The Fourth Durango

Chapter 29

Because he had stopped to open a can of Budweiser, his third in three hours, Ivy Settles almost didn’t see the pink Ford van as it sped along Noble’s Trace, heading east toward Durango’s city limits and, possibly, U.S. 101.

Settles had spent the last three hours cruising the streets of Durango on his own time in his own car. He was searching for the pink plumbing van and trying, without success, to lose the rage and humiliation that had almost engulfed him after the murder of Soldier Sloan.

The fifty-one-year-old detective had nearly convinced himself it wasn’t his fault that Sloan was dead. But Settles’s powers of rationalization, which, like most policemen, were formidable, had failed him when it came to the short fat false Francis the Plumber. You let him walk, Ivy, he told himself. You. Nobody else. And that’ll make your name in this town from now on. Ivy Settles? Sure. He’s the one Sid Fork hired off the turnip truck.

Such dark thoughts finally had caused Settles to yell at his thirty-seven-year-old bride of six months, storm out of their two-bedroom house on North Twelfth, get into his four-year-old Honda Prelude, stop at a liquor store for a six-pack of Budweiser and cruise Durango for the next three hours, waiting for his rage to subside and his humiliation to go away.

He had begun his search for the pink van at 6:03 P.M. down near the Southern Pacific tracks. He worked his way out toward the eastern city limits, circling every block and driving down almost every alley. By 7:15 P.M., he had reached the city limits so he popped open another can of beer and repeated the search, this time from east to west.

By 9:02 P.M., he was back near the eastern city limits again and had decided it was time for a third beer. He had just opened the can at 9:03 P.M. when he glimpsed the pink van speeding east on Noble’s Trace as it went past the 25th Street intersection.

Settles threw the full can of beer out the window, slammed the Prelude into first gear and chased after the van. When he had shifted into second, he opened the glove compartment and took out his.38 Chief’s Special. Settles had had the revolver for twenty-one years but this was the first time he had ever really believed he might shoot some particular person with it-in this case, the fat false plumber. The thought ended his rage and humiliation and dangerously elevated his mood to one of near elation.

The Prelude had no siren but Settles had bought himself a red flasher that, after shifting into third, he plugged into the cigarette lighter. When he was no more than half a block from the pink van, he switched on the flasher and noticed he was two blocks past Durango’s eastern city limits. It was an area of virtual wasteland that once had been promoted as an industrial park. The only industry ever to express any interest was a Go-Kart racetrack, which later changed its mind. The park had gone into bankruptcy.

After the red light began flashing, the pink van slowed, pulled off onto the shoulder of Noble’s Trace and stopped. Settles parked twenty feet behind the van and got out of the Prelude cautiously, the revolver in his right hand, a foot-long flashlight in his left. When he reached the driver’s side of the van, he noticed that the Francis the Plumber magnetic stick-on signs had been removed, which didn’t surprise him.

He was surprised to discover the van’s driver was a dark-haired woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight who stared at him with wide eyes that narrowed when the flashlight’s beam struck them.

“Put your hands up where I can see them and get out,” Settles said.

The woman nodded, raised her hands so he could see them and said, “How do I open the door if I keep my hands up here where you can see them?”

“I’ll open it,” Settles said, stuck the flashlight under his right armpit, reached for the door handle, turned it, opened the door two inches and stepped back four feet, his pistol and flashlight again aimed at the van door.

The woman came out slowly, her hands raised, palms forward. She wore jeans and a dark red T-shirt that said “I Shoot Anything” across its front in white letters. On her feet were blue and gray jogging shoes without socks. Her dark brown hair was cut fairly short and she was almost as tall as Settles, nearly five-nine. Her eyes, he noticed, were what he always thought of as “cow-brown.” He also noticed that if she weren’t so obviously frightened, she would be quite attractive, even pretty.

“Turn left and walk toward the rear of the van,” Settles said.

Hands still raised, she turned and walked three steps before Settles told her to stop. “Turn toward the van,” he said. After she had turned, he told her to lean on it. When she said it was too far away, he told her to lean on it anyhow. She almost fell toward the van, catching herself with her hands and forming a sixty-degree angle.

After again sticking the flashlight into his right armpit, Settles patted the woman down, missing neither her breasts nor her crotch. But he did it quickly, impersonally, and the woman neither flinched nor said anything.

“Okay, stand up,” Settles said.

The woman stood up. “Do I turn around?”

“Turn around.”

She turned and the flashlight’s beam caught her in the eyes again. She blinked and narrowed them. “What’s your name?” Settles asked.

“Terri,” she said. “Terri Candles.”

“Terri with an ‘I’?”

“With an ‘I.’”

“What d’you do, Terri?”

“I’m a photographer.”

“What kind?”

“Freelance.”

“Like the T-shirt says, you shoot anything.”

She nodded.

“Where d’you live, Terri?”

“Santa Barbara.”

“What’re you doing in Durango?”

“I don’t think I was speeding.”

“I said what’re you doing in Durango, Terri?”

“I’m on assignment.”

“Who for-the plumber?”

“What plumber?”

“Who were you taking pictures of in Durango, Terri?”

“A couple of kids. I’m good with kids.”

“Where’s your driver’s license?”

“In the van. Want me to get it?”

“Later. Let’s open the rear door first, see what’s inside.”

“It’s locked. I’ll have to get the key.”

Settles thought for a moment and shook his head. “Let’s see if it’s really locked.” He waved her toward the rear of the van with the flashlight.

The handle of the van’s single rear door was on the left. Settles positioned himself six feet away from it. “Open the door and tell whoever’s inside to come out,” he said.

“There’s nobody inside and it’s locked.”

“Try the door anyway, Terri.”

Her hand went to the rear door’s handle and pulled it down. “It wasn’t locked after all,” she said.

“Open it nice and slow, Terri,” Settles said.

She opened it quickly instead, moving with the door as it swung to the right. The flashlight revealed the double-barreled shotgun first and then, above it, the remarkably ugly face of Francis the Plumber who stood, crouched over, holding the shotgun at hip level. Ivy Settles hesitated for a tenth of a second before he began to pull the trigger of his revolver. But by then the right barrel of the shotgun had fired and its load was knocking Settles backward. As he fell, his Chief’s Special fired up into the air toward the stars and a full moon. The shotgun blast tore away much of the left side of Settles’s chest and he died seconds after he fell to the ground.

The woman who said her name was Terri Candles moved from behind the van’s open rear door and looked up at the short fat ugly man who was sometimes a false priest and sometimes a false plumber.

“Did I do okay, honey?” she asked him.

“You did fine,” the man said and pulled the trigger that fired the shell in the shotgun’s other barrel.