by Bill Beverly
Cursing silently, he took a breath and popped the door, then climbed out. Ty saw him coming and rose. “Wait a minute,” East said, and Ty, with a sour look, loitered a few paces off.
“Get any sleep?” East inquired. “We rode past the guy’s house. I didn’t wake you up. Now thinking maybe I should have.”
A shrug. “You thinking,” Ty grumbled.
East swung his legs in and sat down at the table Ty had just abandoned.
“Cold,” Ty said. “I’m about to get in.”
“Talk a minute,” East urged. “Walter’s asleep. What do you need? Want to see the place while it’s light?”
“Don’t matter.” Ty’s voice was quiet, almost watery. “You two seen it.”
“It looks pretty straight.”
“Oh?” Ty said. “What did you learn?”
East fidgeted with his key on the pale, weather-brittle planks of the picnic table. Scarred with initials and names of the kids in this town: BEAU. RH AND JM. I LOVE SIGRID. The older marks swamped with the honey brown of the last coat of weather sealer. The new ones raw.
“You want to talk it over, how it’s gonna go?”
Ty: “How?”
East blinked. “We’re gonna do it, right? The way you want to do, man.”
“You still want to do it?” Ty said softly.
“This is why we’re here.” A gust of wind, suddenly a note blowing in the gray air. East glared at it over the trees until it subsided. “But remember,” he said, “be cool. We got a lot of getting away to do.”
“ ‘Be cool,’ he says,” said Ty. “I get away. The way I do it. Fact, if it was just me, it would be done, and I would be away.”
“Maybe,” said East. No: he did not doubt. He imagined Ty flying in and out under his own name: luck and will and a supreme indifference to anything else. “But Fin sent us out like so. The four. So that is the way it has to go.”
“You got all the answers,” said Ty drily, “like always.”
So Ty was making him call it. Making him, then scorning it. East let it go. He stared at his key scoring a line into the old table. “Tell me something, Ty. How’d you start doing this?” he asked.
“Huh?” said his brother, hands in pockets now, edgy. “Did you ask me something?”
“I asked you,” said East, “what happened, man, that now you’re a gunner?”
“Sure,” said Ty. “What do you want to talk about? What I do? Or how I do it? Or you want to talk about why I left home?”
The constant difficulty. Like wrestling someone with three arms. East’s key slipped, gouging a long splinter out of the table. A woody fiber. Exposing the light softwood below. With spit and his finger he patted it back.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh. So you don’t know what you wanna know.” Balefully Ty eyed the basketball hoop. Its soft-laced net.
“I mean, like…” East said. Another day he’d have scratched his whole name in this table. In another life. “I don’t see you, man. I don’t know who you work for. Who taught you. Who you run with.”
“Nigger, no one,” Ty growled. “I’m here. I’m ready. I got nothing else to say.”
East said, “You want to be that way, go ahead.”
“I know what you think,” said Ty. “I’m on the inside. Got a steady job, and when you lose it, you get another. That ain’t me. I’m a contractor.”
“You’re thirteen years old, boy,” East laughed. “You can’t be no contractor.”
“Tell Fin that,” Ty said. “I live by my wits, man. Not like you.” A thin, hot line of anger split his clear, high brow.
East stared at his brother for a long moment, then down at his hands. Digging the key along the grain of the wood again, doing nothing.
“Anyway,” said Ty. “It’s cold.”
“So we’ll go.” East stood. “You want to plan it out, talk about it?”
“Ain’t nothing to plan,” Ty said, “and nothing to talk about.”
—
Midway back, they found a drive-through: chicken sandwiches, milkshakes in the car. East wanted fruit, something natural. Somewhere in the van was the orange he’d picked up in LA. Couldn’t find it now.
They made it back to the beach a quarter turn around the north side of Wilson Lake. The lot there was big and shaded, a couple of cars.
They idled the van while Ty checked guns and loaded. He took the Glock and handed the other to Walter. At East he flipped a glance.
