Razorblade Tears

by S. A. Cosby

  “Arianna?” Ike said.

  “Little Bit!” Buddy Lee said. His heart hammered against his ribs. What if they’d done all this and then Arianna got lost in the fucking woods?

  “She right here,” a gravelly voice said.

  Grayson was standing in front of the truck. He had Arianna cradled in his left arm. His right hand was holding the .357. The barrel was pressed against her temple.

  “Drop the guns,” Grayson said. His face was slathered in blood and dirt. Saliva spilled from his mouth in long silvery strands. The light from the half-moon made him look like the ghost of a true Viking—a phantom covered in face paint who’d escaped from Valhalla intent on spreading terror across the land of the living.

  “Let her go,” Ike said.

  “Fuck you. Drop the guns and toss me the keys.”

  “The keys? Hoss, you don’t look like you could drive a fucking nail,” Buddy Lee said.

  “I’m so fucking sick of you. Of both of you. Drop the guns. Toss the keys. Now. Or I’m gonna blow this little bitch’s head off,” Grayson said. His breath was coming in sharp bursts that made him grimace.

  Nothing was said for a few painfully long moments.

  “Ike, do what he says. It’s what my daddy would do.” Buddy Lee said. Ike stared at him.

  Buddy Lee nodded.

  “Yeah, boy, do what I say,” Grayson said.

  Ike dropped the gun. Buddy Lee slipped off the rifle and laid it on the ground. Ike made a big show of digging around in his pockets for the keys. While Grayson focused on Ike, Buddy Lee slipped his knife out of his back pocket and palmed it as he stood up. As Ike rummaged around in his pocket Buddy Lee quietly opened the blade with his thumb.

  “Okay, here’s the keys,” Ike said holding them up in front of his face.

  “Toss them at my feet. Be careful. I’m feeling woozy. You don’t want me to slip and pull this trigger by accident,” Grayson said.

  Ike tossed the keys. They landed just a few inches shy of Grayson’s boots. Grayson went down to one knee. He pawed at the ground with his left hand while keeping Arianna in the crook of his elbow. He gripped the keys and straightened himself. He took the gun from Arianna’s head and pointed it at Buddy Lee.

  “I wish this was the piece I did your boys with,” Grayson said.

  “Let her go!” Ike roared. Grayson’s eyes flicked toward him.

  Buddy Lee launched the knife at Grayson with a vicious underhanded throw. The blade impaled itself in his neck with a wet sucking sound. Grayson pulled the trigger of his gun in a wild, rapid succession of shots. Arianna tumbled from his arms. Ike surged forward, dropped to his knees, and caught Arianna and pulled her to his chest. He rolled to his side and kept his body between her and the gunfire.

  Grayson staggered around in drunken concentric circles. The .357 slipped from his hand. Blood as slick and whispery as mercury poured from the wound in his neck. In his desperation and fear he pulled the knife free. This just hastened his demise, as the blood now poured forth like a geyser. He pitched forward and landed face-first in the dirt even as blood still bubbled from his neck.

  Ike got up with Arianna in his arms. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t making any sound at all. Ike thought that was almost worse than her cries. There was no need to check on the biker to make sure he was dead. The blood trail that followed him was all the proof Ike needed.

  Instead he went to Buddy Lee. He was sitting on the ground leaning his head against the truck. He had his hands pressed against his abdomen. Ike placed Arianna on the hood. He went down to his knees and put his arm around Buddy Lee’s thin shoulders.

  “Get up. We gotta get you to a hospital,” Ike said.

  “I … don’t … think … that’s … gonna … cut … it…, hoss,” Buddy Lee said. He moved his hands. His gray shirt was so wet with blood it looked black in the moonlight.

  “Shut up and let’s go,” Ike said. He started to rise and Buddy Lee grabbed his arm. His palm was cold and clammy. His hand was covered in his own blood.

  “I … ain’t … gonna … make … to … the … victory … party,” Buddy Lee said.

  Ike went back down to one knee. Buddy Lee’s breathing was becoming shallower and shallower.

