BACK HOME 5651 words
story by Patrick Breheny pjbreheny@hotmail.com
The busses were running again, and African American OKC Detective Dayton had to get back to his family in Oklahoma. Carmen’s family was taking care of baby Georgie, her responsibility, and Rake’s if he’d stayed clean. The Portland bunch came up with the fund-me to get them tickets to OKC, and they left together. It was a day and a half from Portland to OKC because the interstate were canals when they went to Portland from Oklahoma by boat, and the only viable route along damaged and patched up highways was down to L.A., then east into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas panhandle to Oklahoma. They sat together, and Dayton’s shoulder inevitably became a pillow at night, but both had convictions that limited contact to no more than that.
At the OKC terminal, Dayton had his family waiting, and they gave Carmen a ride to the ‘house behind” and the front house, both in front of the “OK Mex Café”. Dayton said he’d be calling if he needed her skills again.
For Carmen, there was a welcoming committee at the café, of her parents, sister, brothers, baby Georgie, and, surprise, a healthy Rake looking like he was indeed in recovery. They all had the question, “What happened in Portland?”
“Some memories are best not recalled, but we took care of it.”
What mattered now was what she’d gone there for with Dayton and her friends, the psychic OK Twins Sharon and Edgar Mullens (Carmen finding that ESP bug to be contagious): Them, her family greeting her, Georgie ecstatic she was back, and she knowing he hadn’t forgotten her that fast. There was light in Rake’s eyes, and she thought life might become normal now, whatever that was, though definitely better than what just was.
The café swore OK Mex was better food than Tex Mex. Nobody but a Tex Mex would dispute that claim, and being Oklahoma, they had no shortage of America’s original residents who’d also stand for their OK enchiladas.
So, normal. Rake, without any particular skills at anything, never mind food preparation or serving, was the dishwasher. And at that, they said he was too slow. They were always short of dishes when he couldn’t keep up, and he’d get a little attitude then and say, “Buy some.”
Poppa would rebuff him with a reminder, “They cost money.”
Living was having a roof over, eating and hoping, for all of them, and they’d survive with Rake’s slowness. None of the others wanted to wash dishes. They had a dishwasher machine, but for that, the plates, cups, glasses had to be arranged, so he was probably doing better with a sink of suds. He’d do. He never had bragged of any talent at anything.
Momma cooked, Carmen and Poppa waited tables, the other siblings were married and lived elsewhere, her parents had jobs, and everybody at the cafe took turns tending to Georgie, who was often just underfoot. It wasn’t that they just settled for what they had, it was that they had to just settle for what they had. In contrast to what recently was, they felt blessed even if things didn’t get better, just so they didn’t get worse again.
The “a”---apocalypse with a small ‘a’----had generated people of different types who combined to survive, as in Portland, and here too with Rake included when Carmen was gone. But it also produced loners, some just living, but others who were like old west stereotypical badmen, who invaded, plundered, even killed without a trace of remorse.
Dayton ate at the restaurant every week or so with his family, but this visit was on a weekday afternoon, in uniform. Carmen was waitressing, Georgie playing with plastic horses and cowboys. He had the riders set up as good guys and bad guys, and punished the mean ones. It was a world where he alone administered justice. When they fought, he took two plastic men, one in each hand, and smashed them against each other. The wrong one was going to pay, by Georgie’s verdict.
Dayton ordered coffee and watched Georgie’s morality show.
Carmen said, “His tendency to violence is a little disturbing.”
“He’s administering retribution, which brings me to why I’m here.”
“Oh no.”
She had so hoped ‘normal’ would mean good.
“Not a big one, at least not yet, but disturbing. Someone is abducting dogs for ransom, and he or somebody else is killing strays. Its the sign of a badman and I’m partial to dogs.”
“He gives back the ones for ransom?”
“Correct. For credibility for the next dognapping.”
“What would motivate someone to kill poor strays.”
“We’re just make arrests, but maybe one barked at him. Any inkling you get on that, let me know.”
