Chris Holm - The Wrong Goodbye

Yeah, I didn’t really believe it, either. And even if I did, it didn’t matter. Eventually, the BOLO would go out on us, and when it did, there wasn’t a question in my mind these boys would remember having seen us. Which meant soon enough, every copper in Las Cruces would have eyes out for us —and that would damn sure put a damper on my plan to track down Dumas.

After what felt like a freakin’ hour, we cleared the diner’s parking lot, the Caddy’s whitewalls crunching as they gripped the gritty desert road. I set my jaw and forced myself not to hazard a glance back, so loath was I to meet the gaze of the officers who were almost surely staring after.

“Either of y’all feel like telling me what that was all about?”

We were weaving through the patchwork farmland on the outskirts of town, Gio turning left or right as I instructed. Fields of onions and green chilis raced by on either side, rustling gently in the morning breeze and filling the air with their vegetal scent. Gio hadn’t said a word since we’d left the diner parking lot, and apart from the occasional directional command, neither had I. That was OK, though —Roscoe had been talking enough for the three of us, peppering Gio and me with question after fruitless question.

“You boys in some kind of trouble?”

“There,” I said to Gio. “On the left.”

Gio nodded. Coming up on our left was a massive, leaning barn, the wood bleached gray by sun and age. A pair of rutted tracks, overgrown with fragrant desert sage, led from the shoulder of the road to the place where the barn door once hung, though it didn’t hang there any more. Now the entrance was a gaping maw that led into the darkness beyond —a darkness dappled here and there with narrow beams of sunlight, which streamed in where the roof had rotted through.

The Cadillac rocked along the dirt track and disappeared into the gloom. Inside, the air was close and thick and sickly sweet; a thin sheen of sweat sprung up across my borrowed skin, plastering my clothes to my frame. Gio cut the ignition, and I hopped out of the car, watching from the doorway of the barn to ensure we hadn’t been followed. For a time, I heard nothing but the beating of my meat-suit’s heart. Then Roscoe broke the silence —his voice low and quiet and full of fear.

“You boys ain’t repo men, are you?”

“No,” I said, “we’re not.”

“So you’re what, then? Car thieves? Common criminals?”

“Something like that.”

“Ah, come on, Sam —tell him!” This from Gio.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“For one, telling him won’t go well. Believe me, it never does. And for another, it’s not safe.”

“Seems to me, he’s involved now whether we fill him in or not —so what’s the harm?”

“You’re not getting me,” I said. “I mean telling him isn’t safe for us .”

Gio blinked in disbelief. “After all you been through today, you’re afraid of Roscoe here?”

“I’m afraid of a lot of things,” I said. “Unnecessary complications, for example —which is exactly what Roscoe here would be if we told him. Simply put, he doesn’t need to know.”

Roscoe looked from me to Gio and back again, squinting against the darkness. “What? What aren’t you telling me? What don’t I need to know?”

“We’re Grim Reapers,” Gio blurted. “We’re on a mission from God!”

“Excuse me?”

I sighed. “Ignore him, OK? Gio —shut the fuck up.” But Roscoe wasn’t about to take my advice. “Grim Reapers,” he said. “Great. I fall asleep for a couple hours, and I’m abducted by a couple of goddamn loonies!”

“I’m being serious!” Gio insisted.

“Oh. Good. You’re being serious. In that case, I believe you. Does that mean I can go?”

Gio bristled at Roscoe’s sarcasm, but I just frowned and shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said, not unkindly. “But you’ve seen us. You know where we are. What we’re driving. I can’t let you walk out of here —there’s too much at stake.”

It was then that Roscoe noticed what I’d been doing. While we three had been talking, I’d popped the trunk, and riffled through it until I found what I was looking for —a length of yellow nylon rope of the kind used to tether the trunk closed when transporting oversized loads. Given the loft-like spaciousness of the Caddy’s trunk, I’m guessing its use would be limited to packing up other, smaller cars.

“Sam, no,” Gio said, his voice strained by sudden alarm.

“Gio, shut up and mind the door. The last thing we need now’s another witness.”

Gio’s face twisted into a silent plea, visible even in the murky half-light. I held his gaze a moment, and with obvious reluctance, he did as I said, shuffling over to the doorway and standing guard.

I coiled the rope around both hands, and pulled taut a two-foot length of it between them. Roscoe’s eyes widened in fear, and he tried to back away, but the Caddy blocked his path.

“Don’t,” he said. “Please.”

“I wish I didn’t have to, but there isn’t any other way.”

“I’m begging you, don’t do this. Just take the car and go —I won’t tell a soul, I swear!”

“I’d like to believe you, but right now, I can’t take that risk.”

“But I got grandkids .”

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “It’s nothing personal.”

I was on him in a flash. The whole time, Gio never turned around —unwilling or unable to, I’ll never know. For a little while, old Roscoe put up quite a fight. But eventually, Roscoe wasn’t fighting anymore.

When the deed was done, I slammed the trunk, and climbed into the driver’s seat. The keys I’d found in Roscoe’s pocket, so this time, no hotwiring was necessary. I slid them in and thumbed the ignition, and the old girl sprang to life.

“C’mon,” I said. “We’re going.”

Gio shrugged then, looking tired and drawn, and plopped heavily into the passenger seat. I backed the Caddy out of the barn, leaving nothing but gloom and silence behind.

“I don’t see why you had to do it, is all.”

“I told you, Gio —he would have been a liability.”

“A liability! A liability how ? Maybe if you’da taken a sec to properly explain the situation, he’da wound up on our side!”

“Explaining the situation to his satisfaction was going to take a hell of a lot longer than ‘a sec’ —and chances are, he wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”

“ I believed you fine,” he said, his tone that of an insolent child.

“Yeah, but you I brought back from the dead —and in another body, to boot. That goes a long way in the convincing-you department.”

“Still,” Gio replied, “you didn’t hafta to get all drastic.”

“I’m sorry —is the hell-bound mob enforcer going soft on me?”

Gio bristled. “I ain’t going soft —I just liked the guy, is all.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Gio —it’s not like I killed him. And once we get to where we’re going, I promise I’ll let him out of the trunk, OK? I just can’t have him making trouble if we run into any more cops.”

Gio muttered something, but I didn’t catch it.

“I’m sorry —what was that?”

“I said he’s probably hot in there. We shoulda given him a bottle of water or something.”

“The guy is bound and gagged, Gio —what the hell’s he going to do with a bottle of water?”

“I guess,” he said, but he sounded unconvinced.

“He’ll be fine. Besides,” I said, glancing down at the real estate circular —picked up at a convenience store a few miles back —that sat open on my lap and then back up at the street before us, “it looks like he won’t be back there much longer; we’re here.”