He slammed the phone down and picked up his drink again. "Fucking lawyers. You don't know if they're working for you or you're working for them."
Wiley said, "I think your friends are worried you might get them involved."
"That's what I need, some more opinions."
She went back to her book as he turned to Lundy.
"What's he doing?"
"He picked up his trailer," Lundy said, "and went right home."
"Alone?"
"He was. But Bobby says there's a girl there. Come before he got back. I don't know," Lundy said, "man's waiting to get shot he's got some tail with him."
Put yourself in his place, Renda was thinking, and said, "The cops could've told him don't worry and he feels safe. Thinks, with all that's happened, I won't come for him right away."
"Whenever we do it," Lundy said, "we can't just walk in. The cops could be there waiting."
"You see any?"
"No, but they could've slipped in when it got dark. Be all over the place."
"I don't have time to fool around," Renda said. "They're starting to pressure me, give me some shit, tell me forget about the guy or hire it done."
Lundy agreed with them 100 percent, but he said, "You want to hit him yourself you got to wait for the right time, that's all."
"I don't have time! Can't you get that in your head?" He took a drink of scotch and calmed down a little. "How many guys you got there?"
"Five. In the trees by his place. There's a back road takes you in there." He watched Frank put his glass down and go over to a window that looked out on a dark patio and swimming pool.
When Renda turned to him again he said, "If it can take you in, nobody sees you, it can take him out, can't it?"
"If there's no cops in his house."
"All right, you watch his place. He tries to move during the night, stop him. We see who comes out in the morning. We don't see any cops around we grab him, put him in a car, take him out in the desert."
"What about the girl?" Lundy said.
"What girl?"
"The one with him."
"If she's with him she goes too."
Looking at the page in her book, Wiley wondered what the girl looked like. She wondered if the girl knew she might get killed. Or if the melon grower knew it. Yes, he'd know it, but she wasn't sure about the girl.
Lundy was gone. Frank was at the bar again making another drink. He was drinking too much, taking more pills than he ever had before.
Wiley said, "Do you ever worry about-that you could get caught by the police? Or shot? Or killed?"
"Are you going to give me some more opinions?"
"I was just curious. Is that all right?" He didn't answer her and she said, "The guy really didn't mess you up that much, did he? I mean is it worth it? All the trouble?"
He turned from the bar with a fresh scotch.
"Is your book any good?"
"It's different."
"Good and dirty?"
"Dirty enough."
"Then why don't you read it?"
"And shut the fuck up."
"Right," Renda said, "and shut the fuck up."
For several minutes Majestyk stood by the screen door, holding it open a few inches, looking down the road toward the migrant quarters and the packing shed. He thought he had heard a car, not an engine sound but a squeak of springs rolling slowly over ruts. Now all he heard were the crickets. He looked out at his fields, past the pickup, that was parked about twenty feet from the porch now, facing the dirt road and the highway at the end of it. With his shotgun he moved to a side window and looked out at the dark mass of trees. There was no movement, no sound. He left the window.
From the bedroom doorway he could see the girl's profile against the window and the barrel of the Marlin.
"Anything?"
She shook her head. "I have trouble concentrating, Vincent. What I'd like to more than anything is straighten this place up."
"How can you see it in the dark?"
"When I came it was light. I never saw so much stuff not put away. Don't you hang anything up?"
"I haven't had much time for housekeeping. With one thing or another."
"What's that, on the other side of the bed?"
"Don't you know a deep-freeze when you see one? I got it secondhand for twenty-five bucks. Keep deer meat in it."
"I mean what's it doing in here?"
"What's the difference? You got to put it somewhere."
"You need help, Vincent. Well, maybe it's good you have it. They come, we can hide in it."
"They come shooting," he said, "we won't get a chance to hide. But if they don't come, soon, I lose a crop. I been thinking. He can wait a week, a year, long as he wants. But I can't wait anymore. So, I figure, I better get it done myself."
"Like turn it around?" She sounded interested.
"If I could spot him, bring him out-"
"Call him up," Nancy said. "Ask him to meet you someplace." There was enough light that she could see his expression, the smile beginning to form, and she said then, "I'm just kidding. I don't mean really do it. Come on, don't. You're just crazy enough to try."
"If he's watching us," Majestyk said, "I don't have to call him. And if he doesn't come tonight-" He paused. "I've got a half-assed idea that might be worth trying."
"God, you are going to turn it around, aren't you? Go after him instead of him after you."
"It's a thought, isn't it? Something he might not expect."
"God, Vincent, sometimes you scare me."
He smiled at her again, feeling pretty good considering everything, and went back into the living room.
12
Bobby Kopas said, "We got him for you, Mr. Renda. Sure'n hell he's in there and there ain't no way he can get out."
Renda stared at the house, at the early morning sun shining on the windows, waiting for some sign of life, wondering what the man was doing, if he was in there. The place looked deserted, worn out and left to rot. He was thinking that it would be getting hot in there. The guy should open a window, let in some air. The guy should be doing something, open the door, take the garbage out, something.
"He tries to go out the road," Lundy said, "we got two people down there in the packing shed. Another boy's over behind that trailer, see it? Case he tries to take off through the melon patch. Two more round the back. We cut his phone wire. I'd say all we got to do is walk up to the door and ring the bell."
"If he's there," Renda said. He looked at Kopas. "You seen him this morning?"
Bobby Kopas had been up all night, but he wasn't even tired. He'd been doing a job and hadn't made any mistakes. He said, "I figure he's locked himself in the toilet. Else he's hiding under the bed."
"I still have trouble, don't I," Renda said, "asking you a question?"
"What I meant, Mr. Renda, no, we haven't seen him yet, but he's in the house. His truck's right there. There's no place else he could be."
"And nobody's come by?"
"The girl," Lundy said, "yesterday. She's the only one."
Renda was staring at the house again. It wasn't Sunday. It wasn't a day off. The guy wasn't sleeping in. He should have come out by now. He should have been out an hour ago, working, doing something. So if he was in there he knew what was going on. He felt it or smelled it or had seen somebody.
"I don't like it," Renda said.
Eugene Lundy didn't like it either, not a bit; but it was a living that paid good money and gave him plenty of time to get drunk in between jobs. The thing to do was not think about it too much and just get the job over with. He said, "Well, we can stand here with our finger up our ass or we can go pull the son of a bitch out of there and get it done."
It was good to have people like Gene Lundy, they were hard to find. "That's what we're going to do," Renda said, "but I don't want any fucking surprises. I don't need surprises. Gene, what have we got? What it looks like we've got. The guy in the house. He's got a girl with him. One, maybe two cops over on the highway. Are there more cops somewhere? You say no. All right, then what are the cops doing? Maybe they pulled out. Maybe they said fuck him. Maybe they don't give a shit about the guy and they don't care what happens to him. Except there's still a cop over on the highway. Gene, you're sure, right?"