David Morrell - The naked edge

Because of overcrowding in the state's prison system, Raoul had been allowed to serve his final months in the relative ease of the spacious new jail. Now the sneer on his face and the sociopathic dullness in his eyes became more pronounced as a low-riding car stopped at the curb.

Raoul got in. Gang handshakes were exchanged. The car pulled away. Maintaining a careful distance, Bowie followed to the modest, single-story home of Raoul's parents, where relatives and friends parked and hurried in. Music and the smell of barbecued chicken drifted along the street. Bowie took for granted that one of the ways Raoul would celebrate was with alcohol. Around two in the afternoon, when the booze had its effect and the urge to have fun took control, Raoul left his parents' home, got in the lowrider with his friends, and drove down the street.

The car stopped next to Bowie, who assumed that neighbors had phoned Raoul's parents about the man watching the house. A window slid down. Pounding music boomed out. Raoul glowered.

"I'd like to talk to you," Bowie said.

"I did my time. Why don't you chingado cops leave me alone?"

"I'm not a police officer."

"I was innocent. The bitch lied."

"I've got a business proposition for you."

Raoul lapsed into a string of hate-filled Spanish.

Bowie surprised Raoul by answering in Spanish. "I'm serious. I've got a business proposition for you."

Raoul spat on Bowie's car. The window went up. The car moved on.

Bowie followed. Raoul and his friends reached an Allsup's gas station, where they bought two twelve-packs of Tecote beer. They drove over to Interstate 40 and headed west.

Bowie continued to follow as they left the crowded highway and turned north onto a deserted, narrow road. Bowie noted the mountains in the distance and the cacti around him.

The paved road became gravel and, except for the two vehicles, was now totally deserted as it rose toward a low hill. From a quarter mile back, staying clear of the dust their car raised, Bowie had an occasional glimpse of them drinking beer and knew that in their quest for fun they'd decided that he would provide it.

Their car went over the hill. Following, cresting the hill, descending, Bowie saw what he expected: the car blocking the road, an embankment shielding it from anybody watching from a distance.

Raoul and his three friends were propped against the lowrider, drinking beer, watching him stop. As he got out, the sun weighed on him, but he ignored it, focusing his reflexes, leaning sideways when Raoul threw his empty can at him.

"That's what I think of your shitface business proposition," Raoul said.

The can clattered over stones, but Bowie wasn't distracted. The jeans that Raoul wore from the jail had been replaced by baggy, big-pocketed pants that hung low on his hips like the pants his friends wore.

The pants aren't hanging down to their butt cracks just for style, Bowie thought. It's because of weight. They have weapons.

"You cops shouldn't be harassing me." Raoul seemed proud that he knew the word. "It's against the law."

His friends thought that was hilarious.

"I told you, I'm not a police officer," Bowie assured him.

"So this isn't entrapment." Another big word Raoul was proud of. "I won't be charged for stomping a cop."

"Or cutting you," a kid next to Raoul said, drawing a knife.

"Or maybe I should just give you a red hole in your head." Raoul pulled a semi-automatic pistol from his pants. It was small, a.32.

"You wouldn't enjoy doing that," Bowie said.

"No?"

"You ever hear of Carrie Fisher?"

"Who?"

"The actress. Debbie Reynolds is her mother."

"What the-"

"She played Princess Leia in the first three Star Wars movies."

"Man, I might as well shoot you to keep you from talking me to death."

"She also writes novels and screenplays. Her best line is, 'The trouble with instant gratification is, it takes too long.'"

Raoul looked as if Bowie was speaking Martian.

"You won't shoot me," Bowie said, "because it's too quick. It wouldn't be as much fun as prolonging the foreplay by cutting or stomping me."

"Foreplay?" For a moment, Raoul looked confused, as if the concept wasn't familiar to him. "Yeah, you got that right."

"Can I have him, Raoul?" one of the kids asked. "Let me take a piece of him."

Raoul thought about it.

Perhaps he's beginning to suspect, Bowie thought. If so, that's encouraging. I'm not wasting my time.

"All of us'll take him," Raoul decided.

They pushed away from the car and spread out. One of the kids finished his beer and threw the can. So did the others.

Bowie had no trouble avoiding the cans.

"What'll it be, Raoul?" a kid asked. "Stomp?"

"Or cut?" The kid with the knife grinned.

"Want to make a bet?" Bowie asked.

"That your arms and legs are gonna be busted? That's a sure thing."

As they came closer, Bowie folded his left arm across his chest and raised his right palm to the side of his face in an absolutely non-threatening pose.

"Well, well, look at how chilled this guy is," a kid said.

"He won't be after we stomp him."

"I'm serious. You want to make a bet?" Bowie asked.

They came even closer. Bowie kept his left arm across his chest, his right palm on his face.

"For what?"

"The money in my wallet."

"We're gonna have it anyhow," Raoul said, holding the gun.

"But don't you want to know what the bet is?"

They were almost to him.

"So what's the stupid damned bet?" Raoul wanted to know.

"That you can stand twenty feet away from me, holding your gun at your side."

"Yeah? And?"

"I can get to you before you shoot me."

Raoul snickered. "Yeah. Right."

"Believe me."

Raoul snickered again and turned to his friends.

At that point, Bowie could have taken them.

"And what'll I tell the cops when I put a bullet in your guts?" Raoul asked.

"Self-defense."

"You've been smokin' too much crack," one of the kids said. "A gun against fists ain't self-defense."

"Well, maybe if I had something that the police would agree was a threat."

"Like what?" Raoul asked.

"Oh, I don't know. A knife maybe."

"This is loco." The kid with the knife sneered. "He wants me to give him my-"

"Wait. Shut up while I understand this," Raoul told him. "I stand thirty feet away."

"I said twenty."

"Thirty."

"That's the length of a good-sized room," Bowie pretended to object.

"And you stand over here with a knife."

"Yes."

"And you bet I can't shoot you before you get to me?"

Bowie nodded. "And if you do shoot me, it's self-defense because I've got a knife. You can tell the cops how I followed you. Stalked you."

"I'm telling you this guy is loco," the kid with the knife said.

"How about it, Raoul? You've been away five years. Didn't you lie awake, dreaming of action? And now here you've got it. And it's perfectly legal. Your first day out."

Raoul studied him.

As the sun became more intense, Bowie waited.

"Forty feet," Raoul said.

"You're taking advantage. The bet I offered-"

"Was forty feet," Raoul said. He turned to his friends. "Right? Forty feet."

"Sure, Raoul. That's what he said."

"Okay, if you want to be tough about this," Bowie said.

Looking amused, Raoul took forty steps backward. Generous steps.

The kid with the knife said, "I ain't givin' him this."

"Then I'll need to use mine." Bowie still had his left arm folded across his chest, his right palm to his chin. With his left hand at his right armpit, he reached into the short sleeve of his loose shirt and brought out a five-inch folding knife that he had secured under his arm with Velcro on a hypoallergenic strap wound around his chest.