They were doing fifty on the interstate when the ’65 Chevy Impala flew by at eighty-five. Windows down. The driver was sipping a coke. The rider was hunched down low. The car was over thirty years old, but it looked as if it had just been driven off the showroom floor, candy apple red with tinted windows, reverse chrome rims, enough polish to supply a car wash and it was wearing California tags.
“ Let’s go!” Jackson White said.
“ Hold your water.” Sheriff Earl Lawson smiled to himself. Speed always got Jackson’s heart a pumping. He eased off the gas and let another car pass. Solitude was a small town, most folks knew his unmarked Ford and he didn’t want to take any chances.
“ Did you hear that engine rumble?” Earl said. “I’ll give you dollars to donuts that it’s a full tricked out 327 ’Vette engine powering that baby and it sounds like he’s got glass pack mufflers in front of them chrome tailpipes. I woulda killed for a car like that when I was in high school. Hell, I still might.” He laughed. As a kid he loved cars and he’d been particularly partial to Chevys. The first time he’d gotten laid was in the back seat of his own ’65 Impala, but his wasn’t souped up like that, he couldn’t afford it.
“ Come on, Earl, you’re gonna lose him,” Jackson said. Jackson White was the only black deputy on the small force. He was the darkest black man Earl had ever laid eyes on, and although he didn’t like blacks in general, he made an exception in Jackson’s case. The man was a good deputy, a good friend and knew how to keep his mouth shut. Earl liked riding with him, they made a great team, but he was going to have to talk to him about that newspaper girlfriend of his and her story in last night’s Evening Standard.
“ Stop champing at the bit, Jackson, he’s not getting away.” The sun was hanging directly overhead. It was August hot, but the heat never seemed to bother Earl. He drove with a casual flair, left elbow flopping over the side of the open window, two fingers on the wheel, seat pushed all the way back, like he was out for a ride in the country.
“ They’ll be across the line in a couple a minutes, then we’ll have to call in the county,” Jackson said. He clenched his hands into fists, relaxed them, then clenched them again. He was sucking in deep, fast breaths. He was ready and hoping for a high speed chase.
“ Stop talking like a man with a paper asshole,” Earl said. “He’s ours.”
“ Yeah, he’s ours,” Jackson said. “I just don’t want to give Mayor ‘Shit-for-Brains’ any reason to be on our case. Things are bad enough as it is.”
“ It’s your fault about Sheeter. Your girlfriend prints that crap and he’s all over us like white on rice. Why she believes a coke dealer over me, I don’t know.” Earl turned and looked sideways at his deputy. Jackson was good looking, the way a woman might call pretty, and he was tall, not NBA basketball tall, but a full six inches taller then his own six feet, and he was certainly dark. Tall, dark and handsome. But his good looks didn’t keep his latest flame from printing that cokehead’s story.
“ I just think we should go by the book for a while, till things cool down. It wouldn’t hurt to pull them over before they crossed into county.”
“ Shit, Jackson, we threw the book away a long time ago, you an’ me. Besides I wanna know what their hurry is. And I’d also like to know why Zelda Saul accused me of misappropriating twenty thousand dollars. I didn’t misappropriate that twenty grand all by myself, and I didn’t hit that asshole on the back of the head neither.”
“ He’s a junkie, nobody’s going to believe that story. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“ People believe what they see in the paper and when the paper says the sheriff’s a crook they tend to think about voting for the other guy come election time. You gotta straighten her out, or I will. Comprende, mi amigo? And another thing, you gotta watch yourself. You coulda killed him, clobbering him on the skull just wasn’t called for.”
“ He sold dope to kids. He was slime,” Jackson said.
“ Yes he was, but you don’t want to go to jail for the rest of your life over slime. Just cool the violent stuff. To protect and serve, remember?”
“ I just said that we should go by the book for a while,” Jackson said, looking over at Earl, “and I meant it. I know I went too far. I know I got you in trouble and somehow I’ll get Zelda to write some good things about you in the real near future. You can count on me. I won’t fuck up again.”
“ I’d appreciate that. Shit, I don’t mind taking the rap for the whole twenty large, this time. But if she keeps it up we could find ourselves outta work.”
“ I’ll handle it,” Jackson said.
“ I don’t want to feel that we gotta hand in every dime we grab off these bastards, I mean god knows we get paid shit, we’re entitled, but if she’s gonna run every dealer’s claim about lost money, we’ll have to turn into a pair of honest cops, ’cause jail sucks. You get my drift?”
“ Come on, Earl, relax. I’ll take care of it.”
