Shots tore open everything. The soda machine and its tanks of syrup and CO2, bottles of runny red ketchup and thick yellow mustard, jars of jalapenos and relish, containers of barbeque sauce. Tumblers of soda and plates of food exploded, covering the patio.
The Judge tried again to get to his gun, but couldn’t get his jeans up while dodging the shots or while fighting the damned vest that fit him like steel sport coat one size too big.
He jumped to his feet as the warmth of his own blood streamed from his mouth. Without a word, he ran for the truck. It wasn’t going to take the cops long to get here. He didn’t want to be found and he sure as hell didn’t want the truck found.
It was a short block to the truck but the Judge’s boots slipped on the asphalt. Like a dream where he ran and ran but never moved. A car came around the corner and the horn squealed. The driver slammed his brakes but the car continued, smoke pouring from the rear tires. The Judge dipped his shoulder to absorb the collision but somehow missed it.
Instead, the car ran into a storm of bullets. They thunked a trail from hood to trunk as the thing got stopped. The driver yelped and threw the car into reverse and again the tires smoked as he blasted back the way he’d come.
Ducking and dodging, trying to avoid Bassi’s shots, Bean made it to the truck’s door. A quick yank open, two steps, and his ass was deep in the seat.
A bullet hole stared at him. One bored in through the driver’s window and exited the far back side of the sleeper wall. Delicate shards of safety glass dotted the dashboard.
Someone else already shooting at you?
Bean cranked the hell outta the truck’s big motor. The engine screamed and thick clouds of black smoke filled the air.
So who was shooting?
Stanton? Or, given Bassi’s tastes, someone else altogether?
“You fucking dumbass,” he said, berating himself. Why had he ever thought Bassi could make a delivery? He’d known for years what Bassi was all about and what kind of baggage he brought with him. “Damnit, Bassi, what’d you do?”
A bullet answered. It tore into the door just behind the Judge. He heaved the truck into gear and got it moving. Inches at a time.
From the patio, Bassi kept shooting. Bullets hit the trailer and the engine housing. One bullet shattered the entire front windshield while another tore through the radiator. In the outside mirrors, the Judge saw the trailer and his balls tightened.
Smoke poured from it.
“No, no.” Bean hit the steering wheel. “Damnit.”
Bassi hopped the knee-high fence around the patio and bolted into the street, waving his arms. “That’s my weed. You ain’t getting it.”
The Judge blasted the horn. The truck kept moving, a decent bit of power now in its belly.
Bassi jumped onto the nose of the rig, catching the hood ornament and hauling himself up on top of the thing.
“Are you crazy?” Bean said.
“This is my shit.”
Bean jammed down the accelerator. The truck lurched and bumped as though taking a deep breath. Then it jumped forward.
Bassi whipped his gun onto the hood and leveled it at Bean.
Bean jerked the wheel left. Bassi slid to one side and his gun skittered across the hood. When the Judge yanked back hard right, Bassi went the other direction.
“Get. Off. My. Truck.” With each word, Bean jerked the wheel back the other direction, tossing Bassi side to side, loosening his grip.
“Fuuuuck yooouuuuu.” Bassi howled. He slid off the hood but managed to keep his hand tight around the ornament. Somehow, he got his head up over the edge of the nose again. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck’re you talking about?”
The air was full of sirens now. Cops called to a shootout and a burning truck and who knew how far away they were.
“Tell Faith I’m sorry.”
Guiding the truck down Big Spring Street, cars parting like he was Moses in the fucking Red Sea, Bean yanked out his cell phone.
“Faith, I’m sooooooorrrrryyyy.”
Then Bassi was gone. He’d ripped the ornament off the truck when he went down. The cab bumped over Bassi’s body.
Bean pushed the thing harder.
6
Less than a hundred miles from Barefield, just a little south of Lubbock, the smell of gun oil, and fear-stink, filled the space between duo.
Only four lonely bullets left. But if the ammo ran dry, there was always the Kennedys, wasn’t there? And the Nazis after that.
