Shallow Graves (31 page)

“I just want to know if it was you killed Marty.”

“Was a hell of a shot, I do say so myself.” Not smirking. Just mentioning the fact. “Whatcha got there?” Bobby asked. “In your belt?”

“It’d be a Colt Peacemaker.”

“No kidding. Reproduction?”

“Nope. It’s the real thing.”

“No kidding. Forty-four?”

“Forty-five.”

“Heh.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“Maybe he’s behind you.”

“So you’ll die first,” Pellam said.

“Heh.”

“Please . . .” Keith was begging. “Where’s my son?”

They both ignored him.

There was no motion. Pellam stood on the wet gravel, his feet, in scuffed brown boots, slightly apart.

There was no noise.

There was nothing else in the world except a man standing in front of him with a gun in his hand. A tall Victorian house. With a woman and boy inside, her husband nearby. Under a canopy of a dry, clear fall night.

Pellam had shot ducks and geese and a number of Gila monsters and rattlesnakes and hundreds of Heineken bottles.

He’d never shot a man.

The security lights poured into his eyes, making Bobby a silhouette. (Pellam recalled that, on various target ranges, he’d shot as many silhouette targets as Gila monsters and rattlesnakes combined.)

No face, no motion, no sound.

In the stillness, in this dense peace, a thought came to him. Something he remembered from researching a script about the Indians of the Great Plains. The Sioux, he believed. Waking up on a beautiful day, they wouldn’t think how good it was to be alive. What they’d say was, “It’s a good day to die.”

Good, Pellam. Good thought.

Well, Wild Bill himself hadn’t lived to see forty.

Then, finally, motion intruded on the scene. It was a cliché—one that Pellam, if he were directing a
Western, wouldn’t have allowed the writer to use: He pulled his blue jean jacket open slightly wider to fully expose the grip of his pistol.

THE WAY BOBBY
saw it these were good odds. Pellam had glare in his eyes and he had a single-action gun so he’d have to draw and cock it before he could shoot. It was a six-shot gun and it would take probably three minutes to reload. If he had extra ammo on him. Which he probably didn’t.

Bobby, on the other hand, was already holding a double-action Browning automatic .380 with twelve rounds in it. Which all you had to do was aim and pull the trigger. The light was behind him. He could reload the Browning in two seconds.

Torrens was in the yard, true, but he wasn’t going to do diddly except stand there like a scared rabbit.

He hoped Billy was watching him. He never missed a chance to impress his smarter brother.

What he’d do is let the guy go for the gun then shoot him in his leg. Watch him fall. Then let him crawl a little. Shoot again.

Maybe he’d aim for Pellam’s boots. They were a good contrast, black on the white gravel. But so were the man’s eyes, which glinted two reflections from the yellow porch light. And his white shirt under the dark jacket.

But then he decided there was something about the way the man had opened his jacket that made Bobby uneasy. Don’t play games. Do Pellam, do Torrens. Go back to the boy. Or the mother. Or both.

Go for a chest shot.

Without really deciding, or thinking, Bobby dropped into a crouch.

He swept the gun upward in an arc, keeping his arm straight the way he knew to do and practiced every week. Squinting, but leaving both eyes open, as the blade sight rose right toward the white slash of Pellam’s shirt. He started to pull the trigger.

Thunk.

A shovel.

Bobby thought: Goddamn . . . who did that?

Somebody’d snuck up and hit him in the chest with a shovel. Or . . . Damn, it hurt. He coughed. Or maybe it was an axe handle. Bobby dropped his unfired gun. He looked down. Where’d it go? He looked behind him. There was nobody. He looked at his chest again and saw the blood. Oh, that hurts. He was getting dizzy. Then he saw Pellam holding the Colt at his hip, surrounded by a cloud of smoke. Bobby reached for his gun. He fell to the porch. He looked for the shovel.

He asked, “Who. . . ?”

He died.

PELLAM SPUN AROUND
,
looked behind him, into the fields to the side of the house.

No Billy.

He whispered to Keith, “Get down. Don’t move.” And started forward. But he didn’t get very far. The door crashed open and Billy, staggering out, dropped to his knees over Bobby, shrieking. He lifted his own gun and fired sloppily at Pellam.

