the neck bones. He picked it up. Juggernaut Gopher Bait.
“Freeze!” a man shouted.
Eric raised both hands and froze.
“Eric?”
The voice was familiar, though it wasn’t Lester’s. He turned and focused on the .357 Magnum the man beamed at his head.
Chapter 14
Reverend Rob Dollar preached on the television. Dressed in an Italian suit, gold cuff links, a Rolex on his wrist, diamond studded earrings in both lobes, he was holding a revival somewhere in Africa.
Each time he paused in his sermon titled Jesus is Lord Over Your Finances, the crowd of Africans, most wearing rags too big for their thin, emaciated bodies, took to their feet and cheered raucously.
Someone’s holding up a cue card off camera, Leonard thought, signaling them to applaud.
“I’m sorry,” Victor said. “I can’t go. Honestly, Leonard, you shouldn’t go, either.”
“You can just wait in the car.”
Victor, naked, extracted himself from Leonard’s embrace and moved to the window.
“Someone will see you,” Leonard said, “and we’ll get kicked out of this motel. This isn’t Chicago. You need to remember that.”
“You mean I’ll get kicked out, don’t you? I’ve been here alone all night. I don’t know where you’ve been.”
“You know I’ve been with my family.”
Victor drew the curtains open wider. Sunlight flooded the room. Leonard covered himself with a sheet.
“Victor, would you please close the curtain? Come back to bed. Please! If someone sees you, you might get arrested.”
“If only I’d be so lucky.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Guess! You asked—no, you begged me to come here and meet your family. Now I’m here you keep me hidden in this room while you’re off doing… whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Don’t be silly. If you’re insinuating I’m cheating, you’re wrong, dead wrong. There’s been a tragedy in my family. My mother needs me right now.”
“I need you, too.”
Victor could be such a… a bitch at times. “Right now my mother
“It’s fair you ask me to go track a psycho in the jungle?”
Leonard got up, hurried to the window and snatched the curtains closed. “He’s not a psycho, he just has emotional problems. I asked you because I thought you might want to get out for a minute.”
“Gosh, I’m so sorry. I misunderstood. All these years I didn’t know searching the jungle for a psycho was a source of entertainment. Pardon my ignorance.”
“The sarcasm not helping here. Southeastern Arkansas is not a jungle.”
Victor turned, face red. “I’m not someone you picked up off the street. Why didn’t you ask before we got into bed?”
“Please! Just forget it. I regret I asked you.”
Victor grabbed his pants from the floor and put them on, forgetting his underwear. “Maybe I should go back to Chicago.” He pulled the zipper so hard Leonard was surprised it didn’t rip off. “Back to my mother.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Okay, to be honest, I asked you to go because I’m afraid to go alone. I can see how you think I was using you. Wasn’t my intention. Honest.” Victor ignored him, put on a white Oxford shirt and buttoned it up. “If I’d known you’d throw a hissy fit, I most definitely would not have asked you.”
Victor stopped and stared at him. “It’s the money, isn’t it?”
“What money?”
“You know what money.”
“Don’t be childish.”
“Childish! I’m childish? The five years we’ve been together you’ve rarely mentioned the boondocks and your family. Now, suddenly, your family can’t continue life without you.”
Leonard tried to embrace him, but Victor pulled away. “My not calling you last night, isn’t that the real issue here? I apologize.”
“Why haven’t we discussed the money?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. The money, Leonard! The money you’re inheriting from your father. Why haven’t we talked about it?”
Leonard sat down in the chair. “What’s there to talk about?”
“How much we’re going to invest, how much we’re going to spend?”
Leonard stared at a cockroach navigating its way through the green shag carpet, then looked him in the eye.
“Victor…” He cleared his throat. “Victor, my dear, you’ve mistaken the possessive pronoun here.
Victor stared at him a long moment, mouth agape. Without a word he stepped into his loafers… and walked out.
An hour later, Leonard parked his car in Count Pulaski State Park. He studied the map his mother had drawn for him and wondered if she’d been out here herself.
Three trails led into the woods dense with oak, pine, poplar, spruce and dogwood trees. Leonard got out of the car and entered through Maumelle Trail, as his mother had instructed.
A canopy of branches blocked direct sunlight on the four-foot wide rocky rut someone foolishly labeled a trail. A slight breeze tingled the leaves, though did very little to reduce the humidity. Two squirrels chased each other from tree to tree. A turtle labored in the opposite direction.
Leonard didn’t notice any of this; his thoughts were on Victor.
He wished he’d phrased his words differently. Certainly he intended to share the money with Victor, but he didn’t need Victor or anyone else telling him what to do with his money. The trail inclined, and Leonard stopped to catch his breath. A crow cawed and he remembered his purpose for coming here.
He pushed onward. At the end of the trail he came to a clearing. The temperature a tad cooler here. Amber knee-high grass bowed to the wind.
Two identical cabins constructed of hewed logs stood side by side in the middle of the clearing. A felled oak tree, obviously struck by lightning, split one of the cabins in half. Several buzzards circled below a clear blue sky.
“Shane?” Leonard shouted. His mother had said the boy wouldn’t shoot a relative, but Leonard wasn’t convinced. “Shane? It’s me, your uncle, a blood relative!” No response. “Kinfolk!”
Leonard stepped toward the intact cabin, wondering if the boy had him sighted in crosshairs, waiting for the perfect moment.
Wekeeeeee! Wekeeeeee!
Leonard whirled, looking for the origin of the sound. “What the hell was that? Shane?”
