“Information first,” Bean said. “And while we’re in court, my associate will check the number. If it comes back to JD, you’ll be on your way. If not, I’ll shoot all three of you.”
“It’s a pre-paid cell. It won’t come back at all, much less to him specifically.”
“Trust me,” Bean said. “Bring no witnesses, bring no evidence. I’ll listen to you, I’ll listen to him. I’ll decide.”
She eyed him for a long moment, her hand cocked on her hip. “And you’ll do what if you find JD?”
“I will find him, and then I’ll shoot him like the rabid dog he is.”
“With an empty holster?”
Bean yanked the .380 from his back, jammed it hard against her forehead. At the van, one man startled and bent for his weapon. Digger pulled his .45 back out.
She waved her companion off. The smile crept back across her face. “Why, Judge, that’s a mighty big dick you’ve got there.”
29
Ten minutes later, Bean banged his gavel against the bar. A Corona bottle bounced and Bean’s shot of tequila spilled over the side of the glass. “Shut up.”
The bar, full of not very damned many people at all, meandered into silence. Bean recognized all but two of the customers. An older man, dressed too nicely for the heat, and a woman hunched over a soda, head hanging down and hair covering her face. Her bare arms were covered with tattoos. Every few minutes, she’d toss a look at Chelle, though quietly and from behind her hair.
Seeing new faces always made Bean a little nervous, hence the shotgun and twenty extra rounds wired to the underside of the table. One hand usually on the gavel, one finger always on the trigger.
As good a way to do business as any.
At the end of the bar, Bean slammed back the tequila, more to cool his anger than because he wanted a drink. “When this woman is done, get to Chelle.” He nodded toward her. She sat at the near end of the bar, finishing off a burger slathered in bacon and cheese and mustard. “She’s our priority for now.”
“And after now?” Digger asked, standing behind the bar, fingers on his laptop, one eye on the customers and one on Chelle.
“You guys know I’m right here, right?” She chewed around a mouthful of bacon. “I can hear pretty much everything.”
When Bean looked at her, she was almost smiling. Not quite, but almost and it was the closest thing he’d seen since he’d found her. “After now, our priority is Jim Dell.”
“Because he shot Mariana?”
“Yeah.”
“Judge, I think maybe your skinning the wrong rabbit here. Why the hell would he do that?”
Bean had asked that question a thousand times driving from Andy’s place. No matter which way he approached the question, or how many times, he came back to the same answer. “She knew.”
It was that simple. Mariana had gone to get Zapata because Zapata was killing innocent people, both Mexicans and Texans. She had wanted to bring the guy back, parade him down a well-reported perp walk, and send him on a bon voyage to the death-house at the Polunsky Unit north of Houston.
“She saw it was a set-up. She saw Zapata’s men get killed, probably killed a couple of them herself. She took Zapata outside, thinking they were taking him to their car and hauling ass back across the border, but instead a van pulled up. She knew they were cartel boys.” Bean’s gaze went from the customers to Digger. “She saw Jim Dell get in that van. She knew it was all wrong.”
“Wouldn’t go along?”
“Fuck, no, she wouldn’t.”
True as far as it went, Bean thought, but it still didn’t answer the reason for the lies. Superficially, he understood. No one needed to know what had happened in the shootout and sure as shit no one could know about JD and his bullshit with the cartels.
Still an outstanding question, too. Just what the fuck kind of crap was he peddling to the cartels? Did he give them Zapata just because Zapata was snatching their product going north and their profits going south? What’d you get in return, fucknut?
Blowing a hard breath, Bean eyed the new people sitting at the bar. “You check them?”
“Yeah. Neither name meant anything to me. Neither are strapped. Old guy’s passing through. Going to Mama’s birthday.”
“Mama? He looks about ninety.”
“Eighty-one,” Digger said. “Seemed pretty proud of his mother...said she’s spry and crotchety at ninety-six.”
