Cold in July by Joe R. Lansdale
Ann said, “All right. The man over there is a policeman, and we’ll work together.”
“Good,” Jim Bob said. “What we’re gonna have to do first is go out there and dig up that fella you shot.”
“What?” I said.
“You heard me. I want to be sure that the dead fella isn’t Freddy. I know what you’ve said, and I don’t think you’re a liar, but you could be wrong. He could have changed a lot. The color of the eyes you could have been wrong about. I’ve dealt with a lot of eyewitnesses, and what they remember ain’t always how it was. In your case, you may not want that ole burglar to be Freddy, but it could be.”
“No way,” I said.
“That’s the rules,” Jim Bob said. “We start there. If it is Freddy, then we figure why they let Ben out so easy and take it from there. If it ain’t Freddy, we play another angle. And let me add this.” He looked at Russel. “If it is Freddy, and if you’re still thinking you got to hurt Mr. Dane or his family here, well, Ben, ole hoss, I’ll just have to blow your brains out and put you in the hole with him and cover you up. Got me?”
Russel grinned at him. “I may not let you.”
“We can always hope we don’t have to find that out, can’t we?”
“Yeah,” Russel said. “I wouldn’t want to kill you, Jim Bob, we been friends too long.”
“It would pain me too. Killing you or getting killed by you, so let’s just hope that don’t come up.”
“It won’t. If it’s Freddy, then I’ll accept he was burglarizing Dane’s house and Dane had to kill him.” Russel looked at me. “I know now you didn’t just shoot him unarmed and plant a gun. You aren’t like that.”
“My, haven’t we gotten to be chummy,” Ann said.
“And little lady,” Jim Bob said, “you keep that sarcastic edge, cause we’re gonna need it to keep us sharp. Now, let me finish up this feast, then I’d like to get Ben and me checked into a room. Mr. and Mrs. Dane, y’all go on home and I’ll call you. And if you’re starting to sweat a little bit in the pocketbook and wondering what I’m gonna cost you, it’s like this. Three hundred dollars a day, no expenses. I cut that cause I know Ben. As for the stay at the Holiday Inn for me and Ben, I got that covered. If that sounds steep to you, don’t know what to tell you. That’s the price. I don’t just do this for my health and I ain’t so friendly to Ben here I’ll do it for free.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“It’s high,” Ann said.
“It’ll do,” I said.
Jim Bob laughed. “Don’t you just love women? They can squeeze a dollar till it farts—no offense ma’am. Listen, you two go home and I’ll call you when I want you. I won’t give details over the phone. I’ll just call and you come here and we’ll talk in person. Way this is shaping up, could be something big and nasty going on here, and if that’s the case, they’re out at your place tapping the phones right now.”
I thought about that and couldn’t really imagine it. It sounded too much like one of those bad made-for-television movies.
“If the fella over there follows you out and follows you home, don’t pay him no mind. It don’t mean a thing. Or he might have a buddy follow you. But you just go home and wait. Got me?”
“Got you,” I said.
“Lady,” Jim Bob said, “you don’t have to come back if you don’t want to. But if you come, I want you to be cooperative, and I don’t want you worrying about snagging your panty hose or such. We’ll be humping right along, I figure, and we don’t need no slackers.”
“I assure you, Mr. Jim Bob,” Ann almost whistled through her teeth, “I’m not a slacker.”
“I didn’t actually figure you for one,” Jim Bob said.
“Jim Bob likes to ingratiate himself with his clients,” Russel said. “Make ‘em feel trusted and warm.”
“My business ain’t public relations—unless I’m lying for a good reason,” Jim Bob said. “But I don’t lie to my employers. It’s not the way it’s done.”
Ann got up and started out of the hotel restaurant without saying a word. I stood and took out my wallet.
“Nah,” Jim Bob said. “You folks just had pie and coffee. I’ll get it and the tip. Go on and catch up with her. And, Dane, tell her she’s right, three hundred a day is high. But I’m the best there is, and by God, I don’t normally pay my own expenses.”
