by Eric Beetner
The .380 gun in his boot whispered in his ear, “I can help you outta this mess...whatever it might be.”
Jeremiah, no more killing. Enough is enough.
But this might require killing, Mariana. This might require killing a man the world could well do without.
You are not God, Jeremiah, you don’t get to make those decisions.
It is not my decision, love. The decision is wholly his...and I have no idea his intention.
God is God. Life and death belong to God, not you.
Her saying, her belief. She said it to him anytime the blackness came on and left him bruised and whimpering like a trashy dog kicked down the road.
“I’m the Judge...next best thing to God.”
If she’d been at his side, she’d have warmed his cheek with a harsh slap.
I promise to try not to kill him. It is the best I can do.
If that is your best, Jeremiah, I will take it...but I will also pray for you.
Casually, without a care in the world, the Judge crossed right leg over left on his thigh. The heaviness of the weapon, steel and plastic, lead and brass, calmed him. From here, if need be, he could yank his jeans, clear the gun before Bassi realized what was happening, put a couple rounds center mass, and be out the door before too many heartbeats had passed.
The heat grew, magnified by Bassi’s stillness. Sweat popped on the Judge’s skin.
“You okay, Your Honor?”
Sure, he wanted to say. Except I might have to blast this prick bloody because I don’t know what he’s doing, but I damn sure know everything’s vibing wrong. Instead, he said, “Fine, thank you for asking.” He crunched more ice, flooded his mouth with the cold. “A bit warm today.”
“A bit warm?” the detective asked. “What are you—Judge, this is Barefield. A bit warm? It’s a hundred damned degrees.”
In the truck, Bassi moved his arm from the window and a second later, the cab door opened slowly.
In the thick air, the Judge heard an imaginary orchestra, playing the lost, lonely strains of Ennio Morricone’s music. The sound track to Italian deserts heavy with cowboys while two men faced off. Music for those about to die in a hail of bullets, for the dispossessed.
The door stayed open, nothing else moving. Cars and trucks passed on Big Spring Street, going deeper into, and further out of, the heart of Barefield. Their clank banged through the air, stumbled off the sides of buildings.
Still Bassi sat. If it was Bassi in the truck. Hell, given Bassi’s bad decision making, he could be long since dead, his body heaved into a ditch or pulverized down the drill hole of an oil rig. This might be some other cowboy looking to jack up the Judge and snag the entire shipment for himself.
Come on, the Judge thought. Fucking come on.
The traffic quieted, the clink of silverware against plates quieted, even the breath of Johnny’s customers quieted.
Lay your hand, damnit. Let’s see your cards.
The Judge bit his tongue, swallowed into a throat of grit.
And finally, Bassi jumped from the cab. He landed, flat-footed, hard on the asphalt. He stared at the Judge, but eventually closed the cab door. It thunked, a hammering metallic sound.
The Judge swallowed his ice, laid a hand on his boot.
Bassi’s chest rose and fell, his T-shirt stained at the pits.
For the first time, the Judge was uncertain. Bassi had always been Bassi, easy to handle, but every criminal in the world made a move at some point, didn’t they? Every criminal, be it the cheap convenience store thug or the lieutenant-level cog in a drug machine, looked up the ladder at some point. Or got railroaded into cooperating with the Feds or a local task force. Hell, that was why so many of them had ended up on their knees in front of Barefield Justice of the Peace Jeremiah Bean’s bench.
Was this Bassi’s moment?
“Make your play, then, fucker.”
Bassi spit and started across the street. A car honked. He ignored it, his gaze welded to the Judge’s.
There will be killing, Mariana. I will do it unapologetically, as I have always done. I will own the killing, as I have always done. As I have always owned all of my mistakes.
Yeah, you always have, baby.
And you, Mariana? Do you own all your mistakes? What about lies? Do you own your lies...or is there a lingering lie between us?
She was gone. He could feed her answers all day long and let the imaginary her regurgitate them back, but he couldn’t give her answers he didn’t know.
