Cold in July (4 page)

“Man, that air-conditioning feels good,” he said. “Cushy job
you got here, folks. But tell you, wouldn’t trade. Mine keeps me in shape.” He
slapped his stomach. “Course,” he said looking at Valerie, “you look in shape.”

“TV dinners,” she said.

He laughed. It sounded like something strangling. Well, one
could hope.

He came over to the counter and leaned on it and looked me
square in the eyes, like we were secret comrades, but said loudly, “I hear you
got you one last night.”

The bottom fell out of my stomach. I knew it had to happen,
but the fact that the first person who brought it up to me was Macho Jack
seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. I didn’t know what to say back so I
didn’t say anything. Jack was doing all the talking anyway.

“Mack over at the newspaper told me. Said you shot that
sonofabitch right in the eye, killed him deader than an anvil. Was it a nigger?
Wetback?”

Valerie and James stopped working and came over to the desk.

“What’s all this?” James asked.

“Dick got him one last night,” Jack said.

First of all, I hated being called Dick. It’s the nickname
for a man’s sexual equipment, and as far as I’m concerned you might as well
call me Prick. And I sure didn’t like Jack calling me that; I wouldn’t want
that bastard to call me to dinner.

“He shot the bastard right through the head,” Jack said, not
waiting for me to answer. “Killed his ass.”

“That’s enough,” I said.

“No need to be modest, Dicky.” Dicky? “Hell, I’d be proud.
Sonofabitch breaks into my house he better sure be ready to pick his teeth out
of his asshole. I keep a pump 12-gauge right under the bed, and if—”

“Drop it, Jack,” I said. “Just drop it.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Jack said. “If it were me—”

“It wasn’t you. It was me. And I’m not ashamed of it, just
not proud of it either. You got some mail for me, leave it. If not, get out.”

Jack’s face turned red and his mouth went slack. “You kill
some asshole, and you get to talking pretty damn tough. Think you’re fucking
Clint Eastwood.”

“Just leave,” I said.

“All right, cowboy.” Jack reached into his bag and tossed a
handful of letters on the counter. They slid off and fell on the floor. “Enjoy
your fucking mail, Dicky.”

He gave me a parting glare and stomped out, holding the door
open long enough to let in some of July. “Hope your fucking air conditioner
goes out,” he said.

“And I hope a rabid dog chews off your nuts,” Valerie said.

James and I both jerked our heads toward her. Valerie?

Jack stood in the doorway, shocked. “That’s not very
ladylike,” he managed.

“You got it,” Valerie said.

Jack swallowed, let go of the door, and walked away. He
looked back through the showcase window just before he was out of sight, and
Valerie shot him the finger.

Valerie looked at us and blushed redder than her dress.
“Well,” she said, “I just don’t like him.”

6

I told James and Valerie the whole story and they were good
about it. They didn’t ask for any gory details. I finally left things in their
hands and drove over to Kelly’s. I just didn’t want to talk about it anymore or
be around anyone that knew about it for a while. I needed, as they say in
California, some space. Or as we say in Texas, I wanted to be left the hell
alone.

I passed Jack on the sidewalk on the way over there. He was
still making his rounds. He had his head down and was walking furiously. I
thought about how Valerie had put him down, and I almost honked at him so I
could remind him, but I didn’t. My sense of humor wasn’t up to it.

Kelly’s is an old-fashioned cafe on the west side of town,
and I eat there often. I like it because it reminds me of my high school days.
I’m not the type that lives in the past, but I don’t mind thinking about it
some. I used to take dates to Kelly’s and we’d drink malts and eat hamburgers
there. It was actually owned by a man named Kelly then. But that was quite a
few years back. He was out at the LaBorde Cemetery now, holding up a plastic
flower arrangement.

