“Maybe,” Lawrence said. “Those dogs, they might be too dumb to know they’ve been hit.”
Lawrence removed his headphones, folded up his laptop, placed his equipment in their cases. Then he had his foot into a gap in the wire fence, and it sagged under his weight as he got his other foot into a higher opening. In a moment, he was over the top and hopping down onto the other side.
He looked at me on the other side of the fence, his fingers wrapped around the top wire. “Are you coming?” he asked.
I sighed, and started climbing.
31
WE HUGGED THE INSIDE OF THE FENCE that ran along the edge of the forest. Taking it to the right would get us closer to the barn, so that when we had to walk across open territory, there wouldn’t be as much of it. We were worried that, with the moon shining down the way it was, there was a chance someone looking out a window of the Wickens place might catch a glimpse of us.
We crept, and raised our feet with each step. If we came across a stick or small stone, we’d be stepping on it from above, rather than tripping over it. I resisted all temptation to say anything to Lawrence, who was ahead of me by about two yards.
We heard a door and froze. Together, we craned our necks around to look back at the farmhouse. The back screen door swung open, and there was Charlene, silhouetted in light from the kitchen, a washbowl of some kind in her hands. She tossed some water from the top step, then slipped back inside.
As best as we could tell, no little critters had taken the opportunity to scoot out the door.
Lawrence and I exchanged glances, nodded in silence, and kept on moving.
In a few minutes, we were around the far side of the barn, the farmhouse now obscured from view. If we couldn’t see it, no one in it, we figured, could see us. Pencil-thin slivers of light seeped out from between the barnboards, offering us a number of places where we could peek inside. We approached the side of the barn, a step at a time, mindful of the grasses and twigs and stones beneath our feet. We were more worried than ever now about making any sounds. Tentatively, I reached out and touched the barn with the tips of my fingers, like a tired climber reaching his hand over the crest of the cliff. We sidled up close to the building, each of us putting an eye to a crack.
I didn’t have much of a view. The back third of an old white van, the one I’d seen in the yard earlier in the week, with its back door open. Wendell, Dougie, or Tim, passing through the scene. Lawrence, only three feet down from me, must have had pretty much the same view.
The good thing was, even if we couldn’t see them all that well, we could hear them perfectly, a nice change from our pit bull mike.
“What about the water tower?” Wendell said. “Wouldn’t that be a good place to watch from?”
“Too out of the way, perfect place to get caught, too,” Timmy said. “You get spotted up there, what are you going to do? No, stick with the original plan, Dougie. Couple blocks off Main, that seniors complex, you get up on the roof, you can see from there, press the button whenever you want. Boom it goes.”
“That’s way better than a fuse,” Dougie said. “A fuse, you gotta run, hope it goes off at the right time.”
“Did you bring out those wiring diagrams?” Timmy asked.
“Oh shit,” said Dougie. “I left them in the house.”
“Honest to God, Dougie,” Timmy said.
“I can go get ’em.”
“Never mind, I don’t think I really need them.”
Timmy passed by the end of the van, appeared to go in the open back door. From inside, his voice slightly muffled: “This looks fine. You did this, Wendell?”
“Yep.”
“I think that’ll work just fine.”
“Fucker’s gonna blow huge,” Dougie said. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
“Are people gonna know why we did it?” Wendell asked Timmy, still inside the van.
“They’ll figure it out. Especially if we set it off right when the gay float goes by.”
Float? Would you believe four people and a banner?
“Hey, Timmy,” said Dougie. “How’m I gonna know, exactly, just when they’re going by the town hall so I know when to hit the button?”
“I told you, they’re supposed to be right behind the high school band, and ahead of the grocery store float, which is the huge piece of beef or something.”
“Okay, that should be easy.”
“Thing is,” Wendell said, “parade’s probably so fucking small, wouldn’t matter when you hit the button, you’ll take everyone out. It isn’t just about the fags. It’s a bigger statement, about the town government and the mayor, right, Timmy?”
