Andrew Gross - 15 Seconds

I-10 was just a quarter mile ahead.

Then she saw a gas station. A tall Exxon sign that suggested that the place might have a fairly sweeping view of Lakeshore Drive.

She decided to turn in.

She parked near the office and asked herself one more time just why she was doing this. Then she opened her door.

She went into the service station’s office and asked the guy behind the counter for the manager. He got on the intercom, called out a name, and an affable-looking Indian with a name tag that read Pat stuck his head in from inside the garage. “Can I help you?”

“I’m with the sheriff’s office,” Carrie said. She flashed him her photo ID. Then she pointed toward the road signs. “You know there was a serious incident down the street involving a policeman yesterday?”

“Of course.” The manager nodded. “Traffic along here was backed up all day.”

Carrie asked him, “Any chance you have security cameras that have a view of the street?”

Business was booming for Dexter Ray Vaughn these days.

Booming enough for him to buy, in cash, the run-down row house in Cobb County outside Atlanta that he’d been renting-and fill it with a boss Bose sound system and a sixty-inch Samsung, which, other than a mattress in the bedroom, was pretty much his only furniture. Good enough to buy the tricked-out Ford 450 pickup he was driving lately.

Only problem was, he thought as he glanced around in his T-shirt and undershorts, his wife, Vicki, was always so stoned she couldn’t keep the house in any form other than “Early Shithole.” And the fridge never had anything in it but vodka and stale pizza. But considering the kinds of customers and business associates he had floating through here on a daily basis, it was, like, Who the fuck really cared?

The meth lab in his basement was turning out a hundred grams a day, when he got the urge to work. He had a distro network, both in town and even out in the boonies-if you called his half-witted cousin Del, who sometimes ran for him there, a distributor. More like a sloth who sat in the trees farting and scratching himself.

Not to mention the neat, little side business he had going for himself in pharmaceuticals. Diversified -just like Warren E. Buffett-he had once seen the word in a magazine at his doctor’s office. Local gangs moved some of it locally and provided protection, so Dexter didn’t even have to lose sleep at night worrying about the cops.

Shit, some of the cops were his best customers.

Life Was Fucking-A Good, just like the words on the T-shirt he was wearing and had apparently passed out in last night. He’d been partying most of the night and woken up at two in the afternoon on the couch, with a world-class hard-on. Vicki was nowhere around, probably blowing some Mexican up the street for weed. Dex didn’t really care. Shit, he could call up a half-dozen meth skanks who’d be over in thirty seconds and go down on him for what he’d left out on the table.

But, he got up and sighed, commerce called. His amigos were expecting more inventory mañana. He had to get to the lab. Dex stretched, still a little wobbly, and took the last chug from a can of warm beer he’d left on the rug.

Man, this steady nine-to-five crap was killing him.

The doorbell rang.

Fuck. Who the hell was there ? He groaned. Winston, the Jamaican, was supposed to come by, but that wasn’t until around six. Dexter shuffled over to the window, scratching his crotch. He parted the curtain, but was unable to see who was there. He pushed the hair out of his face and reknotted his ponytail, all-presentable like. “ Who is it, man?” he called, squinting through the peephole. “Speak and be recognized.”

“Del sends his regards,” the person said.

Fuckin ’ Del… The guy looked like a rube from Okefenokee. Didn’t that pimply bladderhead know better than to send his hicks around…?

“Del oughta know better,” Dexter said, turning the knob and pushing open the bolt. “He-”

And then the door pretty much exploded in his face.

Before he even knew what was happening, this old dude had forced his way in. Heavyset. Arms like fucking ham hocks. Bald on top. Dexter’s hand shot to his mouth and there was blood on it. “The fuck you doin’, man…”

Then his eyes grew wide when he saw a shotgun in the guy’s hands.

“Dude, you outta your fuckin’ mind?” Dexter blurted at him, thinking he knew about ten people right off the top of his head he could get to blow a hole through this guy as wide as a highway. Stupid fool clearly had no idea where he was.

But then the guy’s elbow jerked and the butt of the shotgun caught Dex hard in the mouth. He felt his lip burst open, and when he looked down, he saw three of his own teeth staring up at him from the floor.

“On the couch,” Vance demanded, motioning to the dilapidated tweed thing that sat in front of the wide-screen TV.

“Listen, old man, you must be touched!” Dexter said, spitting blood onto his hand. “You don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing here. You think you can just-”

“Sit. On. The. Couch,” Vance said again, this time emphasizing each word with the muzzle of the shotgun.

“All right, all right…” Dexter said, lifting his palms. “I’m going. I’m going… Just keep it cool, old man.” He shuffled to the couch and sank down. He wiped blood off his mouth. “Look what you done, dude? What the hell is it you want? You need a boost? Weed? X? A little meth maybe? I can get it all. You surely look like you can use some X, there, dude, if you don’t mind me saying so. Got no cash-no worries, we can work something out.”

“I look like I came here for drugs?” Vance demanded, staring down at him. He grabbed the cane chair that was in the middle of the room and plunked himself down on it, facing Dexter Vaughn, the shotgun dangling loosely from his side. The blinds were already down. “You sold some Oxy to someone named Wayne Deloach, back in Acropolis. Through some poor fool named Del.”

“Roxies…? Acropolis…? Nah, never heard of Acropolis,” Dexter said, wiping the blood out of his mouth, surely wondering what was going on.

“You heard of him, though,” Vance replied.

“You some kind of cop?”

Vance shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“Then I’m sorry to tell you, I don’t the fuck know any Wayne Deloach. Though you’re surely right on one thing… My cousin Del damn well is a poor fool.”

“A dead one too,” Vance said, looking at him.

The ponytailed dealer swallowed. Vance could tell from the sheen of sweat that had popped up on his brow that he had gotten the guy’s full attention now.

“You said Wayne, right?”

Vance nodded, shifting the gun across from the guy’s knee.

“Still, don’t know him. In fact-”

Vance squeezed the trigger, sending a casing of Remington 341 buckshot into Dexter’s kneecap, causing him to jump up and howl clutching his knee, which, through his jeans, was mostly blood and exposed bone now.

“Look at that! Look what you fucking done , man!”

“I’m gonna give you one more chance to rethink your answer-about whether you knew this Wayne or not-before you become a dead fool too.”

“You fucking busted my knee, you sonovabitch!” Dexter rolled back onto the couch, writhing on the cushions, inspecting the hole in his jeans, blood all over them. “You must be fucking crazy, man. Ow …”

“That knee’ll soon end up the healthiest part of you”-Vance cocked the other barrel-“unless you tell me where your Oxy comes from. I know it was you and I don’t give a shit about whatever else is going on. All I want is a name. Whoever it is who supplies you, son. So unless you want to start losing more body parts by the minute and end up on the floor slithering around like a fish in a catch bucket, you better start thinking of some names.”