The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet: Stories

By Rob Pierce

Escape. Lust. Revenge. Rob Pierce writes with an understanding of the darkness in the hearts of people who’ve been struck and need to strike back. From gun dealers to murders to the simply self-destructive, The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet is filled with stories of men and women whose dreams can never take them out of their realities.

Praise for THE THINGS I LOVE WILL KILL ME YET:

“Pierce’s style is spare and hard-hitting, and The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet delivers a knockout.” —Sam Wiebe, author of Last of the Independents

“Rob Pierce’s stories are like love letters to the damned.” —Mike Miner, author of Prodigal Sons and Hurt Hawks

“Noir at its best! Like a violent biker gang, a herd of wild horned animals, or maybe a box of spiders, there’s a stockpile of thrilling peril inside these Rob Pierce short stories.” —Jack Getze, author of the Austin Carr mysteries

• Language: English
• Publisher: All Due Respect Books
• Release date: May 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463178300

Book preview

Thanksgiving, 1963

We didn’t usually throw a party six days before Thanksgiving, but the president was coming to town. He wasn’t the president of Texas, mind you, but he would have to do.

A week before Thanksgiving, and all the cousins were here. Not just my cousins, but Margie’s too. And my in-laws—the whole goddamn family showed up Thursday, so they could get a good night’s sleep before the presidential parade Friday morning. We have a big house, but there’s times no house is big enough.

It started with Billy and his wife Kaye. They were Margie’s side of the family, but they were all right. Billy was Margie’s little brother, and he had a car lot, plenty of his own money, always willing to buy a round. He could drink a lot of rounds, so that was a good thing. Kaye kept with the women, and that was a good thing too. She had a nice mouth, extra nice because she kept it shut.

Of course they showed up in a Cadillac. Billy parked right out front, opened the trunk and grabbed three suitcases. Probably two and a half for Kaye; Billy always wore western shirts and jeans. Kaye was almost as tall as Billy, blonde and relaxed in a loose white blouse, tight jeans, and heels. She carried nothing but a purse. Good as she looked, that seemed about right.

Kaye and Margie were already hugging and mumbling gal shit at each other. Merle, Billy greeted me. You mind grabbing one of those?

I looked into Billy’s trunk and saw case after case of Jack Daniels. Like I said, Billy was all right.

By late morning we’d had a few drinks. No one else had showed up yet. That’s a good amount of Jack you brought, Billy, I said. Much appreciated.

Billy grinned. There’s lowlifes in this family, Merle. I thought if we got here early, you and me could have a private stash. We also got the two prettiest gals, so they can at least start out with some time apart from the ugly whores in both our families.

I laughed, but Billy told the truth about the women—Margie and Kaye were a damn sight prettier than anything else that was about to walk through our doors.

The first case of Jack was in the den. We’d brought in extra tables and chairs, and the books were all shelved behind glass, so only the wood floor was at risk. Billy and me moved the rest of the Jack into his bedroom. We could always bring out extra bottles if we felt generous.

Others arrived: my nearly disowned brothers, Lloyd and Jesse, and my three sisters, who hung out with the women, and their idiot husbands whose names I managed to forget. Beyond that were the relatives I liked even less. All the men drank together but I talked to Billy as much as possible.

The women drank too, I suppose. Anyway, everyone I saw drank a lot. Margie and me woke up together, but I sure as Hell didn’t remember going to bed.

We got up early, hungover for the parade. It made sense to fit a lot of people into as few cars as possible, but Billy insisted on driving, and there was no one else I wanted to ride with besides Margie.

There were a dozen cars out front of the house. I leaned back against my hood, thermos in hand. If I’d talked about it with Margie she’d have told me family was family, and she’d get mad when I told her I didn’t want either of our families in our car. This was going to be the day I saw the president. I didn’t want that memory mixed in with the memory of jabbering idiots in the back seat.

It was only Kennedy, sure, and I voted for Nixon. Everyone I knew voted for Nixon, or at least said they did. Truth is, a lot of Texans voted for Kennedy because they didn’t like Nixon, and at least Kennedy had Johnson for VP. Hell, Lyndon was the man we wanted for president.

I leaned against my car with my thermos. I was the host, so everyone waited outside their cars. They probably figured I just waited for Margie. I was in charge, I waited for everyone.

Margie walked right up to me. We goin’? she said.

