by Rick Gavin
Only once he’d glanced past me did I realize we weren’t alone. She was in a bathrobe, too. It wasn’t a wig. She wasn’t a guy. Her jet-black pageboy was a little out of whack. He must have called her somehow—a button on his desk or something—because she looked like she’d been summoned out of bed and wasn’t happy about it.
“Friend of mine,” Lucas Shambrough told me.
I gave her my best oblivious smile and said, “Hello.”
She shoved a hand in her bathrobe pocket and closed on me slowly across the parlor like she was just wandering my way and had no intentions about me at all.
“This is Mako,” Lucas Shambrough told me.
I gave her a smile and a nod.
“Used to be Aurora or something.”
She said, “Isis.”
Lucas Shambrough chuckled and shook his head. “These damn kids.”
She wasn’t a kid, though. She had the tats and the studs and the row of bling pierced into her eyebrow, but she looked well into her thirties once you got past the hair and the stuff. She was hard like a gym rat or a meth head, all veins and sinews. I could see it in her forearms, in her calves below her robe. She was taller than I expected, about 5'10" I had to guess. She had weird blue eyes. Too blue. When I glanced her way, she opened her mouth, and I could see the stud in her tongue.
She was attractive in an exotic and dangerous sort of way, but you’d probably be safer having sex with a bobcat. She was far too tightly coiled for affection.
I tried not to pay much attention to her, tried to let on to seem comfortable with her in the room. Lucas Shambrough, however, couldn’t help himself. He felt like he knew just what was coming. He smiled at me. He smiled at her. It was about to be a far better day than he’d even dared hope.
“Now about those tires,” he said to me, I guess by way of distraction.
She was close enough for me to smell her. Last night’s bourbon. Bedclothes. A little talc maybe off the robe. I’d singled out the bronze I wanted. It was a setter at full point. Maybe eight inches long, and I counted on gripping that dog right at the haunches. I let her get within arm’s reach. I grabbed that setter and wheeled. She was pulling her hand out of her robe pocket. I didn’t wait to see what she had. I cracked her across the side of the head with the front end of that setter. She staggered back, pitched over a coffee table, and landed facedown on the floor.
I bent low and pulled my .308 out of my ankle holster before Lucas Shambrough could reach for anything. I stepped over and had the barrel in his ear while he was still groping around in his desk drawer.
He went all cool-under-fire on me. I hate that sort of thing.
“Think I haven’t had a gun pointed at me before?”
I didn’t bother to answer beyond drawing back and hitting him with the pistol. It knocked his Rangers hat off his head and caused him to tell me, “Ow!”
I hit him again, mostly for dramatic effect. Then I jerked him up by his bathrobe collar and hauled him across the room. The girl was stirring by then. We stopped alongside her.
“Kick her,” I told him.
He looked at me and laughed. I swatted him another time with my pistol hand. He laid a foot into her, shoulder height.
“Lower,” I said.
He caught her midsection. This was just the sort of sadistic pastime that Shambrough could get interested in. Then he kicked her again without my asking him to, and she rolled over and groaned.
I reached into her bathrobe pocket and came away with a compact Taser. It was heavy and black and looked like something a proper spook would carry.
“Plans for me?” I asked Lucas Shambrough.
He grinned. I hit him again.
Flora was coming with toast when we reached the foyer. She didn’t seem terribly surprised that I was manhandling her boss toward the door at gunpoint. Shambrough reached for a slice of toast as we passed her, so I clubbed him another time.
We went out the door and down the steps. When he tried to kick his hound, I walloped him a good one. That broke the shell a little.
“You fucking piece of…” he managed to get out before I smacked him one more time.
He went down in Larry fashion, just piled up in the yard. I booted him toward the driveway.
“Now that’s how you kick somebody.”
He managed to start informing me how goddamn dead I was.
“Cuts both ways,” I told him. “Forget those tires and move on while you can.”
