Authors: Elmore Leonard
Just then the Bird said, "Okay, we go to their house."
And they were back together again, Richie grinning at him, anxious to tell more, but blew a bubble, popped it and was chewing again before saying, "Bird? Guess what? I even got us provisions. We spend the night there we're gonna be hungry. I got us some pizza you put in the oven, I got us a bunch of different kinds of like frozen din-dins, I got us some potato chips, candy bars . . . Hey, I picked up a magazine at the checkout, I'm waiting there? Bird, it shows a picture of a guy weighs twelve hundred pounds. You ever hear of anybody that big in your life?"
"Twelve hundred pounds?" the Bird was squinting at him. "Three horses don't weigh twelve hundred pounds."
"I got the magazine out'n the car."
"What's the guy eat?"
"You won't believe it," Richie said.
Armand, holding a bottle of Canadian whiskey in a paper bag, looked into Donna's bedroom. He said, "We're leaving now. See you tomorrow."
She was over by her dresser, still wearing the robe. It hung open and she left it that way turning to look at him, one hand on her hip, showing him everything she owned. Donna didn't say anything. What could she?
So Armand said, "I don't know what time I'll be back." She was scared but still didn't say anything. He took another look at her, that white body with the dark place showing, and closed the door. He waited in the hall for Richie to come out of the bathroom.
"You ready?"
Richie looked surprised to see him standing there. He said, "Yeah, let's go."
They went through the kitchen and out the back to the Dodge parked in the narrow drive. Armand had to edge past a tangle of bushes to open the door and get in his side. Richie was already behind the wheel starting the car. He got it going and sat there a moment.
Armand thinking, He forgot something.
Richie looked at him, giving him a glance, no more than that, and opened the door.
"I forgot something."
"What?"
"I want to bring some booze."
"I got it right here."
"Not what I drink, you don't."
Armand didn't say anything else. He waited as Richie got out of the car and went back into the house. Armand turned off the engine and sat listening. He saw Donna the way he had looked in the bedroom at her naked beneath her robe. He sat listening, thinking that Richie would use his gun if he was going to do it. He sat listening not wanting to hear that sound or have Richie come out and tell him he did it some other way, if that's what he was doing. He sat listening until Richie opened the door and got in, handed him the bottle of Southern Comfort and started the car. They backed out and drove away from the house, lights showing in the living room. Armand didn't say anything and neither did Richie.
Chapter
20
ELEVEN-THIRTY THAT EVENING Carmen stopped at a Kountry Kitchen south of Gary, Indiana, tired and hungry, halfway home.
The hardest part of the trip was getting out of Cape Girardeau, crossing the river and following county roads east to find I-57. After that there was nothing to it. Turn left and drive straight up through almost the entire state of Illinois. Turn right on I-94 and cut across a corner of Indiana, where she was now. She'd have something to eat, get back on 94 and it would take her all the way across southern Michigan, through Detroit and to within twenty miles or so of home. Mom could wait.
Carmen was anxious to walk into her own house again, that drafty old barn with its cramped kitchen, its foyer bigger than the living room, its creaks and groans, the steam pipes making a racket in the winter. The house would be cold, it didn't matter. She wanted to see it, make sure it was still there after more than eighty years, look out the kitchen window at the woods and the brush field and Wayne's Chickenshit Inn. She'd call him when she got home, which would be about six-thirty in the morning if she could stay awake and drive straight through. Find out what time he was leaving. Check to see if Mom was okay and maybe wait for him. Mom could be all better now, knowing her little girl was coming home. Wayne could have already left by the time she called. But if he was there, she'd tell him not to be surprised if Ferris drops in, and if he does, be nice, okay? Just say good-bye. And Wayne would say, yeah, uh-huh, what else you want me to do? How about if I give him a hug? . . . Or not mention Ferris at all. He was three hundred and fifty miles behind her, back in southeast Missouri with his muscles and wavy hair, Carmen thinking of him now as a clown who used to walk into her house, an annoying jerk rather than a serious threat. She should have spoken up to him more. Got mad and told him to get the hell out, goddamn it. And got mad thinking about it, cleaning up her plate of bacon and eggs, cottage fries, rye-bread toast and coffee, Kountry Kitchen No. 3.
She should've thrown something at him. Something heavy. She threw beer cans at Wayne, but beer cans were for show. Or she should've hit him with something. Keep a sleever bar handy for creeps who walk in the house uninvited.
Carmen finished, got the check and went to the counter to pay. A guy in a John Deere cap reached it at the same time. He touched the bill of the cap funneled over his eyes and said, "After you." Carmen nodded, glanced at the guy, saw his eyes and the sly grin and thought, Oh shit, another one. He said, "I imagine there's all kinds of boys after you," and Carmen got out of there.
