A Simple Plan Page 20

He appeared to be genuinely surprised by this statement. "You said we'd do it next weekend."

  I shook my head. "We're going to wait till the plane's discovered, like we planned from the start."

  "But I already told you, Hank. I need it now." He glanced toward Jacob for help. Jacob was staring down at the tape recorder, as if still trying to overcome his shock at its sudden appearance.

  "I'll tell," Lou said. "I'll tell the sheriff about Pederson." It was only now, I think, as he spoke these words, that he realized why I'd taped him. He sneered at me. "Nobody's going to believe that thing. It's obvious I'm just kidding around."

  "If you and I both went to Sheriff Jenkins tomorrow and claimed that the other killed Dwight Pederson, who do you think he'd be more likely to believe? You?"

  He didn't say anything, so I answered for him. "It'd be me, Lou. You can see that, can't you?"

  "You fucking--" he started. He leaned forward and tried to grab the tape recorder from the table, but I was too quick. I snatched it away from him and slid it back into my shirt pocket.

  "You aren't going to tell anyone anything," I said.

  Lou stood up then, like he was going to come around the table and get me, and I stood up, too. I knew he wasn't a threat -- he was smaller than me, and drunk -- but I was still frightened enough by the idea of exchanging blows with him that I would've run to avoid it, would've sprinted straight across the room, up the step to the entranceway, and out the door. I'd gotten what I'd come for; now all I wanted to do was leave.

  Lou scowled at me across the coffee table. Then he waved toward Jacob. "Grab him, Jake," he said.

  Jacob jumped a little, sliding backward on the couch. "Grab him?"

  "Sit down, Lou," I said.

  "Come on, Jake. Give me a hand."

  A short, heavy silence descended on the room while we waited to see what my brother would do. He cringed, seemed to pull back away from us, his head retracting into his shoulders like a turtle's. This was the moment he must've been dreading all evening, the point where he'd have to demonstrate his allegiance in a concrete way, where he'd have to choose, publicly, one of us over the other.

  "The tape doesn't hurt you," he said, his voice sounding pathetically timid. "It's just to keep you from hurting him."

  Lou blinked at him. "What?"

  "He's not going to use it unless you tell on him. That seems fair, doesn't it?"

  Jacob's words were like little pellets; they seemed to fly at Lou and bury themselves beneath his skin. Lou swayed a little on his feet, an empty look coming across his face. "You're in this together, aren't you?" he said.

  Jacob was silent.

  "Come on, Lou," I said. "Let's sit back down. We're still friends here."

  "You set me up, didn't you? The two of you together." Lou's body went taut. Muscles I'd never seen before appeared on his neck, quivering. "In my own fucking house," he said. He closed his hands into fists, glanced around him as if searching for something to hit. "Let's pretend you're me," he said, mimicking my voice. He sneered at Jacob. "Jacob, you be the sheriff."

  "I didn't know--" my brother started.

  "Don't lie to me, Jake." Lou's voice dropped a notch, coming out hurt, betrayed. "You're just making it worse."

  "Maybe Hank's right," Jacob said. "Maybe it's better if we wait till the plane's found."

  "Did you know?"

  "You can make it till then. I can help you out. I'll loan you--"

  "You're gonna help me out?" Lou almost smiled. "How the fuck do you think you're gonna help me out?"

  "Listen, Lou," I said. "He didn't know. It was all my idea."

  Lou didn't even bother to look at me. He pointed at my brother. "I want you to tell me," he said. "Tell me the truth."

  Jacob licked his lips. He glanced down at his glass, but it was empty. He set it on the table. "He promised he'd help me buy back my farm."

  "Your farm? What the fuck're you talking about?"

  "My dad's farm."

  "I forced him to do it," I said quickly. "I told him he couldn't buy the farm unless he helped me trick you."

  Again, Lou ignored me. It was as if I'd ceased to exist. "So you knew?" he asked Jacob.

  My brother nodded. "I knew."

  Very slowly, so that there was a certain majesty to the gesture, Lou raised his arm and pointed toward the door. He was expelling us, a king banishing a pair of traitors from his realm. "Get out," he said.

