A Single Shot Page 4

  “I was acquainted with your parents,” says the lawyer.

  John stares blankly at him.

  “I wish I had realized it before—I didn’t put the names together.”

  “Acquainted how?”

  “I represented the bank when it foreclosed. I felt awful about it—we all did. The bank did what it could to keep your father afloat—but the economy at that time, and his having overextended himself, then, of course, him taking sick…” Daggard Pitt stops in midsentence, reaches down, and firmly grasps the emaciated midpoint of his bum leg as if to assure himself it’s still there. When he looks up again, John can see the pain from the leg in the lawyer’s face. “I thought I ought to tell you, in case—though, from my point of view, John, I would like nothing better than to represent you to the absolute best of my lawyerly abilities.”

  “How’d you get yourself all mangled up?”

  “What?”

  “Was you born like it?”

  Daggard Pitt frowns sardonically. “ ’Twas the hand I was dealt. Indeed.”

  “Least you didn’t have to get used to it later.”

  “Pardon?”

  “To havin’ to walk crooked.”

  Daggard Pitt smiles pleasantly. “I thought it was the rest of the world did.”

  “My father was a good farmer,” John says, “and a shit businessman. He died so long ago I can’t hardly remember him.”

  “You’d have been in your midteens, as I recall.”

  “You still whoring for the bank?”

  “Not for almost fourteen years.”

  “You’re cheaper than the rest of ’em I called. That mean you ain’t as good?”

  “Compensation takes many forms, John.”

  “Better not take more’n the half grand I was told.”

  “I only meant I have no wife, John. No family. Only my clients and their often sticky and heartfelt situations. Simon Breedlove and I, for example, have known each other for years.”

  “He says you got almost a heart.”

  “He’s in a position to know.”

  John stands up, reaches into his pocket, pulls out the five $100 bills he had taken this morning from the pillowcase, and drops them on Daggard Pitt’s desk. “There’s for your retainer,” he says. “All’s I want’s for you to delay matters long’s ya can, while I try to work things out.”

  “Work things out?”

  “Get her thinkin’ turned around ’fore the water’s all over the dam.”

  “I’ll draft an answer to her complaint—a general denial—for your signature. We’ll get it to Gerhard Lane, then go from there.”

  “Don’t do nothin’ fancy,” says John, walking toward the door.

  He has the uneasy feeling that he is the focus of the sun’s glare. He stops at the drugstore and buys a bottle of aspirin and a pair of mirrored sunglasses that he puts on. The thought of pouring blacktop in the afternoon heat next to Levi Dean causes the pain in his head to radiate backward from his eyes. He eats three aspirins.

  At the municipal parking lot, he sits in his idling pickup truck, its engine growling through an aerated muffler, tormented by images of money and death. He pictures his own guilt as an animal hollowing out his insides and wonders if it’s true what he’s heard that keeping a big enough secret can kill you. He pictures his wife, in cotton smock and jeans, leaning against their open trailer doorway, her long, walnut-colored hair blown back by a gentle summer wind; and the boy, all eyes and facial expressions and herky-jerky movements. He imagines Moira cradling him in her arms the way she does that tiny, fragile body and him telling her all about yesterday’s awful events and the horror then magically vanishing.

  Leaving the parking lot, instead of turning right onto Main Street and heading for the undertaker’s, he turns left, toward Puffy’s Diner, the first floor of a two-story red-brick building wedged between two others of like design, to see if Moira is working the lunch shift.

  Cruising slowly past the diner, he is unable to see through the foggy plate-glass windows in front, so turns right onto Broad Street and peers in at the dirt parking lot behind Puffy’s. Among a dozen or so vehicles, he spots Moira’s salt-eaten Ford Escort sitting near the building’s far corner, next to Jerry Puffer’s Olds 88, with its busted driver-side shocks.

