“Don’t reach for your pistol, Musician,” the shadowed man said.
“I don’t have a pistol.”
“You have a lump in your coat. It’s big, but the wrong shape for an automatic. I’m guessing a three fifty-seven. A forty-four would be awfully heavy.”
Blackburn tightened his grip on the duffel bag again. “All right. I won’t reach for it.”
“Good. If you did, I’d have to kill you. And that would be a shame, because I agree with you. Your opinion is the only one that matters. My opinion is the only one that matters too.”
“That’s a contradiction,” Blackburn said.
“Why? You create your world, I create mine. Contradictions only exist for people who aren’t bright enough to do that. When they come up against someone who is, it’s matter and antimatter. Know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you would,” the shadowed man said. “I’m going to come toward you now so we can see each other. I’ll move slowly, and you won’t move at all. All right?”
“All right.”
A smell of deodorant soap preceded the man as he stepped from the shadows. He had long dark hair, shot through with gray. It was pulled back from his face. His skin was sallow, his eyes a greenish brown. He was wearing a hooded black pullover sweatshirt, black sweatpants, and gray running shoes. His left hand held a small paper bag. There was no visible weapon.
Blackburn dropped his duffel and brought out the Python. He cocked it and pointed it at the man’s face.
The man stopped. “You agreed not to move,” he said.
“I lied.”
“That doesn’t seem consistent with a moral code.”
“I’ve created my own world,” Blackburn said. “In here, it’s moral.” He stepped backward.
“You don’t have to leave empty-handed,” the man said. He shook the paper bag, and its contents clinked. “See, I’m a burglar too. I don’t know that I’m as moral as you, but I’m willing to split the take.”
Blackburn paused. He eyed the paper bag. “I was watching this place. How’d you get in?”
“Through a window in the bathroom. On the back side of the building.”
“Someone might see your ladder.”
The man shook his head. “I climbed the wall. Plenty of space between the bricks.” He turned the paper bag upside down. Rings, necklaces, and earrings fell to the carpet. “This has to be fifty-fifty, so don’t cheat.”
“Why let me have any of it?” Blackburn asked.
The man knelt on the floor and bent over the tangle of jewelry. His ponytail hung down over his shoulder. “So you won’t turn me in.” He looked up and smiled. “And so if we’re caught, I can plea-bargain the punishment over your way.”
Blackburn replaced the Python in its pouch. “I’ll take that class ring.”
The man flicked it toward him. “You can call me Roy-Boy.”
“I don’t need to call you anything,” Blackburn said, squatting to pick up the ring. “I won’t be seeing you again.”
“The best laid plans, Musician.”
“I’m not a musician.”
“In your world, maybe not. In mine, you play electric guitar. You want to sound like Hendrix, but you’re too white and you don’t do enough drugs.”
Blackburn said nothing. He took the ring and three gold chains, then picked up his duffel bag and left. He crossed the street and hid behind a dumpster to watch the apartment building. He wanted to see if Roy-Boy left too.
A few minutes later Roy-Boy appeared under a streetlight and looked across at the dumpster. He pointed his right finger and waggled his thumb to mimic a pistol. Then he walked away.
Blackburn waited until Roy-Boy was out of sight before walking the four blocks to his Plymouth Duster. The back of his neck tingled. He looked in all directions, but saw no one. He thought he smelled deodorant soap, but decided it was his clothes. Maybe he had used too much detergent.
* * *
Two nights later, on Friday, Blackburn stuffed his pockets with cash and drove to The Hoot, a bar near the Rice University campus. His coat felt light without the Python, which he had hidden in his closet. He wouldn’t need a gun tonight. His goal was to seduce one of the college girls he had met at The Hoot the week before, preferably the thin brunette who was a flute player in the marching band. The last time he’d had sex had been behind a barbecue pit at a Labor Day picnic, and here it was almost Christmas. He was afraid the top of his head might blow off.
