“You don’t even want to be here, that is why you are in such a punky mood.”
“No, I don’t. This is not the right move. But if the old man says do it, I have to do it and so do you, even though you agree with me and not him.”
“All I know is, he says go, I go. That’s how it is.”
“Even now in this car alone you are afraid to defy him.”
“Maybe I just respect the rules, is all. And if you don’t, no cause to turning all crabby on me.”
But then a car pulled into the lot. Both squirmed down a little, both noted that it was indeed a small Ford or Toyota, the sort the rental companies generally provided. It prowled, looking for spaces, and found one close to Room 128, which they knew to be the hit’s.
“Could be,” said Vern.
“Pray to God,” said Ernie. “Or maybe it’s a teen-age gal in short-shorts and a halter with the new issue of Tiger Beat.”
“Asshole.”
The fellow got out, slid around to the trunk, opened it, took something out, and held it tight under his arm, looked about for signs of something not in place, and then moved gently toward the room. But it was the limp that gave him away for real. It was like he had pain in that right hip from more than a single wound. He was also moving stiffly as if bandaged in a dozen or so places. He paused, took a look around the lot again, satisfied himself that it was all clear, then bent to open the door, slipped in, and locked the door behind him.
“Hot doggies,” said Vern. “I can taste that Marlboro right now.”
“He’s the pilgrim, all right. Can’t believe a old gray-hair like that dusted Carmody and B.J., but now’s the night he learn it don’t pay to poke at Grumley.”
“That’s holy Baptist writ, right there, cousin.”
Vern slipped his Glock.40 from the shoulder rig and edged back the slide to make certain a shell lay nested in the chamber, while Ernie, a wheel gunner with an engraved El Paso holster on his belt, did the same with his 2.5-inch-barreled, nickel-plated Python full of.357 CorBons.
Vern had figured it out.
“I say we wait a bit. Let him get settled in. Brush his teeth, check the lot through the window, make his calls, maybe have a sip or ten on that bottle of bourbon he done brung into the room, get all settled and snuggly, then we kick the door and empty our guns into the guy on the bed who won’t know what hit him, and then we head out fast. You okay with that, cousin?” Vern asked.
“Sounds like a plan,” said Ernie. “Should we call your daddy?”
“Don’t know about that. You look more like him than I do. It’s in the nose and the mouth.”
“I don’t like powder blue. It don’t bring out the color in my eyes. And I don’t wear no white fright wig so’s to look like that chicken-pushing Confederate colonel. My ma never said he was my daddy. He’s the only one.”
“Ooo, doggie, I see I done touched a nerve.”
“Hell, cousin, he’s probably both our daddies by both his sisters. Now what’s that tell you about the old man’s judgment? So why’d we want to call him?”
“I think my ma’s his daughter, not his sister. He do like to stir the soup, don’t he? Anyway, I’m thinking we ought to bring other boys in. Maybe someone with a shotgun to blow the door, then step aside.”
“He brings that shotgun, he ain’t gonna want to step aside. He’s going to want to put a couple of double-oughts into the guy in the bed, watch the fur and feathers fly. Then we ain’t done nothing but been good little scouts. It don’t do me no good. ‘You hear, someone dumped two Grumleys and old Vern Pye hisself went after and put the man down hard.’ I want that said about me, and I want a reward for three hours without a cigarette.”
“That’s cool by me.”
They settled in, waiting as the seconds dragged by. What, another hour? An hour was too long. Half an hour would do. But as the time crawled by, doubts appeared.
“You sure you don’t want to call the old man?”
Vern said, “He’d just want to come out hisself. Then we got to wait on him. We got to wait while the whole thing comes together. That’s two more hours without a smoke.”
“Or a poke.”
“You see anything pokable here now? No sir. Anyhow, I say, we do it, we’re gone, it’s over and it’s smoke time. Then we get back, then we go on the main job, then we get our swag, then we go about our business and put this here time in the prayer camp behind us. You can go back to your job in the warehouse, I can go home to one of my three wives, or maybe a stripper, or maybe pick me up something new and fresh.”
“Somewhere in there, can we throw in a shot of tequila? A shot of the worm, damn, that’d be just swell.”
“Yessir to that.”
“Yessir to the worm.”
But a few minutes later, it was Vern who said, “Hell. I just don’t know what’s nagging at me. Too long without a pop, my nerves are shot. Don’t want to make no mistake. Call him. Make certain.”
“Okay.”
“Keep it quiet now.”
Ernie slipped his cell out, ordered it to call the Reverend, and heard the rings, one, then two, then a thir-
“What is it, boy?”
“Sir, we got him. He just come in. Been in his room ’bout half hour now. Vern and me’s fixin’ to visit and leave hair and brains on the wall. Just want-”
“No, no, no,” said the old man. “Haven’t you heard? Already a shooting in town tonight, some meth dealer got wasted by Thelma. Man, you go and shoot the town up, it’s going to be like Dodge City here and we get the state cops and the FBI and all them other boys. They already here, I’m betting.”
“Daddy, I can nail him in ten-”
“No, boy. I changed my mind. Too much of a risk. We have a big job. Now here’s what I want. You and Vern, you head on into Bristol. I’m betting he’s staying at his girl’s apartment, and I got that address. You set up over there. After the big job is done, he’ll be there. That’s when you hit him and finish this business but good, in the Grumley way.”
“Yes sir. Does that mean, if we don’t go on the big job, we don’t git our share of-”
“No, it does not. You get full share. You just don’t meet up at the camp ’cause we’ll be long gone and spread to the four winds after Race Day. You call me a week down the road, and I’ll have your share for you. Just as promised.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“You follow me?”
“I do, sir.”
Ernie clicked off.
“Well?” said Vern.
“Smoke ’em if you got ’em,” said Ernie, lighting up a cigarette.
TWENTY-THREE
Swagger awarded himself a good night’s sleep, as he’d been running without it for two or three days. He’d gotten back from giving a deposition at the sheriff’s office around midnight. He jammed a chair under the doorknob to hang up any unexpected intruders, stuffed his pillow under the blankets to represent a fellow sleeping on a bed, and took his rest in the bathtub, boots on, with the Kimber.38 Super as a pillow. He had good, deep sleep, slightly broken by dreams where his father told him how disappointed he was in the man Bob had become. But this theme presented itself so often it didn’t bother him. It went with the privilege and the luck of being Earl Swagger’s son.
He awoke at ten, took a shower, rebandaged the cut on his knee, checked on the swelling around his eyes to see that it had gone down a little, took three ibus, then changed into new jeans and a new polo shirt. Next, rather than breakfast, came coffee brewed in the room’s coffee maker. Then he got down to it. His first call was to his wife.
“Well howdy,” she said, and he sensed from the joy in her voice something good had happened.