‘Ten-4,’ Bubba replied to Gig.
‘When you wanna shine on yellow eyes?’ Smudge hadn’t given up.
Bubba didn’t really like coon hunting all that much. His coon dog Half Shell had her problems, and Bubba worried about snakes. Besides, Smudge always got a higher score. It seemed all Bubba did was lose money to him.
‘Before slithers wake up, I guess.’ Bubba tried to sound sure of himself. ‘So go ahead and shake out a plan.’
‘Ten-fo, good buddy,’ Smudge came back. ‘Gotcha covered like a blanket.’
CHAPTER two
Smoke was a special needs child. This had become apparent in the second grade when he had stolen his teacher’s wallet, punched a female classmate, carried a revolver to school, set several cats on fire and smashed up the principal’s station wagon with a pipe.
Since those early misguided days in his hometown of Durham, North Carolina, Smoke had been written up fifty-two times for assault, cheating, plagiarism, extortion, harassment, gambling, truancy, dishonesty, larceny, disruptive dress, indecent literature and bus misconduct.
He had been arrested six times for crimes ranging from sexual assault to murder, and had been on probation, on supervised probation with special conditions, in an Alternative to Detention Program, in detention, in a wilderness camp therapeutic program, in a community guidance clinic where he received psychological evaluation and in an anger-coping group.
Unlike most juveniles who are delinquent, Smoke had parents who showed up for all of his court appearances. They visited him in detention. They paid for attorneys and dismissed one right after the other when Smoke complained and found fault. Smoke’s parents enrolled him in four different private schools and blamed each one when it didn’t work out.
It was clear to Smoke’s father, a hardworking banker, that his son was unusually bright and misunderstood. Smoke’s mother was devoted to Smoke and always took his side. She never believed he was guilty. Both parents believed their son had been set up because the police were corrupt, didn’t like Smoke and needed to clear cases. Both parents wrote scathing letters to the district attorney, the mayor, the attorney general, the governor and a U.S. senator when Smoke was finally locked up in C. A. Dillon Training School in Butner.
Of course, Smoke didn’t stay there long because when he turned sixteen, he was no longer a minor according to North Carolina law and was released. His juvenile record was expunged. His fingerprints and mug shots were destroyed. He had no past. His parents thought it wise to relocate to a city where the police, whose memories were not expunged, would not know Smoke or harass him any more. So it was that Smoke moved to Richmond, Virginia, where this morning he was feeling especially mean-spirited and in a mood to cause trouble.
‘We got twenty minutes,’ he said to Divinity.
She was leaning against him as he drove the Ford Escort his father had bought him when Smoke had gotten his Virginia driver’s license. Divinity started kissing Smoke’s jaw and rubbing her hand between his legs to see if anybody was home.
‘We got all the time you want, baby,’ she breathed in his ear. Tuck school. Fuck that little kid you pick up.’
‘We got a plan, remember?’ Smoke said.
He was in running shoes, loose-fitting sweats, a bandanna around his head, tinted glasses on. He wound his way through streets within a block of the Crestar Bank on Patterson Avenue, in the city’s West End, and spotted a small brick house on Kensington where there was no car or newspaper — no one home, it seemed. He pulled into the driveway.
‘Anybody answers, we’re trying to find Community High School,’ Smoke reminded her.
‘Lost in space, baby,’ Divinity said, getting out.
She rang the doorbell twice and was met with silence. Smoke got into the passenger’s seat and Divinity drove him back to Crestar Bank. The sky was pale and clear, and traffic was picking up as people began a new work week and realized they needed cash for parking and lunch. The bank’s ATM wasn’t doing any business at the moment, and that was good. Smoke climbed out of the car.
‘You know what to do,’ he said to Divinity.