BULLETS (7 page)

“Sure.”

“If Ted thinks you’re a threat or even an annoyance, it could be more than just uncomfortable for you here, it could be dangerous. You could get pulled over and a substantial amount of drugs might be found in your car or on your person. Or you could just end up shot by a cop, with a handy pistol close by to justify the shooting. It’s been known to happen. I’ll drop word around that you’re a friend, but the reality is people like us, we don’t have many friends around here, you know?”

Slick nodded again. Navajo Joe stood, took out his card and gave it to him.

“There’s my cell number, you get jammed up, call me. If I can help you, I will. Any friend of Thumper’s is a friend of mine.”

“Appreciate it and the same to you from me, Joe.”

The trooper put out his hand, shook with both men and walked out.

“Seems like a good man,” Slick said.

“He’s good folks, no doubt.”

“He know what we really do for a living?”

“He’s probably figured it out, though he’s never said. But he’s smart as a whip, so probably. That don’t mean he’d be down with it. He’s an unusual guy.”

“Dude.”

“Yeah Slick?”

“Thanks.”

“Shut up. Don’t even have to do that, but…”

“Go ahead, say it.”

“Slick, you want to clean house here, fine. I’m all right with that, you know how I feel about people like those assholes, but why not let them drop the charges? We leave, come back later and kick some fucking redneck ass. Isn’t that better?”

“You’re in training camp, right?”

“Yeah, Julio’s fight is in two and a half weeks. It’s a contender fight, too. It’s my goddamn fault you’re even down here, the biker asshole was supposed to be my responsibility, and—”

“Taking care of that racist pedophile fuck was a pure pleasure. It’s not your fault, man. This kind of shit could happen to anyone, anywhere. I don’t blame you for it.”

“So let’s vogue, partner. Go home, get healed up. I’ll take Julio to his fight and we come back here in a couple months and drop some motherfuckers then.”

Slick shook his head.

“I don’t get it,” Thumper said. “Why do you wanna stay in this shithole?”

“It’s just … they tossed me my shoes and said, get out of town, you know?” Slick pushed his plate away. “Nobody throws me my shoes and tells me to beat it, nobody.”

Thumper got that, right away, down deep where it counted. It was but one of many reasons that they had been friends for so long.

“Okay, let me make some calls, get things in Chicago situated—”

“Nah man, it’s cool, you go on back, I know you got big things on your plate.”

“I can’t leave you alone here with hostiles, bro.”

“I can handle it, you know that. I’ve been in tighter situations.”

“Let me call someone, at least. What about your boy, the crazy shaved head monk dude you talk about—”

“Bodhi. He’s in Thailand for a few months.”

“What about Chuck and Lou?”

“In Canada. Listen, it’ll be all right. I’ll be careful and I’m not planning to do anything radical, really. Just want to fuck with them.”

“Fuck with them how?”

Slick grinned at him, mimed his phone.

“No. You recorded it?”

“Whole thing. They kept the phone, so they suspect it, but—”

“Wait, if they kept your phone, how the hell—”

“Cloud-saved, dude.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means it was saved instantaneously on a separate drive. In the cloud.”

“You don’t gotta plug the phone into something or—”

“Nope. Happens automatically. Dude, you got to get with the times. There is email, Internet. There’s a whole world out there. Catch up. We have email.”

“I hire people to do that for me. Damn. So what are you gonna do, show that shit to the ADA, make it public?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really want it out there. It gets on YouTube and my face is everywhere getting night-sticked by a cop, that ain’t good business for us. But they don’t know that. Right now it’s leverage and I want to put the squeeze on this asshole and put the fear of karmic retribution into his soul.”

Thumper thought about that for a minute then grinned.

“You’re a piece of work, Slick, gotta say. What can I do?”

“I need a new phone, a burner if you got it.”

Thumper pulled out a phone, handed it over. “It’s a pre-paid. What else, you cool for money, got some dollars?”

“Yeah, I got my cards and the Stutz cash. I owe you your share.”

“Fuck that, keep it. You sure about backup? I can call Skinny for a referral.”

“No, don’t. This isn’t business down here. It’s personal.”

