I parked across the street and hopped out. Nolan followed. The wooden porch creaked under my weight. I smelled fried chicken, heard a television blaring.
I rapped on the door frame. The TV muted. Dainty footsteps approached.
“Yes?” Vivian Barringer’s soft face, framed by gray hair, appeared behind the screen door. She wore an apron over a faded housedress and held a spatula in one hand.
I smiled. “Heya, Mrs. B.”
“Hank Oswald?” She squinted at me through the screen door. “Good Lord, I haven’t seen you since I don’t know when.”
I knew but didn’t want to say.
“How in the world are you?” She stepped outside and gave me a hug. She smelled like soap and fried chicken.
“Fine,” I said.
“Well, come on in.” Billy’s mother held open the door and motioned us inside.
“This is Nolan.” I gestured to my partner and entered the house. “We work together.”
Vivian shook her hand. “Y’all come on back to the kitchen. I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee and some cobbler sitting out.”
We followed her into a linoleum-floored room that looked out on a rambling backyard that seemed to go on forever. An old gas stove on one wall contained several simmering pots. I remembered now: Vivian Barringer loved to cook.
“Have some coffee.” She poured us each a mug.
I took the cup and blew on the surface. It was about ninety degrees outside and not much cooler in the steamy kitchen.
Vivian fussed with some of the pots on the stove, her back to us.
Nolan looked at me. I shrugged. After a minute or so, Vivian turned back around. There were tears in her eyes.
“You gave him back to me, you know.” Her voice cracked.
“Mrs. B.” I put the coffee on the countertop. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She smiled and pointed the spatula at me like a sword. “You always were a good boy. Did the right thing.”
I shook my head slowly but didn’t say anything.
“He’s returned now.” She dabbed at her eyes with the end of her apron. “No more of that life his father would have for him.”
“He told me he was going to stay straight.”
“And he will, trust me.” She worried the apron in her hands. “Once you take the journey, you come back changed.”
I didn’t understand. “Do you have something for me?”
“He lives not far from me now, did you know that?” She returned to the stovetop.
Nolan went to the kitchen window and looked outside.
“I had a hunch there might be something here for me.” I moved to the side of the stove to catch her eye.
“Hank. You better check this out.” Nolan’s tone was insistent.
I looked outside. A narrow strip of Saint Augustine grass divided the yard, with vegetable gardens on either side, tomato and pepper plants on the right, melons and squash and corn on the left.
A Filipino man was in the middle, walking toward the house carrying a pail of vegetables. He had on a pair of baggy parachute pants like something M. C. Hammer might have worn back in the day, and a black wife-beater-style undershirt. The white music player was on his belt, the earpieces in place.
I went outside, Nolan right behind me. The screen door banged shut. The man looked up. His eyes went wide and he stopped walking.
“Hello, Arthur.” I took a couple steps into the yard. “What a coincidence, seeing you here.”
He threw the pail at my head. I ducked, and it hit Nolan on the shoulder. He ran away from the house, and I went after him. The thin strip of grass petered out and gave way to an overgrown series of flower beds, an uneven gravel path between them. Rosebushes grew unkempt everywhere, overhanging branches forming a barrier in the narrow passageway.
Arthur knew the territory better, but I was faster, heedless of the thorns tearing at my clothing and flesh.
I had just started to gain some ground when he passed a wooden worktable under a cedar tree. He grabbed a trowel as he went by, turned, and threw it at me with more force than I would have imagined.
The rusted tool went low and grazed the outer edge of my left knee. I lost my footing and hit the table, knocking it over on top of me.
“Quit jacking around, will ya?” Nolan hopped over me like a gazelle and pressed on through the overgrown garden.
I brushed potting soil out of my hair and stood up. Nolan shouted to me, her voice muffled by the garden. A man yelled.
“Where are you?” I limped toward the back of the lot until the gravel path forked.
No response.
