PIGGS - A Novel with Bonus Screenplay

by Neal Barrett Jr.

  Jack pressed himself against the wall. Looked to the right without moving his head. A car. Black Lincoln. Out on the edge of the lot, far from the 20-watt bulb that lit the front door at night.

  Three guys. Four. One in the car, the others outside. One dragged on a smoke, lighting up his face.

  Jack's heart nearly stopped. He knew who they were, who they had to be. It was Ambrose Junior's people–couldn't be anyone else just waiting out there.

  Fuck, the deal was going down, it was going down tonight! If Cecil hadn't emptied his stash, he'd sure as hell do it now.

  Jack clenched his fists until they hurt. It was hopeless, no way he could ever chance it now. Even if the stash was still there–which it wouldn't be, for sure–Cecil would catch him red-handed, would kill him without a blink.

  It was over, then, done. Like all the other great plans since he'd been a hardass kid in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Something always went haywire, something always went wrong. And that something, a lot of the time, was him. Not always, maybe, sometimes another bozo helped, or a bottle or a woman came along, but he'd always sure as hell volunteered without ever looking back.

  At least this was one time he knew when to quit, when the odds were too heavy even for a dumbshit like him. If Jesus wanted him to have a lot of dough and a girl like Gloria Mundi, he'd have worked something out before now. Before Jack went off to Huntsville prison. Before he started washing dishes at Wan's, taking shit off of Cecil R. Dupree. Riding fucking underage singers on his back.

  Right?

  Right.

  So fuck it. Go for it. Death is just passing through one door and tripping through another. Ortega was always saying that, saying it didn't hurt at all. But what did Ortega know? The guy was a taco and didn't even speak his native tongue. Why would you listen to a dummy like that...?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  He had a strip of tin, bent and folded the way G.G. Perk had showed him to do. G.G. was doing twenty to life, and could open any door in the world except the ones he lived behind now.

  Jack worked in the dark, hunched at the top of the stairs. He didn't use the flash. The stairs were just past the bar, and past that was Cecil, Grape and Cat. He could even hear them talk, which didn't help at all.

  Sweat stung his eyes as he tried his pick in the first lock on the door. He couldn't read Mr. Chavez' expensive watch in the dark. What good was a watch, you couldn't see it in the dark? Fucking Mickey, you could see those little gloves in the dark, and it didn't cost a couple grand.

  Ricky's gun was something else. It pressed against his ribs, and poked him in the groin. Rich guys had to have everything big. Big cars, big watches, big guns. You never see a rich guy driving a Geo, he's never got a little gun you can drop in your pocket somewhere.

  The pick wouldn't go in the first lock, wouldn't even get past the front. Got it in the second but it wouldn't do shit. Rattled around and made a lot of noise.

  He decided not to bother with the third. Two don't work, maybe one does. So what? So try it, you're here, okay?

  The third one did the trick. Went in smooth as silk, clack-clack-click, like the pick and the lock were old friends.

  Jack waited, listened for the voices down below, then gently turned the pick. The pick went snap! and broke off neatly in his hand.

  Jack's gut began to churn, began to burn, began to go into its act. Jack held his breath, bit down the pain. He had to get down, without making a sound, tripping on something, maybe passing out.

  Death, where the fuck you going to sting? That's another thing Ortega said that didn't make a bit of sense.

  Then he did what everyone does, the thing you got to do when you know you been licked, when you can't get in the house, when you can't get in the car. You try the fucking knob, as a gesture of defiance, as a hopeless prayer that God will intercede this time, wake up a minute, and work his magic on the door. You know it's not about to happen, but it's human nature to try.

  It opened without a sound...

  The oldest gimmick in the book if you go to the movies, if you watch the TV, but art sticks a broken mirror up to life, as Ortega didn't say, but someone maybe did.

  The next part was easy. Jack used his flash and went right to the spot where the trick board had to be. He stuck a fingernail in the crack and the panel slid away...

  The box was still there.

  Jack took a deep breath. If the box was still there, and the buy was going down, Cecil would be up those stairs any minute now. The box would be gone. Cecil R. Dupree would go bananas. He'd kill everyone in sight. Especially Jack, if he caught him up there.

  He had to get out, get out of there fast. Get Mr. Chavez, get Ortega's car, drive the car to Ricky's car, get the hell out of Mexican Wells.

