Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  “Unca Pete said to catch you. Unca Pete said to hold you.”

  It’s no use—whatever Uncle Pete wants, Uncle Pete gets. If I can’t get him to slow down, then I’ve got to get him to speed up—I’ve got to speed the circulation of the venom through his system. I’ve got to make him run!

  Nick whirled around and groped for the doorknob.

  “Well, come on then, Deputy!” he called back over his shoulder. “Catch me if you can!”

  He threw open the door and lunged out. He took two quick steps forward, caught the wooden deck rail across the groin, flipped head over heels and fell five feet to the ground below. He lay stunned, winded, the sky circling above him in screaming streaks of blue and white.

  Suddenly a khaki thundercloud loomed overhead, and Nick heard the heavy clump of boots on the wooden stairs.

  Can’t breathe … no time … got to get up … got to get moving!

  He struggled to his feet and started to run—but which way? The last time he ran, he was yoked to Kathryn; the last time he ran he had her eyes. This time he was on his own. He did a quick mental inventory of the hazards and barriers around the lab—the coils of razor wire, the half-buried posts, the rusted pump housings, the overgrown sinkholes. But there was no time, no time to plan a strategy, no time to chart a path or course. “One thing at a time,” he had told Kathryn—and right now the thing was to run.

  There was only one direction to go—wherever the deputy was not. He spun around until he spotted that imposing silhouette, then launched out in the opposite direction.

  The deputy started after him. He ran slowly at first, toddling like a child, then lumbering like an awkward foal, then galloping like a Great Plains buffalo. Nick listened to the pounding footsteps behind him. They grew heavier and more erratic, and the breathing was increasingly labored—but the deputy was still matching him step for step, even gaining on him. With his sight he could have easily outdistanced the clumsy, plodding deputy—but now he was forced to run like a child himself, shortening his stride and checking each uncertain step. He felt like a circus clown jammed onto a tiny tricycle, his long legs jabbing up and down like pistons, pedaling furiously but going nowhere fast.

  He looked up ahead. He could see no trees, no bushes, no details of any kind—but he could at least distinguish where the dark ground ended and the glowing sky began, and it rose sharply to the left.

  If I can’t beat him with speed, I have to beat him with endurance. I’ve got to make his heart pump; I’ve got to make his blood flow. I’ve got to go up!

  He veered left and began to climb. The steep hill cut his own speed in half, but it slowed the struggling deputy even more. The upward climb forced Beanie’s thundering heart to pump, to push, to strain … and with every gushing pulse the deadly neurotoxins spread.

  Suddenly the footsteps behind him stopped. Nick turned, panting, listening. He heard the deputy double over and retch. He staggered forward, halting every few steps in crippling convulsions.

  “Can you feel it, Deputy?” Nick called back. “Can you feel the poison spreading through your system? Does it hurt where they stung you? Are your arms and legs swelling yet? Are your eyes watering, does your tongue feel thick and fat, is your throat closing up? Next comes the cramping and then paralysis—that means you can’t move, even if you want to. And then you die, Deputy, you die—just like Teddy died when you put a bullet in the back of his head!”

  The deputy looked up, forced himself erect, and started toward Nick again.

  Nick began to backpedal, easily maintaining the distance between them now. “Come on then,” he shouted. “Come and get me, Beanie boy! Uncle Pete said to hold me, remember? Uncle Pete said to break me! Well come on then, break me! I dare you! Come on, Beanie, don’t let Uncle Pete down!”

  Nick turned to run again—he saw a horizontal flash of purplish brown and then an explosion of fire and light.

  He ran head-on into the limb of a tree.

  He lay on his back, nauseous from the impact. He felt his forehead—a jagged ravine lay open across the center, and blood poured into his eyes. He squeezed them shut, rubbed them with knotted fists, and forced them open again. He saw nothing but blotches of light through streaks and stains of red. He was blind now, really blind.

  And he heard footsteps.

  Heavy, dragging, desperate footsteps. And breathing like the sound of ripping canvas, like hissing steam and gurgling tar.

