Country Hardball

by Steve Weddle

  You get to that point, that stoplight. Maybe whether you stop or go isn’t what’s important. Maybe what’s important is that you move at all, that you keep moving in one direction until morning. Because you have somewhere to go. And maybe she was right. Maybe it doesn’t matter why you were out at three in the morning. Maybe what matters is where you are a few hours later. Maybe that’s what makes you better. Not what you were doing in the middle of the night in Bradley. What matters is that you were on your way home.

  Hell, maybe that’s what happened to Randy Pribble, but then he stopped to turn around. And now the deputy was down one snitch.

  “I think I got something might help you, Deputy.”

  • • •

  “So the deputy wasn’t much help with your grandfather?” Cassie asked the next morning. My grandmother had found some excuse for Cassie to come over for a late breakfast, then found another excuse to leave.

  “Said wasn’t a lot he could do.” I leaned back in the rocking chair while Cassie eased back and forth in hers. I set my coffee down on the table between us, pressed my feet against the boards until I was nearly leaning against the house.

  “Did he say whether the case was still open?”

  “No. Don’t know it matters much whether it’s open. Not what you might call high on their to-do list.”

  “Guess they’re still looking at the Pribble murder.” Cassie blew the heat off her coffee, took quick, narrow sips.

  “I imagine so.”

  Somewhere through the woods cows were mooing back and forth. “Sure is nice around here,” Cassie said a while later.

  “Used to be you could sit on the porch early mornings and listen to cows and frogs hollering at each other till lunch,” I said.

  “Peaceful.”

  “Yeah. And that gritty rattle of wheels on the gravel road out there and maybe a shot or two, somebody gets a deer.”

  Cassie closed her eyes. “‘Gritty rattle.’ I like that.”

  “Well, that was a long time ago. All you get now is chainsaws and woods all stripped to hell.”

  “At least it’s pleasant.”

  “Unless you’re a tree,” I said.

  “Or a Pribble.”

  “Guess so.”

  She took a deep breath, seemed to look out past the tree line. ). The like “Must have been something when my uncle and your grandpa were running around out here.”

  I rocked forward in my chair, walked to the edge of the porch. “Yeah. Long time ago.”

  “Sure seems like the stakes were lower, you know?”

  “Guess I don’t.”

  “I mean the bad stuff wasn’t all that bad.”

  “Still not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “My uncle. He told me the big goings-on here back in the day. Stills. Running numbers. Cockfights.”

  “He said that’s what he did?”

  “Yeah. And he was trying to get out of it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think they were running numbers? Uncle Horace and your grandpa.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You know what ‘running numbers’ means?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “No.”

  She grinned. “I didn’t, either, until my uncle decided he finally wanted to talk about it. For my dissertation. The impact of cultural isolation on economic development in rural America.”

  “That right?”

  “It means—”

  “Means why are country folks so poor,” I said. “I got that. Just wasn’t sure what numbers running was is all. Some kind of gambling.”

  “It’s like the lottery, back before the state had a lottery. Everyone in the community picks numbers, puts in their money. Lot of places, especially rural and dense urban areas, still run numbers, mainly because of their distrust of the government.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Sounds so quaint, doesn’t it?” She stood up, walked up next to me. “Like it’s little men in fedoras and suspenders writing out numbers on a chalkboard. Taking money around to people. All the money wrapped up in brown paper like it’s some kind of fish.”

  “I wouldn’t think it was like that,” I said.

  “Right. I’m sure it wasn’t. I’m sure there were guns and knives and bodies. The night I left Little Rock to come down here, you know what the top three stories on the news were?”

  I said I didn’t.

  “Homicides. Unsolved homicides. Three in a row. I thought it would be different here. I mean, coming back to the country. Back in time. A simpler place.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, I know it wasn’t always idyllic, of course. I know there’s still crime. But, still. Don’t you ever get tired of it, Roy? Of all the violence? Of everybody pulling a gun on everybody?”

