A Bob Lee Swagger eBook Boxed Set: I, Sniper, Night of Thunder, 47th Samurai

by Stephen Hunter

  They both looked into it.

  “Empty,” she said. “Well, I couldn’t wait. I had to put him down.”

  “You made the right decision, ma’am.”

  “Thelma,” one of FAT kids said, “you didn’t have no choice. You did the right thing.”

  “That’s right, Thelma,” said another. “Don’t you worry about it. Nobody could fault you.”

  “You sure you’re okay, Mr. Swagger? Maybe when the medical people get here you might want to have them look at you.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. Maybe it’ll hit me later, but right now it just seems unreal. Detective, where’d you learn to shoot like that? I never—”

  “Thelma’s three-times running ladies’ USPSA champ of the Southeast Region, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Kentucky. She could go pro, she’s that good, Mr. Swagger. Para-Ord sponsors her. You’re lucky she’s here. She’s probably the best shot of any law enforcement agent in this part of the country. Maybe the whole damn country.”

  A cruiser, its lights running hard, pulled up, and then another and another, so on until general delirium took over the scene.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The thing was, you couldn’t smoke. He might see a lit cigarette glowing in the otherwise-darkened interior of Vern’s red Cadillac El Dorado, then bolt. Agh. So both Vern and Ernie, in cranky moods, sat grumpily scrunched down in the car in a dimly illuminated zone of the parking lot of the Mountain Empire Motel. Neither had had a cigarette in hours. It was a little after midnight.

  “I might sneak out and run around back for a smoke,” said Ernie.

  “You will not, cousin, no sir. And take a risk he pulls in just as you’re in his lights? That’s how it’ll happen, you know it is, that’s how it always happens when you give in to your hungers on a job. You be a good bad guy now, and do what Daddy has said. We may get a kill out of this tonight and then we can smoke our asses off.”

  “Vern Pye, I don’t mind saying, I didn’t enjoy your tone with me just there. Didn’t say I’d do it, now, did I? No sir, said I might. Just talking. You’re so high and mighty, I see your eyes go all buggy anytime a piece of hot under the age of fifteen with no tits goes on by. Please watch that tone, Vern.”

  “Well, excuse me, sir, I’m just trying to get the job done right and proper so I can go back to my regular line of business. And what kind of gal I take a fondness toward ain’t nobody’s business. I will say, this here stay in scenic Mountain City has been as hard on me as it has on you, cousin.”

  “You don’t even want to be here, that is why you are in such a punky mood.”

  “No, I don’t. This is not the right move. But if the old man says do it, I have to do it and so do you, even though you agree with me and not him.”

  “All I know is, he says go, I go. That’s how it is.”

  “Even now in this car alone you are afraid to defy him.”

  “Maybe I just respect the rules, is all. And if you don’t, no cause to turning all crabby on me.”

  But then a car pulled into the lot. Both squirmed down a little, both noted that it was indeed a small Ford or Toyota, the sort the rental companies generally provided. It prowled, looking for spaces, and found one close to Room 128, which they knew to be the hit’s.

  “Could be,” said Vern.

  “Pray to God,” said Ernie. “Or maybe it’s a teenage gal in short-shorts and a halter with the new issue of Tiger Beat.”

  “Asshole.”

  The fellow got out, slid around to the trunk, opened it, took something out, and held it tight under his arm, looked about for signs of something not in place, and then moved gently toward the room. But it was the limp that gave him away for real. It was like he had pain in that right hip from more than a single wound. He was also moving stiffly as if bandaged in a dozen or so places. He paused, took a look around the lot again, satisfied himself that it was all clear, then bent to open the door, slipped in, and locked the door behind him.

  “Hot doggies,” said Vern. “I can taste that Marlboro right now.”

  “He’s the pilgrim, all right. Can’t believe a old gray-hair like that dusted Carmody and B.J., but now’s the night he learn it don’t pay to poke at Grumley.”

  “That’s holy Baptist writ, right there, cousin.”

  Vern slipped his Glock .40 from the shoulder rig and edged back the slide to make certain a shell lay nested in the chamber, while Ernie, a wheel gunner with an engraved El Paso holster on his belt, did the same with his 2.5-inch-barreled, nickel-plated Python full of .357 CorBons.

