Hogg, page 22
On the barge beyond, a figure, arms out for balance (from here I couldn't tell if it was Red or Rufus) walked to the top of the pile and turned to look. It was joined by a second (Rufus—, or Red...). After a few seconds, they went down the other side.
"Come on—!" Hogg started. "No . . . wait'll they go by."
The radio van was rolling up, very slowly. Some of the assistants, the director, and Sawyers walked beside it. A guy with a roll of cables over one arm came running up and, jogging along, handed them up to somebody in the open back door.
The director looked behind her, saw him, and called, "Hey, hurry it up. You guys were supposed to have that all packed before we took off." She turned back to her clipboard and, still walking, got out a pen and made a mark. "Well, let's just hope we don't have to do anymore of those tonight!"
"It went okay," Sawyers said. "It seemed to me like it went okay."
The guy who'd handed up the cables into the van grabbed the van door and tried to vault inside. He didn't make it, and some of the assistants laughed.
"What'd you think about it, Mary?" Sawyers' earphones were around his neck now. The wire looped across the blood-red strings. "You think it went okay?"
The director turned up another paper on the clipboard. "I guess so. Maybe that part where you were getting Pelham to describe the inside of the cabin was a little much."
"Aw," Sawyers said, "this is a liberated age! And Martin'll love it— you know I really thought he was the first cop in there. That's what I asked for. That's what I thought he was."
The director looked up and saw the guys horsing around at the
back of the slowly rolling van. "Hey," she called. "Cut it out, huh? I don't want to have to do an on-the-spot coverage about one of you breaking a leg." She turned back to Sawyers. "Babes, have you got a cigarette? I'm out."
"Sure. Here you go."
She took one from the pack he offered, but made a brushing gesture when he started to pat himself for a lighter. "No, that's okay. I got matches. It's all right. . . ." She put the clipboard under one arm, bent her head; flame flared on her chin and cheeks. She'd stopped about seven feet in front of us. When she looked up, she suddenly frowned. She was looking straight at us, too—no, not straight at us: between us.
Without thinking, I pulled back a little bit. I heard Hogg take a breath; almost as though he was getting out of the direct line of her stare, he stepped back too.
I glanced behind us.
What she was staring at was Honey-Pie, who stood in the doorway, one hand high on the door frame, the other on the doork-nob, one foot inside the sill, one foot out. Her dress was all torn. Her head was all low between her shoulders, her mouth was sort of loose, and her eyes were wide. She was watching, not intense enough to call it a stare, back. She didn't look all that much like she was hurt or anything—maybe she looked like she was sick. Or maybe just funny.
I looked back at the director. I could tell her eyes had just flicked back and forth between me and Hogg; and back to Honey-Pie.
I looked at Hogg. He'd just glanced at Honey-Pie too; now his eyes went to fix on nothing in particular in the general direction of the director. He wasn't looking at her, I could tell. But his jaw was clamped so hard it almost looked like the muscle was about to
shake.
The director lowered the still flaming match. Her frown got deeper. Sawyers was walking on. Again she looked at me, at Hogg, at Honey-Pie. I could see her start to turn away; and I could see her not do it. Her own jaw clamped, loosened. She shook the match suddenly, tossed it away. "Hey," she said. "Little girl? Are you okay. . . ?" Hogg still wasn't looking at her. "Is everything all right?" (There were police all over the place, so I guess there wasn't too much Hogg could do.) "What's the matter?"
Honey-Pie wasn't looking at either me or Hogg. She blinked a
couple of times at the director. I don't even think she was thinking particularly about me or Hogg. She moved her head a little, blinked again, and in a low voice answered: "Nothin'."
The director, her frown become all questioning disbelief, raised her cigarette slowly. At this point, I don't think she was thinking about Hogg or me either. I thought she was going to march up across the plank.
She didn't.
She turned away, took a couple of steps, looked back, frowned again—even then I thought she might come back—went off half a dozen steps more, glanced back at us again, then turned away.
Hogg let out his breath.
She glanced back a couple times more.
Hogg looked at Honey-Pie. She still stood in the doorway, looking down at the deck now. Once she looked up at us both, then let her eyes drop again.
