“I’m sorry,” rubbing her eyes, “I’m not following you.”
“People come here to buy something. You can hang around for a little while. Eventually you’re expected to buy something, if it’s one can of beer.”
“You think Perry drove down here to buy a can of Coors?”
“No. I think she bought something. Let’s go find out what it was.”
Tasha followed Sheriff Bledsoe to the front door. He tapped on it with a long flashlight. “Police!”
The door opened and there stood a tall, emaciated man dressed only in boxer shorts. The man blinked at Tasha, at Sheriff Bledsoe.
“Something wrong, Sheriff?” he asked.
“Put some clothes on, Jake,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “There’s a lady present.”
Jake looked at Tasha and twisted his boxers so that the slit covered his hip. “What she want?”
“Get dressed, Jake!” Sheriff Bledsoe said.
Jake turned and disappeared inside.
Sheriff Bledsoe sat on the edge of the porch and swung his legs. “Make sure you ask him what she bought.”
Presently, Jake stepped out wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a T-shirt. “If this ‘bout that fine, ah gonna pay it Tuesday after next. You can ask the white woman at the courthouse. She gave me an extension.”
Sheriff Bledsoe started whistling.
“Ah ain’t lying!” Jake said. “Ask the white woman, she’ll tell you.”
Sheriff Bledsoe said, “Jake, you’re going to answer this lady’s questions…all of them…truthfully. If not, we’ll determine when that fine is due…at the jail…tomorrow evening. Get my drift?”
Jake turned to Tasha. “What you want with me?”
“Last week,” Tasha said, “a woman came down here and pulled a gun on three men, do you remember that?”
“Yeah, ah remember,” Jake said, casting nervous glances at Sheriff Bledsoe balancing the flashlight in the palm of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, ah remember. What of it?”
“Did you observe the altercation?”
“Yeah--ah mean, no! Uh-uh. Ah didn’t see nothing!” Sheriff Bledsoe took out his handcuffs and whirled them on a finger.
“Ah-ah was in the house, minding my own business. By the time ah looked out the window it was all over. Ah caught the ass-end of it; ah can’t tell you what happened.”
“You get a good look at the woman?”
“Nope. She wasn’t facing my direction.”
“When she drove off, the license plate, did you see it?”
“No, ah didn’t see nothing. Them other fellows say they saw everything. Why don’t you go ask them?”
“You know Burt and Doreen, don’t you?”
“Yeah, ah know em.”
“How long?”
“A long time. Ah don’t remember how long.”
“So you know Doreen’s daughter, Perry?”
He dug into his nose, retrieved something and flicked it. “Ah don’t much remember her. She stayed in the house most the time.”
“Wasn’t she the one you saw get into a Cadillac and drive away?”
“Nope. Didn’t see nothing. Not a damn thing!”
“What she come here for?”
“Ah don’t know! You need to ask her ‘bout that. People come here all the time. Ah don’t go askin’ em what they come here for. If they don’t bother me, ah don’t bother them.”
“What did you sell to her?” getting irritated.
“Ah didn’t sell her a goddamn thing!” Jake shouted. “Hell, the woman didn’t even come up to the damn house! Why you think ah sold her something? You got me four ways fucked up!”
“Watch your mouth,” Sheriff Bledsoe said.
“Let me get this straight,” Tasha said. “A woman pulls up in your yard, discharges a firearm, pistol-whips one of your patrons, and you manage to miss everything except the fact she has a butt. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yeah!”
“You’re lying!” raising her voice. “You know you’re lying!”
“No, ah ain’t. What reason ah have to lie?”
“Yes, you are lying.” Tasha scooped up Sheriff Bledsoe’s flashlight and approached Jake. “I’m going to ask you one last time. What did she buy from you?”
Jake backed up a step, his goiter rising and falling like a yo-yo. “Hey…hey, Sheriff, what’s wrong with this woman?”
Sheriff Bledsoe looked up at the stars and started whistling again.
