thirty-seven

DelPrego was sweating hard. The thermostat in the dingy little farmhouse seemed to be stuck on the ultrahell setting.

And the farmhouse was full of black guys with guns. They all seemed pissed off. DelPrego sat in a corner, tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The sweat poured down his back, formed under his armpits, and dripped. The thick bandages on his face were heavy and damp, clung sticky to his face with somebody else’s blood and grime.

Duncan had gone to the kitchen with a black man in an expensive yellow suit. It was evident the man in yellow was in charge. He had the hard eyes and easy, cheerless grin of a man used to getting what he wants.

DelPrego’s eyes shifted toward the door. It was agonizingly close, but he was too scared to bolt. Maybe if he simply stood and strolled out like it was no big deal, they’d ignore him. Or maybe they wouldn’t.

The drive in Duncan’s truck had been nerve-wracking. Duncan had held the shotgun loosely in his lap. DelPrego had thought about grabbing it or leaping from the truck at full speed or a number of other things that ultimately all seemed like bad, bad ideas which would make him horribly, horribly dead.

He waited, closed his eyes. When he opened them again nothing had changed. He was still in a world of shit.

Red Zach sat at the kitchen table and drank Moses Duncan’s coffee from a Rebel flag mug. He paged through a J. Crew catalog and wondered how he’d look in a turtleneck. Something subdued. A nice taupe maybe. He liked earth tones. He was supposed to visit his mom at Easter, and he couldn’t go dressed up like no Huggy Bear motherfucker from Starsky & Hutch.

Duncan entered the kitchen, sat at the table across from Zach.

“Maurice saw Jenks on campus,” Zach said.

“Did he get him?” Duncan asked.

Zach sipped coffee, shook his head. “By the time he turned the car around, he’d lost track of him. But we think he must be hiding out someplace at the university. Maybe in somebody’s dorm.”

Duncan shook his head. “Don’t make no sense. If he knows you’re hot on his trail, why don’t he just leave town?”

“I didn’t ask for your peckerwood opinion, but I’ll explain. There’s only five roads out of this town, and I got them all watched. He’s got no car and no money and the next closest town is thirty-five miles. No, he’s tucked in someplace, lying low. You’re going to find him.”

“Me?”

“You deaf or something? You think a gang of brothers can roam your cracker campus without attracting some attention?”

“Eddie looks like a damn freak. You don’t think he’ll attract attention?”

“Good point,” Zach said. “You go by yourself.”

“Great.”

“Go tell your boy you’re taking a field trip.”

“Right.” Duncan left the table.

Zach waved Maurice over. The man stood straight as a blade, hands folded in front of him. “What’s the word, Red?”

“Follow that redneck. Make sure he’s obeying orders.”

“And if he tries to take it on the road?”

Zach’s face stretched into one of his trademark, evil grins. “Pull the plug on his sorry ass.”

DelPrego saw Duncan coming toward him. Duncan shrugged into his coat, so DelPrego stood. Maybe they were finally getting the hell out of here.

“You stay put, Eddie,” Duncan said. “I got to run an errand on my own.”

DelPrego’s eyes widened. He did not want to wait another minute in the farmhouse.

“Take it easy. I’ll be back when I can.” Duncan slapped him on the shoulder, then leaned in and whispered, “Just stay out of the way of these boys. We’ll get them out of our hair soon enough.” And then he was out the door.

DelPrego slowly looked around the room. One guy playing solitaire, two more watching television, and another two in the kitchen. He knew there were more someplace. DelPrego walked toward the bathroom. Keep it casual. He went in, shut the door behind him, and eased the dead bolt into place. He sat on the toilet and peeled off the bandages. The air on his skin was welcome relief.

DelPrego looked at the bandages and shivered. They were caked with dried blood, and some kind of slick goo DelPrego hoped was only ointment. The smell almost made him gag. He scrubbed his face in the sink, wiped off with a semiclean towel.

He looked at the window over the toilet. Small, but he was pretty sure he could squeeze through it, and be damned if he was going to wait around there until his luck ran out. He knelt on the toilet seat, pushed the window up. Cold air flooded the tiny bathroom. DelPrego breathed it in, filled his lungs. He’d always had an acute intolerance for heat, and the big gulps of cool air settled his nerves a little. But not much.

He put his arms through the window, wiggled his shoulders through one at a time. He hung half out the window, the drop down was a little farther than he’d thought but no big deal. He wiggled down to his hips and jammed himself in the window. He put his hands on either side of the window, set his jaw, pushed. He was just a fraction of an inch too wide. If he shucked his jeans, he could do it, he could just slither through, he was sure.

He backed into the bathroom, feeling for the toilet seat with his boot. His heel slipped on the slick porcelain and he fell backward, landed hard between the toilet and the sink. It made a good racket. DelPrego held his breath. Waited. Nobody came to investigate.

He grabbed the back of the toilet to pull himself up and his hand ran across something. He looked. A gun taped to the back of the toilet. He peeled it off, examined it. A.410 shotgun, a hack job. The barrel had been sawed almost to nothing, and most of the butt had been cut away, leaving only the pistol grip. He checked the breach, broke it in half. One shell. A fat slug.

Okay. Better than nothing. If he were going to get out of there, the shotgun might come in handy. But he hoped not. He wanted to sneak out without any trouble. He dropped the gun out the window.

He took off his boots, then slipped off his jeans. He remembered the drop and put his boots back on. He didn’t want to twist an ankle or land on something in the grass with his bare feet. He was still worried about the tight fit through the window. He’d probably scrape a little flesh. No big deal. As long as he squeezed through.

He shimmied back through the window, wedging himself again at the hips. But this time he detected a little more give. He pulled hard, felt his flesh bunch against the window frame. His flanks burned where they scraped against the wood but only for a second. He popped through, hit the ground hard. He stood, caught his breath and examined his raw, red hips. Scraped and bruised but nothing to worry about. Now all he had to do was put his jeans back on and-

His jeans were still in the bathroom.

“Fuck.”

He leapt for the windowsill but could only just grab it with his fingertips, not enough to pull himself back up. His jeans were gone. His ass was very, very cold. A frigid gust of wind shriveled his testicles.

He looked around, didn’t see anyone, picked up the shotgun, and ran for the barn. It was still cold inside, but at least he’d escaped the wind. He scanned the barn and saw an old horse blanket thrown over some lumpy machinery. He could wrap it around his waist like a kilt.

He pulled off the blanket, revealing the gleaming motorcycle underneath.

“Whoa.”

He wrapped the blanket around himself and knelt to examine the bike. A Harley, fat and low. It looked like it had recently been worked on and cleaned up. He checked the gas tank. Full. The bike was his ticket out, but he knew it would make a roar when he cranked it. He’d have to start the thing and ride fast before all those brothers poured out of the farmhouse to cut him down.