Lonesome Point (25 page)

Bernard was saying, “Me and you going for a walk. When I tell you stop, you stop. When I tell you turn around, you turn around. If you run, it’s game over. If you think you can resist,
may the good Lord help you, you’ll suffer before you sign off. Do like I say, when I say.”

Leo’s vision wasn’t so blurry anymore. He said, “I understand.”

Bernard stood him up, keeping a tight hold of the arm. Stooped at the waist, Leo got a look at his surroundings, streaks of orange in the sky, sunset in about an hour. He turned his head, saw Patrick by the car, facing away.

Bernard said, “Move,” and Leo started walking, bent over like an old man, one arm pushed up high behind him, shoulder aflame, in fact all his joints hurting. They worked their way down a trail maybe twenty yards before Leo stumbled over a rock. Bernard was holding him with one hand, the other hand clutching—what? A gun? He’d heard what sounded like three shots when he was in the trunk but the only gun he’d seen was Freddy’s, back at the farmhouse, and where was Freddy?

That’s when it came to him, what Patrick planned.

Freddy was dead. Leo knew this, instinct was telling him this. And the reason was Lonesome Point. His vision sharpened as he tottered on, bent over. He thought, Well, Leo, at least you’ve gotten over your claustrophobia. And now you’re going to die. If he didn’t act soon, he knew that in a few minutes he’d be dead.

AFTER THE trail rose and leveled off, they started along another one on the left and passed engine blocks rusting in the high grass, then a series of ponds.

Leo said, “Wait. I need to throw up.”

Bernard kept steering, moving him along. “Then do it, it don’t matter to me.”

“Oh, god,” Leo moaned. “Just stop, give me a second—let me throw up, then you can do what you need to do, that’s all I’m asking, man,” Leo using his best acting voice.

Bernard’s grip eased, then he released him. Leo groaned and rubbed his wrist and lowered himself into a crouch, head bowed. He saw a trail of ants crawling from a mound, through the grass, heading toward a pond, and he remembered one cool morning when he was a kid, maybe seven, sitting on his haunches like this, examining insects in the grass, mysterious black bugs. He must’ve watched them for hours.

Bernard had a gun in his hand now, Leo noticed. He was holding it low, in his right hand.

Leo moaned again. “Bernard, just one more thing.” He spat between his legs. “Why you think my brother came on this trip? The man’s a politician. A public figure. He didn’t need to come.”

Bernard stepped close behind him. “The fuck you saying?”

“I’m saying as soon as you finish killing me, my brother’ll kill you.”

Bernard chuckled. “You don’t think I already figured that? A politician, huh? Cool, but I ain’t no politician, I been playing these here games since I was fifteen, so don’t worry about me.”

Leo spat thickly to the left, reaching down with his right hand, up under his pants cuff, fingers pulling at this sock, touching the knife handle.

Bernard said, “Now, next time you open your mouth, I better see vomit flying.”

Leo turned his body so that it blocked the view of his right hand drawing the knife out of his sock. Rising slowly out of his crouch but head bowed like he might puke at any second.

“So tell me, son,” Bernard smiling, “how is your politician brother going to kill me?”

Leo liked that—keeping Bernard talking—so he replied fast: “With a .45 I know he carries. See, the thing is, you have the guts to shoot me but he doesn’t, seeing as how I’m his brother. But he’s got the guts to pull that .45 soon as you turn your back, no problem.” Leo’s head up now, eyes on the black pistol moving as Bernard said, laughing, “Ho, shit, I’d like to see him try,” and Leo said, “He’ll do it fast,” springing at Bernard with the knife, aiming for the throat, his other hand batting the gun down. The blade sank into the side of Bernard’s neck, and Leo pulled it out, blood spewing, drove it in again, as the gun exploded painfully loud beside him. He and Bernard stood chest to chest, and Leo stuck it in again and again, this time in the jaw, then the neck. He’d pinioned Bernard’s gun hand under his arm, held it tight, while he tried to pull out the knife, but it was stuck in Bernard. The gun fired, again, then again, Bernard stumbling away, leaning to his side, the gun gone. He pawed at the knife in his neck. Blood everywhere.

Bernard dropped hard on his knees. The knife jutted out of his neck, lodged just under his ear. He twisted his head, leaned his body down, pulling at the handle but having no luck. It was slippery, the blade buried too deep. His mouth was open when he fell. He lay on his side, one hand on the handle, the other under his body.

