A Tree Born Crooked Page 7

  “We’re not there to rob the till. It’s something much, much bigger. Tell him, Delmore.”

  Delmore only grunted. He obviously did not care if James knew or not.

  “You tell him. He’s your brother.”

  Rabbit ignored the flat tone of his voice. He was too excited to notice Delmore’s lack of enthusiasm. Rabbit’s eyes were shining and his face was flushed as he continued.

  “Okay, we know that Lyndell washes a lot of money in and out of Lucky’s, right? But like you said, there’s never really a whole lot just sitting ‘round. But Delmore here, he overheard Lyndell talking to his boss on the phone.”

  Rabbit paused to see if he had James’ attention. James was looking at him now, dumbstruck. Rabbit kept going.

  “He heard that this big boss man, what’s his name, Delmore?”

  Delmore answered, but didn’t bother to take his eyes off the two teenage girls he was watching through the windshield. They had started to cross the street next to the laundromat, but one had stopped and bent over to pick something up.

  “Sully Granger.”

  “Yeah, this guy Sully’s doing a big drop. Big. Like a hundred thousand dollars big.”

  James started to sigh loudly, but Rabbit stopped him.

  “No wait, seriously. Delmore heard it all. So this money is just gonna be sitting there, hanging out to dry tonight, so to speak. Tonight! Just waiting for us to come along and find it a new home. You get it? You see how easy this is gonna be? A hundred thousand, James. You gotta be in on this with us.”

  James was quiet for a moment. That look on Rabbit’s face. The one that made James feel like someone had taken a mallet and hit him in the stomach with it. This was Rabbit’s big score. He wanted so badly to impress his older brother, to prove that by staying behind in Crystal Springs he had made something out of himself. He was doing something that James could be envious of, but mostly, that he could be proud of. James knew that if he declined, he would be letting Rabbit down once again.

  “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”

  Rabbit grinned and rubbed the back of his head.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but whatever works. So are you in, James?”

  “No.”

  It was as if a tidal wave had risen and crashed into Rabbit’s heart. And James knew it. Rabbit blinked a few times, looked away, then back at James, then away again.

  “You sure?”

  James’ voice softened. No more sarcasm. No more insults. He had nothing else to offer Rabbit but sincerity.

  “I’m sure.”

  Rabbit twisted back in his seat and kept his head facing forward, his eyes now focused intently through the windshield on something only he could see. His voice cracked.

  “Well, alright then. Delmore, let’s take him back.”

  FIVE

  James watched the fan blades wobble above him. Something was off balance and it made a buzzing sound around every loop. The muted television flashed bursts of light onto the ceiling and brought the fan blades in and out of the darkness. He couldn’t see it now, but James knew that there was a brown water stain in the shape of California right above his head and that a long, thin crack, branching out into many plaster tributaries, edged its way out from the ceiling corner opposite the bed. He also knew that there was a small hole punched on the outside of the particleboard bathroom door that matched perfectly to the motel room doorknob. He knew that there was a slit in the bottom edge of the screen in the only window, that there were three cigarette burns on the carpet next to the nightstand, and that the framed painting of a bird dog with a pheasant in its mouth, hanging slightly crooked above the television set, was painted by someone named R. Warren. James had spent many, many hours staring around the room, trying to find answers in the smoke-stained walls and cracked ceiling.

  He had come up with nothing. James wasn’t even sure what his questions were. Did he need to know if he should stay in Crystal Springs? Did he need to know if he should pick up his cell phone and call Rabbit? Should he argue with him again about the insanity of his plan? Did he care enough about Rabbit to show that he cared? The questions had only bred more questions, and every time James pushed himself up off the bed, it was to change the channel on the ancient TV, not to make a phone call. Every time he got as far as the door, he left it only to stand in the outdoor hallway and smoke a cigarette, listening to the drip of condensation from the back of the ice machine. He didn’t look out in the parking lot at his truck. He didn’t look at his cell phone, sitting on top of a crumpled washcloth next to the bathroom sink. He looked at the carpet, the ceiling, the walls. He turned off the lights. He watched the fan spin slowly above him in the shimmer of the television. He kept his eyes open.

