Duke City Desperado

by Max Austin

  He took a few steps toward Central, then stopped. Without cash, he couldn’t buy food, and food had been the only reason to risk the bright lights of Central Avenue.

  But where to go instead?

  He couldn’t think. His head pounded. If only he had some aspirin or some Tylenol or, better yet, a joint. Marijuana isn’t much of a painkiller, but it sure will take your mind off your woes.

  The sudden lust for weed reminded him that he’d been on his way to see his pal Oscar Pacheco, who lived not far from here. Oscar always had weed.

  A garage apartment full of marijuana smoke might not be the recommended hideout for a wanted man, but Dylan could do worse.

  He started walking.

  Chapter 20

  Antony Rocca rang Carmen’s doorbell, then stood with his arms crossed, puffing against the night chill.

  The door flew open, but it wasn’t Carmen standing there. Her sister Rosa filled the doorway, big and buxom and six inches taller than Antony, thanks to the spike heels she wore with her skintight stretch jeans. He found himself eye level with her breasts, which pushed against her fuzzy pink sweater. Made Antony think of the cupcakes he’d loved as a kid, Hostess Sno Balls, chocolate mounds covered in pink marshmallow and coconut. Rosa wasn’t nearly as sweet.

  “What do you want?”

  “Um.” Antony glanced back at the Escalade. “Is Carmen here?”

  She rolled her eyes, which bore a full complement of jet-black mascara and turquoise eye shadow. She wore lipstick the color of ketchup and enough hairspray to bring down the ozone layer.

  “Carmen’s in bed already,” Rosa said. “What are you, estupid?”

  “We were supposed to have a date tonight.”

  “That was hours ago. She told me you got all jealous and ran off after her old boyfriend. Did you catch him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, you should go look some more,” Rosa said. “You’re so interested in him, go take him on a date.”

  “Hey, now—”

  “Or maybe it’s me you’re interested in.” She moved closer to him, those pink mounds practically in his face. “Maybe you want a woman who fights back.”

  She held up her hands to show him her painted nails, blood-red and curved like claws. Antony took a step back and immediately hated himself for it.

  “I’m not here to talk to you,” he said. “I want Carmen.”

  “She don’t want to see you tonight.”

  “I want—”

  “She said you don’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer. Would slamming the door in your face work?”

  Antony glanced toward the Escalade, wondering whether Jasper was hearing this. Rosa caught the look and said, “Go ahead. Call your boyfriend over here. I’ll kick his fat ass all over this neighborhood.”

  Antony backed out into the yard.

  “Forget about it.” As he turned away, he added under his breath, “Crazy bitch.”

  She came out onto the porch.

  “Come back here and say that, you little shit.”

  But Antony was beating it to the Escalade, his face burning with embarrassment. Behind him, Rosa slammed the door.

  Chapter 21

  Dylan James limped along the sidewalk, fallen leaves crunching under his aching feet. Canvas sneakers might be retro cool, but they weren’t designed for walking mile after mile. Be easier on a bicycle, but every one he saw was locked up tight.

  Oscar’s apartment was beginning to seem like a faraway haven, one he might never reach. He was dead tired, and he still had another five blocks to go. He trudged along, holding his throbbing ribs, his knees creaking with every step.

  He was between Lead and Coal Avenues, the “one-ways” as everyone calls them, when a car turned onto his block, its headlights washing over him. Dylan had his head down and his hood up, but he still felt exposed. He froze, waiting for the car to pass, but it slowed to a crawl.

  “Shit,” he hissed.

  The car was an APD prowler, a low-slung Dodge Charger, a powerful hot rod with a black-and-white paint job. The car stopped in the middle of the block opposite Dylan.

  A spotlight, mounted next to the driver’s door, flicked to life. Its beam danced toward him. Keeping his head down, Dylan hurried away on the sidewalk, but the light caught up to him.

  “Hey!” the cop shouted. “Hey, you!”

