by Tom Drury
“Well, this is going badly,” said Ned. He hit Pierre in the neck with his fist. Pierre worked his jaw, trying to untangle the cords.
Shane stood up and brushed himself off with one hand while holding a gun in the other and backing Pierre down with the gun hand.
“The big violin too,” he said. “Because Lyle thought the money might be in that. And I said how could it get in there. But then I thought why stand around arguing about it when we can just crush the motherfucker and we’ll know. Now tell me where my money is.”
“In an orchard,” said Pierre.
They went along the road from the farm and they could see a line of cop cars coming down from the ridge in a curve of blue light.
Shane drove and Lyle and Ned were in the back with Pierre between them. The clouds had moved off and the moon was three-quarters full and riding low above the hills.
The turn signal clicked with its long-suffering sound as Shane waited to go left and the police cars shuddered by with lights but no sirens.
“They called them at the bar, I bet,” said Shane.
“Police are never on time,” said Lyle. “You notice that? They always get somewhere after something has happened but never while it’s happening.”
“Well, sometimes they do,” said Ned. “Then it’s a standoff and they get down behind the cruisers and talk into bullhorns.”
“Rarely,” said Lyle. “Very rarely.”
“Did he tell you what this is about?” said Pierre. “He tried to steal my clothes and some paper plates and for that he lost seventy-seven thousand dollars.”
“How much?” said Ned.
“Well, the amount doesn’t matter,” said Shane. “It’s the idea that counts.”
“You didn’t say it was that much,” said Lyle.
“You believe this thief over me?” said Shane. “I don’t know what to say.”
“We’ll count it again once we have it,” said Ned.
“Why?”
“Our fee is based on a percentage.”
“Who said so?”
“You.”
“That is what you said, Shane,” said Lyle.
Shane was quiet driving along the road. Then he said, “You want to count it, be my guest.”
“Good.”
“You can count it, and you can recount it, and then you can count it together like smart young ladies in a bank.”
“Yeah, we might do that.”
“I don’t care. It’s my money. I can afford to be generous.
But you’re curious. I get that.”
They stayed on the back roads. Ned didn’t like relying on Pierre’s directions, but in truth Pierre had no intention of leading them anywhere but the orchard. They could see the lights of Shale off to the south. Pierre tried to imagine that he would never see the town again but he couldn’t really believe it.
They entered the orchard road at the place where Charlotte and Pierre had come out of the forest when Tim Geer was lost, or said to be anyway.
The headlights slid over the channeled bark of the trees and the front bumper bent the bleached grass that filled the roadbed. Pierre had driven the road several times so the tire tracks were easy to follow. The grass pressed against the chassis, seeming to float the car with a soft whispering sound like water.
Whenever Shane got up any speed at all he would have to slow and turn the wheel as the road wound its way up into the hills. It was a pretty quiet ride. Nobody had much to say in the presence of the creepy woods. Ned crossed and recrossed his arms as big men do and Lyle kept turning and looking out the back window to make sure no one was following.
“Of all the fucking places to put money,” said Ned. “Did you ever hear of a safe deposit box?”
“No, I never did.”
“How’d you bring it up here?”
“In a car.”
“And dug a hole.”
“Yeah, what else.”
“How’d you know somebody wouldn’t find it?”
“Or an animal,” said Lyle. “If it smelled the scent of humans.”
Pierre was thinking it should have happened by now. He was trying to remember where exactly it had been and he wished they would be quiet and allow him to concentrate.
“I don’t know they wouldn’t,” he said.
“I want you to understand something,” said Ned. “I think you’re a liar. If that money isn’t here, and I don’t care why, you’re going to be a very sorry son of a bitch. If the hole is empty, or you can’t find the spot, or it was here yesterday, or possums rose up and ate the money, I don’t care, because in that case I myself will—”
Then the car hit the chain across the road. Shane was going no more than twenty miles an hour, but that is too fast a speed at which to hit a chain. Maybe it would have been enough if the car had simply slammed to a halt, but what happened was more destructive. The chain came shrieking and bladelike up the hood, shattering the windshield and pushing in the corner posts of the roof so that rather than simply stopping the car the chain seemed to act as a giant hand that was grinding it into the road.
Then there were simultaneous detonations as the chain broke and the airbags went off. All of this happened in an instant, during which the car’s interior filled with smoke and a blizzard of safety glass, and it was not difficult for Pierre, who was the only one who had any idea what was happening, to crawl across Lyle, open the door, and fall on the ground.
Tim Geer and Stella were walking among mannequins in an empty dress store in Rainville. The store had gone out of business and Tim had a key for reasons he did not explain.
“See anything you like?”
Stella felt the fabric of a wine red dress with white roses. “This one isn’t bad,” she said.
Tim unzipped the dress and tried to lift it from the mannequin but the mannequin fell over and one of the arms came off.
“I’m having a hell of a time,” he said.
