Cold in July (13 page)

I was feeling sick. “From the looks of him,” I said, “you’d
think they purposely tried to mess him up.”

“I think that was the idea exactly, sport,” Jim Bob said.

That hadn’t occurred to me seriously, and now that Jim Bob
said it, I felt that this whole thing was even deeper than I expected. A
conspiracy. Little obstacles all along the way. Maybe they expected the body
might get dug up at some point, and wanted to make it hard to identify. And
maybe an autopsy on a body that no one is expected to see isn’t performed for
points on neatness.

I tossed my shovel out of the hole and climbed out after it.
I had had enough. Jim Bob shut the coffin, stood up on it and took my hand and
I pulled him up.

Russel followed. His big hand took mine and I yanked him up,
and as I did his eyes looked straight at me. I couldn’t tell what was in them,
but it wasn’t threatening.

I took my shovel and started throwing the dirt in furiously.
Russel grabbed up the other shovel and joined me. Jim Bob held the light.

We threw the dirt in at random, then we found our stride and
began shoveling in unison, shovelful per shovelful. We got faster and faster. I
could hear Russel grunting beside me and the smell of his sweat and the light
rain was on the wind and I began to feel loose, even strangely comfortable.
There was nothing I wanted to do more in the world at that moment than cover
that hole.

Finally Russel and I had it finished and we patted our
shovels on the earth as if by signal.

We looked at each other.

“Anybody ever quits wanting to dig graves around here,”
Russel said, “I think we could get a job.”

I grinned. “Probably.”

Lights pinned us against the night and doors slammed and I
looked toward the road. I could make out that it was two pickups, and I could
see four men getting out of them with baseball bats. They went around in front
of the trucks, which they had parked across the road facing us, and stood
framed in the lights.

One of them nervously, or perhaps eagerly, tapped his bat
against the side of his shoe. He called out, “What’er you fucks doing out
here?”

“Paying our respects to Uncle Harvey,” Jim Bob said.

“This time of night?” the voice asked.

“It’s the time of night we get the most sentimental,” Jim
Bob said. “What about you boys, you out here for a little batting practice?”

“You might say that,” the voice said.

“That’s kind of what I figured,” Jim Bob said. “Don’t reckon
you boys would listen to reason?”

“Sort of doubt it,” the voice said.

“Yeah, well, remember, I gave you your chance.”

One of the men laughed, then they all came toward us and
started through the gate.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“Simple,” Russel whispered to me, “first asshole within
range, you see if you can crease his head with that shovel.”

“It could kill him,” I said.

“Let’s hope so,” Russel said. “Those bats won’t do us much
good, I can promise you that.”

“Is there any good reason for this?” Jim Bob asked. “I mean,
what have we done to you boys?”

“Not a thing,” the speaker said, and then he rushed Jim Bob
with the bat.

Jim Bob was standing slightly in front of us, and he dropped
the flashlight and turned in the direction of the grave, I thought to take the
blow on his back, but he kept going down and he spun and his leg shot out and
caught the first man on the ankle and knocked his feet out from under him and
the man hit the ground and the bat went up and fell down heavy end first and
struck him between the eyes and the man yelled.

Jim Bob was on his feet then, and the second man was nearly
on him and the bat was coming down. Jim Bob went straight to the man and ducked
under the bat and the bat waved uselessly over Jim Bob’s shoulder and Jim Bob
grabbed the man’s throat with one hand and uppercut him in the balls with the
other, then he twisted his hip into him, slipped an arm around his waist, bent,
and sent the man flying. Jim Bob didn’t even lose his hat.

Russel stepped forward and faked a shovel blow to the third
man’s head and the man brought the bat up to block and Russel dropped the
shovel low and hit him in the kneecap. The man barked and went down.

The last man made a run for the trucks. He was nearly in the
middle of the road when the Red Bitch came barreling down on him and the lights
came on, then the Bitch braked, but the car still hit him and sent him over the
hood. He rolled up against the windshield and flipped over on the driver’s
side. He tried to stand, I guess, because the door came open, and at the same
instant the inside light framed Ann, the door made impact with the man hard
enough to make my testicles pull up.

