Dead Men's Dust (2 page)

WHEN WORKING, I DON’T USE A VEHICLE THAT I CARE ABOUT.
I use an old car I picked up at an auction. That way, when the disgruntled dig a key into the length of the paintwork, I don’t get too upset. The car has many scars. The only concession I make to roadworthiness is to have the engine regularly overhauled and tires of the puncture-proof variety. Both have proved invaluable in the past.

Before setting up the takedown on Shank, I had parked the old Ford a couple of streets away. Okay, I wasn’t that protective of it, but neither was I going to make my wheels a sitting duck. I was approaching the car when the BMW swung into the street behind me. To be fair, I thought I’d seen the last of Peter Ramsey, yet here he was, back for more.

Maybe I should’ve done a better number on him the first time. My fault, but as I said, I can be a compassionate guy.

“This time…no messing about,” I promised.

In an effort at stealth, the music volume had been turned down. Still, the thud-thud rhythm sounded like the heartbeat of a predator coiling for the death lunge. Thick tires whistled on tarmac. The engine growled. Even without looking, I’d have known they were coming.

It was like patrolling in-country all over again. Only then I was an inexperienced rookie, immortal in my battle fatigues and holding a submachine gun. Unprepared for what happened, I hadn’t even realized I’d been shot until I surfaced through a morphine haze the following day and blinked up at my nurse.

You don’t hear the bullet that kills you. Which meant the two bullets Shank fired at me missed their mark. Good job I’d leaped forward at the right time. The sidewalk was a little unforgiving, but a scraped elbow and knee were the least of my worries.

The BMW was a sleek black shark, as dangerous as the .38 Shank aimed at me. It made sense that the driver swung the BMW onto the sidewalk. A half-ton of metal on my head would finish me as quickly as a slug in the heart.

“Get that son of a bitch!”

Even as I rolled away from the car, I had to smile at Shank’s determination.

The BMW bumped down off the curb, knocking value off the alloys. I rose up behind them. From beneath my shirttails, I drew my own gun, a SIG-Sauer P226. Unlike these cretins, I had a full load. In addition, I knew how to shoot. One round into a rear tire, two into the trunk, and one through the back windshield for good measure. More than the deflated tire, panic spun the car across the road and drove it into my parked car.

In this part of town, gunfire would ensure that witnesses kept their heads down. On the other hand, a good old-fashioned car wreck would bring the ghouls running.

“Out of the car,” I shouted. “Now!”

The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, blood frothing from both nostrils. Sound asleep for the second time that evening. Shank wasn’t in much better shape. Half out the window when the car collided with my Ford, he was now on the road, crying like a baby and
cradling a busted elbow. His gun had slid harmlessly beneath my car. Only the third guy, the big baldy, posed any threat.

“I said,
Out of the damn car
.”

Staring down the barrel of a SIG is enough to motivate most men. He was surprisingly sprightly when offered the correct form of stimulation. His hands went up. “Okay! Easy, man, easy.”

His gloves were gone. Heavy gold rings made a rich man’s brass knuckles on his right hand. Fancied himself a pugilist.

“Pick Shank up,” I told him.

Conditioned to taking commands, he didn’t object. He quickly stooped down and lifted Shank to his feet.

“Up the alley.”

Opposite us was a narrow alleyway between a vacant lot and a video rental store that was closed for the night. Maybe the store had closed for many nights, judging by the faded posters.

I knew what was going through the big guy’s mind. He thought the ignominious alley was where he was going to end his days. Give him his due; I think he was braver than he was stupid.

“You aren’t taking us up there to shoot us.”

“I’m not?”

“If you’re going to do it, do it now. Out here in the open.”

“Okay,” I said.

Not so keen, Shank whimpered.

Baldy gave his boss a look that suggested there were going to be changes in their arrangement—if they managed to get out of this alive. Shank was left swaying as the big man stepped away from him.

“Go on,” he challenged. “I don’t think you’ve got what it takes.”

I gave him my saddest smile.

The big man took that as a sign of weakness. He snatched at a gun tucked into his waistband.

I caressed the trigger and his right kneecap disintegrated.

He collapsed to the floor, and despite his bravado he screamed.

