Eileen said, “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I want to be a good man. At least a better man. But I might need to do some bad things to get there.”
She let her eyes go out of focus while she thought about it. “Sometimes trouble can swallow people up,” she said. Her soft eyes drooped a little with weariness. “Like Alex.”
“I know it,” I said. “You can see how it has to go. Can’t you?”
“It sounds like you’re telling me good-bye.”
“No,” I said. Just then my tongue and my throat stopped up, and I could not have spoken, even if I could have found words to tell what I was feeling. I put my hand to her shoulder and then to her cheek, cupping her finely shaped jaw. With her head now sinking into the pillow, I could see that she was mulling things over with some resignation. With the cooling sweat and perhaps also from loss of blood, I shivered. My arm trembled so much that I withdrew my hand from her and balled up a fist close to my chest. I got up and sat at the edge of the bed. It would not be long before evening fell, I knew, and I wanted to scout Hardiman’s place by the lake before I lost the light.
She said, “You’ll have to choose for yourself what you need to do.”
“I’m not sorry,” I said. “I’m not sorry at all for what we’ve done here.” I pulled the sheet over her bare shoulder.
Though it was only late afternoon, her eyes seemed dark and sleepy. She curled up a bit under the sheet and gazed at me steadily. It wasn’t plain what she was thinking, if she was happy or regretful or worried; she was fully a woman, and not so easy for me to figure out.
“If I can, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Pete, your neck.”
I touched it gingerly. “It’ll stop eventually.” I stood up and felt how ridiculous a naked man can be. “It’s just blood.”
“Bring him back to me, Pete. He’s all that’s left of Tommy.”
She fell completely under the spell of sleep while I dressed myself in my dead brother’s clothes. I closed and locked her doors before I stepped out into the failing daylight and walked dumbly to my car.
* * *
Even the bugs were in league against me. I couldn’t guess how many hundreds of crickets sang in the scrub surrounding Hardiman’s hideaway. As I crunched over the gravel at the edge of the two-track driveway, I became aware that they stopped chirping as I approached and took up again after I had passed, as if I threw off a halo of heat and anger that could be read in the black night. Still, I thought, at least I know there’s nobody else around. I can’t see a damn thing.
After I left Eileen’s house, as darkness began to fall, I made my way slowly northward, then east to Lake St. Clair. Though the chauffeur had left me a nicely drawn map and detailed instructions, I had to drive by a few times before I caught sight of the weedy drive heading down to the lake. After the glow in the west faded completely, I ditched the car and walked through the trees until I found the drive.
I crept along until the drive opened up to a grassy lawn, then stood for a long time in the deep shadows of the trees. Tommy’s trousers fit me a bit snugly and smelled of mothballs, but the shirt was clean and white and fit well. Though the crickets told me there was no one else around, I turned self-consciously from the cleared area and toward the trees as I drained off one last feeble piss. Away from the lights of the city, I could make out clearly the splash of stars over my head. I wished for a moon. The house was very quiet, though I could see swarms of bugs gathered at the lighted windows. I stood still until I could make out the lay of the place: a long wooden porch and the front door, probably another door in the back, and maybe another in a Florida room, which I guessed might be facing the lake. There was a big Suburban truck in the drive, and I made my way toward it.
The hood was just slightly warm. What did it mean? I tried to think, but it didn’t seem important. That kind of truck was built for hauling men and could probably carry ten in a pinch. My revolver had six shots. I could reload, but it wasn’t something I could do quickly with the missing fingers.
There was no wind to push the gauzy curtains in the open windows. I thought I heard a radio playing somewhere inside. Why hesitate? I thought they must be waiting for me, expecting me. If everyone else knew what I was about, surely these men, who had made it their business to know my every move, would not be surprised to see me walk through their door.
I opened the door to the Suburban and slammed it hard, like I had arrived in another car, but then I shuddered in spite of myself at the sudden sound. Though the night was warm, sweat soaked my armpits. I walked quickly onto the porch, stomping my feet like a man shaking dew from his boots, and tried the door. It was unlocked. I went through it like falling into a well. Inside, I twice forced a dry cough, hoping whoever was inside would take my lack of stealth as familiarity. After closing the door behind me carelessly, I pulled my revolver from the rig and stepped heavily down the hall, toward the lighted room where a hush had fallen but no movement could be heard, no scrambling, no scrape of metal on metal.
