“Four minutes,” Junior said, as if reading my mind. He wasn’t wearing a watch, and I knew I was at the mercy of his patience.
I forced the shovel deeper into the muck, trying to remember where exactly that bottom box had landed. The handle kept slipping deeper and deeper into the rancid water, until just six inches remained above the surface. I prayed it wasn’t Heck’s body when the blade strucksomething rigid. I pushed the handle forward, bracing it on my knee then pushing down, using my knee as a lever. The resistance split, and the shovel slid into the mass easily.
And while I prayed I hadn’t touched Heck’s body with the shovel, I prayed harder that the plank was strong enough to handle the extra pressure.
The plank held and the shovel blade broke the surface. The soggy, shredded remains of a white box slipped off the side and landed in the water with a plop. A mound of gray, raw hamburger meat rested on top of the blade. Hundreds of tiny worms squirmed and wriggled in and out of the meat, spilling away and falling back into the water. I jiggled the handle a little, slowly shaking chunks of hamburger meat off the shovel. Soon the meat was gone. No buckle.
“Three minutes,” Junior reminded me.
I stuck the shovel back in, deeper this time, not worrying about whether I hit Heck’s body or not. I tried again, scooping up a giant, soggy mound of squirming meat, but the buckle wasn’t there.
“Two fucking minutes,” Junior said, and slid the plank sideways a few inches, almost pitching me into the water. I shoved the shovel into the water, again and again, bringing up dripping piles of meat. Once I brought up a ragged piece of Heck’s shirt. I forced myself not to worry about it, just to keep going.
Pearl, who had been silently watching from the doorway the whole time, finally spoke up and said, “That’s enough. It ain’t out here. This little shit has wasted enough of our time.”
I kept pulling meat out of the Dumpster. “But it’s in here, I know it.” I jabbed the shovel back into the water. “Just give me a little more time. It’s in here.”
Junior leaned harder on the plank. “Time’s up, Archie.”
I struggled to lift one more shovelful. As usual, the blade was heaped with meat and alive with worms. I started twisting the handle back and forth, same as every other try, dribbling little bits and pieces into the flooded Dumpster. I didn’t know what else to do.
Out of the corner of my eye, Junior stood up, putting most of his weight onto his left foot, as his right foot slid across the plank and prepared to kick it into the Dumpster.
And then I saw it at the end of the shovel. The buckle.
Covered in gray hamburger meat, a golden notched edge hung out over the side of the shovel blade. The diamonds captured the somber dark light that filtered down out of the storm clouds and flung that dead light back out into the air in brilliant sparkling patterns. Here’s my chance, I thought, and got a better grip on the shovel’s handle.
“I’ll be damned,” Junior breathed, still leaning back, right foot resting against the edge of the board.
I jerked the shovel away from the water, twisting my upper body around as fast as I could, flinging the mound of meat up into Junior’s face.
Junior jumped, faster than I had guessed, and most of the meat, maybe seven, eight pounds of it, hit Junior in the throat. A little stuck to his face, his eyes, his mouth. It was enough to distract him when he landed heavily at the side of the Dumpster and fought for his balance. The buckle bounced off his ear and went sailing toward the back wall of the restaurant.
Pearl screamed something, a shrill, jagged sound that echoed out across the floodwater. She rushed at her son in a stuttering, crablike movement, but Misty grabbed hold of the leash, right up near her throat, and yanked Pearl back.
Junior lost his fight with gravity and landed on my shoulder and right side hard, slamming me sideways into the plank. The wood groaned and cracked. I swung the empty shovel back around, like I was trying to hit myself in the head and managed to strike Junior’s neck, but he barely noticed it. He balled up his fist and hit me in the temple before I even had a chance to let the shovel fall back away and reverse my grip.
My head bounced off the plank and stars burst behind my eyes.
Junior clamped his hands around my throat and sank his knee intomy stomach. I couldn’t breathe. My left leg fell off the plank. I hoped the duct tape was thick enough to stop the worms.
Arms taut and shivering, Junior stared down at me through slitted eyes, lips pulled back, yellow teeth clenched and bared in a wild and savage grin. “Motherfucking piece of shit.”
The pressure around my throat suddenly vanished as Junior released me and grabbed at his own throat. I caught a quick flash of Misty’s face over his right shoulder. Her jaw was set, eyes on fire. She had that leash wrapped around Junior’s neck and was doing her best to choke the life out of him.
Pearl’s cane cracked through the sky into Misty’s skull. Misty dropped to the loading dock, but she didn’t let go of the leash. Junior arched his back, clawing at the leather. Pearl brought her cane down again, viciously striking Misty in the jaw. Misty let go then, rolling into a ball, covering her head with her arms. Pearl whipped the cane over her shoulder, bringing it down in a whistling arc, smacking into Misty’s body. It reminded me of Junior hitting the crowbar in the coffin. She kept hitting Misty, again and again, cracking that cane into Misty’s arms and head and hands.
Before I could react, Junior grabbed a fistful of my hair and twisted, almost rolling me off the plank. He pulled me sideways and shoved my head down toward the black water. Worms rose out of the surface, reaching, straining for my skin as if they were steel shavings drawn to a magnet.
“Don’t kill him yet. We need his blood,” I heard Pearl yell, then saw her lopsided, leering face under Junior’s arm, watching me with her bright right eye. She held the cane in her right hand, buckle in her left. “And his liver.”
Junior rolled me back onto the plank and squeezed my throat again. The gray sky got darker. I heard Junior’s harsh breathing coming down a long, winding tunnel. And then—almost at the other end of the tunnel—I heard Grandma’s voice.
“That’s enough fun for today. You best let go of my grandson.”
CHAPTER 32
Junior jerked his head around. Under his arm, past Pearl’s hunched figure, I saw Grandma’s short, squat frame filling the back doorway of the restaurant. She wore her giant straw hat and Grandpa’s thick neoprene fishing waders up to her ample waist. The .10 gauge rested comfortably on her walker. For a second, I wondered how she’d made it through the worms, but then I realized the waders had protected her.
Junior squinted down at me and didn’t move.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Grandma said, casually bringing up the side-by-side barrels of her shotgun. “I swear to the good Lord, I’m gonna scatter your innards to hell and back.” She paused. “I mean it, son.”
Pearl started to say something, but Grandma wasn’t in the mood and squeezed the trigger. The blast disintegrated the bottom five inches of Pearl’s cane and drove a hole the size of a grapefruit through the loading dock. Grandma rode the recoil, letting the gun rock and buck in her hands, and when the gun smoke cleared, the barrels were aimed at Junior’s head.