All the Dead Lie Down

by Mary Willis Walker

  Molly feels a flicker of hope. Someone might come along and save them. People must come here sometimes because someone dumped all this stuff here. But it’s illegal, so they probably do it at night.

  Curled up, she can see her knee where the jeans are torn and a dark stain is spreading. It feels as if there’s a piece of glass in the knee, but she can’t move her arms down to explore it.

  Molly looks to Sarah Jane, hoping for comfort. In the semidarkness the woman’s large dark eyes are wide open, alert, fierce. She has managed to hold on to the knife while squeezing in here. It occurs to Molly now that that’s what she was doing in the hut when she knocked Molly down in the corner. She was getting the knife out of her bag. It was quick thinking, but it’s not going to do them a hell of a lot of good against two guns.

  Now the sounds of Roylee throwing trash around are coming fast and furious—thuds and crashes and grunts and oaths. “I’m gonna find you. Come out now. Make it easier on yourselves. You make me keep looking, I’m gonna torture you before I kill you. I swear I will. I’m gonna cut your noses off and your eyelids and your nipples and stuff ’em in your mouths so you can’t scream when I shoot you.”

  Molly curls up tighter and tells herself there’s still a chance, they are so close to civilization. She tries to picture the restaurants and telephones and police cars that are just a quarter mile away on Barton Springs; all they need is to stay alive and make it that quarter mile to get help. She has fallen through a crack in the city into this stinking ditch, this violent, brutal place where Roylee and Squint rule, where they do what they please and no one cares enough to stop them, where a sweet, gentle nut like Mother Teresa is shot as casually as flicking a fly off, where the man with the beard—Lufkin—is murdered simply for trying to help them. And down here she is as expendable as they are, no more valuable than the garbage she’s lying on. She glances at Sarah Jane and it occurs to her that this is where this woman lives all the time, where Tin Can lived, where the other homeless women she is writing about live—inside this crack in the world where you become invisible, where the default mode is brutality and eventually a mean death.

  Well, she’s had enough. She wants to call it off right now, to go back to her real world up there. She wants to go home and soak in a hot bath, and wrap up in her clean terry cloth robe and drink tea and call Jo Beth and Grady and tell them she cherishes them. She wants out of this stinking heap of garbage. She wants to call an ambulance and warn the police about the poison gas in the Senate.

  Roylee is getting closer now. The thumps and grunts and crashes are very close. He is going to find them. It is just a matter of time.

  Suddenly Molly feels a sharp sting on her ankle, then another on the top of her foot. Goddamn. Something is biting her. It feels like fire ants, but if she reaches down to brush them away, she will move the bags on top of her and Roylee will see it or hear it. Again she feels a sting, then another, and another. It hurts so much it brings tears to her eyes. In the half-light she watches Sarah Jane Hurley’s face. Every few seconds her cheek flinches; she is getting bitten, too, but she isn’t crying. She’s used to pain, Molly thinks.

  Sarah Jane looks back intently at Molly. She seems to be sending her a message. She is trying to get Molly ready for something, trying to enlist her cooperation. The gleam in her eyes and the tension in her hunched shoulders is saying, Use the pain, reinterpret it, brace yourself, get ready to fight back.

  “I’m gonna find you if I have to take every piece of stinking garbage off every stinking pile.” Roylee sounds so close now she could reach out and touch him.

  Suddenly Molly feels the bags above her shifting. Roylee has started on this trash heap now; he’s pulled off some of the bags above them. She hears them thump to the ground.

  A distant voice calls, “Okay. I’m gonna bring the other stiff over. Then you get up here and help me get them down the bank.”

  Molly is watching Sarah Jane’s face register this. When Squint gets down here their odds will be worse than they are now. Now is the time.

  She can hear Roylee’s labored breathing. She feels bags being moved around above her.

  Some new light filters in from above. He’s nearly down to their level.

  Sarah Jane’s face is tensing. Her right fist tightens around the knife. She takes in a long breath, then with a burst of energy that makes Molly gasp, she thrusts herself upward, shoving the bag on top of her out of the way.

