Page 50 of Backtrack

“Newspapers send photos by wire,” Johnson said. “We could get with the editor of theDemocrat.”

“That would get the photo to Fort Worth. But like you said, it wouldn’t help with the other counties. We’re lucky if we have two tin cans and a piece of string to communicate out here in the hinterlands.”

“What about the newspaper? We could get the sketch of Pink out to the public that way?”

“We could,” Cutter said. “And the sheriff may decide to. I’d just as soon wait a beat, see if we can capture this outlaw before he figures out we know who he is.”

“Good thinking,” Johnson said. “I don’t feel like going home yet. How about you let me take care of delivering the sketches? I’ll get deputies to meet me at each county line. You go on home to your wife.”

Cutter tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel, considering the offer. “I might take you up on that. I do have a horse I can shoe this evening.”

“You sure got a thing for horseshoes.”

“I’ve got a thing for medical bills,” Cutter said. He groaned, dog-tired, but resigned to the notion that his day was far from over. “I figure my shoeing fee at five times the cost of an average haircut. That’s thirty-five bucks for an hour’s work.” He gave the kid a wink. “Besides, I do some of my best thinking when I’m stooped over with a mouthful of horseshoe nails. …”

CHAPTER 17

Mean as he was, Ricky Lee Pink couldn’t help but playfully launch tiny missiles of spear grass at Duvall as they crept through the darkness. Hunkered low in the buckbrush on the property adjacent to Gerald Moffit’s fifteen-acre ranchette half an hour northwest of Fort Worth, Duvall stifled a yelp and put a hand to his unprotected neck. Pink sent another of the needle-like grass-seeds, hitting Duvall in almost exactly the same spot. He gave a low giggle, giving himself away.

“Grow your ass up!” Duvall turned. The black eye the Bryant woman’s dog toy had given him looked particularly bad in the dusk. It was cut above the eyebrow, but Duvall had closed the worst of it with Super Glue—like they did in Nam, he said. “My damned socks are covered with beggar’s-lice! The last thing I need is you throwing more stickers my way. We are in some serious shit, in case you forgot. Get your head on straight!”

Pink dropped the rest of his spear grass and looked at Duvall through the blue-black darkness. His neck burned at the insult. It made it even worse that the other man was right. He thought about shooting the blowhard right then and there. Or maybe gutting him with the box cutter. There was no doubt in his mind he could take the puny piece of trash.

“You call me stupid again and—”

“Sorry,” Duvall said, surely not knowing how close he’d come to dying right there in this field. “Just do me a favor and knock off the games.”

Pink took a deep breath. “Okay …”

This was as good a place as any to look for the diamonds. If Moffit had double-crossed them, he’d get the box cutter treatment—even if he gave the diamonds back.

A sticky hot breeze blew in heavy and humid from nearby Lake Bridgeport. Neither man had been here before. They’d be in the open once they crossed the fence, but the approach looked straightforward enough.

“No dog,” Pink mused. “Not even any geese or guinea hens. That don’t seem worrisome to you? Think he’s got some electronic alarms?”

“Maybe on the house,” Duvall said. “Or could be he’s just not very savvy about security.”

“Well, I don’t like it. A fancy place like this is bound to have alarms. Maybe it’s a trap.”

The red-brick single story ranch wasn’t anything grand, but the sheet metal barn looked big enough to house an airplane, maybe even two. There was a pool between the house and the barn all nestled in the live oaks. The painted drill stem fence around fifteen acres equaledrichin Pink’s book.

“It ain’t a trap,” Duvall said. “Moffit’s got no idea we’re even coming.”

“If I took the diamonds, I’d expect you to come for me.”

“Fair point.” Duvall chuckled under his breath. “You’ve seen what he’s like. Pompous son of a bitch believes he’s smarter than everybody else. He thinks he can keep the diamonds and we’ll just run off because the cops are after us.”

“Maybe,” Pink said, unconvinced.

The house was completely dark, but light spilled from the barn windows.

Duvall pointed with an open hand.

“I’ve heard about his collection of antique cars,” he said. “Wouldn’t mind a look.”

Duvall led the way like he did everything else, brashly, with nothing even close to a plan. He said he liked to make things up on the fly. It was easier to be nimble that way, lighter on his feet if he didn’t make too many decisions beforehand. Pink figured he just didn’t have much of an imagination.

The two men sprinted across the mowed Bermuda grass, stoppingat the outer stand of oak trees some fifty feet from the barn to catch their breath. Pink was fine, barely winded, but Duvall, three times as old and packing twenty extra pounds of gut, sweated profusely, gulping air. Not a good sign if this turned into a shooting war.