The Case Against William (37 page)

Saturday
went much the same as Friday except Bo stopped to eat before going to the strip
joint. A Cajun food place. He sat by the window. Frank waved to him. He
gave Frank the finger.

"Jesus,
he eats like a pig," Chico said.

"Cajun,"
Dwayne said.

"The
food?"

"Bo."

"I
wonder, could I grill crawdads?" Chuck said.

On
Sunday, Omaha played the Patriots in the Wrangler Stadium. They acquired four
tickets behind the Omaha bench from a scalper outside the stadium. Inside,
Chuck bought a Wranglers football—

"I
wonder if I can get some of the players to sign it after the game?"

"You're
a groupie, aren't you?" Dwayne said.

—Dwayne
an orange team color plastic cowboy hat that made him look like a kid waiting
in line for the pony ride, Chico T-shirts for his girls, and Frank a poster.
He borrowed Dwayne's Sharpie. They found their seats. When the teams came out
for the game, they screamed, "Bo!" until they caught his attention on
the sideline. When he found them in the stands, Frank held up the poster on
the back of which he had written BO CANTRELL IS A KILLER LINEBACKER. Bo
stalked down the sideline.

"Boo!
Boo!"

The
fans booed Bo. He had missed an assignment; his man caught a short pass and
ran for a touchdown. The Patriots were running over the Wranglers. Over Bo
Cantrell in particular. He came to the sideline and kicked over the Gatorade
table. Then he glanced up at them in the stands. Frank held up the sign
again.

"Now
this is what I call a haunting," Dwayne said.

Bo's
game went from bad to horrible. He missed assignments and tackles. The
Patriots ran over him, around him, and through him. The coaches yelled at him,
his teammates yelled at him, and the fans yelled at him. The Wranglers lost
48-7.

"Hey,
Bo, sign my football!"

Bo
had just exited the players' locker room at the stadium. A few fans had
gathered in hopes of snagging an autograph. Chuck held his football out to Bo
as he walked by.

"Bo!
Come on, man!" Chuck yelled.

Bo
gave Chuck a glare as if he wanted to deck him. He didn't. Sign his ball or
deck him. He stormed past and to his truck in the parking lot. He drove
directly to his favorite strip joint. He closed the place down at 2:00
A.M.
They followed him home and parked
on the street. He stumbled inside and apparently to bed as all the lights went
out. They rolled the windows down and sat quietly for an hour. And another.
They took turns napping. Chuck snored; Chico talked in his sleep. Frank
couldn't sleep. He and Dwayne talked about the old days in Houston. Which
seemed so long ago. A different life.

"The
haunting didn't work," Frank said. "It's four-thirty. Same time in
Austin. William is set to plead at nine. What do we do now?"

"Get out of the fuckin' car."

Bo
Cantrell stood outside the car and pointed a big handgun inside the car.

Frank,
Dwayne, Chuck, and Chico sat on a couch in Bo Cantrell's large living room
facing a massive flat screen television on the opposite wall. A cable sports
channel ran replays from the football games the day before; the volume was
muted. Bo was not. He cursed each time his botched plays were shown, and they
were shown over and over again. He pointed the gun at the screen.

"That
fuckin' play, it wasn't my fuckin' fault. The fuckin' strong safety, he's
gotta help over the fuckin' top. But I fuckin' got blamed."

"Limited
vocabulary," Dwayne whispered.

"Linebacker,"
Chuck whispered.

Cable
sports ran 24/7 these days; problem was, there wasn't enough sports action to
fill all that airtime. So the highlight and lowlight reels ran in loops. If
you missed the recap of your team's game, it would run again in ten minutes.
The Wranglers' recap had run a dozen or more times over the two hours since Bo
Cantrell had abducted them at gunpoint. He paced back and forth in front of
the screen. He held the big gun in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the
other. Dwayne was thinking.

"Jack
Daniels Tennessee Honey," he whispered.

"We're
gonna die," Chuck whispered.

"Yep.
Wouldn't mind a shot of JD before we do."

"Why'd
you say that?"

"It's
good stuff."

"No.
That we're gonna die."

"Oh.
Just agreeing with you."

"Well,
don't."