Bean shook his head in admiration. No man in his family had ever made it that far. Cancer, heart disease, a few gunfights back during Prohibition, but most of all...the madness. It drove men over the cliff. It made them crash their cars into trees at eighty miles an hour, or jump from the 22nd floor of the Wilco Building, or hang themselves. “Fucker did great getting that far. Give him a drink on me. What about the woman?”
As if she heard him, she raised her head, though Bean could barely see her because of the shadows and her hair. It seemed she looked right at him, then eyed Chelle again.
Digger shrugged. “All the regular shit. Credit not great, job history not great. No arrests that I could find.” Digger’s face was hesitant.
“But?” Bean asked.
“I don’t know. She’s nice enough and all but...she’s sort of weird.”
“Gotta road sign for me better, Digger. What the fuck does ‘sort of weird’ mean?”
“Well, look at all those tats.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. Just struck me odd. She keeps looking at Chelle.”
“Dyke,” Chelle whispered through a mouthful of pickles. “Getting all juicy about me. I can tell.”
“You look like my daughter,” the woman said. “I miss her.”
Bean nodded. “Yeah, I miss mine, too.”
“Mine’s dead.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s dead, maybe not. Maybe she went on vacation.”
For a moment, in air suddenly as thick as a west Texas dust storm, no one said anything. Chelle nodded, Digger stared hard at his computer, but Bean watched the woman. Her face was still mostly hidden in the shadows and behind a flop of brown hair. She said nothing else, concentrating instead on her beer.
“Your Honor?” The woman from the van tapped her wrist watch. She stood next to one of the men from the van and about twenty feet from the other.
Bean kept his eyes on the woman from the van. “Digger?”
Digger banged out keystrokes quickly. “Hang on.” More keystrokes, more mousing, then he nodded and gave Bean a thumbs up. “It’s his.”
The woman stared at Digger, then Bean. “You satisfied? I told you it was Jim Dell’s number.”
“Yeah, ’cause I’m going to trust some woman who lied to me and then tried to blackmail me. I’m just exactly that stupid.” Bean went to his table, the one weighed down with the shotgun and extra rounds, cleared his throat, sat, Bean banged his gavel. “In the matter of—” Bean glared. “What’s your name?”
“Gladys Reuter.” She sat one table over from the Judge.
“Uh-huh. And his?”
Bean pointed at the man who sat next to her. He was younger, obviously nervous though trying to hide it.
“My husband.”
“Raymond,” the man said. “Uh...Reuter.”
“Gladys and Raymond uh Reuter,” Bean said. “And you?”
The second man sat diffidently at a separate table. His fingers, long but thick, toyed with a cheap Lone Star Beer coaster. He stared at Bean, then at Reuter, then for a good long while at Digger. Digger pulled his .45 and laid it obviously and loudly on the bar.
“What’s your name, boy?” Bean asked again.
“Kiss my ass.”
“Good enough for me. In the matter of Reuter versus Kiss My Ass, I do hereby open this hearing in the court of Judge Royy Bean, II. There will be no record, no recordings, no notes. My decision is final and if you don’t like it, I’ll be glad to kill you and dump you in the drywash. Anyone who gives up my name to anyone wearing a badge, or th
eir agents, will be found in prison or the free clinic or where ever else you might be hiding, and you’ll be killed.” He glared at both parties. “Do we understand each other...completely?”
The man stood. “The fuck kinda bullshit is this?”
“Don’t you ever interrupt me again,” Bean said.
The man tossed the coaster to the table. “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do.”
Digger slid up behind him, grabbed him by the collar. “What the hell is your problem, buddy?”
The man knew enough not to fight. He raised both hands, palms out. “My problem, buddy, is that I’m about to get screwed out of my share by a Judge who ain’t in no courtroom, who I ain’t never heard of, and who just told me if I don’t like what he says, he’ll kill me. So you tell me...what’s my problem?”
Bean stood. “We’re done.”
The man raised a hand in apology. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. I’m just blowing off steam. I shouldn’t be here. She should’a stuck to her word.”
“You gonna behave?” Digger asked.