  I said that, yeah, I get tired of a lot of things.

  “If Uncle Horace was just running numbers, I mean.” She shook her head, looked away. “I don’t know what I mean. And he was trying to get out. I guess I’ve just been overthinking it all.”

  “Lot q,an Hof that going around.”

  “Not enough, seems like,” she said. “You see that bird on the fence post there? Haven’t seen one in years. Red-winged blackbird. Used to see them all the time. Now, in the city, I don’t ever see them. And down here, they’re all over. Same birds. Same fields. Like fifty years ago. A hundred.”

  I took a step closer to her, looked out where she was facing, tried to see what she saw.

  • • •

  “So, Cassandra Pennick doing okay?” my grandmother asked as I was helping her put away groceries.

  I told her Cassie was okay, asked her about my grandfather, his jobs.

  “This and that,” she said. “Whatever needed doing.”

  I asked her what he was doing the week he was killed.

  “Up in Bradley, fixing engines,” she said. “Back then there was a lot more call for that.” She took a long sip of her sweet tea, spun the glass between her hands. “Lot more call for everything.”

  I said that yeah, there was.

  “Roy, you gotta remember, back then people didn’t leave the county for much, ’cept for they want to get a little out-of-state liquor over at Ray’s. But that’s about as far into Union County as most people went. Maybe some folks had kin over in Lafayette. Folks stayed close to home. Now you got people driving two hours to work in an office building so they can eat their lunch at their desk. I was talking to Birdie Cassels of a morning and she said her son Luke, the one with the glass eye, drives clear to Monroe for work. Not even in the same state. I asked her what he did, and she said she didn’t know. Didn’t know what her own son does for a living. Said her boy Mark works for a septic company outside Camden, and Matt sells those modular homes up in Magnolia. But she didn’t have any idea how to explain to me what Luke does for a living. Something with banking, she said. Everybody’s driving off in their cars and moving away and eating lunches at their desks, she said. Said Luke’s new wife doesn’t even know how to cook. He stops at the Texaco on the way to work to get a sandwich. At least that girl of hers stayed close to home.” She shook her head. “Bad enough your granddaddy had to go to Bradley, but at least I knew what he was doing there.”

  “Fixing engines?”

  “That’s right.”

  I handed her the picture I’d had in my pocket. “Him on the left?”

  “That’s your granddaddy,” she said. “And Horace Pennick there on the right.”

  “And the man in the middle?”

  She adjusted her glasses, pulled the picture closer. “Reckon I knew him some time. Can’t rightly say who it is now, though. Where’d you find this picture? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this.”

  “In the back, in some of the boxes of Mom and Dad’s stuff. I was looking for—I don’t know what I was looking for.”

  “Well, you found this picture of whoever it is.”

  “Y
es, ma’am. Think they might have worked together?”

  “What you want to know that for, Roy?”

  “I just was figuring, you know, who heq,an H might have worked with. Who they were, I guess.”

  “I know Mr. Pennick and your granddaddy worked for a while, but I can’t say I remember that fella.”

  “Think Mr. Jenkins might know?”

  “Jenkins?”

  “The old man past Mr. Tatum’s house. Used to be in those TV shows. Got me the job cutting grass at the church.”

  “Spencer Jenkins? Heck, boy, he’s not any older than I am.”

  “Think he might know?”

  “I stopped trying to figure out what people know and what they don’t a long time ago. Got to where I wanted to know, I just asked them.”

  • • •

  I parked my truck behind the Qwik-Mart, walked through a couple empty lots to meet Cleo by the payday loan place.

  He asked if I was ready. I put the gloves on, said I was. He led me to the alley beside the place, kneeled against the blue brick wall, then rolled a shotgun out of a blanket and handed it to me. I pulled down the ski mask as he went over the plan again.

  A couple cars went by, but no one noticed us. No one ever did.

