Down Don't Bother Me (9780062362209) (21 page)

I said, “It's a nice speech, but you didn't go through all this trouble for nothing. Truth is, you're scared.”

For the first time, I'd touched a nerve. Sonny sucked a breath, and Fatboy stopped groaning, and Galligan drew himself up and turned as red as a radish.

He said, “You filthy little maggot. You dirty white nigger.”

Jeep laughed. I brushed aside the insults and said, “How much is avoiding treatment saving you?”

“Depends,” Galligan said when he'd collected himself. “Some months the flow out of that closed section is a bit heavier than usual. Treatment for our string is running more than a million a year.”

“Used to, anyway.” Goines.

“It's going to again,” I said. “Here's what I want, me and my gun: Finish what you started. Clean it up. I don't care
how you do it, or where you get your ammonia from, but clean the shit up.”

“I'm not sure I can do that now, son,” Galligan said softly. He breathed deeply and retook full control of himself. He smiled a little and shook his head, as though at the folly of his own weakness, and then he poured us a round of shots, even passing a double to Fatboy, who sat up long enough to moan about wanting a doctor.

Galligan said, “But hell, maybe you're right. It's not like we were saving a fortune on this deal anyway. That's the bitch of it all. All this woe, and all these unfortunate endings, and for what? A few bucks and the safety of a few fish?” He paused and drank and swished the liquid around in his mouth and finally swallowed and said, “I'll look into what you say. Doing what you say, I mean. I don't know that it's possible at this point, but I will give it a looking-at. I'll do it maybe because it was what I planned to do in the beginning anyway, but mostly I'll do it because I don't want my end in this world to be spent dealing with environmentalists and reporters and other kinds of fools.”

“I take that personally,” I said.

“Go right ahead. I meant it personally. Anything else?”

“Just take care of your wounded,” I said. “And leave me and mine the hell alone.”

“It's a deal, Slim,” he said. He strode forward like a giant and gripped my hand.

“It needs to be,” I said. “For your sake.”

And the old boy showed me his teeth. “Oh?”

I gestured over my shoulder. “This is Jeep Mabry.”

Galligan looked at Jeep. He betrayed no emotion, but his eyes lingered on the big man perhaps just a moment too long.

Jeep said, “It needs to be, for your sake.”

Galligan nodded and said, “Any time, boy. Come for me, and we'll see. Maybe we'll go the devil together. I feel more ready these days than not. My time will be soon, and I'd like it to be memorable.”

We went out. The rain was still coming down, but the worst of the tempest had passed and now rumbled away to our east. Flashes of moonlight licked the clouds. Temple snored.

I said, “We're alive. I can hardly believe it.”

“Me, either, really,” said Jeep. “Question is, do you believe him? Galligan?”

“About everything?”

“About Dwayne Mays.”

I said, “I don't know why, but I kind of do.”

“I kind of do, too.”

“We're missing something,” I said.

“Jump Down after all?”

“I don't know,” I said.

Pelzer grunted under Temple's weight, “Maybe a little less talk, a little more doing?”

We climbed into our vehicles and got the hell out of there, leaving behind the wreckage for someone else to clean up.

I
feel like I've been stepped on by an elephant,” said Temple.

“You kinda were.”

“I wonder what they gave me.”

“All of it, apparently.”

She laughed a little, but laughing hurt her head, and she stopped.

It was a few hours later, and we were back at Indian Vale. All of us. Jeep was there and Peggy and Anci and Pelzer. We'd taken Pelzer to a country doctor he knew, and the doc had sewed his ear back on and taped up his head and given him a shot to numb the pain some. Unbelievably, his wound was mostly cosmetic. The bullet had bounced off his skull and given him a shave, but that was more or less the extent of it. Pelzer joked that it made him uglier, but no one joked back because Pelzer was right. I'd called Susan and told her Temple was safe. She almost sounded relieved. No one wanted to call the cops.

The fear and excitement of the night started to wear off, and hunger moved in to take its place.

“I tell you, I could eat a car,” Pelzer said.

“We could order up some takeout,” Anci said.

“Probably too late. Everything worth eating is closed.”

“We could run to that truck stop again,” she said. “Get some of those scrambled eggs with orange cheese.”

I said, “I think I can do a little better.” I took out a big soup pot, filled the bottom with olive oil, then diced two big
onions and a handful of fresh garlic cloves and threw it all in. I chopped up some chicken and threw that into the onion and garlic mix and hit it all with some fresh-cracked black pepper. Some stock and white wine and cannellini beans and spices, some rosemary and thyme and tarragon. Like that. Pretty soon the smells of my mother's pasta fagioli filled the house.

Anci looked into the pot and stirred it a little with the wooden spoon. She looked up at me and nodded. “Yeah, slightly better.”

Jeep set the table. Anci sliced bread. Peggy tossed a salad. Pelzer shirked and went outside for a smoke, and Temple watched it all with a slightly dazed look. We were like a big, crazy family, maybe, but at least we were alive. After a while, Pelzer came back and pretended to help. I took down some bowls, and Anci ladled the steaming hot soup into them. Everybody found a place at the table, and we ate. Food never tasted so good.