They both looked at small old Rufus sleeping on the floor, a mutt if ever there was one. Even kept clean and fed, he looked scraggly. Georgie’s plastic cowboy fisticuffs didn’t bother him, and Georgie didn’t interfere with Rufus. He’d only pet him when he was awake, wouldn’t intrude on whatever doggies dream about. Carmen said, “If I get any hunches, you’ll hear.”
“Good enough.”
Dayton took a couple of bills from his wallet and left them on the table.
“Detective, you don’t pay for coffee here.”
“Yes I do. I don’t play that ‘cops dine free’”.
“You’re a guest here, a friend.”
“Well I won’t pick it back up. Buy Georgie something with it.”
“That we might do.”
It was a weekday afternoon between lunch and dinner, the reason the place was so casual, with Rufus, not legally allowed in an eating establishment, sprawled on the floor, a technicality overlooked by Dayton. When Dayton left it was quiet except for Georgie ruling his subjects and Rufus snoring Slow as Rake was, he finished the lunch dishes and came in and joined her. They had time now, before any dinner people would arrive, to have coffee together.
But then the screen door did it’s screeching opening and banging shut twice as an arrival came in. There’s an immediate something about the impression a person makes that usually proves accurate, and this one was a caricature of the 19th century badman forewarned of by Dayton. She wondered what the reverse of serendipity was called. Synchronicity at least.
He sat at the table closest the door and she wasn’t inclined to go over, just continued sitting with Rake as if they were customers. The man was Caucasian, had a thick black beard, a hard impassionate face, a chunky body, and was wearing dusty jeans, a corduroy jacket and boots, as if he’d arrived on a horse. He looked at them, looked long and greedily at the cash register, then appraised Rufus with the same intensity directed at the register. When he spoke, it was with an impatient twang.
“What’s the deal? Anybody running this place?”
Rake asked, “What do you need?”
“Service.”
“Staff’s off now, between meal shifts. Dinner starts at five.”
“They turn away business?”
“No sir, its just the operating procedure here. The elderly owners take siesta.”
“I wonder can I get a glass of water?”
“City water hasn't been restored out here. We pump it from the well, won’t do that before dinner service.”
“We? Who are you?”
“I wash dishes here.”
“Without water?”
“No. That’s why we’re dry at the moment.”
“And her?”
“Actually, she’s my wife, and mother of this child here?” At least the second half of that was true.
“And I bet you love that mangy old mongrel there.”
“He wouldn’t bother a soul.”
But Rufus woke up a little, and emitted a sound neither of them had heard before. From a deep and aggrieved place, he growled. It was Carmen’s belief that pets understood every word people said, just couldn’t speak themselves.
“Never, huh?”
Rake said, “I suppose unless provoked.”
“So you open for business at five?”
“We set up when her grandparents finish napping.”
“Her grandparents, huh?. What do her parents do?”
“None of yours, but other jobs”
“Well I just came for water now, but dang your OK Mex tamales later if you can’t give a man a sip of water.”
Carmen said, “There’s a 7/11 about half a mile yonder.”
“They SELL water.”
“Last I checked, sir, that they do. We don’t but we’re out.”
He stood up, evaluated the premises one more time, said “Ugly damn mutt,” and left to the screen door banging twice again.
Her sensors were vibrating like an activated geiger counter. She called Dayton.
Through the screen door, she was watching the man’s back receding down the road. “Detective, how far have you gone?”
“A mile.”
“On Cache Road?”
“Right.”
“We had a visitor. Gave Rufus and our cash register quite an eyeful. He might be who you’re looking for. He’s on Cache too, moving toward downtown.”
“I’ll make a U. Can you describe him?”
“No need. You’ll know.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise for the drifter was not that he was being stopped, but that the police car didn’t come from behind as usual, but approached and spun, blocking the road so completely he had to stop. He’d been walking with his thumb stuck out, not glancing at the few cars that came by and sped up as they passed him. He was accustomed to that.
Dayton exited the car and walked toward him, but didn’t get too close.
“Where are you going?”
