The Pistol Poets

"We found the car ten minutes ago," a big detective had told Morgan.



Morgan had shrugged. "Those crazy Mexicans."



"What about your shoes?" one cop had asked.



"I wanted to walk in the sand."



"Then shouldn't you have taken off your socks too?"



"I told you," Morgan had said. "I was drunk."



Morgan had claimed the whole incident had happened about a mile down the coast and away from the pier. The situation seemed impossible and hopeless. Nobody had mentioned a body. Morgan had watched the car go down. There'd been no sign of the man.



Perhaps Morgan should flee the country. A former colleague made good money teaching English in Asia. Morgan had seen the job listings before. English teachers needed in Japan and South Korea.



But that would take time to arrange. Surely recent events would catch up and overwhelm him before then. At least he was home. For a while, the world could wait. He went to bed, slept like a cold, dead stone.



Monday morning he went to Albatross Hall. He was five minutes late for his poetry workshop. He noticed three empty chairs in a row, didn't have to think too hard about it. Ellis, Lancaster, and DelPrego.



"Has anyone seen our missing comrades?" He gestured at the empty seats.



The class shook its collective head, mumbled ignorance.



"Never mind. Let's get on with it. Tammy, read us your poem."



A thin girl, sandals with socks, dishwater hair, and no makeup. "It's called 'The Aftertaste of Love.' " She stood and cleared her throat, read from a pink sheet of paper. "How he clings, like the orange dust from cheese puffs. How he screams the silent, dog-whistle need of his generation. But nobody hears..."



Ah. It was as Morgan thought. God had started punishing him already.



Morgan closed his office door. It had been a long morning. He switched on the radio, then rummaged his desk drawers. The radio announcer spit out the local news, then switched to the weather. Mild for most of the week, but winter's last hurrah gathered up north and west in Colorado. A cold front. It threatened to slide south by the weekend and dust Green County with a few flakes.



Morgan found what he was looking for in the bottom drawer. A flask of Jim Beam. Not his usual poison, but it would do in a pinch. He unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. The familiar warmth again in his belly. Morgan decided that not only had he officially fallen off the wagon, but that the wagon had also backed over him and parked on his head.



He took another swig.



The phone rang in midswig, startled him. A mouthful of booze spilled down his chin. He grabbed the phone. "Hello?"



"Morgan? It's Dean Whittaker."



Morgan sat up straight. "What can I do for you, sir?"



"Good news, Morgan. Lots of press going to be there all the way from Tulsa and Oklahoma City. We pulled some strings. Going to be great press for the university."



"Uh..."



"Also, we have the honors college assigning the poetry reading as mandatory extra credit for their freshman composition and humanities classes. I know these sorts of events aren't generally well attended, but we want to put our best foot forward, eh? I think we can fill up the whole damn auditorium."



"That's fifteen hundred seats."



"Well, the press, faculty, most of the administration, the graduate students from the writing program, the usual collection of community art-fags-you didn't hear me say that-and about a thousand freshmen. I know most eighteen-year-olds don't usually go in for this sort of thing, but the seats will be filled and it'll look good. That's what counts. The eyes of the entire university will be on this show. Exciting, isn't it?"



"Sure." Morgan found his hand reaching for the Jim Beam.



"You are going to put on a good show for us, aren't you, Morgan?"



Morgan cleared his throat, picked his words carefully. "I promise a professional reading with excellent and innovative poetry."



"Right," Whittaker said. "Just so long as we get the right message across. You know what I mean." He said good-bye and hung up.



Morgan drank whiskey, rubbed his eyes. He thought about Ginny. Maybe he should call her. He was surprised to wish he could be with her. She had a soothing effect. She'd been right. People who have a secret together need each other. He picked up the phone, put it back down again. No, she might still be with her parents, and Morgan didn't have the spine right now to explain himself.



He called Sherman Ellis at home. The phone rang and rang.



Morgan hung up, bit his thumbnail.



Morgan's phone rang and made him jump. He grabbed for it quickly. Maybe Ellis had *69 and was ringing him back. "Hello? Hello?"



"Take it easy, Professor," Fred Jones said. "You sound like you just ran a mile."



"I'm really pretty busy right now, Mr. Jones."



"Busy my ass. I have four new poems, and we have an appointment."



Morgan rubbed the bridge of his nose, bit off the first reply, and took a deep breath before saying, "You know, Mr. Jones, part of any good poet's education is to accumulate a myriad of poetry experiences. There's a poetry reading on campus tonight. It might be a good experience to give your own work a rest and go hear some other readers."



