Page 98 of Body Count

Blood rushed to my head, and black spots whirled in my vision again.But I didn’t fall.My heartbeat pulsed behind my eyes.In my shoulder.I took deep breaths, adjusted the shovel as an improvised crutch, and started forward.The bladeclinked each time it bit into the ground.

As I limped toward the car, Rory’s voice became words I could understand.

“—because he’s still alive, you stupid fuck!”Weeping made him choke.“Get out here and fix it!This isn’t my fault!”Then he screamed, and a cracking noise rang out.Eddie had hung up on him, I figured, and Rory had thrown his phone.Sobs wracked him again, the sounds floating out into the heavy heat of the summer afternoon.

I was almost to the window when he noticed me.I could see him in the side mirror.His eyes widened.The color drained from his face.My ghost drifted along in the window next to me—a faint reflection that didn’t give back the details but was enough for me to see the bloody, dirt-crusted thing that had crawled out of its own grave.Rory opened his mouth, but no sound emerged.And then, audible even over the rise and fall of leaves in the breeze and the birdsong and the slow, metallic chime of the shovel as it scraped across the ground, he pissed himself.

When I reached the window, I stared at him for a second.His mouth still hung open.His pupils were huge.

“Phone.”

He moved like a zombie to pick up the phone from the dash and hold it out to me.

I took it.“Keys.”

It took him two tries to get them out of the ignition.He was shaking now, and the keys jingled as he extended them.

Once they were in my hand, I leaned a little more heavily on the shovel.He was moving his jaw now, still trying to say something.

But I spoke first.“Get out of the car, and I’ll kill you.Understand?”

He might have nodded.Or maybe it was just the shakes.

I didn’t even bother unlocking the phone; I just held down the button for emergency services and asked for the police.

31

Deputies came instead of the police, which I would have realized if my brain had been working.They hadn’t really seemed to understand what was going on, and by then, Rory had recovered enough to attempt a stammering—and incoherent—excuse.The deputies didn’t really seem to know what to do except put cuffs on Rory and start first aid on me while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.Once the paramedics got there, they took one look at me and decided we needed to haul ass to the hospital.

I found out later Eddie showed up.He didn’t see the deputies until it was too late.He’d brought his gun, a shovel, and a bottle of bleach.I wasn’t sure if Rory ever knew how close he’d come to ending up in that ditch next to me.When Brother Gary and Red Alvin finally got there, it must have felt like Christmas.

Turned out I’d been shot in the chest wall, but the more bitchin’ way to say it was that I’d been shot in the pectoral muscle, which meant basically my pecs saved my life.There wasn’t really a bitchin’ way to say I also had a partially collapsed lung.It wasn’t actually all that bad—compared to how getting shot in the chest might have gone.After I got out of surgery for the gunshot wound, they put me on supplemental oxygen with a cannula, but I didn’t have to have a chest tube.I was in the hospital for a couple of days; once the X-rays showed that my lung was reinflating, they told me I could go home.

It was a long two days.A lot of people came to visit: my boy John-Henry, and Emery—who was trying really hard to be nice until he forgot and asked me if the partially collapsed lung would keep me from, quote,fellating any other key suspects in a murder investigation, which was when John-Henry sent him to find a vending machine.Palomo came and was weirdly nice about the whole thing, probably because she assumed—rightly—I was going to get fired.She even brought me this weird chicken casserole she’d made.Emery took it home when he found out I was going to dump it.Foley came with his wife and a million kids, all of them looking like that miserable Irish fuck.Clark Kent came and got so nervous that he tried to leave by going into the bathroom.He stayed in there so long I almost forgot about him, and one of the nurses totally freaked out when she opened the door.

Darnell didn’t come, but not because he was an asshole.He texted, and I told him I was okay.I needed time to think.He sent flowers, though.In some ways, that made it harder.

When they released me, I checked myself out and took an Uber to the Bridal Veil Motor Court.You could pay by the week there.

It turned out to be a lot less fun than being in the hospital.The pain was constant, even when I took what they’d sent me home with.Nobody showed up and brought you flowers.Nobody stopped by just to check on you.No turn-down service.I mean, not unless you counted housekeeping, and if you paid by the week, they only came on Saturdays.The room was tiny and old and dingy, and I had to wear a sling to reduce the strain on my healing muscles, which made moving around in the cramped space even more difficult.

One evening, Peterson came over, and we had a long talk.

And, finally, I made a decision.

My boy John-Henry showed up early on a Tuesday morning and helped me downstairs.I could have done it on my own.Probably.My car was still being held—I wasn’t sure if the deputies were really still processing it, or if this was just another of their typical fuckups.So, I got in the minivan.In the middle row, because Emery was driving.It felt a little like my gay dads were taking me to soccer practice, which also could have been the start of a really raunchy porno.I told Emery, and he told me they’d gotten me coffee, so why didn’t I drink my coffee and shut the fuck up?

When we got to the house, Darnell’s car was in the driveway.It was another of those summer days that had started at uncomfortably warm and was only going to get worse.Darnell had done some yardwork.He’d put down a bed of white rock along one side of the house, and it glowed incandescent in the sunlight.The rosebush was gone.

“I’ll let him know we’re here,” John-Henry said, unbuckling himself.

“He knows we’re here,” I said.“And he knew we were coming.”I got out of the van.“Give me a second.”

I hesitated when I got to the door.And then I knocked.

Darnell opened the door a moment later.His eyes were red.He hadn’t shaved.He braced himself with one arm across the doorway, and I wondered if that was on purpose, or if it was just body language giving more away than he intended.

“Hey,” I said.

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