Cold in July (12 page)

“That’s all right,” I said.

“It’s high,” Ann said.

“It’ll do,” I said.

Jim Bob laughed. “Don’t you just love women? They can
squeeze a dollar till it farts—no offense ma’am. Listen, you two go home and
I’ll call you when I want you. I won’t give details over the phone. I’ll just
call and you come here and we’ll talk in person. Way this is shaping up, could
be something big and nasty going on here, and if that’s the case, they’re out
at your place tapping the phones right now.”

I thought about that and couldn’t really imagine it. It
sounded too much like one of those bad made-for-television movies.

“If the fella over there follows you out and follows you
home, don’t pay him no mind. It don’t mean a thing. Or he might have a buddy
follow you. But you just go home and wait. Got me?”

“Got you,” I said.

“Lady,” Jim Bob said, “you don’t have to come back if you
don’t want to. But if you come, I want you to be cooperative, and I don’t want
you worrying about snagging your panty hose or such. We’ll be humping right
along, I figure, and we don’t need no slackers.”

“I assure you, Mr. Jim Bob,” Ann almost whistled through her
teeth, “I’m not a slacker.”

“I didn’t actually figure you for one,” Jim Bob said.

“Jim Bob likes to ingratiate himself with his clients,”
Russel said. “Make ‘em feel trusted and warm.”

“My business ain’t public relations—unless I’m lying for a
good reason,” Jim Bob said. “But I don’t lie to my employers. It’s not the way
it’s done.”

Ann got up and started out of the hotel restaurant without
saying a word. I stood and took out my wallet.

“Nah,” Jim Bob said. “You folks just had pie and coffee.
I’ll get it and the tip. Go on and catch up with her. And, Dane, tell her she’s
right, three hundred a day is high. But I’m the best there is, and by God, I
don’t normally pay my own expenses.”

          
· · ·

On the way home Ann turned the radio on too loud and sat on
the far side of the car with her arms crossed, and after a while she turned the
radio off and drummed her fingers on the dash. Jordan was in the backseat
looking puzzled. Ever since we had picked him up at the day school he had known
something was going on, but he didn’t know exactly what.

“Mommy, you mad at Daddy?”

“Just a little,” she said.

“Don’t be mad at Daddy.”

“It’ll pass,” she said.

God, I hoped so.

When we got home, we made arrangements for the Fergusons to
keep Jordan. They had kids and we kept them sometimes, and we were actually
owed a couple of overnight sleeps, which was the big thing with Jordan and
their boys lately. Sometimes Jordan had to call us at bedtime and be reassured,
but all in all he didn’t mind. And by the next day, we would practically have
to pry the kids apart to get Jordan to go home.

Ann took Jordan to their house while I sat watching TV, but
really listening for the phone. Wanting it to ring. Wanting to get on with
things.

Nothing happened.

Ann came back and we finally went to bed about ten and made
love, which wasn’t too good because she was still mad at me. Or mad at Jim Bob
really, but I was handy. She said something about, “I’ll make that goddamn
bastard think snag my panty hose” a couple of times before we gave it up for
the night and she rolled into my arms and I held my hand between her legs and
buried my nose in the fragrance of her hair. And just as I was drifting into
sleep, the phone rang.

I got to it without turning over the nightstand and groped
it off the hook and coughed something into it.

“Get on up here,” Jim Bob said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Coming.”

“You awake?”

“About half-ass.”

“We’ll be whole-ass by the time you get here, got me?”

I said something and lay back down. Ann rolled over and put
her arm around my chest. “Jim Bob?”

“Yeah. We’ve got to go meet him.”

“Does that mean we don’t have time for a quickie?”

“He didn’t say anything about a time limit,” I said.

Our lovemaking was rushed, but Ann wasn’t mad anymore, and
it was better than when we had spent more time. I knew why.

We were both scared.

22

Jim Bob and Russel met us out in the parking lot.

“We’ll take the Red Bitch,” Jim Bob said.

