Earl woke to the smell of his own sweat in the tall grass. Shivering, he brushed an unseen insect off his neck as he sat up. He looked to the sky, now covered in clouds. It was either very late or very early. He checked his watch, 5:30. He felt a sharp pain at the base of his skull. He ran a hand back there and found a large bump. It wasn’t cut, and for that he was thankful, but it hurt.
“ Are you okay, mister?”
He turned toward the sound of the voice.
“ I thought you were dead, but I felt your neck pulsing, like they do on TV, and I knew you weren’t.”
The insect was this boy’s finger searching for life.
“ That’s good,” the boy said, “’cause I sure didn’t want to get the police.”
“ Why not?” Earl asked. He was cold and wet. His body ached from the thrashing it had taken in the river. His head felt like it was being used as a snare drum, and he had to piss like a pent up storm, but he’d been too many years a cop. He wanted to know what a child was doing out by the river, so far from town, alone.
“ I’m running away from home,” the boy said.
Earl’s skin crawled and he shook with the cold. “Not very warm out,” he said.
“ Don’t I know it,” the boy answered. “It rained while you were asleep, but the sun will come back. It always does.”
“ Your parents must be worried.”
“ They’re getting a divorce. They don’t care about me.”
“ How long do you think you can live out here?”
“ Oh, a long time. I got a two man tent and a sleeping bag over there.” He pointed toward the falling sun peeking through the clouds. “I got enough canned goods for a couple of weeks and I got friends that’ll sneak me more when they run out. I can stay hidden forever.”
“ It sounds like you’ve thought of everything.”
“ I’ve been planning a long time,” the boy said. Then he added, “Are you hungry?”
“ Powerfully,” Earl said.
“ I thought you would be. I saw you climb out of the river. Then you crashed. I thought you might be dead.”
“ I’m not dead,” Earl said.
“ My name’s Mick,” the boy said. “My mom named me after Mick Jagger. He’s in the Rolling Stones. That’s a rock band.”
“ I’ve heard of them,” Earl said, smiling despite his suffering body.
“ Can you get up? Can you walk?” Mick asked.
“ I think so,” Earl said, and he pushed himself to his feet.
“ Okay, follow me. We’re having hot dogs for dinner.” The boy walked with a self assured swagger. He was at home by the river and Earl guessed that he was a veteran of many camping trips with his father.
He groaned when he walked, but the boy didn’t look back. He ran a hand over a pain in his side and winced when he remembered slamming into a rock. He flexed his fingers, then his toes, then ran his head in a circle. Everything ached, but everything seemed to be working.
“ You got a nasty cut over your eye,” the boy said without turning around. Earl reached up and felt the scabbing wound. “And a bad bruise on your chin,” the boy said, with his eyes still forward. Earl moved his hand to his chin. He put a little pressure on it and grit his teeth against the tenderness. “I can imagine what the rest of your body looks like,” the boy added, as he moved into a clearing.
“ Nice place,” Earl said, admiring the tent and the small cook stove in front of it. “Nobody would ever find you out here.”
“ That’s the plan,” Mick said, then he crawled on his hands and knees into the tent, the flap closing behind him. In a few seconds an eight pack of hot dogs appeared out of the flap, followed by a hand that quickly vanished back inside. Then came the buns sitting on top of a plate. Then butter, mustard and ketchup on another plate and a quart of orange juice.
“ Pretty good, huh?” Mick said, crawling out of the tent.
“ How do you plan on keeping the meat fresh?”
“ I don’t, it’s only for today. From tomorrow on I’m eating out of cans.”
“ How about water? That juice won’t keep.”
“ Come on, there’s a whole river down there,” he said, pointing. “You should know that.”
Earl watched while the kid lit a can of sterno. The boy was an experienced outdoorsman, the kind that only another who loved living out of doors and camping could appreciate. Earl pulled off his wet shoes as Mick smeared some butter on a fry pan and set it on the stove. He was taking off his socks as the boy cut the wieners in half and dropped them in the pan. The sizzling meat had him salivating in seconds. He was hungry and the boy was cooking up the best dinner possible, fried hot dogs, out-of-doors, nothing better.