She was the last one ready, and she was in a hurry. I opened the passenger door and she got in. I got behind the wheel and drove.

We got good spots on the sidewalk just past dawn, end of the president’s route, near the Trade Mart. We waited six hours. It was almost noon. The president was due soon and I was hungry. Billy passed me his flask and I took a slug of Jack.

You want any? I asked Margie.

She shook her head and I passed the flask back to Billy.

It took a while for word to get to us that the president wasn’t just running late, he wasn’t making it to the Trade Mart. President Kennedy had been shot. He was going to the hospital, maybe the morgue. I tried to stop Margie from hearing that, but I never learned how to stop a woman from hearing what you don’t want her to.

What kind of man, she said, would shoot the president? Margie was in tears.

I was sad too, but I wondered what kind of gun. Margie was right, though. Depending on the range, a lot of guns would work, but only a certain kind of man. Then I had my other thought. She still cried, so I hugged her tight and kept my mouth shut. But if Kennedy died, it was President Johnson now. Score one for Texas.

We couldn’t cancel the party, the relatives were already here. And we had enough Jack Daniels. Our large living room, laid out not near as nice as it would have been otherwise, filled with men drinking. We disliked each other and the president to varying degrees, but he had been our president, whether we voted for him or not.

By the time the party started LBJ was president. That would have been fine under any other circumstances. But we had flags out front of the house, the American flag and the Texas flag, and we believed in both. You could have good reasons for hating the American president, but you couldn’t have good reasons for killing him.

Now, a case of Jack Daniels is only six bottles, which is a lot when there’s only two people drinking, and a lot less when you have a dozen men in the room. They might not all drink a lot, but they were all Texans. Billy slipped off after a while and brought down another case. I don’t know how many we’d have gone through if all the bottles were in the room at once.

I put a bottle on the table and watched men fill their glasses. I sidled over to Billy. I spoke soft. We’re gonna need a third case, I said.

Billy shook his head, talked just as soft. If they know we have three, we’re gonna need four. Let the pussies drink their milk.

I held back from laughing only because we had a dead president to mourn. I knew my place. I didn’t know if Nixon mourned, but I was sure Johnson did. Real fast, because he had to take charge. He knew his place, and he knew when it changed.

Right now my place was the mourning host. My gun shops would be open again tomorrow, but I wouldn’t work. I was scheduled off all next week too, but come Monday I might find reasons to visit my stores. All of them. Just to get out of the house. Maybe show them to Billy as an act of mercy toward the one guest I could stand. Tonight there wasn’t time for anything but duty, drinking with idiots. I was a businessman, I’d done that a million times.

I didn’t have to talk to any one of them long. But it got late, and there were five of us around a table, all of us drunk and still drinking. Dawn approached. Billy seemed to think we should approach it with cards.

I got chips, I said. But if y’all got cash enough for dollar ante, we can skip that.

A dollar was a little much for a friendly game, but we could keep the stakes from going too high. If we wanted.

It was me and Billy and three cousins, two of Margie’s and one of mine. All the cousins deserved to be separated from their money. I wasn’t that good at cards but Billy was. Anyway, we’d see who got dealt what. The president was dead and we were drunk and the game was seven-card stud, dollar ante.

Billy broke out the cards, so he dealt first. I sat to his right, got four good hands in a row, was cleaning up.

Margie’s cousin Elwood sat to Billy’s left. You win too much, he said to me. It sounded like an accusation.

You sayin I cheat? I said. The deal passes every hand.

I’m sayin, Elwood stood, you’re more than lucky.

I stood too. Get the fuck out this room, Elwood. You don’t go right now, someone gonna swab your blood off this floor. He stood there and blinked, like what I said was complicated. With a fucking mop, idiot. You gotta be here til Thanksgiving. Don’t get near me before then.

I waited until Elwood got it. He finally turned, and when he did he walked away fast. I exhaled loud. How would I explain to Margie if I killed one of her cousins?

The card game broke up right after that.

Good night, then, I said. I’m going to bed. I stood with my glass. Bottle’s on the table, drink your fill. Don’t worry about putting things away. You goin’ up, Billy?

Billy stood, walked with me. It was too early to stop drinking. Billy walked like he was drunk, smiled and waved goodbye to the cousins he couldn’t stand.

We walked upstairs to Billy’s room, where the Jack was. Billy knocked. Kaye? No answer. The women had their own alcohol supply in the dining room; they might not come up until it ran out.

