"I don't have any money to pay you."
"Skip it. One vet to another. You heeled?"
"I, ah, pawned my service piece a couple months ago. Booze money."
"Alright. I don't suppose Billy ever gave you his address."
"Nope."
"Then we'll try his dealership in Longview." Jack eyed the sad DeSoto, seeming to slouch in the grass under a glowering sky. "And we'll take your car."
* * *
The Roundup looked closed. No hungry salesmen prowled the lot, and a chain stretched across the main entrance. What with the black clouds approaching, ice-swollen and ominous, there wouldn't have been much business, anyway.
But … Billy's Imperial was parked in front of the office.
"Any sign of Ziegler and we're out," Jack said, as Joe pulled along the curb. "Understand?"
"Gotcha. We got time for a snort?"
"You pull a bottle and I'll break it over your head."
Jack got out. He padded across the lot toward the Imperial, not bothering to see if Joe followed. He laid a hand on the big car's hood. Cold as the grave. A moment later and Joe was behind him, breathing through his mouth. "I've got a spooky feeling, Jack."
"Me too."
The front door opened with a push. As soon as Jack took a whiff of the interior he stopped. That smell. As if someone had struck a book of matches, but fainter. Joe caught it, too. They exchanged uneasy looks. Jack motioned Joe for silence and drew the Colt from its holster. He peered into the waiting room. Just a few chairs and a table covered with Popular Mechanics. The door to the sales office stood ajar.
Jack crept inside. The sales office windows were frosted glass; he couldn't see beyond them. A shove from the Colt's barrel sent the door swinging inward. He dropped into a shooter's stance as the familiar sulfur-smell came wafting out. There was a steel case desk facing him and another to his right. The latter had an occupant: the slumped-forward body of Billy DeFour, hat still atop his head, soaking the calendar blotter with blood.
"Oh, Jesus," Joe said.
"Quiet." A glance showed the nearby phone cord had been yanked out of the wall. Billy's right hand lay half-slipped inside the desk drawer, like he'd been reaching for something. Jack pulled the drawer open. A .45 ACP gleamed dully inside, next to a cluster of mongrel pens.
"You better take this," Jack told Joe, handing him the automatic. Joe chambered a round as if an afterthought, his eyes pinned on the corpse.
Jack got ahold of Billy by the shoulders and eased him back, gently. Billy's head lolled forward. Three bloodied holes, no bigger than a button, clustered in a spot just above his left breast.
"Precision shooting," Jack said. "Small-caliber. Still, with houses so close someone was bound to hear the shots."
From outside came a rustle and a bump. The wind was picking up.
Jack let the body droop back onto the desk. There was something wrong about the blood. Too fresh. He laid his fingers on Billy's neck. Warm. Billy shifted a little under his touch, and Jack cried out, unable to help himself. A long rattle escaped Billy's throat.
"This just happened," Jack said. "It could've been minutes ago. Joe—"
Joe was no longer beside him.
The front door creaked open and shut. "Joe!" Jack called, forgetting the need for silence. He bolted out into the waiting room, gun in both hands. Joe's silhouette sped past the leftmost window. Had he heard something? Jack followed him out into a biting wind. The sky had turned gray-black. He could see rows of new cars, foolishly left naked to the approaching elements, but no people. Joe must've circled around the building. Some goddamn war-hero. He knows you're not supposed to split up.
Jack hunkered low and circled, too. Just past the corner he heard a voice, maybe Joe's, and a coughing sound. The latter was so faint the wind almost drowned it out. Jack's skin prickled. He reached the next corner and poked his head around, slow.
Joe stood with the .45 braced in front of him. Less than ten feet away Rosie leveled a .22 automatic, the black cylinder of a silencer screwed to the barrel. Both had each other in their sights; both looked resolved to shoot, though Joe less so. Rosie wore her pink pea coat and a black beret set at an angle. Her eyes had registered Jack as soon as he'd popped around the corner. She made a slight sideways movement with the .22's barrel, indicating she could cover both of them.
"Stop right there," she told Jack. "Don't move, and don't raise that pistol."
"Tying up some loose ends for Ziegler?"
"You two weren't supposed to be here." Her eyes were on Joe when she said it. Jack could've sworn she looked sad.
"You're Bunny's girl, aren't you?" he said.
"I'm his enforcer, you moron."
"You cut Billy out, now you're going to cut Joe out, too?"
"I do what I have to." Her knuckles were white against the .22's little trigger.
The wind raged and flipped Rosie's beret off her head, lofting it along. But she didn't flinch. Jack stayed frozen. Time was on their side. Rosie, having finished her hit, would want to get away as soon as possible.