  “Stay … with … me,” Buddy Lee said. Ike shifted his weight until he was sitting next to Buddy Lee. He put his arm around the man and felt the brittleness just under his skin. It was like hugging a baby bird.

  “It’s cancer, ain’t it? All the coughing and shit,” Ike said. Buddy Lee nodded, his head moving at a snail’s pace.

  “You … think … I’ll … see … the … boys?” Buddy Lee asked. Ike had to strain to hear him. He bit his bottom lip so hard it nearly bled.

  “I hope so,” Ike said.

  “Me too,” Buddy Lee said.

  Then he slumped against Ike’s chest. His head lolled to the side and he was still. Ike wrapped his arm around him and pulled him close. He sat that way until Arianna spoke.

  “Him tired?” she asked. Ike wiped his face. He carefully lay Buddy Lee on his side.

  “Yeah, but he gonna rest now,” Ike said.

  FORTY-FOUR

  “Ike, somebody wants to talk to you.”

  Ike looked up from his invoices.

  “Alright, Tangy. Give me a minute,” he said. He got up from his desk and walked out front. The crew was already out for the day. Right now it was just him and Tangy at the office. She’d been on for two weeks and was catching on quick as a hiccup. Jazzy stopped by every now and then to check up on them, but Tangy was doing just fine.

  “As soon as I get on my feet I’m gone,” Tangy had said. Ike had told her he didn’t blame her but he still hoped she would change her mind.

  Det. LaPlata was waiting for him in the lobby.

  “Detective LaPlata,” Ike said.

  “Mr. Randolph, do you have a moment to talk?”

  “Sure,” Ike said. He reached under the counter and grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler he stored there.

  “The funeral for Mr. Jenkins was nice,” Det. LaPlata said.

  “Yeah,” Ike said.

  “I was glad to see your wife and your granddaughter there. Mrs. Culpepper, too. She took it pretty hard, didn’t she? I don’t think my ex-wife would cry that hard over me,” LaPlata said.

  Ike didn’t say a word.

  “It’s incredible. No one knows who burned down your house, kidnapped your granddaughter, and tried to kill your wife and Mr. Jenkins, but apparently they had a change of heart and dropped Arianna off at your office. Simply amazing,” LaPlata said. Ike sipped his water.

  “Miracles happen every day,” Ike said.

  “Mr. Randolph, can we cut the shit? We both know it was the Rare Breed that kidnapped your granddaughter and tried to kill your wife and Buddy Lee and burned your house down. We both know you and Buddy Lee went on the warpath all across the state culminating in a scene out of the goddamn Wild Bunch at a compound owned by a dummy corporation with ties to the Sons of Freedom, who just happen to have ties to the late Mr. Jenkins’s brother. A murder scene where a whole bunch of bikers and a former state senator and a sitting judge were found dead,” LaPlata said. Ike put his water bottle on the counter.

  “I did see something on the news about that. They were saying that judge had a relationship with them bikers? I think they were saying the bikers had been bribing him for a while? Channel Twelve was saying my son and his husband’s name was coming up in the investigation. You think this judge had something to do with what happen to my son? To Buddy Lee’s son?” Ike asked. LaPlata gave him a long hard look.

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter now does it, Mr. Randolph? You can’t prosecute a dead man,” LaPlata said.

  “Guess not,” Ike said. LaPlata moved up to the counter and leaned on it with both hands.

  “You don’t really think anybody believes Buddy Lee Jenkins killed all those bikers and the Culpeppers by himself, do you? That he just happened to figure out how to construct
a fertilizer bomb with a ninth-grade education?” LaPlata asked. Ike crossed his arms, careful not to touch the wound on his left arm.

  “Why are you here, Mr. LaPlata?” Ike asked.

