Rob Thy Neighbor

by David Thurlo

  “Hey, buddy, you okay?” Gordon asked, reaching out to help him. The guy turned away, nodding his head, and limped toward the parked vehicles. He jumped into a silver pickup, then raced away across the lot. Quickly he pulled out into traffic and drove away.

  “No comment, no excuse me, no hey, you made me fall, wanna fight? What’s his deal?”

  Charlie shook his head, entering the pickup’s license plate’s letters and numbers into his phone. “Gordon. That was Frank Geiger, Ray’s father. He didn’t want me to realize who he was. And with the limp, that means he wasn’t faking it.”

  “Double strange. Are you sure?”

  “Pretty much. That silver pickup is identical to the one parked in Geiger’s garage. I can ask Nancy to verify if it belongs to the guy. Let’s go inside. I have a good idea what he was doing here, so follow my lead with the questions.”

  “I see where you’re going with this. Besides, now I’m suddenly thirsty.”

  The bar was generic, just like the sign, but based upon the images of soldiers, sailors, and airmen that covered the back wall, it catered to military veterans and their friends and families. Rio Rancho was a relatively new, politically conservative community, and the home of many seniors. At the moment, the almost exclusively male clientele in the room was older-model retirees.

  As they took seats at the bar, they looked around casually. There was no waitress, just the bartenders—a balding man in his fifties and his helper. The young man appeared, based upon facial features, to be the bartender’s son.

  “You two young men looking for a cold draft on a hot afternoon,” the senior barkeep asked as he came over, “or maybe something with a little more bite?” He motioned toward the counter behind the bar, which contained a bottle of almost every brand of hard liquor Charlie had ever seen.

  “Scotch ale for me,” Gordon responded immediately.

  “Same here. Hey, we just ran into Frank Geiger. Doesn’t his son own that martial arts school off of Southern? Something dojo?” Charlie added, reaching for his wallet.

  “Oh, yeah, Frank,” the man replied, sliding the first tall glass over to Charlie.

  “Looked like he was in a hurry. What’s he up to now?” Charlie asked offhandedly, taking out a twenty. “For both of us,” he added.

  Gordon took the second beer. “Thanks, pal!” he said to Charlie.

  The bartender was on automatic, taking the twenty, placing it on the register below the bar counter, then handing back the change.

  Charlie slid back the ten. “We’ll have a refill in a while. So what was bugging Frank today? He looked all pumped up.”

  “Oh, he was asking me if I’d heard about his son, Ray, getting caught between two hostile mamas out in the parking lot Saturday night. Said Ray had messed up his finger when one of the gals hit him with her tote bag. Musta had a brick inside, he said.”

  “Girl fight, huh? Anyone call the cops?” Gordon asked casually after taking a sip of his beer. “I worry about Ray. Heard he had a few run-ins when he was a kid back east.”

  “Yeah. Nobody called any cops Saturday night around here, but Frank was looking for witnesses in case one of the women decided to press charges or sue his kid’s ass. It was the first I heard of it myself, and I was here until closing time. I’d have seen and maybe heard if the cops had shown up,” he said.

  “Women, they sure know how to push our buttons,” Gordon responded.

  The man behind the bar nodded. “Got that right. So how do you two know Ray?”

  Gordon took a long sip before answering. “Martial arts is one of my passions.”

  “Yeah, Ray has some skills, so I heard. That martial arts school helps keep kids busy and out of trouble. Teaches them discipline. You a teacher or a student?”

  “A little of both, beginning with Boys Club back in the city. Growing up, I had to learn to take care of myself on the streets,” Gordon admitted.

  “Survival of the fittest. I hear you,” the bartender replied.

  “Hey, bro, let’s park it at a table so I can lean back and stretch my legs. I’ve been running around town all day,” Charlie suggested to Gordon, pointing at an empty table right by the entrance. Then he turned to the bartender. “My dad would love this place. He was a Marine.”

  “You serve? You look familiar,” the bartender added, bringing over a basket of chips and salsa.

  “Army. Four deployments,” Charlie responded, not wanting to mention the times his face had been in the local paper or on TV since he’d come home to New Mexico.

