“A little of this and that,” Butch said.
“What kind of this and that?”
“You know-things. Stuff.”
I watched Dale across the way, returning with a couple of beers. She could make it only a few steps before someone stopped her, chatted her up, got her laughing. She was pretty and popular and shouldn’t be hooked up with a twenty-year-old hood talking armed robbery. The rest of them looked like punks and assholes but at least they weren’t getting ready to take a five-to-seven rap.
I wondered if she was drawn to Butch because he was a thief like her brothers and father. If she felt more comfortable with him than some straight-A joe working at the Walmart and putting himself through night school. If she liked the smell of gun oil on him. I thought of this mutt on top of my sister. My fists tightened and my knuckles cracked. The pounding bass from his radio beat into my feet and moved up my legs, into my chest, and up through my brain.
I got in close, went nose-to-nose with Butch as he backed up and became trapped against the Chevy’s grille. He turned his hip to me as if to climb away.
He frowned and said, “Hey, man, hey-”
A little of this and that. Butch was one of the hangers-on. Back in Big Dan’s day I watched them come and go, guys trying to mob up who Dan would take advantage of for as long as he could. Get them to do some extra dirty work, the stuff he didn’t want to lay out on his own crew. But he’d always pay them something for the risk and trouble, even if they didn’t get any of the respect they were hoping for. Danny, though, I could see him running guys like Butch out to do everything from shining shoes to cleaning his rain gutters to pulling heists, just so he could skim off the top, paying them nothing and letting them drop wherever they fell.
“Stay away from him.”
“Why?”
“Because he uses guys like you.”
“You shouldn’t talk about Mr. Thompson that way, it’s not healthy. He’s got a lot of ears, even out here, you know what I’m saying?”
“I know what you’re saying.”
He hissed a laugh. He thought he was on the inside track, hip to the action, impervious to injury. I considered proving him wrong, chopping him in the throat or shattering that already ugly nose, but it would hurt Dale, and I couldn’t make my sister suffer any more than I already had.
It took him a few more seconds to realize how badly he’d fucked up. He’d presumed too much, spilled too much. His smarmy expression froze.
“Hey, man, hey. It’s cool, right? We’re cool?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a Rand. It’s not like you’re going to cause any trouble, am I right? Tell me if I’m wrong.”
I was a Rand. “Old school, Butch. I don’t blow anyone else’s scores.”
“Righteous.”
I backed away from his car, let the throbbing hum ease out of me, taking some of the agitation with it.
Dale returned and handed me a beer even though I hadn’t asked for one. What the hell. I drank quickly while Dale discussed how she and Butch met. It was my story. It was the same story as most of the kids here and the ones from my day and before, going back to my old man and my uncles and maybe to the Indians who’d originally owned the land. You hung around and eyed one another until someone eyed you back and then you decided if it was worth your time to launch ahead.
She hugged him. She mothered him. She cared about him. When the drizzle grew a bit harder, she got in the backseat and pulled out a shirt for him. He put it on reluctantly. She fixed the collar for him. I wasn’t going to be able to talk dirt with her.
“I’ve got to run,” I said.
Butch and I shook again. I looked at him like he was already in the can, his head shaved, tattooed with swastikas, on his knees for the Aryans.
“Good meeting you,” he said.
“You too.”
Dale took my hand and walked me back to my car. I found myself almost unconsciously studying the texture of her palms and the pads of her fingers. Had Dad sent her scurrying up drainpipes too? Could she pull a five-card lift?
She gave me a hug. “I’m glad you came out here to see me.”
“I am too.”
“What are you going to tell Ma?”
“That of all the things there are for her to worry about, you’re not one of them.”
“That’s sweet, but do you believe it?”
“I believe you’re smart and sharp. It won’t help, though. You know she’ll keep on her course.”
“I don’t expect anything different from her. That’s what we all do. Stay our course.”
I wanted to ask,
“Love you,” she said, and spun away.
I got in behind the wheel and snapped the dome light on. I opened Butch’s wallet. I’d picked his pocket when he’d turned his hip to me. I hadn’t even intended to. It was as if he’d offered me the chance and my body had reacted.
I found out that his real name was Joe Cassidy. Now I knew where the Butch came from and probably where the crime-spree fantasies had originated too. He had six dollars in singles. A suspended driver’s license with a Freehold address. No condoms. That’s why Dale made sure she always kept a pack on her, because our good friend Butch here just didn’t give a shit about protection.
He also had no credit cards. That meant either Dale was fronting him pocket change for beer and gas and the like or he had a problem. Gambling or drugs or something else. I wondered if she had a part-time job or if she was nimble-fingered and following in the rest of the family’s footsteps.
The question became: Did Dale know what Butch was up to? Or, worse, was she in on the score with him? The idea of it made the back of my skull ache. But she was fifteen. At fifteen, the rest of us Rands had been creeping around second-story bedrooms and stealing silverware and jugging tiny safes.
I pocketed his six bucks and tossed the rest out the window as soon as I hit the highway. Butch Cassidy. Motherfucker. I gunned it down the road, thinking, When Butch went down, would he take Dale with him? What was I going to have to do to protect her? How far was I willing to go? And how many of these kinds of questions had filled my brother’s head before he got caught in the underneath and never came up again?
12
My head was full of the dead. I sat at the bar in the Elbow Room with the photocopied files and ordered a Jack and Coke.
The place was a dive. It had gotten worse since the last time I’d had a drink here. The men looked the same except maybe a bit more desperate. The drinks were watered down, the felt on the pool tables that much more worn. The mirror behind the bar had a thick film of grime on it so you could barely see your own face. Maybe it was a blessing.
The whores worked the losers a little more brazenly. They didn’t bother with subtlety. They didn’t play the buy-me-a-drink-and-maybe-I’ll-go-home-with-you-and-oh-by-the-way-I-cost-a-C-note-sorry-I-didn’t-mention-that- sooner game. It was all out front. I wasn’t sure if I liked it better or not. At least you didn’t waste time or get your heart chipped away when you realized the girl with the cool blue eyes and the slow smile wasn’t really turning it on because you might be Mr. Right. You knew at the start you were wrong, and so was she.
The cops had interviewed the owner and two bartenders who had been working the night Collie went on his spree. All three swore he hadn’t been drunk. That he hadn’t started any kind of a ruckus or been involved in any sort of disturbance. That he hadn’t been pestering anybody. There had been no fights. He hadn’t pawed any of the girls.
