Country Hardball (19 page)

• • •

I parked my truck behind the Qwik-Mart, walked through a couple empty lots to meet Cleo by the payday loan place.

He asked if I was ready. I put the gloves on, said I was. He led me to the alley beside the place, kneeled against the blue brick wall, then rolled a shotgun out of a blanket and handed it to me. I pulled down the ski mask as he went over the plan again.

A couple cars went by, but no one noticed us. No one ever did.

I knew my grandfather didn’t spend all his time in Bradley working on engines. He’d been involved in jobs with Horace Pennick. That much was certain. But there wasn’t any record of either one of them ever getting arrested. Not that I could find, anyway. Maybe they were better at it than I was. Than Cleo was. Still, Cleo and I were alive and they weren’t.

I checked the shotgun, and he handed me some extra shells. “Thought we weren’t going loaded for bear.”

“Nah,” Cleo said. “Shit starts to break nasty, you gotta be prepared.”

I pulled out one of the shells. “Birdshot?”

“Yeah. So don’t worry. For show, right?”

I said fine, put the shell back.

“Besides, they don’t want to get shot. They got families. Mortgages. Shit like that. Like we said. Go in. Get the money. Go home.” Cleo pulled down his mask and edged to the front corner of the building.

I found the back door unlocked, just as Cleo had said. Saw the cigarette butts in a dirt pile by a lawn chair, the smokers’ stone for propping the door open.

I put my hand on the door handle, flexed my glove. The day before I could have done fifty different things, taken fifty different paths. I could have followed the trail back out of the woods and found a whole new path. One that hadn’t already been blazed with a path for me. One that hadn’t been chopped to pulp. The day before, I could have done so many things.

I took a breath, walked into the back of the building, and eased shut the door behind me.

Skinny Dennis McWilliams pulled a frozen Tupperware bowl from his freezer, slid it into the microwave, and sat down at the table, raking tablecloth crumbs onto the floor.

He picked up the message, looping ink on a sheet of cross-shaped notepaper. At the top of the cross, sideways to fit, Cora had written, “Dinner in freezer. 5 minutes on medium.” Then, on the cross part, “2 minutes on high. D
acan Hon’t forget Bandit.” And underneath, sideways again, “half can in the morning, dry all day, quarter at night. Call when I can. Be EXTRA careful. Smooch.”

Another mission trip. At least he wouldn’t have to box up any more Bibles or shoes.

He set his head down on the table, fell asleep for the half minute until the oven beeped. Five minutes on high.

He dropped the bowl on the table, pulled the dripping lid off, tossed it near the sink. Took a spoon from the drain board, stirred the chili. Beans like pebbles, meat like mud. He lowered the bowl to the floor, called the dog. Then he took a longneck from the fridge and watched a half inning of the Astros until Caskey called.

“Game time,” Caskey said, opening the passenger door.

“Game time?”

“It’s my new battle cry.”

“Got your game face on?” McWilliams grinned, sliding into the seat, working the seatbelt buckle around his holstered pistol.

“Oh, shut up. Just trying to get in the mood to do some damage. So we all set?”

“Pretty much. I’ll go in, need you to hang back.”

“Why’s that?”

“Need to keep it low-key.”

“This the Alison guy’s idea?”

“No,” McWilliams lied. “We just don’t want some Butch and Sundance standoff. Keep it low. Manageable.”

“You go in, and I’ll hang back?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m thinking it’s better we both go in front, if there’s two of them in there armed.”

“There’s only Porterfield you have to worry about.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Roy said he’s a loose cannon, liable to snap we come in there like some overpowering threat.”

“I think overpowering threat is the way to go.”

McWilliams nodded, took a breath. “Remember that bank guy, Dale Thomas?”

“One your guy and Porterfield beat the shit out of? Yeah. I remember.”

“Seems Porterfield’s the one went ballistic on the guy.”

“That what happened?”

“Yeah. Roy and his cousin go over there to talk to him about a loan to Roy’s grandmother, Dale gets a little mouthy, sends Porterfield off.”

“That’s what the Alison guy’s claiming, huh? He’s just a victim of circumstance? Peer pressure? Just trying to get that girl in his eighth grade homeroom to notice? He didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt when he beat the shit out of that guy?”

