Gone South Read online

  “When the goin’ gets tough,” Blanchard said, “the tough get goin’. Ever hear that sayin’? If more people lived by it, we wouldn’t be headin’ for a welfare state.”

  “I’ve never been on welfare.” The pain flared, like an engine being started, deep in Dan’s skull. “Not one day in my life.”

  Blanchard swiveled to face the computer’s screen again. He gave a grunt. “Vietnam vet, huh? Well, that’s one point in your favor. I wish you fellas had cleaned house like the boys did over in Iraq.”

  “It was a different kind of war.” Dan swallowed thickly. He thought he could taste ashes. “A different time.”

  “Hell, fightin’s fightin’. Jungle or desert, what’s the difference?”

  The pain was getting bad now. Dan’s guts were clenched up. “A lot,” he said. “In the desert you can see who’s shootin’ at you.” His gaze ticked to the Lucite cube that held the plastic flag. Something small was stamped on its lower left corner. Three words. He leaned forward to read them. Made in China.

  “Health problem,” Blanchard said.

  “What?”

  “Health problem. Says so right here. What’s your health problem, Mr. Lambert?”

  Dan remained silent.

  Blanchard turned around. “You sick, or not?”

  Dan put one hand up against his forehead. Oh, Jesus, he thought. To have to bare himself before a stranger this way was almost too much for him.

  “You aren’t on drugs, are you?” Blanchard’s voice had taken on a cutting edge. “We could’ve cleaned house over there if so many of you fellas hadn’t been on drugs.”

  Dan looked into Blanchard’s sweating, heat-puffed face. A jolt of true rage twisted him inside, but he jammed it back down again, where it had been drowsing so long. He realized in that moment that Blanchard was the kind of man who enjoyed kicking a body when it was beaten. He leaned toward Blanchard’s desk, and slowly he pulled himself out of the black leather chair. “No, sir,” he said tersely, “I’m not on drugs. But yeah, I am sick. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m listenin’.”

  “I’ve got leukemia,” Dan said. “It’s a slow kind, and some days I feel just fine. Other days I can hardly get out of bed. I’ve got a tumor the size of a walnut right about here.” He tapped the left side of his forehead. “The doctor says he can operate, but because of where the tumor lies I might lose the feelin’ on my right side. Now, what kind of carpenter would I be if I couldn’t use my right hand or leg?”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but —”

  “I’m not finished,” Dan said, and Blanchard was quiet. “You wanted to know what was wrong with me, you oughta have the manners to hear the whole story.” Blanchard chose that moment to glance at the gold Rolex watch on his wrist, and Dan came very close to reaching across the desk and grabbing him by his yellow necktie. “I want to tell you about a soldier.” Dan’s voice was roughened by the sandpaper of raw emotion. “He was a kid, really. The kind of kid who always did what he was told. He drew duty in a sector of jungle that hid an enemy supply route. And it was always rainin’ on that jungle. It was always drippin’ wet, and the ground stayed muddy. It was a silver rain. Sometimes it fell right out of a clear blue sky, and afterward the jungle smelled like flowers gone over to rot. The silver rain fell in torrents, and this young soldier got drenched by it day after day. It was slick and oily, like grease off the bottom of a fryin’ pan. There was no way to get it off the skin, and the heat and the steam just cooked it in deeper.” Dan drew up a tight, terrible smile. “He asked his platoon leader about it. His platoon leader said it was harmless, unless you were a tree or a vine. Said you could bathe in it and you’d be all right, but if you dipped a blade of sawgrass in it, that sawgrass would blotch up brown and crispy as quick as you please. Said it was to clear the jungle so we could find the supply route. And this young soldier … you know what he did?”

  “No,” Blanchard said.

  “He went back out in that jungle again. Back out in that dirty rain, whenever they told him to. He could see the jungle dyin’. All of it was shrivelin’ away, bein’ burned up without fire. He didn’t feel right about it because he knew a chemical as strong as that had to be bad for skin and bones. He knew it. But he was a good soldier, and he was proud to fight for his country. Do you see?”

  “I think so. Agent Orange?”

