The Rabbit Factory: A Novel (27 page)

He snored lightly and she got up without waking him. She pulled the covers over him a little better and patted him fondly on the ass.

Naked, she stood at the French doors, admiring the yard. She could see a nice deck down there. Some old Chinese guy raking leaves looked up casually and kind of coughed out his amazement and almost lost his grip on his rake until she jumped behind the curtains with her big titties jiggling and peeked back out. Then he went on, dragging his rake, shaking his head. She thought about stepping out there and flashing him just for the fun of it.

It was very cloudy and the sun was hidden. She thought she’d get dressed and find the kitchen and get some coffee and sit out on that deck for a while.

She peed first, the door almost closed, her elbows on her thighs and her chin in her fingers, thinking. They’d probably be there this afternoon. She hadn’t let on to him how scared she’d been the other night, when all that had happened, because she wanted him to think she was strong, that she was fearless, because that was how a police officer was supposed to be, even if the officer was a woman.

She brushed her teeth and flossed and found some long underwear in the bag she’d left on a chair in the bedroom and dressed in the bathroom, the marble floor cold on her bare feet. She put on thick socks. She had half a mind to call the station to see if they’d found out anything, see if they’d found Elwood. They hadn’t turned the TV on last night so there hadn’t been any news to hear. She guessed she could always buy a paper today at a gas station somewhere if she really wanted to know. If she really did. If he was dead, and she didn’t know it yet, wouldn’t that be kind of like a blessed ignorance, just for today?

She had some heavy wool pants and pulled them on and put on a sweater and her big coat. Merlot was still sleeping. One of his mufflers was hanging in the closet and she wrapped it around her neck, got her boots, unlocked the hall door, and went down to the kitchen. There was nobody down there, but some coffee was ready and there were some doughnuts and pastries. Some cereal. Bananas. Milk in an iced tub. She pulled out a chair from the table and sat down and laced the boots on. She was afraid she was falling in love with him. He was absolutely nutty and incredibly smart. He was very loving. He was able to make her go dreamy inside her head and make goose pimples jump out all over her. And he wanted children. Lord she did need to go see her mamaw. Tell her she’d found the man she wanted.

Two small stainless-steel urns were sitting on the table beside plastic baskets with the sugar and stuff and Penelope got a big foam cup and drew it full of smoking decaf. She dumped in about five spoonfuls of sugar and stirred it. There were some doughnuts and chocolate eclairs and fruit-filled pastries under glass. She blew on her coffee and sipped it, trying to decide what she wanted. Just a little something to tide her over until Merlot woke up and they could have a real breakfast, maybe ham and eggs if they could find a Shoney’s or an IHOP or a Waffle House or a Huddle House nearby. Then hit the road. She set her coffee down and picked up a napkin and lifted the glass top from the eclairs and reached with the napkin for one of them.

She got back out the door by holding the coffee carefully against her breast with her arm and using her free hand for the doorknob. She was glad they’d stopped here. She’d remember this one day when she was old.

On the deck, she sipped her coffee and unwrapped her eclair from the napkin and bit into it. It was filled with sweet white frosting. She got up and went down the steps and walked over and looked at the goldfish pond. The old Chinese guy was out in the front yard, raking out there, and he tipped his hat to her and she smiled back. The goldfish weren’t moving much and they looked like they were big enough to eat.

After she’d finished her eclair, she wiped her fingers with the napkin and balled it up and put it in her pocket. She went back to the deck and sat down. The coffee was cooling off some. She kept sipping it. Two nights with him. She wondered what his house looked like, and how big his yard was, and what kind of food he kept in his refrigerator and on his shelves. She wanted to cook for him at his house and make herself at home in his kitchen.

The door opened and he stepped out.

“Hey, baby,” he said.

She tried to smile at him because all of a sudden she wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do. Going off for two nights with a man she really didn’t even know. Her mamaw probably wouldn’t approve of that.

“Hey,” she said, and leaned forward a little when he leaned over to kiss her. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

“How long you been out here?” he said.

“Not long,” she said. “I came down to the kitchen and got some coffee. I thought I’d come out here and look at the goldfish.”

“Oh yeah? What are they doing?”

“Nothing. Swimming around.”

He hugged his shoulders with his arms. He seemed so thin now. It was plain to see that he was cold.

“You sleep good?” he said.

And she didn’t want to tell him that she hadn’t.

“I did. I started having the best dreams.”

He seemed interested in that and he smiled at her. He opened doors for her. He left the toilet seat down for her. She hadn’t seen him pick his nose.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “What did you dream?”

She didn’t want to tell him about the dream she’d had, because she had heard all her life that if you told a dream before breakfast, it would come true. She didn’t know if an eclair and coffee counted as breakfast or not.