There weren’t any real tables in Billy’s room, just the little ones on either side of the bed. Mind if I open the closet? I said. There’s a fold-out table in the back.

Don’t bruise any of Kaye’s precious dresses, Billy said. She don’t need much excuse to buy new ones.

I slid open the heavy closet door. A few western shirts were jammed down one end, but the rest of the closet was dress after dress, and they didn’t look cheap. Damn, boy, I said, and looked back at Billy, you must sell a lot of cars.

I keep her happy, she keeps me happy. That’s a marriage, Merle.

I grinned. For a happy man, you sure drink a lot.

Part of why I’m a happy man. Billy laughed.

I parted the dresses and slid out the table at an angle. I got it below the lowest dress and dragged it out of the closet. Billy shut the closet door and we lifted the table, yanked out the legs real quick and set it down. It was a four-man card table, nothing fancy, I didn’t need his help but a man offers. I grabbed a stray chair from along one wall. Billy grabbed another and an open bottle of Jack from one of the bedside tables. We sat across from each other and drank.

Your side? I said, and gestured at the side of the bed where the bottle came from.

Billy smiled. I don’t need to get Kaye drunk anymore.

I smiled back, took a drink, shook my head. Good to be away from those fucking idiots. I downed my glass.

The cousins? Billy still smiled, pushed the bottle across the table to me.

I filled my glass. Can you believe Elwood? If he wasn’t kin, I’d have beat that boy half to death.

Even then, Billy said. But you got nice hardwood floors. Don’t wanna mess ’em up.

The best part of today, I said, and took a drink, was the hangover.

Well, Billy raised his glass, you can have a new one tomorrow. And at least Kennedy’s dead.

You shouldn’t say that, I said.

No one in this room but you and me, Billy grinned. I wouldn’t say it on the news, if that’s what you mean.

I knew Billy liked LBJ, but…I just shook my head. He’s the president, I said.

It’s gonna be great for gun sales, just you watch. Billy took a drink. I wish there was a thing like this for cars.

Maybe Billy talked the truth, but it was too soon to be practical. It’s wrong, I said. A man can’t just kill the president.

It’s wrong, Billy nodded, but a crazy man does what he wants.

I knew that much was true. I’d lived in Texas all my life. Didn’t mean what Billy thought was right, but he wasn’t talking crazy and I was drinking his whiskey. He was drinking his whiskey too; sometimes a man doesn’t phrase things exactly how he wants.

We don’t know the shooter’s crazy, I said. There’s reasons to kill Kennedy.

Reasons, Billy said. Yeah. But you don’t kill the president and get away with it. That man was dead the second he pulled the trigger.

And I had the awful thought that Billy was right, it would make one helluva ad for whatever rifle the assassin used. You could never run the ad, of course, but people would hear you could kill a president with this model, and figure the gun had range and accuracy, not allow that the shooter had to be a trained marksman. The second the news said what type rifle was used, I’d put it on sale and so would everyone else.

There’s no life either end of a sniper rifle, I said. The boy who shot the president was a soldier who felt dead the second he left the war. I picked up my glass and Billy’s eyes gleamed. Guaranteed, I said, and drank.

I ain’t doubting, Billy smiled. You just got wise all a sudden.

Did they say how high up the shooter was? Had to be high, right?

Billy nodded.

I know rifles, I said, and poured myself a glass, and I know shooters. That height and a slow moving car is one thing. That height and a man in a slow moving car is another. That man’s the president, you got a shooter who’s killed before.

Yeah, Billy said, makes sense. He drank with me. And like you said, a man wouldn’t have to be crazy to shoot Kennedy.

I wished I hadn’t said that and finished my glass.

A couple more drinks and I excused myself to my own room for the night. I took a bottle for the road, opened it as soon as I got in the bedroom, set it on my bedside table. I grabbed a glass from the small bar just off the bedroom and sat on the side of the bed. Billy was my only male ally at this week-long family gathering and I didn’t want to lose him. That’s why I walked away when I did. I saw things going in the wrong direction.

I looked at the clock: it was 5 a.m., but I wasn’t waiting up for Margie. She’d be drunk when she came to bed, and maybe something would happen, but I’d be drunk too, so maybe not.

They came through the door, Margie in front. Kaye stopped beside her. Why you here this early? Margie said.