  And this was exactly what I wanted to do. I thought that if we could leave, if we could just make it out to the truck before anyone said anything he couldn't take back in the morning, we'd be all right.

  "Come on, Jacob," I said, but he didn't move. He was focused on Lou, his whole body leaning toward him, pleading for understanding.

  "Can't you see--" he began.

  "Get out of my house," Lou said, his voice rising toward a yell. The muscles on his neck reappeared, straining.

  I picked up my jacket from the couch. "Jacob," I said.

  He didn't move, and Lou began to scream. "Leave!" he shouted. He stamped his foot. "Now!"

  "Lou?" a woman's voice called. We all froze. It was Nancy; we'd woken her up. Her voice seemed to come down out of the ceiling, as if it were the house itself that was speaking.

  "Jacob," I said again, making it a command, and this time he rose to his feet.

  "Lou?" Nancy called. She sounded angry. "What's going on?"

  Lou backed away from us, out of the living room and into the entranceway. He stood at the bottom of the steps.

  "They tricked me," he yelled.

  "I have to go to work in the morning. You guys can't keep shouting like that."

  "They made me confess."

  "What?"

  "They aren't going to give us the money."

  Nancy still didn't understand him. "Why don't you go to Jacob's?" she asked.

  Lou stood there a moment, swaying a little on his feet; then he turned suddenly, as if he'd come to some decision, and headed off down the hallway toward the bathroom. Jacob and I put on our jackets. I walked quickly toward the front door, and he followed right behind me. I wanted to leave before Lou had a chance to reappear.

  "Lou?" Nancy called again.

  I opened the door and was just about to step outside when I heard a noise off to my left. It was Lou. He hadn't gone to the bathroom after all; he'd gone to the garage and gotten his shotgun. He was carrying it now, jamming shells into its breech as he came.

  "He's got a gun," Jacob said. He reached up and pushed at my back with his hand, urging me forward, and then, when I didn't move, rushed past me through the door. When he reached the walk, he broke into a run. I just stood there, watching Lou approach. He'd left the garage door open behind him, so that he came toward me out of a square of darkness, like a troll emerging from his cave. I was thinking that I could calm him down.

  "What're you doing, Lou?" I asked. It seemed silly for him to be acting like this, like a thwarted child throwing a tantrum.

  Nancy called his name again, her voice sounding as if she were already halfway back to sleep. "Lou?"

  Lou ignored her. He stopped about five feet away from me, then raised the gun until it was leveled at my chest. "Give me the tape," he said.

  I shook my head. "Put the gun down, Lou."

  Behind me I heard Jacob opening the door to his truck. There was a moment's pause, and then it slammed shut. He's leaving me, I remember thinking. He's running away. I waited for the cough of the engine turning over, waited for the crunch of the tires on the gravel as he pulled out of the driveway, but it didn't come. Instead I heard the heavy clumping of his footsteps returning toward me, and when I glanced back over my shoulder, I found him running up the driveway, his rifle held out in front of his chest. It was my older brother, finally, after all these years, coming to protect me.

  But it was all wrong: so wrong, in fact, that at first I couldn't believe it was actually happening. An image floated up into my mind, absurdly, of Jacob playing army as a
child: I saw him emerge from the cover of the south field, hesitate there like a real soldier, then scuttle toward the house, panting with the effort, a toy machine gun cradled in his arms, our uncle's World War II helmet balanced loosely on his head, bouncing forward and backward with every step, so that he had to keep reaching up and pushing it away from his eyes. He'd been coming to get me then, to capture me off the porch -- a boys' game with make-believe weapons -- and that was how he looked now, as if he were playing but pretending to be serious.

  The sight of him, the sight of the rifle in his hands, sent a surge of terror through my body. It felt electric; my fingertips seemed to crackle with it. I held up my hand, waving him off, and he stopped at the foot of the walk, twenty feet away. I could hear his breath, a sawtoothed sound in the darkness. I turned back toward Lou, trying to fill the doorway with my body. I knew I couldn't let him see my brother, knew implicitly that if it reached the point where they stood facing each other with their guns, anything could happen. It would be out of my control.

  "Give it to me, Hank," Lou said. His voice came out sounding remarkably controlled, and this hint of composure, tiny as it was, momentarily reassured me.