He started gurgling at me, telling me how it was going to be. I didn’t stick around to hear it all. There was a fair bit of mucus to it, but I had the drift by the time I’d climbed into my Ranchero and aimed it up the drive.
Out on the blacktop, I called Desmond to find out where he was.
“Jake Town,” he told me. “Plasma TV, but the whole damn trailer’s gone.”
“That’s one way to do it,” I said.
“Pearl all right?”
“What if I told you I didn’t take Pearl to the doctor? What if I told you I drove out to Shambrough’s instead?”
Desmond got real quiet.
“Ask me how it went.”
He asked me.
“What’s worse than sideways? Upside down?”
Desmond did that thing he gets up to in extremis where he groans and grunts together all at once.
NINE
We rendezvoused at some sort of Sonic knockoff near Belzoni on the Yazoo City Road. They didn’t even have a Coney Island. Desmond had opted for the corn dog, which, to judge by his expression, he was not enjoying at all. Since there was no curb service—another disappointment—I found him sitting at a picnic table under a ratty umbrella around back. It was conveniently located next to a sweltering Dumpster that was leaking iridescent juice into the lot.
“What the hell’s wrong with you.” Desmond said by way of hello.
I shrugged. Didn’t know what else to do. “It seemed easier than messing with Larry.”
“Did you go in the house?”
I nodded.
“People say he’s got a rhino or a camel in there or something.”
“White raccoon. Half a bear. Lot of shit nobody dusts.”
“What happened?”
I laid it out for Desmond, described the place, the parlor, the conversation. My hopes and dreams going in. Eventually, I got around to the girl.
“Mako?”
I laid her Taser on the table. “Tried to use that on me.”
Desmond picked the thing up, examined it. “Where do you even get one of these?”
“Cute, isn‘t it. Must be how she managed Izzy. Lady in Sunflower, too.”
“How did you get away?”
I described the bronze setter.
“Think she’ll live?”
I nodded. “She was coming around before he kicked her.”
“Why did he kick her?”
“I might have asked him to.”
Desmond glared at me. He sniffed his corn dog. “How did you leave it with him?”
“He said I was a dead man. Shit like that. You know how they go on.”
“They’ll be all over this place looking for you.” He pointed at my Ranchero. “Drove that over?”
I nodded. Desmond groaned.
“Wasn’t a crew around or anything. Just him and her.”
“Shambrough hires them as he needs them. Every Delta shithead with a trigger finger’ll do whatever he asks.”
Desmond tossed his corn dog into the Dumpster without even getting up. “You always do this. You know that, don’t you? Go off trying to straighten shit out and make everything that much worse. Remember that guy with the alligator?”
I’d never live that down. When a Mississippi swamp rat tells you he’s got an alligator in his bathtub, you’d probably better take him at his word. You don’t need to go marching in to see for yourself.
“Technically,” I told Desmond like I bothered to tell him sometimes, “that gator wasn’t in the tub, and that’s how he
came out like he did.”
Desmond rolled up his trouser leg the way he always rolled it up to show me the scar that gator’s tail had left. “You just had to stick your nose in. Shambroughs. Gators. What’s the fucking difference?”
“I like to think I’m inquisitive.”
I got the grunty groan again.
“Larry and Skeeter still on it?” I asked him.
Desmond nodded. “Headed down toward Vicksburg with a load. At this rate, it’ll take us a week to empty that trailer.”
“Why don’t you and me move a load or two.”
“Might as well,” Desmond told me. “Glad you got the orange one,” he said of my Ranchero. “That’ll make us easy to spot.”
I followed Desmond out to the catfish pond where the tire trailer was parked. The tarp that friend of Larry’s had promised had gotten closer to the trailer. I could see it laying on the ground behind the back tandem wheels.
I looked around the place. Twenty ponds. A bunch of light boxes and paddles for aerating. No scraggly bearded friend of Larry’s as far as I could tell.
“Seen that boy?” I asked Desmond.
Desmond nodded. “Went off after a tractor part or something.”