“You want me to carry yours?”
An insult. East shrugged. “Give me that little one.”
Ty handed over the little snub that he’d brought. “The lady’s pistol.”
Pushing it hard now that it was his time. East kept quiet. They spilled money out onto the seat and split it three ways—Ty put in the Michael Wilson money too. Most of three hundred dollars apiece. Then they pocketed it, because you didn’t know.
“I don’t have a key. So leave the van unlocked,” Ty said.
“You don’t think we’re all coming back together?” said East. “You don’t even drive.”
Ty just said, “You don’t know.”
“It can be unlocked.” Walter shrugged. “People out in the woods don’t even care.”
“They don’t care. Ha-ha,” Ty said. “All right, let’s go for a walk.”
A walk. East closed his door and stretched his arms inside the itchy sweater. The van’s engine cooled, ticking. Walter bounced on his toes. Exercising. Ty went into motion without showing a thing. East tried to do the same. He didn’t look at Walter. Walter would show back what East was feeling now, as surely as if they’d spoken it aloud. And as impossible to take back.
They walked the curve of Lake Shore Drive, the three of them in single file. But keeping close to Ty. Barely any light left in the day.
As the line of pine-rimmed houses drew near, they cut off on the track running through the trees and behind the cleared-out yards. The path led uphill from the lake. They found a loosening between trees and cut through to spot the houses.
“What’s it? Fourth or fifth house?” said Walter. “No numbers on the back.”
“Look for that black truck,” said East.
A swish and hard squawk, and the pine straw beneath seemed to flip up and give forth a black ghost, a risen, screaming thing. East grabbed on to a tree, and Walter fell down. Ty nearly somersaulted to get away. It was a bird, a turkey or pheasant or something awakened in the pine straw, awakened from darkness. East could see nothing of it fleeing, but he heard the legs scrambling, the wings chop the air as the bird beat away, crying harshly.
“Damn,” breathed Ty. “Could have had that.”
“No shooting yet, junior,” said Walter.
“No shooting. I could have tackled that bitch.”
East brushed off pine needles. They looked around. Lights burning on half the houses. An old white swing set like a gallows in the dark. No people around that they could see.
Three houses they’d passed. A couple more to get there. They moved together under the pine boughs in dark, scented air. East’s eyes were opening up to the dark, but still he could not see all the branches, had no feel for space. There wasn’t really space. He listened to Ty creeping ahead, Walter trying to stay on his feet. A snap of branch, a muffled curse.
He breathed it. He could sleep in here. The dark, the soft ground. Not even cold. But he too made his way. Nothing to carry, just the hard little spigot of the gun at his hip.
The ground kept climbing slightly. They passed a fourth house, lights on upstairs but quiet. A ceiling fan turning above the light. The fifth house was dark.
East was separated by fifteen, twenty yards. The fat boy had gotten himself snagged, had to unhook himself, fell behind. His brother likely was already there. That was it. That was the right house; he was certain. He picked a way under pines toward the dim light in the clearing.
Ty was already there, waiting just outside its edge.
“The house?”
“The house,” Ty agreed.
Boxed in tight except for the drive—trees came to within ten or fifteen feet of the house. Not wide enough for a firebreak. The clearing was uncut field grasses, calf-high, still green.
Walter came creeping out, hands and knees. “Easier to crawl,” he grunted. “Not so branchy.”
One yellow light hung unlit over an empty deck, another over the back door.
For East, the house was stunning in its anonymity. They’d crossed all this land to an address: this was it. Just a brown house in the woods. Big A on each end made of windows running light from front to back.
“Seems empty,” Walter whispered.
“Nice to be sure,” said Ty.
East looked up and gauged the sky. Seemed dark as they’d walked up, but now silver, strangely luminous, in the gap between the pines.
“Easy as pie,” Ty whispered. “Angles on every inch of the place. Big windows on the bedrooms. No basement.”
Walter said, “Where is the guy?”