  “It could kill a jungle in a week,” Dan said. “What it could do to a man didn’t show up until a long time later. That’s what bein’ a good soldier did to me, Mr. Blanchard. I came home full of poison, and nobody blew a trumpet or held a parade. I don’t like bein’ out of work. I don’t like feelin’ I’m not worth a damn sometimes. But that’s what my life is right now.”

  Blanchard nodded. He wouldn’t meet Dan’s eyes. “I really, truly, am sorry. I swear I am. I know things are tough out there.”

  “Yes sir, they are. That’s why I have to ask you to give me one more week before you take my truck. Without my truck, I don’t have any way to get to a job if one comes open. Can you please help me out?”

  Blanchard rested his elbows on his desk and laced his fingers together. He wore a big LSU ring on his right hand. His brows knitted, and he gave a long, heavy sigh. “I feel for you, Mr. Lambert. God knows I do. But I just can’t give you an extension.”

  Dan’s heart had started pounding. He knew he was facing disaster of the darkest shade.

  “Look at my position.” Blanchard’s chewing gum was going ninety miles a minute. “My superiors kicked Bud Jarrett out of here because of the bad loans he made. They hired me because I don’t make bad loans, and part of my job is to fix the mess Jarrett left behind. One week or one month: I don’t think it would really matter very much, do you?”

  “I need my truck,” Dan rasped.

  “You need a social worker, not a loan officer. You could get yourself checked into the VA hospital.”

  “I’ve been there. I’m not ready to roll over and die yet.”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s nothin’ I can do for you. It’s bidness, you see? You can bring the keys and the paperwork tomorrow mornin’. I’ll be in the office by ten.” He swiveled around and switched the computer’s screen off, telling Dan that their conversation was over.

  “I won’t do it,” Dan said. “I can’t.”

  “You will, Mr. Lambert, or you’ll find yourself in some serious trouble.”

  “Jesus Christ, man! Don’t you think I’m already in serious trouble? I don’t even have enough money to buy decent groceries! How am I gonna get around without my truck?”

  “We’re finished, I think. I’d like you to leave now.”

  Maybe it was the pain building in Dan’s skull; maybe it was this final, flat command from the man who was squeezing the last of the dignity from his life. Whatever it was, it shoved Dan over the edge.

  He knew he should not. Knew it. But suddenly he was reaching out toward the photographs and the Made in China American flag, and as he gritted his teeth the rage flew from him like a dark bird and he swept everything off the top of Blanchard’s desk in a swelling crash and clatter.

  “Hey! Hey!” Blanchard shouted. “What’re you doin’?”

  “Serious trouble,” Dan said. “You want to see some serious trouble, mister?” He hefted the chair he’d been sitting on and slammed it against the wall. The sign that said The Buck Stops Here fell to the floor, and books jittered on the perfect shelves. Dan picked up the wastebasket, tears of frustration and shame stinging his eyes, and he threw its contents over Blanchard, then flung the wastebasket against the stag’s head. A small voice inside Dan screamed at him to stop, that this was childish and stupid and would earn him nothing, but his body was moving on the power of single-minded fury. If this man was going to take his freedom from him, he would tear the office apart.

  Blanchard had picked up the telephone. “Security!” he yelled: “Quick!”

  Dan grabbed the phone and jerked it away from
him, and it too went flying into the shelves. As Dan attacked the fox-hunt pictures, he was aware in a cold, distant place that this was not only about the truck. It was about the cancer in his bones and the growth in his brain, the brutal heart of Death Valley, the jostling for tickets, the dirty silver rain, the major, the village, his failed marriage, the son who had been infected with his father’s poison. It was all those things and more, and Dan tore the pictures off the walls, his face contorted, as Blanchard kept shouting for him to stop. A good soldier, Dan thought as he began pulling the books off the shelves and flinging them wildly around the office. A good soldier good soldier I’ve always been a good —

  Someone grabbed him from behind.

  “Get him out!” Blanchard hollered. “He’s gone crazy!”

  A pair of husky arms had clamped around Dan’s chest, pinning his own arms at his sides. Dan thrashed to break free, but the security guard was strong. The grip tightened, forcing the air from Dan’s lungs. “Get him outta here!” Blanchard had wedged himself into a corner, his face mottled with red. “Faye, call the police!”

  “Yes, sir!” She’d been standing in the open door, and she hurried to the phone on her desk.

