John Sandford: Mad River

The windows were new, made of wood, some dark color that they couldn’t make out but that still smelled faintly of the paint. The house was old, and wood, and carefully preserved with its antique hardware, because the O’Learys were that kind of people, concerned with historical preservation. At the back of the house, Jimmy stopped at a window that was a little higher than the rest, and a little smaller. The blade went deep into the crack between the window and the sill and it lifted as though greased.

Becky, surprised by the ease of it, said, “Whoa.”

“I ain’t to be involved in anything but diamonds and cash, and gold rings,” Tom said, in a hoarse whisper that was way too loud.

“Shut the fuck up,” Becky said.

“Both of you shut up,” Jimmy said. “Give me a boost.”

Tom made a stirrup with his hands. Jimmy disappeared through the window headfirst and found himself on a kitchen counter. The kitchen was not quite dark, with bare illumination coming from a variety of LEDs on the refrigerator, stove, clock, coffeemaker, and dishwasher and a hard-wired telephone. The granite counter was slick under the cotton gloves, but solid, and he levered himself the rest of the way through the window, to his knees, and then cautiously lowered himself to the wood floor. The kitchen smelled of stew meat; he stood in the dark for a moment, letting his eyes adjust. When he could see again, he leaned across the counter and whispered, “Back door,” then made his way to the back door and unlatched it.

Becky and Tom, waiting there, followed him into the house.

Jimmy had a flashlight he’d brought from the car, but didn’t need it yet, as the streetlight shone through the lacy curtains over the front windows into the dining room, and the front room on the other side of the center hall. The light threw bent shadows of armchairs across the soft thick carpet underfoot, and Becky noticed that the smell of the place had changed, from food to floor wax and fabric. The staircase going up to the bedrooms was on the other side of the front room. As they were crossing it, a grandfather clock struck two, soft gongs from a bell that shocked all three of them, Jimmy dropping into a fighter’s stance, Tom and Becky freezing.

Jimmy breathed, “Shit,” and Becky giggled.

Tom said, “Just the diamonds now.”

Jimmy waved a hand, hushing him, and they began climbing the carpeted staircase, feeling with their feet the slightly worn area at the center of each tread. In front of the window at the landing, Jimmy took the pistol out of his belt and continued up. The pistol was an old.38 Smith amp; Wesson Hand Ejector, Military amp; Police, with a six-inch barrel, once a good gun, but now a corroded piece of shit; and the only gun they had.

Jimmy turned to the front of the house. The carpet had ended with the stairs, and he was on a wooden floor now, and it creaked under their weight as they made their way down the hall. There was a door at the end, which couldn’t be anything but a bedroom, and as he came up, he saw a darker edge, and realized that the door was open just a bit.

And then he heard a female voice, in an urgent half-whisper, half-cry.

“Ag, Ag, get up. There’s somebody in the house.”

“You’re dreaming,” another voice said. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, Ag, there’s somebody in the house.” Then, louder, “Is that you, Jack? Are you messing with us?”

Ag. That would be Agatha O’Leary.

Jimmy pushed open the bedroom door, into a rush of girl-smell, perfume and powder and clean bedclothes. He put his flashlight up, next to the barrel of his gun, clicked it on. There were two beds, side by side, a girl sitting up in one, the other still lying flat, eyes open but sleepy, now widening quickly.

“It ain’t Jack,” Jimmy said quietly. “You two keep your traps shut. We’re only here to do a little stealing. You scream, you’re dead.”

“Jesus, God, please, Jack!” It was a little girl’s voice, with nothing behind it.

“I told you, it ain’t Jack. Now shut up. Are you Ag?”

Tom said, “Let’s get out of here.”

The larger of the two girls, the sleepy one, rose out of her bed and shouted, “Get out of here. Get. .!”

Jimmy reached out with the flashlight and cracked her across the head, and she went down.

Mary said, “Please, please, don’t hurt us.” She reached toward the girl on the floor. “Oh, my God, Ag. .”

Tom said, “It’s gone wrong, let’s get out of here,” and he turned and ran, pounding down the hallway to the stairs.

Becky said, urgently, to Jimmy, “I hear somebody.”

Jimmy said, “Shit,” looked down at Ag, who’d gotten to her knees. He could have changed his mind then, and everything that came after would have been different. He hesitated, then pointed the gun at Ag’s head and pulled the trigger.

The Smith flashed in the dark, Ag went down, and Jimmy ran after the others.

Tom and Becky had already gone through the front door, which stood open to the streetlight, and as Jimmy crossed the front porch he heard the other sister scream, “Mama! Mama! He killed Ag, he killed Ag.”

The three of them ran across the lawn and across the street in the still night, another block, then across Dannon Avenue and down the hill, through the park, following a gravel track barely visible as a dark thread in the moonlight, then heard the first of the sirens, another block in another thirty seconds, across White Street, running hard, single file, into the parking lot, into the Firebird. Jimmy jammed the key in the ignition and turned it, and nothing happened.

Nothing at all. “Motherfucker,” he groaned. The car started about half the time. Given a few minutes, he might have gotten it started. Now, half-panicked, he said, “Come on, come on. .”

At that moment, Emmett Williams walked out of the side door of the apartment complex and, absently whistling an unrecognizable tune, strolled down the side of the building to the street, where he’d parked his brother-in-law’s Dodge Charger.

Tom said, “Somebody’s coming.”

Jimmy tried the ignition again. Nothing. He’d put the gun back in his pocket, but now he pulled it out again, said, “Come on.”

Williams was walking away from them. He pointed the ignition key at the Charger, pushed a button, and the car’s light flashed back at him; the last light he’d see. Jimmy was leading the line of runners, and he ran straight at Williams and when Williams looked up, the pistol flashed again, from six feet, and Williams went down, and Jimmy dragged him around the front of the car and dumped his body on the grass next to the sidewalk, turned toward the car, turned back, took Williams’s wallet out of his back pocket. Becky piled into the passenger seat and Tom in the back. Jimmy took the wheel, and five minutes later they were headed out of town.

“Where’re we going?” Becky asked.

“Get the fuck far away from here,” Jimmy said. “Rest up, figure out what to do. Maybe head for LA, if we can get a car.”

“That girl back there, is she hurt bad?” Tom asked.

“She’s dead,” Jimmy said. “She should be dead, anyway. If she ain’t dead, I’ll go back and shoot the bitch again.”

Tom looked out the back window and said, “I think the black guy is dead too.”

Jimmy said, “Yeah?” He reached out and turned on the radio, and the satellite came up, Outlaw Country, Travis Tritt singing “Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Ain’t this some fuckin’ car?” Jimmy asked. “Ain’t this a ride?”

Virgil Flowers was standing under a streetlight outside the Rooster Coop in Mankato, Minnesota, at the mouth of a long cobblestone alley that led down toward a curl in the Minnesota River. He was talking to Cornelius Cooper, the proprietor of the place, about who, exactly, was the best country singer in America, at that very moment.