After he’d eaten his fill, he lay back and closed his eyes. He faded off to a quick but restless sleep. Random thoughts turned into short dreams and faces kept flashing beneath his eyelids, Johnny Lee, Maria, Old Loomis and most of all, Jackson. Then finally he sank into a deep sleep, where his only dream was of the flowing river. The dark river. The dream turned into a nightmare when the river grew hands, clear water dripping hands, reaching for him, tugging at him, pulling him under. He screamed himself awake.
He jumped up to the setting sun, pushing himself from the ground to his feet with athletic grace. He rubbed the confusion and delirium from his eyes, blinked, squinted, then turned away from the sun and faced the river below, and it all came rushing back to him.
“ Hey, Mick,” he said, turning around.
The boy was gone. He’d moved his campsite like a true woodsman. Only a pro, like himself, would ever know a tent had been there. His socks had been laid out and were dry. Mick must have dried them over the camping stove. He sat back down and tugged them on. His shoes were still damp, but he put them on anyway. He wished the boy hadn’t gone, but maybe it was for the best. He didn’t think he could kill a child, but he would have given it some thought, because he hated the idea that someone had seen him climbing out of the river. It was lucky for the boy that he was gone.
First order of business was to get himself back to the bridge and his car. He pushed back to his feet and brushed off. He couldn’t go walking around wearing wet, bloodstained, and torn clothes. He was going to have to do something about that.
He walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the river, trying to get his bearings. He’d been down it so many times, but he’d never looked at it from this perspective. He tried to imagine himself down there, rushing on the raft, paddling furiously on the right, Jackson digging his oar into the water on the left. What would that bend up ahead look like if he was down there? Then he saw it, pictured it in his mind as clearly as if he was flying over the water.
Right around the bend there were a couple of houses overlooking the river. He started walking. The green river grass grew high and the trees he wound through often blocked his path and confused him, but he kept the river at his left as he pushed through the thickening woods, thinking of the money in that briefcase. It had to be in the car, but was the car safe? Could he get back before it was towed away, or worse, stolen? And then, just as his anxiety was reaching a fever pitch, the woods fell away into clear ground and he saw a neatly manicured front yard.
He studied the house. Then the one next door, looking for signs of life. He found none. Both homes faced the river. Both were built in log cabin style and Earl guessed that a man must be mighty rich to have an extra home, just for the weekends and holidays.
He crossed the front yard and made his way to a garage between the two homes. It had no windows and the door was locked. The chances were slim, but he needed to know if there was a car in there. The door was too thick to kick in and he didn’t have his weapon. He checked the lock, a dead bolt. The garage was locked good.
A bird called overhead and Earl turned, quickly spooked. He looked out toward the sound of the rushing river, then back toward the first of the two vacation homes. His mind made up, he crossed the lawn to the front porch, taking the steps two at a time. He tried the door. Locked. But not deadbolted. He thought about that. Maybe there was a car in the garage after all. Then with a swift side thrust kick, made powerful by twenty years of Shotokan Karate workouts, he blasted the lock and the door flew open.
Too easy. Inside, he went straight toward the bathroom, dropping his wet shirt as he crossed the hardwood living room floor. He kicked his shoes off in the hallway, and stepped out of his pants as he faced the tub. He reached in and turned on the water. Cold only, but that was all right, he’d had plenty of cold showers in his lifetime.
Once the dirt was off he padded to one of the bedrooms and rifled through the bureau drawers and closets. He found a pair of Levi’s a couple of sizes too big, but a thick leather belt took care of that, and a white sport shirt made him look close to presentable. He stared at his reflection in a mirror above the bureau as he buttoned up the shirt. The scabbing cut above his eye and the black and blue bruise on his chin made it look like he was the loser in a heavyweight battle, but there was nothing he could do about that, so he left the mirror.
