Ted Bell - Spy

The lone night watchman.

Who was watching what, exactly? A junkyard?

No. Something really, really interesting, that was what. Somebody had put serious money into that fancy electric sliding door. And then paid a lot more to make the whole building look old and weathered. And, invisible to anyone who happened to take a detour through a forgotten hole in the wall called Gunbarrel, Texas.

“Hey. You in there, asshole?” Smokey said, between hacks. “You still alive and kicking?”

Voice sounded familiar. Homer didn’t say anything. He picked up a bone. It was surprisingly heavy, a leg bone, thigh maybe, and threw it hard across at the opposite sidewall of the truck. It made a hollow clang, more of a thonk. Two loud shots instantly rang out. Jagged, magnum-sized holes appeared in the trailer’s aluminum siding. This was at the other end of the big open truck, right where the bone had bounced off.

“Throw the gun out,” Smokey said. He was standing now near the rear of the truck. Maybe six feet from where Homer was hiding. The voice was starting to sound more and more familiar, but it was so hoarse he still couldn’t place it.

“I ain’t got any gun,” Homer said, his voice sounding like it was on reverb.

“Shit. You said you was a lawman. Toss out your damn gun. I could just set out here, couldn’t I, podnuh? Jes’ let you starve and rot in there, y’-know. Ain’t nobody ever going to find you in there, Lone Ranger. I promise you that damn much.”

“I’m hit.”

“I figured you was.”

“Need a doctor.”

“Where’d I catch you?”

“Arm.”

“Bleedin’ pretty good?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah? So throw out your fuckin’ six-shooter and we’ll talk about getting you over to the Emergency Room.”

Homer picked up another bone. It was smaller than the first one he’d thrown, only about a foot long. Rotted black cloth had stuck to one end of it, embedded in a knobby joint. Part of the person’s shirt, maybe. There were still some pieces of people’s clothing mixed in with all the bones. Lots of sandals. He tied more black rags tight around the bone. Didn’t look that realistic. Had a good heft to it, though.

“You win. I’m throwing out the gun.”

“I’m waitin’.”

“Here she comes.”

Homer sailed the bone high and long with his pitching arm. He hoped to get it all the way to those tall weeds outside the wire fence. Then he might have a chance. Either the guy would go look for it in the weeds and leave the ladder unguarded. Or, being fat and lazy, he just might take the easy route and believe what he wanted to believe. That he’d seen a gun go flying over his head and now he had an unarmed kid trapped in a forty-foot long coffin that was half-full already.

Most people, in Homer’s limited experience, believed what they wanted to believe.

“Smart kid,” Smokey finally said, still huffing and puffing just outside the truck doors. “Okey-dokey, son. I’m coming on up that ladder.”

Homer heard a grunt and felt the noticeable dip of the man’s weight on the bottom rung of the ladder. Big guy, all right. Heavy. He’d have one hand on the ladder and the gun in the other. Gun in the right hand most likely, if you trusted the law of averages.

Homer pressed his cheek against the cold aluminum siding as the smoker slowly mounted the steel ladder. He was crouched in the shadows. The ladder went up the right side nearest him. He could see the top rung. When they saw each other’s faces, hell, there wouldn’t be more than six feet between them.

Homer’s finger tightened in the curve of the trigger. He blinked a few times, and tried to swallow. He hurt. Cold sweat was stinging his eyes. He’d never killed a man before. Never fired a shot with his service revolver in the line of duty. He wasn’t even much of a shot. Smokey was almost to the top, grunting and wheezing. He saw white fingers curl around the top rung.

Homer Prudhomme, looking at his shaking gun hand, thought to himself, Son, you can’t win with a losing hand.

Eternity passed. His hand suddenly stopped shaking.

“Hey,” Smokey said, near the top rung now. “Where the fuck are you at, boy?”

He could see the slotted top of the man’s cowboy hat. The top half of his face, his eyes.

“Hey! You hear me? I said. Where. You. At?”

“Waiting for you,” Homer said and fired twice at the whole head and shoulders now silhouetted against the dark blue sky.

The man’s head exploded and his body fell away, his fingers finally peeling off the top rung. There was a thudding sound like a big sack of potatoes hitting the dirt. Homer got to his feet and began stacking bones in the corner so he could climb out of this death trap.

He dropped to the ground beside the body. It was face down in the weeds, dead still, except for the right leg which was splayed out at a bad angle and twitching.

He got a hand under the shoulder and managed to get the man turned over onto his back. There was just enough of his face left to recognize him.

The man he’d killed? Mr. J.T.Rawls.

He waited to feel something. Fear, he guessed. Didn’t happen. Justifiable self-defense during a murder investigation? The man was going to shoot him, no question about that. He shook his head, trying to clear it of anything but the facts of his developing case. Mr. Rawls, bigshot Chevy dealer, had himself a little sideline business, seemed like. Mexican Midnight Auto Supply? No, something a whole lot bigger than that.

But, what?

49

H omer half expected the rear door of the warehouse to be hanging ajar, but it wasn’t. Rawls was dead as dirt, but he’d padlocked the door behind him when he’d come out to check out the noise outside. Homer walked around the building again and figured out the only way inside was still the fire escape ladder.

He reached up and pulled the ladder down, not worrying about the screeching noise anymore. You could make all the noise you wanted in a ghost town with a population recently dropped down to one. He went up the steps and climbed through the open window, shining his mini-flashlight inside first and seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was an empty room, probably used to be an office. An overturned wooden desk was in the center of the floor.

There was single bulb hanging from a wire in the center of the room. Homer turned the switch but it was either burned out or there was no power. He saw a wooden chair facing the window. Scuff marks on the windowsill where J.T. parked his boots. Rawls was a rich man. Yet, this had been his office. His half-full Cowboys coffee mug was sitting on the seat where he’d left it when he’d heard something outside.

Or, maybe Rawls had his fancy office somewhere else in the building. Maybe he’d just been walking around having a smoke and stepped in here. Walked over to the window to get a little air.

On the floor around the upturned desk were some girlie magazines and some porno stuff. He picked one up. It was a calendar with a naked girl in a tire swing. The year 1988. At the bottom were the words, Courtesy of Rawls Chevrolet. J.T. had himself a dealership down here a long time ago. Never told anybody about it. Must have been successful though, size it was.

He dropped the calendar among the paper cups, and other garbage. Some old Burger Boy and Krispy Kreme sacks and wads of dirty paper napkins. The room still reeked of tobacco and the old sweat-stink of the dead man.

Homer thought he heard something beyond the closed door and stood stock still for a second. It was a faint, humming noise, like heavy machinery moving deep inside the warehouse.

He moved quietly over to the door and pulled it open.

He had no idea what he expected on the other side but it certainly wasn’t what he saw.