by S. A. Cosby
“I don’t care what he’s got. I don’t care who lives with him. I don’t care about his dog. We going in there and we taking him out. Anybody or anything try and stop us, we taking them out, too,” Ike said.
“Duly noted, but I’ve been ruminating on something,” Buddy Lee said.
“What’s that?”
“My daddy used to say, ‘Work smarter, not harder,’” Buddy Lee said. Ike put his phone in his pocket and crossed his arms.
“I’m listening.”
“Let’s say we go up here and try to grab ol’ Gatsby and the shit gets hectic. Then we get locked up and them Breed boys call us while we’re sitting in the stir. What if instead of going up in there like a bull in a china shop we get him to come on out and walk himself right into our arms,” Buddy Lee said.
“And how you think we gonna get him to do that?” Ike asked.
“Well, Gatsby’s an old man. And there ain’t nothing an old man likes more than a pretty young thing. And we just happen to have a pretty young thing on our team,” Buddy Lee said.
“You talking about Tangerine? She don’t even believe this bastard is out to kill her. How we gonna convince her to help us snatch his daddy?”
“Simple. We tell her the truth,” Buddy Lee said.
FORTY
Jazzy met them at the door.
“How’s Mya?” she asked.
“Stable. We need to talk to your guest. Send her outside,” Ike said. He went back to his truck and leaned against the grille. Buddy Lee stood next to him with his hands in his pockets. The moon was a sliver of white in the night sky. A thin blanket of mist rolled across the fields that bordered Jazzy’s driveway on either side.
Tangerine took her time coming down the steps. She stood in the yard just out of their reach. She had on a pair of lounge pants with white kittens on a black background. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a loose bun.
“You see the news?” Ike asked. She nodded.
“Gerald wants us to trade you for Arianna,” Buddy Lee said. Tangerine snapped her head in his direction.
“Yeah, we know. The Honorable Gerald Winthrop Culpepper is the fella who dumped you and got this whole greasy ball of shit rolling. He’s the one that had Derek and Isiah killed, and he’s the one who got your mama killed, and he’s trying to kill you like it’s his new favorite hobby,” Buddy Lee said.
“How did you—”
“We might not look like much, but between the two of us we got a half-decent brain. ‘W’ is short for Wynn. Winthrop is Gerald’s middle name. Gerald is Derek’s stepdaddy,” Buddy Lee said.
“That’s why Derek was so upset. That’s why Isiah was going to run the story,” Ike said.
“It ain’t his family, Tangy. It ain’t his wife. It’s him. He’s the one making the moves. He’s the one who told his boys to kidnap a little girl,” Buddy Lee said.
“They’d as soon kill her as look at her,” Ike said.
Tangerine shook her head violently. Her long black hair fell around her shoulders.
“Well, what do you want me to say? That I’m a dumbass? That I was an idiot for thinking he actually had feelings for me? Congratulations, you was right! I’m just another in a long line of stupid-ass sidechicks!” Tangerine said. She sat on the bottom step. Ike pushed himself off the truck and approached her.
“We didn’t come here to run you down or make you feel bad. Gerald ain’t the person you told yourself he was. That’s a hard lesson, but it ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, Tangerine. We all learn that lesson or we teach it to somebody. But now that you know, you can’t hide from this no more,” Ike said.
“We not gonna turn you over to them. That ain’t even on the table,” Buddy Lee said.
“Winthrop said he gonna send Arianna back in chunks if we don’t,” Ike said.
“We not gonna let that happen, but we need your help, sis,” Buddy Lee said. Tangerine wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“He never cared about me at all, did he?” she said.
“He don’t care about nobody but himself, sis,” Buddy Lee said.
“He killed my mom,” Tangerine cried. Her body trembled as she wept. Ike sat on the step and put his hand on her shoulder.
“Help us make it right. Help us make him pay.”
