Bad Juju: A Novel of Raw Terror (25 page)

***

The rain began to slack off after
nine o’clock that night, but Charlotte Claymore paid no heed to the rainfall;
she was embroiled in her own stormy emotions, stirred up by news concerning her
plot to have Joe Rob Campbell killed.  First, she heard that the boy had been
jailed for murder, then a few hours later she was told by one of her policeman
clients that Campbell had escaped and was on the lam.  Hearing the latter, she
got on the phone to Carl and bemoaned the loss of her down payment to the
masked hit man.  “How can he do the job if the bastard is on the run?  Do you
think he’ll give me my money back?”

“Don’t count him out just yet,”
Carl said.  “The man has his ways of getting the job done.  It’s goddamn spooky
the way he knows things.”

“He’s spooky all right,” Charlotte
said.  “He wants a freebie as part of the deal.  I almost hope he can’t find
the little bastard. The thought of doing him turns my stomach.  I hope he keeps
that mask on his head.  I don’t think I want to see his frigging face.”

Carl said, “I’ll page him and see
what I can find out.  I’ll get back to you soon as I know something.”

She hung up and poured herself
another shot of booze and fired up a cigarette.  She used the remote to turn on
the TV and caught a weather bulletin warning that flash flooding was expected
for parts of the county and detailing some of the damage already done by severe
thunderstorms.  “That’s all I need,” she muttered, “a fucking flood.” Her back
yard lay in the flood plain of Willow Creek, and the last time the creek
overflowed its banks, the water had come up to the back-door stoop. She went
through the kitchen, opened the back door and looked out at the rainy
darkness.  She shivered, though the night air wasn’t really cool. She turned on
the porch light and saw no sign of flooding in her small yard.  Nevertheless,
as she gazed out into the darkness beyond the reach of electric light, she grew
anxious with a feeling that something very bad was going to happen.

***

Joe Rob pounded on the door of
Candyman’s trailer and hurled a barrage of curses at the fat bastard when he
opened his door.

“Jeez, man, what’s eating you?”
Candy asked as he stood in the doorway with his bare belly hanging over the
waist of his cut-off jeans.

Joe Rob pushed past him to get out
of the rain. “What the hell you think? I like feeling like a drowned rat?”

Candy’s woman was lying on the
couch with her head on a pile of pillows.  With her fleshy tits hanging most of
the way out of her red halter-top, she raised her head and looked at Joe Rob
with bleary eyes. “Hey, there, honey,” she said.  “What brings you out on such
a dark and stormy night?”

“Y’all ain’t heard? I’m a fucking
fugitive. Busted out of jail a few hours ago.”

“Bullshit,” Candy said, his eyes
falling on the pistol sticking out of Joe Rob’s jeans.

“Don’t you ever watch the news on
that thing?” Joe Rob nodded at the television, which was playing an old horror
movie.

“Hell, no. Not since we got the DVD
player. Only thing we watch on regular TV is Marilyn’s cartoons.”

“I’m a ’toon-head,” she admitted
with a giggle. “I can’t help it.”

“What’s this shit about being a
fugitive?” Candy asked.

“I killed Fate Porch and his three
asshole boys. It was self-defense but the damn prosecutor’s charging me with
murder. Mookie Vedders says he can get me off in a jury trial, but fuck that
shit, I ain’t waiting around in jail while they try to hang me for shit I
didn’t do. I killed ’em all right, but I didn’t murder the motherfuckers.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? You
really did it. Holy shit.” Candy went to the fridge and snagged two bottles of
beer, then tossed one to Joe Rob. “What’re you gone do now?”

Joe Rob twisted off the cap and
threw it at the garbage can, then took a big swallow. He cut loose with a
rolling belch. “Get the hell out of Dodge. I need your bike. And some cash.”

Candy started to protest, but the
look in his friend’s face stopped him. “Yeah, sure, man. I can let you have a
couple of Ben Franklins.”

“You got more than that, the way
you been dealing.”

“Yeah, but I got expenses, man. I
have to pay for the shit, too, ya know.”

“You can front me five. And throw
in some coke. I got a lot of road ahead of me.”

“You actually killed those in-bred
rednecks?” Marilyn was sitting up now, exposing more bosom. “Hell, they oughta
give you the key to the city.  I’m surprised nobody killed ’em before now.”

