“I don’t get it. What’s the plan?” Grady said.
“I got to keep my word on something. About Broussard. He knows what I mean.”
“You’re going to drag him? That’s sick, man,” Grady said.
“Look at what he did to my face,” Vick said. “Think he doesn’t have it coming? I got pus running out of this bandage every day.”
“What about Val?” Grady asked.
Vick shone a light on her face. Her eyes watered in the glare. He grinned at Grady.
“Knock that off,” Grady said.
“You develop qualms?”
“Maybe I have.”
“You got an easy choice, Grady,” Vick said. “You can stay a rich man or go to work sacking groceries.”
“I’ll talk to her. She’s practical.”
“By now she’s figured out you killed your father. How practical is she going to be about that?”
“You better put a cork in it, Vick,” Grady said.
Yes, yes, yes, provoke him some more, Vick. But I underestimated him. Vick was a survivor who had spent a lifetime dealing with a disfigured face and the insults it drew.
“I’m just kidding,” he said. “Your old man brought it on himself. You’re a stand-up guy, Grady. You proved that when you joined the Corps. I think secretly your old man was afraid you’d show him up.”
“Grady, please stop and try to think about what you’re doing,” Valerie said. “You’ve made mistakes. But this isn’t you.”
“Tell her,” Vick said.
“Tell me what?” she asked.
“About the Mexican girl,” Vick replied.
“Lay off that,” Grady said.
“Tell her.”
“He’s talking about Wanda Estevan,” Grady said. “It was an accident. We set fire to Loren Nichols’s car. She tried to jump out of my car. I was trying to pull her back in. I grabbed her nec
k the wrong way. I feel terrible. I went to Broussard’s church about it.”
“Then don’t let this creep ruin your life,” she said.
“Time to go,” Vick said. “I’m going to move Broussard’s heap. I’ll take Val and the freak with me. Put Broussard in my trunk and follow me. In three hours, we’re going to be eating pancakes and sausages and eggs. This won’t exist anymore.”
“What’s the hypo for?” Grady asked.
Vick looked at Valerie again. “You never can tell.”
Chapter
37
HOW DO YOU surrender to death? Or to the idea that your fate lies in the hands of evil men? When these events occurred that dark night in River Oaks, I had no preparation. Death had always been an abstraction, a vague presence that held no sway in my life. The stories that came back from Korea were always heroic in nature; the newsreels showed American F-80s coming in low over white hills at the Chosin Reservoir, sliding balls of flaming napalm into the thousands of Chinese troops that had crossed the Yalu and surrounded the First Marine Division. We cheered inside the warmth of the theater and took heart at the sight of marines with frozen beards who gave the thumbs-up to the cameraman. Death and suffering had been visited on our enemies, not us.