Cold in July (23 page)

There wasn’t much to see. The usual videos. No section for
snuff films. I was about to leave, when a door opened at the back behind the
counter, and Freddy came out. I felt tension beating its wings in my stomach.

He had on a very expensive gray suit and it was cut to hide
his belly and it did the job well. He had on a gray tie with little blue
stripes in it and there was some kind of gold designed tie tac stuck through it
and into his dark shirt. I bet his shoes were shiny. He and Price could have
competed for best dressed.

I couldn’t help myself. I went over to the counter and
looked right at Freddy. I said, “Have you got Murmur of the Heart? It’s a
French film.”

“We don’t carry nothing foreign but the Jap and Mex stuff,”
the skinny guy answered for him. “People go for the Jap stuff. Lots of action,
all that swords and kicking and jumping stuff.”

Freddy smiled at me, and damned if it wasn’t a nice smile.
He was a nice looking guy when he wasn’t raping and killing someone. It gave me
a chill. He looked so normal. The kind of guy that might coach your kid in
football or teach social studies. “That’s right, mister,” he said. “Only
Japanese and Mexican films. The rest are American and maybe some British.”

“We got Limey films?” the thin guy said.

Freddy looked at him and smiled. It was, as I said, a nice
smile, but I could recall seeing it on his face the moment before he shot that
girl and licked her blood from the wound. “These are modern times,” Freddy said
to the thin guy. “I’d prefer you not use offensive terms like Jap and Limey if
you’re going to work for me. Okay?”

“Sure,” the thin man said. “I didn’t mean nothing by it,
really.” He seemed desperate to convince.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Freddy said, “but I’d prefer not to
hear those kind of racist remarks in my presence, customers or no customers.”

Freddy smiled at me, and I found I couldn’t quit staring. I
was looking for some sign of the beast, something that would alert me to his
madness or meanness, or whatever you call the bile in a man like Freddy, but
all I saw was a regular human being. He wasn’t the sort of guy the movies would
pick to play the kind of guy he was; he was more the kind to be typecast as a
film hero’s best buddy.

“Well, thanks anyway,” I said.

“Maybe next time,” Freddy said. “We intend to expand our
line.”

I nodded and started out, and even though the
air-conditioning in there worked quite well, before I could get outside, sweat
beads had formed on my forehead and my palms had turned sticky.

          
· · ·

We got our place back at the station, and about fifteen
minutes later the Mexican returned and parked behind the video store again.
He’d probably gone out for a 7-Eleven Slurpee.

At exactly seven o’clock, the video store closed and the
Nova drove out, and behind it came the gray Vette with the thin, white-suited
man driving it. I could see now that the Vette needed lots of body work. They
turned the same direction onto the highway, with the Nova leading, and we fell
in behind them, and on the other side of town the Vette honked at the Nova and
veered off. The Nova didn’t honk back.

We followed the Nova across town and back to Freddy’s place.
The Mexican was great with traffic. He handled the Chevy like a golf cart,
weaving in and out of cars expertly.

They reached the subdivision where Freddy lived at five
minutes to eight. We didn’t follow them in. We drove on past and turned around
and drove home.

39

When we got back to Jim Bob’s place late that evening,
Russel met me at the door with, “Your wife called.”

“Oh,” I said. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t want to talk to me, as you can imagine. Wouldn’t
have, if she hadn’t had to. She asked you to call her after five.”

It was, of course, well after five then. I said, “Jim Bob,
can I drive the Rambler to the store? I’d prefer to use the pay phone.”

Take the truck and use the goddamn air-conditioning. This
heat has damn near made me sick. Hell, take the Red Bitch if you want.”

“The truck is fine.”

I drove over to the store and got some change and called
Ann. She answered on the first ring.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Come home.”

“I can’t. Not quite yet.”

“You’ve got to.”

“Is Jordan okay?”

“He’s fine. It’s me that isn’t okay. Come home. Quit playing
cops and robbers and come home.”

“This is serious, Ann.”

“All the more reason to come home. Haven’t you played this
out enough? Who cares who you shot? He had it coming. As for it not being
Freddy, that’s Russel’s problem.”

