As I sat in my heap, the rain pounding on the roof and windows, I began to feel a sense of anger. I had been the random target of Grady Harrelson and his friends and the Atlas family, though I had done nothing to harm any of them. Like the rape victim or the molested child, I’d felt that I deserved what had been done to me, that I was alone, that no one cared, that I was odious in the sight of others. I now regretted that I had dumped the shells from the cylinder of the pistol and snapped off the blade of the stiletto. I took the pistol and the knife from my pocket and placed them on my thigh. Far down the street, I saw a pair of yellow headlights wobbling through the rain.
I twisted in the seat and waited as the vehicle slowed. The rain turned to hail, clicking on the trees and lawn and street and the top of my car. There was no mistaking the vehicle heading my way. It was a Packard station wagon, its windows streaked with ice. Suddenly I felt all the rage and pain I had experienced since I had tried to help Valerie at the drive-in in Galveston. I pulled my hat tight on my head and got out of my heap and ran toward the station wagon. I couldn’t see the two occupants well, but I doubted they were expecting someone to charge at them during an electric storm. I threw the pistol at the windshield and clicked open the broken blade of the stiletto and tried to break the passenger window with it. The driver swerved toward the curb, trying to knock me sideways. I threw the knife at the back of the car as it drove away. Then I walked through the pools of water in Grady’s front yard and hammered on the door.
Grady jerked it open. Vick Atlas was standing behind him in the foyer, the crystal chandelier shining on both of them. Vick was wearing a bandage over the split I had put in his cheek.
“What are you doing here?” Grady said.
“The hired help screwed up,” I said. “How’s it going, Vick? Your face looks a little swollen. I heard you got an infection. I think it adds to your mystique.”
“Why’d you bring this asshole here, Vick?” Grady said.
“I didn’t have anything to do with him coming here. Don’t be saying I did, either.”
“Vick didn’t have the guts to come up to the Heights, so he sent his greaseballs and hid out at your house,” I said. “You guys have been working together all this time, haven’t you.”
I stepped inside. Grady closed the door behind me and looked at Vick as though he didn’t know what to do next. Vick was wearing half-topped boots, and tailored brown slacks that looked like Marine Corps tropicals, and a pink kerchief tied around his neck. “Where’s Bledsoe?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“He’s always with you,” Vick said.
“Not tonight. You guys have the convertible and the money and the gold stashed, don’t you?”
“You’re pretty dumb, coming here like this,” Vick said.
“What are you going to do that you haven’t already done?” I said. “I’m not afraid of you or your people anymore, Vick. Same goes for you, Grady. You guys are bums, and the guys who work for you are stupid and inept.”
“You think you can talk shit to me?” Vick said. “Nobody talks shit to me. That’s what you think, you can walk in here and talk shit? Answer me. I’m talking to you.”
“That’s exactly what your father said to me. Why do you imitate the person who disfigured your mouth? Isn’t that humiliating?”
“Ease up,” Grady said.
“The Vickster can take it. Right, Vick?”
“You need to towel off, Broussard,” Grady said. “We’ll work this out.”
“No, we won’t,” I said.
“Walk with me,” he said, cupping his hand on my bicep. “There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall. I’ll get you some dry clothes.”
I lifted Grady’s hand from my arm. That was when Vick picked up a gold-encased anniversary clock and smashed it against the side of my head. The floor slammed into my face.
I WOKE IN AN embryonic ball inside an elevator that had a collapsible gate for a door. My stomach was sick, the side of my head sticky with blood. I pushed myself against the wall of the elevator and looked at my watch. No more than ten minutes had passed since Vick had hit me. The elevator was stopped under the house in a broom-clean parking garage lit by low-wattage bulbs inside wire guards on the ceiling. The gate on the elevator was locked. There were several collectible automobiles parked in the garage; among them was Grady’s pink convertible, the one Saber had boosted from the motel. I could hear Vick and Grady talking through the ceiling. I got to my feet and almost fell down.