  Now he’s not sure what to do. It’s lunch hour and busy in the diner. Moira will get all flustered and upset if he approaches her. Then John will get upset, and that will make matters worse. John, though, feels driven to speak to her. Or at least to see her. His mind, overloaded with data, is temporarily closed to other options.

  Twice more, he cruises by the diner, trying to decide how to proceed. He shoves a Hank Williams, Jr., tape into the cassette deck and turns up the volume. He thinks of Moira’s freckled, spherical face; her strong, angular body, soft only where she is most a woman; her dark brown eyes that remind John, depending on her mood, of gently caressing or sharply probing fingers; the rounded smooth curve of her buttocks where they merge, then sharply intersect with her plump vaginal lips.

  He’ll walk into the diner like an ordinary customer, he tells himself, order coffee and a sandwich, and when he catches Moira’s ear, cordially whisper to her that after the lunch crowd thins out, he’d like very much to speak to her. In the meantime, he’ll just sit there, drinking his coffee, hoping that just the sight of her will clear up the ambiguities in his head. She couldn’t, thinks John, driving by Puffy’s for the fourth time, get angry at that.

  Puffy’s front door opens and two men emerge—one tall and blond; the other, who is vaguely familiar to John, dark-haired and stocky with a duck-billed cap pulled low over his eyes. They start to cross the street, then, at the same time that John, making the turn onto Broad Street, spots a police car approaching from downtown, change their minds and quickly walk off in the opposite direction.

  Still trying to place the second man, John hears a short siren burst. He looks back and sees the police car, its bubble light flashing, follow him onto Broad Street. John turns into Puffy’s parking lot. The police car does the same thing. John feels his heart leap into his throat. He considers slapping the truck into reverse and heading as fast as he can out of town. Then the cruiser comes to a stop in the exit, blocking his retreat.

  John sits in the middle of the lot, one foot on the clutch, glancing frantically around the cab, wondering if he should open the door and run for it. He hears laughter to his right and sees two kids, standing in the alley between Puffy’s and the barbershop next door, holding up their middle fingers at the police car. Another short blast of the siren, then a microphoned voice calls out, “I know you, you little hellraisers.”

  The kids run off down the alley. Above the music in the cab, John hears someone yell, “Fuck you, chief!”

  Then the microphoned voice says, “Park her, Moon, shut her the hell down and sit there with your hands on the wheel!”

  John slowly pulls the pickup into a space between a flatbed truck and a minivan. He ejects the tape and shuts off the engine. If this is how it’s meant to be, he thinks, okay. He even feels a little relieved.

  The cruiser’s driver door opens. Undersheriff Ralph Dolan steps out, yanks his belt and holster up over his melon-shaped gut, and, in his exaggerated hip roll, starts walking the fifty feet to John’s truck. John thinks, “Of all the cops in the world, goddamn Ralph Dolan.” He tells himself not to mouth off, though knows that around Ralph Dolan he sometimes can’t help it. Dolan pokes his big head through the window.

  “What’s in the cooler, John?”

  “Popsicles,” says John.

  “Wouldn’t be beer, would it?”

  “Might be one or two in there, Undersheriff. I can’t remember.”

  “How many of ’em you already drunk?”

  “None so far. Wouldn’t take much to start, though.”

  “You puffing me, John?”

  “No, sir, Undersheriff.” John emphasizes the “Under,” though he knows better. “I ain’t pu
ffing you.” Grimacing, he waves his hand at Dolan’s breath, which smells like a taco burger. “I’m inhaling you.”

  Dolan backs out of the truck and glares at him. “Take off those fucking sunglasses, Moon.”

  John takes off the glasses, blinking in the sudden glare.

  “You look shit-faced, Moon.”

  “I been workin’ too hard. Ain’t had enough sleep.”

  “Maybe you been working on jackin’ deer and that’s why you ain’t slept. That right, jacker? You the one was heard blasting away in the preserve early yesterday morning?”

  “Weren’t me, Undersheriff, on account of you scared me so bad last time I sold all my guns. I don’t even eat meat no more.”

