Jigsaw – Chapter Eleven
Tim tried calling Jo again after he left Art, Nelson in tow. The phone rang until he hung up. He didn't want to be here, sighed loudly standing in the doorway to his hospital room. Everything was off. Everything had changed. It was time to shift and adjust to the new landscape. His ears were still ringing but that wasn't it. It wasn't the aches and pains and the stiffness still there from the collision in the intersection a few days back. It wasn't his longing for another night with Jo or Max's situation or Boyd's revelation about Raylan or Art in a hospital bed or a lack of sleep or lining up with oblivion that afternoon in the parking lot. It was something else entirely or maybe everything at once. It was coming to the end of a good book and knowing there wasn't a sequel. Time to choose a new plot.
Nelson had gone into the room ahead of him, checked the corners and closet and bathroom, turned and watched Tim standing there with his eyes focused somewhere else, chewing on his lip.
"Tim? Everything okay? The room's clear."
Nelson shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, always nervous in Tim's company, watching him warily as though Tim were a dog whose tail wasn't wagging. Tim didn't make it easy for anyone really, wasn't one for tail wagging, not for anybody, and Nelson couldn't seem to figure out that all he had to do was throw it back. It was beyond him to let loose and roll with the snark and draw out the grin that Tim always had lurking, hiding just behind the bared teeth.
"It's nothing," Tim said, not interested in talking to Nelson about what was bugging him. "Do you have a car here?"
Nelson nodded.
"I'm going home. You mind dropping me off?"
"Uh, I don't think I can. Rachel told me…"
Tim held up a hand, silencing the argument, and phoned Rachel to tell her he was signing himself out, told her he didn't need a protection detail, told her so he couldn't get Nelson in trouble, then he collected up his belongings and headed down the hall to find someone who would accept his signature on a piece of paper saying he was taking full responsibility for any of the consequences of disregarding the doctor's recommendation to stay in the hospital overnight. And then he went home.
Nelson agreed in the end to drop him off, after Tim had passed him his phone for a quick word with Rachel before marching out the door.
"You sure about this?" said Nelson falling in step behind.
"Yep."
Fifteen minutes later Nelson was pulling up to Tim's house. Tim did a quick visual of the property looking for a giant then, satisfied it was safe, he opened the car door.
"Thanks for the ride."
"Um, Tim, I was wondering…"
"I'm fine. I don't need you to stay."
"No, uh…"
Tim slid out of the seat, ducked down to look back in at Nelson. "Uh, what?"
Deputy Dunlop looked embarrassed, more nervous than usual. Tim wanted him gone, wanted to forget about work tonight, so he nudged a little hard.
"What is it, Nelson? I'm tired."
"Um… I can call you tomorrow about it. It's nothing."
"Tell me now. I might be out of town tomorrow."
"Uh… Well, it's just… I almost missed my qualification last month."
"Shooting?"
"Yeah, uh, I just squeaked in at 210." He worried his fingers on the steering wheel. "I didn't score well on the weak hand stuff and um, some misses because… I'm not great at shooting from behind the barrier, right? And at the 25 yard distance I'm a bit iffy." He finally looked Tim in the eye. "Would you, uh… I was hoping you might…"
Tim sat back in the seat, giving Nelson his attention. "You want me to take you to the range, see if we can't work out whatever it is?"
"Yeah. Would you?"
Tim nodded, wagged that tail a little bit. "Yeah, of course. No problem." He thought about it, where to start. "I had great instructors – got some good tips that they don't teach at Glynco. In the regiment, you understand, we got to do a lot of shooting. I can get you up to sharpshooter on your next qualifier."
"That would be awesome."
"We'll start Monday after work, focus on basics. You'll be amazed what you'll be able to do." He slapped Nelson on the shoulder. "Just give me a few hours and we'll have you shooting better than Raylan."
"You think?"
"Yep." Tim got out of the car again. "I promise. See you Monday."
Nelson smiled and Tim gave him the thumbs up. "Dude, sharpshooter, minimum."
"Okay. 'Night."
"'Night."
He closed the car door and shut out work, shut out the day. He had noticed her sitting on her step when he and Nelson pulled up, bottle of beer in her hand. It had drawn out a smile seeing her but he didn't comment. He wanted this kept separate from work, for now.
"You got another one of those?" he asked, stopping in front of her, interrupting her version of a blues song that he didn't recognize.
"Only if you're invited in."
He tilted his head over, wiped his hand over his mouth to hide the grin. "I was hoping to sleep in my own bed tonight."
"I was hoping for steak."
He sucked in his lower lip and stretched his eyebrows up, suddenly very tired and sore and a bit sad. "Sorry," he said.
She must have seen the sad, sang a little for him. "Trouble in mind, I'm blue. But I won't be blue always. 'Cause the sun's gonna shine, in my backdoor someday."
She sang it slow, in no rush to finish and get on with the conversation. That was one of the things that he thought about when she wasn't there, that she was never in a hurry. "Are you ever not singing?"
"Only when I'm kissing."
"Not sure which I like better."
"They're mutually exclusive, unfortunately."
"Can I have that invite?"
"What happened?"
"Somebody threw a grenade at me."
