“What are we gonna do?” Toby asked.
Stonewall sneered.
“Maybe Randy don’t know enough to be afraid of us. I think it’s high time he found out.”
“You already threatened him good.”
“We’ve been too nice,” Stonewall replied. “Sometimes if you wanna get shit done, you gotta tip over the outhouse.”
28
They had barely pulled out of The Lazy Goat parking lot when Jade lit into Randy.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded. “Why is the sheriff following us?”
“I didn’t invite him!” Randy protested.
“You sure didn’t do anything to stop it.”
“Have you met my Mama? You don’t stop things she starts.”
“I know a way to stop all of this.”
She pulled her gun out from her ankle holster and wiped it clean. Randy glanced down at it but pretended to play it cool.
“So you’re just gonna shoot us now? That’s how you solve problems?”
Jade pointed the gun at Randy.
“YOU are my problem. YOUR FAMILY is my problem. THAT SHERIFF is my problem. And this would certainly take care of all of you.”
“Yeah, but then you got three dead bodies and still no goat.”
“At least I’d have some peace and quiet,” Jade muttered.
But she knew he was right. Like it or not, she needed his help. Hopefully, she would find the figurine at the house, but if not, she’d need him to figure out other possibilities. And Donovan had made it clear he didn’t want any dead bodies if it could be helped.
The Philpot house was located just outside of town, off a county road and down a narrow red dirt path. It had grown dark since they had left The Lonely Goat and Randy’s truck’s headlights pierced the dark woods, lighting up swarms of flies and mosquitos.
Jade jostled side to side as the truck plodded over the rough road. Whenever they would hit a particularly large bump, the truck’s suspension would creak loudly and they would both bounce in their seats.
Still, she thought. It could be a long time before three bodies were found out here.
She glanced at the side mirror to watch the headlights behind her. Mama was following first in her old red Cutlass Supreme. The sheriff’s patrol car followed behind her.
“You need to get rid of the sheriff,” she said. “Right away. You said you wanted to help. That’s your way to help.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Figure it out. Your mother’s life is in your hands.”
As Randy felt the pressure of Jade’s threat, the house appeared in the headlights. It was a modest ranch house with dark red wood siding and black shudders on either side of the windows. A fresh coat of paint seemed to cover most of the front of the house, but the portion that was unfinished revealed chipped, faded siding covered in mold and rot. Clearly, some renovations were taking place.
Randy parked the truck out in the clearing in front of the house. Mama’s car pulled up next and the sheriff pulled up next to them. While everyone was getting out of their respective vehicles, Randy beelined it to the sheriff’s car to catch him.
“Sheriff, you did not have to follow us all the way out here,” Randy said.
The sheriff shot a confused look to Randy. “Well, your mama had asked if I could…”
“I know. But it’s actually getting late for my mama,” he said, clearly rescinding her offer.
Mama had overheard the conversation and butted in.
“It’d be alright if he stayed for one beer,” she offered.
“He’s on duty, Mama,” Randy replied.
Sheriff McKinley smiled. He glanced at Jade and then back to Randy.
“I get it. You’re probably done with company for the night,” he said with a sly wink.
Randy smiled, happy to take the excuse.
“The sooner I can get Mama to bed the better, if you know what I mean,” he said.
“I’ll take a raincheck on that beer, Lucy,” the sheriff said before turning his eyes toward Jade. “And sorry I startled you earlier, ma’am. Just doing my job.”
The suspicious look in his eyes made it clear to Jade that he was still doing his job. But she played innocent and smiled back.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I hope you’re not sore tomorrow.”
Sheriff McKinley grinned and turned the patrol car around. As Randy watched the red taillights slowly disappear from view, Jade walked up next to him.
“Good job,” she said.
Randy smiled. He felt a sense of pride. And relief. She squeezed his arm in what he assumed was a staged display of affection. Or was it sincere? Before he could really enjoy it, Mama stepped over and swung a big arm around Jade’s shoulder, pulling her away and toward the house.
“Come on now. Let’s get a bed ready for you.”
Mama turned back to Randy and wagged a finger in his face.
“And, no, she will not be sleeping in your room. So you can just put those thoughts right out of your head.”
“I got room in my bed!” Pauline offered. A little too enthusiastically.
“I don’t want to put anyone out,” Jade said sweetly. “Didn’t Clyde have a room? I could just take that one.”
“That is absolutely out of the question.” Mama said, shaking her head.
“I just figured, since it’s empty…”
“I don’t know how you city folk do it in Dallas, but we have a sense of propriety here,” Mama said. “How would that look? Us lending out his room before we even buried him?”
Jade nodded. So much for the easy way. She’d just have to wait until everyone fell asleep and then sneak into Clyde’s room. Hopefully everyone would go to sleep quickly. If not, she might have to resort to Plan B.
