Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels (Volume 1)

by Dan O'Shea

  “How do you know all this?” Her voice rose several octaves.

  I sat up. She held the gun out straighter, leveled it at my face.

  “Who are you, really?” she asked.

  “Spanner.”

  Her eyes widened, her face paled. She knew the stories. One of the few Lucifer’s Swords nomads, and the only to never wear the colors. The troubleshooter. The enforcer. The man they sent in when a chapter screwed the pooch. The man they called Spanner in equal parts because he can fix your shit and he can fuck up your day.

  And my personal favorite: If you see Spanner coming, you’re already dead.

  “You’re just a myth.” My gun trembled in her grip.

  “To some.”

  “I could kill you.”

  “Better men have tried.”

  I could see the gears turn as she weighed her options. Shoot me dead and risk the shot waking everyone up, or make a run for the bike and hope she could get to it before I got to her.

  Fuck me if she didn’t pull that trigger. I didn’t think she had it in her.

  Thing is, the P220 is single action, and she didn’t draw back the hammer. Even if she had, she didn’t release the safety, either. She looked at the pistol, dumbfounded.

  I came off the bed before she could figure it out, punched her dead in the solar plexus. The air and the fight went out of her and she sagged onto me. I threw her onto the bed face down and straddled her back, pinned her arms with my knees. Before she could recover, I got my arm around her neck and locked it in tight.

  Some call it the sleeper hold, some the rear naked choke. It closed off the carotid arteries, not the windpipe, and knocked most people out in eight seconds. She lasted about six. I kept it locked in for a while longer. Nobody lasts long without blood to the brain.

  By the time I let go, those beautiful blue eyes went dim. Half-lidded, they looked at nothing. I checked for a pulse just to be sure.

  Pity. The Swords wanted her alive. No way that was going to happen with just me, her and the bike once she had it in her mind to split. So much for that bonus.

  I took my gun and tucked her into bed. Fetal position, with her back to the door. Then I dressed and made the phone call. Nobody had this number but me.

  “It’s me,” I said. “She’s done. It’s all here.” I left the name of the hotel and the room number, read the city name off the stationery by the phone, and hung up. Someone else would be along to take care of it from here. They always did.

  I hung the Do Not Disturb sign and pushed my bike down the street a ways before starting it, then rode onto the overpass.

  I was tired. South sounded pretty good after all. I gunned it down the ramp, already thinking of sunshine and Southern women, strong tequila and open beaches. With luck, the club would let ol’ Spanner rest a bit before the next job.

  Fat chance.

  HERO

  Naomi Johnson

  Deputy Tom Harwell slammed back the door and strode into the small brick building that housed the Viridian County Sheriff’s Office. He spied Maryjean Simms, one of the other deputies, just coming from the back of the building.

  “Where is he?” Tom asked.

  She was arranging her duty belt, not looking at him. “I put him in the holding cell. I need –.”

  “Jesus Christ, he’s ten years old and you put him in a holding cell? And left him alone?”

  “Just listen a minute,” Maryjean snapped, her head coming up to fix him with a cold stare. “As I was about to tell you, I picked him up over where Route 10 runs into Tamarack. He still had the rifle and it definitely had been recently fired. He had it across his shoulders, and he was walking along just as relaxed as if he hadn’t done anything. When we got here I called over to the hospital in Merrill to talk to his mother. I talked to his brother, Duke, instead. And he said that his mom’s in a coma, and that the doctors say it’s a matter of hours. I guess she was a lot sicker than anybody realized.”

  “Did you tell him we – you – arrested Audie for murder?”

  “Duke is only fifteen, Tom. His mother is dying in front of his eyes. How do I tell him something like that over the phone?”

  “What about the oldest boy? Randy? He’s over eighteen, isn’t he? Let’s find him. We need an adult family member here with the kid.”

  “Well, the United States Marine Corps seems to have a pretty good fix on Randy Compton. He’s finishing up basic at Camp Lejeune. They’re gonna ship him to Merrill, but he may not arrive in time to say goodbye to his mother.”

