Johnny Gee continued to stare straight ahead. He hadn’t moved.
“Come on. We’ve got trouble.” Sam poked his arm, and he stirred.
“Where are we?” said Johnny Gee tonelessly.
“We blew a tire.”
“What happened to the other car? Those bastards were trying to kill us!”
“They went off the road.” Sam pointed out the side window in the direction of the wailing car horn.
“Is that them?” asked Johnny Gee, squinting into the night. “What happened?”
“The car flipped. I saw it hit the trees.”
“How many of ’em was there?”
“Two.” Sam was talking to himself as much as to Johnny Gee. His speech was tight, forced, and his words came in rapid bursts. “I couldn’t believe it. They had a shotgun. They kept shooting at us. I ran them off the road. It looked like an unmarked car, but I don’t think they were cops. They didn’t want to arrest us. They wanted to kill us.”
“What’d I tell you? Harlan’s boys don’t mess around. Cops or no cops, there ain’t no law enforcement in this county. There’s just enforcement, period. Ya get what I mean?”
“All of this over a damned debt? Those two guys were doing their best to make sure we’d be bleeding on the side of the road. Are you sure you got the whole story from your friend?”
Johnny Gee looked at the woods obscuring the wrecked car. The horn still blared into the darkness.
“I only know one thing for sure. We got to get outa here,” he said. “We gotta keep movin’. These guys don’t give up.
There’ll be others. We gotta get you to that bus, get you outa here.”
“First, we’ve got to get this car off the road,” said Sam, dropping the Caddy into gear.
“Don’t we have to change the tire?”
“Yeah, but I think we should have a look at those guys first. I saw the car go over. It didn’t look like anybody could have survived the crash, but …”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me. They’re tryin’ to kill us, and you want to go hold their hands?”
“I just want to see if anybody’s alive. If they are, I’m calling an ambulance at the next town.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You got me into this, but I’m getting myself out. That means I’m not leaving anyone dying on the side of the road. We’ve got to do what’s right here.”
“What do you think this is? A war movie? Like, you got to care for the wounded or something?”
“I ran them off the road. I’m going to see if either of them survived. You can stay with the car if you want. I don’t care.”
Johnny Gee studied Sam. He meant what he was saying. He shrugged.
“What’s down there at the end of that dirt road?” asked Johnny Gee.
“Looks like an abandoned farmhouse.”
“Will this thing make it down there … like, into those trees behind the shack? We better hide the car if we’re gonna check these bums out.”
“Sure.” Sam put the Caddy in gear and it limped down the dirt road. He pulled around the old farmhouse and cut the engine. They were sitting in what was once a backyard. A tire swing hung from a branch high up in a tall oak tree.
An outhouse leaned fifteen degrees from the vertical over on the other side of the oak. A screen door could be heard banging desultorily in the wind. Who lived here, and how many years ago did they leave? Who played in this weed-clogged yard, and who rode that rusting tricycle peeking out from beneath the back stairs? Sam hit the headlight switch and the overgrown yard was plunged into darkness.
“Come on,” he commanded. He grabbed the keys and opened the door. The cold night hit him like a slap. He heard the other door slam.
“I can’t see shit out here,” said Johnny Gee. “Fuck.” Sam heard the thud of a body hitting the ground. He walked around the car. He saw an arm sticking out of the weeds.
“You gonna give me a hand, or you gonna stand there?”
Sam pulled Johnny Gee to his feet. No one could have looked more out of place, combing the dirt from a farmyard out of his hair, his sharkskin suit thigh high in rye grass and goldenrod.
“Let’s go,” Sam called, heading down the dirt road in the direction of the blaring car horn.
They crossed the blacktop and entered the woods, crashing through the undergrowth. Low trees slapped them in the face and brambles tugged at their pants legs. Then, through the trees, they saw the other car’s headlights.
It was a black Ford sedan, and it was upside down, sitting on its roof, headlights pointing into the woods, the blue light torn from the dashboard still flashing wildly inside the car. Sam walked gingerly around the car to the passenger side. A man’s body dangled half-in, half-out of the passenger window, facing up. The shotgun lay on the ground, a few yards from the body.
