and say I got to do somethin' for the family. They puttin' a lot of pressure on me. Now I'm puttin' it on somebody else. My aunt say somethin' bad went down, somethin' ain't right. She don't like the explanation the police gave her. She say she got nobody but her nephew. So I got obligation in all this, y'all hear what I'm sayin'? I don't care how long it takes, I got the whole day. I'm goin' to Philadelphia later but right now I got the whole damn day.' He looked at me again, smiled at my discomfort. 'You remember me, right? Remember my anti-fuckin'-social tendencies?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Good. So, where's your man at?'
'Rainey? I don't know.'
'Well, call him.'
'I could do that.'
I pulled out my phone and dialed Jay.
H.J.'s newest man, Lamont, held his gun on Allison and Ha. Gabriel kept his on Poppy. The phone rang. No answer.
'Not there,' I volunteered.
'You that Poppy I keep hearin' about?' asked H.J., pulling out a gold-plated automatic from the pocket of his coat.
Poppy shrugged. 'I already told everything I got to say.'
'You the man who killed my uncle Herschel?'
'It wasn't like that.'
'My aunt say he was frozen to a bulldozer.'
Poppy lifted his gaze. 'I was working on the bulldozer. He came by and said what are you doing. He did some bulldozer work a week before. He thought I was messing it up. He thought I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I said nothing that's your business. And we had a big argument. He's bigger, got good hands. He jumped up on the Cat… I guess he got a shock and had his heart attack.'
H.J. smiled hatefully. 'That don't smell too good.' He pointed the gun at me. 'Lawyer-boy, you believe that?'
'He was driving by,' moaned Poppy. 'I already told this! He saw me and wanted to know what I was doing.'
'That's why Herschel stopped?'
Poppy lay his head on the table. 'Yes. I was adding some earth.'
H.J. looked surprised. 'Why?'
'Because I didn't want anyone to know what's down there.'
'What is down there?' I asked.
Poppy's eyes closed. 'I'm not telling you.'
H.J. moved over to Poppy and put his gun directly into his ear. 'My uncle Herschel see you diggin' around the field when he go drivin' by and then he stopped and got out and said stop doin' what you be doing?'
'Yes.'
'Please don't shoot him!' exclaimed Allison.
H.J. jolted the gun deeper into Poppy's ear. 'Why? Why he do that? On a cold and snowy day?'
Poppy started to lift his head but felt the gun. ' 'Cause I was messing up the field!'
'So he said let me get up there on the tractor? This ain't makin' any sense. I ain't getting any of this.'
I remembered that the tractor had been found on the sea cliff set in reverse. 'Poppy,' I asked. 'You let him get on the Cat?'
'I didn't let him do anything. He's bigger than me.'
'He got on the Cat.'
'Yeah.'
H.J. removed the gun, interested in this sequence. 'Then what?'
'He asked what I was doing and I was so mad I told him, I told him the truth.'
'Then what?'
Poppy lifted his eyes. He was a sad guy, and he didn't have time for any more lies. 'He had a heart attack. He grabbed his chest and fell back.'
'You told him and he fuckin' had a heart attack?' H.J. shook his head at the seeming absurdity of this tale. 'You gotta do much better than that, old man.'
'Is it a straight shot from wherever you were working with the bulldozer to the sea cliff?'
Poppy looked at me. 'Yes, but-'
The problem, I realized, was that H.J. still did not know that the bulldozer and Herschel had been recovered from the sea cliff and moved to a barn on the adjoining property.
'Why you ask that?' said H.J. 'They didn't find him in no field!'
But before I could answer, Poppy pushed himself to his feet. 'I'm leaving,' he announced. 'I told you enough.' He gestured at Allison. 'Give that napkin to Jay. I can't do it.'
'You ain't goin' nowhere!' said H.J. 'Get back there.' He waved at his bodyguard to stand in front of the door. 'Lamont?'
'I'm going out to my truck-'
H.J. straightened out his arm, the gun three feet from Poppy. 'You know who I am?'
'No, and I don't care,' slurred Poppy. 'I'm going to Florida.'
'You're stayin' till I get my satisfaction.'
'Nope.'
'Sit down, Poppy,' I warned. 'These guys are serious.'
'You got no reason to hurt me.' Poppy held out his hands.
'Get back, old man!'
'I can't take no more,' cried Poppy, unsteady on his feet. 'I'm tired, my head hurts.' He lurched toward the door. 'I ain't been to Florida in-'
'Get back!'
'Come on, fuck you, I'm just-'
Lamont shoved Poppy backward. He hit the wall. It didn't appear to scare him, and he measured the distance to the doorway.
'Sit down, old man,' said Lamont, sticking his gun out. 'I don't want to hurt you.'
'I'm walking out of here,' said Poppy, and he did- or started to, when there was a terrible noise, and his neck exploded in blood. Allison screamed. Poppy fell over, head loose.
'Get back!' yelled Lamont, swinging the gun around at us.
Poppy lay hunched to the floor, blood spraying over the black-and-white tiles. His face grew pale, followed by a sucking sound from the neck wound, and then he went soft and died before us.
H.J. looked at his gun. It hadn't fired. He looked at Lamont, who was holding a pistol. 'Shit, Lamont,' said H.J. 'What you do that for?'
'He was getting too close to you, boss.'
'Oh God,' moaned Allison as smoke drifted above us. 'He's an old man! Do something.'
But there was nothing to do. H.J. held us in place. 'Y'all stand back,' he ordered, looking around. 'Fuck, Lamont! Now we got a problem, nigga!'
He certainly did, three people not his own- Allison, Ha, and mewho'd seen what his bodyguard had done. We were the problem. He looked at Allison. 'You know where Rainey lives?'
Allison shook her head.
'You?' he asked me.
'Yes,' I said. 'But I doubt he's there. He didn't answer before.'
'You know where he lives?' asked Allison.
H.J. looked at Ha and Allison. 'Yo, people! You got to tell me what's goin' to get this guy to come here and give me my money, and tell me what I need to know, because otherwise we got a even bigger problem, you know what I'm sayin'?'
The room seemed hot, wheeled with a dark feeling. Four people could kill three easily enough. Things