“This is wonderful,” Temple said.

“It is, Slim,” said Peggy. She sounded calmer than she had in days. She touched my arm. “Thank you.”

“Needs salt,” Pelzer said, but everyone ignored him.

We didn't talk much during that first bowl. During the second, though, things started to loosen up a bit. Pelzer told the ladies the story of our assault on Galligan's house, and I have to admit, the way he told it was pretty good. He even did some of the fighting sounds. In the telling, it came off as more exciting and courageous than terrifying, and he clipped off the most violent parts for Anci's sake, which was a relief.

“You're heroes,” Peggy said.

“I'll just be happy if Galligan keeps his word and leaves us alone.” But I did feel kinda heroic, I'll admit it.

After we finished, and Jeep phoned Opal to tell the whole
story over again, I went and sat down next to Temple. “I'm sorry about Guy,” I said.

She sighed. “At least he died doing something useful. Even if it was accidentally useful. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to see about doing something about this mess. It'll be a way to get to the old man. And I bet if we look under enough rocks, we're liable to find some bribe money floating around certain land and water management agencies.”

“Probably,” I said. “Anyway, I didn't really expect you to wait for Galligan to have a change of heart.”

“He murdered my father.”

“I know,” I said. “Or he ordered it done, anyway. I'm sorry about that, too.”

She just shrugged her shoulders.

Pelzer finished the dishes and drained the sink. Jeep sat at the table. Anci brought in her old computer and sat down with it, idly watching the video of my makeshift security feed. On the screen, Peggy was making her way through the house with armloads of Anci's things, shoes and books and clothes, like she'd told me that night at the hotel. Meanwhile, Temple gathered herself up and made ready to go back to her life or her revenge or whatever it would be. It was a little awkward, like saying good-bye after a long and bloody dinner party.

She said, “I can't thank you enough. I'll never be able to. You saved my life.”

I said, “I just wish it'd all come out better.”

“You know how it is.”

I knew how it was. The best you could do was fight for the draw. Anything more was a pipe dream.

“You're okay to get where you're going?” I said. “I can call Susan. I'm sure she'd be glad to come get you.”

“Susan's never glad to do anything,” Temple said.

Pelzer said, “I'll give her a lift.”

He looked at Temple. I thought she'd turn him down flat, but she nodded gratefully. You never knew with people. Pelzer turned again to me. We shook hands.

“You're sure you're okay?” I said. “Just a while ago, you were shot in the head.”

“I'm a big guy,” he said. “Sometimes you get shot in the head. A little thing that like hardly bothers me.”

“That's a pretty sunny outlook.”

“Sunny people live longer. I read that in a men's health magazine one time when I was getting my tires rotated.”

“Thanks again for your help,” I said.

“I like to finish a job, even if the client isn't around anymore.”

“Anyway, I'm sorry about your ear.”

His hand touched the spot and jumped away. “Well, it lends character, I guess.”

“It does that.”

“Just one more thing,” he said. He leaned in and said in a theater whisper, “Jim Hart.”

“You and that photograph. It's like a romance.”

“You said you'd hand it over.”

“I did,” I said. “But now I'm thinking maybe I should keep it for a few more days.”

He frowned. “That doesn't seem right to me. Going back on your promise like that.”

“I'm not going back,” I said. “I just think I should delay the handoff until I'm sure Galligan is going to keep his promise to leave me and my people alone. Plus, I'd like to run it over to the university, have someone in the photography school give it a looking-at. There's no telling what's on it.”

Pelzer sucked that around some. He was a lunkhead, but I figured him to be pretty fair when it came down to it.

“Okay, just as long as I get it soon,” he said. “Like you said before, maybe we can go get it checked out together.”

“Maybe.”

We shook hands again, and he and Temple turned to go.

The scene switched on Anci's computer. The motion detector had detected motion.

She looked up and said, “Hey.”

I glanced at the screen. Someone was making his way through the house. Not Peggy. The time stamp said it was two days ago. The someone was searching the bookshelves and under the couch cushions. He must have found some change there, because he put something in his pants pocket. He went to the far end of the room and around the corner for a while and then came back, and as he approached the camera you could see that it was Tony Pelzer.

My head snapped up. I looked at Pelzer. I said, “Why, you devious little shit.”

Some reason, he looked at Temple again. Temple shrugged at him.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess that's it, then.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol and shot Jeep Mabry twice in the chest.

T
he computer hit the floor and smashed apart. Anci screamed. Peggy screamed. Hell, I think even I did. Jeep flew backward off his seat and crashed into the wall. There was blood everywhere and more flowing out of Jeep. Pelzer held the pistol on us.

He said to Temple, “Go find it. Now.”

She hesitated, looked at me a moment, nothing in her face. Then she ran out of the room.

