The Highway Kind(52)
Charlie got behind Dale and lifted him up by his underarms. “I want you to hit him a couple of times. We need to make this look like he put up a little bit of a fight.”
This might not have made sense to Lester if he’d thought about it, but Lester never questioned anything Charlie said so he hit Dale twice, very hard, in the face. Blood spattered from his nose and lips, and Lester cut his knuckle on one of Dale’s teeth.
Lester stood there, holding his sore knuckles and looking down. “Fuck,” he said, without a trace of stammer. Tears welled up in his eyes and he felt very much like vomiting. When he looked up, Charlie had Lester’s gun in Dale’s hand pointed straight at him. It took Lester a few moments to figure out what was going on. Lester tried to make eye contact with Charlie but he was staring at his chest without any hint of expression. Lester opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out but his last breath.
The shot rang loud, echoing down the river. It hit him straight in the heart and Lester fell over dead in the clearing. The gun dropped onto the ground and then Charlie dragged Dale to the edge of the cliff and hoisted him up and over. He heard a faint splash, then walked over to make sure Lester was dead.
Lester was lying there, his Willie Nelson T-shirt soaked in blood and a trickle coming out of his mouth. His eyes were staring straight up and Charlie turned him over. He pulled Lester’s wallet from his back pocket and took most of the money out of it, then put the wallet back. He put the oval key in Lester’s front pocket. He would miss Lester’s company but now wasn’t the moment to be getting sentimental. He would walk back to his house and in the morning call the police and report his car missing.
Charlie didn’t waste any time. The last thing he needed was for someone to see him out there. He took smokes and his personal effects out of the car, stuck the Thin Lizzy tape in his back pocket, and put the square key in the ignition. He knew it would seem strange for Lester to have stolen Charlie’s car like that, but the cops knew he had always been trouble and no one would want to pull Charlie any deeper into it than necessary. White-trash boys were always killing each other around here and with everyone neatly dead, there wouldn’t be too much paperwork, no messy trials or investigations.
Charlie began walking back toward town. It would take him a couple of hours and he would need to stay off of the main roads and not be seen. He would have plenty of time before the sun came up, and no one would discover the bodies until later the next day. If everything went smoothly, he could get home, get a little sleep, and report his car missing early the next morning. He often left the key in the ignition because no one would steal a piece of shit like Jimmy Ray anyways. He never locked his doors because he didn’t want anyone breaking his windows looking for drugs. The cops would just figure that Lester went a little crazy, took the car, robbed Dale and the Zippy Mart, and then it all went wrong and they killed each other. Charlie had never much been one for making plans or working things through in advance, but he’d always been able to think on his feet, and, so far at least, he’d always been able to get through whatever landed in his path. Some folks just survive, no matter what. As Charlie walked down the road, his mind cleared and it all seemed to make sense and he relaxed, knowing he wasn’t going to get into much trouble. This was all goddamned Lester’s fault anyway, as it was his dumb idea to put Dale in the trunk in the first place.
The walk was slow but peaceful. The night was dark and way too quiet but since it was now getting really late it was starting to cool down a little. The lack of moonlight made him less likely to be seen walking alone in the night. Every so often he’d hear a car coming or see headlights and he’d step off the road into some woods. He’d hear the whoosh of the car going by or maybe a song from the stereo blasting, then see the honeysuckle glowing red from the taillights. When the coast was clear, Charlie would step back onto the road and resume his walk.
It was still dark when Charlie got into town, the only light coming from a billboard for the latest wet/dry referendum that was coming up this fall. Every so often they would bring it up for another vote and the local churches would come out in force, buying up TV and billboard ads to make sure that legal sales weren’t allowed. The churches profited from this as tithes were always high during election season and it was easy to stir up the old folks with tales of all of the drunken debauchery that would ensue if liquor were ever legal there. The package stores and honky-tonks up at the Tennessee state line, or the Line, as everyone called it, would get into the action, donating tons of money to the bigger churches, as legal sales down there would wipe out their business. The bootleggers and the redneck mafia that controlled them would also get into the action, as everyone wanted to protect the status quo.
As Charlie got to his neighborhood, the sky was taking on the first glimmers of light and echoing with sounds of the morning birds. Charlie’s stomach was rumbling and he realized that he hadn’t really eaten anything since a late lunch the day before and now his buzz was diminished and fast being replaced with the first pangs of what would surely be a terrible hangover. It had been a long night and Charlie was pretty exhausted but wired from all of the excitement. His mind started playing tricks on him. What if Dale wasn’t really dead at all and was just unconscious from the carbon monoxide in the trunk? Maybe all of this was some kind of fever dream or overreaction. His mind was racing and he knew he needed a beer, maybe a joint, to try to turn it all down so he could get some shut-eye before having to deal with cops and questions. He always dreaded dealing with the police and had to make sure that he kept his story straight, but knew that it would all work out okay. They all thought he was some kind of hero. He knew how to be cool in the fire.