The Nightrunners - Joe R. Lansdale.wps

by phuc

  "That's one thing I don't need right now."

  "Oh?" Her mouth went delightfully pouty.

  "Let me rephrase that. I haven't the time."

  "Better."

  She kissed him again.

  Outside a horn honked.

  "Asshole," Ted said. "He's early, you know."

  "When you get home we'll make up for lost time."

  "Not sure when I'll be in."

  "I know that. Whenever you're in we'll make it up."

  He kissed her again.

  The horn honked again.

  "Look, it'll just take me a minute to go out there and strangle him, then I'll come back in."

  She grinned.

  "Gotta go." He reached out and patted her on the ass as he went out of the bedroom. He stopped, turned. "One thing," he said, "when I quit this job, get into something else, I want you to do something with that degree of yours. I never wanted you to be a housewife and nothing else."

  "We'll see."

  "Bye, baby."

  "Love you," she said, and he went out of there. She mouthed the words silently:

  "Be careful."

  FOUR

  Ted went outside, putting on his hat. Larry had the car door open and was standing up leaning on it. He yelled, "Move it, Ted. Let's go."

  "Just shut the fuck up, Larry." .

  "Oh, it's going to be like that, huh? Okay, okay."

  Larry folded himself inside the car, draped his arms over the steering wheel and looked straight ahead.

  Ted walked around front, glanced at Larry through the glass. He looked like a little kid that had been grounded to his room and his toys locked up in the toy chest.

  Ted shook his head. What world did this guy come from? It was like he had just dropped in from another planet and hadn't yet learned the social customs.

  Ted opened the door, climbed in with a loud sigh. Without looking at him, Larry started the car, began easing out of the drive.

  "Damn," Larry finally said, "you drive me crazy. You're the damnedest person I've ever known."

  "Me?" Ted said. "Me?" He liked it so much he said it a third time. "Me?"

  "Think I'm talking to somebody in the back seat? Yeah, you."

  "Christ, Larry, you're a fucking brainwipe, and you're saying I'm weird?"

  "You got weird ideas. You act weird. You like niggers and communist—"

  "That's about enough, Larry."

  "You and the niggers, that's what's wrong with things."

  Ted wondered if he should try pinching himself. Hopefully he'd wake up and Larry would be a dream.

  "Larry, let me tell this to you one more—last time. That nigger stuff doesn't cut any ice with me. You believe what you want, but give me a break, huh?"

  "Are you a fucking Catholic?"

  "What?"

  "I said are you a Catholic?"

  "What's it matter? You trying to find something else to fight about?"

  "Then you are a Catholic?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "But you didn't deny it."

  "No, I'm not Catholic. I'm not even a Baptist. I'm not anything."

  "A goddamned atheist. I knew it, a goddamned atheist."

  "I didn't say that . . . What's it matter, huh?"

  "It matters that I want to know if I'm driving around with a goddamned atheist, that's what matters. I mean I'm laying my life on the line out here, and I want to know how my partner stands on things."

  "Go to hell, Larry."

  "Hey, that's your place, buddy. You're the atheist."

  "I'm not an atheist, Larry. I don't have any interest in organized religion, that's all.

  I don't believe in having to go to church, that sort of thing."

  "I thought so."

  Ted hated himself, but he couldn't resist.

  "What's that mean?"

  "It means what you said, you're an atheist."

  "I didn't say that."

  "Hey, someone did."

  "I said I didn't go to church—"

  "See."

  "That's not the same thing. I just don't like organized religion, that's what I said."

  "Means the same thing. You don't like or go to church, you're an atheist," Ted sighed.

  "Have it your own way, Larry."

  "Hey, you ought to think about God and church, buddy. Made a new man out of me. Before that, well, wasn't much about me that was any count."

  "Yeah, well, you're priceless now, Larry."

  "Was that some kind of crack?"

  "How do you do this to me? We did this all day yesterday. I went home with a headache. Do you do this every time you're tied up with a partner?"