“You better start talking!” getting into his face, the flashlight resting on her shoulder.
Jake backed up another step, the wall at his back. “Ah don’t know nothing! Ah didn’t sell nothing! Ah swear!”
“Sheriff Bledsoe, is he on parole or probation?”
“Yes, I do believe he is. Probation.”
“Well, well, well! That means if I find drugs or drug paraphernalia on the premises, Jake has revoked his probation.”
“Woman, what the hell you talking ‘bout? Ah don’t have no drugs! Sheriff Bledsoe, what the hell she talking ‘bout?”
Tasha crossed to the edge of the porch and picked up a three-legged school desk on the ground. She dragged it to the edge of the steps. “Sheriff Bledsoe, would you hold this for me?”
While Sheriff Bledsoe steadied the desk, Tasha stood on it and ran her hand along the gutter. “I feel something here…something plastic. What did you sell her, Jake?”
“Sheriff!” Jake wailed. “This shit wrong! You know it’s wrong!”
“Jake,” Tasha said, “who’s it going to be? You or her? I’m not standing up here holding this bag while you make up your mind. Why did she come here?”
“She came to buy a gun,” Jake said, barely audible.
Tasha jumped down and played the light directly into Jake’s face. “What did you say?”
“Ah said this shit wrong! Wrong than two fat homos!”
Sheriff Bledsoe scooted the desk to the center of the porch and directed Jake into it.
“Jake, I really think you should tell the lady everything. In a minute I’m going behind the house and water the grass. What happens then will be between you and her.”
“This shit wrong, Sheriff. She down here disrespecting me like this, early in the morning. Ah was asleep. You know this is dead wrong!”
“What kind of gun did she buy?” Tasha asked.
“A nine,” Jake mumbled.
“Where did you get it from?”
“A white boy gave it to me.”
“This white boy have a name?”
“Carl.”
“Last name?”
“Casian.”
“Carl Casian,” thinking about it. She played the light in his face again. “One more crack like that and I’ll pop your head with this flashlight. You were lying when you denied seeing her pull a weapon on those three men?”
“No, ah wasn’t lying. Ah was telling the truth!”
“I’m getting fed up with you. Apparently you think I’m playing games!”
“Ah didn’t see it! Ah swear on everything ah love ah didn’t see it!”
“How you not see it when you were the one who sold her the gun?”
“Ah didn’t sell it to her. Ah sold it to…” He paused. Tasha raised the flashlight. “To her cousin, JD. He bought it for her.”
Tasha looked at Sheriff Bledsoe. He shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said. To Jake: “Thanks for your cooperation.”
As they walked to the cruiser, Tasha shouted over her shoulder, “I were you I’d flush that bag right now.”
Jake waited till they were in the cruiser before saying, “Fuck you bitch!”
Tasha rolled down the window. “Excuse me, did you say something?”
Jake smiled nervously. “Ah said shucks, ah’m a snitch.”
When they drove away, Jake retrieved his bag from the roof and went inside to the phone.
Sheriff Bledsoe made a left down a dark dirt road that Tasha doubted she could have found in daylight.
“How you know where he kept his stash?”
“I worked vice six years before transferring to homicide. Dealers know that drug-sniffing canines can’t detect drugs more than three feet away. Most think if the drugs are found outside the house they can’t be charged with possession.”
“You weren’t really going to hit him with the flashlight, were you?”
“Uh…well…uh…no.”
Tasha lowered the window and lighted a cigarette, the cool morning air filling the car. “Perry has a gun. Very bad news.”
Sheriff Bledsoe turned up the heater. “You make me nervous, you know that? Extremely nervous.”
“Craps! A snake with a semi-automatic weapon!”
“I was pinned down in a firefight in Iraq and I wasn’t half as nervous as I am when I’m with you.”
“She’s going to shoot Neal with it.”
“Let’s not go in with the heavy stuff on JD. He’s a wino scared of his own shadow.”
“Why did she drive this far to buy a gun? She could’ve bought a gun from any crackhead in Little Rock and saved gas money.”
