The Juliet (17 page)

“Tony never talks about his daughter.”

“Eh,” Scottie said, pulling the wheel as they mounted a spiral turn towards an invisible destination. “He thinks the girl looks a little like me.”

“You’re joking.”

“Of course I am.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not good with jokes, but that’s okay. I have a lot of negative capability.”

When they finally reached the gravel lot of Carter’s Supply, it was empty except for an old silver Chevy. The sign on the door was flipped to CLOSED.

“Looks like Carter cleared his schedule for us.”

They crossed the lot to the pitted glass door and Willie knocked and called out for Carter. There was no answer, and when she pushed, the door opened easily, swinging inward to the dirty foyer that smelled of grease and coins.

“Carter,” Willie called again, leaning in.

Scottie stepped up behind her. “Feels empty. Let’s get out of here.”

“It’s not. It goes on, and he lives in the back. It’s disgusting.” Willie led the way past the cash station, through the grimy door behind it, and into the room where they kept the small stock in boxes piled up to the acoustic ceiling tiles. It opened on the side to the garage.

“Carter?”

No Carter.

In the garage there was an old, red and brown paneled Matador in one of the bays, but it wasn’t elevated. Underneath, a pair of jean-clad legs stuck out from the side, and Willie flashed back to her childhood in Hardy. It was ridiculous, some form of PTSD that made her expect to see corpses wherever she went.

“Carter.”

Carter rolled out on the creeper, nice and slow as if he’d been waiting to make an unsettling entrance. Tucked by his side was the rabbit gun. Carter was covered in a sheen of ashy sweat, but he looked ready for anything. Edgy.

Willie realized too late that, while she had told Carter she was coming over, she forgot to mention she was bringing a companion.

Carter said, “Who the fuck is that?” He hopped up, gun in hand, holding it around the barrel as if he’d be just as happy using it as a bat as shooting it. The creeper rolled away and bounced off a workbench.

“Relax. This is my friend,” Willie said. “Here, I brought the bag.” Willie held out the sack. Somewhere deep in the bowels of Carter’s Auto and Supply the television was on, making sounds like distant birds.

Carter’s eyes were wet and red-rimmed, contrasted against his dirty tan face. He looked crazy. He was crazy. His grip slid back onto the stock, and he raised the gun. Pointed it at Scottie. Said, “You’re that runner?”

Scottie nodded. “Rhys Nash.”

Carter look confused. Even insulted. “
Re
-snash yourself, mother fucker.” Then he lowered his aim and fired.

The shot was deafening inside the brick walls of the garage. A piece of the cinderblock exploded in a little cloud behind Scottie, providing the illusion that he’d been narrowly missed when in fact he’d been narrowly
hit
. Willie fell from the noise, arms over her head like a monkey, only to find herself on top of a writhing Scottie.

Carter had shot away a small chunk of the man’s thigh.

Willie shouted, “You asshole,” but she couldn’t hear herself very well.

Carter was in shock. It looked like he’d been high all day, fantasizing and acting out a number of scenarios, but nothing like this.

Scottie struggled to sit up, his hands pushing down on his bleeding thigh. He gritted his teeth and jerked his head towards a nearby rack where there was a roll of blue shop rags bearing the label WYP-ALL. Willie grabbed it and tore off sheets to smother the wound. There was no time to worry about what sort of post-industrial trash and recycling chemicals went into the roll.

Scottie let out a roar.

Carter put his gun down in a corner, out of sight. He was embarrassed and suddenly sober.

Willie said, “Why the hell did you shoot him?”

“It was only in the leg.”

“Look at him, dumbass. He’s nothing
but
leg.”

Scottie was panting now. “For God’s sake stop.” He pushed Willie away, off the wound, taking over the job himself.

“Are you sure?” Willie’s hands and forearms were covered in blood, and when she shifted, her knees left clean circular voids inside bloody haloes on the floor.

“Even pressure,” Scottie said.

“That’s what I was doing.”

Willie crawled backwards, watching the blood. “It’s slowing, right?”

Carter shuffled over to get a better look and said, “I can find something for the pain, dude.”

Scottie grunted again, showing his teeth.

“That’s a no thank you,” said Willie as she jabbed Carter in the knee.

“Jesus! I said I was sorry.”

