You Believers (27 page)

He sat and grinned, feeling the bulk of the silver dollars in his pocket. Mike had known there’d be something of use in the old man’s house. He thought of running to the store and spending them on some
brown sugar for the sweet potato and some of that Sara Lee pound cake his granny loved. But they’d surely be suspicious of a guy like him buying groceries with silver dollars. Still, he was tempted. He knew he should save them for the pawnshop, but the one nearby was already closed. Mike had taken stock, figuring how they’d make it with ten more days before his granny’s government check was due. Two cans of soup, half a loaf of bread, grits, some peanut butter and jelly. They had plenty of eggs. They wouldn’t starve with the eggs. But even his granny had said she was aching for a meal, a real meal, with meat and potatoes and some kind of green.

She’d told him if he’d get out there and kill one of the chickens, she’d be happy to dress it and fry it up, make some gravy to pour on the bread that was left. She’d told him how he could just give that chicken’s head the quick, hard twist it took to break its neck. She didn’t have the strength in her hands lately with her arthritis acting up. Sometimes Mike wondered if it was worth getting old. It seemed to him the body just turned on you when you got up in years.

There was a squawking in the chicken coop like the hens were fighting. He wondered what in the hell a bunch of hens would have to fight about. He looked at the coop. He thought he’d give just about anything for some crispy fried chicken, but he couldn’t stand the thought of picking up that little heap of feathers and beak and claws. He’d tried it once, and it was awful the way a chicken could fight.

Mike threw the cigarette on the ground and went back into the kitchen to check the ham. It was soft. He unwrapped it, put it in a pan, and stuck in the oven, where the sweet potato was already smelling sweet. He didn’t want to think about the things Jesse had done. Jesse had told him the things he’d meant to do to the girl they were talking about on the news. He heard his granny’s television down the hall, the sudden switch from
Jeopardy
to the news update on the assault on a young woman in Land Fall. He moved into the hallway
and listened. They were offering five hundred dollars to anyone with information. Mike had all the information they’d need. He thought of the things he could do with five hundred dollars. Groceries, gas, get the car the tune-up it needed so he could get out of town. But he’d never leave his granny. They’d put her in one of those state homes, and she deserved a whole lot better than that. Then, as if she could hear his thinking, she called, “Mikey, baby.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He went to her room.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, hands gripping the walker.

He went toward her. “You planning on going somewhere, Granny? I told you to just holler if you needed something.”

She studied him with the black, beady eyes that seemed to always look at him with a little suspicion, just like those hens of hers. She pulled herself up on the walker, arms trembling as she came to a stand. “That poor, poor girl,” she said. “The detective said it was the most vicious assault he’d ever seen.”

“She gonna live?” Mike said.

She rolled the walker ahead a little, went with it. “Critical condition. In a coma. I guess that’s a mercy. They don’t have any leads yet. They’re just hoping she’ll wake.”

“That must be why they’re paying for information,” Mike said, looking back to the TV screen. But there was just a commercial for some new kind of mop.

His granny was heading down the hallway, said, “They don’t get a lead soon, they’ll double that reward. You watch.”

His granny was always right about these things. Mike weighed the options. He could call and tell them exactly where Jesse Hollow field would be: Mercy Hospital, maternity floor. He thought about it, thought maybe he should wait and see if they raised the reward. But if he waited too long, Jesse might get it in his mind to come after
him. As far as Mike knew, he was the only one who knew the things Jesse had done. His granny rested, leaning on her walker.

“You need to stay in bed,” Mike said.

She took his face in one hand, gave a little shake of her head, and let him go. “I need to see what’s going on in my house. I’m not as deaf as you might think. I’ve heard things. That Jesse. I heard you on the phone this morning. I’ve got to find out about some of the comings and going around here.” She put her hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye, just the way she’d done when she knew he’d skipped school, sneaked a beer, stolen something, or done any of the things that had gotten him locked up in juvy.

She squeezed his shoulder. “Where did you go today? You always tell me when you’re going somewhere, and you slipped out.”

He took her hand, put it back on her walker. “I’m working on a surprise for you, Granny. I wish you’d just get on back to bed and let me make you a surprise.”

