bracelets to keep the Navajo nation in groceries for a month.
Jerry Caldwell was waiting, too. “Find everything okay, Mr. Baddalach?”
“Sure,” Jack said, and then he came up short, instantly realizing that he’d made a mistake.
The snaky smile coiled on Jerry’s fat face, ready to strike. Jack hated himself. He should have seen the whole thing coming, because Caldwell had a pen in one hand and a stack of magazines in the other.
Jack stared down at the cover photo. His own face, puffed and purple, blood oozing from steak tartare gashes over both eyes.
The cover blurb: BATTLE-AXED.
“How about some autographs?” Caldwell’s lips didn’t move, just stuck with the grin.
“You should have been a ventriloquist.”
“Huh?”
Jack sighed, staring at the magazine covers. “Look. . that wasn’t my proudest moment. Hope you don’t mind if I pass.”
Caldwell’s smile faltered, but then it took on a conspiratorial twist. He set one hand on the three-pack of jockey shorts. “Maybe we could work something out?”
Jack glared at him.
“Oh, nothing untoward,” the manager explained with a chuckle. “A trade, I mean.”
Explanation aside. Jack wished the guy would take his hand off the jockey shorts. He didn’t especially want to think of Jerry Caldwell’s plump little fingers when he slid into them.
The geriatric checkout girl gasped. Her jewelry tinkled unpleasantly.
Jack blushed. “Sorry, ma’am.” He pushed the underwear and the pit-stick and the beer and the rest of the stuff her way.
What the hell. He reached for the magazines and pushed those her way, too.
“Ring me up,” he said.
He reached for his corporate plastic.
Jack exited the store and dropped the magazines into a garbage can near the door. He figured that his behavior hadn’t been covered in any management seminar Jerry Caldwell had ever attended, because he’d left the little fat man speechless.
Chuckling, he climbed into the Range Rover. He set the six-pack on the passenger seat and tossed his other purchases into the back. Then he keyed the ignition and dropped the stick into gear.
That was when he looked up and saw Caldwell digging through the garbage.
Jack was out of the Range Rover in a second.
He slammed the door.
He didn’t see the sheriff’s Jeep Cherokee pulling in behind him.
Jack’s voice had more than a little edge to it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Caldwell whirled, clutching the magazines to his chest. His reptilian smile had slithered south in a big way, and he stuttered, and he started to shake.
Jack nodded toward the garbage can. “Put them back.”
“N-no,” the manager said, and then his eyeballs did a wild cha-cha-cha as if he were searching the air in front of him, hoping to spot the word floating there so he could grab it and shove it back into his mouth.
“Is there a problem, Jerry?”
Jack stopped dead in his tracks. The voice that had come from behind held an unmistakable air of authority. One look at Jerry Caldwell confirmed his suspicion, because Jerry was grinning like Francis the Talking Mule.
Jack turned. Two women stood between him and a Jeep Cherokee. The driver’s side of the Jeep was kind of bashed up, the paint scratched, but the sheriff’s department insignia on the door was still plainly visible.
Jack eyed the women. Call it male intuition, but he was sure he knew which one had spoken.
First impression? She was tall, and her blond hair was pulled tight against her skull, ending in a long braid that she wore over one shoulder. Maybe under other circumstances the hairstyle might not have appeared so severe, but the standard cop-issue mirrored sunglasses she wore tilted the scales in that direction.
Her polished badge flashed in the morning light. The effect was kind of hypnotic. Jack squinted behind his sunglasses. Then he noticed a pencil sticking out of the pocket flap on one side of the badge, and the spell was broken-the words SAGUARO RIPTIDE MOTEL were stenciled just below the eraser.
The same name that was stenciled on the ashtray at Vince Komoko’s house. Jack took a deep breath. This was the place, all right.
“I don’t like to be stared at, Mister. .?”
“Baddalach.”
The woman with the braid almost smiled. “I’ve heard the name.”
“And yours is?”
Her lips quivered, but just for an instant. When she spoke, her voice had dipped into a lower range. “Wyetta Earp.”
“Wyetta. .
Instantly, Jack realized that it was the wrong thing to say and the wrong way to say it, because the sheriff’s backbone turned to iron.
“You can call me
“Look,” Jack began, “I don’t want any trouble. And I’ve got a receipt for the magazines.”
Jerry Caldwell put in his two cents worth. “He threatened me, Wyetta!”
“No I didn’t. Here’s how it was … the guy wanted my autograph. I didn’t want to give it to him. I bought the magazines, though, and I threw them in the garbage can. Then he went and fished them out.”
Jack glanced past the sheriff. The woman in the black T-shirt was standing next to a battered Dodge Dakota, trying to decide whether to take off or stick around and enjoy the show.
“I
Jack ignored him. “I
The woman in the black T-shirt joined the fray. “He’s telling the truth. I was behind him in the checkout line. I saw him buy the magazines. I saw the whole thing.”
The sheriff glanced at the deputy. They traded imperceptible grins. “Gosh,” the sheriff said. “This is all really complicated. I don’t know if us girls can figure it out. . but I guess we’ll just have to do our darndest.”
She nodded at the deputy, who moved to the dented Jeep Cherokee with Jerry Caldwell in tow. The woman in the black T-shirt tagged along.
After a long moment. Jack said, “Nice day.”
“Just another day in paradise,” the sheriff said.
“So what’s the deal?”
“We’ll wait and see.”
Jack glanced at the Cherokee. The deputy was on the radio. Jerry Caldwell was gabbing in her ear, as was the woman in the black T-shirt, and the deputy was busy trying to wave them off and talk at the same time.
“I saw your last fight,” the sheriff said.
“Yeah? I wish I could have seen it. But my eyes were pretty busted up.”
“You never should have tangled with Sattler. You didn’t have a chance.”
Jack snorted. “Oh?”
Wyetta Earp smiled. “Yeah. You’re a natural middleweight, Mr. Baddalach. Sattler’s a cruiserweight who can sweat down to light heavyweight if he puts his mind to it, and you were stupid enough to meet him at 175. You shouldn’t have been carrying those extra fifteen pounds. Now, if you’d stop eating cheeseburgers and trim down,