The pickup stood close, angle-parked in the lights of the Kountry Kitchen. She unlocked it, climbed in, reached for the door to swing it closed and the guy in the John Deere cap caught it, held it open.
"Excuse me. I just want to ask, if you got time . . ."
Carmen started the engine, revved it.
"Wait a sec now, I thought we might have a drink. There's a spot up here before you get to the Michigan line, the Hoosier Inn off Exit Thirty-nine? You ever been there?"
Carmen took time to look at him, his face raised, hopeful now. She said, "Do you really think I want to go to a place called the Hoosier Inn off Exit Thirty-nine? For a drink or any reason at all? Are you serious?"
Carmen put the pickup in reverse and backed away from the Kountry Kitchen, the open door bringing the guy along against his will, the guy yelling now, "Hey, for Christ sake!" Scrambling to stay on his feet. Carmen braked, shifted, took off in low gear and left him. The door swung closed as she drove away.
Hit them with a truck if you don't have a sleever bar.
Twenty years married to Wayne.
She followed her headlights along the nighttime freeway, not as tired as before, thinking about Wayne now, seeing them together. They're in the kitchen having a beer and she's describing the guy in the John Deere cap, oh, about thirty-five, not bad-looking. She tells what the guy said, word for word, memorized, beginning with "After you," and then what she said, very calmly, after he invites her to have a drink. "You really think I want to go to a place called the Hoosier Inn, off Exit Thirty-nine?" Wayne would be grinning by then. "Are you serious?" He'd love it. It was the kind of thing Wayne would say. Or he'd ask the guy if he was out of his fucking mind, but "Are you serious?" still wasn't bad. She wanted to hurry up and get home, call Wayne, and if he was still there tell him to get on his horse.
They told Wayne at Waterfront Services there were northbound tows leaving but none that had to stop at Cape. A guy who worked for the Corps of Engineers, a civilian employee, was in the office. He said Wayne could ride with him as far as Thebes, where he lived, and it was only another nine miles to the Cape bridge, but he first needed to see a man over at the Skipper Lounge. Wayne thought he meant ride in a boat, but it was a Ford pickup they drove to the pizza-smelling saloon and the man the guy from the Corps of Engineers had to see was the bartender. He had to see him keep pouring Jim Beam into a glass until the fifth was used up. By this time it was eleven-thirty at night.
Carmen, Wayne believed, would be somewhere around Chicago, while he was stuck down at the ass end of the state. The bartender kept watching him to see he didn't lift the guy from the Corps of Engineers off the floor and threaten or shake him.
The guy kept telling Wayne to take her easy, have another, he'd still get home quicker than by towboat. Wayne, who only had every other drink with the guy, said, "Okay, if you let me drive." Sure, hell, they'd both go to Cape and have one and the guy, smashed out of his mind by now, would drive himself home from there. Which was okay with Wayne, as long as he wasn't riding with him.
They got to Thebes and Wayne said, "Which way now?" The guy said turn here, turn there, okay stop. They were at the guy's house. Wayne said, "I thought we were going to Cape." The guy from the fucking Corps of Engineers said, "You're going to Cape, I'm going to bed." Wayne almost stole his truck. It took him three hours and forty minutes to hike it half in the bag, from Thebes to the bridge, not seeing one goddamn car on the road. He picked up the Olds at Cape Barge Line, got home feeling like shit and there weren't any aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Carmen had taken them with her. Thanks a lot. There was a note on the refrigerator and his new work gloves he'd forgotten lying on the breakfast table. Wayne set the alarm and went to bed.
He woke up at seven wearing his Jockey shorts and the yellow cowhide work gloves, hung over, feeling mean and craving ice cream. For about fifteen minutes he lay there thinking about a chocolate milk shake. He had downed many of them in a hung-over state while other guys drank cold beer or hard stuff as a pick-me-up. Wayne believed drinking before noon could get you in trouble and ice cream was better than sweating out the clock. Carmen had bought some, he was pretty sure, the other day, a half-gallon of butterscotch ripple. He jumped out of bed to check and there it was, Thank you, Jesus, in the freezer part of the fridge. But hard as a rock. He took it out to soften while he showered and got dressed.
But then in the shower with water streaming over him, hair lathered with shampoo, he thought, Hell, bring the ice cream in here and it would soften enough to drink, just like a thick milk shake.
