by Harvey Click
The woman was Doris Murdock. “I suspect the word you were searching for is shit,” she said. “Or was it shiver?”
“That’s it,” Carlos said. “Luis said one look at this guy made ya wanna shiver.”
Bert chortled and said, “Damn, lady, you almost made me spit my whiskey all over my cards.”
“So did you see what the wolf woman was driving?” Doris asked Roamer.
“She wasn’t driving,” he said. “She got in the passenger seat of an SUV parked far enough down the road I couldn’t see the plate.”
“Well, I’m glad this werewolf thing wasn’t driving,” Bert said. “They shouldn’t be given licenses and they shouldn’t be allowed to vote.”
“Give me one,” Roamer said. He was holding four hearts and one club. He discarded the club and Carlos dealt him another one. That’s the way things had been going all night.
“It’s not just in Silver Stone,” Sonny said. “People been seeing these half-humans, sub-humans, whatever you want to call ‘em, all over the whole county. My brother seen one up in Tesoro that looked like a kangaroo.”
Bert chuckled and said, “You mean he was hoppin’ up and down?”
“No, I don’t mean he was hoppin’ up and down, and for your information I don’t think this is a laughin’ matter,” Sonny said. “He was unusually tall like most of these other creeps people been seein’, and he had weird skin and an ugly face that looked like a kangaroo.”
“You want any cards?” Carlos asked.
“Nope, I’m good,” Sonny said.
“Dealer takes two,” Carlos said.
When the bet came around to Roamer he folded. His cards had been bad all evening, and his pile of chips had shrunk from three hundred dollars to twenty-five. But at least he was happy that three of his four old deputies had agreed to come back. He’d warned them that he planned to take a stand, and if they stood with him they were liable to end up dead, but that didn’t cause them any hesitation. They were fed up with things and willing to take the risk.
The new deputy was Doris Murdock. She’d never worked in law enforcement before and in fact used to be, of all damn things, a school teacher. Five years ago when her husband died and left her with a good pension and a pile of insurance money, she retired from teaching and started writing children’s books. For some reason she was convinced the church had murdered her husband, though to Roamer his death sounded like the usual hit-and-run caused by a drunk driver, and Silver Stone had always had more than its share of those.
In any event she hated the church, like half the other people in town, and she had asked for the deputy position as soon as he listed it. He’d never had a female deputy before and didn’t want one now. It wasn’t because he thought women were less capable—and Doris Murdock seemed plenty capable from what he could see—it was because he had a long tradition of inviting his deputies over to play poker, and he didn’t like playing poker with women.
The trouble with playing poker with women was that they almost always won. It didn’t matter if they were rank amateurs or seasoned pros, the poker gods liked to favor them with good cards, and there was nothing you could do about it. And Doris Murdock was anything but a rank amateur—she shuffled and dealt and played like she could do it in her sleep while dreaming about something else. Her pile of chips had been growing all night while his had been shrinking like a tire with a nail in it.
Carlos slid the heap of loose cards over to her, and Roamer watched with a sort of horror as she expertly swept them into a tidy deck and then deftly fanned the two halves of the deck together in the kind of perfect shuffles you see only on TV. Carlos cut the deck and she began to deal, the cards practically flying across the table to land in nearly perfect piles in front of each player, and while she was dealing she glanced up and smiled at Roamer, a cheeky and taunting sort of smile he thought.
He swallowed his whiskey and poured some more.
“Sheriff, I believe you’re light on the pot,” she said.
Damn. One day on the job, and she was already pointing out his mistakes. He slid a five-dollar chip into the pot, picked up his cards and stared at them in disbelief. She had dealt him a jack-high straight. This was going to be sweet.
“So what’s the plan, Sheriff?” she asked.
“Well, I was hopin’ they’d give me a pile of bribe money so Judge Hawkins would sign me a warrant, but that didn’t happen,” he said.
“Guess the Monopoly money isn’t good enough, huh?” she said.
