by S. A. Cosby
Sitting under the sallow sodium arc lights that sat above the gas pumps was the van. Moths darted around and under the canopy above the pumps, casting strange, fluttering silhouettes that danced across the surface of the van. Tyree approached it from the rear with slow deliberate steps. He pressed the stock of his rifle against his right bicep while he grabbed the rear latch with his left. The doors swung open with a horrid creak.
“Motherfucker,” Tyree said.
The van was empty. No driver, no platinum, no anything. Tyree seized the rear door and slammed it shut. He opened it again and slammed it shut. He did this five more times. The seventh and final time was too much for the rear window. It exploded into a million pieces. Chunks of tempered, smoke gray glass rained across the concrete.
Tyree threw his head back and howled.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
Inside the store the cashier was putting a 40-ounce bottle of beer in a brown bag for his only customer. They both watched with mounting concern as the man in the parking lot slammed the door to the van again and again. He and his customer jumped when they heard the man in the parking lot baying at the sky as the glass in the rear door shattered. The cashier peered out the picture window at the front of the store.
“That don’t sound good. Don’t look good neither. I think that one boy there got a gun. You think I should call the cops?” the cashier asked as he handed the brown bag to his customer.
Reggie grabbed the bag and his change.
“None of my business, man,” he said. His voice quavered a bit but since the cashier didn’t know him from Adam he didn’t notice. Reggie unscrewed the beer cap and took a big swig as he left the store. A warm wind rose up out of nowhere. It stirred the napkins and clear plastic lids and cigarette butts that dotted the parking lot. He headed for the highway, walking at a diagonal amble away from the van and the SUV. He tried to take another sip of his beer but his hands were trembling and he spilled it all over his T-shirt.
“Hey white boy, you see who was driving this van?” a voice asked from behind him. Reggie stopped. His throat felt like it was closing in on itself. He gripped his beer bottle tight. Exhaling rapidly, he turned to face the trio of men standing near the van.
“Nope,” he said. Tyree stepped forward. Reggie stared at the gun in his hands. The beer in his guts started trying to climb out of his stomach.
“You didn’t see nothing?” Tyree asked.
“Nope, sure didn’t,” Reggie said. His wounded foot began to throb. He began to tap it like he was keeping time with a beat only he could hear. Tyree took another step forward. They were only a foot apart now.
“You sure about that?” he asked.
“Yep,” Reggie said. His voice had dropped to a barely audible rasp.
Tyree stared at him.
A cell phone rang. One of the Hoodie Brothers answered it.
“Hey Ty, it’s Shade. He can’t get in touch with Ross. He wants to talk to you.”
Tyree clenched the grip on his gun. He started to step forward again but stopped. He held Reggie’s gaze for a few seconds before swallowing hard and holding out his left hand.
“Give me the phone,” Tyree said. His voice had lost some of its menace.
Reggie nodded abruptly and started hoofing it down the road. After he’d gone about about two hundred yards a pair of headlights appeared behind him and lit up his whole world. Reggie stopped, turned and used his free hand to shield his eyes.
A bedraggled pickup truck pulled over to the side of the road. The passenger door creaked open like a crypt. Reggie limped over to the truck and climbed inside.
“Everything go alright?” Kelvin asked.
“Yeah. I did just what Bug said. As soon as I saw the truck and the van go by I pulled out and drove to the gas station. Those guys pulled up like two seconds after I got in the store,” Reggie said. He took another sip.
“You didn’t get me a beer?” Kelvin said. Reggie clutched the bottle to his chest.
“I didn’t know you wanted one.”
Kelvin laughed.
“Calm down, Hee-Haw, I was just fucking with you,” Kelvin said as they pulled back onto the road.
TWENTY-FIVE
Bug sat in the van in the dark and waited for Ronnie to make the turn. It would be a left turn onto an old dirt lane choked with weeds and grass, just past a shuttered feed and seed store. The dirt lane climbed up a steep hill and crested in a flat meadow. Beauregard guessed a house had stood in the meadow at one time, but it was long gone. Nature had not yet reclaimed the spot completely. He’d found the place the day before riding around in the Lincoln with Kelvin while Ronnie and Reggie had lounged at the motel. He didn’t put too much stock in fate or luck but it had been fortuitous to find this spot. It was nearly a mile off the highway in the middle of nowhere with enough room for the truck, the van and the pickup Kelvin was driving to maneuver in. This time of night no one would notice them unless they came looking.
