“Guy recognized the shooter?”
Helene shakes her head. “Not because he knew him. Because he reminded him of somebody, on account of the tattoos all over his face.”
Helene Mayes has a ballpoint pen in her hand and is clicking it nervously now, animated and suddenly edgy as hell.
“I know you’re big into music,” she says. “But this guy leaving the message said the guy we’re looking for looked just like Post Malone.”
She pauses.
“Youdoknow who he is, right?”
“‘Wonderin’ when they’ll come for me,’” I sing softly.
NINETY-TWO
BUMPER AND I are out for her last walk of the night, later than usual and not all that far from where she’d nearly been run over on the night when Roof Crockett and his boys had come for me, when I hear the first shot.
“You never forget that sound,” Burt Webb had told me. “Like a tiny sonic boom.”
If they’ll shoot a cop in broad daylight,I tell myself,they sure as hell won’t hesitate to shoot me.
I dive into the high grass next to the road, yelling, “Home!” at Bumper as soon as I do, knowing it’s one of the few commands from me she’s ever actually listened to, seeing her turn and run as fast as she can back up the road and in the direction of the house.
I’m still crawling on my belly through high grass and away from where the shots are being fired when I see some headlights flick on and then off.
The bullet from the next shot kicks up dirt a few feet away from me.
I can’t believe the next one is going to miss.
So then I’m hauling myself up and into a crouch like I really am apass rusher now, keeping my head down, running for cover into the pine trees that line both sides of the road.
Praying I’m still fast enough.
And praying for a sign that EJ has heard the shots.
I look over my shoulder through the trees and, in the distance, can see an upstairs light go on in the house.
EJ’s bedroom.
By the time I get to the first trees, Burt Webb’s Glock is out and in my hand.
No more headlights now. No more shots right away. But I can hear low voices and, even without much moonlight, can see silhouettes, two of them, spreading out from a truck.
No way of knowing if there might be more, maybe circling around behind me so that even with the trees I’d have nowhere to hide if they got me in a cross fire.
Helene Mayes’s pledge to take down the Southern Mafia, with or without the National Guard, had gotten my attention.
War,she had said.
“There he is!”
I see the shape of a man step into the middle of the road, see him stop and raise the gun in his hand and fire directly into the tree I’m trying, and failing, to hide behind, just because I’m wider than it is.
I don’t step out and return fire.
Not yet.
Not even as the headlights come back on now, like they’re once again trying to put a spotlight on me.