“I showed him the money and the notebook I found in Candy’s safe, but Hawkins says the figures in the notebook could mean any damn thing and the money could be poker earnings or whatever. Hawkins is a stickler about signin’ warrants. If Dipson had stuck to his original story that would help with the warrant, but of course he changed it to put all the blame on Amy Malone.”
“Did he change it or did somebody change it for him?” Carlos asked.
“That’s a good question. That first FBI agent seemed to me like a pretty straight shooter, but this new one I don’t trust at all.”
“Bet they’re payin’ him a hell of a lot more than they ever paid ol’ Candyass,” Bert said.
“I’m hopin’ Butch Barrett will turn up somewhere,” Roamer said. “I want to hear his story.”
“Nobody’s ever gonna find Butch Barrett,” Sonny said. “Not alive anyhow.”
“He’ll have a bullet in his head just like that first FBI agent,” Carlos said.
“I’ve been tryin’ to get Judge Hawkins to let me look at the bank accounts of Candy’s deputies,” Roamer said. “If I can get some dirt on them maybe I can pressure them to talk. But Hawkins says no. He says even if I find some unexplained income it don’t mean anything. Could just be poker winning too.”
“Well, they can’t all a been winning all the time,” Carlos said. “That ain’t the way poker works.”
“It sure ain’t,” Sonny said, staring gloomily at Doris Murdock’s big piles of chips. “I’m done with this hand,” and he threw his cards on the table.
“Me too,” Carlos said, throwing his cards on top of Sonny’s.
“I see you five and raise you five,” Doris said, sliding two more blue chips into the heap at the middle of the table.
“Damn, how many damn raises have there been so far?” Bert asked. “We ain’t even discarded yet.”
“You in or out?” Roamer asked.
“I’m in. I already paid all this damn money, I at least want to see some new cards.”
Roamer didn’t raise because he thought it would make Bert fold, and he didn’t want any others folding until there was some more money on the table.
Bert put down two cards and said, “Gimme some good ones, pretty, pretty please.”
Doris dealt him two and looked at Roamer. “I’m good,” he said.
“So am I,” she said.
“I pass,” Bert said.
“Ten dollars,” Roamer said. “I’m gonna have to go light.”
“I’ll raise you ten,” Doris said.
“Now wait a minute here,” Bert said. “We got a five dollar limit on raises. Ten on bets and five on raises.”
“Nobody ever told me that,” Doris said.
“Well, that’s the way we’ve always played, ain’t it boys?”
“Okay, I raise you five,” she said.
“Hell with it,” Bert said, throwing his cards down on the table.
“Another five to you,” Roamer said.
“Five more to you,” she said.
They kept going around, each one raising the other, Doris adding chips to the pot and Roamer pulling them out because he was out of them and having to go light.
“Is there any limit on the number of raises?” she asked after a few minutes.
“None that I know of,” Bert said. “But I can tell you one thing, the way this is goin’ one of you is gonna end up havin’ to sell your house.”
“Five more to you, Sheriff,” she said.
> Roamer looked at her and saw she was wearing that cool smile. He realized there was one more thing he didn’t like about her: she was too pretty. From her application form he knew she was fifty-six, but she scarcely looked forty. Her figure was trim and shapely, her skin was smooth and glowing like her shoulder-length auburn hair, her face had a nice catlike shape and green catlike eyes that were hard to look away from. He didn’t think it was a good idea to have such a pretty woman on the force, whether she was fifty-six or twenty-six. He thought it might be disruptive.
“Well, Sheriff?” she asked.
“I’m in,” he said.
He didn’t believe she could beat his straight, but all these raises were starting to get on his nerves. He laid his hand face-up on the table and reached over to scoop in the big pile of chips.
“I know I’m just an amateur,” she said, “but it’s my impression that a flush beats a straight.”
He looked over at her cards. Unbelievable: she had the heart flush he’d been trying for in the last hand. Bert and Sonny took turns making rude comments and laughing while he counted the chips he’d gone light on.
