“Ch-rist—” Pickett spit into Mark's hand, knocking it aside with his own.
Mark held a finger to his lips and, motioning to the dock with his chin, grabbed Pickett's sleeve and pulled him back into the shadow of the scrub. Pickett brushed the limp palmetto fingers from his face and whispered:
“What the hell you doing here? Where you been?”
“Here—in the w-w-woods. Del's been looking after me.”
“Why the hell didn't you—”
“I wanted to talk to you, but Del s-s-said—”
The shed door flew open with a crack, empty-ing light and angry voices into the night: “Yeah, well count us out!” It was Bernie.
Pickett yanked Tom's .38 free from his trousers in time to see Tom and Kemp follow Bernie out of the shack. Kemp was the first to speak.
“Goddammit, you got the money. I'm just asking you to wait till this shit blows over.”
Tom guffawed from underneath his bandages and passed a paper sack to Bernie who was now in the boat. “Bullshit, we're clearing out.”
“Come on. I'll take care of you. I always have, haven't I?”
Tom stepped down into the boat and grunted: “Yeah, just like you took care of Herb and that bitch from the trailer.”
“I didn't have nothing to do with that, I told you. Man, we're on to something really good here—”
Bernie stopped and looked up: “Yeah? You wanna be such a big man all of a sudden, you going places so fast… Shit.” Bernie watched Tom drop to the seat next to him, then looked back up at Kemp. “You find someone else then.”
“Trouble with you assholes is you aint got brains big enough to think beyond yesterday—”
Bernie cut Kemp off: “It's the same ol chickenshit—cept you got your pecker caught in fence this time, Mister Big shot, and we aint waitin round to get ours lopped off with yours.”
“Fuck you,” added Tom with dumb satisfaction.
Kemp opened his mouth as the outboard exploded into life. Bernie jammed the throttle forward, leaned into the river and accelerated south as if all his yesterdays were after him, disappearing around the bend long before the thrum of their engine.
Gradually, the racket of wildlife, silenced by their departure, once again filled the pre-dawn air. Kemp stood, fists to hips, staring down the river. Pickett was on the dock and five feet behind him before Kemp turned.
“Christ Almighty!” Kemp threw his hands into the air and let them slap loosely to his side. “What else.…”
Pickett smiled: “That's my question, Ralph.”
Kemp's eyes darted involuntarily toward the shed door. A briefcase lay open on a rough work bench littered with a Bunsen burner and assorted vials and test tubes. In the briefcase lay several clear plastic bags filled with brown crystals.
“Cornering the rock candy market, Ralph?”
“Yeah, right. Gonna give the whole fucking state an insulin high.”
“What's it go for up here, Ralph, ten bucks a rock?” Kemp turned his head without taking his eyes off Pickett's and spit into the St. Johns. “No, probably less even. No overhead. Right, Ralph? You know all about overhead, don't you?”
“Yeah, so what're you gone do about it?”
“Maybe I should turn you over to the Sugar Board, Ralph. Whataya think?”
“What is it?” Mark jogged up behind Pickett.
“You got some friends, Pickett,” sneered Kemp. “That kid's a fugitive from the law. Aint that right, kid? Wasted those two over in Belle Haven. Nice work, boy. Wouldn't a thought you had it in you. Too bad you got eye-dee'd, huh?”
“Save it.” Pickett tossed his chin toward the shed, keeping his eyes on Kemp. “You know anything about this, Mark?”
“N-n-o.”
Kemp chuckled, his eyes fixed to Pickett's gun.
Mark stuck his head in the shed and then looked back at Pickett, astonished: “Really, Mister Pickett, I-I-I…”
Kemp guffawed. “Come off it, kid.”
Mark looked puzzled. “I don't know what's going on. I mean, I used to hear th-things sometimes when I'd be staying with Del. But he told me not to worry about it, th-th-that it wasn't any of our business. I guess I knew something was going on. I-I-I just didn't want to… well, you know.”
“What about the stiffs, huh kid, what about that?”
“Shut up, Ralph. You'll have your chance in front of the Sugar Board.”
“Real funny, Pickett, a reg'lar Johnny Carson—”
Pickett took a step toward Kemp, and the dock creaked behind him. He wheeled around into a crouch.
