A Tree Born Crooked Read online

  What James didn’t know, though, was that in the midst of Rabbit’s continual calls to Birdie Mae, he had dialed another number. James had already called Delmore’s cell phone and left a message, but Rabbit tried him again. This time, someone picked up. It was a brief sound, a clicking on and off from the other end, but someone had definitely answered before quickly hanging up. Rabbit thought about telling James, but went back to calling Birdie instead. Finally, he had let his cell phone rest and tried to join in on the conversation between James and Marlena.

  “But what if they never was going after Waylon in the first place? Supposing that was just a plan to distract us?”

  James took another puff on his cigarette and pulled a tiny piece of tobacco off his tongue.

  “From what? Look, as far as I know, these guys are after just one thing: the money. Unless they got some kinda problem with our family you’ve neglected to tell me about.”

  Rabbit thought about it a second.

  “No, none that I can think of. I don’t think Mama knew none of them people that Delmore hung ‘round with.”

  Rabbit had pressed himself so far into the space between the front seats that he was practically sitting in-between Marlena and James. Marlena stubbed her cigarette into the foldout ashtray.

  “Well, why would they go after your mama’s place?”

  Rabbit shook his head.

  “I don’t know. To get at me and Delmore? Maybe it was some kinda warning?”

  James picked up his cell phone and stared again at the blank screen. He finally threw it down onto the floorboard and turned to Rabbit.

  “No, you’re missing the point. It’s gotta be all about the money. Maybe they got to Waylon and he didn’t have it and now they think that we actually had it all along. We just don’t know. The only thing that really matters is the question that we’ve been trying to answer this whole damn trip: where that bag of cash is.”

  Rabbit shrugged his shoulders.

  “I told you before that I don’t got it and I don’t know where it is. Didn’t we just have this talk, like, yesterday? It don’t change none in the course of twenty-four hours. Anyway, I thought we had all agreed that Waylon took the money. Why are we even still talking ’bout this?”

  James turned back around and looked out the windshield.

  “This changes things.”

  “It don’t necessarily got to none. You know, now that I think ‘bout it, we don’t even know that Mama’s place getting hit has anything to do with us. It coulda just been some kids getting their rocks off. Mama didn’t say nothing on the phone ‘bout what happened or who done it. Maybe we’re just jumping to conclusions.”

  Marlena rolled her eyes.

  “You really believe this was just a coincidence?”

  “Well, I just don’t see how it changes things none. Your daddy’s got the money. They told us we was off the hook. We don’t know nothing different.”

  James watched Marlena’s grip on the steering wheel tighten, but she didn’t say anything. He cracked his window and flicked his cigarette out.

  “And we won’t, until we get there.”

  They drove to the sound of the wind whistling through James’ window and a woman on the public radio station reminding them repeatedly that the pledge drive had only five thousand more dollars to go. The three were quiet for about fifteen minutes before it started all over again: the same unanswerable questions and circular reasoning that led to empty conclusions and strained emotions. James watched the asphalt rushing toward them and tried to quell the dread building up inside of him. Whatever lay in wait for them in Crystal Springs, James was sure that the outcome was not going to be good.

  FOURTEEN

  Even the parking lot smelled like sour orange juice, left to bloat inside its cardboard container on the kitchen counter. Patches of thick, orange slime, branded by tire tracks, spilled out from the store’s glass front doors. Marlena carefully parked the Jeep between two wooden fruit displays that had been dragged out from the cover of the store’s overhanging roof and smashed. No matter where they stepped, orange peel and pulpy guts clung to their boots. James paused to glance around the parking lot before they entered. Both he and Marlena were armed, but Rabbit ran heedlessly ahead of them.

  The inside of the Citrus Shop smelled even worse than the outside. It reeked of fermenting oranges as well, but also of spilled mosquito repellant, sun block, Fritos, and unwashed bare feet. The feet smell had always been there, though. It was as much a part of the store as the wooden alligator on the sidewalk outside which, thankfully, had been left untouched.