  Jack pulled the box out of the hole. It was heavy, like it ought to be, a box full of that much dough. He set the box aside, replaced the panel in the floor. Didn't hear a thing until someone rattled the knob, someone opened the door.

  Jack rolled, the box tucked into his belly, rolled behind the sofa as Cecil flipped the lights.

  Jack froze, his hand on the grip of the heavy, silver-engraved weapon. The hammer caught in his belt, the sight stuck in his shorts. Cecil stomped about the room. Jack watched his shadow on the wall. Reached into his pants, freed the revolver and eased the weapon out.

  Cecil walked to the far side of the room. Opened a closet, got something out, turned and started back. Jack, flat on his back, could see Cecil's big bare feet, the frayed cuffs of his overalls dragging on the floor.

  Jack's gut went berserk. He knew what Cecil was doing, he was coming for the stash, coming for the money to make the buy.

  Jack's hand tightened on the weapon. It would happen, happen in a minute, in a minute and a half. Cecil opens the panel, sees the box is gone. Yells and goes nuts, shouts for Grape and Cat. Jack shoots Cecil, so he won't have to take on all three.

  Wait–they'll hear the shot, know he's in there. Jack has to chance it, whack them all at once. He's not Bruce Willis so he'll miss at least one–maybe all three. Pow! End of the movie, no more problems after that...

  Jack gripped the Magnum, watched Cecil's feet. Cecil stopped. Waited a second, then turned and flipped the light and walked out the door.

  Jack nearly lost it. Nearly threw up on Cecil's floor. Cecil didn't even go to the stash, he didn't get the money at all!

  And Jack, several hundred rungs below Cecil on the ladder of crime, still knew at once what Cecil had in mind. That's what he was doing, stopping and thinking, in the middle of the room. He was thinking how he'd stiff the sellers, get the merchandise and keep the dough.

  Cecil Dupree would do that. Cecil R. Dupree was crazy enough to try it, and crazy enough to bring it off...

  Jack used every ragged nerve he had left to get back down the stairs, and out the side door. Cecil, Grape and Cat were gone. Drinks left on the table. Peanuts, candy wrappers on the floor.

  They were outside, then, meeting the Ambrose bunch. Jack kept close to the building, didn't even look at the lot, didn't take the shortcut to Wan's, went the long way around.

  For a minute, he thought about Mr. Chavez, leaving him behind. What if someone saw him? The dumpster was close to the lot. The trouble was, the Mescan was the only person who could get him that offshore truss account, put his money safe somewhere so he and Gloria could get off to a good start. Without Ricky's help–

  Jack's heart nearly stopped. Chavez was gone! Ragged strips of duct tape clinged to the dumpster, but the son of a bitch beaner was gone!

  Jack backed away fast, turned and ran past Wan's, past the back lot and through the high weeds, juggling Cecil's stash, tripping over bricks, bottles, tomato crates, all the crap Jack was supposed to haul away.

  Fuck Chavez, Jack thought, he was on his own now. He couldn't have much of a start, and he wouldn't make it to his Park Avenue. It was too far to walk, even if you weren't stark naked—–and besides, Jack had the keys. He could get to the Buick in Ortega's
wreck in ten, fifteen minutes flat.

  He paused, in the shadow of the live oak trees. Listened, couldn't hear a thing from Piggs. Good. That's what he wanted to hear. Nothing from Piggs, Wan's, Cecil, the whole bunch, ever again...

  Ortega's car was gone.

  Jack felt strangely calm. He wasn't angry, his stomach felt fine. He wasn't even greatly surprised. What the hell did he expect? Why should anything go right? You got a perfect run of bad luck, why break it now?

  Okay, he had the gun, he had the stash. He could make it to the Park Avenue before it got light. Even if Chavez tried to get there, tried to get a ride–who'd pick up a naked Mescan in the middle of the night?

  "No one in their fucking right mind," Jack thought, the words coming to him as the first harsh volley of shots echoed through the trees...

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  "What we going to do, we going to do it like they do on TV," said Hamilton T. Gerrard. "I'm the black dude, you the white guy. I put my stuff on the hood, you putting yours there too. Y'all with me so far?"

  "Just do it," Cecil said. "I don't got to hear no rappity-rap, I don't got to hear no fucking soul."