Damnit, clear the shadows and confusion outta your head. Sing a song. Dance a jig. Draw a fucking picture.
None of that ever worked. The shadows were always there, light or dark, drugs or whiskey be damned.
This time it was a man. Probably a different one, even though his face was pudgy and drawn and scared and sweaty, just like the guy in Albuquerque...or maybe the one in Sierra Vista. “You’re all the same.”
Same man, different man. All scared and babbling for mercy. Same men, same women. Their fear all had the same funk to it. Boobs or dicks, high society or dog shit, fear smelled and tasted the same.
“When it comes to fear, everybody bleeds the same.”
This guy—too-tight jeans strangling his balls, fake silk shirt unbuttoned to the bottom of his too-hairy chest—saw the gun and immediately dropped to his knees. Just like a Southern Baptist preacher at tent revivals, on his knees, begging for coin.
Except his hands weren’t out. How them saved souls gonna drop silver in that palm if those hands aren’t out?
“Beg...” Touched the gun to the man’s forehead. “Beg.”
Head bobbing like one of those dolls, spittle all over his lips. “Sure...anything you want. Hell, everything you want. Just let me and the sun wake up together tomorrow.”
“Or at least long enough to get some clean skivvies, huh?”
The man had pissed himself. “I don’t want to die.”
“Who does?” A pause. “I been running short of bullets.”
Hope flared in the man’s eyes.
“But I know the Kennedys. Personally.”
“What? The who?”
“Whoooooooo...are you? Great song.” A cough, a hesitation. “Let me ask you this: how can you put a man in charge whose family sold bullets to the Germans in World War II?”
“The fuck are you talking about?” the man asked. From his knees, he backed away, tried to stand. “You’re crazy.”
The gun smashed hard against his skull. “How ’bout I crazy your brains all over the fucking wall?”
Now his hands came out. The full Southern Baptist picture.
“No, no.” Voice high and scared like a school girl’s. “Ain’t what I meant. What I mean was...that yeah, you’re right. He can’t be in charge. World War I or II, or III or what the fuck ever.”
The gun sagged. “Dude, agreeing with me ain’t gonna help. I mean, nice try, grabbing whatever you can, but you don’t understand me. You don’t have the intellect.” Tap-tap-tap of the gun against skull. “So stop embarrassing yourself and tell me where the Judge is.”
“What judge?”
“Bean. With two y’s.”
The gun caressed his ear, barrel along his lobe, then dragging a line along his throat, as though through the ease of touch the information would come pouring from this rat of a man. There had been rats up and down the hot part of America, the brown part of America with all those Mexicans, and the touch had worked with most of them.
Yeah, those people were all dead now, ’s why the magazine was running short, but the touch had mostly worked. Never totally, no one gave up the Judge’s precise location, which they all obviously knew, how could they not, but the circle was drawing tighter, wasn’t it?
When it was tight enough, a noose so elegant even a hangin’ judge would love it, the air would be bathed in the nasty stench gunpowder and blood, of piss and the man’s shit.
“I want the Judge.”
A giggle leake
d from the man’s thin lips, just like the piss had from his dick. “We all do, gangsta.”
“Maybe, but I’m gonna get him. Where is he?”
“Swear to God, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in months.”
“Goddamnit, are you people all so fucking stupid? All of you know where he is. Why is everyone screwing with me? I am not to be screwed with. I am dangerous. I’m a killer.”
His hands came out again. “Easy, gangsta. I’m on your side. I’m saying, the Judge screwed lots’a people. Jesus Christ, I think any of us would dig getting a hand on him.”
“Careful, gangsta, blasphemers don’t do well with me.”
“I get’cha. No problem.” Slowly, the man stood. “I’ll help you find him. Let me get a few bucks outta him, and I’ll hand you more bullets...long as you put one in his brain.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
The man shrugged. “Five, maybe six, months.”
“Who saw him after you?”
“How the crap would I know that? But I heard he was in Barefield.”
A laugh floated out from behind the gun. A scratchy, sloppy sound. “I sent a package there, asshole. He hasn’t worked in Barefield since Joseph P. bought the White House from the mob in Chicago.”