Peggy was holding Anci. Pelzer lunged, reaching for her. Peggy kicked out at him, but he was faster and stronger. He slapped her so hard across the face she let go of Anci and went whirling across the kitchen floor. I screamed again and jumped Pelzer, but I was off balance and my adrenaline was going too hard, and he was ready. He planted a kick in the center of my chest that knocked me backward, then lunged in and hit me with the grip of the pistol. I dropped to the floor in a pile.

“That's for before,” he said. “For shooting me with that damn beanbag.”

After a moment, Temple came back with the photo. “Got it,” she said.

“Where was it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I'd just like to know,” he said.

“Go to hell, Tony.”

Pelzer nodded. “Let's go then.”

Temple looked at Anci, “Take her.”

“Why?”

“So he won't follow.”

Peggy screamed. Pelzer shrugged. I climbed to my feet and made ready to charge, but he waved the gun in Anci's direction.

Temple said, “We need two hours. Maybe three. Then we're out of here. We won't be going back to the lake. You don't know where you're going, but if you follow us, if you try to find us, we'll kill her.”

I said, “Either way, you're dead.”

“That's up to you to try,” she said. “That's your choice. But you can save her life by not following us.”

Anci was crying, and I was tearing apart inside. I'd never experienced anything like that, even that night on the streets of Herrin. It felt like my guts were on fire, and I don't remember a time when I felt so helpless. Peggy stirred around on the floor. She crawled over to Jeep and tried to stop the blood pumping from his chest with her hands. It didn't look like it was doing much good.

Temple said, “When we're ready to go, I'll call you.”

They dragged my daughter from the kitchen and through the house. I heard the front door open and then close, and I heard Pelzer yell a warning at Anci, who was fighting him. I looked at Peggy. Peggy looked at me, desperate. I ran out of the room and upstairs. I found the 9000S and ran back down and out the door. Pelzer and Temple were near her car, two hundred yards in front of the house. Pelzer saw me and fired off a couple rounds, but they missed badly. Then he climbed in the car and wheeled away so fast it was like he'd never been there. The gravel lot shredded and spat, and wet dirt spattered the air in thick clumps. I ran to the bike and climbed on and only then realized that he'd slashed the tires. Probably on his cigarette break before dinner. He'd done the trucks' tires, too, and Peggy's car.

I ran halfway down the long drive and nearly all the way to Shake-a-Rag Road before I gave out. I lurched into the grass and threw up my dinner. I was crying and searching the dark and I yelled her name but there wasn't anything to see and there wasn't anyone to yell back.

They were gone. The sonsofbitches had my daughter, and they were gone.

I
went back to the house, fast as I was able. I had tears on my face and vomit in my shoes. The smell of cordite was stuck
in my nose like a curse, and the memory of the gunshots rang in my head. I think I was in shock. I tilted over once and landed in the wet grass. It was like my body wanted to lie down and sleep away this terrible night, start over fresh in the morning. I fought it off and climbed to my feet and went inside. Peggy had staunched Jeep's wounds with some towels. She screamed again when I came in the room.

“Me,” I said.

“Did you . . .”

I shook my head. She seemed in shock, too. She put a hand in her mouth and smeared blood on her face. She didn't realize.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's my fault.”

“Listen to me,” I said. I took her by the shoulders and shook her gently and held her eyes with mine. “There's no time for that. I'm going to get her back.”

I tried to sound sure of it, but I didn't feel it. I felt like burning down the world. I looked at Jeep. Peggy's eyes followed mine.

She said, “He's alive. I can't believe it. He must be strong as a damn bear.”

“More or less.”

“Strong but fading. He won't last much longer, Slim. We've got to call an ambulance.”

I shook my head. My thoughts were firing ahead of me like cannonballs.

“We do that, the police will be here. The police come, they'll get involved, and if they get involved, Anci will die.”

“If we don't get him medical help right now,
he'll
die.”

I thought about it for a half second longer. I grabbed my phone and dialed Dr. Cooper's number. He answered after about ten rings, sounding like he wasn't quite awake.

“There better be someone dying,” he said.

Someone was dying. I explained the situation best I could and without going into too much detail, in case it came back on us later. I tried not to sound completely insane, but I have no idea whether I succeeded.

“This is twice you're asking me to leave the law out of suspicious doings,” he said when I was done. “Not sure I can go along with it this time.”

“Just for a few hours.”

He paused a beat, uncertain. It was just a beat, but it felt like ten years.

I said, “My daughter's in danger.”

He said, “I'm on my way. Put pressure on those wounds, and if you have a free hand, put on some damn coffee. I'm so tired, I'm liable to kill him myself.”

I disconnected the call and put on my jacket and put the pistol in one of its pockets. I went out to Jeep's truck and got Betsy. Then I went back inside and kissed Peggy on the cheek and squeezed Jeep's hand.

“Jesus God, man,” I said, “Don't die like this. Please.”

His eyes opened a little, but he couldn't speak. His skin was ashen and he looked as close to the end as anyone I'd ever seen. I turned to go.