Moving Target

by R. A. McGee

Seth was back to grinding his teeth. “Yeah, yeah. Glad that pig is gone.”

  “Shut up, Seth. Pull back on the highway,” Laura Bell said. “Go real slow.”

  “Yes, Laura Bell.”

  Dusty eased the Lumina back onto the highway, starting out exaggeratedly slow.

  “A little faster than this, Dusty; this looks weird,” Laura Bell said as the man accelerated a bit. “That’s good right there.”

  “Tell you what, that pig’s glad he liked you, or I was gonna have to do his ass. Ain't gonna let no cop stop me. A pig ain’t shit, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Just shut up and sit there, idiot,” Laura Bell said, and leaned back against the seat, thinking of ways to get the money or drugs they needed.

  “Uh-oh,” Dusty said.

  “What?” Laura Bell said, sitting up.

  “The trooper again.”

  Laura Bell looked out the rear windshield at the familiar lights. “He probably has to go to another call. Just keep driving the same. You’re okay, he’ll just pass us by.”

  Except he didn’t. The vehicle was behind them in moments and Dusty pulled over again.

  “He probably wants your autograph, hero,” Seth said.

  “What do I do?”

  “Just be cool. This guy likes you,” Laura Bell said.

  “Fucking pig,” Seth muttered to no one.

  Trooper Pirelli swung his door open and walked back to the Lumina, this time, lingering by the trunk for an extra moment.

  He stood behind the glass, like the first time, forcing Dusty to turn and face him.

  “Mr. Walker, I’m sorry to bother you again, but I wanted to check on something,” Trooper Pirelli said.

  “What?” Dusty said.

  “When I was walking back to the car a few minutes ago, I could have sworn I heard a thumping noise coming from your trunk. I figured it was my ears playing a trick, but I just heard it again. Mind if I take a look?”

  Thirty-Three

  “Thumping?”

  “Yeah, pretty distinct,” Pirelli said.

  “The car’s old,” Dusty said.

  Pirelli laughed. “I can tell. Still, I know I’m hearing something. I once read about this case where a man didn’t know his daughter had locked herself in the trunk. She was playing hide-and-seek or some such nonsense, and she was too young to know how to release the lock. Everyone drove around looking for her but she was trapped just a few feet from him. I wanna say it got too hot and she died.”

  “We ain't got no toddlers,” Seth said.

  Pirelli leaned down a bit more, and watched Seth for a few moments. “All the same, mind popping your trunk for me?”

  “Okay,” Dusty said.

  Trooper Pirelli stepped around to the trunk, waiting for Dusty to get out and meet him.

  Dusty slowly removed his seatbelt and began the arduous task of unfolding his bulk from the car.

  “Tell him no,” Seth hissed. “He needs a warrant to get in the trunk.”

  It was the first smart thing Seth’s drug-addled mind had come up with, Laura Bell thought. Pirelli technically needed a warrant to search a locked trunk. Her mind raced to find a way to stop the train they were on and get off.

  She knew that despite the law, if Pirelli wanted in, he was getting in. All he had to do was call for backup to come out with a warrant. Easy enough to obtain if he thought there was something dangerous in the trunk.

  Dusty heaved himself from the car and shut the door behind him.

  “Dusty. Dusty,” she said quietly as he passed her window, but the big man didn’t hear her and joined Pirelli at the trunk.

  Seth muttered, “Fuck this,” and opened his door.

  Before she could stop her brother, she heard Pirelli speak up. “Sir, stay in your vehicle,” he said to Seth.

  Laura Bell spun and watched through the back window.

  Seth held his hands up. “Dusty doesn’t know how to open the trunk. It sticks sometimes and our boy is a little slow. If you’d let me—”

  Trooper Pirelli backed up as he spoke and kept both men in front of him. Laura Bell saw him rest his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  “But I just need to—”

  “You know what? Go lay down on the shoulder. Right now, on your stomach.”

  Seth kept walking toward Trooper Pirelli.

  “Stay still,” Laura Bell said from the car.

