A Tree Born Crooked (10 page)

“Okay. Where?”

“At the trailer. Delmore’s trailer. I mean, my trailer, too. Shit, you know what I mean. You remember how to get here?”
 

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

James was already pulling his boots on when the line went dead.
 

~ ~ ~

When James had first set eyes on Delmore’s trailer, he had been sure it couldn’t be much worse on the inside. He was laughably wrong. James had lived in quite his share of roach motels, but this took the cake. The carpet had been ripped out of most of the main living area, so the floor was a mottled combination of yellow carpet padding and splintering plywood. The only furniture to sit on was a couch that looked like it had once graced someone’s front porch, but now would embarrass even the most avid porch furniture collectors. There were no cushions, just an old electric blanket tucked in over the boards and springs. A line of German cockroaches was trooping across the baseboard behind the couch without fear. It was clearly their accustomed trade route.
 

Flattened beer cases, grease-soaked pizza boxes, cans of supermarket brand soda, piles of stained clothes, both men’s and women’s, and empty orange plastic pill bottles covered the kitchen countertop and spilled into the sink. A mountain of crushed Natty Light cans had been bulldozed aside to allow a path back to the single bedroom. Its door had been ripped partly from the hinges and was held open against the wall with strips of duct tape. The indoor plumbing had long since been disconnected and there was a hole in the bathroom wall where the sink pipe had been torn out. The bathroom now harbored an array of possums, raccoons, and the occasional rat snake that came and went as they pleased. It was safer just not to go in there.
 

James took all of this in, as well as the overwhelming perfume of stale beer and urine. He wasn’t sure which one was the substance soaking the carpet padding beneath his boots. Rabbit had offered him a place on the couch, but James said no thank you, he’d rather stand.
 

“Okay, I’m here. You mind telling me what the hell happened? No, wait. Just calm down a second first. You want to go outside? Get some air, maybe?”

Rabbit was pacing back and forth across the short length of the trailer. When he had opened the door, James’ suspicion that he was high on something had been confirmed, but it was mostly adrenaline and paranoia. James had seen Rabbit scared before, but this was something else entirely.
 

“Nah, man. Can’t go outside. What if somebody followed you? You think somebody followed you? Did you see anybody behind you?”

Rabbit ducked from window to window, pulling up a corner of the trash bag or army blanket that covered each one and peering out into the approaching dawn. He turned his eyes wildly back on James, his countenance like that of a horse about to scream and die. James was beginning to get spooked by the whole situation.
 

“You see somebody?”

“Rabbit.”

The sharp tone of James’ voice brought Rabbit up short. He paused for a moment, panting.
 

“What?”

James spoke very slowly, holding Rabbit’s eyes and forcing him to calm down.

“I need you to tell me what happened. Right now.”

Rabbit took a deep breath.

“It all went to pieces. Oh, man. It was all so perfect and then it all went to pieces. Man, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. James, you gotta tell me what to do.”

“First, you need to tell me exactly what happened. From the beginning.”

“Delmore don’t want me telling no one what happened. He said to sit tight and he’d be back in the morning after he took care of it. He didn’t want no one to know in the first place what we was gonna do. He said not to talk to nobody. Oh, shit. Oh man, he’s gonna kill me if he finds out I called you.”

“I’m gonna save him the trouble and kill you first if you don’t start talking.”

The tension slowly dropped out of Rabbit’s body and he sat down on the busted arm of the couch. He let his hands relax and dangle between his legs until his voice became steady.

“Okay.”

“From the beginning.”

Rabbit sat silently for a moment, collecting his thoughts, while James waited impatiently. Finally, Rabbit sat up straight and began.

“Well, now, let’s see. We took you back to your truck at The Diamond. Then, we still had time to kill. It being Monday, or I suppose Tuesday now, the club closes early, at one. So, we went to Willy J’s for supper. I had the rib special. You ever eat there? Man, it’s something else. They got this sauce with something like fourteen different kinds of spices. Delmore always gets the wings, but that barbeque sauce on them ribs is something else alright.”