  Gerrard shook his head and grinned. "You are a difficult man to get along with, Mr. Dupree."

  "Yeah, right. Let's see what you got, I'm tired of standing out here."

  "Might think about shoes, Mr. Dupree. Meaning no offense."

  Cecil didn't answer, and didn't take offense. He knew the routine, that's what you had to do. You do the talk, you knock the other guy, the other guy knocks you. The talk don't mean a thing. The talk lets you size the thing up. Same for the other guy, he's thinking too. Is he going to play it straight, or maybe try and take me down? Which one am I going to do?

  So he talks to the nigger, the nigger talks to him. All the time they're talking, Cecil's taking in who the guy brought. The nigger's smart, Cecil's got to give him that. The bozos he's got are three white guys, and Cecil sees they've been there all along. The big guy was a trucker, one of the horsies from the race the night before. The other two were with him in the club tonight.

  Cecil has thought about something like this. How anyone can come in the club, you don't know who they are. These three assholes are shooters, you can see that now, but if a guy's good, you got a hundred other guys drinking and yelling, it's fucking hard to tell.

  The way it is, Cecil's leaning against his green Caddie, like he's maybe considering a nap. Cat's to his right, Grape's to his left. Just across from Cecil, Hamilton T. Gerrard is leaning on his car, looking cool and black. One of the truckers is standing on the far side of the Lincoln, watching Grape. The other two are just behind Gerrard. Everybody's got a gun, everybody knows that.

  Cecil doesn't care it's four to three. It isn't how many, it's what's you do with what you got. Five to three, maybe, he wouldn't go for that.

  "It's hot up here, isn't even light yet," said Hamilton Gerrard. "Don't see how you'all put up with it, Mr. Dupree."

  "You got what, a fucking glacier in New Orleans, it's snowing down there?"

  Gerrard smiled. One of the truckers started to laugh, but caught himself quick.

  "We don't get out in it, Mr. Dupree. We stay in the A.C. White tourist folks, they out in the heat. Willie Bee," Gerrard said, without taking his eyes off Cecil Dupree, "would you kindly get the merchandise out of the trunk, so me and my new friend can do some business here?"

  Cecil flinched at the "friend" bit, but stood up straight, watching the bozo walk to the Lincoln's trunk. Grape moved a hair to the left. Even Cat had the sense to pay attention now.

  The Lincoln was side-on to Cecil and his crew, but anything could happen, a guy's reaching in a trunk. He can come up with a missile, anything at all.

  The guy was a pro. He took it slow and easy, brought out the attaché case in plain sight, laid it on the Lincoln's hood.

  Hamilton T. Gerrard let his gaze flick from Cecil to Grape, Grape to the Cat, back to Cecil again. Everybody looked at everybody else, looked at everyone again.

  "So, okay," Cecil said finally, "let's have a look. Maybe I'm buying today."

  Gerrard raised a brow. "Let's look at yours, Mr. Dupree."

  Cecil didn't answer. He raised a brow back. Took a step away, turned and moved to the green Cadillac. Picked up an attache sitting on the ground by the bumper, plainly in sight.

  Hamilton T. Gerrard had seen him put it there, when Cecil and his crew came out of Piggs. He'd put it there till it was time to bring it out.

  And Hamilton thought, as Cecil came toward him now, how he would have put the case just out of sight. Thought, too, he would've sent somebody, wouldn't go and pick it up himself.

  ...all this in a second, in a blur, little bright lights flick-flick in his head, then another after that, and this one fills him with awful dread...Cecil's smiling, happy as a clam, but that fucking mask isn't purple, isn't red anymore, it's as black as Gerrard's own skin...

  Everything is flick-flick now, everything happens, turns to shit in a blink and a half.

  Grape knows how it goes down: When the deal's all over, things are cooling down, Grape pulls the Glock from his belt, takes out the guy on the left. Cat, who is broad enough to hide a tank, has a 12-gauge sawed-off hanging down his back. He takes out the bozos on the right. Cecil's got a blade, he does Hamilton T. Gerrard. This is how the thing's supposed to be, this is what they talked about, sitting there in Piggs...

  ...Three feet, two feet from Gerrard, Cecil lifts the case like it's going on the hood, next to the other case, where it ought to be. The .38 Charter is taped to the case, the side that Gerrard can't see. Gerrard can't see the gun, but he can see that face, and knows what Cecil's got in mind, knows this redneck fuck intends to kill him dead, just doesn't know how.