"Quit jerking me off."



"Okay, I'm sorry. But seriously, there's a guy on campus maybe you could talk to. A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet."



Jones went quiet on his end for a moment, then said, "Who?"



Morgan told Jones how to find Valentine's office. The image of the two strange old men amused Morgan. Let them drive each other nuts. The thought made his mouth twist up in a grin. It had been a long time since anything had made Morgan smile. His face muscles weren't used to it. It almost cracked his face in half.



thirty-seven



DelPrego was sweating hard. The thermostat in the dingy little farmhouse seemed to be stuck on the ultrahell setting.



And the farmhouse was full of black guys with guns. They all seemed pissed off. DelPrego sat in a corner, tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. The sweat poured down his back, formed under his armpits, and dripped. The thick bandages on his face were heavy and damp, clung sticky to his face with somebody else's blood and grime.



Duncan had gone to the kitchen with a black man in an expensive yellow suit. It was evident the man in yellow was in charge. He had the hard eyes and easy, cheerless grin of a man used to getting what he wants.



DelPrego's eyes shifted toward the door. It was agonizingly close, but he was too scared to bolt. Maybe if he simply stood and strolled out like it was no big deal, they'd ignore him. Or maybe they wouldn't.



The drive in Duncan's truck had been nerve-wracking. Duncan had held the shotgun loosely in his lap. DelPrego had thought about grabbing it or leaping from the truck at full speed or a number of other things that ultimately all seemed like bad, bad ideas which would make him horribly, horribly dead.



He waited, closed his eyes. When he opened them again nothing had changed. He was still in a world of shit.



Red Zach sat at the kitchen table and drank Moses Duncan's coffee from a Rebel flag mug. He paged through a J. Crew catalog and wondered how he'd look in a turtleneck. Something subdued. A nice taupe maybe. He liked earth tones. He was supposed to visit his mom at Easter, and he couldn't go dressed up like no Huggy Bear motherfucker from Starsky & Hutch.



Duncan entered the kitchen, sat at the table across from Zach.



"Maurice saw Jenks on campus," Zach said.



"Did he get him?" Duncan asked.



Zach sipped coffee, shook his head. "By the time he turned the car around, he'd lost track of him. But we think he must be hiding out someplace at the university. Maybe in somebody's dorm."



Duncan shook his head. "Don't make no sense. If he knows you're hot on his trail, why don't he just leave town?"



"I didn't ask for your peckerwood opinion, but I'll explain. There's only five roads out of this town, and I got them all watched. He's got no car and no money and the next closest town is thirty-five miles. No, he's tucked in someplace, lying low. You're going to find him."



"Me?"



"You deaf or something? You think a gang of brothers can roam your cracker campus without attracting some attention?"



"Eddie looks like a damn freak. You don't think he'll attract attention?"



"Good point," Zach said. "You go by yourself."



"Great."



"Go tell your boy you're taking a field trip."



"Right." Duncan left the table.



Zach waved Maurice over. The man stood straight as a blade, hands folded in front of him. "What's the word, Red?"



"Follow that redneck. Make sure he's obeying orders."



"And if he tries to take it on the road?"



Zach's face stretched into one of his trademark, evil grins. "Pull the plug on his sorry ass."



DelPrego saw Duncan coming toward him. Duncan shrugged into his coat, so DelPrego stood. Maybe they were finally getting the hell out of here.



"You stay put, Eddie," Duncan said. "I got to run an errand on my own."



DelPrego's eyes widened. He did not want to wait another minute in the farmhouse.



"Take it easy. I'll be back when I can." Duncan slapped him on the shoulder, then leaned in and whispered, "Just stay out of the way of these boys. We'll get them out of our hair soon enough." And then he was out the door.



DelPrego slowly looked around the room. One guy playing solitaire, two more watching television, and another two in the kitchen. He knew there were more someplace. DelPrego walked toward the bathroom. Keep it casual. He went in, shut the door behind him, and eased the dead bolt into place. He sat on the toilet and peeled off the bandages. The air on his skin was welcome relief.



DelPrego looked at the bandages and shivered. They were caked with dried blood, and some kind of slick goo DelPrego hoped was only ointment. The smell almost made him gag. He scrubbed his face in the sink, wiped off with a semiclean towel.



