That's How I Roll: A Novel Read online

And the worst of them all: never become a man worthy of her respect.

  I told her why this had to be. I even told her what I’d been doing to make sure Tory-boy would always be safe.

  I stripped it right down to the bone, so there was no misunderstanding: I’d have to do wrong to make things right. I’d been doing wrong, and I was going to have to do more. A lot more. A lot worse, too.

  I don’t know what I expected, but Miss Webb breaking into tears wasn’t on that list. I reached for the fresh-clean handkerchief I always carry with me, but she already had her own out.

  She stopped crying after a little bit. Dried her tears off her cheeks … but they stayed in her eyes.

  “I understand, Esau.”

  “I know I shouldn’t have said anything to you. I know I don’t have that right. But …”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Two reasons,” I told her. “One is that I’m forever indebted to you. I know I don’t come around as much as I once did, and I couldn’t have you thinking I didn’t want to come. With this Internet we have now, I can do so much research.…”

  My voice trailed off like a dying man’s breath.

  Miss Webb looked at me, and she wouldn’t drop her eyes. Blue eyes, she had. But not the blue-jean eyes some around here have—a lighter shade. I wouldn’t know the name for that color, or even if it had one. “You said two reasons,” she reminded me.

  “I … I don’t feel right about the other one.”

  “Why, Esau? After what you just told me, what could there be left?”

  “Telling you that would be the same as telling you what it was. The reason, I mean.”

  “And you don’t have that reason anymore?”

  “Oh, no. That’s mine, and that’s forever. I’ll have it until the day I die. Even after, maybe. What I’m saying is just what I said before. I’ve got a reason, but I don’t have any right to it.”

  “Esau, you’re a grown man now, not a child.”

  “I’m half a grown man.”

  “Not to me, you’re not. You’re more man than anyone I ever knew. A man takes responsibility. Takes it and keeps true to it. No matter what it might cost him.”

  That’s when I learned Miss Webb’s first name.

  Evangeline.

  I learned that right after those eyes of hers finally made me admit that I loved her.

  hen you’re known to be a criminal, crime comes looking for you. One day, Tory-boy came into the house. All he said was that Sammy Blue was waiting outside the gate. Sammy didn’t want to buy anything; he just wanted to talk to me about something.

  Sammy Blue knew I sold drugs, but that was all he knew. He didn’t have a clue about the real work I did, or who I did it for. There was no way for him to have known I was just about ready to get out of the drug business. I’d only sold the drugs when I had no other way to get the money I needed for my plan. But, now that I did, drug dealing was too much risk for too little gain.

  But I knew what Sammy Blue did for his money—there weren’t too many around here that didn’t. So, before I went outside, I put my pistol under the blanket I always kept over my lap.

  Tory-boy saw me do that. He knew what it meant. When he came with me to the gate, he wasn’t just pushing my wheelchair. The dogs were quiet, but they glared at Sammy Blue hard enough to burn holes through him.

  I met Sammy Blue at the gate. I ignored the hand he offered me to shake. I wasn’t inviting him to pass through, and he wasn’t crazy enough to push the gate open without permission. There were a lot of rumors about what would happen to anyone who put their hands on that heavy wrought iron without getting the okay from me first. Every one of them true.

  “Esau, I drove over here—”

  “The dogs aren’t for sale,” I cut him off. “And they’re not going in one of your matches, either.”

  “You haven’t heard my offer,” he said, smiling like the two-faced, forked-tongue snake that he was.

  “You don’t have any offer to make me. Those are Tory-boy’s dogs. He doesn’t want them sold. He doesn’t want them hurt. He doesn’t want to breed them to anything of yours. What my brother wants is for his dogs to stay here. With him.”

  “Come on, Esau. You’re the one in charge here. What’s it matter what that—?”

