Paris Trout (44 page)

A moment later he heard her on the steps, slowly
climbing. He heard her breathing. He went to the stairway and saw the
white straw hat coming up to him; he saw that she was carrying a
blanket. "Mr. Trout?" she called.

He walked back into the room with his mother and
picked up the forty-five. The woman emerged from the stairway and
padded into the room. "I brought Mrs. Trout a light blanket,"
she said, and then she saw what was in his hand.

"
Dear God," she said, "you don't want
to hurt nobody today, Mr. Trout. Not with your mother right here
watching .... "

She began to back up, saying things he did not listen
to, until she was even again with the stairs. Then, dropping the
blanket, she started back down the stairs. He followed the sound of
her feet down to the landing between the second and third floors, and
then he heard her begin to yell.

He looked at his mother,
she looked back. He put the muzzle of the forty-five against the top
of her head. "I end my connections with everything that come
before," he said.

* * *

THE KEEPERS OF THE Bush were moving their courtroom
inside at the time Wilma Dunn came down the stairs. The last session
was scheduled for that afternoon, and none of them intended to sit
out in the rain. Carl Bonner, in fact, wanted to cancel court —
Paris Trout had broken the stocks anyway — but Seagraves and Ward
Townes felt an obligation to finish.

At the moment Wilma Dunn appeared on the stairs,
Harry Seagraves and Ward Townes were fitting the table against the
outside of the main courtroom door, being careful not to spill the
drinks sitting on top. Carl Bonner was in the men's room down the
hallway, the third time since the parade began.

Wilma Dunn was a heavy woman, and shrill, and came
down the stairs at them, holding on to the banister with both hands.
None of them had ever seen her hurry anywhere before. She saw them
and changed the pitch of her scream. "Murder," she said,
"God as my witness, he's going to murder his own mother .... "

Seagraves walked to the bottom of the steps to catch
her if she fell. He did not understand the words at first, and then,
a moment before she reached the bottom step, there was a single shot
fired somewhere upstairs. Wilma Dunn fell into Seagraves's arms and
began to cry.

"
He's done shot that poor old woman," she
said.

He pushed her far enough away to look in her face.
"Slow down," he said. "Tell us slower."

"
It's Mr. Paris Trout, up there with his
mother," she said. "He got a gun and made to shoot her ....
"

Seagraves looked up the stairway.

"
Shot dead by her own sonny boy," the woman
said, and began to wail.

Seagraves turned to Ward Townes. "Can you call
somebody?" he said.

Townes was looking upstairs too. "I'll try,"
he said, "but there isn't anybody at the police station, I know
that. And Edward Fixx and his deputies all been drunk for two days."
He rubbed his face, trying to sober himself up.

"
There's bound to be some sort of police
outside," Seagraves said.

He still had the woman's shoulders, and she was still
crying. Carl Bonner came out of the bathroom, zipping his trousers,
holding his cup.

"
The poor thing," she said.

"Where are they?" Seagraves asked her.

"
He's got her up there to the little room on the
south side," she said.

"Who?" Bonner said, more to Seagraves than
the woman.

There was a sudden cheering outside, something in the
parade.

"
Paris Trout," she cried. "Paris Trout
done shot his own mother upstairs .... "

She let go of Seagraves and clung to Carl Bonner.
"Please help that old woman," she said.

Carl Bonner finished what was in the cup and started
up the stairs.

Seagraves tried to stop him. "Hold on, Carl,"
he said. "The man"s got a gun."

"
He's shot his own mother," Bonner said.

"
If he shot her, she's shot," Seagraves
said. "We'll get the law to take care of it."

"It's still somebody's mother," Bonner
said, and went on up.

Seagraves tried again. "You think it's
Boys'
Life
up there? Take a damn minute and think
what it means."

Bonner straightened and walked up the middle of the
staircase.

Seagraves watched him as far as the first landing,
where he turned and followed the stairs up. Wilma Dunn dabbed at her
eyes with a hankie.

"
He always been the
bravest of the brave," she said.

* * *

TROUT WAS SITTING ON the floor, not far from his
mother. She had fallen on her side, head tucked into her chest; her
long hair was soaked in blood, a mop left in the middle of the job.

he heard the steps on the stairs. They reached the
landing below, stopped for a moment, and then continued up. He laid
the forty-five across his knees and sighted over her body to the
stairway.

Bonner called out once, "Mr. Trout? This is Carl
Bonner .... "

Trout did not answer. He waited, and listened, and in
a moment the man came to him, crossing into his line of sight and
reason.

Carl Bonner stood still at the top of the stairs,
then slowly turned and offered himself fully. "Mr. Trout,"
he said, walking forward, "I am not here to hurt you, sir. I
only want to help your mother."

Trout shot him an inch
above the belt, and the force of it blew him back beyond the stairs.
He lay still a moment and then began to curl. The recoil kicked the
gun up into the air. Trout let it fall back where it had been, and
when it was settled he shot him again, in the ankle. In a few moments
Trout heard him cry. Little noises. The room smelled like
firecrackers. Trout waited for what would come, watching the man he
had shot over the sights of the pistol.

* * *

SEAGRAVES HEARD TH SHOTS upstairs, he heard Bonner
fall. Then the noises settled, and Ward Townes came through the
entrance, towing Dr. Hatfield. "I think he's shot Carl Bonner,"
Seagraves said. He looked up the stairs, and in a moment there were
sounds from that direction.

One of them — Bonner's voice — was as clear as a
whisper in his ear.

"
Please, Jesus . . ."

"What in creation?" Ward Townes said. "He
just went up there to him? Without a gun?"

Bonner cried out then, as if something had caught him
by surprise.

