Mr. Lucky

36

Huck Dubb was sitting in the study of his grandma’s house, staring at her computer. He’d bought it for her last Christmas and used it to send and receive e-mail. Most of the men he ran with had similar setups. They had computers at relatives’ houses, and nothing was in their own names. His grandma entered the study. She’d been wearing a bathrobe and slippers for the past ten years of her life. She was holding a fried steak sandwich on a paper plate.

“Eat this,” she insisted. “You’re looking puny.”

“Don’t want it,” he said.

“Don’t talk back to me, boy. I said, eat it.”

His grandma had practically raised him and his retarded brother; disobeying her was an insult to all the sacrifices she’d made. He took the sandwich and bit into it. The effort made his wounded ear hurt. He’d rubbed cocaine on it, and the pain had gone away. But that was the little pain. The big pain was still raging out of control inside of him.

“You want some iced tea?” she asked. “I made it extra sweet.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Huck.”

“Love some,” he said.

She shuffled out, and he resumed staring at the computer. On the screen was a live feed from the surveillance camera outside Best Steaks in the South. The camera had pan/tilt/zoom lenses and was focused on the parking lot across the street. His cousin Buford, who owned the restaurant, had been sending him the feed for weeks. What Huck was hoping for was a repeat—Gerry Valentine coming back to the trailer, and Huck jumping into his car and going and shooting the son of a bitch.

Two sedans pulled up to the restaurant. Four cops jumped out of each. They drew their sidearms and entered the restaurant in single file. Huck’s cell phone rang. He stared at the caller ID. It was Buford.

“You watchin’ this?” his cousin asked.

“Yeah,” Huck said. “Where you?”

“In my office at the restaurant, staring at my computer. What am I gonna do?”

“Get a lawyer.”

“They’re gonna call me an accomplice. They’re gonna kick my balls in. You shouldn’t have sprayed that trailer, you stupid son of a bitch.”

“He killed my boys,” Huck said.

Buford slammed down the phone so hard that Huck jerked it away from his head. On the computer, he saw a cop break off from the group. Climbing onto the fender of a car, the cop started to dismantle the camera. Huck rose from his chair and snapped the suspenders keeping his overalls up. “Shit,” he said.

“Huck!” his grandma bellowed from the kitchen. She was deaf in one ear and couldn’t hear out of the other, yet somehow heard through walls when Huck swore.

“Sorry, Grandma.”

“No swearing in this house. Not while I’m alive.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come in here quick. I’ve got something for you.”

He crossed the small house in a funk. If they were sending eight cops to close down Buford, they probably had a small army guarding Gerry Valentine. He’d blown his chance to kill the man who’d killed his boys. His ear was hurting from where he’d been shot, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as his heart.

He found Grandma in the kitchen holding a tall glass of iced tea. Having something from her kitchen was her cure for whatever ailed you, and he took a big swallow. The drink was so cold it made his fillings hurt.

His retarded brother, Arlen, sat at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of frosted corn flakes. Their mother had done drugs, and Arlen had paid the price. Arlen lived in an alternative universe. When everyone was sleeping, Arlen was awake; when everyone ate dinner, Arlen ate breakfast. Physically, the brothers were about the same and had worn each other’s clothes all their lives. It had been easy, being they were rarely awake at the same time. He petted Arlen on the shoulder and saw him lift his bovine eyes.

“What you want?” Arlen asked suspiciously.

Huck had once stolen dessert from Arlen and had never been forgiven.

“Just checking up. How you doing?”

“Breathing,” Arlen said, clutching his spoon.

“How’d you like to go on a trip? Leave Gulfport for a few days.”

“Dunno.”

Huck knelt down beside him. He glanced at Grandma stirring a pot on the stove. In a low voice, he said, “I need you to help me. I need to pay a man back. I’m gonna kill his family. I think they live someplace down in Florida. I need you to help me kill them.”

“Kill ’um how?”

“Guns and knives,” Huck said.

“Can I watch?”

“Yup.”

A spark of life flickered behind Arlen’s eyes. Huck had taken Arlen to jobs before. The prospect of seeing someone shot or sliced open always brought his brother up from his stupor. His spoon hit the bowl of cereal with a loud plunk!

“When?” he said.

Huck had always known that the life he’d led and the things he’d done would one day catch up with him. It was the reality that all criminals lived with, the hot wire that ignited their blood. So he’d prepared, and buried jars of money in different places around town, each stuffed with thousands of dollars in crumpled hundred-dollar bills. He’d buried two jars in the backyard of Grandma’s house, and he dug them up with a garden hoe, then unsealed them while Arlen stood beside him, holding a flashlight.

“We’re rich,” Arlen said.

Huck shoved a hundred dollars into his brother’s hand and saw his face light up. Then Huck went inside the house and dumped the jar onto the kitchen table. Grandma was standing at the counter peeling potatoes and stared at the money.

“It’s yours,” Huck said.

“What for?”

“I’m buying your car.”

“Car ain’t worth that much,” she said, throwing a handful of peeled spuds into the vat of boiling water sitting on the stove. “Go ahead and take the car. I don’t use it none. You can give it back to me when you get back.”

“I may not be getting back,” he said.

She took a handful of potatoes out of a paper bag and started the process over. “You fixin’ to stay in Florida for a spell?”

“Don’t have much choice. Police looking for me.”

“Summers down there are mighty long. You gonna send Arlen back?”

“Yeah. He never liked the heat.”

“Well, okay,” she said.

He went outside and backed her ancient Ford Fairlane out of the garage. Popping the trunk, he got a pair of illegal short-barreled shotguns from her toolshed, along with a metal strongbox filled with ammunition. Arlen had gone into the house and emerged wearing his camouflage hunting vest with his collection of rubber knives and plastic toy guns. He jumped into the passenger seat and slapped his hands on his knees. Huck stared at him.

“You say good-bye to Grandma?”

Arlen frowned the way he did when he was reminded of his own stupidity. It was a sad face, almost a pout. “No,” he sputtered.

“Think we should?”

“Guess so.”

Huck got out of the car and led his brother back into the house. Grandma was at the counter fixing peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. They were Arlen’s favorite thing in the whole world. She put four into a bag along with a thermos of iced tea. Then she handed the whole thing to Arlen, took her grandson’s head into her hands, and kissed him good-bye.