A Song to Die For (5 page)

She glanced over her shoulder. “Please. Now!”

“Well, get in,” he said, a slur tainting his words.

She dropped lightly into the watercraft. Peeking over the boardwalk, she saw Franco trotting along the beach toward the dock, looking for her. “Hurry!” she said.

The boatman eased his craft away from the end of the pier, toward the open lake. “It's a no-wake zone here, darlin'.” She could smell his alcohol-tainted breath on the breeze.

“I like speed,” she said. “It turns me on.”

“Well…” The driver hit the throttle with such purpose that Rosa staggered back against the stern, the big-bore motor rumbling amidships. She saw him reach for a switch, illuminating the running lights.

“No lights,” she said over the motor noise as she regained her balance. “It's more romantic.”

The drunken boatman looked over his shoulder and grinned at her, reaching for the light switch again. Never had she dreamed of using her feminine wiles to manipulate a man in such a way, but she was desperate, and the man did not appear capable of much heroism on his own accord. He did not strike her as dangerous, and she knew she could handle him if he should get frisky. She hadn't taken ten years of karate lessons for nothing.

“Speed!” she demanded, afraid to look back. She felt something sting her hip as a bullet hole appeared in the windshield beside the driver's head.

“What the hell?” he shouted. Another bullet hit the dash, and the man seemed to sober up immediately. He pushed the throttle all the way forward and began swerving to avoid more gunfire, taking Rosa's feet out from under her again. As she clawed her way back into view, she saw Franco's silhouette at the end of the pier, and prayed she was now out of effective handgun range. The big motor under the cowling was roaring like the voice of an enraged dragon. She checked her left hip and felt slick blood.

“What the hell have you gotten me into?” the man demanded as they motored around a bend in the lakeshore, leaving Franco out of sight.

Even as she breathed a sigh of relief, a horrible thought struck Rosa. She had left Celinda's name and phone number on the Jack in the Box bag in her car. “You've got to get me to a phone quick!” she ordered.

The next thing she knew, Rosa was flipping over the motor housing, cartwheeling through the windshield, and flying through the air in front of the boat. It didn't even hurt. The motor was screaming, the prop having lifted above the drag of the water. As she hit the lake surface and skipped across it, she glimpsed the splintered V hull of the wooden boat descending on her, and knew this was the end. She knew, somehow, that she would soon meet her real mother. And she knew that she had beaten Franco out of the satisfaction of killing her the way he wanted to kill her, and planting her corpse under the weight of a root ball.

*   *   *

The steering wheel had slammed into his chest and thrown him back against the front of the motor housing. The boat was still speeding along, and water was gushing in from somewhere. He scrambled to the driver's seat, pulled the throttle back, and checked the steering. The boat responded, but the craft was taking on water fast.

He looked for the girl. She was nowhere in sight. He grabbed a flashlight and shone the beam all around the boat. Then, remembering the gunshots, he switched the light off. “Oh, God,” he muttered, trying to calm his nerves. He had hit something, and the girl had flown out of the boat. Someone had shot at him. This was not his fault. The old Correct Craft was sinking. He had to get to the lake house.

Recognizing familiar shore lights, he regained his bearings, throttled up, and turned toward the lake house. By the time he pulled into the cove, the water was creeping up his shins and the motor was coughing inside its housing. In this high-dollar, lakeshore neighborhood, each home had its own boathouse, fronting the water the same way a garage would open to the street. He coasted in and hit reverse to stop. The motor sputtered and died before he even hit the kill switch. Now the boat began to sink fast, so he scrambled onto the boardwalk and watched it by the weird glow of the orange bug light inside the boathouse. Before it went under, he saw blood on the shattered windshield, next to a bullet hole.

The evidence sank from view, and he began to weep uncontrollably. He had left a stranger to drown on the lake—a pretty young girl. How could he explain that this was not his fault? All of the booze in his stomach suddenly wanted out. He collapsed and threw up over the edge of the landing, onto the water that now concealed the sunken boat. When he opened his eyes, he saw his reflection through his own vomit. He fell over on his side, pulled his knees to his chest, and blubbered as he had not done since he was a helpless baby.