  “That’s it? That’s all the family the kid has?” When Maryjean nodded, Tom said, “Then I guess we better get somebody over here from Children’s Services. Is the Sheriff on his way in?”

  This time Maryjean shook her head. “I haven’t been able to get hold of him. Dispatch says he called in about eleven. He was taking Judge Noble’s wife – sorry, his widow – over to her sister’s house, and then going to lunch. I’ll call Children’s Services if you want to try getting hold of your daddy again.”

  Tom hated it when the other deputies referred to the Sheriff as his daddy. Tom liked to keep his family life separate from his work. Outside of work he usually called his father ‘Pop,’ but on the job it was strictly ‘Sheriff Harwell.’ He wanted very much to be his father’s successor when the old man retired, but he wanted it known that he had earned the position and not simply inherited it.

  “Who’s handling the ballistics on the rifle?” he asked.

  “I locked it up. I figured the Sheriff would want to decide whether to have the Staties look at it. A kid Audie’s age, two premeditated killings, this could make national news. We want to be real careful how we step.”

  “Including whether it’s a good idea to leave the kid alone in a holding cell.”

  She ignored his barb, saying only, “I’ll make that call now.”

  Tom went to his desk and called the dispatcher. He told Tom that the Sheriff had not checked in, but added, “You know how it is in these hills. Radio signals don’t act like they ought to.”

  “I know they don’t act like they ought to when you most need them to,” Tom retorted. “Any other damned time they work just fine.”

  Tom had long suspected that the Sheriff and the dispatcher had an old-boys arrangement to keep the deputies from bothering the head man when he didn’t want to be found.

  He hung up and tried calling his father’s personal cellphone. It rang four times then went to voicemail. He shoved his chair back and put his feet up on his desk, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. He didn’t like where his thoughts were going.

  His father was with Judge Noble’s freshly minted widow, Eloise. Doing the courteous, compassionate thing in taking her to stay with her sister while the county cleaned up the aftermath of her husband’s murder. Eloise was an attractive woman, looking a good fifteen years younger than she was. Pop and Eloise had a little bit of history to them, too. It had been a few years but still, knowing Pop as he did, well, Pop still thought of himself as a ladies’ man, the years and thinning hair and expanding waistline not withstanding. And it was still true that some women would look deep into Pop’s sea-green eyes and lose themselves. Yes, Tom admitted to himself, his father could very well be tactless enough to try out his particular brand of consolation on a woman whose husband had just been shot to death early this morning. Most women in her situation would be repelled by such behavior, if they were even in any state to notice it. But was Eloise Noble like most women? Tom didn’t know her well enough to say for certain, but he still thought it was a pretty safe bet that she was the reason why the Sheriff wasn’t answering his calls.

  “Bad time for a nooner, Pop,” he thought, and hoped this wasn’t going to be something that could come back on the department later and bite them all in the ass.

  Two murders. It seemed impossible that ten-year-old Audie Compton had deliberately set out to take the lives of two men, but reliable witnesses had placed him, rifle in hand, with both vict
ims just before each had been shot in the head; Al McKechnie yesterday afternoon inside McKechnie’s Feed Store, and Judge Harmon Noble in his own driveway early this morning. Ballistics, if confirmed, would tie the case up tight enough to hand it over to the county prosecutor.

  So two men were dead. Two men so different from each other. A merchant and a judge. Other than living in Viridian County, Tom knew of nothing the men had had in common, not even an old legal case. But what would drive a young boy to kill those two men?

  He must have been thinking out loud because Maryjean answered: “Well, for one thing, Audie’s probably seriously stressed about his mother’s condition.”

  “What, like it caused him to have a psychotic break? How did he seem to you? Should we send for a doctor?”

  “Like I said, he seemed real relaxed about everything. Came along with me with no problem at all, almost like he’d been expecting me. He didn’t say much at all. If anything he seemed a little sleepy.”

  “Doped?”

