Desperation Road(62)

“Eres un rata!” she yelled. “Un rata!”

He hurried into the car and cranked it and quickly turned around. She marched toward him as he backed up and then when he pulled forward she stomped along the driveway, raising her arms and yelling in the trailing dust with a watchdog tenacity.

She chased him along the gravel road until he was onto the highway and out of sight and then she turned and waved at Maben, who was watching from the window.





42


AFTER THEY RETURNED WITH THE FRESH BAIT RUSSELL LEFT THEM to it and he got in his truck and headed to his house. He sat now on the front steps and held Sarah’s ring in his fingertips. Held it up to the sun and watched the tiny spots of light dance inside the diamond. Then he stuck the ring back into the pocket where he had kept it since Sarah had given it back. Inside he took a beer from the refrigerator and he sat down on the sofa and stared at the blank television screen. He picked up the remote but before he had the chance to turn on the television a car pulled into the driveway. He stood and looked out the window and he saw Boyd walking toward the front door. Goddamn it, he said. Russell opened the door and then he sat again on the sofa and waited.

Boyd plopped down in a chair at the end of the sofa. Didn’t say anything. Looked at the television. Looked at Russell. Russell didn’t look at him. Sipped on his beer and waited for what was next.

“Rode out to your daddy’s a little bit ago. That woman’s quite the barracuda.”

“I don’t know nothing about that.”

“Well. She is.”

“Good for Mitchell.”

“Yep.”

“That it?”

“No. It ain’t. I talked to Caroline,” Boyd said. He leaned forward and dangled his hands between his knees.

Russell nodded. Remained fixed on the blank television.

“Said you was over there, all right.”

Russell picked up the remote from the sofa cushion and set it on his knee.

“Said it was Thursday night. Didn’t say nothing about the night you told me. Said you left out in the middle of the night when you were there.”

“How else do you think I could ride up on your little accident?”

Russell set his beer down on the floor between his feet. Turned and stared at Boyd, who stared back. He seemed to have become more serious. Less old buddy and more lawman.

“You’re not saying the right things.”

“You come over here to arrest me, Boyd? That it?”

“I came over here to tell you what she said.”

“So. You told me.”

“And now I’m gonna ask you again. Where were you Saturday night?”

“Don’t matter what I tell you. You got a big idea.”

Boyd shook his head. “I got a wife and a family and a house. And when I get back to the office I’m gonna tell the sheriff what Caroline told me. What you told me. How it don’t add up. That’s what I do and that’s what I’ve been doing and that’s how it’s gonna keep on being. Call it a big idea. Call it whatever. I’m trying to let you talk to me without talking to nobody else but you ain’t making it easy.”

“I was here. Asleep.”

“No. We already been there.”

“I told you I was around. That means I finally had to lay down somewhere. Just because you didn’t see me in my bed don’t mean I wasn’t in it.”

“Next morning you wasn’t here.”

“Read the paper, Boyd. Paper said you don’t have a gun. If you don’t have a gun I might as well have been sitting on the hood of the cruiser when you got there.”

“There’s ways of getting there.”

“Then take me down. Arrest me,” Russell said and he held out his wrists.

“I don’t know why you got to make this hard.”

“I’m not making it hard. I’m home and I didn’t do nothing and you and your buddies can move in here for all I care. Might as well blame it on Babe fucking Ruth if you’re gonna blame it on me cause neither one of us did it.”

Boyd sat back and slapped his hands on his thighs. “You remember that girl’s name who was out there the night of the wreck?”

“What?”

“The girl who was out there with Larry’s brother that night.”

“No, Boyd. I don’t. I didn’t get any love letters from her.”

Boyd propped his hands on his hips. He wanted to walk over to Russell and hit him on the side of the head but instead he said don’t lie to me no more on his way out the door.


Russell waited until Boyd disappeared and then he got in the truck and drove downtown to the station. He bought a bus ticket that would take her as far north as Memphis if she wanted. No ticket for the child.

He left the station and he walked a few blocks to the café and sat down at the counter with his back to the tables. He stuck the bus ticket in his back pocket and reached over and took an ashtray from a couple of seats away and he lit a cigarette. A woman with glasses on the end of her nose came out of the kitchen and over to him and asked what he wanted. Without looking at the menu he asked for whatever the special was and some coffee. He smoked and drank his coffee and listened to the clatter of the kitchen coming from behind the swinging door. Merle Haggard played on a clock radio sitting next to the cash register. The café door opened, followed by the voices of children and a father calling for them to slow down before they knocked something over. It was the voices of boys and then the shrill of a girl and then a threat from the father and Russell turned and looked over his shoulder and saw the twins climbing into a booth and their smaller sister following them. Then Sarah sat down facing them in the booth and her husband took a high chair from a stack of high chairs against the wall and he put the little girl in it as she protested that she was big enough to sit with the boys. Russell tried not to look too long but he couldn’t help it and before he could turn his head around Sarah looked over and noticed him there. Her eyes went from him down to the table and then over to the boys and her husband sat down on the seat beside her and again told the twins to settle down.