They had managed to bundle Roland into the back of the Prius without too much fuss after Chew had knocked him out. It was dark out and Spencer’s Tire and Rims was conveniently placed far enough out of sight that they didn’t have to worry about any passersby catching a glimpse of what was going on. Chew pulled his balaclava off of his face and wiped the sweat away from his lips as he set it down between his legs on the seat.
He looked at Dante, who was visibly shaking. “What the fuck was that, man?”
“That bitch must have recognised my voice or something,” Dante muttered weakly. “We went to middle school with one another back in the day, man. Yolanda something. Can’t believe she fucking recognised me.”
Chew reached over and grabbed Dante by the arm forcefully as the gravity of the situation they had found themselves in began to dawn on him. He hadn’t stopped to think about the girl with her brains blown out on the floor back then until Roland’s place was well in the distance.
“You didn’t have to fucking shoot her, Dante.”
“Hey! Enough with the fucking names already,” Dante said as he pulled his arm free from Chew’s grasp. “What other choice did I have? She could have ID’ed me, man, and it wouldn’t take a genius to work out who you were.”
It was nonsense. Even with his hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel it was clear that Dante was scared. His face had gone white as a sheet and his voice, usually piercing to the point that it grated on him, was soft and feeble. As much as he tried to convince himself that he’d done it to protect them, the truth was that he’d shot that woman dead because he was scared and both of them knew it.
Chew pinched the bridge of his nose and sat back in his seat. “We could have bolted, left the whole thing be, now we have a dead fucking body on us and another live one in the back.”
“I had no choice,” Dante said, staring at Chew as if that would help to convince him. “This was your thing, man. There’s no point pointing fingers now, the bitch is dead, all we can fucking do is play the hand we were dealt.”
Chew’s thoughts went to his sister and Antwan, to Jayson, and to all the years he’d spent promising himself in prison that he’d never end up back there. It had been a fortnight since he was freed and an innocent girl was dead because of something that he’d set in motion. He should have known not to involve Dante in this.
Chew muttered in a defeated voice. “We were meant to scare him, not murder his secretary and kidnap him.”
Dante shook his head silently and kept his eyes on the road as he drove the pair through Norman. Chew looked at Dante, his face strewn with nervousness, and muttered a silent expletive under his breath before resting his head against the glass to watch the buildings they passed. It was going to be a long drive.
It went without saying that there was only one place that they could take Roland. The Bog had been Chew’s dumping ground of choice before he’d gone inside. It was the whole goddamned county's dumping ground of choice. Sometimes he liked to change things up and dump them in the old row houses over in Saloon City, but they didn’t have that kind of time on their hands and they certainly wouldn’t be able to find a nail gun at this time of night. The Bog was a pretty difficult place to find someone if they decided to hole up in there.
Especially if person in question happened to know every nook and cranny of that place as well as Chew did.
As they passed Ten Pickett Bowling, Chew couldn’t help but wonder if his stint as a civilian was done. He looked over at Dante. “PCSD are going to be all over our asses in by sun up.”
“We’ll get round them,” Dante said with a smile. “We’ve done it before.”
Something felt different this time. Back then, for better or for worse, Chew never questioned the morality of what they were doing. He needed to eat, he needed to put food on his family’s table, and that was all there was to that. If he’d been good with a scalpel he would have been a surgeon instead but the only gifts God had given him was his strength. So he used it with impunity to get the things he and the people he loved needed. It was as simple as that.
Now he felt awash with shame at having stood by and watched Dante shoot that girl like it was nothing. It was like she wasn’t a person at all. Getting away was easy, Chew thought, it would be living with himself knowing he could have stopped that girl from being shot over nothing that he'd struggle with.
*****
Laval Turner hummed to himself as he lifted the stacks of newspapers onto the back of his truck and scanned his clipboard for a few moments. He was well into his sixties, skinny as a rail and wrinkly too, but Laval was as fit as men half his age and he was very proud of that fact. His milk white skin was almost translucent in the morning light. Only freckles and tufts of white hair along it broke the blue veins that ran over it like spider’s webs. To this day people presumed that Laval as a Negro on account of his name and the fact he was belonged to one of only a handfu of white households still in Norman. He’d actually been named after Gamecock great Billy Laval.
He’d been born dirt poor in Norman, blind to colour, and worked and lived alongside Negros for years without so much as a thought to the colour of their skin. That made him something of an exception down in these parts, had earned him the ire of a fair few people too, but he’d never known anything different. Once the steel mill packed up and left Laval had done some odd jobs here and there before deciding to settle down and retire. Laval and his wife had managed their finances well over the years and they had more than enough to see them out. The newspaper thing had come a little later when he’d got bored of siting on his behind doing nothing all-day and wanted to keep active.
He placed the clipboard underneath his armpit and kicked the tires of his truck a little before starting towards the driver’s side. As he was set to climb in the neon sign of Spencer’s Tire and Rims caught his eye against the piercing white clouds. It was still on. Laval shook his head, threw his clipboard down on the seat of the truck, and headed over towards the tire showroom with a grin.
Sometimes Laval would see Roland in the mornings on his way to work and the tire salesman would give him shit over the state of his old truck. Roland had always been affable if a little greasy. Laval appreciated that he had a sense of humour and could take it as well as he dished it out. As he approached the building Laval straightened the blue cap atop his pale head and prepared to needle Spencer at having left the light on all night.
As he reached the doors he noticed that a faint light was coming from Roland’s back office. What was going on? Laval hoped he’d find Roland passed out in there with a bottle of scotch in his lap so he could spend the next six months reminding him about it. Though something about this didn’t feel right.
He pushed the doors to the showroom open slowly. “Roland?”
There was no response. Laval pushed on into the showroom a few more paces, staring towards the dim light coming from the office, as if expecting a disheveled Roland to appear at any second.
After a few seconds of silence Laval called out again. “Roland? You left the sign on, you stupid son of a bitch.”
Again there was no response. Laval looked around for a few moments as he wondered where Roland could have got to and why the hell he’d have left the doors unlocked if he wasn’t here. Suddenly a loud rattling noise sounded from behind him that made him jump so much that he almost shat himself right there and then. He turned to see the body of a young girl laid there lifelessly, dry blood on the floor around her head, her eyes staring at the ceiling. Beside her was a phone that vibrated back and forth as it rung silently. Laval took a few steps backwards as he felt a wave of nausea sweep over him and grasped onto the reception desk as his legs went weak.
It was Roland's girl Yolanda.
Captain Uni
Half Pint
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