The Next Time You Die

by Harry Hunsicker

  The third guy hadn’t reacted at all. He stared at his two fallen friends and swallowed repeatedly. I punched him twice in the stomach because it felt like the thing to do. He went to his knees.

  I grabbed him by the back of the head and stuck the muzzle of my Browning under one eye. “You tell the guy running your crew that Hank Oswald is coming after Rundell.”

  The man blinked but didn’t say anything.

  I pulled him up by the hair and made him assume the search position, hands on top of the Bentley. A pat-down yielded a plastic bag full of tinfoil pouches, each about the size of a book of matches. He also had a short-barreled Glock semiauto in his back pocket.

  “Don’t move.” I left him leaning against the car.

  Mr. Jewelry groaned when I rolled him over. There was a wad of hundred-dollar bills in his front pocket and not much else. I took that and his Beretta, and placed them next to the drugs and weapon of his friend. Gangsta Number Two was still out cold. I removed a pistol and a wad of cash from him, too.

  “What are you gonna do?” Tess said.

  I popped open the locks of the Bentley. In the glove compartment I found a butane cigarette lighter. A week-old copy of the Dallas Observer sat on the backseat. On the sidewalk I made a nest of crumpled newspaper and placed the drugs in the middle.

  I lit the paper, pulled the conscious hood away from the car, and made him watch.

  “That’s an assload of merchandise you’re burning up,” he said.

  I hit him in the gut again. He went down on his knees next to Mr. Jewelry.

  “Tell whoever you got to tell that Oswald has got the file. Rundell will understand.” The lie rolled easily off my tongue. I slapped him twice across the face and shoved him to the ground. Tess ran to the passenger side as I picked up the three pistols and the cash, and got in the Bentley.

  I dropped the guns on the floor underneath Tess’s feet and told her to buckle up. She asked where we were going. I ignored her and aimed the big British car south on Corinth Street toward the bridge into lower Dallas. There was very little traffic.

  As rivers go, the Trinity was not going to be on anybody’s top-ten list. The thin stream of dirty water flowed not quite diagonally across the city from the west to the east, effectively cutting Dallas in half, in more ways than one.

  Fifty years earlier, the city fathers had built a series of levees on either side of the river, forming a half-mile-wide flood channel to handle the spring rains as well as creating a painfully obvious moat between the rich whiteness of the north and the poverty-stricken darker hues of the south.

  I stopped in the exact center of the bridge, turned on the blinkers, and waited while a Dallas Area Rapid Transit bus whizzed by, carrying working people home from their jobs in the north.

  I scooped up the pistols and hopped out of the car. The setting sun hit the wisps of clouds and smog just right, making the twilight sky to the west appear a dazzling shade of lavender and orange. At the railing overlooking the trickle of water that was the Trinity River, I dropped the guns in one by one. They hit with a muffled splash.

  I stood there for a minute and thought about Billy Barringer, Jesus Rundell, and the hard-to-fit pieces in the jigsaw puzzle that was my life. I got back in the car and continued on south.

  Tess said, “Where’d you learn to do that stuff back there, with those three guys?”

  “The army.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I taught hand-to-hand. For the Rangers.”

  “I like it,” she said. “The way you moved.”

  We passed over the river and reentered South Dallas. I turned right on Eighth Street and stopped in front of a homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Together, they’d had a couple of grand on them. I peeled off a hundred and stuck it in my pocket. The three would be buying me and Tess dinner.

  The rest went to an earnest young man named Jonathan who ran the place. He shook my hand repeatedly as his eyes welled up with tears. It had been a lean fund-raising year for the shelter.

  I got back in the car. “Want to get something to eat?”

  Tess cocked her head. “You asking me out?”

  “On a date?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was just asking if you were hungry.”

  “So it’s not a date?”

  “Nope.” I put the car in gear. “That’s against the private investigator’s canon of ethics.”

