Night of Thunder

“Okay, boys,” said Brother Richard, “you knock off now. We’ll do it again later when it’s cooler. And don’t let Allbright eat no beans tonight, or cabbage neither.”

Richard, wiping his neck with a red handkerchief, came over to the porch where he’d seen the Reverend watching grumpily.

“Well, sir,” he asked, “you tell me. Were these boys just raised by pigs or were they suckled by them too? Or maybe sired?”

“You are the Whore of Babylon, Brother Richard. That wicked tongue will get you smitten, Brother Richard.”

“Not till after you’ve had your Race Day fun, old man. We both know that. So I will amuse myself as I see fit until we have done our jobs, and by that time, you will be so rich you won’t have any thought for Brother Richard and his sharp tongue. Now, what’s going on with the girl?”

“I have just heard,” the Reverend said, “that that daddy of hers has moved her.”

“Damn!” said Richard.

“Damn is right. She wakes up and starts singing, we are fried in batter. Maybe she won’t wake up before we move. Or maybe she’ll die or something.”

“You can’t take that gamble. You know well as I do, that girl is trouble. She has seen my face and she knows enough to tip off your plan; she makes a single phone call to ask a single question to someone who knows a little something, and we are finished. You’re supposed to be a crime lord. Do something criminal.”

“Well, son, that’s the problem. If we find her-she’s got to be in either Knoxville or Raleigh, as he moved her by ambulance, that much I know-if we find her and make sure, then we expose completely the idea that what happened to her was part of a plan, or a necessity to protect a plan. And maybe that makes all their security go up. And the plan is based on their overconfidence that no further security is needed, as you well know.”

“I do know, just as I know,” said Brother Richard, “that the plan is damned smart. Don’t believe nobody never did what you’re trying to do the way you’re doing it before, so how could they figure it out? It’s so damned smart, I also know you, Grumley, didn’t think it up. No sign of a Grumley pawprint anywhere on it. Your ilk may screw it up if they can’t get the goddamned tires switched off fast enough and we become peas in a pod for the police shooters. But I think they’ll just manage it.” Like many men in his profession, Brother Richard had a clear view of what was necessary for his own survival.

“No,” he explained, “you can’t just hope she doesn’t wake up or if she wakes up, she doesn’t remember. Even if she wakes up in six months, she may know enough to lead law enforcement straight to you, and I know you’ll roll over on me like a mangy dog with an itch. That, plus she saw my new face. I can’t have her helping a police artist by drawing a good picture of my new face. I spent a fortune on this face and it hurt like hell for months. I need a new face to operate, you understand? Old man, you have to act on this now and permanently.”

“Mark 2:11. ‘Get up off your pallet and go to your house.’ Rise, you cripple, on the strength of faith in the Lord. Walk, pray, work, and triumph. If the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want.”

“It ain’t wanting I’m worried on. It’s arresting. They git me, I go to the chair. Then it’s frying.”

“You think you know all, Brother Richard. Even dumb old Reverend Alton knows it’s now a needle.”

“Chair, needle, you still end up dead. I am the Sinnerman, as I have explained. I do not want to face a day of reckoning. I will run from the Lord and try and hide in the sea or the moon or the mountain all on that day. You, you’ve got no worries.”

“I can face my Lord proudly.”

“Of course. Because you were born a snake and someone put a mouse before you and you ate it. You liked it, and that was it. You became an eater of mice. More mice, please, that was your code and you never gave a damn about anything. More and more mice you ate, and you never thought of the family life of the mice, the culture, the fantasies and religious structures of the mice, the history, theory, and music of the mice. For you, it was an easy enough thing, it was your nature. You eat mice. End of story.

“Now me, I chose to become a snake, for my own born-in-hell reasons. So I know that mice have as much right to life as I do, and that they feel every pain and fear and hatred that I do, love their kids, make the world go on, fight in wars, work in or build factories or houses. I empathize with mice. So when I eat a mouse, I know what agony I release in the world and knowing that, I take pleasure in it. Your code: More mice, please. Mine: I revel in the agony I release, and it suits a certain twisted-sister part of my brain, it fulfills me. That, Reverend, and I am proud to say it, that is sin.”

“I cannot believe a blasphemer like you, Brother Richard, thinks it appropriate to lecture me on sin. You must wear the number of the beast somewhere on your body.”