Bo
shot the TV.

"Shit!"
Chico said.

"Look,
TV still works," Chuck said. "What brand is that, Bo?"

"Shut
up!"

"Just
asking. Say, Bo, would you sign my football?"

Chuck
had brought the Wranglers souvenir football in with him.

"Shut
the fuck up! I'm trying to think!"

"Do
you have a hard time thinking, too? From concussions? I had ten concussions
in college, one in peewee."

"When
you was a kid?"

"No.
When I was a referee."

Bo
shot the ceiling.

"Shut
up!"

"I
gotta pee," Chuck said.

"You
gonna die!"

Bo
paced again.

"You
know," Dwayne said, "I'm never really gonna move to Panama or Ecuador
or none of those places."

"Why
not?"

"
'Cause you guys are all I've got. I've never had a real family."

Chuck
leaned into him.

"Buddy
hug."

He
gave Dwayne a hug. Dwayne whispered.

"We
could attack Bo, maybe Frank and Chico could get away."

"Or
they could attack Bo and we could get away."

"We're
bigger than them."

"They
might be quicker."

"We
gotta man up, Chuck."

"You
sure?"

Dwayne
sighed. "Yeah, I'm sure." He shrugged. "Hell, we all gotta
die sometime."

"But do we gotta die tonight?"

"You
goddamn right you gonna die," Bo Cantrell said.

"You're
going to kill us, too, Bo?" Frank said. "Like you killed Dee Dee
Dunston?"

Dee
Dee Dunston stood at the long bar in the Dizzy Rooster. She was pretty drunk.
A meaty hand clamped down on her arm.

"Let's
dance, Dee Dee."

She
turned and came face to face with Bo Cantrell. He had a dark face, dark eyes,
and a dark mood. He was ugly, and he stunk. She recoiled from his body odor.

"Did
you shower after the game, Bo? It is Saturday night."

She
yanked her arm free and turned her back on him. Bo expressed his displeasure
in his typical vocabulary.

"Fuck
you, Dee Dee."

"In
your dreams, asshole," she said over her shoulder.

Dee
Dee ordered another beer. A big hand grabbed her arm again; she whirled around
to tell Bo Cantrell off, but she found herself staring into the bluest eyes she
had ever seen.

Her
knees felt wobbly.

She
had grown up on a ranch, which offered little in the way of a social life.
When she arrived in Lubbock, she found boys and girls gone wild. Most were
from the country, the first time off the ranches and farms and ready to kick
loose. Dance. Drink. Screw. God, everyone was screwing like rabbits! Dee
Dee Dunston's virginity lasted exactly one week on the college campus. She
loved sex. Private sex. Public sex. Wild sex. Sex. Anytime. Anywhere.
But only with athletes. Star athletes. Like the one with the blue eyes
standing before her.

"Hello,
honey. I'm William Tucker."

She
gave him her sexiest look and said, "I'm Dee Dee."

But
he turned to the bartender to order a drink. The tramp behind the bar was
wearing a red silky corset and garter belt and black stockings; she gave him a
come-hither look and cooed, "Hi, William." Dee Dee now felt the heat
of jealously wash over her lithe body. She fought the urge to strangle the
bitch. No one was taking William Tucker from her. She saw his cell phone in
his shirt pocket; she took the phone and input her phone number. Then she went
to camera mode and held the phone out and snapped a sexy selfie. He turned
back to her. She slid his phone back into his pocket.

"I
put my number and photo on your phone. So you don't forget me."

He
had a blank look on his face.

"What's
your name again?"

The
bartender bitch heard and giggled. Dee Dee gave her a look like she wanted to
kill her. In fact, she did. But she smiled at William Tucker.

"Dee
Dee."

"Oh,
yeah."

"Here's
your beer, William," the bartender-bitch-whore said.

When
William turned her way for the beer, she gave Dee Dee a snotty little look.
Dee Dee's fists clenched; the bartender-bitch-whore didn't know that Dee Dee
Dunston had castrated calves. She wasn't going to let some city slut steal her
bull. So she grabbed William Tucker's shirt and yanked him back to her. She
jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist
and gave him a long, wet kiss. He needed no further invitation. His hands
cupped her firm butt, and she sat suspended in air. He smelled fresh and
manly, and she wanted him desperately. Dee Dee opened one eye to check on the
bitch behind the bar; she just smiled and shook her head and walked off.

