m supposed to be the boss, and I got no say.”
“I want Trudy doctored,” I said. “I want her with us. I don’t want to leave her with Angel. Angel likes what she does too much.”
“We’ll leave her with Paco.”
“No.”
“Now you’re trying to negotiate. You see where this gets you. A nail in the hand. Lying on the floor.”
“My way, in twenty, thirty minutes, you’ll have the money,” I said. “Your way could go on all day.”
“If you’re tough as she is,” Soldier said.
“I don’t think I am,” I said. “But I might be tough enough to last for a while. Longer than twenty or thirty minutes.”
The sweat on Soldier’s face looked like a thick coating of Vaseline. He wrinkled his brows and nodded.
“You got a point on the time thing, Happy Man. Not a good one, but a point. But hey, I’m sick of dicking around. I want to … What is it when you want to speed things up, Angel?”
“Expedite.”
“Expedite. That’ll do. So, deal.”
Soldier squatted behind the over-turned table, took the hammer, and hit the point of the nail hard. Trudy let out a yelp and bent at the waist and almost sat up before falling back down. The head of the big nail poked out of the back of her hand, but it was still partially in the table.
Angel got hold of Trudy’s wrist, jerked hard and the nail came out of the table and the head of it caught on the back of Trudy’s hand. Angel grabbed the nail from the bottom and shoved it through most of the way, then caught the head of it between two fingers, yanked it free and tossed it on the floor. She let go of Trudy’s wrist and put the overturned chair upright and sat Trudy in it. Trudy was as white as plaster.
“Get the monkey blood, tie a rag around her hand, whatever you want,” Soldier said. “Let’s get this over with.”
26
Angel brought some alcohol from Leonard’s medicine cabinet, tore up a pillowcase, and let me dress Trudy’s hand at the kitchen sink. Trudy was still white and a little wobbly and she flinched when I poured the alcohol on her hand, but not much. After being nailed to a table, alcohol was a treat.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I made my own choices,” she said. “You don’t know where the money is, do you, Hap?”
I didn’t answer.
“If you do, don’t tell them. They’re going to kill us anyway. Let’s don’t give them the satisfaction of the money. Scum like this, they’ll buy drugs, sell them to kids if they can make a dime.”
“Hey,” Soldier said. “Quit the debate. Happy Man’s giving me the money. And I tell you, it’s not so bad a kid or two’s got some dope, way things are. Little dope’s better than some things. Let’s roll.”
I wrapped the strips of pillowcase tight around her hand. Blood spotted through it in a matter of seconds, but it was the best I could do.
“Everybody out into the great outdoors,” Soldier said. He went over to the couch to prod Howard with the barrel of his automatic, but Howard didn’t move. Soldier bent and put his head to Howard’s chest. “This one’s checked out. Shit, I hit guys harder than that before and they didn’t die.”
“You sonofabitch,” Trudy said. “You sorry sonofabitch.”
“You hadn’t dug up the money and moved it on old Howard, he’d be with us today,” Soldier said. “But no, you got to be the smart bitch. Then you got to get a nail through your hand for nothing, ’cause old Happy Man here is going to lead me to the dough anyway.”
“He doesn’t know where it is,” Trudy said.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “I figured it out.”
“You better have,” Soldier said, “or it’s going to sound like the Fourth of July around here for about a minute. Let’s go.”
Soldier got his umbrella and put his hat on. I put an arm around Trudy, and Soldier waved Leonard in close to us and the three of us led out, Paco, Angel, and Soldier close behind.
Outside, the blowing rain and sleet had stopped, but it was cold and wet and there was the sound of thunder. I bent over and kissed Trudy next to her ear, whispered, “Just follow my lead.”
“No talking,” So
ldier said. “You get to talking, I get nervous. I like to do the talking.”
I walked straight to the barn. When we were inside, I let go of Trudy and she wobbled, but Leonard stepped in and held her up. I went over and got the shovel where Soldier had tossed it.
I started outside again.
“It’s not in here?” Soldier said. “We got to go back out in that shit?”
I didn’t say anything. I went out and Leonard followed, helping Trudy. The armed trio followed us.
I went straight to Switch’s pen, and when Leonard saw where I was going, he picked up his speed slightly. I stopped in front of the pen, and Switch came out of his house and walked cautiously toward me.
“You all right now?” Leonard said to Trudy.
“I’m all right,” she said. “I can stand just fine.”
Leonard let go of her and came over to the dog pen and said, “Switch, ol’ buddy.”
Switch came over and Leonard looked at me out of the corner of his eye. I knew then he understood what I was up to.
“What’s with stopping to pet the mutt?” Soldier said. “You on vacation here?”
“The money’s here,” I said. “One of these pens. I don’t know which one, but one. When she came back that night, the second time, she had dog shit on her shoes. This is the most likely place for her to get it. I think she buried it in one of these pens.”
“Think?” Soldier said.
“You can just about count on it,” I said.
“You got to count on it,” Soldier said. “Paco, what you think?”
“Could be,” Paco said. “Probably is.”
“Angel?” Soldier said.
Angel shrugged.
“What am I asking you for?” Soldier said. “You got your three squares, one of those protein milkshakes, some barbells, you’re happy, aren’t you?”
Angel’s expression didn’t change.
“You could be one of those things,” Soldier said. “What is it I’m trying to say here, Angel? Like a robot kind of.”
“Android,” she said.