“All right,” Jack said as he pulled onto the street where the house was. “We’re here.”
They’d driven down the street a few times in the past week, trying to scope out the neighborhood. On their second drive by, David had seen the camera in the tree, so they waited a couple days before coming back. The last time they’d come, they sprung for a rental car so the drug dealers wouldn’t recognize his truck. They didn’t know how carefully anyone was monitoring the camera (or cameras, if they hadn’t spotted all of them), but they wanted to be cautious.
Jack stopped several houses from their target, parking the truck on a slight curve about a hundred yards away to give David a good shooting lane down the street. They’d discussed this. It would be hard on Jack getting back to the truck after the shooting started, but David’s rifles would be able to reach out a lot farther than anything the guys inside would have. So the distance was in their favor.
“This is it, brother,” Jack said.
“Good luck.” David didn’t stir; he spoke from beneath the blanket.
Jack’s heart beat hard. Sweat slid down his skin inside his button-down shirt.
“I’m leaving the window down,” he said. “You probably won’t be able to hear the Derringer, but listen anyway. Be ready when I come busting out of that place.”
“When you grab a gun,” David said, “don’t get nothing too complicated.”
“I reckon I’ll grab what I can grab.”
“Grab something you know how to use is all I’m saying. You don’t want to be fumbling with the damn safety or figuring out how to get a round in the chamber.”
“I ain’t gonna have time to be choosy, I don’t think.”
“Don’t miss.”
“You neither.”
Jack got out of the Chevy and started walking down the street. His boot heels clicked on the pavement, loud in the morning silence. His hat felt heavy on his head, weighed down by the Derringer. They’d talked about him dressing different, trying to fit in better, but they decided once he opened his mouth, the people in the house would figure him for a redneck anyway. He’d had a shaved head and worn the same green clothes as everyone else in boot camp, but it didn’t stop them from nicknaming him Hillbilly. Might as well make it part of his story.
Jack thought as he approached the house, If we can’t kill the sons of bitches, if it all goes to hell, please just let David get away.
He’d been nervous from the start about bringing David. But just because he was sixteen didn’t mean he had any less right to want to avenge Jamie than Jack did. Jack had never been as close to David as he had been to Jamie, and Jamie had probably been closer to his little brother than his older. Jack was eight years older than David; Jamie had been born right in between them. When Jack had gone into the army, David was a kid still; when he came back, his baby brother was a young man, already shaving and dipping snuff, with a pretty girlfriend and a deer mounted on the wall bigger than any he or Jamie had ever shot. And Jamie was gone to college in Reno. Jack had been in such a hurry to get away from Montana, but when he was away he missed the ranch and the mountains and waking up in the morning in the house and having breakfast with his brothers. When he came back, though, it was all different. And then there was this; how had it gotten so bad that he was here now, walking down some Carson City street with a gun under his hat?
The neighborhood wasn’t bad, some crappy houses and some nice ones. A white cat hurried across the street in front of him. An automated sprinkler kicked on at one house; one nozzle was busted and sprayed water all over the sidewalk. Jack walked right down the center of the street. He thought of a gunfighter in an old western walking down Main Street and into trouble; he told himself this was going to be different from the movies he’d watched growing up.
The house was nondescript. Beige siding. Roof in need of repair. A couple of brown patches in the lawn. A few trees out front, nothing too big.
He ignored the camera. He stepped over a dead bird. He tried to control the shaking in his hands. The door swung open even before he raised his hand to knock. A white guy in a pair of cutoff jeans and a T-shirt. The guy was thin; he had red hair and an unruly beard. Could have been thirty-five, but probably was twenty-five and just worn the hell out. His shirt said Misfits on it in green letters; Jack wondered if that was some kind of rock band. The guy had one hand behind his back. A skinny Mexican kid who couldn’t have been eighteen stood behind him, wearing jeans and no shirt. His ribs stood out like slats on a fence.
“What the hell you want, cowboy?” the redheaded guy asked.
Jack tried to keep his voice confident but reverential. “Sorry to just show up like this, man, but I need some crystal.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said without hesitating.
“Stu Kicking Bird told me this was the place to come. He’s dry, and I can’t wait.”
Misfit looked at him for a moment.
“Come on. Let’s talk inside.”
Jack fought the urge to turn and look down the street toward David.
When the door was shut, the one with the Misfits shirt pulled his hand out from behind his back. He didn’t point the gun at Jack but just showed him that it was there. It was a .357 Magnum with a sandalwood grip, like something a gun collector might have, not a drug dealer. Jack pretended it didn’t bother him.
They were in a small foyer, closed in by a second thick oak door that looked a heck of a lot more secure than the one in front. Jack hadn’t expected this. He’d wanted to get in, find an opportunity, shoot one or two guys real quick, grab a gun, then head out the door, shooting as he went. A second door was an obstacle. Not a big one, but anything was trouble when he didn’t have much room for mistakes anyway.
“Arms up,” Misfit said.
Jack raised his arms, and the Mexican came in to pat him down. If they checked his hat, he’d have to make a move for Misfit’s gun, but he probably wouldn’t be able to get it. The Mexican was thorough, even checking Jack’s boots, but he ignored the hat.
“I know y’all are a distributor and you wouldn’t normally deal with a guy like me,” Jack said. “But Stu was dry and I ain’t got time to keep looking.”
“Why the hurry?” Misfit said.
“I’m just driving through from L.A.,” Jack said, wanting to get the story out quickly. “My sister was down there using and I’m trying to get her back home to Wyoming where I can get her some help. But I’m a realistic man and I know she can’t just quit. I’m just trying to get enough to get home so I can get her some help.”
Both men stared at him suspiciously.
“I ain’t a user but I ain’t judging y’all. I just want to get my sister through this. I been out looking all night and all I found was Stu. All I want is to get some stuff an y’all won’t never see me no more.”
“Where’s your sister at?” Misfit asked.
“She’s at a motel, sicker’n a dog.”
“Well,” Misfit said, “you’re going to have to talk to Gabe. He makes the decisions.”