There were several pairs of shoes in the closet, both men’s and women’s, but the men’s shoes were several sizes too small for Earl’s size twelve feet, so he put his own wet shoes back on. Then he made his way to the kitchen, scooping up his wet clothes as he went.
In the kitchen he made a beeline for the refrigerator, but stopped dead when he saw a ring of keys on a wall hook. People could be so stupid. Lock up the garage, then leave the keys in plain view. In the garage he found an almost new Jeep, gassed up and ready to go. Ten minutes later and still hungry he parked it behind his unmarked cruiser.
He wiped his prints off the wheel and the door handle before stepping out of the Jeep. He looked around. He was alone. He closed the door and hustled over to the unmarked. He looked through the open driver’s window and saw the briefcase and a surge of relief flowed through him. The money was still there. He tossed his wet and dirty clothes on the floor in the back. Then he stepped back from the car and moved to the side of the bridge, to the spot where Jackson had draped him over the rail, not so long ago, and looked down into the river.
Jackson was dead, Loomis was dead, the boy Darren and Johnny Lee Tyler were dead. He thought about Johnny Lee and he examined himself for signs of remorse and was surprised that he couldn’t find any. He’d killed for money before, but doing Johnny Lee wasn’t quite the same.
The first time it was a spaced out drug dealer that had been dealing to the kids down to the junior high. Earl had been so pissed off he put three shots into the fucker’s chest. Then Jackson had calmly gone to the car and fetched a throw down, fired it once and put it in the bastard’s hand. They split forty-five hundred dollars. There wasn’t even an investigation.
The other time was after a high speed chase. They caught up to the two out-of-staters that had robbed the Farmer’s and Merchant’s bank after their car slid out of control and crashed into a tree. One was dead, the other barely alive when they arrived on the scene. Without a word Jackson lifted the money bag from the back seat, and Earl smacked the driver on the back of his head with his pistol, hastening a certain death. Then they torched the car. They split thirteen thousand and again there wasn’t an investigation.
But Johnny Lee was different, it was hard to rationalize that. He’d known the boy all his life, and although he wasn’t a particularly good kid, he wasn’t a bad kid either. If he had it do to over he might not act so hastily, but when he saw the money he’d gone nuts. He supposed the first two killings kind of conditioned him.
He thought of the dead at the warehouse. He knew what had become of Loomis, but he wondered where the bodies of the two boys were. Did Jackson throw them in the river too? And he wondered how much trouble he was in. The boy Darren had been shot with Jackson’s gun, he’d killed Johnny Lee with Darren’s gun. He didn’t know how Loomis had died, but Jackson had probably done him with his own piece. Maybe he could walk away from all of this. Maybe all he had to do was claim that Jackson and Loomis cold cocked him and hightailed it with the cash. When their bodies were found it would look like one of them got greedy and decided he wanted all the loot for himself, they had a fight and they both lost. Not the best scenario, but not bad.
He needed to see what was what down to the junkyard and the warehouses.
It was dark when he got there. Clouds still covered the moon and the hot Texas air smelled like rain. The electric gate was closed. He parked to the right of it and got out of the car, leaving the headlights on. He whistled, but the dog didn’t answer. He wasn’t surprised. Loomis’ dogs were well trained. They would wait for him to enter, then be on him like a wraith.
Earl turned away from the gate, sniffed the air, looked at the sky, then quick stepped to the office. He tried the door. Locked and barred, a side thrust kick wasn’t going to get him in. Shit. There was no way he was getting inside the office without a key. Then he saw Loomis’ aging ’59 Chevy Biscayne.
The car wasn’t locked, no reason to, everybody knew that the driver’s window had been broken out years ago. The keys were in it, but usually that wouldn’t have made any difference, because usually it was inside the fence with the dog, and usually Loomis was asleep in the bedroom behind the office with that AK-47. But he wasn’t sleeping in his bed tonight and Jackson had forgotten to put away the car. Maybe he forgot about the dog, but Earl didn’t think so. Jackson wasn’t stupid, he would have wanted it to look as natural as possible. He would have let the dog loose.
