Life or Death (27 page)

‘I know you’re there,’ he yells. ‘I mean you no harm.’

‘Is that why you started shooting?’ replies Moss.

‘You shouldn’t sneak up on a man.’

‘I was told you were expecting me.’

‘Is that Mr Webster?’

Audie has stopped digging. He stares up the slope as though trying to place the voice.

‘Why didn’t you just announce yourself?’ asks the tall man.

‘You looked a little trigger-happy.’

‘I mean you no harm.’

‘Then you’ll put the gun down.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘So you’ll see the sun come up.’

Audie is still gazing up the ridge. ‘When did you get out, Moss?’

‘Few days ago.’

‘I didn’t know you were up for parole.’

‘Neither did I.’

‘How you been?’

‘Good. I managed to see my old lady.’

‘Guess you had some catching up to do.’

Moss laughs. ‘We tore up the sheets. I’m still feeling sore.’

The tall man grunts. ‘What is this – a PTA meeting?’

Moss ignores him.

‘Hey, Audie! They’re saying you killed a woman and child.’

‘I know.’

‘Did you do it?’

‘No.’

‘I figured as much. Why are you digging a hole?’

Audie motions to the tall man. ‘He said it was a grave.’

The tall man interrupts. ‘I was only trying to keep him busy till you got here.’

‘I’m supposed to make it big enough for two,’ yells Audie.

‘He’s talking horseshit, amigo,’ says the tall man, who swings the shotgun at Audie.

Moss is contemplating his next move as he works his way further along the ridge to get a better look at the tall man. He peers over the edge of a rock, trying not to create a silhouette against the sky, still pointing his .45, the hammer on full cock, the barrel trembling because he’s holding the grip so hard. From this distance, he’s not likely to hit anything unless it’s by accident.

‘You gonna pick him up, or what?’ yells the tall man, his voice bouncing weirdly off the trees.

‘We got some shit to talk about first,’ Moss replies. ‘How about you put the shotgun down? I conversate best when I don’t have a gun pointed at me.’

‘How do I know you’re not armed?’

‘You’ll have to take my word for it.’

The tall man moves into the glare of the headlights. He holds the shotgun above his head and places it on the hood of the Camry. He raises his empty hands. ‘I done put it down.’

‘You wouldn’t lie to a fella, would you?’

‘Not me, amigo.’

‘I wish you’d stop calling me that. It’s not like we’re pen-pals.’

Moss tucks the .45 into his jeans and gets to his feet, brushing the dirt from the front of his shirt. He slides down the slope, not taking his eyes off the shotgun or the tall man.

Audie can feel the muscles in his neck begin to knot and twist. He’s trying to figure out how Moss got released from prison and what he’s doing here. He bends down and massages his ankle where the chain is rubbing against his shin. The tall man tells him to get in the hole.

‘No.’

‘I’ll shoot you.’

‘What with?’

Moss is still fifty yards away. Audie can’t see his features, but recognises his walk. Edging closer to the concrete block, Audie picks up the chain in his hands, looping it in his opposite fist like a lasso.

The two men are closer now. Moss shakes out a handkerchief and wipes his forehead with his left hand. His right hand is resting on his hip. The tall man has lit a cigarette and is standing with the headlights behind him, letting them shine in Moss’s eyes.

‘How do you two know each other?’ he asks.

‘We go way back,’ replies Moss.

‘Where you parked?’

‘Over the ridge a ways.’

There is a long silence. The tall man truncates it. ‘So how do we do this?’

‘You hand Audie over and fuck off.’

‘You asking me or telling me?’

‘If it makes you feel any better you can tell people I asked you.’ Moss glances at the chain around Audie’s ankle. ‘I’ll need the keys.’

‘Sure.’

The tall man reaches for his back pocket. Instead he draws a pistol that was tucked in his waistband. In the heartbeat it takes to clear his hip, Audie flings the chain, which curls through the air and snaps back again, striking the gun hand. The round goes past Moss’s head and hits something harder than bone, issuing a spark. The second shot is closer to the mark, but Moss has taken cover behind a boulder. He goes down hard, twisting his knee, cursing and returning fire without aiming. Both men are shooting at each other.