“Do we want to tell him to watch himself or just figure he’ll be all right?”
Desmond got that look like he was about to explain how I was four kinds of stupid when an Ag Cat went screaming overhead, probably fifty feet off the ground. They were a common sight in the Delta but could still be a little unnerving when you weren’t expecting a plane and one came racing low and fast.
“Shambrough flies,” Desmond told me. “You know that, don’t you?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t up on Shambrough’s details.
“Used to be a duster for the hell of it. Story goes he’d load up with Roundup and drop it on people he didn’t like. Wipe out their fields to send them a message.”
“Worked, I’d bet.”
“Ruined a few folks.”
“Better than getting shot in the head.”
We managed to fit a good dozen tires in the bed of my Ranchero.
“Who gets them?” I asked Desmond.
He had a guy down by Rolling Fork he knew from inside (Desmond called it).
“You missed an alimony payment. Spent one night in jail.”
“A cell’s a cell.”
Desmond gave my Ranchero a hard once-over. “I don’t even want to ride with you.”
“Get in. Shambrough’s still picking up his teeth.”
Desmond vented more racket as he slipped into the cab. We kind of made up on the way down south. I asked him about his jailhouse buddy. He’d been inside on account of a roadhouse fight. Desmond recounted for me the night they’d spent being under the thumb of the Man. All I had to do was drive and take it.
“Welded some tailpipe hangers on for me.”
“Touching.”
“You got no friends like that.”
“You,” I told him, “but you can’t weld.”
Desmond nodded. He said, “Right.”
His name was Ricky, and he was a greasy white guy with a shop back behind his house where he installed tires and mufflers and tailpipes. Did brake jobs in a pinch. It looked like he’d blundered into a spot of transmission work that he regretted. As we pulled in, him and a buddy were either dropping a tranny out of an old Ford Bronco or maybe trying to shove a rebuilt one in.
I couldn’t really tell because they were mostly just screaming at each other.
“Push it.”
“I am.”
“No. Push it that way.”
“Won’t go that way.”
Then there’d be some clanging and banging. A hammer is generally a poor choice in transmission tools.
Then there’d be a “Fuck it!” or something in a similar vein and one or both of them would light a cigarette.
It took Desmond a couple of minutes to get his buddy Ricky’s attention because the tinny radio was playing country music at full volume. Somebody’s hound had died or his wife had gone off in his buddy’s truck. Maybe with his hound. Or maybe even the hound was driving. I couldn’t make it out for all the fiddle and twangy harmonizing.
Desmond finally went over and kicked the bottom of one of Ricky’s shoes. The Bronco was on jack stands, and those boys were both on creepers beneath it. Ricky, of course, lurched up in surprise and banged his head on something dead solid that rang. The catalytic converter, I guessed.
He came out bleeding and furious but calmed down when he saw Desmond.
“Hey here!” he shouted and tried to stanch the blood flow with his sleeve.
Him and Desmond wandered around the shop looking for a clean rag or a paper towel while they caught up on what they’d both been up to since they’d seen each other last. Ricky’s buddy rolled out from under the Bronco and looked up at me from his creeper.
“Buddy ever asks you to help him with a damn thing, for the love of Sweet Jesus, don’t.”
“All right,” I told him.
He took a contemplative puff on his cigarette and then rolled back under that Ford.
Desmond’s buddy Ricky had found some toilet paper, and him and Desmond were over by Ricky’s nasty sink on the far wall. Ricky had a mirror he could almost see himself in, and he was dabbing at his cut. I stayed where I was until Desmond waved me over.
“Tell him,” he said to Ricky.
“Heard about your tires.”
“Heard what?” I asked him.
“Might run across some Michelins on the cheap.” Ricky dabbed. Dirty, bloody tap water ran down to his nose.
“Who told you that?” I asked him.
“Think it was the Snap-on guy.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Tell him,” Desmond said.
“He said if you see those Michelins coming, head the other way.”
Me and Desmond exchanged sour glances.