Wayne left the shower on and closed the curtain so the floor wouldn't get wet. He walked out of the steamy bathroom naked and wet, tiptoed along the hall to the kitchen, on the right, and stopped, catching a glimpse of something to his left. Through the living room and out the window. A cream-colored Plymouth pulling into the drive to park behind the Olds. Deputy Marshal Ferris Britton getting out of the car, coming to the side door.
What would he want this early in the morning?
If the doorbell rings, Wayne was thinking, yell at him to go away. But the doorbell didn't ring. He heard a key turn the lock and knew what Ferris wanted.
Wayne slipped back along the hall to the bedroom, closed the door partway and stood listening. He heard the side door close.
Ferris was in the house.
Wayne got a clean pair of Jockeys from the dresser and put them on. He was still wet, hair creamed and swirled with shampoo. He looked at his new work gloves, never used, lying on the bed.
Ferris was in the hall, looking in the kitchen. He came to the bathroom and for a moment stood in the doorway. He stepped inside.
Wayne came only a few moments later, into the steam and sound of the shower going behind the flowered plastic curtain. He stood looking at Ferris's back, close enough to reach out and touch the big grip of the revolver on his belt, the shirt stretched across those solid shoulders, short sleeves rolled up, the muscles in his arms tightening as he raised his hands to his hips. Wayne was going to tap him on the shoulder and say . . . whatever you said to a guy who thinks he's about to surprise your wife in the shower. He hesitated, watching Ferris's right hand reach up to take hold of the curtain. Maybe you don't say anything.
Ferris did. He said, "Surprise!" Yelled it out as he tore the shower curtain aside, ripping part of it off the rod . . . and stood looking at wet tile, the shower streaming into an empty tub. He stood like that for several moments, as though thinking, well, she must be in there somewhere. Wayne got ready.
He waited for Ferris to turn, saw his face, all eyes, and hit him. Hit him with his right hand in that yellow cowhide work glove, hit him as hard as he had ever swung a ten-pound beater, hit him one time with everything he had and Ferris went into the shower, bounced against the tile and slid down to lie cramped in there, legs sticking up over the edge of the tub. His eyes opened to stare dazed through the stream of water.
Wayne bent over, hands on his bare knees, to look at him. He said, "Oh, it's you. Shit, I thought it was somebody broke in the house."
The phone rang in the kitchen.
It rang five times before Wayne got to it, taking off his gloves, and answered.
Carmen's voice said, "Wayne? I'm home."
Chapter
21
"I JUST WALKED IN THE DOOR."
"How was it? You have any trouble?"
"It wasn't bad. When did you get there?"
"Four A.M. I got up at seven, had a shower. At the moment I'm having some ice cream. Butterscotch ripple."
"Are we a little hung over?"
"You took the aspirin with you. That was a cruel thing to do, you know it?"
"Wayne, why don't you leave as soon as you can. In case Ferris stops by."
"He already has. He's here right now."
"You mean he's right there, in the kitchen?"
"No, in the bathroom. I think his jaw's broken," Wayne said and told her about it.
Carmen listened. She said, "Wayne, you better get out of there, now."
"Soon as I clean out the refrigerator."
As he said it, and told her he didn't see a problem, he'd ask Ferris if he wanted him to call Emergency Medical or the cops, Carmen was aware of a humming sound, familiar, one she was used to, and turned from the sink to look at the refrigerator. The door was closed and it was running. Wayne was telling her now he planned to keep his foot on the gas all the way and try to make it in ten and a half hours, set a new Cape to Algonac speed record.
"We turned off the refrigerator," Carmen said, "didn't we? I mean the one here."
"We shut everything off but the phone."
"Well, somebody turned it on." She paused, listening. "Wayne, I think the furnace is going."
"Check the thermostat."
"I can feel it. It's warm in here."
"Maybe Nelson had the house open, trying to sell it. I wouldn't put it past him."
"Maybe," Carmen said, looking across the kitchen to what had been a pantry and now was Wayne's closet, where he kept his hunting and fishing gear, stacks of outdoor magazines. She listened to him speculate, Nelson gets an offer and the next thing they know he's trying to sell them a two-bedroom over at Wildwood, your choice of decorator colors. The shotgun must be in there, in Wayne's closet. It had to be, they didn't take it with them. The closet would be locked and the key was on the ring with the rest of his keys, in her purse.
"Call your buddy Nelson and ask him."
She'd get the shotgun out and put it by the door. It startled her, all of a sudden remembering the two guys.
"Carmen?"
"I will. I have to call Mom first."
"You gonna be home when I get there?"
"I'll see how she is."
"Get her permission."
"If I can leave her, I will. Okay? That's the best I can do."