  Dan kept fighting. He couldn’t stand to be confined, the pressure on his chest driving him to further heights of frenzy. “Hold still, damn it!” the guard said, and he began dragging Dan to the door. “Come on, you’re goin’ with —”

  Panic made Dan snap his head backward, and the guard’s nose popped as bone met cartilage! The man gave a wounded grunt, and suddenly Dan was free. As Dan turned toward him, he saw the guard — a man as big as a football linebacker, wearing a gray uniform — sitting on his knees on the carpet. His cap had spun away, his black hair cropped in a severe crew cut, his hands cupped over his nose with blood leaking between the sausage-thick fingers. “You busted my nose!” he gasped, his eyes slitted and wet with pain. “You sumbitch, you busted my nose!”

  The sight of blood skidded Dan back to reality. He hadn’t meant to hurt anyone; he hadn’t meant to tear up this man’s office. He was in a bad dream, and surely he must soon wake up.

  But the bad dream took another, more wicked turn.

  “You sumbitch,” the guard said again, and he reached with bloody fingers to the pistol in a holster at his waist. He pulled the gun loose, snapping off the safety as it cleared the leather.

  Going to shoot me, Dan thought. He saw the man’s finger on the trigger. For an instant the smell of ozone came to him — a memory of danger in the silver-dripping jungle — and the flesh prickled at the back of his neck.

  He lunged for the guard, seized the man’s wrist, and twisted the gun aside. The guard reached up with his free hand to claw at Dan’s eyes, but Dan hung on. He heard Mrs. Duvall shout, “The police are comin’!” The guard was trying to get to his feet; a punch caught Dan in the rib cage and almost toppled him, but still he held on to the guard’s wrist. Another punch was coming, and Dan snapped his left hand forward with the palm out and smashed the man’s bleeding nose. As the guard bellowed and fell back, Dan wrenched the pistol loose. He got his hand on the grip and fumbled to snap the safety on again.

  He heard a click behind him.

  He knew that sound.

  Death had found him. It had slid from its hole here in this sweltering office, and it was about to sink its fangs.

  Dan whirled around. Blanchard had opened a desk drawer and was lifting a pistol to take aim, the hammer cocked back and a finger on the trigger. Blanchard’s face was terrified, and Dan knew the man meant to kill him.

  It took a second.

  One second.

  Something as old as survival took hold of Dan. Something ancient and unthinking, and it swept Dan’s sense aside in a feverish rush.

  He fired without aiming. The pistol’s crack vibrated through his hand, up his snake-tattooed forearm and into his shoulder.

  “Uh,” Blanchard said.

  Blood spurted from a hole in his throat.

  Blanchard staggered back, his yellow necktie turning scarlet. His gun went off, and Dan flinched as he heard the bullet hiss past his head and thunk into the doorjamb. Then Blanchard crashed to the floor amid the family photographs, fox-hunt prints, and leather-bound books.

  Mrs. Duvall screamed.

  Dan heard someone moan. It was not Blanchard, nor the guard. He looked at the pistol in his hand, then at the splatter of red that lay across Blanchard’s desk. “Oh, God,” Dan said as the horror of what he’d just done hit him full force. “Oh, my God … no …”

  The gears of the universe seemed to shift. Everything shut down to a hazy slow-motion. Dan was aware of the guard cowering against a wall. Mrs. Duvall fled into the corridor, still shrieking. Then Dan felt himself moving around the desk toward Blanchard, and though he knew he was moving as fast as he could, it was more like a strange, disembodied drifting. Bright red arterial blood was pulsing from Blanchard’s throat in rhythm with his heart. Dan dropped the pistol, got down on his knees, and pressed his hands, against the wound. “No!” Dan said, as if to a disobedient child. “No!” Blanchard stared up at him, his chilly blue eyes glazed and his mouth half open. The blood kept spurting, flowing between Dan’s fingers. Blanchard shuddered, his legs moving feebly, his heels plowing the carpet. He coughed once. A red glob of chewing gum rolled from his mouth, followed by rivulets of blood that streamed over his lower lip.

  “No oh God no please no don’t die,” Dan began to beg. Something broke inside him, and the tears ran out. He was trying to stop the bleeding, trying to hold the blood back, but it was a tide that would not be turned. “Call an ambulance!” he shouted. The guard didn’t move; without his gun the man’s courage had crumpled like cheap tin. “Somebody call an ambulance!” Dan pleaded. “Hang on!” he told Blanchard. “Do you hear? Hang on!”