“Just leave it, Tim.”
“Say, about this business with Pierre.”
“Yeah?”
“It is tonight.”
“It is.”
He nodded and set the mannequin back on its stand. “I kind of lied on that one.”
“Why?”
“So you would stay out of it.”
“I said I would.”
“It is what it is.”
“Does he live?”
“I don’t know. I can see it going either way. But remember how you met him.”
Tim Geer went behind the counter and turned off the lights in the store.
“This has all been extra time for him,” he said.
Pierre ran down the road to the orchard where the night sky spread over the low trees, and the stars and moon were out, and he felt like he had arrived in his place. He turned to look back. The car moved very slowly and one headlight was still working, though pointing at the ground.
He went into the orchard shack and took his shotgun down from the rafters. The shells were in a box in the drawer of the table. He turned the gun over in his hands and loaded it with five shells and put a dozen into his pockets and he thought that if this were not enough it wouldn’t matter how many more he had.
Pierre thought they might be close to giving it up. Shane might resist but his friends had little stake in the money and in fact would probably pay at this point just to go back to wherever they came from. And Shane himself would have got the worst of it when the car hit the chain. Twice now Pierre had got him to run his vehicle into something. Not one of the three seemed the picture of competence.
Pierre went to the window of the shed and cleaned the pane with the sleeve of his coat. The car waited with the one headlamp on and they were out of it and walking up the road. They had a flashlight and were shining it in the trees, making the shadows of branches lengthen and wheel.
Now Pierre wanted to do something before they got any closer. He wanted to fire the gun so they would know he had it. Maybe this would be the thing that would
send them off. Of course he himself could run. Probably he could get down the way he and Charlotte Blonde had come up. There wasn’t really a path but he could skid through the trees where they would never follow.
But then what?
No, he thought. He liked it up here. He’d got to this ground he knew and did not want to go back into the woods.
So he stepped out of the shed and aimed the gun at nothing and pulled the trigger.
He had never fired a gun in the dark and was surprised by the yellow flame. Then he kicked out the shell and moved off into the apple trees before they or he would have time to consider what they would do in response.
Shane and Ned and Lyle walked toward the shed shooting like gunfighters in the Old West. Glass broke and boards splintered. This was something to do but ineffectual because after the gun fired they had seen Pierre run off.
They stood on the boards outside the shed. Lyle looked around with the flashlight.
“You know, I’ve seen this movie,” said Ned. “The outnumbered guy kills everybody.”
“Lyle, go around.”
“Around what?”
“The building.”
“What do you mean?”
Shane grabbed him by the face. “Goddamn it. Go down one side, across the back, and come up the other side.”
Lyle pushed Shane’s hand away. “Why would I do that?”
“To see if he’s there.”
“He ran. I saw him.”
“Just do what I ask.”
“I don’t want to. This is no good, Shane. I feel completely misled. And not just on the money.”
“So he happens to have a gun. Does this make you afraid?”
“It isn’t a question of fear,” said Lyle. “It’s a question of being told one thing and finding that, once you get out there, it’s actually something else.”
“I’m not going to stand here and compare notes with you,” said Shane. “If you’re unable to walk around a simple goddamned shack in the dark, I will.”
“No, I’ll do it,” said Lyle. “But I just want you to know that this whole operation is a lot of shit.”
“Good. Give me the flashlight.”
“No.”
“Think. What is a flashlight but a big bright target. Think, Lyle.”
Lyle gave Shane the light and left and Shane and Ned went inside the shed, walking on the broken glass.
Shane shone the flashlight in the cobwebbed corners of the little building. “This guy is fucking pissing me off,” he said.
“You think the money’s here?”
“Unlikely. Seems like he had it pretty well thought out.”
“So let’s leave.”
“The car’s all mangled.”
“It’s insured. We’ll ditch it and get another one.”
“You go. I won’t be able to hold my head up in a crowd if I go back now.”
They heard footsteps on the boards and then Lyle looked in the door. “He ain’t around,” he said.
Shane walked to the doorway. “Of course he ain’t,” he said. “You know why?”
“Because he took off.”
“And who let him?”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Well, I’m glad you asked that,” said Shane. “First, a guy walks all over you getting out of a car you’re trying to keep him in, and you have a gun, you stop him. That’s one big item that should be on your checklist. Here, let me show you. You take the gun in this hand. Just like this here. And then you say, you know, whatever comes to mind. Don’t move. Hold it right there. Stop or I’ll shoot. And if he doesn’t, then you make sure he does.”
Lyle laughed. “Jesus Christ, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. “I thought you were pretty low but I had no idea of this. You ran your car into a chain. You did that. And now you’re trying to put it on me? That’s why he got away. Because he told you to drive into a chain and you like a dumb fuck did it. Do you believe this, Ned? Do you believe this lowlife?”
