Jesse barely heard him; he just kept staring at the spot where the gun had been.
“Okay, Jesse. I’m done with you. Done talking, done wasting my time. I’m going in, and when I look out that window in a few, you and that rig of yours best be gone. And just so we’re clear, just so there ain’t a lick of confusion between us: if you ever set foot on my property again, ever . . . I’ll break every one of your fingers. I mean that. You won’t be playing that guitar of yours ever again.”
Dillard turned and walked away, leaving Jesse staring at the car hood.
Chapter Three
The General
Jesse pulled up in front of his trailer, killed the engine, and once again found himself confronted by his front door. “My piece-of-shit trailer,” he said, his voice laden with scorn. He barely even remembered driving back; the incident with Dillard played out over and over in his head, all the way home. Only each time when he came to the part where Dillard challenged him to pick up that gun, he actually did pick up the gun, actually did shoot Dillard, emptied every round right into the son-of-a-bitch’s face.
Jesse spied the bottle of whiskey still lying in the snow and heard Dillard’s voice in his head, Go home and get drunk . . . then do us all a favor and just disappear.
“No. That ain’t gonna happen.” He glanced at the Santa sack. Because this loser’s got a plan. A damn good plan. A plan that’s gonna fix everything. He tugged the Santa sack up onto the seat next to him, gave it a pat. “Time to get busy.”
He got out, walked down the road to the line of mailboxes, checked the newspaper bins until he found one that still had a paper in it and took it. He plucked the sack from the truck on his way back and went inside.
He dropped the sack and newspaper on the floor, walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge searching for something to eat. Found only two dried-up slices of pizza wrapped in foil and rolled them into a pizza burrito. He took a seat on the floor, eating as he dug through the newspaper. He pulled out the Walmart circular and tossed the rest of the paper aside. He flipped to the toy section, found a pen, and began thumbing through the pages, circling pictures here and there as he went.
“Yes. Umm . . . no. Hmm . . . maybe.” He tapped his teeth with the pen. “Most certainly. That one would certainly work.” He nodded. “Has to work.”
He pulled the crimson sack over. “Okay, baby. Do it for me.” He clinched his eyes shut, concentrated, wished, and prayed as hard as he could, then stuck his hand into the sack. His hand hit a box. It felt the right size, the right weight. “C’mon.” He pulled it out. There, still in the box, was a brand-new PlayStation.
“Yes!” he cried. “Yes! Now we’ll see who the real loser is.”
AN HOUR LATER, Jesse headed back up Route 3 with four black garbage bags of video game consoles and handhelds piled into the back of his camper. He’d stashed the Santa sack back down into the passenger foot well. It was his golden ticket and he intended to keep it close.
He pulled into a salvage yard on the outskirts of town and tried to avoid the larger potholes as he drove past a few grungy outbuildings and a handful of wrecked semitrailers. He came to a cinder-block wall strung with barbed wire and deer skulls at the very back of the compound, followed it to a metal gate topped with broken glass, and stopped. Jesse honked twice and waved at the security camera mounted above the gate.
A moment later he heard a click and the gate rattled open along its rusty track, revealing a short alley of garage bays. The door of the tall middle bay hung halfway up and Jesse could see five figures leaning over a diesel engine. He pulled up to the bay, cut the ignition, and listened to his engine rattle to a halt. He got out and retrieved one of the garbage bags, then walked under the eave and waited.
The bay was part auto shop and part everything else. Greasy power tools, air tools, and various hand tools lay scattered across every available surface. A dismantled riding lawnmower was shoved into one corner next to an avocado-green refrigerator, the door stained almost black with grimy handprints. Aerosol cans and taxidermy supplies lined several of the back shelves, while above them hung well over a dozen mounts, including a twelve-point buck and a one-eyed black bear rumored to have killed three of the General’s hunting dogs.
None of the men bothered to look up, so Jesse ended up just standing there holding the bag, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. Jesse could see the General fiddling with the camshaft. Finally, one of them—a tall, blond, solid-built man in a pair of faded, grease-stained coveralls—looked up, made a sour face, then put down his wrench. He wiped his hands on an oil rag and headed over to Jesse.
Chet was the General’s nephew, had gone to school with Jesse and the two had hung out on occasion. These days Chet was Jesse’s contact man—Jesse never actually having talked directly to the General before. That’s the way the General handled matters, at least small matters, and it had been made clear that Jesse was a small matter.
Chet scratched at his thick handlebar mustache. “Why, we was just talking about you, Jesse.”
Jesse squinted, wondered what that was supposed to mean.
“Nice of you to show up.” Chet wore a big smile, what Jesse’s grandmother used to call a crocodile smile. “Save me the bother of tracking you down.”
“Yeah, well, here I am.”
“Hope you don’t have any plans for tonight. ’Cause if you did, they just got changed.”
Jesse’s jaw tightened.
“Got a run for you. Short trip . . . just up to Charleston.”
“Can’t do it.”
Chet raised an eyebrow. “Can’t do it?”
“Nope. I’m done with that.”
Chet pushed back his cap. “I’m not liking the sound of this, Jesse. Why, you got folks counting on you.”
“I’m in a new line of business now.”
“Is that so? Just what sort of business would that be?”
Jesse sat the garbage bag down.
“What’s that?”
“Something Santa left me.”
Chet eyed him. “Ain’t got time for your nonsense.”
“Got a business proposal for the General.”
“Shoot.”
“You ain’t the General.”
Chet squinted at him. “You got something to say, then you best say it to me.”
“I’m here to see the General.”
Chet grabbed Jesse by his jacket collar, yanked him up onto his toes.
“Chet,” a deep voice called out. “Hold on.”
“Watch yourself, boy,” Chet growled, and gave Jesse a shove.
The General walked over, followed by the other three men, all of them Boggses—nephews and cousins of one sort or another. They gave Jesse the once-over.
The General wore the same getup he had on every time Jesse had ever seen him: a suede cowboy hat over his baldness, a matching fringed jacket like Daniel Boone might wear, and alligator boots. A bristling salt-and-pepper beard sprouted out from his rough, windburned face. Jesse guessed the man must be pushing into his sixties by now. Even so, he still looked like he could hold his own against any comer. His real name was Sampson Ulysses Boggs. His parents had given him a big name in the hopes he’d grow into it, but since the General stood a head shorter than most men, Jesse felt he was trying to compensate in other ways. He’d taken the reputation that the Boggs clan had built running ’shine back in Prohibition, and used it to strong-arm and intimidate his way into every profitable illegal activity in and around Boone County.
“Go on then, son,” the General said. “Say what you got to say.”
“Well,” Jesse said. “I’ve got a proposal you might be interested in.”