Friend of the Devil

by James D F Hannah

  “I chalk it up to charm and good luck, Sheriff.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night. These guys who messed you up say what that merchandise was?”

  “The implication was I should have known already, and they didn’t give a fuck when I told them I didn’t. You had any issue with semis getting hijacked?”

  The corners of Gibbs’s mouth turned downward. “Four in the last sixteen months. The trucking companies are putting warnings out to drivers about it, telling them to avoid the area if they can. Which stinks, because there’s a truck stop in the county line they’ll use to fill up, grab a shower, and get a bite to eat.”

  “Maybe the occasional truck stop hooker blow job, I’m sure.”

  “Probably. But if we don’t have those trucks coming through, it’s money the business loses, and then money the county loses, and we don’t have much we can afford to lose. The saving grace is this is the cleanest route to hook you up with Pittsburgh if you’re coming from the west, so the trucks, they still come through, but another one like this makes it tough for the companies to let the drivers keep that up.”

  Woody said, “This look like a hijack?”

  “It looks like something.” Gibbs turned on his heels and motioned for us to follow him. “Come on, since it’s obvious you are hell-bound not to go away.”

  We walked past the troopers guarding at the yellow tape. Others looked at us with suspicion. No small amount of curiosity as to what a pair of butt-ugly civilians were doing on their crime scene.

  The tires on the 18-wheeler had exploded and turned into shards of rubber clinging to the rims. Those boxes we had seen earlier—scattered from the opened doors on the trailer—closer up we saw they were boxes of tennis shoes. I recognized the brand as the same ones from the pawnshop back room the previous day. The ones that asshole rapper sold, the one who’d married some chick famous for having a fat ass and a sex tape.

  The driver’s side door on the cab was propped open, and the glass shattered. Several deputies stood about a dozen feet away.

  We came around to the group of deputies. A headless body was splayed out in the middle of two-foot-high weeds. What was left of him wore jeans and a T-shirt that read, “Getting lucky in Kentucky.” He clutched a pistol in his right hand, flopped casually to the side.

  “Hope no one had a heavy breakfast,” I said.

  “Already had four guys lose theirs.” Gibbs pointed toward a ditch line about fifteen feet away. “The odor might be better over there than is it here. From what we can put together, whoever did this must have run him off the road, landed him on his side. They came after him while he was in the tractor, and he opened fire on them.” Gibbs pointed to splotches of blood that trailed back toward the road. “We’re guessing he got someone because the blood runs from the tractor back to the road. They returned the favor by blowing his face off and dragging him over here.”

  “They left a hell of a lot of merchandise in their wake,” I said.

  “Even more in the trailer. I’m not sure how much of anything they got.”

  “I’ll tell you that there were already stacks of these goddamn shoes in the back of the pawnshop yesterday.”

  “What you saying exactly? The Saints are changing business plans?” Gibbs said. “Getting out of running guns and going into the lucrative black market of tennis shoes?”

  Woody poked his head into the rear of the trailer. “More in here. You had a walk-through yet, Sheriff?”

  “Not yet. Some crime scene techs are driving up from Charleston. We’ve got to wait on them.”

  Not that much in Chandler County made sense, but this topped the cake. You put an 18-wheeler on its side to steal some three hundred–dollar basketball shoes, you better get every goddamn box in sight. This was sloppy and lazy. It didn’t feel right.

  “So they somehow flip this semi, kill the driver, pull up with another truck, load up maybe a third of the trailer’s load, and leave?” I said. “Plus, this had to go down after midnight. There’s no way you can pull off this much chaos and not get attention any earlier.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Gibbs said. “This road doesn’t see much traffic after the evening news is on. No houses nearby, no businesses, no reason to be out here. Nothing but 18-wheelers connecting back through to the interstate. Depending on schedules, might be lots of traffic, and might be nothing.” He shifted his gaze to me. “This is where you tell me why you think the Saints did this.”

