Fear slapped my senses, like Logan’s makeshift strop against the butter knife, putting a pretty keen edge on them. I could count each and every pore in Marty’s big, vein-busted nose. I smelled the barbeque he’d had for dinner. I heard the coins jingle in his pocket as those belly laughs shook his pants. The smile he showed me was so big with horrible delight that every tooth and hole showed. Marty was missing two of his bottom teeth. It made his smile a true troll’s grin.
A long smear of blood ran down the hall to the front door. Mr. Cannon was gone. Poor man, all he did was answer his door. I pointed to the hallway and started to ask him about it.
“Don’t worry. Your neighbor’s getting the proper medical treatment he needs. If you act nicey-nice,” he told me in sing-song baby talk, poking me in the belly with the antenna of his monkey-shaped walkie-talkie, “I won’t have to give you any boo-boos. Okeydoke, artichoke?”
I nodded, still thinking on when and how I could make my break for it.
Marty must of been thinking along some of the same lines but reversed because he waggled a finger at me. “Don’t be hatching up something stupid and maybe painful. Let’s us sit down and chew a little fat. You all got anything cold to drink? A tall glass of strawberry Kool-Aid would be about perfect right now. This heat is something terrible. But I don’t expect you all have any of that, huh?”
I stood in the doorway to the living room and looked at him, arms folded across my chest. I wished I had some shorts on. I’d taken them off when I heard it was only Hayes at the door earlier that night. Without any AC, the house felt hot as a stove element and sucked empty of air. But right then I wouldn’t of minded cords and a winter coat. I felt next to naked in panties and a T-shirt, even with the shirt coming down to the tops of my knees. Goosebumps pimpled up my legs and arms.
Marty patted his dark-blue sports coat in a few places. It was almost exactly like the one Butthole wore, but whereas his looked tailor-made, Marty’s jacket fit him like something picked out of the trash. Too tight across the shoulders and too long in the sleeves. It took him quite a few seconds of hunting before he found a crumpled pack of strawberry Swisher Sweets hiding in an inside pocket. He pulled one out of its cellophane and gave it a long, satisfied sniff, running the little cigar across the flabby groove between his nose and upper lip. The fake strawberry flavor came clear across the room and it reminded me of bubble gum and puke. He stuck out his yellow tongue and licked the little cigar from one end to the other. Then he bit down on the plastic nib and wiggled it at me, trying, I guess, to be comical, but I wasn’t in much of a comical mood.
“I weren’t kidding about the cold drink,” he said. “What you got?”
I opened the fridge and poked about, wondering if I could knock him out with a bottle of ketchup.
“Milk, Diet Dr Pepper, Clamato, and Wanker,” I told him, not turning around.
“What the hell is Wanker?” He sounded offended.
“Some kind of beer.”
“I’ll take the Clamato, if it’s cold.”
I went to the cabinet and poured him a short juice glass full. He sniffed it three times before taking a sip and then let out a long, exaggerated sigh. He was chock-full of funny gags, this one. God, how I hated him.
“I expect you must be wondering the reason I dragged you into the house, huh? Very mysterious. Spooky even, huh? What you think, little miss?”
I answered him with a sour look and hoped the Clamato had gone bad and would poison him.
“Remember our chat a while back about your good buddy, Hayes?”
“Hayes ain’t no friend of mine.”
He took another sip. “To tell the truth, I don’t much care for him myself. We know him and your old ma are holding out on us. Got a little stash hid somewhere on the homestead here.”
“That ain’t true.”
“You know how I know? A dirty little birdie told me the two of them had business ideas of their own. A woman who knows your mama.”
“Who told you that trash?”
“One of them nurses over at the hospital, name of Carla, is a cousin of mine. A second cousin, maybe. I forget. Said your ex-friend Hayes thought to cut me out of the deal and sell the shit on his own. Him and your ma both, that is.”
“My mom doesn’t have anything to do with Hayes’s stupid plans. That’s all on him. There ain’t any pills here. I heard Hayes begging my mom to help him get some more and she said no.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Marty said and knocked back the rest of his Clamato in a single gulp. “That might could be. But we got to make sure. You understand, don’t you? It’s just good business practice. You hear them dogs?” He swung out his arm and shook the empty glass toward the back door. A large red drop of Clamato landed on the linoleum at my feet. “Sound angry, don’t they? They ain’t been fed for a day or two. Makes them jumpy and pissed off. And from the sound of it, my associate Mr. Gibbs is getting to the nub of the matter right this minute.”