I couldn’t go into Kelly’s without thinking about Stud
Franklin who went in there one Saturday and shot himself through the head with
a .22 pistol. I didn’t see it, but I heard about it from plenty who did. He
just walked in there and, said, “Fuck him and his pig too,” and put the gun to
his head. He was upset because he didn’t win the FHA contest. He’d raised a pig
for it, worked all year on that pig and put all his money into it, bought fancy
food and medical supplies. He was beat out by some backwoods farmer who raised
his pig on stale bread and cakes and fed him chewing tobacco to kill worms.
Later, they found Stud’s pig hung up in the fancy concrete pen Stud had built
for him. No one suspected the pig of suicide. Stud had seemed stable up until
then.

And the back booth, the one with the rip in the leather that
had been badly taped over and over for years, was where my first real romance
ended. I had put my hand on Kathy Counsel’s knee and tried to slide it up under
her dress for a better prize and she had slapped me, the sound of that slap
went through the place like a mortar shot. I went out of there with her yelling
at me and the other lads laughing, and I didn’t go back in there for a month.
Kathy Counsel got knocked up about six months later by our star quarterback,
Herschel Roman, and they had to quit school and Herschel threw his last ball
and started throwing nozzles into gas tanks down at the Fina on Main. He was
still there. He owned the place now and he watched lots of football on the TV
next to the Coke machine. Kathy had gotten fat and had a tongue sharp as a meat
fork. Their kid played football and was bad at it and hated it, or so the rumor
went. Occasionally, I had the urge to call up Cathy and thank her for that
slap.

Out back of Kelly’s was where I had my only two fights. Lost
both of them. I couldn’t even remember what they were over. They had both been
with my best high school friend, Jerry Quail. He got drafted after graduation
because he wasn’t college material. He never saw action in Nam. The week before
he went over there he fell out of a helicopter on maneuvers and was killed. I
attended the funeral.

I didn’t take one of the booth seats. I sat down at the
counter and Kay came over. She was the only waitress in the place that time of
day, and I liked her. She was pretty in a peroxide, too-much-makeup sort of
way, and happily married or not, I couldn’t help but enjoy the way her hips
worked beneath that starched white outfit she wore. She had some of what
Valerie had; an element women wished they could buy bottled and so did their
men.

I smiled best I could and ordered coffee. She poured it up
and said, “I heard what happened.”

“Christ,” I said. “People in this town are goddamn
telepathic.”

“They just have big mouths,” she said. “Anyway, I’m sorry.
I’m sure it’s tough.”

“That was just the right thing to say, Kay. Thanks.”

She smiled and I moved over to a booth. I sat with my head
back against the old, red, leather cushion and closed my eyes. Immediately last
night jumped through my head.

I opened my eyes and drank half of my coffee in one gulp. It
was bitter. I called to Kay to bring me a Coke. I sipped it. It wasn’t any
better.

“Use your phone?”

Kay was behind the bar wiping up a water spot “Have at it.
You know where it is.”

I went through the back door, into the stockroom. The phone
was sitting on the directory on a shelf next to an economy-sized can of
tomatoes. That would be for the chili they served. It said:
Good stuff, but
hot as a potbellied stove.

I leaned on the shelf and used the directory to look up a
number. It was on the first page in big letters. I dialed.

“LaBorde Police Department”

“I’d like to speak to Lieutenant Price.”

“Just a moment.”

When Price came on the line, I said, “This is Dane. I just
wanted to know what happened to Russel’s body.”

“He’ll be buried day after tomorrow. Would have been today,
but they did an autopsy.”

“Why?”

“Fairly standard procedure. Why do you want to know about
burial?”

“This Russel, he got any family besides his old man?”

“I don’t think so. None that we know of. The county is
paying for it. A pauper’s funeral we call it.”

“Where’s he going to be buried?”

“Greenley’s Cemetery. You’re not planning on coming, are
you?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Guilt?”

“Something like that.”

“I know how you feel, but you’re letting this get out of
hand. You’ve got to accept the fact that you killed him in self-defense. He
broke into your house.”

“Just got to thinking about it. Doesn’t seem right he’ll be
buried without anyone there.”

“You think his spirit’s going to feel cheerier with you
there? The man who killed him?”

I was quiet for a moment. When Price spoke again, his words
seemed packed in ice. “Look, I’m not trying to make you feel shitty, okay? I’m
just saying there’s no point. I doubt if he’d killed you he’d be attending your
funeral.”