* * *
Tangerine navigated Ike’s truck down the single-lane side road that led to Gatsby Culpepper’s estate. The long branches of oak and maple trees encroached on the road from both sides. Tangerine came out of a soft curve and saw a sign that hung from the arm of a seven-foot-tall post that said NORTH POINT. The post sat at the end of an exposed aggregate driveway that stretched into the darkness for about two hundred yards. She turned in to the driveway and parked the truck off to the side near a shallow ditch. She killed the lights and shut off the engine. The Chevy was Ike’s errand truck. He used it to shuttle supplies between jobs when they got backed up or encountered a problem. He’d taken off the magnetic door signs that identified the truck as a part of his fleet.
Turn it on, Tangy, Tangerine thought. She checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. Her war paint was flawless, as usual. She popped the hood and got out of the truck. She went around to the front and raised the hood, then made a show of looking at the engine in case Mr. Gatsby Culpepper was peeping at her through his bedroom window. Throwing up her hands in exasperation, she walked up the gentle rise to the front door.
The dulcet tones of “Moonlight Sonata” echoed through the house as Tangerine pushed the doorbell. House? Calling this place a house was like calling the Taj Mahal a crypt. Technically accurate but wholly incorrect. North Point was a three-story English Tudor monstrosity that spilled over a half-acre meticulously landscaped lot surrounded by a throng of ancient oaks, maples, and dogwoods. Lights flicked on in the second story, then the first story. A large black door that was more like the drawbridge of a castle opened abruptly. She hadn’t heard any footsteps approaching or the mutterings of a poor soul roused from his slumber at one o’clock in the morning.
“Can I help you?” the man standing in the door asked. He was a few inches taller than Tangerine. He had a shock of snow-white hair parted on the left side and swept back from his forehead. He was wearing a light-green golf shirt and tan khakis. He was standing in a foyer that was as big as her first apartment; it led to a great room with sprawling vaulted ceilings. Tangerine barely noticed. Her eyes focused on the gun in his left hand. It was a huge Dirty Harry–style pistol with a long barrel that was laying against the man’s hip.
“I said, can I help you?” Gatsby asked. Tangerine froze. She tried to force her mouth to make words, but all she could do was look down at that cannon the old man was holding.
“Miss?” Gatsby asked. Tangerine snapped her head up and gazed into the old man’s eyes. They were green with impossibly huge pupils. She swallowed hard. They were not the kindly eyes of a good Samaritan.
“Um, my car broke down and my cell phone is dead. I was wondering if you could come take a look at it. Maybe it needs a jump or something. I know it’s late but I’m not mechanically inclined,” she said. Gatsby gave her the once-over. Tangerine smiled at him. Gatsby smiled back. Even though she was a foot away she could smell whiskey on his breath.
“And what do I get in return?” Gatsby said. Tangerine suddenly felt a lot better about what was going to happen to this old man. Gatsby laughed lightly.
“Just a joke, dearie. Let’s go take a look at it,” Gatsby said. He closed the door behind him and followed her to the bottom of his driveway.
“How’d you find yourself out this way, dearie?” Gatsby asked. He still had the gun in his hand.
“Was leaving a friend’s house and my truck just died.”
“If you were my friend you’d be spending the night,” Gatsby said. Tangerine fought down a rising tide of nausea as she took her place at the front of the truck. Gatsby leaned under the hood. He lay the gun on the fender.
“Here sugar, hold my phone. Ther
e’s a little flashlight doohickey on there,” Gatsby said.
“I got it,” Tangerine said. She brushed her knee against the gun. It tumbled off the fender and landed on the ground.
“Damn it, darling, be careful; that’s a loaded pistol,” Gatsby said. He bent over to retrieve his gun.
Ike and Buddy Lee emerged from the darkness at opposite ends of the truck. They were wearing matching blue bandannas and black knit winter caps. Buddy Lee kicked the six-shooter out of Gatsby’s reach. The older man rose up to his full height.
“What the hell is this?” he asked. His tone made it clear he was a man who always expected his questions to be answered.
Ike struck Gatsby behind the left ear with his right fist. The old man fell to the ground like he’d been hit with a hammer.
“That was smooth, knocking that gun on the ground,” Buddy Lee said as he picked up the .44.
“Can we just get him in the truck and get the hell out of here?” Tangerine asked.
