Билл Пронзини - The Cemetery Man and Other Darkside Tales

Nobody ran out on Joe Hood. Nobody took what belonged to Joe Hood and got away with it. Nobody.

The two of them had spent last night in Tonopah. So from there Hood had driven north, the direction he figured they’d taken, and when he came to the secondary road leading to Line he knew that was where he’d find them. Knew it for certain, as if somebody had suddenly opened up his head and dumped in the knowledge.

It was late afternoon when he drove into Line. There was a crumbling, six-unit motel on the outskirts, but he didn’t stop there. On a blistering hot day like this, Teresa and Kincaid wouldn’t be holed up in their room or out driving around. They’d be sitting in a bar sucking down ice-cold beer, Teresa’s second favorite pastime.

Heat shimmers gave the false-front buildings a wavery, watery look. The sun-glare off white walls and sheet metal roofs was so bright it struck fiery glints off the windshield and created blind spots; Hood didn’t see the drunk come lurching out into the road until it was almost too late. He stood on the brakes, cramped the wheel, and the grill and right front fender just missed a collision.

“Watch where you’re going, you stupid son of a bitch!” Hood yelled through the open driver’s window.

The drunk stood staring and blinking stupidly, then wiped his mouth and shambled on across the street and disappeared into an alleyway between two of the storefronts.

The building the drunk had come out of had a sign on the front wall: Buckhorn Tavern. Hood drove ahead to the far end of town, going slow. There wasn’t another car in sight, not even a single one parked in front of the buildings. And no other bars besides the Buckhorn. He made a U-turn in the empty road, came back and parked across from the tavern.

He unlocked the glove box, unwrapped the chamois cloth from around the 9mm Glock. The piece was loaded, but he jacked the clip out, checked it, then checked the action before he slammed the clip home again. He flipped off the safety, stuck the gun in the waistband of his pants, and got out of the car. The sun’s heat seared him as he crossed the road, but he barely noticed it. He wasn’t even sweating when he walked into the tavern.

It was dark inside, cooled a little by a couple of whirring ceiling fans. Hood stood for a couple of seconds just inside the door, looking around. Not much different from every other small-town bar he’d been in: racks of antlers and deer heads on the walls, pool table, juke box. A fat bartender standing behind the long bar on the left, polishing glasses. A beefy guy in a pearl-button western shirt sitting on a stool with a schooner of draft beer in front of him.

And in one of the low-backed booths on the right, heads together over bottles of Bud, there they were — Teresa and a man that had to be Kincaid.

They didn’t see Hood at first. Too wrapped up in each other, hands clasped together on the table. Teresa didn’t look much different than the last time he’d seen her, big, sweet-faced, her feathery black hair heat-limp and ruffling in the faint breeze from the fans. Kincaid was long and lean, with a lantern jaw and a bald spot on the crown of his head. It was the first time Hood had set eyes on the man. What did Teresa see in a blue-collar jerk like him? Hung like a horse, probably. Size mattered to her, all right. Anything that had to do with sex mattered to her.

Nothing mattered to Hood, not anymore.

He walked over to the booth, taking the Glock out of his waistband on the way. “Hello, Teresa,” he said.

The look of shocked disbelief on her face was almost comical. She started up out of the booth. So did Kincaid. Hood shot Kincaid first, to get him out of the way — a clean kill shot that took off part of the right side of his head. The sound of the gun going off was deafening. Out of the corner of his eye Hood saw the bartender dive for cover behind the plank, the one other customer drop the beer schooner and kick over his stool as he jumped off and ran away down an aisle at the rear.

Teresa screamed, her eyes bulging wide, her hands clawing at the edge of the table.

“I told you,” Hood said. “I warned you what would happen if you ran out on me.”

“Oh God, Joe, no! Don’t!”

“Goodbye, baby.”

She threw up a hand, and he shot her right through it. Big round hole in her palm, big round hole in the middle of her forehead. And down she went, sliding off the seat and under the table.

The echoes faded. Quiet in there, then. Quiet as death.

Hood took one last look, then turned and walked back out into the heat.

Hood was sitting sleepily in the shade in front of the hardware store when his rheumy old eyes saw the car roll past and almost hit the drunk. Close but no cigar, he thought, and cackled to himself as the drunk staggered off. The car rolled on slow to the end of town, U-turned, came back and slid to the curb. The man who got out and went across into the Buckhorn was nobody Hood had ever seen before.

A little while later, when he heard the gunshots, he got up as quick as his tired old bones would let him and went inside the store. He didn’t want any part of what was going on over in the tavern.

Hood lurched out of the Buckhorn and into the street. He was pie-eyed drunk, drunker than anybody had a right to be in the middle of the day. But when it was this damn hot, what else was there to do but wrap yourself around a bucket of cold beer? The sun pounded at him, dazzled his already blurred vision, so that he didn’t see the car until it almost hit him.

“Watch where you’re going, you stupid son of a bitch!” the driver yelled at him.

Hood blinked at the man, didn’t recognize him. He wiped his mouth and staggered over into the alley between the feed store and café. In the shade there, he leaned over and puked until he felt better. Then he thought about having another beer or two.

From where he was polishing glasses behind the bar, Hood watched the stranger come in, stand for a few seconds, then walk over to the booth where the gangly guy and the girl were sitting. He didn’t spot the gun until it appeared in the stranger’s hand. At first he was so shocked that he just stood there staring. But then, when the shooting started and he saw the gangly guy’s head fly apart, Hood dropped and flattened himself on the planks and lay there shaking with his hands covering his head.

Hood was just lifting the schooner to his mouth when the stranger walked in. Big guy, tough looking. Better not be looking for trouble, Hood thought because the heat was making him feel mean. Anybody messes with me on a hell-hot day like this, I’ll kick a lung out of him.

He took a long draught from his mug as the stranger walked over to the only occupied booth. Next thing he knew, the big bastard had a gun in his hand and it went off like a cannon and the blood, oh Jesus the blood—

Hood moved so fast the schooner went flying one way and the stool the other. He ran straight down the aisle between the crappers and out the back door and didn’t stop until he was a block and a half away.

In the booth Hood was sitting with Teresa’s hand in his, watching her and thinking about how much he liked screwing her and wishing it wasn’t so damn hot so he could take her back to the motel and screw her again right now. Maybe he would anyway. Beer in the afternoon always made him horny.

He didn’t pay any attention when the door opened and somebody came in. But then he heard steps, hard steps, and when he looked up a big, stone-faced man was standing there looking at him. He knew right away who it was. Knew it before he heard Teresa’s gasp. Knew it with a kind of sick disbelief even before he heard the words, “Hello, Teresa,” and saw the gun.

Hood started up out of the booth, knowing there wasn’t time to do anything, that he was a dead man. The last thing he saw was the automatic’s muzzle swinging up toward his head.