“Jesus. Look at this,” said Sam in a low, stunned voice. “His hand is gone.”
“Guy must have shot himself when the car went over,” said Johnny Gee. “Too bad.”
“Do you recognize him?”
“Yeah, sure. I know all the shotgun thugs in these parts,” said Johnny Gee sarcastically. Sam shot him a look, and Johnny Gee walked away.
He stood over the body, staring. The man was still breathing, but he was unconscious.
“I didn’t want this,” he mumbled to himself.
He felt an arm around his shoulder.
“Hey, man. It wasn’t your fault. It’s okay. The dude’s an asshole.”
“But why is this happening?”
“I know how you feel, man. Most of us just want to get by, you know? Make a few bucks, eat supper, catch a couple of shows on the tube, and hit the sack. Nobody needs this kind of shit. But it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing else you could do.”
“Where’s the other guy?” asked Sam, regaining his composure.
“He’s over there,” said Johnny Gee. “He’s still got his seat belt on.”
Sam walked around to the driver’s side of the car. He reached in the window, hit the headlight switch and turned off the ignition. The blue light stopped flashing, but the horn kept blaring. He hit the steering wheel a couple of times and the horn stopped. An icy stillness fell over the woods. Sam got down on his hands and knees and stuck his head in the window. In the silence, he could hear the driver breathing.
“He’s still alive. Come over here and give me a hand with him,” he commanded. Johnny Gee bent over and grabbed the man’s arm while Sam reached up inside the car and flipped a lever on the man’s seat belt. He crumbled into a heap on the inside of the car’s roof, and the two men pulled him gently from the wreck.
“I’ve seen this one before,” said Johnny Gee. He’s the one shot at us when we were carrying Howie to the car. He’s from up in Hamilton County. Works for Harlan, I’m sure of it.”
“Well, he’s still breathing.”
“Just barely.”
“Do these guys think we’ve got the money? The fifty thousand? That’s why they were chasing us?”
“Who knows what they think? All I know is, we better get the fuck out of here before another carload of them comes along and finishes what they started.”
“Maybe we can bring him around, and ask him some questions. I want to know why these guys were trying to kill us, for starters.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” sneered Johnny Gee. “Then he’ll know exactly what we look like, and he’ll be able to give a description of the two guys who ran him off the road and shot up his partner. Wonderful. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“But they were the ones who were trying to kill us.”
“And he’s gonna admit that to the cops? Golly, officer, I was just chasing these guys and taking an occasional shot at them, when they ran me off the road. That’s how the accident happened. Honest.” Johnny Gee felt for his pack of cigarettes and not finding it, cursed to himself. “That’s beautiful. You must believe in the tooth fairy, too.”
Sam grabbed him by the shou
lder and pushed him up against the wrecked Ford.
“Don’t act wise with me,” he said in even tones. “Somebody told these guys to find us and kill us, and I want to know why. I don’t buy this story about your friend owing some money, and they were trying to collect. If we don’t figure out what’s going on here, we’re going to be in bigger trouble than we’re in already. Now, knock off the sarcastic bullshit, tell me what you think, and tell me straight.”
“All I’m saying is, we’ve got to get the hell away from here. If these guys live, they’ll tell anybody who’ll listen that we shot at them, that it’s our shotgun. You better hope both of these dudes die, and you better hope somebody takes prints off that gun over there and figures out that he shot his own hand off with it. That’s the only chance we have, man.”
Sam knelt next to the injured man and listened to his breathing for a moment. Then he stood up.
“He’s breathing a lot easier now. I think he’s going to be okay. I’m still calling an ambulance when we get to the next town.”
“You do what you have to,” said Johnny Gee.
“Come on. Let’s get back to the car,” said Sam, walking back into the woods.
“I’m right behind you.”
