Joe Lansdale: Waltz of Shadows

“What if you get your brains scrambled?” Arnold said. “What’s the story we tell then?”

“That’s your problem,” Price said, “and an even bigger reason you need to watch my back. You may have me in the bag, but in another way, I’m your ticket out of the station. I tell a lie, it’s got more weight than if you tell a lie. And I know who to lie to and in what way.”

“Admirable talent,” I said.

Price rode with us in the boat over?to the drug dealer’s house so we could tell Tim and Bev the score. We decided we didn’t have to keep where we were a secret from him anymore. He liked the house, but thought it could use a tennis court. He met Tim, Bev and the kids. It wasn’t a friendly meet, just business. Poot growled at him and wouldn’t come close. The kids were polite and went off to play with Poot in the far end of the house. Virgil fixed Price a sandwich and poured him a glass of milk. We told Tim and Bev the score.

About two o’clock Price made a brief phone call to Doc. When he finished talking, he reached into his blue jean jacket pocket and produced a small bundle of wires, a microphone, and a head set. He placed the stuff on the kitchen table. “Only thing I don’t like about my plan,” he said, “is we’re gonna need that goddamn dog of yours, Virgil.”

“That’s my dog,” Tim said.

“Not to worry,” Virgil said. “Poot can work with anybody. He doesn’t take lack of character into account. That’s why he hangs out with me and Tim.”

“Well, whistle him up,” Price said.

Tim called Poot and the kids came with him. I sent the kids off to play without the dog, and Tim put Poot on the kitchen table. Virgil and Tim wired the dog, burying the wire deep in his voluminous fur.

When Poot was wired, Virgil took Poot in a back room. Tim laid the headset on the kitchen counter so we could all hear it. Virgil was saying: “…and now Poot’s licking my balls, and now I’m licking Poot’s balls…”

It wasn’t a two way, so I yelled down the hall, “Okay, Virgil.”

Virgil came back with Poot bouncing at his heels.

“Tell the truth,” Tim said to Virgil, “Poot wasn’t really licking your balls, was he?”

“All right,” Price said. “Remember, we go by the plan I’m gonna lay out. Strictly. Someone fucks up, they’re dead. This isn’t capture the flag.”

“After we kill them,” Virgil said. “Can we take their money?”

“Make jokes later,” Price said. “It’ll be more amusing then. You sure this dog will stick by you?”

“You’ve seen him operate,” Virgil said.

“Okay then,” Price said, “it’s time.”

Bev and I walked back to our bedroom for a moment and said the best we could say to each other. We had already said what we had to say, and now it was better not to say too much. I kissed her goodbye. It was a good kiss. She said, “Come back,” as if I were going off to the store for milk.

“I plan to,” I said.

I went down the hall and told the kids I was going out for awhile. I hoped that was true. I hugged and kissed them. I thought about what Fat Boy and Snake had done to children like them, what they had tried to do to my family, what they had done to Bill, and I hugged them again.

“Daddy,” Sammy said, “is something wrong?”

“Yes,” I said. “But it won’t be long. You don’t have to worry about it. Help Mommy.”

I sent them back to their play, and I went back down the hall. They were fighting over something before I’d gone ten feet.

I passed Tim in the living room. He was watching a golf game on TV. I gave him a nod. He gave me a little two finger salute and turned back to watch a blond guy in a striped shirt slice one into the trees.

I looked around the house as if it were my house and I cared about it. I took my. 38 automatic out from under my shirt and removed the clip and put the clip in a kitchen drawer and the gun in a cabinet next to a box of Quaker Oat Meal. I wouldn’t need it. Price was supplying.

I went outside and joined the others and walked down to the boat. We got to the other side far too quickly. I looked at my watch.

Three o’clock.

We went out to Price’s car and leaned against it. Poot found a tree to piss on. He wasn’t one to miss a chance. Price went over the plan a couple of times. It was a simple plan. When he was finished, he said, “Tell me the plan, Hank.”

“Before we arrive, you get in the trunk,” I said. “Me and Arnold will cut through the woods, come up on the side. We’ll have the listening equipment. When it looks and sounds right, we ease up and do it. We try not to shoot each other. We try to shoot and kill the people not on our side.”

“That’s good,” Price said. “Virgil?”

“When you’re in the trunk, I drive your car like it’s my car,” Virgil said. “The Doc will sit up front with me. We get there, I get out of the car with Poot and keep him by me so the microphone will pick up the talk, and Arnold and Hank will know what’s happening. I act friendly. I carry things as far as I can until everyone is in place. It gets time to do it, I drop down and you pop out of the trunk blazing. Arnold and Hank start shooting.”

“What happens if you get hustled inside before everyone’s in place?” Price asked.

“I can most likely kiss my ass goodbye,” Virgil said.

“Worse than that,” Price said. “You’ll fuck up the plan.”

“Question,” Arnold asked Price. “What the fuck good you gonna be in the trunk of your car? We might as well give the spare tire a gun. Who’s going to let you out? You can’t ride along holding the hatch down.”

“Come here,” Price said.

We followed him to the back of his car. He unlocked and lifted the trunk. The trunk had a twist handle on the inside. In the bed of the trunk was a small cardboard box containing several handguns, beside the box was a rifle and a shotgun.

“I had this fixed up this way for a similar escapade,” Price said. “Nobody got shot that time, but it let me sneak up where I wasn’t expected. It helped me to get a promotion in LaBorde. Locked in or not, I twist the handle, I’m out of the trunk. There’s an extra sheet of heavy metal inside the lid too, in case someone tries to shoot th?s to shorough it. It won’t stop big stuff, but it’ll keep a bee out of your bonnet. It’s got an amplifier of a sort built into it, just under the back bumper. I can hear what’s being said if anyone’s within ten or twelve feet of the car. Farther, if they’ve got a big mouth.”

“Does it do smoke screens and oil slicks?” Virgil asked.

“No,” Price said, “but I catch you just right, I can run over you with the tires.”

“Another question,” I said. “What about the Doc?”

“He knows what to do,” Price said.

Price lifted the box of handguns out of the trunk and put it on the ground. He lifted out the rifle and gave it to me. He got a snub nose. 38 Smith and Wesson revolver with a clip-on holster out of the box and gave me that too. He said, “Can you shoot?”

“I used to be able to shoot,” I said. “I haven’t shot at anything in years.”

“This afternoon,” Price said, “you come out of retirement.”

I clipped the revolver on under the tail of my shirt and turned the rifle over in my hands. It was a fairly standard varmint gun. A Marlin 30-30 with a scope. Lever action. Recoil would be minimal to nonexistent. I had killed deer with the same kind of rifle.

Price gave me some ammunition to go with it. He gave Arnold the shotgun-a 12 gauge Remington pump-a box of slugs, and a. 38 Smith and Wesson in a clip-on holster.

He got a. 45 automatic out of the box and put it in the trunk and closed the lid. He put a. 38 Smith and Wesson in his jacket pocket. He stuck a couple of. 45 clips and a handful of. 38 shells in his pocket with the. 38. The box was empty.