That's How I Roll: A Novel Read online

  “A warning.”

  “Now, that is exactly what it is!” Lansdale slapped his hand on the table hard enough to break it. “But there’s always going to be men like Casey Myrtleson. They see a ‘No Trespassing’ sign, they figure they just found themselves a fine place to go deer hunting.”

  That’s when I finally understood what Lansdale was really talking about. “Man like that, he’d probably take a doe out of season, even if he had to jacklight her,” I said, just to make sure.

  Lansdale looked me full in the face, like he was trying to read something written in a language he knew a little bit, but not to where he’d be called fluent.

  “Good talking with you, Esau,” he finally said. “I know we do business, but I hope you regard me as your friend, because that’s how I regard you.”

  asey Myrtleson was big stuff. And going places, too. But he hadn’t gotten there yet, and he wasn’t so big that he didn’t open his own mail. Especially a pink-wrapped box with little red hearts all over it.

  few weeks after, I rolled into Lansdale’s bar. I’d spent those weeks listening to the stories. It seemed like Casey Myrtleson being blown to bits was all folks could talk about.

  They had it every which way the mind could imagine. Casey had been using cocaine to sharpen his reflexes and ran up a big debt in the process. A certain driver Casey had put into the wall a few times had made sure that wouldn’t ever happen again. A wealthy old man’s young wife had told too many stories at the beauty parlor. Casey had been trying to brew up his own mixture for the track, and playing around with nitro-mixing fuel isn’t for amateurs.

  On and on. After a while, I swear there were more stories than there were people telling them.

  As I came in the door, Lansdale stood up and walked over to his table. Nobody else was there. Nobody would ever be there unless Lansdale himself had invited them over.

  Somebody stepped behind me and took hold of the handles of my chair. I didn’t understand that, but it didn’t worry me, considering where I was.

  That night is so fixed in my memory that I can recall what was playing on the jukebox when I saw Nancy coming over to me:

  I used up all my pity on myself;

  Ain’t got one bit left for no one else.

  Only this time she wasn’t smiling. Not even close. “Just what in hell do you think you’re doing, Elmore?” she said to the man behind me.

  “I was just trying to help—”

  “You think Esau needs your help to get around? The man’s got arms on him like thick lumps of iron.”

  “Now, how would you be knowing that?” the man Nancy had called Elmore said to her.

  “And how would that be any business of yours?” she snapped back.

  Before he could say anything, Lansdale stood up and waved me over.

  hank you, Nancy,” I said when she put the mug of apple juice in front of me.

  “Let it go, now,” Lansdale told her. “The way you’re fuming, you’ll give yourself a damn stroke.”

  “Where does that bucktoothed white trash think he—?”

  “Nancy,” I said, “could you do me a favor?”

  “I … Sure, Esau. What would you like?”

  “I’d appreciate you asking that Elmore fella if he’d come over here for a minute. I know he tried to do me a service, and I’d like to shake his hand.”

  She stole a quick look at Lansdale. He nodded his head, giving her the okay.

  Elmore came on over. He was a big guy. Not Tory-boy’s size, but over six foot, easy.

  I offered my hand. He took it.

  It wasn’t five seconds before he called it off.

  “Hah!” Nancy said to him. “I told you—”

  “Could I get one more of these?” I asked her, holding up my empty glass.

  “You can get anything you want, honey,” she said, and planted a little kiss on my cheek before she walked off.

  I don’t know where Elmore went to. Me, I was in Heaven.

  “You are truly something else, Esau,” Lansdale said, shaking his head like he’d just seen an amazing sight. “Your spine may be all messed up, but you got enough backbone for a tribe of gorillas.”

  I didn’t want to reply to that, so I just waited for Nancy to get back, then held up my glass by way of saying “thank you” to Lansdale and Nancy both.

  Lansdale had been right about the beauty of how Nancy walked, and I hadn’t missed an opportunity since. As soon as she was out of sight, Lansdale offered his own hand.

  It was a man’s handshake, firm and strong, but nothing like that foolishness Elmore had tried.

  “There isn’t a liquor store in the world that lets you buy on credit. So, if a man walks into a liquor store after dark, it’s either because he’s got money … or because he doesn’t.”

  “That’s why they all deal from behind that bulletproof glass,” I agreed. “Because, just looking at a man walking in, there’s no way you can tell.”

  “Unless you know the man,” he said, holding up his square-cut whiskey tumbler.

  “Unless you know the man,” I said, tapping my mug of apple juice lightly against his glass.

  “My wife and I, we’d be honored if you and your brother would take supper with us Thursday night, Esau.”

  That hit me like a shock wave of … well, I don’t have a name for it. That invitation was beyond anything I’d ever expected to happen in my life. And including Tory-boy, well, that was exactly the way such things are done—you invite a man for dinner at your home, you invite his family, too.

  Treating Tory-boy like he wasn’t “special” was the most special thing anyone had ever done.

  “I’m truly honored by your invitation,” I said, keeping it as formal as a tea dance, “but I’m also honor-bound to refuse.”

  “Why would that be?” Lansdale said. His voice was as polite as mine, but I could feel something darker lurking around its edges.