She’d always had dreams about her baby as he grew up, wherever he was. Even though she had never seen him again since he left her arms at the hospital, age two days, with bright eyes and a curious but happy look and really long black hair, he had aged in her dreams at the same pace she had envisioned him aging in real life. He was now fifteen somewhere, alive and in the same world she walked every day. There was no doubt. She knew he was alive in the same way she would have known if he was dead. And his name was Gabriel, after the angel who would blow his horn. But she didn’t want to tell him about all that, wasn’t ready to tell him about all that, so she just made up a bunch of bullshit about picking blackberries out in the country with her mamaw, when in reality the itching chigger bites on her private places had always driven her apeshit.

Rico got him by the arm and pulled him up out of the trunk. He bumped his head on the lid. The lid went
BONG!
and it hurt.

It was cold on him where he had wet himself, and it had soaked into the bottom of his shorts, and he expected to hear laughter, but there was none.

Finally he stood on the ground. It felt like he was standing on gravel. He couldn’t tell if other people were around or not. He could hear wind and not much else. He reached up with his hands to push the blindfold off his eyes and was struck behind his right ear, a blow that caused a bright spark of fire behind his blinded eyes and glanced off his shoulder blade, something heavy, a wrench maybe. And he sank with the pain of it. And could not help it when the tears came. He couldn’t hold it back any longer. Why had his parents put him in a garbage can or had him put in a garbage can or allowed him to be placed in a garbage can? Who was that in the bag?

Something else happened to him because he was suddenly lying on his side coming to and gravel was digging into his cheek. There was a roaring in his ears like a coal train coming. He reached to touch his ear to see if there was blood flowing or if the ear was still there and Rico fetched a kick to his kidney that made him piss on himself again. And he began to beg for mercy with the word
“please.”
What he heard was a voice above him, crying, hollow with malice, riddled now with bitter laughter.

“Please? You stupid son of a bitch, you better tell me where my little brother is.”

“I don’t know where your asshole brother is, asshole.”

What he didn’t expect was to get his pants pulled down. The wind was cold on his already chilled skin and he felt his equipment shriveling. The blindfold was suddenly pulled off. And even in the dark he saw the steel edge of the terrible straight razor down there against the tightly drawn and wrinkled skin of his scrotum. He closed his eyes because he couldn’t bear to see it. He knew how the hogs screamed, down on the prison farm, because they’d raised and killed their own.

But Rico bent closer, to slobber softly, sniffling with his runny nose: “Okay, son of a bitch, have it your way. You don’t have to say a fuckin’ word, ’cause I
know
you killed my brother. You wouldn’t have his gun if you hadn’t.”

Domino lay there. He could feel the blood leaking down the side of his head. He looked around. They were at the edge of a dirt road with woods all around. The son of a bitch was crazy. And the bad thing was that he was right about everything. He should have shot him at the hospital when he had the chance. He wouldn’t have been any worse off. He might have been a hell of a lot better off. He might have been headed back to Memphis by now with his whitetail.

Rico was crying with his rage. Domino could see the tears coming down his cheeks. He’d never seen a rage quite like that before and it was a scary thing to see. His words were coming hard. But he seemed about to speak some ultimate truth. As he saw it. As he straightened and stood over him.

“And I ain’t willin’…to turn you over…to some damned. Jury. You’re gonna get your punishment from me…now…and that way…when they find my brother dead…I’ll
know
…in
my
heart…that by God, I did the right thing by him.”

It was a struggle, and every movement hurt him, but Domino pulled himself up off the ground with his hands still cuffed behind his back, and he got up on his knees. It was ridiculous. His nuts were hanging out. The gravel hurt like hell on his kneecaps.

“What if I take you where I saw him?” he said, thinking that if they ran up on some other cops, he wouldn’t be able to do this to him, whatever it was he was going to do.

Rico wasn’t going for it. He’d made some decision because he was shaking his head.

“Naw. You just tryin’ to save your ass. Now you tell me. What’s with all that bad meat?”

Why did he want to know that? He already had the weed box in the trunk and it had already thawed out maybe enough to peel the steaks and roasts back and find the package in the center of it but he didn’t know if Rico had done that or not. He didn’t know if he should tell him what was in the package or not.

“It’s for the lions.”

Rico just looked at him for a second.

“The lions?”

“Yeah.”

Rico was frozen, hanging in front of him, still bent over, still gripping the razor. He was trying to understand, too.

“Lions. Do you mean…the ones that guy keeps on Yocona River Road down close to Water Valley? That’s got three legs, some of ’em?”

Domino’s legs were trembling. He felt weak and sick to his stomach. And he could taste blood in his mouth. A place on his head was throbbing.

“Yeah. He’s got a contract for meat with my boss, in Memphis.”

The look on Rico’s face changed again, and it turned into something that was almost like a smile, only it wasn’t a nice one.

“Well why in the hell didn’t you say so?”

“You just now asked me.”

Rico stood there looking down on him, and then he folded the straight razor and slipped it back in his pocket. He motioned toward the trunk.

“I got a key to that place,” Rico said. “The sheriff insisted we have keys after that one got loose and killed that dog. Now you just get back in.”