Matthew Jones - A Single Shot

“How’s John Moon getting on?”

“You ain’t said your name.”

“Sorry, John. Daggard Pitt. Thought you recognized my voice.”

“What d’you want?”

“I have those papers ready for you to sign.”

“Did we talk ’bout this?”

“You’re not agreeing to anything. We’re just protecting your rights. Remember?”

John’s not sure if he hears an engine’s whine down the road. He can’t see through the fog beyond a hundred yards.

“Is it convenient for you to stop in this afternoon, John?”

“It ain’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“I can’t make it.”

“Maybe you’ve got another matter you want to discuss?”

“What?”

“Other than the divorce, I mean.”

“What matter?”

“I hope I’m not stepping over the line, John. It’s just that I know lately you’ve been under a lot of pressure and, well—I hear things.” The lawyer pants breathily. “I’d hate to see your whole life get ruined because of a mistake or two.” Suddenly John’s pulse goes ballistic. He feels it rapping like a snare drum against his temple. “And it wouldn’t be just your life, John.”

“What?”

“There’s the boy to think of. Nolan…”

“He ain’t in this!”

“Of course he’s in it, John. He’s your son.”

“You leave my family out of it!”

“I’m sorry I’ve angered you, John, but I’d be less than honest if I didn’t tell you that, for me, your family has always been very much in it. Very much so.” Pitt coughs anemically. Down the road, the whine gets louder. The phone is trembling in John’s hand. “Most problems aren’t as big as they first seem, John. The thing is to deal with them before people get backed into corners.”

“What people?”

The lawyer exhales doggily. “Well, the law for one…”

“The law!”

“I’d hate to think…”

“Who are you whoring for now, Pitt?”

“John?”

“Tell the bastards stay way from my wife and kid or they’ll never get what they want!”

John slams down the phone. Down the road, above the engine’s increased drone, the fog radiates yellow. A vehicle slowly takes shape in the thinning mist, then, two hundred feet below the trailer, a black-and-white county sheriff’s car emerges above the treeline.

Dolan’s wearing mirrored sunglasses, though there’s no sun. He spits on the grass driveway, where John has met him, then strides forward and slaps a folded paper into his hand. “You been legal served.”

John glances down at the paper without reading it.

“The judge don’t want ya around her no more. Your kid, neither. First time I hear of it, I’ll slap the cuffs on ya.”

John starts tapping the paper rapidly against his forehead. He can’t think quick enough to keep up with the images in his head. His thoughts swim in a consciousness dark as mud. Dolan points at the .45 in his belt.

“You got a license for that, Moon?”

John steps toward him. “She’s loaded too, Ralph.”

“Is that some kind of threat?”

“You just come from there?”

“Where?”

“Pitt’s?”

“Who?”

“My fucking lawyer, crook!”

“Why would I?”

“Who give ya this, then?”

“I’m an officer of the court, Moon.”

“That who sent ya here?”

“Who the hell else?”

“I tried to talk my kid and some guy answered the phone.” Taking a step forward, John puts his mouth six inches from Dolan’s. “I don’t s’pose you or Pitt know ’bout that or ’bout the fuckin’ rock through my window!”

Backing against the car, Dolan puts a hand on his holster. John slaps the hand away. “What the hell are you talking about, Moon?”

“I don’t feel good.”

“What?”

“I see shit everywhere.”

“You’re jumpy as a bug, Moon.” Again he puts his hand on his holster. Again John slaps it away. “Just calm down.”

“I’m tryin’ to figure out why you’re here. You want me to hand the package o’er you! Is that it?”

Dolan gets his hand on his holster a third time and starts fumbling with the strap. John knocks his sunglasses off. Dolan gives up on the strap to grab the glasses. He shoves them into his pocket.

“Where’s my wife and kid, Ralph?”

Dolan tries to slide out around John. His lips are working, but nothing’s coming out.

“I’m holdin’ you ’countable.”

“Wha?”

“They ain’t better be a hair touched on their heads!” John uses his chest to pin Dolan to the side of the car.

“I’m just serving a court order, Moon.”

John backs up, turns around, and walks into the trailer.

The village is still heavily shrouded in haze when he arrives at the municipal parking lot. He wanders like a ghost in that soup down Main Street to Puffy’s, enters through the front door, nods at Puffer, who seems not to have moved in the preceding three days, sits down opposite the fat proprietor at the counter, and of Carla demands, “Coffee.”

“ ’Bout the other night,” she says, trying to hand him a menu, which John lets drop on the counter. “Moira weren’t aware…”

“Where’s she at?”

“She don’t work this morning.”

John raises his eyes at her.

“Said somethin’ ’bout going out of town.”

“Where to?”

Carla shrugs.

“How ’bout Nolan?”

“With them, I’d guess.”

“Them?”

“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout it.”

“I’m askin’.”

“Not the right person, you ain’t.”

“I guess you know your boyfriend’s a psycho.”

She pours coffee into a cup, puts it down in front of him, then heads into the dining room. Smoke hovers below the ceiling like fog oozing through the vents. Voices drone like static. John gulps down half his coffee. The whole world feels to him like a whisper, with him stone-deaf. Someone drops a plate in the kitchen. Puffy rolls his thick head at the sound. Carla walks back up the aisle from the dining room. Spinning round, John catches her by the arm. “You as dumb as you act?”

“Mitts off, John.”

“Where’s he at?”

“Why?”

“We got business.”

“Then I guess he knows where to find ya.”

John gives her arm a squeeze.

“Hey!”

“What’s goin’ on, John?” Puffy’s smoke-raggedy voice floats quietly across the counter. John glances at him, but doesn’t answer. The pharmacist, Leonard Pine, walks in and sits down two stools from John. John grimaces menacingly at him. Pine gets up and moves to a booth. Carla tries to pull her arm free. John pinches it harder. Puffy says, “How can I help?”

“It’s up to her,” says John.

Puffer casually blows smoke Carla’s way.

“I don’t even know what he wants.”

“I’d as soon break your arm,” whispers John.

“If he’s got a question, Carla,” Puffer says, crunching out his cigarette and slowly pulling another from the pack in his shirt pocket, “why not give him an answer?”

“I ain’t got the one he’s wantin’.”

“Try, though,” says Puffer.

“ ’Bliged to ya, fat man,” says Carla. “You’re a real prince.”

Puffer ignites the fresh cigarette, drags on it, then, folding his hands on the counter, lets it dangle from one corner of his mouth while exhaling twin lines of smoke through his nose. “Leonard Pine sets over there in a booth ’stead of at the counter where he has for ten years waitin’ for his coffee to drink and a menu to read.”

“Coffee black, eggs over easy, rye toast with grape jelly!” Carla barks into the kitchen. “ ’Kay, Puffy?”

“Had a pretty young thing in here the other day wants to waitress,” Puffy rasps barely above a whisper. “Had tits the size of cantaloupes. I told her leave her number.”