“You sonofabitch,” I said.
“Could be,” he said, and he got out a fresh cigarette and lit it. I stood there breathing heavy as I watched him take a puff and put the lighter back in his pocket. I watched to see if his hands were trembling. They weren’t. But mine were.
“Been to the cops yet? That’s what I figured you’d do. Go straight to them. I think you’re of the opinion that I’m threatening you and your family.”
I wanted to tear back into him, but he’d taken my shots so easily, I figured, sixty or not, he could mop up the parking lot with me.
“I told you once to stay away from my family. I won’t tell you again.”
“Careful, Dane,” he said. “You keep threatening me like that, I may have to lodge a complaint.”
I walked back to my car and drove it over to the far side of the lot and got out and walked through the side door. Once inside the glass door, I turned to see if he was still standing there.
He wasn’t, and the Ambassador was gone.
11
I left a message for Ann at the school, told the receptionist to tell her everything was all right and not to worry, but to meet Jordan and me at the police station.
At the station, Jordan was restless and I bought him a Coke and a package of those round peanut-butter-filled crackers. He drank some of the Coke and used the can to mash the crackers into the table. That seemed to bother Price. You would have thought it was his table. I didn’t make Jordan stop.
“Who was there first?” Price asked. “You or Russel?”
“Russel.”
“Did he do anything to you?”
“No. He said he thought my son got off at three-forty-five and I took a swing at him.”
“Did you make contact?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he hit you back?”
“No.”
Price did the reshaping number with his hand and face again. “You still got nothing, Mr. Dane. The worst he could be accused of is loitering. That’s a big parking lot. He could have been planning to go in one of the stores on the other side of it; maybe he was having a smoke before going inside. He could try and press charges against you for taking a swing at him. You’ve admitted yourself that you did.”
I didn’t even feel like arguing anymore. I could see where this was going. “For what it’s worth,” I said. “I got his license number.”
“I’ll run a check on the computer. Give me the number. It won’t take but a minute.”
I gave him the number and he went away with it and came back in about two minutes. I was watching the clock.
“Local car rental. All legal.”
“I guess that leaves me where I was.”
“I’m afraid so. I know how you feel, but I can’t arrest a man on another’s say-so. Even if the one accused is an ex-con. If we arrested everyone that might commit a crime, the jail would be full long before sundown.”
“I get the picture. But you still intend to have someone watching the house tonight?”
“That’s right.”
I collected Jordan and we went outside to wait on Ann. Jordan told me a story about a little blue rabbit that could run fast, and about five minutes later Ann drove up. I told her to follow us to our favorite Mexican restaurant and I’d tell her the story there.
· · ·
Ann went through all the arguments I had given Price, and I gave her all of Price’s arguments back. She didn’t like my answers any better than I had liked them coming from Price.
“I think you and Jordan should leave town,” I said. “Stay somewhere until this blows over.”
“I don’t like that,” Ann said.
“I don’t want the idghalada, daddy, I want chips.”
“It’s enchilada, son, and don’t talk when we’re talking. It’s not polite.”
“But I don’t want-”
“Will you hush, son? I’m trying to talk to your mother. Or she’s trying to talk to me… Christ, I don’t remember who was talking to who.”
“I just want chips,” Jordan said.
“Eat the chips then,” I said, “but let mommy and me talk.”
Jordan started eating out of the bowl of corn chips, looking quite content with himself.
“I was saying,” Ann said, “that I don’t like that idea. I don’t think we should leave. He could follow us. If we went to your mother’s for example, and he did follow us, we could put her in jeopardy as well as ourselves. I say we do as Price suggested. We get a gun and watch out. We’ve got burglar alarms and bars now. That should be worth something.”
“We could take Jordan out of school a few days,” I said. “And maybe you could get some time off. I could let James and Valerie run the shop and we could all stay home for a time. Wait Russel out.”
“It seems like the best idea to me,” Ann said. “Let’s go home.”
12
I drove out ahead of Ann, and Jordan rode with her. I began to relax some. I began to see everything in a different light. I felt silly. Just because Russel was trying to scare me, didn’t mean he had the balls to do anything. It didn’t necessarily mean anything more than he was upset about his son, which was normal. He was certainly no cream puff, I could see that, but he was still an old man and my house was barred and full of alarms and I had a shotgun in the garage and tough as he might be he couldn’t eat lead, as they might say in a B gangster movie.
I thought about the shotgun. Like the pistol, it was something I had acquired more on the spur of the moment than by design.
About five years back, in a town close to LaBorde, some nut had broken into a house and killed a family while they slept. Two of the victims were kids. Ann was pregnant with Jordan at the time, and I guess I was overcome with paternal instincts. I had never owned a gun and had never wanted to, but I went out and bought the. 38 that had eventually killed Russel. I told Ann’s father about the. 38 on a visit to Houston, and he had given me the shotgun, told me it was better than the revolver. Said it was less likely to penetrate walls and injure family members. It was a short-barreled Winchester pump, and he gave me some double aught loads and I took the shotgun and the shells home and they went into the garage and the pistol stayed in the shoe box. As my hysteria faded, I forgot about the shotgun and nearly forgot about the. 38.
To the best of my memory the shotgun was broken down and was in the garage storage cabinet in the original box with oilcans and tools in front of it. I told myself I would get it out of the box when I got home and load it, put it under my bed, but in the end, I was certain I would feel silly with it there because nothing was going to come of my mental cowboy movie. Russel would lose interest in his dead son, as he had probably had little interest in him when he was alive, and he would go away and things would return to normal.
But when I pulled up in our drive and Ann and Jordan pulled in behind me, the fear and uncertainty returned. Even with the bars and the alarms, or perhaps because I had to have them, I knew I might never feel safe in that house again. And I was more certain of this when I went ahead of them with my key in hand ready to unlock the door.
It was cracked open about three inches already.
I turned and scooped Jordan up with one arm and grabbed Ann’s elbow with the other and directed them back to Ann’s car.
“Get in,” I said.
“Richard?”
“We just got here, Daddy.”
“Get behind the wheel, Ann. The front door is unlocked and open.”
She gave me a strange look, then turned and opened the car door. I put Jordan inside and Ann climbed in behind the wheel.
“Get to the Ferguson’s and call the police. Ask for Price.”
“Come with us,” Ann said.
“Git.”
I closed the door and walked back toward the house. I listened for the sound of the car’s engine behind me, hoping my hardheaded wife would do as I asked, and finally I heard it crank and heard the familiar sound of tires on the gravel drive, heading toward the road.
I didn’t go through the front door, but went around the side of the house, trying to be quiet about it, though I figured that wasn’t necessary. If he was in there, he had heard us drive up and probably knew I had stayed and sent them away.