  “What I know, Sheriff, is they owe something to people not afraid to use muscle to prove a point. They’re punching well outside their weight class, which is how you end up with this. Killing someone this way, hauling off a trailer, this a thing you see them doing?”

  Gibbs ran his hand across the back of his neck, twisting his head around as if trying to move something back into place. “A week ago, if you’d asked me that question when Jimmy Omaha was still alive, I’d have said no. Jimmy was a lot of things—none of them good—but he drew a line.” He looked mournfully at the 18-wheeler like a creature staring at a new species higher up the food chain, realizing its own days are numbered. “That line’s obliterated right here.”

  “What are your thoughts on Mickey Nevada?”

  “He’s a weasel who’d slit his mother’s throat for a nickel.”

  Woody said, “And you know they run guns for Colonel Oates?”

  “Everyone does. But it’s not my back yard, boys, and not my worry. I got enough garden to tend.”

  “Still a thing you’ve heard, though?” I said.

  “Course it is. For almost every gun they sell out front, there’s three that get sold through the back door.”

  “You don’t seem to be jumping to deal with that issue.”

  Gibbs walked closer and leaned toward us. His voice took on a conspiratorial whisper, the tone of a man sharing government secrets in a parking garage.

  “I got enough to deal with on a day-to-day without compounding the problem,” he said. “I’ve got eight officers to cover the whole county since the only other police is the four-man local force for Raineyville, and I wouldn’t trust them to piss in a boot in a rainstorm. I could try to mount up a sting operation on the pawnshop, except the deputy who causes me the most pain in my balls is the son of the pawnshop owner, and I’m not sure what day I want to deal with the headache of that. Then we’ll ignore how G&O is a chunk of the tax base for the entire county, meaning they pay my salary in a roundabout way, and the salaries of my deputies, including the aforementioned pain in my balls. I’ve got no way to disrupt that apple cart without it fucking up a handful of other lives. I’m not in the mood to fucker up the world without a solid reason, and I’m too old and too broken to work security at Walmart.”

  “Look, Sheriff,” I said, “I appreciate—”

  Gibbs held out the flat of his hand as though he were stopping an oncoming car. “Hold it right there, because there’s nothing you’ll say after ‘I appreciate’ that means you appreciate anything. What you two gentlemen have that I don’t is the ability to roll in and out of here and move on with your lives. For me, this town, this county—it is my life. The best thing you could do is walks yourselves home and let us deal with this. The man who killed Jimmy Omaha is at the regional jail. It’s Dave’s van on the video. He’s got no alibi at the time of the shooting. He’s got more motive than a hog’s got teats. All that is why you were here, and I’m thinking it feels done and finished, so go on and never let your shadow fall between the Chandler County lines again, and live the rest of your lives happy.”

  “We’re ignoring the mobsters pistol-whipping my old man,” I said.

  “And they pissed on you,” Woody said.

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re not ignoring that; we’re just trying to forget it.”

  Gibbs sucked air in between his teeth. “I’m sorry about what happened to you and your father, Malone. I am. But if the Saints own responsibility on this, then this ain’t a thing I can let slide. I’ll talk to t
he state boys, and we’ll handle it. You should go take care of your dad.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Hot damn day.” He set his hat back on his head, adjusting it until the brim was even over his eyes. “Go home, boys. Don’t make me ask again.”

  30

  Woody and I decided in the drive away from Sheriff Gibbs to say “fuck you” to his advice about leaving town. Instead, we thought it might be a good idea to swing by the Saints’ clubhouse. Gibbs wouldn’t play dumb for long, and when he came by, he’d have with him an army of state police officers. Whatever answers Woody and I were looking for, we wouldn’t get once they showed up.

  There wasn’t one road hog in the parking lot for Heavenly Towing. A “Closed” sign hung on the locked gates.

  “If they stole the truck, there was no way they were bringing it back here,” Woody said.

  “No, but when Gibbs and the state police arrive, this place being empty will look guilty as fuck to them.” I rapped my knuckles on the wire mesh gate. “Five’ll get you ten that there’s something in that office we could use.”

