“Hey, mister,” Rebecca yelled.
Sand looked back over his shoulder.
“Don’t you want a trick or nothing?”
He kept walking. A man was a fool with his money, he knew. He spent it. He threw it away. He bet on lost causes and hardly ever won. But what good was a few dollars? He would die long before he was broke. When Sand reached the end of the block, he turned around to look for the girl.
Rebecca had left with daybreak.
The darkness turned gray. The night was leaving against its will. The bad side of Durango was waking up but in no hurry to face either the storm, the snow, or a new day. The drunks were sleeping off the after effects of cheap whiskey. The sober were itching for another drink.
Common laborers, wearing faded overalls, frayed but heavy overcoats, and brogans, gathered on street corners waiting to see if anyone had a job and needed a hired hand for the day. The dice throwers were moving back into the alleys. The drug dealers were out cruising the streets in their convertibles. The tops were no longer down.
Sand recognized them all. They might have different faces, different names, and live in different cities, but they were all the same, stalkers who preyed on the weak and would steal a cripple’s crutch for a dollar bet or a ten-dollar sale.
Sand eased into a small breakfast diner and sat down at the counter. He was facing the front door. A newspaper boy whistled his way across the street, and an elderly lady paused to read a tattered menu taped to the window. Neither looked suspicious although he knew old women kept handguns in the strangest of places and would kill a stranger for fifty dollars, less if she were hungry. Once they left, the sidewalk was empty. And the snow had erased their wet footprints.
A tall, thin man with a wart on his chin and a hook nose was breaking egg shells and pouring the yolk into a bowl of butter, pepper, and salt. He nodded. He was chewing on a toothpick. “You’re up early,” he said.
“That makes two of us.” Sand fastened the top button of his windbreaker while drops of rainwater speckled the floor.
Hawk nose grinned. “I didn’t get no sleep last night,” he said.
“That makes two of us.”
Hawk nose laughed. “I had a lady with me,” he said.
“That makes one of us.”
“What can I get you?” Hawk Nose wanted to know.
“Eggs.” Sand thought a moment, then added, “Fried. Sunny side up.”
“Around here,” Hawk Nose said, “you get ‘em scrambled, or you go hungry.”
“You have Tabasco sauce?”
“By the barrel.”
“Scrambled is fine.”
Sand picked up a newspaper and scanned the front page.
“It’s two days old,” Hawk Nose said.
“It’s news to me.”
“I just read the obituaries,” Hawk Nose said. “If I don’t see my name in it, I come on to work.”
A heavy-set man, wearing a wrinkled brown suit and green tie, squeezed himself onto the stool beside Sand. He removed his fedora and loosened his tie. His hands were like hams but soft and fleshy. He wore a thick mustache, etched with streaks of gray, and his eyes were the color of mud after a hard rain. They were as drab as his clothes. His face was round and pockmarked. If he shaved, he had done so in a hurry.
He looked across the counter at the cook. “I’ll have my usual, Henry,” he said.
“Two eggs coming right out. Sunny side up?”
Sand grinned. “Why does he get his eggs fried while I’m stuck with scrambled?” he asked.
“He don’t like Tabasco sauce,” Henry said.
The heavy-set man turned to Sand and leaned forward with his elbows on the counter. “Name’s Harold Dawson,” he said. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“First time in Durango.”
“Passing through?”
“I was leaving town when I got here.”
“Got a name?”
“Not in Durango.”
“Where did you spend last night?” Dawson asked.
“For a stranger, you do ask a lot of questions.”
Dawson pulled a badge from his coat pocket and placed it gently on the table. “Homicide,” he said. “I make my living asking questions.”
“No,” Sand told him, “you make your living being able to separate the lies from the truth.”
“Can’t remember when I last heard the truth.”
“There are reasons folks tend to lie to you.”
“Why is that?”
“They’re guilty.” Sand shrugged as Henry shoved a plate of scrambled eggs toward him. “They don’t trust you. They don’t like you. Mostly, they can’t remember the truth from their own lies.”
“How about you?”
“I don’t lie very well.”
The detective stood up, walked around the counter, and poured two cups of coffee. He shoved one in front of Sand. “I figure that’s as close to the truth as I’ll get this morning.”
Sand nodded. The coffee was strong, maybe left over from yesterday. It had a faint taste of battery acid, but it was black and hot, and, by the second sip, he and the coffee were old friends.
Dawson leaned back from the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “You’re not thinking about running, are you?” he asked.
“No reason to run.”
“Good.” Dawson yawned as if he was bored. “I’m too old and too slow to run,” he said, “and I don’t shoot as straight as I once did.”
Sand poured Tabasco sauce over his scrambled eggs and doused them heavily with black pepper.
“You’re not thinking about fighting me, are you?” Dawson furrowed his brow and tensed his back.
“Why should I?”
“Because I didn’t come in here by accident this morning.”
“Didn’t think you had.”
Dawson squared his shoulders. “You see, I’m gonna have to take you downtown, whether you like it or not.”
“You arresting me?”
“Afraid I am.”
“What for?”