“Nolan.” I wiped sweat out of my eyes, dirt off my face.
“Over here.”
“Here left, or here right?” I mentally flipped a coin and started down the right track.
“Hold o-o-on.” She sounded exasperated. A few seconds later she appeared on the left path, pushing Arthur in front of her. One knee of his parachute pants was ripped and bloody.
“What happened?” I grabbed Arthur by his free arm. He looked at me, breathing heavily and sweating.
“He tripped over a wheelbarrow.” Nolan mopped sweat off her forehead with one hand.
“Why were you running?” I squeezed the man’s arm.
“Tired of getting punked by you.” His look was icy.
“You want to tell us why you’re here, in Vivian Barringer’s backyard?”
He didn’t answer.
“Arthur.” I sighed. “Don’t be the Filipino version of a dumbass. Tell us what’s going on.”
“Mrs. Barringer, she’s been very good to me.”
“You know why we’re here, don’t you?”
He didn’t say anything.
“A man at Carlos’s mother’s apartment mentioned a chino, a Chinese,” I said. “Made me think of you.”
He nodded slowly.
“Where is it?”
His eyes cut left for an instant before returning to stare at the ground.
I turned and saw a narrow opening in an otherwise solid wall of honeysuckle vines.
Arthur chewed on his lower lip.
I shoved him toward Nolan and pulled the Browning from its holster before plunging through the opening. The honeysuckle formed a tunnel of sorts, about ten feet long. I exited to another, less overgrown backyard. The lawn was well watered but needed mowing. A wood-framed house with peeling paint was to the right, more or less even with Vivian Barringer’s. I whistled once and Nolan and Arthur emerged a couple of seconds later.
“How many people are in there?” I kept the Browning by my side.
“No one that can hurt you.”
“How many?”
“Only one.” Sweat was running down Arthur’s face now.
Nolan holstered her gun and blew a strand of hair out of her face. “God knows why, but I believe our friend.”
I ignored both of them, walked to the house, and opened the back door. The place was not much different from Vivian’s, with a linoleum-floored kitchen, old appliances, dated decor. I smelled mothballs and dust as I went to the front of the home.
Lucas Linville was sitting in a wheelchair by the living room windows, staring at the hallway.
“Been. Expecting. You.” He could talk now, though each word was an obvious effort.
“What’s in the file?” I sat down on a chintz-covered armchair, suddenly tired.
“Honesty.” A thin line of spittle hung out of his mouth like a spider-web. “And ret . . . ret . . . r-r-retribution.”
“Where is it?” I stood up so as not to let the fatigue overrun my body.
“Arthur hid it.”
The Filipino man was standing in the hallway with my partner. He started to say something but Nolan made a noise and pointed to the window. I looked outside and saw a yellow cab parked in front of the house.
The passenger door was open and Jesus Rundell exited, a bloody bandage on his head. He pulled a long-barreled shotgun out with him and pointed it a
t the window of the house.
Nolan said, “Oh, shit.”
The gun fired and the window disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Time seemed to stand still. I saw a triangle of glass cartwheel toward my head but I was powerless to move. The shard hit my forehead above the right brow. My eyes snapped shut, and I fell to the floor.
I heard the shotgun fire again.
Nolan yelled.
Another boom from outside, closer this time.
Arthur screamed. I rolled away from the window, clawing at my waist for the Browning. Got the gun out. Rubbed blood out of my eyes with my left hand. With my right I rammed the rear sight on the Hi Power into my hip and pushed down, jacking a round into the chamber one-handed.
Opened my eyes. Everything was fuzzy and red. I brought the gun up. Pointed it toward where the front door should be. Was vaguely aware of a foot appearing out of nowhere, headed toward my hand. Gun disappeared. Fingers hurting now. Closed my eyes again.
When I opened them Jesus Rundell stood over me.
“You’re supposed to be dead.” I looked at his face. It was coated with dried blood. His eyes were askew, looking in different directions.