  “Technically speaking, I’m not a client, though.” She smiled and shifted in her seat, legs crossing at the knees in a relaxed fashion.

  “Okay, call it a date.” I was keenly aware of her physical presence now, the way her breasts filled her T-shirt, the line of her hip against the tight denim of her jeans. And the no-nonsense way she handled herself, confident and demure at the same time.

  “Nah. Let’s not. I always make bad choices when it comes to men.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Twenty minutes later we pulled into the valet line at Javier’s, just north of the Uptown area. Tuxedo-clad waiters scurried around a series of rooms decorated in early hacienda hunting lodge as we made our way through the crowds of patrons.

  The wait for a table, as always, was long, so we went to the cigar room in the back and ordered at the bar, drinking margaritas and eating chips while the kitchen worked its magic.

  As we ate, the bar filled up with young, pretty women, coiffed and tanned and implanted to perfection, and men with slick-backed hair and silk shirts. In the corner, the new Cowboys wide receiver, a Heisman Trophy winner, chatted with a forward for the Dallas Stars. The women hovering about the pair of athletes were three deep, a fleshy fence of lip gloss and estrogen, all clamoring for attention.

  “Do you come here a lot?” Tess stirred her drink with a straw.

  Before I could answer, the bartender greeted me by name and placed a fresh margarita on the bar.

  “Uh . . . occasionally.”

  “A single guy like you could meet a lot of interesting people in a place like this.” She nodded toward a throng of women in the corner, underneath a stuffed elk.

  “It is a target-rich environment.” I paused for a sip of the icy drink. “Not really my crowd, though.”

  “What is your crowd?” She licked a bit of salt off the rim of her glass and shifted on her bar stool. Our legs brushed together.

  “People like me tend to operate better alone.”

  “Does alone mean lonely?” Her leg moved against mine again.

  “Sometimes.” I paid the bill with the confiscated C-note, and we left, walking out past the stuffed grizzly bear guarding the middle room and the eight-foot-long swordfish dominating the wall in the main dining area.

  The Bentley was parked by the front door, next to a black Ferrari 360. I gave the valet guy a ten-spot, the remainder of the hundred, and we drove away.

  I said, “Under the circumstances, I don’t think you should stay at Nolan’s tonight.”

  Tess nodded.

  “There’s an extra room at my house.” I crossed Central Expressway at Monticello. “Or you can get a hotel.”

  “Did you and Nolan have a thing going?”

  “Huh?”

  “Did you ever date?”

  “We work together.” I shook my head. “And we’re friends.”

  “Relationships are funny things, aren’t they?”

  Talking about the R-word with women had never been my strong suit. I ignored her comment. “What about the lawyer? The guy your friend was gonna set you up with last night.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked out. I know his type,” she said. “I need somebody with an edge.” She smiled.

  I nodded.

  “Think I’ll skip the hotel.” Tess eased her seat back and crossed her legs. “Take me to your place.”

  Ten minutes later I pulled into my driveway, parking in the rear so the Bentley wouldn’t be too much of a target. We went through the back door into the kitchen
, a room I had only recently finished remodeling by myself. Several of the halogen lights underneath the cabinets were set with timers and were already on, providing just enough illumination to make the granite countertops and flagstone floor look like an ad from Architectural Digest, if you didn’t examine anything too closely.

  The room smelled like cinnamon. The week before, a flight attendant I slept with on an occasional basis had left some spicy smell-good stuff in a bowl on the table in the breakfast nook.

  “Nice place.” Tess looked around. “Never know this was here from the outside. Or the neighborhood.”

  Glenda padded into the room, looked at Tess, and passed gas.

  “Don’t mind her.” I shooshed the dog out the pet door. “Want a beer?” I opened the refrigerator and grabbed two Dos Equis darks.

  She accepted the mahogany-colored lager and followed me to the spare bedroom, a place I used as an office. The room was pretty spartan, no decorations on the walls, not much furniture. A twin bed sat in the corner, a desk with a computer in the middle, a case of NATO 5.56 mm rifle ammunition next to the desk.

