Sixty
THE CROWD DISPERSES quickly.
Before Helene Mayes heads back to her new office, the one that had been Nash Hader’s until she’d kicked his ass out of it, she says to me on her way out, “My only regret is that I didn’t step on him the way your daddy did that time.”
“You know about that?”
“I know everything,” she says.
Abby, who has to be at work early the next morning, is giving EJ a ride home. Before she leaves, she makes sure Taylor sees her give me a quick kiss on the cheek.
When Burt and Taylor and I finally walk out of the hall, we see the pickup trucks lined up on Front Street.
Four in all. Some of the guys are leaning against the sides of them, arms crossed, trying to look tougher than I know they are, at least when they aren’t wearing masks and coming at me from the blind side.
Roof and Lynyrd Crockett are up on the sidewalk.
No clubs or weapons tonight, at least none that I can see. But the night is young, and I have a cop standing right next to me.
“Go back inside, please,” Burt says to Taylor.
“Like hell,” she says.
“Will you at least let Silas and me handle this?” Burt says. “And I did say please.”
“I’ll hang back for now,” she says. “But remember that I am armed.”
“How could I forget?” Burt asks.
I should know her well enough by now to know that she isn’t kidding.
Burt and I approach the Crocketts and their gang. Before Burt can even try to stop me, I am right up on Roof Crockett, in his own uniform tonight, or one of them: white T-shirt and vest, jeans hanging off him, and shitkicker boots.
What EJ had said about him on the porch that night is so loud inside my head in this moment, I’m surprised I’m the only one who can hear it.
There’s something else inside my head now, an image in vivid colors:
My hands around his throat.
But all I say is this: “Beat it.”
Roof nods at Burt.
“Because you’ve got him with you?” Roof says. “Isn’t there something in the law someplace about the right to free assembly or something like that?”
“Wow,” I say. “You did pay attention in school once in a while, until my father told you that you were no longer welcome there, of course.”
“I have as much a right to be standing here as you do,” Roof says. “We all do. Kind of hurts our feelings that you didn’t invite Lynyrd and me to the big meet.”
“Is that so?” I say mildly.
We’re even closer now. Nothing aggressive in my posture, just proximity. I’m here. He’s right there. And Burt is right behind me, letting the scene play out, for now. He doesn’t know what EJ had said about Roof Crockett because I haven’t told him. I haven’t told anybody.
“Hey, nobody’s more concerned about this time than my daddy and my brother and me,” he says. “Despite the shit you’re running around saying about us.”
“Is that so?” I say, my eyes still firmly fixed on his.
“You tell him, Roof,” Lynyrd says.
“Shut up, Lynyrd,” Roof says. But his own eyes stay on mine. “This is between the Big Nothing and me.”
“Works for me,” I say.
“What you seem to keep forgetting,” Roof says, “is how much our family has invested here.”
“Sure,” I say. “But what are you doing here right now?”
I have to hand it to him. He’s managed to stand his ground this time, maybe because he doesn’t want to look scared in front of his buddies.
“You frankly don’t want trouble from either one of us,” Burt says, “especially now that Nash Hader isn’t around to roll over and beg every time your father tells him to.”
“Is that so?” Roof asks.
Not looking at Burt. Still looking at me.
Now Burt is the one saying, “Beat it. All of you.”
“Fine with me,” Roof Crockett says. “But since I am here, I’ll deliver a message, to both of you. Both of you stop talking shit about the Crocketts.”
“That’s it?” I ask. “The whole message? You practice it before you drove over?”
“You’ve been warned,” Roof says.
“Or what?” Burt asks.
“That’s for you to find out, isn’t it, Deputy Dawg?”
Roof turns to walk back to his truck. But then he stops, and turns around, and looks up to where Taylor is standing near the front door to the hall.
“You take care, Mrs. Webb,” he yells up to her. “You hear?”
Burt starts to step forward, but I stop him with my arm as Roof opens the passenger door, Lynyrd already behind the wheel.
Roof turns around one last time then, to address me.
“And you make sure to give my best to your grandma,” he says. “Hear?”
The Crocketts drive away with the rest of them, their truck in the lead, like it’s some kind of goober parade.