The Devil's Right Hand (30 page)

“
You want to use mine?”

“
Sure,” he said.

It was almost 10:00 PM when they got back to
Wilmington. Coffee had turned into a long afternoon of
conversation, which had turned into dinner. Sanchez had been
embarrassed when Angela had offered to pay, but had eventually
acquiesced after promising to pay her back when he found work.

The pulled up in front of the H & H
office, behind the big brown pickup that Sanchez had taken from
Raymond Oxendine. “I suppose I should turn it in to the police,”
Sanchez said, “but I need transportation to find a job.”

“
I understand that,” she said, “but if
you get stopped by the police--”

“
Si
, I know,”
he said. He looked at her. “Thank you for the dinner,” he said.
“And the company.”

“
Thank you, Oscar,” she said. “It was
nice. It’s nice to find a man who doesn’t...”

“
What?”

She straightened her shoulders. “Who doesn’t
treat me like I’m some sort of breakable porcelain doll.”

“
That man, your husband,” Sanchez said.
“He tried to break you. If what he did did not do it, then no, you
are not breakable by anything I could do.” He looked at her for a
moment, then looked away.

"What?" she said.

He smiled. "It is nothing," he said. There
was a brief silence between them before he spoke again. "I would
like to see you again."

"Oscar," she said. "I--" she hesitated. "I'm
not sure that--that would be a good idea."

He turned to her. "Why?"

The simplicity of the question stopped her in
her tracks. He held her gaze, his brown eyes calm. Finally, she
laughed softly.

"Okay," she said. "I can't really answer
that, except to warn you, I'm not the easiest person in the world
to deal with."

He shrugged. "It is a chance I will
take."

She thought back to Keller's
words.
I've been going through my life so
far taking stupid risks
, he had said.
This time, I'm taking a risk on something
important
.

"Okay," she said again. She reached out and
squeezed his shoulder. "Well, you can't say you haven't been
warned." He turned and put his hand on hers.

“
Well, ain’t this nice,” a voice said.
The passenger door was yanked open. Raymond Oxendine was standing
there, a pistol pointed at Sanchez. The other door was yanked open
to reveal a dark-haired man. He held a stubby machine gun pointed
at Angela. She looked around in panic as the man grabbed her by the
shoulder and hauled her out of her car. There was a Chevy Suburban
parked behind her with another Hispanic man at the
wheel.

“
Get in,” Raymond said. “We’re goin’
for a drive.”

They lay together on the bed, with Marie’s
head resting on Keller’s shoulder. It had taken over five hours to
get the paperwork straightened out for the return of Keller’s
vehicle. By the time they had gotten it back to Marie’s house, the
post-adrenaline letdown followed by the mind-numbing boredom of
dealing with the bureaucracy had left them both stupid with
fatigue.

Keller had showered after Marie, and when he
came out, she was curled into a ball on the bed, dressed in her
robe, sound asleep. He found a bedspread in a nearby closet and
pulled it over them both. He wrapped his arms around her from
behind and kissed the back of her neck.

“
Mmmh,” she murmured and squirmed back
to fit her body more tightly against his.

“
Where’s Ben?” he whispered. “Do you
have to pick him up?”

“
Unh-unh,” she muttered.
“S’grandparents have him. They saw about what happened n’ called.
He’s stayin' with’m.”

“
Nice folks.”

“
Mmm-hmmm,” she said, then relaxed back
into slumber in his arms. They stayed like that for a long time,
until fatigue overtook Keller as well and he slid into a deep and
dreamless sleep.

When he woke, he was ravenously hungry. He
kissed Marie lightly on the forehead and gently slid his arm out
from under her head. She made a small murmur of protest, then
clutched the pillow to her and rolled over. Keller tiptoed out of
the bedroom as quietly as he could. He rummaged around in the
kitchen until he found a box of Raisin Bran in the pantry. He was
searching in the cabinet for a bowl when he heard Marie cry out. He
dropped the cereal box and bolted to the bedroom.