  “Detective LaPlata, Mr. Randolph. And I’m here because there’s an awful lot of people missing or dead around you. A lot of them deserved it but some of them didn’t. I don’t think there are very many people who are gonna shed a tear because Slice Walsh hasn’t been seen in weeks. And even the members of his club thought Grayson Camardie was a piece of shit. But I also don’t think Lunette Fredrickson deserved to have her guts sprayed all across her living room floor. Frankly, there are so many jurisdictions involved, it’ll never get settled. I couldn’t even get authorization to pull your cell phone records. Most everybody who counts is content to lay it all on Buddy Lee and make this whole thing go away,” LaPlata said.

  “But not you,” Ike said.

  “No, not me. Too many questions are still floating around unanswered. No, I can’t let it go, because men like you are dangerous, Mr. Randolph. Today it was avenging your son. Tomorrow it’ll be some guy who flips you the bird. I’m here because I want you to know I’ll be watching you,” LaPlata said. Ike finished his water and tossed the bottle in the trash.

  “You can watch all you want. But next time you come by my place of business you should probably bring a warrant, or I might start thinking you’re harassing me,” Ike said. LaPlata gave him the cop’s eyes, but Ike wouldn’t drop his gaze.

  “I haven’t started to harass you yet, Mr. Randolph,” LaPlata said.

  The chime on the door rang.

  “Detective LaPlata,” Mya said. She was holding a huge bag of food from Sander’s. They’d cut her braids during surgery so she was rocking a pixie cut. Arianna came bounding through the door. She darted past LaPlata and headed straight for Ike. She tugged on his pants leg as he ruffled her hair.

  “Hello, Mrs. Randolph,” LaPlata said.

  “Let me walk you out, Detective,” Ike said. LaPlata nodded to Mya. Arianna waved goodbye to him. LaPlata waved back before he turned and headed for the exit. Ike followed him.

  “There’s my Little Bit!” Tangerine said. LaPlata heard Arianna giggle.

  LaPlata stepped through the door but then he stopped and faced Ike.

  “Was it worth it, Riot?” he asked. Ike smiled.

  “That’s not my name. And as far as it being worth it, you’d have to ask Buddy Lee that. But I think if he was still here he’d say…” Ike lowered his voice:

  “‘I could kill them all a thousand times and it wouldn’t even come close to being enough. But it would always be worth it,’” Ike said, but it was Riot who bored his way into LaPlata’s soul with his flat dead eyes.

  LaPlata took a step backward.

  “Goodbye, Detective,” Ike said.

  He closed the door.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Ike parked his truck and grabbed the brown paper bag sitting in the passenger seat. He got out and began threading his way through the headstones that filled the cemetery like it was a forest of granite.

  He came over a slight hill and saw Margo on her hands and knees at Buddy Lee’s grave. She was planting red, white, and blue petunias.

  “Hey,” Ike said. Margo looked up and gave him a half smile.

  “Don’t criticize my work, Mr. Landscaping Man,” Margo said. She stood and wiped her hands on her jeans. Humming, she gathered the empty plastic tray that had held the petunias. She put a small plastic trowel in her back pocket.

  “I ain’t got nothing to say. Looks good to me,” Ike said.

  “I figure he could do with some sprucing up. God knows he never did anything with that damn trailer,” Margo said.

  “I think he’d like it.”

  “Ha! He’d make some smart-ass comment about the colors. Call me Captain America or some other foolishness,” Margo said.

  “Yeah, he probably would,” Ike said. Margo wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

  “Lord have mercy. He could be an aggravating cuss, but I sure do miss his ass,” Margo said. Ike took a breath, sucked his teeth, then spoke.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “Well, I’ll let y’all have some privacy,” Margo said.

  “You don’t have to go,” Ike said.

  “Yeah, I do. I’ll be bawling like a baby in a minute, and I think neither one of us wanna see that. Look, I know you can’t say it, but I gotta ask. He went out fighting, didn’t he?” Margo said. Ike gave her a long unblinking look. She studied his eyes, saw the answer to her question, and nodded her head.

  “Okay. Okay,” she said. She turned and hurried down the hill. Ike stared after her for few moments before he faced the grave. The black granite headstone said BUDDY LEE instead of William. When the state medical examiner had released his body Buddy Lee’s sister had reached out to Ike about paying for the funeral. He’d said he would but with two conditions. They had to bury him next to the boys, and the headstone had to say Buddy Lee.

