Blacktop Wasteland(84)

“Hello?”

“You want the platinum? I got it. You come on down here. Just you and the boy with the scars and somebody to drive the van. It’s a little after two. I figure y’all can make it down here by five. After five, I drive the whole fucking thing into a lake,” a voice said.

“Is this the missing Mr. Beauregard? I thought Ronnie had this phone.”

“He don’t need it no more. I’ll text you the address,” Beauregard said.

Lazy chuckled. “Beau, I don’t think you get how this works. You don’t give me orders. You don’t tell me where to go or what to do. I do the telling, son. If I say bring me the van, you bring me the goddamn van. If I tell you to eat a shit sandwich, you eat the goddamn shit sandwich and ask for a glass of piss to wash it down. That’s how things work around here,” he said. He heard Beauregard breathing on the other end of the line.

“I don’t think you understand. You need this more than I do. And trust me, Lazy, you don’t want me coming up that way. You sent men to my house. Threatened my wife. They shot my baby boy. We meeting someplace neutral so we can be quits with this. I come there and I’m likely to kill everything I see. You want the address or not?” Beauregard said.

Lazy squeezed the phone. “Fine. Send it on, boy. We’ll have a little conversation when I see you,” he said.

“Five o’clock,” Beauregard said. The line went dead.

Lazy watched a narrow crack slither across the screen on his phone as he gripped it tight.



* * *



Beauregard closed the flip phone and set it on Boonie’s desk.

“He going for it?” Boonie asked.

“He ain’t got no choice. Shade is kicking his ass. He lost the jewelry store. He needs this,” Beauregard said.

“You think this gonna work?” Boonie asked. Beauregard rubbed his wide hands on his thighs. His legs were still sore from the fall. The pain made him wince but it also made him feel sharp.

“I gotta make it work,” Beauregard said.

He got up out of his chair. Boonie rose as well. He slipped from behind his desk and stood in front of Beauregard. A second passed, then another and another. The moment stretched on and on until it collapsed under the weight of its own tension. Boonie threw his arms around the bigger man and squeezed him tight. Beauregard squeezed him right back.

“It’s alright. Everything’s gonna be alright,” Boonie said.

“No matter what happens you make sure Kia and Ariel and the boys get what I left ’em,” Beauregard murmured againt Boonie’s cheek.

“Don’t you worry about that. Go handle your business, boy,” Boonie said.

He let go of Beauregard, stepped back and rubbed his eyes. Beauregard nodded then headed for the door. He opened it and paused for a moment. The afternoon sun carved an elongated shadow around him.

“I loved my Daddy. But you was a better father to me than he ever could have been,” he said. He stepped through the open door and closed it behind him.



* * *



Beauregard went to the hospital after he left Boonie’s. He headed straight for the ICU department. A tall, gaunt nurse with her chestnut brown hair pulled back into a severe bun was standing at the nurses’ station.

“Excuse me, what room is Darren Montage in?” he asked.

The nurse looked up from her clipboard. Her light green eyes were hard. “Only immediate family can see him, sir.”

“I’m … I’m his father.”

“Oh, I see. He’s in room 245. He can only have visitors for fifteen minutes,” she said. She returned to her clipboard.

Beauregard entered the room like the floor was made of lava. The pungent, antiseptic odor of the hospital was even more concentrated in the ICU. It was like the whole area was dipped in Lysol.

Darren was lying on his back in the middle of the bed. The head of the bed was slightly elevated, letting the overhead lights illuminate his face. It gave him an otherworldly countenance. Beauregard knew he was small. The last time they had taken him to the doctor for a checkup they said he was a bit undersized for his age. In the middle of the hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and machines, he looked positively miniscule. Like one of his action figures. Beauregard approached the bed. He took his son’s impossibly tiny hand. It was cool to the touch. The machines beeped and hissed like some Rube Goldberg contraption.

“I never wanted any of this for you. Or your brother or your sister. But I brought it to you. Somebody else might have pulled the trigger, but I did this. I gotta own that. I hope someday you’ll know how sorry I am. No matter how things go today, I don’t think I’m ever going to see you again, Stink. So, I wanna tell you I love you. A father who really loves his children doesn’t do anything to hurt them. He doesn’t put them in harm’s way. Not on purpose. He ain’t an outlaw or a gangsta. It done took me a long time to realize that,” Beauregard said.

He leaned over the railing and kissed Darren on his forehead.

“I’m never gonna hurt y’all again,” he said.



* * *



Ariel was trying on sunglasses when her phone rang. She checked it, didn’t recognize the number and hit end. It rang again a few seconds later. It was the same number. She groaned and answered it this time.