Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

‘How long-distance?’

‘I dunno, thousand yards. Fifteen hundred.’

‘Oh.’

‘You got something like that?’

Sally purses her red lips and a smile glimmers behind her eyes. ‘What kind do you want?’

After a few minutes of discussion she decides she’ll lose a DPMS Panther.308. She sets it on the counter, beside a Remington 11–87 with a rifled barrel, and then gets out three boxes of ammunition and stacks them one on top of the other.

‘Are you shooting tonight?’

Ian shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘Tonight will require more intimacy than that.’

Sally smiles. ‘Well, then, I wish I could be there.’

‘No,’ Ian says, thinking of his plans for the evening. ‘I don’t think you do.’

Maggie sits at the foot of the dinner table. Across from her, at the head of the table, Henry sits hunched over his plate, fork gripped in his fist. Flint and Naomi sit side by side to her left. Beatrice to her right. They all have pieces of chicken on their plates and mounds of mashed potatoes from which slices of roasted garlic jut and piles of buttery peas. Maggie pokes at the peas with her fork, trying to only get them onto the leftmost prong. One by one she gets them onto the fork, lined up like a string of pearls. Once she has six of them skewered she sucks them off the fork one at a time.

With a mouthful of mashed potatoes Henry says, ‘I gotta tell you guys, we sure do appreciate your hospitality, don’t we, Bee?’

Beatrice nods, but keeps her head down and her eyes on her plate.

‘Not a problem,’ Flint says.

‘Well, it’s damn neighborly of you.’

Flint nods.

‘And this is a real fine meal. Fine meal, ma’am.’

‘Thank you,’ Naomi says, smiling slightly before picking up a glass of Coke with cubes of ice floating in it and taking a drink. The ice clinks against the glass.

‘No,’ Henry says, ‘thank you .’ He picks up a chicken leg and sucks the skin off it. It flaps against his chin, smearing grease on it, before it vanishes into his mouth. Then he takes off a piece of meat and chews.

‘Flint made the rub for the chicken.’

‘Damn fine, Flint,’ Henry says through a mouthful.

‘I saw your tire swing,’ Maggie says.

‘Hush up, Sarah.’

‘Kids are allowed to talk at my dinner table, Henry,’ Flint says.

The two men stare at one another for a long moment, but when Henry says nothing, Flint turns to her and smiles. ‘What was that, Sarah?’

‘I saw your tire swing.’

‘Yeah?’

She nods. ‘Did you. .’ she licks her lips, ‘did it come with the house?’

‘No, we have a six-year-old.’

‘Is he in bed?’

‘Spending the week at his grandparents’.’

‘Oh.’ She goes back to poking at her peas for a moment, and then looks up again. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Samuel.’

‘That’s a nice name.’

‘Thanks,’ Flint says. ‘It’s Naomi’s dad’s name.’

‘Six years old?’ Henry says.

‘Yeah,’ Flint says coldly.

‘Naomi’s a little young to have a six-year-old, ain’t she?’

‘Naomi’s twenty-eight, Henry, not that it’s any of your business.’ He sets his fork down beside his plate. ‘You reckon you guys’ll be leaving right after dinner?’

Henry takes another bite from his chicken leg, chews slowly, swallows. Then he sets it down on his plate and picks up a napkin from his lap and wipes his face off with it and then his hands. He sets the napkin down on his plate.

‘Well, no,’ he says finally. ‘I don’t guess we will be leaving right after dinner.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Why, you fart or something?’

Maggie looks from Henry to Flint, and though neither man has said anything precisely confrontational, and though neither of them has used a tone that suggests anything but pleasantness, she can feel that something is happening: the temperature in the room has changed: the weather’s gone bad. It makes her stomach feel tight and her appetite has vanished. She looks at the two men to see what will happen next while simultaneously dreading it.

Flint sucks at an eye tooth. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I been awful generous with you and your family, Henry.’

‘I know it.’

‘Let me finish.’

Henry extends an arm and bows his head slightly. ‘You may.’

‘I know I may. It’s my goddamn house.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting your panties in a bunch about, Flint. I know it’s your house. Go ahead and say what you gotta say.’

Flints hits the table with the flat of his hand and while Maggie, Beatrice, and Naomi all jump at the sound Henry does not. Flint exhales heavily through his nostrils, closes his eyes for the length of a breath, and then opens them again. He looks at Henry.

‘I been generous with you and your family, Henry,’ he says, ‘but truth is, I just ain’t comfortable with you guys staying the night. You get on the interstate and drive west another fifteen, twenty miles you’ll come across a perfectly nice motel where I’m sure they’ll be happy to put you up. If you leave after dinner you can get there before bedtime, no problem.’

‘Well, if it was just a matter of sleeping quarters that might be okay, but it ain’t just a matter of sleeping quarters. There’s more to it than that.’

‘We’ve been plenty hospitable. Whatever more there is to it ain’t my problem.’

‘Unfortunately, Flint, it is your problem.’ Henry reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a roll, thumbs a round tablet into his mouth, and chews. ‘I’m making it your problem.’ He tongues at a molar.

‘You’re making it my problem?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘You know what,’ Flint says, taking his napkin from his lap and throwing it to the table, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna wait for y’all to finish up. I’m asking you to leave right now.’

‘Now, honey,’ Naomi says.

Flint doesn’t even glance toward Naomi. His eyes stay locked on Henry. ‘I’m asking you to leave,’ he says again.

‘Well, shit,’ Henry says, smiling, ‘you’re feisty.’

When for a moment Henry does nothing Maggie hopes, despite what she knows of him and his temper like a loaded gun, that he will remain calm. He won’t do anything crazy. He’ll stand and walk to the door and call for Maggie and Beatrice. He’ll open the door and they’ll walk through it. They’ll all head out and Flint will slam and lock the door behind them. They’ll get in Henry’s truck and drive away. That could happen. There’s no reason for it to go any other direction.

But as Henry gets to his feet it does go another direction. He grabs a steak knife from the tablecloth where a moment before it lay beside his plate and lunges at Flint.

Maggie slides down her chair and hides beneath the table. She puts her hands over her ears, but that does not block the sound of Naomi’s scream. She closes her eyes, but not before she sees blood splatter to the floor.

‘Well, shit,’ Henry says, smiling, ‘you’re feisty.’

His stomach is a tight knot of hatred, and despite the antacid he just ate he can feel bile burning the back of his throat. He tried to play the smiling fool for this son of a bitch, but the man saw through him, same as the cops did earlier. The cops had already seen past the facade-some doors can’t be closed-but Flint, well, maybe he didn’t try very hard with Flint. There was no reason to, really, not when he knew he’d have to kill him. He thought he’d kill Flint and Naomi while they was sleeping, but it’s come to it a little sooner than that. He needs their vehicle and he’s not leaving without it, and if they’re dead they can’t report it missing.