“Into town. That’s still legal, I believe.”
“Depending on what you did before and what you’ll do when you get there. So, what do you want in OKC?”
“I don’t have to explain that.”
“You have ID?”
“Sure do, but I don’t have to show that to you either for no good reason.”
Dayton didn’t want to reveal it was Carmen that set him on the man.
“People in the cars saw you sauntering along. There have been prowlers around, burglaries at night. Folks here are nervous.”
“I haven’t been out here before. I been staying in town at a mission and work out of a casual labor office. Just came scouting outside of town for a regular job, can’t find anything in the city.”
“Where have you looked?”
“At the OK Mex Café. Hoped they’d want a dishwasher or something.”
“And?”
“They didn’t.”
“Would they confirm you asked for a job there?”
“No, because I didn’t get a chance to. They have a dishwasher. I met him. Wouldn’t even give me a glass of water.”
“Not neighborly. You wouldn’t have been staking them out for anything?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They must have some money in there.”
“I pleaded for a glass of water. You go right ahead and ask them.”
“Mind coming back with me while I do?”
“I sure do. I already done some tromping. I’ll go with you if you’ll drive me into town after.”
“Wait here a minute.”
Dayton got back into the patrol car, started it up and drove away. Carmen had been listening to all of it. He slid the phone out of his back pocket and asked, “You feeling that’s him?”
“What my instincts are telling me.”
“I got a good look at him. Only two missions and a few labor offices in town. I’ll see if he’s really been staying or working in any.”
“Be better to get him for what he’s done already than wait for him to do more.”
“Amen, but need witnesses and evidence, and we have priority over people killing other people, never mind dogs. Budget’s the reason yours truly detective is in uniform in a cruiser today. But I’m going to moonlight this. I fancy dogs too.”
The Reverend, before they fed, asked who would stand to be saved. Usually a few did, so wretched it wasn’t hard to believe they hoped for some saving, but tonight there was a pause and the man knew, having been the recipient of charity several consecutive evenings, it would be his turn to stand. Reverend beseeched the Almighty, “Take this man to Thy bosom” then spoke to the man and said, “Now speak your name to the Lord and say you accept Him.”
“I accept.”
“And your name?”
“God knows it.”
The Reverend wasn’t accustomed to such recalcitrance when conducting charity services, but needed to set the example of forgiveness for this mild transgression.
“Indeed the Lord does. If you will not speak your name publicly, will you do it in private?”
The man said nothing, which the Reverend took as agreement, so he said the Grace for the meal to come, the service ended, and the beans were served.
During his salvation, what he meditated on was all the nights he’d been in a dormitory room with these wino bean farters before he’d found the shed he slept in now, while that fat old pooch at the OK Mex Café was properly fed and pampered, and that pretty Mescan gal was the momma of the spoiled brat with the plastic cowboys, and married to ---the DISHWASHER. The man didn’t hate dogs, he hated the love people had for them but not him. He killed the strays because the strays could be got to easily---vulnerable if they were not in a pack, they were like him on that---and people loved the strays too. Not so easy getting house dogs, and he had to spare them to keep his ransom M.O. credible. There could be a way at that laid back restaurant that didn’t serve twixt meal times. What matter if they’d been lying to him about that, if they didn’t have customers then anyway? There was opportunity there.
At the Working Man Agency, that also hired women, the man wasn’t anywhere near first out on any morning. The younger ones of every ethnic got priority, so if he got work it was on a big call out for a platoon of manure shovelers or some such, or he came back at 11:00 PM to load freight at a trucking dock. He had as much acquaintance with Jack the owner/dispatcher as he had with any human, that is, not much, but one slow morning when even the young’uns weren’t getting sent out, he approached the counter behind which Jack had a fiberglass shield to protect from germs, and had it long before the pandemic.
He said to Jack, “I don’t look beautiful, but on the phone nobody knows that. What if I get on your phone and try recruiting some jobs for you?”
Jack said, “I’ll give you five dollars for every one you get.”