Ann and I got in the back and Russel got in front with Jim
Bob. It occurred to me that if Russel and Jim Bob were pulling our legs, they
might be taking us out to the river bottoms to dispose of us. It could be that
way. Russel and Jim Bob had been friends for a long time, and I hadn’t any idea
what Russel had really said to him on the phone. I wished I had thought of that
before now. I looked at Ann, and as the lights from stores and buildings
slanted across her face and made her fine profile show there in the car, I got
the feeling the same thoughts had occurred to her. I figured that if that was
the case, her last words to me would be, “I told you so.”

We drove on out of town and as we did I looked over the Red
Bitch real good. The upholstery was red and on the dash in upraised blue-silver
letters was JIM BOB. The steering wheel was covered with a tacky, false cheeta
skin and an emerald-colored suicide knob the size of a doorknob was fastened to
that. Jim Bob liked to drive with his left hand on the knob and his right hand
across the back rest. I could see a little of his face in the rearview mirror.
He looked happy as a drunk.

“How are we going to dig him up?” I asked. It had occurred
to me that I hadn’t seen any shovels, and that was making me even more nervous.

“Got some shovels and stuff in the trunk there. All manner
of tools. Damn near everything’s back there in the trunk but another car.”

“Maybe we could use another,” Russel said. “This ain’t
exactly one to be sneaking around in.”

“Who’s sneaking, goddamnit. We’re driving. Ain’t no crime in
driving. Hell, I have a pickup, but I didn’t bring it.”

“No joke,” Russel said.

Jim Bob looked over at Russel and grinned. “Want to see me
lose this cop?”

Russel grinned back. “I thought you were losing your touch.
I noticed him when we left the Holiday Inn. They switched cars on us.”

Neither Ann nor I had looked back to see the car that was
supposed to be following us, but it was tempting.

“Are you sure it’s a cop behind us?” I said.

“Oh yeah,” Jim Bob said.

“Can’t he just pull us over?”

“What for, driving a red Caddy? That ain’t no crime.”

“Perhaps this one ought to be,” Ann said.

Jim Bob laughed. “Lady, I like you, I really do.”

“If we run, won’t the cops be laying for us?” I said.

“Well, we ain’t gonna just run, we’re gonna lose him legal
like. But before I do, could you folks tell me where the hell this graveyard
is?”

“The other direction,” Russel said.

“Figures,” Jim Bob said, and he took a left in the Safeway
parking lot just in front of a big tractor trailer rig. The car that was
tailing us went by. Or I assume it was the one. When I got the chance to look,
I saw a sporty blue Plymouth slow down and fall over to the left-turn lane. But
the traffic was thick and he couldn’t make the left.

Jim Bob got back on the highway by rushing out front of a
yellow Volkswagen that honked its horn and flashed its lights. It whipped
around on the left and came even with Jim Bob. A husky college boy on the
right-hand side rolled down his window and flipped Jim Bob the bird and yelled
something.

Jim Bob waved at him friendly like, put his foot to the
floor and the Red Bitch jumped forward. Jim Bob whipped in front of the
Volkswagen again, went around another car and made the right lane. We went fast
like that for two blocks, then Jim Bob took a right, then a left, then a right
and a left again.

“Am I going in the general direction?” Jim Bob asked.

“General,” Russel said.

“Good enough.”

“We lose the cop?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Jim Bob said. “Them and their little toy cars.
Whatever happened to the good ole days when it was the biggest, meanest car on
the road, not the smallest and the cheapest?”

“The Arabs is what happened,” Russel said.

          
· · ·

We finally got out to the graveyard, and Jim Bob killed the
Red Bitch and went around and opened the trunk. I stood there wondering if we
were about to be killed, but the trunk was just like he said. Full of tools. He
got out two shovels and a long canvas bag and put them on the ground. He gave
Ann the keys.

“You take the Red Bitch on down the road a piece and kill
the lights but leave the motor running. Turn it facing this way, though, so you
can see what’s going on in case something goes on. We’re gonna try and make
this quicker than a bunny fucks—pardon me again.”

“Would you quit saying that?” Ann said.

“You know, I’d rather,” Jim Bob said. “What say if we’re
gonna be waltzing partners I just let fly when I need to and consider me sorry
for what I say. If I don’t cuss I get all filled up inside just like I was
constipated and I don’t feel worth a damn.”

“I sure wouldn’t want you all constipated with cuss words,”
Ann said. “But listen, I’m not a taxi.”

