The Other Side of Bad (The Tucker Novels) (31 page)

“Not all the time,” I said, gently rubbing behind Boone’s ears.

I started to hear little rushing noises in mine, like water shooting through a pipe.

My reply was hanging in the air, and when I looked at Barry, I saw the first signs of alarm register.

Looking at the pecan trees, he said, “You doin’ okay, man?”

“Hunky-fucking dory,” I said, smiling thinly at the same trees.

“Where’s Margie, she around? I’d love to see her.”

Yeah, I bet you would
.

She had been a cheerleader for two different football teams for five years, until we got pregnant with Shannon, in the 11
th
grade.

It was no secret all the players had lascivious thoughts of the cheer-leaders.

“She went shopping and to run some errands.”

Barry had married a girl named Rochelle. We called her Roach, but she had a great personality.

One of my father’s pearls was “never sleep with a girl you wouldn’t marry.”

I didn’t believe Barry’s father gave him the same pearl. If he did, Barry didn’t listen. There were a lot of teenage pregnancies in the sixties.

“That’s cool,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Sure,” he squeaked, the alarm now in his throat.

Barry cleared his throat and continued, “We can get our business done and I can get on back to Alec, get the ball rollin,’ ya know.”

“How much could you put together?” I asked, methodically rubbing Boone’s ears. I’d just about put him to sleep.

“I got $2500,” he said, after what I thought was too long of a pause.

Well, he either just added or subtracted $500. I was betting on added
.

My hands were sweating and the rubbing of Boone was keeping my right hand dry and that was a good thing.

It’s funny how things worked out sometimes.

I felt the itchy sweat as it rolled from my armpits and down my sides.

“Did you get that good shit you were talkin’ about?”

“You bet,” I said.

Between the rushing in my ears and the sweat dripping down my sides, I started to feel like I
was
‘humidity’.

He made a show of reaching into his right-hand pocket of his Levis and taking out a wad of hundreds.

When I took on a new recruit, I usually gave my, ‘always keep your money in your left-hand pocket and my money in your right-hand pocket’, speech.

It had always worked for me.

Actually, he pulled out two wads. One had twenty hundreds in it, the other had five.

There was no need for paranoia. There wasn’t much traffic on Dixie Garden and, after all, he was a cop, right?

He handed me the money, and after counting it, I put it in the left front pocket of my Levis. This didn’t go unnoticed by him. After all, he’s a cop, right?

He made no comment on the fact that I’d
 counted it.

I was starting to get angry at what he was forcing me to do. I detest being angry, it tends make me angrier, another catch-22.

“How much can you front me on this first run?” he asked, actually rubbing his hands together.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, standing. “Make sure Boone stays on the porch, I don’t want him running out into the street. It would be my luck that the only car that came down the road today would hit him.”

“I’ll take care of him,” he said, already starting to pet Boone’s head.

I wanted to hit him with a 36-inch bat.

I went through the house to our bedroom. Under the bed was a walnut box I’d put there right after Margie left that morning.

I pulled it out and set it on the bed.

Could I really do this? I need to go to the bathroom, and I suddenly had to take a huge breath. I hadn’t been breathing.

I opened the box and looked at the contents.

A Smith&Wesson .22 cal. semi-automatic, on a Colt 1911 frame. It had two barrels and slides. One was a .22 magnum and the other was a .22 long rifle, with a silencer attached.

I’d purchased the gun in the back room of a bookie’s bar for $75 when I was 18. The bookie was an Italian. The gun supposedly came from the northeast and was used for a hit in New Orleans, and I believe, was supposed to be Red River bound. You never know about these things. So, I had never showed the gun to anyone.

The gun, extra slide and barrel with the silencer, were inlaid into purple felt. It only took a moment. While I listened for the sound of the front door to open, I assemble the gun with the silenced barrel, rammed a full .22 long rifle magazine up the grip, and racked a round in the chamber.

I thought I did a damn quick job, considering my hands were wet and shaking.

I had to get it together. I was angry, really pissed off. I was also afraid of what I had to do and what it may do to me, and Margie.

I wanted to cry.

I walked back to the front door, stood there, looking at the back of Barry’s head, and thought how easy it would be, to just shoot him from here.

I took another big breath, let it out, took another one and slowly let it out.

I could see the wind riffling the leaves of the pecan trees, a woodpecker knocking away at a limb, but all I could hear was the rushing of water. No… it was blood.

After making sure it was on safety, but ready to fire, I tucked the pistol between my left hip and my jeans and pulled the t-shirt over it. It’s not where I usually carried a gun, but was perfect for what I had in mind.

After another big breath, I wiped my palms on the front of my jeans, opened the door and stepped out onto the front porch.

As soon as I walked out, Barry turned his head and looked at my empty hands. He couldn’t see the bulge of the pistol because it was on my left and he was on my right.

“What’s up Tucker, where’s the shit?” he asked, half-rising from the chair.

I casually motioned him to sit with my right hand and walked over to the steps. I looked up and down the street to make sure there were no cars coming, which seemed to relax him back into the chair. He thought I was checking before I brought out the pot.

I knew he was carrying. After all, he’s a cop.

I walked slowly down the steps until I was halfway down and about 10 feet in front of him. As I did, I crossed my arms over my stomach.

Again I looked up and down the street, careful to keep my left side unexposed.

“Looks clear to me,” he said, from behind and to my right.