Generous bastard, the man thought. Going to make a few thou and pay me five dollars for bringing it in.
Jack unlocked the door separating him from the riff raff and let him in.
There was a land line, and true to skid row bare bones frugality, it was an old black rotary. There were no phone books anymore, but fortunately the man, who didn’t know what to do with a computer anyway ‘cept push a button to turn one on, there was a paper business directory categorized by types of services. He’d finished 4th grade, so could read, no talent to be taken for granted. He would have gone farther with school, but his father killed his mother, he went to foster homes, ran away from all of them, but he didn’t make excuses. He made revenge.
After a few calls to freight offices, painters, moving companies and corporate places, he was getting rebuffed as an exploiter of human misery. He couldn’t explain, with Jack listening, that he was one of the exploited trying to make a buck. Five bucks.
At lunch time, afternoon usually, Jack chased everybody in the waiting area out and left to eat. The man offered to stay on the phone, front door button lock on so no one came in. Jack usually had his calls forwarded to his smart phone, but the man said he’d be happy to book any incoming jobs for free, especially if maybe included him. Jack agreed. There was nothing to steal but the business directory.
The timing was right. He called OK Mex. Carmen answered the phone. He disguised his voice to sound like a yankee, and said, “I hear you’re slow in afternoons. I’m with the Working Man Agency, and we need a couple of workers to help a distance mover unload furniture at a house. If you have a couple of folks available, we could be generous.”
“How generous?”
“Twenty an hour.”
‘There’s only one man here at the moment. I’m a hard worker.”
“Yes. You could handle the lighter items, stack boxes on an appliance dolly and cart them in.”
“I sure could.”
“Can you come now?”
“Hang on. Rake, we’re going to be furniture movers this afternoon.”
“Huh?”
“What’s the address you need us at, sir?”
“Just come to the Working Man Agency on Grant in OKC. See Jack. He’ll be back from lunch when you get here.”
He left a note for Jack and told him he had a job booked over other side of town, two workers coming he’d recruited himself, somebody would go in to the office to pick them up. He himself had business to attend to, and would be back to collect his five dollars.
There was a city bus that went out OK Mex Café way, and he at least had the fare. He calculated the kid would be inside one of the houses, but was counting on the register, and maybe Rufus, to be available during siesta. Sure enough the café door was locked, but he’d never met a lock he couldn’t pick.
They weren’t fools enough to leave a lot of cash in the drawer, just twenty dollars in small bills and coins, but the real treasure, Rufus, was present. Rufus did assert with a token snarl, but, alone now, not too confidently, and besides the nice badman had a doggie biscuit for him and a bottle of water he poured into Rufus’ bowl. The snack and drink made Rufus quite sleepy, and the man shoved him into his backpack, He waited again for the bus and hoped Rufus bladder held.
When Jack got back from lunch, Carmen and Rake were waiting beside the front door with a few other workers hoping for a PM shift.
Carmen said, “We’re the movers Mr. Brown called.”
“Mister…?. Not inside?”
“Nobody seems to be.”
“Guess he went to lunch too. Well, let’s all go in.”
He had the others stay in the waiting room, and brought Rake and Carmen into his office, read the man’s note.
“How did Mr…Brown---know to call you?”
“I don’t know. Folks do know our café breaks in the afternoon.”
“All we can do is wait. He says somebody’s coming to collect you. You can wait in the next room with the others.”
Wait they did, all afternoon, until finally Carmen went to the counter window and said, “We have to get back to our own business.”
He brought Rufus to an abandoned shed by a railroad trestle, that he slept in, and tied him up in there. The man knew if this dognapping got reported, the café would report his visit, and that cop would find out he gigged out of Working Man. Not all the labor offices verified ID, and some just paid in cash, so he could slave, but he needed to disguise. He cut his long hair, shaved his beard, got sunglasses big as binoculars and used some of the café money for a makeover at the Salvation Army thrift shop. Tried to fashion toward what he was hearing now called punk metal. Would die that crew cut chartreuse.
From one of the few remaining phone booths, of course on skid row, he called the café. Carmen answered.