“We’ve been through this.”

“And you’ve had your fun. Come home.”

“Things have changed. It’s a lot worse than we thought.”

Silence.

“It’s seems that Freddy is into some really bad stuff.”

“What do you expect from an organized crime informer?”

“Really bad stuff, Ann.” And I told her all that we had
found out and what Russel and Jim Bob were planning. “And I’m going to help
them do it. I thought at first I was just going to go along for part of the
ride, but I can’t. When I saw Freddy today, I knew I had to go all the way.”

“It’s not your place to do anything about it.”

“Whose place is it? The law? They won’t touch him. Not
unless he gets totally out of hand, and even then as long as it’s Mexicans they
won’t bother. They want to keep their reputation intact.”

“Then let Jim Bob and Russel do it. They want to do it and
they know how. You’re not a gunfighter.”

“I can’t just let them do something like that and pretend
I’m not part of it because I didn’t pull the trigger. I’ve got to go in there
with them, back their play.”

“Back their play. Jesus, will you listen to yourself,
Richard. Back their play. That’s gangster talk.”

“Westerns.”

“I don’t give a damn. It’s childish. It’s vigilante.”

“There’s nothing childish about it, unless you want to
include the little whore he killed. She was childish. About fifteen, I think.
Maybe younger. That’s a good age for him. He can trick them easier, less
experience. Even if they are whores. And I don’t give a fuck if it’s vigilante.
I’d be glad to let the law do it, but they don’t want to.”

“Richard. I love you. But I’m not going to sit around here
and wonder if you’re dead in some ditch somewhere. You come home now, or don’t
come home. When it’s over, if you’re okay you tell me, but you don’t come home.
Ever.”

“Ann—”

She hung up.

          
· · ·

I drove back to Jim Bob’s, my stomach feeling like an empty
pot. Maybe, like Russel, there was a hole in me and my soul was oozing out.

But I knew any attempt to talk myself out of what I was
planning to do would be useless. This sense of honor I carried was a blind
thing. It didn’t deal in common sense. It was made up of something I heard my
dad say once, one of the few things I truly remembered about him. He said, you
do what’s right because it’s right and you don’t need a reason.

Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

I wondered if dad was thinking that way when he put the gun
in his mouth.

Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

I got back to Jim Bob’s feeling small enough to walk under a
snail’s belly on stilts, and when I went inside, Jim Bob said, “Your wife’s on
the phone. She sounds a little distressed. She’s been holding for you till you
got back.”

“Thanks,” I said. I started for the phone. Jim Bob reached
out and took me by the shoulder.

“Dane, you got a problem at home, you go home and take care
of it. This ain’t your business. Not really. You’re a frame builder from
LaBorde, Texas, not a shootist.”

“That’s what Ann says.”

I picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Richard,” Ann said, “I think you’re a big, dumb, foolish
sonofabitch that’s seen too many John Wayne movies and read too many cowboy
books, but I’ll be waiting. You do what you got to do, damnit. And please,
please, be careful and don’t get yourself killed. Jordan and I love you.”

“Love you too,” I said.

When I hung up, I turned to Russel and Jim Bob. “I’m going
to need a gun too,” I said. “I’m in. All the way.”

40

“Barring some unforeseen circumstance,” Jim Bob said, “I’m
willing to bet Freddy’s routine stays pretty much the same, day in and day out.
Off to work at six-thirty-five, back from work just before eight. Except maybe
the weekends. But we’re not going to wait that long. We’re going to do it
tomorrow.”

It was later that night and we were sitting at Jim Bob’s
table drinking coffee and eating cookies. He’d had them all along, they were just
well hidden.

“I want to give you one more chance to get out, Dane,” Jim
Bob said.

“Take it,” Russel said. “You got what I wish I’d kept. A
wife and a son and you’re a good father.”

“I’m not so sure about the good father part,” I said. “I
always feel like I’m fucking up.”

“Comparing yourself to me,” he said, “you’re as good a
father as they come.”

