No ID.
No ID. The other old boy's truck is got dealer tags on it.
Bell nodded. He looked at the witness. The witness had asked for a cigarette and he lit it and sat smoking. He looked pretty comfortable. He looked as if he'd sat in the back of police cruisers before.
That woman, Bell said. Was she anglo?
Yeah. She was anglo. Had blonde hair. Sort of reddish, maybe.
Did you all find any dope?
Not yet. We're still lookin.
Any money?
We aint found nothin yet. The girl was checked into 121. Had a knapsack with some clothes in it and stuff was all.
Bell looked down the row of motel doors. People standing around in small groups talking. He looked at the black Barracuda.
Has that thing got anything to turn them tires with?
I'd say it would turn em pretty good. It's got a four-forty under the hood with a blower on it.
A blower?
Yep.
I dont see one.
It's one of them sidewinders. It's all under the hood.
Bell stood looking at the car. Then he turned and looked at the sheriff. Can you get away from here for a minute?
I can. What did you have in mind?
I just thought I might get you to ride over to the clinic with me.
All right. Just ride with me.
That'll be fine. Let me just park my cruiser a little better.
Hell, it's all right, Ed Tom.
Let me just pull it up here out of the way. You dont always know how quick you'll be back when you set off someplace.
At the desk the sheriff spoke to the night nurse by name. She looked at Bell.
He's up here to make a identification, the sheriff said.
She nodded and rose and put her pencil in the pages of the book she was reading. Two of em were DOA, she said. They flew that Mexican out of here in a helicopter about twenty minutes ago. Or maybe you already knew that.
Nobody tells me nothin, darlin, the sheriff said.
They followed her down the hallway. There was a thin trail of blood along the concrete floor. They wouldnt of been hard to find, would they? Bell said.
There was a red sign at the end of the hall that read Exit. Before they got there she turned and fitted a key to a steel door on the left and opened it and switched on the light. The room was raw concrete block, windowless and empty save for three steel machinist's tables on wheels. On two of them lay bodies covered with plastic sheets. She stood with her back to the open door while they filed past.
He aint a friend of yours is he Ed Tom?
No.
He took a couple of rounds in the face so I dont think he's goin to look too good. Not that I aint seen worse. That highway out there is a goddamn warzone, you tell the truth about it.
He pulled back the sheet. Bell walked around the end of the table. There was no chock under Moss's neck and his head was turned to the side. One eye partly opened. He looked like a badman on a slab. They'd sponged the blood off of him but there were holes in his face and his teeth were shot out.
Is that him?
Yeah, that's him.
You look like you wished it wasnt.
I get to tell his wife.
I'm sorry about that.
Bell nodded.
Well, the sheriff said. There aint nothin you could of done about it.
No, Bell said. But you always like to think there is.
The sheriff covered Moss's face and reached and lifted back the plastic at the other table and looked at Bell. Bell shook his head.
They'd rented two rooms. Or he did. Paid cash. You couldnt read the name on the register. Just a scrawl.
His name was Moss.
All right. We'll get your information down at the office. Kind of a skankylookin little old girl.
Yeah.
He covered her face again. I dont reckon his wife is goin to like that part of it neither, he said.
No, I dont expect she will.
The sheriff looked at the nurse. She was still standing leaning against the door. How many times was she hit? he said. Do you know?
No I dont, Sheriff. You can look at her if you want. I dont mind and I know she wont.
That's all right. It'll be on the autopsy. Are you ready, Ed Tom?
Yeah. I was ready fore I come in here.
He sat in the sheriff's office alone with the door shut and stared at the phone on the desk. Finally he got up and went out. The deputy looked up.
He's gone home, I reckon.
Yessir, the deputy said. Can I help you with somethin, Sheriff?
How far is it to El Paso?
It's about a hundred and twenty miles.
You tell him I said thank you and I'll give him a call tomorrow.
Yessir.
He stopped and ate on the far side of town and sat in the booth and sipped his coffee and watched the lights out on the highway. Something wrong. He couldnt make sense out of it. He looked at his watch. 1:20. He paid and walked out and got in the cruiser and sat there. Then he drove to the intersection and turned east and drove back to the motel again.
Chigurh checked into a motel on the eastbound interstate and walked out across a windy field in the dark and watched across the highway through a pair of binoculars. The big overland trucks loomed up in the glasses and drew away. He squatted on his heels with his elbows on his knees, watching. Then he went back to the motel.
He set his alarm for one oclock and when it went off he got up and showered and dressed and walked out to his truck with his small leather bag and put it behind the seat.
He parked in the motel parking lot and he sat there for some time. Leaning back in the seat and watching in the rearview mirror. Nothing. The police cars were long gone. The yellow police tape across the door lifted in the wind and the trucks droned past headed for Arizona and California. He got out and walked up to the door and blew out the lock with his stungun and walked in and shut the door behind him. He could see the room pretty well by the light through the windows. Small spills of light from the bulletholes in the plywood door. He pulled the little bedside table over to the wall and stood and took a screwdriver from his rear pocket and began to back the screws out of the louvered steel cover of the airduct. He set it on the table and reached in and pulled out the bag and stepped down and walked over to the window and looked out at the parking lot. He took the pistol from behind his belt and opened the door and stepped out and closed it behind him and stooped under the tape and walked down to his truck and got in.
He set the bag in the floor and he'd reached for the key to turn on the ignition when he saw the Terrell County cruiser pull into the lot in front of the motel office a hundred feet away. He let go of the key and sat back. The cruiser pulled into a parking space and the lights went out. Then the motor. Chigurh waited, the pistol in his lap.
When Bell got out he took a look around the lot and then walked up to the door at 117 and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He ducked under the tape and pushed the door open and reached and found the wallswitch and turned on the light.
The first thing he saw was the grille and the screws lying on the table. He shut the door behind him and stood there. He stepped to the window and looked past the edge of the curtain out at the parking lot. He stood there for some time. Nothing moved. He saw something lying in the floor and stepped over and picked it up but he already knew what it was. He turned it in his hand. He walked over and sat on the bed and weighed the little piece of brass in his palm. Then he tilted it into the ashtray on the bedside table. He picked up the telephone but the line was dead. He put the receiver back in the cradle. He took his pistol from the holster and flipped open the gate and checked the shells in the cylinder and closed the gate with his thumb and sat with the pistol resting on his knee.