“Nobody else ever had the balls,”
Joe Rob bragged. He was doing his best to keep his mind off the ghostly vision
of his father, but the image of Billy Joe’s mortally-wounded head remained as
an after-image burned upon the back walls of his eyeballs. “I’m hungry. What ya
got to eat?”

“You can have some left-over Sloppy
Joe,” said Marilyn. She giggled again.  “Sloppy Joe for Joe Rob. Sloppy Joe
Rob...”

“She’s fucked up,” Candy said,
shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

“So?” she said. “You are too,
Candy-ass.”

“Watch it, bitch.”

“Hey, cool it, will ya,” Joe Rob
raised his voice. “I ain’t in the mood for a fucking lovers’ spat.”

“You tell him, honey,” Marilyn
said.

“He’s talking to you, cunt.”

Joe Rob was about to draw back his
fist and pop Candy a good one on the arm when the front door flew open to
reveal a man in a black ski mask with a gun in his fist. “Nobody move!” the man
shouted.

“Who the fuck’re you?” Candy
demanded.

The masked man took a step forward
and hammered Candy’s nose with his fisted pistol butt. Candy staggered
backward, then dropped to the floor. The trailer shook with the weight of his
fall. Marilyn squealed, clutching a pillow to her breasts.

Joe Rob made a quick decision. Even
as he reached for the pistol in his pants he knew the decision was a bad one.
The silencer affixed to the barrel of the man’s gun was the tip-off that the
dude was a pro, but it was already too late; Joe Rob had made his move. As he
freed his pistol from his rain-soaked jeans, the masked man’s gun made a sharp
spitting sound and the slug tore through Joe Rob’s right shoulder. The stolen
gun slipped from his numbed fingers and clattered to the floor, and he grabbed
at his wounded shoulder with his left hand. Warm blood wetted his fingers. A
wave of dizziness roared through his head.

The tall man in the mask pointed
his silenced pistol at Marilyn and said, “We were never here. You tell anybody
different, I’ll come back and kill you and your fat fuck here.” He waved his
weapon down at Candy, who was crying and holding both hands to his bleeding
nose. “Say it!”

Marilyn stammered, “You wu-were
never here. You’ll ku-kill us if we say different.” “Remember that. I’m a man
of my word.”

She nodded. Her face had gone
milk-white to match her fleshy jugs.

The shooter put the muzzle of his
gun an inch from Joe Rob’s face and said, “Let’s go, hero.”

“Where?” Joe Rob asked. He should
have been shit-scared but he was remarkably calm, considering he’d just been
shot and was about to be abducted.

“You’ll see.”

The gunman pushed him out the door
and into the drizzling rain. Once they were outside the cone of light slanting
down from the pole in front of the small trailer park, Joe Rob’s eyes adjusted
quickly to the darkness, and he began to see dark shapes lurking about,
following them through the night.

***

Luke leaned back in his chair and
patted his full belly. “Well? How did you like your first meal from Luke’s
Kitchen?”

Ree exhaled smoke from her
after-supper cigarette and said, “That was really very good. I’m impressed.
Almost as good as my own chicken and dumplings.”

“Thank you, I think.” He gave her a
look of mock bewilderment, then said, “Talk about your left-handed compliment.”

“It
was
good. But in all
modesty, mine’s better. I really am a good cook, you know.”

“You can drop the sales pitch,
Shorty. I’m already sold.”

She cut her eyes at him, but didn’t
attempt to kick him under the table. Holding her cigarette between two fingers
and pointing both fingers at him, Ree said, “I guess I don’t mind so much that
you persist in calling me that. So long as that’s not the only thing you call
me.”

“Like I said, it’s an affectionate
term. I’m not much for saying things like ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart,’ I guess
because everybody else does it. Besides, ‘Shorty’ is more personalized.”

“That makes sense,” she said, “in a
Luke Chaney sort of way.”

All at once Hondo commenced a
ferocious barking on the front porch.

“Goodness,” said Ree, stabbing out
her smoke. “What’s got him so riled?”

Luke rose from the table and
crossed the dining room in three big strides. “I better check it out.” He went
to the den, unlocked the gun cabinet and chose his Rossi .357, checked the
load, then headed for the front porch with the magnum held close to his leg. He
turned off the living-room light before he went through the doorway, so as not
to make himself a backlit target. He stepped onto the front porch and went into
a squat. “Hondo, what’re you barking at?”