At the sidewalk, just beyond the knee-high iron fence surrounding Johnny’s outdoor patio, Bassi stopped. When his arm flashed, a blur toward his back, the Judge nearly shit. He yanked his jeans leg up and had his hand on the .380 before he realized Bassi had stopped.
Bassi spat.
“Damnit,” the Judge said.
Bassi had played him and now the .380 was no surprise.
With a smirk like a gashed scar across his face, Bassi strode to the Judge’s table and leaned over the middle. In a gentle whisper, he said, “My dope, bitch.”
“What?” The Judge’s voice exploded. It was a booming instrument and once upon a time, Mariana had loved listening to him sing.
Every head swiveled, every eye suddenly scared; the familiar smell of criminals who came before his bench.
No more anxiety. He knew the play, understood Bassi’s lack of imagination. Bassi was late not because he’d stopped for a taste of the exotic sex he so craved, he’d stopped so he could work up the courage to steal from the Judge.
“The fuck it is.” Casually, the Judge touched his boot.
“You got your little gun in your boot? That little gun you laid on your desk to scare me when you hired me? Well, it don’t scare me at all. Neither do you, asshole.”
This wasn’t Bassi. This was some new guy, some guy with balls and a bit of steel in his spine, no longer taffy.
“You said you’d solve my problem.”
“I said I’d try, Mr. Bassi. A problem like yours is hard to solve.”
“Fuck that, you said you’d fix it. Told me to drive the truck. Make a few deliveries. Dump the last of it in Amarillo with Little Lenny. Told me you’d fix things if I drove the truck.” He leaned close to the Judge and dropped his voice. “There’s your fucking truck. I still got my problem.”
He’s crowding me. Pushing me. Why would he do that? He knows my history, knows where I’ll take this.
“How do you know that?” the cop asked.
Bassi never took his eyes from the Judge. “He called me, you asshole.”
The Judge took a long moment before answering. “And what is this gentleman’s name, Mr. Bassi?”
“Gentleman?” Bassi frowned. “Are you stupid? It was fucking Stanton. Threatened to kill me. Called me from your office in Langtry.”
“Well...perhaps it was a mistake for you to cut the country club take seventy-thirty.”
Bassi’s eyes narrowed, slits of anger. “I set that fucking job up. I decide how the take gets split.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have introduced his fifteen-year-old daughter to the wonderland that is your penis.”
“I’ll decide whose hole I dick. You ain’t nothing but some shitty lawyer couldn’t keep his hand outta the till anyway.” His laugh burned with contempt. “Working the border with fucking wetbacks. Judge Royy Bean. What a load of bullcrap.”
Bassi’s breath was onions and French fries. Stale and rotted and the Judge wondered if Bassi hadn’t actually climbed out of one of the coffins in the trailer, long since dead yet shambling from one disaster to another.
Bassi kept trying to crowd him. A weak-ass intimidation, one that made the Judge want to laugh. The customers stared, goggle-eyed, but it was all bad theater now. Bassi had made his play, had made the Judge momentarily nervous, the only thing left was the histrionics.
Over the detective’s shoulder, the Judge watched Johnny. The joint’s owner stood just inside the kitchen door, one hand on the
phone, the other hovering at the waistband at his back. Cars and trucks roared on the nearby streets, while the delicate bell over Johnny’s door tinkled with another customer coming for hot links. Under it all was the steady tick of everyone’s heart.
Eventually, after seeing everyone on the patio, seeing the cars pass, hearing dogs bark somewhere distant, the Judge returned Bassi’s stare.
He says he’s not scared, but I think he is. I think, if I put that .380 right the fuck between his eyes, he’ll be plenty scared.
“You need to back up, Mr. Bassi, I’m not getting any fresh air.”
“What? You saying I stink? That’s what you’re going with?”
The Judge didn’t hesitate, didn’t play coy about his pistol. He yanked his jeans, shoved his hand into his boot, felt metal, and—
“Should’a fixed it, you son of a bitch.” Bassi drew from his lower back.
At the same time, he hammered the Judge with a hard left to the chin. Pain exploded like a ball-peen hammer cracking his teeth and the Judge hit the ground hard.