  The red numbers on the clock radio beside the bed glowed 4:23 a.m. when the call came. James wasn’t startled; he had been drifting in and out of sleep and the ringing of his cell phone caught him already half awake. He rolled over and sat up in bed, but let it ring. Five times, then silence. He waited for the beep that signaled a voicemail message, but it never came. Instead, his phone began ringing again. As before, he listened to it, but still didn’t move. He sat motionless, his hands resting on his knees, his body bent forward, an ache of filial loyalty and a desperate desire for autonomy straining against one another in his heart. Then, silence, and then more silence. James’ pulse was racing in his veins and his head suddenly got light as sensory memories flashed inside of him. This was the same hot, tingling, floating feeling he had felt the first time the ground separated from the wheels beneath him in an Aermacchi trainer plane. The same feeling he had when he had sped along back roads, being chased by the cops for drag racing in the middle of the night. The same as when he had walked in on someone he thought he loved in bed with someone he thought was a friend. James held his breath and waited.

  He snatched it up on the second ring. He didn’t say hello and didn’t have to.

  “Christ, James. Don’t you ever answer your goddamn phone?”

  Rabbit sounded either high or terrified. It took James a split second to decide that he was both.

  “It’s four in the morning.”

  He didn’t want Rabbit to know that he had already been awake, waiting for this phone call. He didn’t want him to know that he had expected it.

  “Whatever. James, you there? You still there?”

  Rabbit’s voice reached a pitch on the verge of hysteria. James could hear the sound of air rushing through an open window in the background. He tried to make his voice as calm as possible.

  “I’m right here. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, man. Oh, Jesus, I can’t believe this shit. Why in the hell? What in the hell I ever do for this shit to happen? Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man—”

  “Rabbit, hey. Hey! You need to slow down. You need to talk to me. I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  He could hear Rabbit moving around, breathing hard, and then a car door slamming.

  “I need you to come meet me. Right now. You gotta get over here.”

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t talk on the phone. James, I just need you to meet me. Please?”

  Rabbit could not have sounded more desperate if he had been drowning, reaching out to the devil himself. James shut his eyes. He could see Rabbit’s face in front of him and knew exactly what it looked like at that moment. He also knew that he had made his decision the instant he answered the phone.

  “Okay. Where?”

  “At the trailer. Delmore’s trailer. I mean, my trailer, too. Shit, you know what I mean. You remember how to get here?”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  James was already pulling his boots on when the line went dead.

  ~ ~ ~

  When James had first set eyes on Delmore’s trailer, he had been sure it couldn’t be much worse on the inside. He was laughably wrong. James had lived in quite his share of roach motels, but this took the cake. The
carpet had been ripped out of most of the main living area, so the floor was a mottled combination of yellow carpet padding and splintering plywood. The only furniture to sit on was a couch that looked like it had once graced someone’s front porch, but now would embarrass even the most avid porch furniture collectors. There were no cushions, just an old electric blanket tucked in over the boards and springs. A line of German cockroaches was trooping across the baseboard behind the couch without fear. It was clearly their accustomed trade route.

  Flattened beer cases, grease-soaked pizza boxes, cans of supermarket brand soda, piles of stained clothes, both men’s and women’s, and empty orange plastic pill bottles covered the kitchen countertop and spilled into the sink. A mountain of crushed Natty Light cans had been bulldozed aside to allow a path back to the single bedroom. Its door had been ripped partly from the hinges and was held open against the wall with strips of duct tape. The indoor plumbing had long since been disconnected and there was a hole in the bathroom wall where the sink pipe had been torn out. The bathroom now harbored an array of possums, raccoons, and the occasional rat snake that came and went as they pleased. It was safer just not to go in there.

