Martin Limon - Slicky Boys

When his father died, the killer inherited a pile of debt and a worthless ranch. But he was big now. And strong. After he’d disposed of everything that had ever belonged to his father, he disposed of two more things: Angel and Chuy.

He’d gutted them. Using a hacking blade he found in the toolshed. And left their bodies in a thicket of mesquite.

The killer shook his head, bringing himself back to the business at hand.

He poked gently into the soft flesh below the chin of the CID agent. A bubble of blood rose to the surface, burst, and started to trickle toward the collar of the black shirt.

This agent-this Sueno, this dreamer-had been like Angel and Chuy. Always watching. Always knowing. Waiting patiently to witness the beating that would surely come.

Suddenly, the killer slapped his knees and rose to his feet, his decision made. He’d kill this agent slowly, like he’d killed Angel and Chuy, like he’d killed Whitcomb. He’d watch the silent knowledge in Sueno’s eyes change to surprise at his great prowess. And then to terror.

Always terror.

When I came to, I was no longer in the receptionist’s office but in the 8th Army Commander’s office itself. I finally made it, I thought. The corridors of power.

A green lamp glowed above a work counter. Bo Shipton hunched over it, shuffling through papers, his narrow eyes glancing up occasionally at me. His big paw clasped my. 38.

Muscles rippled through his arms and shoulders as he worked. He wore a plain dark brown poplin shirt and dark khaki work pants. Good camouflage for a thief. With his short haircut and his neatly shaved mug, he could’ve easily passed for a military officer in civvies putting in some late hours.

He must’ve dragged me in here and propped me against this cabinet. I wasn’t tied up, which was a nice touch-but he didn’t have any rope, so maybe he was less generous than I thought.

Neither of us spoke for a while. He was too busy, I was too stunned. Finally, the ringing in my head subsided and I started to lift myself up.

“Don’t move!”

The voice was a low growl. Raspy. As if his throat was lined with gravel. I remembered the field tracheotomy I had read about in his records. The tube of bamboo he’d stuck in his own windpipe. His jawline was jagged and rippled with scars; reconstructed after the wounds he received in Vietnam.

“If you move,” Shipton said. “I’ll shoot you right now.”

Keeping the gun on me, Shipton edged toward the safe. He swirled the combination dial back and forth until the ball bearings clicked. He grabbed the handle, twisted, and swung open the heavy door. He riffled through the papers inside, found a blue folder marked TOP SECRET, and carried it back to the lamp. He pulled a tiny camera from his pocket. When he was finished photographing its contents, he stuffed the folder back into the safe, closed it, and locked it shut.

He stepped toward me.

“Sueno,” he said, lingering on the word. “You’re a Mex. And like all Mexes you hang out in las cantinas and you take money to do low jobs. You and your partner, Bascom, were the only CID agents greedy enough to bring Whitcomb to me.?Entiendes, cabron?”

His Spanish came out in a flat drawl. An Anglo trying to impress somebody.

“Stick to redneck American,” I said, rubbing the cut above my collar. “Your Spanish is for shit.”

Shipton’s big body tensed. “You’re a lowlife,” he said. “On the take.”

“It was a few bucks for a favor. At least I never killed one of my own girlfriends.”

He raised the gun. “I could pull this trigger right now. End it all.”

My bowels just about unraveled. When the gun didn’t go off, I thought I might have a chance.

“Too many guards around here, Shipton. A gunshot would make it real hard for you to get away.”

He smiled. “You’re right. Besides, it would be less enjoyable. And I owe you one.”

“Owe me for what?”

“For killing Miss Ku.”

“Are you mad? I never touched the girl.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it was your partner then. Doesn’t matter. That’s why I killed that Itaewon bitch he was shacked up with. I would’ve offed him too if she didn’t have so many noisy neighbors.”

“They know how to treat a thief.”

The scars on the side of Shipton’s head swarmed toward his eyes like a school of hungry fish. “You got a sharp mouth for a lowlife, on-the-take CID asshole.”

He lowered the gun and slid it behind his waist.

“Get up!” he said.

I rose unsteadily. I ached all over but especially in my right hand, which was shooting thunderbolts up my arm.

Shipton grabbed two rifles, M14’s, the type the Honor Guard uses, both with shiny, stainless steel bayonets glimmering in the green light. He loosened the carrying strap on one and slung it over his powerful shoulders. The other he pointed at me.

“Out the back, Dreamer,” he said.

We stepped into the commander’s conference room. In the far wall was a door locked by a long brass bolt. Shipton jerked it back, pushed the door open, and shoved me through. I missed the first stair and fell facedown into the snow.

Shipton poked me with the bayonet.

“Move,” he hissed.

I lifted myself up and staggered along the big brick wall of 8th Army Headquarters.

Behind us, the flames at the Aviation building crackled. Men shouted. All activity was centered down there. We were moving away from all that, into the shadows.

No chance to run away. He’d pop me in the back before I made three steps. Best to keep him talking.

“Why’d you kill Whitcomb?”

“Keep moving.”

“Is it because he saw you that night in J-two?”

“You’re a real sleuth, aren’t you?”

“How long you been working for the North Koreans?”

He jabbed me again with the bayonet. “Shut the fuck up.”

We turned a corner, and in the distance I spotted a shadowy figure pushing a cart. Coal delivery. The workman wouldn’t be much help. Anyway, he moved away, not even glancing in our direction.

“You better hope nobody shows up,” Shipton said. “If they do, I’ll shoot you and end it quick.”

But for some reason he had decided not to shoot me right away. I considered asking why but thought better of it. Instead, I concentrated on finding a means of escape. Anything. A loose brick, an old piece of pipe, anything I could use as a weapon. The M14 in Shipton’s hands was loaded. I’d heard the rifle’s bolt clack forward before we left the Headquarters building. The odds against me were long, but I wasn’t dead yet.

He poked the tip of the bayonet into my back.

“Over there,” he said.

With the blade, he motioned toward a gap between two buildings. When the narrow pathway opened up, we were standing in the center of a small, courtyardlike space with the backs of four brick buildings facing us. Four more narrow pathways ran off like spokes from a wheel, all of them uphill, giving the impression that we were in an enclosed bowl. Once, the Japanese Imperial Army had used this space as a garden. But with typical American efficiency we’d black-topped it over.

It was like the spot in Namdaemun where Cecil Whitcomb had died. In the center of things but isolated: Shipton’s method of operation. Ice crunched beneath my stockinged feet. My toes were frozen-I’d left the boots back in the Headquarters building-but I hadn’t even noticed the discomfort until just now. Too many other things to worry about. The snow had stopped falling and a few stray trails of footsteps crossed this small field of frost.

“Hold it right there,” Shipton said. I had reached the center of the courtyard. “Turn around.”

I turned.

Before I could react, he popped the magazine out of the MI4, ejected the live round from the chamber, and tossed the weapon to me. It slipped out of my grasp, clattering to the snow, and as I bent to pick it up he whipped the other rifle off his shoulders and pointed it at me. He clanged a round into the chamber.