Joe Lansdale: Cold in July

At exactly seven o’clock, the video store closed and the Nova drove out, and behind it came the gray Vette with the thin, white-suited man driving it. I could see now that the Vette needed lots of body work. They turned the same direction onto the highway, with the Nova leading, and we fell in behind them, and on the other side of town the Vette honked at the Nova and veered off. The Nova didn’t honk back.

We followed the Nova across town and back to Freddy’s place. The Mexican was great with traffic. He handled the Chevy like a golf cart, weaving in and out of cars expertly.

They reached the subdivision where Freddy lived at five minutes to eight. We didn’t follow them in. We drove on past and turned around and drove home.

When we got back to Jim Bob’s place late that evening, Russel met me at the door with, “Your wife called.”

“Oh,” I said. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t want to talk to me, as you can imagine. Wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t had to. She asked you to call her after five.”

It was, of course, well after five then. I said, “Jim Bob, can I drive the Rambler to the store? I’d prefer to use the pay phone.”

Take the truck and use the goddamn air-conditioning. This heat has damn near made me sick. Hell, take the Red Bitch if you want.”

“The truck is fine.”

I drove over to the store and got some change and called Ann. She answered on the first ring.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Come home.”

“I can’t. Not quite yet.”

“You’ve got to.”

“Is Jordan okay?”

“He’s fine. It’s me that isn’t okay. Come home. Quit playing cops and robbers and come home.”

“This is serious, Ann.”

“All the more reason to come home. Haven’t you played this out enough? Who cares who you shot? He had it coming. As for it not being Freddy, that’s Russel’s problem.”

“We’ve been through this.”

“And you’ve had your fun. Come home.”

“Things have changed. It’s a lot worse than we thought.”

Silence.

“It’s seems that Freddy is into some really bad stuff.”

“What do you expect from an organized crime informer?”

“Really bad stuff, Ann.” And I told her all that we had found out and what Russel and Jim Bob were planning. “And I’m going to help them do it. I thought at first I was just going to go along for part of the ride, but I can’t. When I saw Freddy today, I knew I had to go all the way.”

“It’s not your place to do anything about it.”

“Whose place is it? The law? They won’t touch him. Not unless he gets totally out of hand, and even then as long as it’s Mexicans they won’t bother. They want to keep their reputation intact.”

“Then let Jim Bob and Russel do it. They want to do it and they know how. You’re not a gunfighter.”

“I can’t just let them do something like that and pretend I’m not part of it because I didn’t pull the trigger. I’ve got to go in there with them, back their play.”

“Back their play. Jesus, will you listen to yourself, Richard. Back their play. That’s gangster talk.”

“Westerns.”

“I don’t give a damn. It’s childish. It’s vigilante.”

“There’s nothing childish about it, unless you want to include the little whore he killed. She was childish. About fifteen, I think. Maybe younger. That’s a good age for him. He can trick them easier, less experience. Even if they are whores. And I don’t give a fuck if it’s vigilante. I’d be glad to let the law do it, but they don’t want to.”

“Richard. I love you. But I’m not going to sit around here and wonder if you’re dead in some ditch somewhere. You come home now, or don’t come home. When it’s over, if you’re okay you tell me, but you don’t come home. Ever.”

“Ann-”

She hung up.

· · ·

I drove back to Jim Bob’s, my stomach feeling like an empty pot. Maybe, like Russel, there was a hole in me and my soul was oozing out.

But I knew any attempt to talk myself out of what I was planning to do would be useless. This sense of honor I carried was a blind thing. It didn’t deal in common sense. It was made up of something I heard my dad say once, one of the few things I truly remembered about him. He said, you do what’s right because it’s right and you don’t need a reason.

Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

I wondered if dad was thinking that way when he put the gun in his mouth.

Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

I got back to Jim Bob’s feeling small enough to walk under a snail’s belly on stilts, and when I went inside, Jim Bob said, “Your wife’s on the phone. She sounds a little distressed. She’s been holding for you till you got back.”

“Thanks,” I said. I started for the phone. Jim Bob reached out and took me by the shoulder.

“Dane, you got a problem at home, you go home and take care of it. This ain’t your business. Not really. You’re a frame builder from LaBorde, Texas, not a shootist.”

“That’s what Ann says.”

I picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Richard,” Ann said, “I think you’re a big, dumb, foolish sonofabitch that’s seen too many John Wayne movies and read too many cowboy books, but I’ll be waiting. You do what you got to do, damnit. And please, please, be careful and don’t get yourself killed. Jordan and I love you.”

“Love you too,” I said.

When I hung up, I turned to Russel and Jim Bob. “I’m going to need a gun too,” I said. “I’m in. All the way.”

“Barring some unforeseen circumstance,” Jim Bob said, “I’m willing to bet Freddy’s routine stays pretty much the same, day in and day out. Off to work at six-thirty-five, back from work just before eight. Except maybe the weekends. But we’re not going to wait that long. We’re going to do it tomorrow.”

It was later that night and we were sitting at Jim Bob’s table drinking coffee and eating cookies. He’d had them all along, they were just well hidden.

“I want to give you one more chance to get out, Dane,” Jim Bob said.

“Take it,” Russel said. “You got what I wish I’d kept. A wife and a son and you’re a good father.”

“I’m not so sure about the good father part,” I said. “I always feel like I’m fucking up.”

“Comparing yourself to me,” he said, “you’re as good a father as they come.”

“You had nothing to do with Freddy turning out to be a monster,” I said.

“Once he was a little kid playing in the floor with a toy truck,” Russel said. “He was like any other kid then. There was no monster in him.”

“It’s all moot now,” Jim Bob said. “You in or out, Dane? Now’s the time to put your cards on the table. Be sure.”

“I said I was in, and I’m in.”

“All right. We keep it simple. No hiding out. That would just give us time to be seen by someone. We’ll take the truck. I’ll put the camper on it, and I’ve got some putty that looks like mud. I can dab that over the license plates so they can’t be made by some alert citizen. I’ve also got some light blue tape striping, and we’ll put that down the sides of the truck. And we’ll put a big hood ornament on it. When we get finished, after we do the job, I mean, we’ll come back here and get rid of the tape and the putty and the ornament, and we’ll take the camper off.”

“I know we’re going to kill them,” I said, “but what’s the plan? Do we drive by in the truck and start firing at them?”

“No. That ain’t certain enough,” Jim Bob said. “When they slow down to go up the little hump that leads into Freddy’s driveway, “we’ll be in motion. We’ll pull up at the curb and jump out and shoot at them through the windows. They won’t be in a good position to do much fighting back. It’s the perfect time.”