Krampus: The Yule Lord (6 page)

T
HE CRUISER PULLED
in beside Jesse’s truck. Dillard opened the car door and got out. The police chief was a big man, over six feet tall, and while he might’ve been pushing sixty he still looked like he could knock over a tree. He was in his civilian clothes, a pair of jeans and a tan hunting jacket, and while you could never have made Jesse admit it, he could see how a woman might find Dillard’s strong jaw and ruggedness attractive.
Like a rock,
Jesse thought.
He looks like the kind of man you can count on.

“Jesse,” Linda whispered, her voice urgent. “Please don’t make no trouble. Just go. Please.” Jesse didn’t like it. Linda didn’t seem merely put out, she seemed nervous, anxious. He’d never seen her act like this.

Dillard locked steely gray eyes on Jesse, pushed his jacket open just far enough to reveal his service pistol. “Just the man I’ve been looking for.”

“He was just leaving,” Linda called, then, softly, to Jesse. “Now go. Please. For me.” She pushed him along. Jesse walked down the steps, across the driveway, and over to his truck. Dillard’s cold eyes followed him the whole way. “Mind holding up there a sec, Jesse? Need a word with you. Linda, do me a favor would you . . . head on in and give us men a bit of space.”

Linda hesitated.

“Go on now, be a good gal.”

“Dillard, I was just hoping that maybe—”

“Linda,” Dillard said, a strain edging into his voice. “You need to go on inside right now.”

Linda bit her lip, gave Jesse one more pleading look, then hurried inside. Jesse wondered what was going on. The Linda he knew would never let a man cow her like that. Was that the same Linda he’d torn up the honky-tonks with? The same woman he’d seen slug a man for grabbing her ass?

Dillard strolled around the cruiser, right up to Jesse, looked him up and down. “Hear there was a spot of trouble out at your place last night.”

Jesse said nothing.

“You know anything about that? Maybe hear something? See something?”

“I did. Saw everything. Santa and his reindeer landed and were attacked by six devil men. They flew up into the sky and Santa tossed one of ’em overboard.” Jesse said all this without breaking a smile. “I think the man you’re looking for has a long white beard.”

Dillard frowned, rubbed at a spot on his forehead like he was getting a headache, then just stared at Jesse for a long moment as though trying to figure out what he was. “Jesse, I knew your mother and father pretty well, and neither one of them was stupid. How come you turn out that way?”

Jesse crossed his arms and spat on Dillard’s driveway.

“You just asking me to do this the hard way?” Dillard’s tone made it clear he was done dicking around.

“The only thing I’m asking you to do is stay the hell away from my wife and daughter.”

Dillard let out a long sigh, like a man dealing with a child. “I think me and you need to have a talk. Y’know, a man-to-man sort of thing, because there ain’t no need for this to go down the path it’s headed.” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, placed one in his mouth and offered one to Jesse.

Jesse looked at the cigarette as though it were poison.

Dillard lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and slowly exhaled. “I understand that this ain’t easy for you, son. I wouldn’t like it if I were in your shoes. Not one bit. So I’m just gonna say it, because someone needs to. It’s over between you and Linda. Linda knows it and I think you know it, too. All you’re doing now is making things hard on everyone, especially that little girl of yours.”

Jesse bristled.

“You two need to get a divorce. Make it official. I’ll even help you out with the paperwork if need be. I’m tired of you making her feel bad. You need to man up and cut it off clean so everyone can move on with their lives.”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

“Yes, it
is
gonna happen. And it’s gonna happen soon, because Linda and me is planning on getting married.”

Jesse fell back a step. “What?”

“Sorry, son. I didn’t want it to go down like this.”

“No!” Jesse shook his head. “I don’t think so. There ain’t no way I’m gonna let that happen.
Ever!
”

“Let me make this plainer. I’m not asking. You understand? We
are
gonna get married. Just as soon as we get you taken care of, that is. Now there’s a couple of ways of taking care of you, and it’s pretty much up to you to choose.”

