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Cornell, still in a sweat, watched as Maple and Stickman walked to the hydrant. Watched as they talked and drank from the same tin cup that hung on a wire hook. Sitting on his lumpy bed at his bedroom window, Cornell balanced his nearly empty can of beer precariously on a bare pillow. He was angry and getting very nervous. Come on, dammit, quit your yammering and get inside the damn trailer. He grabbed his beer and used the pillow to wipe sweat from his face. Draining the beer, and seeing his neighbors were still talking, he walked to the refrigerator in the kitchen, taking comfort in the loaded, automatic 12-guage shotgun propped against the living room door.
Back at the window he swore at the air-conditioner that couldn’t keep up. His impatience grew. Stickman and Maple continued to talk. Their conversation appeared very casual, neither particularly engaged beyond an occasional smile. Sometimes one of them seemed to look his way, as would be expected, but that caused Cornell to lean away from the window, deeper into the shadows. “Hell, you can’t see in,” he said, disgusted with himself. “Damn you guys!” He shushed himself, watching them closely to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. “Don’t you know you need to go inside?” he continued in a near-whisper. “I have important freakin’ work going on here. Don’t you know I am remaking history here?”
The two men began moving toward their trailer, still chatting as they slowly did a two-step shuffle. Cornell took heart. “I’ll drink to that, I’ll drink to that, I’ll drink to that,” he chanted softly as they finally neared the corner of the trailer, shooing them on with his hands, slopping beer from the can. “I’ll drink to that.” Then they were out of sight and Cornell was smiling. Now we’re cooking. But long minutes passed as he watched intently for a light to come on or go off. Anything to let him know they were inside. Now the waiting was worse than when he could see them, when he knew what they were doing. “They have to be inside. Don’t they? I mean, where else can they be? That’s the only resolution you can draw.”
Cornell thought about going over to see them. Opening the refrigerator for another beer, he could see himself on their front steps, where his muddy shoes had left tracks. They were suspicious, true. That was not good. But he would explain about being out of beer and even though they didn’t drink much he was just wondering if maybe they had a six-pack. Even if they didn’t he could confirm that both were inside. That would be all he needed to go back to his place and blow them to hell. Then their treatment of him, their suspicion when he returned from work roared back at him. How he had broken out in a cold sweat as he was caught lying, how he always said the wrong thing, how they had looked at him. That was all too scary. No. I can’t go over there. “If I don’t see some activity within exactly two minutes I’m going to blow that trailer to hell,” he said decisively. The confident sound of his voice made him feel in command, even with sweat running in his eyes. An igniter with a toggle switch was wired to a heavy duty 12-volt battery. Attached to the battery was an electrical cord that disappeared through a hole Cornell had drilled in the bedroom floor. The same electrical cord made its roughly buried way purposely across the lawn.
The igniter shook slightly in Cornell’s hand as he silently counted down the time with each tick of the second hand on his watch. Thirty seconds. Fifteen. At five seconds he started counting aloud. Four, three, two, one. His thumb froze on the switch. He couldn’t move it. He stared in disgust. No excuse came to mind. “Come on, you son of a bitch. It’s time to show what you’re made of, that you’ve got grift. Just like in the John Wayne movie. Now, Cornell, count from ten.” He got to “one,” sucked in a deep breath, and his thumb worked. The toggle switch clicked. He stared at the trailer. Nothing. No explosion. No siding and metal and lumber flying. No fire. Silence stared back. Cornell madly flipped the switch, over and over. He grabbed the electrical cord, shaking it to ensure the connection to the battery was tight. It was. He slumped back, exhausted from strain. What to do?
Waiting at the corner of their trailer, Maple and Stickman heard sparking sounds coming from under the trailer, from where bare wires were laced through holes in the metal frame. The sparks sent the two men sprinting toward Cornell’s trailer just as he glanced out the window. “Oh shit!” he shrieked as they disappeared from sight, hell-bent for his front door. Dropping the igniter he lunged toward the living room, his right foot catching on the cord between the battery and the hole in the floor. He sprawled full length. Desperately leaping to his feet, Cornell dashed for the shotgun. The unlocked door burst open and the 12-guage bounced off a straight-back chair. A load of No. 2 shot ripped past Cornell’s face and into the ceiling. Cornell didn’t miss a step, charging Maple in the doorway, but took an abrupt dive as a Glock slammed across the side of his face. Maple pulled a dazed Cornell to his feet so Stickman could close the door. He too held a Glock, in his left hand. “You are a foolish man.”
