All these thoughts rushed through his head as he dozed off again on the flowered couch near the bay window of his rented trailer. Then something woke him. He didn’t know what. A noise out of place, something man-made.
He sat up and looked out onto his wide front yard with the winding lime driveway. He could see all the way to the gate, and it was all in order. The gate was closed and nothing moved. Then he froze. On the edge of the driveway closer to the road, he saw a line of disturbed pine needles. The thick carpet of needles had ruts through it and was patchy in places where he’d walked, and then there was the giant burnt swath. But they always had a certain look when newly turned over. The black on the bottom had a different color until the sun baked it for a few hours. That was what caught Wells’ eye as he looked outside. Then, while he was still motionless behind the tinted window, he saw movement. Someone had entered his yard and was crouching on the far side, slowly making his way toward the house. He looked around. The gun was under the seat of the Toyota. He had two cheap nine-millimeters in the van, but they were in pieces right now, waiting to be cleaned. He slid off the couch and into his kitchen, reaching up onto the counter and snatching his keys as he slid along the cheap linoleum.
Whoever was coming would get a surprise at the front door. He looked over his shoulder at the cable that ran from inside the house out to the roof and into the canisters in the dead hanging plants lining the porch. He cursed himself for not having anything as spectacular in the back.
He could run now or wait to see the bedlam. He slipped out the rear door and settled into the bushes. Then he worked his way around in the bushes and scrub pines until he could see the porch. There were three men. He was too far away to recognize any of them, but one was in a blue uniform. They were crouched behind his van, surveying the house. They had no idea he was already outside. He started to tingle inside. This was always the best time. The expectation. This was going to be great.
“Bullshit. I don’t want to go ’round back. The redneck probably has a dog or something,” said Sutter in a harsh whisper.
“Did you hear any dogs?” asked Tasker, confused as to why his normally kickass partner was hesitant.
“I’ll go in the front with you guys. This place is so far out west he can’t run nowhere. We go in fast enough and it won’t matter.”
Tasker didn’t like having this sort of discussion at the scene of an arrest.
The Homestead cop, Driscoll, kept a former Marine’s eye on the trailer, unconcerned about the spat between partners.
Tasker leaned into Sutter and said quietly, “I don’t see why you can’t cover the back. You’re still on the arrest.”
Sutter replied even quieter, “Snakes.”
“What?”
“Too many woods. I can’t handle the idea of snakes.”
Tasker just stared and decided not to pursue the issue. He spoke a little louder so the Homestead cop could hear now. “We don’t have the warrant yet, so we gotta see him or get him to come out.”
Now Sutter looked shocked. “You tellin’ me that if he don’t answer, you’re leaving without him?”
Tasker knew his partner was right.
The three men low-crawled to the end of the van and waited. Tasker casually looked in the small rear windows and saw the van was empty except for a box in the rear. He looked closer at the welded box and saw that it was a gas tank of some kind. He forced himself to concentrate on the trailer for now and shifted his attention back to the task at hand. After waiting a few minutes, the three men walked quickly at an angle to the edge of the trailer. Tasker had been careful to find an approach with no windows in direct line. They paused at the edge of the metal steps that led to the porch which covered twenty feet of the front of the trailer.
Tasker cringed as their weight on the porch made the trailer shake. They fanned out, with Driscoll covering the bay window and Sutter and Tasker on either side of the door.
Tasker knocked once. He looked at Sutter.
Sutter said, “We gotta move.”
Tasker tightened his hand around the lever that operated the front door. He cranked it down and felt something click on the other side of the door. Before he could determine if it was the handle or not, he heard a sound above them and saw three separate flashes above the hanging plants. Then the deafening boom. He was on the ground with Sutter when the burning sensation ate its way up his face and over his eyes. Even with his ears ringing from the explosion, he could hear the other two men screaming.
Wells stood slowly and surveyed his trap. All three men were down and yelling obscenities and gurgled coughs. This was technically perfect. It’d had the exact consequence he had intended.
He opened the door to his old Toyota and retrieved his Ruger.22, then strolled over to his van and dug out his keys from his pocket and started it, not worrying about the men in agony on the porch.
He drove down his driveway, stopped at the gate, opened it and drove through like he did almost every day. The only difference was he didn’t bother closing it this time.
As he turned onto the unpaved road, he saw the gold Monte Carlo by itself near the corner of his property. He pulled up next to it and couldn’t resist leaving another little package for anyone who opened the door.
Stepping out of the van, he found he didn’t even need his slim-jim to pick the lock because the trusting cops had left the doors unlocked.
He took a plastic jar filled with a milky fluid out of the rear of the van and set it on the console between the front seats. He connected a thin piece of monofilament fishing line to a ring on the small detonator on the lid of the jar, then roped it through the passenger door. He took the other end and ran it out the driver’s door past the lock. He looped the line once and then shut the door, tightening the fishing line.
Unless they looked closely before they opened the door-and nobody ever did-they’d be in for another surprise.
He smiled, jumping back into the van and rumbling toward Homestead. He needed another place to stay for a few days until he was ready to make his move to The Guinness Book of Records for “Most Shit Caused by a Single Man.”
It took thirty seconds of screaming and rolling on the porch for Tasker to assess how badly they’d been disfigured. He opened his eyes past the intense burning and saw Sutter next to him, also holding his face. He also noticed that Sutter didn’t have a mark on him. He sat up, trying to check his chest and arms for wounds, but he was just damp.
He looked over to Driscoll, who was now trying to stand. He didn’t have a mark on him.
Tasker shouted, “It’s okay, you’re not cut. No blood.”
Sutter paused his wailing to examine himself more closely. Then after feeling the film of liquid on him, he started to yell, “Acid! Acid!”
Tasker stumbled off the steps and down to the side of the trailer, looking for a garden hose. He felt along the tin walls, occasionally snatching views with his eyes-every time they opened, it was like a fire on his cornea. He found the nub of a short hose and followed it back to the faucet. He twisted the knob and let the water splash up onto his face. There was instant relief. It still burned, but much less than during the initial contact.