Dead Men's Dust

by Matt Hilton

  “Okay, stay right there,” the man said.

  The scuff of shoes through sand marked the man’s progress. Fetching something from his own abandoned vehicle, Cain surmised. The unmistakable thud of a hood being slammed. Then the sound of footsteps returning to the brim of the arroyo. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the man outlined against the stars. In his hand he carried a backpack. He delved in the bag, pulled something out, and cast it down.

  Cain’s assumption was justified. Definitely not a killer. A plastic bottle three-quarters full of water settled against a boulder ten feet in front of him.

  “Don’t say I’m not grateful for your help,” the man called down. Then he turned to go.

  “Wait!” Cain shouted.

  “What?”

  “I’ll do you a trade.”

  “There’s nothing you have that I want.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “How’s about the keys to my car?”

  That got his attention.

  “Throw them up here.”

  “No.”

  “Throw them up here or I’ll shoot you.”

  “No. Like I said, I’ll do you a trade.”

  “Just throw the damn things here or I’ll put a bullet in you.”

  “You do that and you won’t find the keys. While you were off gallivanting, I hid them. Fair enough, they’re not too far away, but it’ll take you a while to find them. Are you sure you want to waste precious time looking for them for the sake of one little request? You know, you could kill me, but what if someone was to come along while you were still searching for the keys? Are you prepared to kill them as well? Could even be a cop.”

  The man swore impolitely.

  Cain grunted in amusement. “One little request,” he repeated.

  “All right, but you give me the keys first.”

  “No. You get something from my car first.”

  More profanity. Then, “So what the hell’s so important?”

  “Look under the front passenger seat. You’ll find a utility belt. Bring it to me, please.”

  “Okay, but then you give me the keys. And no messing around.”

  “Deal.” Cain lifted one hand off his head and gave the driver a thumbs-up.

  What could the man do but acquiesce?

  “Don’t move. I’ll go and get your utility belt. But if I come back and you’ve moved as much as an inch I’m going to kill you.”

  “Deal.” This time he put up two thumbs.

  He knelt in the gravel, ignoring the sharp edges of rocks against his knees like a monk in penance. He attained Zen tranquility through the mantra of “Mack the Knife” hummed to himself.

  “You liar.” The man’s voice broke the trance. “The keys were in the car all along.”

  Without looking around Cain shrugged.

  “I’ve got a good mind not to give you your bloody bag for that,” the man said.

  “It’s no good to you,” Cain pointed out. “You may as well leave it.”

  “I took a look in your bag, mister. Hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to check there wasn’t a gun inside. Didn’t want you chasing me up the road taking potshots at me.”

  “Well, now you know there’s no gun. Just leave it there for me, please.”

  “What’s with all the knives?”

  “Just a passion of mine.”

  “They don’t look expensive. Not the kind of thing anyone would collect.”

  “I use them in my work, that’s all. And you’re right, they’re not expensive. So it’d be pointless stealing them.”

  “What the hell’s so important about them if they aren’t expensive? You were prepared to risk a bullet for the sake of a few old knives?”

  “Just call it sentimental value. I’ve had them a long time. They hold a lot of memories.” Cain turned and peered over his shoulder. He held the gaze of the driver. “Indulge me, will you?”

  The man dropped the utility belt on the ground, kicked it down into the arroyo. “Don’t climb up from there until you hear me driving away. I’ll be watching.”

  A wink. “Understood.”

  “Good.”

  As he was commanded, Cain waited until he heard the SUV grumble to life, then recede into the distance. What would be the good of rushing? A footrace with a 4x4 wouldn’t offer good odds.

  First, he retrieved the bottle of water. It felt tepid against his palm. Then he picked up his belt. He didn’t need to make an inventory of its contents. He could tell merely by its weight that something was missing.

  “You thieving asshole!” He tore open the pouch. His Bowie knife was gone.

  This changed everything. He practically hurled himself up the arroyo wall. Reaching the top on his elbows and knees, he lurched up, took half a dozen running steps toward the road. The taillights of the SUV were mere pinpricks in the distance.

