Pistol Poets

fourteen

Deke Stubbs had the kind of scruples one would expect in a private eye.

Which is to say he didn’t have any.

Stubbs leaned back in his office chair, heaved his thick, short legs upon the desk. He smiled his gray teeth, cradled the phone against his thick chunk of chin while popping open a warm Busch. He had a sucker on the line and smelled a payday. The sucker used to be a client.

But Stubbs needed a shave, a new suit, a muffler for his Dodge, last month’s rent, and a blow job. And all that cost money.

“I know you paid me to take these photos of your wife,” Stubbs said to the client. “But I was thinking your wife would pay more.”

The guy squawked angry on the other end.

“I’m not trying to put the bite on nobody,” Stubbs said. “I was just supposing out loud. That’s all.”

Stubbs sipped beer, listened to the client give him an earful. The guy called Stubbs every name in the book, made the usual threats. Stubbs didn’t care. He took it all in, waited. He knew the guy would cough up if he wanted the divorce case settled his way. No matter how much the client paid Stubbs, he’d save money in the long run by showing his wife was doing the dirty with the family dentist. Same old story every time. The client was really yelling now. He didn’t seem to want to let up.

“Listen,” Stubbs said, “I don’t like you talking to me like that, but I’m going to forgive you because I know this is a surprise. Maybe a little stressful. But normally I’d come over there and stick a long knife right into your fat belly. Maybe I will anyway. You ever stick a knife into somebody’s belly? The blood pours out all warm and sticky. And when you twist the knife, the blood keeps coming. Sometimes the blade gets into the bowel. The bowel juice gets mixed in with the blood, smells something awful.”

Silence on the other end.

Stubbs’s office door creaked open. Stubbs looked at his watch. His 10 A.M. appointment was fifteen minutes early.

A man and a woman entered. Upper-middle-class. Professionals. Good citizens. About two years ago, Stubbs had decided he needed a better class of sucker, so he’d sprung for a big advertisement in the Yellow Pages. It was a great ad. He’d used words like discreet, professionalism, and state-licensed. The ad had brought in a whole new kind of clientele. Half of them turned around and walked out the moment they saw Stubbs. But the other half more than paid for the ad.

“I’ll have to call you back,” Stubbs said into the phone. “Think about what I said.”

He hung up.

“We’re the Walshes,” the man said. “I’m Dave and this is my wife Eileen.”

“Have a seat, folks.” Stubbs waved a hand at the two rickety chairs across his desk.

They sat.

Stubbs said, “Now on the phone you mentioned something about your daughter.” Stubbs pawed through his top desk drawer. He was out of Winstons. “Either of you folks have a cigarette?”

“We don’t smoke,” the woman said.

“Annie,” Dave said. “She’s missing.”

The wife leaned forward, grabbed the edge of the desk. White knuckles. “It’s been two weeks!”

Stubbs nodded, pulled a legal pad out of his top desk drawer. “I’m just going to take some notes, okay? You tell me all about it.”

They talked. Stubbs listened.

The woman was obviously in charge. Dave would start a sentence, but Eileen would finish it. They were desperate. Annie had never gone this long without calling before.

Stubbs made concerned noises, wrote on his notepad.

When Eileen Walsh signaled she was done with her story, Stubbs set the notepad aside. He steepled his hands under his chin, looked deep into their eyes, and said, “I’m going to need some money up front.”

It was two in the afternoon the next day when Stubbs left Tulsa traveling east toward Fumbee. His Dodge sounded good. He wore a shiny new black suit (on sale at Sears). His rent was paid current, and his dingus still tingled from Lola’s all-night love fest. Stubbs made a mental note to buy her a dozen roses. No, make that carnations. Roses were too expensive.

He lit a fresh Winston, puffed hard and fast.

He unfolded the map, and found the little spec that indicated where he was going. Eastern Oklahoma University. The parents had given him some good stuff. A copy of her class schedule, apartment address, name of her roommate, plenty of good stuff. These were real parents, took an interest in the kid. Stubbs’s mother never knew where he was half the time, and his father couldn’t give a shit.

A bit harsh maybe, but it had taught Stubbs self-reliance. He could think on his feet, improvise. One lesson he’d learned over and over again was never trust anybody. Another lesson that had come in handy was never to give a sucker an even break. And maybe that meant he didn’t have a long list of close friends, but it also meant he never risked having someone let him down. Sure, he’d come up hard and tough. But he’d learned.

And he’d turned out okay.

fifteen

Morgan had been grinning wide and goofy all morning since Annette Grayson had called him to meet for lunch. After two weeks of her coyly sidestepping invitations for dinner or drinks, it finally looked like he was going to make some headway. He went home before meeting her, put on his charcoal slacks, red silk shirt. He looked slick.

He searched under his bed for his belt and spotted the pistol Fred Jones had given him. He recoiled, the memory of it clenching his gut.

He stood. Never mind the belt.

Morgan had almost hypnotized himself into forgetting about Annie Walsh’s cold body buried in the peach orchard just outside of town. But he couldn’t quite forget the way her head tilted when she was listening or the way her eyes squeezed shut when she laughed.

Last week when Jones had been over to discuss his latest batch of poems, Morgan had almost snapped. He said he couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t eat or sleep. He was going to the police. He’d tell everything, say he was out of his mind, that he’d panicked.

Jones had gripped Morgan’s wrist with strong bony fingers, had spoken low, almost a growl. “You listen to me, Professor. Forget about it. It’s handled. You get it? You didn’t kill that kid. She zapped herself on pills. Why should you get tangled up in that? How’s that fair?”

Morgan had listened, nodded, sluggishly followed the old man’s lead. Sure, why should he suffer?

But now he couldn’t help thinking about it again. About Annie.

Not now, dumbass. Annette’s waiting.

He climbed into his Buick and was five minutes late arriving at someplace called The Sprout Shack.

He walked in, spotted her, and his smile fell into little chunks, bounced, and clattered around his ankles. Two other professors sat with Annette. He didn’t know their names, but he’d seen them around Albatross Hall. This wasn’t going to be the intimate lunch Morgan had in mind.

Annette spotted Morgan and waved him over. He sat opposite her, draped the cloth napkin over his lap, tried to smile again, and it came out like a tired grimace.

“Have you been sleeping okay?” Annette asked.

“Sure.” He nodded at the two strange professors. “Hey. I’m Jay Morgan.”

The two professors nodded back.

“Hello. Susan Criger.” She was beefy, red-faced, hair knotted in a severe bun.

The other guy was bland, vanilla pudding complexion. Hair the color of old parchment. “Good to meet you, Dr. Morgan.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Morgan said. “I have an MFA.”

“I’m glad you could all make it,” Annette said. “I think you all know what we need to discuss.”

“Evidently not.” Morgan realized it had come out a bit caustic and tried to smile again to make up for it. But the muscles in his face wouldn’t work. His smile was broken.

“It’s Sherman Ellis.” Annette toyed with her water glass, shook her head, and finally shrugged. “I don’t know what to do with him or what to make of him. He’s supposed to be tutoring undergrads in the Writing Lab, but, well to be blunt, he’s useless. I had to explain to him what a gerund was.”

The beefy woman nodded. “I suppose you’ve gotten the same speech from the dean we have. I was told to-and I quote-‘use the kid gloves.’ ”

Morgan grabbed a menu, scanned it, and was horrified to find himself in a health food restaurant. “What is this? Curd? What the hell is curd?”

Annette ignored him. “I know the university is under a lot of pressure to reach out to minority students, but I’m worried about standards. I don’t think-”

The waiter arrived, set plates in front of Annette and the other two professors.

“We went ahead and ordered,” Annette told Morgan. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“No problem.” Morgan looked at her plate. Annette seemed to have ordered some kind of shredded green Brillo pad surrounded by quivering blocks of pale goo.

The waiter looked at Morgan, his pen hovering over his order pad. “Sir?”

Morgan pointed at Annette’s plate. “What’s that?”

“Alfalfa sprouts and caraway-seed tofu cubes.”

“I think I’m going to need a minute.”

The waiter left. Morgan thought he might have been rolling his eyes.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” the other professor said. He poked at a puddle of coarse gray gunk on his plate. “Dean Whittaker has the administration behind him. It’s a public relations show now, and they don’t want to have to tell anyone they flunked out an African-American student. They’ll say we don’t understand his ebonics or that he was culturally displaced and needed special consideration or Lord knows what. The fact that he doesn’t know a Restoration drama from an episode of Mama’s Family won’t matter to anyone.”

He stood, dropped his napkin in the chair. “I’m sorry, Dr. Grayson. I’m not sticking my neck out. It’s not worth my job. Come on, Susan. I’ll buy you a cheeseburger across the street.” He nodded at Morgan. “Good to meet you.”

Susan Criger stood, shook her head at Annette. “Sorry. Ethically, I’m on your side. You know how I feel about grade inflation, but now isn’t the time for this sort of battle. Sorry.” She followed the other professor to the register. They paid quickly and left the restaurant.

Annette sat back in her chair, crossed her arms. She looked at Morgan. “Well, what do you think?”

Morgan set the menu aside. “I think a cheeseburger sounds pretty good.”

“Not about that!”

Morgan threw up his hands. “Well, what do you want me to say? I thought you asked me here-why did you ask me here?”

“I thought that was obvious.”

“It’s not. You and those other two seem to have a problem with Sherman Ellis.”

“Doesn’t he seem a bit odd to you? I mean, is he the caliber of student you’re accustomed to?” She harpooned a tofu cube with her fork, sniffed it, popped it into her mouth. She frowned and shoved in a bale of sprouts on top of the tofu, crunched without enjoyment.

“Ellis is exactly as bad as all of my other poets,” Morgan said. “Ellis only stands out in that he thinks rap and poetry are the same thing. But in terms of quality he’s as bad as all of the other pinheads.”

“You don’t sound like you enjoy your job.”

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying your lunch.”

She stabbed another chunk of tofu, squinted at it, sighed. “I don’t eat meat.” She put the fork down. “But I could use some comfort food. I suppose you could talk me into a cheese pizza.”

“I bet I could talk you into a pitcher of beer too.”

Rico’s New York Style Pizza was a pleasantly shabby place with red-and-white plastic tablecloths. The guy who owned it wasn’t named Rico and had never been to New York. But the pizza was hot and the cheese thick.

Annette had eaten three slices and was on her fourth, the stringy cheese stretching from the slice to her teeth. She reeled in the cheese with a slurp and pushed it down with three serious gulps of cold beer.

“After my divorce I went on this health kick.” Annette refilled her mug from the nearly empty pitcher. “I lost twelve pounds and firmed up my abs and lowered my cholesterol. The whole deal.”

“Sounds terrible.” Morgan sprinkled red pepper on his pizza.

