Dodgers (16 page)

For East, the house was stunning in its anonymity. They'd crossed all this land to an address: this was it. Just a brown house in the woods. Big
A
on each end made of windows running light from front to back.

“Seems empty,” Walter whispered.

“Nice to be sure,” said Ty.

East looked up and gauged the sky. Seemed dark as they'd walked up, but now silver, strangely luminous, in the gap between the pines.

“Easy as pie,” Ty whispered. “Angles on every inch of the place. Big windows on the bedrooms. No basement.”

Walter said, “Where is the guy?”

“Can't see,” said Ty. “Could be in bed in the dark. Could be out to dinner. Could be sitting right there on the sofa in the dark with a gun, waiting.”

“You expect one or more than one?” East said.

Ty rolled his eyes. “I don't expect. We take what we get.”

Walter said, “So what do you want to do?”

“How about we spread out a little and get some angles on this.”

“All right,” Walter said. “But stay back. It's no rush. Make sure we got the right guy.”

“Did you call your George Washington?” needled Ty. “Is this the place?”

“It's the right house,” East hushed. “Let's get the right guy.”

“I don't see any guy,” sniffed Ty. “Why don't you two collaborate on that. I'm gonna go see what I see.” He began picking his way left along the seam of yard and woods, creeping along the flank of the house.

Walter stood breathing heavily beside East. They listened to the pine needles crackling under Ty's steps.

“Drive all that way thinking about it, man,” Walter said. “And then here it is.”

“I was thinking that,” East said.

“Sure seems empty.” Walter stood stock-still. “Seems nobody's home.”

“You don't want to wake somebody up, and then you got a now-or-never in the dark,” East reasoned.

“Yeah. Question is, how long you want to stand and wait?”

“I can wait awhile,” said East.

Nothing sounded or moved. They'd lost track of Ty.

Walter said, “You gonna recognize him?”

“Who? The judge?”

East recalled the photos. The fierce, thick head on the man. The sides of gray. But it could have been sharper. The face swam with different faces in his mind: Fin's. Walter's. His own.

“I think so,” he said.

“I'll know him.”

“I will too,” East said. But he wanted to get away from Walter.

“How many times your brother done this?”

“Ask him,” East said. “Good luck,” he added.

“How big was he when he started?”

“Who knows.” He took a step away.

“He knows what he's doing,” said Walter. “I mean, he goes right at it.”

“He's got a reputation to protect,” East said. “I'm a check the other side.” He started tracing the seam around to the right.

“Fine. Stay invisible,” Walter said uselessly.

The ground could be quiet if you slid your toe into each step. Like putting on slippers. East found a spot shaded by branches where he could see in the side windows and see the drive out front, the black truck and a glimpse of the road. He stood there, black face in a black hole. He could barely see his hands. He put one on his heart and tried to calm his blood down. Inside the black string was buzzing with irritation. Like he got sometimes at the crew at the house, when they ceased to watch, ceased to be in the moment. Became wild again. It annoyed East, made him bitter. And stubborn.

He made a smooth spot in the needles and tested it. Dry—but cold. He sat down anyway. Funny—a few days back, he was used to twelve-hour shifts on his feet, did six a week. Now he was eager to sit.

How many days had they been going again?

As if his mind was sand. The irregular sleep was one thing. But the road: as if he'd been brainwashed. As if he'd stared into a washing machine for days without closing his eyes. Even the lines and reflectors on the highway: like a code he couldn't read but couldn't stop, like a sound he'd wanted no longer to hear. His head felt out of shape, weak.

For years he'd guarded a place that mattered, looking out, seeing everything. Now he sat against a tree, staring in, seeing nothing at all. Nothing in the wooden house sounded or moved. It was wearing him out.

He thought he'd have time to think about it on the trip—killing a man. Or that in all the work of keeping things straight, the killing would become just another motion, another step. This was the address. They would find a man. He would be the man. Put it on the tab.

