“Oh,” I said, laughing a little I-just-got-it laugh. “Yeah, I am in a way.” Then I leaned over the counter toward her, just enough to look down her cleavage and smell the powder she used on her skin. “My wife kicked me out.”
She flushed a little red. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what I’d said or what she imagined I was thinking. She was pretty, and it made me wish. I wished I wasn’t headed home right away, and I wished I hadn’t had the night just past.
“That’s a shame,” she said, and she meant it. “That’s sixty-four eighty-seven. Where will you be landing?”
It was a casual question. I read more into it than was there probably because I was feeling like an untied string. “You know, Rochelle…you smell prettier than a Sunday morning.” I looked at her face again. “I won’t be landing for a while, but I’ll think of you while I fly.” I pulled two hundreds from the roll I was carrying. “You keep this and have a little fun tonight. Maybe you’ll think of me.”
I changed in the shower room. When I left wearing my new things, Rochelle blew me a kiss. I felt almost human. Only almost. I was about an hour outside of El Paso when I started crying. I don’t like it, but it happens after a fight. It happened in the army, and it happens now. Don’t mistake it for weakness. It’s not even guilt. I don’t know what it is other than stress, but it’s part of my routine. How sad is it that I have a routine for dealing with death and killing?
Once that was over and the new phone was charged, I pulled over and set it up, and then I called Paris again.
“What?” he asked, sounding even more rushed and annoyed than before when he knew who was calling.
“It’s me,” I said.
“I thought you were going to your place.”
“I am,” I told him, in my best explaining-calmly voice. “I was in El Paso, remember?”
“What were you doing there?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I don’t want to know in an official capacity?” he asked.
I hated the smug sound of righteousness that crept into his voice. It wasn’t a surprise. He and I had stopped surprising each other a long time ago. As a matter of fact, it was probably the predictability of each of us for the other that was the hardest part of our relationship.
“You don’t want to know in any capacity,” I said. “And before you ask again, I don’t need money.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” There was an edge of disbelief in his voice.
I wondered if Paris liked being the guy who kicked his brother a few bucks when I got into trouble. I didn’t ask about it. Instead I asked, “What’s going on with the official thing? Why are you taking this job?”
“There are some things I need to do. I was just bailing water as a Ranger. Maybe down in Lansdale I can pull some people to shore.”
“What people?”
He didn’t answer, and the cheap phone creeped with static when there was no sound coming in.
“Paris?”
“What are you running from this time?” He always had a way of cutting right through to it.
That time it was my turn to hold back an answer.
“You can stop,” he said. “Running. Everything.”
“And do what?”
“Come help me.”
“I can’t be a cop. Forget the joke of the situation. I have a record.”
“People with parking tickets have records. You’re a felon with a jacket.”
“Is that how cops talk?” I passed a slow-going SUV and stayed in the left lane to go by a couple of semis.
“You’re a big-stripe con with a stretch in Angola. That could help me.”
“I’m glad it helps you.”
“It can help you too,” he said. “In the long run.”
“The longest.” I think I did a good job putting bitterness into my voice.
“I talked to Daddy the other day,” he said. The change and the subject both brought me up short. I cut the wheel quickly and crossed into the right-hand lane just ahead of a truck. No horn, but I could see him flipping me off in the mirror.
Funny thing about us southern boys. We may get to be ninety, but we’ll still refer to our fathers as Daddy. When we’re not calling them sons of bitches.
“You’re not going to even ask about him?” he had the balls to ask me.
I ignored his question and the judgment in it. Instead I told him, “I killed about a dozen men in Old Mex last night.” It was a blunt and shocking statement. I knew that. I knew also that he would have to deal with the image and the knowledge of the kind of man I’d become. I didn’t care. It was self-serving to impose the reality of my life on him with the unmistakable accusation that if our daddy had been a father to me, I might be where he was. I still didn’t care. But I said, “Sorry.”
“So am I,” he said. I could tell he meant it. “Do you want to talk—”
“No.”
“Got it.”
“Are you all right?”
That question was not what I expected. I had to think about it.
“You still there?” he asked after a long moment of noisy silence. Then: “Are you doing okay?” His voice was different that time. The question was different too. “Are you all right” meant “Did you get hurt?” But “Are you okay” meant something else.
“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t know the truth of that until I said it.
“Do you need me to—”
“No,” I said again quickly. Then: “So tell me about this thing in Lansdale. How I can help?”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know. How can I? You won’t tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said, letting my annoyance show. “I just told you about—”
“Long,” he said, speaking with quiet emphasis. “You didn’t tell me anything. You said something, and you said I didn’t want to know. Maybe I do; maybe I don’t. But this—this thing I have going on. I don’t know—I don’t know. So I can’t tell. It’s important, though.”
That was my brother. Things to him were important. He had a conscience and a sense of responsibility, and he kept them close. People like me, we can lay such things aside. It made him someone I could trust and need. I’ve never felt like he needed me before.
“Is there money in it?” I asked.
“Doubt it,” he answered right away.
“You’re hiding something,”
“Could be.”