  “It’s not right to accept an invitation when you can’t reciprocate. Our place isn’t suitable for a man to bring his family to.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Lansdale said, all the darkness suddenly gone from his voice. In fact, he was outright grinning at me. “No offense, but I don’t know anyone in this whole county who’d accept an invitation to have a meal at your place, Esau. More than likely, they’d think you were inviting them to be the meal.

  “You know how people talk. There’s all kinds of horror stories about those dogs of yours—supposed to have a real taste for human flesh, the way I hear it.”

  “Not a word of truth to that,” I said, feeling the smile come out on my own face. “But they really do fancy the organs.”

  “So you’re saying—?”

  “Pardon the interruption, but I couldn’t wait to say this. I accept your kind offer, sir. And the honor would be ours.”

  ansdale had a fine house. Nothing showy, but you could see it had taken real craftsmanship to put it together.

  The only thing that didn’t go perfect was when I had to touch my finger to my cheek, the signal for “Stop it!” Tory-boy had been staring at Lansdale’s daughter like he’d been hit over the head with an ax handle. A whole bunch of times.

  Not that I really blamed him. Patsy was every bit as beautiful as folks said. But I’d taught Tory-boy better than that. And not just for politeness’ sake—gawking at a girl gives away too much information about yourself.

  There’s much better ways to pay a compliment. Such as when Lansdale’s wife insisted that I call her Kay. Later on, I told her I was a man who’d studied science all my life but it didn’t require a deep knowledge of genetics to see where Patsy had taken her looks from. I could tell she knew I wasn’t slick-talking, just telling the truth in a polite way.

  “You’ll always be welcome here, Esau,” Kay told me at the end of the evening. “You and Tory come on back anytime you get tired of eating your own cooking.”

  “I can cook,” Tory-boy immediately piped up.

  �
�Oh, I’m sure of that,” Lansdale’s wife said, as she reached out and patted Tory-boy’s forearm. “I don’t imagine there’s much you couldn’t do if you put your mind to it.”

  It was right there that I learned the difference between just having good manners and having genuine class.

  acquired some of my knowledge late. But after working for a time, I came to understand that everything in life always boils down to principles.

  Principles come in two forms.

  Some you can never change, like a scientific principle that had proved itself, over and over again. That reliability test: x always causes y.

  It’s the “always” that makes it science.

  The scientific principle for making a bomb is as logical as not scratching a poison ivy rash. All you need is a container that isn’t strong enough to hold whatever you put inside of it. The stronger the container, the stronger that inside force has to be.

  Another scientific principle is that accuracy will defeat firepower. One truly skilled sniper could wipe out a whole gang, provided he had good enough cover and plenty of time. A tiny dash of poison in a cup of coffee could take down a man powerful enough to bend a crowbar in his bare hands.

  But inside that principle there’s another one, which you can’t see. No matter how powerful the explosive or how potent the poison, they’re absolutely worthless without a direct-delivery system.

  You want to kill a powerful man with poisoned coffee, you have to get him to drink that coffee.

  The other type of principles are those a man chooses to live by. No man can change scientific principles, but any man can change his own.

  How else could there be traitors?

  ansdale had made himself an enemy. He didn’t know who it was—although I suspect he had an idea—but he knew someone was committed to his death.

  “It came out of nowhere,” he told me. “The box I was sitting on slid just a tiny bit, the side of my face felt this little bee-sting … and then I heard the crack of the rifle. I dropped and rolled behind some rocks, but it was another few seconds before I realized I was bleeding. Whoever he was, he didn’t miss by much.”

  “You were in Grant’s Tomb?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Now, how would you guess something like that, Esau?”

  So that’s why he wanted to meet, I thought to myself. Part of me was saddened that he might think such a thing. I had been a guest in his home, and I was sure he knew how much that had meant to me.

  I promised nothing but truth in this record, so, even though it shames me to admit it, another part of me was offended. If I’d been sitting behind that sniper’s scope, I wouldn’t have missed.

  But all I said out loud was “That box you were sitting on, sliding a little like it did, that probably saved your life. You said you didn’t hear the sound of the shot until after you felt it kiss the side of your face. That means it was fired from a long distance—half a mile, minimum. There’s no shortage of mountains around here, but they’re all covered with leafy trees, especially this time of year. That’s how I figured it had to be Grant’s Tomb—where else could a sniper get a clean shot at you from that far away?”

  That calmed him down right away. I could see it on his face as he followed the trail I had reasoned out.

  The trail actually started about fifty or sixty years ago, depending on who you ask.

  A big-time strip miner named Silas Grant had a vision come to him. Lots of folks have visions, but Silas Grant had piled up enough coal money to actually chase his vision down.

  Gold, that was his vision. A vein of gold so thick it would take you a day just to walk across it. So much gold that it made the Mother Lode look like her baby.

  Silas Grant spent his whole fortune trying to find that gold he saw in his vision. He bought up hundreds of acres, set up his mining operation, and built a whole little town around it. Years and years went by. Folks said the workers dug down so deep they could feel the heat of Hell.

