by Don Bruns
I nodded. “She’s right.”
“You don’t think they can find us? Thomas LeRoy has our addresses.”
“Then you’ve got to call the cops. Because without protection, these guys are going to come for you.” Em was right.
“And, I hate to say this,” James hesitated, “you, too.”
I could see her biting her bottom lip. “Yeah. I’m in this too, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
“You know, not too long ago I could just call Daddy.”
I nodded.
“But sooner or later you have to grow up.” She pointed to Crayer’s body, his chest rising and falling with regular breathing now. “Let’s get him into his donut truck, find something to tie his hands and feet, and go confront the reverend in his office.”
James stared at her with a look of respect and a little bit of fear. “Just like that? We’re going to confront these guys? With what?”
Em reached down to the ground and picked up the handgun. “With this.”
Now this was a side of my girlfriend I’d never seen before.
We worked together, not an easy thing to do, pulling and tugging the body of Bruce Crayer. There was no blanket so we covered him with some old rags from the truck.
Fifteen minutes had passed. “I still think we need to see what Cashdollar is up to.” James was focused on the reverend.
“I still think you’re an idiot.” Em had earned the right.
“Em, thank you. I don’t know if Crayer would have pulled the trigger, but if you hadn’t come along, we could be dead now.”
She listened to James and gazed at him with an impassioned look.
“But, we just keep getting in deeper and deeper. Think about it. Styles almost killed Dusty. You almost killed Crayer. It’s going to be hard to just walk away from this place. Know what I mean?”
“Your point is?” I’d never seen this cold side of Em before.
“My point is, I want to know what else is going on. I’m going back to the office and see if I can hear or see anything at all.”
She was silent. This girl who had surprised me with her courage and strength. She nodded. “You’re right. We’re too deep in this thing. We need something that can get us out.”
“You want to walk back with us?” I was surprised.
“I don’t want to. I need to.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
We walked back along the tent. Em had the gun. My fantasy of wearing a shoulder holster and working for the FBI was thwarted by my girlfriend. Go figure.
“Exactly what are we going to say to Cashdollar?” James, who wanted all the answers, had no idea what to ask.
“Damn it, we’re going to ask him why we’re being targeted.” Em was riding high on adrenaline.
“With a gun in our hand?”
“Jesus Christ, Skip, somebody almost killed you. I think we ought to have some protection.”
I couldn’t argue with her. But I was getting dangerously close to suggesting the cops get involved.
We kept close to the yellow canvas, walking slowly. I don’t think any of us knew exactly how to handle things.
“Technically,” James said, “we beat the snot out of two of the full-timers. I suppose they have a right to be somewhat upset with us.”
“Technically,” Em replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “we didn’t.”
“No. Styles put Dusty in the hospital. That wasn’t our idea.” I agreed with her. “And if it hadn’t been for Em and the skillet, we might not be here right now.”
We turned the corner and I could see the trailer. The Cadillac limo was parked on the side and the door was wide open, a soft light emanating from within. Em stopped about thirty feet from the trailer, apparently losing some of her courage. James and I stopped too. Without the gun, or even with the gun, we didn’t feel like bursting in on the scene. As we huddled by the tent, the first shot rang out.
The explosion, like an M-80 firecracker, scared all three of us, and the bullet hit the metal Cadillac body, ricocheting off the car.
“Jesus.” James dove to the ground, and I stood there, frozen in place, not totally understanding what was going on.
“Skip.” Em grabbed my hand and together we fell to the ground.
Then a second shot was fired, and a third. I heard the crunch of glass and a loud bang.
His head buried under his arms, James whispered loudly. “Was that the Caddy?”
I raised up and looked. The big car listed to the right, the windshield a spider web of cracks. “Somebody shot a tire.” Trying to keep my voice as soft as possible.
He slowly raised his head and looked at the damage. Not more than three feet from me, he grimaced and whispered. “Not to worry. Thomas LeRoy will buy him a brand new tire.”
The next shot sounded louder than the others and I wondered whether the shooter had moved closer to us.
Then everything was quiet. I could smell the acrid odor of gun smoke and realized we were probably way too close to the action.
No one came out of the trailer. No one set foot out of the car.
“Should we see if anyone is inside? Someone may be hurt.” Em’s voice barely rose above a whisper.
We didn’t go. We waited for somebody else to make the next move.
James raised his head, staring at the Caddy. He whispered. “Damn. It’s a waste of a fine car.”
We waited what seemed like minutes. I could feel my heart racing, thankful that we’d stopped in time. Another ten or fifteen steps and we would have been in the path of the bullets.
Light no longer streamed from the Cadillac. It appeared that one of the shots had taken out whatever light source there had been. Finally we saw movement in the office doorway and a large silhouette appeared, highlighted from the back by a faint yellow light. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it appeared to be Cashdollar. I wanted to crawl under the tent and hide, but it was impossible. Whoever it was turned his head and scanned the surroundings. How he didn’t see us is still a mystery. Apparently he had only one focus. The limousine.
“Are you sure we have to do this?” The big voice. It was Preston Cashdollar.