  “I sleep in the back,” I said. “The bathroom is in the hall.”

  “Nolan has my bag.” Tess sat on the bed and bounced a couple of times.

  “I’ve got a toothbrush for you. You want a T-shirt or something?”

  An awkward silence ensued.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That would be great.”

  “If you want to take a shower, there’re some clean towels in the cabinet. I’ll leave you a shirt on the bed.”

  Tess nodded but didn’t say anything. She smiled. I smiled back and left to make sure the house was locked and secure. By the time I was finished I could hear water running in the shower. In my closet, I dug out an extra-large T-shirt advertising a long-defunct bar. The garment was in pretty good shape, with only a few holes in it. I left it on the spare bed and went to my room.

  After a few minutes I heard the bathroom door open, followed by the closing of the guest bedroom’s. I headed to the shower and washed off the day’s grime, dried, and wrapped a towel around my waist.

  I opened the door. Steam billowed out.

  Tess stood in the hallway, arms at her sides. The borrowed shirt stopped a little above midthigh. Her legs were tanned, her hair damp, eyes sparkling and vulnerable and alluring all at the same time in the dim light of the hall.

  “I don’t want to sleep alone,” she said.

  I kissed her.

  She kissed back. Her breath tasted like beer and toothpaste.

  We stood in the hallway for a long few moments, locked in an embrace. She put one hand behind my head, the other in the small of my back, and pressed our bodies together. After a bit we pulled apart and came up for air.

  “Show me your room,” she said.

  I took her by the hand and led her to the back. The only light came from the television on the dresser, tuned to the ten o’clock news, the sound muted. She shrugged off the T-shirt. I dropped my towel. We stumbled into bed, kissing again, hands probing each other. She was not afraid to be aggressive, pulling this way and pushing that. When we were finished, she dozed with her head on my shoulder until the end of Letterman. Then she snaked a hand underneath the sheets and said let’s do that again.

  At the end of round two, I was glad the neighbors hadn’t called the police. I was glad I could still move. The covers lay at the foot of the bed in a tangle, not unlike the two of us, naked and intertwined at the other end.

  “What’s that?” Tess placed a finger on the puckered white spot the size of a nickel just above my hip.

  “I got shot by some bad guys a couple of years ago.”

  “And this one?” She pointed to a jagged scar on my left calf.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Did somebody shoot you there, too?” She licked the healed wound on my leg.

  “No.” I reached for the TV remote and turned up the sound.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Billy Barringer saved my life for the first time when I was fifteen.

  We were on the Brazos River in a flat-bottom johnboat, casting spinner bait for river bass, drinking Buckhorn beer for lunch, and telling lies about how far we’d gotten with the eighth-grade slut, Evangeline Pearson.

  It was August in Texas. During that time of year, the heat became an entity in its own right, a physical force outsiders didn’t understand and natives ran out of adjectives to describe. The air grew heavy, swollen with moisture, indolent. The blue sky faded to pewter. The sun seemed larger than normal. People moved slower. Life revolved around swimming holes and air-conditioning, anything to stay cool.

  Our boat was tied to a tree jutting over the tepid water from the red sand bank. Both shorelines were an almost impenetrable mass of post oaks, cottonwoods, and dense shrubs thick with spikes and thorns. The air smelled like fish and lake water; the only sounds were an occasional cattle egret trilling overhead or a turtle plopping into the water from the bank.

  Billy made me laugh with a new description for Evangeline’s breasts. Then he reminded me that he had swiped a Playboy from his dad and we could look at it when we got back.

  I downed the rest of my beer and dove into the brackish water to cool off. As soon as my head broke the surface I felt a rope or vine against my ankle. The river was thick with trotlines used to catch the big channel catfish, unmanned fishing setups strung across the water and supported by makeshift buoys.

