…
Marvin parked down the street and let me out, and then he drove by, to see what he could see. I walked across two backyards and went to my back door. No one was waiting on me. I used the key and went inside.
Upstairs, I got Brett’s little revolver and put it in my coat pocket. Simple gun. Light enough. No jams.
Downstairs, I looked out the back window. I could see our neighbor’s fence, and nothing else.
I went to the living room, peeled the curtain on first one window, then another. The yard was empty, except for dead grass nipped over with ice.
I put my hand in my pocket and went outside and looked around. I didn’t see a sniper’s nest or black helicopters or Bigfoot.
Marvin coasted up front. I got in and we went away.
It had turned very icy by now, and we almost went off in a ditch once. But we made it.
As I walked into the hospital, shaken to my core, the last thing I told myself was it no longer mattered what had been going on inside of me as of late, because I was past that now.
It didn’t matter.
It was behind me.
Whoever did this to Leonard was going to die.
55
They wouldn’t let us see Leonard. He was in surgery. Me and Marvin sat in uncomfortable chairs in an overlit waiting room with a TV on without the sound and a lady wrapped up in a blanket sleeping in a chair across the way. From time to time, Marvin got up and made some calls to the cops and who knows who all.
When he came and sat back down, I said, “Thomas and his crony aren’t out of jail, are they?”
“First thing I thought of,” Marvin said. “Answer is no.”
“No idea of anyone else?”
Marvin shook his head. “Folks saw the SUV.
Heard shots. But didn’t really see anyone, same as you. A woman got the license, but-”
“It’s not to an SUV.”
“That’s right. It’s not. It was stolen from a car that’s already been traced. They must have taken it off the car tonight. Quick and fast. They’ve already traded the license plate on their car back by now, tossed the other one.”
“Shit. I should have been with him. We’re together, shit like that doesn’t happen.”
“Of course it does. You two have just been lucky. All of us, we just been lucky. We’ve all been shot, nearly killed. Just not as bad as Leonard got tonight.”
“I’m thinkin’ maybe Jimson,” I said. “We rode him pretty hard.”
“Possibility.”
“And then there’s Devil Red.”
“Really?” Marvin said.
“Could be. Jimson implied he knew how to contact Devil Red. Like maybe he could hire him, he wanted to. Or maybe we got Kincaid stirred when we were in Houston and he put Devil Red on us. I don’t know. Anyone say anything about finding a drawing, something with a devil head on it?”
“No. But that might be information even my buddies wouldn’t tell me,” Marvin said. “But, if it was Devil Red, he might not leave a warning if there’s no time. Also, since the shots came from the back window, he’s got help.”
“That could point to Jimson,” I said. “It might just be him and some of his boys.”
Marvin was hesitant. “Well, when it comes to you two, there is a long list. Only thing I can say, it wasn’t random, and it wasn’t for robbery. They had one purpose. Shoot Leonard. And if they did that, I pretty much think you’re next.”
It was a long time before Leonard came out of surgery. We weren’t allowed to see him then, just a glimpse as they pushed his gurney onto an elevator and took him away. He looked ashen, and when a black man looks that ashen, it’s not good, not good at all.
The surgeon met with us in the break room a few minutes later. The surgeon’s name was Rogers and he was out of his surgery duds and wearing some loose clothes with slip-on shoes.
We sat at a break table in plastic chairs. The room seemed too bright.
“He’s pretty bad,” Rogers said. “He’s tough, though. I’ll tell you that. I couldn’t believe he’d taken those slugs, bled that much, and was still alive. He could even talk a little.”
“He say who did it?” Marvin asked.
“He asked me if we found the cookies.”
“The cookies?” I said. “Why that silly sonofabitch. The last thing he asked about were cookies? He never even made it inside the store.”
“He was kind of out of it. He asked about a hat too. Neither meant anything to me.”
I smiled. Thought: That’s probably why he was shot, that hat. “Wish I could tell you he was going to be better,” Rogers said. I held my breath.
“I can’t,” he said. “He could recover. Like I said, he’s tough. But he lost a lot of blood, lots of trauma.”
“What kind of chance does he have?” I asked.
“No way of really knowing,” Rogers said. “But I’d say he’s on the low end of possibilities.”
“What’s that mean?” Marvin said.
“This is all guesswork, gentlemen. Ten, twenty percent maybe.”
“Oh, hell,” I said.
“Ten, twenty percent, that’s something, though,” Rogers said. “It’s a wait-and-see situation, not a wait-for- certain-death kind of deal. And like I said, he seems to have a lot of willpower. That’s what makes someone tough. Not just muscle and flesh, but willpower.”
“He’ll make it,” I said.
Rogers stood. “We’re doing all we can.”
“Do all you can and more,” I said. “That’s my brother in there.”
56
After we talked to the surgeon, I told Marvin to go home, be with his family. I walked outside with him to his car. He opened his trunk and got out a golf club bag with clubs poking out of it. He said, “Borrow these.” I just looked at him.
“Inside,” he said, “is a sawed-off pump shotgun, twelve-gauge. You might want to put it together.”
“I might at that,” I said.
I opened my trunk and he put the bag inside. “We’re on hospital camera, you know,” Marvin said.
“I know.”
I closed the trunk.
I called Brett. I waited in the parking lot till she arrived. I put the golf bag in the trunk of her car. She didn’t say anything. We went up to the waiting room. We were the only ones there.
Brett was red-faced and her eyes were red too. Her hair was tied back and her shoulders were slumped. She sat down beside me and took my hand.
“How is he?”
“No word,” I said. “I think the same.”
She patted my hand.
“I know you need to find out who did it,” she said.
“Yeah.”