  She’d gladly accepted his conditions since it meant she didn’t have to pay for anything.

  Ike pulled a can of beer and small bottle of liquor out of the paper bag. He opened the beer and took a long sip. It was crisp and cold as the first morning of winter. He poured the remainder of the can on the grave. He made sure he didn’t get any on the petunias.

  “Hey, man. I think I’m gonna invite Margo to Arianna’s birthday party next week. She could probably use the company. Hell, we all could. Tangerine says she is gonna come up with a special hairdo for Mya and Arianna for the party. Them three done got thick as thieves. Insurance man says they gonna start on the house next week. We still staying in that hotel. It’s pretty fancy. Like you would say, ‘it’s like shitting in high cotton.’” Ike blinked his eyes.

  “Arianna is smart as a damn whip. Tangy got her counting to fifteen. Mya’s got her studying flash cards with animals on them. She can even tell a dog from a wolf. I’ve been trying to show her how to fight, but Mya keeps saying she’s only three. We play this game where she punches the palms of my hands. She loves it. In a couple years we’ll move up to mitts. Might even get another heavy bag one day.”

  Ike felt a lump rise in his throat but he forced it down.

  “She’s growing like a weed, man. Anyway, I’m gonna talk to the boys for a minute, okay? I know you ain’t really a fan of Hennessy,” Ike said.

  He sat the empty beer can on Buddy Lee’s headstone. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle and took a long swig. It burned going down but settled in his stomach with comfortable warmness that made his upper body tingle. He poured a little bit of the cognac on Isiah’s and Derek’s graves.

  “I love you, Isiah. I know it didn’t always seem like that. I know I didn’t always act like it, but I love you so goddamn much. We tell Arianna about you and Derek all the time. We show her the pictures that made it through the fire. We tell her how she’s loved by so many people. Me, her grandmothers. Her Aunt Tangerine. Her two guardian angels.” Ike got down on one knee and took another sip of the cognac.

  “She won’t ever have to wonder if the people who are supposed to love her no matter what actually do. I promise you that. She won’t ever have to go through what you went through. What I put you through,” Ike said.

  He touched the new headstone. Ran his fingers over the engraving of Isiah’s name, then Derek’s.

  “You know how you used to say love was love? I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to get it, I guess. But I understand now. And I’m so goddamn sorry it took all of this, but I really do get it now. A good father, a good man, loves the people that love his children. I wasn’t a good father. I’m not a good man. But I’m gonna try to be a good grandfather,” Ike said. He rose to his feet.

  “I’m gonna try real hard,” Ike said.

  The tears came again. They poured from his eyes and ran over his cheeks. Flowed down to the stubble on his chin.

  This time they didn’t feel so much like razorblades.They fe
lt like the long-awaited answer to a mournful prayer for rain.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A novel is always a collaborative effort. The words are mine but the polishing and molding of the story bears the fingerprints of many hands.

  I’d like to thank Josh Getzler, my agent and the biggest champion of my writing. Thank you for believing in me and my stories. Fate threw us together and I couldn’t be happier about it.

  Thank you to Christine Kopprasch and the entire team at Flatiron Books. I continue to learn from you even as I attempt to teach you as many Southern colloquialisms as possible.

  I’d like to thank my friends and fellow writers Nikki Dolson, P. J. Vernon, Chad Williamson, and Jerry Bloomfield for reading early versions of this book. Your candor and support meant more than I could ever say.

  And as always, thank you, Kim.

  You know why.

  You’ve always known.

  ALSO BY S. A. COSBY

  Blacktop Wasteland

  My Darkest Prayer

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award–winning writer from southeastern Virginia. He is also the bestselling author of Blacktop Wasteland, a New York Times Notable Book, which won an L.A. Times Book Prize and was named as a Best Book of the Year by NPR, the South Florida SunSentinel, and The Guardian, among others. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph