Short Money (38 page)

Crow rolled into a crouch, gun in both hands, looking for Ricky.

At first, he didn’t know what he was seeing.

Steve Anderson had his arms wrapped around Ricky, wrestling with him. It looked like the last drunken dance of the night, but there was no music, and Ricky was squirming frantically. Crow saw Ricky’s hand come around with the gun, slap it against the side of Anderson’s head. An explosion. Anderson screamed, grabbed his ear. Ricky stepped back, locked his eyes on Crow, and raised his revolver.

Crow fired. The lead slug flattened against Ricky’s oversize brass belt buckle, sent him staggering back toward the corner. He seemed to recover, raised his gun. Crow was about to fire again when an orange-and-white shape rose up behind Ricky. In a gesture that looked like love, the tiger reached out with a plate-size paw, wrapped it around Ricky’s waist, drew him back. It seemed to happen slowly, Ricky rotating in the tiger’s embrace as if to return it, narrow eyes widened to almonds, then going rigid as the tiger tipped its head to the side, gently kissed the base of Ricky’s throat, and released him.

A jet of bright crimson arced across the room, spattering the windows.

Ricky dropped his gun, clapped both hands to his neck, and spun, hosing down a ten-foot-diameter semicircle with arterial blood. He staggered away from the tiger as it stood watching, its instinct telling it that the food would soon stop moving and could be more conveniently devoured at a later time. Ricky dropped to his knees, his eyes rolled up, and he fell facefirst into a gathering pool of red.

Anderson had fallen to his side, both hands cupped over his left ear. A high-pitched gasping, keening sound came from his mouth, providing an eerie sound track for the scene.

George Murphy climbed to his feet. He made a low sound in his throat and started toward Ricky, his eyes on the revolver still gripped in his brother’s hand. Crow watched, wondering whether the tiger was about to kill two Murphys in one day. George stopped himself before reaching the perimeter of the tiger’s territory. He looked back at Crow, his face gone slack.

Crow shrugged as if to say, Hey, this wasn’t what I had in mind.

He heard a muffled, frantic sound. Getter, who had managed to worm his way almost to the door, was staring wide-eyed at something behind Crow, trying to shout through the gag in his mouth. Crow spun and found himself facing Shawn Murphy, who was armed with a small-caliber rifle, pointing it at Crow’s midsection from six feet away. His face was dead white but for two red disks glowing on his cheeks. The boy’s entire body shook, the end of the rifle barrel moving an inch or more with each tremor of his arms, but at six feet he could shake all he wanted and still make a hole in Joe Crow.

Crow looked back at George. “If he shoots that gun, I’ll kill him,” he said.

“You put that gun down, Shawn,” George Murphy said. Shawn looked at his father, breathing fast and hard. “Now!” George said.

The rifle fell from the boy’s hands, hit the rug with a dull thud. Shawn sidled away from Crow, then broke and ran to his father. George wrapped his arms around his son. He looked at Getter, then at Crow, then at Anderson.

Still making the strange throat noises, Anderson had managed to stand up. He brought his hands down, looked at them. No blood.

Crow said, “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Are you hurt?”

Anderson shook his head. “I can’t hear you.” He started toward the door, hesitated, grabbed the unfinished elk mount, and dragged it after him. They watched him leave.

“What was that about?” Crow asked.

George Murphy just shook his head. Getter was squirming again, trying to talk. Regretfully, Crow bent over and slowly pulled the red kerchief from Getter’s distended mouth.

Getter worked his swollen lips. “Ah dose my clothes?” he said to Crow.

Crow looked at the slimy piece of cloth in his hand and briefly considered putting it back where he’d found it. He looked over at George.

“I still want that Nelly Bell,” George said.

“Get in line,” Crow said.

George Murphy scowled. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

G. Wayne Zizzi, eight-year veteran of airport security at Hubert H. Humphrey International Terminal, was having one of his best days ever. He’d started out, ten o’clock that morning, by spotting a flick knife in a teenager’s carry-on. A lot of guys wouldn’t have spotted it on account of it was sitting at this weird angle in the kid’s bag, but stuff like that didn’t get past Zizzi. They’d finally let the kid go after confiscating the blade. Zizzi got to add the knife to his personal collection. Then an hour later, he’d got a joker, one of these guys that says some dumb-ass thing like, “You better take a good look in there. I might be the mad bomber of Minneapolis.”

