would die. I jerked the shotgun to my shoulder and pulled the trigger.
I shot a big chunk of ceiling to pieces, and the pieces fluttered down all over the room. I wasn’t sure how that happened, until I realized there was a black hand on the barrel of the shotgun. I turned to fight, but the hand was Leonard’s, and he pushed me and pulled the shotgun away from me and flung it in a corner.
Leonard pulled an automatic out from under his shirt and held it casually. “It ain’t your style, brother,” he said. “You ain’t the one for it. Hell, you know that. I know that. Besides, you’ll be doin’ it for the wrong reasons and you’ll feel bad about it in the morning.”
“But I’ll feel good now,” I said.
There was a commotion in the hallway, a yell, a bunch of grunts, then a falling sound. Jim Bob came in holding his blackjack. He looked at me. “You gonna take a place, you got to secure it, Bub. There was another one in the house. Now there’s two on the floor. Motherfucker tried some Tae Kwon Do kicks on me, only he ain’t so good. Tae Kwon Do ain’t so good no more. Fact is, it ain’t been Tae Kwon Do for twenty years. It’s been that tournament shit.”
“Third man passed us in the yard, running,” Leonard said. “I suppose you made a face at him, Hap.”
I didn’t answer. Leonard turned his attention to Bissinggame. “Goddamn, Bissinggame, you call that a dick? Put somethin’ over that thing ’fore it makes me sick. Looks like a little old grub worm with pecans tied to its tail. Hell, get back in bed.”
“He makes me do this,” Bissinggame said. “He pays me a lot of money, so he makes me do this.”
“Shut up,” Leonard said. “You got a shit ring on your dick. Get back in bed.”
Bissinggame got back in bed, pulled the covers over his hips. King sat up in bed. He didn’t look any different than when I came in. Found nude with a man. A shotgun pointed at him. His car ran off the road. A bowl of chili. Everything was the same to him. He leaned over the side of the bed, picked up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter with his splinter-filled hand. He got out a cigarette, lit it and puffed it. Blood dripped off his hand onto his chest and onto the sheets. He said, “Now what? So you know I’m a lyin’ sonofabitch. I fuck men. I fuck women. I’d fuck my goddamn dog, but I figure you killed it.”
“I regret the dog,” I said.
King grunted. “Bissinggame here, shit, he’s a Baptist church deacon. Ever fuck a deacon, nigger?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Leonard said.
“Well, they give a whole new meaning to the word tight-ass,” King said and laughed.
“King had Brett and Leon killed,” I said. “Let me have the shotgun back, Leonard. I just want to do what you and Jim Bob wanted to do in the first place.”
Leonard looked at me. “You go on outside,” Leonard said. He went over and picked the shotgun up where it lay against the wall.
“You kill him instead of me, it ain’t the same,” I said.
“It’s not your way, and you know it,” Leonard said. “Go outside.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “I can kill him. I want to kill him. Let me have the shotgun.”
I lunged for Leonard and the shotgun, but Jim Bob stepped in and hit me across the back of the hand with the blackjack. I went to my knees for a moment, eased slowly to my feet. The pain passed quickly.
Jim Bob grabbed my shirt collar, said, “Come with me, or the next one’s upside your ear.”
“He’s going to kill him. I want to do it,” I said.
Jim Bob jerked me around and I rabbit-shot him one in the ribs. Jim Bob bent. Leonard flicked out his left hand, caught me on the back of the head, and down I went. Then Jim Bob twisted my wrist into a lock, used it as come-along, took me out of there.
Behind me I heard King say, “You gonna shoot, nigger, get it over with, otherwise I’m gonna get up and take a shower. Throw a little alcohol on this hand.”
Out in the yard Jim Bob said, “You gotta calm down, Hap. You got to listen.”
A shotgun blast went off inside the trailer.
“Jesus!” I said. “Fuck that sonofabitch!”
A moment later Leonard appeared in the doorway holding Bissinggame’s leisure suit. He came down to where we were standing.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t intend to wear it,” Leonard said.
“I don’t mean the leisure suit, you idiot,” I said. “You shouldn’t have killed King. Now it’s your neck. I wanted to take him out. I didn’t care what happened to me. I wanted to see that smug sonofabitch’s head go to pieces. I didn’t want you in on this shit.”
“I know,” Leonard said. “But I didn’t shoot anybody. I just shot another hole in the ceiling.”
I stared at him. Leonard took one of my arms, Jim Bob the other. “For Christ sakes, you’re letting him off scot-free,” I said.
“He didn’t do anything,” Jim Bob said.
“You said it was him,” I said. “You said he was behind it all.”
“I thought he was,” Jim Bob said. “Guess what, I think I could be wrong. And let me tell you, Hap. This bein’ wrong – I find it disturbing. It ain’t somethin’ I’m used to.”
28
Jim Bob drove my pickup with me on the passenger side. He parked it behind the fireworks stand not far from King’s place. Leonard picked us up in his rental, took us back for Jim Bob’s car.
I rode with Leonard as Jim Bob followed. We drove east, way out to a roadside park, pulled over. Jim Bob pulled in behind us. We gathered at a concrete picnic table. There was a cool wind blowing, but you could feel warmth creeping into the breeze. Another half hour to an hour the air would be sticky as Velcro.
“You know, I’m going to kill King anyway,” I said.
“If you do,” Jim Bob said, “make it a lot less obvious.”
“You’ve made it harder now,” I said. “He’ll be expecting me. He’ll maybe even call the cops.”
Jim Bob shook his head. “Naw. He may act cool, but he ain’t anxious the word gets around he brown-rings. It don’t go with his image. That’s what King is. Image. I’ll say this for him, though. He ain’t excitable.”
“How the hell did you two know where I was going?”
“We can come to that in a moment,” Leonard said. “Listen here, Hap. Leon is dead, but Brett isn’t.”
“Horseshit!” I said. “What the fuck they going to do? Give her a new head, pump a little blood in her heart, prop her up with a stick? Believe me, you asshole, she’s dead.”
“No,” Leonard said. “Leon and Ella are dead.”
I sat silently for a moment. I was looking at a brick barbecue cooker. Someone had stuffed it with trash. A crow lit on it, pecked at something between the bricks.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“We been tryin’ to tell you for a time,” Jim Bob said. “But you won’t shut up.”
“My God,” I said. “Brett is okay?”
“Right as rain,” Jim Bob said.
“After you left Brett’s,” Leonard said, “she called Ella. Ella wanted to swap shifts with her this week.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “I forgot.”
Leonard said, “Brett called, Ella answered, said she’d call back. She did, about twenty minutes later. She was at her mother’s. She’d walked out of the trailer while Kevin was sleepin’, walked down to a fillin’ station and called a taxi. She called Brett from her mom’s. Seems Ella finally decided she was gonna leave her husband, but she had to go to work in a couple hours and she didn’t have any more money after the taxi. Leon drove Brett’s car over there to give Ella a ride to work. They got to the hospital-”
“Big Man was waiting and thought Ella was Brett,” I said.
“Nope,” Leonard said. “Big Man didn’t shoot anybody. It was Kevin. He didn’t want her leavin’. He was waiting on Ella. He recognized Brett’s car, saw Ella driving. He had his shotgun. He walked over and shot her, killed Leon, who I figure was trying to protect her.”