It took ten minutes to get back across the road to the Cadillac. Sam didn’t waste any time. He unlocked the trunk and raised the lid. A trunk light came on, illuminating a semicircle of high weeds blowing softly in the wind.
“Here. Take this,” said Sam, handing over the jack and base plate.
“What’s this shit?”
“You never changed a tire before?”
“Do I look like I ever changed a tire?” Johnny Gee turned down the collar of his suit jacket and examined what was left of the creases in his trouser legs.
“I guess not. Put the jack down and give me a hand with the spare.”
Sam tilted the spare vertical in its round depression at the bottom of the trunk. Johnny Gee was wiping dirt from his shoes.
“Step aside,” Sam commanded, lifting the spare from the trunk and carrying it to the side of the car. Quickly he assembled the shaft and base of the jack, hooked it to the Caddy’s bumper and jacked the left rear off the ground. With the jack handle, he popped the hubcap and began removing the lug nuts from the hub. He pulled the flat tire free of the hub, and put on the spare. Then he spun the lug nuts back on, tightened them up, hit the release lever on the jack and lowered the wheel to the ground. He was lifting the flat tire into the trunk when he saw a clean towel neatly folded at the bottom of the spare tire well. He rested the flat tire on the edge of the trunk, grabbed the towel and wiped the grime from his hands. He was ready to tilt the flat tire into the well when something shiny caught his eye.
“Come here. Look at this.”
Johnny Gee leaned over the bumper so he could see.
“What in hell is that?”
“I don’t know, man. Boxes of shit. Tools, probably.”
Sam let the spare drop to the ground. Five shiny brown boxes, arrayed like spokes of a wheel around the bottom of the spare tire well, had been hidden under the towel. He removed one of the boxes and held it to the light. He snapped the box open with his thumb.
“It’s a videotape,” he said. “They’re all videotapes.”
The screen door beat a slow tattoo. The wind picked up, blowing the smell of a nearby swamp across the swaying weeds.
Sam took the rest of the videotapes from the well. He threw the jack in the trunk, and jumped in the front seat. He started the car and switched on the lights.
“Hey, man, wait for me,” called Johnny Gee as Sam backed the Caddy in a circle, turning around. Sam hit the brakes. The thin man opened the passenger door and climbed in.
“You were gonna leave me, man. What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“You had no idea these tapes were in the car?”
“I told you what the old man told me. He owed some guys fifty thou, and he didn’t have the dough, and the trouble started. I didn’t know nothin’ about no tapes, man.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me the old man told you absolutely nothing about this stuff?” Sam held one of the tapes and shook it in Johnny Gee’s face.
“Wait a minute. He said this one thing, that he had some insurance, and they knew he had the insurance, and that’s why he wasn’t worried ’bout them pullin’ nothin’.”
“And you think these videotapes are the so-called insurance he told you about?”
“Could be, man. Who knows?”
The Cadillac rolled to a stop at the end of the dirt road. Sam leaned forward, resting his forehead on the top of the steering wheel. He took two deep breaths and looked up.
“How do we get off this road?”
“Go right. There’s a turn-off a couple miles west of here. We can head south, get outa this county faster that way.”
“What do you think is on the tapes?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Could be anything … Hollywood porno, some dirty home movies … Howie’s been into a lot of shit over the years.”
“I thought you told me he was county leader and sheriff.”
“That don’t mean nothin’. You’re county leader or sheriff in these parts, you can get yourself a piece of any action you want in on. You know what they say about politics. Gettin’ elected pays, man. Yes indeed it does.”
“You say he told you nothing about the tapes?”
“Not a word. All he told me was, the whole beef was about the money he owed. That’s all I know.”
“I’m sure these videotapes are what the trouble back at the diner was about. Maybe they belonged to someone else. Maybe they’re stolen. Maybe there never was any fifty thousand dollars. Maybe all the time there were just these five videotapes.”
“Only way we’re gonna find out is have a look at them.”
“Now just exactly how are we going to accomplish that at nine-thirty at night in the middle of nowhere?” Sam peered into the darkness trying to see beyond the headlights. Nothing but more farmland. He glanced at the speedometer. Eighty-five.
