Helltown - Jeremy Bates Page 0,21
Scottie? It’s Cleavon McGrady. Your pa there?”
“Naw, he’s gone to Randy’s for the meat draw.”
Cleavon swore to himself, then said, “Scottie, listen up, okay? I have something important you gotta do. You listening?”
“Yeah?”
“Some people might be coming by, on the way to town. They might stop by your place, looking to use the phone. You can’t let them do that. You tell them you don’t have no phone. You got that?”
“Why they wanna use my phone? Who they calling?”
“It don’t matter. You just tell them you don’t got no phone. Can you do that?”
“I guess.”
“I’m gonna call your daddy now. You remember what I told you.”
“I ain’t got no phone.”
“Good boy. Your daddy will be home soon.”
Cleavon hung up and dialed Randy’s Bar-B-Q. He knew the number by memory; Randy’s was one of only two bars in Boston Mills, the main watering hole so to speak, and he often called there when looking for Jesse or Lonnie or whoever else he wanted to find for whatever reason.
“Randy’s,” a man drawled in a Southern accent. Randy had lived in Louisiana his entire life, a small claims court lawyer. Then he got in some kind of financial trouble and moved out here—fleeing the law you might say—and opened up the bar. The running joke between Cleavon and the guys was that he was going to need a damn good criminal lawyer whenever the IRS or FBI or whoever tracked him down and came knocking on his door.
“Listen, Randy, it’s Cleavon, I need to speak to Lonnie. He there?”
“Does shit stink? Hold on a sec.”
Cleavon waited. He could hear a cacophony of sound in the background: laughter, talking, someone speaking on a mike, reading out numbers. A long thirty seconds later: “Cleave?”
“Lonnie,” he said harshly. “You gotta get back to your place, now.”
“My place?” It came out “My plash?”
“Listen to me, you drunk shit,” Cleavon said, “and listen good. Weasel got us some new does. But he fucked up, he fucked up good, ’cause there were two cars and one still works just fine. Me and the boys are gonna go round them up now. But if some took off in that second car, they’re gonna be heading to town. That means past your place. They might even knock on your door, looking for help. I’ve already spoken with your boy. He’s gonna tell them you don’t got no phone. If they’re still there when you return, you keep them there until me and Jess arrive. If you see them on the road, you don’t let them pass—”
“How many does we got, Cleave? Are they lookers—?”
“Pay attention, Lonnie, for Christ’s sake! This is important. You do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t get to town. Now get going. We’ve wasted enough time talking.”
“Hold up, Cleave, hold up,” Lonnie said, sounding more alert, no longer slurring his words. “How’m I supposed to stop them if they’re on the road?”
“You got your rifle in your truck, don’t you?”
“’Course.”
“So you see them coming, you block the road with your truck. When they stop, shoot their tires. Fuck, shoot the driver, you have to. Just make sure they don’t go nowhere ’till me and Jess arrive.”
“Yeah, right, okay, don’t you worry, Cleave, you can count on me. But you didn’t tell me, Cleave, these does, they lookers or not—?”
Cleavon hung up the phone, then returned to the den. The TV picture was still on the fritz. Earl was snoozing in his recliner, snoring and drooling a river. Cleavon clapped his hands loudly, startling Earl awake, and said, “Get up, shithead. And go find your deaf-ass brother. We got business to take care of.”
CHAPTER 5
“Ding dong. You’re dead.”
House (1986)
The road angled upward. Noah slowed the Jeep to forty miles an hour. Anything faster would be reckless in the fog, which seemed to have become denser and more opaque during the last half hour. As soon as he breasted the summit he started down the other side, which dipped sharply. The slope was so great the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He leaned back against the seat, his arms at right angles to the steering wheel, the way you hold the safety rail while zipping down the big hill of a roller coaster.
The road finally flattened out and came to an abrupt end—at least, to a crude wooden barricade with a grime-covered, reflective “Road Closed” sign.
“A dead end!” Noah said, braking.
“No, it’s okay,” Steve said. “You can go around it. The road still leads out of