“No. I’ve never eaten there. Keep talking.”

“Oh, yeah, so it was maybe ‘round ten when we left to drive out to Lucky’s. Or I left, I mean. I picked up my car and drove out there first. Delmore was gonna meet me up there later.”

“Where did he go?”

“Out to Waylon’s place. Marlena was right, he weren’t at the bar. He called and told Delmore to come on out to his place to pick up the stuff. Smarter than bringing it to the bar. If Marlena knew what he was getting into, she probably woulda shut it down and thrown it all in the creek. Or if a cop came by or something. Who knows?”

James had lifted up a corner of the army blanket covering the window to glance out into the yard. He dropped it and turned back to Rabbit.

“What’re you talking about?”

“The guns. See, Waylon and Delmore thought it out. We had to cover every base, so we couldn’t use none of our own guns in case something happened and the cops could trace ‘em. But Waylon knows all these folks that deal in guns. Some cousins of his ex-wife’s or something. So, Delmore went out there to pick ‘em up. We weren’t planning on shooting nobody, but Delmore said they was still good to have. I went to the club so as to act all normal. Just like a normal night. I sold some pills, got a couple of free dances, and stayed until they closed. I kept my eyes open, too, and I seen Lyndell talking to these guys. Real tough looking types, I mean. Dressed all nice like they was just businessmen, but I could tell they was packing. One of ‘em had a bag with him. Like a gym bag.”

Rabbit paused and scratched his nose before continuing.
 

“They went in the back room with Lyndell, but I was watching the door the whole time and when those guys left, there weren’t no bag with ‘em. So, the place closes and I leave, just like usual, and wait off down this dirt road maybe a half mile away. When I seen Lyndell’s van pass, I drove back to the club to make sure it was empty. There weren’t no cars in the parking lot, so I called Delmore and waited.”

James idly picked up an empty soda can on the countertop and then quickly dropped it when a cockroach poked its antennas out of the top. James wiped his hand on his jeans and stepped away from the kitchen.

“And then?”

“Then Delmore, he shows up ‘bout twenty minutes later.”

“With Waylon?”

“Nah. Waylon weren’t supposed to be no part of the actual job. He don’t do stuff like that. He’s just the one that gets you things. Takes care a things. We were to call him once we were done so he could meet us and we could pay him for the guns outta the money we stole.”

“So Delmore showed up alone.”

“Right. And he’s got the guns. Other stuff, too. Crowbar, wire cutters, gloves. Like a damn spy movie or something. I felt like James Bond with all that shit. So, we get into the place, no problem. We get into the back room, no problem. We get the safe open. Delmore had gotten the numbers somehow, and everything was working like a charm, James.”

Rabbit spread his hands wide, beseeching James to see it the way he did.

“I’m telling you. It coulda been perfect. It was gonna be beautiful.”

“But?”

“But, well now here’s where it starts to be a problem. We open the safe and there’s the bag, just like I seen before. And I’m already thinking ‘bout how my life is gonna be just so, but when we pulled the bag out, it were lighter than Delmore thought it was supposed to be. We unzip it and let me tell you, there weren’t no hundred grand in that bag. Delmore said it was more like twenty. Twenty, if that. Can you believe that shit?”

James ran a hand through one side of his hair and yanked on it as he tried to understand what his brother was saying.

“Rabbit, are you telling me you got me all the way out here, before the ass-crack of dawn, and you’re carrying on like the world’s ‘bout to end, all ‘cause the amount of money you robbed from a strip joint wasn’t what you thought it would be? Jesus Christ, I’m outta here.”

Rabbit jumped up quickly and grabbed the sleeve of James’ shirt.

“Now, just hold on. I ain’t finished.”

“So it gets worse, huh?”

“We got the bag, but I start yelling at Delmore.”

“Because it’s not a hundred grand.”

