Mule (16 page)

"Yeah."

"Russell's a big dude, Mason."

"We're going to surprise him."

"Have you ever done something like this?"

Mason rubbed his chin, didn't say anything.

I shook my head. I said, "What if we go there and he calls the cops?"

Mason thought about it. He said, "What's he going to say to the cops? That he pissed us off because he stole our weed?"

"What if the redhead calls the cops?"

Mason thought about it. "Then we'll fuck her up, too."

In the morning, I woke up as irritated about it as ever. Mason said we had to do some shopping first, so I followed him over to Wal-Mart. He grabbed rope, duct tape, two black pillowcases, a Louisville Slugger. I shook my head at the stuff in the cart. I said, "What, you gonna kidnap them?"

"I don't know," Mason said. "It's better to be prepared."

He wanted to buy rat poison for the dogs. I said, "Get a life, Mason." He wanted a gallon of paint thinner to burn down Russell's house. I told him, "That's not even his house!" At the register, I couldn't meet the checkout girl's eyes. What an obscenely stupid collection of items.

We put those things in the back of my car, a big silver Chrysler 300, right beside the duffel bag of weed. I'd been getting upgrades from the rental agencies, my ego had finally decided to let me take one. I'd also just made Silver status on Star Alliance because I'd flown so many one-ways to Sacramento with them. Mason winked his headlights at me from where he sat across the aisle in his Corolla. Then we pulled out of the Wal-Mart lot, got ourselves on the road.

In the evening, we turned off the I-10 and entered the ugly city of Biloxi, Mississippi. We drove past Russell's sad and dumpy house in the fading light. No one seemed to be there. We parked the cars, went up on the porch, peered in the front picture window. The dogs inside began to bark at us.

"He's still living here if the dogs are here," Mason said.

"Why don't we just break in and steal something?" I said.

Mason said, "Why don't we just wait until he gets here, fuck him up, and then steal every single thing he has?"

When we went back to the cars, Mason popped his trunk. "Look at this," he whispered. When I looked in the trunk, I saw the samurai sword from his wall. The scabbard wasn't on it.

"What'd you bring that for?"

"I'm going to scare him with it."

"Goddamn it, Mason. Leave it in the fucking trunk."

As the evening settled down, we drove to the beach and walked on the sand. There were cigarette butts and broken bottles everywhere. Why were so many places on the Gulf of Mexico such shitholes? Mason had all these plans he wanted to talk about, how we should start buying vehicles, register them in different states, set up drivers for every leg of the trip, one guy coming in with the dope, another guy meeting him with the cash for the next run. Then we could sit back, let other people take the risks, make a shit ton of money.

What I wanted to say was, If it was that easy, Mason, don't you think we'd have done it already? Instead I said, "We have plenty of time to talk about all of that." I thought again that I shouldn't come back from Europe.

When we went back to Russell's, it was night. We parked our cars far up the street; the cracked and broken neighborhood around us was dark and silent. I took the Louisville Slugger out of my car, Mason took the samurai sword out of his. "Give me that," I said and grabbed it from him, tossed it in my trunk. I took the tire iron out of the wheel well, since Mason had to have something.

"Come on," Mason said when I gave him the tire iron. "It'll scare the fuck out of him. What's scarier than a pissed-off Asian dude with a samurai sword?"

"Mason, give it a rest. You're a redneck from Biloxi."

"What are you talking about, James? I'm full-blooded Ko­rean, been over there twice."

"One of those times you were a baby."

"One of those times I wasn't, all right?"

We went around back, crossed the darkened yard, hid in the brambles growing over a dried-out culvert. The lights went on in the rear windows of the shotgun house next door. A few minutes later, the lights went off. The darkened house on the other side of Russell's was vacant.

When I lit a cigarette, Mason hissed, "He'll see the glow of that." A half hour later, he was smoking one, too. We spent so much time in those brambles, smoking cigarettes, waiting. What would we have looked like to anyone who might have seen us?

It must have been past midnight. Still no Russell. "Can I go home now?" I said.

"You can't leave me here."

"Can't we both go home?"