  “How ’bout I take a look in that cooler, John?”

  “I don’t guess today. Less’n of course you got a warrant.”

  Dolan leans back on his heels and surveys John’s truck. By now John figures it’s just one of Dolan’s pull-over-and-harass stops, though he’s not sure if there’s any substance to the comment about the preserve or if Dolan was just fishing. As he watches himself being written up, John curses himself for not holding his tongue. “Got you a bad muffler, John,” says Dolan, ripping off the ticket and handing it to him. “Heard ya clear to the other end of town.”

  John bites his tongue. He folds the ticket, then puts it in his wallet. “Can I get out now?” he asks, reaching for the door. “Go about my business?”

  “Maybe I ought to see if you can walk a straight line.”

  “I’ll piss one if you want me to.”

  Dolan closes his ticket book, then slips it into his back pocket. “Just don’t cause no trouble at Puffy’s, John.”

  “I’m gonna eat lunch.”

  “Way I hear it,” says Dolan, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat, “she don’t want to be bothered.” John steps out of the truck. “Not by you, anyway.”

  John smiles, though it’s the last thing he feels like doing. “You oughta run for sheriff again next time around, Ralph,” he says. “I’ll bet the same two people voted for ya before would again.”

  “Fix that goddamn muffler, Moon,” says Dolan, waddling back to the cruiser.

  His three hundred twenty pounds engulfed in a cloud of blue-white smoke, Jerry Puffer bobs the burning cigarette between his lips at John, who answers with a curt nod. In response to a few other greetings, he barely grunts.

  He sits in Moira’s station, at the end of the counter opposite Puffer, and next to a thin, toothless man eating soup.

  He grabs a menu, pretends to read it, then puts it back on the counter. He drinks some water, then picks up a napkin and coughs into it. He puts his fingers onto his temples where his head still hurts, and pushes. The smoke is stifling around the counter. He wonders how Moira, who wouldn’t allow smoking in the trailer, stands it.

  Carrying a tray of sandwiches and french fries on one shoulder, she abruptly bursts through the swinging kitchen doors. Spotting John, she raises her eyes, gives a tiny side-to-side shake of her head, then charges right past him, twenty feet or so down the aisle, where she starts distributing food to patrons in three or four different booths.

  Seeing her, John feels his spirits raised and lowered at the same time. He remembers her once saying that she loved in him what the world couldn’t see—a gentle soul and a kind heart that injured easily and took forever to heal. She was good with words and could easily have gone to college, yet had married John, who didn’t even graduate from high school. John thinks now that he had always believed she would one day tire of him and leave and that this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Watching her going about her job, he imagines that her movements now contain a self-assuredness that says, louder than words, “I am going forward into the world and not looking back.”

  She comes around the counter again, passes the tray she’s carrying to a set of hands behind the swinging doors, then walks over to where John sits, pulls from the front pocket of her wrap-around green smock a pencil and paper pad, and as if John is just another customer, asks him what he would like.

  “A cheeseburger,” says John. “Medium rare. Fries. Coffee.”

  “What kind of cheese.”

  “You know what kind.”

  “And a side of slaw, right?”

  “I don’t want slaw.”

  “No slaw?”

  “Tossed salad.”

  “Tossed salad? You hate tossed salad.”

  “I’m going to give it another shot. Doctor says it’s good for me. Make it a large tossed salad.”

  She smiles, barely, and writes down tossed salad. John sees Puffer owlishly peering through the smoke at them. “I just come from my lawyer’s.”

  She blows at a strand of hair that’s fallen from the bun atop her head into her eyes. “Who’d you get?”

  “Daggard Pitt.” John studies her face for signs of inward laughter, but doesn’t see any. “I told him to tell your guy I’m ready to go to one them couns’lors.”

  “Well. I think you ought to.”

  “I mean together.”

  “Oh, John.”

  “Was you who wanted to.”