“Can’t see,” said Ty. “Could be in bed in the dark. Could be out to dinner. Could be sitting right there on the sofa in the dark with a gun, waiting.”
“You expect one or more than one?” East said.
Ty rolled his eyes. “I don’t expect. We take what we get.”
Walter said, “So what do you want to do?”
“How about we spread out a little and get some angles on this.”
“All right,” Walter said. “But stay back. It’s no rush. Make sure we got the right guy.”
“Did you call your George Washington?” needled Ty. “Is this the place?”
“It’s the right house,” East hushed. “Let’s get the right guy.”
“I don’t see any guy,” sniffed Ty. “Why don’t you two collaborate on that. I’m gonna go see what I see.” He began picking his way left along the seam of yard and woods, creeping along the flank of the house.
Walter stood breathing heavily beside East. They listened to the pine needles crackling under Ty’s steps.
“Drive all that way thinking about it, man,” Walter said. “And then here it is.”
“I was thinking that,” East said.
“Sure seems empty.” Walter stood stock-still. “Seems nobody’s home.”
“You don’t want to wake somebody up, and then you got a now-or-never in the dark,” East reasoned.
“Yeah. Question is, how long you want to stand and wait?”
“I can wait awhile,” said East.
Nothing sounded or moved. They’d lost track of Ty.
Walter said, “You gonna recognize him?”
“Who? The judge?”
East recalled the photos. The fierce, thick head on the man. The sides of gray. But it could have been sharper. The face swam with different faces in his mind: Fin’s. Walter’s. His own.
“I think so,” he said.
“I’ll know him.”
“I will too,” East said. But he wanted to get away from Walter.
“How many times your brother done this?”
“Ask him,” East said. “Good luck,” he added.
“How big was he when he started?”
“Who knows.” He took a step away.
“He knows what he’s doing,” said Walter. “I mean, he goes right at it.”
“He’s got a reputation to protect,” East said. “I’m a check the other side.” He started tracing the seam around to the right.
“Fine. Stay invisible,” Walter said uselessly.
The ground could be quiet if you slid your toe into each step. Like putting on slippers. East found a spot shaded by branches where he could see in the side windows and see the drive out front, the black truck and a glimpse of the road. He stood there, black face in a black hole. He could barely see his hands. He put one on his heart and tried to calm his blood down. Inside the black string was buzzing with irritation. Like he got sometimes at the crew at the house, when they ceased to watch, ceased to be in the moment. Became wild again. It annoyed East, made him bitter. And stubborn.
He made a smooth spot in the needles and tested it. Dry—but cold. He sat down anyway. Funny—a few days back, he was used to twelve-hour shifts on his feet, did six a week. Now he was eager to sit.
How many days had they been going again?
As if his mind was sand. The irregular sleep was one thing. But the road: as if he’d been brainwashed. As if he’d stared into a washing machine for days without closing his eyes. Even the lines and reflectors on the highway: like a code he couldn’t read but couldn’t stop, like a sound he’d wanted no longer to hear. His head felt out of shape, weak.
For years he’d guarded a place that mattered, looking out, seeing everything. Now he sat against a tree, staring in, seeing nothing at all. Nothing in the wooden house sounded or moved. It was wearing him out.
He thought he’d have time to think about it on the trip—killing a man. Or that in all the work of keeping things straight, the killing would become just another motion, another step. This was the address. They would find a man. He would be the man. Put it on the tab.
But he hadn’t thought about it. What he hadn’t seen was that in the rush across the country, the man would be forgotten. The face, the plan, inapparent. Only the miles and the goal remained. He’d declined the subject of the man until he was sitting outside his yard, waiting. Waiting on him to come home and die.
Darker. He heard something in the trees behind him—skitterings, like a bird. Something watching him. And then a heavier crunching. Walter coming like a freight train through the trees. East could not believe the noise he was making. He sat still until Walter had nearly blundered past him, then hissed, “Hey.”