“I owe you ninety,” he said. “I hope a check will be okay.”
She gave him that cool smile that annoyed him so much and said, “Just so Judge Hawkins doesn’t decide it’s a bribe.”
He made out the check and put it beside her chips. He’d been hoping everyone would leave now, but Carlos was refilling their whiskey glasses. After he set down the bottle he reached for his pack of cheroots.
Good, Roamer thought. Those damn things stank like burning cow manure, so they’d be sure to drive her out of the house.
Carlos had one halfway out of the pack before he glanced at Doris and changed his mind. “Oh,” he said. “Maybe I better not.”
“You know damn well people can smoke in my house,” Roamer said.
“Yes, but there’s a lady,” Carlos said.
“It’s my house, and I said you can smoke.”
“In fact come to think of it, my throat’s feeling a little scratchy,” Carlos said.
He was putting the pack back in his pocket when Doris said, “Could I have one please?”
Bert let out a soft explosion of laughter as she put one in her mouth and Carlos lit it for her. She blew out a thin stream of smoke, smiled at Roamer and said, “Thank you for letting me smoke in your house.”
Bert laughed again, and Roamer looked down at the chips still in the middle of the table and swallowed some whiskey.
“Well then, I guess there’s really no plan, is there?” she said.
“Tomorrow I’m gonna park out there on that road and see if anyone comes or goes. If any vehicle leaves I’ll follow it and get their plate number so we can find out who’s livin’ there and where they’re from, maybe see if I can find some excuse to pull them over and search their cars while I’m at it.”
“Can’t you get their plate numbers from the MVD?” Doris asked.
“Tried that. There aren’t any vehicles registered to that address.”
“If they see you parked out there, they’ll probably wait till you leave before they go anywhere,” she said. “Maybe if you kept some deputies out there twenty-four seven…”
“Mrs. Murdock,” he said irritably, “the city poohbahs—”
“Please don’t call me Mrs. Murdock,” she said. “My husband’s been gone for five years, and I don’t like sounding like some ancient widow.”
“Okay then, Miss Murdock, the city poohbahs—”
“Please don’t call me that either. I don’t call you Mr. Roamer, do I? I don’t hear you calling Carlos Mr. del Toro. Just call me Doris or else Murdock.”
Bert chuckled and said, “Hoss, I think you just got your ass handed to you.”
Roamer gulped down his whiskey and wished he hadn’t given up cigarettes a few years back. “Okay, fine,” he said. “What I’m tryin’ to tell you, Murdock, is I don’t have the manpower for twenty-four seven surveillance. The city poohbahs only allow me four paid deputies. I can deputize others but I can’t pay them, and nobody’s gonna want to sit out there in the middle of nowhere watchin’ these freaky-deakies unless they’re getting’ paid.”
“May I suggest something?” she asked.
“Go ahead. Nobody’s stoppin’ you.”
“Carlos, do you have a lot of friends?” she asked. “I mean friends you can really trust?”
“Sure.”
“How many would you say, and I mean friends you can really, really trust?”
“I dunno, twenty, maybe more. And then I got four sons and they all got friends and so do their wives.”
“So what does that add up to, maybe forty friends who are living here in the state?”
“Oh yeah, more than that,” Carlos said. “They’re all over the state and there’s some more in Mexico.”
“How many of them are suspicious of the Church of Love and Serenity?”
“All of ‘em. Every damn one.”
“What about you, Bert?” she asked. “Do you have very many friends?”
“Hell, I got more than Carlos. Everybody loves ol’ Bert.”
“You see what I’m getting at?” she said. “The Baker Street Irregulars. Talk to all your friends and swear them to secrecy. Have your wives and kids do the same with the people they trust one hundred percent. Tell them to keep their eyes open.”
“For what?” Bert asked.
