The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [23]
He spent several hours the next morning driving along the back roads searching in the ditches for new sacrifices, but came up empty. That afternoon, he went to the stockyards, reluctantly bought another lamb. But even he had to admit, they didn’t seem to be working. On his way out of town, already in a foul mood, he passed by Dunlap’s office. He was still thinking about that sonofabitch when he suddenly jerked the truck over and stopped along the berm of Western Avenue. Cars drove by honking their horns, but he didn’t hear them. There was one thing that he hadn’t tried yet. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought of it earlier.
“I’D ALMOST GIVEN UP ON YOU,” Dunlap said.
“I been busy,” Willard said. “Look, if you still want to talk, how about you meet me at your office at ten o’clock tonight?” He was standing in a phone booth in Dusty’s Bar on Water Street, just a couple of blocks north of the lawyer’s office. According to the clock on the wall, it was almost five. He’d told Arvin to stay in the sickroom with Charlotte, said he might be getting in late. He’d made the boy a pallet on the floor at the foot of her bed.
“Ten o’clock?” the lawyer said.
“That’s as early as I can get there,” Willard said. “It’s up to you.”
“Okay,” the lawyer said. “I’ll see you then.”
Willard bought a pint of whiskey from the bartender and drove around for the next couple of hours listening to the radio. He passed by the Wooden Spoon as it was closing, saw some skinny teenage girl walking out the door with the bowlegged old cook, the same one who had been working the grill there when Charlotte was waiting tables. He probably still couldn’t fix a meat loaf worth a shit, Willard thought. He stopped and filled the truck with gas, then went to the Tecumseh Lounge on the other side of town. Sitting at the bar, he drank a couple of beers, watched a guy wearing thick glasses and a dirty yellow hard hat run the pool table four times in a row. When he walked back out into the gravel lot, the sun was starting to go down behind the paper mill smokestack.
At nine thirty, he was sitting in his truck on Second Street, a block east of the lawyer’s office. A few minutes later, he watched Dunlap park in front of the old brick building and go inside. Willard drove around to the alley, backed up against the building. He took a few deep breaths before getting out of the truck. Reaching behind the seat, he got a hammer and stuffed the handle down his pants, pulled his shirt over it. He looked up and down the alley, then went to the rear door and knocked. After a minute or so, the lawyer opened the door. He was wearing a wrinkled blue shirt and a pair of baggy gray slacks held up by red suspenders. “That’s smart, coming in the back like that,” Dunlap said. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand and his bloodshot eyes indicated that he’d already had a few. As he turned toward his desk, he staggered a bit and farted. “Sorry about that,” he said, just before Willard struck him in the temple with the hammer, a sickening crack filling the room. Dunlap fell forward without a sound, knocking over a bookcase. The glass he’d been holding shattered on the floor. Willard bent over the body and hit him again. When he was sure the man was dead, he leaned against the wall and listened carefully for a while. A couple of cars drove by on the street out front and then nothing.
Willard put on a pair of work gloves he had in his back pocket and dragged the lawyer’s heavy body to the door. He straightened up the bookcase and picked up the broken glass and wiped up the spilled whiskey with the sport coat that was slung over the back of the lawyer’s chair. He checked the lawyer’s pants pockets, found a set of keys and over two hundred dollars in his wallet. He put the money in a desk drawer, stuck the keys in his overalls.