Again sounding yankee, he said “I have your dog.”
“Don’t you…”
“I’ve not harmed it. I have a deal to make and I want to discuss it personally with your husband. No games, no po-lice, of your mutt dies. I’ll call again tomorrow. Remember, no cops.”
“You’ll prove our dog’s okay.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll talk to …my husband.”
“Speak again tomorrow.”
She told Rake and he said, “Let me meet the jackass, find out what he wants. There wasn’t much in the register.”
The man had Rake meet him at a bar from where invoices from Working Man were cashed. A good number of the workers were alcoholics, so it was a sweetheart arrangement between the bar and the labor office. Cash your voucher, have a beer, spend all the money here. The man suspected Jack owned the bar too.
The met in front. Rake didn’t recognize the man at first, so he thought, Good. His cover was working and he hadn’t even colored his hair yet.
Rake said, “I don’t drink.”
“No matter. We need to walk and talk, away from ears. Speaking of, you got a phone on, any devices in your pocket?”
“Phone’s not on a call.”
“I need to frisk.”
He did. Discovered the phone and another twenty dollars of so in cash.
“That’s all you have to offer for your dog?”
“Their family dog. You say we’re meeting to deal, but you know the economy now.”
“She’s your wife, so your dog too.”
“Yes. Just not the same attachment.”
“I want one thousand, or…”
“Or what?
"“Thought I’d say kill the dog. No. One thou or the senorita for a night.”
“Sir.”
“She loves her doggie enough? You love her enough?. I’m being nice. For a thousand, I can get ten like her for a night. Just have a hankering there.”
“We’ll scrape up your ransom somehow. Take my twenty dollars as a deposit.”
“Think I will. Guy like you can get a ride home hitchhiking. I never can. You’re a lucky boy.”
“How do I know the dog is still alive now?”
“I can show you. Aint far from here.”
He brought Rake to the shed along the trestle. He took his padlock off the tin door, allowing sunlight into the dark interior, dust floating on the entering breeze and Rufus, scenting Rake, growled from his empty belly. But Rake couldn’t see him.
“He’s in the back room. Go say hello to him you like.”
“Why don’t I just take him now. We don’t have no thousand dollars.”
“Let him go for twenty?”
“And the money you got from the till,”
“You know where I live, can press charges.”
“I swear we won’t go to the police. We don’t want trouble, just trying to live.”
“You say you don’t drink? In recovery?”
“I am.”
“So not a snitch type.”
“No.”
“I do like you. People can only come up with what they can. Go ahead. Go in and take him.”
“If you’d bring him out…”
”I won’t.”
“Rufus, come boy.”
“He’s behind a door and tied, you fool.”
He pushed Rake to get him in, but Rake pushed back. Suddenly there was a gun. The man said, ”Inside.”
And inside, he tied Rake up beside Rufus, in the back in a kind of lavatory room where animals had once been kept. It had a drain of long vertical steel rods over a cesspool, and a hose for washing down the slop.
When Rake wasn’t back at the dinner hour, Carmen did call Dayton.
“What’s the casual labor office you two were at?”
“Working Man.”
“He’s open late. I’ll find out who set this up.”
When Dayton told Jack about the bait to get them out of the café, Jack of course knew exactly who did it. Jack was legal and took out Social Security and tax deductions, so he had the man’s name. It was Silas Johnson, and he went by “Johnny.”
The man still had Rake’s phone. It was an oldie, had no GPS. “Call senorita. Tell her I have you, and to get that money fast. Tell her no cops or you and the mutt die.”
He put the phone on speaker, then to Rake’s mouth to deliver the message.
When told, Carmen said, “I understand. We’ll come up with it.”
The man shouted “No cops.”
“Right, no cops.”
The man told Rake he was “Rocky,” his new metal nickname, because, he said, his actual name was Silas Rock. Rake knew whatever Rocky wanted to invest a thousand dollars in, they had to survive now. Rocky only left once, he said to get groceries with the dwindling funds.