The men from the pickups were down and I hadn’t done
anything but hold a shovel.

The man Jim Bob had thrown was trying to get up, so I looped
my shovel over casually, not putting much force behind it, and let it come down
on his head. It made a nice, comforting ring on contact.

“See you’re still messing with that Jap stuff,” Russel said
to Jim Bob.

“Korean. Hapkido. Hey, Dane, that wife of yours. She ain’t
got a sister at home, does she?”

23

I went around and threatened the others with my shovel and
told them to lie down with their hands out in front of them, which they did.
The one Russel hit in the kneecap was yelling his leg was broken, and the one
Jim Bob swept the feet out from under was complaining of his ankle. You would have
figured they thought we were the Red Cross.

The one I hit with the shovel wasn’t saying anything. He was
out cold. And so was the one Ann popped with the Caddy door. She was standing
outside the car now, leaning on the open door, looking over the roof at us. She
waved at me and I waved back. It was all very pleasant.

“Sorry we had to whip the shit out of you,” Jim Bob said to
the moaners on the ground, “but we didn’t have much choice. We’re gonna leave
now, but first, just to clear up a little mystery, just what are you fellas
doing here?”

Neither answered.

Jim Bob went over and kicked the man with the kneecap injury
in the hurt leg and the man howled like a wolf. “Now let me rephrase that in
exactly the same goddamn way. What you doing here?”

“A man hired us to come out here and see if anyone was
messing in the graveyard,” Kneecap Injury said. “He said if there was someone,
we should beat them up good. He paid us.”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“Tall, good-looking guy. Like a cigarette or clothes commercial
or something,” Knee Injury said. “Had on a suit. Not the kind you get at J. C.
Penney’s.”

“Where’d this fella find you boys?” Jim Bob asked.

“A ‘tonk outside of town called the Wagon Wheel,” Knee
Injury said. “Come on man, give me some peace. I’m hurting.”

Jim Bob walked around him and kicked him in the other leg,
then walked over and kicked the other guy in his good ankle. “That’ll help
balance the pain. Next time you come to fuck with me, sweeties, you better
bring your daddies. You goddamn boys ain’t worth a fuck.”

They lay on the ground and moaned.

“Tell you now,” Jim Bob said, “we’re gonna be going, and I’d
like y’all to lay right where you are, else I’m gonna feed those ball bats to
you. Got me?”

A couple of nods.

“Y’all have a nice night,” Jim Bob said, “and since this
rain is sort of clearing up, if you’ll watch right over there, when that cloud
cover clears, you ought to be able to see the Big Dipper.”

When we got over to the car, I went around and looked at the
man Ann whopped with the door. He was groaning and starting to get his hands
under him so he could get up. I took hold of the door and jerked it forward
again and popped him in the head. This just wasn’t his night. He went out like
a light. I was beginning to feel a little savage, though I didn’t have any
right. So far, all I had done was pop two guys in the head who were already
down and threaten a couple who were injured. I was some tough guy.

“Is everything okay?” Ann asked. “They aren’t going to die
or anything are they?”

“You done good,” Jim Bob said to Ann, “and they’re all okay.
Fellas over there think their legs are broke, and they might be right, but it’s
better than what I’d like to do to them.”

Ann looked down at the man she hit with the car. “Did you
see him fly through the air?”

“With the greatest of ease,” Russel said.

Jim Bob took the keys from Ann and went around and opened
the trunk and put the shovels and the tools in it. He slid back a part of the
trunk bottom, reached inside and took out a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun.

“You’re not gonna finish them, are you?” I asked.

He laughed at me, walked over to one of the pickups and shot
the front tires out. He broke open the stock of the shotgun, rolled out two
more shells, reloaded, went over to the other truck and did the same.

Turning toward the graveyard, he yelled out to the guys,
“They were damn near bald anyway.”

He put the shotgun back in the trunk and we got in the Red
Bitch and Jim Bob put the pedal to the metal and we were gone.

