But Hackberry was already talking to a dead connection.
EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, the sun was barely above the hills when Pam Tibbs turned the cruiser, with Hackberry in the passenger seat, in to Ouzel Flagler?s place. They rumbled across the cattle guard, the cloud of dust from the cruiser drifting back amid the junked farm tractors and construction machinery and rusted-out tankers and tangles of fence wire strewn over the property. The Sunday-morning quiet was starkly palpable, almost unnatural, in its contrast to the visual reminders of Ouzel?s customers? Saturday-night fun at the blind-pig bar he operated: beer cans and red plastic cups and fast-food containers scattered across a half acre, a discarded condom flattened into a tire track, ashtrays and at least one dirty plastic diaper dumped on the ground.
?We?re not any too soon,? Hackberry said, peering through the windshield.
Ouzel and his wife and two grandchildren were exiting the side door of their house. All of them were dressed for church, Ouzel in brown shoes and a blue tie dotted with dozens of tiny white stars and a dark polyester suit that shone as brightly as grease.
?You want to take him in?? Pam asked.
But Hackberry?s attention was fixed on the abandoned machinery.
?Did you hear me??
?I think I underestimated Ouzel?s potential,? he replied. ?Cut off his vehicle. Keep his wife away from a phone while I talk to him.?
?You look like somebody put thumbtacks in your breakfast cereal.?
?This place is really an eyesore, isn?t it? Why in the hell do we allow something like this to exist??
She looked at him curiously. When they got out of the cruiser, she picked up her baton from between the seats and slipped it through the ring on her belt. Hackberry stepped in front of Ouzel, raising his hand. ?Hold up, partner, you?ll have to be late for the sermon this morning,? he said.
?What?s wrong?? Ouzel said.
?Ask your family to go back inside. My deputy will stay with them.?
?We get too loud here last night??
?Deputy Tibbs, leave me your baton,? Hackberry said.
She looked at him strangely again, then slipped the baton from its ring and handed it to him, her eyes lingering warily on his.
?I don?t know what?s going on here,? Ouzel said.
Pam placed her hands on the two small children?s shoulders and began walking them toward the side door. But the wife?a broad-faced, hulking peasant of a woman who was known for her bad disposition and her clean brown beautiful hair?did not move and stared straight into Hackberry?s face, her dark eyes like lumps of coal that were no long capable of giving off heat. ?These are our grandkids,? she said.
?Yes??
?We take them to church because their mother won?t,? she said. ?They?re good kids. They don?t need this.?
?Mrs. Flagler, you and your husband are not victims,? Hackberry said. ?If you cared about those children, you wouldn?t be involved with criminals who transport heroin and crystal meth through your property. Now go back in your house and don?t come out until you?re told to.?
?You heard him, ma?am,? Pam said. Before she entered the Flagler house, she looked back over her shoulder at Hackberry, this time with genuine concern.
Ouzel?s Lexus was parked incongruously under a cottonwood tree, its tinted windows and waxed surfaces darkly splendid in the shade.
?You aren?t afraid birds will corrode your paint?? Hackberry said.
?I parked it there a few minutes ago so it?d be cool when we got in,? Ouzel said.
?There?s a man in the neighborhood with a laser-sighted rifle. I think you brought him here,? Hackberry said.
?I don?t know anything about that. No, sir, I don?t know anything about rifles. Never did. Never had much interest.? Ouzel?s gaze swept the great panorama of plains and mountains to the south, as though he were simply passing the time of day in idle conversation with a friend.
Hackberry placed the flat of his hand on the hood of the Lexus. Then he picked a leaf off a ventilator slit and let it blow away in the wind. ?What?d it cost you, sixty grand, something like that??
?It wasn?t that much. I got a deal.? Ouzel looked back at his house from the shadows the tree made. When he rotated his neck, the bulbous purple swellings in his throat raking against the stiffness of his collar, his small eyes sunk into black dots, Hackberry thought he could detect an odor that was reminiscent of a violated grave or the stench given off by an incinerator in which dead animals were burned. He wondered if he was starting to step across an invisible line.
?Why you staring at me like that?? Ouzel said.