Stories (2011) (13 page)

Jack grabbed up a piece of
firewood. It looked to me like that piece of wood had a lot of heft. He came at
me. I made myself stand; I pulled the hatchet free. As he came and struck down
with the wood, I sidestepped and swung.

The sound the hatchet made as it
caught the top of his head was a little like what you might expect if a strong
man took hold of a piece of thick cardboard and ripped it.

I hit him so hard his knees bent
and hot blood jumped out of his head and hit my face. The hatchet came loose of
my hands, stayed in his skull. His knees straightened. I thought:
What is
this motherfucker, Rasputin?

He grabbed me and started to lift
me again. His mouth was partially open and his teeth looked like machinery
cogs. The rain was washing the blood on his head down his face in murky rivers.
He stunk like roadkill.

And then his expression changed.
It seemed as if he had only just realized he had a hatchet in his head. He let
go, turned, started walking off, taking hold of the hatchet with both hands,
trying to pull it loose. I picked up a piece of firewood and followed after
him. I hit him in the back of the head as hard as I could. It was like hitting
an elephant in the ass with a twig. He turned and looked at me. The expression
on his face was so strange, I almost felt sorry for him.

He went down on one knee, and I
hauled back and hit him with the firewood, landing on top of the hatchet. He
vibrated, and his neck twisted to one side, and then his head snapped back in
line.

He said,
“
Gonna
need some new pigs,
”
and then fell out.

Pigs?

He was laying face forward with
the stock of the hatchet holding his head slightly off the ground. I dropped
the firewood and rolled him over on his back, which took about as much work as
trying to roll his Cadillac. I pulled the hatchet out of his head. I had to put
my foot on his neck to do it.

I picked up the firewood I had
dropped, placed it on the ground beside him, and stretched his arm out until I
had the hand with the six fingers positioned across it. I got down on my knees
and lifted the hatchet, hit as hard as I could. It took me three whacks, but I
cut the hand loose.

I put the bloody hand in my coat
pocket and dug through his pants for his car keys, didn
’
t
come across them. I went inside the cabin and found them on the table. I drove
the Cadillac to the back where Jack lay, pulled him into the backseat, almost
having a hernia in the process. I put the hatchet in there with him.

I drove the El Dorado over close
to the pond and rolled all the windows down and put it in neutral. I got out of
the car, went to the back of it, and started shoving. My feet slipped in the
mud, but I finally gained traction. The car went forward and slipped into the
water, but the back end of it hung on the bank.

Damn.

I pushed and I pushed, and
finally I got it moving, and the car went in, and with the windows down, it
sunk pretty fast.

I went back to the cabin and
looked around. I found some candles, turned off the light, then switched off
the generator. I went back inside and lit three of the big fat candles and
stuck them in drinking glasses and watched them burn for a moment. I went over
to the stove and turned on the gas, letting it run a few seconds while I looked
around the cabin. Nothing there I needed.

I left, closed the door behind
me. When the gas filled the room enough, those candles would set the air on
fire. The whole place would blow. I don
’
t know exactly
why I did it, except maybe I just didn
’
t like Jack.
Didn
’
t like that he had a Cadillac and a cabin and some
land, and for a while there, he had Loodie. Because of all that, I had done all
I could to him. I even had his six-fingered hand in my pocket.

By the time I got back to the
car, I was feeling weak. Jack had worked me over pretty good, and now that the
adrenaline was starting to ease out of me, I was feeling it. I took off my
jacket and opened the jar of pickles in the floorboard, pulled out a few of
them, and threw them away. I ate one, and drank from my bottle of water and had
some cookies.

I took Jack
’
s
hand and put it in the big pickle jar. I sat in the front seat, and was
overcome with nausea. I didn
’
t know if it was the
pickle or what I had done, or both. I opened the car door and threw up. I felt
cold and damp from the rain, so I started the car and turned on the heater.
Then I cranked back my seat and closed my eyes. I had to rest before I left,
had to. All of me seemed to be running out through the soles of my feet.

I slept until the cabin blew. The
sound of the gas generator and stove going up with a one-two boom snapped me
awake.

* * *

I got out of the car and walked
around the curve. The cabin was nothing more than a square, dark shape inside
an envelope of flames. The fire wavered up high and grew narrow at the top like
a cone. It crackled like someone wadding up cellophane.

I doubted, out here, that anyone
heard the explosion, and no one could see the flames. Wet as it was, I figured
the fire wouldn
’
t go any farther than the cabin. By
morning, even with the rain still coming down, that place would be smoked down
to the mineral rights.

I drove out of there, and pretty
soon the heater was too hot and I turned it off. It was as if my body went up
in flames, like the cabin. I rolled down the window and let in some cool air. I
felt strange; not good, not bad. I had bounty hunted for years, and I
’
d done a bit of head whopping before, but this was my first
murder.

I had really hated Jack and I
’
d hardly known him.

It was the woman that made me
hate him. The woman I was gonna cheat out of some money. But $100,000 is a
whole lot of money, honey.

When I got home, the automatic
garage opener lifted the door, and I wheeled in and closed the place up. I went
inside and took off my clothes and showered carefully and looked in the mirror.
There was a mountainous welt on my head. I got some ice and put it in sock and
pressed it to my head while I sat on the toilet lid and thought about things.
If any thoughts actually came to me, I don
’
t remember
them well.

I dressed, bunched up my murder
clothes, and put them in a black plastic garbage bag.

In the garage, I removed the
pickle jar and cleaned the car. I opened the jar and stared at the hand. It
looked like a black crab in there amongst the pickles. I studied it for a long
time, until it started to look like $100,000.

