David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

Tully came in first, ducking to get through the door. He was a lumbering, bearded man with wild black hair. His face made little impression, except for the small dark eyes. Basically, the thing you noticed about Tully was how big he was.

Dayball made his entrance next, sauntering in like a midnight movie host. He was wearing a silk sport jacket and black pegged pants with two-tone loafers. He’d combed his blond hair back and trimmed his beard close, his face aglow with a gum-chewing smile. He formed his hand into a gun and fired at Frank, winking as the thumb came down.

“Mercy, mercy,” Dayball said. “A friendless man.”

He positioned himself behind Shel’s chair.

Frank stammered, “Let her go, Lonnie, she didn’t do nothing, she don’t know nothing, it’s me, it was always just me…”

Dayball put a finger in the air as though to call for quiet, then removed a notepad from his pocket and flipped through the pages. “This the fifteenth or sixteenth?” he asked no one in particular. Frank knelt there, wondering if the question was meant for him. Wondering if there was a wrong answer.

Tully said to Frank, “Answer him, Short.”

Frank looked back to Dayball, who stood waiting.

“Fifteenth?” Frank murmured.

Lonnie Dayball nodded and wrote this down. “Where do the days go,” he remarked. He checked his watch and wrote down the time as well, then closed the notepad and returned it to his pocket. He looked at Frank and smiled.

“A tight ship is a happy ship.”

“Lonnie, you’re gonna let her go, right?”

Dayball stepped closer behind Shel. Resting the heels of his hands on her shoulders, he began gently to coil her hair about his fingers.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” he said. “I’m being straight with you. I just don’t know.”

He turned toward Tully. Lifting his hands, the fingers still entwined in Shel’s hair, he said, “Red red red, Tully. Who’s that remind you of?”

Tully stood at the edge of Shel’s field of vision. Lyle and Hack and Snuff sat beyond him, in the breakfast nook.

“Got my eyes on Short here,” Tully said, nodding toward Frank. “Don’t look good, neither. White as a goddamn sheep.”

Dayball chuckled, still fingering Shel’s hair. “Sheet, Tully. The phrase is, ‘White as a sheet.’ ”

Tully shrugged. “I said what I said.”

“So you did.”

“He don’t come clean, gonna look a lot worse. Find his tongue in his pocket and his eyes in his socks.”

Dayball grinned. “It’s the little things that keep people together.”

“I’ll give you the money,” Frank said.

Dayball began to knead Shel’s shoulders. “Money?”

“All of it.”

Dayball set his chin on top of Shel’s head. He worked his chin in a tiny circle on her scalp.

“And how much would that be, Frank?”

“Don’t hurt her.”

“How much money?”

Frank’s breathing came so fast it looked like he might faint. “Fifteen thousand,” he said.

Dayball lifted his head and put his thumbs to Shel’s temples, massaging them. The pressure was just short of painful. He said, “Again?”

“Thirty,” Frank cried. “Thirty thousand. Don’t.”

Dayball lowered his hands to her throat. With his thumb and forefinger, he found the edges of her trachea. He ran his fingers gently up and down, as though performing a measurement. Shel readied herself.

“I’ll show you,” Frank shouted, straining at the lanyard, “I’ll dig it up, take it all, don’t hurt her…”

He dropped his chin to his chest and sobbed. Tully walked behind him, delivered one hard kick to his kidneys and said, “Stop it.”

Dayball let go of Shel’s throat but remained behind her. He settled his weight on the back of her chair. “How much the twins gonna kick in, Frank?”

Frank lifted his head and blinked hard to get the tears out of his eyes. “Lonnie?”

“Tell him, Tull.”

Tully cleared his sinuses again and spat. He said, “Twins got beat.”

Dayball leaned down so his lips were next to Shel’s ear. “Bet you didn’t peg your little Frankie here for a stone-cold killer.” To Frank, he added, “You were a busy boy tonight, Frankie. Kept poor Tull here shakin’ n’ bakin’ just to keep up.”

No, Shel thought. It’s not true. They’re lying, the motherfuckers. Tully killed the twins. Then her eyes met Frank’s. She felt a surge of nausea and feared she was going to retch into her gag. She closed her eyes and fought the impulse, knowing she could suffocate that way.

Dayball said, “So tell us, Frank. Inquiring minds want to know. How’d it feel?”

Unable to face Shel again, Frank looked at the floor instead.

“Need an invite?” Tully said. “Answer him, Short.”

Frank turned back to Dayball and tried to conjure up the right answer. “It feels done.”

Tully and Dayball laughed. Dayball said, “Done like how, Short? Like it’s a fucking cake?”

“Stick a fork in it,” Tully said.

Frank pictured the remote house, the upstairs room, the identical dead boys. He recalled how quiet it was after.

“I mean it’s over,” he said. “It’s finished.”

Dayball said, “Not by a long shot, Short.” He took out a cigarette and lit it. Tully coughed into his fist.

“So you squirreled away your money,” Dayball said. “Usually, Short, you know, just to catch you up on the drill, we sort of look for a doofus like you to choke on his dough when he’s pulled a little side action like you done. But in this instance, I’ve got instructions- from Felix, Frankie, Felix- instructions to let you tell your story. You follow?”

“She didn’t- ”

“I said, ‘You follow?’ ”

“Yes.”

“Good, Frank. Splendid. Now, for beginners. This stuff you stole, Frank. Who’d you pass it off to?”

“A contractor,” Frank said. “Some guy on the north shore of the river.”

“His name, Frank.”

“Lonnie, promise me. I’ll tell you everything. Just untie her. Let her walk on out of here. I got no grounds to ask, but I’m asking.”

“What was the contractor’s name, Frank?”

Frank lowered his head and began to sob quietly again. Dayball looked toward Tully and Tully walked over, clutched the rope binding Frank’s wrists and pulled straight up, lifting Frank from the ground. Frank screamed so terribly even Roy Akers looked away. Tully dropped Frank to the floor and kicked him till he lay face flat, at which point he put his boot to the back of his neck and applied weight.

Frank began to talk. The words came out in a choked and halting stream, he was confessing, confessing to God, to the Devil, to all the living and the dead. By the time he was finished, Shel was weeping softly along with him.

Dayball waited till Frank ran out of words. Studying him on the ground, pinned beneath Tully’s foot like a snared cat, he grunted pensively twice, blinking, then let loose with a long soft whistle of awed disbelief as the import of Frank’s confession hit home. Addressing the Akers brothers, he nodded to Shel and said, “Get her out of here.”

Leaving her wrists and ankles tied and grabbing her beneath the arms, Lyle and Roy lifted Shel from her chair and dragged her down the hallway to the guest room, where they dropped her onto the bed.

Lyle, eyeing her in a sudden heat, sat down close beside her. She kicked at him, caught him in the chest, his eyes flared but then Roy dragged him off from behind and pushed him toward the door.

“Now now,” Roy cracked. “You’ll make the cows jealous.”

Lyle spun around, flushed red. “Touch me again, fucker- ”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Roy muttered. “Moo.”

Lyle, seething, flexed his hands then turned on his heel and vanished. Roy followed him for a step, reaching the doorway, then pivoted around. Leaning on the door frame he said to Shel, “Don’t get your hopes up. You’re still gonna wish you’d been nice to me.”