“I got a choice? I’m getting railroaded here and my only choice is getting a bullet in the brain.”
“There are always choices, Mr. Kiss My Ass,” Bean said. “This choice will get you out of here. Alive. With some money.”
Slowly, carefully, Digger released him, then gently sat him back in the chair.
“Best I’m gonna do, I guess. My name is Thomas.”
“Damn straight,” Bean said. “Reuter, what have you to say?”
“Your Honor,” she said, glancing at her watch. “My husband and I put together a...project. We solicited the help of Mr. Thomas. He has certain skills we thought might help the project along. We promised him thirty percent of resultant net profit.”
Bean looked at Thomas. “And you say what?”
Thomas toyed with the coaster. “What she said is mostly true.”
“Which part isn’t?”
“Didn’t say nothing to me about no result net whatever.”
“Your Honor, I absolutely said thirty percent. That is quite a nice ROI on his investment of time and mental capital.” She glanced at her watch again. “In fact, in our first meeting, in Houston, we spoke of a number of different options for payment, including straight cash for time, as well as a percentage of whatever payout we managed through the finished project. However, we also—”
Bean held his hand up. “Stop it. What did she say, Mr. Thomas.”
“Thirty percent.”
“Thirty percent...no other conditions?”
“Nope.”
“You look at that watch again, Reuter, and we’re done. Anything you have that’s important isn’t quite as important as keeping me happy.”
She stared at him, her eyes hard, her jaw tight, her hands fists. Digger put his gun in his hand. Slowly, she slid her watch off and dropped it in her purse. “Better?”
Bean sat down, tried to ignore the pounding between his temples. He’d gotten the same headaches in court, listening to Assistant District Attorneys argue with Public Defenders over the stupidest shit anyone could imagine. But here, in this courtroom cum bar, he could get something to fix his headache. He mimed drinking for the bartender.
Bean looked at Reuter and Thomas. “Gladys is a slick one. My advice, Mr. Thomas, is to get away from her. She said thirty percent and wanted you to believe it would come right off the top. But then she tried to slide in expenses. Net proceeds rather than gross. Figured she’d give you a giant bill showing how much money it cost her to run this little theft, which would shrink your thirty percent to dick. I’d bet her version of operational expenses would reduce your thirty to something closer to ten.”
“Your Honor, that’s not—”
“Shut up, Reuter. That is exactly what you did and we all know it. So I’m going to take twenty percent. I’m going to give Thomas his full thirty percent off the top and that’ll leave you with a nice majority stake of fifty percent. Comprende?” Bean slammed the gavel against the table. “Court’s adjourned.
“You stupid old coot,” Reuter said. “I’m not going to give you—”
When the gunshot sounded, everyone’s eyes flicked to the doorway. Bean wrapped a paw around the butt of the shotgun and pulled both hammers back.
“Already?” Reuter asked.
Two more shots and Digger moved toward the door. Halfway there, his gaze outside, he stopped. “Son of a bitch. Both my men are dead.”
“What?” Bean swiveled the shotgun toward the door. “Who is it?”
“I got you now, you son of a bitch,” a man bellowed, barreling through the door.
And then, holding a Colt 1911 in each hand, Jim Dell started shooting.
30
“Son of a bitch,” Bean said. His voice boomed in the bar. “Digger, get her outta here.”
The woman stood but immediately realized Bean was talking about Chelle. Her gaze stayed on Chelle as the young woman dashed off the bar stool and let Digger shove her out a back door.
The first thing Bean noticed, as the few customers silently hit the floor and started crawling—they’d all been through this sort of thing before—and as the bartender went down immediately in a shower of red mist that rained down on everyone?
Jim Dell’s pants.
The crease had always been razor-sharp, Texas Ranger-perfect. Sharp enough to cut flesh. He’d even threatened an arrestee once, telling the man—thrice convicted of child molestation, once for false imprisonment, once for animal cruelty because he’d kicked a cat through a football field’s goalposts—he’d slide those jeans along the man’s carotid and happily watch him bleed to death.