“We’ve talked about this. I think it will help the situation.” The voice from inside the trailer sounded like Thomas LeRoy. I wondered where the bodyguards were. Especially when someone was shooting up Cashdollar’s car.
The big man walked down the wooden steps, apparently not afraid of another barrage of gunshots. A burly man in what seemed to be a gray suit stepped from the shadows beside the trailer. In the dim, early morning light, it appeared to be one of the bodyguards we’d seen yesterday.
“Are you ready, Reverend?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Cashdollar stood by the door of the Cadillac. “Don’t mess this up.”
“No, sir.”
“Laying flat on the ground, my head slightly raised, I watched in horror as the man raised a pistol, aimed it at Cashdollar and pulled the trigger. From only fifteen feet away he couldn’t miss. Cashdollar grunted, staggered, and fell to the ground. I heard Em gasp. I lay there in shock, trying to figure out how we were ever going to explain this to the authorities.
With my head just slightly raised, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the scene. Thomas LeRoy stepped from the trailer as the light from the office trailer highlighted his frame.
“Give me the gun, Walter.”
The shooter handed the gun to LeRoy. I could see the deacon more clearly as he walked down the steps. He had on a jacket, maybe a tie. Formal attire for early in the morning. As he took the gun, I noticed he wore gloves.
“Two more steps, Walter, and we should be done. Go see how he’s doing.”
The bodyguard, Walter, walked over to Cashdollar, on his back on the ground. He leaned down, touched Cashdollar’s face. “You all right, rev?”
Thomas LeRoy, division head of financial affairs, walked up to Walter, raised his arm and pulled the trigger on the pistol. I watched the gun jerk
in his hand as the bullet hit the bodyguard in the side of his head and he went down like a ton of bricks. In the dim light I could see blood and brains spattered against the limo door. I thought I was going to be sick on the spot.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
We were almost burrowed into the ground. I don’t believe I will ever grab onto anything as tightly as I grabbed the earth beneath me. Terra firma. It was the only thing giving me any protection, and there wasn’t much of that. All LeRoy had to do was turn around and I don’t know how he could have missed us. Thank God, he didn’t. I don’t think I heard a breath from the two people next to me. Not one.
I didn’t even look up. I heard LeRoy’s voice, soft and low. “Cash, where did he hit you?”
Then the deep resonance of Cashdollar’s voice. “Upper thigh. Didn’t hurt that much.”
“I’ll get you up into the trailer, then I’ll take care of the rest. Can you walk?”
There was grunting, and the rustling of clothes. Twice I heard someone cry out, then the sound of footsteps on the wooden entranceway, and finally the door to the trailer closing.
We waited, none of us saying a word. I could feel the wet grass pressing against my face, soaking through my T-shirt and jeans. The cut on my head throbbed, and with every breath the still morning air and the heavy humidity were thick in my throat. Then I heard the sound of the door opening and LeRoy walking back down the wooden steps. It had to be LeRoy. I doubted if Cashdollar was walking on his own. If the deacon walked toward us, if he took two steps in our direction — he didn’t. The footsteps went in the other direction. Toward the far end of the tent, the slap of his shoe leather growing fainter and fainter. Then there was no sound at all. And suddenly, as if they hadn’t been there before, I heard morning birds, calls and answers, the crickets that had been strangely silent, and the sound of running water inside the trailer.
I slowly raised my head. The trailer door was closed, but I couldn’t see a padlock. I assumed that Cashdollar was still inside.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” James was up on one knee.
Em lifted her head and the two of us gently stood up. The red sky cast a rust-colored light on the grisly scene in front of us. Sprawled on the ground, next to the Cadillac, was the body of the burly bodyguard. The side of his head was covered in blood, the thick red substance spattered on the side of the limo. One of his legs was bent at a strange angle and his eyes were wide open in total surprise as he stared at the sky.
Beside me, Em grabbed my hand with her free one and shuddered. The pistol clutched in her hand, we turned and walked as fast as we could toward the end of the tent and back to our truck, all three of us strangely silent. My headache and the sharp pain in my forehead were totally forgotten.
As we rounded the tent, we made a dash for the truck.
“What just happened? Somebody please tell me.” She was shaking.
I shook my head, trying to put the events back in sequence and see if any of it made sense.
“The big guy tried to kill Cashdollar.” James spoke for the first time. “The bodyguard must have put five or six rounds into that car. If the reverend had been in the Caddy, he’d be dead.
I nodded. “But he wasn’t.”
“And apparently he’s going to be all right.”
“I can’t believe we saw it. And LeRoy, shooting the bodyguard. My God.” Em looked back at the tent, now an orange color as the early presunrise light highlighted the yellow canvas. Behind that temporary temple, that massive church made of stiff, heavy cloth, was a dead man and a wounded religious icon.
“We’ve got to be careful who we tell this to.” James opened the back of the truck and the sliding metal door rattled and shook as the small steel wheels rolled the door up. The sound seemed to bounce down the row of trailers and trucks.
“It was almost staged. I mean, the way it all played out. Like somebody scripted it. Am I the only one who saw it that way?” Em watched the two of us, waiting for a response.