  Vern had figured it out.

  “I say we wait a bit. Let him get settled in. Brush his teeth, check the lot through the window, make his calls, maybe have a sip or ten on that bottle of bourbon he done brung into the room, get all settled and snuggly, then we kick the door and empty our guns into the guy on the bed who won’t know what hit him, and then we head out fast. You okay with that, cousin?” Vern asked.

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Ernie. “Should we call your daddy?”

  “Don’t know about that. You look more like him than I do. It’s in the nose and the mouth.”

  “I don’t like powder blue. It don’t bring out the color in my eyes. And I don’t wear no white fright wig so’s to look like that chicken-pushing Confederate colonel. My ma never said he was my daddy. He’s the only one.”

  “Ooo, doggie, I see I done touched a nerve.”

  “Hell, cousin, he’s probably both our daddies by both his sisters. Now what’s that tell you about the old man’s judgment? So why’d we want to call him?”

  “I think my ma’s his daughter, not his sister. He do like to stir the soup, don’t he? Anyway, I’m thinking we ought to bring other boys in. Maybe someone with a shotgun to blow the door, then step aside.”

  “He brings that shotgun, he ain’t gonna want to step aside. He’s going to want to put a couple of double-oughts into the guy in the bed, watch the fur and feathers fly. Then we ain’t done nothing but been good little scouts. It don’t do me no good. ‘You hear, someone dumped two Grumleys and old Vern Pye hisself went after and put the man down hard.’ I want that said about me, and I want a reward for three hours without a cigarette.”

  “That’s cool by me.”

  They settled in, waiting as the seconds dragged by. What, another hour? An hour was too long. Half an hour would do. But as the time crawled by, doubts appeared.

  “You sure you don’t want to call the old man?”

  Vern said, “He’d just want to come out hisself. Then we got to wait on him. We got to wait while the whole thing comes together. That’s two more hours without a smoke.”

  “Or a poke.”

  “You see anything pokable here now? No sir. Anyhow, I say, we do it, we’re gone, it’s over and it’s smoke time. Then we get back, then we go on the main job, then we get our swag, then we go about our business and put this here time in the prayer camp behind us. You can go back to your job in the warehouse, I can go home to one of my three wives, or maybe a stripper, or maybe pick me up something new and fresh.”

  “Somewhere in there, can we throw in a shot of tequila? A shot of the worm, damn, that’d be just swell.”

  “Yessir to that.”

  “Yessir to the worm.”

  But a few minutes later, it was Vern who said, “Hell. I just don’t know what’s nagging at me. Too long without a pop, my nerves are shot. Don’t want to make no mistake. Call him. Make certain.”

  “Okay.”

  “Keep it quiet now.”

  Ernie slipped his cell out, ordered it to call the Reverend, and heard the rings, one, then two, then a thir—

  “What is it, boy?”

  “Sir, we got him. He just come in. Been in his room ’bout half hour now. Vern and me’s fixin’ to visit and leave hair and brains on the wall. Just want—”

  “No, no, no,” said the old man. “Haven’t you heard? Already a shooting in town tonight, some meth dealer got wasted by Thelma. Man, you g
o and shoot the town up, it’s going to be like Dodge City here and we get the state cops and the FBI and all them other boys. They already here, I’m betting.”

  “Daddy, I can nail him in ten—”

  “No, boy. I changed my mind. Too much of a risk. We have a big job. Now here’s what I want. You and Vern, you head on into Bristol. I’m betting he’s staying at his girl’s apartment, and I got that address. You set up over there. After the big job is done, he’ll be there. That’s when you hit him and finish this business but good, in the Grumley way.”

  “Yes sir. Does that mean, if we don’t go on the big job, we don’t git our share of—”

  “No, it does not. You get full share. You just don’t meet up at the camp ’cause we’ll be long gone and spread to the four winds after Race Day. You call me a week down the road, and I’ll have your share for you. Just as promised.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  “You follow me?”

  “I do, sir.”

  Ernie clicked off.

  “Well?” said Vern.

