“Hush,” Jim Bob said, “you’ll wake up Ben.”
“All right,” I said, “what if the FBI or someone tips off the Dixie Mafia as toe Mafia where this guy who double-crossed them is hiding? Wouldn’t it be okay if they did the job for the FBI?”
“Then it would look like the FBI can’t hide the people they’re trying to hide so good.”
“They can’t. We found him.”
“I found him. And I have a contact. And for the most part, my contact knows I’m one of the good guys.”
“Couldn’t they have inside help too-the Dixie Mafia?”
“Yeah, they could. But I figure if they did they’d already have gotten Freddy. No, I think he’s made a clean getaway. And there’s another thing. Freddy is most likely killing Mex gals, not Americans. It’s not our people dying.”
“But they’re dying here, in America. Texas, goddamnit.”
“Yeah, and it’s a crime no matter how you look at it, but the FBI is letting it ride for now. In time they’ll take care of him. But it’s too soon now.”
“What’s in time?”
“I don’t know. A year maybe. That way they could fix it so it looks like an accident or something. But if anything happens now, it makes the FBI look bad.”
“This is nuts. The FBI doesn’t want to look bad, so they’re letting this psycho kill women and make videos of it?”
“They’re looking at the big picture, and we’re looking at the smaller picture.”
“Ask those dead women how small the picture is.”
“I’m not saying I agree with them, Dane, I’m just saying how it is. Look at it like this. The FBI was willing to let you think you killed Freddy Russel to give him a new identity, and they didn’t even give you an inkling what was going on. Not even when Ben out there went bug-fuck nutty and came after you. Think of all the grief they caused him. Hell, made him insane. The local cops helped out. I mean the law is like that. They stick together, right or wrong. You wash my dick, I’ll wash your dick. The world don’t work like Dragnet or Adam 12. Not when you get down to die dog or eat the hatchet.”
“Either the world is getting more complicated, or I’m just now starting to see things as they are.”
“A little of both.”
“This connection with the FBI, he didn’t have anything else to say?”
“He said my favors with his dad were all used up.”
“That’s it? No suggestions?”
“Just one. And I didn’t like it much.”
“Well?”
“He said we could take care of the bastard ourselves.”
33
We talked a while longer and decided on nothing. All the choices sucked. Jim Bob finally gave it up and went upstairs to try and sleep some. I tried to go back to sleep, but lay there looking at the ceiling. I thought about how nuts things were. About how just a little while ago I was a pretty happy guy who was unsure of just a few things, and a little worried about what kind of father I was. And how now I was a very unhappy guy unsure of many things, and even more concerned about what kind of father I was, because nothing in the world looked easy or sure, and everything in the world had to do with being a father. Everything.
I lay there thinking about Russel out there, sleeping now, not knowing what we knew, trying to find some courage in his heart to go and talk to his only son and tell him he loved him.
“Hi, son, I love you.”
“Hi, dad. I make movies. I kill girls and get it on video.”
It was all very sick and very sad, and it made me think my dad had seen something in the world I hadn’t seen, shadows perhaps, those waltzing shadows Russel had talked about, and the shadows were not something he could live with, so he had taken a gun and put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger and sent the shadows away. He didn’t have to face them anymore. All his troubles had gone bye-bye. He didn’t have to worry about his honor. About being a coward. The nature of the universe. The price of beer and peanuts and where this month’s rent or house payment was coming from.
Across all the years of my life I had dreamed of many things. Of toys and then bigger toys and a woman to love and a houseful of kids and a life like Father Knows Best, and maybe to be rich and respected and to have plenty of time on my hands and to like that time. But here I was with just a few hours before morning, and they were horrid hours, and it was as if I had more time than ever these days, and so much of it was there to kill, not to enjoy, and that thought depressed me more. And on the other side of those hours were more hours and I had a fear that after the next few days there would be even longer hours full of those goddamn waltzing shadows.
I told myself I wouldn’t sleep, and to hell with it.
But finally I closed my eyes and it was morning, and I got up and put on my clothes and went into the living room.
Russel was at the table, drinking coffee, and Jim Bob was standing over in the kitchen looking out the window at the pig house or the garden or nothing at all. He heard me come in and turned and looked at me. Neither of us could hold the other’s eyes. I walked over and got a cup and poured some coffee.
Russel turned around and looked at us. “What’s with you fellas? Don’t bull me, something’s up. It’s Freddy, isn’t it? You know something you haven’t told me.”
“I think I fucked up,” Jim Bob said. “I don’t think this Fred Miller is him after all. I’ve just been thinking how to tell you, but I don’t know how. I don’t have any more idea where Freddy is than a goose.”
Russel didn’t quit staring at us. He pursed his lips and sighed, said, “You’re lying to me, Jim Bob.”
“Wish I were,” Jim Bob said. “It’s embarrassing to be wrong, and I hate it for you, but-”
“How do you suddenly know you’re wrong?”
“The Mexican at the house.”
“You could have come up with better than that,” Russel said. “That doesn’t mean a thing. That guy wasn’t Fred Miller. He was a Mexican, like you said. I read a Mexican name off the inside of his wallet.”
“Yeah, but-”
“Tell me,” Russel said. “Even when I said you might have screwed up earlier, I didn’t really think so. It was just something to say. I’ve known you a long time, and even if I haven’t seen you in twenty years, it’s just like it was yesterday. You haven’t changed a bit. You’re still the same egotistical bastard you always were. And you’re too good at what you do. You know it, and I know it. And what about you, Dane? What’s your story?”
I wanted a smooth lie to come out, but nothing did. I just stood there holding my cup of coffee, not quite looking at Russel.
“If he’s dead, tell me. The worse thing that could happen to me is not to know what’s happened to him. You know something, I want to know it.”
“All right,” Jim Bob said. “But there’s worse things than being dead.”
“Just tell me.”
Jim Bob put his coffee cup down and went out of the room and came back with the video. He held it out from him, as if it could bite. He went over to the television and turned it on and put the cassette in the machine.
“What are you doing?” Russel said. “We’re talking about Freddy. I don’t want to see a movie.”
“This will answer your questions,” Jim Bob said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Dane, come on.”
He turned on the machine and started walking toward the front door. I went after him, carrying my coffee cup with me.
“Hey,” Russel said.
“The answer’s on the cassette,” I said.
Jim Bob and I went outside. We stood around on the front lawn looking out at the blacktop, neither of us saying anything.
There was an oak in the yard near the road, and I focused my attention on a blackbird in that. It kept hopping