  Dylan stopped and the cop backed up the car so they were separated by only twelve feet of asphalt. The cop was a fortyish white guy with short dark hair and a mustache, his face glowing green from the dashboard lights. He wore a black uniform with a Kevlar vest, as if dressed for a shoot-out. A riot gun stood in a rack in the front seat next to him.

  “Me?”

  “Come here.”

  “Why? I didn’t do anything. I’m just walking here.”

  “Come closer.”

  Dylan didn’t want to leave the shadows, but he couldn’t think of a way out of the conversation. He stepped into the street, keeping his head turned away from the probing spotlight.

  “Yeah?”

  The cop nonchalantly unwrapped a stick of gum before he answered. “You live around here?”

  “No, I was just over at UNM.”

  “And where are you going now?”

  “To see a friend.”

  “Yeah?” The cop folded the gum into his mouth and chewed vigorously with big square teeth. Made Dylan think of a horse. “What’s your name?”

  “Jesse.”

  First alias to come to mind. When he was a boy, Dylan loved stories his father told about Jesse James and his brother Frank, the way they rip-snorted around the Midwest after the Civil War, robbing banks and trains. His father always insisted the James brothers were distant relations. Dylan figured it was bullshit—most of what his father said turned out to be bullshit—but it always secretly pleased him to think some familial connection to Frank and Jesse James, however distant, might explain the larceny in his blood.

  “Jesse what?”

  “Jesse, um, Franklin.”

  “Jesse Franklin,” the cop repeated. The way he was smacking his gum, it was as if he were chewing up Dylan’s alias and not much liking the taste. “Jesse Franklin. Where do you live, Jesse?”

  “Over on Morningside.” Another knee-jerk lie. Closest thing Dylan had to a permanent address was the sofa in Doc’s seedy apartment on south San Mateo, miles from the comfortable Morningside neighborhood where Carmen lived.

  “You got some ID?”

  Dylan shook his head.

  “How can you walk around at night without any ID?”

  Dylan said nothing. He took a deep breath, flexing his banged-up legs, getting ready to run.

  “Push that hood back,” the cop said. “Let me get a better look at you.”

  Dylan reached up as if to obey, then wheeled away, running back to the sidewalk.

  “Freeze!” the cop yelled. “Come back here!”

  Dylan sprinted toward Coal. Behind him, the idling cop car ground into reverse. Its tires chirped as the car roared backward, trying to catch up to him.

  Headlights streamed toward him on Coal, but he raced across the one-way street just ahead of the honking cars, which passed so close he could feel the wind off them.

  When he reached the opposite sidewalk, he glanced back. The cop car wheeled around in a U-turn, blue and red lights flashing. Its siren whooped, demanding a break in the traffic flow.

  Dylan cut to the right, into a paved driveway that ran beside a stucco cube of a house, all its lights out already. He ran across the backyard and vaulted a low wall into the next yard. A motion-sensor light came on, illuminating flower beds and patio furniture and a square of lush lawn. He sprinted across the yard and went over another low wall, but his toe caught and he lost his balance and fell flat onto a concrete driveway.

  He tried to moan, but the wind had been knocked out of him and it came out as a tiny squeak. He clutched at his bruised ribs while he gasped for breath.

&nbs
p; He heard an engine idling, coming closer, and he rolled into the shadow of the low wall just as the squad car reached the mouth of the driveway. The spotlight beam stabbed into the driveway, but didn’t seem to land on him, a gray lump against the concrete wall.

  The car moved on. Dylan waited a second, then got up on his knees, hurting all over, still trying to get his breath. He’d just made it onto his feet when the cop car hurtled back into view, screeching to a stop at the mouth of the driveway.

  The spotlight beam hit him in the face and he heard the cop’s triumphant, “Hah!”

  As the officer started climbing out of the car, Dylan took off running again.

  “Dylan James!”

  The sound of his name made Dylan’s heart leap, but he didn’t break stride.

  “Halt!” the cop yelled. “Right there!”

  A pistol cracked behind him. The bullet glanced off the wall of the house and whined away into the dark.

  “Shit!” Dylan ducked his head, but he kept running, his arms pumping.