  I couldn’t let him finish that sentence. Whatever Sammy Blue had intended on saying died in his throat when he heard the sound of the hammer being pulled back. Maybe I didn’t have legs that worked, but my arms and hands are potent weapons. They got built up from all the years of them doing the work they had to do—before Tory-boy came along, and even more later, from taking care of him. Then it was those exercises, all those weights Tory-boy did with me every day. That’s how I taught him to count, and now it was a habit. One he cherished.

  I held that Colt Python .357 in my left hand. It stayed as cold and steady as the steel it was made from.

  “Don’t say another word,” I told Sammy Blue. “And don’t come back. I so much as see you around here, you’re dead where you stand.”

  Later, I explained to Tory-boy that Sammy Blue hadn’t followed the rules about the drugs we sold, so I had run him off.

  Tory-boy knew I could do that—he’d seen it for himself enough times, even if he couldn’t understand how I did it—so I didn’t have to explain things any deeper than I had.

  If I’d’ve told my baby brother what Sammy Blue had wanted to do with his dogs, Tory-boy would’ve walked through the gate, pulled Sammy Blue apart, and tossed the pieces back over the fence. That way, we wouldn’t have to bother with burying him.

  I couldn’t have allowed that. Sammy Blue had too many cop friends—he couldn’t have stayed in business otherwise. Like I said, the dogfighting was no secret. Sammy Blue’s operation generated cash that went straight to the Law—it was such small potatoes that neither of the two mobs that ran things around here was tapping it for a cut.

  n fact, that was the biggest problem with the cops around this way—they weren’t as picky as the gang bosses. “Small-time greedy” is how we say it.

  One day, the light started flashing in the house. Tory-boy went outside to check for money in the mailbox. But when he came back, I could see he was troubled.

  “There’s a man out there, Esau. A man in a suit.”

  “Did he say anything?” I knew Tory-boy could repeat things word for word, provided they weren’t too long, or hadn’t been said too long ago.

  “He said: ‘Would you ask Mr. Till if I could have a few minutes of his time?’ ”

  I knew when Tory-boy spoke like that, slow and careful, each word separate, he was as accurate as any tape recorder.

  It was good that it had been such a nice warm day. Tory-boy had the dogs trained to let someone through the gate if he told them to. That way I could use the side yard for any conversations I might want to have.

  But there wasn’t any way the dogs would let a stranger into our house. It was their house, too. That’s where they slept. If a leaf fell off a tree in the night, they’d all jump up. No barking, but I could tell by their cocked ears and the fur on their backs that they were ready.

  I met the man outside, in the spot that got the most sun. In the nice weather, me and Tory-boy kept a little table and a couple of chairs out there. He especially loved it when it was just the two of us.

  If you were to drive by, you’d just see two men, sitting back and sipping some lemonade while they talked. From that perspective, we both looked like a couple of pals shooting the breeze. Maybe that’s what he liked the best of all.

  But that day, Tory-boy stayed over with the dogs. He was always protecting me. If he saw anything bad happen, I knew he’d rush that man in the suit like a charging bull. I also knew the dogs would get to that man faster than Tory-boy ever could.

  And that the sight of a gun pointed their way wouldn’t have meant a thing to any of them.

  So the man could … Well, he could do just about anything he wanted to me. But he’d never l
eave our property alive, and he looked smart enough to know that.

  He had real manners on him, too. Before he took the seat across from me, he said, “My name is R. T. Speck, Mr. Till. I’m a police officer.” If standing with his back to Tory-boy and the dogs caused him any worry, he didn’t show it.

  He held out his hand, and we shook.

  “Please have a seat, sir,” I told him.

  That “sir” wasn’t politeness—it was to tell him that I wasn’t going to be telling him anything else.

  “Would you happen to know a young man by the name of Lonnie Manes, Mr. Till?”

  “No, sir,” I said. It was the truth.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said. “We caught this boy—Lonnie Manes, I’m talking about now—we caught him breaking into Henderson’s.”