  “I’ll see you again, thief.” His promise was as righteous as his fury. “I’ll see you again. And when I do there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

  7

  SO THERE YOU HAVE IT. WHY I HOTFOOTED IT TO THE U.S.

  I took an evening flight to Miami. On the first leg out of the U.K., I slept for hours. I dreamed of people screaming. After transferring planes in New York, the nightmare was with me still. I couldn’t sleep, so sat staring out the window. Surreal cloud formations were a mild distraction. They piled all the way down the East Coast. Rink hadn’t been exaggerating; storms were raging across Florida.

  The air-conditioned terminal tricked me. I stepped out into rain, which I was used to, but the cloying humidity slapped my face like a hot rag.

  Damp with the rain and wringing wet with sweat beneath my clothes, I walked toward Jared Rington’s Porsche Boxster with a grimace of greeting for the big guy. Christ, I hadn’t seen the brute in two years. Rink pressed a button and dropped the passenger-side window.

  “What’s with all the bags, Hunter?” he asked, nodding at the two I carried. “Figuring on staying a month?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “Fine by me.”

  I nodded at him. “Are you gonna invite me in or do I stand out here all night getting even wetter?”

  “S’long as you don’t get any stains on the upholstery,” Rink said.

  I checked out the Porsche, then looked down at my sodden clothing. “Maybe I’d best take a taxi,” I said.

  “The hell you will. Jump in. Toss your bags on the back shelf…if they’ll fit. Otherwise you’re gonna have to keep them on your knee. That’s the problem with these beauties—no trunk space.”

  “Not much room for anything.”

  “I didn’t buy a Porsche for its capacious luggage-handling qualities,” Rink said.

  “You got it to impress the young ladies, huh?” I clambered in, clutching one bag to my chest.

  “Yup. But to be honest, I don’t score as often as I used to in my old pickup truck.”

  Previously clean-shaven, he now sported what looked like a hairy caterpillar on his top lip. He caught me staring at it. He checked himself out in the rearview mirror. “What’s wrong with my mustache?”

  “Makes you look like a porn star,” I said.

  Rink grinned unabashedly. “Yeah, so I’ve been told. But then again,” he puffed out his chest, “I’ve also got the goods of a porn star.”

  “Dream on, Casanova,” I said. “Don’t forget, I’ve seen you in the showers.”

  “Yeah,” Rink agreed. “But you’re forgettin’ what battle stress does to a man. Sometimes adrenaline makes you shrink up like that.”

  “Never seemed to affect me,” I told him as he was pulling away from the curb.

  “Trouble is,” Rink said, his tone losing its bantering edge, “nothing ever seemed to affect you the way it did us mere mortals. I sometimes used to wonder if you know what fear is.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” I said. “There were plenty of times I was scared to death.”

  “It didn’t show.”


  “It was there, Rink. I just didn’t let it show.”

  We joined a freeway headed west. “I made a coupla calls,” Rink said as our journey took us toward Tampa. “Spoke to an old friend out in Little Rock. You don’t know him. Harvey Lucas. Ex-military. A good man. I worked alongside him during Desert Storm. Met him again by chance a few years back an’ kept in touch since. He’s done some diggin’ around for me.”

  “So what’s he come up with?”

  “Not much. First day on the job.”

  “Anything’s a help.”

  “He went to see this Louise woman.”

  “And?”

  “She wasn’t exactly friendly. Said she’d speak to nobody but you.”

  I nodded. Her reluctance made sense. “In her letter, she said that John had been acting strange, afraid of something. She could also be scared. I suppose she’s not going to say too much to a stranger asking about John’s whereabouts.”

  “Even after he mentioned your name, she wouldn’t give Harvey diddlysquat,” Rink said. “But he was able to set up a meeting with her. Tomorrow afternoon, three o’clock, after she gets off work. Another thing he found out: seems your brother liked to gamble.”

