Joe Lansdale - Devil Red

“It’s not to an SUV.”

“That’s right. It’s not. It was stolen from a car that’s already been traced. They must have taken it off the car tonight. Quick and fast. They’ve already traded the license plate on their car back by now, tossed the other one.”

“Shit. I should have been with him. We’re together, shit like that doesn’t happen.”

“Of course it does. You two have just been lucky. All of us, we just been lucky. We’ve all been shot, nearly killed. Just not as bad as Leonard got tonight.”

“I’m thinkin’ maybe Jimson,” I said. “We rode him pretty hard.”

“Possibility.”

“And then there’s Devil Red.”

“Really?” Marvin said.

“Could be. Jimson implied he knew how to contact Devil Red. Like maybe he could hire him, he wanted to. Or maybe we got Kincaid stirred when we were in Houston and he put Devil Red on us. I don’t know. Anyone say anything about finding a drawing, something with a devil head on it?”

“No. But that might be information even my buddies wouldn’t tell me,” Marvin said. “But, if it was Devil Red, he might not leave a warning if there’s no time. Also, since the shots came from the back window, he’s got help.”

“That could point to Jimson,” I said. “It might just be him and some of his boys.”

Marvin was hesitant. “Well, when it comes to you two, there is a long list. Only thing I can say, it wasn’t random, and it wasn’t for robbery. They had one purpose. Shoot Leonard. And if they did that, I pretty much think you’re next.”

It was a long time before Leonard came out of surgery. We weren’t allowed to see him then, just a glimpse as they pushed his gurney onto an elevator and took him away. He looked ashen, and when a black man looks that ashen, it’s not good, not good at all.

The surgeon met with us in the break room a few minutes later. The surgeon’s name was Rogers and he was out of his surgery duds and wearing some loose clothes with slip-on shoes.

We sat at a break table in plastic chairs. The room seemed too bright.

“He’s pretty bad,” Rogers said. “He’s tough, though. I’ll tell you that. I couldn’t believe he’d taken those slugs, bled that much, and was still alive. He could even talk a little.”

“He say who did it?” Marvin asked.

“He asked me if we found the cookies.”

“The cookies?” I said. “Why that silly sonofabitch. The last thing he asked about were cookies? He never even made it inside the store.”

“He was kind of out of it. He asked about a hat too. Neither meant anything to me.”

I smiled. Thought: That’s probably why he was shot, that hat. “Wish I could tell you he was going to be better,” Rogers said. I held my breath.

“I can’t,” he said. “He could recover. Like I said, he’s tough. But he lost a lot of blood, lots of trauma.”

“What kind of chance does he have?” I asked.

“No way of really knowing,” Rogers said. “But I’d say he’s on the low end of possibilities.”

“What’s that mean?” Marvin said.

“This is all guesswork, gentlemen. Ten, twenty percent maybe.”

“Oh, hell,” I said.

“Ten, twenty percent, that’s something, though,” Rogers said. “It’s a wait-and-see situation, not a wait-for-certain-death kind of deal. And like I said, he seems to have a lot of willpower. That’s what makes someone tough. Not just muscle and flesh, but willpower.”

“He’ll make it,” I said.

Rogers stood. “We’re doing all we can.”

“Do all you can and more,” I said. “That’s my brother in there.”

After we talked to the surgeon, I told Marvin to go home, be with his family. I walked outside with him to his car. He opened his trunk and got out a golf club bag with clubs poking out of it. He said, “Borrow these.” I just looked at him.

“Inside,” he said, “is a sawed-off pump shotgun, twelve-gauge. You might want to put it together.”

“I might at that,” I said.

I opened my trunk and he put the bag inside. “We’re on hospital camera, you know,” Marvin said.

“I know.”

I closed the trunk.

I called Brett. I waited in the parking lot till she arrived. I put the golf bag in the trunk of her car. She didn’t say anything. We went up to the waiting room. We were the only ones there.

Brett was red-faced and her eyes were red too. Her hair was tied back and her shoulders were slumped. She sat down beside me and took my hand.

“How is he?”

“No word,” I said. “I think the same.”

She patted my hand.

“I know you need to find out who did it,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I know what you’ll do when you find them.”

“Yeah.”

“Those weren’t just golf clubs, were they?”

“No,” I said.

“So, how are you gonna get who did it sitting here?”

“I want to know how he is. I want to know he’s okay.”

“We have phones. You sitting here doesn’t change anything. You get that sonofabitch. Whatever it takes, you get him. And if you need me to help you get him, I will.”

“I know,” I said.

She pulled my head around and looked me directly in the eyes. “I’ll stay here. You… you have any ideas. Any way to get ideas, anyone to get ideas from, you do it. Take my car. And when you find who did this, and I know you’ll find them, show no mercy.”

I drove over to No Enterprise. I drove carefully. There was a little park by the side of the road just outside of the city limits. I pulled over there and opened the trunk and took out the golf bag and dug in there until I found the shotgun. It was in two pieces. There was a little bag with tools in it. I put the shotgun together swiftly. There were shells in a plastic bag. I loaded the gun.

I looked up as a black Volkswagen drove by, heading back the way I had come. I hoped they weren’t pulling into the park.

They drove on.

I put the bag back in the trunk and took the shotgun and laid it on the front passenger’s seat and drove on into No Enterprise. There was no reason to expect Jimson to be where I hoped he was, but Shit Fingers or someone there would know. I’d get him to come there if I had to beat the information out of an innocent bystander. I might even make them drink the coffee.

When I got to No Enterprise, I saw the service station/convenience store. It occurred to me as I arrived that it might not be open. But it was. It was all night. It was the swinging spot in No Enterprise.

The lights were on, but right then it wasn’t swinging.

I cruised into the lot and parked. There was a dark SUV parked in front of the store, near the door. I tried to determine if it was the one in the Wal-Mart lot, came to the conclusion it was not.

I got the shotgun off the seat and opened the door. My legs felt like lead, but I made them move anyway. I held the gun down by my side, and used my other hand to tap the revolver beneath my coat.

I walked straight to the door and went in.

No one was there. That was alive.

I saw Jimson on the floor, his head turned funny and his mouth open. So were his eyes. His blood was all over the floor. He had one hand inside his coat. Probably reaching for a gun.

Sitting in a chair at the table was Muscles. He had his head thrown back, and his mouth was open, like something you were supposed to toss a ball into.

The thin man lay on the floor. He was on his back. He had his hand on his gun, but it wasn’t drawn. He had a hole in the center of his forehead, nice and neat, like it was painted there with a paint pen. The back of his head was oozing blood. The place smelled of blood, gunfire, and feces from evacuated bowels.