“Sure, fine. Maybe that’s not exactly what happened. I don’t know. But I figure having you outside as backup is the safer bet. You got the front. There’s Roy at the back door. Porterfield in the middle.”

“You trust this guy? Roy Alison?”

“I don’t trust anybody,” McWilliams said.

Caskey shook his head. “We both know that’s
he knewan Hnot true.”

McWilliams nodded, watched the houses move to the edge of the windshield as they drove along. “Trust him enough. His father was a good man.”

• • •

McWilliams was sitting at the window of Ned’s BBQ when he saw Cleo Porterfield park near the payday loan store across the street, step out with a blanket, and walk into the alley.

“Sweet or un?”

He looked up, saw the waitress with a pitcher in each hand. “Sweet.”

She poured his tea, went to the next diners a few booths over.

He’d lost sight of Cleo, but had a good idea what to expect. After three minutes, he stood up as he watched Cleo walk to the front door of the payday loan store.

McWilliams got to his feet, waited for the waitress. “Tell your folks ‘hey,’” he said. He left some cash on the table, put on his hat, and walked across the street. He waited behind a white van as Cleo eased into the store and locked the door behind him.

The deputy leaned low around the back of the van, pulled out his radio and called in the armed robbery, then moved to the building, crouching against the brick half-wall under the window.

He’d passed up the chance to warn the people inside, to let them know what he knew. He could have told them they’d gotten a tip about an armed robbery, but he knew what would happen. Everyone would talk about it. No one would show for work. And nothing would happen. Everyone would be protected for that moment. For that fifteen minutes. But not the moments that followed. Not the next day when some drug dealer would sell a bag of weed to a twelve-year-old. Or the next week when someone would be stabbed outside a gas station.

Which is what he’d talked to Roy Alison about at the cemetery.

“Shouldn’t we warn the folks?” Roy had asked. “Maybe tell them it’s a drill?”

McWilliams had shaken his head, looked out past the gravestones, beyond where his little sister was buried. “You know how many people are out there in the county? People with no idea what’s going on? People who just stumble into a bad situation? People killed because of that? Good people? People with their whole lives in front of them?”

Roy hadn’t said anything.

“Then there’s people out there who want to take all that away. The Rudds and Pribbles and Sawyers. Hell, I got a kid locked up right now who has a good job at the Piggly Wiggly. Got him locked up on conspiracy and home invasion. Know why? I talked to the boy for two hours, and you know what he said? He said he was bored. Bored. You know what happens when those people get bored, Roy? Staci McMahen happens. Every minute those people walk free is another minute you can’t let your kid stay out past dark.”

“Okay.”

“These people, they’re not like you and me. They’re cold, Roy. They prey on people. They want you to be soft on them, want you to do the right thing. They game the system. So they can just keep doing what they do. They know we have to play by the rules. Because it’s what we do. It’s what makes us different from them. We’re the good guys. We stop the outlaws.”

“But can’t you let the people at the store know about what’s gonna happen? Say it’s a drill?”

“Roy, we tell them that, no telling what’s likely to happen. We can’t have this
not
take place. We have to let this thing work itself out. A robbery like this, we can get you some federal protection. Set it all up. Get the funding like we talked about. But there’s got to be a crime. I can’t just go handing out money to any people I want to. And besides, we let this look like a fake robbery, there’s just no telling what happens. We need it to go down like it’s set to go down. Bust you and your cousin.

“We let this one get away from us, we’ll never put a stop to this. This is our best shot. And we have to get the two of you in the middle of this. That’s the only way this works out for everyone. Otherwise, just no telling.”

And he’d meant that. At the time. Then he sneaked a look into the payday loan store and wished he’d warned the people inside. Wished it had just been the man and the woman working behind the counter, without the young couple sitting on the side bench, the husband holding his paycheck stub folded tight in his fist.

• • •

When he’d talked to Roy at the cemetery, he’d followed the script. Let the other person think you’re on the same team. Talk about the “we” of the situation. Connect. Show him how there’s no other way. He’d been through enough training sessions to know what to do, but that didn’t mean much in the real situation. He knew he had to convince the informant he had no real choice. You give us the information or you go to prison. For the people who turned out to be informants, there wasn’t much choice.

