James Burke - Rain Gods

Ouzel Flagler’s brick bungalow, cracked down the middle, with a plank bar built on one side of the house, was veiled briefly by a cloud of dust blowing off the hardpan, balls of tumbleweed skipping across its roof. Under a white sun, amid the tangled wire and all the rusted construction equipment Ouzel had hauled onto his property, a cluster of rheumy-eyed longhorns was standing by a recessed pool of rainwater, the sides of the depression strung with green feces.

“Don’t look at it,” Vikki said.

“At what?”

“That place. It’s not part of your life anymore.”

“What I did that night is on me, not on Ouzel.”

“Will you stop talking about it, Pete? Will you just stop talking about it?”

“I got to get gas up yonder,” Danny Boy said.

“No, not here,” Vikki said.

Danny Boy looked at her, his eyes sleepy, the muscles in his face flaccid. “The needle is below the E. It’s three miles to the next station.”

“Why didn’t you tell us you were out of gas when we got in?” she said.

Danny Boy shifted down and angled the truck off the road into the filling station, steering with his hands in the ten-two position, bent slightly forward like a student driver beginning his first solo, his face impassive. “You can walk across the highway and maybe catch a ride while I’m inside,” he said. “I got to use the restroom. I forgot to tell you about that when you got in, even though it’s my truck. If you don’t have a ride by the time I leave, I’ll pick y’all up again.”

“We’ll wait in the truck. I’m sorry,” Vikki said.

Danny Boy went inside the station and paid for ten dollars’ gas in advance.

“Why were you getting on his case?” Pete said.

“Ouzel Flagler’s brother owns this station.”

“Who cares?”

“Pete, you never learn. You just never learn.”

“Learn what? About Ouzel? He has Buerger’s disease. He’s a sad person. He sells a little mescal. What’s the big deal? You stood up to that killer. I’m really proud of you. We don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“Please shut up. For God’s sake, for once just shut up.” She blotted the humidity out of her eyes with a Kleenex and stared at the highway winding into the sun’s white brilliance. The terrain, untouched by shade or shadows, glaring and coarse and rock-strewn, made her think of a dry seabed and huge anthills or a planet that had already gone dead.

Danny Boy pulled the gas spigot out of the tank and clanked it back into place on the pump, then used the outside washroom and climbed back into the cab, his face still wet from a rinse in the lavatory. “On a day like this, ain’t nothing like cold water,” he said.

None of them took note of the man on the other side of the black glare on the filling station window. He had just come out of the back of the store and was drinking a soda, upending it, his neck swollen by a chain of tumors. His head seemed recessed into his shoulders, reminiscent of a perched carrion bird’s. He finished his soda, dropped the can into the wastebasket, and seemed to think for a long time. Then he picked up the telephone.

PETE AND VIKKI had climbed down from Danny Boy Lorca’s truck cab, retrieved a duffel bag and guitar case from the truck bed, and entered the building dehydrated, sunburned, and windblown with road grit. Their clothes stiff with salt, they sat down in front of Hackberry’s desk as though his air-conditioned office were the end of a long journey out of the Sahara. They told him of their encounter with Preacher Jack Collins and Bobby Lee and the man named T-Bone and the fact that Collins had let them go.

“We got on the bus early this morning, but it broke down after twenty miles. So we hitchhiked,” Pete said.

“Collins just cut you loose? He didn’t harm you in any way?” Hackberry let his gaze linger on Vikki Gaddis.

“It happened just like we told you,” Vikki said.

“Where do you think Collins went?” Hackberry asked.

“Collins is y’all’s business now. Tell us what you want us to do,” Pete said.

“I haven’t quite thought it through,” Hackberry said.

“Repeat that, please?” Vikki said.

“I’ve got two empty cells. Go up the iron stairs in back and check them out.”

“You’re offering us jail cells?” she said.

“The doors would stay unlocked. You can come and go as you like.”

“I don’t believe this,” she said.

“You can use the restroom and the shower down here,” Hackberry said.

“Pete, would you say something?” Vikki said.

“Maybe it’s not a bad idea,” he replied.

Pam Tibbs came into the office and leaned against the doorjamb. “I’ll go with you, honey.”

“With luck, we can probably find an iron staircase by ourselves,” Vikki said. “Excuse me, I forgot to call you ‘honey.’”

“Suit yourself, ma’am,” Pam said. She waited until they were out of earshot before she spoke again. “How do you read all that stuff about Collins and Bobby Lee Motree and this character T-Bone?”

“Who knows? Collins probably has psychotic episodes.”

“Vikki Gaddis has a mouth on her, doesn’t she?”

“They’re just kids,” Hackberry said.

“That doesn’t mean you should put your ass in a sling for them.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Maydeen Stoltz walked into the room. “Ethan Riser is on the phone. Want me to take a message?”

“Where’s he calling from?” Hackberry asked.

“He didn’t say.”

“Ask him if he’s in town.”

“Like that? ‘Are you in town?’”

“Yeah, tell him I want to ask him to dinner. Would you please do it, Maydeen?”

She went back into the dispatcher’s office, then returned. “He’s in San Antonio.”

“Put him through.”

“I’m going to get a job on a spaceship,” she said.

A moment later, the light on Hackberry’s desk phone went on, and he picked up the receiver. “Hey, Ethan. How are you?”

“You called me by my first name.”

“I’m trying to get a perspective on a couple of things. Is there any development with Nick Dolan’s situation?”

“Not a lot.”

“Have y’all interviewed him yet?”

“No comment.”

“So he’s still bait?”

“I wouldn’t use that particular term.”

“Hang on.” Hackberry covered the receiver with his palm. “Keep those kids out of here.”

“I’m kind of busy,” Riser said. “What can I help you with?”

“How valuable is Pete Flores to you?”

“He’s the weak sister in the mass killing. He can give us names. It takes just one thread to pull a sweater loose.”

“I don’t think ‘weak sister’ is a good term for a kid like that.”

“Maybe not. But Flores made his choice when he signed on with the bunch who murdered those women and girls. We can use him to testify against the others. That means he goes into custody as a material witness.”

“Custody? In the can?”

“That’s a certainty. Flores has made an art form out of flight.”

“How about witness protection?”

“Maybe down the line. But he cooperates or he takes the weight for the others. Let’s be honest. These guys running skag and meth and girls into the country are Mobbed up all the way to Mexico City. Our jails are full of MS-13 and Mexican Mafia hitters. Flores may have his throat cut before he ever sees a grand jury. It’s too bad. The kid might be a war hero, but those women and girls who ate the forty-five rounds aren’t here to mourn for him.”

Hackberry took the phone from his ear and opened and closed his mouth to clear a sound like cellophane crinkling inside his head. Outside, the flag was popping and straightening in a flume of yellow dust.