  "Do what?"

  "Drive them crazy."

  "I haven't had that many nigger-loving, commie partners, if you must know."

  "Pull over."

  "What?"

  "Pull over."

  "What for?"

  "Just pull over."

  "Tell me what the fuck for."

  "I'm fixing to whip your ass up one side of this highway and down the other."

  "You and how many of your nigger buddies? That's what I'm trying to ask you."

  "Pull the fuck over, you chickenshit bastard."

  "All right, goddamnit, all right, you're gonna wish you'd kept your fucking mouth shut, that's what you're gonna wish, that's what I'm trying to tell you."

  Brakes slammed. The patrol car rocked. Larry jerked his door open, started around the front of the car. Ted got out on his side, proceeded to do the same.

  "All right, boy," Larry said, "this is it, the big time, your day in the ring."

  Ted kicked Larry in the balls and dropped him. Then like one of the Three Stooges, bent down, took hold of Larry's hat and jerked it down over his eyes and ears.

  A car with an elderly lady in it drove around them (for they were only partially out of the highway). She stared, slowed, pulled over and stopped, watched through her rearview.

  Well, Ted thought, it isn't every day you get to see two highway patrolmen stop in the middle of the highway to go a few rounds.

  He waved the woman on. She pulled back onto the highway, drove away. Slowly.

  "Are you all right?" Ted asked.

  Larry freed one hand from his crotch and pushed his hat up. "You ask me that with me sitting here ruptured, you ask me that?"

  "Okay, you want some more?"

  "I'm down here on my knees holding what's left of my nuts and you ask me if I want some more?"

  "Then shall we get on with the business of being respectable law officers?"

  "Why'd you kick me in the balls, man?"

  "It seemed like the right thing at the time."

  Larry finally let go of himself, wobbled to his feet. "Don't hit me now."

  "Larry, I'm not going to hit you."

  "You just did. Kicked me. That isn't manly."

  "You pushed me too far, Larry. You're fucking crazy and making me that way.

  Here, let's shake."

  "No way. I'm not shaking hands with the man that just kicked me in the nuts."

  "Have it your way. You want me to drive so you can hold yourself?"

  "You don't let up, do you?"

  "Me!"

  "Drive, goddamnit, drive."

  Ted got in behind the wheel, Larry on the other side; he sat holding his crotch.

  Ted glanced at him.

  "You didn't have to kick me in the balls, pal. If you hadn't got in the first lucky lick, it would have been rough."

  "Yeah, I was lucky."

  They drove in silence for a few miles, then Larry said in a surprisingly chipper voice,

  "Want a Snickers?"

  Ted glanced at him. He had gotten a couple of candy bars out of the glove box and was offering him one, smiling. For a fleeting instant Ted wondered if it had a razor blade inside.

  "Yeah, I guess," Ted said. "Thanks."

  "I love 'em," Larry said.

  Ted took the candy. Larry began peeling his.

&
nbsp; Ted unwrapped the bar with his teeth and a free hand, took a bite. No razor blades.

  He glanced at Larry. Larry was eating as contentedly as a cow chewing cud. It was like the kick in the balls had never happened.

  Ted thought: Well, I'll be a sonofabitch.

  FIVE

  8:50 A.M.

  She awoke not long after the dream about the bloody hand. The palm had something bright sticking out of it and there was blood everywhere: the fingers, the wrist.

  When she sat up and put her back against the headboard, she realized that Monty was awake, up on one elbow, frowning. "Are you all right?" She nodded. "The dreams again?"

  "Yes."

  He rolled out from beneath the sheets and picked his pants from the floor. She watched him, really seeing his body for the first time in a long time. And for the first time in a long time, she found his maleness stimulating; nothing to scream from the rooftops about, but something.

  He pulled on his pants, picked up his shirt and put it on. When he turned, he caught her looking at him.

  "Becky, you want to tell me about the dream?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  "It does matter." He sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "It's okay."

