The Right Wrong Number: An Ed Earl Burch Novel

by Jim Nesbitt

  The strong smell of urine — animal and human — rode an undercurrent of mold, must and rat droppings. Between the fire pit and the altar sat a trussed up and angry Savannah, eyes glaring, head tossing like a wild mustang, curls flying around her face.

  The boys eased him into the chair facing her with the care of nursing home attendants. Which meant his ribs sent his brain only a modest signal of pain, matched by the alarm his shoulder sent when they bent back his arms to tie them to the rungs of the ladderback. Then they filed out, nodding to Crowe, who answered with a curt little wave and a muttered “Gracias.”

  Crowe walked toward them smiling, his eyes cold and vacant. Burch had seen this look many times on many different kinds of street scum and prison alumni. He knew what it meant — a man ready to deal out death, just moments away from flipping that first lethal card on the table. He kept his eyes level on Crowe’s face and gave him nothing.

  Savannah’s eyes were locked on her husband, a man she had an overwhelming and pathological need to best, a man who was so familiar to her when they played the same side of the same game on all those chumps up in Houston. She either ignored the message of Crowe’s look or didn’t know its language because it had never before been directed at her.

  She was in her full-blown bitch mode, spitting fire like the first time Burch saw her at Louie’s, ready to chop down another big dumb male despite the ropes binding her to a ladderback chair.

  “Got your little tableau set out just like you want, doncha lover? And what does it prove — that you’re in charge? Not on your life. It proves I got you, scrambled your plans and made you come to me. Hear that? Me. This isn’t your game. This is my game, no matter what you do to us.”

  Crowe was on her in three long strides, whipping a pistol down and across her face, drawing a sharp roar of pain from Savannah as the blow tilted her chair onto two legs, which then kicked out, slamming her sideways to the wooden chapel floor like a cheap Saturday pro wrestling trick.

  She screamed a long string of profanity, some of it so guttural it was beyond recognition as anything other than unhinged hatred. He kicked her once in the stomach, which cut the string and turned her screams into the sound of a blacksmith’s bellows, a telltale of a person who has the breath knocked clean out of them and can’t get it back in. He bent down and whispered into her contorted face then straightened up and tipped her and the chair back into an upright position, like a stevedore would leverage a drum of motor oil.

  Burch went slack-jawed then recovered quickly, shifting his face back into a stony set. He was sure Crowe was about to pump a bullet into his wife’s brainpan. He was shocked when that didn’t happen. To Savannah or him.

  The moment passed. Now there would be a delay. Timeout for a word from our sponsor and host. Some verbal humiliation. An explanation. A nice, fat, juicy rationalization. Or the simple egomaniac’s desire to hear himself talk to a helpless audience. To gloat. Or rev himself up once more for the kill.

  Burch felt a worm of disgust curl up in his gut.

  Be a pro, man. Get this evil shit over with. Shut us down, leave us dead and get gone.

  Purely crazy thoughts on his part because any speech by Crowe bought them both a little more time. But the thought of being suckered by these two then having to listen to a little sermonette by Crowe before getting slammed into the land of the long goodbye screeched through his brain like a screaming parrot.

  “I hope I have your undivided attention.”

  Jesus. Who wrote this fucker’s script? And how did a guy who sounds like an assistant high school principal slick the greaseballs in New Orleans?

  “This is where the bad guy tells the good guy how stupid he was, how he got played for a fool, how smart and evil will win out over slow but virtuous every time. And you know why that’s such a cliché? Do you? Because it’s true. Guys like you plod along, doggedly chasing your suspects and perpetrators. And the only ones you ever catch are the halt, the lame and the stupid. The ones who turn the corner and run smack into you while you’re looking the other way. That didn’t happen this time. You’re here because I wanted you to be. Because you were helping her and, like her, have to pay the price for trying to beat me.”

  Burch said nothing, his face still stony, his eyes dead and staring straight at Crowe as the sermonette continued.

  “I could have taken the easy way out. I could have scraped together some getaway money and written off what Savannah stole as the cost of doing business. But that would have been just a little too candyass for my tastes. Something that would have always bothered me, spoiling the taste of that first martini of the evening, ruining that perfect sunset at the beach. When I walk out of here and disappear, I want to leave you two as a calling card. For those dagos up in New Orleans and these greasers here. Nothing behind but two dead bodies and my smiling memory. Leave everybody grabbing for air. The greasers, the dagos, the feds. And all those fucks back in Houston. All their expectations, all those hard-ons and all that salivation about getting hold of me and making me dead and absolutely no payoff. Nothing. With their money in my pocket and an open file gathering dust in some cop shop up north.”

