'Now you gonna take a walk wit' me, make up your mind if you want to live or be a smart-ass some more,' Jimmy Dean said. 'You heard me, cracker, move! And take off your belt while you at it.'
The boy walked ahead of Jimmy Dean, his skin almost jumping off his back each time Jimmy Dean touched him with the shotgun's barrel.
Tee Bobby stared down at Amanda through the weave of his watch cap. She wore elastic-waisted jeans and red tennis shoes with dusty socks and a purple blouse that was printed with little rabbits. Her cheeks were hollowed with shadow, her lips dry, caked on the edges, but there was no fear in her eyes, only anger and contempt. The skin on her wrists was crimped, her veins like green string under the tightness of the jump rope. He knelt down and tried to rotate the rope to a narrower place on her wrists, but instead he only managed to bunch and pinch the skin even worse.
'You filthy scum, get your hands off me!' she said, and reared her forehead into his cheek.
He felt the blow all the way to the bone. He started to cry out but clenched his teeth so she would not hear and recognize his voice. Then he lost his balance and fell against her, accidentally hitting her breast with his elbow.
He looked down at her, propped up on his arms now, wanting to apologize, conscious of his own stink, the foulness in his breath, the sweat that crawled like ants inside his cap. Then he saw the level of loathing and disgust in her eyes, just a moment before she gathered all the spittle in her mouth and spat it into his face.
He rose to his feet, stunned, her spittle soaking through the thread in his cap, touching his skin like a badge of disgrace. He hooked his thumb under his cap and pulled it above his eyes, then whirled away from her and the shocked recognition he saw in her expression.
Suddenly he was staring at Jimmy Dean, who had just walked back through the trees from the coulee, where he had tied up the boy with the boy's T-shirt and belt.
'You done it now,' Jimmy Dean said.
'No, she ain't seen nothing,' Tee Bobby said, pulling his cap back over his face.
'We'll talk about that in a minute. But right now it's show time,' Jimmy Dean said, and unzipped his pants, the tails of his scarf fluttering on his neck. 'You up for it or not?'
'I ain't signed on for this.'
'She dissed you 'cause you black.'
'Don't do it, Jimmy Dean.'
'You're hopeless, man. Go back to the car 'cause that's where you left your brains at.'
Tee Bobby walked away, out of the shade into the sunlight and the dust devils spinning out of the cane field. The wind tasted like salt, like stagnant water and diesel fumes from the state highway and a dead animal in the bottom of a dry coulee. He heard Amanda cry out, then Jimmy Dean's labored breathing inside the trees, followed by a grinding noise that built in Jimmy Dean's throat and burst suddenly from his mouth as though he had passed a kidney stone.
It was quiet inside the gum trees now, but Tee Bobby stood in front of his gas-guzzler, looking at Rosebud in the backseat, both of his palms pressed against his ears, knowing it was not over, that the worst moment still waited for him.
The shotgun's report was muffled, not as loud as he thought it would be, but maybe that was because he had pressed his hands so tightly against his ears. Or maybe something had gone wrong and the gun had misfired, he told himself.
He turned and saw Jimmy Dean walk out of the trees, the shotgun smoking, blood splattered on his shirt.
'She fought. She kicked the barrel. I only had one round. Get the shells,' he said.
'What?' Tee Bobby said.
'Snap out of it. She's still alive. Get the fucking shells.'
Tee Bobby opened the passenger door and removed the box of twelve-gauge double-oughts from the gunny- sack, his hands trembling, and started to give it to Jimmy Dean. But Jimmy Dean was already walking back toward the gum trees, and Tee Bobby, for reasons he would never be able to explain to himself, followed him, without even being commanded. Jimmy Dean stooped and picked up the spent casing he had ejected from his gun, then fished two shells from the box in Tee Bobby's hands and thumbed them into the gun's magazine.
'Stand back, 'less you want to get splattered,' Jimmy Dean said.
Amanda's eyes glanced at Tee Bobby for only a second, but the expression of loss and sadness and betrayal in them would live in his dreams the rest of his life.
He whirled around and ran directly into his sister, who was staring wide-eyed at the scene taking place in the trees. When the shotgun discharged, Rosebud pulled at her clothes and beat at the air with her fists, as though she were being attacked, then ran out into the cane field, keening like a wounded bird.
CHAPTER 28
That afternoon Tee Bobby stood in wrist and leg chains on the levee at Henderson Swamp with me and Helen while two scuba divers went over the side of a state powerboat and began hunting in the darkness twelve feet down. The sky was black, the wind driving hard across the tops of the willow and cypress trees, the air clean smelling and unseasonably cool, peppered with rain off the Gulf. Tee Bobby's face was wan, his jaw slack.
'You call my gran'mama?' he asked.
'That's not my job, Tee Bobby,' I replied.
One of the scuba divers broke the surface of the water, a dollop of mud on his cheek, the pistol-grip shotgun raised above his head.
'Call my gran'mama and tell her I ain't gonna be back home for a while, will you? Not till I get my bail re-set, work out some kind of deal wit' Barbara Shanahan,' Tee Bobby said.
I stared at him. 'Bail re-set?' I said.
'Yeah, friend of the court, right? Jimmy Dean gonna be the one to ride the needle. He gonna stay in custody, too. Cain't hurt us no more. I'm gonna see if I can get in one of them diversion programs, too, you know, like you talked about,' Tee Bobby said.
The diver who had recovered the shotgun waded up on the bank and handed it to me. He had heard what Tee Bobby said.
'Is that guy for real?' he asked.
Later, back at the department, while the thunder banged outside and pieces of newspaper whirled high in the air and a freight train groaned down the tracks that were now shiny with rain, I called Ladice and told her what had happened to Tee Bobby and where she could visit him that evening. I thought I would feel guilt about having deceived her, but in truth I didn't feel anything. Tee Bobby's story had left me numb, and had convinced me once again the worst deeds human beings commit are precipitated by a happenstance meeting of individuals and events, who and which, if they were rearranged only slightly, would never leave a bump in our history.
I took off early that afternoon and drove home in a strange green light that seemed to rise from the darkness of the trees and fields into the sky. Just as it began to rain, I took Bootsie and Alafair for supper at the Patio in Loreauville and did not mention the events of the day.
It's never over.
Tuesday morning, while rain flooded the streets, Perry LaSalle parked his Gazelle in a no-parking zone and sprinted up the walk into the courthouse. He didn't bother to knock when he came into my office, either.
'You entrapped Tee Bobby,' he said.
'It's good of you to drop by, Perry. I'll get the sheriff in here and maybe a newspaper reporter or two, so everyone can have the benefit of your observations,' I said.
'Be cute all you want. You didn't Mirandize my client and you denied him access to his attorney.'
'Wrong and wrong. He was already Mirandized and I told him to call you up before we brought him in. In front of witnesses, including his grandmother.'
I saw the certainty go out of his eyes.
'It doesn't matter. You tricked a frightened kid,' he said.