“It is,” she said. “I’ve been hard at it about three years. I sold his golf clubs and used the cash to buy this stationary bike. I do about two hours a night. I’ll have to do three tonight after this pig fest.” But she didn’t let up, dipped the crust into a stray puddle of sauce, and ate it.

“I started doing sit-ups a week ago,” Morgan said. He’d also started walking a mile a day in the evenings and laying off the bottle. So far he hadn’t seen the results, but he kept telling himself to be patient.

“Yeah, well it won’t make you happy,” she said. “I got myself into this routine. Exercise and vitamins and sprouts and yoga and I even did my apartment all in feng shui and I guess I’ve prolonged my life for twenty years; but I’m not living, if you see what I mean. I’ve locked myself into such a rigid routine it’s like I’m some kind of robot. I mean I’ve exercised and dieted and exercised and believe me I’ve got one killer body under these frumpy teacher clothes, but what good is it? It’s been so long since I’ve”-she shook her head-“Never mind. I’m running off at the mouth.”

“No, do go on.” Morgan grinned, flashed his blue eyes. “How long since you’ve what?”

Annette leaned back in the booth, half smiled at Morgan over her beer mug. “I know professors like you. You’ve probably got some free-spirit poetry spiel you toss around until some big-eyed grad student decides she wants to be your protégé.”

Morgan flushed and turned off his eyes. She’d caught him trying to use the same look he used on young girls. Indeed, he had been about to make his standard pitch. Foolish. That wouldn’t work on Annette. She was a mature, smart woman, not a blushing twenty-year-old.

“I’m divorced too,” Morgan said. “But I threw myself into self-destruction instead of health, late nights, hit the booze hard, moved around job to job.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Seven years,” Morgan said. “She tossed me out. I’m no good on my own. I stay up too late, bad eating habits. I don’t really take care of myself.”

Was this it? Was this how adults talked to one another? It had been a long time.

“Listen,” Morgan said, “I’ve been after you to have dinner with me for a while now. How about this Friday night?”

She scrunched her face, tapped her face with a thin finger. “I don’t think so, Jay. I like you. Really. But I don’t think you’d be good for me. I can’t start living big overnight, and I don’t think a week of sit-ups is going to change you. I think we better try being friends for a while.”

“I understand.” He felt a sulk coming on and didn’t try to stop it.

“But listen, I meant what I said about Ellis. Something’s going on.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I want you to talk to the dean,” she said. “The more of us who protest the better. Whittaker needs to know the faculty won’t sit still for every bullshit scheme the administration tries to put over.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you even paying attention to me? This is important.”

“If you say so.”

“Dammit!” Her nostrils flared. “I worked my ass off to get where I am. I’m not going to be a professor at some backwater diploma mill. I’m going to find out about this Ellis kid, and I’ll do it alone if I have to.” She slid out of the booth, dropped a twenty on the table. “That should cover my part of lunch.”

She didn’t quite storm out, but she didn’t look back.

sixteen

I don’t want to see any more rodents,” Morgan said. “You understand?”

“Yes.” Lancaster looked sheepish.

“No rats, no mice, no hamsters, no kind of furry animals at all, okay? I don’t want to read any more poems in which furry animals are symbolic of anything at all. You get me?”

Lancaster gulped. “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t even want to see little animals symbolize themselves. I don’t want to even see a person in your poem wearing fuzzy bedroom slippers that are even remotely reminiscent of anything animal-like at all.”

Lancaster went red at the ears. He couldn’t look at the rest of the class, head down.

Morgan had to come down on the kid hard. Sometimes these students got stuck in a rut and it just got worse and worse until somebody gave them a slap. “I hope I’ve been clear.”

Lancaster nodded.

“I want to read a poem about people. They can be fucking or making soup or driving tractors or buying baseball cards on eBay or chewing tobacco or anything you damn well want. But I want people.”

Lancaster said nothing, didn’t budge. He’d been thoroughly squashed.

“Okay.” Morgan shuffled his stack of papers to the last poem of the day. Hell. It was the Ellis kid’s turn. Morgan had been dreading this. He looked at his watch. Maybe he could claim they were out of time, put off Ellis’s poem until next class. No good. Still fifteen minutes left. Nothing to do but forge ahead.

“Sherman, read us your poem please.”

Ellis actually stood. This was different. Morgan wondered for a second if Ellis was actually about to leave, run out of the class instead of read his poem. Morgan had seen it happen before. But Ellis wasn’t going anywhere. He had a fierce look in his eyes, chest puffed out.

Ellis waved his fist in the air, slapped his chest with the other hand. “Okay, y’all, this is Sherman E in the house. I’m gonna need some help with this one. Everybody say YEAH!”

Everybody froze. The students looked at Morgan.

Then the poem:

Ellis recited his poem like he was angry, slapping his desk with the rhythm, saliva flying from his mouth, eyes white and wild.

At this point Ellis grabbed his own balls, hopped up and down.

Ellis looked at Morgan, waited for commentary.

The class sat in dead quiet. Dumbstruck. Morgan went pale, his lips squeezed tight and bloodred like wet paint.

Belinda paled, hugged herself in her seat.

Terrible. Morgan shook his head. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?

Lancaster tugged at his collar. “Well…” He looked at his copy of the poem, made useless scratches with his pen. “Well, yes. Okay then. I think it’s very brave of Sherman to embrace certain clichés and stereotypes in an attempt to… uh… explore the dangers of…” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t really know what Sherman was trying to do.”

DelPrego’s mouth hung open. “Jesus.” He barked a hard laugh. “I mean… Jesus.”

Morgan shuffled the stack of poems, stood slowly. He turned, walked out the door. The students waited a minute, looked at one another, but their professor didn’t come back.

Ginny waited on Morgan’s porch. She was there smiling coyly when he arrived home.

He froze when he saw her, looked around.

“I thought you’d call me,” Ginny said. That’s how it was supposed to work. She cast her spell, and the poet wouldn’t be able to live without her. But he hadn’t called.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.” He unlocked the front door, and she followed him in.

“You hurt my feelings,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“No, I was being dumb.” She put her hand on his hip. Tentative. This would be the test. If he shrugged her off, then she was barking up the wrong tree. “Can we go in the bedroom?”

“Sure.”

Gotcha.

He stood stiffly, let her unzip him, strip him clean. She unbuttoned her blouse, wriggled out of her too tight jeans, white breasts spilling over a red lace bra. She peeled off thong panties. They moved to the bed and didn’t talk.

When she was on top of him, Morgan tilted his head back into the pillow, closed his eyes. Ginny ground into him, bit her lower lip hard. Even if Morgan never helped her writing career, she still liked this part. Liked it a lot.

seventeen

Harold Jenks slumped at the bar between his new classmates Timothy Lancaster III and Wayne DelPrego. They’d just started their fourth pitcher of beer.

When class had ended and Morgan had walked out, Jenks had just stood there with his balls in his hand. His first poem hadn’t gone over so well, so he’d really tried to sell this one, put everything into it. Make it one righteous, kick-ass performance. But by the time he’d finished reading, he’d found himself in a roomful of truly terrified white people.

Most of the class had filed out, carefully not making eye contact. But Wayne DelPrego had approached him, shaking his head, a smart-ass grin crooked on his face.

“Christ Almighty,” DelPrego said. “You’ve either got some jumbo, supersized testicles or you’re high.”

Jenks told DelPrego to fuck his mother.

“Take it easy, man,” DelPrego said. “The poetry thing’s a tough gig. Let me buy you a beer. Timothy and I get one after every workshop.”

Jenks thought briefly about busting DelPrego in the mouth, but decided a beer would be more helpful. He looked at his watch. It wasn’t even noon.

Time flew by at the bar, and Jenks found himself deep in meaningless conversation with Lancaster and DelPrego.

“Have you seen the statistics on college binge drinking?” Lancaster held his beer mug up for inspection, wiped a smudge clean with his napkin. “This is dangerously stereotypical behavior we’re engaging in.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jenks said. “Well, you just ended your sentence with a preposition.” Dr. Grayson had just drilled him on prepositions yesterday in the Writing Lab. She was one hard-core bitch.

“Touché.” Lancaster sipped beer, but it had gotten warm. He frowned, pushed the mug away.

“Shit,” DelPrego said. “After Morgan’s class, we need a few belts. That guy doesn’t like anything.”

“I hear that.” Lancaster had told Jenks his poem amounted to little more than predictable rhyme and juvenile posturing. No imagery, little attention to the intricacies of language. Jenks wasn’t totally sure he knew what that meant, but he was sure it wasn’t good. But at least Lancaster hadn’t walked out of class looking like he was about to puke.

This shit was going to be harder than he thought.

“Yes, well, he wasn’t totally without a point,” Lancaster said. He waved the bartender over. “Take this away,” he said, indicating the beer mug. “Bring me a chardonnay please.”

The big bartender scowled down at him. “This ain’t exactly a chardonnay-type place.”

Jenks chuckled. It was true. The place was pretty rough and backwoodsy. A long unpainted pine bar, mismatched stools, seats, and tables. DelPrego had told Jenks that the noise coming out of the jukebox was some shit called Vince Gill. But the place had pool tables and cold beer, and right now that was enough. DelPrego had convinced Jenks and Lancaster to enter the place on the grounds the drinks were cheap.

“You don’t like my rhymes?” Jenks asked Lancaster.

“Just a second, Sherman.” Lancaster turned back to the bartender. “Do you have any wine at all?”

The bartender bent behind the bar, came back up with a screw-cap jug the size of a Volkswagen, half-full. “This. It’s red.”

“Dear God. No, I can’t drink that. Just a glass of water with lemon.”

The bartender rolled his eyes and walked away. It didn’t look like he was in any hurry to bring Lancaster his water.

Jenks tapped Lancaster’s shoulder. “I asked you a question.”

Lancaster sighed. “Frankly, I didn’t care for it. Perhaps I’m too traditional.”

“Fuck you, man.”

DelPrego snickered.

“Fuck you too,” Jenks said.

“That’s another thing,” Lancaster said. “You don’t seem to get the idea of the workshop. Perhaps they do it differently where you’re from. But essentially, we’re supposed to say whatever we think about the work. You’re not supposed to take it personally. I mean it’s about focusing on the work, not the person.”

“Fuck you anyway.”

“Like you can talk, Timothy,” DelPrego said. “Professor Morgan didn’t like your shit either. Or mine for that matter. He hates us, man.”

Jenks slapped the bar with an open palm. “That’s what I’m talking ’bout. That motherfucker can’t be pleased about nothing. Why try? He ain’t going to like it anyway.”

“We just have to tune in to his aesthetic,” Lancaster said.

“Right now I’m just going to tune in to this.” DelPrego gulped beer.

“Okay,” Jenks said. “You know all about it, then explain this shit to me.”

