Before The Killing Starts (Dixie Killer Blues Book 1) (17 page)

Chapter 37

Dixie had just parked up
in the parking lot at the front of MacQuaids when he saw Jackson crossing the
street on foot. He got out and went to meet him.

'No car?' Dixie said.

'I didn't bother
bringing it,' Jackson said. 'I've got two years worth of beers to catch up on.'

They went inside and
took a couple of stools up at the bar. Jackson ordered a beer and raised a
questioning eyebrow at his brother.

'The usual,' Dixie said
and Jackson ordered him a coke.

'You shouldn't drink so
much of that crap. Makes you fart, rots your teeth. Makes you hyper too.'

Dixie
smiled. 'I need all the hyper I can
get at the moment.'

'Things are bad?'

'Could be better.' He
took a sip of his drink. 'Anyway, you don't want to hear any of that. What
about you?'

Jackson
shook his head. 'I'll tell you
another time. So tell me, what's going on with Ellie? You didn't get back
together with her did you?'

Dixie
laughed out loud. 'God, no. After
the way it ended?'

'Not the forgiving
kind?'

'Uh uh. You know what
it's like. Women are so unreasonable.'

'Amen to that,' Jackson said, clinking his glass against Dixie's coke, before taking a long swallow. 'What
was it she called you again?'

Dixie
grinned. 'A cheating dickweasel.'

Jackson
nodded and tried the word out in
his mouth. 'I like it. I don't think anybody's ever called me that.'

'What? Not even in the
joint?'

For a second Dixie
thought he might be wearing a beer in his lap even if he couldn't drink one,
but Jackson just gave him that sideways grin he knew so well. The one that
said:
you got away with it this time . . .

'Anyway, she got together
with Ricardo straight after,' Dixie said.

'You're joking.'

Dixie
shook his head. 'You must have
heard. It was before you went away.'

It was Jackson's turn to
shake his head. 'I didn't know that.'

Dixie saw that Jackson's glass was empty. He nodded at it.

'That one barely touched
the sides.'

Jackson
grinned at him. 'Didn't you hear me
earlier? I've got a lot of catching up to do.'

Dixie
ordered him another beer but didn't
bother getting himself another coke. Jackson was right about rotting your
teeth.

'Is she still with him?'
Jackson said.

'No, he ditched her.'

'There must be something
about her. Poor personal hygiene, maybe? In the toilet area?' He pointed a
finger at his crotch and raised his eyebrows, a stupid grin plastered across
his face.

'This is where it gets
interesting though,' Dixie said ignoring the puerile comment. 'She was so
pissed when Ricardo gave her the push for some
mamona
as she called her,
that she came to see me—'

'You're kidding. Not to
get back together?'

Dixie
laughed again, gave a
don't-be-ridiculous flick of the hand. 'No way. She had a proposal she wanted
to put to me. Strictly business. As I said, she was
really
pissed at
Ricardo and she wanted to find some way to get back at him. Plus, she wanted
out. She didn't like the fact that when they were together Ricardo started
taking her along on the deals and now it was a regular thing even though he'd
dumped her—'

'So her nasty little
mind came up with an idea to kill two birds with one stone.'

'Exactly. She said she
wanted to bury the hatchet with me, forget about all the trouble that happened
between us—'

'Ha. Fat chance.'

'—that there was one
last deal that she was going along on—'

'And she thought it
might be a great idea if somebody was to rip them off. I assume that's where you
come in. The go-to guy for ripping people off.'

Dixie
nodded. 'You got it.'

'So what happened?'

'We did it.'

Jackson
did a spit take, nearly slopping
his beer down his shirt front in his surprise. 'You did it? Just like that?
After what happened last time?'

Dixie
shrugged. 'It wasn't as if I had a
week to think about it. She didn't give me any notice. I went for it.'

Jackson
shook his head in amazement.

'What happened?'

'They had this deal
arranged with Alvarez—you remember him?' Dixie said. Jackson nodded in an
I'm
not likely to forget way
. 'I was already waiting there when they arrived.
They went in, came out again and I tailed them. Ellie was driving. I don't know
if it was luck that they needed gas or if she drained the tank first to make
sure they did, but they stopped at a gas station.'

Dixie
's mouth was dry as old Larry with
all the talking. He took a small sip of his warm coke and looked over his
brother's shoulder at a guy standing a few feet away. He looked to be about
sixty, lean and wiry, wearing a ragged M-65 field jacket. Under the jacket, his
shirt was buttoned wrong so his collar stuck up on the left side. The jacket itself
was covered with patches, not all of them sewn on straight. They were the sort
of things he'd seen Vietnam veterans wearing before:
I'm sure to go to
heaven because I've spent my time in hell
circling a map of Vietnam was one
you saw all the time, but there were other, more inflammatory ones:
If you
haven't been there, shut your mouth
and
Viet Cong Hunting Club
.

The guy was looking
right back at him, his head cocked to the side and a slight frown on his face,
as if he was trying to place him. Maybe he'd overheard what they'd been saying,
the talk of
deals
and
ripping people off
. Dixie gave the guy a
small nod, the sort of nod you give to strangers when you sit down at a bar
next to them. The guy looked away and picked up his drink.

'Who's that?' Jackson said, turning to look, but the guy had turned his back to them now.

'It's nothing,' Dixie said in a quieter voice. 'As I was saying, they stopped for gas—'

Jackson
held up a hand. 'Let me guess.
Ricardo went to the men's room.'

