Bloodfire

29

Carver and Beth returned to Whiffy’s after Murray had run down a list of needed parts with a greasy, authoritative finger. He’d informed Carver he had only two tires in stock that would fit the Olds, then told him the car would be ready sometime tomorrow morning. Some kind of rare gasket and the tires were due in around sunup on a truck from Haines City.

Marlene the waitress kept their coffee cups filled. That was fine with Carver; he figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to stay up and alert most of the night, maybe in shifts. He and Beth let Whiffy entertain them with tales of dropped pop flies and outrageously called third strikes. To believe Whiffy was to be convinced that only a blind spot in his batting eye had prevented him from becoming another Hammering Henry Aaron, only better looking.

It was almost dark when Carver jockeyed Watts’s old pickup truck back over the rutted dirt road to the motel. As he steered into the lot, he noticed three other cars parked in front of cabin doors. A long Lincoln with Canadian license plates, a red Toyota with clothes piled high on the backseat, and the blue Plymouth with the rental decal on its trunk. None of the guests were staying within two rooms’ distance of Carver and Beth, Watts making sure that if anything did happen, victims would be kept to a minimum.

Carver parked the truck near the office, then sat and waited for the dieseling engine to palump! palump! to silence in the heat. The swamp was hard on things mechanical as well as people.

Beth opened the passenger-side door and hopped to the ground. Envying the way she could move, Carver struggled out of the truck with his cane.

He locked the truck, then limped into the office and saw Watts seated behind the desk, watching a “Mayberry RFD” rerun. Watts glanced over at Carver from his perch on a high stool. “Goddam Barney’s a scream, ain’t he?”

Carver agreed, then dropped the truck keys on the desk. “Thanks, Watts.”

“Car wasn’t ready, I s’pose.” Watts didn’t avert his eyes from the TV. Barney had bought a used motorcycle and was showing it to a skeptical Sheriff Andy.

“It’ll be ready tomorrow,” Carver said. “Anything happen around here?”

“Nope. No messages, no gunfire.”

Beth had gotten tired of standing in the doorway. She walked all the way into the office and stood near Carver, gazing over at the TV. She said, “I always thought Barney was a prick.”

Watts looked at her as if she’d spat on a holy object. “Hey, he’s just a harmless little deputy.”

“Yeah? You get hassled by assholes like that and see how harmless they strike you.”

Watts stared at her and chewed the inside of his cheek, then gave her a nod as if maybe she had a point.

Carver watched as Barney sped away on the motorcycle, leaving the embarrassed sheriff sitting in the sidecar that had come unattached. Watts howled. The laugh track liked it even more. Carver grinned. Beth shook her head sadly.

Carver said, “We’ll be in our rooms the rest of the night.” He limped toward the door.

Watts waved a hand in acknowledgment, engrossed in something Floyd, the Mayberry barber, was saying.

As they were walking across the gravel lot to their doors, Beth said, “What now, a holding action?”

Carver ran the backs of his knuckles gently down her cheek. “Sounds like a good idea.”

She shoved his hand away. “Get serious, Carver.”

He was, he thought. He said, “We’ll lock ourselves in tight, put the Uzi and the Colt by the bed, and in the morning we’ll drive Watts’s truck in and pick up the Olds. Murray said he’d drive the truck back for us.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“Should work; the Brainard brothers are simple.”

She laughed. “So’s the atomic bomb, once you hear it explained. Still lethal, though.”

Carver considered pointing out that she was the one who originally wouldn’t leave Dark Glades. Then he decided he’d better not. They’d both underestimated the homicidal sincerity of the Brainards.

Insects were screaming. Carver waved away what felt like a moth fluttering against his face and paused, peering into the night. The dark swamp lay around them, like entangled terrain of the mind, the genesis of nightmares.

He was hot and coated with oily sweat. Suddenly he had a hard time breathing the thick, damp air and wanted to get out of it.