“Yeah, cut it out,” said Ned. “Nobody stopped him, not just Lyle.”
Shane brought the gun up and pulled the trigger and Lyle fell off the porch and lay in the grass.
“Now I have seen it all,” said Ned.
“Fucking Shane shot me,” said Lyle.
“Oh, you’re not hurt,” said Shane. “Keep it down.”
“Not hurt? You shot him in the heart,” said Ned.
“Well, you push me and you push me and I don’t know what you think is going to happen.”
“This is awful,” said Lyle. “Now I’m going to die in some demented nature preserve, or I don’t even know what it is, that you brought us to because you could not hold on to your own money.”
“You’re not going to die,” said Ned. “We’ll take you somewhere and get you fixed up.”
“How?” said Lyle. “The car is wrecked to shit.”
“We’ll go slow.”
“Give my money to my sister.”
“What money is that?”
“When we get the money off this kid. My cut goes to my sister. Count it and give her my share, Ned. She works at that copy place. You know. Where you take your résumé. And I have a passbook. It’s not a lot. I think there’s a thousand bucks. I don’t really know. I think it’s in the drawer. Whatever it says. Or if your dog is lost. And you go out with a staple gun. You know her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Lyle, I’ll get it to her.”
“Her name is Laurie. Give her my money. There’s just kind of a hesitance there. I really like people. But I don’t know how it will end. Ned, step on my hand, will you?”
“Why?”
“To hold it down.”
“No, I’m not going to do that.”
“Do you believe this?”
“Just stay quiet.”
Lyle didn’t last much longer. He died there on the grass. Ned sat down on the edge of the porch and picked up the shell from Pierre’s gun. It was still warm and smelled like a day of hunting.
“Well, I don’t know what to say,” said Ned. “I believe I will be going.”
“That’s okay. I do the work. It’s like that house. I did the work. I killed the people. You just kind of handle the phones.”
Ned stood and brushed off his pant legs. “Lyle was right about you. Now he’s dead and some kid who doesn’t know a goddamned thing probably has a bead on us as we speak. It’s a twelve-gauge, by the way.”
“You taking the car?” said Shane.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll give it a try.”
“Yeah, that’ll probably work.”
“Don’t come back to my place. I’ll put your stuff in a box and mail it wherever you want.”
“I’ll call you sometime.”
Shane knelt, unlacing his boot and staring at the still face of Lyle.
“What are you doing that for?” said Ned.
“They hurt my feet.”
Pierre walked back in the orchard and sat down cross-legged at the base of an old willow where the bark fanned out, making something like a chair. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as you would think. Kind of cold, though. He took his leather gloves out of his pocket and put them on.
He stayed in that place a long time. He heard the shot that was fired and wondered if Ned and Lyle had turned on Shane and killed him. That would mean Pierre’s part was over. Some time later he saw the light of the car as it made a laborious three point turn and limped from the orchard. That could be them leaving. Maybe this was too optimistic. But someone was leaving. He wondered how far they could possibly get in such a car.
He lowered his head and nodded off. When he woke he looked at his watch. He had slept for twenty minutes. Now there was another light, nearer, not on the road, maybe forty yards up and two or three rows over. That would be the flashlight. It turned in slow circles. It didn’t go anywhere. Pierre watched the light and its monotonous turning for half an hour. If anyone was holding it there was something wrong with him.
He knew how to walk in the woods without making noise. It was all in planting the heels and keeping your weight back until you knew you there was nothing that would snap. But it took a long time.
No one held the flashlight. It turned in midair beneath the branches of an apple tree. Pierre reached up and found that the light had been suspended by a string and turned it off.
Isn’t that strange, he thought. But now I know.
He turned in time to see the sparks in the trees across the way. Then came the sound. He brought the old Savage gun up and fired, and the kick knocked him down.
A branch cracked and a dark shape fell to the ground like a night bird.
He felt something like a wire in the side of his throat or maybe the blade of a band saw, bright and cold. He brought his hand up and touched the hole that had been made.
What did I care what that light was, he thought.
Above him he saw the moon shining in the blue arms of the branches.
Stella found the first one dead in front of the cabin and the second dying under a tree. She put her hand behind his head and raised it up.
“Did you burn Leslie’s house?” she said.
“You don’t have anything to drink, do you?”
“No. Tell me. Did you do it?”
“It wasn’t hers. I didn’t know.”
“But you did.”
“Yeah.”
“Who helped you?”
“No one.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Ned hired me.”
“And where would he be?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Pierre’s friend.”
“Oh, fuck, of course. You would be.”
“Where’s the one who hired you?”
“You’re all full of light.”
“Don’t look at me.”
“He left in the car.”
“And Pierre.”
“I don’t know, around here somewhere.”
“Did he kill you?”
“Yeah, probably. Very soon I think you will be able to say that. I shot at him but I don’t know what happened. They thought he won. But I knew the light would draw him in.”