“I don’t know. She’s a lucky so-and-so. I was searching her vehicle and would have found the gun if dispatch hadn’t called me.”
“Why the search?”
“She called me Sheriff Anus, kinda ticked me off, so I requested a search.”
“She consented?”
“She hee-hawed a bit before consenting. Darn! If I’d only known.”
“This nightmare keeps getting worse and worse and worse. What’ll happen next?”
A man on a ten-speed bicycle suddenly appeared in the headlight beams.
Sheriff Bledsoe swerved left…The bumper kissed the bicycle’s rear tire. The man somersaulted head over end and disappeared into the darkness.
“Jesus!” Sheriff Bledsoe shouted, applying both feet to the brakes. “Oh God, I think I killed him!”
He and Tasha jumped out the car and ran back. In the red glow of the taillights they saw the man on the ground rise up, look their way, jump to his feet and take off running.
“It’s JD!” Sheriff Bledsoe shouted, running in hot pursuit. “Halt!…Sheriff!…”
Tasha ran a few feet and stopped. No way! That guy is long gone.
Sheriff Bledsoe kept running, grunting with each step, utility belt jingling.
Tasha lost sight of the two men, went back to the cruiser and backed up down the dirt road. A quarter of a mile down she saw them.
She hopped out of the cruiser. “Wow! I didn’t think you would catch him.”
“Not bad for a fat boy, huh?” Sheriff Bledsoe said, wheezing.
“I tripped,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, and you had a head start.”
“JD, I presume,” Tasha said. Sheriff Bledsoe assisted Johnny to the backseat.
“I want a lawyer!”
“Why?” Sheriff Bledsoe asked. “You haven’t been charged with anything yet.”
“Why you run me down, put me in handcuffs?”
“Well, you see, when fat boys like me see skinny guys like you running, we naturally give chase, can’t help ourselves.”
“We know about the gun,” Tasha said. “The one you bought from Jake and gave to Perry, your cousin.”
“It’s called free market capitalism. Why you stressing me?”
“What excuse she give you for needing a gun?”
“Skeet.”
Tasha frowned at Sheriff Bledsoe. “I’m not putting up with much more of his crap.”
“Chill out,” Johnny said. “I was just joking.”
“Wrong time and place,” Tasha said.
“Who is she, Sheriff, and why you letting her come down here and intimidate folks? Jake told me what she did to him.”
“Did you see Perry pull a gun on those three men?” Tasha asked.
“Nope. I was in the house.”
“Doing what?”
“Conducting business.”
“What kind of business?”
“That may serve to incriminate me.”
Tasha groaned. “Just tell the truth and it’ll save a lot of time and trouble.”
“I’m telling the truth. I’m not burying my own ass, though. I have kids…who I plan to visit one day.”
“We don’t want you!” Tasha shouted at him. Calmer: “Did you see your cousin pull a gun on those three men?”
“I told you I was in the house.”
“With Jake?”
“Yeah.”
“While Perry was outside playing Ma Barker?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t see nothing?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Cause you were buying dope from Jake?”
“Yeah. Hell no! I was buying the gun…I mean…”
“You couldn’t have been buying the gun while Perry was outside shooting it, now could you?”
“There was two guns,” Johnny said.
“What?”
“Two guns.”
“Two guns?”
“Yeah. She came down here with one and she wanted to buy another one just like it.”
Tasha’s left eye twitched. “What kind of gun did she bring with her?”
“A nine.”
“Millimeter?”
“The only kind of nine I know.”
“Let’s clarify something here,” Tasha said, both eyes twitching now. “She brought a nine millimeter with her and she had you go get her another nine millimeter, is that right?”
“Yup.”
Tasha suddenly felt dizzy. “The nine she brought with her, what was the brand?”
“Say what?”
“Colt? Beretta? Sig Sauer?”
“Uh-uh. A Glock.”
Chapter 23
Once again Neal sat on the bathroom floor, his feet pressed against the locked door. Smoking. This time, however, marijuana.