Leo ran, heading south away from the car. Then he stopped and ran back, searching the ground. He found the pistol and shoved it behind his back and took off south again.

He went along the trail until it ended and he was in heavy
brush again. He trudged up a slope, then down through rows of dried-out ponds. He had no idea which direction led out. He was looking for a fence, something that marked a boundary. Beyond that he might find a road—he hoped. He came to a grove of young, scraggly live oaks, tried to figure a way around it. Thought maybe it was best to just push on through.

The first gunshot sent birds fluttering out of the trees, and Leo scurried into the grove. The second shot sounded closer, the round snapping over his head and splintering a tree trunk, and he looked up from the ground where he had thrown himself and saw Patrick running up, pointing the pistol and shouting, “You better stop there!” No more than fifty yards, running fast, and firing again.

Leo thought, My own brother is trying to shoot me. Trying to shoot me before I can get up and take cover behind all these trees.

He pushed himself off the ground, half crouching, tore deeper into the grove, swiping at branches. Snapping twigs underfoot, breaking the small branches. He heard two rapid-fire shots and something slammed into his left arm above the elbow. He said, “Fuck!” clasping the spot. It felt like he’d been whacked with a hammer, and it infuriated him. He ran on, jagged branches sticking him in the face. He wiped his forehead, and his hand came away smeared with blood. Blood rolling down his left arm, dripping on the grass and pelting leaves and tree trunks as he ran.

So this was what it felt like to be shot. Like a flame burning through to the bone. He tugged the pistol from his waistband at the same time a shot ripped over his head. Way too close. He was so scared he couldn’t say if he was thinking right, but turning around, like he was doing now, pointing the gun at the
man trying to kill him, no matter that it was Patrick—it felt like the only thing to do.

Through the weave of leaves and branches, he saw Patrick stepping up holding his own gun with two hands, and Leo raised the pistol and leveled it on Patrick’s chest. He didn’t think Patrick could see him. His arm was shaking, the gun sight dipped and lifted, Patrick advancing, closer. But Leo couldn’t, he couldn’t. He tilted the gun a fraction to the left and squeezed off a shot, the recoil startling him, the ground in front of Patrick kicking up, Patrick diving. He cowered under his arms and curled up, trying to make himself a smaller target.

Leo fired another shot wide, then turned and ran, leaving Patrick on the ground. He stamped and cracked and scraped through the trees. Stepping into a hole, twisting his ankle and falling; bounding up and falling again. He got up hobbling. He broke through the grove and stumbled into a green field, rows of endless green.

Long neat rows of strawberry plants. The air heavy with a sweetness. Strawberry rows hundreds of yards in front, to the left and right. In the distance, maybe half a mile ahead, a two-lane road.

Patrick was coming. Leo could hear branches breaking, bushes rustling. No attempts at being stealthy. Everything in the open now. No more deceptions, no more games, just this confrontation.

Leo couldn’t expect to be safe running through this field. There was no cover; he might get shot in the back. He and Patrick would have to shoot it out. That was becoming clear as he stood there waiting, feeling sick, stomach twisting.

He started backing up, watching the trees, gun held straight out. He kept backing up, wide steps, and for a moment, an insane moment, he thought he’d make it home safe. But—what home? And would it ever be safe? He heard rustling, saw Patrick inching out from behind a tree.

Leo knew he was in a bad spot. When he saw Patrick’s gun rise, he dropped and a shot sounded. Lying on his chest, he fired back without aiming. He didn’t want to kill Patrick, but he sure as shit didn’t want to die. So there it was.

And Patrick was coming now, and it didn’t even look like him anymore, gaunt and sweaty, and that frightened Leo as much as anything. It was like this moment was unreal, some alternate universe, because these horrors did not happen to him. Patrick rushed out of the grove and fired two times before Leo could point the barrel properly. He finally shot, missing easily. Knowing this because there was Patrick standing about twenty feet away aiming at Leo’s head and squeezing the trigger.

Nothing happened.

The slide on Patrick’s gun was locked back.

The gun was empty.

Leo stood up. He trained the pistol on Patrick. Patrick fumbled with his gun, pulled out the magazine, and looked at it in disbelief. He stoned it to the ground and patted his pockets. Nothing there. He looked shocked. The gun slipped out of his hand and fell to the dirt. He raised a palm. “Wait,” he said. “Listen to me, Leo.”

