The Old Gray Wolf (34 page)

“Right.” The Granite Creek chief of police rummaged around in his pockets, found a package of Tums, and crunched a couple of the white disks. “But we do this according to plan. I'll jerk the driver's-side door open. If this outlaw's dead, fine and dandy. But if he puts up a fight, we settle his hash once and for all.”

As they strode away into the darkness, Charlie Moon stayed firmly put. How firmly? Like century-old lichen attached to a gritty granite boulder. Ignoring the GMC pickup, Parris's stalwart deputy continued his survey of a distant spot in the parking lot.
Any minute now, all hell's gonna break loose
.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

MEETING THE REAL MCCOY COWBOY

The reference is to that breed of boot-leather-tough hombre who works sullen longhorn cattle, rides snorty quarter horses hell-for-leather across the dusty prairie, packs a sure-enough Colt six-gun on his slender hip, and can put a .44 round dead center between a rustler's bloodshot eyes at thirty-six yards—while both shooter and shootee are in the saddle, their mounts at a dead run. (Exit wound.)

As Chief Parris and Trooper Jackson approached the GMC tailgate like the sinister shadow-men they were, a thin sliver of waxing moon provided sufficient light to illuminate their vehicular target.

Per plan, the state cop positioned himself near the passenger door.

Parris crouched uncomfortably by the driver's side, .38 snub-nose revolver in his right hand.

Despite the deputy's confident prediction of the pickup driver's harmless state, the lawmen realized that this showdown might be the
grande finale
for either or both of them. They began to harbor doubts … and corresponding apprehensions.

Officer Jackson:
If Charlie Moon is wrong about this outlaw being shot—he's liable to take one of us down before the other one stops his clock.
The state trooper felt ashamed for hoping that he would have the clock-stopping privilege. Even cold-blooded cops who're aptly nicknamed “Ice-Eyes” look forward to the next sunrise.

Scott Parris's concerns were somewhat more mundane:
If the pickup doors are locked, my plan ain't gonna work.
Which prospect suggested a fate worse than death by bloody bullet holes …
I'll look really stupid.
Untimely end or acute embarrassment, there was nothing to do now but forge ahead.
What's keeping Jackson?
Parris signaled by cocking his Smith & Wesson Police Special. The sharp click sounded like a dry stick breaking in an uninhabited forest where trees fall unheard. Parris put his left hand on the GMC door handle.

Jackson tapped the truck with his Glock, and said in a disinterested monotone, “Police—open up.”

The chief of police jerked the driver's-side door open and pointed his sidearm into the cab, which was now illumined by a bright dome light. Scott Parris's intended target held no weapon in his cold, stiffening hand. “All clear, Jackson.” He stuffed his revolver back into the shoulder holster.

The state trooper opened the opposite door and got a look inside.

Sitting in a puddle of sticky blood on the passenger-side floorboard, the man with a small-caliber-bullet hole in his throat looked straight ahead with a mildly puzzled expression … like a tuckered-out old cowpuncher who'd finally arrived at the end of his trail and didn't know what to do next.

Suitably impressed with Charlie Moon's remarkable powers of prognostication, the state cop muttered, “Well. I'll be drowned in a muddy ditch and hung out to dry.”

Parris frowned at the specimen. “It's an old geezer in a cowboy hat.”

Jackson: “And he sure does
look
dead.”

Enough said.

No, hold on a minute. Someone else is about to express himself.

“If I'm not wrong, the corpse you're looking at is what's left of a famous ex-Texas Ranger.” (It would appear that the lichen has come unstuck from the boulder.) His dark-eyed gaze still raking the far side of the parking lot, Charlie Moon had eased within three paces of the chief of police.

“Ray Smithson?” Parris shook his head.
A sure-enough Ranger always hits what he aims at—and he don't
never ever
tell a lie.
“It can't be, Charlie—Smithson told me he was going fishing.”