  “Mama! You’re okay!”

  Rabbit ran through the store and tried to hug Birdie Mae. She lifted her thick, jiggling arm and briefly patted Rabbit on the shoulder before pushing him away. She stood amidst the destruction with a push-broom handle in one hand and a plastic two-liter of Mountain Dew in the other. Birdie Mae did not look happy to see them. She glared at her sons and ignored Marlena completely.

  “Which one of you half-wits want to tell me who I gotta blame for this?”

  James tried to gauge the vandalism. Someone might have been there looking for the money, if Waylon didn’t have it, but if that was so, then they had caused a lot of unnecessary mess. Like the parking lot outside, the concrete floor of the store was coated with pieces of fruit in various states of obliteration and decay. Oranges, grapefruits, tangerines, tangelos, lemons, and limes squelched underneath James’ boots as he carefully walked around the store, surveying the damage. The hanging racks on the back wall had been yanked down, and all of the souvenir hats and tank tops lay scattered in soiled piles on the ground. Pieces of coffee cups emblazoned with space shuttles and the Magic Kingdom mingled with fragments of shellacked gator heads, puffer fish, and tortoise shells. The rotating display case that held tiny crystal snails, bunnies, and butterflies had been shattered, and the fragile glass animals now lay in pieces among deflated bags of corn chips and cheese popcorn. James watched Marlena bend down and retrieve a tiny glass octopus from among the debris. She gently set it on the barren front counter, swept clean of its register and cardboard lighter display boxes. Rabbit was still trying to explain himself to Birdie.

  “Well, Mama, we just don’t know for sure. See, a lot’s been going on the past couple of days and it’s all kinda gone a little haywire. I mean, it started out real simple, but then, I don’t know what happened exactly and, hey, what makes you think this has anything to do with us in the first place? We came here to help out our mama, that’s all.”

  Rabbit was speaking about a mile a minute to Birdie Mae and James let him. He was too busy trying to determine if whoever had done this had left any type of warning for them. After seeing the destruction, he didn’t buy Rabbit’s “kids causing trouble” idea at all. He noticed that Marlena was staying close to the front of the store with her attention directed out toward the parking lot and the road beyond it.

  “Don’t you lie to me, boy. I know this weren’t no coincidence.”

  Birdie Mae rested the broom handle against an empty display shelf and unscrewed the cap to her soda bottle.

  “What’d you mean, Mama?”

  She took a long swig and then screwed the cap back on before continuing.

  “I mean, that something fishy has been going on and I knows ‘bout it. For Chrissakes, your cousin Delmore was in my living room just yesterday, asking to borrow money. Said he needed to help you outta some sorta trouble.”

  James looked up.

  “You saw Delmore?”

  Birdie Mae leaned against the shelf and scratched the back of her head, digging a long, acrylic nail into her thick, knotted hair.

  “Like I said, he was just here, what, yesterday? I figured Rabbit had gotten himself all trussed up bouncing checks again. Needed me to bail him out.”

  “Mama, it were just that one time—”

  James cut Rabbit off and carefully stepped his way through the mess to Birdie.

  “Did you giv
e him anything?”

  Birdie Mae snorted.

  “You kidding me? I look like the Queen of Sheba sitting up here on a pile of oranges? I just buried your daddy. I’m not nothing but an old woman who don’t even got no kids who can help support her.”

  James knew that Birdie Mae was waiting for him or Rabbit to jump in and tell her that she wasn’t old. She pulled that trick all the time, but James ignored it.

  “Where were you when this happened? Did they get the trailer too?”

  Birdie Mae pulled her finger away from the back of her head and inspected it.

  “No, they didn’t bang up the trailer none. I wasn’t there no how. There was this movie marathon on that Lifetime channel yesterday. It was all Julia Roberts movies, you know, Steel Magnolias and Runaway Bride and that other wedding one. I just love Julia Roberts. I didn’t start watching until after supper, though, so I missed most of the good ones.”

