Bedbugs (54 page)

“No, no. Listen again,” Glenn said.

He rewound the tape and played it again, making sure the volume was turned all the way up. Once again, he heard the writer say, “What the hell was that?”—followed by the loud bang, then silence. Through the tape hiss came the unmistakable sounds of a distant piano, playing “Listen to the Mockingbird.”

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Butter said, gasping as he sat back and let his shoulders slump. His mouth hung open, exposing his single yellow tooth. His eyes were wide and held a wild, confused glow.

Glenn quickly rewound the tape, and they all listened one more time. This time, everyone in the bar said they heard the faint strains of the distinctive tune.

“You ain’t fucking with us, are you Glenn?” Shantelle asked. Her eyes were wide, dark pools in the dim barroom light.

Glenn couldn’t speak. He could barely shake his head,
no
. His fingers were tingling so badly he’d all but lost his sense of touch. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold onto the tape recorder. A numb, hollow feeling slid open inside his chest, and the cold sensation between his shoulder blades spread like invisible fingers up the back of his neck.

Glenn clicked the tape off and looked around at his friends. They had all heard it, and they were all staring at him as though they expected him to say something profound. But it was Tony who finally spoke up.

“Wanna know what I think?” he said gruffly. Before anyone could draw a breath to speak, he continued, “I think, if you ain’t playin’ some kinda trick on us here, if this is for real, there’s only one thing you
can
do.”

“What’s that?” Glenn asked, looking at him, his eyebrows raised in desperate query.

“I think you oughta take that damned tape recorder, zip it back into that carrying case with all that other stuff, put a heavy stone in with it ‘n drop it overboard when you go out lobsterin’ tomorrow mornin’.” Tony raised his hand and pointed a gnarled forefinger at Glenn, shaking it like a schoolteacher who was scolding a child. “‘Cause if that tape’s for real, there ain’t no one ever gonna see that writer fella alive again. Not on The Nephews, ‘n not anywhere else.”

Tony leaned his head back and drained his beer glass with a few deep swallows. After wiping his chin and beard with the flat of his hand, he leaned forward and pinned Glenn with an intense, earnest look.

“That fella drove up here, you say?”

Glenn’s throat was so dry he could barely swallow as he nodded and said, “Uh-huh.”

“Well, then,” Tony said, heaving himself up off the bar stool, preparing to leave. “If I was you, while it’s still dark, I’d think about drivin’ his car out to Nickerson’s Quarry and pushin’ it off Big Derrick Ledge where it’s deepest.” Tony wavered, a little unsteady on his feet as he took two twenties from his wallet and dropped them onto the bar in front of Shantelle. Before he turned to leave, though, he belched before leaning close to Glenn. His breath was sour with beer and stale with cigarette smoke as he whispered into his ear, “‘N I’d think ‘bout movin’ them thirty or forty traps you got out there by the Nephews.”

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