"I'm not ready to go home yet."

After another twenty minutes of waiting, Mason gave in. He was frustrated, tossed down his cigarette and ground it out hard under his heel. When we went around to the front of the house, a pickup truck was coasting toward us in the middle of the street with its engine off. Its headlights were off, too. I knew right away it was Russell. I now understood that he really had been hiding from us. Everything felt real in a way it hadn't before. Mason and I raced around to the back, ducked in the brambles. We lay beside each other on our bellies in the dirt and watched as Russell and the redhead climbed into their own house through a rear window they'd slid open.

"Why are they doing that?" I whispered.

"Because they're fucking assholes," Mason said.

The lights went on in the other back window. Mason and I crept through the yard to the back of the house. First Mason climbed into the open window, then I did. It was their bedroom. It was a mess, clothes piled everywhere, the sheets twisted on the bed and the mattress showing. They were such dirty people. Poor people. Mason and I stood with our backs against the wall by the door. Mason ducked his head to look through the doorway. Then I did. I saw the backs of their heads over the back of the couch, the TV beyond with a
NASCAR
race on it, on mute. I smelled the scent of burning weed.

The redhead said in a normal voice that didn't know we were there, "How about your mother?"

"She don't fucking care," Russell said in a voice that also didn't know we were there.

"I'm not living in that campground, Russell."

Suddenly the dogs were barking in the doorway. Mason sidled toward them; when he was close enough, they sniffed his hand and remembered who he was. Then they were bumping against my legs, whining to be petted. When I looked in the living room again, Russell was brandishing a golf club.

"What the fuck you doing here! What the fuck you doing here!"

The redhead was standing, too, bug-eyed, frightened. Could someone really be that scared of me? Mason stepped carefully into the room. He had the tire iron raised in his hands, was hissing under his breath, "Calm down! Calm down!"

"What the fuck you doing in my house?"

"We want our fucking money!"

"I'll fucking kill you!"

"I'll fucking kill you!"

The redhead yelled, "Give them some money! Give them some money!" Russell glanced at her with a twisted face that said, What the fuck? and Shut the fuck up! at the same time.

Mason and Russell squared off like swordsmen with those weapons in their hands. But there was still a good distance between them in the room. Mason barked out of the side of his mouth at the girl, "Give me that motherfucking ring," and she twisted it off her finger, tossed it to him. Mason stuffed it in his pocket. He said, "I want more shit."

"Don't fucking give them anything," Russell shouted at her.

"I thought you were my friend," Mason said. "You ain't my friend."

"Go fuck yourself," Russell said.

Mason barked at the girl, "Get all your fucking shit together. We're gonna go sell it."

Russell said, "All we got left is the goddamn TV. You want the goddamn TV?" He swung the golf club and smashed the TV.

It was then that I saw that time had slowed. Because only then did I notice that the dogs were going crazy, running around Russell's and Mason's legs with their tails between their legs and their shoulders hunched as though they expected to be hit. They were making awful crying sounds, too.

Mason said, "Give us our weed."

"It's gone."

"Give us something."

"Go fuck yourself."

Mason ran howling across the room. He swung the tire iron. Russell stepped back from it. Mason glanced over his shoulder at me as if saying Help me! I sprinted across the room and hit Russell in the face with the bat as hard as I could.

He dropped like a sack. Then Mason and I were whaling on him. Somewhere the girl was saying, "No! No! No! No! No!" I managed to stop myself. I grabbed Mason and stopped him, and we were both panting, and I had no fucking idea who we were.

The girl went to Russell's side and crouched down. She said to us, "Let's help him up." We took his arms and pulled him up. His eye was swollen and his mouth was welling blood. He was stunned, swaying. He lifted his hand to explore the damage to his mouth. I could see the blood all over his teeth.

"Okay," Russell said in a normal voice.

"We want our fucking money," Mason said.

"Okay." Russell nodded. "I'll take you to an ATM."

The girl said, "I'm not going anywhere."

Mason grabbed her hard by her upper arm, shook her. He said, "Fuck yeah, you are! You spent our money, too."