“ Why don’t you just marry the bitch, then she’d have to do what you say, or else.”
“ It doesn’t work that way for everybody,” Jackson said.
Earl was about to respond to that, but the Impala turned off onto Sam Houston Road. He turned to Jackson and grinned out loud, “See, no need to call in the county now, that road stays on our side of the line all the way to the way to Loomis’.”
“ Think that’s where he’s going?” Jackson said. Earl glanced over at him again. Not a drop of sweat. No rapid breathing now. No tight fists. Not a shake. Not a shiver, just the animal look of anticipation. No, he didn’t particularly like blacks, but if it turned out a all wrong, Jackson White would be the man he’d want by his side, newspaper girlfriend or no.
“ Nothing else out there,” Earl said.
“ That old air strip, half mile past,” Jackson said.
“ Be goddamned.”
“ Hang back.”
“ Yeah, good idea.” Earl turned the corner and slowed some.
“ Dust cloud, they won’t see anything in their rearview through that. They must be in a hurry,” Jackson said.
Earl added gas and in less than half a minute they reached the spot where the tarmac ended and the road turned into a dirt track. They had no trouble keeping the dust cloud in sight. Another half minute and they were at Loomis’ Junkyard and Storage Units. The dust cloud was still moving off in the distance.
“ They’re going for the air strip.”
“ Must be an awful important appointment,” Earl said.
“ Maybe they’re late?”
Earl wheeled the car into the shade offered by the new stucco building that was old Loomis’ office. Behind, in a fenced compound, were the storage lockers, sixty of them, three rows of twenty, ten on each side, out in the middle of nowhere. Behind them, the vast sprawling junkyard. Loomis had two junkyard dogs. Dobermans, big ones, mean ones. One roamed the junkyard after dark, the other, the storage units.
Loomis slept in the building up front. It was common knowledge that he slept with an AK-47 cradled in his arms. No one stole from Loomis. No one even thought about it.
“ Let’s see if he’s got something cold to drink,” Earl said, getting out of the car.
“ But they’ll get away.” Jackson jumped out of his side and followed Earl around.
Earl stopped at the door and turned to look at the taller man. “They gotta come back this way, ain’t no other way outta here. If we follow any farther we’ll spook ’em and their plane ain’t gonna land. We’ll catch ’em on the way out and see what they’re bringing in.”
“ We don’t know for sure there is a plane,” Jackson said.
“ Go with your gut, Jackson. There’s a plane.” And as if to underscore his words they saw a small high winged aircraft off in the distance, headed for the landing strip. “Old Cessna 150, looks like,” Earl said. Even with the sunglasses he had to squint.
“ But what if they’re leaving on it?” Jackson held his right hand above his eyes as he watched the plane. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses.
Earl shook his head. The man was eager, he was dependable, but sometimes he wasn’t too bright. “Wanna get the door?”
Jackson grabbed the knob, then pulled his hand off like he’d been zapped with electricity. “Hot,” he said, whipping his hand up and down in a vain hope that the summer dry Texas air might cool it.
“ And that’s my point, Jackson. You ain’t got no common sense. I knew that knob was hot. It’s over a hundred degrees out. Common sense told me not to grab on to it.” He removed the bandanna from around his neck and draped it over the knob. “This is good for more ’en wiping coke powder off hundred dollar bills.” He opened the door and retied the bandanna.
“ Hey, Loomis, you have a tall, cool one?” Earl asked, stepping over to the wall opposite the counter. He stood under the AC unit, letting the cold air flow down over his shoulders as he leaned back.
“ Coors for you, Coke for Jackson.” Loomis picked cans out of a cooler, tossed on to Earl.
“ Sure.” Earl caught the beer, rubbed the cold can on the back of his neck as Jackson caught the coke. He waited until he pulled the tab and took a drink before he asked, “So, Jackson, you know why we’re drinking cold ones and not chasing after them boys?”
“ Haven’t a clue,” Jackson said.
Earl shook his head again, pulled his own tab and took a long pull on his beer. “No one’s getting on any plane and flying out of that dinky strip. Hell, if a body wanted to leave town, he’d drive down to San Antonio and leave on a real plane. No, them boys ain’t leaving. They’re picking something up. Something dirty. Drugs most likely. So we’ll just sit in this cool room, drink with Loomis here, and wait. Shouldn’t be long.”
“ Hey, Sheriff, how’s the wife?” Loomis said, then he turned and spit a gob of chewing tobacco into a rusty waste basket.
