by Jason Miller
It took me a moment.
“J.T.?”
“Yup. Amanda got the gun in a very nasty divorce. She didn’t want the piece, so she gave it to her mother. Mother doesn’t really want it, either, but she hates Black and she’ll do a headstand in cow shit to let him know it. Your pal Black shows up one day in a huff and collects it. Helen Dees reports said crime to the Jackson County sheriffs . . .”
“Who refuse to do anything about a theft involving one of their own.”
“You really are sharp, hayseed.”
“If I were really sharp, would I have stepped into this nest of vipers?”
“That hurts.”
“It was supposed to.”
“Whatever. Warning delivered. Now go somewhere else and stay out of our way,” he said. “Stay out of jail.”
He rolled up his window and drove away. I stood there thunderstruck.
BY THE TIME I HEADED HOME FROM MY MEETING WITH THE mean FBI man, I was plumb tuckered. Seriously, you could have put me to bed for a year and when I woke up I’d have hit snooze. Anyway, despite my weariness in both mind and spirit, I stopped by the Huck’s for some replacement sodas and ice cream, hoping to make it up to Anci. She likes that fancy Ben and Jerry’s, and I do too—I’m American enough that I like it when even my ice cream is attached to some cause like saving the rainforests or fighting various kinds of cancer. Makes me feel better about my waistline. The problem with the Huck’s was, they only carried those lowbrow ice creams, big boxes or those plastic gallon drums, from creameries that didn’t seem to care about anything but profit. I thought about driving to one of the big stores, but that was a half hour in any direction, so I finally settled for some chocolate for me and some strawberry for Anci. As the clerk was ringing up my stomachache, my phone rang.
“Yo?”
“You hit Leonard Black?”
“I said yo. You’re supposed to say yo back.”
“Stuff your yos,” said Carol Ray. “You did, didn’t you? You sonofabitch. Hit him, and with his own rifle, no less.”
“Technically, I think it was a musket. I had this funny urge about keeping him from shooting me with it. How’d you find out, anyway?”
“Spike called me with the after-action report.”
“So his name really is Spike? I’ll be damned.”
“Of course his name’s really Spike. Why? Is it important?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s just a neat name is all.”
“Oh, Slim . . .”
“Bad?”
“Well, I don’t really know yet. I haven’t spoken to Leonard, just Spike. Leonard’s still snoring and farting.”
“Okay.”
“But yeah, it’s shitstorm bad.”
“Maybe I can find a way to make it up.”
Carol Ray snorted.
“With what? Flowers?”
“I don’t think Leonard’s much of a say-it-with-flowers kinda guy.”
“I meant for me, stupid.”
“Ah.”
“Let me work on it from my end,” she said. “I’ll let you know. Until then, stay tight.”
“Speaking of your end.”
“Not tonight, darling. I’ve got a headache.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant. You don’t know Amanda Dees, do you?”
“Nope.”
Click.
I DROVE HOME. I FELT WORN OUT. DEPRESSED EVEN. IF I’D had a spoon, I’d have opened the ice cream, eaten some along the way. The ice cream boxes were sweating through the plastic bag, so I rolled up the windows and turned on the truck’s AC, but it was still so hot outside that the windows fogged over, so I turned it off and gave up. We’d just have to settle for melty ice cream. I was pretty close to Shake-a-Rag when my phone rang again.
“What’s the scoop?” Anci.
“Funny you should mention. I’m on my way home with ice cream.”
“Strawberry?”
“What else?”
“It’s a start,” she said. “By the by, there’s someone waiting for you in the driveway.”
My throat seized up a little. Anci wasn’t alone, but the idea of someone hanging outside the house wasn’t something I was too thrilled about.
“Who is it?”
“Dunno. Opal talked to her, wouldn’t let her in the house.”
“I’ll be there in five.”
I made it in three. There was a woman standing in my driveway beside a Dodge Rambler so big it looked like two cars masquerading as one for Halloween. She was wearing jean shorts, a cutoff T-shirt, and a sneer.