I tried the buttons on the elevator. Either the power had been cut or the elevator had been locked in place. I tried to jerk the gate loose from the jamb, then got down on the floor and tried to push it with my feet until it caved onto the concrete. I held on to a handrail and kicked until the elevator was shaking. A light went on in a stairwell on the far side of the convertible. Vick walked out of the stairwell, a hypodermic needle in one hand, a pair of handcuffs in the other. “Sorry to keep you waiting down here. I had to get some items from my car. I’d like to tell you there’s a hard way or an easy way, but that wouldn’t be true.”
“My heap’s out front,” I said. “My family knows where I am.”
“So you came here and you left,” he replied.
“Why the needle?”
“Maybe I got a kind heart. Been to any junkyards recently? The compacting process puts me in awe.”
“I’m not going to help you hurt me.”
“I’m going to drag you,” he said. “Not here. Out there.” He fed a stick of gum into his mouth and waited for my response. He began to smack his gum, smiling. “I did it once. At spring break in Fort Lauderdale. A guy thought he was going to get laid. He got laid, all right.”
“Are the money and gold still in the convertible?”
“What do you know about money and gold?” he asked.
“That money is owed to your father.”
“Turn around and poke your hands through the gate.”
“Why should I do that?”
He removed a .25-caliber semi-auto from his pants pocket. “So I don’t shoot you in both kneecaps and anywhere else that hurts.”
My vision was starting to go out of focus. I pressed my hand against the side of my head and then looked at my palm. It was matted with blood and hair. “What about the hit men?”
He closed his eyes as though processing the question. “Which hit men?”
“The ones you sent up to the Heights because you wouldn’t go yourself. What if they see the convertible? What if they tell your old man you’re about to steal a million dollars from him?”
“They don’t know me, asshole. You’re really dumb. That’s why people like me win and people like you lose.”
“Grady will screw you, Vick. After I’m out of the way, he’ll want Valerie back. That means he’ll have to get you out of the picture because he knows you for the lowlife you are. You have another problem, too. Grady thinks that money and gold are his. Why would he share them with you?”
For just an instant I saw the focus change in his eyes, like he was watching a bird fly into a distant tree. “I didn’t quite get that.”
“In your mind, you’re stealing from your father or the Mob. In Grady’s mind, you’re stealing from him. Would you give away fifty percent of your money to take back what’s already yours?”
There was a smirk on his lips, the kind stupid people wear when they convince themselves they long ago solved the great mysteries of the world and now float high above them. He dropped the handcuffs through the gate. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
The door chimes rang upstairs. I heard Grady pull open the front door. “I must be hallucinating,” he said.
“My heap broke down two blocks up the street,” Saber’s voice replied.
Chapter
36
CAN WE COME in?” Valerie said. “We’re drowning.”
“No. Get out of here,” Grady said.
“Why are you acting like this?” she said. ??
?Where’s Aaron?”
“He left his heap here and went off with some guys,” Grady said. “I thought he was with you all.”
“That’s his hat on the floor,” she said. “Where is he, Grady?”
“We had an argument,” he said. “It’s nothing to worry about. Will y’all get out of here?”
“No, we will not,” Valerie said. “Have you done something to Aaron? What are you hiding?”
“A million dollars is what he’s hiding,” Saber said.
Way to go, Sabe. You just flushed all of us. But how could I be mad at him? The Sabe had gone looking for his old friend.
“Come in,” Grady said.
I heard Saber and Valerie step inside the foyer and the door closing behind them.
“Your heap is up the street?” Grady said.
“Yeah, the weld on my manifold cracked,” Saber said.
“I’ll call a wrecker. It’s on me,” Grady said.
“We don’t want a wrecker. Where’s Aaron?” Valerie said.
“Downstairs,” Grady said. “We need to work things out. I’m going to bring the elevator up. Vick’s here.”
“Vick Atlas is here?” Valerie said. “That’s why that clock is smashed on the floor?”