Jesse held up a shaky finger. “Don’t back me into a corner, Dillard. You
don’t
wanna do that.”

Dillard laughed, shook his head. “Jesse, if you had even a tenth of the balls you think you do, you just might be worth a good goddamn. Son, the only reason I haven’t already taken you out of the picture is because you do a little business for the General. You know full well that it won’t take much of anything to put you away. Why, I could slap the cuffs on you right now for whatever reason I fancy and you’d be on your way to prison. Is that what you want?”

“You do that and I won’t be the only one on my way to prison.”

Dillard’s eyes squeezed to mere slits. “What did you just say?”

“I think you know just what I said. You take away the only thing that matters to a man and you got a man with nothing left to lose. A man like that just might start talking.”

The side of Dillard’s face twitched. He took a step toward Jesse. “You need to dig the catshit out of your ears, boy, and listen up. There’s more than one way to make you disappear. And no one’s gonna even notice one way or another either, because there ain’t a soul around gonna miss a piece of trash like you.”

Jesse gritted his teeth, forced himself to hold his ground, to hold Dillard’s eyes. But he found himself fighting back tears. Had Linda really agreed to marry this old bastard? He glared at Dillard. “I don’t believe it. Don’t believe she’d ever agree to marry an old fuck like you.”

Dillard let out another one of his long sighs, then shook his head and chuckled. “Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Can’t believe I’m letting myself get all worked up over a numbskull like you. I just keep forgetting how thickheaded you are.” He took another long drag off his cigarette. “Let me tell you something about yourself, make it as plain and as simple as possible—you’re a loser, Jesse. A no-account loser. That’s why you live in that tiny rat-trap, that’s why you still drive your daddy’s old rust heap, and, most of all . . . that’s why Linda is
done
with you.

“Now I could tell you this all fucking day, till I’m blue in the face. But it won’t mean beans, because nothing’s gonna sink into that thick skull of yours unless it’s hammered in. So I’m gonna show you. Gonna prove it to you in a way that even you can understand.” Dillard walked back to the front of his cruiser and pulled his pistol from its holster. Jesse tensed, sure the man was about to shoot him dead right there in the drive, but he just clicked off the safety and sat the gun on the hood. Dillard then proceeded to walk down the drive, leaving the gun sitting there. He leaned up against the garage door, took a deep drag off his cigarette and looked up at the trees as though he was out enjoying the day and nothing more.

Jesse glanced back and forth between the gun and Dillard—he didn’t get it.

“Jesse, you know what I’m about to do? Huh?” Dillard chuckled. “I’ll tell you. Right after I finish this smoke. I’m gonna go inside this nice big house of mine, gonna take that pretty wife of yours upstairs and then, and then . . . well, I’m gonna shove my big hard prick right in her sweet little mouth.”

“What?” Jesse gasped.

“That’s right. Gonna make her slobber all over my knob. Smack her ass and make her bark and whine. Now, if you’re inclined to stop me, all you got to do is pick up that gun right there and shoot me. It’s that simple.”

Jesse squinted at him, his hands clenched into fists. “What? What the fuck is wrong with you? Fuck you!”

“Is that all you got? Son, I’m about to go in there and make your wife choke on my broom handle. Gonna blow my load all over her face. And all you can do is cuss me? If a man done that to my wife . . . said it right to my face like that . . . I’d shoot him dead regardless. Because that’s what a real man does.”

Jesse looked at the gun.

Dillard grinned. “You won’t do it, Jesse. I know this for a fact. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking the measure of a man. Thirty years on the force will do that. And I could tell from the very first time I set eyes on you that you were one of the nobodies that don’t matter squat. A loser. And now Jesse . . . you know it, too.”

Jesse glared at Dillard, then at the gun, back and forth, his heart drumming. He took a step forward, then another, until he stood right beside the gun. All he had to do was pick it up and shoot. There was nothing Dillard could do to stop him.

