The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

puzzle, and we all fit together. They’re already in your town, Sheriff. I can smell ‘em. They want that missing piece, and you’d better give it to ‘em, or else this quiet little Mayberry of yours is gonna be a slaughterhouse when the full moon rises. If you’ve got an Opie and an Aunt Bee at home, you’d better say your prayers — ”

“I’m a confirmed bachelor,” the sheriff interrupted. “Look… I’m sorry about what happened to you. Soon as I find him, that deputy is going to be in the cell right next to yours. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and listen while you spin campfire stories. You might scare a moron like Vin Miller, but you won’t scare me.”

“Even so, Sheriff, you take my advice about those prayers. Not that prayin’ ever helped me any… You know what they say, Even a man who is pure at heart, and says his prayers by night… ”

But the sheriff was already moving away from the cell. “I’ll send the doctor,” he said.

The kid answered, “You send the vet.”

The barber had one in the chair and four waiting. Between them, the men had maybe thirty hairs on their heads. None of them really needed to part with the six bits that they were about to blow. But one of the men was sure that he was in love, and two were widowers who were much too bashful to consider such emotions, and the other was haunted by pure, unadulterated lust.

Sheriff Cole had, at one time or another, experienced all these emotions when it came to the barber. Liz Bentley had a way of getting into a man’s thoughts and staying there. She wasn’t young — though she wasn’t exactly old — and she wasn’t pretty — though she certainly was a long way from ugly — but there was just something about being around Liz Bentley that made a man feel like he should suck in his gut, and that was for damn sure.

Dwight took off his hat as he stepped into the barber shop. One of the customers was jabbering on about Vin Miller and the werewolf, telling how the deputy had single-handedly captured the thing at the banker’s house. “I believe that man is just what he claims to be. I hear he ate Missus Rosewell’s Chihuahua, Speedy Gonzalez, right there in her rose garden. Ate the dog raw, alive and breathin’, yippin’ and kickin’. Now what kind of a man would do that?” He shook his head, as if amazed. “Missus Rosewell saw that poor little creature bark its last and she fainted at the horror of it, I hear tell, and old Vin had to give her mouth-to-mouth reinvigoration. Now that’s a job I wouldn’t have minded one bit!”

“Morning, Sheriff,” the barber said, tipping the storyteller to the lawman’s presence.

The customer shut up instantly. “Morning, Liz,” the sheriff said, distressed that his voice quavered just like a schoolboy’s.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

Dwight’s thumbs worked over the brim of his Smokey Bear hat. “He been in?”

Liz’s long, dark hair danced in a half-dozen mirrors as she shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “First day in three months your deputy’s missed his morning shave.” She winked at her attentive audience. “I just don’t know how I’ll make it through the day without that fifty cent tip of his.”

The men chuckled at that, but Dwight cut them short. “Yeah… well… I need to find him. Any ideas?”

Now the barber winked at Dwight. “Let me tell you about your deputy, Sheriff. I mean, let me give you a woman’s view. You know, women can tell a lot about a man, just by the way he dresses.” Dwight’s fingers dug into the brim of his hat. The lady barber’s eyes were hard on him, and so were the eyes of her balding audience, and he suddenly felt naked.

“Take Vin Miller, for instance. He’s a bantam rooster. Just like a lot of soldiers who lift weights, he picked up what I like to call the uniform trick while he was in the service. He buys his clothes one size too small, hoping that the ladies will swoon over his manly physique.”

Dwight swallowed hard, trying not to think about the tight pants he was wearing. Probably just as well he’d skipped the diner’s lumberjack breakfast special the last couple weeks. He could stand to lose a few of the pounds he’d packed on eating under Vera Marlowe’s watchful eye.

Liz clipped leisurely, taking her time with each one of her customer’s nine hairs. “Anyway,” she continued, “a bantam rooster like Vin Miller doesn’t strut his stuff for just one hen. I hear he’s been leaving big tips all over town. And he’s the type that expects those tips are going to add up to something, sooner or later.”

“You’re gonna make me ask, aren’t you?”

“It’s no big secret,” Liz said. “Seems that Vera called in sick over at the diner this morning. And I hear Vin Miller’s been leaving big tips for her, too.”

Dwight put on his Smokey Bear hat. “How come every time I’ve got a question, you’ve got the answer?”

“Us working girls, we get together and compare notes.” Liz lathered her customer’s neck, flicked open a silver-handled straight razor, and went to work. “And you know how women are, Dwight. We just can’t seem to keep our mouths shut. Especially when a bantam rooster like Vin Miller comes to town.”

“Right.” The sheriff whirled and was out the door before the lady barber could nail him with the biggest wink of all.

THREE

Vin Miller awoke with a smile on his face. He had enjoyed one hell of a night with one hell of a woman. Vera Marlowe hadn’t been at all what he’d expected, but she was something, all the same.

Full of surprises, that was Vera. For one thing, she was a take-charge kind of gal, and Vin was surprised to find that her sexual boldness suited him just fine. For another, he hadn’t had to listen to Dion or Fabian or Bobby Rydell or even Elvis while they’d been at it. The only sounds he’d heard were the standard bedspring symphony and the music of Vera’s moans.

All that moaning didn’t come from Vera, though. She kept a parrot in the kitchen, and when Vera started up, so did the damn bird. Not that Vin had the notion that he was Vera’s first or anything, but he figured that bird must have been witness to a whole lotta moanin’ goin’ on to pick up on it like that.

Now, in the light of morning, it was quiet in the house. Vera was still asleep, her lips all pouty, and she looked more like Carroll Baker than ever. Vin rolled over on his side, all ready to give her a wake-up kiss, and his stomach growled.

That was when he remembered the steaks. Big, thick T-bones. Vera had taken them out of the freezer before they’d adjourned to the bedroom, promising that she’d help him work up an appetite for a big steak and eggs breakfast.

Man oh man, was he ready for that. He rolled out of bed, pulled on his jockeys and tight slacks. Something about last night made him chuckle. Vera Marlowe, the take-charge kind of gal. At least her silk scarves hadn’t left any telltale marks on his wrists or ankles. Vin didn’t know if the whole thing felt particularly right… he only knew that it sure as hell felt a long way from wrong.

What the hell. Maybe he’d go with it, just this once.

Maybe he’d cook Vera’s breakfast.

Barefooted, Vin padded into the kitchen.

He almost slipped in the blood.

Beef blood puddled on yellow linoleum. That’s all it was. Vin breathed a sigh of relief. The blood must have overflowed the little plate as the steaks thawed, then dribbled off the counter and puddled on the floor. But then Vin saw that it wasn’t a puddle of blood; it was a scrawl.

Three words: LET HIM GO.

Vin shivered. He glanced at the sideboard. The steaks were gone, but the T-bones were still there. Picked clean. Gnawed.

“Jesus Christ.” Vin turned toward the phone, and that was when he saw the open bird cage, the dusting of