“Murder.”
“That’s a serious charge.”
“It is indeed.” Dawson took a deep breath and looked at his hands. They were trembling. “Should I use the handcuffs?” he asked.
“Won’t be necessary.”
“Didn’t think it would.” Dawson drained his cup of coffee. Sand could see his eyes clearing. His hands were steadier now. “Frankly, sir, I think you’re guilty as hell. I think you shot the bastard.” He paused a moment, then added, “But I think you had your reasons.”
“Who am I supposed to have murdered?”
“Right now, he’s a John Doe.” Dawson shrugged. “No papers. No ID of any kind. No fingerprints. Looked like he used acid to burn them off.”
“He was a government man,” Sand said.
“Hit man?”
“Thought he was.”
“Any good at what he did?”
Sand grinned and finished the last bite of his scrambled eggs. “If he’s dead, I don’t guess he was.”
“You know him?”
“I never walked on the same sidewalk he did.”
Dawson relaxed, and his shoulders sagged. “Go ahead and finish your coffee, and then we’ll go.”
Sand reached beneath the back of his windbreaker and pulled the Sig P320 from his belt. He handed it to the Detective. “You probably want this,” he said.
Dawson stood up abruptly. “You could have killed me.” His words were slurred. Sweat popped out on his forehead.
Sand shrugged and stood up. “If I kill a man, he needs killing.”
He left a ten-dollar bill on the counter and walked out into the morning rain that was freezing by the time it touched the pavement. Somewhere in the mist, he knew, the men in black suits were waiting for him. Their black SUVs were already prowling the neighborhood.
They would kill him. He had no doubt about it. They wouldn’t stop until they did. But it wouldn’t be
today.
Roland Sand wore a crooked grin. He was headed to jail. They could throw him inside and throw away the key. Jail cells in the southwest had thick, concrete walls and iron bars. Guards with shotguns and automatic rifles walked the halls.
The black suits might find him. Rumors did spread fast, not unlike the lightning cutting its way across the peaks of Smelter Mountain. Information was bought and sold like shares on Wall Street and were often more lucrative.
But the black suits could not reach him.
A murder charge was the best chance he had to stay alive.
Sand would sleep well tonight, and only the Lord knew how badly he needed a good sleep. He wouldn’t be constantly looking over his shoulder or listening to the distant sound of footsteps on the concrete behind him. The meals would be edible, and he was out of the cold. It was like a vacation. Roland Sand figured, for once in his life, he just might be the safest man in town.
He crawled into Dawson’s Crown Vic, listened to the steady rhythm of the sleet slapping against the windshield, and was asleep before the detective had stopped at the second red light.
Lovely Night 5
SAND LAY TRAPPED in a disquieting moment of time that drifted with neither reason nor purpose between light and darkness, today and tomorrow, lost and found and usually thrown away. He was acutely aware of every sound he heard, every movement around him, but his mind had burrowed deeply into the heavy silence of the morning and did not want to climb out of a grave where, on good nights, he occasionally crossed paths with sleep.
The gray walls were webbed with shadows. A thin shaft of daylight, no wider than the blade of a hunting knife, cut through the small window above his bunk. It looked as if he could reach out and hold it, but what was wasn’t, what had been never was, and the shard of light was dim and as dreary as the color of slate.
He watched the jailer stop outside his cell. He was an old man with a limp, a fat man with dumplings for cheeks. A nightstick was jammed in his belt. He looked like a man bored with his job. Maybe, in his dreams, he would rather be walking a beat in the spoiled underbelly of a kill or be killed world. Instead, he was shuffling around the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, men down on their luck and mostly down for the count.
“You awake,” the jailer called loudly.
Sand sat up, on edge, his nerves taut.
“You got a visitor,” the jailer said.
“Nobody knows I’m here.”
The jailer kept chewing on his toothpick. “Somebody does,” he said. His grin broadened. “It’s a woman.”
“She must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You should probably send her on her way.”
“She’s a real looker, too pretty for the likes of you.”
“They say the death angel’s a real looker.”
The jailer’s laughter was deep and harsh. It sounded dirty and off color in his throat. “If it was time for me to go,” he said, “she’s the one I’d want to come and take care of me.”
Sand glanced at the wall. He was glad there wasn’t a mirror hanging on a nail. Jailers were afraid a man, slightly unbalanced, might slash his wrist some night with broken glass. His reflection was far more damning. Sand knew. He had seen it in the stained window of some abandoned storefront.
He sat on the edge of his bunk and ran his fingers across his bald head. It sometimes felt as if his hair was growing still. Life was filled with hopes and lies. He stood and shoved the tail of his burgundy knit sweater into his trousers. The officers had taken his shoes, and his feet were bare.
A man can’t hang himself without shoestrings.
Sand laughed at the nonsense of it all. If a man wanted to die, just have the decency to get out of his way and let him figure out a way to beat a judge and jury on his own terms.
“I don’t know any woman in Durango,” he said.
“You don’t know this one either.”
“You make sure she’s not armed?”
“Are you a marked man?”