The man’s eyes flashed. “Not working, at least not wearing the robes. Way I heard it, just a couple days old, Bean was hot and bothered about a poker game. Thought maybe he’d finally find whatever the fuck it is he’s been pissing about for four years.”
Smiled. “Well, we all make sacrifices in one way or another. But not Moses and his ageless wives. It was all of a piece, wasn’t it?
“Uh...sure.” The man nodded. “Listen, word was, a few days back, at some other game in Victoria, he was getting all worked up about some chick. Kept saying just wanted to be done, wanted to get back to her. Freaked the guys at the game out.”
“Her...who?”
The man shrugged. “I guess his dead wife. I hear he talks to her all the time. Guy is completely buzzfucked.” He raised his hands conspiratorially. “Find a guy called Echo. A smoke hound, runs stolen shit outta his garage. West side somewhere. The Judge grew him up, kept him straight and narrow when Echo’s mama was dead or dying or some shit.”
“Grew him up? He Bean’s kid?”
“Might as well been, way I heard it. Don’t really know the details of that shit, I got eyes other directions.”
The gun hesitated. “Is he still in Barefield?”
“Gangsta...please, the Judge don’t run his schedule through me. I got no clue about when exactly.”
A tired sigh. “Yeah, wrong answer, Gracie.”
7
The semi-rig, trailer burning and fiery coffins tumbling from the back, bursting open against the asphalt, thundered along the street.
“Fuck.”
Everything had gone wrong. It had been such a simple thing. Play some poker, maybe find Mariana’s property, make a few bucks, get back to Langtry West and its comforting ghosts. But the finger and the note, then Bassi’s cheap bid for glory had screwed everything. What the fuck was next now?
“Gotta hide this burning dope wagon.”
Not an easy proposition. Against his ear, the phone continued to ring.
And ring.
“Come on, Echo, answer, damnit.”
The four blocks he’d traveled from Johnny’s seemed like the breadth of the entire country and yet he wasn’t moving anywhere near fast enough. He kept the accelerator at the floor and the engine screamed but refused to give him anymore. This bastard of a hulking monster had a mind of its own. As fast as it wanted and no faster. It would build up a head of speed when it wanted, no sooner, and fuck off if you don’t like it.
All around him, like bumpers in a damned pinball machine, cars. Judge Bean yanked the wheel left but couldn’t avoid an old station wagon. When he hit it, the left rear quarter crumpled and reminded the Judge of an old man who’d once crumpled while standing right in front of the Judge’s bench. Crumpled and died. Right there. On the courtroom floor dead.
It’d only been a speeding ticket.
Four cars already had gotten scraped or bumped. Fenders dented, sides ripped. And don’t forget, ladies and gentlemen, one car had gouged its way along the street for fifty feet when the burning trailer caught the damned thing’s bumper.
Thump-thump-thump
If he had single clue about how to drive a big rig, he might not have torn up so much private property while he hauled ass outta Johnny’s. But aside from his SUV and his motorcycle, he really had no clue how to drive anything.
Doubly so not anything that burned while he drove it.
When he finally left the residential streets around Johnny’s for light industrial of the near-outskirts, there were fewer cars. Out here, the streets lost their downtown luster and choked on weeds, broken glass, and potholes. Empty buildings appeared, standing side by side with run-down or abandoned housing projects and shooting galleries left to the dead and nearly dead. Down these streets, people could barely afford the crack and crank that kept them at least feeling alive; cars were damn well an unattainable luxury so he actually felt worse about those few he did hit.
The truck was moving now, not yet beyond thirty-five miles an hour but honestly, how fast could he go with something this big on these streets? The howl of the engine rose and fell, the chrome stacks belching black exhaust in rhythm, as he cycled through gears trying to speed up on straight roads and slow down for turns. Every lurch of the tractor and trailer tossed another coffin onto the road. Bent, broken, blackened from the trailer fire, they busted open like skulls cracked with a billy club. Plastic-bag wrapped weed tumbled out, scattered all over the asphalt.
