As they went into the house, Weldon asked David if he enjoyed shooting coyotes. He replied, “I just drive Ray around” — Ray turned to listen — “and whatever Ray wants I guess is what we do... whatever he’s into.” David kept to himself that he enjoyed popping coyotes out his car window with the .25–06 with a Redfield range-finder scope and a tripod that he’d gotten from Hill Country Customs. David lived with his mother and had a habit of telling her about the great shots he’d made — like the five hundred — yarder on Tin Can Hill with only the hood for a rest, no sandbags, no tripod. David’s Uncle Maury had told him a long time ago, “It don’t shoot flat, throw the fuckin’ thing away.”
David, who enjoyed brutally fattening food, thought Morsel was a good cook, but Ray ate only the salad, discreetly lifting each leaf until the dressing ran off. Weldon watched Ray and hardly said a word, as Morsel grew more manic, jiggling with laughter and enthusiasm at each lighthearted remark. In fact, it was necessary to lower the temperature of the subjects — to heart attacks, highway wrecks, cancer — in order to get her to stop guffawing. Weldon planted his hands flat on the table, rose partway, and announced that he’d use the tractor to pull the plane around back. David was preoccupied with the mountain of tuna casserole between him and the peach cobbler and hardly heard him. Ray, small and disoriented next to Morsel, shot his eyes around the table, looking for something he could eat.
“Daddy don’t say much,” Morsel said.
“I can’t say much,” Ray said, “with him here. Dave, could you cut us a little slack?”
“Sure, Ray, of course.” David got up, still chewing.
“See you in the room,” Ray said sharply, twisting his chin toward the door.
Weldon had shown them their room by walking past it and flicking the door open without a word. It contained two iron bedsteads and a dresser, atop which were David’s and Ray’s belongings, the latter’s consisting of a JanSport backpack with the straps cut off. David was better organized, with an actual overnight bag and a Dopp kit. He had left the cattle receipts and breeding documents in the car. He flopped on the bed, hands behind his head, then got up abruptly and went to the door. He looked out and listened for a long moment, eased it closed, and shot to the dresser, where he began rooting through Ray’s belongings: rolls of money in rubber bands, generic Viagra from India, California lottery tickets, a passport identifying Raymond Coelho, a woman’s aqua-colored wallet with a debit card in the name of Eleanor Coelho from Food Processors Credit Union of Modesto, Turlock grocery receipts, a bag of trail mix, and the gun. David lifted the gun carefully with the tips of his fingers. He was startled by its lightness. Turning it over in his hand, he was compelled to acknowledge that there was no hole in the barrel. It was a toy. He returned it to the pack, fluffed the sides, and sped to his bed to begin feigning sleep.
It wasn’t long before Ray came in, singing “Now Is the Hour” in a flat and aggressive tone that hardly suited the lyrics: “Sunset glow fades in the west, night o’er the valley is creeping! Birds cuddle down in their nest, soon all the world will be sleeping. But not you, Dave. You’re awake, I can tell. I hope you enjoyed the song. It’s Hugo Winterhalter. Morsel sang it to me. She’s very nice, and she needs a man.”
“Looks like you got the job.”
“Doing what? Hey, here’s what’s going on with me: I’m starving.”
“I’m sure you are, Ray. You ate like a bird.”
“I had no choice. That kind of food gathers around the chambers of the heart like an octopus. But right behind the house they got a vegetable garden, and my plan for you is to slip out and bring me some vegetables. I’ve been told to stay out of the garden. Don’t touch the tomatoes — they’re not ripe.”
“What else is there?”
“Greens and root vegetables.”
“I’m not going out there.”
“Oh yes you are.”
“What makes you think so?”
Ray went to his pack and got out the gun. “This makes me think so. This will really stick to your ribs, get it?”
“I’m not picking vegetables for you, or, technically speaking, stealing them for you. Forget it.”
“Wow. Is this a mood swing?”
“Call it what you want. Otherwise, it’s shoot or shut up.”
“Okay, but not for the reason you think. I prefer not to wake up the whole house.”
“And the body’d be a problem for you, as a house guest and new fiancé.”
“Very well, very well. This time.” Ray put the gun back in his pack. “You don’t know how close you came.”
“Whatever.”
David rolled over to sleep, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts. He should have spent the day at Jorgensen’s with his arm up a cow’s ass. He had a living to make and if it hadn’t been for his inappropriate curiosity about Ray and Morsel, he’d already be back in Jordan, looking to grab a room for the night. But the roll of money in Ray’s pack and the hints of more to come had made him wonder how anxious he was to get back to work. There was opportunity in the air and he wanted to see how it would all play out.
“Ray, you awake?”
“I can be. What d’you want, asshole?”
“I just have something I want to get off my chest.”
“Make it quick. I need my Zs.”
“Sure, Ray, try this one on for size: the gun’s a toy.”
“The gun’s a what?”
“A toy.”
“You think a gun’s a toy?”
“No, Ray, I think your gun’s a toy. It’s a fake. And looks like you are too.”
“Where’s the fuckin’ light switch? I’m not taking this shit.”
“Stub your toe jumping off the bed like that.”
“Might be time to clip your wings, sonny.”
“Ray, I’m here for you. Just take a moment to look at the barrel of your so-called gun, and then let’s talk.”
Ray found the lamp and paced the squeaking floorboards. “Taking a leak off the porch. Be right back,” he said. Through the open bedroom door, David could see him silhouetted in the moonlight, a silver arc splashing onto the dirt, his head thrown back in what David took to be a plausible posture of despair.
By the time Ray walked back in he was already talking: “...an appraiser in Modesto, California, where I grew up. I did some community theater there, played Prince Oh So True in a children’s production and thought I was going places, then Twelve Angry Men — I was one of them, which is where the pistol came from. I was the hangman in Motherlode. Got married, had a baby girl, lost my job, got another one, went to Hawaii as a steward on a yacht belonging to a movie star who was working at a snow-cone stand a year before the yacht, the coke, the babes, and the wine. I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, but then I got into a fight with the movie star and got kicked off the boat at Diamond Head. They just rowed me to shore in a dinghy and dumped me off. I hiked all the way to the crater and used the restroom to clean up, then took the tour bus into Honolulu. I tried to sell the celebrity drug-use story to a local paper, but it went nowhere because of the confidentiality agreement. Everything I sign costs me money. About this time, my wife’s uncle’s walnut farm was failing. He took a loan out on the real estate, and I sold my car, which was a mint, rust-free ’78 Trans Am, handling package, W-72 performance motor, solar gold with a Martinique-blue interior. We bought a bunch of FEMA trailers from the Katrina deal and hauled them to California. We lost our asses. The uncle gasses himself in his garage, and my wife throws me out. I moved into a hotel for migrant workers, and started using the computers at the Stanislaus County Library and sleeping at the McHenry Mansion. One of the tour guides was someone I used to fuck in high school and she slipped me into one of the rooms for naps. I met Morsel online. I told her I was on hard times. She told me she was coining it, selling bootleg OxyContin in the Bakken oil field, but she was lonely. It was a long shot. Montana. Fresh start. New me. Bus to Billings and hit the road. I made it to Jordan, and I had nothing left. The clerk at that fleabag barely let me have a room. I told him I was there for the comets. I don’t know where I come up with that. Breakfast at the café was my last dime and no tip. I had to make a move. So what happens now? You bust me with Morsel? You turn me in? Or you join us?”