Beauregard hoped no one came looking. He didn’t relish killing anyone. At the same time, it didn’t fill him with tic-inducing anxiety. It was messy. Murder was always messy. If it had to be done, you had to expect to get dirty and clean up as best you could. When they had found those boys that had done Kaden, old Chompy had cleaned things up for them nicely.
The truck stopped. The hydraulic pump wheezed and shuddered as the ramp lowered once more. Beauregard started the van and backed down the ramp slowly. He hit the ground, turned the wheel to the right, shifted into drive and pulled up alongside the box truck. He killed the engine and climbed out and leaned against the driver’s-side door. The box truck’s headlights gave the meadow an eldritch glow moments before they extinguished. A copse of pine trees surrounded the meadow. Beauregard heard the door to the box truck open, then slam shut. Ronnie ambled around the back of the van.
“We fucking did it!” he said. He held up his hand for a high five. Beauregard glared at his hand until Ronnie lowered it and let it hang down by his side.
“It’s not done yet. We have to load the truck.”
“So, what about … your passenger?”
“He ain’t seen shit. We load up the truck and handcuff his ass to a tree branch. If he’s smart he’ll wait till we gone and use the cuffs as a rope saw to get loose,” Beauregard said.
“You think that’s a good idea? Leaving him like that?” Ronnie asked. Beauregard pulled his bandana down past his mouth.
“I said he ain’t seen shit. Besides, it ain’t like he gonna go to the cops.”
Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. “Just asking. Shade’s worse than the cops,” he said. He put his hands in his pocket. Beauregard noticed the outline of a small pistol in the right-hand pocket. It sat there like a sleeping scorpion. Deadly and inert all at the same time.
“Uh huh.”
A pair of headlights climbed up the overgrown driveway.
Kelvin pulled into the meadow, then turned the truck around so that the tailgate was facing the back of the van. He put the truck in park with a loud clang. He and Reggie climbed out and met Ronnie and Beauregard in the middle of the field.
“That transmission got about twenty more feet in it,” Kelvin said.
“It’ll be fine. Ronnie, get the flashlight out of the truck. Let’s get the old boy out of the van and find a tree to tie him to. Then we can load up the pickup truck. It’s eleven o’clock,” Beauregard said. “I want us on the road by midnight.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking. How would Lazy know if we kept a few spools for ourselves? I mean I know what you said but really, you think that motherfucker gonna miss two rolls? Shit, two rolls is enough for the four of us. I know a guy can get us a real good price,” Ronnie said. Beauregard put his hand on Ronnie’s shoulder. He let his thumb lie on Ronnie’s collarbone. Katydids began to call to each other from the undergrowth. Beauregard buried his thumb under Ronnie’s collarbone and pressed against the brachial plexus.
“OW! Damn, Bug!” Ronnie squealed. He leaned o
ver and put one hand on his knee while trying to remove Bug’s hand from his shoulder with the other.
“You don’t get to talk about keeping anything. You don’t get to talk about what Lazy might know or not know. The only thing I want to hear you talking about is loading up this goddamn truck. Now get old boy out the van,” Beauregard said. He released Ronnie, who then stumbled backwards into his brother. Beauregard untied the bandana and held it out to Ronnie.
“Make him put this on.” Ronnie gave Beauregard a long hard look and for a second Beauregard thought he was going to make a move. Beauregard felt something akin to relief that they were finally going to get down to it, but then the fire faded out of Ronnie’s eyes.
“Fuck, Bug. It’s just a thought. Damn. You got the fucking key to the cuffs?” Ronnie said. Beauregard took the keys from his pocket. He placed the bandana in Ronnie’s left hand and the keys in his right. Ronnie closed his hands tight and stalked over to the van. He opened the rear door and climbed inside.
“Listen up. I’m gonna put a blindfold on you. Then I’m gonna unlock the cuff from the strap. You ever want to see big titties and fat asses again you do exactly what we tell you. Cool?” Ronnie said.
