“Shit.”
The smell of shit all over the yard. Dog shit. He looked around—no dog. But then he heard it, the barking, relentless, scrabbling at the back sliding-glass door. He couldn’t see it from his spot. Squeaking, squeaking, dog nails on glass. Relentless. Barking. But that was good, right? No one had come outside to see what the puppy was barking at. No one had yelled for it to shut up.
The electric cattle prod bit harder each time and took longer to fade away. He flexed the fingers on his left hand, even though he knew the pain wasn’t in his muscles. Not those muscles, anyway. He had been sitting on his heels, back up against the house, tense all over, and finally stuck his feet out in front of him, ass on the ground. Relief.
First thing, he needed a car. There had to be plenty in this neighborhood, in garages or parked on the curb. Okay. Actually, it wasn’t the first thing. The first thing was to stop hurting. He was holding his breath without thinking, trying to stop the pulsing, white-hot—
—Ginny, dead. Ginny, bruise around her neck. Smiling. Thanking him—
He must have dozed off. Not sure of the time. Maybe the sky was darker, or maybe it was his eyes still adjusting to the light. Someone out front on the street was revving their engine for fun. Then high-pitched brakes, then nothing. Was the dog still barking? The pain had subsided, mostly. He checked his elbow, his ear. Crusty blood, dry. Good.
He pushed himself off the ground, hand on top of the A/C unit until he was sure he could walk. There was a wooden backdoor, probably led to the garage. He crouched and duck-walked over to it, tried the knob. It was open. He pushed, but it only went another inch. Chain lock up top.
The energy leaked out of him and he ached all over again. But fuck that. He put his boot in the gap at the bottom, pressed hard with his knee, then shouldered the door, more pressure gradually, trying to keep the noise down. He was just under eye-level with the chain, watched as the screws holding the latch stripped out of the door frame. He stumbled inside the garage.
The door only opened forty-five degrees, blocked by plastic totes. Those and cardboard boxes and tools piled on wobbly steel shelves, five high, along with beat-to-shit and sun-faded toys the kids must’ve lost interest in. And, thankfully, a car, all packed into a narrow garage. He wondered if it meant there was someone home after all. But he couldn’t hear anything except the dog still barking, whining, scratching, now at the interior garage door. Lafitte closed the back door, too dark, no windows in here, but then left it open a crack, enough to help him see as he walked sideways between a wall of boxes and the passenger side.
The car was a shitpile, no doubt. Tan, four-doors, what was this thing? Saturn. Yeah, Saturn. In the back window, a community college parking permit from 2003, half-gone from someone trying to peel it off. Lafitte nearly got hung up on the tow hitch—seriously? This thing could tow shit?—scooting between the rear to the driver’s side. He opened the driver’s door, sat down. The scent of sickly-sweet perfume nauseated him. The inside light showed a bunch of papers, school handouts, and empty Skittles bags, and a little stuffed clown hanging off the rearview by its arms, right beside a high school parking permit, this year.
A kid’s car. A hand-me-down, or bought used. Whatever. He checked for spare keys tucked into the visors, but yeah, no one did that much anymore. He needed to hotwire it. So, okay, he did. He hot-wired it, the perfume making him hungry for some reason, and then he tapped the garage door opener, put the car into reverse, and waited until the door was up.
Outside were two pick-up trucks across the street on the curb, parked nose-to-nose, a handful of guys, three shirtless, standing around, and one sitting in the driver’s seat of a chopped-down GMC. They all stared at him.
Of course they did. Of course they would be there.
Then Lafitte looked at the house he’d been hiding behind. In the front window, a teenage girl, phone to her face, now shouting, easy to tell, and pointing. Then her face disappeared and a moment later she was outside, phone still to her face, shouting about, “He’s stealing my car! My car!” Right behind her was the dog, a shaggy mutt, barking and running in circles.
The guys in the street—what, late teens? Twenties?—moved towards the driveway. Lafitte hadn’t even cleared it yet. They blocked the path. One of the guys headed up to the passenger door and yanked the handle a few times. Pounded his palm on the window. “Stop the car, bitch! The cops are coming! Stop the car!”