29
Viktor Petrov nodded in appreciation as he took the glass of champagne from the flight attendant. He leaned back in his wide seat, took a sip and closed his eyes. His seat was in its own private cubicle, with a private television screen and self-serve refreshment area. It was separated from the seat next to it by a four-foot-high privacy wall with a sliding panel that Viktor chose to keep shut. While the plane had no first class section, Aeroflot’s international business class rivaled the first class sections of many airlines. Cocooned inside four low walls with one open entryway, the seat afforded Viktor privacy.
Peter and Leo sat two rows back in adjoining seat/compartments. They chose to keep the sliding panel between their seats open. Peter had settled in to an in-flight movie. An American romantic comedy with an unrealistically beautiful cast. While he had never visited the United States before, he had met many Americans. And most of them were overweight and nothing like the people in this movie.
Leo leaned into the open area between their seats and motioned for Peter to take his headphones off.
“Do you know why the Texas is larger than Europe countries?” Leo said in broken English, reading from a magazine.
“Why are you talking in English?” Peter asked in Russian.
“Practice,” Leo replied. “You should also practice, brother.”
Peter nodded.
“So do you know?” Leo asked again.
“Russia is more big than Texas,” Peter replied in English.
“Russia not count,” Leo countered. “It is in Europe and Asia.”
“So it is bigger,” Peter repeated.
Leo gave up on the argument and returned to his magazine. “I want to buy cowboy hat.”
Peter nodded, putting his headphones back on.
“Get boots,” Peter said. “You can wear them more when we return. Wearing cowboy hat in Russia will make you look like fool.”
“How long to be in Texas?” Leo asked.
Peter sighed and removed his headphones again.
“One day. Two.”
“Maybe we stay longer,” Leo suggested. “Take in sights. See The Alamo.”
“Nyet. The sooner we get back, t
he better,” Peter said. “In America, we are not…how do they say…under the radar. The FBI will not look away. They are probably already following.”
Leo looked around at the other seat compartments. The walls hid the identities of the other business class passengers, but he could tell it was a full flight.
“On plane? Now?”
Peter shrugged. But then he noted the fear in his brother’s eyes and smiled.
“Relax, brother,” he said. “We have plans in place once we get to Texas. They will not find us.”
30
Jade lay on her half of the saggy bed, staring at the ceiling as Pauline snored loudly beside her. Luckily, everyone had gone to bed very quickly. It was now a matter of waiting long enough for everyone to fall into a deep enough sleep before she could start her hunt. Feeling confident she was the only one awake, she slipped quietly out of the bed. Mama had given her an old Dallas Cowboys T-shirt to sleep in, but Jade had opted to stay dressed for a quicker midnight getaway. Pauline had thought it was foolish.
“You gotta let your lady parts breathe at night,” she had said.
Jade had told her she was shy around strangers and would sleep better in her clothes. It was enough to pacify Pauline, although she had insisted her guest remove her shoes.
Jade grabbed her shoes and tip-toed out of the room, the wooden floor creaking under every step. She walked lightly and slowly down the hall to the door of Clyde’s room. Mama had helpfully pointed it out, although she had done so warning that everyone was forbidden to go inside.
She opened the door slowly, relieved when it didn’t creak. Using the flashlight on her phone, she looked around and was shocked by what she saw. The room was in shambles. If Jade didn’t know any better, she would have guessed that someone had beat her to it and had already torn the place apart. But who would have done that? Most likely, the mess was just the way Clyde lived.
Resigning herself to a long night, she began methodically going through every inch of the room. The dirty clothes thrown everywhere. The stacks of porn and hunting magazines piled in a corner. The closet filled with hunting gear, record albums, and shoeboxes of animal bones. She checked for hidden compartments in the floor and under the bed. Her heart began to race at one point when she found a small black safe with a combination lock. The lock posed no problem, and she was able to open it in less than a minute, only to find several hundred dollars, a passport and some nude Polaroids of a somewhat younger Amy Jo.
After a couple of hours, Jade began to lose hope. She had scoured every inch of the room and found nothing.
Where else would Clyde hide a valuable contraband?
She looked out the window and noticed something she hadn’t seen before. She stepped closer to get a better angle. Outside, the full moon cast a blue-white glow through the woods. It landed on a canopy of ivy which, through the shadows, Jade could barely make out an old gray wooden shed.
31
Jade easily yanked the rusted padlock away and opened the weathered door of the shed. A moldy, earthy smell rushed to escape the confines and Jade flinched at the odor. Using a flashlight she had found in Clyde’s bedroom, she surveyed the interior of the shed, which was crammed full of long-forgotten junk. In addition to the rusted lawn equipment and engine parts, there were also half-decayed cardboard boxes and black plastic yard bags full of old clothes and toys.
It looked like no one had stepped foot in the shed for decades, but without other options, Jade resigned herself to digging through the rubble anyway. She positioned the flashlight in a corner to help illuminate the room and quietly pulled down one of the plastic bags. Before she could open it, she was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“You’re even braver than I thought if you’re touching anything in this rat trap,” Randy said.
Jade spun around, instinctively drawing her gun and pointing it at him.