“Dougie,” said Timmy, “I’m thinking, maybe I should let Wendell handle this part.”
“Come on! Mom said I could do this. She said you promised her.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“She said you need to show more confidence in me.” He paused. “You know, for my self-esteem.”
“Jesus,” Timmy muttered as he hopped back out of the van. “Fine. Just so you remember, be very careful with the remote. You press down on that button, the van blows, right then. That’s why I’ve made a little box for the remote, with foam all around it, so even if the thing falls off the dashboard when you’re driving into town, you’re not going to blow yourself up. But once it’s out of the box, it’s very sensitive.”
“I’m not stupid,” Dougie said. “I just forget things once in a while. But that don’t make me dumb. I’ve even been writin’ some of this stuff down, so I won’t forget any of it. Mom’s idea.”
“He’ll be okay, Timmy,” Wendell said. “I’ll be driving in after him, if he has any problems, I can help him out.”
I couldn’t see Timmy, but I could sense him mulling it over. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lawrence’s arm moving. He tapped me lightly, motioned me toward him.
He put his mouth right up to my ear. “A lone wolf,” he whispered.
I looked around, expecting to see a large, dog-like creature sneaking up on me.
“No no,” Lawrence said. “It’s an FBI term. A lone terrorist. Timmy’s out to make a statement of his own. Not part of a larger group.”
“A lone wolf with family support,” I whispered back.
“We have to get help, do something right away. We need everybody. Forget Orville. I’m talking the feds. Now.”
I nodded. Then Lawrence did a series of motions—pointing to himself, then pointing around the barn, then pointing at me, and finally, pointing at the ground. I thought I got the message. He wanted to get a peek inside the barn from the other side, and I was to stay put.
As he crept away, I put my eye back to the crack and heard Wendell say, “I’m starving.”
“When’s Mom coming with sandwiches?”
Jesus. I didn’t figure Lawrence had heard that. He was on the move, slipping around the corner of the barn. Timmy and the boys were expecting a visit from Charlene, any moment now.
“She’ll be out soon enough,” Timmy said.
“I hope she doesn’t put cheese on mine,” Dougie said. “I think I forgot to ask.”
Wendell said, “Jesus, she’s only been making you sandwiches for twenty years. I think she knows you don’t like cheese on ham, even if the rest of the entire fucking world does.”
I took a step, thinking that maybe I should go after Lawrence, but then thought, Lawrence was no fool. He had to know something like that was possible. One of the men in the barn could decide to head back to the farmhouse, the dogs might get let out. Any number of things could happen. He might—
Through the crack, I saw guns.
Big guns. Long ones.
Wendell was standing next to Dougie, at the back of the van, each holding a shotgun of some kind. I’ve never, and still don’t, know much about guns, even though I’d fired a couple in recent years, even shot a man in the leg not that long ago, but guns are not my thing. I don’t like them, I don’t own them. A gun in our house,
if I were the incompetent wielding it, would undoubtedly put my family at greater risk, not less.
But even though I didn’t know much about guns, I thought I recognized the weapon in the hands of those young men. Pump action shotguns. With double barrels.
Bad bad guns.
Maybe, by now, Lawrence had staked out a new position on another side of the barn, and had peered through a crack and seen these guns.
An image of Dick Tracy flashed in my mind. If only Lawrence and I had two-way wrist radios. Cell phones that could text message would have done the trick.
I couldn’t stay put. I had to join Lawrence.
I moved up to the corner of the barn he’d disappeared around, stuck my head around it, let my eyes adjust. Crossing along that side, he would have scooted past the big barn door, which had been pulled shut about ninety percent of the way. There was no Lawrence. So he must have gone around the next corner, and was peering in from the opposite side.
From this vantage point, I could see the farmhouse, and as I started to make my move to the next corner, the back door of the house swung open, and out stepped Charlene, a tray in her hands.
The sandwiches were on their way.
I couldn’t go around the barn that way without being seen by Charlene, so I doubled back to the other corner, all the while aware of the murmurings of Timmy and Wendell and Dougie inside. I peered around it, and again, no sign of Lawrence. Which only left one side of the barn for him to be on.
