by George Wier
Bob heard the refrigerator door open. “There’s no beer,” he said. “Skillet drank it all.”
Still there was no response. The evidence that both he and Skillet drank all the beer was all around them. There were at least forty empty cans of beer lying around. He’d told Skillet to clean up the mess a time or two, but Skillet shrugged and insisted that it wasn’t his apartment—which was true—and therefore it was not his mess, which was arguable at best.
Gil came back into the living room and stood uncomfortably close to Bob. Gil’s hands were empty, which was a relief. However, the small hairs along Bob’s arm stood on end and a mild shiver ran down his back.
“You didn’t look in the zipper bag while I was in the kitchen,” Gil said.
“No. Of course not.”
“If you had, and you shoulda, you would know how much money was in there, and then maybe you’d have already convinced yourself to do the job. But...”
“But?” Bob asked.
“But, it means more for me and Skillet,” Gil said. “You’re fired.”
A knife appeared in Gil’s hand. It was a butcher knife, the kind used to cut chicken up to fry. Bob didn’t remember owning such a knife. This was his last thought.
Before Bob could fully react, the knife flashed upward and down. The point buried deeply into the crown of Bob’s skull. A small fountain of blood gushed upward and Gil took a step backward. He took the hand towel he’d retrieved from the kitchen and wiped a spot of blood from his hand. A moment before he had used the towel to open the refrigerator door. After a full minute, when the blood stopped spurting upward, he reached over and wiped the handle, removing his fingerprints. The knife reverberated when he withdrew his hand. Gil doubted anyone would be able to remove it easily.
Gil picked up the zipper bag and tucked it into his belt.
He walked out the door and locked it behind him with the hand towel, then used the towel to wipe down the outside doorknob. He tossed the towel in the scraggly bushes that grew from the weed-infested brick planters.
When he got into the car, Skillet said, “Is Bob coming?”
“I fired him. Besides, he has a splitting headache. Tell you what, don’t visit Bob anymore.”
“That’s too bad,” Skillet said, his voice tinged with mild regret. “He sure kept a lot of beer around, so he couldn’ta been all bad. But...you’re the boss, boss.” Skillet smiled.
The car was navy a blue Ford Expedition. Skillet liked the way it rode, but there was no way in hell that Gil was going to let Skillet drive. Skillet didn’t have a driver’s license anyway.
“All right,” Gil said, and started the car up. “We’ve got a job to do.”
CHAPTER TEN
She drove by the old house twice before parking across the street.
Rachel Ward sat in her Mustang and regarded the house. It looked so empty that it physically hurt to look at it long.
So many memories, she thought. Where did I go wrong? What should I have done differently? But an answer, of course, was as forthcoming as the promise of life behind the shuttered windows looking back at her. She made an abrupt decision and got out of the car, walked over to the mailbox and opened it. The thing was crammed full.
“At least the police haven’t been going through his mail,” she said to herself. To do so would have taken a Court Order, and that could take time. She thumbed through the mail quickly. Tons of circulars, bills upon stacks of bills, disconnect notices, etc. Rachel closed the box, took the mail back to her car and dropped the whole bundle on the passenger seat for sorting out later.
Closing the car door, she turned once more to look at the house. “Where are you, Shelby?”
A cool wind pushed falling leaves from the roof of the house. The gutters appeared to be full of them. It used to take every bit of nudging and nagging to get Shelby to do something about them every fall.
Shelby. He was hiding out somewhere. He was alone and on the run, and his face had been on every newspaper and statewide television station. They would catch him, eventually, and then she would have to... What? She asked herself. You would have to do what? Go and see him behind bars?
“Yes,” she said aloud. And with that decision made, she walked back across the street, up the narrow, cracked sidewalk and up to the front porch.
She knocked twice, and knowing there would be no answer, began fishing for her key in her purse.
The door opened to reveal the face of Quinn Thompson, and Rachel started.
“Rachel,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same.”
“You were always quick like that, weren’t you?” Quinn smiled, and Rachel stomach did little flip flops.
“I still am. I didn’t see your car outside.”
“It’s parked down the street, of course. It wouldn’t do for Shel to come home, see my car here, then keep going, now would it? Come on in. Oh. I see you have a key. I’m sure it still works. Shelby hasn’t changed the locks since—well, Shelby hasn’t done much of anything in a very long time.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Quinn held the door open wide and stepped aside. Rachel entered, however reluctantly.
Quinn had added a spare tire to his middle-aged frame since she’d last seen him. His overall health seemed to be on the decline. He was in civilian clothes, but then again a detective was normally in plainclothes. He did have, she was certain, both his badge and his gun about his person. A shoulder holster for the gun, perhaps, beneath the tweed jacket.
“I was just making some tea. Did you want to sit down? Maybe we could have a chat.”
“No,” she said. “I really don’t care to talk. As I told Detective Roberts, I have no idea where Shelby is. He hasn’t tried to contact me in any fashion. I think he gave up on me a long time ago.”
“I doubt that,” Quinn said, and raised an eyebrow. From the kitchen a kettle began whistling. Quinn turned. “I’ll be back in a sec. Go ahead and do whatever it is you came here to do.”