“Yeah,” I said, turning to my right to face him, and uncrossing my arms.

By the time I was fully facing him, the gun was in front of my stomach, in my hand. I knew to him, it looked like it just appeared.

He didn’t move . . . at all. He sat there staring at the end of the silencer.

The gun was hidden from anyone but him and me, if there had been anyone else around, which there wasn’t.

Then he heard the click of the safety, as I took it off.

His face was pale and the fingers of his right hand were twitching.

I said, “I know you’re carrying under your shirt. You wanna try for it? It might make this a little easier for both of us.”

“I’m no match for you, and you know it,” he croaked, like his throat was stuck.

“You want me to give you a better chance?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He just sat there looking at the silencer and all it implied.

I waited. I didn’t trust myself to talk again. My throat was so tight, you couldn’t have pull a hair through it without slitting it.

I don’t know how long we stood like that. It could’ve been ten seconds or ten minutes.

Finally he said, “You can’t do this.” It was almost a whine.

“Oh, and why is that?”
   

“I’m a cop, for Christ sake, and a friend,” he said, his voice one testicle heavier than before.

“You think I want to do this,” I said, with the anger I felt.

“Go for it,” I said, with the first signs of tears in my eyes.

“No.” He said. “I’m not going to make this easy for you.”

It was going to be hard to see through the tears if I didn’t do this soon.

“Easy!…Easy! You think this is going to be easy for me?”

I was really pissed now, and he could see it. Ray Charles could have seen it.

“The people I get my dope from want their money!” I lied. “I tried to explain the situation to them. They told me to get the money from you, or show them a picture of your body!”

The tears in my eyes was what did it. He knew he was about to die.

“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” he screamed.

For the first time, Boone started to get up.

“Stay, Boone!” I said loudly.

The silencer had never left the straight line to his nose.

“Please,” he pleaded, “just give me a chance.”

“I gave you one, and you lied to me. No one ripped you off. The question is, just how much of my money have you spent?”

“I’ve still got most of it, I swear, I swear. You’ll have the rest of it tomorrow. Please, Tucker, don’t do this. You can’t do this!”

“I don’t have a choice, you’ll just go back to Alec and never come up here again. Then, I’ll have to go down there and have to do this all over again, only it’ll be harder for me, you’re a cop.”

“I promise. I promise. I didn’t know what kind of people you’re dealing with. Allen said you were real tight with the Mexicans.”

Thanks a lot, Allen.

“I’m sorry Barry. I’m sorry,” I said softly, as the tears flowed freely down my face and into my beard.

It was time, the dreaded moment I knew was coming, what I had planned was at hand. It was time.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” I said hoarsely, as I moved the silencer from his nose to his forehead.

“Noooooooooo!” Barry screamed, leaning so far back, the rocking chair was on the back tips of its runners. His hands came up in front of his face as if to ward off the bullets.

At the last split second, I turned the silencer to Boone’s beautiful head, and pulled the trigger twice.

Phhitt-Phhitt

The little .22 bullets hitting Boone made a thwapping sound. The movement of the slide and the brass hitting the concrete steps was louder than anything else on the porch.

Through the rushing blood in my head, all noise was muted and distant.

Boone’s head slumped down, as if he had quickly fallen asleep. His legs twitched a little, then I took my eyes off of him and back on Barry.

It took less than a second.

“Jesus . .  Jesus . . . Jesus . . . . . Jesus,” he whimpered.

“He ain’t here, you piece of shit!” I screamed.

“Look what you made me do. You know how much I loved that dog. You know. Tell me you know!”

“I know, I know . . . I’m sorry . . . please . . . please,” he was begging.

I hadn’t realized it, but the gun was again pointed at his nose. We were both crying.

Uh-oh. I’d better get myself under control before I really fucked up.

“I’m going to lower my gun,” I said softly. “If you move, I’ll shoot you. If you say anything, anything at all, I’ll shoot you. If I hear you breathing, I’ll shoot you. Right now, I
really
want to shoot you.”

I didn’t like that the last thing I’d said wasn’t far from the truth.

“Get off my porch. Get in your car and get the fuck out of here. Tomorrow before the end of the day you’ll give Allen $9500 in cash. If he doesn’t call me before 10 o’clock tomorrow night, I’ll come down there and finish this, and you won’t know when.”

I’d been lowering the gun, and when it was almost next to my right leg, he started to say something. I whipped the muzzle up and again it found his nose. His mouth slammed shut. He sat there like a small child waiting for someone to tell him to come out of the corner.

“Now go. I have to bury my dog. I can’t believe I did that. I’d rather have shot you. Go. Go,” I said, the sound of the truth terrifying him, and me.

I turned on the step, giving him room to walk by me, and as he did, he was looking down, not wanting to meet my eyes, the front of his pants were wet.

As he walked by, I said under my breath, but loud enough for him to hear, “At least I don’t have to worry about getting rid of your body and car now.”

His knees almost buckled, but I couldn’t hear him breathing. He made it down the steps and to his car.

I walked slowly back into the house. I never looked back as he backed out of the drive and drove off.

Once inside, I ran to the bathroom and threw up in the sink. I couldn’t make it to the toilet.

Four years ago Boone had fallen off my 1960 Ford flatbed truck while I was going about 50 mph. In my rearview mirror, I saw him literally tumble head over heals. It looked like he broke his neck, but when I went back for him, he seemed fine. I never took him to the vet because there didn’t seem to be any reason to.