“Did he say why?” I asked.
Ricky shook his head. He drew his wet toilet paper away from his cut and had a good look at it.
“Nothing?”
“Just head the other way. I figured the tires were bad or hot or something, and now here you are with a load of them, right?”
Desmond said, “Yeah,” and nodded.
“So why don’t you tell me.”
With a glance, Desmond let me know that would be my job.
“You ever been married, Ricky?” I asked him.
“Married right now,” he told me.
“Wife of yours got any brothers?”
He nodded.
“Has she got one that’s maybe not worth a happy damn?”
Ricky didn’t have to think about that. “Oh yeah,” he told us both.
I pointed at Desmond. “He’s got one of those.”
“These his tires?”
Desmond nodded.
“Stole them?”
Desmond nodded again.
“Who from?”
If a shrug can be a lie, then Desmond told one to his cellmate.
“How much you asking?”
“Fifty for you,” Desmond said. I was entirely with him by then, anything to get those Michelins gone.
“How many you got in there?”
“A dozen,” I said.
“Check okay?”
Before I could offer that cash would be better, Desmond said, “Oh hell yeah.”
We even had to unload them and pack them onto Ricky’s tire rack. Ricky examined them as we worked.
“Yeah, I can get these right out of here.”
“If you want some more…” Desmond started, but Ricky waved a hand and told him, “Naw.”
Then Ricky’s buddy under the Bronco started putting up a fuss. “We doing this or what?” he wanted to know.
That’s just when Dolly Parton came on the radio and drove me entirely out of the shop.
For the first few miles back north, Desmond unfreighted himself of various fond anecdotes about
Ricky. Evenings they’d had, particularly the ones that had failed to land them both in jail. I let him go on and didn’t bring up the nut of our troubles until we’d reached the junction at Hollandale where we could both see the road sign for Belzoni.
“Why don’t we just dump those tires,” I suggested to Desmond. “Bury them. Burn them. Whatever the hell it takes.”
Desmond was equipped with a natural resistance to that sort of thing. He liked to go around saying he didn’t care to be wasteful, but the trouble was that Desmond was tight. His mother was tight. His sister was, too. His father might have been dead, but he was still legendary for the corners he’d cut and dollars he’d stretched and retail prices he’d avoided. When Desmond’s mother was looking to buy stuff, she’d tell Desmond, “I wish your daddy was here.” She didn’t seem to pine for him much the rest of the time.
Desmond was a lot less skinflint proactive than his father must have been, but he’d balk instinctively whenever I’d make to bid to cut our losses.
I’d always weigh the trouble before us against the money we’d let out and do the math without affection for any part of the equation. Desmond’s natural ardor for money always seemed to get in his way. He’d come around eventually. He always did. But bringing Desmond to a cash write-off was a little like herding a goat. You could do it, but never easily and certainly not at first.
“If the Snap-on guy is warning people off…”
“No sir,” Desmond told me. “Might as well sell them. Now that you’ve scuffed up Shambrough, he isn’t going let us off.”
I drove back to the catfish farm, but there was no sign of Larry or Skeeter. Their buddy, though, was in the tractor shed fooling with his power lift.
“Seen them?” Desmond asked him.
He spat a stream of snuff juice and shook his head.
“Got a number for Skeeter? I think Larry’s phone’s dead or something.”
He shook his head. He spat.
“If they come back through here,” I told him, “make sure Larry gets up with Desmond.”
The buddy nodded. He pointed at disassembled tractor parts spread out on a square of Visqueen. “Ever had one of these apart?”
It was a bunch of gears and hydraulic fittings with springs and gaskets and such.
I shook my head. “I’d rather buy a new tractor.”
Since Larry and Skeeter weren’t going to, me and Desmond put the tarp on the trailer. We got the thing covered just as Larry’s buddy managed to get a toe under his Visqueen and spill his disassembled power lift all over the dirt shed floor. I’ve got to hand it to him. He was a man of snuff and moderation in all things.