Dead Men's Dust

    'Pick Shank up,' I told him.

    Conditioned to taking commands, he didn't object. He quickly stooped down and lifted Shank to his feet.

    'Up the alley.'

    Opposite us was a narrow alleyway between a vacant lot and a video rental store that was closed for the night. Maybe the store had closed for many nights, judging by the faded posters.

    I knew what was going through the big guy's mind. He thought the ignominious alley was where he was going to end his days. Give him his due; I think he was braver than he was stupid.

    'You aren't taking us up there to shoot us.'

    'I'm not?'

    'If you're going to do it, do it now. Out here in the open.'

    'Okay,' I said.

    Not so keen, Shank whimpered.

    Baldy gave his boss a look that suggested there were going to be changes in their arrangement—if they managed to get out of this alive. Shank was left swaying as the big man stepped away from him.

    'Go on,' he challenged. 'I don't think you've got what it takes.'

    I gave him my saddest smile.

    The big man took that as a sign of weakness. He snatched at a gun tucked into his waistband.

    I caressed the trigger and his right kneecap disintegrated.

He collapsed to the floor, and despite his bravado he screamed.

    'What about you, Shank? Do you think I haven't got it in me to do you?' I aimed the SIG at a point directly between his eyes. 'After you tried to shoot me?'

    Think of an air-raid siren and you'll imagine the sound that Shank made.

    'You know something, Shank? You should have listened to me.'

    I pulled the trigger again.

    Shank fell next to his friend, clutching at his own shattered knee.

    'Next time I will kill you,' I promised.

4

he had the desire and the passion. he certainly had the ability. But that wasn't everything. Tubal Cain also had an agenda.

    Right now he was short on materials.

    There wasn't much hope of acquiring what he needed here, but for these cretins, he'd make the effort.

    'You know something? You should all be damned straight to hell!'

    There weren't too many things that got him riled, but these pigs on wheels were the exception. Motor homes! These monstrosities of engineering were a blight on the landscape. Colossal steel bullets fired from the devil's cannon to cause woe and destruction wherever they landed.

    Without their intrusion, this oasis turnoff beside Route I-10 in Southern California had its own beauty. A semicircular drive ran up to an artesian well, and trees had been artfully arranged to block the view of the interstate. Laurel trees made a pretty silhouette against the star-filled sky, but not when a goddamn Winnebago hunkered beneath them, square, unnatural, and spewing light from a cabin the size of the flight deck of the USS Enterprise.

    'It's enough to make you sick,' Tubal Cain said.

    Neither Mabel nor George or whatever the hell they were called argued the point. George was equivocal on the entire subject. However, that could be expected. Speaking could be difficult with a gash the width of your thumb parting your trachea.

    For her part, Mabel was pretty verbal, but nothing she'd said up until now would change his opinion. She was too intent on screaming for her unheeding husband. Another thing: she wasn't giving any clues to George's actual name. She'd only refer to him as Daddy. She was obscene, like a wrinkly Lolita.

    'Aw, for crying out loud!' Cain said. 'Put a lid on it, will you? How do you expect me to work with all that racket you're making?'

    Mabel hunkered down in the kitchen compartment. She was a hunched package stuffed beneath a fold- down counter, looking like the garbage sack George had been about to drop into the bushes when Cain surprised him.

    'Daddy, Daddy! Help me, Daddy!' she screamed for about the hundredth time.

    'Daddy's not interested,' Cain pointed out. 'So you might as well shut up.'

    Daddy sat in the driving seat, surrounded by the luxury of leather and walnut. But he was of no mind to point out the lushness of his surroundings. The elderly man was currently preoccupied with trying to stem the tide of blood flowing down the front of his pullover. Chalk white, his features showed he was losing the battle.

    'Daddeeee . . .'

    Cain took the man's hands away from the wound, guiding them to the steering wheel. His final earthly experience would be gripping the wheel as though with the intention of taking the Winnebago through the Pearly Gates with him.