  “That was a warning shot, asshole!” the cop yelled. “You’d better stop!”

  Dylan threw himself over a chain-link fence and hit the ground running. He zigzagged between trees as he fled across another backyard. A second gunshot barked, and he heard the bullet clatter through the branches above his head.

  Keeping low, he ran to the corner of the nearest house and squatted next to an evergreen shrub. He gasped for breath, looking back the way he’d come, waiting for the cop to catch up to him.

  But the policeman had run back to his car. The engine growled and the siren whooped, very close, and Dylan took off again, putting houses between him and the noise.

  Another siren howled up ahead, and he got a glimpse of flashing red lights between houses. They were closing in. Cops would come from all over the city now, prowling every street in the neighborhood, hunting for the bank robber.

  Dylan looked for someplace to hide. He was in the gravelly backyard of a pueblo-style adobe house, all rounded corners and jutting vigas, and there wasn’t so much as a bush to provide cover. Leaning against the back wall of the house, however, was a ladder. It wasn’t a ladder meant to be climbed, but an ornamental one, made of weathered sticks lashed together, like the ladders at real Indian pueblos. It didn’t look the least bit sturdy, but Dylan scrambled up it like a monkey and rolled over a low parapet onto the house’s flat tar-and-gravel roof.

  A door slammed below him. He held his breath, listening as someone came out the back door and crunched around in the yard, investigating the noise he’d made. Then the door closed again and Dylan could return to his regularly scheduled gasping.

  Engines roared in the streets nearby as the flashing cop cars zoomed up and down, looking for him.

  Dylan lay flat on his back, looking up at the stars, waiting for the police to give up the search.

  Chapter 22

  The FBI agents were in their bathrobes, eating popcorn in front of a college football game on TV, when Pam’s phone rang. She plucked it off the table and checked the readout.

  “Shit, it’s the office.”

  “Don’t answer it,” Hector said. “It can’t be good news.”

  Her long black hair still was wet from the shower, and she pulled it out of the way as she put the phone to her ear.

  “Willis,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s Russ.” Russ Arnold was one of the other agents in their office, a corn-fed Midwestern guy with more brawn than brains. “Just heard from APD on your drive-through bank robber. Thought you’d want to know.”

  Pam’s pulse quickened. “Did they catch him?”

  “No, but a patrol sergeant did spot him over by UNM. He took off running through yards and the sergeant lost him. He called in the troops, but so far they haven’t turned him up.”

  Hector watched her with upraised eyebrows, waiting for news. She frowned and shook her head to show him it wasn’t good.

  “How long have they been hunting for him?” she said.

  “Over an hour,” Russ said, “but no luck so far.”

  “Okay, thanks for the update,” she said. “I’ll call Hector and tell him.”

  That made Hector grin.

  She thumbed off the phone and set it back on the end table.

  “APD spotted him in the student ghetto an hour ago, but he ran and they lost him.”

  “Too bad,” Hector said. “But at least we know he’s still in town.”

  “Think we ought to get dressed and go help them look?”

  “Come on, Pam. It’s late. We couldn’t add anything to the search.”

  “Two more sets of eyes,” she said.

  “Very tired eyes. And if an hour has passed since he gave them the slip, he could be anywhere by now.”

  She sighed and leaned her head back on the sofa.

  “All right,” she said. “We can wait until morning. But then we’re on the hunt until we catch this motherfucker.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetie.”

  Chapter 23

  Doc Burnett lay awake on his bunk, waiting for the guards to come for him. Once a doctor got a look at Joe’s injuries, they’d figure out that Doc had a hand in what happened. More charges to come, no doubt, but hell, he was already facing federal time. Better to add to his eventual sentence than to take a dick in the face.

  What the hell was wrong with that big Indian? Tino had said he was freak, but damn. What kind of thrill could a man get—

  Someone howled like a wolf somewhere in the cell block, an unearthly sound that caused gooseflesh to rise on Doc’s arms. Sleepy, grumbled curses came from several inmates awakened by the noise, then quiet settled over the pod again.

