Grant picked all that up from the inset map of the area in the corner. A small square indicated the desert town’s position, and the rest of the page was taken up by the Absolution street plan. It didn’t really need a full page, but there were more streets than Grant had first noticed. Traditional US grid pattern: streets running east to west and avenues north to south. The main road was First Street, with North Second to North Eighth spreading one way and South Second to South Fifth the other. The main crossroad was Avenue D, the rest being Avenues A to K. If there were any more shops, they’d be on Avenue D.
The Los Pecos Bank and Trust was on Avenue D.
Grant left the map on the bed and unpacked his bag. The hold-all had traveled the world with him, and he knew how to fold his clothes to best effect. Partly military training and partly the boarding school his father had dumped him at as soon as he was old enough. The British Army and Moor Grange School for Boys had a lot to answer for. He hung the orange windcheater on the back of the door and put the T-shirts and jeans in the drawers. He slid the long velvet box from the bag between the T-shirts. His fingers played gently over the scarred fabric. Living in the present was Grant’s preferred modus operandi, but sometimes the past wouldn’t stay buried. An ironic thought, considering why he was here.
With his normal preparations complete, if not necessarily in the usual order, it was time for a shower. First thing was always to get a map. Second was scout the location. Third was check for enemy personnel. That was from his army days. As a cop, the third option was more wide reaching. As a tourist, all but number one were moot points. He just couldn’t turn them off. Getting laid wasn’t an option this time. Not in his current mindset.
The en suite shower was hot and roomy. He could stand tall and not bump into the showerhead. That was pretty tall. His shoulders didn’t bang the sides. As hotel showers went, this was built for size. He guessed what he’d heard about Texas was right. It was a big country for big men. He toweled dry and walked naked back into his room.
He stopped in the doorway. The muscles of his thighs turned to knotted ropes and his shoulders tensed. He wasn’t alone. The man in the cowboy hat was sitting in the bedside chair, leaning the chair back on two legs against the wall.
three
“That’s a neat trick, that balancing thing. You should be in the circus.”
Grant pulled on a clean pair of jeans and draped the towel over the foot of the bed. He gauged the angle of the chair and the tipping point. The chair legs were a long way from the wall, the angle too steep. The cowboy was trying to look threatening and cool at the same time. It put him in a precarious position. One swift kick and he’d be on the floor with Grant’s knee crushing his throat. Grant didn’t want that. He decided to play this like Spencer Tracy. Show a hint of cool himself.
“Is this where you tell me I’m in your room?”
The cowboy rested one leg on the bedspread. “That’s plain to see, isn’t it?”
Grant pulled a black T-shirt over his head and smoothed it down across his chest. He put fresh socks on, then slipped his feet into black K-Swiss tennis shoes and laced them up. He didn’t like fighting barefoot. It put you at a disadvantage when it came to kicking or having your toes stamped on.
“Block booking for when you happen to be in town?”
“And I am in town. You can see that, can’t you?”
Grant finished fastening his laces and stood up straight. He nodded at the foot draped across the bedspread, making the balance even more precarious.
“Do cowboys have funny-shaped feet? I’ve always wondered because I don’t think I could fit my toes into a boot that pointed.”
The cowboy lowered his foot to the floor and the chair legs followed. No longer leaning back. All four legs planted firmly on the carpet. He was learning.
“As opposed to them moccasins you’re wearing?”
Grant looked at his tennis shoes, built for comfort and speed. Ideal cop shoes if you didn’t have to worry about cacti and rattlesnakes. Maybe cowboy boots had a place down here, but they wouldn’t be able to outrun a sports shoe.
“I heard that once in Back to the Future—the third one, where Michael J. Fox goes back to the Old West. It was kind of funny that time. Doesn’t quite work in modern times. Anybody still wear moccasins?”
“What I’ll be wearing is your spleen for a hat if you don’t get out of my room.”
The words were harsh, but the cowboy was still sitting down with Grant standing over him. Not a position of strength. He was obviously used to his presence alone being enough of a threat. Grant expanded his chest and took a deep breath.
“Register says it’s my room.”
“Block booking says it’s mine.”
“No. Block booking holds you a room. Take your pick. Rest are empty.”
“I like this one.”
“That’s mighty nice of you, but it’s taken.”
“You’re not catching my drift. I want this room.”
“And you’re not catching mine. You should have took it instead of sitting on your ass on the porch, practicing your balancing act.”
The boundaries were set. Confrontation was inevitable. Pissing contests rarely ended in a draw. Grant still held the high ground, a position where he could strike downward instead of having to stand up first. Doubt flickered across the cowboy’s face, but he soldiered on.
“That’s not the way it works in our town. We don’t need strangers comin’ in tryin’ to change the rules.”
Grant relaxed both hands at his sides. His knees were loose and ready to flex. The situation had reached its tipping point; it could go either way from this moment forward. The choice was his. He thought about the velvet box hidden beneath the T-shirts in his drawer and considered the reason he was here. That thought cooled his temperature down from boiling. He dialed back the menace while keeping a hint of threat in his voice.