I tiptoed through the tall grass, sidestepped a rusting plough blade from God knew how many decades ago, and when I reached the end of the wall, tipped my head beyond the edge.
No Lawrence.
Pressing myself up close to the barn, I moved along the wall, wondering what could have happened to him. He couldn’t have gone the other way. That would have exposed him to the house, and Charlene the Sandwich Lady.
The ground was built up on this side, and I realized it was a ramp leading to the upper part of the barn. My eye followed the ramp up to a narrow opening, a door that was only slightly ajar.
Lawrence had gone into the barn. What the hell was Lawrence doing in the—
“Okay, nobody move!”
Oh shit.
I ran up the ramp, squeezed in the doorway, my shoes kicking old hay and stones out of the way. Once in, I found that this upper level of the barn afforded a view into the lower area, where the Wickens crew had been occupied with the white van. And down there, I could see Lawrence, doing the cop stance, both hands on his gun, barking commands at Timmy and Wendell and Dougie.
“Put the guns down,” Lawrence said.
“The fuck?” said Wendell.
“Jesus, you,” said Dougie. “That’s the guy, Timmy. He’s the one was so mean to me.”
“I know, Dougie,” said Timmy. “I talked to him. Remember?”
So Lawrence had snuck in from above and gotten the drop on them. I sure hoped he had a plan for subduing the three of them. Was he carrying several sets of handcuffs I didn’t know about? And if not, where was my friend Trixie when you really needed her?
And where, exactly, was Charlene?
She should have been to the barn by now. It wasn’t a long walk. Which meant she must have been almost to the barn with her tray of sandwiches when she heard Lawrence’s voice, and knew there was trouble inside. So where had she gone? Was she running back to the farmhouse? Going for help?
What to do? Shout to Lawrence? But would that distract him, give the others a chance to get the jump on him? Maybe if—
“Drop it.”
Off to Lawrence’s left, standing in the narrow opening of the big barn door, stood Charlene, a long-barreled gun in hand, a goddamn six-shooter it looked like from my hiding spot up in the barn, pointed straight at Lawrence’s head.
Fucking Ma Barker.
32
NO ONE MOVED.
Not Wendell or Dougie. Not Lawrence. Not Charlene. Lawrence had his gun aimed at the three men, who were clustered together at the back of the van, and had, I could see from my hiding spot, put down their weapons. But Charlene Wickens had her gun firmly in her grip, and it was trained on Lawrence.
“Put your gun away, Mrs. Wickens,” Lawrence said evenly. “Drop it.”
“I don’t think so, boy,” she said. She practically spat out the last word.
“Mrs. Wickens,” Lawrence said, his eyes darting back and forth between her and the men in front of him, “I’m sure you don’t want to see one of your sons, or your husband, hurt.”
“And I’m sure you don’t want your fucking head shot off.” She held the gun with such confidence, I had the sense she could do it.
Lawrence persisted. “Mrs. Wickens. If you don’t put down your gun and stand over here with the rest of your family, I may have no choice but to use my weapon. Who do you want to see die first? One of your boys, or your husband?”
“Well,” Charlene Wickens said, appearing rather thoughtful, “I guess if you gotta take one of them, best it be my husband. I wouldn’t feel good about you taking one of my own flesh and blood.” I wished I could see Timmy Wickens’s expression, but Wendell was standing to this side of him, and his face was obscured.
Charlene Wickens continued, “But the way I see it, the best you might be able to do is get one out of the three, and by then, I’ll have put a bullet of my own into you. And if you figure it makes sense to shoot me first, since I’m the one holding a gun, lots of luck there, pardner. The moment I see your muscles twitch to start aiming in my direction, I’m dropping you.”
There was one thing Lawrence had on his side that none of the Wickenses knew about, and that was me. He must have figured that I was watching this, not from inside the barn, perhaps, but at least from the spot outside where he’d left me. And he’d know that, even if I lacked the requisite heroic skills to turn the tables on the Wickenses at this moment, I could at least run like hell for help.