  Yeah? That was quite an understatement. “You think it’s because of the gambling he’s gone missing?”

  “Could be. By all accounts he’s left a large IOU with a local shark called Sigmund Petoskey. Petoskey’s not the most forgiving of people. Could be a good starting-off point to see what he’s got to say for himself.”

  “As good a point as any,” I agreed.

  “I remember Petoskey from years ago,” Rink said. “A no-good punk with delusions of grandeur. Siggy likes to think of himself as some kinda new world Godfather type. He’s gathered a gang of scum around him to do his head bashing when the punters are a little slow to pay up. Maybe John’s simply had the good sense to get out with all his limbs intact.”

  “What’s Petoskey into?”

  “He’s into all sorts. Got hisself a good cover as a businessperson. Real estate. Used-car dealerships. Those kinda things. But he makes most of his money from the gambling and corruption.”

  “Corruption?” I asked.

  “Yup. Has a few names in local government by the balls. Certain cops won’t touch him, either.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “A punk of the highest order,” Rink said. “But I suppose with a gang behind him he’s dangerous enough. To someone who’s easily frightened, that is.”

  “Yeah, just like every other asshole we ever went up against,” I noted.

  Rink often seems to know what I’m thinking. “I’ve got the guns and stuff back at the condo,” he said. “Petoskey won’t give us squat unless we show him we mean business.”

  I nodded at his foresight. We both knew that when you went up against someone like Petoskey or Shank you had to show them that you weren’t about to take any shit from them. Shank could be intimidated by a nasty promise, but in a land where every other blue-rinsed grandma toted a sidearm, you had to bring something even nastier to the negotiating table.

  “Does Harvey know where Petoskey is?”

  “I’ve got him on it. By the time we arrive in Arkansas, he’ll be able to tell you where Petoskey squats down to take a dump…and at what time.”

  I said, “All I need to know is where he’ll be this time tomorrow.”

  “Leave it with me. I’ll give Harvey another call as soon as we get back to my place.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Business sorted, Rink turned to me. A smile lit up his features. “It’s good you’re here, Hunter.”

  “Good to be here.”

  8

  DUTY AND SOLDIERING GO HAND IN HAND. THE SAME COULD be said for family. I might have been a little remiss in supporting my loved ones since retiring from the forces.

  Diane and I were history. She had made a new life with Simon. Nevertheless, there were others I could help if they needed it. I was ashamed that my niece and nephew were living in such squalor, that Jennifer had fallen so low that my skills for pressuring people were all I could offer them.

  John is my brother. If you want specifics, he’s actually my half brother. My father died and my mother remarried. Then John came along. Maybe it’s because we have different fathers that we’ve turned out like oil and water. I was the war hero, John the stay-at-home ne’er-do-well. Of course, that doesn’t mean much in some eyes. Funny how our parents always took his side.

  Over his fifth beer, my stepfather had once said to me, “While you’ve been off gallivanting all over the world, John’s been here. John’s the one we’ve had to call for if we needed help. You’ve never been around. It’s all right for you, Joe. You’ve had everything you ever wanted. What’s that boy ever had?”

  I hadn’t had it in me to argue. I just walked away.

  I found John at a bar, swilling down his paycheck alongside a couple of friends. I cornered him by the pool table. Grabbing him by the collar, I pushed him against a wall. His friends knew better than to step in.

  “Where the hell’s all the money I gave you, John?”

  His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “I’ve got it back home.”

  “Don’t lie to me, John. I’ve just seen Dad. He told me you’ve been round begging him for a loan.” My jaw was aching from clenching my teeth. “He just gave me a load of grief about how I should help you out. Again.”

  John shook his head.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and blown it?” I said.

  Shame made his cheeks burn. “I got an inside tip,” he said. “Five-to-one odds, what could I do?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake—”

  I turned away from him.

  John’s fist thumped into my shoulder. Turning slowly, I saw my little brother setting himself up.

  “Don’t you dare,” I warned him. “I don’t care who you are, I’ll punch your face in.”