  And it was close.

  Nick rolled onto his stomach. He felt a tree root coursing under him like a vein. He felt his way along the root, crawling forward until he came to the trunk. He circled around to the opposite side, then reached up and felt for the lowest limb. He pulled himself up and stopped, his own stomach in convulsions, every heartbeat exploding in his head like mortar fire.

  He reached up—he pulled—he rested. Waves of dizziness and nausea almost washed him from the tree.

  He reached up—he pulled—he rested. He dragged himself up limb after limb—how far had he climbed? How high was high enough?

  “Come on!” he shouted below him. “Come after me, you pathetic puppet! Climb! Work! Pull yourself up!”

  Below him he heard the rattle of fluid-filled lungs and the crackle of crumbling twigs. The deputy was climbing after him.

  An instant later a ham-sized hand clamped his left ankle in a grip of iron.

  Nick reached up—he pulled … no more. He had nothing left. He threw his arms around the tree and held on.

  Now the deputy began to pull—slowly, firmly, until it felt to Nick as though the deputy’s entire weight was suspended from his ankle. Nick tried to kick his leg free—impossible.

  Now Nick’s own grip began to give way. He dug his fingers desperately into the trunk, but he continued to slide helplessly to the left. There was fire in his knee and left hip socket, and the coarse bark raked across his naked chest like burning coals.

  The limb began to bend …

  “Beanie!” Nick raged through grinding teeth. “Will—you—hurry—up—and—die!”

  The huge hand began to tremble, then loosen, then slip away, taking Nick’s tennis shoe with it. There was an instant of silence, then a great rustle of leaves, and a snap like the crack of a rifle—then silence again.

  Nick looked down. Somewhere far below him a smear of brown and green and khaki lay perfectly still.

  “Shoofly pie,” Nick whispered.

  He threw his arms around the tree again, and everything went black.

  The sheriff limped to the open doorway and glared in. He saw the twisted wreckage of the screen door and the floor littered with dirt and rock and shards of broken glass. The door to the blue-bright office stood open, and within the office one exterior door swung slowly on its hinges.

  From seventy-five yards away he had watched Kathryn turn and flee toward the far side of the building. He hobbled forward, clutching his left thigh where the door handle caught him just below the hip. The impact had knocked him twenty feet and left a throbbing fist-sized knot of purple and green. He never lost consciousness, but it had been a full minute before he struggled to his feet and spotted the despectacled head of Dr. Polchak bobbing like a buoy above the sea of yellow-green. He drew his sidearm and leveled it—but Kathryn’s shout made him rush his shot, and he fired harmlessly overhead, cursing himself for his lack of discipline.

  He stopped and swept the field with eyes as dark as blood.

  There.

  A hundred yards away in the center of an open meadow Kathryn stood perfectly still. She faced away from him with her head slightly bowed, and her arms seemed to disappear at the elbow as though her hands might be folded in front of her. She looked to him like that goddess in the picture book at the Holcum County Library, majestic and holy and alabaster-pure, but without arms—because the goddess reaches out for no one, but waits eternally for someone worthy to reach for her.

  But he was unworthy … he knew that now.

  He limped forward. She heard hi
m approach like the slink of a jackal.

  Ten yards away he stopped.

  “Kath,” he said softly. “We got to talk.”

  She never moved—not a twitch, not a nod, not even a breath. She stood motionless, implacable, and mute. Her auburn ponytail hung down, tied by an artist into a thick sable brush, swaying from side to side and painting a masterpiece of soft curves and perfect forms—a masterpiece that he would never touch again. Her jeans were spotted and soiled but still crisp and tight. Her T-shirt draped between her shoulder blades with sweat.

  And two white shoestrings met in a bow at the center of her back.

  “Okay,” he said. “Then just listen. I know you’re mad at me—hey, I don’t blame you. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just want you to try to understand—about Andy, about Jimmy, about everything.”

  He took a step forward.