But he hadn't thought about it. What he hadn't seen was that in the rush across the country, the man would be forgotten. The face, the plan, inapparent. Only the miles and the goal remained. He'd declined the subject of the man until he was sitting outside his yard, waiting. Waiting on him to come home and die.

Darker. He heard something in the trees behind him—skitterings, like a bird. Something watching him. And then a heavier crunching. Walter coming like a freight train through the trees. East could not believe the noise he was making. He sat still until Walter had nearly blundered past him, then hissed, “Hey.”

Walter stopped and peered around until he located East. He said, “Ty says it's empty. He's gonna check it out.”

“What if somebody drives in?”

“Then we're loaded,” said Walter. “We have the jump.”

“He might drive in alone or not,” East said. “We don't know. We're not even gonna know if it's him.”

“You know what Ty said?”

“No,” East exhaled. “I don't wanna know what Ty said. I know if there's anyone home on this road, they can hear your ass.” His veins clouded with annoyance. He got up, but the cold stuck on his butt, an unpleasant circle.

He sized up the yard. “Tell you what. Go back. Take the back corner, left side. I'll get the front corner, right. We'll see all four sides. Then Ty can go close and look around.”

“He's already doing it,” Walter said.

“Still.”

“All right.” Walter turned and began again toward the back of the house. Making painful progress through the branches. Ty came out then. East watched his brother move. Casual, erect, no cat-stalking dramatics. He carried the gun in his hand but kept it shadowed. He crouched when he went against the house's frame. There he tested the ground and crept low along the window line. Popped up against a frame and peered inside. With one hand he tried the front doorknob. Didn't open.

East watched Ty working, recognized his careful pace. Taking time at each window, noting the rooms, the layout and angles. Shooters thought things through two ways. Where were people likely to be, before they knew about you? Then after, when they did, where were they likely to go? Where was shelter? Did they cover? Head for a closet where the guns were? If they shot back at you, from where? Or would they flush right out to the yard? A shooter understood a home just as well as the people who lived there. But to different ends.

Less cautious by the moment, Ty worked around the back. A car rolled by slowly on the stony road without slowing. East stood inside the clearing now, drawn to the house by impatience.

After four minutes Ty had made a full lap. No caution in how he stood now. Contempt for the house that had no people in it. Contempt for the time he'd spent working slowly. He spotted East along the face of the woods and approached, sticking the gun away with a swagger.

East felt almost apologetic. “Any minute he could be home.”

“No.” Ty shook his head. “No. No clothes, no suitcase. No dishes in the sink. No soap in the bathroom. Water's switched off. House is cold. Nobody's been here. Or if they were, they won't be back for a while.”

“You want me to look?” said East.

Ty laughed. “Be my guest.”

East made his own circuit. His eyes were hungry in the dark. He peered inside but nothing broke with Ty's account. Items to interest a thief—nice speakers, espresso maker, a flat TV up high. People with houses like this didn't skimp. Stealing wasn't his game but he knew enough from listening—most of the boys he'd led were thieves at some time. Once they stopped stealing, they stopped being quiet about it.

The back glass door was braced against sliding but not barred, like in the city. Probably an alarm, probably a glass-break sensor. No security badge on the windows, but he would have bet. It didn't matter much. If Ty saw his man, he'd be making noise.

Walter wandered up. “What you want to do? Stay here and stake out?”

“Wish we could bring the van up,” said East. “It's cold.”

“Scare him straight away too. Van full of black boys idling by the house?”

“I know.”

Now the chill penetrated him. But the heat of the van seemed a hundred miles away.

“You want to go?” Walter said.

East slit his eyes. “No.”

“I'm even getting cold myself,” Walter said, undulating his bulk.

East turned away, played the judge's features in his head again. What he could remember.

“You want to go?” said Walter.

“Didn't you just say that?” said East viciously.

Ty came out around the corner, face pinched in, like he was chewing it up from the inside. “Shit. Forget it,” he said. “I'm done with this.”