"You get pissed off at Mommy and lay into me."
"I'm tired," Carmen said.
"Call the State Police, that detective, whatever his name is. Tell him you're home."
"I will. Hurry, okay?"
"I'll see you about six, six-thirty. We'll probably need a few things, huh, some beer?"
"It's weird," Carmen said, looking around the kitchen. She saw the oven door open a few inches.
"What is?"
"I don't know--the feeling. I walked in, it wasn't like coming back to a house that's been closed up."
"It's only been a week but seems longer, that's all. Call Nelson."
"I will."
"And that cop."
"I'll see you," Carmen said. Hesitated a moment and said, "Wayne? I'll be here." She pushed the button to disconnect, dialed her mother's number, waited and was surprised to hear:
"Hello?" The tone almost pleasant.
"Mom? Did you know it was me?"
"I prayed it was. I've been worried sick."
"I'm home. How are you?"
"Well, I'm walking now. The pain is still something awful, but at least I'm on my feet. When're you coming over?"
"You sound much better."
"Well, I'm not."
"I could stop by later, for a while anyway. Wayne'll be home this evening and I want to have his dinner ready."
"I haven't seen you in so long . . ."
"Do you need anything at the store?"
"I'll have to think, I'm so used to looking out for myself," her mom said. "Well, I could use a bottle of Clairol Loving Care. The light ash blonde, number seventy-one."
"Anything else?"
"Oh--I got the report from Annoyance Call. There was a whole bunch of calls from where you were, three-one-four. There was one from Algonac, your house, and three from public phones. One Marine City and two Port Huron that must've been the hang-ups. That's what they do, call from a pay phone so they don't get traced, they're slick articles."
"I didn't know you were having trouble."
"I told you the day you had your phone put in, and you called? I was gonna see if a trap would catch him."
"You must've had it done before we left."
"It was right after, I know, because I was worried sick I hadn't heard from you."
Carmen said, "And one of the calls was from this house?"
"It's your number on the list."
"But we weren't here, Mom."
Her mother said, "Well, somebody was." She said, "How's your weather down there?"
Thirty miles away. Carmen wanted to hang up and walk out of the house--the weather was all right, it was weather, about 50 out, overcast, quite windy--walk all the way around the outside of the house and look at it good--her mom saying it was 52 degrees in Port Huron--look in the windows and find out for sure, was this her house? It looked like it, everything was in the right place, but it didn't feel like her house, someone had been here and touched things. Everything wasn't in the right place, the phone book and note pad she kept in a drawer were on the counter. Someone had been here and left a smell, the kitchen smelled, someone had been cooking, used the oven she never left open like that, plugged in the refrigerator humming away, what else? Looking around now--her mom asking what time she was coming--Carmen telling her she didn't know offhand, she had to shop (think of something), she had to get a tire fixed, and heard a sound from somewhere in the house, hard, clear, a metal-hitting-metal sound. Carmen told herself it was a radiator clanging, hot air banging in a pipe, and told her mom she'd be there around noon, bye, I missed you too, Mom, yeah, okay, see you in a little while, bye. And hung up. She moved to the range, stooped to push the oven door open and looked inside. Three wedges of cold pizza and a few crusts lay on a cookie sheet. She could smell them. Carmen straightened, closing the oven, turned to the refrigerator and jumped, sucking in her breath.
Richie said, "How's Mom doing?"
He stood in the doorway to the dining room wearing an ironworker's jacket, Wayne's old one, and sunglasses, holding a shotgun across his arm.
Now the other one appeared, coming into the kitchen past Richie Nix, also with a shotgun but holding it at his side, pointed down. Armand Degas, wearing the same dark suit he'd worn that day at the real estate office. He said to Carmen, "It looks like we gonna be together for a while, 'ey? Till six or six-thirty?"
Richie Nix said, "Bird? Here, hold this," and handed him his shotgun.
He came toward her and Carmen tried to look him in the eye, tried hard, but lowered and turned her head as his hand came up and she thought he was going to slap her across the face. "You got nice hair," Richie said, touching it, stroking it. She was looking down at his cowboy boots toe to toe with her white sneakers. "Has body, you don't have to use a lot of sticky spray on it." He moved against her, his hands going to her shoulders. "Mmmmm, smells nice, too. I can see you believe in personal hygiene, you keep yourself clean. I like your sweater-and-shirt outfit. You look like a little schoolgirl." His hands came down to take hold of her hips. "Scoot over, I want to get something here."
Carmen looked up. She saw the diamond in his earlobe and saw Armand Degas watching them. Richie had the oven door open. He brought out a wedge of cold pizza and took a bite as he moved to the window over the sink.
