Percival Everett - Assumption

Ogden drove over to the Bickers house. Jenny Bickers’s little car was parked out front. He pulled up behind it. He looked at the glove box where his pistol was locked up, but left it there. He walked to the porch, opened the door, and stepped inside. Jenny sat in front of the gas stove.

“Wow,” Ogden said. “You drove up in this mess just to collect a few things?”

“Weather wasn’t so bad when I left.”

Ogden looked back into the house, at the kitchen, at the closed bedroom door.

“Did you find out anything? Do I have oil on that land? Gold?” She laughed.

Ogden took off his coat and sat on the sofa. “You’re good,” he said. “You’re very good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Where’s my mother?”

“What are you talking about?”

Ogden stood and looked back into the house.

“You had me fooled.”

“What?”

“You can cut the act, Jenny, or whatever your name is. You told me your grandmother raised you. Emma Bickers’s mother died when she was a child.”

“Simon!” Jenny Bickers called out.

Ogden looked to see the bedroom door swing open. His mother walked out into the hall. He then saw a.22 semiautomatic pistol in Jenny’s hand. Behind his mother was the man from the used-car lot in Albuquerque.

Ogden stared at his mother’s terrified face, tried to let her know that everything was going to be okay. “You all right, Ma?”

“She’s all right,” the man said.

Ogden turned to Jenny Bickers. “All of this was so I’d do your investigating for you,” Ogden said.

“Where’s your gun?” she asked him.

“It’s in my truck.” He held his hands away from his body and turned around. “I think I do have what you want.”

“Give it to me and I’ll tell you,” Jenny said.

“Let my mother go.”

“You give me what I want?”

“He doesn’t have it,” Simon said.

“I hid it,” Ogden said.

“He doesn’t even know what it is,” Simon said.

“I know there’s no coffee in it,” Ogden said.

“Where is it?” Jenny said.

“I told you, I hid it.”

“Well, let’s go find it,” Jenny said. “Simon will wait here with your mother.”

“My mother goes where I go.”

“Okay, we all go,” Jenny said. “But don’t misunderstand, I’ll kill her and you, too.”

“Untie her,” Ogden said.

“Don’t get stupid.”

“At least let me put my coat over her. She’s freezing.”

Jenny nodded and Simon took a step back. Ogden saw for the first time the.357 he held. Ogden put his jacket around his mother. She coughed and he told her to hang on.

Ogden drove Jenny Bickers’s car. Jenny sat in the back with Ogden’s mother.

“So, what are those numbers?” Ogden asked.

“Shut up and drive,” Jenny said.

“Account numbers? A lot of accounts. What was Emma, treasurer? Club secretary?”

“Just get me the list.”

“How are we going to do this?” Ogden asked.

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Why don’t you let drop my mother someplace, a friend’s house, the hospital, the police station.”

“Just drive.”

Ogden parked in front of his mother’s house.

“You hid it here?” Jenny said.

“It’s been here the whole time. I found it the first day. Didn’t know what it was.”

“Simon, you go in with him.”

Simon nudged his pistol into Ogden’s ribs.

“Don’t do that,” Ogden said.

“Go,” Simon said.

Ogden led the way through the front door into the house. Simon left the door open.

“I think I put it in the desk drawer over here,” Ogden said. He moved to open the drawer.

“Back off,” Simon said. Simon opened the drawer and looked inside. “Where is it?”

Ogden leaned over to look. “Shit, I left it there. I put it right there. I’m sure I did.”

“You’d better stop fucking with me.”

“I don’t know where it is.”

“Get back outside. I ought to shoot you right now.”

“I’m sure I can find it.”

“Outside.”

Ogden walked back to the car. The snow swirled. Simon went to the rear window. He froze. Ogden removed the pistol from his hand. Warren Fragua came out through the back door.

“Where’s my mother?” Ogden asked.

“She’s in my car,” Fragua said.

“Bickers?”

“In the trunk.”

“Nice,” Ogden said.

There was a flash in the swirling white. Ogden responded to a loud noise, pointed the pistol in front of him, but couldn’t see anything. He then saw that Fragua was on the ground. Snow was falling onto the blood he was leaving on the ground. There was another shot and Simon was down, not moving. Ogden knelt down beside Fragua, still trying to find the shooter.

“Toss the pistol over the car,” a man said.

Ogden looked to find Howell, the FBI agent, standing over him. Ogden threw the gun away.

“I’ll take that list,” Howell said.

“What list?”

Howell kicked Ogden in his stomach, then again. “Don’t fuck with me, boy.”

Ogden lay against a rear tire. He looked at Fragua, watched as he blew snow away from his face. He looked up through the blizzard at Howell. There was another report and a flash. Ogden closed his eyes, thinking he’d been shot. He opened his eyes and saw Howell sprawled out on the ground. Clement was standing over him.

“Aren’t you going to kick me, too?” Ogden asked.

“No, Deputy, I’m not going to kick you. It’s over.”

“Thank god.” Ogden crawled over to Fragua. “Warren? Talk to me. Don’t pass out.”

“Next time you call, I’m staying home.”

“Good idea. Good idea.”

Ogden Walker looked out the tinted window of his little bullet-shaped trailer and tried to wake up fully. The shadows of the sage were still long and a few rangy rabbits were milling about. It was going to be a hot day and the bunnies were finding all they could eat before they had to seek shelter from the sun. Ogden wished he could have known what the weather would be by looking at the sky or by a smell on the wind or by noticing the behavior of hawks or ants, but instead he knew because the radio had told him. At least he knew how to switch on a radio. “Another hot one,” the crazy, joke-telling disc jockey had said, then added, “Chili tonight, hot tamale,” then howled with laughter before playing a novelty version of “Tea for Two,” a song that seemed already a novelty. He showered, dressed, and drank his morning tea-for-one while he sat on the wooden step outside his front and only door. He tossed the last of the drink out onto the ground, put his mug on the step by the door, and walked over and fell in behind the wheel of his rig. The county and the sheriff’s department had chosen to maintain its modest fleet of late-seventies Ford Broncos instead of buying new vehicles. At twenty years old, his truck still functioned moderately well and handled the ice and snow of winter especially well. The engine was a little temperamental in the summer. This hot morning it took a couple of key turns and a pumped gas pedal before the motor cranked over.

Ogden drove into Plata and parked in a diagonal space in front of the office. When he stepped inside he was greeted by the lanky desk officer, Felton.

“Good morning,” Ogden said.

“You’re half right,” Felton said.

“Late night?”

“I wish. My neighbor decided to go and get herself some peacocks.” He looked at Ogden. “You ever heard a peacock?”

Ogden shook his head.

“It’s a sound from hell. Sounds like somebody put a cat in a washing machine. She has six of them.”

Ogden tried to imagine it. “Sorry.”