Off Season - Jack Ketchum [21]
The Pincus brothers pulled in at Harmon’s and the first thing they noticed was the old black Dodge with the New York plates and the two women inside. They paid no attention to the man in the backseat, who seemed to be dozing. Joey pulled over beside them and the Chevy pickup groaned to a stop. He smiled at his brother and wiped his hands on his flannel shirt. “Look what we got here,” he said.
They climbed slowly out of the pickup and shuffled to the passenger side of the car. Both its windows were open. Joey leaned over on the windowsill and grinned wolfishly at the short-haired blonde in the backseat. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said. Jim bent low at the waist and peered in at the thin brunette and smiled. She moved away from him a little and nodded.
Marjorie did not like the look of them at all. They were going to hassle her. They were doing it already, just by being there. She didn’t like their faces, the smiles that were really nothing more than leers. She didn’t like the close-set eyes, the lean, unshaven cheeks, the wind-burned, sunburned high foreheads. Even at a glance you could tell they were brothers. They had the same brutal, inbred faces. Like the houses, like the trees, the people out here looked stunted, almost stillborn, as if centuries of social immobility had thinned their seed, bled them dry. She had seen the look in people along the highway, in the face of the fat woman inside the store. To her eyes, used to diversity, there was a troubling uniformity about them all, something that spoke of isolation, and a dull and thoughtless cruelty.
“Please leave us alone,” she said. They only smiled at her and did not move.
In the backseat Dan had taken their measure, and now he opened the door opposite them, closed it behind him, and strolled slowly into the store.
Jim Pincus laughed and glanced at his brother. “Whoops,” he said. “You girls just lost your boyfriend!” That started Joey giggling.
“Your boyfriend just moved on, girls!” he said. Then they both were laughing and Joey began pounding on the trunk of the car. Marjorie rolled up her window. Laura tried to do the same but Joey stopped laughing abruptly and put his hand over the windowsill, holding the window down. “We don’t mean no harm,” he said, smiling. “We’re just friendly.”
“Just a couple friendly local boys,” said Jim. “Where you ladies from?”
“N-New York,” said Laura. Her voice was very quiet.
Joey snapped his fingers. “We guessed that,” he said. “Saw your plates. Me and my brother Jim here notice things like that. Like we noticed you was pretty right off. We smelt it.” That started them off on another riot of laughter. Joey began pounding on the trunk again with the flat of his hand and that gave Laura the opportunity to close her window. The Pincus boys saw that and didn’t like it at all. They moved in closer. Joey slapped the window. “Damn!” he said.
“You fellas got some business here?”
The fat woman in the cotton print dress stood in the doorway, filling it completely, with Jim, Nick, and Dan standing on the porch beside her. Her voice was strangely high-pitched for a woman of her size. But it stopped the Pincus brothers, anyway. She stood there glaring at them in suppressed anger, beefy hands at her hips, and Marjie could see that under the armpits her dress had faded to a bleached white.
“Cigarettes,” said Joey mildly.
“Well, come and get ‘em,” she said, the truce established, “and leave these nice folks alone.”
With a glance at the girls inside the car, they did what they were told.
“It took you long enough,” Marjie said to Dan as she rolled down the window.
He smiled at them and climbed into the