The Hunt Club_ A Novel - Bret Lott [31]
I looked at Tabitha. She hadn’t heard a thing, only stared straight ahead.
I found the trigger, knew enough not to let my finger hang around there but still let it settle there a second.
He started pushing. I was still in gear, felt the car give, but only a little.
What would Unc do?
He’d get his finger the hell off a trigger, was the first thing came to mind.
“You need gas,” the man hollered. “Checked the gauge myself once the little girl left for you.”
And, too, Unc would tell me don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
I looked in the rearview one more time. He made the helicopter sign again, nodded.
I let go the gun, shifted to neutral. I tried to make my hands stop shaking but gave it up, just let myself tremble, and then we were rolling down the Mark Clark, big and wide and empty save for a scab-roofed Plymouth and a ’73 Luv.
We made it to the Amoco on Savannah Highway, light from the canopy above the row of pumps too bright down on us. He gave me one last shove with the Plymouth, and I rolled to a stop beside the pump, him right behind me. He cut off his lights, and I did the same.
I could see the worker inside the booth, a black woman in a red smock, orange hair greased into a single big cowlick just above her forehead. She was reading a magazine, the booth only big enough for cigarettes and a register.
His car door slammed, and I put my hand to the gun, looked in my side-view mirror, saw him stretch. He was skinny, not too tall, and had on jeans and boots and a blue shirt, those sleeves still rolled up. The hat was a straw one, the sides folded up, the front end bent down. And those sunglasses.
He looked familiar.
He came toward us, and I found the trigger again, just touched it.
Then he was at my window. I didn’t look at him, only saw out the corner of my eye his belt buckle and belt, the blue shirt, his jeans. My window was still up, and he made the motion with his hand for me to roll it down.
I let go the wheel, hoped he wouldn’t see my hand shake as I rolled down the window.
“First thing is,” he said, his voice light and sunny, like we were talking fish and how many crappie we’d caught today. He leaned against the truck, his forearms against the roof just above the window.
I knew this man. I’d heard this voice before. I knew him.
“Yessir?” I said, my hand back to the wheel, the other still inside the jacket.
“First thing is, I figure that badass pistolero either ended up in your cab or onto the road somewheres.” He paused. “If you got it, keep it. You might could use it.”
He tapped the roof twice, let out a breath.
“Yessir,” I said, and glanced at the woman in the booth. She turned a page in the magazine.
“Second thing is,” he said, and I made my eyes go straight ahead, “calm that girl down. Sounds like a stuck pig.”
Tabitha’d been scratching out that sound all this while, though I hadn’t heard it since we’d started past that rolled Ford. I just hadn’t listened.
“Yessir,” I said, and finally let go the gun. He’d told me to keep it, he’d pushed us here, he’d taken out the Ford.
A gift horse.
I put my hand out in front of Tabitha, sort of pushed down on the air a few times. She looked at me, and I mouthed the words Calm down.
Her eyes moved from me to the man at the window. Then she looked at me a long moment, gave a short, sharp nod, and the sound stopped.
“Next on our agenda,” he said, “is the fact Leland’s sinking in seven kinds of shit, and he thinks he knows how to swim.” He paused. “Problem is, he don’t. Thinks he can figure it all out, come up smelling like a rose. But he can’t.”
He took his hands from the roof, pushed them deep into his pockets.
“You tell Leland,” he said, all that air and light in his voice gone, in its place a black gravel whisper. “You tell your uncle we don’t care where he’s hid. It don’t matter. Those two fuckhead shits back there don’t matter, neither.” He paused. “You tell him the people who count don’t give a good flying fuck where he’s hid out. The only way through this all is for him to do what he’s been asked to do. You tell him things’ll be fixed.