Joe Lansdale: Cold in July

To the best of my memory the shotgun was broken down and was in the garage storage cabinet in the original box with oilcans and tools in front of it. I told myself I would get it out of the box when I got home and load it, put it under my bed, but in the end, I was certain I would feel silly with it there because nothing was going to come of my mental cowboy movie. Russel would lose interest in his dead son, as he had probably had little interest in him when he was alive, and he would go away and things would return to normal.

But when I pulled up in our drive and Ann and Jordan pulled in behind me, the fear and uncertainty returned. Even with the bars and the alarms, or perhaps because I had to have them, I knew I might never feel safe in that house again. And I was more certain of this when I went ahead of them with my key in hand ready to unlock the door.

It was cracked open about three inches already.

I turned and scooped Jordan up with one arm and grabbed Ann’s elbow with the other and directed them back to Ann’s car.

“Get in,” I said.

“Richard?”

“We just got here, Daddy.”

“Get behind the wheel, Ann. The front door is unlocked and open.”

She gave me a strange look, then turned and opened the car door. I put Jordan inside and Ann climbed in behind the wheel.

“Get to the Ferguson’s and call the police. Ask for Price.”

“Come with us,” Ann said.

“Git.”

I closed the door and walked back toward the house. I listened for the sound of the car’s engine behind me, hoping my hardheaded wife would do as I asked, and finally I heard it crank and heard the familiar sound of tires on the gravel drive, heading toward the road.

I didn’t go through the front door, but went around the side of the house, trying to be quiet about it, though I figured that wasn’t necessary. If he was in there, he had heard us drive up and probably knew I had stayed and sent them away.

I knelt down and dug out of the sand an old two-by-four that had been there for the longest time, since the carpenters expanded our garage, and tested its strength against my palm. It was still solid enough to crack a skull. I moved around to the rear of the house, expecting any moment that the bastard would jump me. I wondered what in hell I was doing, and why I hadn’t gone with Ann and Jordan, but in truth I knew the answer to that. The sonofabitch had me mad and there was too much macho Texas culture in my blood in spite of myself. The sonofabitch had offended me and my family and I wanted to get hold of him and use the board on his head until my arm got tired and I had to switch to the other hand.

A part of me knew there wasn’t much point to what I was doing. It was stupid. Russel had already proved he could handle me, and I didn’t imagine the board amounted to much in my favor. He might even have a gun, like his son.

When I got around back I was going to use the key, but the door was open here too. T he grill and the alarm had n’t done a damn thing to stop him.

I cocked the board back and stepped inside. The air-conditioning hit me like a blue norther, and the sunlight had been so harsh outside, my vision was affected. Standing there, half-blind, I felt as if I had put my balls in a vise and was waiting for someone to turn the crank.

But nothing happened. My eyes adjusted and I saw the living room was empty and so was what I could see of the kitchen. I checked out the rest of the kitchen and went out in the enclosed garage and found the shotgun. I had remembered wrong. It was put together. The shells were with it. I loaded it and went looking through the rest of the house. I looked Jordan’s room over extra hard. No one was under the bed or in the closet or hiding behind a Mickey Mouse curtain.

I tried the hall bathroom, half expecting, half hoping, Russel would come out from behind the shower curtain after me. I wanted an excuse to kill him. It wasn’t that I had acquired a taste for blood, but right then I was a little crazy and I just wanted to end things between him and me, and I wanted the end to be final.

Using the barrel of the shotgun, I swept the curtain back, but he wasn’t waiting for me in the tub. I went on into the master bedroom.

On the bed was the shoe box that had been in the closet and had held the gun the night of the burglary. Price still had the gun, but there had been some shells in the box, and they had been poured onto the bed and the shoe box had been ripped to shreds.

Jordan’s favorite teddy bear lay there among the pieces.

“It doesn’t take a fucking mental giant to know he’s been here,” I said.

We were in the kitchen, at the table. The police had escorted Ann and Jordan home. Jordan was in the living room watching a Casper the Friendly Ghost videotape, and the uniform cops and detectives were going over the house like starving mice looking for crumbs. So far all they had was a torn shoe box and some. 38 shells he might have touched. But I doubted he’d been that stupid. The guy was a pro. You could tell that from the way he’d handled the locks and alarms.

“We know someone has been here,” Price said. “We don’t know it was Russel.”

Ann looked at Price. “Are you for real? I guess it was Goldilocks. There’s a bear and a bed involved and if you guys can find a broken chair and some spilled porridge, you can wrap this case right up.”

“Price,” I said, “you know as well as I do that it was Russel. He found that shoe box with the cartridges and the gun oil stain and he put two and two together. He tore that box up and put Jordan’s teddy bear on our bed as a threat. He was just showing us he can get in and get to Jordan anytime he wants.”

“You’re right, I think it’s Russel, but I can’t prove it. Since I do suspect him, we can have tabs put on him and we can watch your house. I can get official protection without any problem now. But he may be too clever for anything that obvious and we might be able to surprise him.”

“Are you suggesting something?”

“We could put some obvious protection around the house for a couple of days, then pretend to be satisfied that things are normal and withdraw it-or seem to. Your son would have to start back to school then, and you and Mrs. Dane would have to return to work. Then, when he makes his move, we’ll be waiting.”

I looked at Ann. She got up and went over to the kitchen sink and looked out the window. I followed and put my arm around her waist.

“What do we do, Ann?”

She continued to look out the window. Finally she said, “Let’s nail the bastard.”

The uniform cop they left with us was built like an industrial water heater and was a decorated Vietnam vet and a black belt in jujitsu. He was ugly too. I don’t know why, but that kisser of his made me feel better. He didn’t look like the sort to worry about his native good looks if it came down to serious business, and I figured it would take someone like him to handle Russel, even if Russel was in the ballpark of sixty years or so.

The cop’s name was Kevin and they put him in a chair in the hallway, then the rest of them went outside to make their watch. The plan was simple. They would do this obvious watch for a couple of days. Not laying in the yard or anything, but staying in the woods behind the house, and patrolling regularly, posting a man in the ditch that ran to the far right of our property. They would not be overly sloppy about it, but they’d do things in such a way that if an old pro like Russel were around, he’d spot them. Then, when the couple of days were passed, they would leave. Except Kevin. He would remain in the house, having never revealed himself to the outside; he would remain and wait. Close surveillance would be maintained where we worked and where Jordan went to school. Police officers in unmarked cars would be waiting to follow us in the mornings at a safe distance and in the afternoons when we returned. Weekends, police would be hidden in the woods surrounding the house, only this time with the intent of not being seen. “Very organized, and very safe,” Price said.