Leo walked forward, finger on the trigger.

“You can’t do this, Leo.”

Leo felt shaky and weak. The pain in his arm was excruciating.
The sun in his eyes, he squinted and cocked his head. He aimed at the thickest part of Patrick’s body, center mass. He stopped about ten feet away and said, “Take a step back. Go on, do it.”

Patrick obeyed. “Please don’t do this, Leo.”

Leo motioned with the gun. “Keep going back until I tell you.” He took a step forward for every one Patrick took backward. Leo stopped at the gun in the dirt and, keeping his aim on Patrick, he crouched and swiped it up. He jammed Patrick’s gun in the front of his pants.

“Now …” His vision swam and the ground tilted. He waited for the earth to right itself. He said, “Now, this is the part where we say good-bye.”

Patrick reached out, fingers quivering. “Come on, Lee. This isn’t you. I apologize, Jesus, I’m so sorry, Lee, this mess, for everything, this whole mess got away from me—I didn’t know what I was thinking—oh, Jesus, Lee, I’ve got kids, think about my kids. You can’t shoot me like this, cold-blooded like this? Lee?”

Leo was shaking his head. His gun arm had stilled, front sight steady, about ten feet between him and Patrick. He could not miss.

“You’re a better man than me, Leo. I—I don’t know what else to say. What do you want me to do, beg for my life? Humiliate myself? Okay, look … please …” He sank to his knees, reaching out. “Put that gun away and let’s talk, settle this”—he swallowed hard—“settle this like brothers. We’re brothers!”

Leo spat into the dirt. “What I want you to do? I want you to go to prison. Somebody like you, you deserve a cold cell. But I’m thinking—”

“Put the gun down, please.”

“I’m thinking I shouldn’t even give you a choice. That would be too much of a luxury for somebody like you. I should end this right now, save you the embarrassment, the scandal, you know the rest. Maybe that’s better for you,” and he stepped forward aggressively, raised the barrel at Patrick’s forehead.

“No!” Patrick threw up his hands, tossing his head to the side.

Leo felt cold in his heart. “What should I do?” He watched Patrick raising his head and weeping openly now. “Either way it’s a gamble for me. I’ll testify against you, you’ll tell them things about me. But you can’t prove anything and I’ll talk about everything I know about what you’re doing. So should I let the law take care of you? You might get off, right? You know how the justice system works. But if I shoot you, I could get caught, too, isn’t that right?” His arm was shaking, fatigued. With his other hand, he held his wrist steady. “I have this little fantasy, about reciting a poem to you. It goes, ‘This is the way the world ends, this is the way your career ends, this is the way your life ends, Patrick. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.’ ” He nodded. “Too bad somebody already beat me to it, you evil son of a bitch.”

“Leo, please, you can’t do this, this is not you, this is not you… .”

“You’re wrong. This
is
me.”

He fired.

Blackbirds fluttered out of trees in the distance to the east and flapped into the mellow blue. The shot seemed to ring in his ears forever.

He stood in the quieting field and looked up at the birds. Then a familiar fear took hold of him, and he turned and started running, running in the sweet air between rows of strawberries.

H
E WAS SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD AGAIN, running fast. Nervous and exhilarated. Scaling a cement fence, a dog rushing at him, then scampering off when he kicked at it. He could see the car thief clambering over another fence. When he reached it, the boy had disappeared. One long street, a dog barking somewhere.

Leo and Freddy ran back to the Rev’s Jag. Freddy stayed with the Jag while Leo drove around the neighborhood slowly in his father’s car, leaning into the steering wheel, looking all around. He rolled down the windows, could feel his pulse in his ears.

He circled twice, ready to give up. At a house under construction on a corner, he saw something moving in the darkness. He reversed, turning so that his high beams spotlighted the house, the bushes, rebar sticking out of cement blocks.

The boy bounded out of the house and blurred through waist-high grass and leaped over the drain. Leo mashed the pedal and went after him.

He caught him full in the high beams, running, uncoordinated, looking back wildly, Leo shouting, “I got you now!” bulleting down the edge of the street.

He saw the boy turn, hands flying out. “No!”

Leo laughed, waiting, waiting for that last second to crank the wheel left, thinking he was going to make this thief shit his
pants tonight, waiting as the car hurtled toward this wild-eyed boy.