Lafitte inched back some more. The guys blocking his way stepped forward and laid their hands on the trunk. The shirtless guy at the window was still slapping, still telling him, “We’re not playing! Stop the fucking car! You’re not taking her car!”
The girl had gotten brave enough to stand right behind the guy, phone still to her face.
Jesus. Couldn’t Lafitte have one stolen vehicle for the day without anyone fucking it up? If those idiots had just left his Muscle Max truck alone...
He let out a breath. Took his foot off the brake, punched the gas and the car jumped backwards. The guy on the side flinched away, same as two of the guys at the trunk, except one who got his feet tangled and went down and, goddamn it, Lafitte punched the gas again and must’ve gone right over the guy like a speedbump.
The teenage girl screamed and in the rearview was the whole fucking population of the street watching from their yards, with their phones up and recording, and these guys panicking over their friend under the back wheels.
Lafitte pulled the stick into drive and gunned it forward. The speedbump wasn’t as easy this time. First two tries, it was like he was slamming into a concrete block. The other guys, waving their hands wildly in front of him, shouting “Shit! Fuck! No! God, no! Stop it! Stop it!”
Then the third time, the resistance gave way and he bounced up and over the body, and nobody stood in his fucking way this time. Lafitte looked in the rearview and saw all of these people running towards whoever he had run over. He couldn’t see the body itself, surrounded now, but he did see the trail of red tire-tracks starting nice and wide and bright back at the house, fading as he put distance between himself and the scene.
He hoped the guy would be okay.
He needed another car. Something easier this time.
*
It took two more carjacks to get a clean one. Finally. Someone left a Mitsubishi running outside a Target because they’d left a dog inside. Yappy little shit. Schnauzer. He looked at the tag on its collar—Kaiser. Then the names Lynn and Chris and two phone numbers. It was probably chipped. They couldn’t track it, right? Lafitte thought of letting the little thing out into the parking lot, but fuck, he was lonely.
After seeing Ginny, hoping she’d found some peace at last, the next impulse drew him north again, back to Minnesota, where all the bad things had happened—but it wasn’t as strong a pulse as before. His head was beginning to clear and he was getting through the fog. He had unfinished business.
Kaiser the Schnauzer settled after a few minutes of growling. Lafitte laid his hand on the dog, now curled in the passenger seat. Stroked his fur. DeVaughn had engineered this shit somehow, so maybe Lafitte needed to see it through. He’d always have someone behind him—the FBI, Homeland Security, Rome, Ginny’s mom—but he couldn’t lay blame on them. They were doing what they had to do. DeVaughn could’ve left well enough. He should’ve.
No, it was Lafitte himself. His own internal radar couldn’t leave well enough alone. His whole life was a scab he kept picking, like walking into this trap—you knew it was a fucking trap, you fucktard—for the sheer hell of it, convinced no one could catch him now, not after prison. Not after watching his son die because of some stuck-up Christian bitch wanting to teach her grandson a lesson, and Colleen still ass-hurt over her dead husband, putting everyone at risk to make herself feel a little better.
So, fine, where’s this busted radar going to lead you now? Where’s this ego, leaking like a cracked nuke, going to steer us?
Well...there was this one guy. If Lafitte wa
s going to square things with DeVaughn, he needed time to heal. And that meant squaring things with someone he hadn’t seen in almost twenty years.
*
Lafitte ditched the car in a parking lot in Biloxi with broken asphalt and long wild grass growing knee-high between the cracks. There had once been a K&B Drugstore, but it had turned into some other chain and then another and then it had become a store for ethnic hair products that wasn’t there anymore. A big grocery store had centered the place, also gone. He remembered it had been closed long before Katrina. The water mark from the storm was still high on the wall all these years later, next to the graffiti from the Coast Guard marking how many dead were found here—six. But down the line, business was alive if not well. A Chinese take-out, and two check cashing joints. Yep, two of them, not even fifty yards apart.