“T-t-told you I gotta hard skull.” He put the shotgun to his shoulder and aimed at a spot two feet from my head. “Now tell me where the file is.”
“I don’t know.”
Rundell made a sound like a frat boy after his twelfth tequila shot. He sat down and dropped the shotgun on the floor. His eyes glazed over as the skin on his face not covered in blood blanched.
“He gets that way every now and then.” Tess McPherson stood in the doorway, a long-barreled revolver in one hand.
“I give up. Whose team are you on?”
“Not yours, chump.”
“Then how did you know to come here?”
She laughed once. “You hang out with the Barringer boys long enough, you eventually learn where mama lives.”
I looked to the other side of the room. Nolan was sitting on the floor, holding her bicep with one hand, blood trickling through her fingers. Her pistol was a few feet away. Arthur was curled in the fetal position, shivering with his hands over his ears. Except for a small cut on his cheek, Lucas Linville looked unharmed. He’d been in the corner, not directly in front of the glass.
“Why don’t you tell me where this file thing is so we can get the hell out of here?” Tess pointed the revolver at my face to emphasize her point.
“Linville is the only one who knows and he can’t talk.”
“Or move, apparently.” Tess walked over to the wheelchair. “So how did he hide it then?”
“I . . . uh . . . don’t know.” I glanced to my right and saw the Hi Power next to the chintz-covered chair.
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Tess stuck the muzzle of the revolver on the old man’s knee. “Okay, Uncle Lucas. Tell me where the file is.”
Nobody said anything.
Tess looked around the room. “Anybody else want to take a guess before I blow this guy’s leg off?”
“Wait.” Arthur sat up. “I will tell you.”
“Arrrgh.” Everybody in the room turned and looked at Jesus Rundell as he returned to a near lucid state. Some color had returned to his face and his eyes were focusing again, still crossed but alert.
“Baby?” Tess stepped away from Linville. “Are you okay?”
Nolan and I looked at each other. Baby?
Rundell stood up, using the shotgun as a cane.
Tess grabbed his arm. “The gook was just about to tell me where it is.”
Rundell blinked several times and looked at me before turning to Arthur. “Start talking.”
Arthur licked his lips. “In the closet in the dining room. There’s a wooden box on the shelf. It is there.”
“Want me to get it?” Tess said.
Rundell grunted and wrenched his arm free of her grasp. He staggered into the next room. I saw him look to the left and then the right. Apparently, the closet was in that direction because he wobbled that way and was soon out of sight.
I heard a door open.
I heard Rundell grunt.
I heard wood scrape against wood, metal hinges squeak.
I heard the angry buzz of at least one pissed-off rattlesnake.
“What the hell is that?” Tess darted toward the dining room.
I stuck my foot out and tripped her. She fell onto a coffee table covered with broken glass.
“Ayeeahh.” Rundell’s voice was beyond pain and fear, the tone primeval.
I scrambled to where the Hi Power lay, snatched it, and stood up. Nolan had grabbed her pistol and was pointing it at Tess. I headed to the dining room.
“No.” Arthur reached for my arm. “The snakes.”
I stopped. Everyone was quiet, listening to the sound of rattling and Rundell’s dying moans.
“You gotta be cool,” Arthur said. “They’re poisonous and shit.”
“No fooling?” I tiptoed to the left side of the doorway leading to the dining room, opposite the closet. I leaned in and looked. It was hard to tell since they were all squirming and hissing but it looked like there were six or eight pretty large rattlers crawling on and around Rundell’s twitching form. I could see at least two sets of puncture wounds on his arms.
“You go in there, you’re gonna get bitten,” Arthur said.
“What about him?” I pointed at Rundell.
“What about him?” Arthur raised one eyebrow.
“Good point.”
Rundell began to shake. His arms were swollen to twice their regular size. The snakes hissed. The smallest one lunged at his thigh and bit.