  “Thanks for your service, soldier,” the bartender added, extending his hand. “The next beer is on the house. I’m Donnie.”

  “Charlie. This is Gordon. We served in the same unit.”

  Donnie shook Gordon’s hand next. “Being a little guy, guess you had to learn how to kick ass.”

  Gordon shrugged.

  “You have no idea,” Charlie said.

  * * *

  After a while, Charlie remembered to call Nancy. Several minutes later he got a text confirming that the silver pickup belonged to Frank Geiger.

  “You ready for another beer?” Charlie suggested, showing Gordon the news.

  Gordon shook his head. “Naw, I’m driving. Let’s kick back a little longer, finish the chips and salsa. Then we can hunt down some pizza or burgers.”

  “Good idea. What’s the news on Margaret and Sam?” Charlie asked, looking around the bar, noting that the place was starting to fill up now. Donnie had turned on the big-screen TV on the far wall, and a pregame show was gathering the attention of the old-timers.

  “Margaret’s getting released sometime this evening, about nine or so. Sam wants us around but said he’d give us a call ahead of time.”

  “Okay with me.”

  Several minutes later, chips and salsa gone, the guys stood and stepped away from the table.

  “Hey, Charlie, I still owe you guys a beer,” Donnie reminded them from behind the bar.

  “Aw, we gotta run. We’ll take you up on it next time,” Charlie replied. “Have a good one.”

  “You too, soldier.”

  They stepped out onto the sidewalk, immediately feeling the wave of heat still drifting off the parking lot, but it was nothing compared to what he’d experienced overseas or even on the Rez growing up. Still, it brought sweat to the brow within the seconds it took them to walk over to Gordon’s pickup. There were more cars in the lot now, though the truck was still sitting alone, with no vehicles adjacent at the moment. The closest car was an unoccupied, generic-looking faded silver sedan a hundred or so feet away.

  Gordon thumbed the key fob, and both door locks on his truck clicked open. “Think Frank Geiger is going to worry about you now?”

  “No doubt. I’m the only witness who can swear that his son was one of the three—and the guy who shot at Margaret. Nancy said Frank had been at the Rio Rancho station on Southern until Ray was transferred to APD downtown. He didn’t beat us to the bar by much.”

  “A few minutes earlier and we’d have met up with him inside,” Gordon said, climbing behind the wheel. “Spinning Ray’s alibi for the broken finger.”

  “Yeah. Frank is a streetwise cop, well, former cop, so he knows how to muddy the water. That alibi was probably his idea in the first place,” Charlie pointed out as he fastened his seat belt and lowered the sun visor on his side. “I just hope DuPree and Nancy can gather up something else to help make the case. I’d hate to have the conviction depend on me pointing out Ray in court. If this goes to trial, the defense attorney is going to come at me with both barrels.”

  Charlie turned his head, hearing a strange scraping noise coming from below the truck as they started moving. “What was that?”

  Gordon quickly put on the brakes, coming to a stop maybe fifty feet from the parking-lot exit into the main street. “There’s a low rumble, like sounds of something dragging underneath the truck. Think it’s on your side.” He looked over at Charlie.

  “It’s prob
ably just a tumbleweed, but it deserves a look,” Charlie suggested, unfastening his seat belt.

  “I don’t trust Frank,” Charlie added, “and he knows why we went to that particular bar. He may have come back and tampered with something underneath. We were inside long enough, he had time.”

  Gordon turned off the ignition and grabbed the keys. They both got out quickly, closed their doors to make room, then crouched down onto their knees, looking beneath the pickup.

  “There, a plastic trash bag attached to the frame on this side of the engine mounts,” Charlie observed. He lowered himself onto the asphalt and gazed underneath. “It’s been hooked by a wire. I think I can reach it.”

  “Watch out for the glass,” Gordon warned. “Someone broke a beer bottle or two.”

  “I hear you.” Charlie rolled onto his side, inched beneath the pickup about a foot farther, and reached up and pulled the wire loose. Then he crawled and slid back out from underneath, pulling the trash bag out with him.