He climbed into the car, started it up, took a breath, put it in gear, cranked the wheel, pointing it toward the gate, and floored it. The impact stopped the car, the gate held and the dog went crazy, barking and snapping on the other side of it like a saber-toothed hell hound. He threw the car in reverse and backed away. Then Earl looked to the office, put the car in gear and braced himself for a second impact. The barred door crumbled under the car’s onslaught. He backed away, climbed out of the car and started toward the office. The dog was howling now, angry and raging, sending chills charging up Earl’s spine.
He knew Loomis kept a pair of bolt cutters, so that he could remove the lock if your rent was two weeks past due and put his own lock on. If you wanted the key to Loomis’ lock you paid your rent. He found them behind the counter, next to the AK. He picked them up along with the rifle and started toward the gate.
“ Hey, you wanna fuck with me now, boy, you wanna fuck with me.”
The dog became silent as Earl approached, glaring.
Earl clicked off the safety, raised the rifle in a smooth one-handed motion and put a bullet between the dog’s eyes. It went down quiet and quick. Then the other dog, the junkyard mate, started howling like a werewolf, but it didn’t matter to Earl, because they were at least a couple of miles from the nearest human being. The fucking dog could howl itself to death for all he cared.
The lock snapped in the bolt cutter’s jaws like spaghetti sliced by a scissors. The stench hit him before he hit the light. Blood, urine, feces, but no bodies. The counterfeit CDs, the porno videos, the cocaine were still there, along with his weapon, sitting on an open box of compact discs. He picked it up, glad to have it back.
He didn’t know what Jackson had done with the bodies, but it was a fair guess they’d never be found. Not a bad plan. When Earl washed up at the bottom of the river with Loomis the investigation would eventually get the police to the warehouse and his gun. Still a good plan, only now it would be Jackson’s body along with Loomis’ floating in that river.
But then he thought about the broken lock, the dented gate, the smashed in office, and the dead dog. He had to destroy any evidence that he’d been there, and he remembered the two out-of-staters that he and Jackson had torched. He had a siphon hose and an empty gas can in the unmarked.
An hour later he was home, dying to get his aching muscles under a hot shower. A shower would also wash his conscience clean and clear his mind. Just a little hot water, that’s all it would take, because it wasn’t the first time he’d shot someone for the money. But before, a voice in his head told him, it was a drug dealer and a couple of robbers, men he didn’t know, with families he’d never see. But that time, he answered the voice, he’d only netted peanuts.
The briefcase in the back seat of his unmarked must have a half million or more in it. For that kind of money he’d go hunting with Johnny Lee’s daddy for six months of Sundays and never even think of the boy. He looked at his feet and frowned. He’d tracked in some dirt on the new carpets. He’d have to clean it up as soon as he got out of the shower. He wanted everything to be perfect for Maria when she got back.
He slipped off his shoes, careful not to get any more dirt on the rug. He had his hand on the belt buckle, when he saw the flashing red light on the answer machine. He stepped out of the jeans and went over to the phone.
“ Earl, it’s me,” Maria’s voice came soft and low through the small speaker. “I won’t be coming home. You can feed yourself, or let Josie down at the diner feed you, or starve for all I care, but you’ve seen the last of me.”
He stood there in his jockey shorts, jeans under his left arm, right fist clenched and listened to the silence after the message. He had a car full of cash. Josie was young and luscious, he had a good job, he was looked up to. He knew he should be satisfied, but no woman walked out on Big Earl Lawson.
“ Son of a bitch,” he said as he threw his jeans onto the carpet. He picked up the phone and called the airline. It didn’t take him long to find out about the bombs on the plane or where she was. Shit, the plane was on the ground for less than an hour and she was calling it quits.