“ Been away for a week, three ta go. She’s filling in for a gal on her honeymoon. Doing a international flight down to the Caribbean.” He looked at his watch. “Two hours difference, two o’clock where she is. She’s in the air as we speak. Should be calling in anytime.” She always let him know as soon as her plane was on the ground. He had her trained right. She always called.
“ Thought it was her vacation?” Loomis said. “I expected to see her up here sorting through your daddy’s things.”
“ Was, but this offer opened up, and we needed the money. Gotta pay for that Suburban,” Earl said. He didn’t want Maria gone a whole month, but the Suburban had oversized tires, chrome rims and a stereo that could wake up the next neighborhood, if he’d a mind to play it that loud.
“ What do you want me to do with that locker?” Loomis asked, chewing slow, looking shrewd. “Your Daddy’s been dead six months now, sooner or later you gotta toss his stuff.”
“ We’ll get around to it someday soon,” Earl said.
“ You’re two months behind, Sheriff.”
“ How much is it, Loomis?” Earl balled his hands into fists. The son-of-a-bitch had to ask in front of Jackson, now he’d have to pay, otherwise he’d look cheap. He couldn’t afford that. Not in front of any of his men. Especially not in front of Jackson.
“ Sixty bucks,” Loomis said. That’s with your discount and without the late charges.”
“ Got it right here.” Earl felt Jackson’s eyes on him as he pushed himself off of the wall and reached into his hip pocket for his money. Earl was moving slow, because he didn’t want to pay. He knew his men kidded among themselves about the free lunches he took at Josie’s Diner. He knew they thought he was cheap, but they were all younger, just starting out. They didn’t know what it was like getting by in today’s world. Sometimes he thought about using his secret money to pay his bills, but he never would, because as soon as he started spending more than he made, sure as shit someone, like Jackson’s reporter girlfriend, would start asking the wrong kind of questions. That money was going to stay locked away until he was long gone from West Texas.
“ Still riding the river?” Loomis asked Jackson, taking Earl’s mind off the money and putting it on a subject he loved.
“ Every chance I get, but it’s not so easy getting Earl down there now that he’s putting in those extra hours,” Jackson said.
They started riding the rapids in the Guadeloupe River six months ago. They both loved it, but he had to work overtime to make the payments on the new car, he thought Jackson understood that. It had only been a few weeks, and with the money Maria was making on her new job they would get ahead of the payments and soon he’d be back at the river with Jackson on a regular basis.
“ You could do it solo, lots of guys do,” Loomis said.
“ I’m still a little raw, give me a couple more seasons.”
“ Some guys do it right away. One or two times and they’re off by themselves,” Loomis said.
“ Yeah, and some guys sit on their brains,” Earl said, getting into the conversation.
The sound of the plane was above them now and Earl saw Jackson look up, as if he could see through the ceiling. It was definitely landing at the strip. It was obvious that Jackson wanted to get in the car and charge down there, but they’d see the dust cloud coming long before they got close enough to do anything and the plane would be off. It would be better to wait. A Cessna 150 only held two, there were two in the car they were tailing, so even if there was only one in the plane, someone was coming back this way.
“ Think they spotted the car?” Jackson said.
“ Don’t make no difference,” Earl said.
“ Oh, yeah.” Jackson was used to riding in a patrol car. The Sheriff never rode in a black and white, and you never wore your uniform when you rode with the sheriff. The pilot above would see an unmarked Ford parked in front of the storage units. Nothing suspicious.
“ They’re down,” Loomis said.
Earl cocked his head, like an old hunting dog, “Sounds like it,” he said.
“ Get many planes like that out there?” Jackson asked.
“ Some,” Loomis said, as he made out the sheriff’s receipt. “That’s sixty dollars.” He looked up at Earl.
Earl laughed, “You know what you remind me of, Loomis?”
“ No, what?”
“ That skinny old cow over to the Shiller place. The one that’s always standing under that shade tree chewing its cud. I swear with your sad cow eyes and chewing that chaw, you could be that cow.”
Loomis’ eyes narrowed and his face closed in on itself, but it opened back up as soon as Earl counted out the three twenties. “And this is for you, so you don’t get charged twice.” Loomis handed the sheriff his receipt.
“ Nobody ever charges me twice,” Earl said, crumpling up the receipt. He tossed it over the counter, making a rim shot into Loomis’ rusty, tobacco stained waste basket.
“ They’re coming,” Loomis said.
“ That was fast,” Jackson said.
The sheriff started for the door when Loomis stopped him with, “That won’t be necessary, Earl. They’ll be coming here.”