He looked at the window over the toilet. Small, but he was pretty sure he could squeeze through it, and be damned if he was going to wait around there until his luck ran out. He knelt on the toilet seat, pushed the window up. Cold air flooded the tiny bathroom. DelPrego breathed it in, filled his lungs. He'd always had an acute intolerance for heat, and the big gulps of cool air settled his nerves a little. But not much.



He put his arms through the window, wiggled his shoulders through one at a time. He hung half out the window, the drop down was a little farther than he'd thought but no big deal. He wiggled down to his hips and jammed himself in the window. He put his hands on either side of the window, set his jaw, pushed. He was just a fraction of an inch too wide. If he shucked his jeans, he could do it, he could just slither through, he was sure.



He backed into the bathroom, feeling for the toilet seat with his boot. His heel slipped on the slick porcelain and he fell backward, landed hard between the toilet and the sink. It made a good racket. DelPrego held his breath. Waited. Nobody came to investigate.



He grabbed the back of the toilet to pull himself up and his hand ran across something. He looked. A gun taped to the back of the toilet. He peeled it off, examined it. A.410 shotgun, a hack job. The barrel had been sawed almost to nothing, and most of the butt had been cut away, leaving only the pistol grip. He checked the breach, broke it in half. One shell. A fat slug.



Okay. Better than nothing. If he were going to get out of there, the shotgun might come in handy. But he hoped not. He wanted to sneak out without any trouble. He dropped the gun out the window.



He took off his boots, then slipped off his jeans. He remembered the drop and put his boots back on. He didn't want to twist an ankle or land on something in the grass with his bare feet. He was still worried about the tight fit through the window. He'd probably scrape a little flesh. No big deal. As long as he squeezed through.



He shimmied back through the window, wedging himself again at the hips. But this time he detected a little more give. He pulled hard, felt his flesh bunch against the window frame. His flanks burned where they scraped against the wood but only for a second. He popped through, hit the ground hard. He stood, caught his breath and examined his raw, red hips. Scraped and bruised but nothing to worry about. Now all he had to do was put his jeans back on and-



His jeans were still in the bathroom.



"Fuck."



He leapt for the windowsill but could only just grab it with his fingertips, not enough to pull himself back up. His jeans were gone. His ass was very, very cold. A frigid gust of wind shriveled his testicles.



He looked around, didn't see anyone, picked up the shotgun, and ran for the barn. It was still cold inside, but at least he'd escaped the wind. He scanned the barn and saw an old horse blanket thrown over some lumpy machinery. He could wrap it around his waist like a kilt.



He pulled off the blanket, revealing the gleaming motorcycle underneath.



"Whoa."



He wrapped the blanket around himself and knelt to examine the bike. A Harley, fat and low. It looked like it had recently been worked on and cleaned up. He checked the gas tank. Full. The bike was his ticket out, but he knew it would make a roar when he cranked it. He'd have to start the thing and ride fast before all those brothers poured out of the farmhouse to cut him down.



He straddled the bike, put up the kickstand. There was no way to ride the motorcycle and still keep the blanket. He was going to be cold no matter what. His ass stuck to the freezing leather.



DelPrego stood on the kick-starter. The engine sputtered. Smoke. Come on, come on. He kicked it again, and the engine howled to life. He twisted the accelerator, made sure it didn't conk out. It sounded good, powerful. It took him a few seconds to figure the gears. The bike leapt forward, through the barn doors. DelPrego felt like he was riding a dragon.



An old memory flashed in his mind, senior year of high school. His only motorbike experience, an old dirt racer. Every weekend out with his cousins, to the bottom of the dried-out quarry and back. It was coming back to him now. He leaned into the turn, coming around the farmhouse. Once on the other side, he'd break for the road. The cold wind bit hard into his naked flesh.



He sped past the front porch, black guys spilling out, white eyes wide. But they didn't have guns drawn. He was going to make it.



A car parked at the end of the drive. The driver's door swung open. Another black guy stepped out. He wore a red suit, black shirt, and no tie. He flicked a cigarette away, and his hand went into his jacket. DelPrego knew it would come out with a pistol.



DelPrego still had the.410 across his lap. He took it in one hand, kept the bike steady with the other. He lifted the shotgun level with his chest, arm outstretched. Even hacked down, the shotgun was heavy. He pointed it directly at the red suit blocking his path. He spurred the bike faster. It shot forward, a thundering mechanical warhorse.



Ivanhoe. I'm fucking Ivanhoe.



The red suit pulled a silver automatic, thumbed off the safety, and squeezed two shots. DelPrego heard and felt the second slug whizz past his ear.



