He set his knee on what was left of the tailgate, shoved the sack aside, and pulled out the .22. Not much, but might be all I need if Abigail is still at Dillard’s. “Wait a minute.” He looked at the sack, recalled Krampus pulling the beef from the sack, and his pulse quickened. “The church? Yes, gotta be. It should still be opened to the church. And what’s in the church?” He let out a laugh.
He snatched the sack over to him. Stared at it a long minute. “Okay, let’s see what you got.” He opened the cord, closed his eyes, thought of the machine pistols, and stuck in his arm. His hand waved in empty space and there came a prolonged second when he thought the door had shut, then his hand hit what felt like cardboard, then cold, hard steel. He withdrew his arm and smiled—one of the Mac-10s, it looked like the most beautiful object on earth to him at that moment. He thought of the clips, pictured them in his mind, reached back in, and they were right there. He plucked out two of them. “This should even up the odds a bit.”
Jesse tossed Krampus’s sack in the passenger’s seat and climbed back in. He held the gun up and looked heavenward. “Thank you, Lord.” He kissed the gun. “Gonna take this as a sign you’re pulling for me.”
JESSE TURNED UP Linda’s mother’s driveway, pulled all the way around to the rear of the house. He slung the gun over his shoulder, jumped out, and ran up the back steps, not bothering to knock, just barging in. He rushed through the house, looking for any sign of Linda or Abigail.
“Linda!” he shouted. “Abi!”
“Jesse?” Polly peered down the staircase, clutching her house robe.
He dashed up the stairs; she saw the gun over his shoulder and backed away.
“Where are they?” he asked, his voice frantic. “Where’s Abigail?”
“They’re not here.”
He pushed past, took a quick look into both bedrooms.
“Jesse, what’s gotten into you? You don’t just come into someone’s house and—”
“Have you talked to Linda again? Have you heard anything?”
“She said you were in trouble. Jesse, what kind of trouble are you in?”
He set desperate eyes on her. “Abigail’s life’s at stake, if you know anything please tell me.”
“Only thing I know is that Dillard wants them to stay put at his place. Linda won’t say more than that. Said I wasn’t to come over.” Polly’s eyes began to water. “I’m so scared. Jesse, please tell me what’s going on.”
“Maybe they’re still safe then.” He ran back downstairs.
Polly caught up with him in the hall. “Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”
Jesse lifted the phone off the cradle, an old rotary dial. “What’s Dillard’s number?”
“Nuh-uh. No, sir. I ain’t telling. You’re just gonna stir things up.”
“I’m just gonna see if she’s there. Not gonna say a thing.”
“You’ll just make it worse.”
“It can’t get no worse. They’re out to hurt them . . . Linda and Abigail both.”
“Jesse, you got her in this spot didn’t you? If—”
“I fucked up, Mrs. Collins. I know that. But I’m willing to die if that’s what it takes to fix things. Does that mean anything to you?”
And for a second her stern face weakened and he could see the pain, the fear, then the stubborn came back. “I ain’t telling.”
“You better, goddammit!” he shouted.
She crossed her arms and he knew unless he was willing to tear her fingernails off one by one, he wasn’t getting that number. He yanked the receiver, ripping the cord right out from the phone.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” she cried.
“Sorry about your phone, Mrs. Collins. Just don’t want you telling anyone I was here, at least for a bit.”
He headed out the back, taking the receiver with him. Polly followed onto the steps, watched him climb into his truck.
“If anything happens to my babies,” she shouted, “I swear I’ll—”
“You won’t have to, Mrs. Collins,” Jesse shouted back. “I’ll be dead.”
Her mouth drew into a tight line.
THE PHONE RANG. Dillard reached across the nightstand, knocking over a bottle of Excedrin, spilling pills all over the floor. “Fuck.” Another ring. “Hello.” He heard a woman breathing. “Polly, is that you again? Damn it, Polly, we told you to stop calling all the—”
“He’s on his way over there,” Polly snapped.
Dillard sat up. “You mean Jesse?”
“Yeah I mean Jesse. He’s got a gun and is out of his gourd. Tore my phone right out the wall, had to walk all the way down to Berta’s just to call you. He really scared me, Dillard.” She was crying. “What’s going on? Would you please just tell me?”
Dillard switched on the table lamp. “Calm down, Polly. It’ll all get worked out.” Linda sat up, squinting into the light, looking confused. “Here, I want you to tell Linda what you just told me.” He handed Linda the phone and got up, slipping on his pants, shirt, and boots. He snatched his pistol, cuffs, and cell phone off the nightstand and headed down the hall. He could hear Linda trying to calm her mother, hoped Polly would convince Linda that Jesse was unstable. Getting tired of hearing her defend that cocksucker.
Dillard flipped open his cell phone and made a call.
“What?” a groggy voice answered.
“Chet?”
“Dillard?”
“Yeah. Get on over to my place. Got a present for you.”
“Jesse?”
“He’ll be here any minute, so you might want to hurry.”
Dillard snapped the phone shut, slipped it into his pocket, then walked through the house turning off any lights and closing all the drapes. He stationed himself in the den and peeked out through the blinds. He wondered if Jesse would be stupid enough to pull right into the driveway, or if he’d park down the road and try to sneak up. Might get tricky if he does. Be a hell of a lot easier if I could just shoot him dead. But Dillard didn’t want to do that, the General wanted him alive, there were a lot of questions needing to be answered.
Dillard pushed the safety off on his gun. He knew Jesse was a loser, but he didn’t allow himself to believe for a second that a loser couldn’t get lucky, he’d been on the job far too long, seen too much go wrong. Ain’t no easy way to take a gun away from a man without killing him first.
Linda came running into the room in her jeans and socked feet, buttoning up the front of her blouse. She saw the gun and her mouth tightened. “Let me talk to him.”
Dillard gave her a hard look. When was she gonna learn? “No. That ain’t gonna happen. I want you to go down the hall and wait with Abigail until I tell you otherwise. You got it?”
“Please.”
“You need to stay out of my way and let me do my job.”
“Dillard, I know how to talk to him. There ain’t no need for this.”
He felt his temper heating up. “Did you not hear your mother? Does that sound like the Jesse you once knew?”
“I’m not gonna stand here and let you shoot him dead.”
“Goddammit, Linda.” He took a step toward her, intent on straightening her out one way or another, when it struck him that she might be just the trick. He let out a long breath. “Okay, Linda, you wanna save Jesse? You get him to put that gun down. Think you can do that?”
Linda nodded without hesitation.
“Understand me, as long as he has that gun there’s a very good chance he’s gonna end up dead.”