something familiar about his laugh. And why not? Surely he had heard The
Motherfucker laugh before. He couldn’t remember just when, but surely he must have.
Behind Grunwald, across from the trailer and not far from the company car Grunwald
had driven out here, stood a line of four blue Port-O-Sans. Weeds and nodding
wedelia sprouted around their bases. The runoff from frequent June thunderstorms
(such afternoon tantrums were a Gulf Coast specialty) had undercut the ground in
front of them and turned it into a ditch. Almost a creek. It was filled with standing
water now, the surface dusty and bleared with pollen, so that it cast back only a vague blue intimation of sky. The quartet of shithouses leaned forward like frost-heaved old gravestones. There must have been quite a crew out here at one time, because there
was also a fifth. That one had actually fallen over and lay door-down in the ditch. It was the final touch, underlining the fact that this project—crazy to begin with—was
now a dead letter.
One of the crows took off from the scaffolding around the unfinished bank and
flapped across the hazy blue sky, cawing at the two men facing each other below. The
bugs buzzed unconcernedly in the high grass. Curtis realized he could smell the Port-
O-Sans; they must not have been pumped out in some time.
“Grunwald?” he said again. And then (because now something more seemed to be
required): “How can I help you? Do we have something to discuss?”
“Well, neighbor, it’s how I can help you. It’s strictly down to that.” He started to laugh again, then choked it off. And Curtis knew why the sound was familiar. He’d
heard it on his cell phone, at the end of The Motherfucker’s message. It hadn’t been a choked-off sob, after all. And the man didn’t look sick—or not just sick. He looked mad.
Of course he’s mad. He’s lost everything. And you let him get you out here alone. Not wise, buddy. You didn’t think it through.
No. Since Betsy’s death, he had neglected to think a great many things through.
Hadn’t seemed worth the trouble. But this time he should have taken the time.
Grunwald was smiling. Or at least showing his teeth. “I notice you didn’t wear your
helmet, neighbor.” He shook his head, still smiling that cheery sick man’s smile. His
hair flapped against his ears. It looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a while. “A wife wouldn’t let you get away with careless shit like that, I bet, but of course guys like you don’t have wives, do they? They have dogs. ” He stretched it out, turning it into something from The Dukes of Hazzard: dawwwgs.
“Fuck this, I’m taillights,” Curtis said. His heart was hammering, but he didn’t think it showed in his voice. He hoped not. All at once it seemed very important that
Grunwald not know he was scared. He started to turn around, back the way he’d come.
“I thought the Vinton Lot might get you out here,” Grunwald said, “but I knew you’d come if I added in that butt-ugly dog of yours. I heard her yelp, you know. When she
ran into the fence. Trespassing bitch.”
Curtis turned back, unbelieving.
The Motherfucker was nodding, his lank hair framing his pale smiling face. “Yes,” he
said. “I went over and saw her lying on her side. Little ragbag with eyes. I watched
her die.”
“You said you were away,” Curtis said. His voice sounded small in his own ears, a
child’s voice.
“Well, neighbor, I sure did lie about that. I was back early from my doctor’s, and
feeling sad that I had to turn him down after he’d worked so hard at persuading me to
take the chemo, and then I saw that ragbag of yours lying in a puddle of her own puke, panting, flies all around her, and I cheered right up. I thought, ‘Goddam, there is justice. There is justice after all.’ It was only a low-voltage, low-current cattle fence—
I was absolutely honest about that—but it certainly did the job, didn’t it?”
Curtis Johnson got the full sense of this after a moment of utter, perhaps willful,