“Take it easy, Val,” Grady said.
“Don’t you dare talk down to me,” she said.
“Lower your voice.”
“Have you hurt Aaron?” she said.
“I’m bringing the elevator up,” Grady said. “None of this is my doing. All of you had your chance, but you wouldn’t listen. Now we’re either going to work this out, or the shit is going through the fan.”
I heard the engine that drove the elevator come alive, then the elevator jolted and began rising. I watched Vick bolt for the stairwell, the hypodermic needle in one hand, the semi-automatic in the other.
Our lives were now in the hands of infantile men. They were irrational, frightened, narcissistic, ruthless, and cruel. One had murdered his father because he wasn’t allowed to play a song recorded by a man of color; the other had been disfigured and perhaps neurologically impaired by a father he both imitated and despised. I thought again about my father and his fellow soldiers who went over the top in the Great War. I wondered if my legs would fail me when I had to face my own ordeal.
THE ELEVATOR STOPPED on the first floor and the outer door slid open. At the same time, Vick emerged from the stairwell at the back of the house.
“Aaron, are you all right?” Valerie said. She was dripping water on the floor; her hair was glued to her cheeks.
“Sure, Val,” I said.
Then she saw Vick coming toward her. “Is that a gun?”
“It’s not my dick,” he said.
“You’re disgusting,” she said.
“I told them we’d work it out,” Grady said. “You hearing me, Vick? We’ve got ties.”
“What we’ve got is the mess you made,” Vick said.
“Mess I made? You hit Broussard in the head with a fucking clock,” Grady said.
“Shut up. I’m trying to think,” Vick said.
“It’s still no harm, no foul, Vick,” Grady said.
“Repeat what you said about the million dollars, Bledsoe.”
“I don’t remember saying anything about that,” Saber said.
“He doesn’t remember,” Vick said. “I love these guys. They make up their own reality every five minutes. ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘I didn’t do it.’ ‘You’re a good guy, Vick.’ ‘Don’t hurt me, Vick.’ ‘Lend me some money, Vick.’ ”
“You fall down the stairs on your head?” Grady asked.
“Get some tape,” Vick said.
“For what?” Grady said.
“I got to draw you a diagram?” Vick said.
“Don’t do this, Grady,” Valerie said. “You know what my father will do if you hurt us.”
“You’ll have a hard time telling him anything if I put you under thirty yards of concrete,” Vick said. “Keep running your mouth and that might just happen. Stick out your hand, Bledsoe.”
“Screw you,” Saber said.
“Bad boy,” Vick said. With no expression, without blinking, he pointed the pistol and shot Saber through the foot. The spent shell bounced off a lamp table.
Saber fell against the wall and slid to the floor, blood welling out of his shoe, his mouth wide with pain.
“You’re the lowest of the low, Vick,” I said. “If we get out of this, I’m going to get you. If I don’t, my father will.”
“See how you feel an hour from now,” Vick said.
Valerie knelt beside Saber and held his head to her breast. She looked up at Grady. “Stop this.”
“You shouldn’t have come here, Val,” Grady replied. “You shouldn’t have let Broussard bust us up. You shouldn’t have left me at the drive-in that night in Galveston.”
“You’re breaking my heart here,” Vick said. He unlocked the gate on the elevator. “Outside, Broussard. The festivities are just beginning.”
A bolt of lightning exploded in a tree in the side yard, dropping a huge limb into the swimming pool, taking down the power line with it. The house went dark. There was my chance, I told myself. Vick flicked the wheel on his cigarette lighter and pressed the barrel of his pistol against Valerie’s head. “Keep having those kinds of thoughts and her brains will be in Bledsoe’s lap. You lose again, asshole.”
GRADY CAME BACK from the kitchen with two flashlights and a roll of tape. Saber was sitting against the wall, one knee pulled up to his chest, his wounded foot sticking straight out in front of him, blood pooling around the shoe. Vick handcuffed Valerie’s wrist to Saber’s. He reached into his pocket and took out a second small automatic and gave it to Grady. “The safety is above the trigger guard.”