The director had caught up with the van. She grabbed the side of the door, vaulted up—brushed away one guy who tried to give her a hand—and turned, holding onto the side, and looked back again, her cigarette a pinprick in the gauze of shadows that pulled across them, van and all.
"Come on, cocksucker," Hogg whispered, "let's get going!"
He glanced at Honey-Pie once more, then lumbered over the sagging plank. I hurried after him.
We went by two policemen talking to about six fishermen.
None of them even looked at us.
"All these damn cops," Hogg grunted; "it's like a fuckin' pig pen!" The muscles in his jaw clamped again. I think the director had made him nervous. "Let's just hope they're all here for Denny."
One policeman passed under the street lamp on the other side of the lot. As we reached Hogg's vanless truck, the cop swung around and came toward us. It was Whitey.
The breeze carried the dockside smells across the bushes and through the wire fence strung up behind us. Half a dozen pickup trucks were parked on the grass-veined tarmac, among the old automobiles. One junked-out and windowless wreck sat on its axles by the brick wall, near three police cars. Half a dozen cops lounged together over by the lamp pole, talking. Outside the fence, under another lamp, another clutch of police broke up into pairs and triplets, to saunter off, down and up the street.
"Shit." Hogg's hand worked on my shoulder. The last step, his bare foot landed against my sneaker. I felt his foot move through the damp cloth. "Little fucker sure has caused a passel of trouble." As Hogg reached for the cab door, the policeman came around the bumper of an old green Chrysler twenty feet away, flashing ice-chip eyes.
Hogg pulled on the door handle, which made door-handle-opening noises. "You get on up in there, cocksucker."
I climbed past Hogg into the cab.
And something grabbed my leg—
I looked down: the thin acned face, dirty and stained, hair mussed and clotted, looked up. Crouching down under the dashboard, his eyes wide and blinking (like Honey-Pie's, I thought), he
pressed one grubby-knuckled, nail-gnawed finger up across his mouth to Shhhhh me.
The door slammed. The face went out.
I looked up again, out the window.
Outside, Hogg let go of the handle, turned around and said, "Hello, Officer."
I could feel each finger separate and hard on my shin. His arm must have been shaking a little. I could feel that too.
"Evenin'." Whitey's luminous glance flicked up at me, dropped back to Hogg.
Hogg's hand slid up the door to the open window. The wide, dirt-ringed wrecks of his nails, the thick, dirt-grooved knuckles slid across the crack with glass glinting down between the felt strips. Thick fingers hooked and hung. "Guess you fellas have been havin' a pretty rough day of it, huh?"
"Shit," Whitey said. "I don't want to ever see another one like this!" He slid his short, wide hands under his cartridge belt. His cap was still tilted pretty far to the side, but I guess that's the way he wore it. "Where you takin' the kid?" He nodded toward me.
Hogg's knuckles shifted an inch along the sill. "Back where he belongs." Hogg's voice shifted, too.
"'Cause I mean," Whitey said, "for most of the day he been hangin' around with the nigger on that broke-down tug up this end of the dock." He nodded toward the road we'd just come up that led back to the water.
"Yeah," Hogg said, "with Big Sambo." I could see the top of Hogg's head. His hair was greasy and hung together like pulled pieces of yellow wax. "Naw, the kid had his fun runnin' around Crawhole all day. But it's late now and it's time for me to get him back home—that's what I come down here for. That's what I'm gonna do."
"Oh." Whitey considered. "Then he's kin of yours?"
"Nope," Hogg said. "But he ain't no kin of that nigger, either. He got folks home waitin' for him, all worried about him bein' out here where all that murderin' and stuff is goin' on. They sent me down to get him; I'm fixin' to take him back."
"Oh." Whitey's bright eyes came back up to mine. He pursed his lips together a moment, then said to Hogg: "He's a nice kid. Him and me got to be sort of friends, you know, while he was playin' around down here. That was before all this Harkner shit come
down." Whitey's head went over the side a little. "Sort of sorry to see him go."
"What you sorry for?" Hogg asked. But then he laughed.
Whitey took his hands out from his cartridge belt and sort of smiled.
Down in the dark, fingers slid up to my knee. A hand caught my other leg. He was moving down there.
"What you haulin'?" Whitey asked.