  Always a few crazy fuckers in the mix, he thought, feral types with mental illness so severe you couldn’t even communicate with them. You just tried to stay out of their way. But how was Doc supposed to know which inmate was the howler? And which ones might be friends of Joe’s? He couldn’t afford to turn his back on anybody until he spent some time in the dayroom and learned more about the population.

  All alone, once again all alone. The story of Doc’s life. All alone in the world. He’d been put up for adoption when he was born, but there’d been no takers for a scrawny, colicky baby of uncertain heritage. He’d grown up in a string of foster homes run by strangers. Some of the foster parents had been kind, but others had taken in stray children for the meager government money they could earn that way. Those places had been no better than puppy mills, and Doc had learned at an early age to fend for himself. To take what he wanted before someone else did. To trust nobody.

  As he got older, he experimented with allowing other people into his life, but it never went well. He could measure his life by the times he’d trusted people—girlfriends, pals, cellmates—all of whom had let him down in some way. Each disappointment reinforced the notion that he was better off alone.

  He’d about given up on people altogether when he ran across young Dylan. The kid had treated Doc as a respected elder, had listened to his advice and his speed-induced ramblings. He understood that Doc had, by damn, learned some things over the years, and he wanted to profit from those experiences.

  In exchange, Doc got the pleasure of Dylan’s company. The kid had a quirky sense of humor and he didn’t mind the menial chores Doc threw his way. They’d developed a connection of sorts, first one he’d allowed himself in a long time. They’d become friends.

  But that hadn’t stopped him from blabbing Dylan’s name to the FBI at the first opportunity. No wonder Doc had spent so much of his life alone. He was a lousy friend.

  Feeling sorry for himself, he rolled over to face the wall, folding his arm around his head so it covered the exposed ear. Maybe he could filter out the abrupt noises of the jail. He needed to get some sleep, but still felt too wired from his encounter with Joe. His stomach growled and he had a headache behind his eyes.

  He almost wished the guards would come for him, so he’d have something to do othe
r than listen to the jail sounds.

  Another wild howl echoed through the corridor, followed by a lunatic cackle of laughter.

  Doc sighed. Long time until daylight.

  Chapter 24

  Dylan was so weary, he dozed off on the flat roof. The whoop of sirens and the vroom of car engines began to melt together, hubbub from a bad dream, and he drifted away.

  He dreamed of Doc, the two of them riding in the white van, prowling neighborhoods. Doc talking with great authority about fluoride in the drinking water or the Illuminati or some other paranoid shit. Then Doc took a wrong turn and they were pulling up to a teller window, only it wasn’t a window, it was a door, a door with bars. He’d driven them right into jail. Dylan was filled with dread as they walked down a long corridor. A rapid chopping sound, a deep thumping, came from the far end of the hallway and it got louder and louder—

  He snapped awake, blinking and shivering with cold. He was still on the roof, the stars overhead, and that thumping sound was real.

  Helicopter.

  “Shit,” he whispered. “They’re pulling out all the stops.”

  The house’s evaporative cooler was only six feet away. Already shut down for the winter, the cooler was a three-foot-tall cube covered by a gray canvas tarp. Streetlight glow created a wedge of inky shadow on the side nearest Dylan.

  Hands still in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie, he rolled over twice to reach the protection of that shadow.

  The helicopter was closer now, beating the air above the neighborhood. The noise was tremendous. He lay still, facedown, the smell of tar strong in his nose, waiting for a spotlight to find him huddled there against the cooler.

  The chopper noise diminished after a minute or two, but Dylan didn’t dare move. If that was APD’s helicopter, it would circle the area, working the grid with the patrol cars below, shining its spotlight in all the shadowy places where a man might hide. It would be back. Again and again.

  He waited five minutes without moving, but the helicopter didn’t come any closer. He’d nearly persuaded himself that it wasn’t a police chopper at all, that it was an air ambulance headed for nearby University Hospital, when the sound of the whirring blades changed again.