The trooper opened one box, shook a soup can, opened the box of crackers and then replaced it, closed the box and then the camper window. He walked back to the driver’s side window.
“Lot of food. The trip isn’t that long.”
“Axed my chil’ren what dey want. Dey say food.”
The trooper blinked. “Oh. Well, that’s good of you. Real good of you.”
“You got chil’ren?”
“Two.”
“A’ight, den.”
“Have a safe trip.” The cop walked back to his cruiser.
Josh pulled back onto the road after the cruiser did.
Rufus appeared at the camper window. “I was sweating a damn river back there.”
Josh smiled. “You got to take it cool. You play badass, they cuff you. You act too polite, they figure you scamming their ass and they cuff you. Now, you be old and dumb, they don’t give a shit.”
“Still a close call, Josh.”
“We caught us a break with the Mexie. They’re real big on family, kids. Talk that shit and they’re cool with you. If he’d been white, we might have had us a big problem. Once he made up his mind to look, Whitie would’ve pulled everything out of that camper until he found your ass. Now, a bro’ might’ve cut me some slack, but you never know. Sometimes, they got that uniform on, they start to act white.”
Rufus stared at his brother with a look of displeasure.
“Now, the Asians, they the worst,” Josh continued. “You can’t say shit to them. They just stand there and look at you, not listening to a damn word, and then go off and do what they’re gonna do. Might as well just shoot them mothers before they kung fu your ass. Yeah, it’s real good we met up with Officer Pedro.” Josh spit the chew out the window.
“You got everybody figured out?” Rufus said angrily.
Josh glanced at him. “You got a problem with that?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, you live your life the way you want, I live mine the way I want. We see who makes it farther. I know you had it hard inside, but it ain’t no picnic on the outside. I got me my own little prison right out here. And nobody’s convicted me of a damn thing.”
“God made all of us, Josh. We all his children. Ain’t no good trying to divide us all up. I seen plenty of white folk beaten up in prison. Evil comes in all forms, all colors. Bible says so. I ain’t judging nobody except on themselves. Only way to do it.”
Josh snorted. “Look at you, saying that. After all Tremaine and them done to you. You telling me you don’t hate them, want to kill ’em?”
“No. If I felt that way, that’d mean Vic took the love from my heart. Took my Lord away from me. He does that, that means he’s controlling me. Ain’t nobody on this earth strong enough to take God from me. Not old Vic, you or anybody else. I’m not dumb, Josh. I know life ain’t fair. I know black folk ain’t riding on top of the world. But I ain’t adding to the problem by hating people.”
“Shit. You got the gold card from God to hate every white person ever born.”
“You’re wrong. I hate them, it’s like hating myself. I went down that road when I first went to prison. Hated everybody. The Devil had me, but the Lord took me back. Can’t do it. Won’t do it.”
“Well, that’s your problem. Sooner you get over that the better.”
* * *
“That was a big oversight on your part, Frank. You take out Rider and his wife, but you didn’t search his office?”
Rayfield’s grip tightened around the phone. “Well, tell me exactly when I was supposed to do that. If I had done it before we killed him, he would’ve gotten suspicious and maybe gotten away. If we had gotten caught going through it now, there would’ve been questions I don’t have answers for.”
“But you just told me they ruled it a murder-suicide. The cops aren’t going to investigate that anymore.”
“Probably true.”
“So you can hit his office. Like tonight.”