Jack had dropped and shined it down the road. ”Look at the ground, Dave, right by that hole in the bushes,“ he said. ”I think Jack just sprung a leak.“ Then he called out into the darkness, ”Hey, Jack, how's it feel?“
”Give me the gun, Sonny.“
”Sorry, Streak .. . I'm sorry to do this to you, too .. . No, no, don't move. I'm just going to take your piece. Now, let's walk over here to the dock and hook up.“
”You're going across the line, Sonny.“
”There's just one line that counts, Dave, the one between the good guys and the shit bags He worked a pair of open handcuffs from the back pocket of his blue jeans. “Put your hands on each side of the rail. You worried about procedure? That guy I just punched a drain hole in, dig this, you heard the Falangist joke down in Taco Tico country about the Flying Nun? This isn't a shuck, either. Some of the junta fucks in Argentina wanted a couple of nuns, human rights types, turned into object lessons. The guy who threw them out of a Huey at a thousand feet was our man Jack. ”See you around, Streak. I'll make sure you get your piece back.“ Then he disappeared through the broken bushes where the wounded man had fled. I raked the chain on the cuffs against the dock railing while mosquitoes droned around my head and my eyes stung with sweat and humiliation at my own failure and ineptitude.
Chapter 10
I HAD gone down to the office Sunday morning and made my report, a mail clerk at the post office called the dispatcher and said that during the night someone had dropped an army-issue .45 automatic through a post office mail slot. The .45 had been wrapped in a paper bag with my name written on the outside. It was hot and bright at noon, with a breeze blowing out of the south, and Clete Purcel walked with me along the dirt road to the spot where Sonny and the man named Jack had entered the brush and run down the bayou's bank toward the four corners. The blood on the leaves was coated with dust from the road. ”It looks like Sonny really cored a hole in the guy. He didn't show up at a hospital?“
”Not yet.“ We walked through the brush and down to the bank. The deep imprints in the mud left by Sonny and the man named Jack were now crisscrossed with the shoe prints of the deputies who had followed Jack's blood trail to a break in the cattails where the bow of a flat-bottomed boat had been dragged onto the sand. Clete squatted down heavily, slipped a piece of cardboard under one knee, and looked back up the bank toward the dock. He wore a pair of baggy, elastic-wasted shorts with dancing zebras printed on them. He took off his porkpie hat and twirled it on his index finger. ”Did you ever see the sawed-down twelve?“ he asked. ”No.“
”You think he was carrying one?“
”I don't know, Clete.“
”But you know a guy like that was carrying a piece of some kind? Right?“ We looked at each other. ”So the question is, why didn't he try to pop Sonny with it? He could have waited for him in the dark and parked one in his brisket,“ he said. ”Because he dropped it,“ I said. Then I said, ”And why didn't anyone find it last night?“ He was spinning his hat on his finger now. His eyes were green and full of light. ”Because it fell in the water,“ he said, and lumbered to his feet. It didn't take long. Seventy feet back down the bank, where the water eddied around a sunken and rotted pirogue that was green and fuzzy with moss, we saw the barrel of the twelve-gauge glinting wetly among the reeds and the wake from a passing boat. The barrel was sawed off at the pump and impacted with sand. The stock had been shaved and shaped with a wood rasp and honed into a pistol grip. A two-foot length of bungee cord, the kind you use to strap down luggage, was looped and screwed into the butt. Clete shook the sand out of the barrel and jacked open the breech. Yellow water gushed out of the mechanism with the unfired shell. Then he jacked four more rounds out on
”Give me the gun, Sonny.“
”Sorry, Streak .. . I'm sorry to do this to you, too .. . No, no, don't move. I'm just going to take your piece. Now, let's walk over here to the dock and hook up.“
”You're going across the line, Sonny.“
”There's just one line that counts, Dave, the one between the good guys and the shit bags He worked a pair of open handcuffs from the back pocket of his blue jeans. “Put your hands on each side of the rail. You worried about procedure? That guy I just punched a drain hole in, dig this, you heard the Falangist joke down in Taco Tico country about the Flying Nun? This isn't a shuck, either. Some of the junta fucks in Argentina wanted a couple of nuns, human rights types, turned into object lessons. The guy who threw them out of a Huey at a thousand feet was our man Jack. ”See you around, Streak. I'll make sure you get your piece back.“ Then he disappeared through the broken bushes where the wounded man had fled. I raked the chain on the cuffs against the dock railing while mosquitoes droned around my head and my eyes stung with sweat and humiliation at my own failure and ineptitude.
Chapter 10
I HAD gone down to the office Sunday morning and made my report, a mail clerk at the post office called the dispatcher and said that during the night someone had dropped an army-issue .45 automatic through a post office mail slot. The .45 had been wrapped in a paper bag with my name written on the outside. It was hot and bright at noon, with a breeze blowing out of the south, and Clete Purcel walked with me along the dirt road to the spot where Sonny and the man named Jack had entered the brush and run down the bayou's bank toward the four corners. The blood on the leaves was coated with dust from the road. ”It looks like Sonny really cored a hole in the guy. He didn't show up at a hospital?“
”Not yet.“ We walked through the brush and down to the bank. The deep imprints in the mud left by Sonny and the man named Jack were now crisscrossed with the shoe prints of the deputies who had followed Jack's blood trail to a break in the cattails where the bow of a flat-bottomed boat had been dragged onto the sand. Clete squatted down heavily, slipped a piece of cardboard under one knee, and looked back up the bank toward the dock. He wore a pair of baggy, elastic-wasted shorts with dancing zebras printed on them. He took off his porkpie hat and twirled it on his index finger. ”Did you ever see the sawed-down twelve?“ he asked. ”No.“
”You think he was carrying one?“
”I don't know, Clete.“
”But you know a guy like that was carrying a piece of some kind? Right?“ We looked at each other. ”So the question is, why didn't he try to pop Sonny with it? He could have waited for him in the dark and parked one in his brisket,“ he said. ”Because he dropped it,“ I said. Then I said, ”And why didn't anyone find it last night?“ He was spinning his hat on his finger now. His eyes were green and full of light. ”Because it fell in the water,“ he said, and lumbered to his feet. It didn't take long. Seventy feet back down the bank, where the water eddied around a sunken and rotted pirogue that was green and fuzzy with moss, we saw the barrel of the twelve-gauge glinting wetly among the reeds and the wake from a passing boat. The barrel was sawed off at the pump and impacted with sand. The stock had been shaved and shaped with a wood rasp and honed into a pistol grip. A two-foot length of bungee cord, the kind you use to strap down luggage, was looped and screwed into the butt. Clete shook the sand out of the barrel and jacked open the breech. Yellow water gushed out of the mechanism with the unfired shell. Then he jacked four more rounds out on
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