· · ·
On the way home Ann turned the radio on too loud and sat on the far side of the car with her arms crossed, and after a while she turned the radio off and drummed her fingers on the dash. Jordan was in the backseat looking puzzled. Ever since we had picked him up at the day school he had known something was going on, but he didn’t know exactly what.
“Mommy, you mad at Daddy?”
“Just a little,” she said.
“Don’t be mad at Daddy.”
“It’ll pass,” she said.
God, I hoped so.
When we got home, we made arrangements for the Fergusons to keep Jordan. They had kids and we kept them sometimes, and we were actually owed a couple of overnight sleeps, which was the big thing with Jordan and their boys lately. Sometimes Jordan had to call us at bedtime and be reassured, but all in all he didn’t mind. And by the next day, we would practically have to pry the kids apart to get Jordan to go home.
Ann took Jordan to their house while I sat watching TV, but really listening for the phone. Wanting it to ring. Wanting to get on with things.
Nothing happened.
Ann came back and we finally went to bed about ten and made love, which wasn’t too good because she was still mad at me. Or mad at Jim Bob really, but I was handy. She said something about, “I’ll make that goddamn bastard think snag my panty hose” a couple of times before we gave it up for the night and she rolled into my arms and I held my hand between her legs and buried my nose in the fragrance of her hair. And just as I was drifting into sleep, the phone rang.
I got to it without turning over the nightstand and groped it off the hook and coughed something into it.
“Get on up here,” Jim Bob said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Coming.”
“You awake?”
“About half-ass.”
“We’ll be whole-ass by the time you get here, got me?”
I said something and lay back down. Ann rolled over and put her arm around my chest. “Jim Bob?”
“Yeah. We’ve got to go meet him.”
“Does that mean we don’t have time for a quickie?”
“He didn’t say anything about a time limit,” I said.
Our lovemaking was rushed, but Ann wasn’t mad anymore, and it was better than when we had spent more time. I knew why.
We were both scared.
22
Jim Bob and Russel met us out in the parking lot.
“We’ll take the Red Bitch,” Jim Bob said.
Ann and I got in the back and Russel got in front with Jim Bob. It occurred to me that if Russel and Jim Bob were pulling our legs, they might be taking us out to the river bottoms to dispose of us. It could be that way. Russel and Jim Bob had been friends for a long time, and I hadn’t any idea what Russel had really said to him on the phone. I wished I had thought of that before now. I looked at Ann, and as the lights from stores and buildings slanted across her face and made her fine profile show there in the car, I got the feeling the same thoughts had occurred to her. I figured that if that was the case, her last words to me would be, “I told you so.”
We drove on out of town and as we did I looked over the Red Bitch real good. The upholstery was red and on the dash in upraised blue-silver letters was JIM BOB. The steering wheel was covered with a tacky, false cheeta skin and an emerald-colored suicide knob the size of a doorknob was fastened to that. Jim Bob liked to drive with his left hand on the knob and his right hand across the back rest. I could see a little of his face in the rearview mirror. He looked happy as a drunk.
“How are we going to dig him up?” I asked. It
“Got some shovels and stuff in the trunk there. All manner of tools. Damn near everything’s back there in the trunk but another car.”
“Maybe we could use another,” Russel said. “This ain’t exactly one to be sneaking around in.”
“Who’s sneaking, goddamnit. We’re driving. Ain’t no crime in driving. Hell, I have a pickup, but I didn’t bring it.”
“No joke,” Russel said.
Jim Bob looked over at Russel and grinned. “Want to see me lose this cop?”
Russel grinned back. “I thought you were losing your touch. I noticed him when we left the Holiday Inn. They switched cars on us.”
Neither Ann nor I had looked back to see the car that was supposed to be following us, but it was tempting.
“Are you sure it’s a cop behind us?” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Jim Bob said.
“Can’t he just pull us over?”