  Molly braces for the sound of a gunshot.

  Sarah Jane’s feet scramble up and disappear. She’s out.

  Molly holds her breath, then pushes the bag off her and rises.

  Sarah Jane and Roylee are down on the ground, struggling and grunting. He’s got hold of her wrist, but she’s still clutching the knife. He doesn’t have the gun. Molly clambers over the bags and looks around desperately for it, but the ground is so strewn with loose trash she can’t find it.

  Roylee has Sarah Jane’s hands pinned now and he’s managed to get a leg over on top of her.

  Molly is frantic, sweating, looking around desperately for a weapon.

  Roylee is prevailing. He gets his whole body on top of Sarah Jane’s and he sits up, still holding her hands down.

  Molly spots what looks like the porcelain lid of a toilet tank. She grabs it up. Roylee is banging Sarah Jane’s arm against the ground, trying to get her to drop the knife. Molly hefts the heavy lid and smashes it down on the back of his head.

  The noise is a resounding thwunk.

  Roylee falls face forward on top of Sarah Jane. A trickle of blood runs from his hairline down his face. She’s killed him, but she doesn’t care. She feels nothing but the urge to run. She drops the lid on the garbage heap. “Let’s go,” she says. “Let’s go.”

  Sarah Jane shoves Roylee’s limp body off her, turns him over on his back, and straddles his chest. She puts her knife to his throat. His head is back, his mouth hanging open. There is blood on his face but he is breathing. Molly watches, unable to make a sound.

  Sarah Jane hesitates with the knife pressing against Roylee’s thick neck and glances up at Molly. Her chest is heaving and her face is flushed and dripping with sweat. There’s a smear of blood on her cheek. She asks Molly the question with her eyes.

  Molly puts a hand to her jaw and touches her split lip. She hates him. He is an animal. He shot Mother Teresa in the back. He needs to die. If Sarah Jane goes ahead and slits his throat Molly will say it was self-defense and she will do it under oath. But she can’t give a nod to this.

  She shakes her head. “Leave him.”

  Sarah Jane turns back to Roylee and hesitates, the knife pressed so tight against his throat it is drawing blood.

  “No,” Molly says, “don’t. Bad karma. Let’s go.”

  Sarah Jane stands up. “Where’s his gun?”

  “I can’t find it,” Molly says, “but we don’t need it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Together they take off running. When they get to the high dirt bank they use their hands to scramble up. Halfway to the top, they hear a shout from the other side. Molly glances behind her. Squint is standing there on the edge calling, “Roylee! Where the fuck are you?” She prays he is too far away to see them.

  They scramble up the rest of the way and start running, not knowing where they are or what direction they are heading.

  In spite of everything that’s happened, she feels an ecstatic rush of pleasure as they run. It is heaven just to be alive.

  HARK, HARK! THE DOGS DO BARK!

  BEGGARS ARE COMING TO TOWN:

  SOME IN JAGS, AND SOME IN RAGS,

  AND SOME IN VELVET GOWN.

  —MOTHER GOOSE

  Molly slows to a jog when she catches sight of a road and cars—civilization, safety. Behind her, Sarah Jane Hurley throws her head back and gasps for air.

  Molly is so turned around, she doesn’t know until she sees the old filling station that it is Barton Springs Road they have come to. Somehow she has come near
ly full circle, back to the place where she met Mother Teresa yesterday. Yesterday! This whole ordeal has probably taken place in less than twenty hours, but it feels like a century.

  She has no idea what time it is. Her watch is gone and it’s too overcast to see the sun. She needs to send the police and an ambulance to Mother Teresa’s hut right away. But the first thing is to get a warning to the Senate. It might be too late. Or the whole thing might be a hoax, but she’s not taking any chances. She has a hunch it’s the real thing.

  If only she had her cellular phone she could call 911 right now. Well, they’re back to civilization now. They’ll find a phone.