  The .38 explodes, three blinding flares of white. Three frames of a mobster movie sear the night. Three very mean Hydra-Shoks, jacketed hollow point, head for the gut of Hamilton Gerrard. When they hit, when they strike, they'll mushroom and make a horrid mess.

  Hamilton's gone. Hamilton isn't there. He ducks to the right, turns his face aside, feels the heat of the little copper bees go by. One of the bees digs a furrow in the Lincoln's shiny hood. Two tear into the attaché and out the other side. The attaché erupts in a massive burst of coke, in a choking cloud of dope, in a cloud that would turn on Houston and half of San Antone.

  Grape stumbles back. Can't believe his eyes. Sees Cat grab the sawed-off, jerks out the Glock, shoots Cat in the head. Cat staggers, takes a drunken step, goes over like an 18-wheeler truck.

  Grape begans to shake, pees down his pants. "Aw, man," he groans, "what the fuck is this...!"

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Cecil is stunned, dizzy, totally out of synch. He can't see shit, he's white from head to toe. Hamilton Gerrard is white, too, but his face is still black, for he saw death coming and turned away in time.

  Gerrard is no longer laid back, he is no longer cool, he is surely not happy, he is surely not fine. This is the other Hamilton T. Gerrard, the one who's foaming at the mouth, the one who's pleasant features are twisted in a dark, demonic rage.

  The one who is kicking Cecil in the head, in the gut, in the crotch, anywhere he can.

  Gerrard's three shooters blast away, firing into the pale narcotic cloud. Bullets whine this way and that. Into the cars, into the trees, into deepest inner space. One hits a bird in flight, one takes the "P" out of Piggs.

  "Hold it, you fucking morons!" shouts Hamilton T. Gerrard, "you going to hurt somebody like that!"

  The guns go silent. Cecil moans on the ground. Gerrard kicks him in the belly, kicks him soundly on the nose. Squats down, opens Cecil's attaché case, stands up, brushes off his pants.

  "Considering the circumstance, I am not surprised there isn't any money in here, isn't anything at all. Why you figure that is, Mr. Grape?"

  Grape was more than uneasy, he was wet, shaken, purely terrified, certain he was close to being dead.

  "Honest to G
od, Mr. Gerrard, I seen him go up, I seen him bring the case down..."

  "You see anything in the case, Mr. Grape? You see about seventy-five grand?"

  "No, sir. Mr. Cecil, he didn't show it to me."

  "Carried it himself. Didn't show it to you."

  "No, sir, he did not. Didn't show me nothing at all."

  Grape looked at Cecil. Cecil looked bad. Didn't look at Cat.

  "It wasn't supposed to go like that. We was supposed to take you out after the buy was done. I told Mr. Ambrose Junior on the phone. I didn't know nothing about this shit."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I had to take out Cat, Mr. Gerrard. You saw me do that!"

  "I saw it." Hamilton T. Gerrard looked straight at Grape. "You betray Mr. Dupree, maybe you do the same to me."

  "Hey, I'd be nuts to do that. I made a deal, you got to know I wouldn't do that."

  "Don't know any such thing. Know my dope is blowing every which way. Know I got no money to show. I know Mr. Ambrose Junior going to ask me what kind of shit going on up here."

  "Mr. Gerrard–"

  "Bobby Cee, my man, Mr. Grape and I going to have a little talk inside. Keep an eye on Mr. Dupree here. Don't do him no hurt or anything. Mr. Ambrose Junior going to see Mr. Dupree personal, seeing as how I don't intend to take the flack for this fuckup myself. Mr. Grape, you kindly come with me. See if we can maybe–what the fuck! Mack, Willie B.!"

  Gerrard stared, as headlights swung off the road and seared his eyes. Gerrard's shooters scattered. One to the left, one to the right. One stuck his pistol in the window of a blue Toyota, yelled at the driver, told him to get the fuck out.

  The driver stepped out slowly, hands in the air. Looked about, took in the scene, had an idea what was happening here.

  "Get your ass over here," Gerrard said, "who you supposed to be?"

  "Rhino," Rhino said. "I work here. Who the hell are you?"

  "He runs the Chink place, Mr. Gerrard," said Willie B. "Food tastes like shit."