  James took all of this in, as well as the overwhelming perfume of stale beer and urine. He wasn’t sure which one was the substance soaking the carpet padding beneath his boots. Rabbit had offered him a place on the couch, but James said no thank you, he’d rather stand.

  “Okay, I’m here. You mind telling me what the hell happened? No, wait. Just calm down a second first. You want to go outside? Get some air, maybe?”

  Rabbit was pacing back and forth across the short length of the trailer. When he had opened the door, James’ suspicion that he was high on something had been confirmed, but it was mostly adrenaline and paranoia. James had seen Rabbit scared before, but this was something else entirely.

  “Nah, man. Can’t go outside. What if somebody followed you? You think somebody followed you? Did you see anybody behind you?”

  Rabbit ducked from window to window, pulling up a corner of the trash bag or army blanket that covered each one and peering out into the approaching dawn. He turned his eyes wildly back on James, his countenance like that of a horse about to scream and die. James was beginning to get spooked by the whole situation.

  “You see somebody?”

  “Rabbit.”

  The sharp tone of James’ voice brought Rabbit up short. He paused for a moment, panting.

  “What?”

  James spoke very slowly, holding Rabbit’s eyes and forcing him to calm down.

  “I need you to tell me what happened. Right now.”

  Rabbit took a deep breath.

  “It all went to pieces. Oh, man. It was all so perfect and then it all went to pieces. Man, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. James, you gotta tell me what to do.”

  “First, you need to tell me exactly what happened. From the beginning.”

  “Delmore don’t want me telling no one what happened. He said to sit tight and he’d be back in the morning after he took care of it. He didn’t want no one to know in the first place what we was gonna do. He said not to talk to nobody. Oh, shit. Oh man, he’s gonna kill me if he finds out I called you.”

  “I’m gonna save him the trouble and kill you first if you don’t start talking.”

  The tension slowly dropped out of Rabbit’s body and he sat down on the busted arm of the couch. He let his hands relax and dangle between his legs until his voice became steady.

  “Okay.”

  “From the beginning.”

  Rabbit sat silently for a moment, collecting his thoughts, while James waited impatiently. Finally, Rabbit sat up straight and began.

  “Well, now, let’s see. We took you back to your truck at The Diamond. Then, we still had time to kill. It being Monday, or I suppose Tuesday now, the club closes early, at one. So, we went to Willy J’s for supper. I had the rib special. You ever eat there? Man, it’s something else. They got this sauce with something like fourteen different kinds of spices. Delmore always gets the wings, but that barbeque sauce on them ribs is something else alright.”

  “No. I’ve never eaten there. Keep talking.”

  “Oh, yeah, so it was maybe ‘round ten when we left to drive out to Lucky’s. Or I left, I mean. I picked up my car and drove out there first. Delmore was gonna meet me up there later.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Out to Waylon’s place. Marlena was right, he weren’t at the bar. He called and told Delmore to come on out to his place to pick up the stuff. Smarter than bringing it to the bar. If Marlena knew what he was getting into, she probably woulda shut it down and thrown it all in the creek. Or if a cop came by or something. Who knows?”

  James had lifted up a corner of the army blanket covering the window to glance out into the yard. He dropped it and turned back to Rabbit.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “The guns. See, Waylon and Delmore thought it out. We had to cover every base, so we couldn’t use none of our own guns in case something happened and the cops could trace ‘em. But Waylon knows all these folks that deal in guns. Some cousins of his ex-wife’s or something. So, Delmore went out there to pick ‘em up. We weren’t planning on shooting nobody, but Delmore said they was still good to have. I went to the club so as to act all normal. Just like a normal night. I sold some pills, got a couple of free dances, and stayed until they closed. I kept my eyes open, too, and I seen Lyndell talking to these guys. Real tough looking types, I mean. Dressed all nice like they was just businessmen, but I could tell they was packing. One of ‘em had a bag with him. Like a gym bag.”

  Rabbit paused and scratched his nose before continuing.