"Ain't haulin' nothin'," Hogg said. "I'm bob-tail tonight. Can't you see I don't got no van?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure," Whitey said. "I was just wondering what you had in there that stunk so bad." He scratched his ear; his cap joggled on his tight, light hair. "Truck of yours smells about as bad as that goddamn scow moored up next to the Bunim barge—the Bunim barge—" Whitey nodded—"that's where Harkner did in the last ones."
Something tried to wedge between my knees. So I opened them. I could feel the mouth moving against my jeans, like he was whispering to my leg.
"Jesus—" Whitey shook his head—"that really is some stink in there!"
Hogg laughed again. "Well, I'll tell you how it was, if you really want to know. Last night, see, I did myself a little too much celebratin'. Tied a pretty good one on, you know how you do? I came out the party and made it to the truck—in time to be sick all over it!"
Without looking down, I put one hand on the head between my legs. The hair was all stuck together.
"And then I passed out," Hogg explained. "Pissed myself up like a goddamn ten-year-old. Shit all over myself. When I woke up this mornin', I was a mess! Ain't had a chance to really clean nothin' up, either. But I guess if we keep the windows open, once we get rollin', with the breeze comin' through, it won't be so bad."
"Oh." Whitey frowned. "Yeah." He nodded. "Well, that's just about what it smells like. I guess you can get on, now. We're supposed to look in all the cars and things before they leave here, but I don't guess you got no crazy-insane, seventeen-year-old psychopathic killer in there, do you?" Whitey grinned up at me again.
"I'd about guess the same." Hogg looked up too. "But it wouldn't
hurt none to check. Boy," he said. (The hand tightened on my leg. I could feel teeth tight together against my thigh, the lips pulled back.) "Run the sleeper curtain back there and let's have a look."
I got up on one knee—the hand slipped to my ankle; and it was shaking again—and turned in the seat. I pushed the sleeper curtain two feet down its runner.
Inside was a piece of gray blanket, and a newspaper it looked like nobody had ever read, though it was wet on one side, and, in the back, some dog turds or something.
Whitey stood on tiptoes to look.
Hogg grinned at him. "Yeah, I would about say we didn't."
Whitey's face wrinkled a little, and his light, light eyes narrowed. He glanced once at Hogg. He was just realizing that not all the smell was the truck. "Naw, you ain't got nothin' in there." He stepped back. I sat down again. "You can get on." He turned around, walked away. By the green Chrysler, he glanced back, gave me a sort of sad half-smile, then walked on.
Hogg came around to the driver's side, opened the door, swung up under the wheel, slammed the door beside him, reached down for the starter, turned the key—the motor turned over and Hogg's leg eased up the clutch—and said, looking straight out the windshield, "Denny, you are one lucky motherfucker!" We rolled forward across the lot.
Hogg dropped a hand from the carpet-taped wheel to Denny's head—suddenly, by the hair, he turned the face up. Light spilled on the stained cheeks. Denny's mouth was wide. His tongue and eyes glittered. The lips were working like a landed fish. "What'd you do? Recognize my truck while I was down on the docks lookin' for the cocksucker, then sneak in and hide?" Hogg let go.
Denny's head fell over against my hip. Denny's hand moved up to my knee again.
"Naw," Hogg said, "you just better stay down there out of sight till we get out of here."
"All right, Hogg "Denny sounded like he had a really bad sore
throat. Or maybe somebody had hit him there. "That's all... all right."
A passing street lamp dragged slow light across our laps.
Denny put one hand on Hogg's leg. Breathing hard, he slid it into Hogg's fly. Hogg's leg moved on a pedal. The light pulled away as we turned for the lot exit.
"Shit," Hogg drawled. "You know you still got a nice touch, motherfucker? I guess that's 'cause you take so much practice shuckin' on your own. Do what you want. Just stay down."
".. . all right." It sounded pretty hoarse.
As we came to the gate, half a dozen policeman started toward us. One waved us to halt.
"Oh, shit. . .c" Hogg whispered, hardly moving his lips. As he slowed, though, Whitey came up the other way:
"He's all right," Whitey shouted. "Let him go. I just checked him out."