This is how it ends, Mariana. In a puddle of my own blood and Johnny’s spicy sauce. A piece of shit gets the drop on me and this is how it ends.
Over the top of the detective’s shouted, “Shit,” was an explosion of gunfire.
At least I’ll be able to hold you again.
You ain’t done yet, lover. Get up, Jeremiah. If you die now, I will not be waiting.
But Mariana, I—
No, you have work to do.
The man with the mustache.
GET UP!
The Judge rolled, tried to get his gun. Bullets thunked the concrete, peppering his face and hands with stinging shards.
Bassi and the detective fired, their guns barking, while screaming customers dove for cover under tables and through the doors back into the restaurant. Two men, dressed alike in the uniform of Jehovah’s Witnesses, hopped the short fence and disappeared down the street into the summer heat.
Shots tore open everything. The soda machine and its tanks of syrup and CO2, bottles of runny red ketchup and thick yellow mustard, jars of jalapenos and relish, containers of barbeque sauce. Tumblers of soda and plates of food exploded, covering the patio.
The Judge tried again to get to his gun, but couldn’t get his jeans up while dodging the shots or while fighting the damned vest that fit him like steel sport coat one size too big.
He jumped to his feet as the warmth of his own blood streamed from his mouth. Without a word, he ran for the truck. It wasn’t going to take the cops long to get here. He didn’t want to be found and he sure as hell didn’t want the truck found.
It was a short block to the truck but the Judge’s boots slipped on the asphalt. Like a dream where he ran and ran but never moved. A car came around the corner and the horn squealed. The driver slammed his brakes but the car continued, smoke pouring from the rear tires. The Judge dipped his shoulder to absorb the collision but somehow missed it.
Instead, the car ran into a storm of bullets. They thunked a trail from hood to trunk as the thing got stopped. The driver yelped and threw the car into reverse and again the tires smoked as he blasted back the way he’d come.
Ducking and dodging, trying to avoid Bassi’s shots, Bean made it to the truck’s door. A quick yank open, two steps, and his ass was deep in the seat.
A bullet hole stared at him. One bored in through the driver’s window and exited the far back side of the sleeper wall. Delicate shards of safety glass dotted the dashboard.
Someone else already shooting at you?
Bean cranked the hell outta the truck’s big motor. The engine screamed and thick clouds of black smoke filled the air.
So who was shooting?
Stanton? Or, given Bassi’s tastes, someone else altogether?
“You fucking dumbass,” he said, berating himself. Why had he ever thought Bassi could make a delivery? He’d known for years what Bassi was all about and what kind of baggage he brought with him. “Damnit, Bassi, what’d you do?”
A bullet answered. It tore into the door just behind the Judge. He heaved the truck into gear and got it moving. Inches at a time.
From the patio, Bassi kept shooting. Bullets hit the trailer and the engine housing. One bullet shattered the entire front windshield while another tore through the radiator. In the outside mirrors, the Judge saw the trailer and his balls tightened.
Smoke poured from it.
“No, no.” Bean hit the steering wheel. “Damnit.”
Bassi hopped the knee-high fence around the patio and bolted into the street, waving his arms. “That’s my weed. You ain’t getting it.”
The Judge blasted the horn. The truck kept moving, a decent bit of power now in its belly.
Bassi jumped onto the nose of the rig, catching the hood ornament and hauling himself up on top of the thing.
“Are you crazy?” Bean said.
“This is my shit.”
Bean jammed down the accelerator. The truck lurched and bumped as though taking a deep breath. Then it jumped forward.
Bassi whipped his gun onto the hood and leveled it at Bean.
Bean jerked the wheel left. Bassi slid to one side and his gun skittered across the hood. When the Judge yanked back hard right, Bassi went the other direction.
“Get. Off. My. Truck.” With each word, Bean jerked the wheel back the other direction, tossing Bassi side to side, loosening his grip.
“Fuuuuck yooouuuuu.” Bassi howled. He slid off the hood but managed to keep his hand tight around the ornament. Somehow, he got his head up over the edge of the nose again. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck’re you talking about?”