“I heard that in a movie once too. The stranger bit.”
The cowboy looked puzzled. Grant kept it light.
“In Rango. Johnny Depp as a lizard in a spaghetti Western. This little rodent kid comes up to the lizard when he rides into town. Gives him a squint and says, ‘You’re a stranger. Strangers don’t last long around here.’”
Grant smiled. “That would make you the rodent. In the film, the rodent was wrong.” The smile disappeared. “So are you. I’m staying. And this is my room.”
Grant stepped back and indicated the door. The cowboy stood up, his attempt at crowding the stranger a complete washout. He crossed to the door but didn’t open it. Instead his face went through a complicated tableau before he threw his parting shot.
“That’d make you a lizard, then.”
Grant laughed. “I can’t argue with that.”
The cowboy opened the door. “Around here, lizards are roadkill.”
Grant squared his shoulders. “We’re not in the road. Now fuck off out of my room.”
The cowboy fucked off, slamming the door behind him. That should have been an end to it, but Grant followed him onto the landing. Just in case. The stairs creaked all the way down to the lobby. Grant listened as the desk clerk came out of the back office. There was a hushed conversation, but the cowboy couldn’t keep his voice down.
“That’s him all right. Tell Macready.”
Grant was thinking about what that meant when he went back into his room. The map was still spread open on the bed. He’d met the enemy personnel. Maybe he should scout the location a bit more.
Despite the heat Grant still wore his lucky orange windcheater when he stepped into the street twenty minutes later. He didn’t hand the key in; possession being nine-tenths of the law, he felt safer with it in his pocket. He turned right along First and walked past the front of the Famous Burro restaurant. He still didn’t fancy eating donkey. Two storefronts later he reached the intersection with
Avenue D.
Despite the road being tarmac and the sidewalk being cracked concrete, Grant’s black trainers were dusted white. Heat and sand scorched the earth, and the hard blue sky held no promise of shade. There were no clouds, and even the gentle breeze was hot. Grant unzipped the windcheater and studied the crossroads.
The left-hand side of Avenue D, heading south, crossed the railroad tracks with a shallow hump in the road. Back in the UK that would have been a level crossing with automatic gates or barriers that closed across the road and warning lights for when a train was coming. It didn’t look like Texas wasted time on gates or barriers. The crossing was unguarded apart from an X-shaped cross on a stick with two red lights and a bell. Grant had heard them in movies, a rhythmic chime and flashing lights. Avenue D crossed the tracks and disappeared into a cluster of low-rent housing that looked even sadder than the main street.
It was the right-hand stretch that interested Grant. The northern leg with its handful of shops and the only red brick building in town: the Los Pecos Bank and Trust. Bars on the windows and a heavy wooden door. Patches of whitewashed plaster over the red brick. It looked like a smaller version of the Alamo. The mission that became a fortress. The fortress that became a shrine. Grant remembered that from the John Wayne film. Whoever built the bank must have seen it too because they hadn’t included an ATM machine to spoil the façade.
Grant crossed the street on the diagonal and couldn’t help changing his walk to those little steps the Duke used. Momentarily. The rolling gait of a big man. No ATM meant Grant would have to go inside. Not a problem, but he hoped the teller was more helpful than the officials he’d met so far. He was running out of walking-around money.
It turned out the bank teller wasn’t only more helpful, he was downright chatty once he realized the tall stranger walking into his bank wasn’t there to rob it. Grant reckoned the old fella had watched too many Westerns until he saw the bullet holes in the wall and the armed guard inside the door. The teller examined Grant’s debit card like it was some precious metal, turning it over in his hands.
“These things were supposed to replace cash money.” He stopped turning it over, a look of scorn on his face. “If’n that were the case, wouldn’t need no banks then, would we?”
He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t need a safe.”
Grant let the teller talk himself out.
“Thank god most businesses in Absolution still need cash payment.” The teller put the card down and stared at Grant. “How much you want?”
Now Grant could get a word in.
“Depends. How expensive is Absolution?”
“For what?”
“Hotel. Food. Car hire.”
“Car hire? Ain’t nowhere to go, unless you’re planning to leave like everyone else. Not much of a stay, though, since you only just got off the train.”
“I’m not leaving yet.”
“Then you won’t need a car. Everywhere else is walking distance.”
Grant wondered if everyone in town made conversation so difficult. Going round in circles without getting to the point. He plucked a figure out of his head and settled for that.
“Couple of hundred should do.”
“Two hundred makes you king of the hill. Carry that much and you’d better watch your back.”
“I’ve got broad shoulders. I’ll manage.”
The teller looked up at the big man in the orange jacket and nodded. “I’m sure you can. Just saying, that’s all. If you’d rather take less and come back. Bank’ll still be here.”
He lowered his eyes and muttered to himself. “Macready needs it to pay his…”
His voice trailed off when he remembered he wasn’t alone. He copied the card details onto a withdrawal slip and pushed it under the grill on the counter. Two hundred dollars. Grant signed it and slid it back.
