Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?Nothing I can?t take care of.?

?That?s the way to talk.?

?See you, Jack.?

Bobby Lee closed his cell phone and stared at the back of the stall door. It was patinaed with drawings of genitalia that had been scratched into the paint. For just a moment he wondered if the drawings were not an accurate representation of the thoughts that went on inside Liam?s head. How could he have been willing to throw in his lot with a bozo like Liam and betray a pro like Jack? Jack might be a religious head case, but he was no Judas, and Hugo and Liam were. Taking off Artie Rooney?s finger seemed like an extreme measure, but at least with Jack, you always knew where you stood.

So where did that leave Bobby Lee?

Answer: playing it cool, gliding on that old-time R&B. A little time would pass and all this would be over and he?d be bone-fishing in the Keys, eating fried conch, drinking St. Pauli Girl beer, and watching a molten-red sun slip into the waters off Mallory Square.

As he started back toward the booth, he glanced through the latticework partition that separated him from the front of the restaurant. Suddenly, he realized he was looking at the couple Liam had told him to turn around and check out. The woman wore jeans and a khaki shirt and a badge on her breast. The tall man Liam had said looked like John Wayne was sitting across from her in the booth, his Stetson crown-down on the seat. He was cutting up his food, his profile silhouetted against the sunset. Bobby Lee could also see the holstered white-handled blue-black thumb-buster revolver that hung from his gun belt.

Bobby Lee also had no doubt who the tall man was. He had seen both him and the female deputy next to the diner where Vikki Gaddis had worked, with a guy who was probably a fed, maybe even the one Preacher capped later, all three of them talking to the owner of the diner, Junior Whatever in handcuffs. The tall guy?s name was Holland, that was it, Holland, the county sheriff, a big wheel in Dipshit, Texas, and the woman was his deputy, and now the two of them were right here, maybe forty feet from Bobby Lee and Liam?s booth.

Bobby Lee went straight back into the restroom, into the stall, and punched in Liam?s number.

?You fall in the commode?? Liam said.

?The guy in the booth, the one you said looked like John Wayne, that?s the sheriff.?

?Sheriff??

?You couldn?t see his gun belt below the table. His name?s Holland. I saw him questioning Vikki Gaddis?s boss, the guy from the diner. The deputy was there, too. With a guy who looked like a fed. I think the fed was the guy Preacher smoked in that motel in San Antonio. I saw his picture in the paper.? Bobby Lee could hear Liam breathing into the cell phone.

?They haven?t made us,? Liam said. ?We walk out together, calm and cool and collected.?

?The cash register is right by their fucking booth.?

?Create a distraction.?

?Hang my dick out the men?s room door??

?You have matches??

Bobby Lee pulled the wet kitchen match out of his mouth. ?What about it??

?Start a fire in the wastebasket.?

?Look, Liam??

?Do it,? Liam said, and broke the connection.

Not good, Bobby Lee thought, his heart starting to seize up in his chest.

Another man came into the restroom and began relieving himself in the urinal, making a lot of noise. Bobby Lee combed his hair in the mirror until the man had finished and gone back outside. Bobby Lee looked at the wads of discarded paper towels overflowing from the wastebasket. The paper was damp and would smolder like leaves burning on a fall day.

But for what? To bring emergency vehicles and firemen and more cops to the restaurant while Liam and Bobby Lee tried to walk discreetly away, with no vehicle, no way to get out of town, carrying a gym bag, with half the people in the restaurant remembering they had seen Bobby Lee in the can before smoke started gushing through the door?

Right.

Bobby Lee went out the b

ack exit into the warmth of the evening, into the smell of the cooling land, into the touch of a raindrop on his brow.

Liam was on his own, he told himself. Better that Liam pay the check and walk out quietly rather than the two of them try it together, doubling their chances of recognition. What was wrong with that? Only Liam would recommend starting a fire in a confined situation in order not to draw attention.

Bobby Lee walked around the side of the building, angling toward the mechanic?s shed across the street, glancing sideways through the window at the booth where the sheriff and his deputy were still eating. He saw the sheriff stand up, pick up his hat, then replace it on the seat. The sheriff said something to the deputy, his expression pleasant, unhurried. Then he walked behind a bunch of kids who were headed toward the restroom.