The three of them looked up at me in genuine surprise as I stepped out of the darkness. On another day I might have laughed. I pressed off a shot at Frye, the runt, thunderous in the little foyer, but the hollow bullet only puffed into the upholstery of the leather chair as Frye scrambled away. I put a bullet through the sternum of one of the big blond boys, who flailed his legs as if in a dream, running in a quagmire. The other blond boy could think of nothing to do but lift the little table that held his drink and a little hairbrush. He tried to shield himself with it, but I fired once under the table, hitting him just under the rib cage. My next shot splintered through the table and into his face.
I fired again at Frye, who had scrambled to his feet. The shot lagged several feet behind his small figure. My legs felt like cracking logs when I finally found the coordination to rush after him. Keeping my revolver ahead of me, I staggered into the dining room and turned, following, figuring to keep moving forward for a last good shot even though I knew I’d feel bullets slapping into me.
No bullets came. I bulled into the kitchen and found Frye there, scrambling at the lock on the door to the Florida room. He’s locked it by mistake, I thought. Or somebody else locked it.
I moved in just close enough for a good shot and planted my feet. Frye stopped scrambling at the door and turned slowly. His face was a wild grimace or a smile, and his dull blue teeth seemed overlarge, hanging crookedly from puffy red gums. I had almost pulled the trigger when I was startled to realize that Frye had winked at me. The runt’s pale yellowy eyes were lit up with merriment, twinkling in the dim light that made it past my blocky frame. He seemed to be looking at something behind me. Around the edges of my vision I saw stars, points of light swirling like lightning bugs. I couldn’t get enough air.
Someone is behind me, I thought. I’m caught like a dummy again.
I whirled and squeezed the trigger, firing my last shot at the fourth man in the house, firing dead into the middle of where his chest should be—but there was no one there. Before I could turn to face him again, Frye was on my back like a tick. I felt a bony arm snake under my chin and clamp down on my neck. I tried to shake myself loose, brought my bad hand up to rip the arm from my neck, but could not find a grip. I tried to tuck my chin low, but he had taken hold solidly.
I could muscle up my neck enough to keep an airway open, but I knew that the arteries on my neck were outside the muscles. I lurched about the kitchen, hoping to dislodge Frye or scrape him off, but the little man was nothing but bone and gristle. We staggered through the dining room and into the foyer, where I stopped reeling and tried to think. I put the muzzle of the revolver back over my ear, pressed it into Frye’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. The dull click did nothing to loosen his grip.
I turned the gun over in my hand and tried to beat Frye with the butt of it, but the thrashing only gave him an opportunity to tighten his grip. Then I dropped the gun and frantically grabbed at Frye
’s arms with both hands. I reached far back and pulled out a handful of his hair, then another and another, but soon felt my strength dribbling away. My heart was pounding. Run, I thought. I can still run. If I could crash through the Florida room and hoof it down to the lake and hold Frye under the water, he might loosen his grip a little, just a little, enough to let a bit of blood back in my head …
I dropped to my knees, then down on all fours. The strength in my neck went, and so I could not take breath any longer. I felt my stomach twisting up to vomit, but I held it down. In my ears there was a sound like rushing water, like heavy water falling a long way down onto jagged rocks. Someone was calling to me like in a dream—Eileen? But there was no hope of waking this time.
There was a louder noise, a cracking, like a splash that hurt my ears.
Frye gave a start but held his grip. Then he began to wriggle and jerk. When the wriggling became a spasm, his grip loosened; I reached back and pulled Frye off of me like a soggy shirt. Blood sprayed over my cheek and arm as the little man’s squirming body fell.
I leaned back on my knees and sucked in a deep breath. My arms and legs were numb and buzzing, and I tried to shake some feeling into them, but then I fell forward again with dizziness. I jerked my head stiffly to the side as I fell to keep my nose from hitting the floor. Stars flashed in my eye as my head bounced, but I thought I saw a colored man in the room with a gun. It flashed through my mind: The ghost of Pease has come to call. I couldn’t see clearly enough to know anything about it. Pushing myself back up to my knees, I felt some strength coming back.
