Bill Crider - Shotgun Saturday Night

“I see.”

“No, Doctor, I don’t think you really do,” Rhodes said. He was trying not to lose his temper, but it wasn’t easy. “I want you up here in my office tomorrow morning. I want a strict accounting of every single limb in those boxes. I want you to be able to prove where every one of them came from. And while you’re at it, you might be giving a little thought to exactly where you were on Saturday night.”

Rawlings sucked in his breath. “Are you accusing me. .?”

“Not at all,” Rhodes said. “But I want you here in the morning at ten o’clock.”

“But my patients!” Rawlings protested.

“Get someone to cover for you, or cancel your appointments,” Rhodes said. “It’s either that, or I get the Houston police to pick you up.”

“I suppose I’ll have to be there, then,” Rawlings said reluctantly. He didn’t sound happy.

“Fine,” Rhodes said. “I’ll see you at ten o’clock.” He put the telephone down before Rawlings had time to reply. “Some people are more interested in covering their own backsides than in helping the law,” he told Hack.

“What do you mean ‘some people’?” Hack said. “You mean everybody.”

Rhodes grinned. “You’re right,” he said.

The telephone rang, and Rhodes picked it up. It was Dr. White, calling from Ballinger’s. “I can’t tell you much, Sheriff,” he said. “Not much to tell, really. Bert Ramsey died from a shotgun blast to the chest, fired at close range. I’d say not more than four or five feet. Double-ought buckshot. About ten P.M., depending on when he ate supper, which was steak and beans, mainly.”

“That’s it, huh?” Rhodes asked.

“Not exactly,” White said. “There’s one other little thing that might be of interest to you.”

“What’s that?”

“Ramsey had a tattoo,” White said.

“I think he was in the Army,” Rhodes said. “I guess lots of guys get tattoos in the Army.”

“Not this kind,” White told him. “I think I’ve seen a picture of one like it in the newspapers. It’s a skeleton, riding a motorcycle.”

“I’ve seen that, too,” Rhodes said. “Los Muertos.”

“That’s what I thought,” White said. “They’ve been in the news a lot lately.”

“That’s a fact,” Rhodes said. “Thanks, Doctor.”

“Anytime,” White said. They hung up.

“What’s that about Los Muertos?” Lawton asked.

“Bert Ramsey had one of their tattoos,” Rhodes said.

No one said anything for a minute. They listened to the clanking and clattering of the air conditioner. Rhodes leaned back in his chair, causing it to squeak its high-pitched squeak.

“He’d been doing handyman work around here for a long time,” Hack said at last.

“Seems to me that he was in the Army before that,” Lawton said. “Least, that’s what I always heard.”

“Makes you wonder if we heard wrong,” Rhodes said. “I thought I remembered it that way, too. But maybe he wasn’t in the Army. Maybe he was just gone somewhere else. Maybe he was a member of a different organization.”

“What’s that mean, anyway, that ‘Los Muertos’?” Hack asked.

“You ought to know that one,” Lawton told him. “You must be gettin’ old. Means ‘the dead ones,’ or maybe just ‘the dead.’ “

“Or maybe ‘dead men,’ “ Rhodes said.

“Why the Spanish name?” Hack asked.

“Nobody knows,” Rhodes said. “There aren’t many Chicano members of the gang, as far as I know. Besides, they started a long time ago. It could be that someone just liked the sound of it.”

“Any way you slice it, they’re bad business,” Lawton said.

“You know it,” Hack said. “I surely do wish you hadn’t been askin’ me to check up on whether the DPS boys had seen any motorsickles in the county lately, Sheriff. Even just thinkin’ that Los Muertos might be tied into somethin’ that you’re workin’ on makes me a little nervous.”

“You reckon all them stories they tell on that bunch are true?” Lawton asked.

“I don’t know,” Hack said, “but if even half of ‘em are, then I don’t want a thing to do with those boys.”

“To tell the truth, I don’t either,” Rhodes said. He leaned forward in the chair. There was a high-pitched squeak.

“We got to get us some WD-40,” Hack said.

Just then there was an alarming crashing and clattering from the air conditioner. It sounded as if someone had thrown a pair of pliers into the fan motor. The sound increased in intensity and pitch, then gradually began to trail off until it sounded more like someone tapping on a piece of steel with a ball-peen hammer. Then there was no noise at all. The air conditioner had stopped completely.

“I told you so,” Hack said.

Most of what Rhodes knew about Los Muertos, he’d read in the newspapers or heard from other members of the law-enforcement fraternity. None of it was good. For the more than twenty-five years of the gang’s existence, the members of its various chapters had been more or less at war with the members of any other gangs in the state, as well as among themselves. There had been numerous crimes linked to the gang, and some of them had even been proved and tried in court. Rhodes could recall at least two convictions for armed robbery and one for murder. There were probably plenty of minor convictions for assault that he’d never heard of.

Lately, however, the members of various chapters had settled their differences, formed a rough confederation, and begun making money the new-fashioned way-running dope. Their bikes were fast and easily maneuverable over most terrain. Most of them could travel wherever and whenever they wanted, not being too tied to regular jobs, homes, and families. They were a close-knit group and trusted no one, as most of their secrets stayed within the gang.

No one knew exactly where the dope-mostly marijuana-came from. One theory was that it was grown in Mexico and then smuggled across the border, but Rhodes and many others tended to discount that theory on the grounds that it would involve trusting third, or maybe even fourth, parties, unless Los Muertos crossed the border themselves. Someone would have had to grow the weed, and someone would have had to bring it across. Rhodes didn’t know where they got the dope, but he didn’t think it came from Mexico.

Blacklin County didn’t have a dope problem. Or at least it didn’t have a dope problem that Rhodes knew about. It was true that every now and then one of the deputies would come in with a high school kid who had a little marijuana in a baggie. Usually it was hardly enough to measure. Rhodes doubted that he’d seen anywhere near a pound of marijuana in his whole tenure as sheriff, taking it all together. Maybe he was letting his imagination get the better of him. All because of a little tattoo.

He left Hack and Lawton looking disconsolately at the air conditioner and went out into the late afternoon heat. Soon the inside of the office would be like the inside of a baked potato. He hoped they could get the air conditioner repaired soon. He’d left Hack instructions to call Romig’s Appliance first thing in the morning.

He idly laid his hand on top of the white county car, then jerked it back. The roof had been baking in the afternoon sun and was as hot as an exhaust pipe after the Indy 500.

Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten lunch. He went back inside and called Ivy Daniel, who agreed to go out for a bite with him. He left again, but this time Hack and Lawton were smirking wisely at one another, forgetting the air conditioner for the moment.

Rhodes wished that he could clarify his thoughts about Ivy. He guessed that in the way of small towns everywhere, it was pretty general knowledge that they were “keeping company” and that they were being closely watched for signs of impending matrimony.