The Gunman from Guadalez

by Eric Meyer

  “Honey, I’m home.”

  She replied, but she didn’t sound normal.

  “I’m in the living room.”

  A throat infection, maybe?

  “Okay, I’ll make some coffee, you fancy a cup?”

  There was no reply. Puzzled, he strolled into the room. She was sitting on the sofa, staring at him, white-faced. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  She used her eyes to signal behind him, and he felt something cold touch his neck.

  “Sheriff Walker, how nice to see you again.”

  “Martinez.”

  “In the flesh. I thought I’d pay you a visit before I go home, so I could repay you for everything you did for me. Did you think I’d forgotten you?”

  “Let the girl go. She hasn’t done anything.”

  The reply was a mocking laugh. “Is that right? As I recall, she was with you in Mexico and helped destroy my house and kill some of my men. She’s done plenty.”

  “So you’re going to kill me.”

  “Of course. And I’ll offer this pretty lady a choice. Since you took Juanita, I’m a body short in my whorehouse. She can take her place. Or die.”

  “Fuck you,” she snarled, “I’d sooner be dead.”

  “That’s not a problem. Sheriff, take out your gun and put it on the floor. Do it now, or she gets it first. Slowly, don’t do anything that makes me pull the trigger. You both have a few minutes of life left, so why make it any shorter?”

  He took it out slowly, like the man had said, and tossed it back through the door into the hallway. Martinez slammed the barrel of the gun over his head, and he felt blood trickling down from a cut made by the foresight.

  “I told you to put it on the floor.”

  “That’s where it is, on the floor.”

  “I want it in here. I want both of you to move real slow into the hallway so I can pick it up without taking my eyes off you.”

  “What’s so special about the Browning?”

  He roared with laughter, and he felt the gun barrel screw even harder into his head. “What’s so special is it’s the gun that’s going to kill you both, unless she changes her mind about the brothel. Back into the hall and keep your hands up.”

  “Martinez, what do you want to leave her alone?”

  “I told you.”

  “There has to be something else.”

  “There’s nothing else. She becomes a whore, or she dies. Move.”

  They obeyed, moving into the hallway, and the Hi-Power was lying on the tiled floor. So near, and so far. He considered making a dive to grab it and put a shot into the Mexican, but he knew he’d never make it. Instead, he backed up against the wall.

  “What now?”

  But he’d already worked out what was about to happen, a bullet into his head at close-range, followed by a bullet into Eva. He’d press the Browning into his hand to make it look like a murder suicide, and he’d been gone, back over the border, protected by his vast wealth.

  Keeping his eyes on them, he stooped to pick up the gun. “Now you die. No last words, Sheriff? No pleas for mercy?”

  “Nope.”

  He sighed. “Very well, it’s time to put an end to this.”

  “I agree. But you’re making a mistake, Martinez.”

  He snorted. “I don’t think so. Do you know what’s important in life? Respect. You disrespected me and did a lot of damage in the process. But it’s the lack of respect that I can’t let go. That’s what a man needs to survive. Respect.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  His eyebrows shot up in puzzlement. “You what?”

  “The hell with the respect, what a man needs is an Indian trophy display. It’s time to put an end to this.”

  His hands were held high, inches away from the tomahawk. When he got it home, he had two weeks to recover, filling in some of the time in the rear yard practicing the art of throwing the fearsome weapon. He’d become skilled at it, not perfect, but good enough. He reached over, a smooth, flowing movement. Martinez was off-guard, still puzzled by Walker’s meaning.

  The weapon flew through the air and hit him with a meaty ‘smack’ like a butcher cutting meat. It looked like he’d acquired an extension to his nose. The blade embedded itself into the center of his face and stuck there, the handle sticking out to one side like a huge, one-side mustache. He dropped the gun, his eyes wide with astonishment. Blood spurted from the terrible wound, and he slowly toppled, falling to the tiled floor with a crash.

  He knelt beside him, and he was still alive. His breath coming in frantic, short pants. Walker heard him say, “I need a hospital.”

  More blood oozed from the terrible wound, and the tomahawk was stuck fast. He put his hand on it to pull it out. Eva gasped, “No, if you take it out, he’ll bleed to death.”

  He wrenched the handle, and it came away. She was right, bright blood gushed out of the wound in a torrent and pooled on the floor. “I know.”

  He stayed with him, watching him pant for breath, squirming in agony. Begging for medical help, offering him everything, the keys to his empire, enough money to buy anything he wanted. He didn’t answer. Just stayed and watched. Eva stayed put.

  “He’s dying.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “Kaz, it’s inhumane.”

  “Yep.”

  “You should call an ambulance.”