If only my bear spray had a range of forty feet.
“Maybe,” said Lawrence, “I’m willing to see how many of you I can take out before you shoot me. I’m betting I can kill at least two of you before you kill me. And that ought to be enough to disrupt your plans for tomorrow’s parade.”
Everyone thought about that for a few seconds.
Then Charlene said, “We do it your way, then after, whoever’s left standing here is going to take a walk down the road and get rid of every possible witness who could ever tell the police anything about what’s been going on around here. Walker, and that meddlesome son of his, and whoever else is down there. We’ll take care of all of them. And then we’ll pack up and move on.”
That didn’t sound good at all. And I could tell, from Lawrence’s expression, that it didn’t sound very good to him, either.
So, slowly and deliberately, he bent down and set his gun on the barn floor. And Dougie walked over and kicked him in the balls.
Lawrence dropped like a bag of cement. He lay on the floor, writhing.
Timmy shook his head, walked over to Charlene. “Nice going, honey.”
She smiled, gave him a peck on the cheek. “I hope you know I didn’t mean nothing by telling him to shoot you first. You know I love you, even if not quite as much as I love my boys.”
“I know,” Timmy said. “You did what you had to do.”
Wendell said, “Were you still making sandwiches, Mom?”
“Oh, almost forgot,” she said. “I was bringing the tray over, and when I heard the commotion going on in here, I put it down outside, ran back and got my gun. Just a sec.” She slipped out the door and was back ten seconds later, the tray of sandwiches untouched by any creatures of the night.
Wendell and Dougie rushed her. “Which one’s without cheese?” asked Dougie, who was already lifting the lids of the various sandwiches to check.
“This one,” Charlene said.
Dougie grabbed it, shoved a quarter of the sandwich into his mouth, his cheeks bulging out. Wendell did the same.
&nb
sp; “Nothing for you?” Charlene asked her husband. “I made you one without mustard, just like you asked.”
Timmy shook his head, glanced back at Lawrence Jones on the floor, slowly twisting and turning. “I’m a bit worried about him. I don’t figure he’d be out here working alone. It was Walker’s son brought him up here from the city.”
Wendell and Dougie, looking like squirrels hiding nuts to take back to the nest, stopped chewing a moment to take in the significance of this comment. Charlene said, “You think he might be around here, too?”
“Why don’t we go ask?” Timmy said, and walked back over to Lawrence. He bent over slightly, and said, “Who else is out here with you?”
I began slipping back toward the open door, which meant I couldn’t see what was going on, but I could still hear.
“I said, who else is out here with you?”
Quietly, “Nobody.”
“I don’t believe you. Dougie, come over here and give this man another taste of your boot.”
Up above them, nearing the door, I could hear the kick.
Lawrence said, “Unnhhh.”
“Now let me ask you again. Are you out here alone, or is there someone with you?”
As it turned out, Lawrence didn’t really need to answer the question. I answered it for them when, as I slipped out the door, my foot pressed down on a twig and snapped it.
It wasn’t a loud sound. It was hardly anything at all. But it must have been enough to prick someone’s ears.
“Up there,” Charlene Wickens said. “Someone’s up there!”
“Wendell!” Timmy shouted. “Dougie! Go! Go!”
I now embarked on the “run like hell” part of my plan. My legs started pumping, carrying me back in the direction I’d come from, along the inside of the fence, looking for the place where I’d hopped over, because I knew the terrain back down toward the cabins from there pretty well.
I glanced back briefly, and when I saw the shadows of the two brothers appear in the light of the barn door, I dropped to the ground, flattening myself to it. Each of them was armed with a shotgun, and as soon as they were standing outside the barn, they stopped momentarily, reminding me of the pit bulls when they stopped to determine where the smell of fish was coming from. They hadn’t seen me, didn’t know where I might be, and were wondering which way to go. There were a lot of choices, standing under that starry sky.
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