“I think you’re a crook,” she replied. “I think you don’t have a goddamn notion of turnin’ those gems over to the cops. You know you have me over a barrel, so you figure there ain’t a goddamn thing I can do about it either, right?”
“I’m offended,” he said, and clearly wasn’t.
She stared at him for a long moment, watching the small smug smile play over his fat lips. She was not entirely surprised at this development, had known there was every chance he was going to rip her off, but with no money and a bag full of diamonds, he had been her only option. Her previous dealings with him—the first to pawn her grandmother’s engagement ring; then later, a brooch her mother had given her—had left her less than satisfied, but with Wayne unemployed and nothing ahead of her at the time but a few interviews for waitress jobs that might come to nothing, she’d had little choice. Now, the avenues available to her were even more limited. But she was not going to stand here and watch what little hope she had left being crushed by a man who, despite his claims, was in all likelihood as shady and crooked as the thugs who provided him his merchandise. She found herself wondering how much of his stock had come with clear evidence of how they’d been acquired. Probably pays less for bloodstained goods, she thought, disgusted.
Resolute, “Let me tell you how this is goin’ to go,” she said, and withdrew from her other pocket the gun Wayne’s cousin had used to keep her docile, and leveled it at him.
“Whoa now,” he said, and yet there was still no change in expression, as if facing a gun was something he endured daily.
She cocked the hammer. Rag didn’t blink.
“You’re goin’ to keep those diamonds,” Louise said. “You’re right about that part. I didn’t come here to rob you, and you need to understand that. So they’re yours. All I want is a fair price, that’s all. I have a boy that needs help and I can’t give it to him here, not with what’s happened, and not without money. Now those gems ain’t mine, but I figure after what I’ve been through today, maybe I deserve them. What I don’t deserve—” she said, stepping closer, so that her hip was pressed against the edge of the counter, the barrel of the gun scant inches from the bare spot between Rag’s tumultuous eyebrows, “—is to have everythin’ go to hell because of some greedy son of a bitch.”
Rag sighed, as he might have over any deal that was not going his way, and narrowed his eyes. “So what do you consider a fair price then?”
She took a moment to consider this. All the way here she’d told herself that ten grand would be a good start. Enough to get them away for a while until she could think things through. Without knowing how much the diamonds were worth, she saw it as a reasonable sum to hope for. Not any more. Rag might have found it disturbing if she told him that instead of disheartening her, his stoicism toward the gems had persuaded her they were worth even more than she’d guessed.
“How much do you think they’re worth?” she asked him. “And before you answer, keep in mind that I might already know. After all, I brought them to you, didn’t I? So if you lie to me, I’ll put a bullet in your skull.”
She had no intention of pulling the trigger, of course, and hadn’t even checked to see if it was loaded. Red had shot a hole in the apartment wall, but for all she knew that might have been his last bullet. The pawnbroker, however, didn’t know that.
“Maybe a million. I’d have to take another look,” he said.
“You don’t need another look. You can fondle them as much as you like once I’m gone.”
“Can you take that gun out of my face?”
“As soon as I have the money.”
“How much money?”
The words barreled up her throat and were out of her before she had a chance to consider them. “Hundred thousand. Do whatever the hell you like with the stones after that, but that’s what I want for them.”
Finally, Rag’s expression changed. He glowered at her, face flushed, blue-red veins visible under the bulbous flesh of his nose. “You’re out of your fucking mind. What makes you think I have that kind of money lying around here, or that I’d give it to you even if I had?”
“I guess because when you’re given the choice of makin’ a fair trade or havin’ your brains blown out, you take the easier route. Maybe I was wrong.” Pulling on all the crime shows she’d ever seen in her lifetime, she tightened her grip on the gun, leaned forward and pressed the muzzle between the pawnbroker’s eyes. Again, he defied expectation. Rather than pleading, or accepting the fate she’d promised him, he scowled, cursed at her and turned away. She watched, shaken by her own resolve, as he withdrew a slim white keycard from his back pocket and angrily jerked it down the slot in the reader by the metal door. The light on the display turned green. There came a short sharp electronic honk and Rag grabbed the door handle, about to yank it open. Louise stopped him.
“I’m comin’ around,” she said. “Leave the door open. You try anythin’…”
“Yeah,” Rag said, half-turning. His eyes were glassy with anger. “I know how it goes.”
He disappeared inside. Louise following close behind.
-28-
They buried Momma in stony earth on the summit of Hood Mountain. From where they stood, they could see the great dark bulk of the water treatment facility on the horizon. Between the plant and the mountain the land seemed sick, diseased, poisoned. The hue of the earth suggested it had been sustained by the blood of those who’d tried to farm it. Rough patches of overgrowth marked the boundaries of long-fallow fields. Here and there, small stands of trees, buckled by storm winds and infection in their roots, stood defeated and spiritless, their arms weak and hanging empty. The mountain had been sheared by mining, the east side oddly flat, almost smooth, veins of red hematite iron ore still threading its hide, adding to the impression of something living cut in half. Intermittent beds of shale and sandstone gave it a leprous hue.
At the foot of the mountain stood Krall’s cabin, its chimney threading smoke. It was surrounded on three sides by thinned out groups of pine trees. To Papa-In-Gray, it was hardly protection enough from invasive forces, but the mountain at its back would help limit the avenues of approach for their attackers. If they were vigilant, and kept their eyes open, his family would survive. They would be ready.
Though the weather was warm, the wind carried a chill to them, and with it, the scent of rain. For Papa-In-Gray, it seemed fitting, as Momma had loved the rain, the sound of it a lullaby that carried her to sleep.
Gently, he removed his hat, and bowed his head. The boys flanked him, their postures equally reverent. Jeremiah Krall stood opposite, at the foot of the grave, staring at the earth as if were a brown pond from which his sister might surface at any moment. The horror that he had witnessed had changed him, though how much Papa could not yet tell. He still appeared a character roughly carved from hard rock, his eyes wintry, his disposition hostile, but something had shifted within him. He looked like a walking battlefield, upon which wars were raging to determine which emotions should preside over the landscape. He had said little since witnessing Luke’s rebirth.
“Our Lord,” Papa began, his voice loud enough to carry the words halfway down the mountain. “Gather your faithful servant to your breast and keep her safe. Accept her into Heaven, and your glory. Recognize within her the light you so generously instilled in her, and which she did not waste. Just as she come into the world, so does she leave it, with an unspoiled soul.” He paused, and the boys murmured “Amen.”