Marie was sitting up in bed, the bedspread
pulled up to her neck. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, blank with
terror. Small whimpers escaped her throat. Keller leaped onto the
bed and threw his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s
okay. It’s okay.”

Slowly, her eyes focused on him. “I had a bad
dream,” she whispered.

“
I know,” he said. “I have them, too.
But it’s okay. I’m here.”

She reached out and ran a hand down his face.
“Yeah.” she said, “you are.” He drew her to him and kissed her. His
hands caressed her back outside the robe, then parted it and slid
inside to caress her naked flesh. She moaned.

Keller’s cell phone chirred on the bedside
table.

Marie broke the kiss and put her head on his
shoulder. “You better get that,” she said.

Keller sighed and picked up the
phone.
This had better be damned
important
, he thought. “Hello?”

“
Guess who this is,” a flat, nasal
voice said.

Raymond sat in the recliner in his living
room. The lights in the house were off; the only illumination was
provided by the big-screen TV. Raymond had a submachine gun cradled
across his chest. Oscar Sanchez sat on the couch, flanked by
Antonio and Jesus. Angela was across the room, bound to one of the
dining-room chairs with her hands tied behind her.

“
I got your lady friend here, Keller,”
he said. “Looks like she was runnin’ around on you with that little
greaseball Sanchez.”

“
What do you want, Raymond?” Keller’s
voice was tight with rage.

“
You got away from me once, Keller,”
Raymond said. His voice was slurred with fever and painkillers.
“You ain’t doin’ that again. You comin’ to me this time.
Alone.”

There was a pause. “Where are you?”

“
I’ll tell you in a minute. First I
want you to hear somethin’”. He put the phone on the floor motioned
to Antonio and Jesus. “Get him up.” The men yanked Sanchez to his
feet. He tried to resist, only to earn a clout in the back of the
head with Jesus’ pistol. The two gunmen dragged him over to where
Raymond sat. “Turn him around,” Raymond ordered. As they complied,
he drew a small .22 caliber pistol from a pocket in the side of the
recliner. He placed it against the back of Sanchez’ left knee.
Sanchez was trembling, whispering something in Spanish. There was a
note of pleading in his voice.

“
Hold still,” Raymond said. “If you
move it’ll only make it worse.” He pulled the trigger.

The report of the gun was slightly muffled by
the flesh of the back of Sanchez’ leg. What noise did escape was
drowned out by his howl of agony. Blood and bits of bone sprayed
out the front of his knee as the bullet tore through his kneecap.
The two men holding him let him go, laughing as he collapsed and
rolled on the ground, screaming and clawing at his wounded knee.
Raymond picked the phone back up. “That was to let you know I’m
serious,” he said. “Also to teach the little fucker not to mess
with my property.” He gestured to the two gunmen. “Bandage his leg
up before he bleeds to death.” Sanchez had stopped screaming. He
had passed out from the pain. The two gunmen picked his limp body
up and dragged him into the kitchen.

“
Now,” Raymond said, “I figger you can
be here by sunup. I don’t see you by then, I do his other knee.
Then we start in on your girlfriend here. You call the cops, I’ll
know. You show up with anybody else, I’ll gut shoot both of ‘em
right here. They’ll bleed to death before you can do
shit.”

“
God damn you, Raymond, just give me
the fucking directions!” Keller was practically screaming now.
Raymond smiled. He gave Keller the address, then broke the
connection.

“
You bastard,” Angela whispered from
across the room. “I hope he kills you. I hope he sends you straight
to Hell.” Her pale face and hair seemed to shimmer with an
unearthly light in the glow of the TV. That and her words gave her
an eerie, eldritch appearance, like the “haints” his Granny used to
tell stories about, spirits that came out of the swamps on moonless
nights and took misbehaving children out of their beds. Raymond was
beyond caring. He dry-swallowed a painkiller. “It don’t matter,” he
whispered.

