The phone only rang once. The answering voice was sharp and high. “Dickie, what’s going on out there?”
“Nothing, Mama. Just trying out a new sidearm.”
“Don’t you lie to me, Dickie. I can see a damn body out there by the shop.”
Nickels closed his eyes. “Stay in the house, Mama. I’m dealing with it.”
“Your brother’s not answering his phone. Let me talk to him.”
“He’s busy, Mama. Promise me you’ll stay in the house. I’ll be there soon.”
Through the speaker, they heard a door close, then the rattle of raindrops on a metal roof. She’d gone out onto the porch. “Just tell me Craig Jr. isn’t dead.”
“Mama, please. Go inside and let me deal with this.”
“Dickie, I’m your mama. You don’t tell me what to do, it’s the other way around. I already called your cousin Vance, he’s on his way.” They heard the squelch of mud, the soft patter of rain. She was off the porch and in the yard.
Nickels hit the mute button. “Let me go out there. I’ll take her weapon and bring her in the back. I won’t try anything. I swear it. I just don’t want you to hurt her.”
“Who’s Vance?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to meet him.”
“How long until he gets here?”
“Thirty minutes, give or take.”
Peter glanced at the clock on the wall. They needed to be gone in fifteen. He looked at Lewis, who nodded, then said, “If he shows up early, Nickels, it’s on you.”
Nickels nodded and unmuted the phone. “Mama, I’m on my way out the back. I’ll meet you, okay?”
Peter walked him to the door, making sure he didn’t pick up a gun along the way, then stood just inside the shed, peering around the corner. Under the floodlight’s glare, he saw Nickels hustling toward anarrow figure in an ancient felt hat and an open raincoat over a flowered bathrobe with gum boots on her feet. She carried a sawed-off shotgun, gleaming black in the rain.
“Mama, wait.” Nickels put a hand on the weapon, but she pulled away and kept walking. With that street-sweeper, she could clear a room without even aiming.
Peter didn’t want Nickels to have it, either. He put the AK to his shoulder and stepped into the rain. “Drop the gun, ma’am.”
She stopped in her tracks and glared at him, the shotgun half raised. “You wouldn’t shoot a woman.”
“If you lift that weapon another inch,” Peter said, “I absolutely will.”
Nickels put a hand on the gun again, now shielding her with his body. Peter could hear him talking but not what he said. Finally Nickels turned, holding the weapon by the barrel, then let it fall to the mud. “Come into the shed, Mama. It’s okay. They won’t hurt us.”
As Peter backed away from the doorway to let them pass, she gave him a venomous stare. “My son is dead, isn’t he?”
Peter didn’t need to say anything. She already knew the answer.
32
Inside, the older woman dropped the wet hat and her phone on a metal worktable, folded her arms, and looked Peter and Lewis up and down with utter contempt. Her face was seamed as though from a carver’s knife, the skin stretched taut and thin as parchment. “My nephew is on the way. You two better get the hell out while you can.”
“Call him back,” Peter said. “Tell him it’s a false alarm.”
“Only one person tells Vance what to do, and it’s not me. If he says he’s coming, he’s coming. And he’s bringing some friends.”
Peter glanced at the clock on the wall. “How long until he gets here?”
“Any minute,” she said.
