Ben finally managed to park the Tahoe just three minutes’ walk from the food market, so they wouldn’t have too far to haul their goodies. They locked up the car and strolled down the street, her talking, him listening and enjoying the moment as he took in the local sights.
On the same street as the food market was an auto repair yard called DUMPY’S RODS, with nobody in sight and a variety of custom cars in various stages of dismantlement behind a locked chain-link gate. Next door to Dumpy’s was the compulsory town gun shop, and finally the food market itself, a kind of Aladdin’s cave of esoteric gastronomy purveying such delights as bayou gator burger, blackened catfish and roast beef with ‘debris’. What kind of debris, Ben didn’t even want to know.
Lottie invaded the place like a nine-year-old let loose in a toy store, and instantly began spending far more cash than Ben was paying her for a night’s board.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he protested. ‘Not on my account.’ To which she replied, ‘Shush, now,’ and silenced him with one of her retina-searing smiles.
Lugging multiple bags of Cajun delicacies back to the Tahoe half an hour later, they passed by the auto repair yard again. This time the chain-link gate was open and a cluster of young guys were gathered in the forecourt, five of them all drooling over a flame-painted lowrider with suspension so close to the ground that it wouldn’t have made it halfway up the track to Le Val without bottoming out. To Ben the car looked like a big chrome polishing headache, but the young guys all seemed entranced by it.
One of them, a lean hairy individual with close-set eyes full of nastiness and a roll-up dangling from his mouth, managed to peel his gaze away from the absurd car long enough to cast a lurid glance Lottie’s way and crack a grin that showed off his rotten teeth. He yelled, ‘Yo, Mama!’ Then nudged the guy standing next to him and added loudly, shaking his head in mirth, ‘Damn, that’s the porkiest nigger bitch I seen all week.’
The other one laughed and cupped his hands to his mouth to call to Ben, ‘Hey buddy! Don’t feed the gorilla!’
Which was more than enough to make Ben want to set down his shopping bags, walk into the yard and lay the five out flat, in such a way that they wouldn’t be getting up again too quickly. But only after he’d made them watch him reduce the lowrider to a smoking pile of scrap metal.
Lottie just stiffened a little and hastened her step past the open chain-link gateway, motioning for him to do the same. ‘Another reason for not livin’ in Pointe Blanche. Lot of trash round these parts.’
‘Maybe someone should clean it up,’ Ben said.
‘Forget it. That there’s Dwayne Skinner.’ She seemed too afraid to point out which one she meant, but Ben guessed it was the lean hairy one.
‘You know him?’
‘We was in middle school together. This is a small community. Ever’body knows ever’body around here.’
‘So what?’
‘So, you don’ go gettin’ into fights with Dwayne Skinner.’
‘I don’t like his language.’
She looked at him. ‘Ben, if you’re fixin’ to go pickin’ quarrels with every redneck who says the N-word, y’all gonna have your hands full, believe me.’
Ben thought, fuck it. He went ahead and set down the bags. Stood staring at the group and felt that familiar coldness coming over him as his body went into fight mode. Now all five were staring back and beginning to bristle like the real tough guys they were.
The lean hairy one who might be Dwayne Skinner yelled, ‘You got a problem, asshole?’
Ben didn’t have a problem, beyond the fact that he was mildly irritated by their behaviour. But they did, if he walked into that yard. Five against one. They probably thought they were in with a pretty good chance. Which constituted a serious error of judgement. Because in reality, the fight would be over before it even started.
Lottie halted and turned, giving him an imploring look. ‘Come on, sugah. Let’s go.’
‘This won’t take long,’ Ben said.
Now the five were moving away from the car and slowly walking towards him. They were putting on the whole display of menace. Fists thumping into cupped palms. Brows furrowing, jawlines tightening, eyes narrowing. Radiating total self-confidence, as though they’d done this a hundred times before. And maybe they had, too. Experience had taught them they had nothing to fear. But that just meant they’d been lucky, until today.
Ben smiled to himself.
‘You ain’t gonna be smilin’ when they’re scrapin’ your ass off of the sidewalk,’ Dwayne Skinner said.
Ben said to him, ‘Ever used a wheelchair? It’s harder than it looks. But you’ll get plenty of practice in the weeks and months to come.’
Lottie said, ‘Ben.’ Her voice sounded tight with apprehension.
Ben fished the Tahoe key from his pocket and tossed it to her. ‘You walk on. I’ll meet you back at the car in one minute.’
Ben had decided he’d go for Dwayne first. Then his buddy beside him, the one who’d made the gorilla remark, in that order. They were the two doing all the talking, which meant they were psychologically the leaders of this little peer group, the lean hairy one being number one and the other his second-in-command. Like in a dog pack, where the animals naturally arrange themselves into a hierarchy with the alpha and beta dogs at the top and everyone else in order of ranking below.
In war, Ben had learned long ago, you always take the officers down first if you can. With the alpha and beta broken and helpless and pissing their pants on the concrete, the rest would probably try to bolt. Try being the operative word. None would get further than a few steps before they received a dose of the same medicine as their pals.
Lottie said, ‘Ben, please.’
Ben was half a heartbeat away from walking into the yard. All he had to do was let events play out exactly as he could already see them happening on the mental screen inside his head. After last night’s heavy dinner and the excessive breakfast he’d eaten back in Villeneuve that morning, a little bit of exercise was the exact thing he needed.
But then he hesitated. Actions had consequences, and while he wasn’t the least bit concerned how those consequences would affect the five guys in front of him, it occurred to him that certain repercussions were best avoided in his own interest. It was a busy street. Not Piccadilly at rush hour, but a lot busier than the sidewalks outside Elmo’s Liquor Locker at midnight. If Ben stepped through the gate into the forecourt of Dumpy’s Rods and things followed their inevitable course, someone was bound to call the cops. The aftermath of the fight was as predictable as its outcome. If Ben remained with the five unconscious bodies until the police turned up, he’d face all kinds of questioning. Even if he left before they arrived, there would be enough witness descriptions for the cops to identify him. Either way, it pointed to the likely reappearance of Sheriff Waylon Roque into Ben’s life soon afterwards.
All of that, combined with the fact that he’d have compromised his anonymity once again, when the whole damn point of leaving Villeneuve was to lie low.
Stupid.
Lottie said, ‘Do what you like, I ain’t waitin’.’ She started walking off, shaking her head.
The gang were just a few steps away. Ben watched them approach, still undecided. Then the decision was made for him when one of the five who hadn’t yet spoken a word pointed at Ben and said, ‘Hey, I seen this guy before. He’s on the news.’
Dwayne Skinner shot his buddy a sneer.