“How is it a guy like me can help a guy like you? And mind you I’m asking how, not what.”
“Let’s just say I have a lot of latitude.”
“I don’t buy it,” I said, thinking things over. “Towns like that want a button-down chief who shows up to breakfast with the Rotarians and the Lion’s Club. A city council doesn’t give latitude.”
“I wasn’t hired by the city council. I’ve been brought on by the Justice Department.”
“You’re going in as a fed? That means someone is bad. And that means attention. You don’t want me there.”
“You can help.”
“How?”
“I can’t say right now.”
“Can’t?” I asked, making sure he knew I didn’t believe him.
“I don’t want to. There are things about this you can help me with.”
“Things about being a fed—pretending to be a chief of police—that your brother with a record can help you with. Sounds like you’re already in trouble.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re just walking in and taking over?”
“More or less.”
“Good luck with that.”
“We can talk about it when you get here,” he said. “When will that be?”
I could picture him looking at his watch. He was a grown man, a cop, and he still wore a Star Trek watch.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “At least another eight or nine hours if I drive straight through. I doubt I can do that
.”
“Tired?”
“Exhausted.”
“It’s not just fatigue,” he said. I knew what he was doing—trying to get me to tell him more about the night before.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not.” I left it at that, and he was quiet on the other end.
When he finally did speak, he surprised me again. “Secrets aren’t good things to have, little brother.”
“Go peddle your papers someplace else, John Smith,” I said.
“We’ll talk when you get here.” He said that like he meant it. I began to think that I never really knew what our conversation had been about. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Okay.”
“It’ll be good to see you,” he said. And, again, it sounded like he meant it, and that was weird. He broke the connection before I could say anything more.
I dropped the phone and pressed the gas at the same time.
It had been a strange talk. I thought about it and decided both of the calls had been strange. I hadn’t picked up on the vibe of the first one because I had been tired and feeling dragged through the mud. Vibe was the thing all right. All the words had worked. They just hadn’t felt correct. Paris and I had always talked and cursed and laughed openly without being open. It was a guy thing. It was a half-brother thing too. But it wasn’t good for actual communication. Reading between lines becomes part of some relationships. For some reason, though, Paris seemed like he was writing his lines in a different language.
Nothing I could do about it from the highway. I turned on the radio and tuned out my thoughts.
After four more hours, I was weaving and barely keeping my eyes open. I pulled off into a rest area and tried to sleep in the car. It worked for a while. Eventually the noise got to be too much. Rain had moved north, and the sky opened just as the sun slunk down into night. A bunch of bikers pulled into the stop to wind their engines up and shout at each other.
After another hour of driving, I faded out again. I pulled off into the gravel lot of a cinder block bar. The building was long and low, dark as hell, but glowing with the same neon-red beer-sign light I expect to spend my eternity in. There were a couple of military guys in uniform eating burgers at the bar. I took a table and joined them in choosing the big burger. Some guys when they get out crave reconnection with the military. Some of us don’t.
I had been good at soldiering. Truth be told, I was an idiot to have gotten out, but the grass s always greener anyplace but Afghanistan. At least the parts I was in. I was only out a year when I ended up in Angola prison for two. It was like the army was a vacation from the life I had been forging since I began setting the world on fire at thirteen. The army was where I got my high school degree and where I read books without pictures for the first time. It was also where I learned to kill. I guess it wasn’t that different from the life I ended up with.
One of the women working tables dropped a few coins in the jukebox and then punched buttons. Even before she walked away, there was a hiss and a pop of contact. The jukebox had actual records, 45-rpm memories of a lost world. I finished my burger, sopping up ketchup and grease with my last fries while listening to Conway Twitty sing “I See the Want to in Your Eyes.” Even though I was exhausted and had a long way left to drive, I ordered a beer. The next song was another old one called “Country Bumpkin.” Before it was over, I had gone through half the beer, and I was crying again. I put my face behind my hand and leaned my elbow on the table. There wasn’t a lot of point in trying to be silent. I wasn’t the first one to cry over his beer in that joint. I tried not to blubber, at least. Things got worse when B. J. Thomas started singing “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.” I ended up the only customer in the place. The waitresses gave me a wide berth and sad eyes. I couldn’t get out of there until the jukebox started playing “Convoy.” I was glad I still had a lot of road to go.
It was in that sparkling, clear dead zone of darkness and star-light between nighttime and morning that I approached home. Grave-digging time: I’ll always think of it that way. I pulled off the highway and cruised, looking for just the right spot. I found it not far from the mobile home park where home was waiting.
First I stopped at a liquor store and bought two six-packs of beer, cheap stuff. Along with that I got a disposable lighter and a red tote with a huge beer brand printed on it. I put the cash and gun in the bag. Next, I stopped at a gas station, bought a gas can, and filled it.
With all my purchases, I drove to an industrial area I had picked out earlier. I parked in the shadows about fifty feet from a bunch of kids. They were hanging out, breaking bottles, and smoking by the dock doors. The kids watched me hard as I got out of the car. I walked away with my big red bag, leaving the car door open and the engine running. The beer, the gas, and the lighter were on the seat. I figured about dawn, the Chevy would be burning down to its tires someplace far from my trailer.