“What about you, Shank? Do you think I haven’t got it in me to do you?” I aimed the SIG at a point directly between his eyes. “After you tried to shoot me?”

Think of an air-raid siren and you’ll imagine the sound that Shank made.

“You know something, Shank? You should have listened to me.”

I pulled the trigger again.

Shank fell next to his friend, clutching at his own shattered knee.

“Next time I will kill you,” I promised.

HE HAD THE DESIRE AND THE PASSION. HE CERTAINLY HAD
the ability. But that wasn’t everything. Tubal Cain also had an agenda.

Right now he was short on materials.

There wasn’t much hope of acquiring what he needed here, but for these cretins, he’d make the effort.

“You know something? You should all be damned straight to hell!”

There weren’t too many things that got him riled, but these pigs on wheels were the exception. Motor homes! These monstrosities of engineering were a blight on the landscape. Colossal steel bullets fired from the devil’s cannon to cause woe and destruction wherever they landed.

Without their intrusion, this oasis turnoff beside Route I-10 in Southern California had its own beauty. A semicircular drive ran up to an artesian well, and trees had been artfully arranged to block the view of the interstate. Laurel trees made a pretty silhouette against the star-filled sky, but not when a goddamn Winnebago hunkered beneath them, square, unnatural, and spewing light from a cabin the size of the flight deck of the USS
Enterprise.

“It’s enough to make you sick,” Tubal Cain said.

Neither Mabel nor George
or whatever the hell they were called
argued the point. George was equivocal on the entire subject. However, that could be expected. Speaking could be difficult with a gash the width of your thumb parting your trachea.

For her part, Mabel was pretty verbal, but nothing she’d said up until now would change his opinion. She was too intent on screaming for her unheeding husband. Another thing: she wasn’t giving any clues to George’s actual name. She’d only refer to him as Daddy. She was obscene, like a wrinkly Lolita.

“Aw, for crying out loud!” Cain said. “Put a lid on it, will you? How do you expect me to work with all that racket you’re making?”

Mabel hunkered down in the kitchen compartment. She was a hunched package stuffed beneath a fold-down counter, looking like the garbage sack George had been about to drop into the bushes when Cain surprised him.

“Daddy, Daddy! Help me, Daddy!” she screamed for about the hundredth time.

“Daddy’s not interested,” Cain pointed out. “So you might as well shut up.”

Daddy sat in the driving seat, surrounded by the luxury of leather and walnut. But he was of no mind to point out the lushness of his surroundings. The elderly man was currently preoccupied with trying to stem the tide of blood flowing down the front of his pullover. Chalk white, his features showed he was losing the battle.

“Daddeeee…”

Cain took the man’s hands away from the wound, guiding them to the steering wheel. His final earthly experience would be gripping the wheel as though with the intention of taking the Winnebago through the Pearly Gates with him.

The knife snicked through tendons and gristle, the old man’s death grip loosened, and his hands flopped onto his thighs. Sans thumbs, his hands looked like dead squid.

Moving toward the woman’s hiding place, Cain slipped the thumbs into a sandwich bag and dropped them in a pocket.

“People have to learn to take their trash home with them, Mabel.” If there was anything that got his goat even more than motor homes it was the irresponsible and harmful littering George had been engaged in. Bad enough that he destroyed the picturesque beauty of the desert with this huge beast—but then he deposited its shit before he left. “Maybe if George wasn’t so indiscriminate with his garbage, I wouldn’t have had to call on you and teach you such a valuable lesson.”

“You killed Daddy because there were no trash cans?”

“Yes. And for his ridiculous taste in vehicles.”

“You’re insane!” Mabel shrieked.

“No, Mabel. I’m angry.”

“You killed Daddy!”

“Yes.”

He stooped down, pulled her from beneath the counter. She slid out as boneless as an oyster from the shell. Cain didn’t like oysters. Didn’t like anything boneless.

He rapped a knuckle on her head. Just to be sure. The clunk was only partway reassuring.

“How old are you, Mabel? Seventy? Eighty?”

Her turquoise-framed spectacles lent an extra dimension to her incredulous blink. Confusion reigned, terror tamped down by befuddlement. Her mouth drooped. At least she’d stopped screaming.

“I wouldn’t ask, but it is pertinent,” Cain said.