  “I’d say no, just tired. Like he’d walked a long way in this heat. Which he must have done, to get from the Judge’s place to where I picked him up. Children’s Services said they’re backed up today. They can’t get anybody over here before four o’clock.” Maryjean looked down at her desk, then up and directly at Tom. “There’s one other thing we might want to look at.”

  “Four o’clock? Jesus! Isn’t anybody in this county at their desk today? What else?”

  “Well, I haven’t heard anybody talk about it in years, but back when I first came on the job there were some pretty heavy rumors around town that Al McKechnie was Duke Compton’s father.”

  Tom slowly sat upright, his booted feet thudding on the floor.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re saying Audie killed his brother’s father?”

  Maryjean nodded. “I think so.”

  Tom took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

  “I know we should wait for Children’s Services,” he told her. “I know we should wait for the Sheriff. For all I know we should be waiting on half the county; do everything strictly by the book. But I don’t care I’m going to talk to that kid. Right now.”

  • • • •

  With the bribe of a Coke and a Snickers, Audie Compton had been coaxed from his cell and into the privacy and comfort of the Sheriff’s own office. The boy sat at one end of a worn leather sofa while Tom held down the other end. The kid only raised his head long enough to take a swallow of soft drink now and again before hunkering down over the candy bar again. Tom tried to read the kid’s body language but all he came up with was the kid was hungry and he wasn’t scared. Not at all.

  “Audie,” Tom said gently, “I’m very sorry about your mom. Deputy Simms spoke to your brother, Duke, a little while ago. The doctors don’t give her much chance, and I’m thinking we need to get over to the hospital in Merrill so you can say your goodbyes before it’s too late.”

  The dark head did not raise, but Audie answered in the negative. “Mom and I said our goodbyes already. She told me how it was going to be, and we had a long talk about it all.”

  “Still, you might want –.”

  “No. She said I wasn’t to go and see her. Said I wasn’t to worry about missing her funeral either.” Small hands crumpled the Snickers wrapper, then held it tightly balled in one fist.

  “Now why would she think you would miss her funeral?”

  “Because she knew what I was going to do. Might have done it herself if she wasn’t so sick.”

  Tom blinked in surprise, and asked straight out: “She knew you were going to shoot Al McKechnie and Judge Noble.”

  The dark head bobbed.

  “But why, Audie? Why would you want to shoot those men?”

  Audie kept his head down and did not answer. After a long silence, Tom continued. “Al McKechnie had a wife and a daughter. He ran a feed store. He employed three people. I never heard anyone say a word about him dealing unfairly with them.”

  “He was no damned good,” Audie said, his attitude dismissive as he studied the ball of paper between his palms.

  Tom decided to push him a little. “Does this have anything to do with Mr. McKechnie being your brother Duke’s daddy?”

  Audie shrugged and said, “Duke asked Mr. McKechnie to help with some of Mom’s doctor bills. He said no. This was after Mom had asked him already and he told her no, too. Duke’s whole life, Mom never asked that old man for anything for Duke. But Suzy McKechnie went to school in new clothes like you wouldn’t believe. Duke said she could wear a different outfit every day for a month before you’d see the same outfit again. His whole life, Duke never had so much as a t-shirt from him. Or even a kind word.”

  Not something a ten-year-old would say, Tom thought. The boy had heard this from his mother, and maybe from Duke, too.

  “And that made you mad?” Tom said softly.

  “No, that made Mr. McKechnie the enemy.” Tom had never heard a child sound so implacable.

  Tom didn’t understand that statement. He sat quietly, waiting for the boy to go on, but the silence stretched out and he finally said, “And why would you want to shoot Judge Noble? You did shoot him, didn’t you?”

  Audie stood up suddenly and went to the window. He stood there, gazing out. The boy couldn’t be more than an inch or two over four feet tall, but Tom’s impression was that of a much older man standing there. A man who had seen and done much, and now was just a little tired of it all.

  When Audie spoke again, his voice was quieter, lower pitched. “Didn’t you know the Judge was Randy’s daddy? You knew about old man McKechnie, but you didn’t know about Judge Noble?”