Randy raised his hands in surrender, holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one of them. From the way he swayed side by side, it was pretty clear he had already been drinking.
“Any luck?” Randy asked, trying to hide a slight slur in his speech.
“Nothing in his room,” Jade replied. “You’re just in time to help me with all of this.”
“How’d you even get in?” Randy asked. “This thing has been locked for years and we lost the key.”
“Did you ever try just pulling on it?” Jade asked.
Randy looked at the spot on the door where the lock had been pulled from the rotting wood.
“Never thought of that,” he muttered. “But if that lock was still on the door when you got here, it means Clyde didn’t think of it either.”
“Maybe he had a key and didn’t tell anyone,” Jade suggested.
But, before he could reply, she decided to quickly check her own theory. She found the lock laying in the grass and examined the key slot. It was so rusted out she could tell right away it hadn’t been used in years. She threw it back on the ground.
“Where else would he have hid something?” Jade asked.
Randy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Jade stepped up to Randy, looking him square in the eyes.
“Think. Hard.”
Randy squinted, trying to force his liquored brain to focus. Coming up empty-handed, he shook his head.
“I swear. I have no idea.”
Jade sighed.
“It’s gotta be in the shop. I’m taking your truck back,” she said, walking past him.
“Oh, I don’t let people drive my truck,” Randy said, too drunk to think about what he was saying and to whom he was saying it.
But the way Jade glared hard at him immediately reminded him that she was calling all the shots. Still, he was relaxed enough to not be completely intimidated.
“Fine. Take it. But at least share a drink first,” he said, waving the whiskey bottle.
Jade grabbed the bottle from his hand and threw back a large swallow.
“Well, that was fun,” she said sarcastically, handing the bottle back. “Hate to run, but there’s work to be done.”
She pulled the keys from her pocket. She had grabbed them off of the kitchen counter earlier, along with Mama’s keys, to ensure no one would be able to make a break for it.
“That was having a drink,” Randy said, missing the sarcasm. “I asked you to share a drink.”
He grabbed the keys from her hand before she even realized what had happened and stumbled his way toward an old yellow couch sitting next to a rusted-out steel drum which seemed to be used for fires.
“Come on,” he said. “The store ain’t going nowhere.”
In any other circumstance, she would have shot him in the back of the head without even thinking about it. But something made her stop. He clearly posed no real threat. And he was right. The store wasn’t going anywhere. Donovan had texted her an update on Viktor Petrov’s pending arrival and the earliest he could get to Red Dirt would be late afternoon. Besides, if she was completely honest with herself, she could use another drink.
Randy plopped down on the faded yellow couch. It was covered in water stains, cigarette burns and God knows what else.
“You’re taking my truck. Destroying my brother’s store. Everyone’s gonna know you ain’t my girlfriend and I’m gonna be the laughingstock of the entire town on the day of my brother’s funeral. And all that’s if you don’t kill me. Least you can do is share a drink with me first.”
Jade shook her head and put the gun away, nudging Randy to move over and give her room to sit.
32
Randy and Jade passed the whiskey bottle back and forth. Randy, already a quarter of a bottle ahead of her, slouched on the couch and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. Jade sat forward and stared straight ahead into nothing as she retraced her steps, trying to think about where else Clyde could have hid the stupid figurine.
“This is nice, ain’t it?” Randy sighed.
He opened an eye to get a peek at Jade’s intense concent
ration.
“Well, I like it,” he said, answering his own question.
A chorus of crickets and tree frogs created a steady, one-note melody that filled the air, punctuated by the occasional bass note of a distant bullfrog.
“Hear that?” Randy asked again.
“Frogs and crickets,” Jade replied.
“If you wanna get technical,” Randy laughed. “To me, it’s what nighttime sounds like. Ain’t it relaxing? Kinda like a cat purring. Know what I mean?”
Jade broke her concentration long enough to look at Randy.
“You’re drunk.”
His eyes still shut, he smiled in agreement. Jade studied him. Here was this good ol’ boy sitting beside his captor, someone who had repeatedly threatened his life and that of his family, and he was smiling drunk and talking about crickets purring like cats.
He’s either dumb as rocks or Zen as a Buddhist monk, she thought.
She decided to give her mind a break and let her subconscious do the work for a bit. And when she leaned back and took in a deep inhale of the country air, she realized it was the first time she had taken a moment to relax since, well, she couldn’t even remember the last time.
“So where are you from?” Randy asked.
Jade put her finger to her lips. “Shhh. I’m listening to the cats purr.”
Randy grinned, but her lack of an answer only piqued his interest.
“How’d you get into this line of work anyway?” he asked. “Did you apply for it? Answer a want ad? Just fall into it? Is it a family business?”
Jade shook her head. “I have no family.”
“Bullshit. Everybody’s got family.”
“Who was that girl in the picture you were looking at?” Jade asked, changing the subject.
“Huh?” Randy stammered, clearly thrown by the question. “What picture?”
Red Dirt Blues Page 7