  Henderson’s was what folks called the pharmacy, after the man who’d started it, a long time ago. His name wasn’t on the door anymore—the pharmacy had been taken over by one of those big chains a while back—but it was still “Henderson’s” to us.

  “That boy is about as stupid as they come. If there’s one place in town that has top-quality security, it’d be Henderson’s. They’ve even got a central-station alarm in there.”

  I stayed quiet, but I was secretly proud that this cop showed me respect by not explaining what kind of alarm that was.

  “He was after the drugs, of course,” the cop said, like saying water is wet. “We caught him walking out the back door with a whole sackful of stuff.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I used my body position to tell him to go on talking. He hadn’t driven all the way out here to give me a news report.

  “I’m sure you know how police work is done, Mr. Till. I—” He stopped in his tracks, realizing he’d stepped over a line, but he covered up quick: “I mean, from television and all.”

  I nodded. Even smiled just a little, letting him know I wasn’t offended.

  “We told Lonnie that he’d been carrying enough drugs in that sack to send him down to the penitentiary for the rest of his natural life. Before we were even finished telling him that, he was telling us about everything he could think of. Everything that might make us go easier on him, I mean.”

  I just watched the man. The sunlight was strong on his face, and I could see he was older than I’d first thought. I could see right through his eyes, all the way into his brain. My silence was bothering him, so he was considering. Thinking about what to do next.

  “You mind?” he said, holding up a pack of cigarettes.

  “It doesn’t bother me outdoors,” I told him, “but I appreciate your courtesy.”

  He seemed grateful I’d said that. Took him a long time to get his smoke going, even though there wasn’t a breath of wind that day.

  Finally, he said, “Lonnie gave you up.”

  I made my whole face puzzled. “I don’t understand,” I told the cop. “I already said I didn’t even know a person by that name.”

  “The drugs,” the cop said, as if having to say it made him sad. “He told us how the whole operation works. Your operation, I’m talking about now.”

  “I haven’t been operated on since—”

  That was going too far. I knew it, and I’d done it deliberately.

  The man’s face got darker. “Your drug operation,” he said, colder now. “We know all about that mailbox at the end of your lane. The button. The phone calls to arrange the pickups. Everything. I’d wager, if we were to search your house right now, we’d find enough drugs—”

  “Medications,” I chopped off his threat. “Anything you’d find in there would come with prescriptions. Legal prescriptions.”

  “Then you wouldn’t mind if I took a look for myself?”

  “I don’t suppose I could stop you,” I said, looking over at Tory-boy. He was standing as rigid as a rock, holding the release lever for the chains. One and Two were standing as well. Three was lying down. They were all staring at the cop’s back. “If you’ll just let me take a quick look at your warrant, I’ll be happy to—”

  “That offends me, Mr. Till. I wouldn’t come out here with a warrant. That’s your home there; I wouldn’t expect to go inside unless I was invited. And I wouldn’t want anyone else to, either.”

  “I appreciate that. Then what do you want?”

  “I already explained that, I thought. Like I said, Lonnie Manes told us everything. We could sit out in those woods with surveillance cameras for ten years and we’d never see you with any drugs.…”

  He let his voice trail off, so he wouldn’t have to say the threat out loud. Tory-boy. If they came and grabbed him, it wouldn’t end right. There was no way it could.

  “What do you want?” I said again. The cop didn’t know his words had just gotten me out of the drug business forever. But he had to know that the limb he’d climbed out on was fixing to snap.

  “Lonnie was arrested late last night. That’s why I look so raggedy—haven’t even had a chance to shave this morning. I’m the only one who took his statement. I’m considered to be real good at talking with people.”

  “I can see why,” I said to him. “But I’m still confused, sir. What exactly do you want?”

  “There’s no call for looking at me like you are, Mr. Till. What do I want? I’ll tell you, right out: I want us to be friends. That’s why I had Lonnie write out his statement on separate pieces of paper. What I mean is, separate pieces of paper for each person he informed on. And those pages, they aren’t numbered.

