Night of Thunder

It was known among the crime bosses of the South that a Grumley on the team meant success. Grumleys were hard, tough, loyal mercenaries. Grumleys could kill, rob, swindle, beat, intimidate anybody. If a snitch had to be found and eliminated for an Atlanta mafia family, a Grumley could get the job done. If a bank had to be tossed in Birmingham, a Grumley team took it down. If an issue of enforcement came up in New Orleans, a Grumley fist settled the issue. If a loan was past due in Grambling, Louisiana, a white Grumley was dispatched, and it was known that he would be fair and honest in his application of force, would never use the word “nigger” and therefore ruffle no hard feelings. He would come, beat, collect, and move on. It was only business, and everybody appreciated that high level of professionalism.

It was known too that Grumleys didn’t go easily, and that was part of their reputation. If he had to, a Grumley would shoot it out with the whole FBI. He’d go down with a gun in each hand, hot and smokey, just like an old-timer from the golden age of desperados; he didn’t mind shooting, he didn’t mind taking fire, and he didn’t mind the odds against him heaping up to a thousand to one. He wouldn’t be one to negotiate. This of course meant the cops stayed away if at all possible, but if not possible, they treated Grumleys roughly, out of their deep fear. No love was lost, no sentimentality attached, no nostalgia generated. Cops hated-hated-Grumleys and Grumleys hated right back, hard and mean.

Grumleys were handsomely paid for their efforts, which is why it was so strange for twelve of the youngest and the most promising to have been called from prosperous enterprises in this town or that city, and gathered, under the Reverend’s watchful eye, to this isolated chunk of Baptist Tennessee. Called for a caper that even they themselves didn’t fully understand, under the supervision of a strange fellow calling himself-or come to think of it, called by them, for he called himself nothing-Brother Richard. Who taught them not how to bust safes or short-wire alarm circuits or tap into computer data banks, but how to change truck tires at high speed. That was really all they knew-except for all the shooting practice, which, hot sweet mama, promised some fun!-and damnit, it was beneath them to do such manual labor under so cruel and arrogant a leader. But the Reverend insisted, and in the Grumley universe, his word was law. He sold obedience and loyalty and it was their job to offer obedience and loyalty.

And thus it was that two other Grumleys, two hard ones, named B.J. and Carmody, were assigned to stay with the damned girl’s daddy as he had adventures in Mountain City. What they saw was an old coot with a bristle of white-gray hair and a bad limp. They differed on what exactly he represented.

B.J.’s opinion was strong.

“Hell, he ain’t nothing but an old man. This here’s a waste of time. That coot can’t get nothing done. Blow in his ear, he’ll fall down.”

But Carmody, by trade an armed robber and occasional assassin, had a different opinion.

“Don’t know, brother. He looks old, he moves old, but first up, I don’t like how tan he is. Tan means he’s outdoors a lot and if he’s outdoors, he’s might to be all spry and peppy. I’d like to git a close-up look on that face and see how much age he wears. Maybe he ain’t all wrinkly. I just know gray hair and a limp makes a man look old and feeble, but looking ain’t being. He may have a jump or two might surprise us.”

“You are a fool, Carmody. I say we go on in there, brace him hard, tell him this ain’t his part of the country and he’d best return to the old folks home and watch him run. He will run scared like a rabbit, I guarantee.”

“He’s got some sly, I’m telling you. Some men have natural sly. They see into things, they git what they want, they ain’t got no need to show bull-strong like your lower-class white thug, them thick-necked fellas the eye-talians think are so tough. Man, wish I had a buck for each one of them I saw fall down and not get up-”

“You do have a buck for each one of them you saw fall down and not get up.”

“You know what, I do. Anyhow’s, I’m not at all convinced this fella ain’t your natural sly.”

They were parked in the parking lot of a Hardee’s across the street from the Mountain Empire Motel, where the old man had gone to ground. It was boring duty, in a one-horse hick town rimmed by mountains and fueled by fast food. No decent whores anywhere in sight, though maybe a fella could get his motor oils changed somewhere in the little burg’s Negro section. That may have had more to do with Grumley lore, out of Hot Springs’ colorful past, however, than anything real.

“Ho-hum,” said B.J. “Ho-fucking-hum.”

“Oh, wait. Lookie, brother, that’s him.”