Hogg gave the cops a big grin. "Go suck on some mule shit," he said, too low for them to hear and still smiling. We bounced down onto the street.
Fifteen minutes later, when we'd been on the highway for maybe eight or nine miles, Denny said: "Can I come up now?"
We leaned as Hogg pulled around another curve.
"Can I come up? Is it all right, Hogg? It's all right if I get up now, huh? That's all right, ain't it?"
"Yeah," Hogg said.
Denny scrambled up between us. He kept trying to get comfortable, pushing the heel of his hand down against his crotch, then squirming, grimacing, and grunting. Hogg drove and didn't look at him.
"Just a second, lemme ..." Denny pushed up on the seat to pull at the bottom of his pants, then sat again, still squirming. "That's all... yeah, I guess that's right. Shit! You should of... Hey, man! Hogg? That was something, huh? That was... yeah, you know I got at the motherfuckers! Yeah, I really did. I'm not kidding. That's all right. Zap! Zap! Not like zappin' people in the street. Zap! I really . . . Oh, shit! Yeah! I really killed some of them. With a gun, you know? For a while. I had a gun: I beat one motherfucker in the head with it."
"That was my gun." Hogg was still looking out the windshield.
"Huh?" Denny looked sharply at Hogg. "Yeah, I... maybe." His head drifted back. Frowning, he dug at his stomach with the fingers of one hand. The other had gotten wedged between his leg and mine, like he'd forgotten it there. "Yeah. I guess that one was...." He looked at Hogg again. "But some of 'em, I used a screwdriver in the eye, man! Shit!" Denny screwed up his face; his hand pushed at his groin. "... all right. You said that was all right. You don't have
to kill the ... In the grocery store ... in the supermarket, I didn't kill 'em all. But it's all right, huh? It's pretty easy... rip!" His hand swung up, dropped in his lap again. "Just like that—Rip!—right in the throat. That wasn't bad. Beatin' 'em to death is hard, though. 'Cause you ain't sure when they're dead so you just have to beat some more. But mostly it's easy. I could show you. Sure. It's all right—"
Hogg took one hand off the wheel, turned in the seat—his arm went way back into the sleeper curtain—and hit Denny upside the head, about as hard as he could.
Denny gasped and rocked forward against the dashboard, both hands spread on the windshield.
Hogg was back driving when Denny's hand jerked across the glass, jerked again, then came back to his cheek to rub. He swallowed, swallowed again; he was breathing hard.
"You cut out that kind of talk now," Hogg said, looking out for another curve. "Somebody other than me or the cocksucker hear you going on like that, they might just think you were crazy."
Denny gasped, pushed himself back in the seat. "All right. . . that's—" He gasped again, his face all twisted like crying. He kept rubbing his cheek. But he didn't squirm so much. "Yeah...," he got out. "All right."
We took a curve close to the shoulder.
Hogg dropped his hand from the wheel again, this time to Denny's knee. He slid his hand toward the boy's groin and back. "Now if I'd'a hit you on the ass like that, you'd'a shot your wad." He grinned. His big fingers closed on Denny's crotch. "How's it feel?"
Denny's knees fell apart. His mouth opened. His face wrinkled around it. ". . . all right."
"Hey, cocksucker—" Hogg glanced at me—"take it out for him and let's get a look. Denny, when's the last time you come?"
"I... I killed 'em. ..." Denny looked at Hogg's hand in his lap and shook his head. "I kept on killin' 'em... But I didn't come, you know? It hurt. . . But it didn't make me shoot. ..."
"Best reason in the world I know to give it up." Hogg flexed his fingers in the stained, stiffened cloth. "You ain't gonna kill nobody no more, that right?"
"Huh . . . ?" Denny asked.
"You ain't gonna kill nobody no more. All that stuff you did was
just a mistake. Didn't even make you shoot your load. So you ain't gonna do it no more. All right?"
"I... yeah, I... no more." Denny pulled his hand loose from between our legs and put it on top of Hogg's. "Yeah, I won't... do that no more. All right." He looked puzzled.
Hogg grinned at me. "Go on, cocksucker. Take it out." He took his hand away.
Denny's fell back on his thigh like a muddy claw.
I turned on the seat and pulled open Denny's fly.