They tied his hands and feet with zip ties and covered his mouth with duct tape before throwing him in the truck bed and covering him with a heavy tarp. Ike got behind the wheel, Tangerine moved to the middle, and Buddy Lee got in the passenger seat. As they left North Point in the rearview mirror, Buddy Lee clucked his tongue.
“What?”
“I’m wondering if he had video cameras,” Buddy Lee said.
“We got on masks,” Ike said.
“I don’t,” Tangerine said.
“You see that house? If he has a camera system, it’s probably one of them fancy ones that’s hooked to his smartphone. We’ll just make him erase it,” Ike said.
“How you gonna make him erase it?” Tangerine asked. Ike glanced at her.
The question died in the air between them.
* * *
By the time they pulled up to Buddy Lee’s it was a little after two. Ike backed up to the door and put the truck in park. When he killed the engine Buddy Lee hopped out and opened his door.
“Tell me if you see anybody looking,” Ike said when he joined him at the tailgate.
“Aye, aye, captain,” Buddy Lee said.
Ike moved the tarp and gripped Gatsby by his golf shirt. He pulled the man out of the bed and into Buddy Lee’s trailer in one smooth movement, even as the older man twisted and bucked. Ike tossed him on the floor in front of Buddy Lee’s sofa. Gatsby groaned behind his tape. Buddy Lee toed the duct tape on Gatsby’s mouth.
“Shit, there really are a thousand uses for this stuff,” Buddy Lee said.
“Yeah. I’ve used it to stop a leak on a lawn sprinkler,” Ike said.
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Ike said. Buddy Lee blew air over his lips. He bent over Gatsby. He patted his pockets until he found the old man’s phone.
“I figure between the two of us we can dope out how to erase this thing. After that, what’s our next move?” Buddy Lee said.
“I’ll take Tangerine back. Then we wait for them to call and tell us where they want to do the exchange. They gonna have all kinds of demands. Now we got something Gerald wants more than he wants Tangerine. Now it’s time for us to make a few demands of our own,” Ike said.
“What if they don’t go for it?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Gerald will go for it. Every good son wants to save his daddy,” Ike said.
* * *
Ike pulled into Jazzy’s driveway and stopped the truck. Tangerine was resting her chin on the back of her hand. Ike put the truck in park.
“It don’t look like he had a camera system. There won’t no app on his phone or nothing. At least not one me and Buddy Lee could find,” Ike said.
“No offense, but you two are not really the most tech-savvy guys on the planet. But you aren’t really worried about him ever going to the cops, are you?” Tangerine asked. Ike didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought. You know, I only helped you so we could get Arianna back. I don’t want to think about anything else that might happen,” Tangerine said.
“Then don’t,” Ike said.
“How do you do it? Kill people and keep going like nothing happened. Like at the house. You stepped over my mama and blew those guys away like it was something you did every day. And it don’t seem to bother you at all. I feel so guilty about my mama, about Isiah and Derek, I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I jump at every noise. I cry for no reason. Not you and Buddy Lee. You two just keep moving forward like sharks. I don’t know how you do it,” Tangerine said.
“People like Isiah and Derek and your mama didn’t deserve to die the way they did. And the people that killed them don’t deserve to live. I can’t speak for Buddy Lee, but that’s what keeps me going,” Ike said.
“Revenge?” Tangerine asked. Ike smiled ruefully.
“No, hate. Folks like to talk about revenge like it’s a righteous thing but it’s just hate in a nicer suit,” Ike said.
FORTY-ONE
Dome was a big believer in karma. You do foul shit; foul shit comes back to you tenfold. Dome couldn’t think of anything much fouler than kidnapping a little girl.
When they had gotten back to the clubhouse, he’d been tasked with watching the curly headed cherub. He wasn’t sure how he’d drawn that straw, but he didn’t want somebody like Too Much watching her. He’d probably offer her a sip of his Jack Daniel’s. Dome tapped the remote and flipped through a hundred different channels while the girl slept on a makeshift cot he had constructed out of blankets and a piece of plywood. They were on the back porch that he and Cheddar and Gremlin had converted into an extra room. Up front the rest of his brothers were whooping and hollering. They were all hyped up about setting a house on fire and running a woman off the road. All Dome could think about was how Gremlin and Cheddar were lying out in the middle of that girl’s front yard. He wondered if the buzzards were circling over them yet? Were their mouths full of maggots?