The restaurant door jingled and a man walked in, talking loud and cheerful on his cell phone to someone about a mortgage plan. He waved to the waiters and manager, taking a seat at a table by the door as he finished his call. He looked familiar, but Slick couldn’t place him at first. A banker or an insurance broker, from the look of his expensive suit and shoes, and he carried with him the air of someone who believed he could get along with everyone. The man glanced over, a natural smile on his face, and did a double take when he noticed Slick.

The smile faded, and he stood back up and walked over to them. Thumper tensed; instantly ready to brain someone with a chair. Anger had built up in the smaller man ever since his friend hadn’t checked in, and he was about to burst. Slick waved him off with a private signal of theirs. He remembered where he knew the man from, finally.

“Hey, sorry to bother you, you may not remember me, but…” he said.

“I remember you. You were in the diner the day I was allegedly arrested,” Slick said. “You spoke up on my behalf, told the sheriff to give me a break because I was a tourist and tourists are good for business.”

“Yes, that was me. I’m real sorry about what happened to you, I just wanted to come over and apologize on behalf of … well … the town I know and grew up with, the one I love. Del Martin,” he held out his hand. Slick considered it for a moment then shook the man’s hand.

“Jon Elder. This is my friend Tommy Olson.”

“Pleased to meet you, really. Would it be intruding if…”

Slick waved and allowed the man to sit at the table with them. Thumper stayed silent, didn’t shake hands, didn’t speak, just caught Slick’s eye and let him know this was Slick’s show. Slick nodded and clocked their guest.

He was in his late forties, well fed and groomed, sporting an expensive pinky ring and watch. Hair slicked back in a style preferred by Pat Riley a couple decades previous, and probably colored to keep the dark strands from going gray. Slick knew the type from poker tables, a salesman, but a good one, the kind who could sell ice to Eskimos. Fast with a smile or joke, keeping a quick patter going while he took your money away from you, chip-by-chip, dollar by dollar.

“Listen, it was an ugly situation, what happened at the diner yesterday, and I … I can’t tell you how bad I feel about it. Lots of people do.”

“I imagine. The psychological damage of having to watch me get Rodney King’d must have really taken its toll on the good people of Bendijo.”

“It’s not how we are, the majority of us, we’re not racists.”

“Enough of a majority to elect a sheriff who is to represent you.”

Del sighed. “I’m not going to try to excuse his behavior, because it is terrible. Just want to put things in context for you. We’ve had a series of violent crimes the past few years, scary stuff, murders and drugs … life around here has changed in many ways, and people are scared.

“There was a violent murder the night before, the murder of a beloved member of our community. It was, well, shocking. We’re all shocked by it. Ted knew him, had known him all his life, in fact. They were in high school together. That’s why he was there, to arrest the man responsible. So … he wasn’t himself, yesterday. Maybe not even today. But he’s not really a bad guy. He cares about the community, all his men do, all of them are local, like us.”

Hah,
Slick thought. Del might think differently had he found himself in that interrogation room having his kidneys pummeled by a steroid freak of a deputy.

“We just want to raise our kids, know that they’ll be able to get good grades and into good schools and do so without getting murdered by gangs of criminals. Ted, for all his faults, and he does have them, is relentless when it comes to confronting criminal activity. He gets things done. Does he get carried away? Sure. But who doesn’t?”

Slick and Thumper just stared at Del, letting his last question hang there in the air. Del’s smile faded and he sighed, put his hands on the table.

“I want to help. I know the mayor, I know Ted, I can make some phone calls…”

“You want to go on record as a witness?”

“That’s tricky. I live here, my livelihood is very much dependent on—”

“In other words, you’ll do what you can as long as it’s no risk to you.”

“I wouldn’t say it in such a bald way, but yes. Going on the record would be sticky for me. I can make some calls, and get other folks to make some phone calls, get you cut loose of whatever they charged you with.”

“I already turned that offer down.”

“You did?”

“Hell yes. I don’t want the charges dropped. I want the sheriff’s ass on a plate, and his deputies, too. You get Ted and his boys to resign, I’ll leave town one happy camper. Otherwise no. I’m staying, I’m going to trial and I’m looking forward to it.”

“Ted resign? That won’t happen. There’s no way.”

