The Next Time You Die Page 5

  Arthur and another man stood in the hallway, whispering to each other and watching the door.

  “Where can I find Reese Cunningham?” I said.

  The new guy was white, pudgy, midthirties. He wore camouflage fatigues. He had what looked like a Winchester 30-30 carbine slung over one shoulder. “Who the hell do you think you are?” He swelled up like a tough guy.

  I walked over to where he stood, put one hand on his chest, and pressed until he stepped back. The sneer left his mouth. I kept pressure up until the metal of the rifle clanked against the brick wall.

  “What’s it to you, GI Joe?” I said.

  “Don’t be rad, dude.” Arthur pulled out his earpieces and stepped between us. “Shit, dawg, I’ll give you the address of Reese’s family.”

  “Thank you, Arthur.” I removed my hand from the other man’s chest.

  The Filipino scurried down the hall.

  “Why all the firepower?” Nolan pointed to Camo Guy’s rifle.

  “It’s a war zone out there,” he said.

  “Amen, brother.” I turned and walked down the hall after Arthur.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We walked back through the common area. The serving line was set up. Cooking smells wafted through the room, greasy meat boiling somewhere close by, bread warming in an oven. The man in the camo fatigues followed closely behind, muttering under his breath. Once we were in the entryway to the building, Arthur handed me a piece of paper with an address on it.

  “You never told us about why you’ve got a shotgun by the front door.” I pointed to the weapon. “Or why GI Joe is running around acting like he’s getting ready for a firefight.”

  “There are some people out there want to put a cap in Pastor Linville.”

  “Who are they?”

  “If I knew, don’t you think I might try to stop them?” He sighed, betraying the faintest hint of impatience.

  I didn’t reply, more than a little worried that Arthur, the hip-hop impersonator, and the overweight man in the camouflage clothing couldn’t stop a Boy Scout, much less a halfway-pissed-off thug. Nolan and I moved to the door.

  Arthur spoke again. “He does good work here, you know. He saves lives.”

  “Everybody’s but his own.” I stepped outside. Nolan followed. The door to Lucas Linville’s ministry slammed shut behind us. As we walked back to the truck, I watched for any threats, but the street was empty except for the heat of the day and the buzz of cicadas in the humid air.

  We got in the car. Nolan pulled off her armaments and placed them back in the gym bag as I turned on the air-conditioning.

  “We’re not going to track down Reese right now?” Nolan’s voice was unusually monotone.

  I shook my head.

  “We’re gonna go help Olson with something, aren’t we?”

  “He doesn’t ask for favors very often.” I turned onto Ervay. The two beer-drinking guys were sitting on a stoop in the shade, smoking cigarettes. They ignored us as we drove by.

  “He’s your best friend,” she said. “Guess we have no choice.”

  “You need to get over the whole thing.” I turned the AC up a notch. “Larry was way out of line.”

  “Shut the hell up, Hank.”

  Olson still bore a scar on his neck from the encounter with an enemy bayonet not far from the city of Al-Busayyah in southern Iraq in 1991. The wound earned him a Purple Heart and a secret commendation from the CIA. It would have garnered him a trip back home to Fort Worth in a body bag if I hadn’t managed to reload in time.

  All I got out of the deal was sand lice and the undying friendship of a six-foot-six quasi-psychopathic homosexual shit kicker.

  Nowadays, in addition to taking the odd assignment that I found a tad too gray market for my taste, Olson made his living as an arms merchant, a purveyor of fine military weapons and ammunition. Occasionally he entered into a transaction that was almost legal. But only occasionally.

  He’d called yesterday morning. Asked if I could meet him at his new shop over on Ross Avenue. Needed a favor, a little help with a problem. Also a chance for some work for the Oswald and O’Connor Investigative Agency.

  New shop? I’d asked. Uh-huh. Finally found somebody to hold a federal firearms license, he’d said. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was so darn picky these days. I’d started to say something else but stopped. It’s better not to ask too many questions. He told me the location of his store, between a we-tote-the-note used-car lot and a check-cashing place. Noonish, if you please.