He returned from that excursion with a big bottle of port wine and brought Rake to the front room, using a slim pocket flashlight so they could see and talk and took the gag off Rake so he could drink with him. Rake wouldn’t, said “Alcohol was never my thing.”
The wine was relaxing the man a little, and he said, “I’ll leave the gag off so we can talk. We are going to starve in here if neither of us are working.”
“You didn’t bring any food back.”
“No, but I ate. Maybe you could go do some casual labor, just remember I have Rufus, if you play any games.”
Rake knew the wine was talking. He wasn’t letting Rake, his collateral, loose.
“You can still work.”
“They’re looking for me now. Even in disguise I might get pegged.”
“What would you do with the thou, Rocky?”
“But some drugs to sell.”
“You don’t need a thou for that. I can get you crack fronted, but you don’t burn the dealers.”
“I was thinking coke or heroin, even weed. Sell to one big dealer. I don’t know how to sell rocks of crack.”
“I do.”
“I’d have to let you free.”
“Come with me. The dealers and users know me. “
“What would they think of me along?”
“They can make a cop, would know you’re not one.”
“I’ll think on it.”
Rocky slept off the wine and his hangover, and when he was hungry, he left again.
This time he hotwired a new Corolla and drove to the café.
He pulled in across the road, under two close trees almost embracing, and waited.
He was long yards from the well when Carmen came with a bucket. She didn’t seem to notice the car, nor suspect anything until the oddly attired driver opened the door, a 45 in his hand, and his fingers on his lips signaling “Not a word.”
He took her to the shed and tied her up also. The car was destined for a chop shop, but not yet. Still might need it. After he had Rake, Carmen and the dog secured, he parked it legally on a street, better side of tracks, and hoped it would stay there.
Rake took Rocky to Crack Camp, a pile of shanties right along the tracks, not far from the shed. And Rake was known, greeted with “Where you been, man?”
“Oh, you know, the ‘a’. Is Manhattan still around?”
“He’s here, yeah.”
“Where”
The greeter pointed to a huddle of smokers, and Rake brought ‘Rocky’.
Manhattan said, “My man is back!”
“Yeah, hey, you can front me to sell, like before?”
“Don’t see why not. This here your daddy?”
“Well, no.”
“More like a Dutch uncle? Looks out for you.?”
“Not that either. He needs a selling lesson.”
“He wants to be a vendor? He smoke?”
“He’ll be a big buyer, soon as he gets the cash he’s waiting for.”
“Well. alright, I can give you thirty dollar rocks to sell, you get your old commission. How many you want? “Ten to start.”
“Can do.”
The way it used to work for Rake, he’d smoke his commission. Now it would be for eating, but the closeness to product was triggering a craving he had to fight. Just one hit, and maybe the hydrogen bomb of the first time could go off in his head. Nobody ever again got that initial rush, but you’d sacrifice your life trying to retrieve it, and the thought was there that, off it a while now, he might once more get that crack-virgin euphoria. He knew he was conning himself, but that didn’t stop the impulse. Just once. Then stop again. Yeah, sure.
Rake knew the streets to sell on, and he returned with the proceeds, less the commission. Manhattan fronted more, and Rake had a plan forming. On the strip, he’d made an undercover. Carmen was still collateral, but if Rake went through with this, the man would be afraid of going back to the shed. Rake would go right up to the narc and offer dope to buy. Rocky couldn’t want to get even with Rake for getting busted.
When he offered crack to the undercover, he said, “Sure,” and then presented with a badge and a gun. ”Rocky’ had enough street sense to say, “I aint with him, he was just propositioning me to buy too.’ The officer didn’t prevent him from leaving.
Rake said, “Call Detective Dayton.” “I want to know who you get it from, then we’ll talk about a deal.”
“No, call Dayton. About kidnappings.”
The badman went back to tell Manhattan, “Rake, he just got busted.”
“He had the dope I fronted?”
“That he did.”
“Well, see, now we have a problem, because he can give me up for a deal. So least you, as his partner, can do is pay me back.”