“You mean Butthole.” It just slipped out.
“You and the bad man swap stories and jokes and the like, did you?” He frowned at me and cocked his head to one side. “That’s strange. A young girl like you, I’d of thought it’d show on your face. Bruises and shit. He ain’t known for being gentle. The sad fact of the matter is the man just don’t know how to talk with women. Or girls. The fairer sex baffles him. I think it’s got something to do with all the time he spent in the infantry and then that stint in the state pen.”
I hugged myself and backed away, not realizing I was doing it until I came up against the counter with a painful thump.
“Well, you’ve met the man, so I know you don’t want to have to spend any alone time with him.” He gave me a curious look. “Do you?”
My lips had amnesia. I shook my head no, believing what he said about Butthole to be true. The microwave pizza I’d gobbled down a few hours ago gave me a few sharp elbow jabs to the gut. I tried to swallow.
“See, here’s where you come in. If Leon—” He smiled his snaggle-toothed grin. “I mean, if Butthole can’t get the truth out of those two using his usual encouragement methods, we got you as our ace card. You, little miss, are plan B. If it makes you feel any better, his usual methods usually work.”
I turned then and puked in the sink.
“Truth to tell,” he said, “it don’t set well with me neither. That look his face gets when he’s messing about with young girls? Terrible. Nobody knows what it is he’s got against you ladies. It amounts to a kind of crazy with him.” He frowned down at his smoking cigar before ashing into the sticky, red juice glass even though there was an ashtray beside his elbow.
Out back, the dogs barked louder. The thunderstorm blew closer and closer to the house, bringing with it jagged forks of electricity and big house-shaking booms. I watched lightning carve the sky into slices through the window above the sink. It looked like the end of times. I put my head under the faucet and splashed my cheeks with water, all the while tripping over a tangle of busy nowhere thoughts. What to do? What to do? I turned around and gave him a level look.
“Can I have one of those candy cigarettes?” I asked him.
“These ain’t candy, little girl.” A flash of anger crinkled up his eyes. “Might be they’ll set you to puking again.”
“Nah,” I told him, “I smoke them all the time. Since I was a little girl.”
Marty reached into his jacket pocket and dug up the half-crushed box of Swisher Sweets. I stepped across the room to pluck one from the pack. As I reached for it, he took my chin between his thumb and first finger and turned my face toward the twitching overhead light. I tried to pull away, but he took a hold of my arm and yanked me closer. This pissed me off to no end and the bright flare of my anger made my cheeks feel more than a few degrees closer to real lightning. Then Marty turned my face the other way and studied it even closer, like a man speculating on the ripeness of a peach.
“Could be I know you from somewhere? It struck me when we talked before. I know your mama’s name is Darla. What’s your family name again?”
When I didn’t answer, Marty slapped his lighter onto the table with a loud crack. A Zippo engraved on one side with a dog’s head above two crossed bones. It made me jump, but I reached for it all the same. He grabbed my hand as soon as I touched the lighter and gave it a squeeze. The lighter pressed hard against the underside of my knuckles. It hurt. I pulled myself loose and flicked the wick into flame, sucking hard on the sweet little cigar to get it lit. I don’t care what he said. It tasted like candy to me.
“What’s he doing out there to my mom?” I pointed to the kitchen door, walking across the room as I did.
“Don’t worry. The man likes a psychological approach. It’s Hayes who’ll be hurting right now. If I know Butthole, that boy will be trying to throw the fear of God into your mama. He’ll figure she won’t be able to watch Hayes getting punished for very long before she gives up the goods. It’s the psychological approach that often gets the best results. And he takes his time.” Marty glanced down at the chunky gold watch on his wrist. “Anyway, it ain’t been long enough for him to of moved on to your mama yet.”
We both looked at the window. I realized I hadn’t heard the dogs barking for a while. I wasn’t sure how long. Someone shouted, but I couldn’t tell who or what they said. My tongue tasted like a hunk of bitter meat too big to swallow. Guilt made my chest feel hollow. I didn’t believe Marty. I wanted to believe my mom was okay, boy did I ever, but I didn’t. He’d tell me whatever he thought would keep me from rushing out the back door. I walked to the sink and leaned across it on my tiptoes to get a better view out the window.