Guy like that, Zizzi took personal pleasure in helping him miss his flight.

Early afternoon, he’d spotted another knife. Turned out it was a kitchen knife, a present for this guy’s sister in Toronto. Couldn’t let it on the plane, though. The guy was pissed. They made him check it through baggage.

Days like this, Zizzi really loved his job. Felt like he was doing some good. Protecting people.

Mostly, though, it had been a pretty boring eight years. Looking at X-rays of people’s luggage, it got so you knew what you were going to see just about every time. People were predictable.

Another thirty-five minutes until his next break.

He stared at the screen, at the ghosts of disposable razors, lipstick, car keys, compacts, belt buckles. …He’d gotten so good at it, he didn’t really have to think about what he was seeing. Another bag moved into view.

Zizzi stopped the belt, backed it up.

He could feel the hair rising on his neck.

Here was something he had never seen before. Except in training films.

Zizzi looked up at the man standing at the end of the belt, waiting patiently for his bag. Not a big man, not particularly dangerous looking in that prissy leather cowboy shirt. Reminded him of Roy Rogers, only his nose was all swollen and he had a bandage over his upper lip. Could be a disguise.

Zizzi looked back at the screen, at what appeared to be a machine pistol with a full clip. A TEC-9, or maybe a MAC. One of those little machine pistols.

This is a biggie, thought Zizzi as he flipped on the silent alarm switch on his belt radio. This one’s gonna make my day.

I like outlaws better’n in-laws.

—ORLAN JOHNSON

O
RLAN JOHNSON TIPPED BACK
a beer, swallowed, belched. He waved his cigar in the air.

“Y’know something,” he said. “I always thought you was an all right guy, H.”

Harley Pike’s head flopped forward, then back. “Me too,” he said, sucking on one of Johnson’s El Productos. He was having trouble keeping it lit. He reached for his beer, found it already in his hand, poured another ounce into his mouth.

Johnson slapped his hand on his thigh. “Is jus’ too got-damn bad we wound up on opposi’ sides a th’ law, y’know?”

“Uh,” said Harley. He would have passed out a long time ago if it were not for the novelty of playing host to Big River’s number one cop. He was having trouble keeping his eyes pointed in the same direction.

“I got to tell you, you folks, you know how t’ live. Got-damn Hill, she won’t even let me smoke in my own got-damn house, you know what I mean?”

Puss turned up the TV.

Harley said, “Uh?”

“I mean, you know what I mean?”

Harley opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“Got-damn right,” said Johnson.

“I want to talk to my lawyer,” repeated Dr. Nelson Bellweather. “I don’t know where that gun came from. I don’t know anything. I want to call my lawyer.”

He was sitting in a white room, about the same size as one of the examination rooms at his clinic. Correction. His former clinic. With the two airport security guards, each of them weighing as much as a razorback hog, the room felt very small. So far, they hadn’t gone for the rubber hoses, but they weren’t exactly looking out for his rights.

The dumb-looking one with the cold sore on his lip, the one named Zizzi, was enjoying himself. His phlegmatic partner, Al, watched disinterestedly.

“Please remove your shirt and pants, sir,” said Zizzi.

“I want my lawyer. I’m not doing anything until I talk to my lawyer,” Bellweather said, thinking that the thirty thousand dollars in his boots wouldn’t do anything to improve his situation.

“Please remove your shirt and pants, sir,” repeated Zizzi.

Or maybe, he thought, it will get me out of here.

“Just a second,” he said. “Let me ask you guys something. How much money do you take home every month?”

Zizzi and Al looked at each other.

“What are you trying to say, sir?” asked Zizzi.

Bellweather took a deep breath. There was simply no elegant way to do this.

“I’d like to offer you boys a bonus. Say five thousand apiece?”

Zizzi ran his tongue over his teeth. “Let’s see it,” he said.

Bellweather hiked up his pant leg, reached into his boot.

Five minutes later, he was standing bare-ass naked before the two uniformed men, the money stacked neatly in a metal basket along with his watch, wallet, neck chain, and passport. He couldn’t believe they were doing this to him, and said as much to Zizzi, who shrugged and pointed his thumb toward the corner of the room, where, Bellweather noticed for the first time, a wide-angle video camera was pointed directly at them. Bellweather felt sick. No wonder they hadn’t gone for the bribe.