I couldn
’
t
wait until morning, and after a while, I drove toward Big O
’
s
place. Now, you would think a man with the money he
’
s
got would live in a mansion, but he didn
’
t. He lived in
three double-wide mobile homes lined together with screened-in porches. I had
been inside once, when I
’
d done Big O a very small
favor, though never since. But one of those homes was nothing but one big
space, no rooms, and it was Big O
’
s lounge. He hung in
there with some ladies and bodyguards. He had two main guys. Be Bop Lewis, a
skinny white guy who always acted as if someone was sneaking up on him, and a
black guy named Lou Boo (keep in mind, I didn
’
t name
them) who thought he was way cool and smooth as velvet.

The rain had followed me from the
bottomland, on into Tyler, to the outskirts, and on the far side. It was way
early morning, and I figured on waking Big O up and dragging his ass out of bed
and showing him them six fingers and getting me $100,000, a pat on the head,
and hell, he might ask Be Bop to give me a hand job on account of I had done so
well.

More I thought about it, more I
thought he might not be as happy to see me as I thought. A man like Big O liked
his sleep, so I pulled into a motel not too far from his place, the big jar of
pickles and one black six-fingered hand beside my bed, the automatic under my
pillow.

I dreamed Jack was driving the
Cadillac out of that pond. I saw the lights first and then the car. Jack was
steering with his nub laid against the wheel, and his face behind the glass was
a black mass without eyes or smile or features of any kind.

It was a bad dream and it woke me
up. I washed my face, went back to bed, slept this time until late morning. I
got up and put back on my same clothes, loaded up my pickle jar, and left out
of there. I thought about the axe in Jack
’
s head, his
severed hand floating in the pickle jar, and regret moved through me like shit
through a goose and was gone.

I drove out to Big O
’
s place.

By the time I arrived at the
property, which was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, and had driven over a
cattle guard, I could see there were men in a white pickup coming my way. Two
in the front and three in the bed in the back, and they had some heavy-duty
fire power. Parked behind them, up by the double-wides, were the cement trucks
and dump trucks and backhoes and graders that were part of the business Big O
claimed to operate. Construction. But his real business was a bit of this, and
a little of that, construction being not much more than the surface paint.

I stopped and rolled down my
window and waited. Outside, the rain had burned off and it was an unseasonably
hot day, sticky as honey on the fingers.

When they drove up beside my
window, the three guys in the bed pointed their weapons at me. The driver was
none other than one of the two men I recognized from before. Be Bop. His skin
was so pale and thin, I could almost see the skull beneath it.

“
Well,
now,
”
he said.
“
I know you.
”

I agreed he did. I smiled like me
and him was best friends. I said,
“
I got some good news
for Big O about Six-Finger Jack.
”

“
Six-Finger
Jack, huh,
”
Be Bop said.
“
Get
out of the car.
”

I got out. Be Bop got out and
frisked me. I had nothing sharp or anything full of bullets. He asked if there
was anything in the car. I told him no. He had one of the men in the back of
the pickup search it anyway. The man came back, said,
“
Ain
’
t got no gun, just a big jar of pickles.
”

“
Pickles,
”
Be Bop said.
“
You a man loves
pickles?
”

“
Not
exactly,
”
I said.

“
Follow
us on up,
”
Be Bop said.

We drove up to the trio of
double-wides. There had been some work done since I was last here, and there
was a frame of boards laid out for a foundation, and over to the side there was
a big hole that looked as if it was gonna be a swimming pool.

I got out of the car and leaned
on it and looked things over. Be Bop and his men got out of the truck. Be Bop
came over.

“
He
buildin
’
a house on that foundation?
”
I asked.

“
Naw, he
’
s gonna put an extension on one of the trailers. I think he
’
s gonna put in a poolroom and maybe some gamin
’
stuff. Swimmin
’
pool over there.
Come on.
”

I got my jar of pickles out of
the backseat, and Be Bop said,
“
Now wait a minute. Your
pickles got to go with you?
”

I sat the jar down and screwed
off the lid and stepped back. Be Bop looked inside. When he lifted his head, he
said,
“
Well, now.
”

Next thing I know I
’
m in the big trailer, the one that
’
s
got nothing but the couch, some chairs, and stands for drinks, a TV set about
the size of a downtown theater. It
’
s on, and there
’
s sports going. I glance at it and see it
’
s
an old basketball game that was played a year back, but they
’
re
watching it, Big O and a few of his boys, including Lou Boo, the black guy I
’
ve seen before. This time, there aren
’
t
any women there.

Be Bop came inside with me, but
the rest of the pickup posse didn
’
t. They were still
protecting the perimeter. It seemed silly, but truth was, there was lots of
people wanted to kill Big O.

No one said a thing to me for a
full five minutes. They were waiting for a big score in the game, something
they had seen before. When the shot came they all cheered. I thought only Big O
sounded sincere.

I didn
’
t
look at the game. I couldn
’
t take my eyes off Big O. He
wasn
’
t wearing his cowboy hat. His head only had a few
hairs left on it, like worms working their way over the face of the moon. His
skin was white and lumpy like cold oatmeal. He was wearing a brown pair of
stretch overalls. When the fat moved, the material moved with him, which was a
good idea,
’
cause it looked as if Big O had packed on
about a hundred extra pounds since I saw him last.

He was sitting in a motorized
scooter, had his tree-trunk legs stretched out in front of him on a leg lift.
His stomach flowed up and fell forward and over his sides, like 400 pounds of
bagged mercury. I could hear him wheezing across the room. His right foot was
missing. There was a nub there, and his stretch pants had been sewn up at the
end. On the stand, near his right elbow, was a tall bottle of malt liquor and a
greasy box of fried chicken.