  Burch could hear Savannah’s labored attempts to catch her breath and see the fear glittering in her eyes. He could feel the stone mask slip as he fought to keep contempt from showing on his face. It didn’t work.

  “Am I boring you?”

  “To tears, son.”

  “What’s the matter — the setting isn’t picturesque enough for your tastes? I thought you and my lovely wife would appreciate my thoughtfulness, bringing you back to this isolated lover’s hideaway. Have you lost your sense of romance — your appreciation of irony?”

  “Look, shithead — people been tellin’ me I’m dumb and slow all my damn life. They get in my face and brag about how quick and slick and smart they are. They usually right. But it usually don’t matter because when the dust settles, I’m still standin’ and they ain’t.”

  “You’re sitting now, hotshot. And you won’t see the dust settle on this one.”

  “That just breaks my limp-dick heart, son. What you don’t seem to notice is that I don’t give much of a shit. You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do and my ass will be gone. I’m too tired and too old to care.”

  “Well ain’t you just tryin’ to piss on my parade. Man don’t want to watch me do my touchdown dance. Man don’t want to hear me gloat about how I slicked New Orleans and the feds and those coke whores up in Houston and these sorryass greaser motherfuckers in this nowhere village. No sir, man don’t want to hear that.”

  “That is purely the worst black accent I’ve ever heard. An insult to every brother I know. I’d rather hear you preach some more. Better yet, I’d rather see you go about your business. C’mon man — be a pro. Get it done and get gone. Speeches are for amateurs. And suckers. You’re playin’ down to my level, now. And you know it.”

  “You’re right. It’s time.”

  Crowe pulled Cullen Mueller’s Smith & Wesson from his waistband, cocked the hammer and pointed the barrel at the center of Burch’s bald head. Burch steeled himself, hoping Crowe was good enough to make it a quick kill, hoping his would be a standup death.

  Savannah screamed. Crowe, his concentration shattered, pointed the gun toward the chapel ceiling and eased the hammer down. Burch exhaled.

  “Nnnnnoooooooooooo! I’m the one! I’m the one! Me! This is me and you have to know that! Goddam you Jason, this isn’t about him! It’s me! Look at me!”

  “I’m sorry, wifey but that’s not the way this is going to play out. You’re going to have to sit there and watch your good friend and lover, Mr. Burch, die. Then I will deal with you. On my terms. Not yours.”

  Crowe cocked the revolver while it was still pointing vertical then slowly brought it back to bear on Burch’s forehead. The barrel never got centered. Five shots boomed through the chapel — semi-automatic thunderclaps from God. Crowe’s face exploded, then his chest, his body rushing to
ward the altar in a bloody sprawl of supplication, the reflexes in his fresh-killed hand squeezing off a round that shattered plaster just above the Madonna’s head.

  Burch grunted then blinked through the blood sprayed across his face. The bottom dropped out of his guts, then rebounded, forcing a gush of bile through his teeth and into his lap, dribbling down his face, his beard, his chest. Savannah screamed again but he blacked out.

  Cold water in the face. A gasp for air. Sputters and blurred vision. Then the pocked face of a short, thin and middle-aged Mexican with a thick silvery pompadour, flanked by four younger men. The older man smiled at him.

  “My name is Salazar. I am told your name is Burch.”

  Burch nodded.

  “Ah, you understand me. Good. I thought your near-death experience might have left you in shock. But I can see it has only left you speechless. I am sorry we cut things so close but I had to hear for myself of Mr. Crowe’s treachery. My son Cesar, had warned me about him but I had given Mr. Crowe my word. Still, a man has to keep an eye on his partners. Particularly his gringo partners.”

  Salazar motioned to one of the younger men.

  “Cut Mr. Burch loose. Can you stand up? Help him to his feet.”

  Burch shrugged loose from the hands that reached to help him then stood on his own, wobbly but erect.

  “Bueno. A man who refuses to let adversity make him less of a man. I like that.”

  Burch said nothing. Not out of tough guy but because no words came to his mind and mouth.

  “You are wondering what happens next.”

  “No sir. I’m wondering how much longer I can keep standing.”

  Salazar laughed.

