Seven

Watch your six, Sport Model.

A dead partner’s whispered warning. A triggered twitch of muscle memory and street cop reflexes. The split-second dive to the right. The graceless tuck and shoulder roll that slams and skids your ass across the greasy linoleum floor of a roadside tienda.

Left hand full of a Colt’s cold comfort. Hammer back. Eight Fat Boys in the mag. One in the pipe. Hardball .45 ACP and Flying Ashtrays. Find the source of that buckshot blast meant to blow your head into red mist, skull fragments, hair and brain matter.

Ignore the screams, shouts, clumping footfalls and Dios Mios of customers and clerks exiting rapido to safety. Smell the cordite but pay it no mind.

Ignore all that shattered bottle glass and the ketchup, mustard, mayo, salsa picante and salsa verde splattered across the floor, your jeans, your belt buckle and your best Nocona boots. A swirling mess of red, green, white and yellow that just doesn’t matter.

Find that shooter. Listen for the telltale shing-shing pumping more buckshot into the chamber. Pray he’s old school. Pray the shotgun isn’t a semi-automatic with the next round already in the pipe.

Shing-shing.

Answered prayer. The sound rises from the next aisle to his front left. The Colt tracks the echo, sights panning across the shelves facing him. Jarritos, Jumex, Sidral Mundet, Big Red, 7 Up. Spam, Underwood Deviled Ham, Starkist. Valvoline, Havoline, Pennzoil.<

A boot sole scrapes the linoleum. Front corner of the next aisle. Right behind the 10W30. Colt centers on the sound. Front blade splits a quart of Havoline. Blast five shots. A grunt, a groan and the clatter of dropped gun metal. Ears ring.

Quick crab crawl to the opposite corner.

Sneak a peek. Shooter on his knees. One hand covers his bloody gut. The other reaches for his pump shotgun.

Fuck you, old school. Three more blasts from the Colt. Squeeze the trigger like a lover until the slide locks back and smoke curls from the breech. One round cores a Third Eye in the shooter’s forehead.

Quema tu culo en el infierno, pendejo. No last rites. No absolution. Straight to the flames. Spit a sour green ball of phlegm on the floor.

Shuck the empty mag. Slap home a fresh one. Trip the slide. Shake out a Lucky and stick it on a dry lip.

Light the nail with a Zippo and a shaky hand. Drag the smoke down deep to smother the stench of gunsmoke and blood. Dial 911 on the black rotary phone next to the cash register and wait for the gaudy post-mortem show to start. No popcorn.

Give thanks to the whiskey gods you survived another gunfight. Thank those old reflexes, too. They’re the second cousins of doubt — the only thing you’re dead certain of.

*** *** *** ***

Dealer’s choice. Jacks or better to open. Check, raise, bluff or call in a round of liar’s poker with a lawdog Burch knew but hadn’t seen in almost a decade. Didn’t know if he could trust the man who held all the high cards. And the badge. Best to play it close to the vest.

“I see you still worship at the Church of John Browning. Bet you still follow the lessons they taught you at the Hollow-Point Charm School.”

Raise with a bluff and smartass bluster.

“Dance with who brung ya, Sheriff. And not much charm to this deal. Just a shitload of lead. Muchacho there tried to make me a headless horseman with some double-ought. I begged to differ and let Brother John’s best do my talking for me.”

“Old gun.” Call.

“Old man shootin’ it. Only gun I can hit anything with.” Re-raise.

“And you had to come all the way out to my county to prove you still could. Why the hell is that?”

Burch smiled but didn’t answer. A quiet fold. The sheriff was deeply annoyed but wasn’t ready to throw him in a jail cell. Yet.

Burch stood about five feet away from the shooter’s corpse, dripping ketchup, mustard and salsa on the tienda linoleum. Half-assed trying not to fuck up the sheriff’s crime scene while smoking another Lucky pacifier.

His eyes scanned the body, sprawled face first in a dark, spreading pool, left arm flexed out like it was plowing a path for a body that would never follow.

His brain automatically picked out and filed the details. Once a murder cop, always a murder cop. Gold badge or not.

Detail: The last hollow-point he fired blew out the back of the man’s skull. Filed.

Detail: A scorpion tattoo on the left forearm. Black ink only. Lines still sharp. Filed.

Detail: Shooter’s gun a Remington 870 pump. Twelve gauge with a sawed-off barrel. Common as rocks and sand in West Texas. Filed.

He studied the left side of the man’s face, the side that wasn’t marinating in blood and brain pulp.

Detail: Smooth bronze skin, left eye showing the eight-ball bulge. Detail: Lips locked back over a pearly white grimace. Silver cuff on the left earlobe. Maricón? Maybe.

Details and question filed. Nothing rose from his memory banks. Noted and filed.

His eyes returned to the gaping hole in the back of the man’s skull.

Gotta love them Flying Ashtrays. Did damage to a man. Hardball knocked him down and hollow-point chewed up his innards and cored out his skull. The Big Adios. One-way ticket. Paid in full.

The sheriff squatted on his boot heels near the dead man’s right hip, using the eraser end of a pencil to lift the bloody tail of a denim shirt to study an exit wound. A muttered oath. English or Spanish. Burch couldn’t tell.

More muttering. A wallet fished out of a back pocket with a hand gloved in latex. A glance at the driver’s license. A quick riffle through a thick sheaf of greenbacks.

Detail: Helluva lot of lettuce in that wallet. More than your average greaseball carries. Noted and filed.

Sheriff Sudden Doggett gave one shake of the head then pinned Burch with dark, angry eyes framed by the underside of a faded, stained and dented Resistol that might have been dark gray in its younger days.

“Why the fuck is it every time you cross the Cuervo County line you have to announce your presence by painting the walls red?”

“Only the second time I’ve visited your fair jurisdiction, Sheriff. And the first time was a few years back. Seven or was it eight?”

“Not long enough if you ask me. Why can’t you be like every other tourist passing through and keep trucking over the river for some bad tequila and cheap pussy?”

“Because I’m on a job. Was on my way to see you when this happened.”

“Well, fuck me runnin’. Worst news I’ve had all day. Fuckin’ angel of death is what you are. And my morgue’s already full. Last thing I need is another gun hand racking up body count.”

“Startin’ to sound like your old boss.”

“You can just take that talk and jam it straight up your ass, pendejo. Go clean yourself up some. You look like Ronald McDonald with that shit smeared all over you.”

“Good to see you again, too, Sheriff.”

“Bite my ass, Burch.”

Risky to poke a stick at Doggett with the thin hand he held. Might wind up in a jail cell for his trouble. But the reaction he got was worth it – genuine pissoff with no hesitation or trace of guilt. Told him he just might be dealing with a straight shooter. Hope so. We’ll see.

The lawman kept his eyes locked on Burch as he barked an order.

“Get this fuckhead out of my face before I run him in lookin’ just like the clown he is. Take him out back. Ruby’s got a garden hose out there. Let him use it and get cleaned up while I check out this mess. Leave his Colt on the counter.”

A blade-faced deputy with acne scars and the flattened nose of a bad boxer stepped up and grabbed him by the elbow. Burch shook his arm free, gave him a glare and walked toward the back door of the store.

Anger flushed out the shakes. He felt better, but not great. As good as it gets after killing a man.

***

Excerpt from The Dead Certain Doubt by Jim Nesbitt. Copyright 2023 by Jim Nesbitt. Reproduced with permission from Jim Nesbitt. All rights reserved.