“I’ll try,” Lancaster said. “Poetry is like, it’s like…” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together like he was trying to pluck the definition of poetry out of midair. “Poetry is reminding you about truths you forgot you already knew. A poem doesn’t tell us something, it shows us. It doesn’t reflect an experience. A poem is its own experience.”

“I don’t understand one fucking thing you’re saying.”

“Let’s all get some guns and go to Mexico,” DelPrego said. “Let’s get whores.”

“Yes, that sounds constructive,” Lancaster said.

“How would you cats like to earn a few extra dollars?” asked Jenks. He realized he was feeling a bit drunk himself but didn’t care. He drained his mug.

“Who you want us to kill?” DelPrego said.

Jenks didn’t laugh. “I’m serious. Can you boys be tough? Can we be tight?”

Lancaster sighed. “I think you’re both already tight.”

“Hey, I ain’t so fucked up I don’t know what I’m talking about. You guys got enough money? Is that it? You’re so up to your asses in greenbacks that you don’t need any more?”

“Is it something illegal?” asked DelPrego. “I mean, I don’t care. I just want to know.”

“Shit, I ain’t saying nothing until I knew we’re tight. This kinda shit get fucked up quick if it ain’t handled by guys that don’t have trust. Now, when I see we tight, I’ll let you know. But I’m thinking we can be tight.”

“Is there some sort of written exam for this?” Lancaster asked. “How does one go about becoming tight?”

“I’ll tell you when it happens.”

Jenks still wasn’t sure about these two, but they seemed to be regular guys. They just wanted to find out how to get through school, how to get ahead, how to keep a roof over their heads and once in a while find some pussy. Lancaster was a little strange and maybe too smart for his own damn good, but he didn’t talk down to Jenks. He didn’t patronize. A word he got from Grayson.

Patronize.

“We want you sons a bitches out of here right now. Just about had enough of listening to your bullshit.”

The three of them spun on their barstools, looked into the glassy eyes of two gigantic rednecks. They had full, thick beards, bellies hanging over big belt buckles. One wore a Sooners cap. The other had a buzz cut and a faded Marine Corps tattoo on his massive upper arm. They both held pool cues.

A fresh cigarette dangled from Sooner Cap’s mouth. It bobbed up and down as he talked. “We don’t want your kind in here. So get the hell out right now.”

Jenks almost said something, but DelPrego opened his mouth first.

“Come on, guys. It’s the twenty-first century,” DelPrego said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a black person.”

“We don’t give a shit about blacks,” Tattoo Man said. “It’s him.” He jabbed a finger at Lancaster. “We don’t like faggots.”

Lancaster’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Get out of our bar, faggot.”

The blood drained from Lancaster’s face. “But-I assure you-” he sputtered.

This was trouble. Jenks sized up the rednecks. Both of them tensed for it. Sooner Cap had on a pair of heavy work boots, but Tattoo Man wore only soft sneakers. Jenks scanned their jeans for gun-shaped bulges or knives, but they looked clean. He didn’t like the way they held those pool cues.

DelPrego hopped off his stool, spoke to Sooner Cap. “He’s not a faggot.”

“Shut up, punk.”

“He’s no faggot, and I should know,” DelPrego said. “Because I’m the faggot, and I just love to suck big cock.”

Sooner Cap blinked, stepped back like he’d been struck.

“That’s right.” DelPrego licked his lips. “Man, I’d just love to have a big, sweaty pair of redneck balls on my chin right now. I get hot and horny just thinking about it.”

Sooner Cap realized he was being had. “How about I smash you right in your smart-ass little mouth?”

Lancaster gulped. “For the love of God, Wayne, let it go.”

Jenks tensed. Here it came.

DelPrego pointed. “Holy shit. What’s that behind you?”

Sooner Cap said, “You don’t think I’m going to fall for-”

DelPrego didn’t wait to see if he fell for it or not. He brought the uppercut fast, popped Sooner Cap on the point of his chin. The redneck’s head snapped back. He stumbled.

Tattoo Man swung the pool cue at Jenks, but Jenks ducked. The cue struck Lancaster in the face, swept him off the barstool like he was made of tissue. Lancaster yelled, blood spraying from his nose.

Jenks stomped hard with his heel on top of Tattoo Man’s left tennis shoe. His heel struck the foot hard. Jenks heard and felt the man’s bone snap. Tattoo Man screamed. Jenks double-punched him in the kidneys, and Tattoo Man bent, grabbed himself. Jenks swung hard, and his knuckles smacked just over Tattoo Man’s ear.

Tattoo Man fell over into a little heap, didn’t move.

Sooner Cap had DelPrego in a headlock. Jenks picked up Tattoo Man’s pool cue, swung hard, and broke the wood over Sooner Cap’s back. He let go of DelPrego, who turned and threw a quick punch into the redneck’s massive gut. Sooner Cap whuffed air and went to one knee.

“That’s enough!” the bartender barked. He held an aluminum baseball bat and banged it on the bar.

Sooner Cap started to get up. He was breathing hard. “You… fuckers.”

“Come on!” Jenks grabbed Lancaster under one arm, started for the door.

DelPrego took Lancaster’s other arm, burst out of the saloon and into the parking lot.

The redneck’s curses followed them. “You little faggots. Come back here again and you’re dead. You hear me? Dead!”

The three poets sat in a nearly deserted Wendy’s. Jenks ate a double cheeseburger and a Biggie fries. DelPrego held a small Frosty to the side of his head where his ear had swollen.

Lancaster sat with his head tilted back, crumpled and bloody napkins on the table in front of him. He’d torn little strips of napkin and had jammed them into his nostrils to stanch the blood flow. Once in a while he’d moan quietly and rub his temples.

“Shit, boy, where’d you learn to fight like that?” Jenks asked DelPrego. “You almost got your fucking self killed.”

“I watch a lot of Rockford Files reruns.”

“TV. Shit, that figures.”

“Do we qualify as tight now?” Lancaster asked, his stuffed nose making him hard to understand, the words coming out “Do be qualiby ad dight dow?”

Jenks laughed. “Almost.”

“Sure we are,” DelPrego said. “We’re a hell of a team. The brother, the white guy, and the faggot.”

He laughed and so did Jenks.

Lancaster groaned and very slowly lifted his middle finger.

eighteen

Morgan tried to roll over, but Ginny’s slab of thigh held him in place. He didn’t want to wake her. He lay still, staring at the ceiling, feeling empty and listless. The mad tumble with Ginny had been a good distraction after Annette had shrugged him off, but already Ginny’s hot skin pressed against him in bed. Oppressive.

And it wasn’t just Annette.

For a long time Morgan had been directionless. He’d realized it while working with the old man, Fred Jones. It was the first time he’d felt like a poet or a teacher in years. And he’d realized it again talking to Annette Grayson, telling her how he’d blown with the wind from one temporary job to another.

And then there was Annie Walsh. The dreams were getting worse. In the most recent, he could hear her clawing under the ground. His dream self tried to dig her out, pale hands ripping at the hard winter ground, digging without a shovel, fingernails hurt and bleeding.

Morgan shuddered.

Ginny’s breathing changed, and Morgan suspected she was awake. They both pretended to sleep.

After half an hour, Morgan figured something had to give. He opened his mouth, drew breath to speak, didn’t know what to say, and shut it again.

“What is it?” Ginny asked.

“I didn’t know if you were awake yet.”

“I’m awake.”

Morgan still didn’t know what to say.

Ginny said, “It’s like we have a secret together. Don’t you think that makes people close? It’s kind of a prefabricated intimacy. And I need this once in a while, to be close and naked with somebody I can trust. Maybe a weird kind of trust but it’s there, and I want you to feel it too.”

“I feel it.”

“It doesn’t seem like you do. I can’t handle boys my age. If they sleep with a girl once, they either think they own her or they want to throw her out like an empty beer can. I like that you’re older. I want us to be friends. I read your poetry book.”

“Which one? A Shot of Bourbon for the Soul?”

“The other one. The hat one.”

“In the Museum of Men’s Hats. That was my first one. It wasn’t very good.”

“I thought it was pretty good.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you working on anything now?”

Morgan squirmed, shifted away from her. “Not right now.”

“Writer’s block.”

“No.” It came out more harsh than he’d meant. “I just haven’t decided on anything yet.”

“I think you’re stuck.”

“What would you know about it?”

“I want you to be able to tell me.”

“It’s not anything for you to worry about.”

“This is part of it,” Ginny said. “I want us to tell each other things.”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

A shrug. “Got to tell somebody. Do you have anyone to talk to?”

“I’m not a talker.”

“That’s bad.”

“Yeah…” He didn’t know what he wanted to say. He’d been closed up, closed off, didn’t know how to say what was wrong. Maybe he didn’t even know because he couldn’t say it out loud. “What if I try, really try my best, and nothing comes?”

He’d never said that out loud before.

“We all get scared.” She twirled his chest hair.

That was all she said. Morgan suddenly felt tired again. He moved closer to her, put his head on the pillow. He felt lighter. He drifted. Sleep.

When he awoke, Ginny was gone. Morgan didn’t feel bad about it.

He walked around the cold house naked, looked into each room. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he felt he was looking for something. An invisible need drew him. He wandered to his desk, opened the bottom drawer. An old accordion folder.

His poetry.

Halfhearted attempts at least a year old. He winced at the pages. Old themes and strategies mixed and matched and rehashed. It was painful to read but he made himself. He wrapped up the folder, put his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. It was worse than he remembered. Even his grad students were showing brighter sparks of originality.

He lifted his head. Set his jaw. It was time. Too long he’d galumphed along, stagnant. What was it Keats had written? Half in love with easeful death. That was Morgan all over. He’d been walking around dead, and it had been easy, so Morgan let it go on.

No more.

He showered, dressed. He scooped up the poems quickly before he could change his mind. He jogged to his Buick, drove to campus.

In Albatross Hall he took the stairs up two at a time. On the fifth floor, he listened for the music. It wasn’t there, but it didn’t matter. He knew the way. He found Valentine’s office, knocked once, barged inside. He was breathing hard, heart thumping into his throat.

Valentine sat on his couch, sipping a cup of tea. He arched his eyebrows at Morgan. There was a portable TV the size of a toaster on Valentine’s lap.

“These are some of my poems.” Morgan showed him the folder. “I’m-” He shook his head, cleared his throat. “I’m having some problems with my writing, and you’re the single greatest living poet I know. I need your help.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Valentine said. “Wheel of Fortune is on.”

Dean Whittaker sat at his desk, shuffled papers, made stern phone calls to department heads. He went about the machinery of being dean, the dogged determination of an academic administrator. He crossed T’s, dotted i’s.

A knock.

Whittaker looked up. “Come in.”