“What for, driving a red Caddy? That ain’t no crime.”
“Perhaps this one ought to be,” Ann said.
Jim Bob laughed. “Lady, I like you, I really do.”
“If we run, won’t the cops be laying for us?” I said.
“Well, we ain’t gonna just run, we’re gonna lose him legal like. But before I do, could you folks tell me where the hell this graveyard is?”
“The other direction,” Russel said.
“Figures,” Jim Bob said, and he took a left in the Safeway parking lot just in front of a big tractor trailer rig. The car that was tailing us went by. Or I assume it was the one. When I got the chance to look, I saw a sporty blue Plymouth slow down and fall over to the left-turn lane. But the traffic was thick and he couldn’t make the left.
Jim Bob got back on the highway by rushing out front of a yellow Volkswagen that honked its horn and flashed its lights. It whipped around on the left and came even with Jim Bob. A husky college boy on the right-hand side rolled down his window and flipped Jim Bob the bird and yelled something.
Jim Bob waved at him friendly like, put his foot to the floor and the Red Bitch jumped forward. Jim Bob whipped in front of the Volkswagen again, went around another car and made the right lane. We went fast like that for two blocks, then Jim Bob took a right, then a left, then a right and a left again.
“Am I going in the general direction?” Jim Bob asked.
“General,” Russel said.
“Good enough.”
“We lose the cop?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” Jim Bob said. “Them and their little toy cars. Whatever happened to the good ole days when it was the biggest, meanest car on the road, not the smallest and the cheapest?”
“The Arabs is what happened,” Russel said.
· · ·
We finally got out to the graveyard, and Jim Bob killed the Red Bitch and went around and opened the trunk. I stood there wondering if we were about to be killed, but the trunk was just like he said. Full of tools. He got out two shovels and a long canvas bag and put them on the ground. He gave Ann the keys.
“You take the Red Bitch on down the road a piece and kill the lights but leave the motor running. Turn it facing this way, though, so you can see what’s going on in case something goes on. We’re gonna try and make this quicker than a bunny fucks—pardon me again.”
“Would you quit saying that?” Ann said.
“You know, I’d rather,” Jim Bob said. “What say if we’re gonna be waltzing partners I just let fly when I need to and consider me sorry for what I say. If I don’t cuss I get all filled up inside just like I was constipated and I don’t feel worth a damn.”
“I sure wouldn’t want you all constipated with cuss words,” Ann said. “But listen, I’m not a taxi.”
“No, ma’am, you ain’t, but we’re gonna do the digging and someone’s got to do the driving, and I’m running this shindig, so do what I say.”
“But we’re paying,” Ann said.
“And it’s money well spent,” Jim Bob said. “You can’t do no better than me. Now let’s get on with this.”
Ann looked at me and I shrugged.
“Okay,” she said.
“Take it easy on the clutch,” Jim Bob said as Ann got in.
“I can drive,” Ann said. She closed the door and started the car and drove down the road a ways, backed around, pointed the lights at us and killed them. The Caddy was just off the road and under an oak. When the lights were out, you couldn’t see it. It was that kind of night.
“They can wrap you up for quite a few years for grave stealing, can’t they?” Russel said.
“Hell, they can throw away the key,” Jim Bob said.
We went over to the graveyard fence and found the gate unlocked. “Reckon they don’t expect folks to come in much,” Jim Bob said, “and the ones here ain’t going nowhere.”
Russel located the grave and I took a shovel and Russel took one.
“What about you?” Russel asked Jim Bob.
Jim Bob opened the canvas bag and took out a long flashlight. “Hell, someone’s got to hold the light.”
Russel and I started digging. While we were at it, it began to turn off cool and it got darker. You could smell rain in the air. When we were about halfway down to the coffin, it began to sprinkle.
“Better get with it,” Jim Bob said. “I think it’s gonna come a real frog strangler, and if it does, you’re gonna have to bail as well as dig.”
“How’s your back?” Russel asked Jim Bob.