Ragged blue flashes appeared in the man’s hand, the huge crack of the shots filling the night. A bullet
popped the sound barrier inches from his left ear with the noise of a huge snapping finger.

All Pellam had time for was one shot, from his hip. He felt the kick, smelled the sulfur from the black powder. He saw the slug dig out a chunk of the porch. Billy fired fast and Pellam dove to the ground. He hit hard, landed on his right elbow. There was a loud snap, followed by breath-taking pain. His vision went black and dusty from the dislocation. He rolled onto his back. His shoulder joint popped back into alignment. He fainted for a second. Sweat shot from his forehead and he felt nausea in a bristling wave.

He lifted the Colt. It fell from his hand. His right arm was useless.

“Bobby, oh, Bobby . . .” Billy was moaning.

More shots from the automatic. Bullets dug into the camper and the ground near him.

Six shots, seven, eight.

“Sonabitchsonabitch! Son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch!”

Pellam lifted the Colt again. But it was a replay—the gun did a double gainer to the ground.

Christ, how many shots in that clip?

Ten, eleven, twelve . . .

Click, click, click.

Empty. He was out. Thank you . . . Pellam raised his head and watched Billy reload.

Pellam dropped his six-shooter again, felt the cold wet touch of the gravel, smelled the sour earthy-oily scent of the stone. He saw Billy coming closer. He lowered his head and heard the crunch of the gravel under the man’s loafers.

Pellam grabbed for the Colt once more. He hit the butt with his fingers and knocked it out of reach.

He heard the man’s breathing. Pellam looked up, opened his eyes. He saw the bore of the gun in the man’s hand, six feet away.

Billy stopped.

A good day to die . . .

Billy stopped.

He looked behind him as if he’d heard something.

Then he was flying through the air.

Sailing, the way stuntmen did, off springboards mounted on either side of black powder charges in the war movies.

Billy sprawled on top of Pellam, knocking the wind out of him with a high, love-making grunt. The twin rolled over, uttered, “Bobby,” then studied the gravel an inch away from his face. “Son of a bitch.” He closed his eyes. “Son of a bitch.” He shuddered once and was still.

Pellam pushed himself up, fainted for a few seconds. He came to then sat up again.

In front of him, on the porch, Meg was crying, clutching the smoking Springfield breech-loader. She dug frantically into her pockets—for more ammunition, he guessed.

“Meg!” he called. “It’s okay. They’re gone. They’re both gone.”

But she paid no attention, dropped to her knees and slid a new shell into the gun, cocked it with both hands. She stood once more, wiped tears and scanned the yard like a sentry then returned to the house, calling to her son.

“
YOU ALL RIGHT
?” Keith asked. Pellam nodded, gasping at the pain. And Keith continued into the house, following Meg.

Pellam made sure that Billy was dead then staggered inside.

He found them in the living room, Keith’s arm around Meg, standing over Tom, the sheriff. He was dead.

Meg looked toward the front door, at Pellam, with eyes wide in terror.

Keith was on his knees, hugging Sam. Who glanced at Pellam but said nothing. He was crying. “Did they hurt you?” Keith asked.

The boy shook his head.

Meg, crying too, gasped. “He was going to . . . He took him in there. . . .” She nodded toward the living room. “But then they heard the horn and he went outside to see who it was.”

“Oh, honey. . . .”

Keith stood and Meg lowered her head to Keith’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Keith muttered.

“Honey, your phone, in the car. We’ve got to call the police.”

“My phone?”

“In the car. They cut the line here. The phone doesn’t work.”

“I left it at the factory,” he said. He seemed numb, unable to say any more than a few words at a time.

“Then drive to the Burkes’, use theirs!”

“What happened? I don’t . . .” He looked around the house. “I don’t understand.”

“It was so terrible. . . .”

“Why was Tom here?” Keith asked.

Meg glanced at Sam and whispered something to her husband. He frowned. She nodded. “Then one of them shot Tom. They got in somehow. I don’t know why. I have no idea why.”

Keith said nothing for a moment, just stared at the sheriff’s body. He glanced at Sam. “I’m going to take you up to bed. Your mother and I have to talk.”

“Keith . . .” Meg started after him. But Pellam, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, stepped forward, touched her arm. “Meg, wait.”

Father and son disappeared up the stairs.

She turned. “You’re hurt . . .”

“Sit down.”

