James Burke - Feast Day of Fools

“Can you hear me, little fellow?” Jack called out. “Let’s fix a cup of tea and have a chat. Did you ever read And Quiet Flows the Don ? It was written by a guy named Sholokoff. Are y’all related?”

There was no reply from the devastated interior of the house. Jack felt a terrible thirst but did not want to set down the Thompson to pour himself a glass of water. “It’s pretty quiet downstairs, Josef. I have a feeling Frank lost out to Sheriff Holland and his deputy. What do you think?”

In the silence, he walked across the linoleum, bits of glass and china crackling under the soles of his cowboy boots. “I checked the upstairs and the attic, but you weren’t there. That means you’ve got yourself scrunched under the floor or up a chimney. I cain’t think of any other possibility. Unless you’ve already hauled ass. No, I would have seen you. Tell me, do y’all have a volunteer fire department in these parts?”

Jack lifted the Thompson to a vertical position and gazed at the ceiling and then out the window. He went through a mudroom onto the back porch and opened the screen door and looked up at the window in the attic area and at a roof below the window. The roof was peaked, and Jack could not see on the far side of it. However, if anyone ran from the house, he would not find cover except in the barn, the cornfield, or the pecan orchard, where the flatbed truck and Jack’s Ford Explorer were parked.

“Josef, I think you might have outsmarted me,” Jack said to the wind. He walked to the hallway door that opened onto the cellar stairs. “You down there, Mr. Holland?”

“What do you want, Collins?” the sheriff’s voice replied.

“You sound like you might have sprung a leak.”

“We’ve got several dead people down here. You can join them in case you’re having any bright ideas,” the sheriff said.

“You never give me any credit, Sheriff. What have I done to you that’s so bad?”

“Tried to kill me and my chief deputy?” the sheriff said.

“Y’all dealt the play on that one. Regardless, I think I squared the deal when I dug up that young fellow Bevins from his grave out in the desert.”

“You’re talking too much, Collins. That’s the sign of either a guilty or a frightened man.”

“It’s Mr. Collins. What does it take for you to use formal address? In the civilized world, men do not refer to one another by their last names. Is that totally lost on you, Sheriff? If it is, I’ve sorely misjudged you. I’m coming down.”

“We need medical help, Mr. Collins.”

“Every one of the locals is on a pad for Sholokoff. They’d have you and your friends in a wood chipper by sunset.”

Jack stepped into the doorway, silhouetting against the hallway light, then began walking down the stairs, his eyes trying to adjust to the gloom. His left hand was on the stair rail, his right holding the Thompson at an upward angle. Then he saw the Asian woman and the man named Krill and the sheriff and his chief deputy. “Looks like y’all got shot up proper,” he said.

The sheriff had stood up but was bracing himself against a wood post, the heel of his hand pressed into his side. “Where’s Sholokoff?” he asked.

Jack didn’t answer. He crossed the cellar and scraped back the metal door to the outside stairwell and walked up the concrete steps into the rain and gazed at the yard and the barn and the pecan orchard and the cornfield, then at the roof that traversed the area under the attic window. He stepped back into the cellar, rainwater running off the brim of his hat.

“You planning on taking me out, Mr. Holland?” he said.

“Could be.”

“But you won’t.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“You won’t gun me unless I give you cause.”

“What brought you to that conclusion?” the sheriff said.

“Your father was a history professor and a congressman. You were born with the burden of gentility, Sheriff: You either obey the restraints that are imposed on a gentleman or you accept the role of a hypocrite. The great gift of being born white trash is that no matter what you do, it’s always a step up.”

“You’re referring to yourself, Mr. Collins?”

“I’d wager I have more education than anybody in this room, but I never spent a complete year in a schoolhouse. What do you think about that?”

“I don’t,” the sheriff replied.

Jack ignored the slight and glanced out the cellar window at the yard and the barn and the pecan orchard. Then he took a bottle of burgundy from a shattered crate and broke the neck off against the wall. The glass was black and thick and had a red wax seal on the label. He poured from the bottom of the broken bottle into his mouth, as though using a cup, not touching the sharp edges. “You want one?” he asked.

“I don’t drink,” the sheriff said.

“You ought to start. In my opinion, it’d be an improvement. Who popped the two guys by the stairs?”

“I did,” the Asian woman said. She was sitting on a wood chair, the Airweight. 38 in her lap, strands of her hair hanging straight down in her face. “You have something to say about it?”

“You decide you’re not a pacifist anymore?”

“You murdered nine innocent girls, Mr. Collins,” she replied. “I don’t think you have the right to look down your nose at me or anybody else.”

“If you ask me, your true colors are out, Ms. Ling. You’re a self-hating feminist who tries to infect others with her poison. I’ve been entirely too generous in my estimation and treatment of your gender. The serpent didn’t make Adam eat the apple. Your progenitor did. You’re the seed of our undoing, and I won’t put up with any more of your insolence.”

“I warned you once before about addressing me in that fashion,” she said.

“Mr. Collins?” the sheriff said softly.

“Enough of you, Sheriff,” Jack said, his eyes burning into the woman’s face, his hand flexing on the pistol grip of the Thompson.

“Ease up on the batter,” the sheriff said.

“I said you stay out of this.”

“We all fought the good fight, didn’t we?” the sheriff said. “I appreciate the help you gave us. I appreciate your saving the life of my deputy R. C. Bevins. No one here should judge you, sir.”

“You should have stayed in politics.”

“I am in politics. I hold an elective office. How about it, partner?” the sheriff said. “A time comes when you have to lay down your sword and shield.”

Jack could feel the fingers of his right hand tightening on the pistol grip and the Thompson’s trigger. The rain was sliding down the cellar window and swirling through the door that opened onto the outside stairwell. Inside the steady drumming of the rain and the coldness seeping into his back, he realized the mistake he had just made and the price he would pay for his anger and pride.

He had forgotten about the chief deputy, the one called Pam Tibbs. In spite of her wounds, she had eased her. 357 Magnum from her holster and stepped behind him and pointed the muzzle into a spot one inch above his hairline. He heard her cock the hammer into place.

“Put your weapon on the floor,” she said.

“What if I don’t?” he said.

“I’ll cut all your motors,” she replied.

“Do as she asks, Jack,” the sheriff said.

“He already has,” Pam said, ripping the Thompson from Jack’s grasp with her bad arm. A surge of pain twisted her mouth out of shape, and she let the Thompson clatter to the floor.

“Y’all don’t know who your friends are,” Jack said. “I’m fixing to torch the place and fry Josef’s bacon. He’s hiding up there on the roof someplace. If it hadn’t been for me, your heads would be on a pike.”

“You’re done. Get out,” Pam said.