He found a leash for Kaiser in the backseat, and he even locked the Mitsubishi’s doors with the keys still inside, engine running. Maybe it would run out of gas before someone else came along and re-stole it, but Lafitte doubted it. Eight minutes, tops. The thief, whoever it turned out to be, was probably watching him right now, making sure it wasn’t a “cop drop” to lure a rat to the cheese, same as Lafitte coming close to getting his own neck snapped by DeVaughn. But it didn’t matter. At least one rat would still take the bait, God bless him. Today that car thief would get away with it for a while.
The heat. It was the first chance he really had to enjoy the heat again. Clear sky, the sun piercing enough to make him squint, but the asphalt below soaking it up, then steaming it back at him. The sweat was a relief. Kaiser had no idea where they were going, but he led anyway, past the shopping center into an older neighborhood, past an apartment complex built in the eighties, looking as run down as a French Quarter warehouse from the eighteenth century.
It had been, what, fifteen? Twenty years? Hadn’t been down this street in nearly twenty years, and then only the one time. He had ended up having to get help from this guy buying a car, and was embarrassed to need it. Lafitte had written the guy off before then, and it wasn’t like he’d made an effort to come see Billy on his own. Maybe he didn’t even live back here anymore. It was a stab in the dark.
The neighborhood was deeper than Lafitte remembered. Quiet out, too hot for a lot of outdoors stuff. Only one kid mowing. He heard splashing from a backyard. Probably an inflatable pool. The grass was dying in too many yards, reminding him of fall in Minnesota, except here it was from drought. The heat was like a goddamned jungle. Every step, he watched waves of hot air rise from the ground ahead of him. Jesus, it was making him sleepy.
The house he was looking for, right where it used to be, where it had always been. It was brick, red. A ranch style. A one car garage, a little gated courtyard leading to the front door. In the driveway, and angled across the lawn, two cars—one Chrysler 300, and a Lincoln, early 00’s. Lafitte stopped to let Kaiser piss on the lawn before heading up to the door. All around the courtyard, ceramic frogs and a fish spitting water into a ceramic pond, a bench too small to sit on, but it didn’t matter because two potted plants, no flowers, took up all the space. Lafitte twisted the leash around his hand because he didn’t know what to expect, what races this dog might or might not like. He stabbed at the doorbell, a heavy, seventies ring to it, and then propped his arm on the doorjamb, asleep on his feet.
The door swung open, and the cool air was a revelation. The man standing there, another twenty years lining his face, well past sixty now. Puffy cheeks, acne-scarred chin and forehead, skin light brown. He still wore his hair swooped back, blow-dried, one big pomp with high sheen to it, but the darkness was a dye job, had to be. Lafitte remembered the old man had taken to Miami Vice in the eighties, Don Johnson’s signature look. It looked as if had anchored himself to it ever since.
Otherwise, he had a small beer gut, still had strong arms, shown off in a too-tight turquoise polo shirt, and he still wore a gold chain with a sailor’s cross. His jeans were perfect, a crease ironed into them, and on his feet were moccasins and no socks.
The look on his face, a little blank at first, before his eyes widened and he opened the door all the way.
“Son?”
Kaiser was cool with him, so Lafitte felt a big sense of relief and brushed past the old man’s shoulder into the house, heading for the nearest place to sit his ass down. He said, “I’m not your son, Manuel.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DeVaughn washed his hands in the Waffle House sink and splashed a little on his face. Someone had tried the door knob and was now shuffling around out there, getting impatient, so DeVaughn slowed down. Make the fucker wait.
Eyes were red. Mouth was dry.
Shit, Melissa, man.
First, she was fucking crazy. He could tell from fucking her, but that was a good kind of fucking crazy. That was what all boys who’ve ever watched porn hoped for in a woman.
But, second, she was fucking crazy. Jesus, slapping gangstas and straight up murdering car salesmen, calm about it. Girl had devil eyes. Girl got off on killing. Girl wanted to fuck on top of bodies.
