Cold in July

42

The blacktop dipped down a deep hill and wound sharply around a corner that was walled with pines, and there in the moonlight, the spears of trees on either side of it, it looked like an enormous ribbon of molasses slick enough to slide on.

We went down the hill and around the corner and down the road a piece, and no van. We went by a gravel drive and a cattle guard and finally another drive that was made of concrete, and on around another curve.

No sign of the van.

“We didn’t wait that long,” Jim Bob said. “They turned off.”

Turning around, we went back more slowly, and as we cruised by the concrete drive, I squinted through the trees and saw lights. “There’s a house down there or something,” I said.

Jim Bob drove on until we came to the cattle guard, and he drove over that and parked the truck in a pasture and killed the lights.

“We can walk back and check,” he said.

“And if that isn’t them?” Russel asked.

“We come back to the truck and start over,” Jim Bob said. “I don’t think this pasture leads anywhere but more pasture, maybe some trees. I think they want a house for what they’re doing. The gravel drive up from this might lead to something, but let’s check out the other one first.”

We got out of the truck with our weapons, but didn’t bother with the wigs or the blacking. Other than those we intended to eliminate, witnesses out here were few and far between. And we didn’t need the blacking to protect us from being exposed in the moonlight. The moon was just a sliver and the shadows were thick and would conceal us as well as anything might.

The air had cooled off with night fall, but I was having trouble breathing it; it felt too heavy and thick to go through my nose and mouth.

Jim Bob led and Russel and I followed. Just before we came to the drive, Jim Bob said, “If it’s them, take it easy. We’ll see what we got and put together some kind of game plan. When it comes down to assholes and elbows, remember this: We’re outnumbered, but we can surprise them. That element doesn’t go as far in real life as it does in the movies, but it’s something. When this shindig gets started, don’t shoot to wing anybody. This is the once and for all real thing, and when the smoke clears, we want to be standing, or at least breathing.”

“Remember,” Russel said, “you’re going to try and leave Freddy for me.”

“Me and Dane ain’t gonna get killed so you can get your shot in, but if it’s within our power he’s yours.”

Car lights curved around the road and we darted into the high grass and peeked out. It was the gray Vette.

“The guy from the video store,” I said.

We watched the taillights go brighter as it slowed, turned onto the concrete drive.

“I think we found our boys,” Jim Bob said.

When we reached the driveway, we stopped short of that and took to the right of it and moved through some brush and scrub trees. The closer we came to the house, the clearer the terrain became, and we finally came to a spot where the brush ended and there was a row of briars like concentration camp barbed wire, and beyond that a scattering of tall pines. Off to the far right, the land and brush tumbled into a ravine. On the other side of the drive it was the same way with the brush ending and the cleared land and the scattered trees taking over, only there was no ravine on that side. Artfully arranged at the end of the drive between the pines was a tall house of glass and redwood and there were lights on in the house and we could see a stairs with a man on them, and walking behind him was Freddy. I recognized him by his bulk and the way he moved-like his old man. The stairs turned at the top and went behind a wall and they were soon out of sight.

Outside the house there were several men standing around, five to be exact, and the thin man in the white suit got out of the Vette and a girl got out on the other side and they went over to join them. I couldn’t tell much about the girl, but she didn’t seem to be forced. But that didn’t mean anything. She wouldn’t have been told the entire plan-the shooting part would have been left out. She was short and had long, black hair to her waist and she walked with plenty of hip roll and had nice hips for the rolling.

One of the men in the group said loudly, “You pull train, baby?” The guy in the white suit said, “Speak Mex,” and the man spoke again in that language, the same question I presume, because the girl laughed musically and her Si drifted back to us and was followed by male laughter sharp and desperate as the barking of caged dogs.

Everyone, except a man who looked like a boulder in a suit, went in the house. The boulder took up a position by the door and folded his hands in front of him and cupped his crotch like he was weighing his testicles.

“Think she’s a pigeon?” Russel said.

“Probably,” Jim Bob said. “I think we’re going to have to play it that way. But watch for her. She could be with them and have a gun and she just might shoot your dick off. You two go toward the house by the ravine, and I’m gonna cross the drive when I get the chance and come up on the other side. I’m good at this sneaking stuff.”

“Hear you tell it,” Russel said, “there isn’t anything you aren’t good at.”

“I don’t whistle too well,” Jim Bob said. “Now remember, we’ve seen six guys outside, two going up the stairs. That makes eight. But there might be more inside. And don’t forget the girl. Like I said, she may not be friendly.

“We’ll do this simple, come up on both sides of the fella at the door, and whoever gets there first takes him out. I won’t wait on you, and you don’t wait on me. And the thing then is to get started, to go on in the house and start shooting any one of those sonofabitches that you see. When you get inside, move like you mean it. Seek and shoot, upstairs and downstairs. Keep count of how many you drop, and get the killing in your blood. Get goddamn good and self-righteous about it because that’s the only way you’ll see it through.”

“Merciful Jesus,” I said.

“It’s a pisser, ain’t it?” Jim Bob said. “Now, y’all get started.”

Russel and I eased down into the ravine by sliding on the slick grass and dry clay that made up the sides. Our feet landed in a thin trickle of brackish-smelling water and sent up a cloud of mosquitoes that lit on our faces, hands, backs, and shoulders and sucked blood even through our shirts. Roots and brush tumbled and twisted across the floor of the ravine, grabbed at our feet and tried to trip us. Above us, jutting out from the lips of the ravine, arthritic trees and scrubby brush hid a lot of the thin moonlight and made our path down there damn dark. Still, we stepped quickly, and quietly. At least, I hoped we were moving quietly. I couldn’t hear all that well on account of my blood pounding in my temples.

The scrub brush and trees diminished above us and the light from the house was stronger than the bad moonlight and it fell down into the ravine like tainted butter. The ravine went narrow and the left side of it dropped down and we had to bend low and ease over to the edge of it and poke our heads up to see exactly where we were.

We were almost even with the front edge of the house, and I could see the boulder in the suit standing under a yellow bug light on the front porch. I wondered about him; couldn’t help but think he might be thinking about what was going on inside the house and wishing he was in on it, but was stuck instead with guard duty. And maybe he wasn’t thinking about it at all, didn’t care. Perhaps he was thinking about fast cars and women and the Dallas Cowboys, the price of special made suits that would fit his boulder-shaped body.

I looked at Russel.

“Let’s take him,” he whispered.