"Jesus,
get a room," Cissy said from behind them.

Without
unlocking his lips from hers, William carried her down a short hall past the
restrooms and to a dark recess by the back door of the bar. He wedged her
against the wall then slid his hand up under her Spandex shorts and around her
bottom and between her legs. His fingers found her vagina; he slid one finger
up inside her and she gasped and the heat now consumed her. She needed him
inside her. She reached down to his waist and pushed her hand down inside his
jeans until she found him. Oh, God, he was ready. He wanted her as much as
she wanted him.

"Fuck
me, William," she whispered.

She
heard drunken male voices and laughter behind them.

"Coeds
in heat."

"Man,
get a video of this. That's William Tucker. We'll put this on YouTube, get a
million hits."

William
obviously heard them too because he reached over and opened the back door, and
she was suddenly hit by the cool night air. He lifted her with his other hand,
but she still had one hand inside his jeans; she started to fall backwards so
she grabbed his arm with her free hand. He jerked.

"Shit,
my stitches."

His
left arm was bandaged. She hung on to his shirt as he stepped them outside.
But either her grabbing his injured arm or the sudden change of temperature
cooled his desire—and his erection. Must work like cold water. He lowered her
to the ground. But she knew how to ramp up his desire again. She unzipped his
jeans and released him and then squatted down and put him in her mouth. Guys
went crazy when she did that.

"Hold
on, honey," William said. "I left my beer inside. I'll be right
back."

He
turned and zipped up and walked back inside the bar without so much as a
"Thank you, ma'am." She started to get mad, but the heat was all
over her.

"Hurry
back," she said.

She
pushed her tight shorts down and stepped out of them. No sense making him
fight his way through Spandex. Damn, where is he? She decided she'd better
keep her body revving, so she leaned back against the brick wall of the
building and slid her hand down between her legs. She knew how to please
herself, something she often had to do with cowboys in Lubbock. She felt
herself building to an orgasm when she heard footsteps coming close and saw his
massive body in the shadows.

"You're
just in time."

Her
words came out breathless, but who could talk at a time like this? She wanted
to scream.

"Come
on, William, fuck me."

The
next thing she knew, her face burned like fire from a big hand slapping her.
She stumbled back and tasted her own blood, but she managed to stay on her
feet.

"You
fuckin' bitch! You want to get fucked, I'll fuck you."

She
knew that voice and that stink.

"Bo
Cantrell!"

He
stepped into the vague light, and she saw his angry, ugly face. He unzipped
his pants and pulled himself out.

"Shit,
I better use a rubber, way you're fuckin' every swinging dick in Texas. You
might give me a disease."

He
tore open a condom packet and rolled the condom onto his erect penis. He had
her boxed into a corner in the back alley. She couldn't run. But she could
fight. Dee Dee Dunston had fought bulls and broncos and cowboys. She could
sure as hell fight a coon-ass from the swamps. She spit blood and grabbed the
nearest hard object—a small brick—and stepped toward Bo and swung the brick up
and against his head as hard as she could. He groaned and stumbled back, and
she bolted past him, but he grabbed her hair and yanked her back and flung her
against the wall. He hit her again, this time a punch to her face, and her
head slammed hard against the brick wall, and she felt her legs buckle. She
fought to stay on her feet, and to think clearly, but her mind seemed hazy and
his voice distant, and she felt his hand grasp her neck and his knee push her legs
apart and then his stink suffocated her and pain enveloped her body as he
rammed himself up inside her. He pushed his big body hard against her and her
head pounded against the brick wall and she felt the air come out of her and
now she gasped for air but his hand around her neck tightened with each thrust
and she wanted to fight and she flung her arms at him but they seemed limp and
had no effect and he thrust into her harder and harder and each time he drove
her into the wall and he grunted like a feral hog rutting and Dee Dee Dunston
closed her eyes to the pain and felt herself drifting off somewhere else and
then she thought of her mom and dad and sister and she …