“Hey,” Marty said, actually getting to his feet now, “get away from there. You don’t want to be watching all that.”
Him saying this only clinched things that much more.
Lightning flashed. Travis held my mom back. Someone else stood aside with the dogs. Hayes slumped over with his head against the ground. Storm light is shaky, and I only got the briefest glimpse, but this much was clear as day: something bad had happened to Hayes. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. It was him, after all, who’d gotten us into this mess. Still, it didn’t mean I wished something horrible on him. Thunder rumbled.
“What are they doing to Hayes?”
Marty grabbed me by the elbow. “Sit your ass down.”
I didn’t fight him when he led me back to the table and pushed me into a chair.
As Marty opened his mouth to tell me something else, some new line of bullshit, lightning struck again. The house seemed to slip off its foundation. The juice glass rolled off the table and smashed. This time there wasn’t any gap between the flash and the boom. I’m almost certain it hit the house. Or somewhere close enough not to make a difference. The lights flickered twice and went out. The fridge’s motor rattled and died. This sudden dark gave me a burst of foolish courage and I used it while I had it—these things being uncertain when it comes to length. I pushed away from the table so hard my chair clattered over backwards. I only got the chance to take three steps. The legs of the chair hit my shins. I went down in a painful heap of barked bones and bruised elbows. Marty gifted me with a Santa Claus smile and then produced the ugliest-sounding fart I’ve ever heard. I pulled a face. This tickled the hell out of him and he let go with a hacking laugh. If I could of, I would of killed him right then. I swear it.
All this happened in a handful of seconds. The lights flickered a few more times and came on, at least some of them, and they brought with them a rude lesson about power. Marty had some. I had none.
Marty went through his whole jacket-patting routine again, but this time he pulled out a little pistol, which looked like a dollar-store stocking stuffer in his meaty, overstuffed paw. Four plump ballpark franks and a nectarine for a thumb. The way he waved it about explained he wanted me to go back to my seat, so I picked the chair up and sat. My cigar still burned in the ashtray.
“You smell something?” Marty lifted his chin and gave the air a few delicate sniffs. From the way he spoke, simply curious and happy tempered, you’d of thought us two had been chatting away, as smiley as a couple of cherrystone clams, all the livelong night.
“Smell what?” At first I thought he was making funny over his obnoxious mule fart. I couldn’t get that lightning snapshot of my mom in the backyard out of my head. When would Butthole get tired of waiting for her to feel sorry for Hayes and start … what?
“Smells like burning plastic.” He pointed with his chin to the living room.
A very thin layer of smoke drifted along the ceiling in the living room. If not for the smell, it could of been from the cigars. Acrid and oily, it reminded me more of an overheated car engine than cheap tobacco. Mom’s car blew a gasket earlier in the summer and this was what it smelled like.
“Are they trying to burn our house down?” I asked him, serious.
“Nah,” he said, making one of his I’m-the-boss-around-here faces, “not with me in it.” He paused and frowned toward the back door. “They best not be, anyway.”
“Smells like it.”
Marty chewed on the plastic nib of his cigar. “Not before we get them pills, they ain’t. That I guarantee.”
I didn’t much care for his guarantees.
A hand rapped on the window. Two fast knocks and then two slow ones. Marty shook his head and gave me a gloomy look.
“That ain’t good news for you,” he said. “You and me, we got to go outside. Seems Hayes and your mama need more convincing. Sorry, missy, I really hate to have it come to this. You could end all the bullshit right this second, you tell me where they got them pills stashed.”
We stared at each other.
“No? Well, then for your sake, I hope Mama loves you more than that worthless piece …” Marty trailed off, looking not at me but at the window. Someone outside had shouted.
The monkey-faced walkie-talkie on the table shrieked. “We got trouble, man.” The rest came out in squawks and gobbles. A male voice, but otherwise unidentifiable.
“Goddamnit.” Marty pushed himself back up. All this sitting and standing was probably more exercise than he got in a week. He wheezed a little and his face turned the color of an unripe plum. The table shook with him. For half a second, less even, the tiniest of expressions crossed his face. An uncertain squint crossed with a frown. Was he afraid of something?