"
Is there a gun somewhere we can get to it?"
Seagraves said.

He and Townes looked at each other a minute. "Not
that I know," Townes said.

The sounds of Carl Bonner's breathing carried down
the staircase, the catches and sighs. Then another cry. The woman
covered her mouth and ran for the door. No one tried to stop her.

It was the doctor who finally spoke. "I got to
get to a telephone," he said, "call an ambulance down
here." Ward Townes took a key ring from his pocket and opened
the door to one of the offices.

"
I gave a boy a dollar to find us a policeman,"
Townes said to Seagraves. "I don't see there's any choice but to
wait this out."

As if he'd heard that, Bonner cried out again.

They stood together, listening to Dr. Hatfield on the
phone. "What the hell you mean, the ambulance is in the parade?
. . . Then get somebody over here in a car .... Yes, right now,
people been shot."

And the next time Carl Bonner cried for help,
Seagraves went up the stairs.

He saw Bonner from the landing between the second and
third floor, pressed facefirst into the wood railing, eyes open and
fixed, as if he were watching something a long ways off Seagraves
took the next steps one at a time, as close to the wall as he could
get.

When Seagraves's head was level with the top step, he
saw the stain under Carl Bonner's stomach and then, with the next
step, he saw that his foot had been blown halfway off at the ankle.

A cry came out of the body, but nothing moved. There
was a noise behind him, and Seagraves turned and saw Ward Townes on
the landing.

Seagraves took another step up and leaned forward
until his chin almost rested on the top stair. He saw that the oak
door leading into the south room opened out, the knob rested against
the wall leading to the staircase.

There was something on the floor in the room, but
from the stairs he could not see Trout. He took a deep breath,
checked that Townes was behind him on the landing, and then, still
watching Townes, he reached around the corner of the staircase until
he felt the door and slammed it shut.

He took the last three steps in one stride and threw
himself against the bottom of the door. He had meant to call for
Townes to get Carl Bonner and then to hold the door shut until there
was help, but even before he was started, he was stopped.

Something moving at the very edge of his vision.

The shot caught him in the shoulder, just as he hit
the door. It threw him sideways and turned him toward the movement he
had seen, and there was Paris Trout.

He had moved to a different room and was standing in
the doorway, only a few yards from Bonner. His open eye dropped to
meet him over the sight of the gun. Seagraves got to his feet and
Trout shot him again. The bullet hit him in the side and passed
through his body.

Seagraves closed the distance.

Paris Trout stood with his feet spread and his
shooting arm straight out in front, and pulled the trigger four more
times as Seagraves came across the hall. Two of the shots missed, the
other two hit him in the leg and the groin, but they did not knock
him down.

He staggered and surged.

The next time Trout pulled the trigger, the hammer
fell on an empty chamber. He reached into his pocket and found one of
the spare clips just as Seagraves's hand attached itself to his
shirt. Trout tried to pull himself free, but Seagraves would not let
go.

Trout stumbled backwards, trying to get the fresh
clip into the forty-five. Then Seagraves had one of his fingers and
was pushing it back. Trout heard the clip fall against the floor, he
felt the life surge in the man he'd shot. The finger snapped at the
knuckle, a crippling pain traveled the length of Trout's arm, and
then the attorney let go of his shirt and dropped to the floor.

The forty-five and the clip were both somehow
underneath him. A phone was ringing downstairs, over and over. No one
answered. Trout reached into his pocket and found the other gun.

He walked to the north end of the hallway, noticing
that his trousers were sticking to his legs. He'd wet himself. Cradle
to cradle. There was a fire escape at the end of the hallway. He
thought for a moment of climbing down and looking for the rest of the
people he'd put on his list, but he'd lost his purpose.

He stopped at the end of
the hall and took his hand and the pistol out of his coat. He checked
the safety — it was off — and put the gun in his mouth. Then he
turned back in the direction of the staircase and waited until Ward
Townes's face appeared there, waited until Townes found him, and on
that signal pulled the trigger.

* * *

BY THE TIME DR. Hatfield arrived on the third floor,
there was only a faint stirring in Carl Bonner's chest. Ward Townes
had put a lawbook under his head and then gone to tend Harry
Seagraves.

Dr. Hatfield knelt at the body. He felt for a pulse
and then opened Carl Bonner's eyes to see if they would dilate. The
doctor was shaking. There were sirens outside now, feet on the steps.
"I think he's gone," he said.

He opened Carl Bonner's shirt and studied the wound.
He shook his head. Dr. Hatfield stood up slowly and moved to
Seagraves. Ward Townes held his head in his lap. The doctor searched
for a pulse, but there was none.

Then he moved to the small room at the south end of
the hall, opened the door, and from there saw the top of the old
woman's head. He turned back to the landing without going in.

People had reached the third floor now, some of them
police, some of them lawyers. A woman was crying, the police were
issuing orders.

"
There's another one over here," somebody
said.

Dr. Hatfield stepped away from the door and saw it
for himself

Paris Trout lay alone, beneath the splash on the
wall. At the corner of the ceiling, bits of him hung in a spider web.

"Somebody get a boy in here," the doctor
said. "Clean that mess up after we take care of the dead."
 

HANNA
PART NINE

A MONTH TO THE DAY after her husband killed his
mother, Carl Bonner, Harry Seagraves, and then himself; Hanna Trout
signed a legal order authorizing Ether County to open the five safes
that still stood in the hallway of the store.

Agents of the Internal Revenue Service had visited
her twice, and Estes Singletary had written a signed editorial
calling for reparations to be made from the Trout estate. Not only to
the Seagraves family and Leslie Bonner but to the city of Cotton
Point as well.