Two days ago, Perry had presented him two suits, a blue pinstripe two-piece and a black worsted three-piece. She claimed that each had been worn only once, but didn’t say by whom.
Neal chose the blue pinstripe and asked why he needed a suit. Perry ignored his query and insisted he try it on. While doing so he found a cellophane bag filled with marijuana inside the breast pocket. He neglected to mention the bag to Perry, who said the suit fit him perfectly.
Neal couldn’t understand why a worn suit fitting him caused her such delight. Nor could he understand why she’d been following him around since he’d come back from meeting Tasha.
When he stepped outside, she stepped out, too. Several times he’d caught her peering around the corner at him. This was making him super paranoid.
To calm his nerves, he decided to try the marijuana. Lacking the necessary paraphernalia, he’d emptied a cigarette and stuffed pot inside. The first drag scorched his throat.
He waited for something to happen. Nothing. He took another drag, inhaling more deeply. Still nothing.
Am I doing something wrong here?
He started to take another drag when Perry knocked on the door.
“What the hell are you doing in there?”
He grabbed the air freshener and sprayed. “Nothing.”
“Hurry up! I need to use it.”
“What’s wrong with the one downstairs?”
“I prefer to use this one.”
He started laughing, uncontrollably. I prefer to use this one was the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. He opened the door. Perry stood there, frowning, staring at him suspiciously.
“What’s so damn funny?”
This was also funny--no, this was hilarious. He had to lean on the door to keep from falling to his knees laughing. Just when he’d almost composed himself, his mind would replay I prefer to use this one and he’d start laughing again. Tears rolled down his face, his stomach hurt, and he felt bladder pangs, though couldn’t stop laughing.
“We’re smoking dope now?” Perry said.
More laughter. We? I don’t re
call you taking a toke.
“You need your ass whipped!” Nose twisted in disgust. “Whipped senseless…and left to rot.”
This comment sent Neal to his knees. “Stop it!” laughing uproariously. “Please stop!…Please!…You’re killing me!”
“Not yet.”
Neal fell to the floor, laughing, holding his side with one hand, and started beating the carpet with his fist. He rolled onto his back, a hand covering his forehead, and started coughing…A glob of saliva flew from his mouth and narrowly missed hitting Perry smack in the face as she leaned over him.
Neal watched her expression change, disgust to rage. The transformation stopped his laughing, cold.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
Perry didn’t respond, just stood there looking catatonic, not blinking, grinding her teeth.
Neal got to his feet and crossed to the bedroom. He tried to conjure up a heartfelt apology…and then noticed the ceiling fan…A modern marvel of human technology. It was rather amazing: pull the chain and the blue ornamental blades whirled so fast you saw only a blue blur; pull the chain again and the blades stopped.
Absolutely amazing!
* * * * *
Déjà vu, Perry thought. No, this was more than that. This was a shock, an electrical current that jolted past events to life.
Neal had done this to her…and Neal had slunk away, leaving her to deal with the painful memories of Lester Perkins…
“You sh-sh-sh-shorted me,” Lester complained to the cashier, a muscular, dark-skinned man, in the Prime Pork restaurant full of customers. “I ordered two fries.”
Perry watched as the cashier snatched the bag from Lester, grabbed him by the scruff of his pants, hauled him across the greasy pinewood floor and threw him out.
“St-st-stay out and d-d-don’t come back!”
Witnessing this, Perry no longer wanted a chopped beef barbecue sandwich. She walked out.
Lester stood near her car, hurling insults at the establishment. He was a short, slender man, late thirties, wearing a porkpie hat, plaid shirt and striped polyester pants.
He reminded Perry of someone she’d seen on television. Who exactly? She wasn’t sure.
Perry consoled him, “He was wrong embarrassing you in public like that,” and offered him a ride to wherever he wanted to go.
Lester was smitten, so enamored with Perry he didn’t attempt to speak, simply stared at her, smiling and nodding his head.
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