  “Smoke ’em if you got ’em,” said Ernie, lighting up a cigarette.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Swagger awarded himself a good night’s sleep, as he’d been running without it for two or three days. He’d gotten back from giving a deposition at the sheriff’s office around midnight. He jammed a chair under the doorknob to hang up any unexpected intruders, stuffed his pillow under the blankets to represent a fellow sleeping on a bed, and took his rest in the bathtub, boots on, with the Kimber .38 Super as a pillow. He had good, deep sleep, slightly broken by dreams where his father told him how disappointed he was in the man Bob had become. But this theme presented itself so often it didn’t bother him. It went with the privilege and the luck of being Earl Swagger’s son.

  He awoke at ten, took a shower, rebandaged the cut on his knee, checked on the swelling around his eyes to see that it had gone down a little, took three ibus, then changed into new jeans and a new polo shirt. Next, rather than breakfast, came coffee brewed in the room’s coffee maker. Then he got down to it. His first call was to his wife.

  “Well howdy,” she said, and he sensed from the joy in her voice something good had happened.

  “Is she awake, Julie?”

  “She was. For almost a whole minute. She sat up in bed, looked at me, and said, ‘Hi, Mom.’ Then she smiled at Miko and said, ‘Hi, little sister.’ Then she lay back down and went back to wherever.”

  “Oh, great! Oh, that’s the best news! What do the doctors say?”

  “It’s how they come back. It’s never, ‘Hi, what’s for breakfast? Let’s go to the movies.’ It’s a slow swim out of the dark place. She may have short periods of wakefulness for a few days going before she comes out of it completely. So they’re very, very optimistic. Sometimes the victims don’t remember a thing, but she knew who I was and who Miko was. Oh, it’s such good news. Can you come soon? It’d be so good if you were here when she really came out of it.”

  “Well, damn, I’ll try. There are some things, some issues, I have to deal with.”

  “There was more shooting last night out there.”

  “I didn’t fire a shot. In fact, my gun was still in the trunk. I come through it all right, except for a cut knee and a swollen forehead. They’re even calling me a hero and some TV station wanted an interview. I told ’em to call my PR rep. Anyway, I’ll call back in a bit. It still ain’t—isn’t a good idea for you to call me. I just don’t know where I’ll be and the sound of the phone might not do me any good.”

  “Okay. But please come soon. Oh, I am so excited.”

  “The news is great, honey.”

  The next thing he did was call Nick Memphis again. Nope, no answer. Where the hell was he? It wasn’t like Nick to disappear. Maybe he was overseas or something. Anyhow, Bob just left the same message. Then he called Terry, the grocery clerk, to see how he was doing, but got no answer. He left a message. A second later the callback came.

  “You all right?” Bob asked. “Holding up?”

  “Sir, it’s been great. I been on the TV a bunch of times, I got calls from some producers in Hollywood, I been in all the papers. Is that okay? Am I handling this correct?”

  “You ride this for all it’s worth, you hear. You owe me nor nobody nothing. You leverage it for all you can get out of it. If you want, I won’t never call again, Terry.”

  “No, no, sir, call me. I want to know what’s going on and I may need your advice. Also, I feel guilty being called a hero—”

  “Which is the true mark of a hero. All heroes feel that way. I’ve known a few. But don’t kid yourself, you stood and fought against two armed men, you took one of ’em down, put him on the floor and really won the fight while all I did was squeeze a trigger a few times. You are a hero, son. Even if you don’t believe it. The rest is meaningless details.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Now I can’t tell you anything about the entertainment field. It’s full of sharpies and you’d best keep your hand on your wallet is all I know. But you do call me if you have any trouble, you see anyone dogging you. And be careful. These fellas was working for other fellas. You hear me?”

  “I do.”

  The next call was to Charlie Wingate, the boy genius in the computer store.

  “Any more for me, Charlie?”

  “Mr. Swagger, this hard drive is totally fried, near as I can tell. I only got that little bit, I’m afraid to say. Won’t charge you a thing for that.”

  “Oh, yes you will. You charge me for a full day’s work at top-scale, consultant level, and not a penny less, you hear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Now I want that brain of yours working on something else. Know anything about the Bible?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well I don’t either. But something’s come up involving a biblical passage, Mark 2:11. It’s where Jesus cures a crippled man and says to him, ‘Get up, go home.’”