“Where the Sam Hill have you been?” she asked before I could step down from my wheels. She snapped some chewing gum at me. “I been standing here a fucking hour already.”
“I’m . . . sorry?”
“You don’t look it.”
“Likely that’s because I don’t feel it,” I said. I looked at her more closely, hoping for a twinge of recognition. Nothing. It wasn’t the sort of face you easily forgot, either, lean and as long as a Wagnerian opera. She wasn’t pretty, but she was trying hard to be. Her hair was the antigravity marvel favored by southern Illinois cheerleaders, but even that and her high-school-senior fashion sense couldn’t quite disguise the fact that she’d long since crossed the thirty-year mark. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“Mandy. Duh.”
“Okay.”
“You’re Slim,” she told me. “Who’s the redhead in the house?”
Her gum went snap snap.
“She’s a friend.”
“Yeah, well, she wouldn’t let me in. Kinda rude about it, too. Tell your friend her day’s gonna come.”
“I wouldn’t bother with it, Mandy.”
“I ain’t afraid of her,” she said. “I ain’t afraid of nothing.”
I thumbed back toward the house.
“She’s Jeep Mabry’s wife.”
“Don’t tell her I said nothing, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I was only kidding.”
“Your comic stylings are a mystery to me,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want nothing,” she said. “J.T. wants to see you. He’s been wanting to see you for a couple of days now. You really ought to come home more often.”
“In many ways, I’m a troubled person,” I replied. “But I want to see J.T. Just say where and when.”
“He’s been hiding out at the Elks in Z.R. for about three days. He’s there now.”
“Hiding in plain sight, eh?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said. I kissed her hand, and she blushed.
“He said he’d wait until I called,” she stammered.
“Okay, go ahead and call. I’ll head right out.”
“I will,” she said. She took out her phone and then looked up at me, as nervous as a June bug in a room full of ducks. “That really Jeep’s wife?”
“Yeah. You ever met him?”
“No, but I’ve heard tell. I’d like to see it for myself one day. See him in action, I mean. But it’s like deciding where you’d like to watch a fertilizer plant explosion from.”
“It is that.”
I thanked her and walked up to the house with the ice cream. Opal and Anci were reading in the kitchen. Nice as pie.
“Purple eyeliner still out there?” Opal said.
“I talked to her, but she’s gone now.”
“That the aforementioned ice cream?” Anci asked.
“Strawberry and chocolate, as promised.”
She collected the boxes and put them in the freezer. When she came back, she kissed me on the cheek.
“What’s that for?” I asked, mildly shocked.
“For not being a total dummy.”
“Well, thank you. It’s the ice cream, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the ice cream. Well, not just. Don’t let it go to your head.”
“I won’t.”
“It’s not like you brough
t Ben and Jerry’s, after all.”
“I’ll do better next time.” I said to Opal, “All quiet here?”
“Yes,” she said. “We’ve got our books and DVDs and a lot of music I’ve never heard of.”
Anci rolled her eyes, but truth was, she was thrilled about Opal’s visit. In a while Peggy would join the two of them for a sleepover. Jeep and I had business that night.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
Anci kissed me on the cheek again. Opal did, too.
“That’s two kisses for you,” said Anci.
“Three, counting the first one.”
I went out. Mandy was still in the driveway.
“Why the hell are you still here?” I asked.
She stared up at me from under sparkly purple eyelids, her gum snapping noisily between her lips.
“Why am I still here? Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry?”
I blinked at her once or twice.
“Sorry? What for?”
“For making me wait.” She blew a pink bubble. “I had things to do, too, you know?”
“Just call J.T. and tell him I’m on the way, okay?”
“I already did that,” she said, and rolled her eyes at the world’s injustice. “Mr. Insensitive.”
ZEIGLER-ROYALTON WAS A FORTY-FIVE MINUTE DRIVE, AND for all I knew J.T. Black would have packed up and split by the time I arrived. If I was right, he had as busy a night ahead of him as I did, but I didn’t figure I could pass up a chance for a sit-down heart-to-heart. Besides, he’d been thoughtful enough to send a personalized invitation. I cranked up the radio and hauled ass toward Z.R.