  "No. It's not okay. Not sure how to say this, but ... I care. I know you believe that these are more than common dreams, and that I'm . . . Well, I'm not trying hard enough to understand. Believe me, I am trying. But try to look at it from this side of the fence."

  "I have tried."

  "What I'm trying to say is this: Can we start over?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Start over. Obviously this isn't working. Obviously I'm not handling this right."

  She was silent for a moment. Need and desire to please radiated off Monty like heat. She thought about a time not so long ago when she asked him to promise nothing would ever come between them, and he had promised. And now, there was this between them, and it was as solid as a metal wall.

  "What do you suggest?" she asked.

  "I suggest I listen to you, that you tell me about the dreams. I suggest that when you finish telling me about them, I refrain from trying to explain them in my pop psychoanalyst way."

  She smiled, "Monty ... I know it's hard to understand, really. It's just these things are so real ..."

  And before she knew it, she was telling him all about the dreams again, explaining that new things had been added to the old visions. The goblins had been in the dreams for some time, but now there were details, surrealistic details. And there was this new dream about the bloody hand.

  "I'm not so sure I'm not crazy," she continued. "Not so sure I'm not losing my mind. But these dreams are not like normal dreams, nightmares. They have a quality beyond that . . .sight, sound, smell, even taste, Monty. I can even taste the night air ... and most of all, there's a feeling, a feeling of terror, like I'm walking blindfolded along a plank over an abyss, and I'm getting closer and closer to falling off."

  "Okay," he said softly. "Is there anything we can do about it? I mean, let's look at it like this: the dreams are real. They mean something. They really are . . . visions. What are they visions of? Let's try to identify them, put a label on them, put them here in the real world and see what we've got."

  "They look like . . . demons, goblins, devils ... I don't know. Maybe the dreams are symbolic . . .

  We've been over this before." She had a sudden feeling that Monty's concern was in fact just another method of leading her down the psychoanalysis path, but she didn't say as much. Benefit of doubt, old girl. Give him benefit of doubt.

  Monty shook his head. "I'll be honest with you, I'm stumped. Nothing is even trying to click up there. I mean the bloody hand, the woman you think is you, are obvious.

  They represent someone being hurt. But why? By whom? It just doesn't click."

  "No, and you've given it at least three seconds or four to click."

  "Are we back to that?"

  "I'm sorry." She wasn't sure she was.

  "Tell you what. I won't patronize and you give me the benefit of the doubt, what say?"

  "Okay . . . Listen, Monty. Maybe it is all just in my head. I won't lie to you, this talk ... I mean me just talking it out, telling it to you, and your listening, without pitying, has helped. Things aren't solved in my head, but I feel better ... a little bit like old times when we used to sit and talk and solve the world's problems."

  "Crazy, isn't it? Solving the world's problems when it's hard enough to solve your own."

  "Yeah, crazy."

  "Want to talk about it some more, try and think it out?"

  "No, not just now. We've made a step, but we won't try to make too many too fast." She reached out and took his hand. "What would you say to us fixing some breakfast?"

  "Sounds good."

  Rolling out of bed, she slipped off her pajamas, picked up her shirt and jeans.

  She turned, holding the clothes before her, and saw the hunger on Monty's face.

  He tried to smile it away. She continued to look at him, and finally let the clothes fall.

  "Hey, big guy, want to try a roll in the hay?"

  My God, thought Monty, she's actually making with the sex play.

  "Sure." Play it slow and easy, he told himself. Slow and easy.

  He stood up and dropped his clothes. They crawled under the sheets. He touched her hip and their lips slid together, his erection touched her belly, and suddenly she jerked her mouth from his and screamed.

  SIX

  "You sure you're all right?"

  "I'm all right, Monty. Don't ask me again, you're driving me crazy."

  "Sorry. Just worried. Here, drink some more water."

  She took the glass he offered and drank. "God, I'm sorry, Monty. Of all times—"

  "No problem."