When McWilliams had worked with Randy Pribble, things had been clear. He’d busted the kid a couple of times, but by the third, the kid knew he was in trouble. Convince that kid that his drug-dealing boss doesn’t care about him, you’re halfway there. Convince him that you do, you’re home. Which is what McWilliams had done. What he was good at. Understanding people. Knowing what made them work. When they were in a hole 0-2, standing at the plate, would they take a whack at whatever you threw at them? Would they choke up, foul off pitches until they got what they liked? Would they know you were going to throw the next one in the dirt, just to test them? What would they do with that next chance?

Maybe the Pribble boy went down swinging. Maybe he’d been lucky, living on borrowed time, fouling off pitches. Or maybe Sawyer found out he was working with McWilliams. Maybe the Rudds tracked him down. All McWilliams could do then was tell the paper it was a drug deal gone bad, let the public be on the lookout. Maybe they turn up something. Maybe something shakes out and the sheriff’s department gets a lead on something else. Then a week later, just pick out a Mexican the Feds caught in Little Rock or Oklahoma City. Some guy getting deported. Hang it on him.
Based on a lead from a local sheriff’s deputy, authorities apprehended the killer at a truck stop in Lawton
. Everyone can go back to tucking their kids in at night. All protected.

Except McWilliams was down one informant, just when he needed him most. Ever since McWilliams had talked to his brother-in-law about the robbery at Hank’s place, he’d kept an eye on Cleo Porterfield. Sawyer moving against Rudd meant they were looking at the bottom of the ninth when anything could happen. He needed to have Porterfield and Roy on his team. He knew Porterfield would be an asset because of his involvement in so much small-time work, but Roy Alison would be a great addition, too. McWilliams knew about Roy’s past, figured he could look at
alan H this as a new chance. A new life. He’d get all the information he could out of Porterfield, then turn him over to the prosecutor. He’d be gone for a long time. But Roy. That was different. He could put Roy back into the situation, maybe he’d fill the void left by Porterfield. Or the Pribble boy.

And in the process he’d be helping the son of his old ball coach. Helping him become a better man. He kept telling himself that. What he had to do was convince Roy. Once he had him on this robbery, he’d have the leverage he needed. Show him there’s no choice. Your father was a good man, he’d keep telling him. This is your chance. You can’t get away from your family, he’d told Roy at the cemetery. He figured Roy wouldn’t feel right about setting up himself and Porterfield. Handing them both over to the cops. But he’d told Roy, sometimes you just have to do this one thing even if you don’t believe in it at the time. You just do it and ask forgiveness later.

“I’ll let you know,” Roy had said. “Anything else?”

“No,” the deputy had told him. Then McWilliams had walked across the field, put a flower on his sister’s grave. Said a prayer, drove back.

• • •

McWilliams heard a thin scream from inside, then people shuffling. He looked at the van parked on the street, trying to use the reflection in the windows to see inside. He saw the top edge of the building, power lines, drifting clouds.

He waited to hear Roy sneak to the front, unlock the door. His radio snapped on. Two units were five minutes away. He heard the door lock click.

He drew his pistol, counted to ten. He looked up to see the waitress from across the street walking down the sidewalk, looking back at the payday loan store. Saw her trying to get a view of what was going on. He waved her off, waved to her to get back inside, knew he didn’t have much time.

He eased to the door, stood up as he went through, raised his pistol.

“Drop the gun. Hands where I can see them,” he said. He held his aim on Cleo Porterfield, standing behind the counter with the woman in charge, gun barrel in her side. In the back of the store, Roy had a man seated at a desk, shotgun at the back of his head. McWilliams looked around the room, saw the young couple facedown on this side of the counter.

McWilliams said to let the people leave.

Porterfield said to go fuck yourself.

McWilliams took a step to Porterfield, made sure he got a good look at the pistol. “You two, on the ground, stay down and crawl out the door.”

As they started to move, Porterfield jabbed his pistol into the woman’s side. She made a sound, something like a grunt, and the couple stopped moving.