He pulled the trigger and the shotgun belched fire, kicked out of his hands, and tumbled back along the dirt driveway. The slug knocked the red suit back across the car, his chest exploding in blood.



Shots behind DelPrego now. But he was already leaning low over the handlebars. He'd found the road and opened the bike up for all she had. A wild, bare-assed streak across eastern Oklahoma.



thirty-eight



For Christ's sake." Jones panted. "You trying to give me a fucking stroke here?"



Bob Smith slowed down halfway up the flight of stairs. "Sorry, Boss. We're almost there. One more flight." Sometimes the boss scared him. Smith didn't know what to do those times the old man overexerted himself, the blood draining from his pinched face. Smith had made the mistake once of suggesting the boss hire a nurse. Jones had chewed him out good for that one.



"Fucking Mount Everest." Jones sucked breath.



"You want a hand, Boss?" Smith reached for the old man's elbow.



Jones swatted him away. "Lay off. I can make it."



They made the fifth floor and Jones took a minute to catch his breath. Professor Morgan had told the boss to listen for the music. It had sounded goofy to Smith, but he cupped a hand to his ear and listened. A faint tune echoed through the halls.



"Benny Goodman," Jones said.



Smith would have to take the boss's word for it. The big man stood quietly with his hands folded in front of him. A minute later, the old man stood straight, nodded at Smith. They followed the music, and Smith let the old man set the pace.



Not for the first time, Smith wondered how he and the boss had ended up in bumfuck, Oklahoma. But it wasn't Smith's job to wonder such things. The boss still had a lot of connections and more than a few enemies. So when it was time for the relocation, Smith packed his bags. There had never been any question that Smith would go wherever Jones went.



They arrived at an office door. Jones knocked, didn't wait for an answer, and pushed the door open. Smith's hand drifted into his jacket, a habit from the old days. He always itched for the feel of his gun butt when they walked through a strange door. Never can tell what's on the other side.



A wild-haired man scribbled fiercely at his desk. He looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Charles Manson. There was a colored kid on the sofa reading a book. Both looked up as Smith and Jones entered the room.



Jones asked, "You Valentine?"



"Who are you?"



"Jones. I'm a friend of Professor Morgan," the old man said. "He said you'd look at my poems."



"He lied."



"What?"



"I don't do that. Look at poems, I mean."



Jones frowned. "Maybe I made a mistake. You're the professor?"



"Yes."



"You won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry?"



"Yes."



Jones threw up his hands. "Then what the hell is this?"



Smith stirred behind the old man. He didn't like it when the boss was unhappy. The colored kid watched the whole thing with big eyes.



Jones said, "Morgan mentioned you enjoyed your privacy. Maybe I should pay the dean a visit."



Valentine blinked. "Hell and blood." He held out a hand. "Let me see the poems."



Jones nodded. Smith handed the folder of poetry to the professor, then stood in a spot where he could see the door and the whole room.



Jones sat on the couch and turned to the colored kid. "Who are you?"



"Harold."



Jones pulled a cigar out of his coat pocket, handed it to Harold Jenks. "Smoke that, will you?"



Jenks shrugged, unwrapped the cigar, and bit off the end. He lit it, puffed. The old man closed his eyes, let the cigar aroma wash over him.



Jones opened his eyes again, looked Jenks up and down. "So what's your story?"



Morgan got Sherman Ellis's address from the registrar's office and drove to his apartment. Nobody home. He called four more times and left a note on Ellis's apartment door.



It was getting down to crunch time, and Morgan was getting desperate. He had no idea where students kept themselves, where they hung out. Blindly roaming the campus looking for Ellis didn't seem too productive. He needed some help.



Morgan parked on campus and went to Albatross Hall. He locked his office door behind him, slumped at his desk. He didn't turn on the light, didn't want people to see it shining under the door and know he was there. He especially wanted to avoid Dean Whittaker.



He got on the phone and dialed the hospital, where some clerical person told him Ginny Conrad had checked out.



His fingers hovered over the Touch-Tone pad, and Morgan realized he didn't know Ginny's home number. It had never occurred to him to ask for it. She'd always just been there, showed up on his doorstep. Another call to the registrar produced her number.



Morgan looked hard at the phone for a long time. Ginny had said her parents were coming. Morgan didn't want to talk to Ginny's father, but he needed somebody to help him track down Ellis. Ginny probably knew all the student hot spots.