  "Why don't we talk in the morning, Lou?" I said. "Everybody'll be calmer then, and we'll work things out."

  He shook his head. "You're not going to leave until you give me the tape."

  "Hank?" Jacob called from the foot of the walk. "You okay?"

  "Go wait in the truck, Jacob."

  Lou craned his neck to see outside, but I blocked his view. I stepped backward onto the porch, dragging the door shut behind me. I was trying to separate them, but Lou misinterpreted it. He thought I was running away, thought I was scared of him, and it gave him a burst of confidence. He took two quick steps forward, grabbed the edge of the door with his right hand, and yanked it open. He waved his gun in my face.

  "I said you're not going to--" he started.

  "Leave him alone, Lou," Jacob shouted.

  Lou froze, startled, and we both turned to look. My brother was squinting down the barrel of his rifle, aiming it at Lou's head.

  "Stop it, Jacob," I said. "Go back to the truck." But he didn't move. He was focused on Lou, and Lou was focused on him. I was being shoved off to the periphery, a prop in their drama.

  "You gonna shoot me, Jake?" Lou asked, and then, together, they both began to yell, each trying to outshout the other: Jacob told him to leave me alone, to shut up, to put down the gun, that he didn't want to hurt him; and Lou started in about their friendship, about being tricked in his own house, about how much he needed the money, and how he was going to shoot me if I didn't give him the tape.

  "Shhh," I kept saying, pleading now, and ignored by everyone. "Shhh."

  In the midst of all this, I saw a light come on in one of the upstairs windows. I stared up at it, waiting for Nancy to appear, hoping that her voice, drifting down like an angel's from the sky above our heads, might stop this insanity, might silence their shouts and make them put down their guns. She didn't come to the window, though; she opened her bedroom door and ran down the hallway to the head of the stairs.

  "Lou?" I heard her call. She was out of sight, but I could imagine how she looked from the sound of her voice -- sleepy and bewildered, her hair tangled and matted, her face puffy around the eyes.

  Instantly, Lou fell silent, and when he stopped yelling, my brother did, too. My ears were ringing from their shouting. The night seemed to settle around us, softly, in little pieces, like falling snow.

  Nancy came down a few steps. I could see one of her feet now through the upper frame of the doorway. It was bare and very small. "What's going on?" she asked.

  Lou's face was a brilliant red, his nostrils flared. He seemed to be having a hard time catching his breath. He was pointing his gun at the center of my chest, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at Jacob. "You fucking piece of shit," he said, very quietly. Then he glanced at me. "The two of you. Pretending to be my friends." He raised the gun until it was pointing at my face. "I ought to blow your fucking brains out."

  "Come on, Lou," I said, keeping my voice low and calm. "We can talk this out." I didn't think he was going to shoot me; I thought it was just bluster, like a dog barking. Nancy's presence was a good thing; if we let her, I knew, she'd bring us out of this danger. Another few seconds and Lou would lower his gun. Then she'd take him inside, and it would all be over.

  Nancy came down another step. I could see two feet and a shin now. "Put down the gun, baby," she said, and the softness of her voice was like a balm to me. I felt myself relax beneath its touch.

  But Lou shook his head. "Go back to bed," he said. He pumped a shell into the shotgun's chamber, adjusted his aim at my face. "I'm just going to shoot these two pieces of--"

  He didn't finish his sentence. There was an explosion behind me, a flash of blue light followed instantly by a sense of movement over my left shoulder. I ducked, shutting my eyes, and heard Lou's gun clatter to the tiled floor.

  When I lifted my head, he'd disappeared from the doorway.

  There was perhaps a second's worth of silence before Nancy began to scream. It was just long enough for me to make out the sound of the wind sighing though the branches of the trees above me, and then it was over, and there was only her voice. It filled the house, strained against the walls.

  "Noooooo," she screamed. She went on and on, until she ran out of air, and then she began again. "Noooooo."

  I knew what had happened: it was the absolute stillness behind me, and the utter horror which this stillness implied, that made it undeniable. My brother had shot Lou.