She stopped breathing for a moment, blinked, then let out the air, slowly. "That is the best excuse for standing someone up I've ever heard. And believe me, I've heard some good ones."
"Can I come in, please?"
"What about sleeping in your own bed?"
"I'll suffer."
She stood and came down to the walkway and handed him the rest of her beer and stopped singing long enough to kiss him and run a hand over the fresh cuts on his arm and on his face. "You make it easy to forgive you, neighbor. Grenades, huh?"
"It wasn't easy dodging grenades to fucking get here."
"All the best things in life are work."
He took a grateful drink from the bottle of beer and followed her singing inside.
"I'm gonna lay my head,
On some lonesome railroad line
Let the 2:19 train
Ease my troubled mind."
"I just kinda suck at turning the other cheek," he said later, enjoying the soft skin and the spider web he couldn't see in the dark. He reached down and pulled the blanket up over them, the sweat starting to cool. "I hate that we didn't get Darryl Crowe, Jr." He said the name like a curse, emphasis on each of the three parts. "It should've been us."
She didn't reply, half asleep already. He lay awake a while longer thinking about six feet, five inches of threat and how easily he could fix the problem without the constraints of the United States Marshals Service Oath of Office.
Noises in the yard woke him at two in the morning, eyes snapped open. The ringing in his ears seemed to have faded out finally and he listened hard, heard something outside. He slipped out of bed and into his boxers and a t-shirt and found his backup in the dark and moved quietly down the stairs, all senses on alert. He unlocked the front door and walked across the cold grass to the backyard and peered around behind the house. Someone was at the back door. The dark couldn't disguise the fact that the figure was turned away and under six feet tall.
Tim walked softly across the lawn, gun up and aimed, said, "I'll fucking kill you if you move an inch. Hands up where I can see them. Nothing stupid 'cause I feel like pulling the trigger tonight."
The figure almost fell over at the sound of Tim's voice. Something slipped from his hand onto the grass. "Oh, Jesus," he said, sounding unnaturally loud at that hour. "Jesus, don't shoot."
"Hands up!"
"Oh, Jesus."
The back light came on then, a spotlight for the drama, illuminating both Tim and the back door prowler. It was Jo's ex, the doofus, and he was petrified in place.
Tim closed the distance and put the muzzle on the ex's forehead. "What the fuck are you doing? I told you to stay away."
"I'm sorry. Shit, shit, shit. Don't shoot me. Oh, Jesus." And he started sobbing.
Jo opened the back door then, a flashlight and a baseball bat. She took in the scene – her ex, he'd wet himself in fear, a puddle on the patio stone at the bottom of the step, Tim with his gun out and menacing.
"Oh, shit," she said. "Just stop. What the fuck?"
She reached out a hand, motioning Tim away but he was already taking a step back, lowering his guard and his gun, anger pushed down by her distress. She plunked herself down on the door sill, bat and flashlight on her lap. It was obvious she was holding back emotion.
"God's sake, Eddie," she said, pleading. "Are you getting the picture yet? Stop it. Tim, just… Eddie get the fuck out of here. You're gonna get hurt. Enough. Go away. Leave me alone."
She didn't get finished, the last phrase fading as it came out and she watched Eddie stagger around the side of the house and disappear. Tim bent down to pick up what Eddie had dropped earlier, a handgun.
"Is that...?"
"It's a fake," he said. "Stupid fuck."
"Oh, God," she said. "Would you have? Seriously?"
He turned to look at Jo, shrugged. "He won't be back. I can fucking promise you that."
"No. He won't."
Tim slumped, tired, feeling a bit off about the whole thing, leaned against the house. They stayed like that out in the lit backyard for a time. Jo moved first, arm out and fingers tugging Tim's hair.
"C'mon," she said grabbing a handful of t-shirt. "You want to sleep in your bed? Would you sleep better? I'll join you."
"It might be booby-trapped."
He turned his head to look at her and she smiled and he ducked his head and chuckled.
"So stay with me then," she said.
"I think your bed's more comfortable than mine, anyway."
"That's only 'cause I'm in it." She patted the space on the step beside her and he moved onto it. "What are you doing tomorrow? I don't have to work. We can stay in bed till noon if you want, order room service. By the look of you, it couldn't hurt."
"I'm sorry about all this."
"Yeah. Me, too."
"I didn't know he'd…"
"Piss his pants? Me, neither," she said sadly. "I told you he was a doofus."
Tim had chambered a round when he stepped out the door earlier, expecting Heywood Humphrey. He cleared it, dropped the mag and snapped the round back in.
"You look like you know what you're doing."
He handed her the gun. "It's safetied," he said when she hesitated. She took it. He kept the magazine. "I don't do anything else as well as I do this." He tapped the mag against his leg. "You can trust me. I wouldn't have shot him unless he gave me cause."
"And if he gave you cause?"
"He'd be dead."
She turned the gun over in her hands, rough fingers feeling the shape of it, working relentlessly, agitated. He watched her. She wasn't looking at the weapon, only touching it, trying to get familiar with it like he was with her earlier. It made him restless after a while and he took one of her hands to slow them down and held it.
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Author's note: Dinah Washington, Trouble in Mind – she's the best blues gal since Bessie Smith. It's all in the timing. watch?v=cnRi0aG6d5A