The door swung open, and Jay Morgan walked in. He flipped a two-fingered salute at the dean and sat in the chair across from him.

“Good. You got my message,” Whittaker said. “I tried to find you in your office, but you’re a hard man to track down.”

“Sorry, I was consulting with a colleague.”

The dean searched Morgan’s face. There was something different about the man. His head was up. He was smiling. There was an easy look in his eyes. The dean thought he might smell alcohol.

“I wanted to talk to you about the Spring Reading. We usually have a few handpicked grad students read. I want you to make sure Sherman Ellis is one of them.”

Morgan smiled big. “Sure. Let’s give him an NEA grant too.”

Whittaker frowned, shot radioactive heat rays out of his eyes at Morgan.

Morgan gulped. “You’re serious.”

Whittaker raised an eyebrow. He’d had nothing but complaints about this Ellis kid, and so he wasn’t surprised at Morgan’s lack of enthusiasm. He’d had to be tough with a few of the faculty to keep them in line on the subject.

“I take it he’s doing well in your workshop.”

“Not at all,” Morgan said.

“Tough titty. Look, Morgan, we both know this is a public relations move. The university wants to show off their new African-American student. With or without you the administration wants Ellis. But if you don’t want to be part of this, I completely understand.”

Morgan stood. “I don’t want to be part of it.”

Whittaker cleared his throat, the rough sound of a surgical saw cutting into bone. “However…”

Morgan sat down again.

“I’d hate to think you weren’t a team player.” The dean shook his head like he was disappointed with a puppy that had shit on the carpet. “After all, when you go to your next job after this, you’ll want to give me as a reference. They always check your last employer, and they always want to know if a professor is a team player.”

Morgan felt sweat behind his ears. He wiped his forehead, swallowed hard. “I don’t think you understand. Ellis read his last poem, and, well, he scared the crap out of everybody in the class. I mean, I just don’t think it’s the feel-good poetry you want for a public relations event.”

“It’s exactly what we want,” Whittaker said. “Tell Ellis to let it all hang out. Let him be ethnic as hell. We’ll show the regents we can be as multicultural as anyone.”

“But-”

“There’s another consideration,” the dean said. “I’m getting a little concerned about Professor Valentine. He might be close to retirement. That would mean an open position for a tenure track professor.” The dean could see he had Morgan’s interest. The classic carrot and stick ploy. A brand-new job or a ruined career. “I’m sure you know what a lot of trouble it is to put together a search committee and go through a hiring process. It would sure be easier on everyone if there was a poet right here under our nose who fit the bill.”

Morgan nodded slowly. “I want to be a team player, Dr. Whittaker. I’ll get ahold of Ellis. I’ll make it happen.”

Whittaker sat back in his chair, an evil smile spread thin across his face. “I knew we could count on you, Morgan.”

Morgan felt excited and frightened and a little sick as he left the dean’s office. Sherman Ellis. Why in the hell did they want this gangster rap craziness as part of their annual poetry reading?

But Morgan wanted that job. God, how he wanted it. He tried not to think of Valentine. Hey, it was eat or be eaten. Morgan was tired of going from school to school. What if he couldn’t get another position? He couldn’t live on adjunct pay. Hell, he might actually have to resort to teaching high school. No, he wouldn’t be able to stomach that. Teenagers scared the hell out of him.

Okay, he’d find Ellis. Tell him he was going to read some goddamn poetry and that was it. Morgan would write the poems himself if he had to. All Sherman Ellis would have to do was stand up there and read them without alienating every white person in the room.

nineteen

Jenks had set up the deal for early in the morning.

DelPrego had been strangely eager. Lancaster didn’t want anything to do with it, but Jenks had insisted over and over again that Lancaster would only be required to sit in the car.

Jenks rode between Lancaster and DelPrego in DelPrego’s fifteen-year-old pickup truck. The day was cold but clear, and they drove with the windows down, huddled close across the truck’s bench seat. Jenks wore a heavy army surplus jacket, baggy, big pockets. He pulled his dark blue watch cap over his ears. Lancaster wore a long camel hair coat, slightly worn at the elbows. It had once been an expensive garment, but Lancaster confessed he’d picked it up at a thrift store in Tulsa. DelPrego’s denim jacket was too light for the weather, but the cold never seemed to bother him.

They each sipped a large cup of convenience store coffee.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Lancaster said. “A drug sale. This is nothing but a common drug sale. We’re criminals.”

“A thousand bucks to each of you just to ride along,” Jenks said. “This guy’s a professional dealer. He don’t get it from me, he just gets it from somebody else.”

“Where’d you get all that cocaine?” DelPrego asked.

“Just a fluke. This is my one deal.” Jenks held his coffee cup with both hands, felt the warmth. “As soon as I get this money it’s straight and narrow for me.”

“Good,” Lancaster said. “Otherwise, count me out.”

“Me too,” DelPrego said. “I’m flat-ass broke. They cut off my phone. I need cash so bad I’d sell coke to my grandmother.”

“Okay then. One score and it’s all done.” Jenks pointed to the left. “Down that dirt road.”

“How the hell you know where to go?” DelPrego turned the truck.

“I was out here yesterday to find the guy. He said come back today and he’d have the cash. That’s why I needed you guys.”

“But how did you know the first time?” DelPrego shot a glance at him.

“You keep your ears open and you hear things.”

“I still don’t like it,” Lancaster said.

“We can stop the truck and let you out,” Jenks said.

“I’m just saying I don’t like it,” Lancaster said. “I’m nervous that’s all.”

“Good. Keep you on your toes.”

The land sloped up gently, and they saw the gray, weatherworn barn on a rise a half mile up. They drove toward it easy and slow. A little squat house a few dozen yards from the barn. One half-assed tornado would knock the place to kindling.

“This isn’t where drug dealers live in the movies,” DelPrego said.

Jenks wasn’t listening. He pulled the.32 revolver and the 9mm Glock from two of his baggy pockets. “Here.” He dropped the revolver into Lancaster’s lap.

“What!” Lancaster jerked, looked down at the gun like Jenks had dumped hot coals on his crotch. “I don’t want this thing.”

“Shit.” Jenks slammed a clip into the Glock. “What the fuck you think you’re here for? To keep me company?”

“I don’t want it.” Lancaster looked sick. “You said all I had to do was sit in the car. Give it to Wayne.”

“Don’t bother.” DelPrego reached under his seat, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun. “Twelve-gauge. Loaded with buckshot.” The barrels had been hacked short. The whole gun was barely two feet long, stock and all.

Lancaster groaned.

“Good.” Jenks stuck the Glock in his belt under the army jacket. “You guys hang back. That’s all. If he sees I got backup, he’ll be less likely to pull a funny. Now drive up within a hundred feet of that barn. Nice and slow.”

They finished their coffee, tossed the cups out the window.

Moses Duncan puffed a cigarette, watched through the crack in the barn door as the truck approached. He wore a heavy corduroy jacket which hid the.38 revolver in his belt. The pistol was thirty years old and had been his daddy’s. He’d kept it clean and well oiled over the years, just like Daddy had shown him.

The truck was getting closer, and he could see three men in the front seat. That damn coon had brought friends. Hell, he should have figured. Well, that was okay. He had friends too. Big John up in the loft with a shotgun. His pal Eddie in the house, watching from the front window. Eddie was the most goddamn bad shot Moses had ever seen, but he could make a hell of a lot of noise with his army-issue .45.

The coon had approached him yesterday about buying a buttload of coke at a fraction of the street value, and Moses thought, hell, why not get it for free? The guy was clearly from out of town. Nobody would miss him, and he could feed his body to the pigs. And the coke would be all his. He wouldn’t have to filter the profits back to his contacts down in Oklahoma City. He could get a new Harley. Fix the thermostat in the house. Fix himself up with some new threads. Twenty grand for a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of coke was actually a damn fine deal, but Duncan couldn’t raise twenty grand any more than he could hammer a tent peg through a block of ice with his pecker.

No, there just wasn’t any honest way to do this deal, and frankly Duncan didn’t bet on losing any sleep over it.

Nothing to do now but let the truck get close and park. If he could get the coon into the barn, they could bushwhack him good.

“Stop the truck,” Jenks said.

DelPrego parked the truck a hundred feet from the barn and shifted into park. He left the engine running.

“Here’s how it’s going to happen,” Jenks said. “You guys get out the truck, see. Stand there by the open doors and watch me go toward the guy with the money. Be looking around in case he’s got some buddies. Lancaster, you can leave that.32 in your coat pocket. It’s small enough. Keep your hand in there like you’re staying warm. Keep hold of the gun, be ready to bring it out fast in case some shit happens. You hear?”

Lancaster shook his head. “I changed my mind.” He looked a little green, breath short. “Wayne? You changed your mind too, right? I want to go.”

Jenks ignored Lancaster, nudged DelPrego. “You’ll need to leave that scattergun on the seat, but the door will be open so you can grab it quick if you have to.”

“Right.”

“But your main job is to drive. Some kind of hell breaks loose, you come get me. I’ll jump in the bed so you can drive off quick. Slow down a little, so I can jump in the back.”

“You expect trouble.”

“Just being careful. Lancaster, you got to spray bullets at whoever’s causing the trouble. Keep me covered until I’m in the truck.”

“God. Sherman, look, I don’t want to shoot anybody, okay? I don’t think I can. You said all I had to do was sit in the car.”

“Sit in the car with the gun. You just got to make them duck. Give me a chance to get back.”

“I have to pee.”

“Chances are he’ll give me the money and I’ll give him the powder and that’s that. So you two stay cool. Don’t twitch out on me. Keep your eyes open.”

DelPrego opened their car door, stepped out. Lancaster was frozen in his seat. Jenks slid out DelPrego’s side, walked around, and stood in front of the pickup. DelPrego leaned on the driver’s-side door, the butt of the shotgun on the seat within quick reach.

The barn door creaked open and Moses Duncan stepped out. He had a paper grocery sack under his arm. Jenks tried to eye him for weapons, but that corduroy jacket was so baggy, could have been twenty guns and a bazooka under there. Jenks waved, set the gym bag with the cocaine on the hood of DelPrego’s truck.

“Hey there, boy,” called Duncan. “You’re on time. Good. I got your money right here.”

“Let’s trade,” Jenks said.

“That’s fine. Come on in the barn and we’ll settle up.”

Jenks shook his head. “Out here in the open.”

“Hell, boy, I just want to get out of the wind.” Duncan frowned, rubbed his nose with his thumb. “Besides, I don’t know them two fellows you brought. Sort of makes a man nervous.”

“Look, dude, this is simple,” Jenks said. “You walk this way and I’ll walk to you and we’ll trade in the middle.”

Duncan looked back into the barn, turned again to Jenks. “Yeah, okay.”