  A job would be good, especially one not involving drunken preachers intoning the name of a dead wise guy. On the other hand, a request from Olson had the potential to be bad. The last one involved seventy cases of fragmentation grenades and two handcuffed Guatemalans.

  I turned onto Ross Avenue, past a Mexican supermarket and video store.

  “If he mentions Larry, I’ll shoot him,” Nolan said.

  “He won’t. It’s all forgotten.”

  Larry, an ex-cop turned used-car salesman, skewed toward the homophobic side of the fence. Someone had an ill-conceived idea to get everybody together: Olson and his partner, me and date du jour, Nolan and Larry. The evening would have been all right except Larry ordered a round of shots called Dick Lickers. Things went downhill from there.

  The owner of the restaurant dinged us two grand for the damage. Mr. Fiancé needed seven stitches in his forehead. And crutches, but only for a couple of weeks.

  “Larry hasn’t forgotten,” Nolan said.

  “You don’t care about him anymore, remember?”

  She didn’t reply, instead pulling a Spyderco lock-back knife from her pocket and opening and closing it repeatedly.

  The downtown part of Ross Avenue was all skyscrapers and concrete canyons, a glass-and-stone testament to the city’s economic power. As we headed east, the street changed from multistoried office buildings to bars with blackout windows and dice games in the back, working-class diners serving blue plate specials, and burglar-barred convenience stores run by men with names like Abdul or Achmed.

  I found the shop without any trouble. Wyatt’s House of Guns was a few blocks down from the Cesar Chavez Learning Center and a used-tire store, and across the street from a bar called Los Tres Hermanos. The gun shop had steel posts embedded in the concrete in front to keep thieves from crashing through the cinder-block walls and plate-glass windows.

  Olson’s Suburban was parked in front, next to a Lincoln with gold rims and a layer of red dust. Nolan and I hopped out of the Tahoe.

  The driver’s-side door of the Lincoln opened and a heavy-set man with red hair exited. He was in his midtwenties and wore a white-dude-trying-to-look-hip-hop gangster outfit: oversized athletic jersey, baggy jeans, and shiny Nikes. He moved in, blocking the front door, arms folded across his chest. All in all he was doing a pretty good job of looking like a tough guy.

  When we were a few feet away, he said, “Sorry, store’s closed for a while.”

  “Why?” I stopped and raised an eyebrow.

  “They’re . . . um . . . doing whatycallit . . . inventory.” He was clearly the lowest on the pecking order of whatever organization he belonged to. For his own sake I hoped he was street smart because he sure wasn’t any other kind.

  “That’s too bad.” Nolan pulled the big Para-Ordnance from her waistband. “I need to get more bullets. Down to my last fifty.”

  “Whoa.” He raised one hand. “You’re jacking with stuff you shouldn’t be.”

  “If you play nice, we can do this without you having to go to the hospital.” I moved to one side of the entrance and placed a hand on the butt of my Browning Hi-Power.

  Red Hair reached under the tail of his shirt.

  I lunged, one hand going for his arm, the other going for his throat. By the time I got to his gun hand, he had a small semiautomatic out. With my left arm I pressed the gun against his thigh but knew that couldn’t last too long. Using my other arm, I pressed his neck against the m
etal door.

  His free hand was in my face, fingers and thumbs searching for an eye socket.

  “A little help would be nice about now.” I rotated my head until I thought my neck would pop. Two of his fingers found an earlobe and began to pull.

  “You’re in the way,” Nolan said. “Can’t get a clear shot.”

  My ear felt like it was ripping from my head. “Shoot me then.”

  Nolan moved into my peripheral vision. She raised the big .45 and walloped Red Hair on the top his head.

  He let go of my ear, found my nose, and twisted.

  “Uuuhh.” Tears flooded my eyes. Vision gone. I heard another metal-on-flesh impact, louder this time. My nose was free again. Sight returned.

  Red Hair slumped on the ground, bleeding from a laceration on his scalp.

  I probed the flesh of my nose. Then I pulled out the Browning and racked the slide back.