“C-cool,” the driver said. Ronnie straddled the man as he lay on his stomach and tried to tie the bandana around the driver’s head. The two ends of the scarf barely met as Ronnie tried to tie a simple knot.
“Goddamn you got a big head. Like a damn pumpkin,” Ronnie said under his breath. Groaning, he pulled hard on the fabric around the man’s eyes and looped it into a harsh, tiny knot.
He unlocked the cuff from the metal banding strap that held the rolls of platinum in place on the pallet. He stood and grabbed Ross by the collar of his denim button-down shirt and helped him to his feet. They executed a slow backwards shuffle until they hit the bumper.
“Alright, step down. Easy. I ain’t trying to pick your big ass up,” Ronnie said. The driver’s foot hovered in space as he tried to find the ground. Ronnie let go of his collar and grabbed him by the arm.
“Step down. Now your other foot.”
The driver placed both feet on the ground. Ronnie held him at a somewhat perpendicular angle. He turned his head toward Beauregard.
“Where you wanna do this?” he asked.
“Poor choice of words,” Kelvin said.
Before Ronnie could respond the tiny knot he had tied unraveled unceremoniously. The bandana fell from the driver’s face and floated lazily to the ground. The driver looked over his right shoulder directly into Ronnie’s face. They locked eyes for about half a second before he twisted from Ronnie’s grasp and took off across the meadow.
“Fuck me!” Ronnie yelled. He pulled a .32 from his pocket and starting firing at the driver. The man began to run in a zigzagging pattern. He reached the tree line and began crashing through the woods.
“Get the flashlights!” Beauregard yelled. Kelvin ran to the truck and retrieved two heavy-duty Maglites. He tossed one to Beauregard.
“Come on. Reggie, you with me!” Beauregard said. He took off for the woods.
“You heard him, dipshit!” Ronnie yelled. Ronnie lit out for the woods. Kelvin passed him like he was standing still as they headed for the pines. Reggie limped after them but his loping gait didn’t have much urgency.
Beauregard clicked on the flashlight. The pine trees and wild azaleas appeared ghastly in the harsh yellow light. He threaded through the woods, ducking under low-hanging branches and jumping over the rotted trunks of trees that were dead when he was still in juvie. He stopped for a second and listened. He tried to ignore the insects and the animals and just listened for the sounds a fat frightened man running for his life would make. A part of him wondered if Ronnie had intentionally tied the bandana with a slipknot or something. He’d been so intent on killing the driver, maybe he’d done it to force Beauregard’s hand? Beauregard shook off that thought. That was a chess move. Ronnie was strictly a checkers kind of guy. Ronnie Fucking Sessions. That should be his nickname instead of Rock and Roll. The man was a congenital fuckup. Couldn’t even tie a goddamn blindfold right.
A sharp embankment rose in front of him, dotted with dying pines and sickly cedars. The sound of his own breathing seemed unbelievably loud, like a bellows in an old steel plant. His .45 was heavy against the small of his back. He pulled it and brought it up in his right hand while holding the flashlight aloft with his left.
He heard a crashing and snapping behind him and to the left. That was Ronnie, Kelvin and Reggie. He eyed the embankment again. Could the driver, who was two cheeseburgers away from cardiac arrest, climb such a steep hill in less than two minutes? Normally Beauregard would have said no but fear gave men wings. He started climbing up the embankment. He pushed himself and reached the top of the ridgeline in less than five minutes. He paused and took a deep breath. It came out ragged.
The first few notes of “Born Under a Bad Sign” echoed through the night. They were harsh and sharp, nearly robotic. Someone liked the blues and had the song as a ringtone. Beauregard’s head snapped to the right.
Too late he realized the forest was playing tricks on him. As he turned the driver slammed into him. They landed in a thunderous heap with Beauregard on the bottom. His right wrist cracked against a root or a rock. Pain sprinted up his right arm and he felt his gun slip away. The driver’s bulk crushed him into the ground. Every inhalation was agony. As he grasped blindly for his gun he felt warm metal biting into his throat. He couldn’t breathe. Calmly, almost abstractly, he realized the driver was using his handcuffs to garrote him. Beauregard let go of the flashlight, stopped reaching for the gun and pushed himself and the driver up off the ground. The two of them pitched onto their sides but the driver still held on. Beauregard’s hands scrambled across the driver’s face like a pair of tarantulas. His thumbs found the man’s eyes as his chest began to burn and black spots began to dance in front of his face.