  Blanchard had begun making a harsh hitching noise deep in his chest. The sound filled Dan with fresh terror. He knew what it was. He heard it before, in ’Nam: the death watch, ticking.

  The police, Mrs. Duvall had said.

  The police are comin’.

  Blanchard’s face was white and waxen, his tie and shirt soaked with gore. The blood was still pulsing, but Blanchard’s eyes stared at nothing.

  Murder, Dan realized. Oh Jesus, I’ve murdered him.

  No ambulance could make it in time. He knew it. The bullet had done too much damage. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dan said, his voice cracking. His eyes blurred up with tears. “I’m sorry, dear God I’m sorry.”

  The police are comin’.

  The image of handcuffs and iron bars came to him. He saw his future, confined behind stone walls topped with barbed wire.

  There was nothing more he could do.

  Dan stood up, the room slowly spinning around him. He looked at his bloodied hands, and smelled the odor of a slaughterhouse.

  He ran, past the guard and out of the office. Standing in the corridor were people who’d emerged from their own offices, but when they saw Dan’s bloody shirt and his gray-tinged face they scurried out of his way. He ran past the elevator, heading for the stairwell.

  At the bottom of the stairwell were two doors, one leading back into the teller’s area and another with a sign that said EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY! ALARM WILL SOUND! AS Dan shoved the exit door open, a high-pitched alarm went off in his ear. Searing sunlight hit him; he was facing the parking lot beside the bank. His truck was in a space twenty yards away, past the automatic teller machine and the drive-up windows. There was no sign yet of a police car. He ran to his truck, frantically unlocked the door, and slid behind the wheel. Two men, neither of them a police officer, came out of the emergency exit and stood gawking as Dan started the engine, put the truck into reverse, and backed out of the parking space. His brakes shrieked when he stomped on the pedal to keep from smashing the car parked behind him. Then he twisted the wheel and sped out of the lot, and with another scream of brakes and tires he took a left on the street. A glance in his rearview mirror sh
owed a police car, its bubble lights spinning, pulling up to the curb in front of the building. He had no sooner focused his attention on the street ahead than a second police car flashed past him, trailing a siren’s wail, in the direction of the bank.

  Dan didn’t know how much time he had. His apartment was five miles to the west. Beads of sweat clung to his face, blood smeared all over the steering wheel.

  A sob welled up and clutched his throat.

  He cried, silently.

  He had always tried to live right. To be fair. To obey orders and be a good soldier no matter what slid out of this world full of snake holes.

  As he drove to his apartment, fighting the awful urge to sink his foot to the floorboard, he realized what one stupid, senseless second had wrought.

  I’ve gone south, he thought. He wiped his eyes with his snake-clad forearm, the metallic smell of blood sickening him in the hellish August heat. Gone South, after all this time.

  And he knew, as well, that he’d just taken the first step of a journey from which there could be no return.

  3

  Mark of Cain

  HURRY! DAN TOLD HIMSELF as he pulled clothes from a dresser drawer and jammed them into a duffel bag. Movin’ too slow hurry they’ll be here soon any minute now …

  The sound of a distant siren shocked his heart. He stood still, listening, as his pulse rioted. A precious few seconds passed before he realized the sound was coming through the wall from Mr. Wycoff’s apartment. The television set. Mr. Wycoff, a retired steelworker, always watched the Starsky and Hutch reruns that came on every day at three-thirty. Dan turned his mind away from the sound and kept packing, pain like an iron spike throbbing in his skull.

  He had torn off the bloody shirt, hastily scrubbed his hands in the bathroom’s sink, and struggled into a clean white T-shirt. He didn’t have time to change his pants or his shoes; his nerves were shredding with each lost second. He pushed a pair of blue jeans into the duffel bag, then picked up his dark blue baseball cap from the dresser’s top and put it on. A framed photograph of his son, Chad, taken ten years ago when the boy was seven, caught his attention and it too went into the bag. Dan went to the closet, reached up to the top shelf, and brought down the shoebox that held thirty-eight dollars, all his money in the world. As he was shoving the money into his pocket, the telephone rang.