Frye was still squirming and arching his back on the floor before me, blood pouring from both sides of his rib cage. I crawled over to him and took his bony head between my hands, one on the jaw and the other at the back of the skull, and I twisted with everything I had left. Frye turned over on his belly and scrambled for purchase with his hands and knees, but I got on top and pinned him down hard with a knee on his back, leaned into the job. With my hands wrapped around him, I could feel his ugly teeth gnash and crack as his jaw turned. The spastic writhing of his throat gagging and twisting onto itself shot like electricity into me through the skin and gristle of my good hand—and especially through the bad one. I felt a few small pops and one great grinding crunch as Frye’s neck snapped. Then all the wriggling stopped.
I rolled off and heaved for my breath on all fours, expecting the slap of another shot and not caring. My mind blared in a white buzz, and I felt the quick flush of the familiar feeling that came whenever I had to kill someone: embarrassment. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach like fish were in there swimming, and I felt red, like everybody in the world could see what I had done.
Frye was watching me. His eyes were wide open and moving in his backward head. His teeth—his dentures—hung halfway out of his wrecked mouth. There didn’t seem to be any life in him, but still he watched.
No, I thought. You can’t shame me.
But he had shamed me. I felt like I had killed a retard or a gimp, something that had been dealt a bad hand by nature, something to be pitied. He was born wrong, and I was sorry that I lived in a world where there could be somebody like Frye, best off dead. But of course he would have killed me—he was killing me. I swung my head around, trying to clear things up. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough then to realize that I’d killed the man who had made me in some way into a monster. After a few moments, his eyes stopped rolling, and—like a rat’s eyes—I couldn’t tell if there was anything behind them.
The colored man stood at the far end of the room, watching. I pushed back onto my haunches and put a foot flat on the floor.
“Ah-ah,” said the man. “Maybe you next, bug-eye.”
I leaned on my knee and focused on the colored man. Presently I recognized Toby Thrumm’s battered face. His nose was still busted up and swollen where I had smashed it, and the swelling made it look like he was squinting. He stood in the entryway to the room, at the end of the front hall, shifting his weight from foot to foot. His right arm was in a cast and held in a sling across his body, so he held the pistol awkwardly in his left hand, half-trained on me:
“Thrumm, you stupid bastard,” I croaked.
“If you ain’t the sorriest, stupidest white man I ever seen,” said Thrumm. His speech was sloppy from the swelling and the missing teeth, but he seemed full of purpose. “You ain’t got the sense of a dog.” He drew a shaky bead on me. “I ought to plug you,” he said. “I might as well, lookin’ at things.”
I leaned forward painfully and stood up. I glanced around the room and saw nothing moving except Thrumm’s aim.
“Shoot me if you want to,” I said.
“I ought to,” said Thrumm.
No shot popped as I turned my back and rooted around for my revolver.
“I followed your dumb ass all the way up the drive. When you stopped at the grass to scratch your ass, I could’ve reached out and touched you. You was pissin’ on my foot,” said Thrumm, following after me. “When you born a nigger in this world, you learn to sneak around.”
I found my gun and popped the wheel. I pulled the empty shells out one by one with my fingernails, then drew out six bullets from my pocket and reloaded. I looked over at Thrumm, took a good, careful look.
“Thrumm,” I said, “why ain’t you gone from here?”
“Why ain’t I gone? Where am I gonna go? I’m beat up all to hell, I got no money, I lost my work. I’m just as likely to be here as anywhere in this world.” Thrumm wriggled his gun around, trying to figure out what to do with it, then finally slipped it into the pocket of his baggy trousers. He started to shake his head. “You got no idea what it’s all about, do you?”
“I don’t claim to,” I said.
“He got you jumpin’, don’t he?”
“Who?”
“You know who!” said Thrumm. “Who you think? Santy Claus?”
“However it is,” I said, sliding my revolver back into the rig, “you better hustle your bony ass out of here.”
“I ain’t leavin’ jus’ yet.”
“The way it looks to me, you’re a nigger with a gun in a house with three dead white men. See how that goes?”
“I ain’t leavin’. I got some lookin’ to do here for just a bit.”
