Michael Marshall - The Straw Men

'So. What kind of thing you looking for?'

'Two rifles with eight hundred rounds, forty clips of soft 45 and I don't care what kind, whatever's

cheapest. Two vests, expensive, one large and one medium.'

'Whoa,' he said, still cheerful. 'Planning on starting a war?'

'No. But boy do we have a rodent problem.' His smile faded, and I was suddenly aware that he was

looking at my cheek. I put my hand up and wiped it. It came away with a small smear of blood. 'As you can see, it's getting completely out of hand.'

He didn't laugh this time. 'Don't know as I can sell you all that.'

I got out a Gold American Express card and he was soon smiling again. He totalled up the cost of the items by hand, allowing me a discount on the ammunition. If you buy in bulk the unit cost of eight hundred potential deaths is actually very reasonable.

He told me the total and I waved my hand, anxious that he just get on with it. I glanced out the window at Bobby. He had his jacket off and was wrapping a bandage round the wound. I'd picked this up at a veterinary supply store on the way through town, along with safety pins and microgauze. He was

wincing a lot. I turned back just in time.

'Don't do that,' I said, pulling out my gun and pointing it at the guy's chest.

He froze, eyes still on me, hand a few inches from the phone. 'Don't tell me. Couple days ago a cop

came in here, told you not to sell anything to someone by the name of Ward Hopkins?'

'That's correct.'

'But you're going to do it anyway, right?'

'No, sir. I am not.'

I took a step closer, and raised the gun so it was pointing at his head. I felt exhausted and frightened.

He shook his head, and reached for the phone again. 'I ain't selling you nothing.'

The telephone was an old-fashioned model, and made an extraordinary sound when the bullet ripped into it. The man jumped back, very shaken.

'Yes, you are,' I explained. 'Otherwise I'll just shoot you and take what I need and you're in no position to whine because the gun I'm holding was bought from this very establishment. Guess what? This is how they get used.'

The guy stood still for a moment, working out which way to jump. I really, really hoped he'd just do as I asked, because I wasn't going to shoot him and he probably knew it.

Then his eyes flickered. I turned and saw that a young guy was heading toward the store. He was

carrying a bag of sandwiches and wearing the same kind of shirt the fat guy was wearing.

I swore, lunged forward, and grabbed as many boxes as I could carry.

'You've been no help at all,' I snapped, and ran out the door, smacking straight into the younger guy

and sending him sprawling into a puddle.

I jumped in the car, throwing the boxes of bullets into Bobby's lap. 'Didn't go well.'

'So I see,' Bobby said, watching the fat man as he came out the door holding a large rifle.

I slammed my foot on the pedal and reversed away from the building, as the first shot went high of the car. The younger guy made his feet again and ran into the store, pushing the other guy aside. I hit the brake and skid-turned the vehicle around, and then sent it hurtling back onto the road as a bullet took out one of the back passenger windows.

'Guy in the store had my name on a list.' I took a hard right turn. I wasn't heading anywhere in particular. Just getting us out of the centre of town. 'One question's answered, at least. How The Straw Men managed to get to my folks' house so quickly after I roughed Chip up last time. They didn't have to come at all. They had McGregor already here in town.'

'Adds up.'

'Something else that makes sense: McGregor and Spurling were the cops at the scene of my parents' accident. Except maybe McGregor was a little earlier at the scene.'

'And is now back at Dyersburg PD dripping blood on the floor and chanting our names. We're deeply fucked, Ward — very deeply fucked. What are we going to do?'

There was only one person in town I could think of who might stand a chance of wanting to help me. I said his name.

'Good call,' Bobby nodded, wincing as he settled back into his seat. 'Way things are going, an attorney's going to come in handy.'

According to the card he'd given me after the funeral, Harold Davids's house was right on the other side of town. Unlike the area where my parents had lived, with its hills and twisting streets, the houses here were laid out in a regular grid — albeit a grid with big squares and nice-looking houses sitting in them.

When we pulled up outside we could see that the porch light was on, along with one deeper in the house. There was a car that looked like the one I'd seen Davids in, parked a little way along the street. We sat for a moment, to check we weren't being followed, and then got out.

I rang the doorbell. There was no reply. Of course.

'Shit,' I said. 'Now what?'

'Call him,' Bobby said, watching down the street. I pulled out the cell phone and tried Davids's office number. Then I tried the home number, in case he disregarded the doorbell in the evenings or was deep in some show and hadn't noticed. We could hear at least two handsets ringing on different floors of the house, but after eight rings a machine picked up. The tape gave his work number, but there was no mention of a cell phone.

'We can't just stand here,' I said. 'Neighbourhood like this, someone's going to put in a call to the cops.'

Bobby turned the door handle. It was locked. He reached in his pocket and got out a small tool. I was on the verge of protesting, but didn't. We had nowhere else to go. He had just levered the tool into the lock when suddenly there was the sound of the door being unlocked from the inside. We both jumped.

The door was opened five inches. Harold Davids's face was just visible through the gap.

'Harold,' I said.

'Ward? Is that you?' He opened the door a little wider. He looked as nervous as hell. 'Good Lord,'

he said. 'What happened to him?'

'He's been shot,' I said.

'Shot,' he said, carefully. 'By whom?'

'Bad guys,' I said. 'Look, I know this is not what you meant when you said I should call on you. But

we're in trouble. And I don't have anyone else left.'

'Ward. I…'

'Please,' I said. 'If not for me, then for Dad.'

He looked at me long and hard, then stood aside and let us in.

His house was a good deal smaller than my parents' home, but even just the hallway seemed to contain about three times as much stuff. Prints, local art objects, books on a little oak case that looked like it had been made on purpose. In the background was the measured sound of classical music for solo piano.

'Go straight through,' he said. 'And be careful of the rug. You're dripping blood. Both of you.'

The living-room walls were covered in reproduction paintings, not a single one of which I recognized. The lighting was sparse, just a couple of tall standard lamps throwing shadows. No television, but a small and expensive-looking CD player from which the music was coming. There was an old-looking piano, the top covered in photographs, some framed, others simply propped up. An ornate carpet lay in front of the couch, the edges a little frayed.

'I'll get a towel,' Davids said. He hesitated in the doorway for a moment, and then disappeared.

While he was gone Bobby stood in the middle of the room, holding his arm, making sure that anything that fell out of it went on the floorboards. I looked around the room. Other people's things are so inexplicable. Especially older people. I remembered one time, on a whim, buying my father an old calculator for Christmas. I saw it in an antiques store and thought it looked cool and that he might like it. When he unwrapped it he stared at me, and said thanks in an odd way. I told him I wasn't getting the impression it was the most exciting thing he'd ever received. Without saying another word he took me through to his study, opened a drawer. There, beneath many years' accumulation of pens and paperclips, was an old calculator. It was even the same model. Davids's life was my yard sale: my retro was my father's once-newfangled. You are insulated from those you care about most by decades of durable time, like glass that seems clean but is a foot thick and impossible to break. You think you're right there with them, but when you try to touch, your hand can't even get near.