“Eighty-three.” Saliva popped at the back of her throat.

“Hmmm. Quite elderly.” Cain gripped her shoulder. He kneaded with a masseur’s skill. “Frail under all that padding. I bet you suffer from arthritis, eh?”

She showed him her misshapen knuckles.

“Thought that might be the case.” His sigh sounded genuinely remorseful. “What about osteoporosis?”

He was offering hope, and she wasn’t so distraught that she didn’t recognize it. Even after such a long life, when faced with dismemberment, an octogenarian can still desire further years. “I’m riddled with it. I only have to sneeze and I can break a rib.”

“Doesn’t bode well.”

“What do you want from us?”

“Nothing.”

“You cut off Daddy’s thumbs…”

“I did, Mabel. I have a purpose for them. But you needn’t fear. You have nothing that I want.”

“Thank the good Lord!” Mabel sobbed.

“But only for small mercies,” Cain concluded as he slipped the knife back in his pocket. He didn’t require a knife when dealing with an invertebrate. The heel of his shoe would be all he’d need.

Ten minutes later he was back on the road.

The Mercedes SUV he drove made a fine chariot. Interstate 10 stretched out before him, an umbilical cord drawing him ever westward, toward the fertile stalking-grounds of Los Angeles.

Billy Joel was cranked high on the SUV’s CD player. A window open so that the warm breeze ruffled Cain’s fair hair. He was a happy man. Beside him on the passenger seat were the tools of his trade, flagrantly displayed in total disregard of law or common sense. If someone saw them, well, so what? A cop died as easy as any man did.

With that thought in mind, he reached over and lifted the flap of the pouch. Inside was an array of knives, scalpels, and other cutting utensils.
Tap
,
tap
,
tap
. He danced a finger over the dozen or so hilts.
Tap
. Rested momentarily on the sturdy hilt of a Bowie knife.

“Ah, sweet baby,” he said. Such fond memories.

A would-be knife fighter back east in Jacksonville had bestowed the knife upon him. What unashamed southern generosity. Such a polite man, too.

“You’re going to have to take it from me first, sir,” he’d offered.

“Gladly,” Tubal Cain had agreed.

The blade was broad and easily a foot long. Whenever it was thrust into flesh, it made a satisfying
thunk!
A firm favorite for instilling fear in the hearts of his victims. Sadly, it lacked finesse. If carnage was your only desire, then fine. Ever the artist, he preferred a little more delicacy to his cutting.

Now this was more to his liking. Black plastic hilt, slim and unadorned. Grasping it lightly, he teased out the cutting edge. Muted moonbeams played on a curved, very utilitarian blade backed by saw-toothed serrations. Beautiful in its simplicity. It was a fish-scaling knife acquired during a northern foray to Nova Scotia. The blade had seen employment on a number of occasions since, but never on anything so mundane as trout or salmon.

Happy with his choice, he pulled the scaling knife free and held it up for closer inspection. With a thumb, he tested its keenness. “As keen as I am, eh?”

The knife went into an inside pocket of his sports jacket.

Billy Joel was winding down, Christie Brinkley demanding his full attention. The CDs spread over the passenger seat beckoned. Cain selected a Robbie Williams disc: Stoke-on-Trent’s best-known export doing his best to capture the cool of Sinatra and not doing a half-bad job. He changed the CD, then bobbed his head along with the tempo swinging from the speakers.

“My kind of music,” he whispered. An aptly named track—a cover of “Mack the Knife.” He cut lazy figures of eight into the air with his right hand. Like conducting a big band, but instead of a bandleader’s baton he imagined a blade in his hand. With each swing of the music, he cut another strip of meat from a faceless victim.

“Swing while you’re sinning.” He grinned. A nod toward the title of the album.

THAT EVENING, AFTER THE EPISODE WITH SHANK, I RETURNED
home to a house in darkness. Nothing new there. It’s been like that since Diane and I divorced.

The auction car wasn’t registered to me, so I was happy to leave it in place. A cab took me to the lock-up garage I used, so it was my other car, an Audi A6, I parked on the tree-lined street. My two dogs, Hector and Paris, were inside the house, and I could just make out their forms as they pressed their noses to the glass doors leading to the patio. I must have made an indistinct shadow against the deeper night. Hector, largest of my German shepherds, huffed once, then I watched as the two dogs became animated.