Walter stopped and peered around until he located East. He said, “Ty says it’s empty. He’s gonna check it out.”
“What if somebody drives in?”
“Then we’re loaded,” said Walter. “We have the jump.”
“He might drive in alone or not,” East said. “We don’t know. We’re not even gonna know if it’s him.”
“You know what Ty said?”
“No,” East exhaled. “I don’t wanna know what Ty said. I know if there’s anyone home on this road, they can hear your ass.” His veins clouded with annoyance. He got up, but the cold stuck on his butt, an unpleasant circle.
He sized up the yard. “Tell you what. Go back. Take the back corner, left side. I’ll get the front corner, right. We’ll see all four sides. Then Ty can go close and look around.”
“He’s already doing it,” Walter said.
“Still.”
“All right.” Walter turned and began again toward the back of the house. Making painful progress through the branches. Ty came out then. East watched his brother move. Casual, erect, no cat-stalking dramatics. He carried the gun in his hand but kept it shadowed. He crouched when he went against the house’s frame. There he tested the ground and crept low along the window line. Popped up against a frame and peered inside. With one hand he tried the front doorknob. Didn’t open.
East watched Ty working, recognized his careful pace. Taking time at each window, noting the rooms, the layout and angles. Shooters thought things through two ways. Where were people likely to be, before they knew about you? Then after, when they did, where were they likely to go? Where was shelter? Did they cover? Head for a closet where the guns were? If they shot back at you, from where? Or would they flush right out to the yard? A shooter understood a home just as well as the people who lived there. But to different ends.
Less cautious by the moment, Ty worked around the back. A car rolled by slowly on the stony road without slowing. East stood inside the clearing now, drawn to the house by impatience.
After four minutes Ty had made a full lap. No caution in how he stood now. Contempt for the house that had no people in it. Contempt for the time he’d spent working slowly. He spotted East along the face of the woods and approached, sticking the gun away with a swa
gger.
East felt almost apologetic. “Any minute he could be home.”
“No.” Ty shook his head. “No. No clothes, no suitcase. No dishes in the sink. No soap in the bathroom. Water’s switched off. House is cold. Nobody’s been here. Or if they were, they won’t be back for a while.”
“You want me to look?” said East.
Ty laughed. “Be my guest.”
East made his own circuit. His eyes were hungry in the dark. He peered inside but nothing broke with Ty’s account. Items to interest a thief—nice speakers, espresso maker, a flat TV up high. People with houses like this didn’t skimp. Stealing wasn’t his game but he knew enough from listening—most of the boys he’d led were thieves at some time. Once they stopped stealing, they stopped being quiet about it.
The back glass door was braced against sliding but not barred, like in the city. Probably an alarm, probably a glass-break sensor. No security badge on the windows, but he would have bet. It didn’t matter much. If Ty saw his man, he’d be making noise.
Walter wandered up. “What you want to do? Stay here and stake out?”
“Wish we could bring the van up,” said East. “It’s cold.”
“Scare him straight away too. Van full of black boys idling by the house?”
“I know.”
Now the chill penetrated him. But the heat of the van seemed a hundred miles away.
“You want to go?” Walter said.
East slit his eyes. “No.”
“I’m even getting cold myself,” Walter said, undulating his bulk.
East turned away, played the judge’s features in his head again. What he could remember.
“You want to go?” said Walter.
“Didn’t you just say that?” said East viciously.
Ty came out around the corner, face pinched in, like he was chewing it up from the inside. “Shit. Forget it,” he said. “I’m done with this.”
East said, “Let’s give it another hour.”
“Oh?” said Ty. “You in charge? Fine, stay here. I know you like standing by a house. Me, I’m finished.”
“I second that,” said Walter.
East rolled his eyes at the sky. Fading but still silver above the grave-black square the trees made.
“We can call Abe back up. Might be a plan B,” said Walter. “Come on, East. Sitting out here ain’t gonna be nothing but cold.”