  He stood, holding the bag, which probably weighed a pound or less. “Feels like trash inside, appropriately enough. That was put up there while we were in the bar,” Charlie said, taking a quick glance around, seeing no one in the lot. “But why such a juvenile—” He didn’t finish the thought, distracted by the sudden noise of an accelerating engine and the squeal of tires on asphalt.

  Charlie turned around, letting go of the bag. The silver-gray sedan was racing right at him, tires smoking in a blue cloud as the vehicle rapidly accelerated. The pickup door was shut, and he was trapped, standing in the open. Heart pounding, he dropped and rolled beneath the pickup, feeling the rush of wind a few seconds later as the car raced past. There was a thud, the pickup trembled, then the car whipped out into the street. He heard something bouncing across the asphalt, then roll to a stop.

  Charlie rolled out from beneath the truck, looking down, and saw that the car had broken off the passenger-side mirror. That was what he’d heard rolling away.

  “You okay?” Gordon yelled from the other side of the pickup.

  “Hell yeah! Let’s get that bastard!” Charlie reached for the door handle.

  By the time he was inside, Gordon already had the truck in gear. Cursing, they had to wait for a passing car, but the pause gave Charlie a chance to fasten his seat belt.

  Gordon drove off the curb, turning hard right at the same time. The big pickup bounced like a bucking bronco, but Gordon maintained control and held the vehicle in the lane as he pressed down on the gas pedal.

  “Grab your Beretta,” Gordon yelled, focusing on traffic, but Charlie was already on it. He opened the glove compartment and brought out his backup 9 mm weapon, identical to the one currently in the hands of the crime lab. He’d left it in the vehicle before entering the bar. They both had concealed carry permits, but no one was allowed to consume alcohol in a bar or tavern if armed.

  “Was it Frank?” Gordon asked, weaving past slower-moving vehicles as he doubled the speed limit. The sun had fallen low in the sky, though, and they were heading up Southern Boulevard, right into the western horizon. Eyes still forward, Gordon reached over to the center console and grabbed his sunglasses by feel.

  “Didn’t see the face, too much glare off the windshield, but who else knew we were here?” Charlie said, trying to look ahead for Gordon. He tapped his shirt pocket and brought out his sunglasses. “Damn. I cracked a lens.”

  “You sure that’s all? The car went flying by.”

  Charlie felt down his right leg, finding a damp spot on his pants about halfway up his thigh. “I must have rolled over some glass. I’m leaking blood.”

  “A little or a lot?”

  “Not much. I’m starting to feel it now, and I think it’s just a puncture, not a scrape. Good news is that it missed my junk. It’ll wait until after we catch up to the bastard.”

  “If we catch up. I just lost sight of him,” Gordon grumbled, having to brake suddenly to avoid rear-ending an old pickup hauling construction-site trash.

  “Next street, I think he turned right,” Charlie exclaimed, looking across the parking lot of another strip mall ahead of a Walmart superstore on the next block. The faded silver sedan was heading north now.

  The light turned red, and both lanes ahead were blocked by traffic.

  “Hang on!” Gordon yelled, gunning the engine and hopping up the curb onto the parking lot. “Watch for people and cars, I’m cutting across!”

  Ten seconds later, they raced out of the parking lot in the direction the sedan had gone, but by then it had disappeared up the street. “I’ll check left, you check right,” Gordon suggested, keeping the pickup within the speed limit now. They cruised north for another half mile; then Gordon pulled off the street and backed into a parking slot in front of a convenience store so they could observe passing traffic.

  “Maybe he’ll double back?” Charlie asked.

  “Naw, we lost him. We’ve gotta call the cops,” Gordon reminded him.

  “Probably should have done that sooner.”

  “We were kinda busy. Too bad we had to leave our pistols in the truck when we went into the bar.”

  “Yeah. If we’d have had weapons in our hands I might have forced him to swerve away,” Charlie mumbled, entering 911 on his phone display.

  “Or you’d still be standing there, and he’d have had the extra second or two he needed to bounce you off his windshield like a bug. How bad are you cut, anyway?” Gordon asked, looking at the bloody spot.