I was conscious of disturbing my neighbors, but it was pointless trying to be quiet; Hector and Paris were making enough racket to wake the neighborhood. I pushed open the patio door. Instantly I was assaulted by twin black-and-tan whirlwinds. We went through a round of play fighting before the dogs would obey my command to sit.

As always, the TV cabinet became a receptacle for my car keys and wallet. It was a habit my ex-wife used to frown upon. It was only
one of the many things that annoyed her before our split. Probably the very least of them.

Sometimes I wished Diane were still there to keep me right, but she wasn’t. As soon as I tendered my resignation from the army, the death knell for our marriage was rung. Probably she understood me in a way that I never could. Physically I’d resigned, but mentally?

“Married men can’t just rush off, placing themselves in life-threatening situations all the time,” Diane told me the night she left.

“So you want me to sit at home and die of boredom?” I demanded.

“No, Joe.” She’d shaken her head sadly. “I just don’t want to be the one who has to bury you.”

Diane wanted someone she could grow old with. Understandable, but it wasn’t something I could promise her. I’m way too impulsive for that. My promise to Jenny was nagging at me to get going. I wanted to make a start with some phone calls.

The clock on the wall had to be telling lies. Not too late, though, I decided. Hector and Paris ran out into the backyard. I followed them, pulling out my cell phone. Four years on, I still had Diane’s number on speed dial.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Simon,” I said, concealing any trace of jealousy. “Can I speak to Diane?”

Diane’s very safe, office-bound husband grunted, muttered something unintelligible, but handed over the phone.

“What do you want, Joe?”

“I’m going away,” I told her.

There was a momentary hitch in her voice. “So why are you telling me?”

“Thought you might want to wave me off at the airport.”

I heard her sigh. “I already did that. Too many times.”

It was my turn to sigh.

“Can you take the dogs for me for a few days?”

“Simon has allergies,” she said.

“Shit,” I said. “Isn’t it a good job we never had kids?”

Her silence said everything.

“I’m sorry, Diane. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, Joe. You shouldn’t have.” In the background, Simon was whispering something. “Simon said we can take them, but they’ll have to stay in the shed.”

My dogs were gamboling around the yard, play fighting among the rhododendrons. Full of life.

“So long as they’re exercised they’ll be fine,” I said.

“Okay, then.”

“I’ll drop them off in the morning,” I said.

“No,” Diane said, way too quickly for my liking. “I’ll come there with Simon.”

Then she hung up.

With the dogs sorted, I returned indoors, settled into an armchair, and dialed a number in Tampa, Florida.

“Hey, Hunter, what’s up?”

Jared Rington’s voice is a rich southern drawl that always reminds me of that guitar-playing wedding suitor in the John Wayne movie
The Searchers.
He has the honky-tonk twang of a country-and-western singer, which always surprises people; it’s a strange anomaly coming from a mixed parentage of Japanese mother and Scottish father.

“You busy with anything, Rink?”

“Got my heel planted on a weasel as we speak,” Rink said.

“I take it you’re speaking metaphorically?”

“Uh-huh,” Rink said. “I just gotta finish up a little one-on-one business with my client, then I’m all yours.”

“So what’s the deal? Anything exciting?”

“Nothing startling. Guy paid me to do a little eyeball on his wife.
He grew suspicious when she started doing too much overtime at work. Thought she could be playin’ away from home.”

“Maybe she was just after more money,” I offered.

“Yeah, you might say she was after a raise.” Rink chuckled. “I got the goods on her last night. Filmed her giving head to her boss in the back of his limousine.”

“So you just have to hand over the evidence and that’s you finished?” I asked.

“More or less, yeah. Anyways, what’s up?” Rink asked. “You haven’t rung for the sake of idle chitchat. That’s not the Joe Hunter I know and love.”

“I’ve got a job for you…if you’re interested?”

“Uh-huh.” It could’ve been agreement, but more likely he was waiting for more.

“Could be a long story,” I told him.

“Fire away, it’s your dime.”

It was so still I could have been in a mausoleum. But habit caused a quick over-the-shoulder glance to make sure I was alone.

“I’m going to be coming out there,” I told him.