The dog didn’t acknowledge him, but
went on barking at whatever had set him off. Luke recognized the bark as the
one Hondo used whenever he felt threatened. Peering out into the rainy
darkness, Luke could see nothing out of the ordinary, but he knew his eyesight
and his night vision weren’t as sharp as they had been in his younger years.
“Hondo, hush now,” he commanded.

“What is it?” asked Ree from behind
the screen door.

“Get out of the doorway,” he
whispered to her. “Just in case there is a bad guy out there.”

She came out onto the porch and
crouched beside him. “You think it’s Joe Rob Campbell?”

“I doubt it. But I don’t know.
Something’s
sure got him worked up, barking like that.”

“You see anything?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe it’s just a ’possum or a
coon.”

“Maybe.”

Hondo’s barking racket began to
subside. After a little half-hearted growling, he whined and turned to Luke and
licked his offered hand. Luke patted the dog’s rump. “Okay, boy. Good job. You
scared ’em away. Whatever the hell it was.”

Ree patted Luke’s rump and said,
“Bet you can’t scare me away, big boy.”

He relaxed his grip on the pistol,
stood and slipped his arm around her tiny waist. “Now why would I want to do
something as foolish as that?”

She slipped into her Scarlet O’Hara
voice and lilted, “Why, Mistuh Chaney, suh, when a lady sees a big hairy
monster staring her in the face, she’s just liable to turn tail and run off
screamin’.”

He chuckled. “You’re bad.”

“Fiddle-dee-dee. I’d never believe
anything any ol’ man told me.”

“Frankly, my dear...”

“Come inside,” she said, batting
her long lashes, “ and I’ll make you give a damn.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, casting one
more glance in the direction of the front yard and the drizzly darkness beyond.

***

Boots Birdwell shut his Bible,
stood up and put on his plastic raincoat.

“Where you going, Granddaddy?”
asked Eartha, looking up from her magazine.

“Got to pay a visit to an old
friend,” he answered.

“On a night like this?” she said,
trying to sound older than her sixteen years.

“Cain’t put off the Lord’s work on
account of a little rain.”

“You been nervous as a cat all
evening. What’s going on?”

“Nothin’ you need to worry about,
precious. Now stop doggin’ an old man.”

Eartha laughed. “All right then,
old man. You just be careful driving on those wet roads.”

He came over to her armchair and
gently touched her smooth cheek. “You look more your momma ever day,” he said.
“Shame she ain’t here to see you grow up. She’d be so proud.”

She smiled. “She sees me. She
watches me from Heaven.”

He bent down and kissed her
forehead. “That’s right, baby. Don’t wait up for me. I might be late.”

He went outside, climbed into his
truck and drove to the outskirts of Vinewood’s Southside. The rainfall was
finally fizzling out, and the night air was turning cooler as a cold front
crept in. Patches of fog appeared on the lowland road, blunting the old Ford’s
headlight beams. Ghostly shapes capered within the foggy patches, but Boots
knew he was seeing ghosts created by light and fog and imagination. He
suspected that real haints were relentlessly advancing.

“Lord, I hope I’m wrong,” he
mumbled to himself as he turned onto a muddy dirt road behind an old
churchyard. “Please, let me be wrong.”

His tires lost traction in the
muddy slush and the truck hydroplaned, turning sideways on the road. He lightly
tapped the brake pedal, then righted the vehicle and proceeded with greater
caution. The road dead-ended in a cul-de-sac lined with big pussy willow trees.
Nearly invisible behind the trees, a modest cottage with a single lighted
window lay in repose, reminding Boots of house in a fairy tale. He parked under
drooping limbs and rain-laden leaves, got out and slogged through the wet muck
to the front door of the fairytale cottage. He rapped on the door with a
weathered brass knocker in the shape of a ram’s head.

The rumbling voice of an old woman
answered his knock: “You come on in, Brother Birdwell.”

He went inside. Odessa Nell greeted
him with a wan smile. A Persian cat lay curled in her ample lap. Satiny yellow
light softened by an old lacy lampshade bathed her brown face. “I’s wonderin’
when you’d come,” she said.

“Is that right?” Boots grinned,
showing her most of his fine white dentures.

Odessa Nell nodded. “’Less you was
already passed on to the next world, I knew you’d come callin’.”