“No you didn’t.” Willie pulled more shop rags off the roll and started to wipe her arms down. “You really are an asshole.”

“Stop calling me names.”

“Both of you…” But Scottie didn’t finish his thought. He fainted instead.

* * *

In the parking lot at Beatty Medical Center, Tony noticed two competing news vans parked in priority locations, and as he passed through reception he spotted the press hawks: two rumpled guys staring into their cold coffee and stale bagel sandwiches. They spotted him too, so he moved a little faster. They blinked and half stood while trying to figure out why Tony Jackpot was strolling through Beatty Med like he owned the place.

Tony’s boot steps echoed in the reception area. He liked that, but attention came at a cost.

The news guys were there for Dexon. A cause of death hadn’t been announced yet. Tony assumed the center had been swarming with press a day ago, and these losers were the last ones remaining. Nothing else to do but wait. Tony moved quickly, pushing through doors he shouldn’t. Those loser reporters were like zombies detecting movement in their environment, and Tony was meat on the hoof.

A mere two strides into the restricted zone—a dazzle of bright light and technology—and he was intercepted by a dark-haired nurse whose badge read “L. Collins.” She hooked his arm and swung him around,
do se do
. He was glad to see her.

They kissed each other’s cheeks too hard. Anyone could see they were exes not exed enough. She was middle-aged, fit and tan, but wore a little too much makeup for a nurse.

Tony lingered, his face close to her neck. “Hey Larry, a nurse should smell clean, not expensive.”

“You can’t be back here. Not today.” Larissa pulled Tony out of foot traffic and into a cubicle where another nurse was parked in front of a computer screen.

“Hey, Mr. Turner.” The nurse only barely looked up from her work.

“Hey Pammy. I guess you’re all on high alert because of the cowboy.”

Larissa’s frown confirmed she’d had it with all the attention. “What do you need, Tony?”

“Scottie got himself into a scrape. There was a woman involved.”

“A woman? You know Scottie isn’t one of your casino rat friends. You should make him come in.” Larissa’s dark lined eyes narrowed. “This woman. She was the skinny one who found Dexon?”

Tony nodded. “The old dude fell for her, some kind of love at first sight deal. Gave her his house and then, well, you know.”

She did. Larissa closed her eyes for a moment. Pammy stopped typing and pretended to be confounded by the various notations in a patient’s digital file. Larissa moved quickly to assemble a sterile bag full of alcohol, gauze, wound gel, and a disposable surgical stapler. Her movements and choices were routine by now. She said, “I’m going to lose my job one of these days.”

Pammy nodded in agreement. She started humming
that song
and bobbing her head.

“You ever been to The Mystery House, Pammy?”

The nurse’s reply was deadpan. “I ain’t no hippie.”

“Of course not.” When Larissa finished, she shoved the bag forward at Tony. “You know the deputy on scene, he was messed up pretty bad.”

Tony didn’t bother to inspect the contents. Larry was the expert, and he was just the technician. “What do you mean?”

“Looks like he made the same mistake as Scottie’s girlfriend.”

“Mistake?”

Larissa lowered her voice. “That poor man wasn’t dead. Yet. The deputy checked Dexon’s vitals, called it the same way she did, except he made it official. The guys on the wagon took their time to collect the body, and it wasn’t until they were halfway here when one of the techs sees a boot jerk. Just once. That was the heart attack.
That
was when Dexon died.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit.”

Tony pushed back his hat and rubbed his forehead. “He could have been revived?”

Larissa shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“This is going to kill Willie.”

“Trained pros thought he was dead. Besides, the whole truth might never come out. It wouldn’t be a problem if the man wasn’t famous,” Larissa said. “Nobody looks good here, Tony.”

“You do, babe.”

The compliment bounced right off her. “Good luck, Doctor Jackpot. Watch out for the reporters, and keep your trap shut about Dexon.”

“Will do.”

“
And
,” said Larissa, half shouting as Tony slipped through the double doors, “If you’re in a traveling mood, you might want to pop into the Sunoco. Our baby got a job at the register.” A parting shot, aimed right at his back. Dawn was nearly twenty. She was supposed to be in college, and there were too many reasons why she wasn’t.