  I knew my grandfather didn’t spend all his time in Bradley working on engines. He’d been involved in jobs with Horace Pennick. That much was certain. But there wasn’t any record of either one of them ever getting arrested. Not that I could find, anyway. Maybe they were better at it than I was. Than Cleo was. Still, Cleo and I were alive and they weren’t.

  I checked the shotgun, and he handed me some extra shells. “Thought we weren’t going loaded for bear.”

  “Nah,” Cleo said. “Shit starts to break nasty, you gotta be prepared.”

  I pulled out one of the shells. “Birdshot?”

  “Yeah. So don’t worry. For show, right?”

  I said fine, put the shell back.

  “Besides, they don’t want to get shot. They got families. Mortgages. Shit like that. Like we said. Go in. Get the money. Go home.” Cleo pulled down his mask and edged to the front corner of the building.

  I found the back door unlocked, just as Cleo had said. Saw the cigarette butts in a dirt pile by a lawn chair, the smokers’ stone for propping the door open.

  I put my hand on the door handle, flexed my glove. The day before I could have done fifty different things, taken fifty different paths. I could have followed the trail back out of the woods and found a whole new path. One that hadn’t already been blazed with a path for me. One that hadn’t been chopped to pulp. The day before, I could have done so many things.

  I took a breath, walked into the back of the building, and eased shut the door behind me.

  PART TWO

  Skinny Dennis McWilliams pulled a frozen Tupperware bowl from his freezer, slid it into the microwave, and sat down at the table, raking tablecloth crumbs onto the floor.

  He picked up the message, looping ink on a sheet of cross-shaped notepaper. At the top of the cross, sideways to fit, Cora had written, “Dinner in freezer. 5 minutes on medium.” Then, on the cross part, “2 minutes on high. D acan Hon’t forget Bandit.” And underneath, sideways again, “half can in the morning, dry all day, quarter at night. Call when I can. Be EXTRA careful. Smooch.”

  Another mission trip. At least he wouldn’t have to box up any more Bibles or shoes.

  He set his head down on the table, fell asleep for the half minute until the oven beeped. Five minutes on high.

  He dropped the bowl on the table, pulled the dripping lid off, tossed it near the sink. Took a spoon from the drain board, stirred the chili. Beans like pebbles, meat like mud. He lowered the bowl to the floor, called the dog. Then he took a longneck from the fridge and watched a half inning of the Astros until Caskey called.

  “Game time,” Caskey said, opening the passenger door.

  “Game time?”

  “It’s my new battle cry.”

  “Got your game face on?” McWilliams grinned, sliding into the seat, working the seatbelt buckle around his holstered pistol.

  “Oh, shut up. Just trying to get in the mood to do some damage. So we all set?”

  “Pretty much. I’ll go in, need you to hang back.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Need to keep it low-key.”

  “This the Alison guy’s idea?”

  “No,” McWilliams lied. “We just don’t want some Butch and Sundance standoff. Keep it low. Manageable.”

  “You go in, and I’ll hang back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m thinking it’s better we both go in front, if there’s two of them in there armed.”

  “There’s only Porterfield you have to worry about.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Roy said he’s a loose cannon, liable to snap we come in there like some overpowering threat.”

  “I think overpowering threat is the way to go.”

  McWilliams nodded, took a breath. “Remember that bank guy, Dale Thomas?”

  “One your guy and Porterfield beat the shit out of? Yeah. I remember.”

  “Seems Porterfield’s the one went ballistic on the guy.”

  “That what happened?”

  “Yeah. Roy and his cousin go over there to talk to him about a loan to Roy’s grandmother, Dale gets a little mouthy, sends Porterfield off.”

  “That’s what the Alison guy’s claiming, huh? He’s just a victim of circumstance? Peer pressure? Just trying to get that girl in his eighth grade homeroom to notice? He didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt when he beat the shit out of that guy?”

