“I live in a real nice neighborhood with some real nice white people. You probably got about two minutes to get out of here before the cops show up. They look out for us high-rolling taxpayers,” Tariq said.
“You talk to Tangerine, you tell her we need to talk to her. Our boys tried to help her and they got killed. She owes us that,” Ike said.
“Toss him my knife,” Buddy Lee said. Cockeyed, who had taken the knife off of Buddy Lee, blanched.
“Put the gun down and you get your knife,” he said. Buddy Lee aimed at his forehead.
“I know your boy got a bead on me, but hear me when I tell you this: there’ll be two of us dead if you don’t hand over that knife,” Buddy Lee said. There was a flatness to his voice that Ike had never heard. He realized Buddy Lee was fully prepared to die over that jackknife. The bodyguard must have realized it, too, because he pulled it out his pocket and tossed it to Ike. Ike in turn threw it on the seat.
“I’m keeping your gun,” Buddy Lee said.
They both climbed in the truck. Buddy Lee fired it up and mashed the pedal to the floor. The security guard missed getting run over by a frog’s hair.
TWENTY-NINE
Buddy Lee had hopped on the interstate and taken them out of Richmond. He took the first exit after they had cleared the city limits and pulled into a gas station. He’d barely shut off the truck when he opened the door and vomited. It looked like a child had spilled a can of red-and-green finger paint on the ground.
“I think that fella turned my liver sideways,” he said when he was done. Ike wound down the window and checked his face in the side mirror. There was blood on his face. His chin was swelling like a puffer fish’s. He touched the back of his head. The baton had reopened the wound the kid had given him with the chair.
“Yeah, they fucked us up pretty good,” Ike said.
“Tried,” Buddy Lee said.
“What?”
“I said they tried to fuck us up pretty good.”
“You need to check the mirror,” Ike said. Buddy Lee lay back against the bench seat.
“I’m not saying we didn’t take no licks, but we still here, ain’t we? A lot of people we used to run with are gone. Now, I ain’t much on religion, but like you said: Everybody got a skill. A thing they put on earth for. Maybe this is why we still around. To finish this,” Buddy Lee said lying back against the headrest.
Ike wasn’t sure if he was hyping up himself or Ike. But he had to admit Buddy Lee had a point. They both went quiet as their bodies registered the pain that was sure to get worse as day gave way to night.
“That knife means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” Ike asked, finally breaking the silence. Buddy Lee pulled the jackknife out of his pocket. He held it in front of his face and stared at it for a long time before he spoke.
“It belonged to my daddy,” Buddy Lee said. He didn’t offer any other explanation than those five words. Ike didn’t need one. The knife had belonged to Buddy Lee’s father. That explained it all.
Ike changed the subject.
“He knows where she is. He wouldn’t have gone through all this if he didn’t,” he said. Buddy Lee wheezed, coughed, then spit out his window.
“Yeah, but he ain’t likely to tell us now. You think we could take him when he leaves his house? Get him out in the boonies and make him tell?” Buddy Lee said. Ike used a crumpled napkin to wipe the blood from his knuckles.
“I know a guy might be able to help us get to him again,” Ike said.
“Well, shit, I wish you had said that before I got my ribs rearranged,” Buddy Lee said.
“We didn’t part on the best of terms. It’s a long story but he owes me. I think it’s about time I collect.”
“You wanna go now?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Ain’t no time like the present,” Ike said.
“Can you drive? I think if I hiccup too hard I’m gonna pass out,” Buddy Lee said.
* * *
Ike got back on the interstate, then took the Chesterfield exit. Chesterfield County was a huge municipality that encompassed several small towns within its borders and enormous swaths of wilderness that remained essentially unchanged since before Captain John Smith had told his first lie about his adventures in the New World.
Ike drove along rolling back roads lined by ditches deep enough to dive in and do the backstroke. Finally, he came to a shopping center that sat in the middle of a field on a lonely spit of land near Route 360. A cornfield bordered the strip mall to the north, and several abandoned shipping containers and trailers to the south. Ike remembered when he first got out, there had been a fleet repair shop near the strip mall. The place had been a huge sheet-metal monstrosity that bore more than a passing resemblance to his shop. Now even the bones of that building were gone. Scattered to the four winds or the nearest salvage yard.