“Wha’ zat got to do wi’ me?” Dogman-G said.
“I heard you were handling it,” I said.
Dogman-G eyed me suspiciously. “You a cop, man? You soundin’ like five-oh to me,” he said.
“I’m not a cop.”
He studied me some more. “Why you come to me?” he asked.
“I was given your name.”
“By who?”
“Pat Beulke.”
Dogman-G glanced over his shoulder at the man standing behind him. “We know that boy?” he asked.
The man said, “We know ’im.”
“Well ’nuff he can drop my name careless like that?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
My inner voice said, Tsk, tsk, tsk, poor Pat, but I knew sarcasm when I heard it.
Dogman-G looked across the table at me. His face had the bemused expression of a man who made his living catering to the vices of others. “Wha’ you wan’ know?” he asked.
“Fifty large is a lot of money. I want to make sure I heard the price right.”
“It’s cool. Fifty is the number.”
“Are you buying the hit?”
“Nah, man,” Dogman said. “I jus’ the messenger. I know who gots the presidents, though.”
“Who would that be?”
“Why you wan’ to know?”
“It’s personal.”
“Zat right? Who are you?”
“I’m McKenzie.”
Suddenly the two black men knew what to do with their hands. They began reaching for weapons. Except I was quicker. My hands came out of my pockets. In my right was the nine-millimeter Beretta that I pointed at the dude standing behind Dogman’s shoulder. In my left was the .380 that I leveled at the chest of the black man sitting between Dogman and me. They raised their empty hands without being told to, although I didn’t think they were surrendering.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “I do not want to die, but if I do I’m not dying first.”
I spoke loudly enough to spook the spectators who were milling about, waiting for the dogfight to begin. When they saw my guns, most made a rush for the door. About a dozen crawled under a gap in the back of the pole barn and fled toward the woods.
“Are you crazy, man?” Dogman-G wanted to know.
“Let’s just say I’ve thrown caution to the wind and let it go at that. So, what do they call you? Dogman, or G?”
“You are crazy.”
“G—I’m going to call you G. Listen, G, I’m really pissed off. Now you are going to tell me what I want to know or I’m going to shoot all three of you.”
“Fuck you are.”
“What’s going to stop me? Fear of dying? I’ve got a fifty-thousand-dollar contract on my head.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“Have it your own way. Which one of your pals do you like the least? Know what? I’ll choose.”
I sighted down the .380 at the black man on my left, gritting my teeth as if I were about to squeeze the trigger. He recoiled, his hands splayed in front of his face. “No, no, man,” he said.
“Wait,” Dogman said. “I said wait. I mean it. Wait. That’s my brother you’re lookin’ to cap.”
“Aren’t we all brothers under the skin?” I said.
“My brother brother, you shithead.”
“Talk to me, G.”
“Ease off, now. I’ll tell you what you wan’ to know. Just ease off. Fuckin’ crazy.”
“Who bought the hit?”
“I’ll say, but it ain’t gonna do you no good. You be dead soon.”
“You betcha.” I couldn’t believe I said that. God, I how I hate the Coen brothers.
“DuWayne. DuWayne Middleton. It was him who put out the contract.”
“Who is DuWayne Middleton?”
“You don’t know?”
The guns were getting heavy; my extended arms were beginning to ache, and my hands wavered just a little. The way Dogman-G’s posse glanced at each other, I knew that they had seen it. I couldn’t keep this up much longer.
“No,” I said. “Why does he want me dead?”
“Didn’t say. Just said to pass the word.”
“Where can I find him?”
“I ain’t his social secretary, man.”
“This DuWayne Middleton. He ever go by the name T-Man?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe when he was in stir. Only I ain’t never heard him called that.”
“You’ve been a real prince, G. Now stand up slowly. You, too,” I told his brother. “Keep your hands up.” When they were all standing, I told them to take four steps backward. Then I stood straight up, not an easy thing to do while pointing two guns at three men; the back of my legs pushed against the folding chair. Dogman-G and his posse watched it tip over and clatter against the concrete floor. I ignored the chair and started walking backward, never taking my eyes from the three men, wondering where Schroeder was. Dogman-G’s brother started to lower his hands.
“Ah-ah,” I said.
He raised them again. He didn’t look particularly frightened, and the farther away I got, the less frightened he appeared. From the expression on his face, I knew he couldn’t wait to put me in the ground.
I turned and started running. I had been doing a lot of that lately.
I sprinted through the open door of the pole barn.