  “Come on, then,” he said. “Why don’t you do it, huh? Every other tough guy around here wants to.”

  I almost did. But right then he was just too pathetic to waste my time on. Staring him down, I backed away. Lifting a finger, I aimed it at his face. “You’re not worth it, John. I’m done with you. You got that?”

  Pushing my way through the crowd of onlookers, I heard him call out, “I don’t need you, Joe. You’re done with me, are you? Well, to hell with you! You mean nothin’ to me, either. You’re not even my real brother. Just some sad bastard that I’ve been stuck with all my life.”

  Our eyes met over the shoulders of the drinkers that made a wall between us.

  “I’m not your real brother?” I asked. “Fair enough. If that’s what you want, John.”

  The light of anger went out of his eyes and he turned away. I turned away, too. Didn’t look back.

  They were angry words on both sides.

  Despite them, John would always be my little brother.

  We didn’t get a chance to make amends.

  The time had come to put things right again.

  As a soldier, I hunted and killed men. That’s what soldiers do. But with me the killing was up close and personal. It does something to you when you have to look into the eyes of those you kill. Violence breeds a sickness of the human spirit. Hatred consumes and gives birth to self-loathing. It doesn’t matter that the deaths were sanctioned, just, or righteous. It’s still death. Fourteen years spent tracking terrorists left me changed forever.

  Maybe that’s why I turned my back on my brother. If I’d stepped up to the mark then, maybe John wouldn’t have run away.

  I took my leave of the forces, determined that I’d settle down with Diane, lead a life of normalcy and peace.

  I should’ve known I was pissing in the wind.

  In some respects, John made me what I am. I dealt with his debts in the only way I knew how: I backed down his debtors. On the streets, that gave me a certain reputation. It wasn’t long before my natural ability pushed my othe
r, gentler attributes aside. Subtly, what began as a foray into private security consultancy changed into clients who demanded more. Occasionally I had to crack skulls and bloody noses. For fourteen years I’d met violence head-on with even more violence, and now it seemed that for all my good intentions, nothing had changed.

  In another world I could’ve ended up as a hit man like those I’d waged war against, or as muscle for some lowlife gangster. Only because I had morals and—yes—compassion could I find any peace at all. Without my sense of decency, I’d be nothing more than a bigger thug amid all the little thugs.

  I promised Jennifer I’d find my brother.

  Nothing was going to stand in my way.

  9

  YESTERDAY MORNING, TUBAL CAIN’S RAGE HAD BEEN EPIC. Little wonder. First, he’d lost his SUV, stranding him out on the highway like road kill left to dry in the increasing heat. Then, he’d realized that the unscrupulous bastard who had abandoned him had also stolen his second-favorite knife. Next, he’d discovered that his penny loafers were no good for walking any distance.

  But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. Almost twenty-four hours later, Cain was feeling rather pleased with himself.

  For one, he was lying on a soft bed, wiggling his hot feet in the draft from a wall-mounted AC unit. Freshly showered and wearing clothes that weren’t sticky with perspiration, he was a new man. Beside him on the bed was the quiet, still form of the Good Samaritan who’d brought him to this place.

  She was dead, of course, not sleeping peacefully as her pose would suggest. Her hair was spread across the pillows like a sheaf of spilled corn, hiding her slack features. Deliberate posing so that her unnatural pallor wouldn’t give the game away.

  “Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d just lie there like a good girl,” he said. “Like you’re sleeping off the effects of a heavy party. It was a good party, believe me, and you certainly deserve a nap.”

  Cain prided himself on his expertise at covering his tracks. That was why he remained America’s most prolific undetected serial murderer. Take George and Mabel, for instance: He’d rigged the explosion so that both of them would be so charred it would take a determined investigator to guess that they’d been murdered. Essentially, Mabel hadn’t been too careful with the gas cooker when preparing their supper. Either the explosion or the subsequent fire would cover the fact that George was missing a couple of digits, while his wife had suffered numerous breaks to her limbs.