“ Ah,” Earl said.
“ They’ll use the electric gate opener,” Loomis said.
“ Which unit?” The sheriff might be cheap, but he was quick.
“ Forty-seven, middle of the middle row,” Loomis said, then he turned and spit a glob of black tobacco into the waste basket.
“ Plane’s been here before, hasn’t it, Loomis?” Earl said.
“ Ain’t saying.”
“ I’m asking.”
“ Sheriff, you know me. I like to mind my own business. I said too much already.”
“ You didn’t say any more than I’ll find out in the next minute or so.”
“ And that was too much,” Loomis said.
The car was just outside now, going past the office. They didn’t even glance at the unmarked Ford. Earl heard the car slow and the rubber wheels of the gate roll across the blacktop as it opened. Then the car drove on through and it closed automatically after them.
“ We’ll give them a few minutes to get settled in, then we’ll drive on up like we’re going to a storage unit of our own. We’ll take ’em quick like, guns drawn, just like cops on TV. Ya with me, Jackson?”
“ Yes, sir,” Jackson said, and Earl saw that he was pumped. Earl was pumped, too. This was what being a cop was all about. It was the part he loved and craved, but it didn’t happen too often, the chance to take the bad guys off the streets, the chance to make a difference. He checked his thirty-eight as he followed Jackson out to the car. He felt the hot sun baking into him. He flicked a fly off his hand and headed toward the driver’s side.
“ Ya’ll can open the gate now,” Earl said to Loomis, and the gate started to slide open. Earl cranked the ignition, headed toward the middle row. He took his time as he motored along, whistling, like he was in no hurry. He was enjoying himself.
They came abreast of the Impala. Earl moved on by. The Impala blocked the rolled up door of storage unit 47, but it didn’t hide the fact that both men were inside, moving cardboard boxes around.
“ Lot of stuff in there,” Earl said.
“ Yes, sir, lot of stuff,” Jackson echoed, hand on the door handle.
“ Now,” Earl said, slamming on the brakes as Jackson was jumping out the door.
“ Freeze!” Jackson yelled. He threw his arms across the top of the old Chevy, elbows on the car, arms extended, holding the thirty-eight.
One of the men started to go for a gun.
“ Don’t!” Jackson screamed, but the man didn’t stop, didn’t give him a choice. Jackson saw the man’s right arm come out from inside his coat. Saw the forty-five in the man’s hand. “No!” Jackson screamed louder, but the man wasn’t listening and Jackson shot him before he could bring the gun up to fire.
The sound of Jackson’s gunshot ricocheted through Earl, tearing his insides up in a thousand places. It was louder than thunder, more violent than a summer storm, more intense than sex, stronger than passion. Jackson had never fired on a man before and Earl knew that he’d crossed a bridge and that he would never be the same.
The second man threw his hands in the air, grabbing as much sky as he could. “Don’t shoot,” he said.
“ I got him covered, Jackson,” Earl said.
Jackson turned away from the man he’d shot, holstered his weapon and tried to fight the rising bile. He bit hard into his lower lip, then inhaled a deep breath of the hot air. He clenched his fist, exhaled, took in a second breath, deep into his belly. With the palm of his right hand he wiped the sweat from the back of his neck, exhaled, then vomited.
“ Sorry,” he said wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand.
“ Happened to me the first time, too,” Earl said. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Ain’t a man in the world I wouldn’t rather have with me in a shooting situation than you.” It was amazing. Jackson could slap around a hooker, push around the high school punks, smack a drug dealer on the back of the head with his pistol, almost killing him, but he upchucks when he has to shoot a man with a weapon. Earl bent low and scooped the boy’s gun from the floor. A well used forty-five auto. He was scared, Earl thought, it wasn’t the killing that made him vomit, it was the gun pointed at him.
“ How would you know? I’ve never been in one before.”
“’ Cause you got guts, boy. The way you ran into that fire and brought out them little girls, no one else woulda done that, not me, not their own daddy. We were there, but it was you that charged into the flames.” But even as he said it, Earl wondered about the truth of it. It took one kind of guts to run into a fire, another kind to face down a loaded weapon. Still, Jackson took the right action, he didn’t flinch, but he was scared, he was shaking now.
“ One of them died,” Jackson said.
“ But one of them didn’t. She’s a perfectly normal little girl and it’s all ’cause a you, so stop beating yourself over the head about the dead one. It wasn’t your fault. An’ don’t beat yourself up over this either. You did what you had to do. You did good. Now let’s just go in there an’ see what kind of hornet’s nest we stirred up.”