Morgan found the bottle in his desk drawer. A few belts would help him think. The booze splashed harshly in his gut. He hadn't eaten anything, and his stomach made little dying sounds.



He grabbed the phone, dialed quickly before he changed his mind or puked.



Morgan was ready to hang up, but Ginny answered after twelve rings. "Hello?"



She sounded good, Morgan thought, voice strong. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. Morgan opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Maybe Ginny didn't want to talk to him.



"Hello? Helllloooo."



"It's me," Morgan whispered. He didn't want anyone walking by his office to hear him.



"Professor Morgan?"



"Yes."



"Are you in the library or something? I can hardly hear you."



Morgan raised his voice slightly. "How are you feeling?"



"The doctors said it looked worse than it really was. A lot of bruising."



"Uh-huh."



"My parents were here, taking care of me," Ginny said. "But I sent them home."



"Uh-huh."



"I mean sometimes my mother can be so smothering. And my father has this anal streak. He's always-"



"Ginny, I need a favor," Morgan said. "And I need it fast."



A pause. "What is it?"



Morgan explained.



"Have you tried the Black Student Union?" Ginny asked.



"There's a Black Student Union?"



"Let me make a few calls," Ginny said.



"Great," Morgan said. "What then? Call you back in an hour?"



"No. I'll meet you."



thirty-nine



Wayne DelPrego could not feel his ass. His frozen balls had shriveled and retreated. But he didn't dare stop until he reached Lancaster's apartment. The motorcycle roared.



A few wide-eyed motorists had gawked, but so far no cops. Some luck.



He parked the Harley in front of Lancaster's place, looked around, didn't see anyone. He sprinted to Lancaster's door. His bones ached, teeth chattering. He pounded on the door. "Come on, Tim."



No answer.



He knocked louder, looked over his shoulder. So far nobody had seen, but sooner or later somebody would notice the crazy pervert.



He tried the knob. It turned. He pushed the door open and darted inside, shut it behind him. He let himself warm up, breathed easy, relieved. "Tim?" Nothing.



He walked through the little apartment, found the bedroom, and pulled open Lancaster's dresser drawers. He found a pair of boxers. Sweatpants. He put them on.



He walked around the apartment, tried to get some idea where Lancaster had gone. DelPrego couldn't remember his friend saying anything about leaving town, visiting his parents, anything. He went to the bedroom closet to see if Lancaster's suitcase was gone.



He slid open the closet door. When the body fell out, it took DelPrego a split second to realize what he was looking at. He screamed, stumbled back, tripped on the corner of the bed, and spun into a rack of compact discs. Scattered them. DelPrego landed hard on the floor, breathing hard, heart kicking its way out of his chest.



He crawled to the body. "No," he whispered.



Lancaster looked like he was made of wax, pale and shiny. His eyes were open, looking up, jaw slack. DelPrego studied his face. It somehow didn't look like Lancaster, the life sapped out of him, no light in his eyes. DelPrego grabbed the body, shook it wildly, without reason. "Tim. Tim." The skin was cold.



"Oh, no."



He gathered Lancaster in his arms, a strained, animal noise rising in DelPrego's throat, coming out a wheezing grunt, the sound of raw, disbelieving pain. His fingers dug into Lancaster's clothes, his skin. He willed this not to be true. But Timothy Lancaster III was dead. Gentle, silly, pretentious, naive, kind Tim. Timothy.



DelPrego leapt to his feet, raged into the kitchen. He flung the refrigerator door open, and it slammed against the counter. He jerked open the lettuce crisper at the bottom where he'd unpacked and hidden the cocaine. Lancaster never had any food in the refrigerator. He'd never used the crisper. He looked at the stash of coke, the throaty, strangled growl still coming out of him. This was the stuff that had killed his friend. And DelPrego had killed him by putting it there.



He pulled out the crisper, went through the house, and flung it into the bathroom. The thin plastic shattered on the tile floor, the little Baggies of white powder spilling. DelPrego started grabbing Baggies. He tore them open, a white frenzy of powder. He dumped them into the toilet, spilling, powder caking the side of the bowl, the sink, getting it all over his clothes.



He didn't stop. He screamed and sobbed and cursed and dumped the cocaine. "You goddamn cocksuckers, you fuckers, fuckers, sons of bitches." The tears and snot ran down his face, left tracks in the white dust on his skin.



He sank against the tub, drew his knees up to his chest. He cried and felt dizzy, his throat raw and dry from screaming, his eyes red and hot.