24 Declassified: Head Shot (2009) by David Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page A

what was happening. I got a mite careless and showed myself up on the rocks and one of them hog-faces sees me and starts taking potshots at me! Came mighty close, too, but my guardian angel must’ve been working overtime and the demon missed.
    “After that I faded back into the hills and made myself scarce. ’Course, Satan don’t give up that easy. That’s why he sent two devil men into the hills today to ferret me out. I reckon those hog-faces can’t walk around in the daylight. The devil men, though, they look like anybody else, only meaner than most, like I said. That pair was a couple of two-legged rattlesnakes in tandem. Not that it done ’em any good. Trying to track me down in my own hills! Shoot, I seen ’em coming from a country mile away. They were combing the rocks all day until they got tired and went away.”
    Nobody spoke for a moment. Neal broke the silence at last, saying, “That’s some story.”
    Lobo said, “Every word of it is true. The proof’s in the pudding. Look around you. Where’d everybody go? If I’m lying, where’d they all git gone to? Tell me that!”
    He looked Neal in the face, then Jack. “No answer, huh? I didn’t think so. Well, that’s about all of it there is to tell . . . Say, you boys wouldn’t happen to have anything to drink on you, would you? I was stone-cold sober last night and I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles. But I sure could use a drink right about now and I don’t mean the non-alcoholic kind, neither. Something with a kick to it. This talking is mighty thirsty work.”
    Jack said, “Sorry, no.”
    Lobo said, “Figgers. That’s my fool luck working against me.” He brightened. “Still, it was working for me pretty good last night, to keep me from getting tooken!”
    Neal took a cigarette from the pack and put it between his lips. Lobo looked up hopefully, said, “You wouldn’t have a smoke to spare, would you?”
    Neal gave him a cigarette. Lobo said, “Thank you kindly.” Neal flicked on his lighter, holding the flame to the tip of Lobo’s cigarette until it got going, then lighting up his own. Jack instinctively looked away while they were lighting up, to avoid totally cancelling out his night vision.
    Jack said, “Didn’t you see the police searching the
    compound all day, Lobo?”
    “Sure, I seen ’em.”
    “Why didn’t you come down and tell them what
    you saw?”
    “Mister, I make it a practice to keep as much distance between myself and the law as possible. I got no hankering to go back to the state hospital again so the doctors could treat me like I was sick in the head.”
    Lobo took a long draw on his cigarette, exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Some of them cops had pretty mean faces, too. Could’ve been devil men for all I know. I sure wasn’t going to put myself in their clutches. I laid low until they packed up and went home and I stayed low until that pair that was dogging me in the hills got tired and went away, too.
    “Even then I didn’t show myself for fear of the hog-faces coming back by night. It was getting late and the moon was low and they still hadn’t shown, so I took a chance on breaking cover and coming down into camp to see what I could scrounge up. I was getting powerful hungry, my belly was all twisted into knots. I made my move and that’s when you fellows showed up and turned on the lights. I ducked down among all them garbage cans to hide. I was afraid you was gonna search back there and I wanted to get away before you did only I made too much noise and gave myself away.”
    Lobo smoked his cigarette down to the nub and tossed it away, the bright orange-red tip making a tiny splash of embers when it hit the dirt. He looked up at Neal. “Could I trouble you for another of them smokes?”
    Neal gave him a fresh cigarette and held the lighter until Lobo got it going. Lobo said, “Much obliged. You fellows cops?”
    Jack said, “No.”
    Lobo nodded, as if confirming a previously held notion. “Thought