The Hoot was crowded. It smelled of moist flesh and beer, and throbbed with canned rock ’n’ roll. The flute player was there. Blackburn went to her and made the comment that the Rice football team could have had more success the previous weekend had it used the band’s woodwind section in place of its defensive line. The flute player laughed. She remembered him and called him Alan, the name he was using now. Her name was Heather. It seemed to Blackburn that at least half of the twenty-year-old women in the world were named Heather, but he didn’t tell her that. He liked her. She had a fine sense of humor. It had been her idea, she said, for the Marching Owl Band to cover their uniforms with black plastic trash bags and lie down on the football field at halftime to simulate an oil slick.
Heather was a steady drinker, and Blackburn felt obliged to match her. After half an hour he had to excuse himself for a few minutes. When he came out of the men’s room, he saw that someone had taken his place at the bar and was leaning close to Heather. Blackburn couldn’t see this person’s head, but he could tell from the way the jeans fit across the hips that it was a male.
Heather saw Blackburn and waved. “Hey!” she called. “Everything come out okay?”
The man beside her raised his head, and Blackburn saw that it was Roy-Boy.
Roy-Boy smiled as Blackburn approached. “Musician,” he said. His ponytail was wet. It glistened in the neon glow.
Heather looked from Blackburn to Roy-Boy. “You guys know each other?”
“We’re in the same business,” Roy-Boy said. He turned on his bar stool so that his knee touched Heather’s thigh.
Blackburn’s teeth clenched. The sharp scent of Roy-Boy’s deodorant soap was cutting through the other smells.
“Really?” Heather said. “What do you do?”
“We sell discount merchandise,” Roy-Boy said. “We’re competitors, actually.”
Heather looked concerned. “Does that mean you don’t like each other?”
“No,” Roy-Boy said. “In fact, we can help each other.”
“I’m thinking of getting into another line of work,” Blackburn said. But if he stopped stealing, he would have to take a job at yet another fast-food restaurant. It was the only legal work he was qualified to do. He had fried burgers or chicken, or stuffed burritos, in every city he had ever stayed in more than a few days. He was sick of it.
“I’d be sorry if you did that, Alan,” Roy-Boy said.
Blackburn looked at Heather. “Did you tell him my name?” He realized after he said it that it sounded like an accusation. The beer had made him stupid.
“No,” Heather said, frowning. “Why would I? You know each other, right?”
“We’ve never exchanged names,” Roy-Boy told her, “but I got curious and asked around about him. Has he told you he’s a guitar player? He plays a left-handed Telecaster.”
Heather’s frown vanished. “You in a band?” she asked Blackburn.
“No,” he said. “I mean, not right now.”
“He was in three bands at once when he lived in Austin,” Roy-Boy said. “He even played with Stevie Ray a couple of times.”
Heather was gazing at Blackburn. “Why’d you quit?”
“No money in it,” he said.
Roy-Boy got off the bar stool. “That reminds me,” he said. “I have some work to catch up on.” He dropped a five-dollar bill on the bar. “Next round’s on me.”
“Oh, that’s sweet,” Heather said.
“Yeah,” Blackburn said.
Roy-Boy clapped Blackburn on the shoulder. “Happy to do it,” he said. “Us old guys got to stick together.” He headed for the door.
Blackburn imagined making Roy-Boy eat his own eyes.
“Bye, Steve!” Heather called. Then she grinned at Blackburn. “How old are you, anyway?”
Blackburn sat down on the empty stool. It was warm from Roy-Boy, so he stood up again.
“Twenty-seven,” he said. “How about you?”
Heather raised her beer mug. “Twenty-one, of course. You don’t think I’d come into a bar if I wasn’t, do you?”
“Guess not.”
“I’d love to hear you play sometime.”
Blackburn’s tongue tasted like soap. “I don’t have a guitar now,” he said.
Heather shrugged. “Okay, I’ll play for you instead. You like flute music?”
“You bet,” Blackburn said. The back of his neck tingled, and he turned.
Roy-Boy was standing outside, looking in through the cluster of neon signs in the front window. He pointed his finger at Blackburn and waggled his thumb.
“So, you want to have another beer?” Heather asked. “Or would you like to hear some flute?”
Blackburn turned back to her. “Flute,” he said.
