“Who stole our shit, asshole?”
“I don’t….”
“Hey dipshit, I saw the peephole. Don’t tell me you didn’t look when you heard them breaking in. Who stole our shit?”
“It was dark –” Turnbull smacked the top of his head with the butt of the flashlight. It made a loud “THWACK.”
“Owwww!”
“Listen, stupid. Now, my shit’s missing and I fucking want it back. You tell me who has it and where to find them or your fucking head is going missing. You read me?”
“Yeah,” Junior added. “He’s not kidding. He will cut your head off. And add it to his collection.”
“Okay, fuck,” said the manager, rubbing his skull. Turnbull let him loose. He looked around for a moment, trying to evaluate his options. Turnbull stepped forward and raised the flashlight again. The manager’s evaluation settled on the least painful course of action over the short term.
“Okay, there’s these two guys, Whitey and Blackie.”
“Let me guess. One’s white, the other’s black.”
The manager nodded. “Yeah, but Whitey’s African-American and Blackie is…”
“White?” suggested Junior.
“Well, he’s really more Latinx.” Junior and Turnbull stared. “You know, Hispanic. He also kind of identifies as trans –”
“Okay, I got it. Where the fuck are they?”
“I’m not –“
“You better shit me a location, asshole.” Up went the flashlight again.
“They go smoke out in one of the houses three doors down, this side of the street, all right? Fuck. That’s all I know.”
“What, they don’t smoke here?” said Junior. “Everybody’s smoking dope around here.”
“Not pot. Meth, man. They’re meth heads. No hard stuff here. I have fucking standards.”
“Uh huh,” Turnbull said, calm and reasonable. “We are leaving now. We won’t be back.” The manager wisely suppressed the urge to reply “Good.”
Turnbull continued. “You need to forget we were ever here. Do you get that?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean blot it from your memory. Can I rely on you to do that because you understand that I will absolutely come back here and beat you to death in this shitty little room with this flashlight if you even whisper one word to anyone about us? Is that absolutely clear?” The manager nodded; his mouth was too dry to talk.
Turnbull pulled open the door. Junior smiled and said, “Hey, great meeting you. Later.” Then he followed his partner out the door and downstairs. They walked through the old sanctuary with a purpose, not looking at anyone but neither looking away. The spectators had been curious to see how it would go; the cold seriousness of the strangers was a lot less fun than the screaming and shouting tantrum they had been hoping for to break the night’s monotony. Perhaps it would be best to simply mind their own business. These guys were Whitey and Blackie’s problem; no one else felt like making them their own problem.
None of the houses on the street were still occupied by their actual owners. Many had left for the red when they found middle class folks were the designated bad guys in the People’s Republic’s mythology. Others finally got overwhelmed with the various reparations assessments for crimes that occurred a couple centuries before and lost their homes. When the church became a People’s Shelter, there went the neighborhood and that was the last straw.
Turnbull and Junior went through the back yards, avoiding the street. It was easy enough – the fences between yards had long been battered through. The houses they had surrounded were wrecked too. The first one’s windows were gone, along with the gutters and spigots, scavenged of their metal. You could smell from across its yard that some of the locals used it as an improvised latrine.
The second house was burned out. There was a rusting dishwasher in the backyard, sitting there in the middle of the desiccated lawn. There was an unstable-looking garden shed too – they could hear snoring coming from inside.
They entered the backyard of the third house by scrambling over a portion of the grey wood-slat fence someone had kicked over. There were lights inside the house they could see from the back, flickering and dancing – probably candles. Down the side, there was another window. Turnbull pointed to it, then to his eyes. Junior nodded and drew his Glock – Turnbull shook his head and covered an ear. No noise. Junior nodded and he put the gun back in his belt, then quietly moved to the side of the window. Carefully, he peered inside for a moment before dropping back down and facing Turnbull.
He held up two fingers. Turnbull drew his .22 and tightened the silencer. Then he took it off safe.
The rear patio was piled with garbage; the sliding glass door’s glass had long ago been a casualty of the mindless stumbling of an oblivious meth head. Someone had nailed the edge of an old wool Army blanket to the wall above it to act as at least something like a door; Turnbull carefully moved it aside, leading with his weapon.
It was some kind of living room. There was candle light flickering out of a doorway up the hall. And voices, laughing.
“Holy shit, man, we got a gun!”
“It’s all in pieces.”
“We can sell it –“
Turnbull entered the first room, and then crossed it slowly, the pistol up and locked on the doorway with a two-hand grip.
At the edge of the doorway he paused, then exhaled, relaxed, and spun into the room. They were sitting on the floor; one pack was open and Whitey held the two halves of a broken down M4. They looked up, surprised. The front sight swung to Whitey’s forehead first. Turnbull squeezed the trigger and the gun kicked ever so slightly, the report a mere fwoop, and a soft click as the action cycled. The pieces of the carbine dropped into his lap, and he fell awkwardly to his left, eyes and mouth open. Turnbull swung the gun to Blackie.
“Do. Not. Move.” Blackie sat still, eyes wide, mouth slack. Junior came up from behind.
“Check the pack.” Turnbull entered and moved left so his partner would not cross his line of fire.
“I think it’s all here.”
“You sure?” asked Turnbull.
“Yeah, it’s all here.”
“Good.” Turnbull shot Blackie about an inch above the bridge of his nose. The addict fell back, against the wall, and slumped over onto his face.
“Repack it, and let’s go.”
6.
The bus sucked.
Junior had half expected a nice coach, with wi-fi, a bathroom, and reclining seats. Instead, the bench seats, covered in green vinyl, were stained and sometimes slashed. Wisps of white filler poured out where it had not been worn down to the yellow foam. It smelled like unwashed bodies and diesel.
The bus hit another pothole; the jolt seemed to wake some of the passengers for a moment, but then their heads flopped back against the windows or against the jackets they wadded up as makeshift pillows and they returned to half-sleep for however long until the next bump in the road. Sitting in an aisle seat, Junior could see out the front window, past the bored driver whose crappy music was leaking out of his earphones as a tinny hiss punctuated by too much bass. The lights – the left one was noticeably stronger – illuminated the road maybe 100 yards out. After that, it was just formless blackness. The yellow line running to the left disappeared then returned, then disappeared again because no one had bothered to repaint it. It reminded Junior of Morse Code. Dot-dash-dash-dot-dot.
They were probably five hours from Reno; it was nearly four a.m. and he could not sleep.
They had gotten to the bus station on time despite their deadly detour. Ricky met them as planned and Turnbull handed over the rest of the money. The travel docs worked; a bored security guard scanned them and they were a go. He waved them past and down to the buses. They loaded on time but left an hour late. A long hose had broken in the cooling system and the bus driver had to wrap it a dozen times with duct tape. There were already two other taped up holes in the same hose.