“Let me have it,” Lawson said, figuring Kerry had held on to a good ten thousand dollars. “I’ll pay you back.”
Kerry’s smile faded.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking about getting a new deer rifle.”
“Keep what you need for that and loan me the rest,” Larson said.
Kerry’s smile returned. He took a flour jar from a cupboard shelf, pulled out three thick wads of twenties and fifties, counted out what he needed for the rifle, and handed Larson the rest.
Larson smiled approvingly. “That’s perfect. Now, if I were to visit your friend Lenny, where would I find him?”
Kerry gave Larson directions to Lenny’s house. It was right in town, off a highway that ran east to the Oklahoma state line.
“Let me borrow a set of clean clothes, younger brother,” Larson said.
“You could use some fresh duds,” Kerry replied with a chuckle. “I never saw you looking so grubby.”
Larson washed up and picked out a pair of fresh blue jeans with razor-sharp creases, a long-sleeved cowboy shirt, and a pair of boots. Everything fit perfectly. In the front room he took one of Kerry’s cowboy hats off a wall rack next to the door, pocketed the money, rolled up the clothes he’d been wearing and put them under his arm, stuck the sidearm in his waistband, and told Kerry that he had to get going. He stretched his free arm around his brother’s shoulders, gave him a playful shake, and asked him not to tell anyone he’d stopped by for a visit.
Kerry made a zipped-lips motion with his fingers and smiled in his typical bland, gullible way.
“I’ll call you from the road,” Larson said. “Does Lenny have anybody working with him?”
“He sure don’t.”
Larson left his brother on the front porch, walked up the lane, got in the Honda, and drove away. It was time to find a new vehicle, and he knew just the man to help him make the switch.
The garage where Kerry’s pal Lenny had his auto body repair shop was along an alley at the back of a house. Parked at the side of the garage were four cars with crumpled fenders, bashed-in front ends, or smashed door panels. Along the backyard fence, a sweet four-wheel-drive pickup with an off-road package was parallel parked.
The sound of a grinder on metal greeted Larson as he got out of the Honda. He spotted Lenny at the back of the garage, working on a rear rocker panel, and walked to him.
When Lenny looked up and saw Larson, he turned off the grinder, lowered his mask, and smiled. “What brings you by here in the middle of the day?” he asked. “You got some work for me?”
Larson had figured Lenny would mistake him for Kerry. He pulled out the semiautomatic and pointed it at Lenny’s face. “You’ve got the wrong twin, my friend.”
Lenny pushed his safety goggles up to his forehead and blinked hard. His face flushed red and he started to breathe rapidly. “What’s the gun for?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Larson said. Lenny was short. In fact you could call him stubby. He had big round eyes and a thick neck that made him look porky.
Lenny put the grinder down. “I don’t even know you, mister.”
Larson half-expected him to start stuttering like Porky Pig. “I’m going to kill you for calling Crime Stoppers on me.”
“I did no such thing,” Lenny blustered, almost stuttering.
“That’s a lie, Lenny. Tell me one more lie and you’re a dead man. Did you do it for the money?”
Lenny stared into Larson’s eyes for a long moment and then slowly nodded. “Times are hard. I needed the cash. Ain’t even got it yet.”
Larson smiled. “That’s better, Lenny. It’s always good to tell the truth.”
“Don’t kill me.”
“We’ll see about that. How about we get in your truck and go for a ride.”
“Take the truck, the keys are in it.”
“I need a driver, Lenny. Is it gassed up?”
“I filled the tank yesterday.”
“Excellent. Do a good job as my driver and I might let you live. But first, we need to bring that Honda in here and lock it in your garage. Let’s go.”
Larson kept Lenny company with the handgun aimed at his chest while the Honda got put away out of sight. In the pickup, Larson stowed the rolled-up clothes under the passenger seat with the shotgun and told Lenny to head east on the state highway toward the town of Clayton.
“Where are you taking me?” Lenny asked. He was sweating through his shirt.
“On a scenic country drive.” Larson cranked up the air conditioner. “How long have you lived in Springer, Lenny?”
“Twelve years come this September. I got a wife and two teenage kids. That’s why I needed the money.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Larson said amiably. “Do you know the back roads around here?”
“Some,” Lenny answered.
“Good. I’m gonna tell you what roads to take. If you get me to where I want to go, you may just live to spend that Crime Stoppers’ money on your wife and kids. You savvy?”
Lenny gulped and nodded.
About twenty-five miles outside of town, Larson directed Lenny to an unpaved county road that headed south. They followed it to a few miles north of the village of Roy, where it joined up with a two-lane state highway. Past the village a turnoff took them near the famous Bell Ranch and across the Canadian River.
They were traveling in the least populated area of New Mexico, where cows outnumbered the people and traffic was almost nonexistent. A few miles beyond the small Hispanic settlement of Trementia, Larson ordered Lenny off the pavement onto a country road that wandered through a vast basin peppered with red-rock mesas. When the country road turned into a seldom used ranch road, Lenny’s pickup truck with the off-road option package handled the washouts, deep ruts, and boulders without difficulty.
Ten miles beyond the cutoff to the ranch headquarters, Larson ordered Lenny to stop the truck. “Get out,” he said when Lenny killed the engine.
“What are you going to do?” Lenny asked in a shaky voice.
The bright afternoon sun bounced off the hood of the truck. It was getting on to the hottest time of the day. There were few clouds in the sky and virtually no shade on the parched basin. Heat waves rising from the ground distorted Larson’s view of a few nearby stray cows that had raised their heads at the sound of the truck.
Larson waved the gun at Lenny. “Out.”
Lenny scrambled out of the truck.
Larson slid behind the wheel and opened the driver’s-side window. “It’s ten miles back to the ranch headquarters cutoff and about twelve miles to Santa Rosa. You get to pick which way you want to go.”
“Don’t leave me out here without water,” Lenny pleaded.
“If you’d rather, I’ll shoot you now and leave you for the buzzards.”
Lenny shook his head. “Don’t do that.”
“My brother likes your company, Lenny, that’s the only reason you’re still alive. Buy him a beer when you get that Crime Stoppers check.”
Lenny nodded, lowered his eyes, and looked away.
Larson closed the window and drove off. The dust kicked up by the rear tires momentarily obscured Lenny as he stood at the side of the road. Larson thought about backing up and shooting Lenny just to be on the safe side, and he braked the truck to a stop. Through the rearview mirror he saw Lenny take off like a jackrabbit at a dead run cross-country.
He drove on, calculating it would take Lenny a good four or five hours to reach civilization on foot and get to a telephone, if he didn’t die from dehydration first. He would have to ditch the truck and find another ride, but he had more than enough time to get to Santa Fe before then.
Larson pressed the accelerator and bounced the truck over some big rocks. If he remembered correctly, he had about another mile of rough road before it smoothed out.