Audie reloops the chain over his forearm and bends to pick up the concrete block, staggering under the weight. He stumbles toward the vehicle, cradling the rock like he’s heavily pregnant or expecting a bullet in the back at any moment. The lactic acid is building up in his muscles, making his forearms burn, but he keeps running until he reaches the Camry. He drops the concrete block and picks up the shotgun, priming it with one hand and aiming it across the hood.

The tall man sees him at the last moment and rolls into the hole. Audie bellows at both of them to hold their fire. Silence follows, except for Audie’s breathing and the blood in his ears.

‘You got him covered?’ yells Moss.

‘I got
both
of you covered,’ says Audie.

‘I came here to help you.’

‘That remains to be seen.’

Audie raises his head above the level of the side window and checks the interior of the car. The engine is still running.

‘OK, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’m going to drive away from here and you two can kill each other for all I care.’

‘You get behind that wheel and I’ll shoot you,’ replies the tall man.

‘You could try, but this shotgun is more likely to hit you than the other way round.’ Audie looks at his ankle. ‘Where are the keys?’

‘I’m not giving ’em to you.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Audie crouches and picks up the block. He opens the car door and heaves it inside. Then he crawls over the top of the rock and squeezes behind the steering wheel.

The tall man is yelling at Moss to do something.

‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘Shoot him.’

‘
You
shoot him.’

‘He’s getting away.’

‘I’ll shoot him if you tell me why that hole got dug big enough for two people.’

‘It’s like I said, I was keeping him occupied.’

Audie slams the Camry into reverse. The headlights swing over the ground, away from the hole where the tall man is hiding and past the pile of boulders where Moss has taken shelter, onto the dirt road that leads through the pine trees. He waits for the sound of more gunfire, breaking glass.

Nothing. He breathes. He sighs. Sweat cools on his face.

A cloud of dust is floating into the trees as Moss listens to the car labouring up a grade, grinding loose rocks beneath the tyres.

‘So, amigo, what happens now?’ yells the tall man.

‘I should shoot you and bury you in that hole.’

‘What makes you think I won’t shoot you?’

‘You’re out of bullets.’

‘That’s a big call.’

‘I counted.’

‘Your math is shit. Maybe I got another clip. Maybe I reloaded.’

‘I don’t believe so.’

‘Maybe
you’re
out of bullets, amigo, and you’re trying to bluff me.’

‘Maybe.’

Moss stands, pain flaring in his knee. He limps from the cover of the boulders and walks toward the tall man, who is just a shadow lying in the freshly dug hole. The moon makes a timely appearance so he can see more clearly.

‘We’re amigos,’ says the tall man. ‘We both want to get the job done. Put the gun down.’

‘I’m not the one who’s out of ammo.’

‘You keep saying that, but it’s not true.’

Moss is close enough to see the tall man’s strange beard. ‘What were you gonna to do to me and Audie?’

‘I was gonna hand him over.’

Moss raises the .45. ‘I want a straight answer or your brains will be flying out the back of your head.’

The tall man is still aiming at Moss. He pulls the trigger and hears a dull click. He drops the weapon is disgust.

‘On your knees! Hands behind your head!’ says Moss, who is now standing at the edge of the hole. He circles the kneeling man. ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

‘OK, OK, I was supposed to kill you … something about loose ends.’

‘Who gave the order?’

‘I don’t know his name. He gave me a cell phone.’

‘Are you lying to me?’

‘No it’s the God honest truth.’

‘Whenever somebody starts using God as a character reference it usually means they’re lying.’

‘I swear to you.’

‘Where’s the cell?’

‘In my pocket.’

‘Toss it to me.’

The tall man takes a hand from his head and retrieves the phone. He throws it to Moss. It’s the same shitty make and model as the one he was given.

‘What did the guy look like?’

‘I didn’t see his face.’

Moss closes one eye and gazes along his forearm, his finger stroking the trigger.

‘What you are fixin’ to do?’ the tall man asks.

‘I haven’t decided.’

‘If you let me walk away, you won’t see me again. I won’t keep looking for Audie Palmer. You can have him to yourself.’

‘Lie down in the hole.’

‘Please, sir, don’t.’

‘Lie down.’