“I don’t want it,” Grady said.
“Yeah, you do,” Vick said. “You were born for the life. You were always one of us.”
“What about him?” Grady asked, glancing at me.
“This baby is mine,” Vick said. “We’re going out to a junkyard run by a friend of mine.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the plan?” Grady said.
“I got to keep my word on something. About Broussard. He knows what I mean.”
“You’re going to drag him? That’s sick, man,” Grady said.
“Look at what he did to my face,” Vick said. “Think he doesn’t have it coming? I got pus running out of this bandage every day.”
“What about Val?” Grady asked.
Vick shone a light on her face. Her eyes watered in the glare. He grinned at Grady.
“Knock that off,” Grady said.
“You develop qualms?”
“Maybe I have.”
“You got an easy choice, Grady,” Vick said. “You can stay a rich man or go to work sacking groceries.”
“I’ll talk to her. She’s practical.”
“By now she’s figured out you killed your father. How practical is she going to be about that?”
“You better put a cork in it, Vick,” Grady said.
Yes, yes, yes, provoke him some more, Vick. But I underestimated him. Vick was a survivor who had spent a lifetime dealing with a disfigured face and the insults it drew.
“I’m just kidding,” he said. “Your old man brought it on himself. You’re a stand-up guy, Grady. You proved that when you joined the Corps. I think secretly your old man was afraid you’d show him up.”
“Grady, please stop and try to think about what you’re doing,” Valerie said. “You’ve made mistakes. But this isn’t you.”
“Tell her,” Vick said.
“Tell me what?” she asked.
“About the Mexican girl,” Vick replied.
“Lay off that,” Grady said.
“Tell her.”
“He’s talking about Wanda Estevan,” Grady said. “It was an accident. We set fire to Loren Nichols’s car. She tried to jump out of my car. I was trying to pull her back in. I grabbed her nec
k the wrong way. I feel terrible. I went to Broussard’s church about it.”
“Then don’t let this creep ruin your life,” she said.
“Time to go,” Vick said. “I’m going to move Broussard’s heap. I’ll take Val and the freak with me. Put Broussard in my trunk and follow me. In three hours, we’re going to be eating pancakes and sausages and eggs. This won’t exist anymore.”
“What’s the hypo for?” Grady asked.
Vick looked at Valerie again. “You never can tell.”
Chapter
37
HOW DO YOU surrender to death? Or to the idea that your fate lies in the hands of evil men? When these events occurred that dark night in River Oaks, I had no preparation. Death had always been an abstraction, a vague presence that held no sway in my life. The stories that came back from Korea were always heroic in nature; the newsreels showed American F-80s coming in low over white hills at the Chosin Reservoir, sliding balls of flaming napalm into the thousands of Chinese troops that had crossed the Yalu and surrounded the First Marine Division. We cheered inside the warmth of the theater and took heart at the sight of marines with frozen beards who gave the thumbs-up to the cameraman. Death and suffering had been visited on our enemies, not us.
I think there is a clock in all of us that most choose not to see or heed. The clock has a date and an hour and minute and a second on it that are not subject to change. I knew my hour had come, but I couldn’t accept it. The thought made my mouth go dry, my colon constrict, my throat back up with bile, my vision go out of focus. I felt like my blood had been fouled. The person I thought of as Aaron Holland Broussard seemed to have taken flight from my breast, and I wondered if the real me was indeed a coward, a pathetic creature whose only accomplishments in life were to ride a dumb animal for eight seconds and to swim terrified through a school of jellyfish.
Vick pulled open the door. All the other houses on the street were without power. Rain was sweeping across the Harrelson lawn and the live oaks and the swimming pool and blowing into the foyer. Grady struggled to get Saber to his feet. Saber tripped and fell and pulled Valerie down with him.