“Are you kidding me?”
A dog. Big and black. Wandering into the street and completely unimpressed with the semi bearing down on him.
“Get the hell gone,” the Judge yelled.
The animal licked its teeth, as though deciding, then sat.
“Fine. Your fucking choice.”
Bean punched the pedal. The engine swallowed, took a deep breath, and stumbled forward.
Don’t you dare. I’ll beat your ass, Jeremiah.
“Damnit, Mariana, I don’t have time for—”
But even in death, his life never refilled with anyone else, he couldn’t stand the thought of Mariana angry or disappointed with him.
One hand still holding his cell against his cheek, clanking his knees around the steering wheel, Bean’s free hand found the horn. A long booming blast split the air.
The dog cocked his head.
“Move, you stupid fucking animal.”
The horn again, and now the truck decided to put some speed under those huge tires and wasn’t it close enough that the damned dog could feel the engine heat?
“Moooooove!” at the same time he laid on the horn.
Thump-thump-thump
The dog yipped, darted out of the street as the truck rumbled past. Tail tucked firmly up its ass, busting balls through some bushes. And just beyond the bushes?
An old man sitting on his porch. Bottle in hand. Watching everything. He waved. “Truck’s a’burning,” he shouted. “Prob’ly oughta take care’a that.”
The Judge gave a short horn. The old man laughed as he yanked out a cell and started snapping pictures. Still laughing, he started coughing and quickly doubled over until he was on his knees, but he kept his arm high to get more pictures.
“Great. Fucker’s going to have a stroke and that’ll be on my conscience.”
What conscience, he almost asked. You destroyed your family and fell into a bottle...and a syringe...to ease your soul. Fucking coward...
Another two crashes and Bean knew more dope was gone. How long before the neighborhood junkies realized there were pounds and pounds of top-shelf Mexican weed flying around like manna from Heaven?
“Merry Christmas,” he said as summer sweat, mixed with a healthy dose of balls-up scared sw
eat, rolled down his face. “Smoke up.”
Just don’t tell the cops you got it from a disbarred justice of the peace who may well have, God alone knew, how many new warrants sitting in the District Attorney’s office by the end of the day.
Almost on cue, sirens split the air. The shriek was distant and maybe they weren’t chasing him, but they were damn sure getting to Johnny’s and if he could hear them when he was this far from Johnny’s, they were probably past the barbeque joint, following the trail of broken cars and spilled dope.
“Damnit, Bassi, you son of a bitch.”
In his ear, the phone continued to ring.
And ring.
Thump-thump-thump
And freakin’ ring, a melodic counterpoint to the sirens.
“Damnit, Echo, answer the phone before I slice your balls into next week and stuff them—”
“Yo, cut that shit out,” Echo said. “Who you is, threatening me like that?”
“It’s Bean. Open the doors.”
The engine howled, the fire licked and laughed along the trailer, the brakes screamed when the Judge had to slow down, blood pounded in his ears. And yet, the silence Echo offered him was louder than everything else.
“Echo, please, I need your help. Open the doors.”
“Judge Royy Bean...the second.” Echo breathed each syllable. “Didn’t know you was in town. If this gonna be a reunion, I guess I can break out some of the top-snort whiskey we lifted last month.”
“Damnit, Echo, open the doors.”
“Man, you oughta be listening to the poh-leece scanner.”
He whistled and Bean heard sarcasm even in the whistle.
“Fucking thing’s going nuts. They was some trouble over at Johnny’s. So many squads out there I can hear them from here. Gotta shoot fest, I guess. Say, you weren’t over there eating were you? I know you dig that place. Guess you didn’t get shot, huh?”
“Open the damned doors.” The Judge’s voice boomed, reverberated through the truck’s cab like a bomb.
Beneath the boom, though, he was scared. His feet fumbled between gas and brakes while he yanked the wheel hard right and the truck slid around a corner, banging and popping and burning. Smoke poured out and filled the sky with a thick, black, giant locator beacon.
Death is Not Forever (Barefield Book Book 3) Page 3