“I expect he was,” the deputy said. “But not in his favorite West Texas creek.” The keen-eyed Ute thought he saw a flicker of movement in the distant shadows.
Or maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.
“Ray Smithson must've come to Granite Creek to fish around for information about a suspicious stranger who'd showed up in town—some unlikely tourist who was asking too many of the wrong kinds of questions. If Smithson got lucky, he would've set a hook into the hired gun Mrs. Hooten had sent to Granite Creek.” That was, after all, the line of work the retired Texas Ranger angler knew best.

Parris could see some sense in Moon's notion. “Ol' Ranger Ray would've done whatever was necessary to protect his granddaughter.”

“That's a fact,” Moon said. “And the best way to do that was to keep a close eye on Louella Smithson's back. Smithson must've spotted his granddaughter's old Bronco this evening and followed it to Patsy's house.”

This assertion by Moon raised a pertinent question. Though he hated to nitpick, Parris asked it: “But why would Smithson's own granddaughter shoot him, Charlie—and over a parking spot?”

“It don't seem very likely, does it?” Charlie Moon saw it again. Movement in the semidarkness.
That could be the Cowboy I'm looking for.

Scott Parris was not born yesterday, and the Ute's theory about the dead man's being the famous ex-Texas ranger from Plainview, Texas, seemed like an awfully far reach.
Charlie Moon could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo.
After a doubtful glance at his enigmatic deputy, Parris went to check out a piece of allegedly supporting evidence. Squatting by the GMC pickup's front bumper, he narrowed his blue eyes. No surprise.
That's a Texas plate all right.
But that didn't prove that the driver was Ray Smithson. W
hat with these two conventions, I bet there are a dozen Texas pickups in the parking lot.
Which raised another pertinent question:
So how could Charlie be so danged sure that—

Why did Scott Parris not complete this thought? Because the solution to the conundrum was about ten inches from his nose. His gaze had been drawn to the license plate's mounting frame, which advertised the name of a GMC–Chevrolet dealer in
Plainview
. The chief of police shook his head and grinned.
Ol' Charlie don't miss a trick, and he's gone and done it again.
As he grunted himself up from the painful squat, Granite Creek's heavyweight top cop opened his mouth to congratulate his clever deputy—when Charlie Moon uttered two electrifying words.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

A BRIEF BUT MEMORABLE ENCOUNTER

So what were the deputy's two electrifying words? “Over there.”

Not much as phrases go, but the effect was no less than …
kilovoltic
.

Charlie Moon aimed his forefinger at the far end of the Holiday Inn parking lot. A dome light had just flashed on, suggesting that someone had opened a car door. As the door was closed with a barely audible click, the light went out. An ordinary enough event in a parked automobile, but the longtime Ute lawman's
that's it
instinct had kicked in. The Indian uttered two more words that sparked his companions into instant action: “Let's go.”

About sixty paces away, they observed one of those despicable mixed metaphors that set the teeth on edge: a sleek sedan beetling along, lights out—at a snail's pace.

As the formidable trio of lawmen strode along shoulder-to-shoulder, Moon addressed the big, brawny town cop on his left: “Please leave that little .38 in your shoulder holster, Scott—don't use it unless you absolutely have to.”

That don't make any sense.
“Why should I—”

“Because we need to take this suspect alive.” That was not quite a half-truth, and Moon added another fraction that still didn't quite bring the sum up to a whole
one
: “It's important that you don't fire a shot.” Moon knew that the Granite Creek mayor was just itching to rid himself of Scott Parris and any old excuse would do.
If you kill somebody that's suspected of murdering your sweetheart, your days as chief of police will be numbered.
Ignoring his friend's grumbling protest, Moon turned his head to mumble to Officer Jackson, “If the driver so much as lays a finger on a firearm, you know what to do.”

Ice-Eyes did and could and would—and he could hardly
wait
. His expression was that of a little boy about to open a gift on Christmas morning.
This is turning out better than I'd hoped.

Indeed, things might have turned out just fine, but at precisely the worst possible moment, a GCPD black-and-white pulled into the parking lot behind the hotel—emergency lights flashing.

