Denis Johnson - Nobody Move

Sally collapsed beside the mound and lay on his hip, breathing hard and running his fingers over the churned

earth. “When was the last time you talked to him?” he asked Luntz. “What day?”

“Me?”

“What was the last thing he said to you?”

“I don’t know. You were there. He asked me how many hot dogs I wanted.”

“No, no, man — something that meant something.”

Luntz tried to remember. He stood up and rubbed at the muscles of his back, below the ribs. “He told me I’ve gotten quiet, and he said he liked it.”

“Yeah.” Sally laid his hand on the grave and got to one knee.

“Sally, hand me that shovel.”

“It’s called a spade.”

Sally extended the spade’s handle, and Luntz took it in both hands and said, “I can subtract, Sally,” and hit him with the flat of it as hard as he could.

Sally clutched the side of his head with both hands and fell backward with his calves under him.

Luntz said, “Who told Juarez where I was?”

Sally scurried on his back like a spider, hopping, scrabbling, the blows missing, Luntz swinging anyway—“Who told Juarez — Who told Juarez — Who told Juarez?”—until Luntz’s strength died, and he stopped swinging. To keep upright he leaned on the shovel. “It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t her. So it was you. And how did you know I shot Gambol? Juarez told you, that’s how.”

Sally had rolled onto his side. “That Indian bitch told me.”

“Bullshit.”

Sally got to his hands and knees and tried to rise and gave up. He was weeping and spitting out blood. “This is Friday, Friday, Friday.”

“So what?”

“It was set up for

tomorrow

night.”

“They don’t come on the night they say.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because there’s always a snitch. Like you.”

Sally crawled as far as the grave and put his hands on the pickaxe as if he were talking to it. “I just wanted to get us

out

of here. It doesn’t have to be Alhambra.”

“So you snitched to Juarez. You made a deal, is that it? And look at the shit we’re in.”

“LA — fuck, I don’t care—

East

LA. Fine, I’ll live in a trailer that smells like socks. Just put it in a

city

.”

“Well,” Luntz said, “you sure got Jay out.”

Sally stood upright on the grave and whirled like an eerie batter at home plate, and Luntz watched the pickaxe drifting toward him until the top of the crescent struck him in the belly. He doubled, sat on his ass, and said, “What?” as the back of his head hit the ground. Sally leapt onto him and straddled Luntz’s midriff and got his fingers tight around Luntz’s throat and locked his arms straight, and Luntz felt him bearing down. Luntz’s vision turned a

brilliant brown, then a mellow purple, then a beautiful color he’d never seen before in which he had everything he needed and all the time in the world to decide what came next. He gripped the wrists of the hands choking him and removed the hands as easily as if he were taking off a sports jacket and held them out at arm’s length while Sally breathed and Sally’s spit dripped down into his face. Luntz’s body took in great breaths of air, but Luntz himself was somewhere else without any need of air. Sally struggled backward, trying to get loose of Luntz’s grip. Luntz released him.

He heard the truck’s door open and close. Luntz got up slowly but without any effort. Sally came toward him with the shotgun. Luntz watched him with only peace in his heart.

“It isn’t loaded.”

“Want to bet?” Sally’s head and shoulders whipped like a dancer’s — klick-

ack

!—and he directed the gun at Luntz.

“How much?”

“Fucking Luntz. You’ll bet on anything.”

As Luntz walked toward Sally, he heard the tiny click of hammer on pin in the empty gun.

Sally handed the weapon over and Luntz tossed it into the truck through the window and got in and turned the engine over and cut on the headlights.

“I can’t walk from here!”

“It’s downhill all the way.”

Sally stood in the headlights with his hand raised before his eyes. Luntz backed the truck up slowly to a spot where he could turn it around, and left him.

Luntz thought they’d taken the only road in, but now he came to a fork and without slowing down took the way that looked less rutted, and soon another fork, and now he had no idea where he was. Somewhere between himself and the river he’d find the main road, that’s all he knew. As long as he didn’t get turned around entirely, he was all right. He looked at his watch — it was scabbed with soil and clotted blood. He spat and polished it against his pants leg. The dial said 4:00 a.m., but its face was smashed.

The morning was bright and he’d seen miles of dirt byways before he found the paved one and turned downhill toward the restaurant.

Mary’s cell phone started beeping, and Gambol opened his eyes and said, “Fuck him,” and when it stopped beeping he and Mary went back to sleep, and when it beeped again he reached over for it and found the button and said, “Fuck you.”

Juarez said, “You didn’t call.”

“How did you like the moon?”

“What moon?”

“Did you see the moon last night?”

“I’m in Alhambra. There’s no moon. Did you accomplish a certain errand?”

“Accomplish? On what information? Fucked-up information.”

“You’re saying no. Things aren’t complete.”

“No. Just maybe the other guy.”

“The person with the lady’s name.”

“Right. I never found any stairs. Where were the stairs?”

“Okay. New plan. Don’t look back.”

“No. Where were the fucking stairs?”

“It’s in the past. We move on. We take care of this another way.”

Gambol said, “I never found any stairs,” and tossed the phone against the wall across the bedroom. Beside him, Mary stirred but seemed to be asleep. Probably pretending. Gambol closed his eyes.

He dreamed he was skiing down a slope stark naked before a crowd of sideliners, freezing cold but with a large, friendly hard-on. When he woke he found he’d thrown the covers off, and he was still cold, and his large friend was still with him.

He pulled off his boxers with one hand and gripped Mary’s shoulder with the other, and as he nuzzled his groin against the backs of her thighs she turned his way with her eyes closed, and she smiled.

“The last twenty-four hours have been nothing but fucked,” he told her as she opened her eyes. “The next twenty-four hours start right now.”

Something came at Anita in the darkness, maybe the headlight of a train, but it was only the door to the waking world. As she drifted toward the door, it banged open. Jimmy stood framed in it, pointing a shotgun at her.

Lying on her back on the bed, she pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her thoughts dragged behind, and even as she stared at him she said, “Who’s there?”

He shut the door and locked it. “Where were you?”

She tried to remember.

He threw the shotgun onto the bed and lifted his duffel bag from the floor and slammed it down beside her. “Where have you been since Wednesday?”

“Down by the Feather River.”

“The Feather River’s right out the back door.”

“A different part. My part.”

“For two days? Three days?”

He started snatching red cylinders from the duffel and slipping them into the shotgun.

She managed to swing her legs around and get her feet on the floor. “Please don’t do that.”

“It’s empty.”

“Then leave it empty.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be in a room with you and me and a loaded gun.”