Meg hesitated. “I have to talk to you. I have to tell you why I came back tonight . . .”

She was staring at Tom. “Keith has to call. He has to go to the Burkes’.”

“Meg. . . . Listen to me. Tonight I went to see your friend.”

She stiffened and her attention on the body in her living room vanished. “My friend?” she asked.

“Ambler.”

She considered this, then asked, “How did you know he was my friend?”

“We had a talk.” Pellam paused, looking at the stairs. But Keith was still with Sam. He added, “He likes you. He likes you a lot.”

She wasn’t sure what to do with this information. She found an afghan, placed it over the sheriff’s head and chest. Pellam wanted to put his arm around her but he would probably have fainted; any motion was pure pain in his shoulder.

“Why did you go to see him?” Meg asked.

“I thought he might’ve been the one who had Marty killed.”

“What?”

Pellam shook his head. “He didn’t. But he did plant the drugs and he had me beat up.”

“Wex wouldn’t do . . .” But her voice faded and she obviously concluded that, yeah, he could very easily do that.

“The reason he did it was that he was afraid I was going to take you away with me.”

“He did?”

She looked troubled but he wondered if he wasn’t seeing a little pleasure in her face too. There probably isn’t a woman in the world who isn’t thrilled by a man who goes to those kind of lengths to keep her for himself.

“We decided it was probably the twins who were behind the shooting. I went to their junkyard. That shack of theirs. I found the gun they killed Marty with. Some other things too. I found—”

Footsteps nearby. Keith walked slowly down the stairs. He caught Pellam’s eyes and paused. Then
continued. “Sam’s okay. I gave him something. He’s sleeping.”

Meg ignored him. Said to Pellam, “Why are you telling me this?”

But Keith preempted her. He’d overheard Pellam and he asked, “What else did you find in the shack?”

Pellam said to Meg, “I found some of that stuff, the drugs Sam got.”

“So they’re the ones?” she blurted. “They’re the ones behind it . . . But why would they come here? Because Sam was a witness?”

“They weren’t after Sam.”

Keith had stopped walking. He sat down. Pellam said to him, “They had five or six thousand vials there. All packaged and ready to go. . . . So, Keith, tell me: Were they distributing? Or were they skimming from you?”

Keith’s eyes swam around the room. “Both, apparently.”

Meg stared at her husband. “What do you mean?”

“Your partners came here to kill you,” Pellam said. “And your family.”

“Partners?” Meg gasped.

Pellam said to Keith, “Would they have enough information to make the drugs themselves? Could they do it without your factory?”

Keith didn’t say anything.

Both, apparently.

Keith looked at the wall beyond which two of his employees lay. “I paid them enough.”

“There’s never enough.”

“How’d you find out?”

Pellam said, “In one of the bags in their shack were notes from you. Some cash.” He nodded. “I came here to tell Meg.”

She turned to Pellam. Wanted to say something, it seemed, but couldn’t.

Keith said, “They were just punks but they had contacts in New York, New Jersey, Brooklyn. I needed them.”

Pellam asked, “What is it exactly? The drug.”

Keith explained. “It’s an oral synthetic narcotic.”

To her husband Meg whispered, “No. This isn’t happening.”

Keith took a breath and Pellam could see he was running through the inventory of lies he might choose from. A boy in front of a broken window. He looked at both Pellam and Meg and said, “It’s not what you think.”

“No, no, no . . .” She shook her head.

“Meg, it’s just a product. I—”

“Product!” Meg said. “This shit is poison and you call it a
product
?”

“You don’t understand, Meg,” he snapped. “It’s not like that.”

“What
is
it like, then?”

“It’s a fantastic discovery! It took me two years to perfect it.”

“Discovery?”

Pellam said wryly, “State of the art. Normally, heroin you have to shoot up to get the best rush. This stuff, all you do is chew it.”

Keith said, “What I developed was a new vasodilator. The narcotic goes into the blood cells under the tongue in milliseconds.”

Pellam continued. “A new Yuppie drug of choice. No need to shoot up. No needles. No AIDS risk . . .”

Keith said, “I was going to license it for legitimate medical purposes. We just needed a little more capital . . . We were going to distribute samples to medical research companies—you don’t need FDA approval for that. But Dale started selling underground to get some cash flow. By the time I found out we were in too deep.”