“Just cautious.”
“Keeps you alive, I guess.” The jailer snickered.
“So far it has.”
Sand liked the jailer. Unlike Dawson, the jailer didn’t trust anybody. Sand walked out of his cell with chains strapped around his wrists and ankles. He limped down the hallway, followed by a guard with a shotgun. They rode the elevator from the first floor down to the basement, and the shotgun pushed Sand forcefully down the corridor until he came to the last door on the left.
The jailer opened the door and led Sand inside. The solemn-faced guard took his place against the wall. His eyes never left the prisoner. His finger never left the trigger. He never smiled.
Sand ignored him.
He was just a man doing his job.
No more.
No less.
Sand sat down across the table from an attractive brunette in a black pant suit. Her skin hadn’t seen a lot of the sun or tan very dark if it did. Her long hair fell in random curls upon her shoulders. Her eyes appeared tired but didn’t look straight at him. She was staring at her hands, her fingertips smudged with dried ink. Sand imagined she was facing the hard end of a misspent day.
“My name’s Eleanor Trent,” she said.
Sand nodded. The hint of a smile touched his face, then quickly vanished.
“I’m an attorney,” she said. “I have been appointed to represent you.”
Did she look so young?
Or did he simply feel so old?
“What’s the charge?” Sand asked softly.
“Didn’t they tell you?” Eleanor’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Dawson said it might have something to do with murder.”
“Who’s Dawson?”
“The detective who brought me in.”
“He was right.” Eleanor pulled a folder from her briefcase and opened it. Loose papers fell on top of the table. She hurriedly scooped them up and shoved them back into the yellowed folder. “The police report says you killed two men.”
Sand shrugged, but his piercing eyes never left her.
“Shot one in the back of the head and broke the other one’s neck,” she said. Eleanor paused a moment, lowered her voice and asked, “Did you?”
“What?”
“Break his neck.”
“Who’s the unfortunate victim that suffered such an awful atrocity?” Sand asked. His eyes were no longer moody. They had the hint of a wry smile.
“Nobody knows,” she said. “There seems to be a problem with Durango’s finest making definite identifications.”
“How about the shooting victim?”
“He doesn’t have a name either.”
Sand leaned back in his chair and glanced up at the naked light bulb hanging over the table. It cast off a yellow glow and was wrapped in the ragged strands of a spider web.
The guard stiffened and tightened his grip on the shotgun. His face was in shadows, and he needed a shave. Sand wondered if the guard had ever killed a man before and decided Durango did not have a lot of shootings either inside or outside the city jail.
Eleanor leaned forward and wound a rubber band around her fingers. “No one seems to know your name either.”
“Which one do you want?”
“The name your mother gave you.”
“She died a long time ago.” Sand’s eyes were apologetic. “I’m not for sure she ever named me.”
“Who did?”
“First one and then another.”
Eleanor slammed her fist on the table with exasperation. “I’m here because I have a job to do. I don’t care if you’re guilty or innocent. I’m just trying to make sure you receive fair treatment when you go to trial. Dammit, I won’t be able to help you at all if you sit there like a block of concrete no one can crack.”
Sand sat back and rubbed his hands together. The joints in his fingers were beginning to ache. He could hear his knuckles cracking. “If you want
to help me, Miss Trent, then tell me why the police were looking solely for me and no one else when Dawson arrested me.”
Eleanor looked away. “As your attorney, I’ve asked to see the evidence,” she said. “For the time being, they won’t let me.”
“Somebody’s hiding something.”
Eleanor threw up her hands in frustration. “Everybody is hiding something. The victim doesn’t have any more identification than a ghost. He might as well be a figment of somebody’s imagination. You won’t tell anyone your name. I’m sitting here looking at you, hearing your voice, wondering what kind of hell you have experienced in your life, and it’s as if you don’t exist.”
“I don’t.”
Eleanor forced a sarcastic laugh. “You’re flesh and blood.”
Sand answered with a wry grin. “Looks can be deceiving.”
Eleanor pushed back from the table and stood as if deep in thought. The air conditioner kicked on. A gentle breeze ruffled her hair. She began pacing the room. “I did hear one thing,” she said. “I don’t know how accurate it is.”
“Jailhouse gossip is cheap.”
“It’s usually just one lie stacked on top of another one.”
“Not always.”
Eleanor straightened her jacket and folded her arms across her chest. “The desk sergeant was talking to a detective when I came in. A big man. No, I guess it would be more accurate to call him a fat man with bulbous cheeks and a bulging stomach. “
“He’s the one who brought me in.”
“How was he able to do that? The man was out of breath walking to the coffee machine and back.”
“I didn’t run.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I had my reasons.”
Eleanor nodded with a quizzical expression on her face. “He said there was an eyewitness who saw the murder. Both of them.”
“He have a name for the witness?”
“He didn’t mention one.”
Roland Sand closed his eyes and walked his mind back to the taxicab and the alley. It was dark. It was raining. The lamp dangling from the post had burned out. Brick walls. The street as black as night without windows, windows without light.
Lovely Night to Die Page 3