  “Being entirely truthful with you, Lonnie didn’t have all that much. That’s because Lonnie isn’t much. A punk like him, he’s not what you’d call a man of his word. You can never be sure when he’s telling the truth. Here, see for yourself,” he said, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his suit coat.

  It was in ignorant scrawl, just the way someone like Lonnie would write it. But a college graduate couldn’t have written a clearer account of how our drug business worked. Had worked, that is.

  “You’re right,” I told the cop. “There isn’t a word of truth in all this scribble.”

  “Oh, don’t bother,” he said, when I went to hand it back. “That pack of lies isn’t worth a plugged nickel. Might even backfire on the DA if he tried to use Lonnie as a prosecution witness. Put a piece of trash like him in front of a jury, they’re not likely to believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”

  “I can see how that might be true.”

  “No disrespect, but I don’t think you do, Mr. Till. I told you, I came here hoping to be friends.”

  “A man can’t have enough friends.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” I said. “And I don’t suppose there’s any reason why a man couldn’t be your friend and sell you an insurance policy, too.”

  “Now, that’s your reputation proving itself, Mr. Till. Folks say you’re the smartest man around.”

  “Would the premiums on this policy be weekly or monthly?”

  “I do think monthly would be best. No reason for me to come all the way out here so often.”

  “How much?”

  “Well, I guess it depends on the amount of coverage you’d be wanting.”

  “I think I’d want the maximum,” I said to him. “The full family plan. After all, you never know when something’s going to happen, do you? Why only buy fire insurance, when a flood’s just as likely?”

  “That could end up being a very expensive policy, I have to tell you,” he said. “For that kind of coverage, the salesman has to split his commission with his supervisors. All the way up to the top, actually.”

  “I understand. But that’s what insurance is, right? It can’t stop things from happening; it just covers you if they do. Life insurance won’t stop a man from dying, but it will help his family carry on without him.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Some folks, they pay insurance on their house for thirty years, and nothing ever touches it. Instead of being ups
et about all those premiums they paid, my thinking is they should be grateful nothing ever did happen.”

  “That’s the way I look at it myself.”

  “It just comes down to men being reasonable with each other,” I said. “If the premiums get too high, well, then, a man can’t afford them, and he lets the policy lapse. On the other hand, if the premiums are too low, the insurance company can’t make a living.”

  The cop stubbed out his cigarette on the ground. Then he took out a little plastic bag, the kind with tops that seal themselves closed, and put the butt inside. It went into his pocket. There’s a dozen reasons he could have done that. None of them mattered to me.

  “A thousand,” he said.

  “Once a month?”

  “Once a month.”

  “And that’s for full coverage? For me and my family? Against anything that might happen to cause either of us any problem with your company?”

  “Absolutely total.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, reaching over to shake his hand.

  He held on to my hand. Dropped his voice to a whisper. “Folks say you carry a magnum in that left armrest of your chair. Man’s got a right to do that. But you won’t mind if I look for myself?”

  I let go of his hand, leaned back in my chair, and flipped both armrests open.

  The cop found the magnum, all right. But he didn’t find the tape recorder I knew he was really looking for.

  What he did see was about five thousand in hundreds. Plus some of those little packets of alcohol, bandages, stuff that a cripple like me might need.

  “You mind?” he said.

  I knew what he wanted. Let him feel all over my body, even lift the blanket off my legs.

  “I apologize if I offended you,” he said. “But you understand—”

  “I do understand. And you understand as well. That’s all that righteous folks need to make a contract: an understanding between themselves. When one man gives his word to another, it has to mean at least as much as anything you could write down on a piece of paper.”

  “You have got my respect, sir.”

  “Mutual.”

  “I’ll be back—”

  “One month from today,” I told him, handing over a thousand in nice crisp bills, pretending that I didn’t see the look of surprise on his face.