THIRTEEN
Andy pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket. He jammed it between the doorjamb and the lock. Oscar stood behind him, shielding him from the street with his bulk. Not that he really needed any shielding. There was hardly anybody on the street. A few stumbling lost souls who weren’t worrying about anything but their next drink or hit. They’d parked three blocks away just in case some civic-minded neighbor decided to copy down Andy’s license-plate number.
He gripped the doorknob and turned it as he forced the screwdriver into the jamb. To his surprise the knob turned with almost no effort.
“Shit, I think it was open,” Andy said.
“Huh. Well, let’s get this over with, I guess.”
Andy paused. Why was the door unlocked anyway? Had they stumbled on somebody robbing the place? He wasn’t sure of how you defined irony, but he thought that would be damn close. Andy touched the small of his back. The butt of a .357 Colt Python rested against his waistband. He’d gotten it from Grayson when they left the clubhouse. He didn’t think they would need it, but if you stayed prepared you didn’t have to get prepared. That was one of the only things his piece-of-shit mother had said that actually made sense.
“Yeah, let’s do it,” Andy said. It didn’t matter why the door was unlocked. It didn’t matter what might be on the other side of that door. All that mattered was getting what Grayson asked for so they could be made full members. Andy pulled the door open and stepped inside the house.
Buddy Lee leaned against the sink. His chest was as tight as virgin pussy. He tried to cough but he couldn’t seem to get enough air into his lungs. He flicked on the faucet. He cupped his hands and caught some water. He splashed his face, took a deep breath, and finally coughed up some phlegm. He spit into the sink. The light-greenish phlegm was stippled with red spots.
“Well, that ain’t good,” he murmured.
The front door opened.
Buddy Lee snapped his head up and whirled around until he was facing the living room. Two men had stepped inside the house. One of them was a tall drink of water with a spindly frame that could use a few pounds. The other one had bulk to spare. He could donate fifty pounds to his buddy and still be as wide as a tank.
They tiptoed into the room like a pair of skittish deer. Buddy Lee leaned back against the sink. He reached behind him and pulled the first thing his hand touched out of the drain basket. That happened to be a heavy decorative jelly jar. He gripped it behind his back with his right hand. They hadn’t seen him yet. He could try sliding out the kitchen and down the hall. Probably wouldn’t work but he could try it. Of course, if he did that he wouldn’t be able to ask them what the hell they were doing in his son’s house. He didn’t think they were Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“Hey there, fellas,” Buddy Lee said from the kitchen. The two men stopped in their tracks.
“Hey,” Andy said. He let his right hand slip into his back pocket.
“What y’all fellas doing walking up in my son’s house without knocking? Y’all friends of his?”
Andy and Oscar exchanged a look. Buddy Lee had seen that look before. They were deciding which one of them were going to tell the lie. Andy smiled.
“Yeah, we’re friends of his.”
“You all must work with him at the newspaper,” Buddy Lee said. Andy moved his hand closer to his gun.
“Yeah, that’s it. We all work at the newspaper together,” Andy said. Buddy Lee smiled back at Andy.
You a lying sack of shit, he thought.
Andy saw the smile crawl across Buddy Lee’s face. He noticed it never reached his eyes.
Shit, he thought.
The house went quiet. Buddy Lee could hear the ticking of the clock above the sink. The hum of the traffic on the street. The sighs and groans of the house as it settled into a monolithic position for the foreseeable future.
The ice machine rattled again.
Andy reached for his gun.
Buddy Lee hurled the jelly jar at his head. It exploded against his right cheek. Buddy Lee was on the move as soon as he threw the jar. He slammed his whole body into Andy before Oscar even realized he was in the living room. Andy and Buddy Lee crashed into the coffee table. Despite their total body weight barely breaking the 250-pound barrier, the table collapsed under their bodies. Andy felt the gun biting into the skin just above the crack of his ass. He wanted to grab it, but the old man was trying his best to knock his teeth down his throat.
Buddy Lee punched Andy as hard as he could on the right side of his face. The kid tried to block his punches but to no avail. When Andy raised his hands to protect his eyes and forehead, Buddy Lee cracked him in the chin. When he inverted the position of his hands, his cheek bore the brunt of Buddy Lee’s assault. The old man was as wiry as a spider monkey.