“Great. Then I plan to see the sights and hang around.”

Slick stood, as did Thumper, who pulled out a roll of bills. Del waved that off.

“No, please. Lunch is on me. I insist. I understand how you feel, I do. I’ll make some calls, see what I can do to help you anyway. I just wanted to come over and apologize on behalf of the people of Bendijo. I am truly sorry for what happened to you. Here’s my card, if I can be of assistance just call.”

Slick took Del’s card, nodded and he and Thumper walked out of the restaurant and into the blinding heat of the afternoon sun.

T
humper couldn’t wait
to get into the car and get the air-conditioning going full blast. He started the engine and drove off down the street.

“What do you think? I have Sheriff Ted all wrong, he’s really a cuddly bear on the inside who’s all torn up by the murder of a friend?” Slick asked.

“Fuck that noise. Maybe THAT guy genuinely believes it, I’d buy that, but I know a racist fuckhole cop when I see one, I used to be one back in the day, for crissakes. Ted and his boys? That there is whole gaggle of racist gangrene-smelling fuckholes.”

“Yeah, this whole thing smells, and not just the racist angle, I mean I can run into that shit anywhere. No doubt it’s there, but … something else about this bugs me, I just don’t know what it is.”

“What, the bigoted cop or the Mexican killer, which part?”

“All of it. Murder? That dude sitting next to me at the diner? I just don’t see it.”

“Hey, you never know. I knew this one old lady, back when I was in the job in Mississippi, her name was Celia, she was sweetest thing, silver hair, gloves and hat, very proper, went to church three times a week, never said a bad word about anyone, first to volunteer in the community fundraisers, shit like that. I mean, Celia was like the old lady who owned Tweety Bird, you know, the classic Warner Brothers cartoon?

“Hells yeah. Tweety and Sylvester the cat.”

“Yeah, she was like that lady, only even sweeter, I shit you not. I used to see her every day on patrol, she’d be going for a walk with her hat and parasol, she always said good morning with a big smile. I even helped her carry groceries home once. Nice and polite as pie. Then she got busted for multiple murders.”

“Serious? Who?”

“She was killing her boyfriends off, one at a time. She’d pick an old guy, date him awhile and then knock him off when she got bored. Made it look all natural, too, I mean they were all real old, her boyfriends, so nobody really thought twice about it. She’d slip ’em something in their tea, sometimes she’d push them down the stairs and they’d end up breaking their neck, she varied her method, she was smart about it, which was what made it interesting.

“Celia got caught when one old fella survived a couple of attempts on his life and called the cops on her. He claimed she once tried to drown him in the tub but he fought her off. She told him she was only playing around, but he didn’t buy it. Later she did something to the basement stairs, set it up so they were broke then asked him to go get something from down there for her.

“When he went down, he crashed through, fell about ten feet and broke his hip. Swore she set him up. She claimed he was senile and that she never asked him to go to the basement in the first place. Cops believed her, hell, I believed her, I mean the old fucker claimed that she tried to drown him the week before, so why the hell did he stick around after that?”

“Yeah, what was that about?”

“I asked him about that later, he said he just couldn’t bring himself to leave her because she was a fucking tiger in the sack, completely unbelievable in bed. Best he ever had—he’d had a lot of it over the years, or so he said. And he supplied plenty of graphic details, too. Leather, whips, ice cream, the works.”

“Ah man, now I’m sorry I asked.”

“Hey man, older women, beautiful lovers, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, most of the department thought it was all a joke, we all knew Celia and loved her, I mean she was literally the nicest lady ever, but we had this homicide guy, Danny, smart bastard, he smelled something wrong with it, I don’t know why, he just didn’t like her.

“Danny did some research and it turned out that thirteen men, all senior citizens, had died soon after meeting and dating Celia. All in the past eight years. All the deaths seemed natural or accidental, but it turned out they weren’t. Danny got permission from family members, dug up a couple of the corpses, had some tests done and found that at least one had been poisoned, another smothered with a pillow.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit is right. Danny got a warrant, went through her house and found three more bodies buried in the basement, not really bodies but bones. Never identified who they were. And when she was arrested and confronted with all the evidence, she just looked at us, smiled and said, ‘Yeah, so?’”