“Whoa. What about Crayer?” I glanced at the donut trailer.
“Oh Jesus.” Em looked into my eyes and I could see this was all catching up to her. “Skip, we should go. Now. Let’s leave the truck, and the three of us get out of here.”
“You hit him pretty hard. We should at least see if he’s alive.”
“He was going to shoot us. I had to do something.”
“If you hadn’t hit him, we probably wouldn’t be here right now.” He surprised me. I can’t ever remember James actually giving Em much credit for anything and he’d thanked her twice tonight.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Em shrugged her shoulders.
“I know this sounds strange,” James sounded hesitant, “but there was something that struck me about what we saw behind the tent.”
“Strange?” Everything about what we saw had been very strange, sick, and perverted.
“I said that. Scripted, staged.”
“No, man. Something wasn’t there.”
“What?” Em didn’t like James’s drawn-out explanations any more than I did.
“Something Cashdollar has with him morning, noon, and night.”
“James.” He was starting to piss me off.
“Think about it. What does he always have with him?”
I thought about it for a moment. Cashdollar was always dressed well, worked a crowd well —
“What are you talking about?” Em threw her hands up.
“You’ve never seen Cashdollar, in person or in pictures, without his gold Bible. Am I right?”
We both thought for a moment. Even going back ten years ago with Uncle Buzz, I remember that the preacher, who turned out to be Cashdollar, carried a Bible tightly clutched in his hand. He never, ever let that gold Bible out of his sight, and almost never out of his touch. When he came down to our truck, he carried the gold Bible. Tonight, or rather this morning, there had been no sign of the gold Bible.
The three of us looked at each other, wondering what it all meant. We’d just witnessed an attempted murder, a killing, and we’d all three been involved in bashing someone in the face and taking his gun. And here we were, standing behind the truck that was supposed to make James and me wealthy beyond our wildest imaginations.
We couldn’t ignore the situation, since we’d become part of it. It was very iffy to take the story to a higher authority, and I didn’t think the three of us were strong enough to take matters into our own hands. There weren’t any other options I could think of.
As the sun made its first appearance of the day, breaking a brilliant tangerine orange over the horizon, we heard the sirens. They were in the distance, but getting closer. I had a good idea of where they were headed.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“You look.” Em stood back from the truck.
James watched from a distance. Halfway between our vehicle and the donut wagon.
Crayer’s pink apron was draped over the counter where he served the fried dough, as if he’d just taken it off. I walked around Crayer’s trailer and noticed the door to the inside was ajar. I should be the one with the pistol. Something to defend myself. I kept thinking that someone who had been smashed in the face with a cast-iron skillet would not be in the best of spirits. And I’d already witnessed a death this morning, and I wasn’t looking forward to another one. Especially mine. But Em held the gun. James had looked at the weapon and said it was almost identical to Stan’s Smith and Wesson.
I eased the door open. James and I had lifted him up the two metal stairs that led to his wagon and had put him on the floor. Then we’d tied him with some sort of plastic rope we’d found in his trailer. Now, he wasn’t there. I stopped for a moment, thinking I was mistaken. Could we have moved him somewhere else? I looked around the inside of the small trailer. Nobody. No body. Someone had found him and moved him, unless he’d regained consciousness, found a way to cut the plastic rope, and walked away. For some reason I doubted that had happened.
“W
ell?” Em asked in a hushed voice.
I turned around and shrugged.
“What?”
James echoed the line. “What?”
“He’s not here.”
Now they said it together. “What?”
I climbed down. The sirens were nearing the causeway. My guess was we had two or three minutes before they would enter the park, a couple of minutes before they reached the big yellow tent.
“What about Crayer’s tent?” James asked.
“What about it?”
“Maybe somebody cut him loose and he went back there.”
“Then that’s the last place I think we want to be.” Em still gripped the pistol, and in all of the confusion and fear, there was something strangely erotic about Emily and a gun. Don’t ask me to explain it.
I don’t know what possessed me, but I suggested the last place we wanted to be. “I think we need to know if Crayer is okay. If that means going to the tent —”
“He tried to kill us.” Em raised her voice. “If he does die, it was self-defense.”
“We need to know.” I didn’t argue with her very often, but this time it seemed important. “In a couple of minutes there are going to be cops swarming over this place and maybe FBI, and it just seems to me we’ve added one more layer of complication. We need to get our act together.”
“Then you go.” She handed the pistol to me, handle first.
I took it, feeling the heft. Cold steel and plastic inserts in the handle. It was important. We’d been through a lot during the night and I needed some closure. At least on Crayer.
“Are you really going by yourself?” Em gave me a questioning look.
“I’m going. I need to see if he’s alive.” I pushed the pistol into my belt and pulled my T-shirt down over the bulge. I had no idea why I was so adamant about Crayer’s tent, but I was. I needed to know if he was dead or alive. I turned and walked toward the camper village, and nobody tried to stop me. I believe they felt a sense of guilt too, and we needed to know if we’d been involved in killing someone, self-defense or not.