They both started walking and met between DelPrego’s pickup and the barn. Jenks dropped the bag at Duncan’s feet.

Duncan smiled big. He was missing a molar toward the back. “Got your cash right here. Had to hit up a few folks to raise this kind of money, but I managed to scrape it together.” Duncan unrolled the top of the grocery sack, started to reach inside.

“Just hand me the bag.” Jenks grabbed it, started to pull it out of Duncan’s hands.

For a split second Duncan resisted, his smile wavering. “No problem. Count it if you want.” He released his grip and Jenks took the sack.

It had happened before that some slick criminal had hidden a gun in the money bag, gone in for greenbacks and came out with the heat. Jenks wasn’t taking any chances. He opened the bag, peeked inside.

DelPrego’s voice came strained and panicked from behind. “Sherman, look out!”

Duncan’s hand was halfway out from under his jacket. Jenks saw the pistol and leapt forward, tossed the bag of money into Duncan’s face, and grabbed at the gun. Duncan kicked him away, pulled the pistol, but Jenks was already swinging. He popped Duncan solid on the nose, pressed it flat. Duncan grunted and his pistol flew, landed behind him.

Jenks went for his Glock, and behind him DelPrego’s shotgun thundered.

Jenks looked up.

A lanky redneck in a blue plaid shirt fell through the open door of the barn’s loft. He tumbled in B-movie slow motion, ragged arms flapping in the air. He did a long slow flip and landed on his back in the dirt.

Explosions from the front window of the house. Shots.

Bullets chewed up the ground around Jenks’s feet, flew over his head, dotted the hood of DelPrego’s truck with metallic ptunks. Jenks fled toward the pickup.

DelPrego was in the driver’s seat and already screaming toward him.

Lancaster dropped the.32 onto the floor of the pickup. He squeezed himself as low and as small as possible. DelPrego slammed on the brakes too late, smacked Jenks in the upper thighs with the front bumper.

Jenks sprawled back, landed hard in the dust. “Fuck!”

Shots from the barn now. Duncan had recovered his pistol and was blasting wildly from the barn door. Most of the shots went high, but one shattered a headlight.

Jenks fired from his back, upside down over his head back at Duncan, didn’t hit anything but sky. Jenks shifted, shot at the house, shattered the glass of the front window into glittering shards.

DelPrego stuck the sawed-off shotgun out the window, fired it one-handed. The buckshot pellets scorched the barn door, but a few ventilated Duncan’s jacket under his left arm. Duncan’s scream was high-pitched, like a frightened animal’s. He ducked back into the barn, pushed the door closed.

Jenks groaned to his feet, hobbled around to the side of the pickup, and threw himself in the bed. He still had the gym bag in a tight grip. “Drive! Get the fuck out of here, man.”

DelPrego drove twenty feet then slammed on the brakes again.

“What are you doing?” Lancaster’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. Shots had erupted again from the house’s front window. “Keep driving.”

“I’m going for the money,” DelPrego shouted. “Cover me.”

DelPrego dashed from the truck, snatched the paper sack out of the dirt.

“Cover you? What?” Lancaster yelled after him.

Jenks raised his head from the back of the pickup, saw what DelPrego was doing. “Run, white boy. Move your ass.” He pointed the Glock at the house, unloaded the rest of his clip, the pistol bucking in his hand. More glass rained.

DelPrego jumped back in the truck, tossed the sack into Lancaster’s lap.

He slapped the truck in gear and fishtailed around, stomped the gas. He clipped Duncan’s mailbox as he made the turn out of the driveway. The mailbox made a hollow pop and spun off into the hedges. He hauled ass down the narrow dirt road, the plume of dust behind him like some kind of freak sandstorm. Each bump and dip almost tossed Jenks out of the back. He only slowed down when they finally reached the highway.

DelPrego pointed the truck back toward town, chest heaving. Lancaster still shook.

In the bed, Jenks lay flat on his back, looked up unblinking at the cloudless blue sky stretching wide and forever. After a few minutes he climbed to one knee and knocked on the little window in back of the cab.

Lancaster slid it open.

“Check the money,” Jenks said.

Lancaster opened the bag, pulled out a wad of newspaper cut to seem like bills. He dumped the whole bag onto the floor of the pickup at his feet. It was all newspaper.

“Oh, no,” Lancaster said. “We were almost killed. Almost shot for shredded newspaper. I can’t believe I let you two talk me into this.”

Jenks wasn’t listening. He was already trying to figure what his next move would be.

“Cheer up.” DelPrego grinned big at Lancaster. “If it makes you feel any better, you can have my share.”

Moses Duncan unbuttoned his jacket with trembling hands. His ribs blazed. He felt warm and wet under his shirt. He peeled the jacket off, explored his side with tentative fingers. It stung. He wiped the blood away, made himself look.

One of the shotgun pellets had only scraped him, a deep gash, plenty of blood.

Nervous laughter spilled out of him. He thought the shotgun had ended him, the hot stab of pain when the guy in the truck had squeezed one off. He ripped off his T-shirt, bunched it against the wound.

He looked outside, saw Big John flat on his back.

“Hell.”

He took two halting steps toward the house, saw the shattered glass of the front window. He tried to shout “Eddie” but it came out hoarse and choked. He was shivering now, breath coming in short, aching gasps. He gathered his voice. “Eddie!”

Nothing.

twenty

Deke Stubbs sat across from the bored police sergeant, trying not to look as impatient as he felt. The sergeant was on the phone and didn’t seem in any kind of hurry to get back to the P.I.

Stubbs craned his neck, looked around the station. It was a pretty rinky-dink, tinstar operation. They probably handled minor crime, drunk college kids, traffic tickets, the usual. The sergeant wore his khaki shirt with the top two buttons open. A big straw hat pushed back on his head, and a police revolver slung low on his hip like a gunfighter’s. He probably had a lasso in his pickup.

Stubbs didn’t think he was going to get much from the local law, but he thought he might as well work the case by the numbers. The Walshes had called the cops when they hadn’t heard from their daughter in four days. According to Eileen Walsh the cops were “impotent yahoos.” Probably true. In any case, he was obligated to stop in and see if there’d been any developments.

The sergeant hung up the phone. His eyes focused on Stubbs again, and he frowned. “Oh, yeah. Now what can we do you for, Mr. Stunk?” His voice had a deep twang.

“It’s Stubbs.” He stuck a cigarette between his lips. “I told you already, Sarge. I’m following up on a missing college kid. Annie Walsh. Her parents called you and made a report.”

“Don’t light that. No smoking in county buildings.”

Stubbs stuck the cigarette behind his ear. He looked at the cop’s name tag. “Listen, Sergeant Hightower, maybe this is a bother for you, but the parents are really worried. How about you just check the files?”

Hightower nodded, smacked his teeth, and ran a thumb over the stubble on his chin. “Well, let me tell you something, Stubbs. Better yet, let me show you something.” He stood slowly, shuffled to a file cabinet behind his desk. He opened the top drawer, pulled out a thick file, and put it in front of Stubbs as he sat down again.

“That’s just this last eighteen months or so,” Hightower said. “All parents who’ve called about missing kids. Nearly four hundred on file. Half these parents phone all panicked if the kids miss responding to one e-mail. And the kids, hell, they get a taste of freedom and that’s all she wrote. You think they always tell their folks when they run off with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or join some cult or even just load up a van full of beer with some fraternity buddies and head to Mexico? Shit no. Most of them turn up a week or a month later and can’t believe anybody was looking for them. And one more thing. Once the little spoiled brats leave the county, it ain’t our problem no more. We’ll forward the report to the State Police if someone requests it, but it almost never gets that far.”

“What about the ones dead or kidnapped?”

Hightower sighed. “It happens, but not often and not recently.”

“Annie Walsh has been missing two weeks.”

“Hell, she could be in Colorado skiing.”

“Or she could be dead.”

“True enough,” Hightower said. “But until we get a body or some other kind of evidence it just ain’t a priority.”

Stubbs grinned and stood. “Thanks, Sarge. It’s cops like you that keep guys like me in business.”

Hightower frowned, watched the private investigator shake his head as he left the police station.

Stubbs drove in ever-widening circles around the little college town. He wasn’t sight-seeing or getting the lay of the land although maybe that was a good idea. He simply thought better while driving. He hung one arm out the open window of the Dodge, let the cold blast him sharp in the face. It felt good.

He wasn’t thinking about how to go about his investigation. That was no problem. He just needed to find a thread, some kind of trail, then he’d keep following it until it led to Annie Walsh. Someone had seen or talked to the girl. Stubbs just needed to find out who.

How far could he string the Walshes along? Stubbs got paid by the day, and this wouldn’t be the first time he took a more or less straightforward case and stretched it out like he was searching for the Lindbergh baby. He figured he could feed the Walshes little tidbits of information every two or three days, who he’d interviewed, where he’d been. From their end it would look like he was doing a lot of work.

Okay, so what was the first stop? He checked his notepad, read the address for Annie’s apartment. Maybe the roommate would be home. A good place to start.

The girl was a stick figure, sickly pale, glasses thick. Lips fat and dark red. She looked at Stubbs through the door crack and over the chain. “Yeah?”

“I’m Deke Stubbs. Sorry to bother you. I’m a private investigator. Annie’s parents hired me to look for her. Can we talk?”

She unchained the door and opened it a bit wider, leaned against the door frame, looking up at Stubbs without any particular expectations.

Stubbs checked his notepad. “You’re Tiffany?”

“Just Tiff.”

“Sure. You mind if I come in?”

She thought about it a little too long, but then stepped aside. Stubbs walked in, looked the place over. Secondhand furniture, a futon couch, prints of classic paintings cheaply framed. The living room turned into the dining room with a small kitchen on the side.

“When was the last time you saw Annie?” he asked.

“I’ve already been through this with Annie’s mom,” she said. “All I know is she’s not here and rent’s due in a week.”

“Yeah, that’s a drag, but it would help. Really.”

“It was right after the start of school, about two weeks ago. Maybe a bit more, but I didn’t think much about it when I didn’t see her for a while.”

“Why’s that?”

“I didn’t say this to Annie’s mom, but in my opinion the girl was pretty much a slut. I’m sorry if that’s offensive.”

“I’m not offended.”

“When a girl has a different boyfriend one right after another, she’s a slut. So I hardly ever saw her sometimes. She’d stop in to check mail or change clothes or whatever, but she’d sleep out a lot of nights.”

“Do you have names for any of these guys?”

“It wasn’t any of my business, and I didn’t care and I didn’t want to know. Sometimes older men would come pick her up. You know what I mean by older.”

“It doesn’t sound like you liked her.”

“She was just a roommate.”

“Can I look in her room?”

Tiff shrugged. “It’s through there.”

She led him past a bathroom down a short hall, opened a door. A tiny bedroom. Clothes piled on the bed and behind the door. No pictures on the wall. Spartan.