“Paris,” I said as I opened the door. I didn’t shout, but I wasn’t quiet. I assumed he was sleeping, but you don’t walk in on an armed man without announcing yourself. All the lights were off. I wanted nothing more than to go straight to my bedroom and collapse on the bed. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of dropping on top of Paris. Since he hadn’t answered me, I assumed he wasn’t on the couch.
I flipped the switch, and the overhead light sparked. Of the two bulbs, one came on. It flickered three times before it held. The shade was broken. The entire fixture was dangling from wires. Only after the flickering stopped did I have the sense in my head to look down. Paris was on the floor, his hand inches from the toe of my boot.
He was dead. There was no hope, no crouching to touch his neck in search of a pulse. There was too much blood for that.
THREE
When I had released the Chevy to its fate, I had held back two things: the cash and the .40. At that moment, it was the gun I was grateful for. I pulled it from the tote bag and stalked through the dark trailer. It was wasted effort. I was alone with the body of my half-brother.
Nothing had been taken. Aside from the damage to the light and carpet, nothing was disturbed. The violence had been about killing.
Someone had stormed through the door in a surprise blitz. They had taken Paris down, made sure he was down forever, and then left. It had probably taken less than a minute. I didn’t know for certain, but guessed that the thin man with cartoon skulls on his fingers wanted his money back.
I thought about timing. The last time I had talked with Paris was about ten hours before. Cartel killers could have easily beaten me here. They didn’t even have to drive from El Paso. It would have taken a phone call to hire out a local gang. Just as likely, they already had people in Houston who could have set up at my trailer and waited for me to come home.
My head had been spinning from gulping breaths since I’d seen Paris on the floor. I was in danger of hyperventilating. It took a moment of struggle to get control of my breathing and stop my brain from reeling.
Paris.
I’d never wanted to talk to him so badly.
There was no time to think about what I wanted. No time for grief. There was a question hanging over me: Would they come back? If you didn’t know us and just showed up to kill the average-sized guy with reddish-brown hair who lived in this trailer, you might think you’d done your job. If you had seen me before, though, you might have realized your mistake and waited outside for your real target to come home.
I turned around and slammed the door closed and then locked it. I knelt beside Paris. He was wearing jeans but no shirt. That means he had had no badge on when they came through the door. His pockets were empty. Had they checked his ID and taken it?
I had to know before I walked out.
My bedroom was a mess. No surprise there. It had been that way before I left. Beside the bed was a clean area on the night-stand. Paris had put the beer cans in the trash and had his phone plugged in and charging. His wallet was under the phone
. Had anyone looked, they wouldn’t have put it neatly under the phone. I opened it. Tucked inside was another flip-out case holding his Texas Ranger shield and Department of Public Safety ID. There was an open and unaddressed manila envelope in the night-stand drawer. I took a quick look and saw papers labeled “US Department of Justice.” Paris’s pistol was in the drawer. It was a World War II vintage Colt 1911 .45 in a formed and fitted leather belt-clip holster. It had been a gift from Buick.
Paris was not the target. I was. I couldn’t help him anymore. Maybe I could use his death to keep myself alive. I hated myself for the thought. Not enough to keep from covering up the truth.
I dumped the paper from the envelope and dropped in his phone, the charger, and his wallet. I clipped the .45 to my belt. Back in the living room, I stashed the package in the tote. Once again, I rifled through Paris’s pockets. This time I was searching for his keys. I found them and tucked the ring away in my jeans.
The next thing I did was much harder. I lifted Paris’s body at the shoulders and took him down the hall with his feet dragging trails of blood on the low carpet. It wasn’t a have-to thing. I just didn’t want to leave him lying on the dirty floor. There were so many things about what had happened that I didn’t want. I had to do the one little thing I could.
I placed Paris in my bed and covered him. I was gentle as I could be. I removed my own wallet and tucked it into his pocket. It was a poor ruse, but it wasn’t about forever. It was about weeks at best. My new snap-button shirt was bloody and ruined. I pulled it off and took a fresh one from the closet. That was the extent of my packing. I had enough cash to dress myself for a thousand years. I didn’t think I’d need that long.
I put a candle on the bedside table. It was one of those scented things a woman had left in the wasted hope of clearing the man funk from a cheap rented trailer. The candle lasted longer than she had. I lit it and left it there beside Paris.
“Goodbye,” I said to him as I paused at the door.
I pulled aside the kitchen stove, wrenching it until the flex line pulled from the iron gas pipe. It was just a crack, not a gaping tear. I thought for a moment about working it to a faster flow, but I didn’t have much more in me. Besides, if they were coming back for me, they would have shown up by then. Even though it was a small leak, I could smell the propane already. At least I could smell the stuff they put into it to stink like that. Propane was heavier than air. I couldn’t see it, but I could imagine it spilling out onto the floor and filling the trailer like a flood. By the time it got up to the candle, there would be a hell of a lot of gas.
Dead Man's Badge Page 3