He dried his hands slowly, then his face. He opened the bathroom door. Fat white man in a beard and trucker cap turned like he was all mad, then looked away quick. Yeah, he’d better. DeVaughn stood in the open doorway an extra moment to piss the guy off more. Then made his way out through the swinging door to the dining room, smacked in the face with the smell of greasy eggs, greasy steaks, and old coffee. All Waffle Houses were the same. A few booths lined the kitchen, then the counter and stools, then a few more booths against the far windows, where his people were slumped all over everything. BGM soldiers on loan, none of them had real cred yet, some of them still in baggy jeans, the whole trend like clown pants now, DeVaughn thought. Six in all. Manspreading in the booths, and a couple barely staying on top of theirs stools, one on each side of Melissa. She turned left and right, left and right, lazily, ankles crossed, elbows on the counter, stirring a straw in her Mountain Dew.
At least Lo-Wider was there, too, relieved the cops had found his grampa’s Monte Carlo unharmed thanks to a security guard at a rest area. So he wasn’t so glum anymore. He was chowing down an omelet and grits. He was the only one eating. In fact, except for Melissa and Lo-Wider, no one else had even ordered. They’d all brought in their own bottles of Mountain Dew or tall boys of energy drink. The manager, he could tell, didn’t like this shit, and she kept glancing over, not ready to say it yet but close.
The kid on the stool to Melissa’s right was new. Saying, “Nigga killed his wife? Shit, why we chasing him, then?”
“He killed my brother, too. Good enough for you?”
Oh, snap, the soldiers giggling themselves into fits as new boy ducked his head and was all, “Shut up, bitches.”
The manager was now right near DeVaughn, on the opposite side of the counter. Tall, thin, white, and older. She had a man’s face if that man looked like a horse. Crossed arms. Cleared her throat.
DeVaughn sighed and pulled out his roll, peeling off forty and handed it over. “Whatever they want, on me.”
He sat in the booth opposite Lo-Wider, sideways and on the edge because the boy’s legs were trunks filling all the available space. The two on the stools plus Melissa turned his way. All the others, leaning closer.
“I don’t know where he is. What we need from you is to find him.”
Nothing.
“I mean, you know, some research or some shit. Hasn’t he still got a kid living around here? Or some sort of family? Something?”
“Thought you were gonna tell us.” One of the energy drinkers.
“What are you saying?”
The kid held his can so it covered his mouth, as if he was going to take a sip any second. “Like, didn’t expect homework.”
DeVaughn gave him a hard eye, hard as he could muster anymore. Poker made his eye look a lot less dangerous, a lot more I know what you’re holding, but these BGM’s, they didn’t even know what they were holding. I
t didn’t much work at all. “You know, if you’ve got something else to do.”
One of the others, named YP for some reason, said, “Boy doesn’t want to say he has a hard time with long words, like the and what.”
They busted laughing, and white people eating looked all mad. Made DeVaughn grin, shake his head.
It was Melissa who got them calmed. Reclined on the counter, arms resting on it, crossed her legs so the one on top was mighty high and her toe pointed and all Beyonce.
She said, “You’ve got to look up his whole name. William Lafitte. Middle name was, what was it, DeVaughn?”
DeVaughn told her.
“Right, yeah. Look it up.”
A few were already on their phones doing it.
DeVaughn gave her a look. “Thank you, baby.”
She smiled. He got warm.
YP was like, “Hold up, hold up, how old is he?”
“About, what, forty? Thirty-eight?”
“You heard if his mom’s dead?”
DeVaughn shrugged. Shit, he thought he knew this guy inside and out. Now he wondered if he’d really cared that his brother had died after all. Wondered if he gave a shit about revenge or if it was just obligation.
“Let me see.”
YP got up, showed his phone to DeVaughn. An obituary for Lafitte’s mother. Well, goddamn. A list of survivors.
DeVaughn winked at Melissa, towering over him right now like she was on a throne. Being a Queen came naturally to her. Too bad everyone else couldn’t see past the cellulite to realize.
“Finish up your drink,” he told her. “We’ve got someplace to be.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The afterlife sure enough sucked.
If that was what this was, anyway. Rome couldn’t figure out if time was passing or stopped or happening all at once. There would start to be a dream, maybe a dream, people he knew but who didn’t look like themselves, or sound like themselves, and then the scene would cut out and he would forget it instantly. Then a song, pounding, hitting him on the head like a bottle. Then, what, “Sir? Sir? Can you hear me? You’re going to be alright.”
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