Angela looked up. It had been almost two
hours since the phone call to Keller. She was amazed that she had
been able to fall asleep, but exhaustion had finally taken over.
Now, she saw Raymond standing at his picture window. Sanchez, his
leg wrapped in an improvised bandage, lay at her feet. One of the
gunmen who had taken them, the one she had heard called Antonio,
was lying on the couch, snoring gently. His machine gun was propped
up by him. She didn’t know where the other man was.

Something on the big-screen TV seemed to
catch Raymond’s eye. He turned to look. Then he smiled. He picked
up the remote and turned up the sound.

The picture showed the a low cinderblock
structure, painted in dark colors. The building was illuminated by
flashing white and yellow emergency lights and searchlights trained
on it. The brightest illumination, however, was provided by the red
and yellow gouts of flame that wreathed the building. “Authorities
are investigating an early-morning fire at a Robeson County
nightclub that was only the first of what appear to be a string of
suspicious burnings last night.” The camera zoomed n for a
close-up. Angela could make out the words “95 Lounge” crudely
painted on the building.

Antonio was sitting up, awakened by the
sudden volume. His mouth was hanging open as he stared at the
conflagration before him. He looked at Raymond.

“
You lie to us!” he shouted. “It was
supposed to be ours now! You betray us!” he reached for the machine
gun. Raymond’s big revolver, however, was already in his hand. It
barked twice and Antonio was flung back against the couch by the
impact of the heavy-caliber bullets. Angela screamed in terror.
Jesus came charging out of the bedroom, shoeless, but holding his
own machine gun at the ready. Raymond fired once and knocked him
backwards. Jesus’ gun chattered, the muzzle flash blinding in the
darkened room, but the impact of Raymond’s shot had knocked him
backwards. The bullets went into the ceiling. Bits of plaster fell
like snow in the cold blue light of the TV. Raymond stepped over to
Jesus who was thrashing on the floor. Raymond’s first bullet had
severed his spine. Raymond fired again. This bullet took off most
of the top of Jesus’ skull.  

Raymond turned back to Angela. She had
stopped screaming and was staring at him, her eyes wide. “Looks
like I won’t be the only one in Hell today,” he said. He left the
room. A few minutes later he came back. He held a metal can in
either hand. He put them down and unscrewed the caps. She moaned in
fear as the raw stench of gasoline filled the air. Raymond began
slopping the gas out of the cans onto the carpet and furniture.

Keller stopped at the treeline as Raymond had
told him to do. He could see the house at the end of the long
driveway. His shotgun was nestled in its rack and his pistol was
lying on the passenger seat. His cell phone rang. He picked it
up.

“
Okay, you bastard,” he said. “I’m
here.”

“
You alone in the car?” Raymond’s voice
rasped.

“
Just like you said,” Keller
answered.

“
Prove it.”

“
You going to come down here and
see?”

“
Not hardly. Put the car sideways in
the road and open the doors. So I can see you don’t have nobody
hiding in the back seat.” Keller complied, getting out of the car
to open the back doors, like a magician displaying a piece of
apparatus.

“
Okay,” Raymond said. “Come up the
driveway. Slow. No weapons.”

It was possible that Raymond intended to
shoot him down at edge of the property, but Keller thought it more
likely that Raymond wanted to look him in the eye as he killed him.
It was more his style. The first rays of the sun were drawing
streaks in the sky. Keller took a deep breath of the thick, humid
air. He put his hands in the air and began walking up the
driveway.

Raymond stood in the window and watched
Keller advance. The fumes from the gasoline and the fever from his
own infection made feel woozy and lightheaded. But he was in the
homestretch now. Soon it would all be over. He hadn’t been able to
kill the other man responsible for his father’s death and he felt
bad about it. But a man did what he could. He wondered if the
angels wouldlet him talk to his Daddy one time before they fed him
to the flames. He wanted the old man to know he’d tried.

Keller was approaching the front door.
Raymond went to open it.

Even from ten feet away, the stench that
rolled out of the door when Raymond pulled it open was sickening, a
miasma of gasoline, gunpowder, and a sharp coppery smell that could
only be fresh blood. Keller felt his fists clenching. “We had a
deal, you bastard,” he called. “You said--.”