  "It was fine until I closed my eyes to kiss you . . . Your lips were ... It was like that kid was on me, Monty. His lips were your lips ("Scream and I'll cut your heart out") and I could smell his sour beer-breath, and the sheet clung to my foot and it was like the other kid's hands, the one whose face is a blank ("Hold her, hold her"), and I remembered how my hands were tied, how this kid was on me grunting, how the other was holding my feet, and it was like time travel, Monty, and I was there again ("Fight, and I'll cut your throat, bitch") and you were him and the sheet clutching at my ankles was the other one. I could smell him, hear that Ray Charles album—did I tell you I had to throw that album away?—feel him pressing against me with his ... dick."

  "I know." (God it hurts, God it hurts, another man's dick.)

  "I swear, it's not you, I was even ready for sex, wanted it for the first time in months, but the moment I closed my eyes—"

  "I know. Don't let that fret you."

  "It's been so long since I made love to you, hasn't it? So long."

  (Over three months, but who's counting?) "It's not your fault."

  "Hold me, Monty?" "You know it, baby."

  SEVEN

  12:35 P.M.

  Dinner (Becky insisted on calling the noon meal dinner and the evening meal supper) was tuna fish sandwiches and potato chips with instant iced tea. Upset as he was, it didn't do a lot for Monty's stomach. He was glad when Becky insisted that he do some fishing. He had planned to try out some of Dean's equipment, but so far he hadn't so much as seen it. In his youth he had been quite a fisherman, and it just might be the thing to calm him, organize his head.

  He put on a light sweater to fight the cool wind, kissed Becky on the forehead and went out to the shed.

  He found the key and got some equipment out of there, decided to use a clown spinner on his setup. Then he went out to the dock and made a few practice casts. He still had the arm. Timing was a bit off, but he still had the arm, and for that he was grateful.

  Somehow, it seemed very important that something be like—or at least close to—

  how it used to be.

  ........

  Becky found beneath the cabinet (look
ing through the cabin had suddenly become an obsession with her) a small TV with bent-over rabbit ears clothed in aluminum foil.

  Christ, this could be the thing. A mind drainer. She got it out and put it on the drainboard, straightened the wounded ears and pinched the foil into place. She plugged it in, picked up a fuzzy station that seemed to be transmitting from the moon.

  Oh boy, she thought, my all-time non-favorite, Hogan 's Heroes.

  But what the hell? She pulled up a chair, fixed herself another glass of iced tea (she had tossed off" three in the last thirty minutes) and began watching.

  ........

  Monty cast the clown spinner.

  Becky watched TV.

  The black '66 sat in the pasture.

  And along the highway, up and down blacktops and clay roads, the law ran around like little blind mice and caught no one.

  EIGHT

  1:30 P.M.

  "You're kidding me. You want to stop at every house along here and ask these niggers if they've seen a car fitting Trawler's description? What're you? Nuts?"

  "It's a long shot, but what else are we doing?"

  "Look, don't you know it's niggers that killed Trawler?"

  "No, I didn't know that. Neither do you."

  "Dick to a doughnut that it is. When they catch these assholes they'll be niggers.

  You think these niggers are going to turn in other niggers?"

  "Larry, would you like to go another round?"

  "Another round of what?"

  "Never mind." Ted decided that when he found who had put him with Larry, they were going to die of slow torture. Maybe he'd pull their teeth out one by one with pliers.

  That would get him wanned up, then he'd use tweezers on their hair, root by root. "Let's just do it. You don't like it, you can stay in the car."

  "Okay, have it your way."

  The third house they stopped at was owned by Malachi Roberts. Sitting in the drive, Larry said, "What a nigger shack."

  "You going to stay in the car?"

  "No, tired of staying in the car."

  "Let me ask the questions."

  "Hey, I only talk to niggers when I have to."

  "Fine,"

  They got out of the car and walked up to the house, knocked. A big black man wearing khaki work clothes answered the door. He was covered in grease.

  "Officers," he said cordially.