We went to my house and sat around because we weren’t exactly sure what in the hell we were doing or how to go about it.
Brett was at work, wouldn’t be home until midnight, so we broke out the checkers and played for a while.
Late afternoon my cell rang. It was Cason.
“Mercury is on it, and he’ll have something for us day after tomorrow at the latest, maybe sooner.”
“Us?”
“Am I helping, or what?”
“You are.”
“Then it’s us. So long, Hap.”
…
We were too lazy to cook, so we drove into town and had dinner at a cafe. We digested awhile at a coffee shop, then went over to the gym to work out, kick the bag and punch the mitts, then we drove back. As we turned on my street, we saw a car stop three houses up from mine in the Apostle’s Baptist Church parking lot and turn off the lights. The car was one of those low-slung jobs that in the light from the street looked like an angry rodent crouched to attack.
Leonard slowed, said, “Think maybe those are eager churchgoers who have come to wait until the church doors open on Sunday?”
“Seems unlikely.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
We drove by. I turned in the seat and looked out the back. The car was still sitting there. A little red dot from a cigarette was visible. No one had got out.
“What do you think?” I said.
“I think they’re bracing themselves to do something bad, and I got a feeling it isn’t the church they got a quarrel with.”
“Couldn’t be us, could it?” I said.
“It’s hard to believe anyone could be angry with us,” Leonard said, “but yes, I believe they have come to visit us. Call it instinct. Call it experience.”
“Someone somewhere is always mad at us.”
“Yeah, that’s probably more accurate.”
Leonard turned the corner and we went around the block and on the back street. We parked at the curb next to an empty lot with high grass. I opened Leonard’s glove box and got out his automatic.
“That’s my gun.”
“Not today,” I said.
Leonard pulled a short club out from under his car seat, lifted his deerstalker from the middle of the seat, and put it on. We got out and went across the field. At the end of the field we came to a backyard, and crossed that without any dogs barking. From there we could see mine and Brett’s house and the board fence around the backyard.
We didn’t say anything to each other. Sliding across the yard, through the night, we came to the fence and climbed over it, and fell into the backyard. We went across the dead grass and I got my key and opened the back door and we slipped in.
I went right, toward the kitchen, and Leonard turned to the left, toward the downstairs closet.
I was at the corner of the kitchen and the living room, thinking maybe we were overreacting, and that the car we’d seen had been nothing more than the preacher of the church stopping by to pick up a Bible, when the front door was kicked open with a bang and two men with guns plunged inside along with the light from the street lamp.