  “‘Mein Fuhrer, I can valk,’” said the boy.

  “Yeah, something like that,” said Bob, not even close to getting it. “So what hI want you to do is analyze it from any perspective you can think of. Is the number significant, the two-eleven? Is the page on the Bible significant, don’t know what it would be. What do the commentators say about it? What are the different interpretations? Is there some word translated differently from the original language, whatever the hell it was.”

  “Aramaic.”

  “Yeah, fine. Could it be a code, what are its other citations or usages in history or whatever? Are there paintings or something based on it? All that stuff. You’re smart, you know what I mean.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You know the town?”

  “Been here my whole life.”

  “Okay, maybe there’s some connection between it and this town. I don’t know what, but be creative, think outside the box, make it fun, a puzzle. Who knows what you might come up with.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He disconnected, and almost before he could put the phone down, it buzzed again. He checked the number and realized it was the private number of Matt MacReady, the young NASCAR racer calling him! Wasn’t tomorrow the big race?

  “Yes, Matt?”

  “Hello, Gunny. How are you?”

  “Only a week older’n last time I saw you, but it feels like a hundred years.”

  “Time do race, don’t it? Only thing goes faster than my USMC Charger.”

  “Only thing.”

  “Anyhow, been thinking and looking and maybe I have something for you.”

  “Go ahead, son.”

  “Wheel marks, metal close together, part of the NASCAR racing operation? Well there is something. You see it all the time in the pits, it’s everywhere, what’s the word, upbequious?”

  “Hmm, don’t know that word.”

  “Red says it’s ‘ubiquitous.’ That’s what it is, ubiquitous.”

  “Well, damn. Hope I don’t forget it.
Ubiquitous. Everywhere.”

  “What it is is, it’s the track of our hydraulic jacks.”

  “For tire changing?”

  “Sir, yes sir. It ain’t all the driver. Part of the art of winning at this game is teamwork on the car. I have a good crew, Red’s got ’em trained up real good. They get me gassed, watered, maybe oiled, and re-tubed in less than fifteen seconds. It’s like choreography, the way they work a car in the pits on Race Day. And the key to the tire change, of course, is the jack. It’s a big heavy dog, solid steel and it’s hydraulic, built of cylinders full of lube. Weighs about fifty pounds. Runs on steel wheels about an inch wide. You have your biggest, strongest stud as your jack man. He gets it over the wall, guides it fast to the wheel well, jacks the car off the ground. Meanwhile, your air-wrench guy de-lugs the tire even as the jack is lifting it high enough to clear. The wrench guy clears out, a guy comes in and grabs the lugs; that’s his job, his only job, to keep track of the lugs. Two other boys, the tire men, pull the burned-out tire off the axle, roll it away, and slam on another one, which two other boys have rolled to them. The wrench-man airblasts the lugs tight, and the jackman lowers the car, and the whole team of them crash hell for leather to the next tire and repeat the same thing. They can get the car re-rubbered in fifteen seconds, and if you look, after a race, win, lose, draw, or crash and burn, their hands and wrists and especially fingers are all cut to hell. But they’re tough boys, they don’t much care.”

  “Got it. And they roll that thing through oil and water and it leaves tracks, maybe six to eight inches apart, everywhere on the tarmac, in the pits, everywhere?”

  “I’d be willing to bet, sir.”

  “So if you saw a tangle of ’em, you’d think, someone’s practicing a wheel change?”

  “Well, that’s what I’d think.”

  Hmmmm. Swagger tried to press this new information into the pattern he’d assembled. Tire change. Someone was practicing a speed-tire change, after the fashion of NASCAR. Now why the hell would that be? The boys setting this thing up weren’t racers, weren’t running a pit crew. What’d they need a speed-tire change for? What vehicle came with the wrong tires in place and had to be re-rubbered fast? What would be the point of the new tires? Well, only way it makes sense is if the first set of tires is burned out. Now what would burn out a set of tires? Were they going to steal a racing car? Those babies were expensive but he didn’t—