"What the fuck, Russell? What the fuck, Russell?" the girl screamed at him, as if it was all his fault. But she was letting Mason hold her arm, wasn't fighting him at all.

"Gotta get my wallet," Russell said. We followed him into the bedroom, Mason yanking the girl along. Russell found his wallet on the dresser in the dark, and we all went out the window one by one. "Landlord changed the deadbolts," Russell said as he climbed down.

Mason said, "You stole our money and couldn't pay your rent? You're a fucking dumbass."

We went up the street, I pushed the clicker for the 300. We all got in, Mason and Russell in back, the girl up front beside me. I had the baseball bat between my legs. I started driving. At the corner, I said, "Which way?"

Russell said, "Left."

At the ATM, we sat in the car with the girl and watched Russell stand under the security light and push the buttons on the machine. He looked off into the night while he waited, then took his money. When he was in the car again, he said, "It's two hundred. It's all I have."

"You think I believe that?" Mason said.

The girl said without turning around, "It's true. That's all that's left."

Mason said, "Then we're going to your fucking mother's."

Mason gave me directions in a calm voice and we drove onto the highway. Everyone was quiet. We crossed the water, got on the eastbound 10, drove awhile. Mason told me to take the next exit. There was a sign for a wildlife refuge, sandhill cranes. We crossed over the interstate and turned northbound on a dark country road. Russell said, "Can I smoke?"

Nobody said anything, and I realized he was asking me because it was my car. I said, "Yeah, you can smoke."

"Got a cigarette?"

"Jesus Christ," Mason said. I heard him rummaging around and then I heard the flick of a lighter.

I said, "What are we going to do at his mother's?"

We drove along and nobody said anything.

Russell said, "Gotta pee."

We drove along. It was dark.

Russell said, "Gotta pee like a fucking horse."

"Me, too," I said back to Mason.

We drove along. Mason said, "Fuck it, turn here," and I turned onto a dirt track into the woods, the headlights playing over the trunks of trees. The car banged up and down over stones in the dirt, and there was nowhere to stop. As we went deeper into the woods, the redhead said, "Where we going?"

Nobody said anything.

She said louder, "Where we going?"

Mason said, "Shut the fuck up, LaJane!"

The dirt track opened onto a field with the moon hanging over it. The plants at the field's edge, lit by the headlights, were young, knee-high. "Park," Mason said, and I did, turned off the car and the headlights. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw how big and flat the field was. The silver moonlight dappled the plants and made the field look like the sea; the backlit clouds drifting across the sky looked like ice floes. We all got out, except for the girl. I heard crickets. "What kind of crop is this?" I said as I walked off, unzipped.

Russell said, "Cotton."

"Pop the trunk," Mason said, and I pressed the button on the clicker in my pocket and started peeing. The car beeped behind me in response. Russell ambled off, smoking his cigarette. He wasn't peeing. I heard the tire iron thump against the bottom of the trunk. Then Mason walked by me with the samurai sword in his hands. The moonlight glinted on the blade; there was nothing I could do. Mason walked up to Russell and said, "You gonna apologize to me?"

Russell turned around. Before he could say anything, Mason drew back, plunged the sword all the way into Russell's belly. I'd never seen anything happen like that. Mason pulled out the sword and started slashing Russell's body as he went down. Then Mason was sticking the blade into Russell's back over and over.

I heard a car door open behind me, turned and saw the girl sprint from the car and into the cotton. Mason saw her, gave chase. She was running, he was right behind her, and they made it a good long way into the field together under the moon. Then Mason swung the sword and clipped her on the side of the head and she tumbled down. He started swinging that sword on her like he was chopping wood.

On the ground where he lay, Russell lowed like some kind of ancient species of cattle. It was the worst sound I'd ever heard. Then he was wheezing like a bellows. Then he wasn't making any sound at all.

Mason walked toward me through the field from that long way off, the sword dangling from his hand. He looked like a field hand returning home from work. He stopped out there, lit a cigarette, and then started walking toward me again. He was breathing heavily when he threw the sword at my feet.

"You kill that girl?"

He didn't say anything.

"Why'd you kill that girl?"