“Lower the gun, please, Mister Pickett.” Matt's gun was smaller than Pickett's, but better aimed.
Pickett did as he asked.
Matt leaned forward, his pistol still aimed at Pickett's stomach and reached for Pickett's weapon. Mark tensed as if ready to move, and Pickett grabbed his arm.
“Good.” Matt shifted Tom's .38 to his gloved gun hand and dropped his own pistol into his coat pocket. “We don't want to do anything rash, now do we, Mister Pickett? You wouldn't want to, say, get shot trespassing on private property in the middle of the night would you?”
Kemp pushed behind Pickett into the shed. The briefcase snapped shut. Kemp quickly walked around Pickett to Matt's side. “Shit, I didn't think you was gone make it.” Kemp smiled nervously and wiped at his forehead with his sleeve. “Tie 'em up and let's get outta here.”
“I'm afraid not, Ralph.”
“Afraid not? What, you gone wait around here?”
“There's no need to run, Ralph. This'll work out just fine.”
Kemp's jaw hung loose.
“There is no need to panic. Unfortunate, yes. But just a complication, nothing more. They will, quite simply, need to be disposed of.”
“Not by me they won't.”
“That's enough—”
“Holy Jesus, Cheatham—”
“Be quiet. And listen. We have Mister Pickett's gun do we not? Mister Pickett went after the fugitive Mark Ayers and shot him. In the struggle that ensued, the gun was wrestled away from Mister Pickett and used upon him. No other solution will offer itself to the police.”
“Jesus-fuckin-christ! Whataya talking about? That's Tom's gun. You just gone stand here and shoot them like that with my—”
Mark pushed nervously past Pickett. “Mister Cheatham. I-I don't unders-s-stand—”
“Be quiet!” Both Mark and Kemp froze. Matt inhaled deeply in an effort to still his shallow breath. Softly, in a rasping whisper, stepping away from Kemp, pointing the gun so as to cover all three men, he said: “The Work, Mark—the Temple. It's larger than either of us.”
Kemp's eyes grew larger at this. Holding the briefcase in front of him as if suddenly afraid of it, he set it down next to Matt. “Sh-shit, Cheatham, you can have it. I mean, Jesus, I'm willing to take some heat if I have to, but—but this…” Kemp took a step backwards wiping his hands on the side of his pants.
Matt turned toward Kemp. “Where do you think—”
Pickett lunged forward and buried his shoulder into Matt's kidney. “Run!” he yelled.
Mark dashed past as Matt hit the dock underneath Pickett. The revolver skittered to Kemp's feet. He picked it up, looked at it in his still shaking hand, and pointed it halfheartedly after Mark as he disappeared into the scrub. Pickett scrambled to his feet and grabbed Kemp's wrist, deflecting the shot. It smashed into the decking at their feet.
“Give me that,” cried Matt.
Pickett released Kemp and ducked to the side; Matt and Kemp collided. They fell to the dock, scrambling frantically for the pistol. Pickett sprang from his crouch into midair and landed flat on his belly in the warm river. A grove of cypress projected into the shallows not fifty yards up river, and Pickett pulled toward it.
The .38 exploded. A bullet thhh-wopped into the water to his right.
Pickett kicked his legs up and went under—for the second time that day. The thwoop-hissss of another round broke the underwater silenc
e. Pickett pushed off the bottom and continued his sprint toward the cypress grove. The .38 was empty.
He hit a cypress knee, mud, and then pulled himself around behind a smooth grey trunk as two snaps from Matt's automatic sounded in quick succession. Pickett didn't wait to hear any more.
He slogged through the shallows to the shore and sprinted up-river through the saw-grass and palmettos. He ran until the Osteen bridge loomed black against the lightening sky. He continued to run, stumbling, forcing himself up, on and on toward the bridge. His pace slowed, but steadily he put one foot before the other, stumbling, rising again, then staggering to his knees, his eyes held by the filigreed arch on the horizon. Finally, he could not rise and fell to his stomach in the high grass. Pickett raised his head toward the bridge, but now it was gone.