  I turned and saw a bobbing plastic milk container a dozen yards away. The cord shifted suddenly, signaling that a catfish was caught on one of its hooks.

  I tried to move my leg, but the cord wrapped around my ankle.

  “Billy.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s a trotline.” I grabbed the side of the boat.

  “Where?”

  I didn’t reply, instead listening to the sound of an outboard motor sputtering somewhere upriver. The cord dug into my flesh and became tighter. The owner of the trotline was retrieving his catch for the day.

  “Shit.” I gripped the side of the boat harder. The little craft dipped toward me. The line pulled more. One hand slipped from the metal of the boat.

  “Hang on, Hank.” My friend dropped his beer.

  “Billy.” My other hand lost its grasp on the boat. My head went under the water. The cord tightened around my leg. A hook pierced my flesh, the pain intense and far away at the same time. I banged against an underground stump, and my lungs filled with water.

  The next thing I remembered was clinging to a cottonwood tree on the bank about forty feet downriver from the boat. Billy was next to me, holding a lock-back knife and a length of trotline.

  I vomited river water and beer. My leg throbbed. I saw a red sheen to the water a few feet away. I said, “Thanks, amigo.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Billy said. “You’d do the same for me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  We woke at dawn. Tess reached for me and we made love again, softly and slowly this time. We fell back asleep.

  When I woke the second time, the house smelled like bacon and coffee. I grabbed last night’s towel from the floor, wrapped it around my waist, and padded to the bathroom. I took another shower, running the water lukewarm to get myself awake.

  When I stepped out, Tess was in the hallway again, wearing my T-shirt and holding a cup of coffee in one hand. Her hair was mussed, one lock dangling in front of her eyes, making her look sexy and vulnerable at the same time.

  “Made myself at home.” She handed me the mug. “I found the washing machine, did my clothes from yesterday.”

  “Fine by me.” I took a sip of coffee as she stepped around me and into the bathroom. Thirty minutes later we sat down and ate: bacon, scrambled eggs with chives, hot biscuits.

  “Didn’t know there were chives anywhere in this kitchen.” I speared the last mouthful of eggs.

  “They were on the bottom shelf of your pantry, next to a pair of panty hose and
a box of shotgun shells.”

  “Oh.” I racked my brain trying to remember why I had left a box of ammunition in the food closet.

  “Today . . .?” Her voice trailed off.

  “It’s Sunday,” I said. “Lucas Linville will be at church. I’m betting in Pleasant Grove.”

  Tess opened her mouth as if to say something and then shook her head. She slapped some butter on a biscuit and took a bite.

  “Rundell hangs at a bar on Industrial which won’t be open.” I carried my plate to the sink. “I want to talk to Vernon Black again, find out if he’s had any more contact with . . .”

  “My father . . .” Tess stood up.

  “Yeah?”

  “What if he’s done something wrong?”

  I frowned. It hadn’t occurred to me that there my be another bent character in this little drama. Was I breaking the first law of the business: letting my feelings for her color my judgement?

  “What if he’s getting what he deserves?” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I placed one arm over her shoulder.

  “Nobody’s perfect, are they?” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

  “No, you’re right.” I wanted to hug her but sensed that this wasn’t the proper time for that. “There’s a shortage of perfection in this world.”

  “He’s still my father, Hank.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  My truck wasn’t at the office as promised. I called Nolan’s home and cell and left messages both places. I tried Olson’s cell but it was turned off. I tried to reach Delmar on the three numbers I had for him but to no avail.

  “Looks like we’ll be taking the Bentley again today.” I backed the big car out of the driveway of my office and headed toward the freeway.

  We drove in silence through East Dallas, deserted on a Sunday morning, past the empty bars and full churches. The sun was still low in the sky and the temperature was a relatively comfortable eighty-six degrees, according to the thermometer on the dash. I got on Interstate 30 and headed east until the Buckner Boulevard exit, where I turned south toward the area euphemistically known as Pleasant Grove.