  Tom froze. He could hardly believe it. Maybe Eloise Noble had once or twice got herself talked about around town, but he’d never heard a word breathed about the judge having an illegitimate child by the town whore.

  “Are you sure about that, Audie?” He let his skepticism show. “The judge has been a good friend to the people in this county.”

  “Randy’s gone and joined the Marines, did you know that?”

  “Yes, I just heard,” Tom said.

  “Do you think he’ll make a good Marine? I don’t,” Audie declared. “I would, someday, but I’m not like Randy. He’s just going to get his butt shot off in Afghanistan or someplace. And all because his daddy wouldn’t help him go to college. He got a scholarship. Mom said it was a good one but it wasn’t enough. She asked Judge Noble for the money. Not for her doctor bills or nothing else, just for Randy to go to college. He turned her down flat. Randy should have gone and stuck a gun in that fat bastard’s face as soon as Mom told us. But that’s not how he is. Joined the military instead, said he could get his college that way. Mom said he’d probably die in some sand trap long before he got a degree. He will, too.”

  “So you shot the Judge for not helping Randy go to college?”

  “I shot him because he was the enemy.” A flat statement, there was no emotion in Audie’s voice.

  “You said that about Al McKechnie, too, Audie. That he was an enemy. If people don’t do what you want, does that mean they’re your enemies?”

  “Heroes vanquish their enemies.” The boy seemed to stand a little straighter even as he said it.

  Heroes? Vanquish? Did this kid live inside a Marvel comic or something?

  “I don’t understand.” And Tom truly didn’t. This child was losing him. “Do you think you’re a hero?”

  “We’re all heroes, kind of,” Audie said.

  “Everyone?”

  Audie shook his head, came back and sat down on the sofa again.

  “My brothers and me. We were named after heroes. Randy was named for Randolph Scott. That was Mr. McKechnie’s favorite movie star. Mom told me. And Duke’s name is John Wayne Compton. We just call him Duke. He should have been called John Wayne Noble, but the Judge was misnamed himself. Mom told me that, too.”

  “Those men were just heroes in the movies though, Audie. They weren’t real he
roes.”

  “I know. Neither are my brothers. That’s why Mom said she named me after a real hero: Audie Murphy. He shot hundreds of Nazis. And he had more medals than anybody. I read up on him. They say he took care of his family, too, even when they were all real poor together. I don’t want to be like a movie hero. I want to be a hero like him. Kill your enemies and take care of your family. Mom said us Comptons needed a real hero.”

  All Tom could think was, ‘He’s ten years old. My God, he’s only ten years old.’ What he said was, “And those men were your enemies?”

  For the first time, Audie lifted his head and turned to look Tom straight in the face. The boy’s familiar sea-green eyes contrasted sharply with his dark hair. Tom suddenly felt like he’d been punched in the solar plexus. He couldn’t breathe. Outside the Sheriff’s office, but seemingly from a great distance, he heard sharp, loud voices. Someone – was it Maryjean? – cried out, “Oh, no! Tom! Tom, come quick!”

  “Fathers,” Audie told him. “Fathers are the enemies.”

  RHYTHM OF LIFE

  Nigel Bird

  Know why people gather at fountains? I’ll tell you. It’s the music. The notes. The way the falling drops makes a tune. The way each tune blends to make a symphony. That’s why.

  And that’s why I go to the fountains. To be entertained.

  This time it’s the modern one I choose. The water pours from the mouths of the blue dolphins who face North, South, East and West. Bang in the middle, where the dolphin tails meet, the whale. Eyes staring upwards as if calling for some kind of miracle, water gushing all the time from its blow hole over to the perimeter of the surrounding wall.

  There’s a girl there, sitting on the concrete lip of the pool. My lucky night. She’s holding a book in one hand. Can’t make out what it is. Her other hand tickles the surface of the water, her fingertips stroking it back and forth and make tiny ripples where they break the surface.