Wanting to hit me with that bottle, Armand thought. Smash it across my face. Now he gave Richie a frown, curious, not a bad look, and said, “What’s the matter?”
Richie said, “You ever talk to me like that again . . .”
Armand said, “Yeah, what?” because he wanted to hear how this punk would say it.
“It’ll be the last time you do.”
Nothing original about that, the guy remained a punk.
They stared at each other, Armand wanting to tell him, Okay, now go watch your TV. But there would have to be more staring if he did and he was tired of it. So he didn’t say anything and Richie walked out of the kitchen with his bottle of beer. For a few moments there was silence.
Donna cleared her throat.
“This is Elvis’s billiard room,” Donna said. “There seven hundred and fifty yards of material, all pleated, covering the walls and ceiling.”
The next couple of days the Bird got her to make phone calls for them, seeing if they could locate the ironworker and his wife. Donna would say, “What on earth are you boys up to now?” acting innocent and cute for her age. The Bird wouldn’t say anything, but Richie got a kick out of Donna’s act and would give her a wink.
When she called the real estate company for them and asked about the house for sale, she was told it was no longer on the market. That was when the Bird finally said, “Let’s go.” But when they drove past the house—wearing their hunting outfits now, the Bird with that stupid cap on— there was the for sale sign still in the front yard.
What was it doing there? Did they sell the house or not? What in the hell was going on here? The ironworker’s car and the pickup were gone, but could he and the wife still be in the house?
Richie fired one question after another, but might just as well have been talking to the fucking steering wheel. The Bird either wouldn’t answer or would grunt something like, “Unh,” and Richie was supposed to know what that meant.
So he had steam building in him by the time they got the car hidden and approached the house roundabout through the woods, the Bird leading, tramping through dead leaves and making all kinds of noise for a guy who was supposed to be an Indian. An idea began to ease Richie’s mind, that all he had to do was raise the barrel of his shotgun, squeeze the trigger and have something to tell his kids, if he ever had any, watching a cowboy movie, one of those good ones they used to have where you’d see redskins blown off their pinto ponies. “Yeah, I’ve done that. There was this time I was out in the woods . . .” And stopped the picture in his head realizing he’d already shot an Indian, the duck guide. Weird, losing count—like he’d thought of Kevin being his first when Kevin was actually his third. Which would make the last one, the duck guide, number seven. Right? . . . No, there was the 7-Eleven girl with the greasy hair. If she was Indian it would make the Blackbird his third...Except if he was a half-breed ... Shit, it got too confusing. He’d be number nine. Let it go at that. Richie wondered if smoking weed all his life except for the past month or so had fucked up his head. Then wondered if it made any difference.
When they stood at the edge of the woods about a half hour staring at the house, the Indian playing Indian, Richie was antsy as hell but didn’t say a word. Why argue? This partnership would end the minute he couldn’t take any more of it. Or the ideal situation, gun down the Bird the same time they did the ironworker and his wife and make it look like they shot each other. That’d be neat, work something like that out. Read about it in the paper and see old Donna giving him her innocent look. What on earth happened to Bird. And he’d wink or else give her an innocent look back, it depended. Then she’d want to fool with his hair, do some goddamn thing. Take him out and buy him some new clothes . . .
The Bird said, “You ready?”
Richie said, “I was born ready,” feeling pretty good about everything for a change.
They were a couple of hunters strolling out of the woods, looking around, nothing important in mind; went up on the side porch, looked around again and became burglars. Let’s see what we have here. Richie’s idea, punch out a pane of glass in the door, reach in, nothing to it. But the Bird stopped him, saying he didn’t like that way, saying cops would come by and see the door. So Richie went around back and broke in through a bathroom window, on the first floor but high up in this old place and he had to climb a tree to reach the window. What was the Bird’s game? Outside of making him do all the work as usual, worried about leaving his fingerprints, the fucking Bird playing it safe. As soon as Richie was inside he could feel nobody else was in the house. He went through to the kitchen and opened the door.
“Well, hi there. Nice to see you.”
The Bird came in, his face set beneath that dumb hunting cap.
Richie left him again to make a quick appraisal tour of the house, see if there was anything of value lying around. What hit him right away, it didn’t look anything like a house the people had moved out of. All their furniture was here. There wasn’t anything packed in boxes ready to go. Richie went upstairs. He found all kinds of men’s and ladies’ clothes hanging in the hall closets, a silver jacket with ironworkers build america written on it. He remembered the guy wearing a blue one, the same words on it, when he shot at him in the store. There were clothes in the two big dressers in their bedroom, shirts and things the guy had left, couple of good-looking sport shirts Richie thought he wouldn’t mind having, hey, and a T-shirt from Henry’s seafood restaurant, it’s nice to be nice. Look at that. It seemed like just yesterday or the day before he was sitting there eyeing the Bird eating his pickerel. Was that what started this whole thing, seeing the Bird? It was weird how one thing could lead to another. You didn’t have to plan your life, shit, just go with the flow. Richie went downstairs and stuck his head in the living room again before going out to the kitchen.
The Bird stood by a drawer pulled open, reading a letter.
“Shame on you,” Richie said, “reading other people’s mail.” It was funny the way the Bird folded the letter right away and dropped it on the counter.
“They have a boy in the U. S. Navy.”
“I know it, the duck guide told us.” He saw the Bird giving him the old Indian stare. “You don’t remember it, do you? When we was in the boat. Then me and you got out and I put him away. You remember that part, don’t you?”
The Bird didn’t answer.
“Lemme ask you a harder one,” Richie said. “How come if they moved they left their furniture?”
“They left in a hurry . . .”
“Didn’t pack anything.”
“Maybe the movers do that.”
“The movers,” Richie said. “They pack the clothes too? I don’t think these people left all their clothes, but enough to make you wonder. Upstairs in their bedroom. The bed’s made—they could come home and hop right in.”
The Bird said, “Clothes, ’ey?”
That seemed to catch his interest.
“There’s a TV in the living room we could use. Better’n the one at Donna’s.”
“You want to steal the TV,” the Bird said, “lug it through the woods all the way to the car?”
“I was thinking, save us getting a hernia, we bring the car around and pick it up.”
The Bird didn’t like that, being shown how dumb he was. He turned to the drawer, pulled out a Detroit telephone directory and laid it on the counter.
“Look up Colson.”
“Donna already tried that.”
“Her book’s old. Look in this one.”
Still giving him orders. Yes sir. Telling him last night to keep his mouth shut. Richie opened the book and took his time flipping through pages. Donna had called about a dozen different Colsons; not one of them ever heard of a Wayne Colson. She called the ironworkers’ local; they said try him at home, they didn’t have him down as working anywhere. Richie found the listing of Colsons and counted them.