When Old Men Die

by Bill Crider

  There was one way to find out. I squished over to the stairs and started climbing.

  I got up them with no trouble at all. They were still solid, no matter how bad they looked, but they squealed when I put my weight on them. If Harry was there, he would know I was coming.

  Or he would know that someone was coming, though he wouldn't know who it was. I thought I'd better tell him so he wouldn't try to hide and make it harder for me to find him.

  "Harry!" I said. "Are you up there? This is Truman Smith."

  There was no answer, but I thought I heard something scratching around on the concrete floor. It could have been Harry, or it could have been a cat. It could have been nearly anything.

  "Harry? You up there?"

  Still no answer, but I was beginning to feel a little uneasy. Maybe Harry wasn't there, but maybe whoever else was looking for him was. I was sorry I'd ever let Dino and Evelyn talk me into this, but I kept on climbing the stair.

  When I got to the top, I called out again. "Harry?"

  My own voice echoed back off a concrete wall, but aside from that there was no sound at all except the surf and the wind in sea oats. Somewhere along the beach a car horn honked.

  I went inside the building and found myself standing in a large open room with two doors leading into the rest of the building. There was some trash over in one corner, and I shined the flashlight on it: some aluminum soft drink cans, a few old newspapers, and what looked like some flat tins that might have held tuna or cat food. Harry's kind of meal. Maybe he was there after all. I turned off the flashlight.

  "Harry?" I said.

  There was a soft scratching from somewhere farther inside the building. I walked to the far end and went through one of the doors.

  The next room was very dark, and there was no one in there either. There was also no trash on the floor. I crossed it and went through another door.

  As soon as I stepped through there was a soft pop and sparks jumped from the side of the doorway near my head. A sliver of concrete hit me in the ear.

  I dived forward and hit the floor, sliding along it, scraping my hands and tearing a hole in the knee of my jeans. I felt a sharp pain in my right knee, which meant that the old football injury hadn't taken the fall too well. Just another thing to thank Dino for the next time I saw him. Assuming that I ever saw him again.

  The next shot went over my head and hit the wall behind me.

  The good news was that I still had my flashlight, which might have been fine if there had been any use for it.

  There was even more good news. It was extremely dark in the room where I was lying, and I was wearing a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans, which would make me very hard to see.

  But that was pretty much the end of the good news. The bad news was that I was trapped.

  I was also scared. I didn't like being shot at. It made my palms sweat, and it gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's pretty depressing to know that someone is trying to kill you and that there's not much you can do about it.

  I might have felt a little better about things if I'd been carrying a pistol of my own, but I wasn't. So there wasn't much I could do except lie there on the cold concrete floor and sweat. And wait.

  Five

  It might come as a surprise to a lot of people to know that I wasn't carrying a handgun, but contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Texas goes around armed to the teeth.

  In fact, there are laws against that sort of thing, though the state legislature is beginning to make an effort to change that. Sometimes it seems that there are members of that august body who would like to see the citizens all walking down the streets with Colt's Peacemakers in holsters strapped around their waists.

  But until that day comes, it's illegal to carry a pistol. You can own one, or a hundred for that matter, which is fairly interesting, since in Texas owning six or more devices defined as "sexual apparatus" is a serious criminal offense.

  Ever hear of anyone being killed with a dildo? OK, maybe it's possible, but as far as I know I never heard of a drive-by dildoing.

  At any rate, in Texas you can own as many pistols as you please, and you can carry a pistol in your car as long as you keep it locked in the trunk or the glove box. But it's illegal take it out of the car and carry it unless you're on your own property.

  So, being a law-abiding citizen, I didn't have a pistol. I hadn't thought I'd need one.

  I didn't even have a dildo.

  I had a flashlight, and maybe I could do something with that, after all. I wondered if it would be a good idea to try explaining the Texas firearms laws to whoever was shooting at me before I tried the thing with the flashlight.

  Probably not.

  There was another pop and another chunk of concrete chip flew out of the wall. This pop was louder. The silencer was tearing apart.

  Whoever was doing the shooting was in the next room, and he was shooting through what must have once been a window. But it was so dark that I couldn't see a thing, not even a shadow. Just a muzzle flash.

  The shooter couldn't see me either, though. He kept shooting high, but I was afraid that sooner or later he'd catch on and aim lower. That made me sweat a little harder. I had to do something before I got shot, and I had to do it now.

  The flashlight was all I had, so I turned it on and rolled it across the floor.

  There were three quick shots, two of them scoring the floor and the third one glanced off the flashlight and sent it spinning crazily. It kept right on shining, though, which just goes to show that it pays to buy good equipment. That anodized aluminum is good stuff.

  By the third shot I was on my feet and lurching toward the door. I should have been moving more smoothly, but I was doing the best I could, considering that my knee was threatening to collapse under me at every step.

  I told myself that I should have been lurching away from the shooter. That would have been the smart thing, especially since my stomach was still in knots, but there was something about being shot at that made me mad. Being mad made me stupid.

  I went through a doorway into the next room, but there was no one there. I could hear footsteps echoing off the concrete walls as someone ran through the building. They weren't my footsteps. I was wearing an old pair of Nike Air Spans with rubber soles.