“Out here? As in Florida?”

“Well, yeah, I was thinking of stopping over a day or so, but then I have to get myself to Little Rock, Arkansas.”

“My old stomping ground?”

“It’s why you’re the man for the job.”

“You think I’m a tour guide all of a sudden? Get yourself a map.” Good-natured sarcasm was rich in his drawl. How anyone could dislike Rink is a mystery. What’s not to like about a sarcastic curmudgeon?

“Local knowledge is half the battle,” I told him.

“I ain’t been home in eight years, Hunter. Don’t know how up to date my local knowledge’ll be.”

“How much can Arkansas have changed in eight years?” I asked. “It’s not like it’s the center of American culture.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it’s simply rednecks in pickup trucks, either,” Rink said, sounding exactly like a redneck in a pickup truck. “They’re as cultured as anyplace else, Hunter. They know the difference between Paris, France, and Paris Hilton.”

“It’ll do you good to get yourself back there, then.”

Rink chuckled. “So what’s the deal?”

“Missing person,” I said.

“That all? I thought it was going to be something exciting.”

“There’s more. The missing person is my brother.”

“You mean John?”

“Yeah. He’s finally surfaced, only to drop off the face of the earth again.” I gripped the phone tight. “I’m worried, Rink.”

“You know what guys are like. He’s probably gotten himself drunk, picked up a coupla hookers, an’ is holed up in a motel someplace,” Rink said. “Give him a day or two an’ he’ll be home with his tail between his legs.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “And with John it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You guys had a big falling out. Why you lookin’ for him now?”

“He’s in trouble,” I said.

“Always was.”

“I’m not doing this for him,” I lied. “My sister-in-law asked me to find him. I promised her I would.”

“Figures.” Seems like Diane wasn’t the only one who could read me from a thousand paces. Rink asked, “So is he skipping out on the alimony?”

“He has for years,” I said. “But that’s not what this is about. Yeah, there’re kids involved, but it all goes a lot deeper than that.”

“Pray tell,” Rink said. It sounded like a car engine burst into life, the sound only slightly muffled by the intervening thousands of miles.

“You driving, Rink?”

“Just setting off. But you can keep on talking; I got a twenty-
minute drive. Just ignore me if my language gets foul, but the I-75’s a bitch even at this hour.”

Rink maneuvered his Porsche through the Florida traffic. My runin with Shank and his goons was just another war story to us. The creative use of a seat belt as a noose won me kudos. So did the fact that two major assholes would be walking with crutches for a while.

I got around to the note from John’s current girlfriend and the plea made by Jennifer. My promise to help.

“You always were a soft touch, Hunter,” Rink said. “Never could turn down a damsel in distress.”

“She’s also my sister-in-law,” I reminded him.

“Sister nothing. If you’d never met her before, you’d still be coming out here.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Diane,” I said.

“Your lady was right in a lot of respects,” he pointed out.

“Even Diane would understand this time. It is my brother we’re talking about.”

“No argument from me, Hunter.”

Even if I didn’t crave the kind of action that keeps me alive, I couldn’t turn my back on my brother. For all that the last time we spoke, I threatened to punch his face.

“You’ve missed him, huh?”

“Like a hole in the head.”

It was a good place to lighten the conversation. “So how’s the Sunshine State?”

“A contradiction in terms, my man. Rain’s coming down in torrents. Third day in a row. They sure don’t show that on no ‘Come to sunny Florida’ TV ads, do they?”

“I’ll pack for the weather, Rink. But can you set me up with the necessaries?” Mentioning a key word—particularly
gun
—over the telephone is never a good idea. Especially since 9/11. Conspiracy theories aside, all kinds of enigmatic government establishments known
for their acronyms are tapping phones for just such words. I know. I’ve been there. Last thing I wanted was to land in Florida, then get a one-way trip to Guantánamo Bay.

Rink said, “Leave it to me. You want I get you a couple of day passes to Universal Studios?”

“Best you do. Hopefully I’ll have a little time for sightseeing; I don’t want to be wasting time queuing.” More code.
Universal
was a cipher. It meant the entire package: passport, Social Security number, driving documents, credit cards, the business.

“Sounds like we could be in for some fun, Hunter.”

“Fun isn’t the half of it,” I said.