  “Not enough to slow me down. I think the bleeding’s stopped.” He felt around the spot and found an object imbedded in his skin. “Definitely feels like a piece of glass, or maybe a sharp rock. Not a nail or piece of metal.”

  “Don’t cut your finger trying to dig it out. Leave it there to plug the wound. You’re gonna need a medic and some antibiotics, Charlie.”

  Charlie whistled low.

  “What?” Gordon asked.

  “There are tire tread marks on the cuff of my right pant leg. Talk about close.”

  * * *

  Charlie and Gordon arrived back at the parking lot in front of the Outpost five minutes later. A police car was already there, parked in front of the bar, emergency lights flashing in the twilight. Several onlookers were on the sidewalk, including the bartender, Donnie, all kept there by one of two Rio Rancho patrolmen. A second officer, powerful flashlight in hand, was searching the surface of the parking lot itself.

  Gordon parked next to the police car, and he and Charlie climbed out of the truck, identifying themselves to the officer. The sound of more sirens seemed to come from three directions, but the boxy EMT vehicle pulled in first.

  “Prepare to be pantsed, Chuck,” Gordon joked.

  “Crap. That hasn’t happened since elementary school,” Charlie replied. “It took three guys.”

  “Stay positive. Maybe one of the medics is a woman. It only takes one of them.”

  Chapter Seven

  When Charlie eased back out of the EMT van, minus his right pant leg chopped off almost to his Hanes, his entire leg smelled of antiseptic. There was one large bandage in place where a quarter-sized chunk of beer bottle had been removed, and three smaller ones from lesser pieces of glass. He was also scuffed up with minor road rash in several spots, including his elbows and left shoulder, but looking back it was a miracle he hadn’t been struck by the car.

  Gordon was a hundred feet away, close to the street curb, apparently describing the series of events to Detective Johnson, one of the detectives who’d arrested Ray Geiger that morning. It seemed like years ago now. A crime scene van was parked south of the incident scene, and large floodlights illuminated the area where Gordon’s pickup had been when the shooting started, enabling a detailed search of the lot.

  Charlie hadn’t walked twenty feet in that direction before Detective DuPree saw him on the move and approached.

  “Damn, Charlie, now the bad guys are throwing cars at you. Sweeney claims there are even tire tracks on your pants,
” the detective said. “Shake your hand for luck?”

  “Yours or mine?” Charlie responded, grinning slightly. “It was half luck, half American Ninja Warrior. If I hadn’t had those couple of seconds to drop and roll under the truck, I’d have been thrown halfway across the parking lot.”

  Then Charlie thought of something. “Did anyone check for paint scrapes on the side mirror knocked off Gordon’s pickup?”

  “Yeah, your pal thought of that right away. The finish was faded silver or gray from what he thinks was a VW Passat. He picked out the VW based upon photo comparisons he was shown. There were a few paint stripes on the mirror, and Sweeny thought it was from the original finish, not primer, so the lab people might be able to identify the manufacturer. Can you confirm the make and model of the car?” DuPree asked.

  “Not enough to verify the ID. It was an older model, and I don’t remember any corporate letter in the center of the grille, like an H, T, or VW. I was out of the country for years, though, and I’m less familiar with auto makes and models,” Charlie explained. “From the engine noise it was at least a V-6, however, and I got the impression that the grille was a rounded rectangular shape.”

  “That fits with a Passat, which comes with higher-performance options, and backs up Sweeney’s observations. What about the vehicle plates? Sweeney would only say that the yellow color matches NM tags.”

  “I couldn’t make out a number or letter, but I agree that the plates were New Mexico yellow,” Charlie said, nodding.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky with the paint job,” DuPree said. “But narrowing down the driver might be a little easier. Your pal thinks it could have been Frank Geiger. Sweeney bumped into a guy with a bad leg coming out of the bar over there not too long before you were ambushed. Says you recognized the guy.”

  “That last part is certainly true. The driver could have been Frank, though I didn’t really get a good look at his face. There was some glare on the windshield, and all I could see was a cap and sunglasses.”

  DuPree nodded.

  Detective Johnson, the plainclothes officer who’d been talking to Gordon, came up just then. He nodded to DuPree, then formally introduced himself to Charlie.