The Elks in town wasn’t run by the men’s club anymore, hadn’t been for ten years or so, but the name and the stuffed buck still occupied the space above its doorway, most likely because everyone was too lazy or too drunk to take them down. Black was inside, hunched over the bar next to a guy with no arms, but otherwise the place was nearly empty. I drew up a stool and sat between them.
“Slim.”
“J.T.”
Black said, “Slim, this is Sticky,” and nodded at his drinking buddy.
J.T. and I shook hands. Sticky shook hands with his eyes.
“You just about missed your chance with me, hayseed,” J.T. said.
“Can you blame me?” I raised my finger for a beer. The bartender got J.T.’s approval before he’d serve me. “Look at the kinds of places you want to take me.”
“You don’t like it, man,” the bartender growled, “you can just pack up your shit and take it on down the road.”
The guy without arms thought it was hilarious.
“Hey, no offense,” I offered, and I even showed him my open hands, but I don’t think he believed me. In places like that, offense wasn’t taken; it came free with every drink. I said to J.T., “I’ve been looking all over for you, man.”
“I know you have,” J.T. said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. You can call off the fucking search, man, ’cause I am getting my ass out of this dump.”
I nodded like I knew what he was talking about, but all he did was give me the twice-over with unsympathetic eyes and stroke the beer foam off his mustache. Hard to tell in the gloomy light of the Elks, but I got the distinct feeling that J.T. Black hadn’t been getting his eight solid hours a night.
“Might not be the best idea, son,” I told him. “You know, lots of folks are looking for you pretty hard.”
J.T. shook his head sadly.
“Yeah, I’ve heard tell. Wince. Lindley. The goddamn FBI . . .”
“That’s what I’ve been calling them.”
“You ever hear of a guy named Carter?”
“Just recently, in fact.”
“Yeah, well, do yourself a favor and stay clear of him. He’s a tornado with a badge.”
“How about a guy named Tibbs?”
“Him, too.” He looked at me. “Without the shield, though. You know, it’s the goddamnedest thing, man. You’ve been running your ass off looking for Sheldon and A. Evan for, what, a week now?”
“Longer.”
“Yeah, well, I’d be willing to bet my last five bucks you don’t even know why.”
“Dennis Reach is why.”
The bartender brought our things, a couple of drafts with foamy heads, an ashtray as clean as they came, and two fingers of something brown in a shot glass for the former Jackson County deputy.
“Denny Reach was a cocksucker,” J.T. said. “Not even worth pissing on, so give that shit a rest, will you?”
“Fair enough,” I said. “That why you killed him?”
He looked at me a long time.
“You’re just lucky I didn’t kill him, motherfucker,” he said at last. He showed me a mouthful of teeth. “If I did, you wouldn’t be walking out of here.”
I opened my mouth to make a crack about his friend being unarmed, but just then the bartender, who didn’t like me anyway, slung an evil-looking sawed-off from under the bar and tucked it neatly beneath my chin. If he’d pulled the trigger, what was left of me would have flown backward off the barstool, across the room, and out the door onto the lonely Z.R. streets.
“Put that thing away, Fish,” J.T. said softly, looking over his shoulder. It’d be inaccurate to say that the place froze—it wasn’t exactly moving in the first place—but its alcoholic old muscles tightened somewhat, and one or two of the sprightlier drunks cleared their throats and gazed longingly at the spaces beneath their tables. “Fish is from East St. Louis,” J.T. explained when Fish had put it away.
“Ever been to the top of the Arch?” I asked, and for an instant I thought the shotgun would reappear, but J.T. surprised us all by braying like a jackass, rearing back to slap his knee, and, in the process, nearly falling off his stool and onto the floor.
“Goddamn, boy, you are a piece of work,” he said. “Hey, Fish, did you hear that shit? You’ve got a fucking scattergun under the guy’s throat, and he wants to know if you’ve ever been up in the Arch.” He shook his head. “Man, that is rich. That is some rich shit.”