  Two shots rang out from the other side of the front door, big, heavy booms so close together that they sounded almost like one.

  “Shit,” Nolan said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  My partner stood on one side of the door, the Para-Ordnance held in a two-handed grip. I was on the other side in a replay of this morning’s activities at Lucas Linville’s place.

  “How do you want to do this?” Nolan said.

  “Go in low and hit the ground.” I placed my free hand on the metal door. The two shots had occurred only seconds before. Loud noises and bright flashes in an enclosed area meant disorientation, ringing ears, and temporarily blinded eyes.

  I twisted the handle. Pushed open the door. Dived in. Rolled over to the right, came to rest on my knees next to a glass display counter. I swept the room with my pistol.

  My friend Olson was to the right, sitting on another display counter, an ugly black shotgun resting across his knees, a pair of earmuffs over his blond hair. Rows and rows of rifles and other long guns were lined up behind him.

  “Hey, Hank.” He removed the muffs and tossed them on the counter.

  I didn’t reply. Instead I looked across the room to where two men were curled up, shaking. They were about three feet apart and the display case behind them was a pile of broken glass and twisted metal.

  Blood seeped from a handful of double-aught buckshot holes in the gray pants of the man on the right. The face of the one on the left was stark white, drained of all color. He was shivering even though it was warm in the room.

  Nolan appeared to my left. She holstered her weapon, as did I.

  “Fucking shakedown.” Olson slid off the counter. He was dressed like a Corpus Christi coke dealer: lizard-skin boots, faded jeans, and a Pepto-Bismol-pink Hawaiian shirt.

  “Somebody’s trying to get their hooks into you?” I felt my nose again. It hurt but didn’t seem to be broken.

  “The bleeding one’s in charge. Says I’m gonna have to pay ten percent off the top from now on to stay in business.”

  “Must be from out of town.” Telling Olson he had to do anything was tantamount to a death wish. Also, Dallas was an open city. Except for some of the sex industry and a little gambling, there was no one group controlling anything, especially not the gun trade.

  “What happened to the retard outside?” Olson said.

  “I asked him if he wanted one lump or two.” Nolan patted the big automatic on her hip.

  “Thanks.” Olson addressed her for the first time since her fiancé had caused the fight over the unfortunately named drinks. Then he turned to me. “That’s why I called yesterday. Knew I could handle these two, but anything outside was gonna be tough.”

  “You could’ve told me,” I said. “A little intel up front is always good.”

  “Eh.” He waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “You handled it okay, didn’t you? Got another job for you anyway.”

  “What are you gonna do with the three of them?” Nolan said.

  Olson laughed until tears came to his eyes. Then he told us.

  Nolan shook her head. “You’re an animal, you know that?”

  I didn’t say anything, instead mouthing a silent prayer, thanking God that Olson was my friend, not my enemy.

  _______

  After we bolted shut the steel transport container loaded with a half dozen liters of bottled water, a carton of beef jerky, and the three men, Olson drilled some air holes in the sides. Then we waited until the man with the flatbed truck and crane arrived and hoisted the container aboard.

  “How do you know they are actually going to end up more or less in one piece?” I wiped the sweat out of my eyes.

  “Nothing in life is certain, is it?” Olson said.

  “Matamoros?” Nolan shook her head.

  “Nobody checks trucks headed south.” Olson put the drill away and suggested lunch.

  We piled into my truck and drove to a Vietnamese restaurant near Baylor Hospital. The place served food buffet-style all day long and was located between a secondhand store and a homeless shelter. The clientele was a mix of Asians, blue-collar workers, guys in suits, and young people with dyed hair and body piercings.

  We ate in silence. After a few minutes Olson spoke to Nolan. “How is . . . uh . . . Larry?”

  “We broke up.” She chewed for a moment. “Last night.”

  “That’s too bad.” Olson beamed. “You know, I’ve got some new Rugers in. There’s a sweet little .458 Magnum I bet you’d like.”

  “I’m not buying another one of your overpriced guns just because I’m single again.”

  “A .458’ll stop a Cape buffalo dead in its tracks.” Olson dumped a packet of artificial sweetener into his iced tea.