  Molly leads the way now. She runs to the old service station next to the parking lot. When she opens the door the man at the cash register reacts immediately. He charges toward her. “Now I told you people a hundred times not to come in here no more. What’ve I got to do to—”

  “This is an emergency,” Molly says. “I need to use the phone.”

  A German shepherd who has been lying under the counter stands up and starts barking.

  “It’s always an emergency with you people, isn’t it?” He’s a burly man with “Burt” sewn on his pocket. He stands in front of her, blocking her way to the phone that hangs on the wall. “I’m sick of you deadbeats bringing a mess in here. I just mopped this floor.” He looks at her with such distaste that Molly glances down at herself. She is covered with mud and blood and garbage. Her pants are torn, so badly on one leg that an entire bloody knee is exposed. Her shoes are caked with mud. She has left a trail of mud clods behind her.

  She pushes past him. “It’s a matter of life and death. I have to use your phone.”

  “No, you don’t.” The man beats her to the phone and clamps a hand on it to stop her. “Now get out of here. And get a job.”

  Molly is breathless with outrage. “Call the police yourself,” she shouts, “and deliver a message for me.”

  “What message?”

  “There’s a bomb in the Capitol. They need to clear everyone out of the building.”

  “You drunks disgust me.”

  Sarah Jane is standing at the door, puffing and red-faced. “That’s a public phone,” she says. “We have every right to—”

  “You stay out of here,” he yells at her. “I seen you before.”

  Now the dog is barking nonstop; it is pandemonium.

  Molly has never felt like this before, furious and powerless and demeaned all at the same time. Who does he think he is? He can’t do this to her. Time is crucial. She tries to wrench the phone away from him, but he is too strong for her.

  This is just wasting time. She has a better idea.

  She picks up a can of motor oil from the shelf next to the cash register. Pleased to feel how heavy it is, she calls out to Sarah Jane: “Stand back.” Then she takes aim and heaves the can at the big plate-glass window. This’ll get him to call the cops right quick. But the can bounces off the glass and thuds to the floor.

  The dog whimpers and slinks back under the counter.

  The man tries to grab Molly but she ducks and runs out. She calls back over her shoulder, “Call the police, for God’s sake! Call them!”

  She grabs Sarah Jane as she runs past. “Come on,” she says, “let’s try over here.”

  They dash across the street through the traffic to a restaurant with a red awning over the door. The door is locked. A sign says the hours are 11 A.M. to midnight. “Oh, shit,” Molly says. “It must not be eleven yet.” She looks around frantically. Time is flying away. And once she gets to a phone it’s going to take awhile to get the message through.

  She remembers that only two blocks away, behind the coffeehouse, her truck is parked, with a phone in it. But then she remembers that she doesn’t have her keys.

  “We should get a ride to the Capitol,” Sarah Jane says, huffing. “It’ll be faster.”

  “After we call,” Molly insists. “Have you got any money?”

  Sarah Jane shakes her head.

  The coffeehouse two blocks away is probably the closest phone. She heads in that direction with Sarah Jane following.

  Four women turn the corner, laughing and talking. They are in business clothes and look like the sorts who carry phones with them. “Excuse me, please,” Molly says. “Does one of you have a cell phone I might borrow for a minute? It’s an emergency.”

  Three of them cast their eyes down at the sidewalk and keep walking, giving Molly wide berth. The fourth glances at her and murmurs, “Sorry. We don’t.”

  Molly can’t believe it’s this difficult to make a phone call right here in the middle of the city. This is an area she has frequented in the past and she has always seen it as laid back and funky and friendly. Suddenly it looks like an enclave for the privileged.

  They get to the coffeehouse and Molly pushes in ahead of two men. “Where’s the phone?” she asks.

  The girl behind the counter takes her time in answering. “Over there.” She nods her head toward the back. Molly hurries back. The phone is next to the men’s room. A skinny teenager is using it, leaning against the wall, twisting the cord around his arm as he talks. Molly taps him on the shoulder and says, “I’ve got an emergency call to make. Sorry.”

  The boy shrugs away from her and says, “Hey!”

  “Hang up, please. I’ve got an emergency.”

