Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

Sixty-six

I found Jerry outside.

“Did you see anybody?” I asked. “Talk to anybody?”

“Nope,” he said. “They just let me go. What happened?”

“I made a phone call.”

“That number?” he asked.

“Yeah, that number,” I said. “Come on, we gotta get a cab.”

In the Sands parking lot minutes later, in my car, Jerry said, “We could call the cops and have them picked up.”

“Hargrove would never go for it.”

“There are other cops.”

“Picked up for what?” I asked. “The most they’d get them for would be carrying guns.”

“If we do this,” he said, “you’re gonna have to use that gun.”

“Unless we can talk them out of it.” Jerry shook his head.

“These bozos are tryin’ ta hold up the government,” he said. “You ain’t gonna talk them outta nothin’.”

“You’re probably right.”

“You ever killed anybody with a gun before, Mr. G.?” he asked.

“In the army.”

“Up close?”

“No.”

“I got your back, Mr. G.,” Jerry said. “I gotta know that you got mine.”

I looked at him.

“You can ask me that after what happened in my house?”

“You didn’t have ta shoot nobody,” he said, “and you killed that guy by a fluke. Tonight ain’t gonna be no fluke.”

I took the gun out of my pocket and held it in my hand.

“Don’t worry, big guy,” I said, “I’ve got your back.”

We pulled into the same parking lot behind the same warehouse. It was the only place we could think of that would be away from people. At first we thought about having them meet us on our ground, in a casino, but with them being armed there was a possibility that innocent people could be hurt.

We got out of the car and walked to the same door we’d used to enter the warehouse the other two times. There was yellow crime scene tape across the door, but it had been broken. Either someone had gone inside previously, or they were in there now.

We looked around the lot. There was no light other than the headlights from my car.

“Let’s cut the car lights, Jerry,” I said. We both had flashlights this time.

He went to the car and turned off the lights. When he came back he had a flashlight in his left hand, and a gun in his right.

I took the gun out of my pocket, adopted the same position.

“Mr. G., you’re gonna do the talkin’, but you gotta let me have the lead on the action, okay?”

“Okay.”

“It would’ve been better if we coulda arranged for some backup,” he said. “Gettin’ picked up really fucked any chance for a plan.”

“I know,” I said. “I guess we should just go in and get it over with.”

“We don’t have ta do this, ya know,” he said. “You don’t have ta.”

“First, I’m not lettin’ you go in there alone,” I said. “That’s out. Second, yeah, I do have to do this, if just to get Hargrove off my back. Once he knows what was goin’ on maybe I’ll be off the hook for that bullet in my wall bein’ connected to a murder weapon.”

“Or not,” he said.

“Yeah, well, let’s be a little more optimistic here.”

“Okay, Mr. G. You ready?”

I took a deep breath. Was I ready?

No.

“Yes.”