  Seth didn’t.

  Pirelli unholstered his pistol and leveled it at Seth.

  “Shit,” Laura Bell said.

  “I said get on your stomach, now,” Pirelli said.

  Faced with the possibility of being shot, Seth took several steps backward and lay down flat on the shoulder, half-in and half-out of the tall grass on the side of the road.

  “Arms out to your sides. Do it now,” Pirelli said.

  Seth stuck his arms out like he was playing airplane. “Stupid ass pig. Dumb ass redneck piece of shit…”

  Laura Bell saw Pirelli sneak a look at Dusty. He waved with his pistol. “You get over there, too. Lay down next to your buddy.”

  “But, sir—”

  “I said do it, Dusty.”

  Dusty obliged, lying down a few feet from Seth.

  Pirelli stepped over and cuffed Seth’s arms behind his back. Seth grunted but didn’t say anything.

  “I hate that you made me do this, but you were disobeying orders. Not to mention you’ve been mad-dogging me this entire time. I can tell you’re high off your ass. Any more drugs in the car?”

  Seth mumbled a stream of expletives.

  Pirelli did a quick pat-down of places that Seth could reach, even while cuffed. A thin, limber person could reach most of the way around their body while cuffed, so cops liked to check everywhere.

  His eyes went wide when he felt the front of Seth’s waistline. “Well, what the hell’s this?”

  He pulled out Seth’s pistol and stood up with it. “You have a permit for this?”

  “Sir,” Laura Bell said from the car.

  “You stay right there. Do not move, do you understand?”

  “Yes sir, but—”

  “Don’t move,” Pirelli said.

  Laura Bell watched Pirelli stand up and set the gun on his own hood, then move back to the trunk of the Lumina. The keys were dangling from the lock.

  “You two stay right there,” he said, pointing at Seth and Dusty. “We’ll sort all this out once I get a peek inside.”

  Laura Bell reached for the door handle and Pirelli popped the trunk.

  “What the hell?” the trooper said as the lid opened.

  Laura Bell imagined it was a shock to find a taped-up, kidnapped girl in their trunk.

  Pirelli stood there unmoving for several moments. Then, as he lowered the trunk to speak, he came face-to-face with Laura Bell’s revolver as it barked out a round.

  Laura Bell saw the bullet rip through the trooper’s shoulder, his shirt instantly awash in blood.

  “What the fu—”

  She pulled the trigger two more times, missing him.

  Pirelli was moving, bailing from behind the Lumina and racing to the safety of his own hood. He knelt behind it, pulling out his weapon with his one good arm and trying to aim it at Laura Bell.

  The trooper’s back was to Seth and Dusty. This was his mistake.

  During the chaos, and the ringing of gunshots, Seth was screaming, “Get him, Dusty, get him!”

  Dusty pushed his hands against the earth and heaved his bulk up, showing some of the prowess that had made him such a highly regarded college recruit.

  Pirelli zeroed in on Laura Bell, but she kept her eyes fixed over his shoulder as Dusty slammed his shoulder into the trooper’s back, denting in the hood of the car. Pirelli’s gun went skittering across the blacktop of the lonely road.

  “Kill him, Dusty, kill him,” Seth screamed, hands still cuffed behind his back.

  As Pirelli leaned half-dazed against the hood of his car, Dusty grabbed him by the shoulders, l
ifted him into the air, and slammed him to the ground.

  Then Dusty’s hands were around the trooper’s throat.

  “Dusty, stop,” Laura Bell said. “Stop, let’s go.”

  As Trooper Pirelli clawed at Dusty’s hands and face, Dusty slammed the man’s head onto the hard earth, over and over again.

  “Dusty, stop!” Laura Bell was pushing and pulling at Dusty, trying to get him to stop. His eyes were blank as he continued slamming the trooper’s head until it was cracked and broken.

  “Kill him,” Seth screamed, barely able to raise his face off the ground.

  Dusty continued until the trooper’s lifeless body lay underneath him. Laura Bell had given up trying to stop him; it was no use. She just couldn’t move the massive man.