  James rubbed his face in exasperation.

  “Mama, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “They had these banana MoonPies in one of the movies. Julia Roberts was eating one and I just got the biggest hankering. Everything in Crystal Springs closes down at night, so I drove over to High Springs where they got that new Walmart that don’t never close. Open twenty-four hours. I done it before, it’s actually kinda nice. The place is quiet and you don’t got to put up with no stupid people and no carts full of screaming brats.”

  “What time was this?”

  Birdie Mae picked at a cigarette burn on the hem of her lime green T-shirt.

  “‘Round two, maybe? When I drove past here on the way, I didn’t notice nothing, but when I got back, I seen that the orange sign was busted, so I pulled in and that’s when I saw everything they done.”

  James looked around the store again.

  “Were the police here? Don’t you have an alarm system?”

  Birdie Mae thought about it a moment.

  “Well, we did have one at some point, I think. But then I’m pretty sure your daddy stopped paying for it. Didn’t never think it would work, no how. Those people that put it in looked shady. Not from ‘round here, know what I mean?”

  She arched her penciled eyebrows.

  “I swear to God, you can’t trust nobody these days.”

  “But you called the cops?”

  “Yeah. I mean, first I went back home to make sure it was okay, and it was. Didn’t look like nobody had been there. Then I watched the rest of the movie that was still on TV.”

  James couldn’t believe her.

  “What?”

  Birdie Mae ignored him.

  “The marathon were over and a different movie were on. Had that short fella always does them action movies. Mission something or another. Didn’t really understand too much of it. And then I called the police. Took their sweet time getting their lazy asses out here, too.”

  James was losing patience. He spoke through his gritted teeth.

  “Well, what did they say?”

  “Didn’t say nothing. Thought it were a bunch of kids, probably teenagers looking for cash to buy drugs with. And then wrecked the place just for sport. I swear, this country is going to the dogs, just straight to the dogs, when that’s what kids do for fun nowadays. It makes me sick to think this is the kinda world we gotta live in.”

  Birdie Mae puckered her lips and shook her head slowly.

  “Rabbit, reach me my cigarettes there.”

  Rabbit found the crushed pack of Virginia Slims on top of another display shelf and handed them to Birdie before turning to James to gloat.

  “See? You got everybody all spun up for no reason. Not nothing different happened. It was just some kids, having a good time. Those boys went after Waylon and left us alone. We got nothing to worry ‘bout no more.”

  Rabbit had glanced guiltily at Marlena when he said her father’s name, but she was paying him no attention. James saw that Marlena was reaching around toward her lower back and he tried to follow her line of sight. Birdie Mae blew two streams of smoke out of her nostrils and narrowed her eyes at Rabbit.

  “Waylon Bell? That owns that bar downtown? What’s he got to do with this?”

  A bullet hit the front of the store before Rabbit could answer her and shattered one of the glass doors. Three more bullets whizzed through the glass and struck the wall behind the back counter and then it was quiet for a moment. James had ducked down behind a potato chip rack and now looked around to see where everyone was. Birdie Mae and Rabbit were behind one of the shelves. Birdie Mae was splayed out across the floor like a jellyfish stranded on the sand, while Rabbit was on his knees, holding his hands over his ears. James turned his head in the other direction. Marlena was crouched down with her back pressed against the concrete wall of the store and her .38 held with both hands between her knees. She had a dusting of glass shards in her hair, but otherwise she looked fine. James made eye contact with her.

  “Marlena, can you see the parking lot?”

  She inched outwards a little and nodded.

  “What’s out there?”

  “The parking lot’s empty. I can’t see much else, though. There was a green Land Rover pulling off on the other side of the road, right before the shooting started. The shots must’ve come from there.”

  “Can you see anyone now?”

  She edged a little further away from the wall and craned her neck.

  “No. They must still be in the truck or something. I don’t know what they’re doing.”