  I didn't know why the shooter was running. Maybe he thought I had a weapon after all. Maybe he was out of cartridges.

  I heard noises coming from the room next to me and realized that he'd doubled back. I didn't know anything about the arrangement of the rooms, but I knew that there was only one stairway. If I just retraced my steps, maybe I could beat him to it.

  I almost did. I came into the room a little behind him, but I didn't get much of a look at him. It was too dark, and he was nothing more than vague, bulky shape.

  I made a grab for him, and just about then my knee went out. As I was falling, I got a handful of his shirt, nearly ripping it off his back.

  "Sonofabitch," he said.

  Then he whirled around and hit me in the face with his pistol.

  I was already down, and he was off balance, so he didn't hit me as hard as he might have. I felt the skin on my cheek tear, though, and for just a second I couldn't hear, see, or feel anything at all.

  By the time I shook my head to clear it and tried to stand up, the shooter was clattering down the stairway.

  Just to prove that I hadn't learned anything from getting my face bashed, I tried to follow him. Luckily, I got most of the way down before the knee went again, so I didn't have far to fall.

  The ground was soft, but I was little slower getting up that time, and when I did the shooter was gone. I didn't know which direction he'd taken, and he was out of sight in the waving sea oats. There was no sound of splashing from the lagoon, so he'd probably gone around the end. It wasn't a long way. Or he could be lying out there in the oats, waiting for me.

  I stood there for a while leaning on the stair rail, hoping that a car would start u
p somewhere and give me a clue, but nothing happened.

  I touched my fingers to my face. I was still bleeding, but not much. There was a loose flap of skin, but nothing that would need stitching up.

  A few cars passed by on the road above me, but that was all. There were lights on in a lot of the condo windows, and I wondered if anyone down there had heard the shots. There wasn't much chance of that.

  After about fifteen minutes, I went back up the stairs. This time my knee held up, but I was going pretty slowly. My flashlight was still shining, but the aluminum casing was severely dented.

  No one bothered me while I looked in all the rooms of the old building.

  I found a few more signs that Harry, or someone, might have stayed there, but it was hard to say just how recently that had been. The flat tins had held tuna, all right, and there was a fleck or two of meat left in them, but it was hard and dry.

  In another room there were some more old newspapers that someone might have used to stuff in his clothes for warmth, but there was no way of knowing for sure if they'd been used for that purpose.

  And that was all I ferreted out. Not even a rock, a leaf, or an unfound door, as Thomas Wolfe might have put it. I wondered if anyone besides me even read Thomas Wolfe anymore.

  I left the building, went back to the Jeep and sat for a minute, resting my forearms on the wheel and wondering whether I should try looking at The Island Retreat. It didn't take me long to decide that wasn't a good idea. I'd already been shot at once, and I wasn't going to take a chance on its happening again. Besides, my knee was hurting and my head was throbbing.

  I decided that I'd go home and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow, I'd have a little talk with Dino.

  Six

  It had gotten a lot cooler while I was chasing around, though I hadn't noticed it until I started driving the Jeep. The old vehicle had one real disadvantage: it was completely open, so there was no protection from the weather. If I folded down the windshield, there would be nothing between me and the wind at all.

  There was a thin crescent of moon now, and the stars were icy in the black sky. The temperature must have dropped at least fifteen or twenty degrees in the last hour. No wonder Ro-Jo had been tying down his pants legs. At least the cold wind took my mind off being shot at.

  I had to drive practically the length of the Island to get home, and by the time I got to the house I was thoroughly chilled. I parked the Jeep and looked around for Nameless. He wasn't in sight, and he didn't come when I called. Probably out terrorizing the lizards that lived in the bushes.

  I got my copy of Look Homeward, Angel out of the passenger seat and started inside. There was a food bowl by the front door with a few Tender Vittles still in it, so I supposed that Dino had been there.

  I went in and lit the gas heaters in the bedroom and bathroom. Then I checked my face in the bathroom mirror. The cut wasn't deep, and it looked worse than it was. I found a little pair of fingernail scissors, cut off the flap of skin and put some alcohol on the place. I had to grit my teeth to keep from yelling. Then I covered it with a bandage and took a couple of ibuprofen for my headache. The sliver of concrete had cut a little place on my ear, but it didn't need a bandage. I looked at my knee through the rip in my jeans. The skin was abraded but not broken, and I decided against alcohol. I'd had enough pain for one night.

  I went into the kitchen. I was hungry, but I don't keep much to eat around the place. I'm not a cook, and I usually just eat at a restaurant. Tonight I settled for a peanut butter sandwich with apricot jelly. I made it on whole wheat bread to keep it healthy.

  I poured a glass of Big Red to wash the peanut butter down and went into the bedroom, which is where most of my furniture is. I have a sprung recliner, a bed, a dresser, and a bookcase. I also have a CD player.

  The disc player was already loaded with a two-CD set by The Drifters, a disc by Clyde McPhatter, and two by the Coasters. I turned on the amp, set the player to shuffle all discs, and turned on the power.