  “Yes, I was mad when you married Andy. But what could I do? I knew Andy loved you. I knew Jimmy loved you too—we all did. But when I saw you and Andy together, I knew you loved him back. And that was okay—really. I figured it was just sort of his turn.”

  He stepped forward again.

  “Remember what I told you? I always knew we were meant to be together. I never knew when—I just knew it had to be. Finally, eventually, someday. And I figured lots of things would probably happen before that day. Like I might go off to the service or you might move away—but it didn’t really matter, because I knew that someday, somehow, we would both end up together. It just had to be.

  “I wish I could tell you why I’m so cocksure about it. Some things you don’t just think with your head, it’s something deeper—something way down inside. It’s like when I hunt way back in the woods—you can blindfold me, you can spin me around, but when I take the blindfold off I can always find my way out. I got no map, I got no compass, but it doesn’t matter—’cause I’ve got something inside that tells me which way the arrow points, that tells me which way is up. I see the sun, I see the stars, I can see the big picture in my head—and I know where I fit in the picture. I can’t explain it, but that’s how it works—and that’s how it works with you too. I know how my life is supposed to go—I can see it—and you were supposed to be part of it.”

  Another step closer still.

  “When you married Andy I figured, ‘Okay. Not yet.’ So I waited. I waited real patient. I waited like a gentleman because it wasn’t my turn yet. But I knew that someday things would have to change—I could see it in my head.

  “So every day I expected something to change, something to happen. Every time Andy crossed the street, I thought a truck might pop out of nowhere and run him down. Every time the 82d did a training jump, I thought his chute might not open, that he’d be the one we’d bring back in a bag. But it never happened. Things just kept going the way they were, all wrong and needing to be made right.

  “Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to just sit and wait for things to straighten themselves out. It’s like when you see old Mr. Jenks sleeping night after night on the bench outside the True Value. Don’t you ever get tired of waiting for him to get sober, to straighten up and get himself a job? Sometimes the church gives him a new set of clothes or takes up a collection and gives him a few bucks—and then he goes and drinks it up again. They can’t make him change, but they can help him change. Sometimes I got tired of waiting, sometimes I thought maybe I should help things change. Maybe I should be the one driving the truck, maybe I should help him pack his chute.

  “But I never did. I just kept waiting, giving him his turn like a friend should do—but things kept going on all out of kilter. And then that day that Andy came to see me in the Gulf, he said, ‘When we get back, me and Kath are gonna have kids. Time to start a family,’ he said. And that’s when I knew that things had to change right away. He wasn’t being fair, don’t you see? His turn was almost over, and he was planning to take what was mine. My turn. My kids. My family.”

  He spoke gently and calmly, and he moved constantly forward as he spoke.

  “I’m still not sure what happened at Al Salman. I didn’t plan it, that’s for sure. Andy got ahead of us just like Jimmy said. Tryin’ to be the first one across the line, I suppose; he was like that. He was backed up against a berm, and there were hostiles on the other side. Jimmy started firing over the berm, trying to hold them back. I stuck my head up too. I was planning to do the same, I really was. Jimmy was firing away, firing at nothing, wasting ammo like a fool. I played it smart, I sited across the top of the berm and waited for some dumb wog to stick his head up—and then my site crossed Andy’s head …

  “You want to know the truth, Kath? I’m not sure if I shot him on purpose or not. I thought about killing him—I don’t deny that—but I don’t remember ever saying to myself, Do it, Pete. Pull the trigger. Kill him now. It just … happened. But after it happened, I knew that the world was closer to the way it was supposed to be.

  “I’m not saying it was right—but sometimes the world doesn’t care if things are right, it just shakes things up and puts them back in order. You see a baby bird on the ground because the nest got too crowded and Mama kicked him out to let him die. Is that right? You see a little girl with no hair ’cause she’s got some kind of gutrotting cancer or something, is that right? It doesn’t much matter, does it? The world has a path it follows, and when it gets off course it just fixes things and jumps back in line again. And if you’re one of the things needs fixing—well, you’re just out of luck, that’s all.”

  He stood just behind Kathryn now, little more than an arm’s length away. A bee buzzed by, and he dipped his head to let it pass.

