Pernicious (44 page)

         
“Jake, I really think you should tell the lady everything. In a minute I’m going behind the house and water the grass. What happens then will be between you and her.”

         
“This shit wrong, Sheriff. She down here disrespecting me like this, early in the morning. Ah was asleep. You know this is dead wrong!”

         
“What kind of gun did she buy?” Tasha asked.

         
“A nine,” Jake mumbled.

         
“Where did you get it from?”

         
“A white boy gave it to me.”

         
“This white boy have a name?”

         
“Carl.”

         
“Last name?”

         
“Casian.”

         
“Carl Casian,” thinking about it. She played the light in his face again. “One more crack like that and I’ll pop your head with this flashlight. You
were
lying when you denied seeing her pull a weapon on those three men?”

         
“No, ah wasn’t lying. Ah was telling the truth!”

         
“I’m getting fed up with you. Apparently you think I’m playing games!”

         
“Ah didn’t see it! Ah swear on everything ah love ah didn’t see it!”

         
“How you not see it when you were the one who sold her the gun?”

         
“Ah didn’t sell it to her. Ah sold it to…” He paused. Tasha raised the flashlight. “To her cousin, JD. He bought it for her.”

         
Tasha looked at Sheriff Bledsoe. He shook his head.
  
“Let’s go,” he said. To Jake: “Thanks for your cooperation.”

         
As they walked to the cruiser, Tasha shouted over her shoulder, “I were you I’d flush that bag right now.”

         
Jake waited till they were in the cruiser before saying, “Fuck you bitch!”

         
Tasha rolled down the window. “Excuse me, did you say something?”

         
Jake smiled nervously. “Ah said shucks, ah’m a snitch.”

         
When they drove away, Jake retrieved his bag from the roof and went inside to the phone.

         
Sheriff Bledsoe made a left down a dark dirt road that Tasha doubted she could have found in daylight.

         
“How you know where he kept his stash?”

         
“I worked vice six years before transferring to homicide. Dealers know that drug-sniffing canines can’t detect drugs more than three feet away. Most think if the drugs are found outside the house they can’t be charged with possession.”

         
“You weren’t really going to hit him with the flashlight, were you?”

         
“Uh…well…uh…no.”

         
Tasha lowered the window and lighted a cigarette, the cool morning air filling the car. “Perry has a gun. Very bad news.”

         
Sheriff Bledsoe turned up the heater. “You make me nervous, you know that? Extremely nervous.”

         
“Craps! A snake with a semi-automatic weapon!”

         
“I was pinned down in a firefight in Iraq and I wasn’t half as nervous as I am when I’m with you.”

         
“She’s going to shoot Neal with it.”

         
“Let’s not go in with the heavy stuff on JD. He’s a wino scared of his own shadow.”

         
“Why did she drive this far to buy a gun? She could’ve bought a gun from any crackhead in Little Rock and saved gas money.”

         
“I don’t know. She’s a lucky so-and-so. I was searching her vehicle and would have found the gun if dispatch hadn’t called me.”

         
“Why the search?”

         
“She called me Sheriff Anus, kinda ticked me off, so I requested a search.”

         
“She consented?”

         
“She hee-hawed a bit before consenting. Darn! If I’d only known.”

         
“This nightmare keeps getting worse and worse and worse. What’ll happen next?”

         
A man on a ten-speed bicycle suddenly appeared in the headlight beams.

         
Sheriff Bledsoe swerved left…The bumper kissed the bicycle’s rear tire. The man somersaulted head over end and disappeared into the darkness.

         
“Jesus!” Sheriff Bledsoe shouted, applying both feet to the brakes. “Oh God, I think I killed him!”

         
He and Tasha jumped out the car and ran back. In the red glow of the taillights they saw the man on the ground rise up, look their way, jump to his feet and take off running.
         

         
“It’s JD!” Sheriff Bledsoe shouted, running in hot pursuit. “Halt!…Sheriff!…”

         
Tasha ran a few feet and stopped.
No way! That guy is long gone
.

         
Sheriff Bledsoe kept running, grunting with each step, utility belt jingling.
      

         
Tasha lost sight of the two men, went back to the cruiser and backed up down the dirt road. A quarter of a mile down she saw them.

         
She hopped out of the cruiser. “Wow! I didn’t think you would catch him.”

         
“Not bad for a fat boy, huh?” Sheriff Bledsoe said, wheezing.

         
“I tripped,” Johnny said.

         
“Yeah, and you had a head start.”

         
“JD, I presume,” Tasha said. Sheriff Bledsoe assisted Johnny to the backseat.

         
“I want a lawyer!”

         
“Why?” Sheriff Bledsoe asked. “You haven’t been charged with anything yet.”

         
“Why you run me down, put me in handcuffs?”

         
“Well, you see, when fat boys like me see skinny guys like you running, we naturally give chase, can’t help ourselves.”

         
“We know about the gun,” Tasha said. “The one you bought from Jake and gave to Perry, your cousin.”

         
“It’s called free market capitalism. Why you stressing me?”

         
“What excuse she give you for needing a gun?”

         
“Skeet.”

         
Tasha frowned at Sheriff Bledsoe. “I’m not putting up with much more of his crap.”

         
“Chill out,” Johnny said. “I was just joking.”

         
“Wrong time and place,” Tasha said.

         
“Who is she, Sheriff, and why you letting her come down here and intimidate folks? Jake told me what she did to him.”

         
“Did you see Perry pull a gun on those three men?” Tasha asked.

         
“Nope. I was in the house.”

         
“Doing what?”

         
“Conducting business.”

         
“What kind of business?”

         
“That may serve to incriminate me.”

         
Tasha groaned. “Just tell the truth and it’ll save a lot of time and trouble.”

         
“I’m telling the truth. I’m not burying my own ass, though. I have kids…who I plan to visit one day.”

         
“We don’t want you!” Tasha shouted at him. Calmer: “Did you see your cousin pull a gun on those three men?”

         
“I told you I was in the house.”

         
“With Jake?”

         
“Yeah.”

         
“While Perry was outside playing Ma Barker?”

         
“Yeah.”

         
“And you didn’t see nothing?”

         
“Yeah.”

         
“‘Cause you were buying dope from Jake?”

         
“Yeah. Hell no! I was buying the gun…I mean…”

         
“You couldn’t have been buying the gun while Perry was outside shooting it, now could you?”

         
“There was two guns,” Johnny said.

         
“What?”

         
“Two guns.”

         
“Two guns?”

         
“Yeah. She came down here with one and she wanted to buy another one just like it.”

         
Tasha’s left eye twitched. “What kind of gun did she bring with her?”

         
“A nine.”

         
“Millimeter?”

         
“The only kind of nine I know.”

         
“Let’s clarify something here,” Tasha said, both eyes twitching now. “She brought a nine millimeter with her and she had you go get her another nine millimeter, is that right?”

         
“Yup.”

         
Tasha suddenly felt dizzy. “The nine she brought with her, what was the brand?”

         
“Say what?”

         
“Colt? Beretta? Sig Sauer?”

         
“Uh-uh. A Glock.”