They stood to leave. Roy-Boy was gone from the window. Blackburn left the five-dollar bill on the bar.
* * *
In the morning Blackburn awoke with Heather’s rump against his belly. Since the end of his marriage, it was rare that he spent an entire night with a woman, and even rarer that he let it happen at his place. But as he and Heather had left The Hoot, she had said that her apartment was off-limits for sex because her roommate was a born-again Christian. So they had decided to put off the flute recital, and Blackburn had taken Heather to his studio crackerbox in the Heights. After a few hours they had fallen asleep together.
He slid out of bed and went into the bathroom. He didn’t flush, because he didn’t want to wake Heather. When he came out, he saw that she had rolled onto her back. Her mouth was open, and strands of her hair were stuck to her face. She wasn’t a beauty, as Dolores had been, but she was fun. Blackburn didn’t remember ever having laughed in bed before.
He dressed and went out. His plan was to bring Heather a surprise for breakfast. In the night, she had told him a story about a Rice fraternity that had been getting noise complaints from the sorority next door. One morning the sorority women had received a box of donuts from the fraternity, along with a note saying that the donuts were the men’s response to the complaints. The women had eaten the donuts for breakfast and then had received another delivery from the fraternity. It was a photograph of all seventy-two men in their dining room, each one naked except for the donut on his penis. Heather thought the story was hilarious, so Blackburn wanted to have a box of donuts waiting for her when she awoke.
The sun had risen, but the air had the sting of a winter night. Blackburn hadn’t thought Houston ever got so cold. He breathed deep, and the chill cut into his throat. When he exhaled, his breath was white. He hurried across the parking lot to the Duster, hoping it would start. Its windows were opaque with frost. Blackburn didn’t have an ice scraper, but maybe the defroster would do. He unlocked the driver’s door and got inside, letting the door slam shut after him. The interior smelled of deodorant soap.
Roy-Boy was sitting in the passenger seat. He was wearing the black sweatsuit again. The sweatshirt’s hood was up over his head, and his hands were inside the pouch.
“Morning, Musician,” he said, peering out from the hood. “Happy Pearl Harbor Day.”
Blackburn was annoyed. “Get out,” he said, “and don’t come near me again. If you do, you won’t do anything else.”
“Now, come on,” Roy-Boy said. “You’re a moral guy, and I haven’t done anything to you. You wouldn’t whack me for looking at you wrong, would you?”
“You broke into my car,” Blackburn said. “In Texas, it’s legal to shoot people who break into your car.”
“But I didn’t break in. This door was unlocked.”
“Doesn’t matter. You didn’t have my permission to enter. So I can shoot you.”
“But you don’t have your gun.”
“I can get it.”
Roy-Boy took his hands from his sweatshirt pouch. His right hand held a .22-caliber revolver. “You can try,” he said.
Blackburn saw that the .22 was a cheap piece of crap. But at this range, it could kill him just as dead as a .357.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Right now, to get warm,” Roy-Boy said. “Then I want to talk a little. Let’s drive, and crank the heater.”
Blackburn put the key into the ignition. The Duster whined for a while, then started. The engine sputtered, and the car shook.
“Sounds like ice in the fuel line,” Roy-Boy said. “Put a can of Heet in the tank. If you can find it in this city.” He opened his door. “Hang on and I’ll scrape your windows.” He got out, leaving the door open.
Blackburn considered trying to run him over, but decided against it. A bullet might make it through the windshield. So he waited while Roy-Boy scraped. Roy-Boy’s scraper was a long, pointed shard of glass with white cloth tape wrapped around one end. Roy-Boy had pulled it from his sweatshirt pouch. He was scraping with his left hand. His right hand, with the pistol, was in the pouch. Blackburn could see the muzzle straining against the fabric. It was pointing at him.
When the windows were clear, Roy-Boy got back inside and closed the door. He licked ice crystals from the glass shard, then replaced it in his pouch and looked at Blackburn. “What’re you waiting for?” he asked. He pulled out the .22.
Blackburn drove onto the street and headed for I-10. He would wait for his chance. It would come. It always did.
“So, how was she?” Roy-Boy asked as the Duster entered the freeway.