The one grabbing for the ceiling couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen, and it struck Earl that the man Jackson had hit the other day wasn’t much older.
“ Johnny Lee Tyler,” Earl said.
“ Yes, sir,” the kid answered.
“ What are ya’ll up to here?”
“ Just loading up some things for his dad,” the boy nodded toward the body.
“ Who is he?” Earl asked.
“ Darren Johnson, new kid. He lives with his dad, they only been in town a month.” The boy’s hands, still above his head, were shaking like palm trees in a hurricane.
“ And you hooked right up with ’em?”
“ Guess so.”
“ What ‘cha got in all the boxes?”
“ CDs. The new Rolling Stones mostly.”
“ Counterfeit?” Earl asked.
“’ Spect so,” the boy answered.
“ And over there?” Earl pointed to the back wall.
“ Porno videos, the kind you can’t get at the store. You know, the kind with kids in ’em.”
“ Shit, Johnny Lee, I know your daddy, we go hunting. He didn’t raise you like this.”
The boy dropped his hands, then he dropped his eyes to the cement floor. The room was quiet for a few seconds that seem like forever. Johnny Lee appeared to be studying a brown beetle as it scurried toward the cracks made between several stacks of the cardboard boxes.
“ All right, Johnny Lee, what did ya’ll pick up from that plane?”
“ Two kilos of coke and a briefcase.”
“ Lordy, Johnny Lee, sex, drugs an’ rock ‘n’ roll. You boys was into it all.”
“ Not me, honest. It’s Darren’s dad. I just sorta fell into it.”
“ Was it the drugs?” Earl said.
The boy nodded.
“ Where’s the briefcase and what’s in it?”
“ It’s in the car, in the back. I don’t know what’s in it. That’s the honest truth.”
“ You wanna get it.”
“ Sure, Sheriff,” the kid said, and he hustled to the car.
“ You know, Jackson,” Earl said. “The hardest thing for a police officer to do is tell a man that his wife just died in an accident or that you’ve locked up his boy for killing a man. You steel yourself against it, but when you go up those steps and ring that bell, you’re quaking inside, like a pup that just shit on the rug and knows he’s in for it.”
“ I can imagine,” Jackson said.
“ I’m sure not looking forward to seeing Billy Ray Tyler this evening,” Earl said.
“ And Darren’s father,” Jackson said. Earl saw him looking at the boy’s eyes, wide open in death. Looking at the trickle of blood dripping from a lip that must have been cut in the fall. Looking at the scar under the chin. Looking at the close cropped hair, the white tee shirt, the faded Levi’s, the hundred dollar running shoes. Looking at a life that wouldn’t be lived.
“ Far as I’m concerned, that boy’s daddy killed him, not you. I’m ashamed to say it, but it will give me a kind of pleasure telling the man that his boy’s dead and that it’s his fault. The man sold child porn and drugs. You wanna be there when I take him down. ’Cause that’s one arrest that’s not gonna go by the book.”
Jackson nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Earl looked around the warehouse. Not large, thirty by sixty maybe, but it was stuffed full of cartons, mostly compact discs, but quite a few of the video tapes. Darren’s dad was in a lot of trouble. Earl didn’t think he’d be going to his boy’s funeral. He didn’t think the man would be too mobile for a while. Not after he got through with him.
He turned his eyes away from the cardboard boxes and the dead body and watched as Johnny Lee Tyler opened the back door to the Chevy and fished out the briefcase. He brought it inside, laying it on top of a stack of boxes. He smiled up at Earl, like a hound dog eager to please.
“ Open it,” Earl said, and the kid fumbled with the latches.
“ Can’t, it’s locked,” he said.
“ But you could get it open fast enough if you really wanted to, couldn’t you, lad?”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ Then do it.”
The boy reached behind his neck, under the back of his shirt, and pulled out a large hunting knife.
“ Where’d you learn how to hide a knife like that?” Jackson asked.
“ Darren’s dad,” the kid said, then he pried the tip of the knife under the latches and popped them off the briefcase and opened it.
“ Look at all that money,” the sheriff said, whistling under his breath.
“ Lots of money,” Jackson said.
“ Way I see it, we got no choice,” Earl said.
“ No choice,” Jackson said.
And Earl shot Johnny Lee through the heart with his friend’s gun. The cannon sound of the forty-five roared through the small warehouse like the sound of an exploding jet engine. One second Johnny Lee was filling Earl with those trusting eyes and the next he was flying across the room. But Earl never got to see where he landed because something slammed into the back of his head and the lights went out.