27

Huck Dubb felt an invisible knife stab him in the heart. He stood in the basement of the Harrison County morgue, staring at his three sons lying side by side on slabs. Their naked bodies were covered in purple bruises, their heads twisted unnaturally to the side. He’d heard the news and rushed over. He had to see it with his own eyes.

He touched each of his boys. Their skin had turned cold and clammy. He’d never believed in God and believed in him less now. God wouldn’t rob a man of his three sons all at once. Not even a man as bad as him. He looked at the walleyed orderly who’d let him into the morgue. His name was Cur. Huck had run moonshine with his daddy years ago.

“Cover them,” Huck said.

Cur draped black sheets over the three boys. Huck reached out and touched each of them again. Last Sunday, they’d gotten together and drunk whiskey on the front porch of his house. Their combined weight had caved the porch in and killed his best hunting dog. His sons had laughed like hell. He withdrew his hand.

It wasn’t fair. One of his boys dying he might be able to live with; not all three. He looked at Cur. “What you hearing?”

“I’m hearing it was an Eye-talian that killed ’em,” Cur said, shuffling his feet as he spoke. “Named Valentino or something.”

Huck felt the knife give his heart another stab. Valentine was who he’d sent his boys to kill. “Where’s Valentine, in the county jail?” he asked.

“Nuh-uh,” Cur said, still doing his little dance. “Lamar Biggs sprung him.”

“The niggah with the casino commission?”

“Yeah. I hear he’s a mean one, that Lamar. I hear he’d kick a baby in the ass.”

Huck spit on the floor. Lamar Biggs was a college-educated colored boy. He couldn’t think of anything he hated more. “Know where this baby-kicker lives?”

Cur’s head bobbed up and down. “You gonna go get Valentine?”

“What the hell do you think?” Huck said.

“Gonna kill him?”

“What the hell do you think?”

“Biggs, too?” Cur looked up. “I hear he’s got a pretty, white wife.”

“Him, too,” Huck said.

Cur smiled crookedly and told him how to get to Lamar Biggs’s house.

Huck went out to his Chevy pickup, took his shotgun off the gun rack, made sure it was loaded, and with it sitting on his lap drove to Lamar Biggs’s place. The truck was brand-new, with cushy leather and all the fancy stuff, yet had cost no more than the Chevy truck he’d bought six years ago. The salesman had explained that everything was made in Mexico, then assembled here. Huck hadn’t liked that. Mexicans were as bad as blacks; he didn’t want his money going into their pockets. Then he’d driven the truck for a while and decided he could live with it.

Halfway to Lamar Biggs’s house a thunderbolt hit him. Any black man who lived with a white woman in Mississippi had serious firearms in his house. Huck didn’t want to be outgunned, and did a hasty U-turn in the middle of the road.

Huck’s own house was on the northern end of Gulfport near the industrial plants. He had no neighbors. The stench from the pollution kept the civilized folks away.

Ten minutes later, he drove down the single-lane dirt road and pulled up the driveway. The house was actually a double-wide with a facade tacked on to make it look like a real house. It wasn’t much to look at, but Huck liked it. The obscure location made surveillance by the police impossible, unless they decided to watch him by satellite.

His girlfriend’s lime-green Mustang was parked on the front lawn. Her name was Kitty, and she slung drinks at a honky-tonk called Junebugs. Parking beside her car, Huck saw a new dent in the driver’s door. Drunks propositioned Kitty all the time. Those that didn’t like being turned down took their frustration out on her car.

“Where you been?” she asked as he came in.

“None of your business,” he said.

Kitty lay on the couch beneath a blanket, the TV on so loud it made the room shake. “Well, excuse me. You having a bad day?”

“Lost my boys,” he said, heading toward the bedroom in back.

“Try looking in the bars,” she called after him. “They’re usually there.”

Huck shut the bedroom door behind him. Got on his knees and pulled the cardboard box out from beneath his bed. Pulled out the AK-47 and began stuffing his pockets with ammo. He’d drive up to Biggs’s house, jump out, and start shooting. The AK-47 would shoot right through the walls, probably go right through the damn house. Anything inside would die. He started to leave, when another thought struck him. If he killed Biggs or his wife, he’d have to leave town for a while. He’d need money, and began to search through the drawers of his dresser for any spare cash.

“Goddamn woman,” he swore angrily.

Kitty had cleaned him out. She claimed she’d been clean for five weeks, but Huck knew she was lying. Kitty would swallow or smoke or stick up her nose anything that would get her high. Then she’d lie on the couch and clean out the refrigerator. As a result, he’d started taking precautions. Picking the AK-47 up off the floor, he went into the front of the house.

“Hey,” she said, “where you going with that thing?”

“Squirrel hunting. Where’s the stash box?”

“On top of the TV. I smoked the last of the pot.” She silenced the TV with the remote, then rose from the couch with the blanket draped around her shoulders. “Say, you got any money? We need groceries.”

Huck stared at her and felt his anger boil up. Damn woman was a leech. She’d spend all his money until he was tapped out and then find herself another sugar daddy.

He grabbed the stash box off the TV, turned it upside down. A pack of rolling papers and a hash pipe hit the floor. Sticking his hand into the box, he pulled out the false bottom and removed a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills. Kitty shrieked.

“You been holding out on me!”

Huck pointed at the couch. “Shut up and sit down.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had money?”

“You heard me.”

Kitty drew the blanket farther around herself and sat down. A little-girl pout appeared on her lips. “It’s not fair. You’re going to hit the bars with your sons and leave me here.”

“My boys are dead,” he said.

She looked up, startled. “What?”

“You heard me. I need to enact a little payback. I may have to disappear for a while. The police come looking for me, you don’t know nothing, understand?”

“Dead? All three of them? How can that be?”

Her eyes were glassy; she was high on something, and it wasn’t pot. Probably speed someone had given her at Junebugs. Long-distance truckers came in, plied the girls with pills. Huck peeled two hundred-dollar bills off his wad and tossed them at her. She tried to grab them out of the air and missed by a foot. She retrieved them from the floor.

“Thanks, Huck.”

“What are you going to say if the police come?”

“Nuthin’. I ain’t saying nuthin’.” She opened her blouse and stuffed the bills down between her breasts. It was another bad habit she’d picked up at Junebugs. “I washed your clothes. They’re in the dryer, case you need them.”

Huck looked at her. “I’ll call you when I can.”

She nodded woodenly.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked.

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