Reuben ran for a side window and pulled it open and pushed through a jagged holly bush, cutting his arm, and rounded his way on the lawn. Out in the little lawn in the wet green grass, the rain looking like silver pins in the streetlight, he saw a bloodied Johnnie Benefield lighting a stick of dynamite he held in his teeth.
I SLOWLY MOVED TO MY FEET, AND THE CLOWN STRETCHED the gun out in his hands, pulling back the hammer, and then there was a boom, and the clack of a reload, and the clown was down on his back, almost comical in falling, like a cartoon clown with the rug swept out from under him, but there was a hole in the middle of his chest that was large as a saucer. A big, ugly sucking wound, and his voice sounded moist and wet and cracked as I stepped down to pull off the mask.
Black called out behind me, and I quickly pulled up my.45. In the hallway was another one running for me and the downed figure on the baby blue carpet, and as he raised a pistol with his hand, rushing for me, coming hard, I shot him three times.
Black walked up beside me and pulled me with him, as I tried to kneel and check on the men, and he told me to go back through the back door and that he’d take the front. And then the whole outside bay window exploded in a lightning of sharp yellows and blues, and the concussive force knocked us both down to the ground, burying our heads in our hands.
“COME ON,” REUBEN SCREAMED AS JOHNNIE LIT ANOTHER stick and pitched it toward the house with his good arm. Moon had fishtailed the Hornet on the slick street and barreled toward them, the big, round headlights looking like eyes as he zoomed down the road and fishtailed again, braking hard and throwing open the passenger’s door.
Johnnie touched the fuse and it caught and zipped, and he launched it up on the shingled roof and it rolled into a gutter. “Hot damn!” he yelled.
They heard sirens, and Reuben reached for Johnnie’s bloody yellow shirt and pulled, but Johnnie pointed a gun at him and told him to get to the car or he’d blow his fucking brains all over the street.
Reuben ran for the car, and, as he did, he saw a man coming around from the side of the house.
I MET ANOTHER CLOWN AT THE EDGE OF THE DRIVEWAY, but he had already seen me and had a gun drawn and pointed at my head, standing his ground, sirens in the distance. Then part of the roof exploded and cracked, and we were knocked off our feet, the house now catching on fire, and I couldn’t see or think but scrambled for the man and the gun, but he was on his knees, looking at me, the pistol still out but shaking. I put my hands up, and we both steadied ourselves. A man by a black Hudson yelled for him to shoot the sonofabitch and come on.
And he pointed the gun at me, the silver rain falling sideways. I could not breathe, fear sweating through my skin and across my face. I closed my eyes, and when I didn’t hear a thing I opened them and the figure was gone, piling into the Hudson and peeling away, dipping over the top of the hill, its red taillights shining and then disappearing over the ridge.
Black appeared from the front of the house, kicking down the front door and carrying Hugh’s wife, which, in kind terms, was a hell of an effort, and Britton was alongside of him in his pajamas and without his glasses and looking up at his house all torn away and battered and on fire, and he stepped over to me, squinting into the rain and the black, and said, “Lamar?”
“It’s me.”
“There are two dead men in my house.”
“I know.”
“Major Black says he got another, but we can’t find him.”
“I only saw the two.”
“You shoot them boys?”
“I shot one.”
“Good going. You saved the others for me, right?”
“You know it,” I said, and put my hand on the older man’s shoulder and stood out there, watching his perfect little home burn, until the Guard showed up and the fire trucks and the neighbors and, ultimately, the newsmen, who would take pictures until five o’clock the next day.
11
I’D CLOSED UP the filling station for the night, locking the pumps, emptying out the dirty oil in the drums out back, and finally restocking some of the candy shelves, when John Patterson drove up underneath the overhang and honked his horn. I met him outside by a big Texaco oil display, and when I noticed his pressed blue suit and tie I knew he’d been to Montgomery to see Governor Persons. He walked with me into the garage as I put up some wrenches, and he told me about the meeting, talking in fast gestures, his face heated with summer sweat and excitement. As always, his black beard was beginning to show on his square jaw.
“Is Britton doing okay?” he asked.
“House is a mess, but he’s fine.”
“You?”
“Nothing happened to me,” I said. “What’d the governor say?”
“How’d you know I’d been to see the governor?”
“You’re wearing your good suit.”
“Well, he used the same good words he’d had in the newspaper with us,” John said. “General Hanna went with me. Told us how tragic the situation had gotten and the sorrow he felt for Britton and his family. He even stood up from his desk and paced when I told him about Hugh’s wife and how half their house was gone.”
“You believe him?”
John shrugged. “I just keep thinking about that time when they blew up Bentley’s house two years ago. Remember how Persons flew in on that little helicopter and surveyed the damage and shook hands and gave that pensive look he gives. You know the one, where he softens his baby face, makes his eyes like slits, and pouts his lips.”
“He called off the investigation after a week.”
“It was only a day.”
I shook my head.
“Of course, we’re talking about the same fella who fired the football coach at Auburn as his first act in office. Don’t get me wrong, he listened, but he seemed more interested in showing off his gun collection. He was particularly excited about this big Nazi belt buckle he’d just bought. I guess he thought I’d be interested because I was in the Army.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Apparently, it was a real rare find. Persons said they only made twelve. He let me hold it and then asked if I thought it was heavy. And I said yes, and then he opened up the cover on the damn thing and it was a.32 caliber pistol made for officers. I told him that was nice, and that just egged him on, and he went into another room to show us a Chinese hand cannon, making a point that it was a replica so we wouldn’t think he’d spent the money on a real one.”
“Did he talk about Phenix at all?”
“Well, I finally had enough as he was playing with that hand cannon. I just said, ‘Governor, you’ve got to do something.’”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘We have done something. I’ve sent troops and the best investigators in the state. A governor can’t do much more.’ And then he turned back to the damn belt buckle and played with it some more. ‘Just genius,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it? To think a country so violent and mean could produce a work of art like this. It’s history. Just a piece of a culture that’s been destroyed for good.’ That’s when I told him to put the town under martial law. I had to say it, because General Hanna was standing there right beside me, and I think if Persons had kept showing off his trinkets Hanna would’ve leapt over the desk and choked him. Did you ever hear why they call General Hanna ‘Crack’?”
“I heard he was good with the pistol.”
“He was also good with a baseball bat when he was a strikebreaker,” John said. “He’s who the Birmingham fat cats called when the union bosses came to town. And as Persons kept talking, General Hanna took a deep breath and stood, his face turning red as a beet. You know, in the war he commanded a Pacific jungle unit that inflicted so many casualties he set Army records.”