  James stuck his head out from the shelf he was hiding behind and was able to see the parking lot and the road beyond it. He saw the Land Rover Marlena was talking about and then saw two men getting out of the passenger side doors. He quickly pulled himself back behind the shelf. From the other side of the store, Rabbit’s shrill voice called out.

  “What the hell do we do?”

  James knew they had to act quickly. He pulled the .45 out of the back of his jeans and checked to make sure that the safety was off before sticking it back in his waistband. He knew he was going to need both hands free, but wanted the gun to be ready.

  “Mama, you still got that sawed-off behind the counter?”

  Birdie Mae grunted. James couldn’t tell if she was so terrified that she couldn’t speak, or just so outraged that someone would dare shoot in her direction.

  “Okay. Mama, you gotta listen to me. These people don’t want you and they don’t want this store. They want Rabbit and me. When I say to, you need to crawl as fast as you can to get that gun, and then you need to lock yourself in the back room. Lock the door, put something in front of it, and get as far back as you can. Okay? Mama?”

  “I don’t see why I gotta hide out in my own damn store. If they think they’re gonna come in here and mess with me, then they got another thing coming. Assholes.”

  Birdie Mae certainly wasn’t terrified.

  “Mama, just do what I say, okay? Please?”

  James hoped that her silence was an agreement. He turned his head.

  “Marlena. You left the keys in the ignition?”

  Her voice was shaky, but determined.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, you’re gonna cover Rabbit and go out the back door. Just keep running. I’ll pick you guys up with the Jeep. But you need to go fast. Got it?”

  Marlena took a deep breath.

  “Got it.”

  James peered out from behind the shelf again. There were three men now and they were crossing the road, guns at their sides.

  “Go!”

  James barely looked to see where he was going. He crashed into an overturned rack of snack cakes and almost lost his balance. He ran toward the front doors and shoved them open. Immediately, he heard a gunshot. His boots slipped beneath him as he grabbed the door handle of the Jeep, but he pulled himself up and swung the door open. Two more gunshots pierced the air, but by then the Jeep was cranked, the gearshift was in reverse, and he was slamming on the gas. He wasn’t able to see wha
t was going on inside the store, but he hoped that Birdie Mae had sense enough to listen to someone other than herself for once. He kept his head down and switched gears, tearing out of the parking lot and through the overgrown field that ran alongside the store. The glass shattered in the back window, and James felt a rush of air and glass dust. He twisted the wheel again and curved the Jeep back around behind the store.

  Marlena and Rabbit were sprinting through the field. Marlena had her revolver in one hand and the front of Rabbit’s T-shirt in the other. Rabbit was running blindly with both of his arms wrapped around his head. James slowed the Jeep and drove parallel to them. He heard another gunshot, but didn’t see anyone in the rearview mirror. Marlena let go of Rabbit’s shirt and yanked open the back door of the Jeep. She held onto the doorframe and swung herself into the back seat. James waited until she had pulled Rabbit in beside her, and then mashed the gas pedal down to the floorboard. They fishtailed out of the field and onto the dusty back road that James had grown up racing on. He knew every side road and trail that connected to it. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror and just as he was turning the Jeep at a hard angle down Old Mill Road, he caught a glimpse of shiny dark green and chrome in the distance behind them. He kept the gas pedal to the floor and didn’t let up.

  Marlena jumped into the front seat, bracing herself against the dashboard as James made another hard right turn down an overgrown trail he knew connected to another back road, further into the woods.

  “Where the hell are we going?”

  He didn’t answer her. He was too busy trying to drive, watch the mirrors, and stay on the road ahead of them. Marlena tried to get his attention.

  “James. We can’t just outrun them.”

  He jerked the wheel hard to the right.

  “We can try.”

  Marlena slammed back against the passenger door and hit her head on the window as the Jeep fishtailed again. They were now on a rough dirt road canopied with oak branches and dripping Spanish moss. Under other circumstances, it would have been very beautiful.

  “No, James, we gotta go somewhere. Someplace where we can hide and figure this out.”