  For a long time I'd resisted buying a CD player, but then I'd discovered that record companies were raiding their vaults and putting everything they had in their vaults on disc. As soon as I discovered that the disc of The Drifters' "Let the Boogie-Woogie Roll" had several more tracks on it than the tape did, I was a goner.

  The Coasters broke into "Wake Me, Shake Me," and I started feeling better almost immediately. I sat in the recliner and ate my sandwich and listened.

  After a couple of songs, I started thinking about what had happened. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. I didn't like being in the dark about what was going on, and I really didn't like being shot at.

  The question I most wanted an answer to was why someone would shoot at me.

  Of course it could have been that the U. S. Government was really serious about keeping trespassers out of their building or out of their lagoon. There was about as much chance of that, I thought, as of the Houston Oilers going to the Super Bowl within my lifetime.

  There really weren't many other possibilities. The most obvious was that someone didn't want me to find Harry, which brought me back to another question I would have liked to have an answer for. Why was someone else looking for Harry?

  I drank my Big Red and thought about phoning Dino, but he could wait until tomorrow, when I was feeling stronger. If he'd set me up, I was going to try beating the hell out of him. It wouldn't be easy. I was in pretty good shape from jogging, but that mostly helped my legs. Dino was the one who pumped iron and had arms that looked as if they could bend a tire tool. Besides, I had a feeling that deep down inside, he was a lot meaner than I was.

  Of course it didn't have to be Dino who'd set me up. Ro-Jo had said that he hadn't told the other person looking for Harry the same things he'd told me. But someone had been waiting in the old building. How had he known to go there unless Ro-Jo had told him? I was going to have to talk to Ro-Jo again, too, if I could find him. For some reason I didn't think it would be as easy as it had been the last time.

  Clyde McPhatter was singing about the treasure of love when I heard Nameless scratching the front screen door. I went to open it and let him in.

  He's big and yellowish orange, with grey-green eyes. He took his time about entering. He looked up at me as if to ask where I'd been all evening, then stretched and gawked and looked behind him before stepping daintily through the door. After that he quickly picked up the pace, tearing through the nearly bare living room like a rocket, speeding through the bedroom door, and then jumping on the bed, where he proceeded to lick his fur in that self-satisfied way cats have.

  I followed him into the bedroom. "Is the music all right?" I asked him. It was The Coasters again. "Little Egypt."

  Nameless didn't even bother to look at me. He just kept licking himself. He was purring, however, so I assumed that he approved. Then he stuck out one of his back legs, spread his toes, and started biting between them. I had no idea what that meant.

  I sat back in my chair. It was going to be harder to find Harry than I'd thought at first, and I wanted to do it even less than I had before.

  It was going to be harder, because it seemed certain that Harry wasn't just looking for a warm place to sleep as I'd first thought. He knew that someone was after him, and he had gone into hiding.

  I wanted to find him even less than before, because now there was a kind of urgency to the hunt, and I didn't want to fail him the way I'd failed Jan.

  And I had failed her, and myself, no matter how many times I told myself that I hadn't, and no matter how many times others told me the same thing.

  The way I saw it, if I had come back to the Island in time, she wouldn't be dead. I was convinced that it was as simple as that.

  Her remains were found in a field not far off the Interstate quite a while after I came back, and despite the Medical Examiner's estimate that her death had occurred long before my return, I would always feel that there was something that I could have done, something that I should
have done. Whatever it had been, I hadn't done it. I wasn't even the one who eventually found her.

  And now Harry had gone missing. It wasn't my fault; it didn't have anything at all to do with me. So why was I already feeling guilty?

  I thought it might be a good idea to try beating the hell out of Dino even if he hadn't tried to set me up. I would never have gotten involved in this mess if it hadn't been for him, and there was no way out of it now. I was going to have to try to find Harry. I was going to have to try to keep him from winding up the way Jan had.

  "What are we going to do about it?" I asked Nameless.

  He didn't answer, having curled up and gone to sleep with his tail over his nose. Obviously Harry's plight didn't bother him in the least. I wished that I could have taken things that calmly.

  I got out of the chair and took a shower, trying not to get any water on my bandage. Then I came back into the bedroom and turned off the CD player as soon as The Drifters finished singing "Money Honey." I went over to the bed and shoved Nameless out of the way. He woke up and looked at me without resentment. After a little more licking, he settled down on the other side of the bed.

  He was asleep a long time before I was.

  Seven

  The sky was covered with clouds the next morning and the low gray overcast fit my mood perfectly. I fed Nameless in the kitchen, then let him outside. He charged into the brush, and I brought in the paper.

  My headache was gone, so I put on a pair of shorts and a top and went out for a run. I pulled the bandage off to let the air get to the cut on my face. The sweat stung it a little, but otherwise it was a lot better. Even my knee held up better than I'd expected.

  The house where I lived was out past the developed part of the Island, and though the development started again a little farther down the road, my nearest neighbors lived in places with rolls of hay or old car bodies in the yard. I wondered what the people who lived in the fancy condos and houses on stilts thought about that. I don't suppose it worried them much. In a few years the run-down old houses would be gone, replaced by more fashionable residences. Most likely, no one would miss the old places but me. I thought they added a little character to the neighborhood.