“Fine,” Jim Bob said. “How’s yours?”
“Hurts. I’m using a shovel,” Russel said.
“And you use it so well.”
Russel began digging faster, and as we got close to the box, his digging became more frenzied. I looked over at him once, and what light was on him made him look like a corpse. He was afraid of what we would find down there. His son and his hopes in a box.
I looked over at Jim Bob, and since he was holding the light, I couldn’t make out his features too well, but he seemed more solemn than I’d yet seen him. He was also quiet for a change.
Russet’s shovel scraped the coffin.
We began cleaning the dirt off. and around it. Throwing it up high and over. It was getting to be harder work. The rain was coming down faster and the clods were sticking together and becoming heavy.
“All right,” Jim Bob said, and he jumped down on the coffin with his light and canvas bag. He stepped off the box and found a place to stand between the coffin and the grave wall, and he opened the bag.
“There’s more to tapping these babies than just opening a lid,” Jim Bob said. “They seal these fuckers but good nowadays. You got to have the right tools. Fortunately, I got them.”
He pulled some strange instruments out of the bag and turned to look at Russel. “Whatever’s in here, I don’t want nothing crazy out of you. If it’s your boy, I’m sorry, but you move to cause Dane here trouble, and I’ll wrap this damn tool around your head.”
Russel smiled grimly. “You’ll try… but don’t worry. I haven’t got nothing against Dane anymore.”
“Well, just in case you get something suddenly,” Jim Bob said, “remember what I told you.”
Jim Bob applied the tools to the coffin and in a moment the lid popped up with a whoosh of air, like one of those cans of vacuum-packed peanuts, and there was the body. It was in a hell of a shape. It looked like someone had taken a can opener to it and stitched it up with black cord while drunk. The eye I had shot out was stuffed with what looked like, wax, and it hadn’t been done neatly; the body looked like something out of a monster movie.
“Ain’t much to look at,” Jim Bob said, and he put a hand on Russel’s shoulder.
Russel looked quickly at the face and said, “Hold the light on his right hand.”
Jim Bob did that and Russel picked up the corpse’s right hand and looked at it. “You remember my boy, don’t you Jim Bob?”
“Hair can be dyed… but this isn’t him. Freddy had a cluster of little, pale moles on the back of his right hand that looked like a four-leaf clover… like these.” He let go of the corpse’s hand and held his own in the light. I could see the faint pattern of moles on the back of his powerful hand. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed them before.
“You’re sure?” Jim Bob asked. “More than sure,” Russel said.
I was feeling sick. “From the looks of him,” I said, “you’d think they purposely tried to mess him up.”
“I think that was the idea exactly, sport,” Jim Bob said.
That hadn’t occurred to me seriously, and now that Jim Bob said it, I felt that this whole thing was even deeper than I expected. A conspiracy. Little obstacles all along the way. Maybe they expected the body might get dug up at some point, and wanted to make it hard to identify. And maybe an autopsy on a body that no one is expected to see isn’t performed for points on neatness.
I tossed my shovel out of the hole and climbed out after it. I had had enough. Jim Bob shut the coffin, stood up on it and took my hand and I pulled him up.
Russel followed. His big hand took mine and I yanked him up, and as I did his eyes looked straight at me. I couldn’t tell what was in them, but it wasn’t threatening.
I took my shovel and started throwing the dirt in furiously. Russel grabbed up the other shovel and joined me. Jim Bob held the light.
We threw the dirt in at random, then we found our stride and began shoveling in unison, shovelful per shovelful. We got faster and faster. I could hear Russel grunting beside me and the smell of his sweat and the light rain was on the wind and I began to feel loose, even strangely comfortable. There was nothing I wanted to do more in the world at that moment than cover that hole.
Finally Russel and I had it finished and we patted our shovels on the earth as if by signal.
We looked at each other.
“Anybody ever quits wanting to dig graves around here,” Russel said, “I think we could get a job.”
I grinned. “Probably.”