“Fine.”
“I’m glad. I was afraid I’d ruined things for you at The Hoot, so I tried to fix them before I left. Guess I did. What’re you gonna do with her now?”
Blackburn glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“Are you gonna fuck her again, kill her, or what?”
“Why would I kill her?”
“Because you’re a killer, boy. That’s what you do, right?”
Blackburn’s neck tingled. “What makes you think so?”
Roy-Boy leaned close. When he spoke, his breath was hot on Blackburn’s face.
“Takes one to know one,” he said.
Blackburn flinched away, bumping his head on the window.
Roy-Boy returned to his previous position. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise not to stick my tongue in your ear or bite through your cheek.” He pointed outside. “You just passed a Day-Lite Donut store. If you take the next exit you can cut back to it.”
Blackburn stared at him.
“Watch the road,” Roy-Boy said.
Blackburn took the next exit. He parked at the donut shop, then put his keys into his coat pocket and clenched his fist. Two keys jutted out between his knuckles. He watched Roy-Boy.
Roy-Boy smiled. “You want to kill me now. You’re hoping I won’t notice your hand in your pocket.”
“You seem to know me pretty well,” Blackburn said.
“Oh, yeah. I know you, Musician.” Roy-Boy put his pistol into his sweatshirt pouch, then held up his empty hands. “So I also know that if you think about it, you’ll decide not to kill me after all. I pulled a gun on you, but only because you pulled a gun on me Wednesday night. I figure we’re even.”
That made some sense to Blackburn, but it only went so far. “How did you know I was going for donuts?”
“Well, I was shooting the shit with Heather last night,” Roy-Boy said. “You know, at The Hoot, while you were in the can. She was telling me about this donut gag some frat pulled. Then you came out this morning with a shit-eating grin on your face, so I thought: donuts. A dozen glazed be okay?” He got out of the car and w
ent into the shop.
Blackburn waited. There was no point in leaving. Roy-Boy knew where he lived.
Roy-Boy returned with a white cardboard box. “I got a few extras,” he said, exhaling steam as he entered the car. “Some jelly and some creme. Want one?”
“No.”
Roy-Boy opened the box and took out a filled donut. Chocolate creme oozed when he bit into it. He gestured at the Duster’s ignition switch. “Don’t let me hold you back,” he said around a mouthful of pastry. “We can talk while you drive.”
“I’d like to sit here awhile,” Blackburn said. “If that’s all right.”
“Sure,” Roy-Boy said. He reached up and pushed his sweatshirt hood from his head. “I’m warm now. I just thought you might want to get home to your three fifty-seven. Why’d you take it out of your coat, anyway? Were you afraid Heather might feel it when she hugged you? Or did you shoot her and then leave it in her hand to make it look like suicide?”
“I wouldn’t kill a woman.”
Roy-Boy’s eyebrows rose. “How come? Haven’t you run across any who deserved it?”
Blackburn thought of Dolores. “It’s just a rule I have.”
Roy-Boy shook his head. “Sexist,” he said.
“Maybe. But a man’s got to have his rules.”
Roy-Boy stuffed the rest of the chocolate-creme donut into his mouth. “Yeah,” he said, his voice muffled. “If you say so.”
“Have you ever killed a woman?” Blackburn asked. His fist tightened around his keys. The windows had fogged. No one could see in.
“No,” Roy-Boy said, chewing. His eyes were steady, fixed on Blackburn’s. “In fact, I’ve never killed anyone. But I’m still a killer, because I’d do it if I had to. If it was me or him. Or her.”
“Why’d you think I killed Heather?”
“I didn’t. I just thought it was a possibility. See, she’s got a rep for screwing guys over. Narking on them, taking their money, leaving teeth marks, shit like that. I figured if she did it to you, you’d fix her.” Roy-Boy swallowed. “But I was unaware of your rule.”
Blackburn didn’t know whether to believe what Roy-Boy said about Heather. He sounded like he was telling the truth, but some people were good at that. And Heather didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would screw over a lover. On the other hand, Dolores hadn’t seemed like that kind either.
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