  “The prison tried that, and he hijacked it. The State doesn’t have an endless supply of ambulances. He’ll have to wait his turn.”

  “It’ll be too late.”

  “I guess so.”

  He died a half-hour later. His pleas for mercy became weaker, until the final breath left his body. Walker finally called 911 for an ambulance, leaving the body in the hallway while he went to the kitchen to brew coffee. She joined him, and she was crying bucketloads of tears. “You let that man die.”

  “He wouldn’t have made it anyway.”

  “You could have tried.”

  He took her heaving shoulders in his hands. “Eva, if he recovered, we’d live in fear of his vengeance for the rest of our lives, as would Clarence, Manuel, and Juanita. You know that, and I know that. Is that what you want?”

  “No, but…”

  “There is no but. It’s him or us, period.”

  The ambulance arrived, and a cruiser had accompanied it on the ride out of town. Clarence was driving. He looked down at the body and his eyebrows shot up.

  “Martinez?”

  “Yep.”

  “If that don’t beat all. So he came here to kill you.”

  “And Eva. He’d have wanted all of us.”

  He whistled. “Thank Christ it’s over. Say, we needed a new janitor to keep the office clean and tidy, and I took a call from Albert Carter. Thing is, Tolley said you’d had some trouble from him, so I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Did he sound sober?”

  A pause, and Clarence furrowed his forehead. “Now I come to think of it, he did sound a bit slurred.”

  Dammit, we need to keep his wife safe.

  “Tell him no and make a note we need to pay him a visit tomorrow. Read him the riot act.”

  He nodded. “You got it, Sheriff. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be getting along.”

  “You do that. And thanks, Clarence.”

  They had the house to themselves, and he helped her clean the mess in the hall. Afterward, they sat in silence, and now the exhaustion hit him in waves.

  “I’m all in. I need to get to bed.”

  She nodded. “Me, too. There’s one thing I have to finish first.”

  She went into the hallway. The tomahawk was still there, resting on the table, where it’d left a bloody smear. She wiped it off and took the weapon into the kitchen where he heard her cleaning it under the tap. Before she went to bed, she replaced it on the display.

  Neither could sleep, and he held her for what seemed like hours. Occasionally, she shivered as she thought how close they’d come to death, and each time
he soothed her with gentle words. When the first rays of dawn showed through the window, she abruptly climbed out of bed.

  “Are you awake?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve been thinking. How do we stop it happening again?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “He is, but there’ll be more. There always is.”

  A shrug. “We keep fighting them.”

  “I want to help.”

  He smiled. “You’re thinking about becoming a cop? I don’t have any vacancies.”

  “I want you to take me out to the range. I need to learn how to shoot.”

  “I though you knew how. You handled yourself pretty well.”

  “I meant the M-60.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Her expression was serious. “No, I’m not kidding. Kaz, you know, and I know there’s a chance they’ll want vengeance.”

  What do they call it? The elephant in the room. Something big that looms over our lives, and I hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

  “The M-60. I recall someone said they hated big, mean ugly guns like the M-60.

  “I did. But it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”

  He tried again. “It’s a handful.”

  “If they come, I need to know how it works.”

  “You don’t go in for half measures, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’ve become a regular firebrand since Mexico.”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  He suppressed a smile.

  The narcos better stay their side of the border. Eva McCoy plus a machine gun, shit.

  * * *

  When he reached the office the following morning, William Bridges emerged from his office next door and confronted him. His lips had stretched into a smile, which as usual didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Good news, Sheriff. I've been thinking hard about those budget cuts and going through the figures with the city treasury. There won't be any need to lose a deputy."

  He nodded. "It's appreciated, Mr. Mayor. After all the trouble we've had lately, the last thing we need is to be shorthanded."

  Bridges smiled even more, like a cat that got the cream. "There's more, we managed to stretch the figures, and there's enough money to employ another deputy. I had a recommendation from one of my contacts, a guy they said would fit the bill, and I've already hired him."

  He sensed something bad coming. Whatever Bridges did was for his own benefit. "Sir, that's not the way we do things. I get to decide who we hire and fire."

  "It's already done, Kaz. The guy starts work tomorrow."

  He decided to let it go. He'd employed Clarence, and another new guy would be welcome, even if he weren’t a perfect fit. "Okay, I'll look out for him. What's his name?"

  He saw an expression on Bridges' face, and at first, he couldn't work it out.

  "Carlos."

  "Uh, huh. What's his second name?"

  "Rivera. He's lived in America since he was a kid, but he was born somewhere south of the border."

  He felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, and he took a few seconds to acknowledge. "I hear you, Will."

  It was all wrong. Mayor Bridges didn’t even correct him and remind him to call him William. Inside he was reeling.

  Rivera, south of the border. Shit!