“And what else do you have to show us, Mr. Bellweather?” Zizzi inquired politely.

Bellweather, caught between fury and despair, could only goggle at him.

“Mr. Bellweather?”

“What? What more do you want? Do you think I have a bomb up my asshole or something?”

Zizzi smiled, pulled a disposable rubber glove from a dispenser on the wall, turned to his partner, Al. “You hear that, Al? He said something about a bomb up his asshole.”

I figure H. is good for another three, four years before something blows out on him. Most likely, his brain’ll go before his liver or heart. It’s, like, his weakest link, you know what I mean?

—GLORIA SCHWEP

G
LORIA SCHWEP, AKA PUSS
, wearing leather chaps and a down vest, was standing outside the trailer, smoking a cigarette, when Crow and Getter bounced across the field on the sputtering Polaris. Crow parked the snowmobile, waved at Puss, then noticed Orlan Johnson’s squad car parked on the highway behind his Jaguar. “Uh-oh,” he said.

A shivering, blue-lipped Dave Getter, dressed only in his torn and bloodied suit, looked up from his seat on the snowmobile.

“Whad’s a madder?”

“It seems like we’ve got some company.” He looked at Puss, pointed at the cop car, raised his eyebrows. She jerked a thumb toward the trailer. Crow walked over to her. Getter stood up and followed, looking hopefully toward the mobile home.

“I’m code,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Crow asked.

“It’s a mite close in there, but you can take a look,” Puss said. “You won’t believe it.”

Crow opened the door and stepped into the trailer. The warm air was palpable with alcohol, cigarette smoke, and a melange of unpleasant human excretions. Getter crowded past him and put his hands over the propane heater. Harley was passed out, propped up in the corner of the built-in bed. Orlan Johnson had achieved a similar state, his corpulent body laid out across Harley’s legs. Both men were snoring heroically, lips flapping visibly with each expelled breath.

“I just wish I had a camera,” said Puss.

The man with the bloody dish towel wrapped around his right hand wanted to talk. His name, he said, was Bott. He grinned and knocked himself on the forehead with a knuckle. It made a hollow sound, something like bott!

“Messed up my hand,” Bott said with a forced laugh. Bott was a tough guy. Only his dead-white face and the sweat beading on his forehead gave him away.

Crow nodded sympathetically.

“The wife dumped another fork down the In-sink-erator.”

Crow wasn’t sure what an “Insinkerator” was, but he nodded.

“I hadda dig for it. Get my feelers down in there, the bitch hits the goddamn switch.” He pushed out his jaw. “I been sitting here half an hour, waitin’ to get it looked at.”

“That’s rough.”

“So what’re you in for?” Bott asked.

“Brother-in-law,” Crow said. “He’s in there getting his nose fixed.”

“Yeah? Car accident?”

“Not exactly,” Crow replied.

“You punch him? I got a brother-in-law I’d sure as hell like to bust his nose.” Bott looked at his In-sink-erated hand. “Only maybe not just now.”

Crow saw Mary enter the emergency room, coat unbuttoned, hair roughly and badly combed, purse dangling carelessly from one hand. He stood and waved, grateful for the interruption. She stopped in the middle of the lobby, feet spread too far apart, and waited for him to approach.

Crow put a hand on her shoulder. She leaned into it, and he embraced her awkwardly.

“He’s all right, Mary,” he said, wondering which Mary he was embracing. “They’re taking care of him now, getting his nose packed and taped, cleaning the salt out of his thigh.”

“Salt?” She pulled away, touched her hair with a shaking hand.

“He was shot, but the gun was only loaded with rock salt.”

“He was shot?”

“It was just salt. He’s fine. Let’s sit down.”

“My God, he was
shot?
”

Crow led her to a pair of empty plastic chairs near the television. Mary’s eyes drifted, then locked onto the TV screen.

“I’ve seen this show,” she said.

“What is it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you want to know what happened?”

She shook her head. They sat for a few minutes, watching the figures move across the screen. Mary looked at her watch. “How long do you think they’ll be?”

“I don’t know.” He waited. “Are you going to tell me where she is?”

“Who?”

“Melinda.”

Mary bit her lip, keeping her eyes on the television. “She doesn’t want to see you right now.”