The air was full of sirens now. Cops called to a shootout and a burning truck and who knew how far away they were.
“Tell Faith I’m sorry.”
Guiding the truck down Big Spring Street, cars parting like he was Moses in the fucking Red Sea, Bean yanked out his cell phone.
“Faith, I’m sooooooorrrrryyyy.”
Then Bassi was gone. He’d ripped the ornament off the truck when he went down. The cab bumped over Bassi’s body.
Bean pushed the thing harder.
6
Less than a hundred miles from Barefield, just a little south of Lubbock, the smell of gun oil, and fear-stink, filled the space between duo.
Only four lonely bullets left. But if the ammo ran dry, there was always the Kennedys, wasn’t there? And the Nazis after that.
Damnit, clear the shadows and confusion outta your head. Sing a song. Dance a jig. Draw a fucking picture.
None of that ever worked. The shadows were always there, light or dark, drugs or whiskey be damned.
This time it was a man. Probably a different one, even though his face was pudgy and drawn and scared and sweaty, just like the guy in Albuquerque...or maybe the one in Sierra Vista. “You’re all the same.”
Same man, different man. All scared and babbling for mercy. Same men, same women. Their fear all had the same funk to it. Boobs or dicks, high society or dog shit, fear smelled and tasted the same.
“When it comes to fear, everybody bleeds the same.”
This guy—too-tight jeans strangling his balls, fake silk shirt unbuttoned to the bottom of his too-hairy chest—saw the gun and immediately dropped to his knees. Just like a Southern Baptist preacher at tent revivals, on his knees, begging for coin.
Except his hands weren’t out. How them saved souls gonna drop silver in that palm if those hands aren’t out?
“Beg...” Touched the gun to the man’s forehead. “Beg.”
Head bobbing like one of those dolls, spittle all over his lips. “Sure...anything you want. Hell, everything you want. Just let me and the sun wake up together tomorrow.”
“Or at least long enough to get some clean skivvies, huh?”
The man had pissed himself. “I don’t want to die.”
“Who does?” A pause. “I been running short of bullets.”
/>
Hope flared in the man’s eyes.
“But I know the Kennedys. Personally.”
“What? The who?”
“Whoooooooo...are you? Great song.” A cough, a hesitation. “Let me ask you this: how can you put a man in charge whose family sold bullets to the Germans in World War II?”
“The fuck are you talking about?” the man asked. From his knees, he backed away, tried to stand. “You’re crazy.”
The gun smashed hard against his skull. “How ’bout I crazy your brains all over the fucking wall?”
Now his hands came out. The full Southern Baptist picture.
“No, no.” Voice high and scared like a school girl’s. “Ain’t what I meant. What I mean was...that yeah, you’re right. He can’t be in charge. World War I or II, or III or what the fuck ever.”
The gun sagged. “Dude, agreeing with me ain’t gonna help. I mean, nice try, grabbing whatever you can, but you don’t understand me. You don’t have the intellect.” Tap-tap-tap of the gun against skull. “So stop embarrassing yourself and tell me where the Judge is.”
“What judge?”
“Bean. With two y’s.”
The gun caressed his ear, barrel along his lobe, then dragging a line along his throat, as though through the ease of touch the information would come pouring from this rat of a man. There had been rats up and down the hot part of America, the brown part of America with all those Mexicans, and the touch had worked with most of them.
Yeah, those people were all dead now, ’s why the magazine was running short, but the touch had mostly worked. Never totally, no one gave up the Judge’s precise location, which they all obviously knew, how could they not, but the circle was drawing tighter, wasn’t it?
When it was tight enough, a noose so elegant even a hangin’ judge would love it, the air would be bathed in the nasty stench gunpowder and blood, of piss and the man’s shit.
“I want the Judge.”
A giggle leaked from the man’s thin lips, just like the piss had from his dick. “We all do, gangsta.”
“Maybe, but I’m gonna get him. Where is he?”
“Swear to God, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in months.”