  But Silas Grant died without ever extracting anything but tons of rock so worthless that he even lost money having it hauled away. That’s why the folks around here call that spot Grant’s Tomb—Silas Grant was a man who worked himself to death digging his own grave.

  When he died, that property was about all he left behind. There wasn’t any reasonable use for it—just to fill it in and level the ground would cost a thousand times more than the land was worth.

  His family was rendered poor. Well, poor by the standards they were all used to. That made them so bitter that they didn’t even bother to put on the kind of funeral folks would expect from people of their standing.

  For years, the ground stood fallow. The whole mining town ghosted out. All that remained was a bunch of rickety old buildings, a couple of looted trailers, and some heavy equipment that was rust-shut forever.

  When Lansdale went and bought the whole site from Grant’s family, they thought he was Heaven-sent. He probably hadn’t paid all that much, but it was enough for them to leave here and start over someplace else. Someplace where they weren’t known.

  Nobody knew what Lansdale wanted that place for, but it was no secret that he held meetings down there.

  “So …” That was just Lansdale, thinking out loud. I kept quiet. I waited in that quiet because I knew he’d ask me questions when he got done with whatever he was thinking through in his head. That had happened so often that I’d come to expect it.

  “So it could only be one of two things, then,” he finally spoke out loud.

  I nodded. When he didn’t say anything else, I knew he was waiting for me to spell it out.

  “Somebody’s camped up there permanent,” I said. “Built himself a hide he could live in for months, if he had to. All he’d need was restocking—supplies, food, batteries for his phone and radio, maybe stuff to read. And he’d have to be the kind of man who could handle being alone.”

  Lansdale nodded. Then he held up two fingers, like making a “V” sign.

  There was no sugarcoating the other possibility, so I just said, “Or one of your men is taking someone else’s money.”

  “Or just plain talks too much,” Lansdale said. He shifted his body a little, and looked at me real close. “So that’s three possibilities, Esau. If you were a gambling man, which horse would you put your money on?”

  “Those last two, you’re splitting the same hair.”

  “The same? Come on. There’s a million miles between a man who will sell you out if the price is right and a man who can’t keep his fool mouth shut when he gets liquored up … especially around a woman.”

  “Still no difference, really.”

  “Meaning, if he isn’t camped up there permanent, that sniper had to know I’d be out there that day he took his shot. So, a traitor or a drunk, it still comes out the same?”

  “The reason the sniper was in place doesn’t much matter—if he’d’ve hit you, you’d be just as dead.”

  “I’m trying to be cold-blooded about this,” he said, “but I just can’t see any of my men selling me out. Or even talking out of turn.”

  “That’s what doctors call a ‘rule-out.’ One of the football players from the high school takes one of those helmet-to-helmet hits. Knocks him unconscious. Even if he comes to on his own, even if he gets up and walks over to the bench, even if he says he wants to go back in, they’ll still carry him over to the ER.

  “That’s why they perform all those tests—CAT scans and other stuff like that. They have to rule out brain damage. Some concussions, the brain actually bounces back and forth against the inside of the skull. You send that kid back to play too soon, he could end up talking like some of those old boxers do.

  “That’s the scientific method of working: there are times when you have to make sure what something isn’t before you can start looking for what it is.”

  “That sounds right to me, Esau. Ruling out a sniper camped out up there first. That was the case, they wouldn’t need an inside man in my crew.”r />
  “If you want to know for sure, just take me out there. If you can show me the exact spot where you were when—”

  “Nothing’s been moved,” he interrupted.

  “Makes it even easier, then,” I told him. “That bullet left a nice trail down the side of your face, but it would have to flatten itself out on the rock behind you. Too much of a mess to tell you much from looking at it, but I’d put my money on it being a NATO round.”

  “That’s like a .22, right?”

  “Not much difference in size,” I told him. “But a whole lot in speed.”

  I wonder if he knows? I remember thinking. But I let that thought go. Lansdale was a subtle man, but he wasn’t a game player. So I just kept rolling:

  “You put yourself in the exact same position, give me some time to work with my instruments, I can probably point you to within ten yards of wherever that sniper was roosting.”

  “What good would that do me?”

  “It’ll answer your question. If it was a sniper planted up there, that’s a card whoever wanted you dead can only play once. If a hide was built, there’ll still be plenty of traces left behind. The sniper fired only once, and you went down right after. He couldn’t see you behind those rocks, so a second shot wouldn’t do any good—he either nailed you or he didn’t. So he probably took off without stopping to clean up after himself. And even if he’d tried to, there’s no way he could have covered up the signs a man would leave being up there for that long.”

  “I’ll do it,” Lansdale said. He’d started to get to his feet when I made a little motion with my hand. When he sat down again, I leaned close:

  “What I just said only works if the sniper had really been planted there, waiting. You understand? If he didn’t know when you’d be showing up …”

  I could tell Lansdale didn’t like even the thought of any other possibility. “Yeah,” he said. “And so?”

  “So, if you go out there, and you don’t find a blind, you’re as good as telling whoever betrayed you that you’re on to him. Maybe not to him, exactly, but you’d still be showing your hand without making him pay to call it. If you know it was someone from inside your organization, would you want them knowing you knew?”