  “When you say that, are you talking about the amount of prison time we’ll get for breaking and entering?”

  “After the litany of felonies we’ve committed together, now is when you’re worried about getting arrested?”

  “I’m just trying to get Dave out of jail, Henry. You want revenge.”

  “You say it like it’s a dirty word.”

  “A wise man once said, ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’”

  I rattled the gate. “All due respect, Woody, I watched you white-trash waterboard a dumbass cracker white supremacist, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t use you as my barometer for when I should or shouldn’t go on a rampage of bloody vengeance.”

  A length of heavy chain and a thick lock kept the gate door closed. “Can you pick this lock?” I said.

  “Are you asking on practical or moral grounds?”

  “Both.”

  “I’m almost insulted.”

  “On which grounds? Practical or moral?”

  Woody drew his small black zippered case from a front jeans pocket. “Both.” He bent down on one knee, resting the case on his raised knee. He unzipped it to reveal several sterling silver lock picks, gave the lock a perfunctory glance, and went to work.

  It was all over except the crying in thirty seconds, when the lock snapped open and he pulled it loose, dropping it to the ground.

  “That’s meant more for intimidating than anything,” he said as he stood up. “Because they sure as fuck aren’t protecting anything with a lock that shitty.”

  “Or maybe you’re just that good.”

  “Well fucking duh,” he said, and pushed the gate open.

  The garage bay doors were pulled shut and locked. We didn’t know how long we had, so we hustled to the lot office. The door wasn’t locked.

  “Folks were in a hurry,” I said.

  “Not a good sign of things,” Woody said.

  Drops of dried blood on the ground led into the office. “That’s even worse.”

  “Especially for whoever’s bleeding.”

  The office waiting area had old chairs with busted seats where the Styrofoam padding seeped out like pus from a wound, and motorcycle magazines scattered across the coffee table. There was a coffeepot on top of a filing cabinet, still on, the carafe about half-full.

  The trail of blood led to a locked door. Woody worked the lock and opened the door into the garage bay area.

  The space was emptier than a loan shark’s heart. No motorcycles. No vehicles. Tools had been removed from the walls. Bits of posters clung to thumbtacks like rivets of torn flesh. Oil stains soaked into the concrete. The place had been stripped bare.

  “What the fuck happened here?” I said.

  “They were in a hurry to get out,” Woody said. “And it doesn’t look like they’re coming back.”

  The blood trail raced a path across the concrete floor like a child’s maze in a coloring book. It ran all the way to a door on the far side of the garage into something that looked like a storage closet. But something—or someone—had bled their way there, and it rather behooved Woody and I to find out who or what. Why? Because we’re those kinds of idiots.

  Woody took one side of the doorframe and I took the other and pulled our pistols. Traded glances, and I gave the knob a quick twist and threw the door open.

  The shotgun blast erupted from inside the closet and sent my ears ringing as the orange flame flew up low from the ground, angling upward as the buckshot rattled the ceiling. The shotgun barrel wavered in the air, and I reached down and grabbed it and pulled hard, wrenching it loose from its owner.

  Woody swung around and pointed his pistol downward. He took a beat and his face dropped and then a second later, so did the pistol, falling to his side. He looked at me and motioned for me to step out.

  I kept my gun aimed at whatever I imagined was in the closet as I stepped into the doorway.

  I recognized him. Stanley. The kid from the pawnshop, the brother of Teddy Oklahoma.

  He was slumped onto the floor, clutching his stomach as blood pulsed through his fingers. He had been crying, but he must have stopped once his body kicked into shock and the pain turned into just another sensation. His face was wet and red, and he struggled to catch his breath. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans and a leather vest with a “Probationary Member” patch on the chest.

  He sucked in air. His mouth trembled. “Help me. Please.”

  Woody took out his phone and called 911.

  I dropped into a crouch and said, “What happened?”

  He struggled to brace his feet against the concrete, to push himself upright. I took hold of his arm.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Stay how you are. Ambulance’ll be here in a minute.” A beat. “Is this from that overturned 18-wheeler on Route 323?”