Bean slid down behind his table and tried to follow Jim Dell with the shotgun as the man darted across the floor, looking for cover. Bean blasted two quick rounds and Jim Dell dove sideways, howling and shooting. As he dove, JD’s bullets scattered around the bar, shattering bottles and windows and neon beer signs.
Digger’s mirror, carried lovingly from New Orleans, gently put into place and then given a cleaning every day but Digger’s obsessive hands, went almost immediately.
“No,” Digger bellowed.
It didn’t go in a single explosion of glass and booze bottles. It went pieces at a time, as though the Cosmos wanted Digger to feel each break deep in his psyche. Jim Dell’s bullets marched across the silver shimmer right to left. Bullets went through the glass and spider-cracks snaked across the mirror’s face until they found other cracks. Growing and growing until huge pieces were falling, giving the thing a look almost like an old man losing his teeth one by one.
“Digger.” Bean tried to shout over the firing. “Don’t kill him. Just wing him.”
“Right.” But Digger fired too slowly.
JD spun, laid two shots out and left Digger writhing on the floor with a bullet graze across his face.
“Can’t hide behind your house boy,” Jim Dell said in an adrenaline-soaked voice.
Bean fired again. His shot went high and blasted out the windows above the front door.
The second thing Bean noticed?
JD’s pants had always been spotless. As though they had to be sterile just in case he did ever use them as a scalpel. The man was obsessively fussy about his clothes, to the point Bean had once seen him strip out of a pair of jeans and toss them out the window—the car moving better than seventy-five miles an hour—because he was certain the dirt would never come out and he didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the other Rangers.
Not only did these pants have no crease...
They were dirty. And bloody. Dried to a crusty brown, but obviously blood.
Jim Dell fired a long, hot volley from his twin 1911s and Bean laughed. Jim Dell had always been a cliché, but two-fisted shooting was a little over the top.
Cliché or not, those fucking guns blazed. So many bullets Bean damn near saw the line of them reaching out from the gun to tickle him.
Between the blast of his shotgun and the co
nstant pops from Jim Dell’s twins, the noise became an icepick-pointed buzz burrowing into Bean’s brain. Only tiny bits of actual words from his customers broke through.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“Can’t let him shoot me.”
“Thomas is gone...go...go!”
“God does everything—”
“Digger, Jim’s over there.”
“Shot my mirror, you motherfucker.”
“—I ask, but he ain’t listening to you guys.”
“I see him, Judge, I see him.”
“Bean, you son of a bitch. Why’d you send her?”
“What? Send who?”
Bean and Digger had long ago taught the regular customers to hit the floor if shooting every started because most pissed off people shoot high. So now, as Bean watched and fired, the customers—one with a drink still in his hand—hugged the floor and slipped out. But the eighty-one-year-old man, running upright and almost blind with panic, ran toward the back door.
Jim Dell’s bullets found him and slipped right up his backside. He hit the ground hard.
Won’t make it to Mama’s birthday, Bean thought.
“Who is she?” Jim Dell asked.
“Who is who? What are you talking about?”
“The woman you sent to kill me.”
“I didn’t send anyone, JD. I thought you were dead.”
“Well, I ain’t.” JD fired a few more rounds, pops like ball-peen hammers to the air inside the bar. “Bitch fucked up trying to kill me. Shouldn’t’a let me live. Never let your enemies live, Judge. You’re gonna see that.”
“Like you let Zapata live?”
JD laughed. “Didn’t let that fucker live. He died that night, just like all the TV stations said.”
“But you didn’t kill him,” the Judge bellowed.
Jim Dell’s bullets blasted through the tops of overturned tables, the seats of chairs, through bottle after bottle of watered-down liquor, and in an instant Bean was back at the Four Seasons in Barefield. Scared and sixteen, fake ID’d into the bar. Then he got in the face of a biker for no particular reason. Once that fight had started, the tables and chairs, the barstools, got the worst of it.
Death is Not Forever (Barefield Book Book 3) Page 18