Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson Read Free Book Online

Even women in their eighties smiled at the thought of Henry; it was, as always, annoying. “He’s at my jail right now.”
    Her forehead furrowed. “Oh, no.”
    “Nothing professional; the pipes in both his house and where he works froze, so he needed a place to stay.”
    “Doesn’t he golf?”
    “Yes ma’am, he’s a scratch player.” I shrugged. “He’s good at everything.”
    “He broke your nose, as I recall.”
    “Eighth grade, at the water fountain.”
    “Didn’t he go on to college?”
    “Yes, ma’am—Berkeley.”
    She nodded in remembrance. “I don’t suppose you could convince him to play? The benefits from this year’s tournament are going to the American Indian College Fund, and it would be wonderful if we could have a Native American participate.”
    I waved, trying to indicate that the conversation was ending. “Well, when I get back to the office I’ll mention it to him.”
    She continued to smile, but Ozzie pressed the button for the window. Mrs. Dobbs sat back as he put the truck in reverse, and I saw that Saizarbitoria and Geo were walking side-by-side down the inner road, the Basquo still holding the cooler under his arm, his hat now functioning as a makeshift mask.
    About fifty yards away, Geo said something to my deputy, and they parted company—Sancho toward me, and the dump man, still holding the rifle, toward the scales.
    I leaned against the grille guard on my truck and watched the young man approach with a slight hitch in his step and a general attitude of dissatisfaction. He reminded me of me.
    He pulled up about two steps away and lodged the web of his thumb over the butt of the seventeen-shot Beretta at his hip. “All right, I set a preliminary grid with the twine, but I gotta tell you that in my learned opinion the thumb arrived in the cooler and we have nothing to gain by digging up the surrounding area.”
    I crossed my arms and nodded. “You don’t think we’re going to find the rest of him out there, huh?”
    “No, and Mr. Stewart says there hasn’t been anything disturbed in that area for a couple of weeks now and given the fragile nature of the container . . .” He squeezed the cooler till it squeaked. “I’d say it’s a new arrival.” He studied me. “Is digging up the entire dump in the freezing cold for the next two weeks going to be my punishment for leaving?”
    I ignored him and asked another question. “You gonna check the permits for the weekend?”
    “Yeah. The place is closed on Sundays, so it had to arrive either late Friday or Saturday.”
    “Well, get the paperwork from Geo, and we’ll . . .”
    I was interrupted by a series of shouts coming from the direction of the scales. I turned in time to see the scarecrow figure of Geo Stewart with the .22 rifle held at port arms standing on the scales in front of Ozzie Jr.’s truck. The developer gunned the engine on the vehicle to impress his intentions upon the dump man, even going so far as to lurch the one-ton forward so that the chrome grille guard was almost touching him. Butch and Sundance were leaping in the air in an attempt to gain enough purchase to burst through the office Plexiglas.
    I held up a finger to the Basquo. “Just a second—I’ll be back in a minute.” I hustled across the broken ground, raised a hand, and shouted. “Hold on, hold on!”
    I guess they couldn’t hear me—or maybe it was that they just didn’t want to—but Geo didn’t retreat, and I could see his mouth moving in response to what looked like Ozzie’s spitting tirade. I was about thirty yards away when the truck lurched again, and the junkman was thrown backward.
    Geo hit the railroad-tie ramp with a liquid thump, and his head cracked against the hard surface of the creosote-soaked wood, the rifle falling to the side with the ch-kow sound that indicated it had gone off. At its discharge, the truck stopped but, as near as I could tell, it was still in gear.
    “Put that thing in park!”
    I scrambled