“You had nothing to do with Freddy turning out to be a
monster,” I said.

“Once he was a little kid playing in the floor with a toy
truck,” Russel said. “He was like any other kid then. There was no monster in
him.”

“It’s all moot now,” Jim Bob said. “You in or out, Dane?
Now’s the time to put your cards on the table. Be sure.”

“I said I was in, and I’m in.”

“All right. We keep it simple. No hiding out. That would
just give us time to be seen by someone. We’ll take the truck. I’ll put the
camper on it, and I’ve got some putty that looks like mud. I can dab that over
the license plates so they can’t be made by some alert citizen. I’ve also got
some light blue tape striping, and we’ll put that down the sides of the truck.
And we’ll put a big hood ornament on it. When we get finished, after we do the
job, I mean, we’ll come back here and get rid of the tape and the putty and the
ornament, and we’ll take the camper off.”

“I know we’re going to kill them,” I said, “but what’s the
plan? Do we drive by in the truck and start firing at them?”

“No. That ain’t certain enough,” Jim Bob said. “When they
slow down to go up the little hump that leads into Freddy’s driveway, “we’ll be
in motion. We’ll pull up at the curb and jump out and shoot at them through the
windows. They won’t be in a good position to do much fighting back. It’s the
perfect time.”

“And if the windows are rolled up?” I asked.

“Shoot through the windows, Dane,” Russel said. “Bullets
break glass.”

“Oh.” Some killer I was. That hadn’t occurred to me.

“Thing for us to do now,” Jim Bob said, “is go to bed, sleep
late, fix up the truck tomorrow and drive over there and wait. And then do it.”

          
· · ·

That night I dreamed I was standing at one end of a dusty
street wearing Roy Rogers garb, lots of fringe and a white hat, and a
two-holstered gun belt sporting pearl-handled revolvers. At the other end of
the street was Freddy. He was wearing the suit he’d been wearing at the video
store. He didn’t have a gun belt. The Mexican was off to the side holding his
horse for him. The horse was the color of the Chevy Nova. Both Freddy and the
Mexican were smiling. I started walking. Freddy started walking, and the closer
he got to me the taller he got, until he was way up there with his head in the
clouds. I pulled my revolvers, quick as the wind, as they say in Western
movies, and I lifted them up and started blasting away, and Freddy leaned down
from the clouds and his face came closer and closer to the ground and my
bullets speckled his flesh like peppercorns, but it wasn’t bothering him. He
was smiling. And his eyes were as cold as the arctic wastelands. He reached out
with his hands, which had become gigantic, and took me in them and began to wad
me into a ball. Great gouts of blood shot out from between his fingers.

I sat up sweating. I put my back against the baseboard and
wished I smoked.

The bedroom door opened. It was Russel.

“You screamed,” he said.

“I did?”

“Yeah. You okay?”

“Fine. Nightmare.”

“I have a lot of them.”

“And after tomorrow?”

“I’ll have a lot more, I guess. You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’m all right.”

“Well, goodnight, son,” Russel said and went out.

I almost said, “Goodnight, Dad.”

41

I awoke about eleven to find Russel and Jim Bob out in the
garage applying putty to the license plates of the truck. The camper and hood
ornament and stripes were already on it.

“What a day I’ve had,” I said.

“Yes sir,” Jim Bob said, “worked your little fingers right
down to the bone. We’re gonna grab a sandwich in a minute.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Not now,” Russel said, and he smiled at me.

After we ate our sandwiches, Jim Bob opened a drawer in the
kitchen and took out the guns he and Russel had chosen. He put them on the
kitchen table and went out to the Bitch and got the sawed-off and the little
ankle holster with the revolver in it. He went upstairs then and came back down
with the Ithaca 12-gauge, a .45 automatic and a Western style .44. He also
brought down a gun cleaning kit and several boxes of ammunition.

“Okay,” Jim Bob said to me, “I’m gonna suggest you take the
Ithaca. You’re not used to shooting guns, and this one is very light and you
can hit what you’re shooting at without being a good shot. Just in case you
need a backup, take one of the handguns.”