“I don’t know,” Leo bristled, spitting blood, inching toward the window facing the hedge that separated the Ballantine property. “Something went through a window, I think. I don’t know. Crazy bastard’s got a shotgun!”
“A what!” Ionucci almost shrieked. He and the Bull slowly raised their heads to the window and joined Leo there. The crazy man with the shotgun was stomping around his backyard, yelling at the trees.
Mr. Ballantine was sick of New Orleans and sick of drugs and sick of punks trying to rob and pillage, and he was sick of crime and living in fear like this, and he was just so damned sick of it all, he raised his shotgun and fired once at the trees for good measure. That’ll teach the slimy little bastards that he meant business. Come back to his house, and you’ll leave in a hearse. BOOM!
Mrs. Ballantine stood in the doorway in her pink robe, and screamed when he fired and wounded the trees.
The three heads in the garage next door hit the dirt when the shooting started. “Sumbitch is crazy!” Leo screeched. Slowly, they raised their heads again in perfect unison, and at precisely that instant, the first police car pulled into the Ballantine driveway with blue and red lights flashing wildly.
Ionucci was the first one out the door, followed by the Bull, then Leo. They were in a huge hurry, but at the same time careful not to attract attention from the idiots next door. They scooted along, close to the ground, dashing from tree to tree, trying desperately to make it to the woods before there was more gunfire. The retreat was orderly.
Mark and Reggie huddled deep in the brush. “You’re crazy,” she kept muttering, and it was not idle talk. She honestly believed that her client was mentally unbalanced. But she hugged him anyway, and they squeezed close together. They didn’t see the three silhouettes scampering along until they crossed through the fence.
“There they are,” Mark whispered, pointing. Not thirty seconds earlier, he had told her to watch the gate.
“Three of them,” he whispered. The three leaped into the underbrush, less than twenty feet from where they were hiding, and disappeared into the woods.
They squeezed closer together. “You’re crazy,” she said again.
“Maybe so. But it’s working.”
The shotgun blast had almost sent Reggie over the edge. She’d been trembling when they arrived here. She’d been mortified when he returned with news that someone was in the garage. She’d damned near screamed when he threw the rock through the window. But the shotgun was the final straw. Her heart was pounding and her hands were trembling.
And oddly, at that moment, she knew they couldn’t run. The three grave robbers were now between them and their car. There was no escape.
The shotgun blast brought the neighborhood to life. Floodlights filled backyards as men and women in bathrobes walked onto patios and looked in the direction of the Ballantines’. Voices shouted inquiries across fences. Dogs came to life. Mark and Reggie withdrew deeper into the brush.
Mr. Ballantine and one of the cops walked along the rear fence, searching perhaps for more felonious rocks. It was hopeless. Reggie and Mark could hear voices, but they could not understand what was being said. Mr. Ballantine yelled a lot.
The cops settled him down, then helped him tape clear plastic over the window. The red and blue lights were turned off, and after twenty minutes, the cops left.
Reggie and Mark waited, trembling and holding hands. Bugs crawled over their skin. The mosquitoes were brutal. The weeds and burrs stuck to their dark sweatshirts. The lights in the Ballantine house finally went off, and they waited some more.
38
A few minutes after one, the clouds broke and the half-moon lightened Romey’s backyard and garage for a moment. Reggie glanced at her watch. Her legs were numb from squatting. Her back ached from sitting on her tail. Oddly, though, she had become accustomed to her little spot in the jungle, and after surviving the thugs, the cops, and the idiot with the shotgun, she was feeling remarkably safe. Her breathing and pulse were normal. She was not sweating, though her jeans and shirt were still wet from exertion and humidity. Mark swatted and slapped mosquitoes, and said little. He was eerily calm. He chewed on a weed, watched the fence row, and acted as if he and he alone knew precisely when to make the next move.
“Let’s go for a little walk,” he said, rising from his knees.
“Where to? The car?”
“No. Just down the trail. My leg is about to cramp.”
Her right leg was numb below the knee. Her left leg was dead below the hip, and she stood with great difficulty. She followed him through the brush until they were on the small trail parallel to the creek. He moved deftly through the darkness without the benefit of the flashlight, swatting mosquitoes and stretching his legs.
They stopped deep in the woods, out of sight of the fence rows of Romey’s neighbors.
“I really think we should leave now,” she said, a bit louder since the houses were no longer in view. “I have this fear of snakes, you see, and I don’t want to step on one.”
He did not look at her, but stared in the direction of the ditch. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave now,” he whispered.
She knew he had a reason for saying this. She’d not won an argument in the past six hours. “Why?”
“Because those men could still be around here. In fact, they could be close by waiting for things to settle down so they can return. If we head for the car, we might meet them.”
“Mark, I can’t take any more of this, okay? This may be fun and games for you, but I’m fifty-two years old and I’ve had it. I can’t believe I’m hiding in this jungle at one o’clock in the morning.”
He put his forefinger over his lips. “Shhhhhh. You’re talking too loud. And this isn’t a game.”
“Dammit, I know it’s not a game! Don’t lecture me.”
“Keep your cool, Reggie. We’re safe now.”
“Safe my ass! I won’t feel safe until I lock the door at the motel.”
“Then leave. Go on. Find your way back to the car, and leave.”
“Sure, and let me guess. You’ll stay here, right?”
The moonlight disappeared, and suddenly the woods were darker. He turned his back to her and began walking toward their hiding place. She instinctively followed him, and this irritated her because at that moment she was depending on an eleven-year-old. But she followed him anyway, along a trail invisible to her, through the dense woods to the undergrowth, to about the same point where they’d waited before. The garage was barely visible.
The blood had returned to her legs, though they were very stiff. Her lower back throbbed. She could rub her hand across her forearm and feel the bumps from the mosquito bites. There was a thin sliver of blood on the back of her left hand, probably from a sticker in the brush or perhaps a weed. If she ever made it back to Memphis, she vowed to join a health club and get in shape. Not that she planned any more ventures like this, but she was tired of aching and gasping for breath.
Mark lowered onto one knee, stuck another weed in his mouth to chew on, and watched the garage.
They waited, almost in silence, for an hour. When she’d reached the point of leaving him and running wildly through the woods, Reggie said, “Okay, Mark, I’m leaving. Do what you’ve got to do, because I’m leaving now.” But she didn’t move.
They crouched together, and he pointed at the garage as if she didn’t know where it was. “I’m crawling up there, okay, with the flashlight, and I’m looking at the body, or the grave, or whatever they were digging at, okay?”