Sadness, regret, and fatigue knotted his face like a dried fig, and Pickett wept. Through the tears, he spoke—a single name, repeated, again and then again. After a long while, Pickett closed his eyes and put his head to the dry sand. He became still finally, and slept.
26
The heat lay on Bodie Pickett's shoulders like a physical object. He rose to his elbows as if under the weight of the sun itself.
Squinting into the noon glare, Pickett found himself imprisoned in a circle of swamp grass. Mud caked his ragged clothes, his shoes were gone. His face, arms, and feet were crisscrossed with saw grass cuts—shallow, but pink and angry.
The sky was clear, but of that washed out blue that melded with the haze on the horizon and presaged rain. The Osteen bridge towered above the brown grass like the skeleton of some mythic monster, while below it, less dramatic though more substantial, lay Del Trap's hut.
Pickett pushed off toward the hut.
The old fishing boat was gone, the ramshackle dock seemingly sunk deeper into the river without its support. The hut stood open and dark. A pair of mockingbirds nattered away at some grassland villain, alternating sorties from Trap's tin roof into the high grass up river. Pickett climbed the steps, fending off a surprise attack from the roof-top defenders. He walked in as if no one were there.
Someone was.
“I wondered which one of you white folks'd show up. I have to say, I'm a might surprised.” Del Trap didn't sound surprised, he sounded weary. He sat facing the door behind a small kitchen table. His hands rested palm down on the dirty muslin tablecloth, in the center of the table a small silver automatic.
Pickett stopped in the doorway, his eyes on the gun. “Where's Mark?”
“Gone.”
“Gone… Where?”
Del Trap smiled a tired smile, and picked up the automatic. “Where?” he echoed. “Where he'll be safe”—he set his elbows on the table and leveled the gun at Pickett's abdomen, his massive hands almost covered it—”from the likes a you.”
Pickett stepped closer, halfheartedly extending his good hand. “Don't. I'm trying to help…”
“You're gone help him, huh?” Trap's smile broadened. “Everone's gone help poor Mark—right into the lectric chair. Real white a you Christian folk, I gotta say.”
“He's innocent. I can prove it.”
“Innocent?” Trap cocked his head to the side, eyes momentarily closed, and shrugged. “Who cares? Don't matter shit iffin he's innocent or guilty. Them things aint nothing—they worse than nothing. They l-i-e-s.” Trap lingered over the last word with obvious distaste. “You don't unerstand, do you?”
Pickett said nothing.
“Good, bad, innocent, guilty… They don't make it, man. They just crap you white folks throw out there to mess over the rest of us. Innocent, guilty… what's the difference? They jus the game you white lying—” With effort, Del trapped calmed himself. “You don't get it do you? You smart bastards jus miss the whole fuckin thing don't you? Miss the whole way a things. Shit, it's funny don't y'know? A bunch a ghosts run by things, and they don't know shit bout the way of things.” Trap looked down to the greasy muslin and shook his head wryly. “So, what's it matter you live or die, ghost? No differnt, really. It's clear as the sky, man, can't you see it?”
“See what? You show me.”
When Trap didn't respond, Pickett wet his upper lip and shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Look—”
“That we's already dead. That we's always been and always will be jus as live as we is now… jus as dead.” Trap sighed as if depressed with the obvious. He jacked a round into the chamber. The clack of the mechanism cut through the velvety fabric of the morning air like a razor. Trap didn't seem to notice. “So, y'see man, shootin you don't mean shit to me one way or the other. Don't make no diffrence to you, neither. Though”—Trap scratched his wooly head—”I spect you might feel someways else bout it. Funny…” But there was no humor in his eyes.
Pickett stepped to the table and extended his hand. It closed on the cold metal.
Trap offered no resistance. His eyebrows rose in a question.
Pickett gently pulled.
The machine came from Trap's hand like a plug from its socket. Trap's eyes clung to Pickett's, quizzically, without fear. Pickett released the hammer, disengaged the clip, and slid the barrel back over the breach. A small copper cartridge spiraled across the room, clattering to the floor in the corner.
Pickett stared at it.