“I’m here because I don’t have any money.”
“And I’m not out here to discuss your financial situation. You owe me three hundred dollars by tomorrow. After that there’s interest. A lot. And don’t you think for a second that I don’t know that shack you sleep in.”
Rake took Dayton to the shed. Dayton took out a file to pick the padlock.
“Can’t we just kick it in?”
Dayton had shot a padlock off a door south of Wichita Falls, but this was a different sutuation.
“Oh, I have more finesse than that.”
He had the padlock quickly opened, and they left the door ajar to see where they were going. Rufus barked and Rake called out, “Carmen.”
“I’m still here. Is—he--- back with you?”
“I’m with Dayton. You’re getting out of here.”
The man wondered if Rake was going to report his wife was a hostage. He’d be risking her life, but…And that Manhattan…There was the car It was still there. He’d be afraid to drive it, reported stolen by now, but maybe the chop shop guy would make a pick up.
So, back at the Last Phone Booth, he called Grub Tows. Grub himself answered, but when the proposition was made, replied, “I don’t nab them off the street. You have to deliver it.”
He reconnoitered the shed and saw the padlock was still in place. Rake had held his mud. He went back to the phone booth and called the café, from where a man answered.
“I want to speak to Poppa.”
“Speaking.”
“I’m through playing games. You come here now with a thousand dollars or I’ll burn the billet down with your granddaughter and dog inside. It’s the only shed along the railroad tracks going south out of town. You come alone. You don’t have the money, I’ll take you inside too and burn the place.”
“I will borrow the money.”
“Within an hour.”
“Yes, okay, I understand. And you will release them unharmed?”
“I have always let the dogs go. My reputation speaks for itself.”
The man wasn’t going into the shed before Poppa came. He hid in bramble like a weeds hobo, rolled cigarettes from Bugler tobacco for recreation, and in time a scooter chugged up, driven by an elderly man.
When Poppa stopped in front of the shed, the man moved out of the brush and shouted, “Just stay there.”
When he got to the padlock his key wasn’t necessary. It was set but loose, opened easily before he turned the key. Funny. A cheap lock. But the neighborhood wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it was with all those low life around. Nobody had broken into the shed, and the Corolla was still there.
He said to Poppa, “Inside.”
“Why not here?”
“I don’t do transactions in public. No class. Inside.”
To encourage that proposition, the 45 was back in his hand.
With the gun pointed at Poppa’s head, they went in, the narrow beam of the pocket flashlight the only way to see anything when he closed the door. He called out cheerfully “Sweety, I’m home.”
No reply. No bark. Maybe the girl and the mutt were asleep. He pushed open the door to the lavatory room and was instantly blinded by a bright beam of light shining directly into his eyes.
A deep voice said, “Drop the gun.”
The pencil light was now in Dayton’s eyes, obscuring his vision too, but by his flashlight he saw the gun was moving away from Poppa’s head.
“NOW.”
The gun wasn’t dropped, was still moving in a hand. There was no time left to make any other decision. Dayton pulled the trigger.
CLICK
Again.
CLICK
His gun had jammed. He didn’t have time to unjam it. The badman had all the time he needed.
“Consider what you’re doing. You can’t get away with it.”
If he could just unjam. He hit the gun against his thigh.
“No reconsidering. I’ve made my choice.”
As he continued hitting the gun against himself, hitting the side with his hand, Dayton heard a round slide forward into his chamber. The man must have heard too. It was happening fast, but everything, the other hand, the gun moving in the light, seemed in slow motion.
Dayton pointed again to fire as the man screamed, “Who shoots first?”
One loud terrible explosion echoed and reverberated through the tin shed, and somebody fell. A flashlight on the floor shone along the long steel frame of the open drain, blood flowing into it.
It wasn’t Poppa and it wasn’t Dayton who had fallen. It wasn’t their blood.
Dayton hoped he who had fallen could be the last of the badmen, but he knew he wouldn’t.
A choice had been made. This one at least killed the right person. Dayton's gun had misfired again.