Rachel watched the man disappear into the kitchen. The hatred boiled to the surface, fierce and immediate. She put her hand to her cheek and suspected her face was flushed. She thought about Agent Strongbow, the only cop in the State of Texas who didn’t seem to be actively searching for Shelby. His last words to her rang in her ears. Help him? Maybe. Save him? That may be up to you.
“You know,” Quinn said from the kitchen over the sound of pouring water, “I always thought Shelby pushed you away from him because he felt he was no longer any good for you.”
“You know nothing about Shelby,” she said, “and you know even less about me.”
Rachel began to wander around the house. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she would know it when she saw it. After a moment, she found it, and it wasn’t something that was there, but something that was missing.
“Shelby’s gun,” Rachel said, and then realized she had yet to hear a response from her last quip. But Quinn had always been the kind to allow a good one to pass, as if it was beneath him to allow himself to be flustered by anyone.
“What about it?” Quinn asked, and stepped from the hallway with a steaming cup and a teabag that he bobbed up and down, up and down, as if he had decided to go crabbing in the cup.
“It’s gone,” she said. She looked through the glass of china cabinet where Shelby’s gun had been after the Holloway shooting. It was odd not seeing it there, as if the house had lost a solid part of itself, like a wisdom tooth.
“It was nothing to have one of my people pick the lock. An old cabinet like this, you know. Simple lock. I love the wood on it.”
“It was Shelby’s great-grandmother’s. It’s about a hundred and fifty years old. Maybe more.”
“Thought so. We had a court order for the gun. It’s down in the evidence room at the station.”
“We,” she said. “You mean you had a court order.” She turned to look at Quinn and he shrugged.
Rachel wai
ted. She wasn’t about to say another word. Finally, he spoke.
“It’s an active investigation. Shelby couldn’t offer an alibi.”
“Of course he couldn’t,” she said. “But you knew that.”
“Knew it when? Are you insinuating something?”
Rachel gave Quinn a hard, sidelong look, then stepped around him and started for the door.
“I asked you a question,” Quinn said quietly.
Rachel ignored him, opened the door, stepped outside and closed it behind her. By the time she made it to the car and had her door open, she looked up to see Quinn standing on the front porch, the cup with the teabag doing the same bobbing motion, as if Quinn were some kind of machine servicing the cup.
Hate, she thought. I hate that man.
She snapped her safety belt into place, roared the Mustang’s motor, and peeled out and off into the old neighborhood.
“What are you doing?” Sheppard asked.
One corner of Sheppard’s do-jo had become Shelby’s living room, complete with an army cot with a twin-sized mattress and bedding, as well as an accordion-style, slightly higher than head-height partition from which hung the few clothes that Sheppard had brought in for him from Goodwill. At the moment Shelby sat on the bed and wrote in one of Sheppard’s office legal pads. Next to him was the dog-eared copy of Chivalry of the Middle Ages, held open by the weight of two of the other books: Idylls of the King and Le Morte de Artur.
“I’m writing something,” Shelby said.
“I can see that. What are you writing?”
Shelby finished the line he was on, his pen making a stabbing motion to lay down a period. He laid the notebook aside and looked up at Sheppard.
“I found out what I am,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“I’m a knight. I’m on a quest.”
“Care to tell me about it?” Sheppard stood with his weight on one leg. He crossed the other over, and draped his arm over the top of the partition.
“I can’t. It’s my quest. Get your own.”
“I have my own, whitebread, and you’re it.”
Shelby nodded.
“What I really meant was, what, specifically, are you writing?”
“I’m piecing together the Creed.”
“What creed?”
“The Creed of Knighthood, or it’s the Code of Chivalry, or it’s the Creed of the White Knight. Take your pick.”
“The White Knight. Okay, so you’re serious about this. It’s about time.”
“I figured it out today.”
“During your walk?” Sheppard asked.
“Yeah.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“Not really.” Shelby reached for the notebook.
“Had another thought?”
“It’s not easy. Some of this stuff doesn’t make any sense in a modern setting, so I have to translate it to where it does. Make sense, that is.”
“Not that makes sense,” Sheppard said. “Okay, when you’re done, Sir...hmm. What is your Sir?”
“Sir Danel, of course.”
“Ah yes. I almost forgot. Sir Danel. So when you’re done, would you do me a favor?”
“Sure. What?”
“Let me read it.”
“You’re actually interested in this shit?” Shelby asked.
“Remember, Sir Danel, it was my idea.”
“Ahh. So I have to remember to credit you. Maybe you can have a few words put on my tombstone when I get myself killed out there. Make sure you put a dash at the end and your name, so everyone will know who said it. And try not to make your name larger than mine, if it’s not too much to ask.”
Sheppard laughed. “Okay. You gonna show it to me when you’re done?”
“You really want to see this?”
“You’re damned right.”
Shelby handed the notebook over. Sheppard scanned it.
Shelby rubbed his eyes. “I dunno. To tell you the truth, it’s all starting to run together.