Moisture beaded his upper lip, sweat stains spread beneath his arms. The automatic shook in his hand before thudding to the center of the table. He walked away, out the door and into the heat of the day. He moved as if his head were lighter than air and pulling the rest of his body slowly down the steps—barely touching the rotted planking—then more quickly to the river's edge. He sank weightless to his knees and looked down into his own eyes. His stomach turned then, and he huddled frozen in a silent scream. But terror was seemingly all that his stomach held, and he subsided into dry heaves, working out what he could in a clammy sweat.
Trap followed. The small silver machine lay flat in his pink palm.
Pickett looked back over his shoulder. He leaned away from Trap and his offering.
“No. Here. Take it.” Trap pushed it toward the other. “I don't want no truck with this thing. It's been cause a nough.”
Pickett stared at it for a long moment; then, with shaking hand, he took it. He set the safety and sank back, sitting, onto the ground. “Mark give you this?”
Trap nodded, burying his hands deep into his cut-offs. As if to protect them from such things.
“Did he tell you where he found it?”
“Look, man, he tol me lotta things—things no kid oughta have to deal with. Now, I know things I don't wanna know—”
“Like those midnight deliveries down river?”
“Yeah, for one, but let me tell it my way, okay?”
Pickett nodded.
“After your daddy died, I was the only one Mark could talk to. I been trying to help the kid, but I aint no damn good off river. You seen that.” Trap tossed his chin back toward the cabin. “Off river” seemed to encompass more than geography. “I—”
Trap knelt down beside Pickett and scratched at his grizzled head.
“I unerstand what's going on out there. I mean, I know better'n the people living out there what makes things tick. But, shit, I just aint no good off this place. I mean, I went off to get some schoolin and all… And I seen what they want you to learn and how they want you to be, and, well, I got pretty good at them games, y'know what I mean? But I got so tangled up inside I thought I was gone splode. Jesus, I'm just tryin to say that Mark needs help out there, and I can't cut it. He trusts you, I guess cause a your papa. I've gotten so I don't trus nobody—nobody what aint as tied up inside as me, anyhow. But I got a trust you. Now, I want you to tell me. Can I? Should I trust you, man?”
Pickett looked up, stupidly.
“Can I?”
“I… I don't know.”
Trap stared at Pickett for a moment, then said: “He's up river, this side a Lake Poinsett. Town called Jesup, off five-twenty. Yo
u take forty-six through Canaan, then thirteen south. You get five-twenty at Bithlo. There's a sign, but it's easy to miss if you aint watching for it. Colut folk. Farmers—sharecroppers mostly. I know a fella there who'll put Mark up for awhile. It's the only eatin place in town. `Pulley's' the name of the place. His name, too. Got some rooms upstairs. Good folks. Anyhow”—Trap stood—”you go take care of him.”
“What'd he tell you about the gun—”
“Best talk to him bout that. That ol' skip-jack of mine aint much, but it'll get'im there.” Trap waved his hand toward the highway path. “Now scat. Get goin. Might even get there fore him if you get on it. They'll never find'im, but I don't know how long Mark'll stay. He's pretty shook up.”
Pickett stood, headed down the path to the highway. He turned back once.
Trap stood at the dock, watching. His black face was featureless in the noon sun and seemed to melt into his beard and down onto his chest. He raised a hand as if to wave, then changed his mind, and dropped it, limp, to his side. Pickett continued to the highway and his battered Nova, the two of them now a matched set.
27
A plate glass window pierced the narrow brick store front. NEWS, the window said, ISIDORE MOSES, PROP.
The building looked as if it had been gradually squeezed into its present one room width and two story height by the Western Auto on one side and the Trailways Bus Terminal & Taxi Stand on the other. A wrought iron awning hung low above the door supported by heavy chains. They emerged from the mouths of stone faces fixed on either side of the one second-floor window. Long rust stains ran from the mouth of each and down the brick facade like dried blood. The glass in the door said, NEWSPAPERS, BOOKS, SUNDRIES, and gave the hours. Closed Mondays. The door tinkled as Bodie Pickett entered.
A high two sided rack of paperbacks divided the narrow room in half. Newspapers and sundries covered the wall to the left, and a short counter backed by cigarettes and girlie magazines ran along the right. An old woman stood behind the counter sorting receipts.
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