  “A Cape buffalo? Those are big suckers.” Nolan chewed on her lip, eyes narrowed. “How much—”

  “For Pete’s sake, Olson. She’s not buying an African big-game rifle.” I banged a fork on my plate. “Tell me about the job.”

  Olson covered his mouth with one hand and stage-whispered to Nolan, “We’ll talk later.” To me he said, “Remember Vernon Black?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Saw him night before last at a Human Rights Commission fund-raiser.”

  “Who are we talking about?” Nolan said.

  “Senator Vernon Black.” I eyed the last pile of moo shoo pork on my plate. “That rich guy from East Texas. Remember the article in yesterday’s paper about the Caddo Lake deal?”

  Nolan nodded and went back to her food.

  “Said he needed to hire you.” Olson dumped some cachemira sauce on his remaining egg roll.

  “Me?” I speared a piece of pork. “Why not you?”

  “I’d rather let him explain.” Olson busied himself with his food.

  A Vietnamese man with a pockmarked face and eyes hard enough to crack steel stepped outside and lit a cigarette. Through the plate-glass window, I could see a bruise on his cheek. I tried to remember his name but couldn’t. He ran a string of brothels masquerading as Asian modeling studios in the western part of the city.

  The three of us finished at the same time. Olson threw some money on the table and stood up. “Let’s go.”

  We cut over on Henderson Avenue, past the trendy restaurants and nightclubs with no names, places available only to the those young or rich or pretty enough to know the secrets to navigating the velvet ropes.

  At Central Expressway, Olson told me to go north to LBJ Freeway, the inner loop of the city. Traffic was heavy but moving.

  This part of town was glass towers and a couple billion tons of concrete. Cars and trucks everywhere, blue-gray exhaust making the windshield look like it needed cleaning. At LBJ we headed west toward the airport and Texas Stadium.

  We stopped well before we saw any airplanes or football players, at a shiny black-windowed office building not too far past the Dallas Tollway, the highway that split the northern half of the city in two. I parked in the visitor-designated area by the front door and we all got out. It seemed hotter in this part of town, with all the concrete and asphalt. The roar of automo
biles in the background made conversation difficult.

  The lobby of the building was two stories tall, all dark marble and polished hardwood, dominated by a fountain and a half dozen potted ficus trees so big they looked fresh off the boat from the rain forest.

  The three of us got on the elevator. Olson pressed the button for the top floor, number fifteen. The air in the confined space smelled like lemon oil and money.

  The lift opened onto a set of frosted-glass doors. The lettering above them read, BLACK ENTERPRISES.

  “They let the help go in the front way?” Nolan said.

  “Let’s find out.” I pushed open the door.

  We walked into a wood-paneled reception area that opened up to a glass-walled conference room. An attractive young woman sat behind a small desk to the right. She smiled when she saw us.

  Olson walked over to her desk. “We’re here to see Senator Black.”

  She smiled more, dimples dotting each cheek. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Yes, we do.” Olson smiled back. “Would you tell him that Lee Oswald is here?”

  “I sure will.” She picked up the telephone, a finger poised over the keypad. “Wait a minute . . . that name’s familiar. Didn’t you used to play for the Cowboys?”

  Olson, who played next to Ed “Too Tall” Jones under Coach Landry, winked and cocked a finger at the girl. “Can’t fool anybody who knows their Dallas history. I was All-Pro, linebacker, 1989.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember now. That is so cool.” The girl’s eyes got big, her voice high-pitched. “Can I get your autograph? Roger Staubach was here the other day. He signed one for me.”

  “Sure thing, darlin’.” Olson grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from her desk. “Next time he’s here, tell Roger I haven’t forgotten about the money he owes me. From when we got those hookers in Houston.”

  The girl gulped.

  I stepped up to the desk. “Lee’s just making a joke. Could you tell the Senator that Hank Oswald is here?”

  Ayoung man in khakis arrived a few minutes later and escorted us down the hall to a corner office. The windows offered a view of downtown to the south and Texas Stadium in the hazy distance to the west.