“C’mon, Jesse. Ain’t got all day.” And the worst of it was Dillard looked so confident, so completely at ease, this was not a man wagering his life, this was one who was absolutely sure of himself.

Jesse’s breath sped up, his hand began to tremble.
Do it. Shoot him.
But he didn’t and right there, right then, he saw exactly what Dillard was showing him.
I
am
a loser. Don’t have the guts to shoot myself. Don’t have the guts to shoot the man screwing my wife. Don’t even have the guts to send my music off to some jackass DJ.

Jesse let out a long breath, fell back a step, and just stood there staring at that gun.

Dillard flicked his cigarette butt into the snow, walked up to the hood of the cruiser, and retrieved his gun. He shoved it back into its holster. “Believe it or not, son, I ain’t trying to be a dick. I’m trying to do you a favor, trying to save you years of heartbreak. A man needs to know himself. And now that you can see just the sort of man you truly are, maybe you’ll quit trying so hard to be something you ain’t. Go home, Jesse. Go home to that piece-of-shit trailer of yours and get drunk . . . then do us all a favor and just
disappear
.”

Jesse barely heard him; he just kept staring at the spot where the gun had been.

“Okay, Jesse. I’m done with you. Done talking, done wasting my time. I’m going in, and when I look out that window in a few, you and that rig of yours best be gone. And just so we’re clear, just so there ain’t a lick of confusion between us: if you ever set foot on my property again,
ever
. . . I’ll break every one of your fingers. I mean that. You won’t be playing that guitar of yours ever again.”

Dillard turned and walked away, leaving Jesse staring at the car hood.

Chapter Three
The General

J
esse pulled up in front of his trailer, killed the engine, and once again found himself confronted by his front door. “My piece-of-shit trailer,” he said, his voice laden with scorn. He barely even remembered driving back; the incident with Dillard played out over and over in his head, all the way home. Only each time when he came to the part where Dillard challenged him to pick up that gun, he actually did pick up the gun, actually
did
shoot Dillard, emptied every round right into the son-of-a-bitch’s face.

Jesse spied the bottle of whiskey still lying in the snow and heard Dillard’s voice in his head,
Go home and get drunk . . . then do us all a favor and just disappear.

“No. That ain’t gonna happen.” He glanced at the Santa sack.
Because this loser’s got a plan.
A damn good plan. A plan that’s gonna fix everything.
He tugged the Santa sack up onto the seat next to him, gave it a pat. “Time to get busy.”

He got out, walked down the road to the line of mailboxes, checked the newspaper bins until he found one that still had a paper in it and took it. He plucked the sack from the truck on his way back and went inside.

He dropped the sack and newspaper on the floor, walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge searching for something to eat. Found only two dried-up slices of pizza wrapped in foil and rolled them into a pizza burrito. He took a seat on the floor, eating as he dug through the newspaper. He pulled out the Walmart circular and tossed the rest of the paper aside. He flipped to the toy section, found a pen, and began thumbing through the pages, circling pictures here and there as he went.

“Yes. Umm . . . no. Hmm . . . maybe.” He tapped his teeth with the pen. “Most certainly. That one would certainly work.” He nodded. “Has to work.”

He pulled the crimson sack over. “Okay, baby. Do it for me.” He clinched his eyes shut, concentrated, wished, and prayed as hard as he could, then stuck his hand into the sack. His hand hit a box. It felt the right size, the right weight. “C’mon.” He pulled it out. There, still in the box, was a brand-new PlayStation.

“Yes!” he cried. “Yes! Now we’ll see who the real loser is.”

A
N HOUR LATER,
Jesse headed back up Route 3 with four black garbage bags of video game consoles and handhelds piled into the back of his camper. He’d stashed the Santa sack back down into the passenger foot well. It was his golden ticket and he intended to keep it close.