  The giant stood, covered in blood up to his forearms. He dug through Pirelli’s pockets until he found a cuff key, then unhooked Seth from his bonds.

  Once on his feet again, Seth ran over to the trooper’s gun and stuffed it in his waistband, as well as grabbing his own from the hood of the running patrol vehicle. He spat at the trooper’s lifeless body.

  Laura Bell stood staring at the two men as they moved. She felt numb, like her hands didn’t belong to her. The revolver she’d used to shoot the trooper hung limply by her side. Dusty slammed the trunk and started the car.

  Seth grabbed Laura Bell and dragged her back to the car.

  “Get in, Sis, we gotta go.”

  “I didn’t—I mean, I wanted…”

  “Let’s go, baby sis.” Seth shoved her into the back seat of the Lumina, then slammed the door after her.

  Dusty stomped the gas and the Lumina tore away from the scene, leaving the body of Trooper Pirelli behind.

  Thirty-Four

  Beard still damp from the shower, Porter stepped into his new favorite restaurant. He’d been busy all day, and all the thinking and shooting had left him famished. The familiar clank of the cowbell signaled his arrival.

  “So, Flannery O’Connor, huh?” Claudette held up a small, paperback copy of a book.

  “You looked into her?” Porter said.

  “I’d heard of her—I mean, you don’t study literature in the South without hearing about her. Just never really my thing. If she’s your favorite, I figured I’d see what I was missing.”

  Porter leaned on the front counter, all thoughts of cartel hitmen temporarily driven from his mind. “What do you think?”

  Claudette’s hand waffled back and forth. “Ehh. I’m more of a Tolkien girl. Not bad, though.”

  “I can’t say I blame you,” Porter said. “Can I get the usual?”

  “You think you’ve been here enough to have a usual?” she said.

  “Three days in a row entitles me to have a sandwich named after me,” Porter said with a laugh.

  “Not quite, cowboy; that’s for a whole week of eats,” she said. “Go sit.”

  Porter obeyed, the slight limp from his injury more pronounced since his sprinting session at the trailer earlier. He sat at his regular table, but pulled an extra chair over and propped his leg up.

  “What happened?”

  Claudette was standing near the table, cup in her hand.

  “I’m clumsy,” Porter said.

  “Hell, you aren’t the only one. I fall on flat ground sometimes. The craziest thing. I think I’m going okay, then bang, down I go.”

  “Maybe we need to wrap you in bubble wrap,” Porter said.

  “Sure, if that’s your thing. Sounds a little kinky to me,” she said with a smile as she turned back to the kitchen.

  For several minutes, everything was quiet. Porter’s mind jumped through all the things he’d uncovered. It wasn’t a conscious thing, more like his computer was always running in the background.

  The cartel thugs who had showed up at the trailer were a wrinkle in the usual order. He was trying to figure out how they were involved, and all he could come up with was one thing: it was his fault.

  It could be no coincidence that the men showed up at the trailer of Seth Rollins ready to kill him after Porter had destroyed a metric ton of Seth’s drugs. No, this was purposeful.

  Porter wasn’t sure if Seth owed the Mexicans drugs or money or both, but it was evident he was past due.

  This was a problem for Pima.

  If the girl was even still alive, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around how she might survive the Rollins crew and the cartel gun thugs running around. He felt his heart pick up a bit, growing frustrated with his lack of progress in finding the girl.

  “I said I’m not letting you ruin another burger,” Claudette said as she approached, another absurd tray of food in her hands.

  “I thought the customer was always right,” Porter said with a smile.

  “That’s true, unless they’re wrong. Why not try it without the crazy mixture this time? You might like it better.”

  “You’re the boss,” Porter said. She walked away again, this time looking back just as Porter leaned out into the aisle to watch her go.

  “Eyes on your own work,” she said with a laugh.

  Porter grinned and went to work on the tray, but it was a halfhearted effort. He mostly picked at everything.