“Ouch.” I lowered the gun.
“He was not a nice man.” Arthur crossed himself.
A manila envelope was lying in the corner. “Is that it?”
“Yeah.” He grabbed a cane leaning against the wall. “I’ll get it.”
“You don’t have to—” I stopped when he dashed into the room, shaking the cane at the snakes. He grabbed the file and hopped back to the relative safety of the entrance to the living room.
I took the file and sat down on the chintz-covered chair. I pulled out a series of dental X-rays. The name across the bottom of each strip of film was Lucas L. Carmichael, DDS.
“You switched his X-rays. Both of them were your patients at one time.” I looked at the man. “Your middle name is Linville.”
“I didn’t switch nothing.” The old man shook his head. “They came to me after the body turned up. Asked for the records.”
“What are you talking about?” Nolan stood up, keeping her gun pointed at Tess.
“I closed my practice in Waco years ago.” Lucas ignored her and spoke to me. “Told them I would get the records out of storage. Called my sister and asked her to see to it; she lives closer.”
“Charity Carmichael.” I held the X-ray up to the light.
“They got the X-rays and said it was Billy in the car, Billy that burned up. Charity was still out there, running from the law.” The old man’s eyes filled with tears. “But my boy would have called if he was alive.”
“How did you know?” I asked.
The old man was sobbing now. After a few moments he continued. “They told me it was an easy ID, what with Billy missing his eye-tooth.”
“Billy had perfect teeth.” I stood up and tucked the film under my arm.
“Just couldn’t figure it out. How they did it.” Lucas shook his head slowly as tears trickled down his cheeks. “H-h-had three children. F-f-faith, Hope. And Charity.”
“I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through.” I looked out the window.
“W-w-why does one go bad,” Linville said, “and not the others?”
The first police car pulled up outside.
The Spenser Police Department proved remarkably efficient and professional, given the circumstances.
How often do small-town law enforcement agencies come across third-rate mobsters ki
lled by rattlesnakes? Or dead Eritrean nationals such as the man found in the trunk of the Dallas taxicab? He had a bullet hole in the back of his head that appeared to be from the same-caliber revolver carried by Tess McPherson.
Maybe their efficiency had something to do with the navy blue Chevy pickup that idled at the end of the block, the windows cracked a little to let the smoke from Clayton Barringer’s cigarette escape.
The police interviewed Nolan and me and seemed satisfied by our answers. After all, we’d done nothing wrong. Neither of us mentioned the file. I rolled it up and stuck it in my back pocket.
A professional snake wrangler was called. Lucas Linville watched him carry them away without saying anything.
An hour after the first police arrived, a pair of crime scene investigators from the Department of Public Safety showed up, followed a few minutes later by two men in a government-issued sedan.
I asked the deputy who they were. He told me they were from the FBI office in Austin, part of the Organized Crime Task Force. A few minutes later he told us we could leave.
I watched for a moment as the CSI techs took pictures of Jesus Rundell’s body. One pulled aside the bloody bandages on his head and said the .22-caliber bullet had failed to penetrate the skull, instead furrowing along the bone underneath the skin.
Nolan said that maybe it was time for us to leave. I nodded and looked at Lucas Linville sitting in the corner in his wheelchair, largely unnoticed by the crew of people moving in and out of the house. His mouth had sagged open and his skin was waxy and the color of milk. There was no discernible movement in his chest.
Arthur was outside, ear buds in place, jamming out. I glanced once more at Linville and wondered what his last thoughts were. Was he with his son now? Was he in the presence of Charity?
“Let’s go.” I touched Nolan on the elbow and we left. Once outside I approached Arthur. The Filipino man pressed a button on his music player and flashed me the peace sign.
“How did it happen?” I said.
“When he wanted to hide the file on his son, he stuffed it in one close by.” Arthur pulled the earpieces out. “Carmichael to Cunningham.”
The Next Time You Die Page 24