“You wanna be mad at me because Skunk made you shit your pants, that’s fine. I can take that. You wanna be pissed I cost you a payday, I’ll take that, too, although I have my suspicions about that. What I can’t take, what I can’t abide is you turning your back on Derek. He was my son. He was your nephew. Some dirty no-count sons of bitches shot him down like a dog. Here I am circling in on the cowards that done it, and all I need is the keys to that place you got down in Mathews. All I need is a place to work, and you saying you can’t do that for me? Then don’t do it for me. Do it for Derek. Do it for him,” Buddy Lee said. Chet walked back to the counter and pulled a Styrofoam cup from a shelf under the counter. He spit a huge dollop of dark liquid in it.
“Your son. The fa—” Chet didn’t get to finish the epithet because in one smooth motion Buddy Lee jumped forward, opened his knife, closed the distance between them, and put the blade to his neck.
“No. Not that word. Not anymore. Not about my boy. I used it enough myself when he was alive. That word is dead for me now,” Buddy Lee said.
“You put a knife to my throat, Buddy Lee, you better play the fiddle with that son of a bitch. Come into my house and put a knife to my throat and bring a spook with you? You ain’t shit,” Chet said. Buddy Lee saw his own eyes in his brother’s. The corrosive rot of the rage they had both inherited from their father.
“You talk all that shit about being a patriot and a warrior, but when I came to you about finding the people who did Derek, you acted like I had asked you to rope the goddamn wind. He was your nephew but you couldn’t be bothered. I tell you what, that man out there done rolled with me harder and deeper than you ever have. He’s the brother I should have had. But you can fix that now. You can help make all this right. So you can either hand me them keys or I bleed you and take ’em. But I promise you one way or the other I’m leaving here with ’em.” Chet bared his brown teeth like a rat. Buddy Lee pressed the knife deeper into the taut flesh of Chet’s throat.
“We gonna settle up later, brother,” Chet said. He shook a key chain with two keys attached to it. It had appeared in his hand as if by magic. Buddy Lee plucked the keys from his grip. He backed away from him while still pointing the knife at him. The handle of the door pressed into his Buddy Lee’s back. He closed the knife and put in his back pocket.
“I’m gonna fuck you up, Buddy. You better watch your goddamn back,” Chet said.
“Life beat you to it, brother, but you more than welcome to try and take your turn,” Buddy Lee said.
* * *
Buddy Lee climbed in the truck. Ike got in and started the engine.
“You alright?” Ike asked. Buddy Lee shoved the keys in his pocket.
“I was thinking about how the good die young,” Buddy Lee said.
“I guess that’s why we’re still here,” Ike said as he put the truck in gear.
“Let’s go check this place out. Get the lay of the land, so to speak. I’ve been there once but it was a long time ago. I wanna see the dance floor before we cut a rug.”
FORTY-TWO
Ike turned right off Route 14 onto Route 198. He’d had a few jobs out in Mathews County over the years but not many. Most of the people out this way worked their own yards.
“Stay on this until we hit Tabernacle Road. Gonna take a left onto that,” Buddy Lee said.
Tabernacle Road was the first hard-surface left turn after you drove through the town of Mathews. Past the grocery store and the post office and the library. Past a Civil War statue two steps from the courthouse building. Ike took that left and followed Tabernacle until Buddy Lee told him to turn right onto a long dusty logging road.
The road wound down through a dense canopy of pine trees until it came to a gravel road bisected by a horse gate. Ike stopped the truck and Buddy Lee hopped out with the keys. He unlocked the gate and Ike drove through it. Buddy Lee hopped back in the car and they continued down the gravel road. At the end it opened into a spacious meadow. To their left was a narrow barn-red rectangular steel building with one roll-up door in the center of the rectangle. There was a window to the right of the roll-up door. The building itself was nearly a hundred feet long. To their right were several tactical targets arranged on a shooting course. Most of the targets were paper silhouettes over plywood. A few of them were cartoonish images of Black and Hispanic men.
“Your brother is a real asshole,” Ike said when he saw them.
“Yeah. I won’t argue with you on that one,” Buddy Lee said. Ike parked the truck. They got out and walked up to the main building.