Ragged Man (5 page)

He screamed a warning, but his mother couldn’t hear. He screamed again, louder. He was afraid the man was going to cut her. He was going to slice through her Levi jacket and kill her.

He dropped the binoculars, screaming in desperation. Then he saw Rick’s red Jeep, the old Jeep that he had brought back from Australia, coming down the hill and turning onto Across The Way Road.

“
Rick!” he screamed, running toward the Jeep. He didn’t want to run from his mom, but Rick couldn’t hear. “Help!” He waved his arms, but Rick didn’t see him. He ran as fast as his new Nikes could carry him, but the sand slowed him down. He stumbled, fell, skinned his hands, got up and ran. He screamed again, but still Rick didn’t hear. He ran harder, breathing too fast to shout anymore, but he kept waving his arms, hoping to attract Rick’s attention.

Then he saw Ann pointing.

“
Help,” he choked, the word burning raw in his throat. He was fighting to hold back tears. “Please let him come,” he cried. “Please let him come.” And he yelled “Yes!” when the Jeep jumped off the road and came toward him.

Rick drove the Jeep alongside J.P., sliding to the right as he stood on the brakes, throwing sand as an ice skater does ice.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
Homeless man down the beach, going to kill my mom.” J.P. gasped, fighting for air.

“
Stay here.”

“
No.” J.P. jumped into the back as Rick popped the clutch. “Get him!” He was slammed against the back seat as the tires spun and dug into the sand.

* * *

Judy tried to scream, but her throat was numb and the morning breeze chilled her sweat drenched body as she stared at the man coming toward her. She was used to the winos who begged quarters at the mall, but the thing she saw getting closer, ever closer, made them seem appealing. His dirt stained, tattered clothes hung from his corpse-like body, like rags on a line, but it was the piercing laser-look shooting out from his red-rimmed eyes that set him off from a wino begging a drink. No wino’s eyes had ever burned with the steaming evil she felt from his glare.

Then a wave, louder than the others, crashed on the beach and the sound reverberated through her, snapping her out of her shock. She ripped her frozen feet from the sand and she ran.

* * *

“
He has a knife.” Ann was holding on to the roll bar as the Jeep bounced and jerked over the sand.

Rick shifted into third.

“
Get him,” J.P. said again.

“
Hit the horn,” Ann shouted as she clenched her stomach against a stab of pain.

Rick punched the horn, stabbed his foot to the floor and Ann flinched as they bore down on the man with a knife. Although Rick was many years away from combat, Ann knew he was still able to make a life or death decision in less than an instant. The man with the knife was going to die, the accelerator was the trigger, the Jeep the bullet. Rick punched the horn a second time, but something told Ann that death was the only thing that would stop that evil looking man.

The man kept on.

The Jeep kept on.

“
Hurry!” J.P. urged.

The man leapt aside, scant inches before collision, and they shot by. Rick made a sharp right to avoid hitting Judy, downshifted into second and spun the Jeep around. Ann hoped he had discouraged the man, but in her heart, she knew he hadn’t. The man had resumed the chase, oblivious to the red Jeep.

Ann caught a quick glimpse of bloodshot eyes, liver-blotched skin and stringy hair as Rick pushed the accelerator to the floor, aiming the Jeep, and for a third time he punched the horn. This time the man stopped and turned when he heard the blast. His screaming eyes were as red as the car that bore down on him. He flung his hands in the air, losing the knife and Rick stomped on the brakes, but they were too close and too late. The Jeep hit the man head on, waist high, breaking his back as it flung him aside, a lump of clay tossed on the sand.

Rick stopped the Jeep, jumped out and hurried to the man he had run down. J.P. hopped out of the back and ran toward his mother. Ann remained seated and silent, too shaken to move, doubled over, arms wrapped around her chest, the pain intense.

* * *

“
Mom,” J.P. yelled as her seven-year-old son leapt into her arms and Judy wrapped him in a great hug.

“
It’s okay,” Judy said. “It’s okay.”

“
He was going to kill you. Why?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
I was scared. I yelled but you didn’t hear me. Then I saw Rick’s Jeep and I yelled and yelled and he came.”

“
Are you okay?” Rick said.

“
Is he dead?” Judy asked.

“
He’s dead.”

“
What do we do now?”

“
Get the sheriff. Come on, get in.”

“
Shouldn’t somebody stay here with that?” Judy pointed to the dead man.

“
I’m not going to and I know Ann won’t, so that leaves you and J.P. It’s up to you.”

“
Let’s go,” she said.

Straining, Judy lifted her son over the tailgate. Then she climbed over herself, grabbing onto the roll bar to pull herself in.

Rick started the car, pushed in the clutch, shoved it into first and drove off the beach, going through the gears, driving fast.

The car bottomed out as it flew over the curb and hit the street. “Needs shocks,” Rick said, spinning the wheel to the left and going into a slide. He corrected by turning into it and adding power. Then they sped down Across The Way Road, turned right on Kennedy, and left the beach behind.

* * *

It was water clear to Gundry that the man was dead. Maybe he had a wallet. Maybe he had money or a watch. Maybe his shoes would fit. Maybe. Only one way to find out. Scratching his head, chasing the lice, Gundry rose, unzipped his fly and urinated. Then he started toward the corpse.

He had been a dentist before he’d started to burn his brain cells. An easy and safe career. A tooth doctor didn’t have to tell a mother her child had died on the table. An easy job for an easy man. A man who loved children and life. However, unfortunately, somewhere along the line he started to drink and, as it happens so often, he found that later on down the line he couldn’t stop.

Now he was little more than human refuse. A bum always on the lookout for a drink. An ape-like man, who walked with his face to the ground in a kind of simian shuffle. And like an ape, he was constantly scratching at the lice and fleas that fed off him.