Joe shook. He swayed forward a little, corrected himself. There was a drip-drip noise. Jack saw it: a spatter of blood at Joe's feet.
The coughing sound. She'd already shot him.
"Rosie—" Joe stumbled, the automatic's barrel wavering. Jack started to raise the Colt, but quicker than he'd ever seen anyone move, Rosie pointed her .22 at him. He ducked back behind the corner just as she squeezed a round. The tiny bullet sheared a piece of brick and sent the fragments into his eye. He yelped, clapping his left hand over his face; his right still held the revolver, should she decide to come around the corner.
She didn't. Jack heard the rapid footfalls of someone running.
He leapt from cover. Rosie had turned tail and was running for a silver coupe parked twenty yards away. Joe, on his knees, had dropped the automatic. He clutched at a spot low on his chest with both hands.
Jack uncovered his left eye. He could still see, but there was blood streaming from a cut over the eyelid. He braced the Colt to fire, lining the iron sight with Rosie's slender back. Could he shoot a woman who was running away?
The hell he couldn't.
"Jack, no."
The Colt bucked. But either the blood in his eye or Joe's shout, or both, caused him to miss. The coupe's passenger window exploded. Rosie got the door open and dove inside. Calm as a Sunday school teacher, Jack worked the hammer and aimed at the middle of the cab. The car's metal wouldn't stop a .45 long round.
Joe hurtled against him, spoiling his aim. The coupe's engine turned over. Joe clawed for the revolver, blood spilling from a small hole in his sternum. But he was weak. Jack checked the instinct to pistol-whip him and extended his right arm out of reach. The coupe was moving now, turning toward a side-exit. Jack aimed for the gas tank and snapped off a shot.
In the world of spinner-rack detective novels, the bullet would've struck home, sending up a fireball over the lot.
He missed. The coupe sped away.
"You," Jack said, holstering the Colt, "are the most goddamn thick-headed man I have ever met. If you weren't already wounded, I'd punch you again."
"You almost shot her."
"She's a cold-blooded killer. And she shot you."
"I'm—I'm alright." But he wasn't. His face was going pale, his eyelids starting to flutter shut. Still, he looked more hurt by the fact that Rosie had plugged him than any physical pain. Jack took the blazer off and searched for an exit wound. He couldn't find one.
"Can you stand?"
"Just let me sit here awhile."
"Nothing doing. Up, you stupid Marine."
Jack hauled him to his feet. The sky decided to dump just then, but instead of driving hail it sent down white flakes, delicate as soap-shavings. They settled on Jack's face with stinging cold.
Joe blinked. "The snow. It's just like Toktong Pass."
"Don't get all punchy on me. The car's not far away. I couldn't save you from those
bad people, I couldn't stop you from getting yourself shot, but by God, I'll get you to a hospital. There's a decent one here in Longview."
"Jack." Joe slumped in his grasp. Jack reached up under his armpit, got a better grip. He'd frog-march him if he had to. The Fury waited along the curb, a big red beacon in the whirling white.
"Just a few more steps. Christ, Joe, you must've been through worse."
"This, you mean." Joe gestured feebly at the zig-zag scar. "I got it after I came home. Driving drunk. Went through a windshield, which was why I had to buy a new car."
"Save your breath, now."
"Know how I got my Bronze Star? I humped ammo to a quad fifty my unit had trained on the Chinese. We used quad fifties on people, Jack. We had to. A mortar round wiped out my whole squad. I was the last one alive, so they gave the medal to me." Hot tears fell on Jack's shoulder. "I was the last …"
"I know it, kid. I know it."
Jack yanked the Fury's door open. As soon as he slid his charge inside, Joe folded like a sack and slumped forward against the dashboard. His breathing was ragged. Blood still dripped, out across his soaked shirt and onto the red leather upholstery. Jack hustled around to the driver's side. The Plymouth started on the first try.
Midway between the dealership and the Good Shepherd Hospital, Joe Crewes called for Rosie one last time.
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
†
About the Author
Garnett Elliott lives and works in Tucson, Arizona. He's had stories appear in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Reloaded (Both Barrels 2), Uncle B's Drive-In Fiction, Blood and Tacos, Battling Boxing Stories, and numerous online magazines and print anthologies. You can follow him on Twitter @TonyAmtrak.
More from "The Drifter Detective" series …
Jack Laramie, grandson of the legendary U.S. Marshal Cash Laramie, is a tough-as-nails WWII vet roaming the modern West. He lives out of a horse trailer hitched to the back of a DeSoto, searching out P.I. gigs to keep him afloat.
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The Girls of Bunker Pines (The Drifter Detective Book 3) Page 6