  “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “We separated.”

  “We didn’t separate. You moved out.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I got some things home for you and the boy. I’ll drop them by later.”

  “What things?”

  “Food things. And money.”

  “Can’t you give it to me now?”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got a class until eight o’clock.”

  “What sort of class?”

  “I told you, John.”

  “Tell me again. I forgot.”

  “A college class. Night school. I’m studying to be a teacher.”

  “I’ll come by after, then.”

  “I’d rather you wouldn’t tonight, John. I might not be there.”

  “Why? You got a date?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this now, John.”

  “And you don’t want to talk about it later. When do you want to talk about it?” Lifting one hand to gesture with, John accidentally nudges the toothless man just as he’s lifting a spoon to his mouth. The spoon flies from his hand, clattering onto the counter. Soup splashes into the man’s lap.

  “Sorry,” says John.

  “The hell you say.”

  Moira picks up John’s spoon and hands it to the man. “Chris’ mighty,” he mouths. “Go fetch me another bowl of soup there, missy. On the house.”

  “I don’t know,” says Moira.

  “You don’t need more soup,” says John. He sees Puffer grimacing at him through the smoke, his ox-like head angled precariously forward. “You didn’t lose but a spoonful.” He looks at Moira. “I’ll come by and see Nolan then. He’ll be there, right?”

  “It’s not such a good time, John. I wish you’d called ahead.”

  “I need to see him. And you.”

  “We been there all week and you haven’t needed to see us.”

  John puts a hand up to his mouth, and whispers, “I got somethin’ important to tell you. ’Bout our future.”

  “John, I…” He watches her face, her whole posture sag. His heart sinks. He wants to bury his head in her lap and cry.

  “How ’bout my pants?” says the man.

  John glares at him. “What about your goddamn pants?”

  “They look pissed in.”

  John reaches into his pocket, pulls out his wallet, withdraws a ten-dollar bill, and slaps it on the counter in front of the man. “There,” he says. “Go get ’em cleaned!” He looks up to see Moira disappearing through the swinging doors and Jerry Puffer laboriously rising from his stool. John gives him a half wave. “Don’t trouble yourself, Puffy,” he says. “We’re good over here.” He pats the toothless man on the back. “Ain’t we good?”

  “We got her straightened out, Puffy,” yips the man. He picks up th
e ten dollars and shoves it into his pants pocket, then goes back to eating his soup. Puffer silently lowers himself back onto his stool, picks up his cigarette, sucks it with his fat lips down to the filter.

  John stands up and walks toward the exit. Everyone in the place, it seems to him, is waiting for him to do something. He pulls his dark glasses from his shirt pocket and puts them on. His head throbs. He senses rather than sees Moira reenter the dining room through the swinging doors behind him. Pushing open the glass door to the street, he barks over his shoulder, “Cancel my order, Puffy!”

  Harsh laughter behind him. The afternoon heat in his face.

  The two men he had earlier seen leaving Puffy’s are back where they had started. They glance left, right, then cross the street in front of John and climb into a black Chevy Blazer. John definitely remembers the dark one from somewhere—his small, piercing eyes, the blocky look of his skull.

  He hears the Blazer start up, then watches it pull into the street and drive off toward the east edge of town. John feels haunted, pursued. He turns onto Broad Street and heads for Puffy’s parking lot. A minute or so later, as he’s climbing into his truck, it hits him—Waylon. The man in the dead girl’s photograph.

  The tree was felled by spring lightning. Three months before, John had dragged it with Cecil Nobie’s John Deere in four pieces into his back yard, then sawed the pieces into logs. A quarter of the wood will go to Nobie. The rest John will burn or sell. He owns a gas log splitter and chain saw, but this afternoon he uses an ax. The work is as hard or harder than laying blacktop and he doesn’t get a paycheck. Neither, though, does he have to listen to Levi Dean or Cole Howard, and from his mountain perch he has a grand view of the valley.