Pushing his long, stringy hair out of his eyes, he looked down at the man. “Dead,” he muttered. “Dead for sure.” With large, swollen hands, he flipped the corpse face down into the sand. Then he went through the pockets.

He found a wallet, opened it, saw money, then stuffed the wallet into his rear pocket. The shoes were too small, but he saw a watch. He started to pull it off when the dead man’s hand grabbed Gundry’s arm in a dead man’s grip.

Malcolm Gundry screamed, tried to jerk away, but the grip held. He pulled harder, but still the dead man held on. He kicked the corpse, but still it held on. Again he kicked, but to no avail. His weak heart started pumping more blood than it was used to. His head hurt and his arm, held in that devil grip, felt like it was being crushed. He was going to pass out. He was going to die. Then, all of a sudden, he was blinded by light as he felt a white hot stab of pain in the back of his neck. He jerked back, free. He screamed, grabbing the back of his neck, feeling the wetness of his own blood, but this time it was a scream of triumph. He ripped off the dead man’s watch, picked up the dead man’s knife, then shuffled off the beach in search of a drink as the wind picked up, blowing sand.

* * *

“
Let me get this straight,” Sheriff Sturgees said, “he attacked Judy and you ran him down?”

“
Yes,” Rick Gordon said.

“
Where’s the knife?”

“
It was here.”

“
Where did it go?”

“
Someone took it.” Rick raised his collar against the wind. He was a head taller than the portly sheriff, but he didn’t let that distract him. Many people, to their everlasting regret, misjudged the sheriff, finding it hard to accept such a keen mind in his short, overweight body.

“
Who?”

“
How should I know?” Rick met his stare head on.

“
Don’t get upset, I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“
It was probably taken by the same man that turned the body.”

“
Say again.”

“
The body was on its back.”

“
That’s right,” Judy said.

“
He was laying on his back,” J.P. chimed in, “and he had a knife. A Jim Bowie knife.”

“
How do you know it was a Bowie Knife?”

“
Captain Wolfe has one. I know what they look like.”

“
Wolfe Stewart,” the sheriff asked, “the captain of the all day fishing boat that runs between here and Palma?

“
Yeah, the captain of the Seawolf,” Judy said.

“
And Captain Wolfe has a Jim Bowie knife like the one I saw,” J.P. said. “He wears it in a knife holster tied to his leg.”

“
It’s called a scabbard,” Judy said.

“
All right,” the sheriff turned to Rick, “the man had a knife.”

“
And he meant Judy harm,” Rick said.

“
How do you know?”

“
He would have cut me, Sheriff. I know it. He would have cut me and killed me. I was helpless. I couldn’t move.”

“
He was gonna kill my mom.”

“
J.P., get away from there!”

“
I’m not gonna touch him, Mom.”

“
Now J.P.!”

J.P. moved away from the dead man.

The sheriff bent over the corpse. “No wallet and he had a watch.”

“
How can you tell?” Judy asked.

“
Look for yourself.” He pointed to a white ring set off by a deep outdoor tan around the dead man’s left wrist.

“
Wow, that’s police work, isn’t it?” J.P. said.

“
Sheriff, can we go now?” Judy asked. “I’d rather J.P. didn’t have to see this.”

“
He was a witness, but I guess we can do without him here. I’ll talk to you after I’m done. Why don’t you take your boy and wait up by the cars.”

“
Thanks,” Judy said, overcoming J.P.’s objections.

“
Okay,” the sheriff said, after they were out of earshot, “now let’s talk about the Jim Bowie knife that isn’t here.”

* * *

Two blocks away Mr. Jaspinder Singh was ringing up a pack of Marlboros when the customer asked him a question.

“
Do you know Rick Gordon?” The man asked like a policeman.

“
I am truly not knowing him.”

“
About six feet, green eyes, maybe hazel. Brown, wavy hair, probably cut a little too long. Got a scar behind his left ear, here.” Storm touched the spot with a finger. “Wife named Ann, a looker, just a little shorter than him, shoulder length hair, Barbie Doll looks, the original blue-eyed blond, you’d seen her, you’d remember. That’s what everyone says. You know anybody like that?”

“
Not that I can recall.”

“
I heard they come in here.”

“
Many people are certainly coming in here. I cannot be knowing each and every one. Why are you asking?”

“
My name’s Storm, Sam Storm. I’m a private investigator.”

“
That is a very private eye kind of name you are having, Mr. Storm.”

“
Yeah, well I’ve heard that before.”

“
What has this person been doing to cause your looking?”

“
He makes bootleg CDs.”

“
And for this you are coming here? My eleven-year-old son makes them on my computer, is he in trouble too?”

“
I work for the RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America. They represent the music business and they’re mighty unhappy with Mr. Gordon. They’d like him to find a new line of work. As for your boy, if he’s just making them for himself, we don’t care.”

“
Why would anybody be buying something anybody can be making?”

“
The bootleggers are making collectable CDs now, with original packaging that’s hard to duplicate. The FBI busted someone in New Orleans last year, five agents, ten local cops and me. Quite a collar, but he wasn’t one of the big guys that started up the biz.”

“
Five FBI agents, how impressive. I guess the FBI hasn’t heard about what happened on September 11, 2001 or the war on terror. And ten local cops, that’s impressive too. I guess they don’t have murder, robbery or rape in New Orleans.” Jaspinder Singh snorted. “And now you’re thinking we have a dastardly criminal here in Tampico, pumping out these CDs.” Singh shook his head, what a sad excuse for a man this Sam Storm was.

“
No, I was following up a lead, that’s all. My brother-in-law thought he saw him up here last month. I thought I’d check it out.” That putz Herbie, Storm thought. This was the third time in as many years that he thought he’d sighted Gordon. Maybe he never should have shown him the pictures.