  I stepped forward and up, across the porch and into the house, and found Lou lying on his back a few feet from the door. The bullet had hit him in the forehead, about an inch above his eyes. It had left a very small hole in front, but there was a large puddle of blood on the floor, working its way out across the entranceway, so I knew that the hole in back must be bigger. His face was absolutely expressionless, almost serene. His mouth was partly open, his teeth visible, his head tilted slightly back, so that it looked as if he were about to sneeze. His right hand was thrown flamboyantly out across the floor; his left was covering his heart. The shotgun was lying beside his shoulder.

  He was dead, of course. There was no doubt about this: Jacob had killed him. And so, I thought to myself, just like that, in an instant, it was over -- everything was going to be revealed now, all our secrets, all our crimes. We'd let things slip out of our control.

  Nancy came down the stairs one step at a time. She was a big woman, larger than Lou. Her hair was shoulder length and dyed a peculiar, unabashedly artificial tint of orange. She was holding her hand over her mouth, her eyes locked on Lou's body. I watched her approach, feeling as if I were in some sort of trance. Everything seemed to be happening at a distance, as though I were observing it from behind a sheet of glass.

  "Oh my God," she said, the words coming out at double speed, as if they'd been glued together. She kept repeating it, over and over again. "Oh my God oh my God oh my God."

  She was wearing a Detroit Tigers T-shirt. It was extra-long, like a nightgown, and came down to her thighs. I could see her breasts moving beneath it, full and heavy, swinging a little each time she took a step.

  I glanced back through the doorway at Jacob. He was still out on the walk, standing there like a statue, peering into the house. It seemed as if he were waiting for Lou to get up.

  Nancy reached the bottom of the stairs, moved at a crouch across the entranceway, then stooped down beside Lou's corpse. She didn't touch him. She still had her hand over her mouth, and the sight of her like that sent a wave of pity through my body. I stepped forward, my arms held out to embrace her, but when she saw me coming, she jumped up and backed away toward the living room.

  "Don't touch me," she said. Her legs were stocky beneath her T-shirt, pallid, like two marble pillars. She was beginning to cry a little; a pair of tears were moving in tandem down eith
er side of her nose, as if in a race.

  I tried to think of something soothing to say to her, but all I could come up with was a feeble lie. "It's okay, Nancy," I whispered.

  She didn't react to this. She was staring past me, toward the doorway, and when I turned to see what she was looking at, I found Jacob standing there, the rifle cradled in his arms like a baby, a blank, mannequinish look pasted on his face.

  "Why?" Nancy asked.

  He had to clear his throat before he spoke. "He was going to shoot Hank."

  The sound of my brother's voice pulled me out of my trance. If we could act together, I realized, the thought fluttering upward into consciousness on a pair of panicky wings, we could still salvage something from this horror: we could still save the money. It would simply be a matter of our agreeing to look at things in a certain way.

  "He wasn't going to shoot anyone," Nancy said. She was staring down at Lou's body now. The puddle of blood was still growing, moving slowly out across the tiled floor.

  "Nancy," I said softly, "it's going to be all right. We're going to work this out." I was trying to calm her down.

  "You killed him," she said, as if in disbelief. She pointed her finger at my brother. "You shot him."

  Jacob didn't say anything. His rifle was clenched tightly against his chest.

  I took two steps toward Nancy, edging my way around the puddle of blood. "We're going to call the police," I said. "And we're going to tell them it was self-defense."

  She glanced toward me, but not at me. It didn't seem like she understood.

  "We're going to tell them that Lou was about to shoot him, that he was drunk, that he'd gone berserk."

  "Lou wasn't going to shoot anyone."

  "Nancy," I said. "We can still save the money."

  She reacted to this statement as if it were a slap in the face. "You bastards," she hissed. "You shot him for the money, didn't you?"

  "Shhh," I said. I made a quieting motion with my hand, but she started toward me, her fists clenched, her face distorted with rage. I backed away from her.

  "You think I'm going to let you keep the money?" she said. "You fucking--"

  I retreated all the way across the entranceway, past Lou's body, toward the door and my brother. She kept coming at me, yelling now, calling me names, shouting about the money. As she passed Lou's body, she stumbled against the shotgun, kicking it with one of her bare feet. It made a loud metallic noise as it slid across the tiles, and we all stared down at it.