“Not the point—”

“Maybe it is the point. Just do your best to forget it. Get
on with your life. People are going to talk about it and you’re going to hear
it. It’ll be rough for a while. But it’ll pass.”

“What time are they burying him?”

“You’re stubborn, aren’t you?”

“Just humor me, Price. I don’t know I’m going to do
anything, but it would make me feel better to know. Day after tomorrow when?”

Price sighed. “One-thirty. But Dane, do yourself a favor.
Stay away.”

I hung up and dialed a good friend of mine who’s a house
painter, gritted my teeth and told him what had happened. I tried to make it
simple and clear.

“Hell, Richard, I’m sorry.”

“No need to be,” I said. “It’s done. Look, what I need is
for you to paint my living room. It’s not that there’s still blood on the wall,
but it would make me feel better to have a fresh coat on the room.”

“I understand, I’ll get my boys and we’ll be over there
about noon.”

“Thanks, Ted. And I’m calling a locksmith and the furniture
store. You beat any of them there, let them in. Best way for you to get in is
to take some wire pliers and go around back and cut through the wire rig I made
last night.”

“No problem,” Ted said.

“Thanks.”

I used the book again and got the number of a furniture
store.

“I want a couch,” I said, and I gave them the colors of the
room, the general dimensions. They described what they had and I picked. I
hoped Ann would like it well enough. Buying it sight unseen was not a good
idea, but I just didn’t want to deal with people face to face any more than I
had to.

“When can you deliver? I’d like it today if you could.”

“That will be fine. About one o’clock all right?”

“That’s good. There’ll be a painter there named Ted Lawson
to let you in. Could you take my old couch off my hands? It’s not good for
anything, but I’ll pay you extra to carry it off.”

He thought on that a moment. “I suppose we can do that. No
charge.”

“Good. And could you cover the new one with plastic?. I
don’t want to get paint on it.”

He said they could, and I hung up, then dialed the
locksmith.

“Truman’s Locks, Truman speaking.”

“My name is Richard Dane, and—”

“You’re the fella shot that burglar last night, ain’t you?”

Great Godalmighty, word sure did move.

“That’s right. I need a lock on the door he tore up. Can you
do it today?”

“I can start today. Depends on how bad the door is busted.
You might have to get someone out there to fix that first”

“It just needs a lock,” I said.

“All right. Hey, they gonna put you in jail?”

“It was self-defense.”

“That don’t mean nothing these days. You can’t trust the
cops any better than the crooks. What’s that address?”

I told him.

“Say, Mr. Dane. How about a burglar alarm and some burglar
bars? I could fix you up real good. Goddamn Houdini couldn’t get in your house
once I got you secured.”

I knew he was working on my paranoia, and I knew I’d regret
it later. "Yeah," I said. "Let's shoot the works."

“Good move. We’ll get that lock and the bars in today. Start
on that alarm system tomorrow. That sound okay?”

“Peachy,” I said, and hung up.

I went up-front and sat at my booth again and finished my
Coke. It tasted a little better. I looked at the clock behind the counter and
over the mirror. Eleven. Too early for lunch.

To hell with that.

“Kay,” I called, “how about you get that cook in back to fix
me up a fried egg sandwich, and don’t hold the grease.”

“Got it,” she said, then yelled to the back. “Clyde.”

A black man in a stained white apron appeared at the cook
window. “Two baby chicks, dead on bread and don’t hold the grease,” she said.

Clyde tapped two fingers to his forehead in salute and
disappeared. I heard grease splattering in a pan a little later.

Kay came over with a Lone Star beer and sat it on the table.
“On the house,” she said.

I took my time drinking the beer, and later eating the
sandwich, listened to a couple of Dwight Yoakam songs on the jukebox, then
drove back to the shop.

7

A few people who had heard about the killing came into the
shop, and at least one of them was nothing more than a morbid curiosity seeker.
He didn’t even try to pretend he had business there, he just wanted to know
about last night. I told him all I felt like telling him, then went to the
bathroom in the back and stayed there until James and Valerie got rid of him.