He quickly unlocked the door to his room. Opened it and limped inside. Flicked the light switch, then leaned on his cane while Beth came in. He closed the door and carefully locked it with the knob latch, the dead bolt, and the chain lock. The solid clicking and snicking of the locks made him feel more secure, even though he knew Junior Brainard could jolt the door off its hinges with one kick. The locks, the four walls, kept the swamp at bay, held off the nightmare.

Their packed suitcases were still on the floor, where they’d been left after Carver discovered the Olds’s slashed tires. There was something unsettling about the abandoned luggage. All packed up and no place to go.

Beth said, “I need some stuff outa my bag. Toothpaste, nail polish.”

Her body gave a slight jerk and she stared down at the Gucci suitcase,

Carver tightened his grip on his cane. “What’s the matter?”

“A piece of a dress is caught in the zipper. I think my suitcase has been opened.”

Carver and Beth both moved toward the suitcase. Beth was bending over it when the connecting door to her room opened.

Junior waddled in, cradling a high-powered rifle, B.J. followed. He was holding Beth’s Uzi submachine gun aimed at Carver.

Junior grinned like a schoolkid about to pull wings off flies. “Betcha we know what you’re lookin’ for.”

B.J.’s lean face was creased leather. He said, “We found it”-gave the Uzi a little bounce in his hands-“but we never found that handgun of yours, Carver. Be so kind as to get it out from under your shirt or wherever and lay it down there on the bed.”

Carver didn’t move. Beth had straightened up beside him. He could hear her tight, rapid breathing.

B.J. said, “I squeeze this trigger and your heart’ll be hamburger. Nigger’ll be next to go, only slower.”

Junior said, “Lots slower.”

Carver raised his untucked shirt. Holding the Colt delicately between thumb and forefinger, he drew it from his waistband and laid it on the bed. Junior swaggered over and picked it up. He examined it briefly but intensely, as if it were a new toy, then poked it down in his bib overalls. He was shirtless beneath the denim bib and straps of the dirty overalls; his stale body odor filled the room as if the fetid rot of the swamp had intruded.

B.J. said, “We figured it’d be a good idea to let ourselves in afore you locked us out. So we jimmied the bathroom window in the bitch’s room and in we came. Been waitin’ for you about an hour.” He spat on the floor. Smiled. “You was about to lock the connecting door and barricade it, wasn’t you?”

“You guessed it.”

Junior said, “We wasn’t gonna let you do that. One sign of it and we’d’a come bustin’ in here like the fuckin’ SWAT team.”

Carver said, “Now that you’re here, what?”

“First thing,” B.J. said, “is you toss that cane on the bed next to the gun, then you move away and sit yourself down on the floor over there by the wall. Nigger’ll sit next to you.”

Carver obeyed. He placed the cane on the bed, then jack-knifed his body at the waist and used the mattress for support as he edged toward the wall.

“No, no,” Junior said. “Go ahead an’ crawl, fuckin’ cripple. First night we seen you, we knew you was gonna crawl.”

“Best do it,” B.J. said laconically. Carver heard the Uzi’s action snick.

He dropped down and crawled the last few steps, dragging his stiff leg behind him, then sat down and leaned his back against the wall. Beth glared furiously at Junior, then sashayed over as if she were in control of things and lowered herself to sit next to Carver.

Junior plopped his bulk down in the room’s one chair, making it groan in helpless protest. B.J. sat on the end of the bed. Both of them were staring at Carver and Beth in a way Carver didn’t like. He knew they had ceased to be people to the Brainard brothers; they were business now. To be disposed of in a way the Brainards would enjoy, but still business. Mercy would play no part in it.

The night insects screamed louder. Bullfrogs croaked behind the motel. B.J. said, “We’re gonna wait right here till it gets darker.”

“Then what?” Beth asked. Carver heard her throat work as she swallowed. She laced her long fingers together and tightened them. She couldn’t hide her fear.

Junior’s imagination raced ahead. He grunted like a hog in sexual thrall.

B.J. grinned at Beth and traced a slow, tight circle in the air with the nasty barrel of the Uzi.

He said, “Yeah, then what?”