Matt Hilton: Dead_s men dust

You don't hear the bullet that kills you. Which meant the two bullets Shank?red at me missed their mark. Good job I'd leaped forward at the right time. The sidewalk was a little unforgiving, but a scraped elbow and knee were the least of my worries.

The BMW was a sleek black shark, as dangerous as the.38 Shank aimed at me. It made sense that the driver swung the BMW onto the sidewalk. A half-ton of metal on my head would?nish me as quickly as a slug in the heart.

"Get that son of a bitch!" Even as I rolled away from the car, I had to smile at Shank's determination.

The BMW bumped down off the curb, knocking value off the alloys. I rose up behind them. From beneath my shirttails, I drew my own gun, a SIG-Sauer P226. Unlike these cretins, I had a full load. In addition, I knew how to shoot. One round into a rear tire, two into the trunk, and one through the back windshield for good measure. More than the de?ated tire, panic spun the car across the road and drove it into my parked car.

In this part of town, gun?re would ensure that witnesses kept their heads down. On the other hand, a good old-fashioned car wreck would bring the ghouls running.

"Out of the car," I shouted. "Now!"

The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, blood frothing from both nostrils. Sound asleep for the second time that evening. Shank wasn't in much better shape. Half out the window when the car collided with my Ford, he was now on the road, crying like a baby and cradling a busted elbow. His gun had slid harmlessly beneath my car.

Only the third guy, the big baldy, posed any threat.

"I said, Out of the damn car."

Staring down the barrel of a SIG is enough to motivate most men. He was surprisingly sprightly when offered the correct form of stimulation. His hands went up. "Okay! Easy, man, easy."

His gloves were gone. Heavy gold rings made a rich man's brass knuckles on his right hand. Fancied himself a pugilist.

"Pick Shank up," I told him.

Conditioned to taking commands, he didn't object. He quickly stooped down and lifted Shank to his feet.

"Up the alley."

Opposite us was a narrow alleyway between a vacant lot and a video rental store that was closed for the night. Maybe the store had closed for many nights, judging by the faded posters.

I knew what was going through the big guy's mind. He thought the ignominious alley was where he was going to end his days. Give him his due; I think he was braver than he was stupid.

"You aren't taking us up there to shoot us."

"I'm not?"

"If you're going to do it, do it now. Out here in the open."

"Okay," I said.

Not so keen, Shank whimpered.

Baldy gave his boss a look that suggested there were going to be changes in their arrangement-if they managed to get out of this alive. Shank was left swaying as the big man stepped away from him.

"Go on," he challenged. "I don't think you've got what it takes."

I gave him my saddest smile.

The big man took that as a sign of weakness. He snatched at a gun tucked into his waistband.

I caressed the trigger and his right kneecap disintegrated.

He collapsed to the?oor, and despite his bravado he screamed.

"What about you, Shank? Do you think I haven't got it in me to do you?" I aimed the SIG at a point directly between his eyes. "After you tried to shoot me?"

Think of an air-raid siren and you'll imagine the sound that Shank made. "You know something, Shank? You should have listened to me." I pulled the trigger again. Shank fell next to his friend, clutching at his own shattered knee. "Next time I will kill you," I promised.

He had the desire and the passion. he certainly had the ability. But that wasn't everything. Tubal Cain also had an agenda. Right now he was short on materials. There wasn't much hope of acquiring what he needed here, but for these cretins, he'd make the effort. "You know something? You should all be damned straight to hell!" There weren't too many things that got him riled, but these pigs on wheels were the exception. Motor homes! These monstrosities of engineering were a blight on the landscape. Colossal steel bullets?red from the devil's cannon to cause woe and destruction wherever they landed. Without their intrusion, this oasis turnoff beside Route I-10 in Southern California had its own beauty. A semicircular drive ran up to an artesian well, and trees had been artfully arranged to block the view of the interstate. Laurel trees made a pretty silhouette against the star-?lled sky, but not when a goddamn Winnebago hunkered beneath them, square, unnatural, and spewing light from a cabin the size of the?ight deck of the USS Enterprise. "It's enough to make you sick," Tubal Cain said.

Neither Mabel nor George or whatever the hell they were called argued the point. George was equivocal on the entire subject. However, that could be expected. Speaking could be dif?cult with a gash the width of your thumb parting your trachea.

For her part, Mabel was pretty verbal, but nothing she'd said up until now would change his opinion. She was too intent on screaming for her unheeding husband. Another thing: she wasn't giving any clues to George's actual name. She'd only refer to him as Daddy. She was obscene, like a wrinkly Lolita.

"Aw, for crying out loud!" Cain said. "Put a lid on it, will you? How do you expect me to work with all that racket you're making?"

Mabel hunkered down in the kitchen compartment. She was a hunched package stuffed beneath a fold-down counter, looking like the garbage sack George had been about to drop into the bushes when Cain surprised him.

"Daddy, Daddy! Help me, Daddy!" she screamed for about the hundredth time. "Daddy's not interested," Cain pointed out. "So you might as well shut up."

Daddy sat in the driving seat, surrounded by the luxury of leather and walnut. But he was of no mind to point out the lushness of his surroundings. The elderly man was currently preoccupied with trying to stem the tide of blood?owing down the front of his pullover. Chalk white, his features showed he was losing the battle.

"Daddeeee…"

Cain took the man's hands away from the wound, guiding them to the steering wheel. His?nal earthly experience would be gripping the wheel as though with the intention of taking the Winnebago through the Pearly Gates with him.

The knife snicked through tendons and gristle, the old man's death grip loosened, and his hands?opped onto his thighs. Sans thumbs, his hands looked like dead squid.

Moving toward the woman's hiding place, Cain slipped the thumbs into a sandwich bag and dropped them in a pocket.

"People have to learn to take their trash home with them, Mabel." If there was anything that got his goat even more than motor homes it was the irresponsible and harmful littering George had been engaged in. Bad enough that he destroyed the picturesque beauty of the desert with this huge beast-but then he deposited its shit before he left. "Maybe if George wasn't so indiscriminate with his garbage, I wouldn't have had to call on you and teach you such a valuable lesson."

"You killed Daddy because there were no trash cans?"

"Yes. And for his ridiculous taste in vehicles."

"You're insane!" Mabel shrieked.

"No, Mabel. I'm angry."

"You killed Daddy!"

"Yes."

He stooped down, pulled her from beneath the counter. She slid out as boneless as an oyster from the shell. Cain didn't like oysters. Didn't like anything boneless.

He rapped a knuckle on her head. Just to be sure. The clunk was only partway reassuring.

"How old are you, Mabel? Seventy? Eighty?"

Her turquoise-framed spectacles lent an extra dimension to her incredulous blink. Confusion reigned, terror tamped down by befuddlement. Her mouth drooped. At least she'd stopped screaming.