“For Yeti-spaghetti monsters, for one thing. If they see some weird-looking freaks, tell them to try and see what they drive away in, get the plate numbers if they can. Sheriff, you said all the vehicles at the compound were SUVs, so tell the Irregulars to keep their eyes open especially for SUVs with strangers driving them. What are their plate numbers, where are they headed?
“But what’s more important, we give all of them pictures of Shane and Amy Malone and we tell them what kind of car they drive and the plate number. I have a hunch if we can find the Malones we’ll learn a lot more than we know right now. And it’s almost certain they’re around here someplace.”
“What makes you so sure of that?” Roamer asked.
“Because if their daughter really was kidnapped, then I’ll bet they’re around here somewhere hunting for her.”
“This woman’s got a head on her shoulders,” Bert said. “Whaddaya think, Hoss?”
“I think we’re dealin’ with some very dangerous people,” Roamer said, “so we’d be puttin’ these Irregulars in a dangerous position.”
“That’s why we have to make it very clear to them that all they’re doing is watching and reporting,” Doris said. “We have to tell them not to stick their necks out in any way.”
“People don’t always do what you tell ‘em,” Roamer said.
He suddenly cocked his head and listened. It was a pleasant night, not too cool and not too warm, so he had the windows open, and he was pretty sure he’d just heard a rustling sound right outside the dining room window.
He got up and stared out through the screen. There was little moon and at first he saw nothing. Then something darted away from the side of the house and ducked behind the hedge, and he caught a glimpse of it for only a second. It was gray and almost seemed to be running upright on two legs, but he couldn’t be sure.
“What you lookin’ at, Hoss?” Bert asked.
“Must be a stray dog runnin’ around,” Roamer said.
“Maybe it’s a coyote,” Sonny said.
“Nope. It’s too big for that.”
“That’s what you get for livin’ out here in the sticks,” Bert said. “You ever think of movin’ back to town?”
“Nope. I like it out here.”
Roamer let go of the curtain and sat back down.
“Well, Hoss, what do you think of her plan?” Bert asked. “I think it’s a good idea, and I can’t say I’ve heard any other good ones tonight.”
The others agreed. Roamer stared at his whiskey glass and said nothing.
“What
about you, Sheriff?” Doris asked. “Do you have some close friends you can ask?”
“Maybe a few,” he said.
Very few, he thought, and he sat there staring at his whiskey feeling old and lonely.
***
Sonny Fisher was a bit tipsy as he drove home from the poker game, tipsy enough that he shouldn’t be driving, but one advantage of being a deputy was that no one would pull you over. He was thinking of how flustered and embarrassed the sheriff had looked whenever Doris Murdock said anything to him, and as he thought about it he smiled and even chuckled a couple times out loud.
That ol’ horndog, he thought. Ol’ Jack Roamer’s got the hot ‘n’ hornies. Maybe he don’t know it yet, but pretty soon he’s gonna be spending his money on chocolates and flowers.
He was chuckling again as he pulled into his garage. He hit the button on his remote to shut the overhead door, and it got about halfway down and then started going back up. The electric eye was too sensitive, and if it saw a single cobweb hanging down from the door it refused to let the door down until he swept the damn cobweb off with a broom.
He cursed and got out of his car, but when he was reaching for the broom he saw it wasn’t a cobweb that had triggered the electric eye. Something was standing in the doorway, something short and fat and naked with strange gray skin and a big bald head with a huge grinning mouth. And standing behind it was the werewolf woman Roamer had talked about.
Sonny didn’t have his gun with him because he never brought a gun to a poker game, and there was nothing close at hand in the garage that looked like a weapon. He yanked open the car door, hoping he’d have time to lock himself inside and back out.
But he didn’t.
Chapter 13
When Bloody Joe pulled his Santa Fe behind the long shed there was a young man standing back there waiting for them.
“That’s Sam,” Lucky said. “He’s the one I rented our campground from.”
Sam was a short stocky Navajo with long black hair, cold black eyes, and a carbine in his hands. He stared at them while they sat in Joe’s SUV and stared back.