  “Sure, fine. Maybe that’s not exactly what happened. I don’t know. But I figure having you outside as backup is the safer bet. You got the front. There’s Roy at the back door. Porterfield in the middle.”

  “You trust this guy? Roy Alison?”

  “I don’t trust anybody,” McWilliams said.

  Caskey shook his head. “We both know that’s he knewan Hnot true.”

  McWilliams nodded, watched the houses move to the edge of the windshield as they drove along. “Trust him enough. His father was a good man.”

  • • •

  McWilliams was sitting at the window of Ned’s BBQ when he saw Cleo Porterfield park near the payday loan store across the street, step out with a blanket, and walk into the alley.

  “Sweet or un?”

  He looked up, saw the waitress with a pitcher in each hand. “Sweet.”

  She poured his tea, went to the next diners a few booths over.

  He’d lost sight of Cleo, but had a good idea what to expect. After three minutes, he stood up as he watched Cleo walk to the front door of the payday loan store.

  McWilliams got to his feet, waited for the waitress. “Tell your folks ‘hey,’” he said. He left some cash on the table, put on his hat, and walked across the street. He waited behind a white van as Cleo eased into the store and locked the door behind him.

  The deputy leaned low around the back of the van, pulled out his radio and called in the armed robbery, then moved to the building, crouching against the brick half-wall under the window.

  He’d passed up the chance to warn the people inside, to let them know what he knew. He could have told them they’d gotten a tip about an armed robbery, but he knew what would happen. Everyone would talk about it. No one would show for work. And nothing would happen. Everyone would be protected for that moment. For that fifteen minutes. But not the moments that followed. Not the next day when some drug dealer would sell a bag of weed to a twelve-year-old. Or the next week when someone would be stabbed outside a gas station.

  Which is what he’d talked to Roy Alison about at the cemetery.

  “Shouldn’t we warn the folks?” Roy had asked. “Maybe tell them it’s a drill?”

  McWilliams had shaken his head, looked out past the gravestones, beyond where his little sister was buried. “You know how many people are out there in the
county? People with no idea what’s going on? People who just stumble into a bad situation? People killed because of that? Good people? People with their whole lives in front of them?”

  Roy hadn’t said anything.

  “Then there’s people out there who want to take all that away. The Rudds and Pribbles and Sawyers. Hell, I got a kid locked up right now who has a good job at the Piggly Wiggly. Got him locked up on conspiracy and home invasion. Know why? I talked to the boy for two hours, and you know what he said? He said he was bored. Bored. You know what happens when those people get bored, Roy? Staci McMahen happens. Every minute those people walk free is another minute you can’t let your kid stay out past dark.”

  “Okay.”

  “These people, they’re not like you and me. They’re cold, Roy. They prey on people. They want you to be soft on them, want you to do the right thing. They game the system. So they can just keep doing what they do. They know we have to play by the rules. Because it’s what we do. It’s what makes us different from them. We’re the good guys. We stop the outlaws.”

  “But can’t you let the people at the store know about what’s gonna happen? Say it’s a drill?”

  “Roy, we tell them that, no telling what’s likely to happen. We can’t have this not take place. We have to let this thing work itself out. A robbery like this, we can get you some federal protection. Set it all up. Get the funding like we talked about. But there’s got to be a crime. I can’t just go handing out money to any people I want to. And besides, we let this look like a fake robbery, there’s just no telling what happens. We need it to go down like it’s set to go down. Bust you and your cousin.

  “We let this one get away from us, we’ll never put a stop to this. This is our best shot. And we have to get the two of you in the middle of this. That’s the only way this works out for everyone. Otherwise, just no telling.”

  And he’d meant that. At the time. Then he sneaked a look into the payday loan store and wished he’d warned the people inside. Wished it had just been the man and the woman working behind the counter, without the young couple sitting on the side bench, the husband holding his paycheck stub folded tight in his fist.