Beauregard jammed both thumbs in the man’s sockets. The driver cried out like a wounded bear. He released his hold on Beau’s neck in an attempt to protect his eyes. Beauregard rolled away from the driver. Taking in huge gulps of air, he scuttled across the forest floor on all fours. He ran his hand over and through the detritus. His gun. He needed his gun.
The beam from his flashlight began to dance across a few trees that were a foot or so in front of him.
Beauregard flipped onto his back just in time to partially block a blow from the driver. He had gripped the flashlight with both hands and was wielding it like a club. Beauregard tucked his legs up to his chest and kicked at the man while using his hands to block his strikes. He had to get to his feet. Forget the gun. On his feet they were literally on a level playing field.
A corona illuminated the man from the back as a volley of shots resounded through the forest. A fine mist of blood and bone chips filled the air between him and the driver. The man started to fall forward. Blood leaked from two wounds in the center of his chest. Beauregard caught the body as it pitched forward, the flashlight falling from his hands. He shoved the driver’s body off to the left and squirmed to the right. His face and neck were dotted with droplets of blood. Ronnie and Kelvin stepped up onto the ridgeline. They were both holding guns. Kelvin was also holding the other flashlight. He stepped over the driver and held out his free hand to Beauregard. Beauregard gripped it and Kelvin pulled him to his feet.
“You alright?” he said.
“Yeah. Most of this is his blood.”
“Man, why did he take off running? Did he think there was a buffet up here?” Kelvin asked. Beauregard shook his head. He felt a smile trying to spread across his face.
“I owe you one,” Beauregard said.
“Nah, we just even now. You owe Ronnie one though. I think he was the one that hit him,” Kelvin said. Beauregard peered over Kelvin’s shoulder. He saw Ronnie looking down at the driver’s body. He was humming a tune that Beauregard didn’t recognize. Beauregard turned his attention back to Kelvin.
Kelvin was about to respond when his left cheek exploded. Warm fluid splashed across Beauregard’s chest. A sharp pain ripped across his right deltoid as Kelvin crumpled to the ground. Beauregard jumped backwards. It was a move born of instinct more than anything else. He felt himself floating in midair for what seemed like minutes before his body crashed into the western slope of the embankment. He tumbled head over heels as shots rang out from the ridgeline and bullets ricocheted off the desiccated trunks of diseased pine trees. Dirt and twigs and dead leaves found their way down his shirt and into his pants and into his mouth as his body careened down the side of the hill. The world was a swirling kaleidoscope until he flipped one last time. The wide trunk of an old pine tree rushed toward his face then there was just blackness.
TWENTY-SIX
For a moment Beauregard thought he was blind. The world seemed dim and full of shadows. He blinked his eyes and felt something warm and wet running down his face. He sent his left hand on an exploratory mission and touched his face. It was blood. He had blood in his eyes. A wound above his left eye had clotted but his rough fingers opened it again.
He wasn’t blind. It was still dark. Beauregard sat up and immediately regretted it. Vomit raced up his esophagus and out his mouth. He leaned on his left side and let it pour out across the ground. He felt like he was trapped on a merry-go-round.
Taking a deep breath, he tried sitting up again. He didn’t vomit this time, but he sure wanted to. An owl hooted at him from somewhere. He listened for any other sounds. Like people walking or voices commiserating about him. But all he heard were the usual sounds of the forest at night. He hesitated then sent his left hand on an expedition. Up his right arm. When his fingers found the gash, he pressed his lips together tight and groaned. The gash was about two inches long but not deep. The bullet had grazed him. He flexed his right hand. His fingers moved, albeit begrudgingly. He touched his forehead. A knot the size of a chicken egg was sitting just above his left eyebrow and a little to right of the laceration that had bled into his eyes. He checked his watch. The pale glow of its face was not enough to draw anyone’s attention. It was two thirty in the morning. They had chased the guy into the woods around eleven. He’d been out for more than three hours.