  “Wait a sec.” He turns around to face the wall. He continues to talk into the phone.

  Molly takes hold of the phone, jerks it away from him, and unwinds the cord from his arm.

  “Hey!” he says.

  She presses the switch hook to end his call.

  She wants to ask him for a quarter, but she can tell by his expression that she would have to mug him for it. She doesn’t know if you can call 911 without a quarter, so she tries it and it works.

  “This is an emergency. I’m Molly Cates from Lone Star Monthly magazine. I need you to call over to the Capitol, the Senate chamber. There’s a poison gas bomb set to go off there any minute. In the Senate. Call them. Tell them to evacuate. Send some cars over there. Everyone needs to get out now. If they don’t they’ll all be killed.” She finds herself gasping for air at the end of this.

  “How do you know there’s a bomb, ma’am?”

  “That will take too long. I’ll tell the police when they come for me. I’m at Flipnotics on Barton Springs Road. Send a car to get me.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll dispatch one of our units.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “We’ve got lots of calls right now. Probably ten minutes.”

  “Listen, this is a Code 3. Top priority.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Molly is not sure she is being taken seriously. “Also, I need an ambulance. Connect me with Lieutenant Traynor in homicide, please.”

  “I can’t transfer you, ma’am. Are you reporting a crime in progress right now?”

  “No. Listen, time is wasting here. Call over to the Senate. Then when the car comes, I’ll show them where the bodies are.” She knows she is not being as coherent as she’d like.

  “Ma’am, you will have to give me an address—”

  “Flipnotics on Barton Springs is where I am. There’s no address for where the homicides were committed. They’re in the woods behind here and at a dump back there. I’ll—”

  “Come on!” Sarah Jane is shouting to Molly from the door. “I got us a ride. Come on!”

  Molly says into the phone, “Notify the Senate now.” She slams the phone down and runs to the door. Sarah Jane is standing in the street next to a green Volkswagen beetle, talking to the driver. She has unbuttoned her shirt and is unpinning something from inside it. She holds it out to the driver. “See. A hundred bucks.”

  The driver, a young man with a long greasy pony tail, studies the bill. Then he glances over at Molly and frowns. He says to Sarah Jane, “She the other one?”

  Sarah Jane nods.

  “She’s gonna get my car all dirty.
”

  “You can clean it,” Sarah Jane says, holding the bill right under his nose so he can smell it.

  He grabs it. “Get in,” he says. “Back seat.”

  Molly is torn with indecision. She knows how long the police response time can be. Standing here waiting will drive her crazy. This driver is a bird in the hand. They are no more than five minutes from the Capitol. She is desperate to get over there. She has to be sure the message got through. “What time is it?” she asks the driver.

  He glances at his watch. “Ten forty-five.”

  “Okay,” she says and struggles into the back seat. “But fast. This is an emergency. Go up Lamar to First. Take First to Congress, and go up Congress to the Capitol. If you get us to the front door of the Capitol in five minutes, I’ll send you a five-hundred-dollar bonus.”

  “Oh, sure you will,” he grumbles, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “Lady Bountiful.”

  Sarah Jane slides in next to her and the driver takes off. The car is ancient and makes lots of noise when he guns the motor.

  Molly leans forward. “You have a cellular phone?”

  “Nope.”

  They are stopped at a light. “Go right through the red light here. Don’t worry about cops. We’d like to pick up a police escort.”

  He runs the light. His eyes in the mirror are wide open with surprise at what he’s doing.

  Molly sits back and tries to catch her breath. “You said you didn’t have any money,” she says to Sarah Jane.

  “I meant no quarters.”

  “But you had a hundred-dollar bill.”

  “It was my … sort of good luck charm. I was planning to give it back to Ellie.”

  “Ellie?”

  “My daughter. To show her I’m serious about turning my life around.”

  “But you spent it on this ride,” Molly says.

  “Seemed more important.”

  Frustrated by the slow progress they are making, Molly leans forward again and says to the driver, “Pass these creeps. Just honk and pass them.”

  “Jesus,” he says, but he does it.