She shook her head. “I’m not dying, Mikey. I just have a bad cold, and it got my arthritis stirred up. Soon I’ll be back out there taking care of things. Got my check coming in …” She looked down, then up as if the number she wanted was floating somewhere in the air.

“Ten days,” he said. “But I’m taking care of things.”

She straightened. “I’m just saying I’m not deaf or blind, and I still have all my bodily functions. If you don’t mind, just step out of my way so I can get in the bathroom and do my business and wash myself and make myself presentable for getting in that kitchen and making some kind of supper.”

“Okay, Granny.” He smiled and stepped aside and watched her take those slow, jerky steps down the hall. She wasn’t at the edge of dying, but she wouldn’t be around much longer. He wished he could do one thing to make her proud. He looked back toward her TV.
The game show was still on, but across the bottom of the screen was more news scrolling. They’d raised the reward to one thousand, just as his granny had said. Mike headed toward the kitchen. If he turned Jesse in, Jesse would be sure to put a hit on him.

He heard his granny in the bathroom. She’d turned on that gospel station on the radio she kept in there. She was private about what she called her bodily functions. Mike smiled and thought,
You are too good for this world, Granny
, as he walked toward the kitchen. She’d be proud if he turned Jesse in. He told himself no matter what happened, he’d never do another job with Jesse. He was only getting meaner, and it was only a matter of time before Jesse took Mike down.

His granny had told him, right before he’d gotten sent off to juvy, “You can do a wrong thing once or twice, or maybe even three times, and not get caught. But you keep doing a wrong thing, it’s like the rat that keeps going down the same path. It leaves signs of itself, droppings, tracks, somebody takes notice, sets out a trap or poison. Once you know the way a rat travels, it ain’t nothing to kill him on his path.”

Mike was glad she never called down religion when trying to make him change his ways. The only time she ever did that was to show him how it might help him, not hurt him. Mike figured she’d tried religion on her own kids, but all that had gotten her was her daughter, his momma, shot and killed in a drug deal and her son on death row somewhere in Texas. Sometimes Mike was glad his mother had died fast. And Mike was glad he’d never known his own daddy, who was probably no better than Jesse’s blood daddy. Mike had had it rough, but nothing like Jesse. He’d seen Jesse crying in his sleep. He’d never told him—hell, Jesse would probably kill anyone who said they’d seen him crying. But Mike knew there was a crying inside, and that was why he gave Jesse room to stretch his meanness. Jesse didn’t have a granny, and sometimes Mike figured that was all the difference in the world.

He heard his granny singing along with the music in the bathroom. He checked the sweet potato in the oven. It was soft, and the ham was coming along. When he straightened, the silver dollars jingled in his pocket. Most likely she wouldn’t hear the sound, but sometimes she had a way of seeing, knowing, just about everything. He went to his room to hide the coins and stopped to check under the bed for the shotgun—as if there were any way it could disappear. But somehow he could imagine Jesse floating like a ghost through the walls and taking the gun, the shells, even somehow getting the coins from his pocket.

He saw himself in the mirror. He didn’t look like a thief. He wished he could be like Jesse sometimes. Maybe the only thing that kept him from being like Jesse was that little bit of heart his granny gave him. In the past two days they’d both robbed a neighbor’s house. They’d broken the Zeke rule—never rob a neighbor. His granny would say they were heading down the same path, and she didn’t even know they’d driven down that old farm road with that girl. Mike was glad he’d never laid a hand on her. Then he remembered she had laid a hand on him. He rubbed his arm as if he could rub the feeling of her away.

He looked out his window toward the west, where the sun would soon sink past the line of trees and field. The old farmer hadn’t planted for years. When Mike had gone through that house, he’d felt kind of dumb and guilty for thinking he could take anything of value off a farmer. There was no safe, no money stashed in a coffee can in the freezer. And upstairs there was no money under that mattress. Mike flinched when he shifted the pillow and saw the shotgun. What was a sawed-off shotgun doing under a dead wife’s pillow? He could tell that was her side of the bed because of the Bible and the little vase of fake flowers on the bedside table. Under the farmer’s pillow he found the shells. He knew that was the farmer’s side of
the bed because on that bedside table was the clock and a set of teeth floating in a glass of water. It didn’t seem fair for a man to be buried without his teeth. Seemed the funeral home would ask for the teeth when they asked for clothes and shoes. If they put shoes on a dead man, it stood to reason they’d want his teeth. A dead man deserved more dignity than to be stuffed in a coffin while his teeth sat floating in a glass.