The back door swung open and Burns burst in. He panted, spittle flying on the exhales. You’d think he’d sprinted for a mile and not just loped across the yard.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Burns cringed like the man might shoot him. “Even Butthole don’t know how he did it.”
“What?” Marty shouted. “Done what?”
I reached back to check that the cell phone was still tucked tight against my hip inside the elastic of my panties. It was pure luck it hadn’t fallen when I had.
“The soldier. He slipped loose. Cut Butthole a good one on the forehead.”
I laughed, but neither seemed to notice. Marty pushed him to one side, hard enough to slam both Burns and the door against the wall, and moved onto the top step of the back porch.
“One second he’s tied up and the next he’s spinning around with something sharp,” Burns told Marty’s big, old walrus back.
“Where’s Butthole?” Marty yelled out the door.
“Took off after him,” Burns said. “He said—”
“Butthole!” Marty bawled into the monkey.
“That slick fuck,” the monkey said after a moment of static, “slipped off just like a rat snake.”
“Get him, Goddamnit! I don’t give a fuck how,” Marty said, pressing the monkey into his cheek hard enough to leave a mark. Then he turned to Burns. “Get your ass back out there. We need to end this shit now.”
Burns didn’t need to be told twice.
Marty glanced over his shoulder at me, his face half dark from the doorway’s shadow. All the angry gone now, vanished in the time it takes to blow your nose. “This kind of thing just happens sometimes, honey. All there is to do is grit your teeth and get through it. I won’t let them go too far, but I can’t promise it won’t sting. You know, the way the doctor always does?” He managed to give me a sickroom smile. “And hell, ain’t the doctor always lying anyway? Come on, missy, guess I’ll have to bring you out here for Butthole …” Marty scratched his neck and turned his head away.
I’ll give the man this: he didn’t seem all that happy about his chore. His mouth sagged and his eyes looked dull.
“Okay,” I said, quiet and docile, but the thoughts in my brain were anything but. My head was in mad-scramble mode. I took one last drag off the sweet cigar, making the cherry burn bright.
“That’s the way. I like you, missy. You’re a tough little pecan. Maybe it ain’t clear now, but we got more than a few things in common.”
I wanted to scream. Instead, I blew two lungs full of strawberry puke smoke at him.
He reached over to take my arm. “You got sand aplenty and that’s saying—”
As Marty bent toward me, I smiled hard and pushed the hot end of the cigar into his left eye. It sounded like bacon dropping into a hot pan—a mean sizzle and a sharp pop. The smell I can’t describe, nor do I much care to. He let out a yowl of pain so loud it near about burst a tunnel through my head from ear to ear. I didn’t wait for it to end before I screamed Logan’s name with all the air left in my lungs. Marty didn’t waste no time. He followed me right across the kitchen for some payback, swinging his arm behind his shoulder for a go at my head. But I saw his open hand coming and ducked away as best I could. Liked to of backflipped into the sink if I could of managed. Still, he connected. The kitchen turned half a dozen different hues of blue and yellow. The overhead light sparkled and shimmered like the sun seen from underwater. The next thing—I’m looking up at the bottom of the table with a sound like angry bees in my head. Swaying there under the table was my old cowboy Weeble, my favorite toy when I was a kid, bobbing back and forth and hissing for me to run. But it was all I could do right then just to suck myself some air.
What are you doing down there, Mr. Weeble? I thought. I left you on the dresser.
“You little bitch!” Marty shouted so loud it rumbled the linoleum. “You half about blinded me!”
It wouldn’t be long before one of his thug boys came in here to see what the problem was. That’d finish the question and quick.
I rolled over on my side, scrabbling about for a way to get back on my feet. The world around me—kitchen, clock, and floor—moved incredibly slowly and, in a senseless way, very, very fast. I blinked hard, trying to clear a bit of the blur out of my eyes. That was when I caught a glimpse of another thing that made me think I’d had both the sense and air knocked out of me. A lamp looked to be floating across the living room. Marty stepped around the fallen chair and reared back his leg to give me a kick. The lamp sailed into the kitchen behind him. It was bright yellow and had a picture of a boat painted on it. I laughed. Scared as I was, I laughed. I hated that lamp and here it was coming to save me. Marty held off on that kick just long enough to frown at me. The lamp shattered on his head and he toppled over, knocking the chair across the room. The last thing I saw was his empty face heading toward mine.