East said, “Let's give it another hour.”

“Oh?” said Ty. “You in charge? Fine, stay here. I know you like standing by a house. Me, I'm finished.”

“I second that,” said Walter.

East rolled his eyes at the sky. Fading but still silver above the grave-black square the trees made.

“We can call Abe back up. Might be a plan B,” said Walter. “Come on, East. Sitting out here ain't gonna be nothing but cold.”

“But what if they don't answer.”

“Then they
don't.
Let's warm up at least. Get some food.”

“I don't need to warm up.”

Ty snorted. “Listen to him. Fucking cowboy, man. I seen you get cold last night.”

Darkly East glared.

“I don't know,” protested Walter. “I don't know if they'll answer. But maybe he's at a hotel or buying gas or at an airport. But I do know if he's somewhere else, we can find that out.”

“How you gonna find that out?”

Walter pressed his lips together grimly. “Stuff you don't know about, man.”

“You saying—”

“I'm saying I can't talk about it. But it's real.”

“Fuck it,” said Ty. “Fuck you both. I'll be in the van.”

Walter glanced at Ty as he went. “I gotta agree,” he said.

Quiet now. Even the birds stopped shifting in their trees.

“You coming?”

“Just trying to do my job,” East said.

“Okay. I hear you. But I'm ready to get out of this icebox, man. Come on.”

East hesitated, then followed Walter out to the road. Ty was a hundred yards ahead, out in plain view. At least it was dark. East hurried to catch up with Walter.

“Tell me one thing,” he said. “The judge, could he have gone to LA already?”

“I guess,” Walter said. “Possible. But I'm going to say no.”

“Because of what?”

Walter winced. “Stuff you don't know about,” he repeated.

“More stuff. Shit.” East kicked a pinecone. “Burn these woods up, man.”

Somehow they'd gotten low on gas. All tired. All angry. East took it personally. The empty house was another house lost. He had tried to keep it straight. But now everyone would kill one another at the first sideways look.

East fired the van through the little bubble of light that was the town and back into the dark, pine-jagged night. The big highway home lay to the south, so he took them north—toward the other lake, the ghetto lake, just by instinct. Just a glimpse of the big highway and it was over. The job would be over. If it weren't already.

All the miles, he thought. Nothing.

“Why we ain't got a cell?” grumbled Ty. “So much time wasted finding these phones.”

“You know why,” Walter said.

“You know there's a way to do it. You just too scary of everything.”

“I'm Murder One scary,” Walter replied. Staring out at nothing.

“All right. All right,” East broke in. “Look. Wasn't there a pay phone up at Welfare Lake?”

“Yep.”

“Do you know, while we were sleeping, some dude tried to rob us up there?”

Walter giggled. “What do you mean, tried to?”

“White dude with a little gun in his hand. I gave him three.” Before it had seemed funny, a story he could save up and tell. Now it didn't have much in it.

“So he
did
rob us,” said Ty. “Whyn't you wake me?”

“Think about it,” said Walter. “Think for a minute why he didn't wake you.”

Yes: a phone booth, a fisherman's phone, at the second lake. It hung on a power pole beneath a light, the last few buzzing insects struggling through the cold air.

One woman, maybe thirty, forty, in dirty pink sandals, was on the line. Dolefully they watched her.

“What do you want to do?” asked East.

“Wait,” said Walter. “What are we gonna do? Drive around? Go back and freeze? How long you think she can stand there in that housedress?”

“That housedress looks warm,” Ty put in from the back. “I say she'll be there all night.”

East parked the van two rows of spaces out and killed the lights. Left the van to idle. He broke open a water bottle, but it only made him colder.

“Wonder what she's talking about,” Walter said, cracking his neck side to side.

Her feet were bare in the fuzzy sandals. She looked over her shoulder and winced at the sight of the van. Then turned back.

“When we get on there, talk if you want. But I got to ask a few questions,” Walter said.