  He blinked his eyes hard. “The . . . the 18-wheeler. Mickey told us . . . told us . . . told us we . . . we had to do that. That . . . that we had to do that job. Said . . . if we did it, we didn’t have to do any more guns for the colonel.” A flash of recognition passed over his face. “You’re that guy. That guy . . . from yesterday. From . . . from the shop.” More blinking. “You . . . shot Teddy.”

  Woody pocketed his phone. “Emergency Services said they’re about four minutes out.”

  It felt like the kid wanted to run. His breaths drew shorter, faster. I held on tighter to his arm. “That was me yesterday. But today’s today, and I’m here to help you, okay? I need you to relax. The more you squirm, the more you bleed out.”

  His eyes fluttered, and he gave as much thought to it as he could. The pain was palpable on his face. With almost every breath, every movement, there was a twitch or a wince, a sign of agony.

  He exhaled a long, slow breath and offered a look of acceptance, of understanding his circumstances. “Sure. Sure.”

  “Good,” I said. “Was it the truck driver who shot you?”

  The kid’s face reddened again, and he seemed to want to cry again, but it would only make the pain worse. That’s one of the great ironies of being shot; every possible normal physical reaction you can have to it, only makes everything about it hurt more.

  “Yeah,” Stanley said. “We . . . we set up stop strips on the road . . . blew his tires out . . . That’s how he ended up on his side. Late last night.” He blew out air and squirmed again, still trying to get up. “Oh my God, mister, this hurts so bad. I’m gonna die, ain’t I? I . . . I don’t wanna die.”

  I took his free hand and held it. His grip was weak, his touch cold, like clutching a freshly caught fish. I did what anyone would have done right then; I lied to him.

  “You’re not going to die, kid,” I said. “We’ll get you to the hospital. Just keep your eyes open, keep talking. Can you do that?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. When did the driver shoot you?”

>   “When I climbed up on the side of the truck. I was stupid. It was . . . it was just so fucking cool. We’d done this thing. We been getting trucks before, but nothing like this. And I went up on the side of the truck, like I was king . . . king of the world.” He winced in pain, and in memory of pain. “Then boom. The window shattered and it hurt so bad. So fucking bad.”

  “Where was everyone else?”

  “They were unloading the truck. It . . . it was supposed to be nothing but more shoes.” He managed to work up a smile. “The shoes that rapper sells? The asshole no one likes? People . . . such fucking stupid people . . . paying all that money for those shoes and still hating him.” He shook his head. “So fucking stupid.”

  I smiled at him. “People are idiots.”

  He squeezed my hand. It wasn’t much of a squeeze, with the faintest of effort—putting out less pressure than a toddler. His eyes faded and glazed like morning dew on a car window. I patted him on the face. “Stay with us, Stanley. Need you to hang around.”

  He snapped his head upright. “Sorry. I’m here. I’m here. Sorry.”

  “You’re good. Ambulance is almost here. Tell me what happened next.”

  “I screamed and fell off the truck. Everyone . . . everyone else came over . . . came over to see what was going on. They didn’t see the driver. He came out of the truck cab, had his gun, was waving it at everyone so I shot him.” He looked at me with intensity. “I couldn’t see anything. Everything . . . everything hurt so much. Did I hit him? Do you know? I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t. Is he okay?”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer.

  I looked into his eyes and saw all the terror and fear and regret and torment a person could hold. He must have been there for hours, bleeding out at a measured pace, all the while infection setting in. He would have been better off dying quick.

  I had known guys who had been gut-shot; it was the type of wound where, if you got lucky and didn’t knock out a kidney or your liver, you instead got to lie around in agony, drowning in nothing but your own thoughts and leaking body fluids. Every moment became a moment when you hoped to die, and your body won’t let it happen without a fight. You became mired in a mix of your own thoughts and the bullet lodged somewhere in your intestines, dying with every breath for endless hours, waiting for one of the myriad defenses in our body to close up shop and give you peace.