At this jarring development, the suspect sedan stopped dead still. As they might've said back in olden times when five cents was serious money, “on a half dime.”

How a human being under pressure can just
know
things remains one of those murky mysteries well beyond our ken, but Charlie Moon
knew
that the driver was trying to decide whether to hide in the shadows or make a mad dash for it. The gambling man hoped for a compromise choice, and suggested it to the suspect …
Ease away real slow—like you had nowhere in particular to go and all night to get there.
Which would give the Indian time to come up with a plan. He picked up his pace.
But if you're not inclined to hang around—don't drive away like some little old lady on her way to church—make a run for it and don't stop for hell or high water!
That way, the perp would run right into one of the roadblocks.

Even before Moon offered this telepathic advice to the driver in the immobile automobile, Parris and Jackson had turned to wave the errant cop car to a stop.

As they did, the suspect sedan began to ease away at a doodlebug crawl.

Moon grinned.
That's it … don't go breaking any speed limits just yet—not till I get close enough to—
To do what? The unarmed deputy did not have the least germ of an idea.

But his right hand and his lean legs did.

Without looking back or giving the least thought to the possible consequences of his reckless actions, the keyed-up Ute picked up a big chunk of loose asphalt and broke into a hard run—directly at the sedan that was pulling away toward the far side of the hotel. This less-than-subtle approach did not go unnoticed by the other party.

When the driver saw the long-legged man running like he was about to break a record for the hundred-yard dash, a reaction occurred that the sprinter had not expected. The automobile turned abruptly and headed directly
at
Charlie Moon—picking up speed as the distance between them closed.

Having no desire to play moth with the automobile's gleaming grille, the hopeful athlete stopped in his tracks and did what any red-blooded American sports fan would do: he assumed the classic pitcher's stance, wound up like a seasoned pro, whispered a three-word prayer, unleashed his best knuckleball at the vehicle with all his strength, and slipped—no, not to fall down like Scott Parris had in the icy supermarket parking lot; Moon slipped between two parked cars. And just as the asphalt missile connected with the oncoming sedan's windshield—which shattered white with a jumbo-size spider crack.

Understandably startled by this unforeseen development, the driver lost control of the sleek motor vehicle, which promptly careened into a sturdy-as-the-Rock-of-Gibraltar concrete base of a twenty-four-foot-tall light pole, which steel reed began to swing back and forth like a coconut palm in a tropical storm.

Moon gritted his teeth at the sound of the collision. The poker player figured the odds at ninety-nine to one that he knew who was behind the wheel of the totaled product of a Detroit assembly line. But …
With my luck, Cowboy drove away ten minutes ago and this'll turn out to be a hotshot Philadelphia trial lawyer on vacation who hates Colorado cops and his great-great-granddaddy was scalped by a Ute Indian.
Moreover (Moon imagined), the attorney would have …
a perfect record of suing halfwit deputies for every dime they've got socked away and all the real estate they own and then some.

Which extravagant image, as one might expect, did not accurately depict the driver of the wrecked sedan.

Nevertheless, things were about to get more than moderately interesting for Mr. Moon and his two lawman comrades, who had lost interest in the GCPD black-and-white with the still-flashing lights. The state trooper and the chief of police were rapidly closing in on the scene of the serious motor-vehicle accident—for which Scott Parris's unpredictable deputy was entirely responsible.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

IT AIN'T OVER TILL—

The point is, the assassin for hire in the wrecked rental car was neither dead nor seriously injured. One might rightly assign credit (or blame?) for this outcome to the well-designed air bag that had exploded from the steering wheel at the instant of impact, thereby protecting the driver from the full force of the tooth-jarring, eyeball-popping collision. This unhappy outcome will be no great surprise to those erudites among us who are informed by numerous “thrillers”; such literary scholars know all too well that extremely dangerous villains are never dead when by all rights they should be. Those bloodthirsty brutes are not only
very much alive
—they are ready, willing, and able to create serious mischief before their eventual demise at the hand of the good guy.