Page 131 of Backtrack

CHAPTER 58

Lola Teariki waited for Cutter to get out the door. She’d been watching Hanford for the past three minutes straight, noting her patterns. A bird hunter would have called the woman a flock shooter, someone who didn’t aim at a specific bird but pointed at the whole flock and hoped for the best.

It was still early, but the Red Onion Saloon was filling up fast, with hardly any empty tables left. A harried waitress set Lola’s steaming plate of Naughty Nelly Nachos on the table as she passed and moved on with two beers clutched in her other hand for the next table. Hanford’s attention was pulled sideways just long enough for Lola to flip the plate of molten cheese into her face. She tried to slap away the gun, but Hanford held fast. A single shot flew past Sheriff Johnson and into the wall behind him, adjacent to the saloon door. Lola’s hand snaked out, grabbing Hanford by the hair and slamming her face over and over against the table. Plates rattled and jumped from the impact. Ruined nachos flew everywhere. The gun slipped from Hanford’s hand and clattered to the floor. Lola kept slamming, intent on breaking the table in half with the woman’s face.

The waitress dropped her beers on the floor. Patrons scrambled to put some distance between themselves and the recent gunshot.

“I think we’re good, dear,” Johnson said to Lola, pulling himself up from a kneeling position beside the table. “She’s down for the count.”

Lola’s head snapped toward the window. “We need to help Arliss!”

A husky voice boomed to their right. Near the door.

“You two stay put.”

“Well, this is stuffed!” Lola muttered.

A tall man who was dressed like a tourist but spoke with the calm authoritative tone of a police officer strode to their table, Glock pistol at his side. “Do not move until we get this sorted.”

Johnson was already seated. Lola recognized the man immediately from his Texas driver’s license photo. She stood and looked at the door. “Leo Bouchard,” she said. “I can help you. The only chance you have is to let me save my friend.”

Leo waved the Glock toward her chair but said nothing.

Sheriff Johnson spoke next, leaning back slightly against the wall. “Who are you again?”

Bouchard turned to answer—and Johnson shot him twice in the chest with Hanford’s suppressed pistol, which he’d retrieved from under the table.

Lola stood, snatching his gun off the table.

“I’ve been following these assholes around for weeks,” Johnson said. “Kind of glad to be shed of this one.” He scooted away from the table, checked the Glock to make sure there was a round still in the chamber, and then popped the mag. “I have four rounds left,” he said. “How about you and me go see what little Arliss is up to.”

As the woman in the Red Onion had predicted, Ricky Lee Pink was an impossible man to miss. With his towering height, silver hair, and iron jaw, he looked to be the human equivalent of a twenty-pound sledgehammer. Anger twisted his face, pinching his eyes into black slits.

He stepped off the sidewalk, black revolver in hand.

Cutter pulled the tail of his jacket, exposing his Colt and the silver-star badge on his belt.

“US Marshals!” he shouted. “Everyone off the street.”

Some cruisers moved away, startled by the sudden shouting.

“US Marshals!” Cutter said again. “Richard Lee Pink, you are under arrest.”

Something between a smirk and a frown tugged at the corner of Pink’s lips. “You look a hell of a lot like your thieving granddad!”

People lined both sides of Broadway, some in the street, othersremaining on the raised boardwalks for a few inches of added view. Hundreds of phones came up, ready to record the action. This hadn’t been on their daily schedule! Store clerks, knowing this was far outside the norm, came out of their shops to see what the fuss was about.

“I have no idea where the diamonds are,” Cutter yelled.

“I’m standing in the middle of a public street with a gun in my hand,” Pink said. “Do I look like I give a shit about diamonds? No, sir, this is a reckoning I’ve been waiting—”

A shrill whistle cut him off.

Lafayette Johnson’s rich Texas accent rolled out from in front of the Red Onion. He looked every inch the part of a Texas lawman, hat, waxed cloth jacket, mustache—and a gun.

“Ricky Lee! How about you pick on someone your own age?”

Pink looked at him, blinking. “Who are—”