“More you talk, dumber I feel.”
“Dead’s dead, Johnno. On’y sense I e’er made a’ life.”
In John’s mind, beyond fear and disillusionment, lurks his own culpability. Was his hiding the dead girl and taking the money as bad as what Simon had done? He’s not sure. Nor of what Simon knows about John’s own involvement. “Day ’fore yest’day I’m up to the Oaks where Big Colette Gans’s hidin’ from her old man and son of a bitch, Johnno, if I don’t run smack-dab into Hen-shit-for-brains, still with his convict’s tan and hellish s’prised to see me. Probably planned slippin’ in and out town like a ghost with what he come for, though he gives me the song-’n’- dance ’bout lookin’ me up soon’s he had his hands on the cash on’y he swears after it got dug up from where he buried it somebody ’sides him snatched it.”
John flicks his eyes at Simon. “Said it was him dug it up?”
“Din’ say one way the other.”
John glances nervously at the shotgun. “You shoot Mutt?”
“Wouldn’t shoot no dog, John. Not your’n nohow.”
“He say it was me took it?”
“Said he had a hunch. Then I drive up there and find you loaded for bear.”
“Figured I’d be too busy studyin’ on tattooed mountain lions see you’d searched the place?”
“Shit, John. Thought a’ that money got like a cancer in my gut. I couldn’t cut it out and couldn’t live with it. Next morning I drove to town got even drunker. Figured you had it, after a while you’d get to feelin’ scared or upright and give it the law. I weren’t gon’ shoot ya for it. And couldn’t talk to ya ’bout it.” Simon slowly picks up the gun. “ ’Cept I kep’ goin’ over what the Hen might do to you or your’n for it and finally I made up my mind go over there put a sick chicken out its misery.”
“Done more’n that, what I seen.”
“I wouldn’t wasted so much effort killin’ that sumbitch. How I left ’im’s how I found ’im.” He tosses the shotgun at John. John puts out both hands and catches it. “There’s one in the chamber, Johnno. Be ’bliged you’d put it in me.” He reaches down and starts untying his boots. Holding the shotgun, John watches him, acutely aware again of the living sounds and smells in the house, of animals, under darkness’s blanket, eating, scratching, defecating, performing instinctual tasks as boundless as John’s befuddlement. Simon kicks off his boots, then, sighing, reclines on the couch. “Headache weren’t so bad, Johnno,” he says, “till I passed out and was woke up half-sober in the same mess I passed out in.”
“Was it Waylon killed ’im?”
Simon scowls confusedly at him. “Don’t know no Waylon.”
“Stocky guy with a beard? Got somethin’ do with the money?”
“Not Ira’s money.”
“Was boyfriend to the girl.”
“What girl?”
“Cornish din’ mention her? Or ’bout havin’ a partner?”
Cocking his head at John, Simon reaches down and picks up another half-dead beer. “Want to tell me what you been up to last couple a’ days, Johnno?”
John shrugs. “Found some money, that’s all.”
Simon puts the can to his lips, drinks from it, then drops it on the floor. He scowls. “Why you here?”
“Was ridin’ round confused.”
“Guess Moira ain’t come back.”
“Got herself a boyfriend. My lawyer told me.”
“ ’Member what I said ’bout the end of the world, John?”
“Yeah.”
“That ain’t it.”
“Okay.”
Simon turns sideways and puts his feet up on the couch. “Keep in touch with your son, though. My daddy never did with me like your’n did with you.”
“Yeah.”
“Mean somethin’ to him later.”
“Okay.”
Simon sighs. “What you gon’ do with the money.”
“Ain’t figured it out.”
“I’d burn it’s what.” He puts his hands behind his head. “Less’n you want to end up that fiery place Old Ira already sentenced me to, I’d stick a match to her, John.”
“Maybe I’ll give it the cops.”
“They can spend it good’s anybody else.”
“I’ll keep your name out a’ it.”
“Don’t matter either way, Johnno. Like I told you, I grew too old for this shit.” He nods at the room. “Got to admire the man who can still feel the monster a’ love this bad, though, don’t ya?”
“You gon’ tell me who or ain’t ya?”
“Left his calling card on my steer’s ass. Din’ ya see it?”
“Gans?”
“Had that half ear, Johnno, ’member?”
John three-quarter smiles.
“Tell me ya do.”
“I think maybe I do. Got a junkyard ’hind his house?”
“Filled with nothin’ but American-made wrecks.”
“Weren’t barely full-grown?”
“Widdled-down son of a bitch din’ know how bad the monster had him till Big Colette walked out.” Simon reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out one of his hand-carved harmonicas. “Guess he’da shot me too, if I’da been here.”
“Prob’ly too drunk to aim straight.”
“I feel kind bad ’bout it, Johnno. Man that afflicted.”
John stands up from the recliner.
“Guess you ain’t gon’ do me no favor either, huh, Johnno?”
“Not tonight,” said John. “Not never.”
“Bring that 12-gauge over here then and put it down next the couch ’fore ya leave. And there ought be a pint a’ Beefeater’s lying there somewhere.”
John finds the half-drunk Beefeater’s. He carries the bottle and shotgun over to the couch and places them on the floor next to Simon’s head. “You’re a good boy, Johnno. Just like your old daddy taught ya. He don’t call ya first, couple days you ring up Daggard Pitt.”
John stares wordlessly down at Simon. “He ain’t a bad little fella, John, for a lawyer. Just too easily took in, is all. Thinks all his clients—like you, me, and the Hen—is troublesome kids, gon’ one day grow up.” Simon rests his head against the arm of the couch, then reaches up and shuts off the light. “Good night, Johnno.”
Feeling for objects with his hands, John starts blindly making his way out of the darkened house. Behind him the harmonica softly plays the sad but spirited tune that Simon often plays as the two of them, after a long hunt, exhaustedly tread their way back through the woods toward home. As John steps out of the cabin, the music, rather than abruptly ending, gradually fades out. Shivers of first light, like parasitic worms, riddle the night’s dying body. The dispersing fog exhales a slumbering, organic smell. John crosses the road, then starts walking parallel to the cornfield toward his truck. From the cabin comes a single shotgun blast.
FRIDAY