  “They went in the back room with Lyndell, but I was watching the door the whole time and when those guys left, there weren’t no bag with ‘em. So, the place closes and I leave, just like usual, and wait off down this dirt road maybe a half mile away. When I seen Lyndell’s van pass, I drove back to the club to make sure it was empty. There weren’t no cars in the parking lot, so I called Delmore and waited.”

  James idly picked up an empty soda can on the countertop and then quickly dropped it when a cockroach poked its antennas out of the top. James wiped his hand on his jeans and stepped away from the kitchen.

  “And then?”

  “Then Delmore, he shows up ‘bout twenty minutes later.”

  “With Waylon?”

  “Nah. Waylon weren’t supposed to be no part of the actual job. He don’t do stuff like that. He’s just the one that gets you things. Takes care a things. We were to call him once we were done so he could meet us and we could pay him for the guns outta the money we stole.”

  “So Delmore showed up alone.”

  “Right. And he’s got the guns. Other stuff, too. Crowbar, wire cutters, gloves. Like a damn spy movie or something. I felt like James Bond with all that shit. So, we get into the place, no problem. We get into the back room, no problem. We get the safe open. Delmore had gotten the numbers somehow, and everything was working like a charm, James.”

  Rabbit spread his hands wide, beseeching James to see it the way he did.

  “I’m telling you. It coulda been perfect. It was gonna be beautiful.”

  “But?”

  “But, well now here’s where it starts to be a problem. We open the safe and there’s the bag, just like I seen before. And I’m already thinking ‘bout how my life is gonna be just so, but when we pulled the bag out, it were lighter than Delmore thought it was supposed to be. We unzip it and let me tell you, there weren’t no hundred grand in that bag. Delmore said it was more like twenty. Twenty, if that. Can you believe that shit?”

  James ran a hand through one side of his hair and yanked on it as he tried to understand what his brother was saying.

  “Rabbit, are you telling me you got me all the way out here, before the ass-crack of dawn, and you’re carrying on like the world’s ‘bout to e
nd, all ‘cause the amount of money you robbed from a strip joint wasn’t what you thought it would be? Jesus Christ, I’m outta here.”

  Rabbit jumped up quickly and grabbed the sleeve of James’ shirt.

  “Now, just hold on. I ain’t finished.”

  “So it gets worse, huh?”

  “We got the bag, but I start yelling at Delmore.”

  “Because it’s not a hundred grand.”

  Satisfied that he still had James’ attention, Rabbit sat back down on the edge of the couch.

  “Hell, yeah. I need that money, James. I got nothing going for me right now. Mama took all Daddy’s money and won’t let me get no dime at all. I got nothing.”

  “Get to the point, Rabbit.”

  “I’m getting there. Okay, so, we’re arguing in the back room and next thing you know, well, Jesus, I guess we just weren’t paying no attention. We hear this noise and I turn ‘round, and there’s this girl standing in the doorway. Just standing there with her mouth wide open. One of the dancers at the club, Nora. I knowed her. I don’t know what the hell she was doing there, but there she was, just standing there with eyes ‘bout this big. I near ‘bout didn’t recognize her ‘cause she had all her clothes on.”

  Rabbit looked away from James and started picking at the loose threads sticking up out of the couch upholstery.

  “Now, I ain’t known what to do at this point. I look over at Delmore. I’m thinking maybe this chick is cool, maybe we give her a little cash, and she pretends like she ain’t never seen us. She’s still in the doorway, still with her mouth open she’s so surprised, and next thing I know, Delmore’s got his gun out and she’s running back through the strip club screaming her goddamn head off.”

  James’ voice was tight.

  “Rabbit. What happened? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do nothing, James! I just heard a shot, no, wait, it were two shots. I walked out and she was just laying there. James, I ain’t had nothing to do with it, honest. She was just laid out there, kinda twisted up on the floor right in front of the emergency exit. One of her shoes was off and there were blood all over the front of her dress. There were blood all over the door, too.”