  “I don’t think you’re really mad at me,” he said softly. “I think you’re just scared. You’re scared because no one has ever loved you like this before. No one else ever could—the kind of love where the whole world will change its course to make sure it happens. You know what, Kath? Sometimes it scares me too—knowing that no matter what I do, no matter what anybody does, we got to end up together. Together forever.”

  He flipped up the leather hasp on his holster and slid out the gun. The M9 Beretta held fifteen rounds.

  He pulled on the slide and quietly ejected four shells.

  “Now about Jimmy.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, I found out he was using cocaine in the Gulf. And no, I wasn’t going to turn him in—but I sure told him I was. I thought the threat of it might do him some good; I thought it might scare some sense into him. It didn’t—because he was weak. Jim was always weak. That was his problem, and that’s why I knew he could never have you.

  “Sure he helped me bury Andy—why shouldn’t he? He had just as much reason to want Andy dead as I did—maybe more. You think he didn’t lie awake at night just like I did and think about accidents and things that might go wrong? You think when the three of us shipped out he didn’t hope that only two of us would come back—or maybe only one? And that night at Al Salman, when Andy got cut off—you think he really wanted Andy back safe and sound? He didn’t go after Andy, you know. He just sat there safe and snug behind his little wall hoping and praying that some Iraqi bullet would do the job for him. And then he stuck his rifle over the wall and started firing—firing at what? You know what I think? I think he hoped one of his own stray shots might find the mark.

  “But life doesn’t work that way. You can’t just hope for things, Kath, you got to make them happen; you got to be the man. Jim looked over at me, and he knew what I was thinking—he knew because he was thinking it too. The only difference was I was willing to do it. So I pulled the trigger. I did what he could never do; I did what he could only wish and whine and snivel about. And you know what he did then? He started to cry, he started to blubber like a baby—because he saw that I was strong and he was weak, that I did what he could never do, and that I was the only one who deserved to have you.”

  As he spoke he drew back the slide again and again. Four gleaming brass cylinders tumbled through the air and disappeared in
to the thick meadow grass.

  “Who knows? Maybe I was weak too. Maybe I should have sent Jim after Andy and then finished both of them off. I didn’t; now I wish I had. So we came home, Jim and me, and he was weaker than ever, he was hooked on that stuff for good. The only time he felt strong, the only time he felt good about himself was when he was flying high. He’d whimper and wail and moan about what we done, about what happened to ‘poor Andy’—and then he’d do a little fluff, and all of a sudden he was strong; he was in control again. And then he’d always say, ‘I’m going straight, I’m getting off this stuff. And when I do, I’m going to the authorities, I’m turning you in for what you done.’

  “But I knew he never would, because he was a coward. Because the next day he’d be down at the bottom of the well again, and he’d be craving the stuff—just once more, just one line, just this last time, and then that’s it. He knew that if he really went to the authorities they’d make him go straight, and we both knew he couldn’t live without it.

  “But I figured, what if he can’t get the stuff? Then he’d have nothing to lose, then he just might turn me in. So when he ran out of money, I began to supply him. I struck a bargain with Ronny. Did you really think he made that kind of money just by selling burial polices to old ladies? Don’t worry about Ronny—he won’t be turning up in any meadow. He won’t be turning up anywhere.

  “And that’s how it went for years. I looked the other way when Ronny did business in Holcum County, and Ronny kept Jimmy happy. I knew Jim would never turn me in. He needed me—he needed the stuff.

  “Then a couple of weeks ago I was at my place in Valdosta, and one day Jim showed up—hitchhiked the whole way down. Said he had a change of mind, a change of heart. Said he had to clear his conscience; he had to come clean and make things right. I told him I would make things right just like I always did—that all he needed to do was keep his mouth shut—but he kept saying he was going to turn me in, that this time he really meant it. I didn’t believe him at first—I thought it was just the cocaine talking again—but the longer I listened, the more I believed he just might do it this time. He really meant business; he even had his gun with him.