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“I’m gonna put two rounds back in the chambers and spin them around, then we’re gonna—” he began.
That’s when Legion Guidry slid a cut-down, double-barreled twelve-guage shotgun from a scabbard nailed under the table and raised it so the barrels were suddenly pointed into Joe Zeroski’s face.
“Who’s stupid now?” Legion said. “You got nothing smart to say, you? Just gonna stand there wit’ your li’l gun wit’out no bullets in it? Time you got down on your knees, dago.”
“I look Italian? Zeroski is Polish, you moron. Poles ain’t Italians,” Joe said.
Legion rose from the table and walked to the screen door, where Baby Huey stood frozen, his eyes wide at the scene taking place in front of him.
“Come inside,” Legion said.
Baby Huey opened the screen and stepped out of the darkness into the white radiance of the lantern on the table. The muscles in his back jumped when the screen swung back into the jamb behind him.
“On your knees, nigger,” Legion said.
“My uncle owns the nightclub. He knows where we’re at,” Baby Huey said.
“That’s good. He come here, I’ll shoot me two niggers ’stead of one,” Legion said.
Baby Huey bent slowly to the floor, his knees popping, sweat breaking on his brow now, his gaze sliding down the length of Legion’s body.
Legion screwed the barrels of the shotgun into Baby Huey’s neck and looked at Joe.
“T’row your li’l gun down and get on your knees, or I’m gonna blow the nigger’s head off. Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t t’ink I’ll do it, no,” he said.
Joe Zeroski let the .38 shells spill from his hand onto the floor, then tossed the revolver to one side and got to his knees.
Legion Guidry stood above him, his stomach and loins flat, his khaki shirt tucked tightly inside his western belt. He reached behind him and removed his straw hat from the back of a chair and fitted it on his head so that his face was now in shadow. He drank from his whiskey bottle and spread his feet slightly and cleared his throat.
“What you t’ink about to happen? Bet you didn’t t’ink a day like this would ever come in your life, no,” he said.
Then he unzipped his fly.
“How far you willing to go to keep a nigger alive?” he asked, pressing the shotgun harder into Baby Huey’s neck, his eyes riveted on Joe’s.
Joe felt himself swallow, his hands balling at his sides. Legion’s finger was wrapped tightly inside the trigger guard on the shotgun. The back of his hand was spotted with sun freckles, his cuff buttoned at the wrist, his veins like pieces of green cord. Joe could smell the nicotine ingrained in his skin, the boilermakers that still hung on his breath, the raw odor of his manhood that seemed ironed into his clothes.
Joe Zeroski felt his heart thundering, then a rage well up in him that was like a fire blooming in his chest. His face grew tight and his scalp seemed to shrink and shift against his skull, his eyes bulge in their sockets, with either adrenaline or fear, he would never know which. “Go ahead and shoot, you worthless cocksucker. Me first. ’Cause I get the chance, I’m gonna tear your throat out,” he said.
He heard Legion Guidry snort.
“You t’ink pretty high of yourself, you. I wouldn’t dirty my dick on a dago or a Pollack,” Legion said, drawing his zipper back into place. “Give me your car keys.”
“What?” Joe asked, staring up in disbelief at the mercurial nature of his tormentor.
“I’m taking your car to find my whore. I don’t find my whore, I’m gonna come after you for my forty dollars. Next time you want to pretend like you a New Orleans gangster, remember what you look like right now, on your knees, next to a nigger, just about an inch from sucking a man’s dick. Tell yourself later you wouldn’t do it, no. Believe me, I wanted you to, you would, you,” he said.
Legion collected Joe’s automobile keys and his .38 revolver and shells. Minutes later, Baby Huey and Joe watched him drive away in Joe’s automobile, the radio playing, Legion’s hat and tall frame silhouetted against the front window. Baby Huey could hear Joe breathing in the darkness.
“You saved my life, Mr. Joe. I cain’t believe you told him to shoot. That’s the bravest thing I ever seen anybody do,” he said.
Joe waved his hand to indicate he did not want to hear about it. Baby Huey started to speak again.
“Hey, forget it,” Joe said.
“What we gonna do now?” Baby Huey asked, looking up the dirt track through the woods.
“It wasn’t him beat my daughter to death,” Joe said.