“Take a left at the end of that fence there,” said Johnny Gee, pointing up ahead. Sam slowed and took the turn. The road surface got worse and worse. Rough stretches were interrupted by clusters of potholes and rain gully washouts.
“Where in hell is this going to take us?” he asked, slowing to ten miles an hour to negotiate some flooded low ground.
“There’s a town up ahead. ’Less I’m mistaken, they got a video store.”
“A video rental place? Out here?”
“Everybody’s got one of those recorders nowadays, man. Especially out here. You got your dish, you got your videotape recorder, you’re set for the winter, don’t care how much it snows on your ass. You just hunker down and flip on that tube. These people out here don’t know how they got along without all this shit. It’s the truth. ’Tween cable and those big antennas, the boonies are wired in, man. They got their MTV out here. Who do you think is buyin’ all them Springsteen albums and John Cougar albums? They got their Camaro and their color TV and their stereo, and they are right where you are now at, man. Right here.”
The Caddy hit one last stretch of potholes and the road smoothed out. “Watch out. Place is right up ahead.”
They rounded a corner and sure enough, up ahead on the left was a brightly lit minimall, a row of three or four stores plonked down in the middle of a gravel lot on the edge of town. The sign at the far end said VIDEO CONNECTION. Sam pulled into the gravel lot.
“Better park this thing by the side of the building, over there in the dark,” said Johnny Gee.
Sam cut the engine and doused the lights. “What are we going to do in there?” he asked.
“You let me handle these folks,” said Johnny Gee, stacking the tapes and tucking them under his arm. He strode purposefully around the corner of the building to the door. Sam followed close behind.
Five kids were sitting around on the floor w
atching MTV on a projection TV. Not a single head turned when they walked in. Five faces stayed glued to the gigantic images of leaping guitarists on the screen at the end of the room. The din from four speakers blaring the MTV audio was deafening. Sam and Johnny Gee stood just inside the door for a moment before they were noticed. Finally the video store proprietor, who had a shag haircut similar to that of the lead singer on the screen, unfixed his gaze and waved blankly.
“Hey, dude, what can I get for ya?” he yelled. They could barely hear him.
“Need to use your VCR for a minute, man,” yelled Johnny Gee. “Got a couple tapes we need to check the audio on, know what I mean? We heard you got a good setup.”
“Hey, dude, check it out. We got some power at Video Connection, man. S’what we’re here for. Be my guest.”
He pointed to a VCR on a shelf next to the projection screen. A grinning mouth full of yellow teeth peeked through the poodle-like cloud of hair nearly obscuring his face. He had the sunny disposition of a midwestern farmer and the look of a pipefitter from Bay Ridge Brooklyn. The combination was unsettling.
The kid touched a switch under the counter, and the big screen went blank. Five poodle heads turned.
“What time you all close?” asked Johnny Gee. He removed one of the tapes from its brown plastic box. Its label read Ramada Inn. He inserted it in the VCR and turned to the poodles.
“You all don’t mind, do you? This will take just a minute.” Five heads of hair shook blankly. No, they didn’t mind. Something different to check out, man.
He punched play. The screen went fuzzy, and four speakers spewed static at great volume. The kid behind the counter turned a knob somewhere, and the volume went down. Then the screen went blank and a dim image came into focus.
“Jimmy. Check it out. Black and white. The fifties, dude,” said a voice from the collected poodles, all of whom were gazing intently at the big screen.
A date and time signature appeared on the lower left hand corner of the screen, counting off minutes and hours. The scene looks like it was shot in a motel: two beds, a small table, wall lamps, shag rug. Extreme wide angle lens. Everything visible from the bathroom door to the dresser at the far side of the room. The camera is looking down into the room from above. There is the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a door opens. A man comes into view, a tall man, maybe six foot four, wearing a wrinkled suit and carrying a briefcase. Another man, also wearing a wrinkled suit, follows.
Rules of the Road Page 8