Morgan stood. “I don’t want to be part of it.”
Whittaker cleared his throat, the rough sound of a surgical saw cutting into bone. “However…”
Morgan sat down again.
“I’d hate to think you weren’t a team player.” The dean shook his head like he was disappointed with a puppy that had shit on the carpet. “After all, when you go to your next job after this, you’ll want to give me as a reference. They always check your last employer, and they always want to know if a professor is a team player.”
Morgan felt sweat behind his ears. He wiped his forehead, swallowed hard. “I don’t think you understand. Ellis read his last poem, and, well, he scared the crap out of everybody in the class. I mean, I just don’t think it’s the feel-good poetry you want for a public relations event.”
“It’s
“But-”
“There’s another consideration,” the dean said. “I’m getting a little concerned about Professor Valentine. He might be close to retirement. That would mean an open position for a tenure track professor.” The dean could see he had Morgan’s interest. The classic carrot and stick ploy. A brand-new job or a ruined career. “I’m sure you know what a lot of trouble it is to put together a search committee and go through a hiring process. It would sure be easier on everyone if there was a poet right here under our nose who fit the bill.”
Morgan nodded slowly. “I want to be a team player, Dr. Whittaker. I’ll get ahold of Ellis. I’ll make it happen.”
Whittaker sat back in his chair, an evil smile spread thin across his face. “I knew we could count on you, Morgan.”
Morgan felt excited and frightened and a little sick as he left the dean’s office. Sherman Ellis. Why in the hell did they want this gangster rap craziness as part of their annual poetry reading?
But Morgan wanted that job. God, how he wanted it. He tried not to think of Valentine. Hey, it was eat or be eaten. Morgan was tired of going from school to school. What if he couldn’t get another position? He couldn’t live on adjunct pay. Hell, he might actually have to resort to teaching high school. No, he wouldn’t be able to stomach that. Teenagers scared the hell out of him.
Okay, he’d find Ellis. Tell him he was going to read some goddamn poetry and that was it. Morgan would write the poems himself if he had to. All Sherman Ellis would have to do was stand up there and read them without alienating every white person in the room.
nineteen
Jenks had set up the deal for early in the morning.
DelPrego had been strangely eager. Lancaster didn’t want anything to do with it, but Jenks had insisted over and over again that Lancaster would only be required to sit in the car.
Jenks rode between Lancaster and DelPrego in DelPrego’s fifteen-year-old pickup truck. The day was cold but clear, and they drove with the windows down, huddled close across the truck’s bench seat. Jenks wore a heavy army surplus jacket, baggy, big pockets. He pulled his dark blue watch cap over his ears. Lancaster wore a long camel hair coat, slightly worn at the elbows. It had once been an expensive garment, but Lancaster confessed he’d picked it up at a thrift store in Tulsa. DelPrego’s denim jacket was too light for the weather, but the cold never seemed to bother him.
They each sipped a large cup of convenience store coffee.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Lancaster said. “A drug sale. This is nothing but a common drug sale. We’re criminals.”
“A thousand bucks to each of you just to ride along,” Jenks said. “This guy’s a professional dealer. He don’t get it from me, he just gets it from somebody else.”
“Where’d you get all that cocaine?” DelPrego asked.
“Just a fluke. This is my one deal.” Jenks held his coffee cup with both hands, felt the warmth. “As soon as I get this money it’s straight and narrow for me.”
“Good,” Lancaster said. “Otherwise, count me out.”
“Me too,” DelPrego said. “I’m flat-ass broke. They cut off my phone. I need cash so bad I’d sell coke to my grandmother.”
“Okay then. One score and it’s all done.” Jenks pointed to the left. “Down that dirt road.”
“How the hell you know where to go?” DelPrego turned the truck.
“I was out here yesterday to find the guy. He said come back today and he’d have the cash. That’s why I needed you guys.”
“But how did you know the first time?” DelPrego shot a glance at him.
“You keep your ears open and you hear things.”
“I still don’t like it,” Lancaster said.
“We can stop the truck and let you out,” Jenks said.
“I’m just saying I don’t like it,” Lancaster said. “I’m nervous that’s all.”
“Good. Keep you on your toes.”
The land sloped up gently, and they saw the gray, weatherworn barn on a rise a half mile up. They drove toward it easy and slow. A little squat house a few dozen yards from the barn. One half-assed tornado would knock the place to kindling.
“This isn’t where drug dealers live in the movies,” DelPrego said.
Jenks wasn’t listening. He pulled the.32 revolver and the 9mm Glock from two of his baggy pockets. “Here.” He dropped the revolver into Lancaster’s lap.
“What!” Lancaster jerked, looked down at the gun like Jenks had dumped hot coals on his crotch. “I don’t want this thing.”
“Shit.” Jenks slammed a clip into the Glock. “What the fuck you think you’re here for? To keep me company?”
“I don’t want it.” Lancaster looked sick. “You said all I had to do was sit in the car. Give it to Wayne.”
“Don’t bother.” DelPrego reached under his seat, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun. “Twelve-gauge. Loaded with buckshot.” The barrels had been hacked short. The whole gun was barely two feet long, stock and all.
Lancaster groaned.
“Good.” Jenks stuck the Glock in his belt under the army jacket. “You guys hang back. That’s all. If he sees I got backup, he’ll be less likely to pull a funny. Now drive up within a hundred feet of that barn. Nice and slow.”
They finished their coffee, tossed the cups out the window.
Moses Duncan puffed a cigarette, watched through the crack in the barn door as the truck approached. He wore a heavy corduroy jacket which hid the.38 revolver in his belt. The pistol was thirty years old and had been his daddy’s. He’d kept it clean and well oiled over the years, just like Daddy had shown him.
The truck was getting closer, and he could see three men in the front seat. That damn coon had brought friends. Hell, he should have figured. Well, that was okay. He had friends too. Big John up in the loft with a shotgun. His pal Eddie in the house, watching from the front window. Eddie was the most goddamn bad shot Moses had ever seen, but he could make a hell of a lot of noise with his army-issue .45.
The coon had approached him yesterday about buying a buttload of coke at a fraction of the street value, and Moses thought, hell, why not get it for free? The guy was clearly from out of town. Nobody would miss him, and he could feed his body to the pigs. And the coke would be all his. He wouldn’t have to filter the profits back to his contacts down in Oklahoma City. He could get a new Harley. Fix the thermostat in the house. Fix himself up with some new threads. Twenty grand for a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of coke was actually a damn fine deal, but Duncan couldn’t raise twenty grand any more than he could hammer a tent peg through a block of ice with his