Stubbs opened dresser drawers, pushed the clothes around. Nothing.

“What are you looking for?” Tiff acted like somebody who didn’t want to seem interested but was.

“I don’t know.” Stubbs looked under the bed. “Anything helpful.”

“She didn’t have a lot of stuff,” Tiff said. “All the furniture is mine.”

Stubbs circled to the other side of the bed. He’d tuned the girl out. He sat on the bed, ran his hands between the mattress and box spring. His fingers hit something.

“Can I get a glass of water?” He rubbed his throat. “Dust.”

“Sure.” She left.

Stubbs pulled out the book. It was a journal, fake-leather bound, lined blank pages like they had in most bookstores. He thumbed through it quickly. It was half journal and half poetry notebook. Some of the entries had dates. Many didn’t. He closed it and shoved it in his jacket pocket.

Tiff returned and gave him the water.

He gulped, smacked his lips. “Thanks.” He handed the glass back to her. “I guess that’s all. Nothing here.”

“Sorry.”

“Just routine. Had to give it a try.” He took a business card out of his wallet. “My number’s on here. Give me a ring if you hear from Annie or find out anything useful. Her folks are worried.”

“Okay.”

He gave her a final wave as he left the duplex. He slouched into the Dodge and pointed it toward a TGI Friday’s he’d seen on the way into town. He’d have a beer and go through the journal.

A thread, that was all he needed. The little start of a trail to follow.

twenty-one

Jenks, DelPrego, and Lancaster stood around the hood of DelPrego’s pickup in dreary silence. Jenks quietly puffed a Philly Blunt. They were parked in front of Jenks’s garage apartment. The neighborhood was still, most everyone at work or school.

DelPrego fingered one of the ragged bullet holes in the hood. “They shot my truck.”

They lapsed back into silence. Lancaster shifted from one foot to another.

Jenks sucked deep on the cigar, held the smoke in his lungs, then let it out in a long gray stream. He looked at DelPrego. “You ran me over, you dumbass.”

“Yeah.” DelPrego’s grin was a bit forced. “Sorry about that.”

“This is pointless,” Lancaster said abruptly. “Sherman, if you’re smart you’ll flush that stuff down the toilet and never think about it again.”

Jenks nodded, puffed, scratched his chin, and considered the gym bag still in the bed of the pickup. Lancaster was right, but Jenks just couldn’t bring himself to do it. A hundred grand of coke. There had to be a way he could turn a buck on the stuff. He might have to go to Tulsa to make some kind of deal or maybe OK City.

“I want to go home.” Lancaster looked pointedly at DelPrego.

DelPrego asked Jenks, “You need a ride anyplace? I’m going to take him.”

Jenks continued to stare straight ahead. “Go ahead. See you in class.”

DelPrego and Lancaster climbed into the pickup. DelPrego leaned out his window. His wide grin was genuine this time. “Cheer up, Sherm. We’ll think of something.”

That boy always thinks some shit is funny. Jenks fought down his own grin.

DelPrego backed out of the driveway, Jenks still staring at his shoes and absently smoking the cigar. The truck was already two blocks away and turning the corner when Jenks’s head snapped up. He ran after the truck, waved his arms. “Wait!”

They didn’t hear, kept driving.

The gym bag was still in the back of the pickup. Shit. Jenks flicked the stub of the cigar into the street. Anyway, he’d call Wayne. Tell him to bring the bag in, hide it in back of a closet or something and get it from him later.

He climbed the stairs to his apartment, unlocked the door, and went in.

Quick, strong hands grabbed him. A punch in the gut. Jenks coughed air, doubled over. The hands shoved him to the floor, and he landed hard.

“What the fuck!” Jenks looked up. Red Zach towered over him.

Jenks felt his stomach heave. “Oh, shit.”

“You’re damn right, oh shit. I should bust a cap in your black ass right here.”

Zach wore a lime-green suit with a black shirt. Two of his bruisers flanked him, thick-necked sons of bitches with shaved heads and dark glasses. Spoon Oliver sat on the bed. He sported two swollen eyes and a split lip. Zach’s boys had worked him over good.

“I want my goddamn coke,” Zach said. “Or you’re one dead nigger. You’re already in for two broken legs.”

“Zach-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Zach kicked Jenks hard in the ribs.

Jenks glanced at Spoon, but Spoon wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Your boy ain’t going to help you,” Zach said. “He gave you up quick. We had to pop him a few times, but he was only too happy to talk. He told us all about Sherman Ellis and your damn-fool fucked-up idea to come here and pose like a college boy.” Zach laughed without humor, a grim chuckle. He shook his head. “Like you could make these folks think you was college educated.”

Zach squatted next to Jenks, gathered a fistful of Jenks’s shirt. He pulled Jenks close and spit in his face. Jenks winced like it was acid. Saliva ran down the side of his nose.

“Anything I can’t hold with, it’s an uppity nigger thinks he’s better than the rest of the folks from the hood.” Zach let go of Jenks. “You’re nothing. You hear that? You stick with me and let me guide you, you could have been something. But now you’re nothing.”

Zach stood, straightened his jacket. He pulled a fat, silver revolver from his belt and thumbed back the hammer, pointed it at Jenks’s head. “I want my coke, you dumb shit.”

“I can call-” Shit. Jenks remembered Wayne DelPrego’s phone had been cut off. “I can get it. Damn, Zach, you know I wouldn’t-”

“Shut your fucking mouth, nigger.”

“I’m just saying, you got to let me explain about-”

Zach lifted his foot and stomped his heel across Jenks’s mouth, mashed his lips against his teeth. Blood smeared down Jenks’s chin. One of his lower teeth was loose.

“Save the bullshit. You’re close to being a dead motherfucker, Harold Jenks. Now save your life and get my fucking cocaine.” Zach pressed the barrel of the pistol against Jenks’s head. “Or am I saying something too hard for you to understand? I think I’m saying some pretty simple shit here, but let me know if I’m going too fast for you.”

“I hear you,” Jenks said. His lips throbbed. “But it’s not here.”

“We know that, motherfucker. We already looked.”

“I can get it.”

And he would. You didn’t cross Red Zach. It was like a law of nature. The tides, the rotation of the Earth, the flow of time and Red Zach. Jenks had been crazy to try. Now he was looking at a pair of broken legs if he was lucky. A one-way trip to the bottom of a lake if he wasn’t.

“If you just wait an hour,” Jenks said, “I can bring you the stuff.”

Zach kicked him in the side of the head. Jenks went flat to the floor, bells going off in his head, his ear buzzing hot where the heel of Zach’s shoe had dug in.

“How fucking stupid you think I am?” Zach said. “You think I’m going to let you cut out again? You know how much trouble I had already tracking you down to this shithole, redneck town? I got a car around back. We’ll take you. Keep an eye on you the whole way.”

Red Zach’s stretch limo eased to a stop in front of Wayne DelPrego’s shabby trailer. The pickup was parked out front. Jenks had half hoped DelPrego would be gone. No such luck.

“I’ll go in and get it,” Jenks said.

“I’ll send one of my boys to keep you company,” Zach said. He nudged one of the bruisers, who got out of the limo.

Jenks got out too. He walked ahead, the bruiser right on his heels. “Yo. What’s your name?” Jenks asked.

“My name is Mr. Stomp-your-punk-ass if you trying anything,” said the gangster. “Just keep walking.”

As they passed the pickup, Jenks glanced into the bed. No gym bag.

Jenks climbed the three metal steps and knocked on the trailer door, the bruiser crowding him close from behind. Nobody answered. Jenks knocked again. He was sweating now, feeling a little dizzy. Come on Wayne, you dumb shit. These motherfuckers are going to bag my ass. Be home.

“Try the knob.” The bruiser shoved his shoulder.

“Okay, man. Take it easy.”

Jenks turned the knob, pushed. The door swung inward. The bruiser shoved again, and they both entered the trailer. Jenks thought about calling Wayne’s name but didn’t. The trailer smelled like burnt coffee. It was a cramped single-wide, the kitchen/dining room to the right, a narrow hall leading left.

“Where’s the coke?” the bruiser asked.

“We have to look for it.”

“Best get looking then.” The bruiser cracked his knuckles.

“Cool it, okay? Let me look around.”

“I’ll come with.”

They walked down the hall, and Jenks looked in two of the open doors, a dingy bathroom with a wad of dirty towels on the floor and a small bedroom full of junk. The door at the end of the hall was closed.

The bruiser crossed his arms behind Jenks; he was becoming bored with the situation. “Last door.”

“Uh-huh.” Jenks opened it, walked into the trailer’s master bedroom.

He turned and stood there, looking back through the door at the bruiser. He didn’t move.

“Well?” The bruiser looked at Jenks expectantly.

Jenks looked back at him, face blank.

“You just going to stand there, nigger?”

“I need you to help me move the bed. The stuff is in the floor underneath.”

“Move it your own damn self.”

“Don’t be like that. Help me move this.”

The bruiser sighed, walked into the bedroom. “I don’t get paid to be no-”

The golf club smacked into the side of the bruiser’s head with a sickening crunch. The bruiser stumbled forward, frantic, high-pitched screams jumping out of his throat. He tried to go into his jacket for his gun.

DelPrego leapt from his hiding spot beside his dresser, swung the club again in a long, overhand arc, brought it down with a loud thwack on top of the bruiser’s skull. The bruiser’s eyes rolled back. He pitched forward, landed facefirst, and didn’t move.

DelPrego’s eyes were wild and jittery. “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.” He knelt next to the bruiser and dropped the club, threw open the unconscious man’s jacket. An enormous automatic pistol hung from a shoulder holster. DelPrego drew it from the holster, held it up to his eyes. It said Desert Eagle.357 on the side. “Oh shit shit shit.”

Jenks said, “Goddamn. You whacked him good. I bet he’s dead.”

“Shit shit shit shit. I saw you guys coming, looked like trouble.” DelPrego’s eyes bounced between the dead man and the gun in his own hand. “I thought you needed help-this guy-I was just trying to help!”

DelPrego was wired, freaked out. Jenks shook him by the shoulder. “Wayne, listen to me. This guy’s just the tip of the motherfucking iceberg. You got a back door?”

DelPrego stood, grabbed his denim jacket off the bed. “This way.”

“Wait!” Jenks grabbed DelPrego’s arm. “Where’s the coke?”

“It ain’t here.”

“What!”

“I stashed it.” DelPrego jerked his arm away from Jenks. “Come on.”

He led Jenks back to the kitchen. On the way, Jenks glanced out the window. Zach’s other bruiser was out of the limo and coming toward the trailer.

“We got to hurry.”

DelPrego threw open the back door and jumped. No steps. Jenks followed, tumbled on the grass, but jumped up again quick. The backyard led to trees.