          
· · ·

When we got back to the Holiday Inn we went up to Jim Bob’s
room. He took off his shirt, which had been torn somehow in the fight, and
started to put on another. Ann said, “Is that a chicken tattooed on your
chest?”

“Chicken?” Jim Bob said. “It’s an eagle.”

“It looks like a chicken,” Ann said.

We all leaned forward. It did look like a chicken.

Russel said, “I’ve always thought it looked like a chicken.”

“I was drunk when it was done, but I didn’t ask for no
chicken. It’s just faded some is all.”

“It wasn’t faded when I first saw it,” Russel said, “and I
thought it looked like a chicken then.”

“To hell with the chicken,” I said. “Price set us up
tonight. The description that guy gave was Price. He went in and hired those
men to beat us. I just don’t know how he knew we were at the cemetery.”

“He didn’t,” Jim Bob said, snapping the snaps on his shirt.
“But he thought it was a good possibility. He’s trying to discourage us. It’s
just.

“And how are we going to do that?” I asked.

“For the time being, leave that up to me.”

“So what do we do?” Ann asked.

“You and Dane go home and do what you always do. Normal
business. Go to work. Go home. Go to work. Regular shit. And Dane, I’d like you
to hire Russel to work at your place. Ben said you owned a, what is it?”

“Frame shop,” I said.

“Yeah, you put him to work so he isn’t a vagrant, and I’ll
put him up here at the Inn. Just pay him a token salary and count it out of
what you owe me. Keep it cheap, though.”

“I’m not sure I like this,” I said.

“I’m not wild for it either,” Russel said.

“We gonna get this done,” Jim Bob said, “we’re gonna do it
my way, or you two can do it yourselves or just forget it. I’m curious and I
want to do this for Ben, but I’m gonna call the shots or it ain’t gonna happen.
It’s not like I’m making ally big fortune off this.”

“I’m paying you,” I said.

“It ain’t my regular fee. Lot of this is coming out of my
pocket, and I can tell you now, if you want to stay in business, you don’t work
that way. You don’t buy the frames for your clients, do you, Dane?”

“I'm not asking you to work cheap,” I said. “You settled on
a fee—”

“I’m not complaining. I’m just saying money isn’t what’s
keeping me in this. But I’m not going to stay at it unless I’m calling the
shots. That’s how it is.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll take him on, but let’s don’t drag
this out.”

“It takes as long as it takes,” Jim Bob said. “Ben can start
working for you in the morning. In the meantime, I’ll get on the next step
here. You want to check in and see how things are going, great, give me a call.
But this is gonna take some time and I want to be left alone as much as
possible.”

“That’s it then?” Ann said.

“For now, Lady,” Jim Bob said. “So let’s say good night, or
damn near good day, and go home and sleep. You skipping work today, Dane?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. You look like hell. Tomorrow Ben starts working for
you.”

“Nine o’clock,” I said.

Ann and I stood up.

Jim Bob shook our hands. “Just go on about things regular
like.”

Russel offered his hand to me, and after a moment, I shook
it. Then he offered it to Ann.

She looked at it for a long, hard moment.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

He nodded and put his hand by his side. “I don’t blame you,”
he said.

“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” Ann said.

We went out. On the way home it started to rain again. This
time very hard. It continued that way throughout the day and most of the night
and the morning after.

24

A day’s rest hadn’t helped me much. I was still tired on the
morning I started back to work. Depressed too. The idea of having Russel around
me all day was not appealing.

To make the situation even more confusing, he reminded me
more and more of my father. It wasn’t just the massive hands. He moved like my
father and I fancied their voices were much the same.

And perhaps there weren’t that many similarities, and I was
merely trying to raise the ghost of my dad and give him substance.

But if that was the case, why couldn’t I have chosen a more
suitable host than a goddamn ex-con who threatened my child and nearly beat my
brains out?

The morning was already hot, as usual. The rain had quit
only a few hours before and the sun was out now and boiling the wetness off the
brick streets like the damp off a beached fish’s scales.