Dixie
nodded, a frown creasing his
forehead. 'How did you know?'

'Everybody knows the
little prick never misses a chance to go look in the mirror. It's his favorite pastime
after playing with himself.'

It made sense to Dixie now. 'Ellie probably figured he'd do that. The other guy was filling up. I snuck up
on him and brained him with a baseball bat and Ellie took off.'

'You let her take the
money?'

'We didn't want to waste
time moving the bag between cars. Ricardo might have come back out any second.'

Jackson
shook his head in an irritating
way. 'Still risky.'

Wait until I finish
the story,
Dixie
thought, knowing some
wise-after-the-event wisdom would be coming his way.

'I'd rented a
self-storage unit. She was meant to take the money there until we could meet
up.'

The first hint of a
told-you-so smile appeared on Jackson's lips.

'Meant to? As in, she
didn't?'

Dixie
shook his head, his jaw clenched
like he was having trouble getting the words out. 'She took it there, no
problem. I went there this morning.'

'And?'

'And the bag's there.
Unfortunately, it's—'

'Empty.'

'As a politician's
promise.'

Jackson
finished his beer and called the
bartender over for another one. Dixie looked in the mirror behind the bar and
saw the guy in the M-65 field jacket staring back at him, except the curious
look seemed to have morphed into a belligerent stare now. Perhaps he'd sent him
to prison at some time in the past. A lot of Vietnam veterans had come home
with post-traumatic stress disorder and had ended up in trouble as a result.
Despite that, he knew it wouldn't take much for him to get into it with him
after the morning he'd had. The catharsis of mindless violence. The guy looked
like he'd be up for it despite his age. He opened his mouth and gave a slow
beery-nacho-popcorn burp, his eyes never leaving Dixie's. An obvious up-yours
insult . . .

'Hey,' Jackson said,
prodding him in the ribs.

Dixie broke eye contact
with the guy (meaning of course that he'd lost, he was the pussy, the one who
sucked other men's cocks) and looked at Jackson as he took another long
swallow.

'God, I could do with
one of those,' he said, determined not to let the guy get to him. He could feel
his stare on the side of his face. 'I feel like I've got three million reasons
to start drinking again.'

'Three million? Wow.' Jackson gave a low whistle.

Dixie
nodded. 'Three million.'

'And you've no idea
where she might have gone with it?'

'Uh uh. I wouldn't be
sitting here watching you enjoy a beer if I did.' His eyes flicked to the
mirror. 'Not to mention getting eyeballed by some asshole who's looking to get
his ticket punched,' he added in a loud voice, the emphasis firmly on the
asshole
.

The guy looked
momentarily shocked. Something wasn't right here. The pussy was calling him
out. Jackson spun round on his stool to look at the guy, see what was eating Dixie. The guy mumbled something.

'Did this asshole just
call me a
Gook
?' Dixie said incredulously.

'I didn't catch it,' Jackson said, trying to suppress a grin.

There was a shout from
the far end of the bar as the bartender came around and trotted up.

'Hey, that's enough
Earl,' he said, putting a hand on his arm and steering him away. 'Time to go.'

Earl looked back at Dixie like he wanted to make sure he remembered his face. He made a gun with his finger and
thumb and pointed it. The bartender slapped it down and Earl walked off.

'Sorry about that,' the
bartender said. 'He's not all there.' He made a twirling motion at his temple
with his finger.

'What's wrong with him?'
Jackson said.

The bartender shrugged.
'He was in Vietnam. Got captured by the Viet Cong. He wasn't released until
years after it was all over.' He gave a small hardly-surprising-when-you-think-about-it
smile. 'He was one of those guys they forced to write letters bad-mouthing the U.S. and praising the North Vietnamese for how well they treated them. It kind of confused
him. He's never been right since, although the owner says he wasn't right
before he went. He comes in most mornings and does a bit of cleaning.'

Dixie and Jackson both nodded sympathetically.

'He can't talk
properly,' the bartender continued. 'I think they might have cut part of his
tongue out.'

'How's he order a beer?'
Dixie said flippantly.

The bartender looked at
him as if he’d just told a dirty joke about his mother.

'He doesn't have to. The
owner said just serve him a couple of beers on the house when he comes in and
then send him on his way.'

Dixie
raised an eyebrow. 'Every cloud has
a silver lining, eh?'

The bartender turned to
go.

'What was he calling me
a
Gook
for? Does he do that to everybody?'

The bartender smiled.
'No, as far as I know, you're the first one. Looks like you really pissed him
off,' he said as he walked away.

Just what I need
, Dixie thought,
some crazy with
a hard-on for me.

'Asshole,' Jackson said under his breath, turning back towards Dixie. 'What's the matter with you?'

Dixie
wasn't sure if the
asshole
was directed at him, the bartender or Earl. He gave a dismissive shake of his
head and the two of them sat in silence for a while thinking about Vietnam, losing half your tongue and what you could do with three million dollars.

'Why did you do it?' Jackson asked. 'Rip off Chico I mean, not pick on poor ol' Earl.'

'I was hoping you
wouldn't ask me that.'

Jackson
's face was a picture of confusion.
'Why?'

Dixie
cleared his throat and looked down
at the bar top. He took hold of his glass and swirled it around in the water
that had pooled underneath it.

'For you. Well, for us.'
He cleared his throat again. 'I've had enough of this life too.'

Jackson
had spun on his chair so that he
was directly facing his brother. He leaned in a little. 'What do you mean for
me?'