“Come on,” yelled DelPrego. He ran for the trees.

The other bruiser came around the far end of the trailer, gun drawn. He spotted Jenks.

Jenks followed DelPrego into the trees. Thick underbrush, limbs, and vines grabbing at Jenks’s arms and face.

“You’re dead, Jenks.” Shots tore through the trees, whipped overhead.

Jenks plunged after DelPrego farther into the bush. Jenks had thought this merely a stand of trees. He’d expected to come through them, emerge on the other side in another neighborhood, but this was deep, dark, no-shit jungle. He prayed DelPrego knew where he was going.

“Jenks!” More shots. But both shots and shouts were more distant now. Zach’s thug wasn’t following them into the woods.

Jenks didn’t slow down. He pumped his legs, dodged low-hanging branches trying to keep up with DelPrego. He’d never seen a white boy run so fast.

twenty-two

Maybe we should take a break,” Fred Jones said. “You seem distracted.”

“I’m sorry.” Morgan shuffled the stack of poems, set them aside. “I’m worried about one of my students. He wasn’t in class.” Neither Sherman Ellis nor Wayne DelPrego had shown for yesterday’s workshop. When Morgan had asked Timothy Lancaster about it, the young man simply looked nervous and denied knowing anything. And Lancaster sported a wicked bruise across the bridge of his nose.

Morgan hadn’t asked.

The university poetry reading was only a week away. He needed to get in touch with Ellis. Soon.

“Here.” Fred Jones handed a cellophane-wrapped cigar to Morgan. “It’s a Macanudo. Smoke it.”

“I don’t smoke, but thanks,” Morgan said.

“No, smoke it for me.” The old man folded his gnarled hands on the table in front of him. He had a long face, weary and slack with age. “Please,” he said again quietly. “The doctor don’t let me smoke ’em no more, but I like the smell. I ain’t smelled one in months and I’m going loopy.”

“Okay.” Morgan unwrapped it, stuck it in his mouth.

“You’ve got to bite the end first,” Jones said. “Or just nip a piece off with this. Just enough to draw air.” He pulled a penknife out of his baggy trousers, handed it to Morgan.

Morgan sliced off the end like he was cutting a carrot and stuck the cigar in his mouth. “I don’t think I have any matches.”

“I figured.” Jones slid a gold lighter across the table. Expensive and old.

Morgan lit the cigar, puffed. The smoke went to his nose, hit the back of his throat hot and rough. He coughed.

“Don’t suck it in your lungs. Just puff slow and easy. It’ll last a while if you don’t suck it too fast.”

“Okay.” Morgan puffed again, blew out a cloud of blue-gray smoke.

Jones closed his eyes, ran a hand over his freckled, bald head. He breathed deep. “Boy, that takes me back.”

Morgan was getting the hang of it, not inhaling too deep. “Let me know if I can take a few shots of bourbon for you or run some call girls in here.”

The old man chuckled.

“This could be a poem,” Morgan said.

“You write it.”

Morgan was already juggling the syntax in his head, listing words that might go in the poem. Surrogate seemed too formal. The tone would have to be nostalgic, sweetly sad. He looked around for a pen, found one, and scratched a note to himself.

“Bob doesn’t smoke for you?” Morgan meant the ever-hungry giant who chauffeured Jones and ran his errands.

“Asthma,” Jones said.

Morgan flicked the ashes into a half-empty coffee cup. “Why poetry, Mr. Jones?”

“Because I don’t paint.”

Fair enough. “I’ve noticed a sort of submerged theme in your work. It’s reoccurs quite often.”

“What do you mean?”

“Easier to show you. Once I point it out, I’m sure you’ll see.” He pulled two of Jones’s poems from the stack, turned them around, and slid them side by side in front of the old man. “Read these and think about them thematically.”

Jones didn’t read them. “What the hell you talking about? Two completely different poems. This one’s about an arsonist and this other one is a man who kills people with piano wire.”

“Geeze, these things are so violent.”

“So what?”

Morgan shrugged. “In any case, those are just the vehicles,” Morgan said. He kept the cigar in the side of his mouth as he talked. He was beginning to like it. “Let me show you something.” He stood, scanned the bookshelf in his living room, and came back to the table with The Collected Works of Wallace Stevens. “Listen.” He read a poem:

“What’s going on in the poem?” Morgan waited, puffed the cigar.

Jones turned the book toward him. He read again silently, his lips moving. “This jar is changing everything just by being there. It’s making itself the center of the world.”

“But is it really?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it really doing anything? It’s just sitting there, right?”

Jones thought for a long time. Morgan didn’t mind. He was enjoying the cigar. He thought a cold beer would go well with the smoke, but it was still before noon and Morgan had recently set some new rules for himself.

He was getting his shit together.

Jones leaned back in his chair, rubbed his chin. “You know what I think?”

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s both,” the old man said. “I think it’s doing nothing and everything at the same time. I think it’s only perception that makes it seem like it’s changing everything. Then again, maybe perception is all we got, right? So changing perception is like changing reality.”

Morgan took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at Jones.

Jones scanned the poem again. “Jesus. That’s a pretty fucking good poem. Once you figure it out.”

“Yes.”

“Got any more like this?”

“You can borrow the book.”

“Thanks.”

Morgan said, “That’s pretty smart, Mr. Jones. Not a lot of people get it right off.”

“Thanks, but I’d trade being smart for being able to smoke that cigar.”

The phone rang. Morgan set the cigar across the top of the coffee cup, excused himself, and picked it up in the kitchen.

“Morgan, is that you?” Louis Reams’s voice was edgy and hushed.

“It’s me.” Morgan hadn’t spoken to the professor since the bicycle incident.

“Have you seen Pritcher? The big faker is walking around campus wearing this ridiculous neck brace. He’s been asking a lot of very pointed questions too.”

“I think you need to consider that he might really have been seriously hurt,” Morgan said.

“Ha. I know better. He’s out to get me. Yes, I admit it was a lapse in judgment, a bit juvenile.”

“A bit.”

“But now he sees his chance. If he can prove I did it, he’ll have me by the balls. That’s just what he wants, the son of a bitch. Morgan, you didn’t mention what happened to anybody did you?”

“No.”

“I need you to keep it under your hat. You wouldn’t tell would you? That would be playing right into his hands.”

“I said I hadn’t mentioned it.”

“You won’t will you?”

“I’ll keep quiet.”

“Good man.” Reams sounded relieved. “I knew I could count on you. I’m going to pay you back.”

“That’s okay.”

“Really. I want to show my appreciation.”

“Reams, I don’t want you to pay me back.”

Reams didn’t hear. “I know a fellow down at San Gabriel College in Houston. They’re going to need a one-year poet next fall.”

Now Morgan was listening. He’d sent out at least thirty applications for next fall and had turned up nothing. Securing a job for next year would take a big load off his mind. And he wouldn’t have to track down Ellis for the ridiculous poetry reading. Wouldn’t have to be under Whittaker’s thumb.

“I’m listening,” Morgan said.

“Not now,” Reams said. “Got to go. Got to keep an eye out for Pritcher. Can’t stay in one spot too long.”

“Reams-”

He’d already hung up.

Morgan returned to the table. “Sorry.”

“You’ll let it go out.” Jones pointed at the cigar.

“Right.” He stuck it back in his mouth, resuscitated the glowing tip with sharp puffs.

“You know what that jar poem made me think of?”

Morgan kept puffing but arched his eyebrows.

“When I was ten years old, my father took me camping way back in the Catskills,” Jones said. “It wasn’t like it is now. You could find a forest, go back in there for days.”

“Did you fish?”

“No. Just hiking. I liked to build campfires, cook over the wood coals. For some reason a hot dog tastes better in the woods. You get away from the city and you can really see the stars.”

“I like to fish,” Morgan said. “Supposed to be some good trout streams over the line into Arkansas.”

“I’m in the middle of a fucking story here.”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Anyway I’m hiking pretty far. Dad and me had been hiking all day and it was starting to get dark and we’re way gone into the woods, deeper than we’ve ever been before. I’m thinking maybe we’re walking in a spot where nobody’s ever been before. Maybe we’re the first people ever. You ever think that when you were a kid?”

“Yes.”

“So I’m thinking maybe Indians had been here, but other than that we were the first. I guess even at ten I thought maybe that wasn’t true, but a ten-year-old can think anything. That’s the genius of being ten. Anything can be true. And it’s a split second-literally the next second-after I think this that I take one more step and see a beer bottle, a Pabst.”

Morgan started to laugh, shut himself up.

The old man shook his head. “The whole forest arranged itself around that beer bottle, my whole life. Everything I thought. Like that jar on a hill in Tennessee. Seems dumb, I guess. But I was mad about that bottle for a long time. Not because of littering. I don’t give a shit about that. Because it took away what it felt like to be ten.”

Morgan puffed the cigar. The old man closed his eyes and smelled it.

“Maybe I talk too much,” Jones said.

“No. I know what you mean.”

“What about you?” Jones scooted forward in his chair. “Something’s gnawing on you. I can tell.”

“I’m supposed to get one of my students to do a poetry reading in a week, but I think he’s skipped out on me.”

“Kids.” Jones waved his hands like that covered the whole subject.

“What about you, Mr. Jones? Ever read your poems in front of people?”

Jones said, “You ever drop your britches and wave your pecker at a passing bus?”

twenty-three

Moses Duncan drove his pal Eddie home from the county hospital. They’d told the doctor that the broken window which caused the dozens of cuts on Eddie’s face had been shattered by a hard-thrown baseball. Eddie’s entire face was wrapped in gauze like a mummy’s, only slits for his eyes and nostrils. His lips had been badly lacerated, so he didn’t have a mouth hole.

“Mmmmph. Mmm mmmph,” Eddie said.

“Don’t you sweat it, Eddie.” Duncan gripped the steering wheel tight. He still burned with hatred, the image of Big John’s body sprawled in the dust branded on his mind’s eye. His side stung too from the slight buckshot wound. “We’ll get that coon and his buddies too. We’ll go home and get the shotguns and we’ll find that son of a bitch.”

“Mmmph.”

“You leave that to me,” Duncan said. “Not many black guys around here. Hell, we’ll just cruise up and down every street until we find him if we have to. Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

“Mmmmph umph mmmmph.”

“Damn straight.” Duncan wondered how he understood Eddie so well. “You know I think I’d of been a good dentist. I could probably understand folks even with my hands in their mouths.”

“Mmmph Ummm Mmmph.”

Duncan frowned. “No need to get nasty, Eddie. Just ain’t called for.”

“Mmph.”

“Okay, then.”

Red Zach sat in the back of his limo. He was pissed. Why couldn’t it just be easy for once?