Tony waved, his head pointed towards the exit, making sure Larissa had no way of telling whether the mark had been hit.

* * *

When he arrived at the garage, Tony wouldn’t look at Willie or Carter. By way of greeting, he said, “Fewer details I know the better.” He went to work on Scottie right where he lay on the stained concrete floor, head cradled on a filthy lumbar pillow.

The bullet had gouged a trough across Scottie’s thigh, leaving something like a cattle brand, but it wasn’t so deep that it involved muscle.

Scottie was conscious again and suffering. The main problem was that the wound traversed already too-tight skin. There was no slack and every slight movement caused it to tear open a little more. Scottie couldn’t move or be moved until the wound was dressed properly.

Tony said, “Hell of a bargain. Maximum pain for minimum damage. You should have let this dope give you some dope.”

Scottie responded with a one size fits all expression of discomfort.

Tony sorted through the kit Larissa had assembled and got to work. The blood-soaked WYP-ALL rags flew through the air as Tony peeled them away, and they landed in a loose nest on the floor behind him. When he was through, the fix looked like pro work, the bandage blazing white—the only clean thing in the entire complex of Carter’s Auto and Supply.

During the procedure, Scottie used meditation techniques to endure the pain. The blood loss helped. His face smoothed and his eyes calmed, defocused
.

Willie’d never seen him so unanimated. “You look strange,” she said to him, but Scottie didn’t respond.

“Nice to see the 80s weren’t a total wash. Just don’t go floating away on me, brother,” Tony said. “Mr. Carter I’d like to take him home, if it’s all the same to you.”

Carter seemed unsure. “What if something happens? What if he has to go to the hospital anyway?”

It was a fair point. Tony said, “Let us have the pea shooter. If he comes down with an infection or some crap like that, we’ll say he shot himself cleaning it. I assume it’s unregistered.”

“I got it for my fourteenth birthday.”

“We’ll give it back to you when he’s out of the woods.”

Carter didn’t like the deal.

Tony pulled a Swiss Army knife from his back pocket. “I get it. The gun means a lot to you. This pig sticker means a lot to me. I won it off of Governor Guinn two years ago—those are his initials on the handle. We’ll trade for a while, okay?”

Carter took the knife from Tony and ran his fingers over the silver
KG
in the red enamel. Finally, the drug dealer had been won over. He handed the rabbit gun to Tony.

“Careful,” Tony said as he gave over the knife. “It’s drenched in the blood of Democrats.”

“Cool,” said Carter. He offered no similar warning for the care of his beloved .22, but the transaction satisfied him.

Carter monkeyed with the latch on the garage door, and as the metal growled on its tracks, the workroom was suddenly full of desert afternoon light. Now it was too easy to see all of the blood that had spilled. It looked as if there had been a massacre.

Carter said, “Pull up here, and I’ll help you load him in.”

“I’ll drive the truck back,” Willie said. She already had the keys.

“Yes, you will.” Tony started to walk out to his car, pausing just long enough to cast a shadow over her to send a message: he was big and she was little. With this adventure she’d made Tony’s shit list.

Willie shrugged and made her way to the green truck.

As they loaded Scottie into Tony’s 4Runner, Tony noticed that Carter hadn’t received so much as a single call the entire time they were with him. Either the kid was hyper efficient or a complete failure as a drug dealer. He sure as hell was a lonely guy.

Tony said, “We’ll bring back your gun in a couple of days, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he slid behind the wheel of his vehicle and shut the door on Carter. Tony adjusted the rearview so he could keep an eye on Willie as she climbed into Scottie’s truck.

Scottie sighed. He was half reclining in the back seat, his hip propped on a cushion and his leg out straight.

“Last call, man. Carter’s still offering,” Tony said. “No? Then maybe you want to tell me why that piss-ant dealer wanted to end your running career?”

“I don’t know. Willie had to settle up with him. I guess the guy just flipped when he saw me.”

Tony couldn’t imagine that scenario. “Willie asked for a wing man?”

Scottie didn’t answer.

In his rearview, Tony considered Willie’s pale profile. The Dexon thing put bad thoughts into his head. The man could have lived.

When the green truck pulled out, Tony followed. Carter stood in the gravel lot, watching as they pulled away. He looked like a giant, sad kid who had missed the school bus.