“You’d save yourself the trouble if you had a hole-in-the-wall machine.”
“What?”
Grant recognized his slip-up. Not completely Americanized yet.
“Sorry. Back in England ATMs are nicknamed holes-in-the-wall.”
The teller paused in mid-count, the twenty-dollar bills fanned out like a hand of cards.
“You did recognize the façade outside. The Alamo.”
Grant wondered where this was going. “Yeah, I got that.”
“Well, the only holes in the wall at the Alamo was them damn Mexicans trying to get in. You want cash, use the door.”
He finished counting, then rechecked the amount. He counted them out again in front of Grant, then slipped them under the grill. Grant thanked him and put them in his wallet.
“Where can you recommend to eat?”
“Apart from the hotel?”
“Don’t think they want to serve me.”
“Not surprised.”
“How come?”
“You’re a stranger. Strangers don’t last long around there.”
Grant almost laughed. Come to think of it, the bank teller had a small rodent face minus the whiskers. The teller waved in an indeterminate direction.
“Gilda’s Grill. At Sixto’s Gas and Wreckers. Edge of town.”
Grant remembered the gas station east of the main street. “Thanks. And a car?”
“Sixto’s again. If he’s got one ain’t been wrecked.”
Grant said a final thank you and headed for the door. As he stepped into the sunlight, he heard the teller pick up the phone and the unmistakable burr of an old-fashioned rotary dial.
Grant took his jacket off and slung it over his shoulder. He continued up Avenue D to Third Street and turned right. From the map he knew that Second only went three blocks, but Third went right to the other end of town. A white stucco church with a powder-blue steeple stood on the intersection next to the most colorful building he’d seen since getting off the train. The blue, red, and orange walls and outside stairs of Eve’s Garden Bed and Breakfast and Ecology Center. It said so on the sign. Everything else along Third was scorched earth and rusty metal sidings. A couple of trees and some rotting picket fence.
The walk took fifteen minutes. He didn’t see another living soul the entire length of the road. A dog barked. It sounded desperate. With the sun beating down on the back of Grant’s head, he could understand why. Third Street petered out to a dead end and a dirt track. The track was fenced off.
Grant called the map to mind. According to that, Third Street continued until it met the main road at an angle, but in reality the tarmac stopped at Avenue J. The track was all that remained of the final stretch. The reason it was fenced off wasn’t on the map either. The battered metal sign was rusting and full of bullet holes.
ABSOLUTION
TOWN DUMP
By Local Ordinance
The dump was long, flat, and wide and spread out on either side of the dirt track. Half a dozen mobile homes formed a border around the outer edges. Ex-trailer-park stock in need of a lick of paint. The windows were boarded up. The doors were open. It looked like they were used for storage. Smaller items salvaged from the rubbish. None of them were lived in except for the trailer nearest the gate, where a hanging basket beside the door swayed in the wind. Whatever flowers had been planted in it were long since dead. There was a sun chair and a garden table next to the trailer steps. Dust swirled around a courtyard formed by the only open space between piles of junk and discarded electrical goods.
If there was a system, Grant couldn’t see it.
What he could see was a shortcut that followed the track through the dump and a hole in the wire fence where people used it. The dump was as deserted as the rest of Third Street. There was no sign of the custodian. Grant ducked through the gap and kept straight on. The breeze whipped up rotten garbage smells. Silence enveloped him; it was even quieter here than the rest of town. Desert sand that had drifted acro
ss the track muffled his footsteps. It was like walking through a cemetery with rusty washing machines instead of tombstones. There was no movement apart from strands of rubbish flapping in the wind.
He was almost halfway through when all that changed.
Something moved in the corner of his vision.
Then a gunshot split the air.
four
The rat exploded in a mist of blood and flesh, not so much shot to death as vaporized. The gunshot echoed five times around the pale blue sky before the dump returned to silence apart from cackling laughter behind the hanging basket.
“Don’t like that, d’ya? Yer little fucker.”
Grant didn’t move. He turned his head slowly towards the trailer.
“You talking to me or the rat?”
The rifle poking out of the open door jerked towards Grant. It settled on his center mass, then moved gently as the shooter came down the steps. A hairy arm came into view, followed by a rolled- up shirtsleeve and a hunched figure wearing stained overalls, the type with a bib front and no sleeves. The face that came out of the shadows was as dry as saddle leather—a theme Grant was beginning to recognize. Heat and dust working its magic on the residents.
The man stepping into the sun looked older than the ticket seller, the hotel clerk, and the bank teller put together. The voice wasn’t quite as harsh, but it was a long way from friendly.
“Why would I be talking to you?”
“Because the rat’s past answering.”
The old-timer cackled a laugh, then wheezed as he got his breath back. “It was rhetorical anyway. Damn rats ain’t much on conversation.”
Grant nodded but didn’t move.
“Keeping the vermin at bay—I can understand that. But I think we can both agree I’m no rat. So could you lower the rifle please?”
The barrel twitched, then lowered. “I could shoot the wings off a fly. No need for you to worry.”
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