  Minutes later, she was back, this time taking a seat across from him. “Not good today?” she said, genuine concern on her face.

  “It’s not that; it’s great. I mean, it’s probably the best thing this town has to offer. I wouldn’t eat anywhere else.”

  “The Burger Hut is the best,” she said with a mock British accent.

  “How long you owned it? I figured it was a mom-and-pop place when I drove by the first time.”

  “Well, it was, kinda. A young mom-and-pop couple, at least. Till pop stepped out and mom won the restaurant in the divorce.”

  “That was good, I guess,” Porter said.

  She shrugged. “It pays the bills… most of the time.” She fixed Porter with her dark eyes. “So if it’s not the food, what’s the matter?”

  “I got a lot on my mind,” Porter said.

  “Pima, right?”

  Porter stared at her for a few moments. “Is the town that small?”

  “Well… yeah,” she said. “Word travels fast. You’re pretty memorable, so people talk.”

  “I guess so,” Porter said, picking at his fries.

  “So do you think you will?”

  “What? Eat all this? No, I need a take-home bo—”

  “No, find Pima.”

  Porter chose his words carefully. He didn’t want any other information about him or the Newtons traveling the grapevine if he could help it. “Tough to say.”

  “I imagine. It scares the hell out of me.”

  “You got kids?”

  “Two. They’re still way too young to get lost riding home on their bikes, but still. What if they were gone, you know?”

  “It would be shit. I feel bad for the Newtons,” Porter said.

  “Do you and your wife have any kids?”

  Porter looked at the woman for a couple of seconds, impressed with how smoothly she’d asked him if he was married. “We never had any.”

  “That was past tense,” Claudette said, taking a fry from Porter’s plate.

  “Yep. She didn’t step out on me, but it just didn’t work, you know?”

  “Believe me, I know.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Speaking of the grapevine, did you hear about the shooting?”

  “Shooting?” Porter said, feigning ignorance. “What shooting?”

  “At the trailer? Three guys got killed. The news is saying it’s a drug deal that went bad. This town didn’t use to have trouble like that,” she said.

  “What can you do?” Porter said.

  “Worry about what I can control, I guess.”

  “I agree with that,” Porter said.

  There was a comfortable silence between the two. Claudette was looking out the window at the pinkish sky, the sun just beginning to lower behind the mountains. Porter wa
s looking at her, wondering why he hadn’t noticed she had dimples before.

  “So, it’s my early night,” she said, turning from the window. “I let Herschel close up so I don’t drive myself crazy being here all day, every day.”

  “I’ll bet Herschel loves the solitude.”

  “Yeah, he likes to get into his flask without me giving him a hard time, that’s what he likes,” she said with a laugh.

  Porter smiled.

  “If you… need any information about the area, I could come by your place and help you.”

  Porter raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t been prepared for the statement.

  “That sounded pretty desperate, didn’t it? Oh God, that was bad.”

  “No, it sounded okay,” Porter said.

  She covered her face with her hands. Porter could just see the red creeping down her chest, disappearing below her cleavage. “I mean, when you’re younger it’s easy to meet people. There’s high school and college and friends and friends of friends. But when you get older, those chances aren’t really there anymore.”

  “Smaller playing field,” he said.

  “Right? And then kids and work and an asshole ex. I… I…” she stammered, then slid out of her chair and began to pick up Porter’s tray.

  “I’m very flattered you would include me anywhere on your playing field,” Porter said.

  “I’m just saying, why isn’t it appropriate to walk up to another adult and say, ‘I have no venereal diseases and I think you’re attractive and I’d like to sleep with you’?”

  “You kind of just did,” Porter said.

  “Like an idiot,” she said.

  “Claudette?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have no venereal diseases and I think you’re attractive and I’d like to sleep with you.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Why not? I don’t have a curfew,” Porter said.

  She smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “Great. How long until you’re out of here?”

  “Half an hour?”

  “That works,” Porter said.

  “You’re not kidding, right?”

  Porter told her what motel he was in and the room number. “Find out.”

  Thirty-Five