$200 and a Cadillac - By Fingers Murphy Page 0,108

an instant, the name came back to him. He said, “Well, Paoli, who would have thought it would end like this for the both of us?”

Mickey listened to the words. Thinking of the name. Feeling the overwhelming sense of recognition come over him. The surveyor’s face. The shape of his smile.

“Drop the gun,” Mickey repeated. Wondering what it all meant, trying to piece it together, feeling memories yaw up from his past, bringing a chill with them. He watched Grimaldi laying there. Doing nothing. Immobilized from the bullets and the blood loss. He wouldn’t drop the gun. He wouldn’t do anything.

Mickey heard the static echo in his head again.

And the name: Paoli.

He thought about repeating his command, but he no longer cared if Grimaldi dropped the gun. He no longer cared if there were bullets in it, or if Ron had killed the kid with a baseball bat, or who the surveyor was, or why he was there. Mickey no longer cared about anything. And he couldn’t make sense of it even if he tried. The futility of logic in the face of necessity. The situation simply was what it was. It presented itself and he would act, this time without hesitation, guided only by his inner sense of what was right.

Mickey fired.

The back of Ron’s head erupted against the dirt wall. Bone and brain matter soaked into the cracks, absorbed by the desert soil like any other moisture. Whatever memory or emotion it once contained now irrelevant. Its value, if it had any value at all, reduced to mere water.

Mickey carried him out. He draped the surveyor’s left arm over his shoulder, and Mickey carried him out. A lot of blood had been lost. They had to move quick. So they made their way through the brush, back up the hill, and made it to the Suburban where Mickey quickly wrapped a bandage around the leg. He wrapped it tight, trying to hold the blood in and the flesh together. The shoulder wound didn’t worry him as much. It was already coagulating.

The whole time Mickey studied the surveyor’s face, wondering if he was right. Wondering if it mattered at all now. What was done was done. Wasn’t it? Why ask questions about courses of action that could no longer be undone? The static blasted on the radio again. Mickey heard Jimmy call out to him and reached down and switched it off. There would be time for all of that. What mattered now was speed.

He drove fast over the dirt road, trying to cover ground, to get back. The surveyor slouched against the passenger door, rubbing his shoulder, trying to hold his leg still to keep it from bouncing.

As they neared the main road, with the oil truck and the Camaro, and Agent Asshole and his lackey, Mickey turned to the surveyor and asked, “So you had a brother?”

Hank glanced over at the sheriff. He’d never told him anything about it, but the sheriff asked the question like he already knew the answer. Hank simply nodded and said, “Yeah. I had one. A long time ago.”

Mickey nodded and drove out to the pavement. He turned and went up to the truck and the Camaro, where everyone was standing around. Janie ran around to the passenger’s side and opened the door, almost fainting at the sight of Hank.

Mickey got out and waved Victor off as he came toward him. “Your oil thief is down that road, dead.”

“Sheriff,” Victor pointed at Eddie. “This man is a co-conspirator, I want him arrested. I want him arrested now. Tom Crossly and myself can make a positive ID of this man.”

Mickey cut him off by throwing his keys at him. “I told you. Your oil thief is down the road, dead. Both of them. Head on out there and get them, if you like.”

Hank climbed out of the front of the Suburban, whispering to Janie. “Let’s go. Quickly. Just get in the car and drive away.”

“Where?”

“Vegas. I know a man there. A doctor.”

They went around to the car as Mickey and Victor stood facing each other. “Sheriff, this will not stand,” Victor shouted. “I demand justice.”

Mickey exhaled and shook his head, exasperated and exhausted. “You already have it,” he said to Victor. “More justice doesn’t make it more just. Go on and take what you’ve got and do whatever it is you’re going to do with it. I’m through with this.”

Mickey turned away from Victor and Tom and saw Janie climbing into the car.