Spoon sat across from him, one of Zach’s big goons uncomfortably close. Spoon looked drained, broken, and scared. He kept his eyes on the floor of the car.

Okay, Zach had to get in character, so he could play hard-ass with Spoon. Not for the first time, Zach supposed he needed to train some middle-management personnel, a couple of good men to do all this bruiser work. Zach could lounge on the beach in Antigua and hear all about it via cell phone or e-mail. The key to an operation like this was to get it on autopilot as much as possible. Zach wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and the dirty work.

But until then, if he wanted shit done right, he’d have to do it himself.

“Your boy Harold killed one of mine in that trailer,” Zach said. “You don’t think I can just let that go, do you?”

Spoon shook his head.

“Where’s he going now?”

“I don’t know, Red. Shit, he don’t tell me nothing.”

“That’s what you said the first time,” Zach said. “Once we helped you remember, you told us about Harold coming to Oklahoma.”

Spoon’s hand went to his split lip. “I don’t know, man. You got to believe me.”

Zach smiled. “Okay, I believe you.” He nodded to the goon.

Moving fast, the goon looped the length of piano wire over Spoon’s neck, yanked. Spoon’s eyes bulged. His tongue popped from his mouth. His whole face bunched tight like the last bit of toothpaste being squeezed from the tube.

Zach flipped open his cell phone and thumbed the speed-dial. “This is Red. I need all the boys down here right now.”

Spoon kicked. The goon hanging tight. Blood from Spoon’s throat.

Zach wasn’t paying attention anymore. “Don’t waste my time asking why. Get the fuck down here and make sure everyone’s packing heat. We going to make an example.”

Spoon went slack, eyes wide. The body slumped to the car floor.

Zach folded the cell phone closed, looked at the body and the goon and the blood. “Goddammit. You got blood on the seat. Shit.”

The goon hung his head, looked sheepish.

Deke Stubbs had found a lot of names and a lot of secrets in Annie Walsh’s journal. Two names stood out. Moses Duncan and Timothy Lancaster. Annie had tried to be subtle in some of her journal entries, but it was obvious that Duncan was her connection. A good possibility.

Duncan wasn’t in the phone book, but Lancaster was. His apartment was close.

The two beers Stubbs had swilled at Friday’s put him in the mood for more. He stopped at a Quickie-Mart and bought a six-pack of Busch and a copy of Hustler. He drank one in the parking lot and flipped through the jack-off magazine. He was getting crazy horny again. Something happened to Stubbs when he saw skin. It made him desperate crazy. Maybe that’s why he was always forking over big bucks to get his rocks off.

He threw the magazine into the backseat before it made him too crazy. He flipped through Annie Walsh’s journal instead.

Apparently, Annie had boinked this Lancaster kid a month back as some sort of experiment. The journal said that Lancaster “intrigued” her.

A place to start. A thread.

Stubbs pulled out of the parking lot, tossed the empty beer can into the backseat. He opened another, slurped, held the can between his legs, and pointed the Dodge toward Lancaster’s apartment.

He was in no particular hurry. He was getting paid by the day.

twenty-four

Jenks scooted close to the little campfire DelPrego had built. They were deep in the strange woods, glowing eyes watching from the shadows. Jenks gritted his teeth against the wind that whistled through the branches.

“We can’t stay out here.” For the first time, DelPrego showed he was aware of the cold. “This fire ain’t enough. I can’t feel my damn fingers.” He blew on them, held them toward the fire. The wind stung his ears.

Jenks didn’t say anything. He was cold too, but didn’t know where to go. He couldn’t go back to his garage apartment, that was for damn sure.

“Let’s get my truck,” DelPrego said. “We could sneak back slow. Check it out. If we can get to the truck, we can go anywhere.”

“Shit on that idea. You don’t know Red Zach. I’d rather freeze than have my own balls fed to me.”

A long silence before DelPrego spoke. “What’s going on?”

Jenks looked at the fire, didn’t say anything.

“Sherman.” DelPrego raised his voice. “Who’s Jenks? He called you Jenks.”

“Never mind.”

“Fuck that. Talk to me. I killed-” DelPrego’s voice caught. He swallowed hard. “I bashed a man’s skull in with a golf club. I thought I was doing it to save a friend.” His voice shook, tight, nerves raw. “Now you goddamn tell me what’s going on right fucking now.”

Jenks opened his mouth, shut it again. He needed to gather himself.

“I’ll tell you, but you got to let me tell it all.”

“Fine.”

“You got to listen,” Jenks said. “You got to let me get it all out, try to understand where I’m coming from.”

“I said fine.”

Jenks let it all spill out, Spoon and the alley and Sherman Ellis. He told him about his crazy idea to steal Ellis’s life, slip into Eastern Oklahoma University, and write poetry. It had been his way out, his way to shed the ghetto and the drug trade and all the gangster bullshit. And he realized he was telling the story for himself too, trying to downplay his part in Ellis’s death. He needed to believe, even more than he needed to convince DelPrego, that what he had done was forgivable. Or at least understandable.

And by the end of Jenks’s story, the truth had shifted, taken on a new shade. He told DelPrego that his old life, his old patterns, the old ways had such deep hooks in him, that only a crazy plan could get him free. Sherman Ellis had lost his life, but Jenks could resurrect it again, make it work for good. Sherman Ellis’s death could save Harold Jenks.

Jenks’s story trickled out. He looked at DelPrego, but couldn’t see his expression in the dark. The fire had dwindled, the coals casting them in a dim, hellish orange. The silence stretched.

“Wayne?”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“I had to do what I had to-”

“Stop talking right now.”

Jenks started to bark at DelPrego. Fuck you, man. You don’t know what I had to live with. He clapped his mouth shut, saw the bulk clenched in DelPrego’s fist glinting orange and metallic in the light of the coals. It was the big automatic DelPrego had taken off Zach’s boy. The complexion of Jenks’s situation shifted uneasily. He was aware of the woods again. It would be a long time before a body was found out here. DelPrego wasn’t quite pointing the pistol at him, but Jenks kept his mouth shut.

“I’m going to tell you something,” DelPrego said at last. “I don’t know anything about your life. Maybe we had to kill that guy in the trailer or be killed ourselves.”

DelPrego’s voice tightened. “But you can’t steal education, man. It’s up here.” He tapped his head with the pistol barrel. “You can steal a car or a radio or a big-ass bag full of drugs, but you can’t steal an education.”

“I’m not hurting anybody.”

“Fuck you.” DelPrego stood, sudden, violent, knocking sticks into the fire and spreading the coals. Sparks. “You’re hurting me, man. Me. I worked my ass off for my college education. I pulled third shift as a security guard at a rendering plant, stayed up all night wired on coffee reading Milton and Shakespearean sonnets and smelling hog stink just so I could pay rent and buy books. My senior year, I slept more nights in the library than I did in my bed.”

He exhaled raggedly, sat down again hard. “Maybe my life wasn’t dangerous. Maybe my neighborhood wasn’t as tough, but I earned my education.” He tapped the side of his head again. “Everything in here belongs to me.”

DelPrego stood, shook the gun at Jenks. “This fucking thing is your way.” He turned, tossed the pistol into the woods.

Jenks felt hot in the face. DelPrego made him mad and guilty. “That’s right. You didn’t come from my neighborhood. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I’ll bet Sherman Ellis did.”

The words hit Jenks like a punch in the gut. DelPrego had said what Jenks secretly already knew deep in his heart. Sherman Ellis had earned his way. Sherman Ellis had worked for it. Jenks had tried to sneak in the back door.

Jenks wiped at his eyes. “Fucking campfire. Too much smoke.”

The fire’s orange glow faded.

“What’s your name?”

Jenks looked up. “W-w-what?” He was freezing.

“Your real name.”

“Harold Jenks.”

“Okay.”

Jenks said, “I know it won’t work, so don’t worry about me. Shit, you should see how the professors look at me. They know something ain’t right. I can’t do it, so don’t worry. I’m not stealing anything.” He sniffed, wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Only class I’m keeping up in is the poetry workshop, and that’s only because I’m as bad as everybody else.”

DelPrego laughed sudden and hard, the tension draining. “Shit. Professor Morgan. What would he say?” More laughter.

Jenks laughed too, wiped his eyes again. When the laughter spent itself, he asked, “You still mad?”

DelPrego said, “Mostly I’m cold.”

“Me too. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Where?”

Jenks stood, stomped his feet. They felt like lead bricks. “Anyplace indoors.”

DelPrego snapped his fingers. “I know, follow me. The back of the campus is only about a mile this way.” He headed off into the underbrush.

Jenks followed, shoving his way through the branches. He was so cold he could barely move. They made their way slowly.

“Wayne?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s the gym bag?” Jenks hesitated to raise this question, but he had to know.

“I stashed it. Someplace safe.”

“Where?”

“Someplace safe.”

So that’s how it is, thought Jenks. Okay. I won’t press it for now.

They found an open window and climbed in. Jenks was so happy to be in the relative warmth of the classroom he didn’t bother asking DelPrego why they’d broken into Albatross Hall. At least it was unlikely Red Zach would find them there.

“Come on.” DelPrego led him out of the classroom and down the hall to the stairwell.

They climbed.

The fifth floor looked deserted. Dark.

“What are we doing here?” Jenks asked.

“Quiet.” DelPrego froze, listened. “You hear that?”

Jenks listened too. “Music.”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Wagner,” DelPrego said.

DelPrego walked faster, Jenks right behind him. They took a few turns and ended at a door. The music came from the other side. DelPrego twisted the knob, pushed the door open slowly.

DelPrego looked in. “Professor Valentine?”

The old man jerked his head around. “Wayne. Hello. A bit late to be out and about isn’t it?”

Valentine was reading an enormous leather-bound Bible. He was stark naked except for a black beret with the words SEA WORLD, ORLANDO, stitched in yellow.

“I thought you were still away,” DelPrego said.

“A long story.” Valentine’s eyes shifted from DelPrego to Jenks. “Who’s your friend?”

DelPrego hesitated. “Sherman Ellis.”

Jenks wondered about DelPrego. He hadn’t told his real name. DelPrego wasn’t going to rat him out. Not yet anyway.

Valentine leapt up, setting the Bible aside. He walked to Jenks, hand outstretched, his old-man genitalia swinging between his legs like a Ziploc bag of shriveled fruit.

“Good to meet you, Ellis.”

Jenks shook his hand. Not eagerly. “You’re naked.”

“Yes.”

“Could you not be, please?”

Valentine chuckled, crossed the room, grabbed a robe, put it on.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” DelPrego said. “We were sort of looking for a place to hide out.”

“How long do you want to stay?”

“Until the heat’s off,” DelPrego said.

“On the lam, eh? I understand,” Valentine said. “But mum’s the word. Nobody knows I’m here.”

And that suited them just fine.