Victor Gischler - The Pistol Poets

Both men stretched in opposite directions, gritted teeth, grunted.

DelPrego got to his knees, readied himself before letting go of the ankle. He grabbed the ashtray, turned, and leapt back on Mummy-man, who had the shotgun in his hand. DelPrego crashed into Mummy-man hard, pinned the shotgun against his chest. DelPrego landed a knee into the Mummy’s gut, heard air burst out of him. He raised himself, the ashtray high over his head. He brought it down hard.

It smacked hard into the Mummy’s forehead. Mummy-man jerked.

“Fuck you, King Tut.” DelPrego hit him again.

Mummy-man went slack, sank into the shag. DelPrego sat on him, chest heaving, sweat. He shook. His hands especially trembled out of control. He dropped the ashtray, fell off of Mummy-man’s body, and lay on the carpet, sucking for breath. Another dead guy. He’d bashed in another guy’s head. For the second time DelPrego was a killer. No. Three times. He’d killed the guy with his shotgun when the drug deal had gone bad. But somehow that had been different. Not up close like when you bash a man’s skull into jelly.

He stood, knees like water. He’d need to think what to do. He had his truck keys, so he wouldn’t have to flee on foot. He ran back to his bedroom, found the stash of 280 dollars he’d been saving for an absolutely life-and-death emergency situation. This qualified. He grabbed a knapsack, filled it with two changes of clothes (four changes of underwear) and his father’s Purple Heart from Vietnam. He left the knapsack on the bed and went to put on his shoes.

The sight of Mummy-man’s loose-limbed body disturbed DelPrego. Maybe he should do something with the body, hide it somehow. Or maybe just the thought of the dead man in plain sight on his shag carpet gave DelPrego the willies. He didn’t want to think of himself as the kind of man who’d bash a guy’s skull in, then just leave the body lying around. He bent over the Mummy, grabbed him by the jacket lapels. Touched his chest.

Breathing.

DelPrego gasped, put the palm of his hand over the guy’s heart. It beat. Crazy, relieved giggling bubbled up in DelPrego’s throat, spilled out of his mouth. Mummy-man was alive, his breathing seemed regular, normal. Of course, he hadn’t hit him that hard, not enough to kill him. Mummy-man had only been knocked cold. DelPrego didn’t know why he was so happy. The son of a bitch had been waiting to blow a giant hole in him with a shotgun.

DelPrego shook his head. He was glad he hadn’t killed the guy. He didn’t want the memory, didn’t want to see the man’s mummy face haunting him in his dreams. He already got chills whenever he thought about the man he’d killed with the golf club.

DelPrego grabbed Mummy-man under the arms, dragged him into the little bathroom. He dumped him into the tub, made sure he was faceup and could breathe okay. He’d need something to tie the guy up. All DelPrego wanted was a head start.

DelPrego heard a car door slam. He froze.

He rushed to the window, peeked through the blinds. It was the other one. Shit. The face seemed familiar. He tried to remember. It came to him slowly like a grainy movie slipping into focus. Holy fucking shit. The guy from the drug deal. That fucking redneck who’d tried to steal Jenks’s coke. And while DelPrego had stood gawking, the guy had reached the front door. Shit shit shit.

The shotgun! Too late. DelPrego had left it in the living room.

Think, dumbass!

He looked at the Mummy-man in the tub.

Moses Duncan was halfway to get food when Red Zach had called him on the cell phone. He’d said to forget about watching the trailer. Get back to the farm quick. Change of plan.

Right. Sure. For the thousandth time Duncan thought about cutting loose, hitting the road. On the one hand, he did stand to make a lot of cash working for Red Zach. On the other hand, the thought of Red Zach moving into the old farmhouse, setting up shop like it was a goddamn Motel Six, probably had Daddy spinning in his grave. So Duncan was going to bite his tongue and bide his time. Someday, in a month or a year or ten, he’d have the last laugh on these coons.

Duncan tried the front door. Locked. He knocked. No answer.

“Come on, Eddie. It’s me.” Nothing.

“Hell. Now what?” He banged on the door louder, shook the trailer.

Duncan sighed and walked around behind the trailer. The back door was open, and he went inside. “Eddie?”

Duncan heard a flush. The bathroom door creaked open. Eddie came out, tugging at his face bandages.

“What’s up?” Duncan asked. “Stitches itching again?”

Eddie nodded.

“Get your shit together. We’ll eat later. The coon squad wants us back home.” He tossed Eddie the car keys and picked up the shotgun. “I got the twelve-gauge. Your turn to drive.”

Eddie stared at him, didn’t move.

“Don’t just stand there, dummy. Come on.”

“Mmmph. Mmmm,” Eddie said.

“What?”

“Mmmmph Mmmmm Mmmmph.”

“Your tongue must be swelled up or something,” Duncan said. “Suddenly I can’t understand a damn thing you’re saying.”

The ride back from Houston was uneventful and unhappy.

Reams’s anger at Jay Morgan was of the slow, brooding variety. Morgan realized the professor had gone to some trouble to arrange the morning job interview, but Morgan had simply not given a rat’s ass. The police had kept him until nine in the morning.

Dirk Jakes’s anger at Jay Morgan was more of the ranting and raving variety. Jakes’s brand-new Mercedes had been “stolen” according to the story Morgan gave the police. But more than anything, Jakes seemed hurt and angry that he hadn’t been invited to the titty bar when Morgan had “borrowed” the Mercedes for his midnight drive.

All in all, Morgan was damn unpopular for the duration of the cramped ride back in the Geo Metro, the only rental available on short notice. They made it back into Fumbee late Sunday night, and Reams dropped him off without a word.

For all Morgan cared, Jakes and Reams could go fuck themselves. With corncobs. He had no energy left for apology. The night and early morning with the police had left him wrung out. He couldn’t tell them the real story without it leading back to Annie Walsh. He’d tried to keep it simple. After the titty bar, he’d gone, so he claimed, to the beach for some air so he could sober up. A bunch of Mexicans had beat him up and thrown him in the water, then taken the Mercedes.

“We found the car ten minutes ago,” a big detective had told Morgan.

Morgan had shrugged. “Those crazy Mexicans.”

“What about your shoes?” one cop had asked.

“I wanted to walk in the sand.”

“Then shouldn’t you have taken off your socks too?”

“I told you,” Morgan had said. “I was drunk.”

Morgan had claimed the whole incident had happened about a mile down the coast and away from the pier. The situation seemed impossible and hopeless. Nobody had mentioned a body. Morgan had watched the car go down. There’d been no sign of the man.

Perhaps Morgan should flee the country. A former colleague made good money teaching English in Asia. Morgan had seen the job listings before. English teachers needed in Japan and South Korea.

But that would take time to arrange. Surely recent events would catch up and overwhelm him before then. At least he was home. For a while, the world could wait. He went to bed, slept like a cold, dead stone.

Monday morning he went to Albatross Hall. He was five minutes late for his poetry workshop. He noticed three empty chairs in a row, didn’t have to think too hard about it. Ellis, Lancaster, and DelPrego.

“Has anyone seen our missing comrades?” He gestured at the empty seats.