Joe Lansdale - Hyenas

“And now that driver is Brett, and your brother will be in the car too,” Leonard said.

“All right,” I said. “That doesn’t change much, it might make it easier, no armored car guys to worry with.”

“Yeah, it really doesn’t matter,” Leonard said. “But you showed some balls by telling us, by stepping farther away from that asshole Smoke Stack.”

“What will you do?” Donny asked.

“What Leonard said earlier. We’ll kill them all and shit on their graves.”

IT WAS STILL early in the day. My guess was they would keep Brett and Kelly alive until they were finished with the job. That would be their insurance until they didn’t need them anymore. I had to hold onto that idea. It was my only comfort. Still, it wouldn’t be long after the job was over that both Brett and Kelly would end up dead.

I called Marvin and told him the situation.

“So, how about I park somewhere where I can see them do the robbery. The asshole even told you the bank.”

“He thinks he’s untouchable.”

“I can be an eyewitness later. Say I saw them. Right after I shoot the living hell out of them.”

“Just be a witness,” I said. “Don’t get involved. Leonard and I will take care of them.”

“I know that,” Marvin said. “I never thought otherwise. But I can do my part.”

“Not for us you won’t,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything about it being for you and Leonard. It’s Brett I’m talking about.”

“And I appreciate it, but just watch what goes down so you can say you saw them there. If you see us, kind of forget that you did.”

“If they call me on the witness stand later and ask if I saw you two?”

“Lie under oath.”

“Certainly. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

WE MET MARVIN at a drive-through eatery about noon, had some coffee. I don’t remember if I drank mine or not. We were sitting in Marvin’s car. Leonard’s car was parked beside it. Donny was sitting with us.

“Donny, you stay with Marvin,” I said.

“You don’t have to worry about me running,” Donny said. “I want my brother back. I want you to get Brett back. She was right. I do get to choose.”

“Yeah, well,” Leonard said, “talk is cheap.”

“By the way,” I said, “in case you choose wrong, I’m not worrying about you running. Marvin will shoot you.”

“I will,” Marvin said. “A whole lot.”

“Maybe somebody ought to shoot me,” Donny said. It was a little dramatic, but right then I think he meant it.

Leonard raised his hand. “Who’s for it?”

“Right now you just stay out of trouble, Donny,” I said. “This kind of stuff is our business.”

“Yeah, like we don’t fuck up regularly,” Leonard said.

“Not this time,” I said.

“But they said for you not to come,” Donny said. “That if you did they’d kill her.”

“They’ll kill her anyway,” Marvin said. “So, it’s then or not at all.”

Leonard and I got in his car. We had put false license plates on it that morning, and we had a roll of false pin stripes to use. It was a stick-on thing you could remove easily, then wipe the sides of the car with some rubbing alcohol and it was like it had never been there. It was a little thing, but it was something that might throw an observer off.

Just to keep the disguise theme going, Leonard and I were going to wear hats.

Marvin was to drive to a spot across from the bank. A hotel parking lot. It would be quite a coincidence, him being at the hotel parking lot at the same time as the robbery, considering he’d turned in information about them earlier. Information that didn’t pan out. But, he planned to tell them the hotel had a hell of a catfish buffet, and that he liked to take it in now and again, just happened to be there when the whole thing went down. Donny being there might take a bit more explaining, but in the end, truthfully, I didn’t think it would matter. Not with what I had in mind.

We stopped in a lot behind a closed supermarket and got out and quickly put the pin stripes on the car. We put our hats on and drove to a place across the street from the bank. It used to be a mercantile store, but like most things downtown, it had gone the way of the dodo bird. From where we were, we could see the bank and we could see the hotel across the way. Marvin and Donny were parked in the lot.

The little mercantile lot was now a free parking lot, and it was full of cars. Mostly people who worked for the bank. We didn’t try to find a parking spot, we just drove to the rear of where all the cars were and pulled up there. As we sat, a police patrol car came by on the street between us and the bank. He didn’t look our way. Which was good. I had the .22 bolt action rifle in my lap; it held one shot at a time. In the back seat was a shotgun. We had pistols in the glove box. No land mines or golf clubs.

I opened the door quietly and got out of the car and looked over the roof, and over the roofs of the other cars in the lot. From there I had a clear shot.

I got back in the car.

I looked at my watch. 1:15.

I took a deep breath. Leonard said, “It’ll be all right.”

“It’ll be all right when it’s all right,” I said.

“We’ll get them.”

“He could have lied about the time,” I said. “He could have done that.”

“Yep,” Leonard said, “but I think he feels safe. The coward’s way is to be brave when he holds the cards. Not when he doesn’t.”

“I just hope I’m not the one to hurt her.”

“Hell, Hap, when was the last time you missed a shot?”

I tried not to remember when that was, tried not to imagine I could miss.

“Listen, brother,” Leonard said, “I can do the shooting for you. I’m not like you. You know, in Vietnam I killed a lot of men. The only ones I feel bad about are the ones I tried to kill, shot at and missed. I remember them better than the dead ones cause all I can think about is they may have gone on to kill one of us. I’m not like you. I don’t carry the burdens of popping off a bad guy. I can get closer somehow, and I can do it.”

“No you can’t. You’re an all right shot, but when it comes to this business I’m the one to do it. And it needs to be done from as much distance as the shot will allow.”

“You got me there.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

I never learned to love guns. Didn’t sit around and talk about how big a hole they can put in something and from how far. I didn’t need bigger, better, and more. I don’t enjoy the smell of gun oil, don’t even like cleaning them. I don’t know all the brand names and all the calibers and such.

But I can shoot a long rifle better than damn near anybody outside of a trained sniper, and I’m okay with a handgun if it’s not too extreme a shot. I just have a knack to aim at something and hit it. Put a long gun in my hands and I can normally put a shot up a gnat’s ass, and that’s without the gnat bending over and pointing to the target.

Right then, however, all I could think about was that I might miss. I had certainly missed before, but I didn’t want this to be one of those times.

Leonard knew what I was thinking. He often does.

“You won’t miss, Hap.”

We didn’t say another word. Just sat there and watched and listened to each other breathe. I paused once and looked in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. I should note I looked pretty cool in my hat, a brown fedora. Leonard didn’t look so sharp in his. He loved hats, but like I keep telling him, he isn’t a hat person. Every hat he wears looks like something left on a scarecrow.