Dome changed the channel again.
* * *
Grayson scrolled through the phone they’d taken off the bitch when they’d grabbed the crumb snatcher. The time in the corner said 4:45 A.M. It was time to call the Fathers of the Year. An early morning call would catch them all disoriented and scared to death for the rug rat. Grayson stopped on the listing for “Ike” in the phone and pressed send.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, nigger. I told you blood for blood. Or a little runt for a slut. Here’s how it’s gonna go—”
“I want to talk to the man in charge,” Ike said. Grayson almost guffawed.
“You making demands on me, Sambo? I am the man in charge, boy,” Grayson said.
“No, you just the messenger. Gerald Culpepper is the man in charge, and I want to talk to him,” Ike said. Grayson squeezed the phone. Gerald and his stupid ass. He should’ve never talked to his wife’s ex-husband, but he wanted to play Bond villain and rub salt in the wound. He got off on that shit.
“You deal with me. I’m the big dick in this deal and you about to get fucked unless you do exactly what I tell you. Or do you want me to start sending you pieces of that little half-breed?” Grayson asked.
“You do that and I’ll start sending you pieces of Gatsby Culpepper,” Ike said. Grayson had been slouching in his president’s chair. Now he sat up ramrod straight.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Grayson asked. Ike didn’t respond. Instead Grayson heard someone moaning in the background. Not a fun, good-time, ball-juggling moan, either. This was an agonized sound.
“Gerald, is that you, son?” Gatsby said.
“What the fuck?” Grayson asked. Ike came back on the line.
“Now I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna go. You call Gerald and tell him we got his daddy. Then you call us back and we’ll tell you where we gonna meet. We’ll bring Old Man Culpepper and you bring Arianna.”
“That’s not the fucking deal, you—”
“You gonna need to start watching your mouth or I�
��m gonna pull one of Papa Gatsby’s teeth out and make a ring out of it. Oh, and hear me when I tell you this, son: don’t even think about riding back out to Red Hill. If I even hear a motorcycle on television, I might get nervous. I get nervous, I’ll put two in Old Man Culpepper’s head before you can say Smith and Wesson. I told you I don’t sell no wolf tickets,” Ike said.
The line went dead.
Grayson pulled the phone away from his face and stared at it. He wanted to toss it across the room. Stomp on it until he heard the satisfying crunch of plastic under his boot. He sat it on the table. It wasn’t a phone anymore. It was the physical manifestation of this whole godforsaken shitstorm. The neat black rectangle was a window into the parallel universe he now inhabited. A place where two old ex-cons kept outflanking him at every turn.
Grayson got up and grabbed a toolbox off a shelf in the back of the garage. He rummaged around until he found a short stubby carpenter’s pencil. He pulled a receipt out of his pocket from Hardee’s. He went back to the table and jotted down Ike’s number. He folded the receipt and put it back in his pocket. He grabbed the phone and walked outside. A few of his brothers were milling around in the yard. A few were leaning against their rides with some bunnies on their laps. Grayson put the phone on the ground. He took a step, pulled his .357 from the small of his back, and pumped all six bullets into the phone. He roared as he pulled the trigger until the gun went click.
Then he went back inside and called Gerald.
* * *
Ike poured some moonshine into his coffee.
He could hear Buddy Lee pestering Gatsby with questions. The old man’s mouth was re-taped so he couldn’t answer any of Buddy Lee’s queries.
“You remember when Derek graduated from college and none of y’all showed up? He told me about that. I was in jail, so I had an excuse, but you? You was retired. I mean, I know he was your step-grandson, but damn, you couldn’t skip a tee time to see him walk that aisle? I gotta tell you, Gatsby. That’s pretty unchivalrous for a southern gentleman,” Buddy Lee said. Gatsby mumbled. Ike figured it was a combination of all the curse words in his repertoire.