"How come you had to drive the pickup?"
"It was there," Carmen said. Her voice sounded dry.
"Whatever that means," Richie said, looking at her now. "It don't matter. Where's the keys?" When she hesitated Richie stepped over to her purse lying on the counter. "In here?"
Armand said, "Put the truck in the garage and close the door. Let's get that done."
Carmen watched Richie look up and stare at Armand before he said, "That's what I'm gonna do, Bird. Why do you think I want the keys?" He brought them out of the purse and walked around the counter that separated the kitchen work area from the door.
"I thought you might want to keep talking," Armand said, "till somebody drives by, sees the truck."
Richie stopped and took a bite of pizza. He said, "Hey, Bird?" in a mild tone of voice. "Fuck you."
It didn't seem to bother Armand. Carmen watched him. All he did was shrug, reach over and lay Richie's shotgun on the counter against the wall.
She moved to the window over the sink, not wanting to be alone with Armand looking at her. She had to make up her mind how to think about this, how to accept it--her mouth dry, trying to breathe, telling herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly--how to act, passive, or let herself go, think of Wayne walking in and let the tears come, plead with them, please . . . Or think of a way . . . First get the keys back from Richie, with the key to Wayne's closet, the Remington inside. She thought of it without knowing if it was possible or if she'd have the nerve, it was hard to picture, if she did somehow get to the gun--would it be loaded?--and held it on them . . . then what? Through the window she saw Richie inside the pickup, starting it, both hands free, what was left of the pizza slice sticking out of his mouth. He might leave the keys in the ignition. She watched the pickup creep ahead and turn toward the garage, out of view.
Behind her, Armand said, "You want to fix us some breakfast? We brought food, it's in the icebox."
Carmen turned and they were as close as the day he tried to come up the porch steps, his face raised with the hunting cap hiding his eyes, the day she could have shot him and wished to God, now, she had.
She said, "What do you want?"
"There some waffles if you have any syrup."
"I don't mean to eat. What do you want?"
"We're waiting for your husband."
Making it sound like a visit.
"And when he gets here . . . ?"
She watched him shrug and then look up. A hammering sound was coming from the garage, Richie--it would have to be Richie--pounding on metal. The sound stopped.
"I know why you're here," Carmen said. "Why can't you say it?"
"Well, if you know that . . ." He gestured with his hands, let them fall and said, "Don't talk so much, all right?"
"Or what, you'll shoot me?"
"I'll get tired hearing you and put a gag on your mouth, tie you up. You want that? I don't care."
Richie came in holding Wayne's sleever bar. "Look it, Bird. What the guy used on us. I knew he kept it in that tool box. It's just what I been looking for."
Armand didn't say anything.
Richie dropped the keys on the counter going by and Carmen didn't hesitate. She stepped over from the sink, picked up the keys, ready to shove them into her jeans, and stopped. Richie was at Wayne's closet. She watched him wedge the pry end of the bar into the seam between the door and the frame, Richie saying, "I been wondering why you kept this locked." He put his weight behind the bar, pushing on it. "I never even noticed it till this morning." He grunted, pushed hard and the door popped open.
Carmen stared at the closet. She could see Richie inside now with the light on. Armand, close to her, said, "You gonna fix us breakfast?"
"Fishing poles and a bunch of shit for hunting," Richie said, his voice raised. "I thought there'd be a gun. Hey, Bird, didn't you?"
Carmen didn't move, staring at the closet, Richie inside looking around. Close to her Armand said, "There was a shotgun." She didn't look at him. "That one you had, 'ey? Where's that one?"
"In Cape Girardeau, Missouri," Carmen said.
"That's where you were? It sounds French, no? But I never heard of it. So your husband has the gun, 'ey?"
She was thinking that last week or the week before or whenever it was, she had brought the Remington inside and Wayne had come back from the store where the girl was killed and picked it up. . . . It wasn't next to the door when they left and Wayne didn't bring it with them, she was sure of that. He had put it somewhere . . . she thought in his closet.
"I remember that gun, with the slug barrel on it," Armand said. "I remember I asked you, you shoot people with that thing? Oh, you wanted to shoot me that time. I watched you, I could see it. Didn't you?"
Carmen stared at Richie in the closet, Richie holding something in his hand, looking at it closely.
"But you couldn't do it," Armand said in his quiet voice close to her. "Maybe your husband's different, I don't know. But you don't shoot people, do you?"
Carmen didn't answer, watching Richie coming out of the closet with a plastic bottle in his hand, holding it up.