Cornell tried to shake off the light show dancing in his eyes, tried to speak quickly. “Guys, we need to talk. Hurting me will be a bad thing.” Stickman casually stepped forward as Cornell continued his plea, “The rent money ...” He went silent as the pick entered his heart. Maple let him slide to the floor, flat on his back.
“He won’t bleed out much,” said Stickman.
In the trailer they found travel brochures on a desk. Several were for safaris in Africa, one for three weeks with the price circled and a scrawled note, “5g premum for late reservatshun.”
“Cornell was going to go first class from the price on our heads,” Stickman said.
“How should we get rid of him?”
“I don’t like the idea of driving in and out after dark to one of our river spots. How about we haul him out back and bury him?”
“Sounds good to me.”
––––––––
Wilbur watched them leave the trailer. “Huh, didn’t see them go in. Maybe they and Cornell shared a brew.”
That didn’t sound right even as he said it. He didn’t know of Alexander or Demetri ever drinking or visiting Cornell. He returned to the television and one of the never ending reports on the interstate terrorist attacks. No more had he settled in his chair than the photos, speculative of course, of the killers wanted in the months-ago attack on the Russian Embassy filled the screen.
Banks stared hard. Damn them eyes, he told himself, thinking of a popular torch song. But when Violet joined him, he said nothing. Being told he was wrong was getting tiresome.
––––––––
Maple planted himself in a lounge chair in the shadows at the corner of Cornell’s trailer. He watched as the lights went off in the Banks’ house, leaving a glow that soon disappeared, too. He walked back to get the sleeping Stickman. Wrapping Cornell in a canvas tarp, and using an aluminum cot as a stretcher, they carried his body through the small clearing where Maple had killed April. Another fifty yards into the woods, Maple started digging while Stickman returned to the yard as a lookout. They switched jobs once before covering Cornell and returning to the trailer.
“He really was one dumb fuck, wasn’t he?”
“Dumb and blind with greed,” answered Stickman, pouring hot tea.
”Okay, what’s next.”
Stickman was quiet for a long time. “So we believe Cornell made us. If he had been blabbing to his barfly buddies, the sheriff would have been out here already. No one else around here would have a clue to us except maybe the Banks. So far, no reason to think they’re on to us. We can sit tight for a while or we can move on. Let’s sleep on it.”
Stickman did, but Maple battled another sleepless night, revisiting over and over the interstate mayhem and his role in it. Role? That’s a funny word for killing people, even as a soldier. Whether he closed his eyes or looked into the darkness, it was all there, black and white or in color, vivid or in that crazy checkerboard pattern. The children in silhouette as he fired and then the burning school bus, the flames, the smoke. The silhouettes went away, leaving just the husk of the bus and the flames and the smoke. My God, everything is playing in greater detail now. There should be less detail as time passes. He wondered how long a person could live without sleep, how much longer he would be able to be a soldier. His horror show was so tiring. There had been no fatigue after attacking the embassy. He had watched that carnage on television and it didn’t mess up his mind. That must be the difference, it being on television and not seeing everything up close, in real time like he had the interstate attack. Everything was getting more confusing, too, seeing the killing grounds and dodging the law and worrying about who might suspect them. Everything ran together, making it harder to understand what he had done or why or what he needed to do now. Maple felt unhinged, knowing most of all that he was terribly weary, that his mind was dysfunctional. Finally, the dawn brought some relief, invading the darkness of his mind and mercifully pushing back the never-ending replay of the slaughter. Pushing it back or into a corner, but not pushing it out. Out, totally out, apparently was not an option. He groaned as he swung out of bed, padded barefoot to the living room to see what new offerings television had.