“No, ma’am, you ain’t, but we’re gonna do the digging and
someone’s got to do the driving, and I’m running this shindig, so do what I
say.”

“But we’re paying,” Ann said.

“And it’s money well spent,” Jim Bob said. “You can’t do no
better than me. Now let’s get on with this.”

Ann looked at me and I shrugged.

“Okay,” she said.

“Take it easy on the clutch,” Jim Bob said as Ann got in.

“I can drive,” Ann said. She closed the door and started the
car and drove down the road a ways, backed around, pointed the lights at us and
killed them. The Caddy was just off the road and under an oak. When the lights
were out, you couldn’t see it. It was that kind of night.

“They can wrap you up for quite a few years for grave
stealing, can’t they?” Russel said.

“Hell, they can throw away the key,” Jim Bob said.

We went over to the graveyard fence and found the gate
unlocked. “Reckon they don’t expect folks to come in much,” Jim Bob said, “and
the ones here ain’t going nowhere.”

Russel located the grave and I took a shovel and Russel took
one.

“What about you?” Russel asked Jim Bob.

Jim Bob opened the canvas bag and took out a long
flashlight. “Hell, someone’s got to hold the light.”

Russel and I started digging. While we were at it, it began
to turn off cool and it got darker. You could smell rain in the air. When we
were about halfway down to the coffin, it began to sprinkle.

“Better get with it,” Jim Bob said. “I think it’s gonna come
a real frog strangler, and if it does, you’re gonna have to bail as well as
dig.”

“How’s your back?” Russel asked Jim Bob.

“Fine,” Jim Bob said. “How’s yours?”

“Hurts. I’m using a shovel,” Russel said.

“And you use it so well.”

Russel began digging faster, and as we got close to the box,
his digging became more frenzied. I looked over at him once, and what light was
on him made him look like a corpse. He was afraid of what we would find down
there. His son and his hopes in a box.

I looked over at Jim Bob, and since he was holding the
light, I couldn’t make out his features too well, but he seemed more solemn
than I’d yet seen him. He was also quiet for a change.

Russet’s shovel scraped the coffin.

We began cleaning the dirt off. and around it. Throwing it
up high and over. It was getting to be harder work. The rain was coming down
faster and the clods were sticking together and becoming heavy.

“All right,” Jim Bob said, and he jumped down on the coffin
with his light and canvas bag. He stepped off the box and found a place to
stand between the coffin and the grave wall, and he opened the bag.

“There’s more to tapping these babies than just opening a
lid,” Jim Bob said. “They seal these fuckers but good nowadays. You got to have
the right tools. Fortunately, I got them.”

He pulled some strange instruments out of the bag and turned
to look at Russel. “Whatever’s in here, I don’t want nothing crazy out of you.
If it’s your boy, I’m sorry, but you move to cause Dane here trouble, and I’ll
wrap this damn tool around your head.”

Russel smiled grimly. “You’ll try… but don’t worry. I haven’t
got nothing against Dane anymore.”

“Well, just in case you get something suddenly,” Jim Bob
said, “remember what I told you.”

Jim Bob applied the tools to the coffin and in a moment the
lid popped up with a whoosh of air, like one of those cans of vacuum-packed
peanuts, and there was the body. It was in a hell of a shape. It looked like
someone had taken a can opener to it and stitched it up with black cord while
drunk. The eye I had shot out was stuffed with what looked like, wax, and it
hadn’t been done neatly; the body looked like something out of a monster movie.

“Ain’t much to look at,” Jim Bob said, and he put a hand on
Russel’s shoulder.

Russel looked quickly at the face and said, “Hold the light
on his right hand.”

Jim Bob did that and Russel picked up the corpse’s right
hand and looked at it. “You remember my boy, don’t you Jim Bob?”

“When he was little,” Jim Bob said. “He was blond, wasn’t
he?”

“Hair can be dyed… but this isn’t him. Freddy had a cluster
of little, pale moles on the back of his right hand that looked like a
four-leaf clover… like these.” He let go of the corpse’s hand and held his own
in the light. I could see the faint pattern of moles on the back of his
powerful hand. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed them before.

“You’re sure?” Jim Bob asked. “More than sure,” Russel said.