‘I got a mother. She’s seventy-six. She’s hard of hearing and cain’t see real good, but I call her every evening. That’s why I would never have hurt Audie Palmer’s mama. I was told to threaten her, but I couldn’t do it.’

‘Shut up, I’m thinking,’ says Moss. ‘One part of me says I should shoot you, but that’s how my problems started. Every time I fronted the parole board the chairman would ask me if I was sorry for my crimes and each time I put my hand on my heart and told him that I’m a different person now, more circumspect and tolerant, slower to anger. If I shot you now I’d be proving myself to be a liar. There’s also the other problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’m out of bullets.’

Moss swings his fist in a short sharp arc and the handle of the gun strikes the tall man’s temple, causing spittle to fly from his mouth. His body topples forward into the hole and lands with a thud. He’ll wake in the morning with a bump and bad memories, but at least he’ll wake.

38

Out on the road, the Camry is just another vehicle on another journey. Audie steers with both hands on the wheel, trying to overcome the urge to drive too fast and risk drawing attention to himself. He keeps glancing in the mirrors, convinced he’s being followed or that every set of oncoming headlights is making directly for him, seeking him out, illuminating his soul.

At some point he turns off the sealed road and passes a barn and a pasture with horses and a water tank. Up the slope he can see the silhouette of a house with darkened windows and fancy railings around the porch. He drags the block from the passenger seat and rests the chain across the edge of a rock. Pressing the barrel of the shotgun against the links he turns his face away before pulling the trigger. The noise hurts his ears and fragments of rock hit the back of his head. He tosses the smoking chain aside.

Back behind the wheel, he returns to the four-lane and thinks about Moss. At first sight of him Audie had wanted to run through the weeds and hug him. He wanted to dance around and laugh and afterwards they’d get drunk and swap stories and as they reminisced the prison years would become nothing and everybody dead would be alive to them, jumping and beating inside their chests so hard they would need another drink to slow the feeling down.

In prison they called Moss the big fella, because he had the physical presence and the reputation that allowed him to circumvent most of the daily squabbles for territory and control. Moss didn’t ask for the name or take advantage of his status. Sometimes Audie wondered if he had willed Moss into being because he so desperately wanted to connect with another human being – one that didn’t want to fight him or kill him.

What was Moss doing out of prison and how did he find Audie in the forest? Was he still a friend or working for someone else?

Staring at the white lines of the road, Audie feels stricken with shame and guilt and unrelieved anger. His plans are falling apart. He can picture Cassie and Scarlett, their faces still animated and laughing, now dead because of him. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s still to blame. He’s a fugitive. Battered like a piñata. Flushed like a turd. Beaten. Stabbed. Choked. Burned. Shackled. What more can they do to him?

Audie had never been a hater, because when people hate with too much energy it’s normally something about themselves they hate the most. But ever since he lost Belita, anger seems to have become his most pervasive emotion, like a default setting on a machine. He knows when it began: New Year’s Eve, 2003, when the future announced itself and forced him to make a decision.

Urban had decided to throw a party and Audie had spent weeks running errands, organising caterers, setting up tables and picking up parcels. Extra staff arrived to help with the party. Marquees were raised in the garden and coloured lights threaded around the branches until the trees twinkled like constellations. Caterers brought in truckloads of food and set up a temporary kitchen. A pig was skewered on a metal pole and hung over a charcoal pit, turning slowly and dripping fat that sizzled in the coals, the aroma mingling with the scent of blossoms from the flower arrangements.

Audie hadn’t seen Belita since Christmas Day, when he drove her to Mass. She wouldn’t let him come inside the church and she wouldn’t let him touch her afterward because it was a holy day, she said, and God might be watching. Audie didn’t mind. He had discovered the pleasure of contemplating Belita’s body without possessing it. He knew her so intimately that he could close his eyes and picture the smooth dents on top of her shoulders, scalloped in the bone, and imagine his tongue tracing those hollows. He could feel the curve of her waist, the weight of her breasts, and hear her quickening breath when his fingers played certain notes.

Later Belita would tell Audie about her conversation with Urban before the party on New Year’s Eve. She’d been seated at her dressing table watching Urban in the mirror as he opened a velvet-lined box and took out a necklace with a fire opal surrounded by a circle of small diamonds.