“Hey,” I said, cracking a stiff smile that made my face feel suddenly old, “you haven’t lost your balls, have you? I think I might know where they are.”
Thrumm furrowed his brows and muttered, “I never had any balls.”
“That’s a little joke,” I said.
“It don’t strike me funny.”
“You looking for something the police ought to be interested in?” I hooked my thumbs in my pockets. “Or you just figuring to roll these stiffs?”
“Brother, you oughta be thankin’ me somehow, ain’t that so? If not for me, it would be you laying there with your tongue hangin’ out by now, ain’t that so? You can’t just let me be alone in here for a little bit?”
I rubbed my thumb over my chin. I said, “I guess you got something there.” I glanced at the clock on the wall over Thrumm’s head. “It’s getting late.” I walked past Thrumm and into the darkened hall, my feet thumping, my hands in my pockets. When I reached the door, I turned and said, “Take the truck out there, if you can find the keys.”
“I aim to,” said Thrumm, following. “Listen, you know he wanted you to come up here and kill these dumb-ass crackers for him, don’t you?”
I thought for a moment and saw it for myself. “I guess,” I said.
“Man,” said Thrumm, “you just the Devil’s own rag baby doll, ain’t you?”
I stepped through the door and into the night.
CHAPTER 18
Sunday, June 20
KILLERS IN SHOOTOUT WITH DEPUTIES, the header might read. THREE DEAD IN BATTLE AT REMOTE SHACK. Bobby would have loved it, anyway. I wished I had something left in me to enjoy it, too. But there was only the ache of every part of my body and the rawn
ess in my throat, less from Frye’s grip than from the splash of acid from my churning stomach. I had called the county sheriff’s men too late in the night for the story to make the early Sunday editions, but no matter. Later in the day, or early Monday, the hacks would print it up. The county men would figure a way to keep Hardiman’s name out of it. Things were a little different up in Macomb.
I figured I was through. The previous night’s work should have gone a long way toward making me feel better, but I felt even farther away from a good life. I had left a foul, reeking mess at Hardiman’s cabin, and even if the county boys and the newspapers left me out of it, I knew that one day it would come back to haunt me. Frye and the blond boys would never put their rotten touch to another girl like Jane, it was true; except as ghosts, they had lost all power to harm. But I understood that what had happened could not have been the culmination of anything.
Toby Thrumm seemed to know that I had been set up to take Frye and the two big boys out of the picture. Maybe Sherrill had come to think of them as a liability. Maybe the horrible violation of Jane Hardiman brought up the same bile in Sherrill that it brought up in me. I rolled it over in my mind to judge if Sherrill might hold to such an old-fashioned notion, and thought it might be so.
Revenge is supposed to be sweet, I had heard. Sweet Revenge. Though I had indeed found revenge for so many of the wrongs that had been done, I could not taste any sweetness—because I knew I had done nothing to stop the “catastrophe” that Old Man Lloyd was sure would occur. In fact, I had stupidly helped Sherrill along by ridding him of Frye. If Hardiman’s cottage had been a base for Sherrill’s operation, any trace or clue would now be lost to me. I had reached the end of my initiative. I only felt filthy and worthless.
What had Toby Thrumm been sniffing after at Hardiman’s cottage? It must have been something, if Thrumm was willing to come for it after what he’d been through, up there in Macomb County where big stretches of scrub and farmland hid an awful lot of well-armed backwoods types. Bobby was right; it couldn’t have been anything but money. I pictured a satchel of bills, taken by extortion or blackmail, or maybe from stickups or bank jobs. It was commonly known that the Klan and various other syndicates often pulled bank jobs to fund their operations. If a gang of men thought nothing of lynching niggers, they wouldn’t mind taking dough from a bank the rude way; they thought Jews ran all the banks anyway. So it seemed sensible to me that there might be a big chunk of money floating around somewhere, maybe the same sack of dough that Pease had hoped to stick his mitts into. Gathered together in a bag, concentrated, it was enough to make men snivel after it, to make them forget their business and their better judgment. I thought of Jasper Lloyd and his promise of money for me, and I wondered how his offer might compare to the bundle that Sherrill seemed to control. I wondered, if I could find Sherrill and get a drop on him, if he’d stoop to offering me money to do his dirty work as well.
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