Fish still didn’t see the humor in it all. His right eye flickered in little spasms, and the ropy veins in his forehead knotted like they might burst.
“Hey, it’s great laughing with you all,” I said, “but I get the feeling you didn’t call me out here just to tell me to fuck off. Especially since you were pretty much doing that anyway.”
“You’re right, man,” he admitted, awfully cheerful for one of the condemned. “You ever hear of a motherfucker named Norris?”
“Morris? Like the cat?”
“No, man, Norris. With an N. He owns a gun shop in Carbondale, right there across from the mall.”
“So what?”
“So, I sold the gun to him.”
“The AR-15?”
“Long time ago, man,” J.T. said. “I haven’t seen that fucking thing in, like, three years, Slim. Honest.”
“Why’d you steal it in the first place?”
The kid shook his head.
“Steal? Hell, man, I didn’t steal shit. The gun was mine. I picked it out. I bought it. I’m the only one who ever discharged it. And when the time came to give it up during the divorce, all of a sudden, it was a fucking gift. Shit, I don’t have to tell you how messy divorce is, man.”
“I read a book about it once.”
He slid a piece of paper between us. It was stamped with the name of the pawnshop and a date three years ago.
“That doesn’t really prove anything,” I said. “You could have retrieved the gun and kept the ticket, or had someone else buy it for you and kept the ticket as an alibi.”
“Three years ago? That’s seems a little complicated.”
“It kinda does, yeah.”
“I didn’t do it, man.”
“You know what?” I said. “I think I actually believe you.”
He surprised me by saying, “Thanks.”
“Tell me about Sheldon and A. Evan Cleaves,” I said. “Or the
Harvels.”
He shrugged, but I could tell he didn’t like hearing their names. He made a face like he meant to spit.
“What’s to tell? Sheldon used to be a fire boss at one of my old man’s mines. The Harvels are nuts. A. Evan’s crazier than all of them stacked end to end. This one time when we were kids, he made us play circus. I know it sounds weird, but he was obsessed with circuses. We never wanted to play with him, my brothers and me, but one day he hung some sheets in an old carport at an empty house down the way and put out some chairs and drew some rings on the floor with chalk, and we came to the circus. He even had tickets. Except when we get there, it’s a geek show. You know what that is?”
“I’ve heard, yeah.”
“Yeah, well, I was seven at the time. Maybe eight. I didn’t know. A. Evan had pinched some chickens from one of the neighbors, live chickens, and we sat there watching while he bit off their heads and spat blood and chicken brains all over the walls and all over us. Eventually, he threw up, but I think he threw up from laughing so hard at the looks on our faces.”
“He was seven at the time, too?”
“No. He’s younger. He was five or six.”
“Jesus.”
“Jesus never heard of A. Evan Cleaves, Slim,” he said. “Or if he has, he’s staying away.”
“So what’s their connection to Reach, and why did Reach steal their dog?”
“I honestly don’t know, man. I really don’t. Dennis and I had a falling out before he brought them on. All I know is that everyone thinks that I know, so it’s time to boogie.”
“Just a victim of circumstance, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Catch you later, then.”
He looked up at me with eyes that were almost sad.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” I said. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“You know, man, I don’t really blame you for all this. I blame Reach and the rest of the rats. And Tibbs. And A. Evan Cleaves. But my life in this part of the world is pretty much over, man, and it’d be nice if you’d at least act a little sympathetic.”
I dropped some money on the bar.
“Catch you later,” I said again, and walked out.
NINE O’CLOCK OR SO, WE HEARD A FEW DROPS, THE FIRST time in a while; it was a drizzle with all of the promise of rain, but none of the follow-through, and it didn’t do much to break the heat or soften the baked earth. Some of it came through the tarp on the roof, and Anci and I put out pots and pans to collect the drips. Peggy was there, and Jeep and Opal arrived shortly after. It was time for business. I kissed Peggy and kissed Anci on the head, and then Jeep and I started off without speaking. I guess we both had a pretty good idea what we were about to see, and neither of us was the least bit happy about it.