  “Sit, Mr. Burch. Sit. I will do the talking. You have been chasing Mr. Crowe all over Texas, all the way to this little village. We have put him on a platter for you. You can take him back to Texas and prove to the authorities that you have run him to earth. You can tell as little or as much of how this happened as you please.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “A message. Notice to anyone who does business with me that I am a serious player and not a man to be trifled with. Notice that you gringos can’t come down here and have us dancing like puppets on your string. You see, the story that will grow out of you taking Mr. Crowe back to Texas will become gigantic beyond the mere facts. It will become a bit of border legend, one that I will help spin, one that will build up my name.”

  “Maybe they’ll write a song about this. Nothing like a little advertising.”

  Salazar chuckled.

  “Yes. A corrido about me besting the clever gringo who thought he could outsmart everyone. Everyone but me. That’s the perfect form of advertising for the border. Nothing like it at all.”

  “And the girl?”

  “That is a bonus I give to you to deal with as you please. She would have killed you, you know. And in my mind, she is no different than our dead friend here. I would think you would regard her the same way, no?”

  Salazar snapped his fingers. One of his gunhands racked the slide of a 9 mm Browning Hi-Power and handed it to Burch. Burch stood, hefted the slender black semi-automatic and looked at Savannah, red-eyed and sobbing in her chair.

  He felt the ghosts of all the other people who had died because he was too slow and too dumb to keep them alive. He saw Krukovitch sitting at Louie’s. He saw his dead ex-wife. His dead partner. And he burned to even the score and make them all go away with a loud blast of lead and spent brass.

  The gun came up and Savannah’s face filled the sights. She looked like a sick dog, shaking and whining, her curls slick with sweat. Or worse — a glassy-eyed mental patient with a shattered mind and a flamed-out soul, now that the object of her obsessive fury was dead.

  The wreck centered in his sights held no power. The dead disappeared. The gun came down. He snicked on the safety and handed the Hi-Power back to Salazar’s man.

  “You keep her. Might help you settle your dead partner’s account with some gentlemen from New Orleans. They can’t have Crowe but they might settle for the next best thing — their money and his wife. Or not. I’ll let you make that call and deal with her as you please.”

  “You’re asking a bit much, my friend. She’s far too troublesome for me to deal with. As for the money — that’s a far more attractive bargaining chip to begin negotiations with New Orleans. But her — she is worth nothing to me alive.”

  “Then waste her. What’s so tough about having one of your boys put a bullet in her instead of me? Not as entertaining for you but consider it my fee. Cheaper rate than you’d get on Madison Avenue.”

  “As you wish. Anything else?”

  “Yeah — my pistola, the two horses I came in here with and a quiet place to slip across the river. Have the boys strap ol’ handsome there across the pony that bites. And bury the guy who rode across the river with me. He wasn’t a friend but he did watch my back.”

  “Give the man his gun. Consider the rest done.”

  Cesar stepped close and handed him the Colt. Burch racked the slide to put a round in the chamber then thumbed the safety. Cocked and locked. Condition One. Cesar gave him a sharp look.

  “Don’t be stupid, pendejo.”

  Burch met his eye, tucking the gun behind his back, wincing at the spike of pain in his shoulder. A growl at the younger man.

  “I ain’t a suicide, hoss. Your daddy is letting me walk out of here alive and I plan to do just that.”

  From the altar came the slow start of a woman’s wail, shifting through the lower, then medium, then higher registers like an old hand-cranked air raid alarm. Laughter followed, high-pitched and shrill. Only one of the dead returned, his face rising in the mental mist. Krukovitch. A debt he had to pay.

  Burch spun on his bootheels, ignoring the pain, the Colt rising in his left hand as he thumbed off the safety. Eight Flying Ashtrays boomed toward the altar, snuffing the laughter. Smoke curled from the Colt’s locked-open breech.

  Salazar and his men stared at him in the quick frozen silence. Two gunhands had their pistols leveled at Burch. The patron placed a hand on each gun, pushing them down as he spoke to Burch.

  “My friend? Don’t ever visit my little village again.”

  Burch nodded then turned and walked toward the open chapel door.

  The sun was up. The mist was gone.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For more than 30 years, Jim Nesbitt was a roving correspondent for newspapers and wire services in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. He chased hurricanes, earthquakes, plane wrecks, presidential candidates, wildfires, rodeo cowboys, ranchers, miners, loggers, farmers, migrant field hands, doctors, neo-Nazis and nuns with an eye for the telling detail and an ear for the voice of the people who give life to a story. He is a lapsed horseman, pilot, hunter and saloon sport with a keen appreciation for old guns, vintage cars and trucks, good cigars, aged whiskey and a well-told story. He now lives in Athens, Alabama. This is his second novel.