Satisfied that he still had James’ attention, Rabbit sat back down on the edge of the couch.
 

“Hell, yeah. I need that money, James. I got nothing going for me right now. Mama took all Daddy’s money and won’t let me get no dime at all. I got nothing.”

“Get to the point, Rabbit.”

“I’m getting there. Okay, so, we’re arguing in the back room and next thing you know, well, Jesus, I guess we just weren’t paying no attention. We hear this noise and I turn ‘round, and there’s this girl standing in the doorway. Just standing there with her mouth wide open. One of the dancers at the club, Nora. I knowed her. I don’t know what the hell she was doing there, but there she was, just standing there with eyes ‘bout this big. I near ‘bout didn’t recognize her ‘cause she had all her clothes on.”

Rabbit looked away from James and started picking at the loose threads sticking up out of the couch upholstery.

“Now, I ain’t known what to do at this point. I look over at Delmore. I’m thinking maybe this chick is cool, maybe we give her a little cash, and she pretends like she ain’t never seen us. She’s still in the doorway, still with her mouth open she’s so surprised, and next thing I know, Delmore’s got his gun out and she’s running back through the strip club screaming her goddamn head off.”

James’ voice was tight.

“Rabbit. What happened? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do nothing, James! I just heard a shot, no, wait, it were two shots. I walked out and she was just laying there. James, I ain’t had nothing to do with it, honest. She was just laid out there, kinda twisted up on the floor right in front of the emergency exit. One of her shoes was off and there were blood all over the front of her dress. There were blood all over the door, too.”

Rabbit covered his face with his hands, and James could hear his breath catching in his throat. Rabbit kept speaking, but with his face hidden so he wouldn’t have to look at James. His voice came out muffled.

“I ain’t never seen no one killed before. I seen it on the TV, but it ain’t never looked like that. I didn’t know there was that much blood, and that it would go all over the place like that.”

James didn’t say anything. He poked at an empty bag of Kitten Chow on the floor with his boot and waited for Rabbit to collect himself.

“Then, I don’t know. Delmore said we had to get outta there. I wanted to go right then, but he said no, we couldn’t leave her. The body, I mean. I couldn’t touch her, though. I waited outside and called Waylon while Delmore was doing something in the club. When he came out, she were all wrapped up in one of the curtains from the VIP room. Delmore put her in his truck bed and I said what ‘bout all the blood, but he said we just gotta leave it. We had to get outta there quick. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just followed him and we drove on outta there. Delmore’s tailgate is missing and I could see her all wrapped up there in the back of the truck. She were really small. James, I didn’t have nothing to do with that part of it. I couldn’t never kill nobody.”

Rabbit finally raised his head and looked up at James, who nodded.

“What happened next?”

“James, you ‘bout to flip out on me?”

“What happened next?”

Rabbit turned his eyes back to the bare floor.

“We drove out and met Waylon on the Wade Creek Bridge. You know, all the way out where the creek goes into the Santa Fe River. Honestly, I was freaking out ‘bout this point, but Waylon just handled the body like I’d seen him handle kegs at the bar. Put her in the trunk of his car and closed it like it weren’t nothing. I had told him a little bit on the phone, but Delmore explained the whole thing to him. Then Waylon started asking questions like, did we pick up the shell casings? And Delmore said no, we ain’t had no time. Then, I don’t know, they started arguing. I was starting to feel sick, so I went and sat down in my car until Delmore came up to the window. He said that he and Waylon was gonna go take care of it. I don’t know what they done with her, James. And then he told me to come back here and wait. So I did. And I called you. And that’s what happened.”

James looked long and hard into Rabbit’s face. His eyes were lost, pleading, like a child who has done something wrong and wants to just hurry up and get the punishment over with. A child who wants that punishment, who almost needs it to be able to move on. James suddenly felt the weight of having no sleep and no answers coming down on him. He ran a hand through his hair a couple more times and shook his head.