“I see what you mean,” Sheppard said, and handed the notebook back. “So the ones crossed off, does that mean they’re out completely?”
“Pretty much.”
“Read me the ones you crossed off.”
Shelby read them aloud. “To fear God and maintain His Church. I’m not much on the fearing-God thing. And which church, for crying out loud? To serve the liege lord in valour and faith. What liege lord? Like I said, this dates back almost a thousand years. To obey those placed in authority. I don’t think so. To guard the honor of fellow knights. What fellow knights?”
“Let me see that again.”
Shelby handed the page back.
“What about this one? At all times speak the truth. Huh? It sounds pretty good to me.”
“Even my name is a lie. I wouldn’t get far with that one. Besides, it was never workable. What’s the good German supposed to say when the Nazis coming knocking? ‘Why yes, I cannot tell a lie. We have Jews in our basement.’”
“Yeah. Good point, I suppose. But the essence of it means something about being basically truthful. You can’t very well cross that one off the list completely.”
“That’s covered in the number sixteen.”
“Ah. To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit. Got it. Nobody says ‘eschew’ anymore. Unless they’re sneezing.”
“I’ll change the wording to be more modern, then I’ll memorize them.”
“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you go ahead and write up the modern Creed, then we can use my old computer in there and print up some tracts and you can hand them out on the street. Maybe you could give out a few hundred a day. It might make a difference. I mean, people listen to Depak Chopra. They might listen to you.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m gonna take a break for a bit.”
“Aren’t we going to spar?” Sheppard asked.
“Are you kidding me? I walked for miles in that armor today. I think I’ve had my workout. In fact, do you mind taking Squire for a walk? Maybe she can go do her business somewhere besides the gravel space between the storage units. It’s starting to get...busy back there.”
Sheppard shook his head and smiled. “White people,” he said, and started off. Squire barked.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Skillet was clearly sleepy, but every time Gil noticed him start to nod off, he gave him a nudge.
“Is she here yet?” Skillet asked.
“No. I need your eyes open and you ready to move.”
They sat at Rachel’s front dining room table at a vantagepoint where Gil could watch the street through gauzy curtains. The interior of the house was trashed all around them to give the impression to the cops that she died as the result of a break-in gone wrong instead of a contract hit. Now that the scene was set up, they were committed. There was no way of knowing how long she’d be getting home, or even if she would bring someone with her. Anyone unlucky enough to do so was already dead.
Skillet lifted his head and raised his eyebrows despite the decided droop in his eyes. Gil timed it. It took to the count of fifteen before Skillet’s chin dropped back to his chest.
Gil shook him hard this time. “Hey. Hey! I told you to wake up.”
Skillet’s eyes popped open fully and focused. “Sorry boss. I’m awake. I’m ready to move at a moment’s notice. Maybe it would help if we talked about something. I don’t know.”
“Talk? About what?”
“I don’t know. Something. We’ve been here for hours I think. This is normally my nap time.”
“You remember how much money was in the bag?”
“Sure. I remember. It was twenty thousand. That’s ten for me and ten for you.”
“The next time I can’t see the underside of your chin, it’s twenty for me and nothing for you.”
This statement got Skillet’s full attention. He slapped himself on the face.
“Stop doing that. Why’re you doing that?”
“So I can
stay awake.”
“It makes you look like one of those crackheads that live outside your house.”
“Those are my cousins,” Skillet said.
“Your cousins are crackheads. If I ever catch you using that shit...just don’t do that shit.”
“Oh no. I ain’t no crackhead. Never tried it. It makes you do crazy, crazy things. People be walking around like zombies. They lose their...they lose somethin’.”
“Their moral compass,” Gil said. “Next thing you know, they’re stealing shit to pay for the drugs. It’s really nothing but downhill after that.”
The two lapsed into a deep philosophical silence.
Two minutes later a car pulled up at the front curb. It was the car Gil had described to Skillet.
“Get ready,” Gil said. “I want you behind the door.”
Skillet began to rise and nearly fell over onto the floor. At the last second, Gil’s caught Skillet under his arm and stopped him from hitting the floor. Outside a car door slammed shut.
“What’s wrong with you?” Gil hissed.
“Foot went to sleep.”
“Dammit. Stand up. Tap it on the floor until you get feeling.”
Skillet began tapping his foot rapidly on the floor, but it was like flopping down a sack of flour. His foot had no feeling in it whatsoever.
Gil let go of him by degrees, then moved and shot a look out the window.
“Is she coming?” Skillet asked.
“Yeah. She’s halfway up the walk. Get into the kitchen and get yourself ready in case I need help. I’ll get behind the door.” Gil moved around Skillet, headed for the doorway. As he did, he sneered, “Foot went to sleep.”
“It did.”
Skillet managed to get clear of the formal front dining room and into the kitchen.
Gil, hunkered behind the front door, began to count downward from eight to one. At one, he heard the rattle of keys against the front door. Any second she was going to come in.
The seconds ticked by and the sound of rattling keys ceased.
Gil began counting upward. When he reached sixty, he raised up and looked out the bottom corner of a triangle of beveled glass. The woman was walking slowly back down the walkway.