Mike had shoved the gun and shells into his backpack. He went to the sock drawer. People were so predictable. Women put their jewelry with their panties, and men hid their money with the socks. Mike figured there was a reason, but it was beyond his knowing. All he knew was that he liked the smooth weight of the coins. He stood there rubbing the weight of one between his fingers just for the feel it. He slipped the coins into his pocket and headed downstairs. Then, standing in the dead man’s kitchen, he had a thought about all the space left in his backpack. The refrigerator’s motor clanked on, and that was when he got the idea that would’ve made Jesse proud: groceries. He had seen a little ham in the freezer when he’d looked for the coffee can that could be holding cash. He grabbed the ham, left the open box of fish sticks. He took the bottle of beer and a jar of apple jelly. Then in the cabinets he found the bag of coffee, the can of green beans, and the sweet potato. He looked for something sweet because he knew his granny would want that. But there was nothing sweet.

He heard his granny call him. She was back in her bedroom with the TV on. He hurried to her, saw her standing there, staring at the news. She’d seen that she was right about the reward going up to a thousand bucks. She shook her head, turned to him. “Just like I told you.” She was trying to read something in his face.

He turned away, said, “I got to get to making your surprise.”

Back in the kitchen, his hands shook as he took the potato out
of the oven, set out the butter. He had options. Jesse was meeting Zeke at the hospital, and that meant Mike could call that number on the news and tell them exactly where to pick up the man they were after. Mike’s mind kept turning on what he could do with a thousand bucks. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen that much money at once.

With a thousand bucks Mike could get the car a good tune-up and drive his granny to Raleigh, where she could stay with that cousin of hers, and he could keep going. He’d never rest easy with Jesse on his trail. Even locked up, Jesse would have somebody beat him to death. Somehow he’d get it done. It was better to work with the devil than against him because in the devil’s territory, he always wins.

Mike stepped into the hallway, made sure his granny was still in her room. Back in the kitchen he called Jesse.

Jesse answered, “I’m busy. Now what?”

“I did the farmer’s house,” Mike said.

There was a silence. Mike heard jazz in the background. That meant Jesse was in his mother’s car. The sound turned down. “You what?”

“The dead farmer. I did his house.”

“Got enough to make it worth your while to walk across that field?”

“Silver dollars. The old kind.”

Jesse made that little snorting sound he always made when something struck him funny but not worth the laugh. “Silver dollars. And just how many silver dollars?”

“I got seven,” he said. “And they’re old.”

“Seven silver dollars.” Jesse kind of sang the words. “Seven silver dollars from a dead man.” Silence hung there.

“I got a gun too,” Mike said.

“A gun that works?”

“Yeah.” He thought about the gun under his bed. It had shells next to it. The old man wouldn’t keep a gun that didn’t work. “Yeah,” he said again. “I tried it. A sawed-off shotgun. I tell you, I really tore up a tree on my way home.”

Jesse laughed, a real laugh. That was good. Mike saw the can of green beans on the counter. He could smell the ham cooking; he’d have to get the beans on. “The old man, he slept with a sawed-off shotgun. Can you believe that?”

“So why you calling me?” Jesse said. “Seems to me you ought to be heading to the coin shop with those seven silver dollars. Or the pawnshop; they take coins.”

“I want to meet Zeke.”

“Well, Zeke don’t want to meet you.”

Mike opened the green beans, dumped them in a pan, glanced down the hallway. “Shit, Jesse, I need the cash. My granny’s check don’t come for ten more days, and I’ve let her down this month. I haven’t been doing my part. Things so tight I had to steal a ham from that dead man.”

Jesse laughed, a real laugh. “You jacked a ham from a dead man? Hope you got a little sweet potato to go on the side.” Mike froze, looked around the kitchen. How did Jesse know these things? But Jesse was still laughing. “A ham from a dead man. I gotta admit, Zeke would get a kick out of that.”