 

5

CHAPTER

1:26
A.M.

Creed loaded his guitar into his Good Times Dodge van, crawled in behind the wheel, and left the parking lot. He motored down South Congress Avenue to Manchacha, the first little town south of Austin. He followed the directions he had memorized at the last poker game, eventually running out of pavement on a county road past the edge of town. Turning through an open gate with a red bandanna tied to it, he spotted a bunch of vehicles parked in a cow pasture next to an old wooden barn.

This was the place. He recognized some of the cars and pickups of the regular gambling cadre from previous poker games at other locations. This weekly game floated from one venue to another. You had to be at the last game to know where the next would take place, or know whom to ask.

As he approached a door on the side of the barn, a guard stopped him.

“Who are you?” the husky young bouncer asked.

“Just a poor wayfaring stranger.”

Satisfied with the password, the guard opened the door. Inside, Creed saw that the barn, which looked like a ramshackle shell from the outside, had been converted to a fully-equipped saloon designed for gaming. A full bar stretched across one wall, manned by three bartenders. A dozen cocktail waitresses were dressed in high heels, hot pants, and halter tops, and it seemed that each had been handpicked for her ability to flatter such apparel. Creed went to the bar and ordered a shot of bourbon whiskey, neat. He leaned on the bar to look things over and get a feel for the joint.

One of the cocktail waitresses approached Creed, her shiny red lips smiling as her sparkling green eyes looked him over. She had her dark hair tied back in a ponytail that seemed alive. Creed knew her from previous games run by this same operation.

She glanced at the bartender. “Whiskey sour and a Long Island iced tea.” She turned her smile on Creed again. “Did you have a show tonight, Creed?”

“I did, Gail.” He gave her a warm smile. She was pretty in a wild sort of way. “I sat in with some guys at the Armadillo.”

“I wish I could have gone. I love to watch you play.”

“Maybe next time. If I had your phone number, I'd call you and let you know where I'm playing next.”

The bartender placed the drinks on Gail's tray. “I'll make sure I give it to you before you leave tonight.” She winked and turned away.

Creed felt a streak of overdue luck coming on. He saw the pit boss, Gordy, behind a caged-in counter converting cash to chips, so he took his gig money there to secure a stake.

“Hey, Gordy,” he said, shoving his cash into the cage.

“Hay fever is more like it. I hate this barn.” He sneezed as he counted chips, less the house fee. “Good luck, kid.”

Creed saw a table with an empty chair that faced the door and would keep his back to the corner. He approached and asked if he could sit down. A couple of the players knew him.

“Howdy, Creed,” said a rugged-looking rancher Creed knew from previous games. “Boys, he's all right for a Piney Woods peckerwood. I say we let him play.”

The men nodded and Creed pulled up a chair. “What are we playing, Boss?” He congratulated himself for remembering that the rancher called himself “Boss.”

“Dealer's choice. Winner deals.” Boss was shuffling the cards. “How about seven card stud, jacks or better?”

“That's my favorite.” Creed smiled.

*   *   *

Two and a half hours later, Creed's stack of chips had quadrupled and only two other men remained at his table—Boss and a stranger who called himself Joe. By this time, Creed had eased the grip of his cocked and locked forty-five automatic far enough out of the waistline of his jeans that he could draw it in a fraction of a second. He had sensed that someone at the table had been cheating since he sat down. Certain cards, long overdue to show their faces, did not do so until they benefited this guy, Joe. Now that all the players except for Boss and Joe had bowed out, broke, Creed was certain that Joe was the cheater, for he had played with Boss often and believed him honest.

Joe was thirty-something, cocky, foul-mouthed, and ill-mannered. Right now, he had the biggest stack of chips on the table, and seemed bent on adding Creed's and Boss's chips to his stack as well. Creed was using the dipped brim of his Stetson to watch Joe's hands without Joe being able to see his eyes. He watched closely every time Joe touched his cards, and finally he saw it: While laughing at some irreverent quip he had thrown out as a distraction, Joe deftly pulled a card from his cuff and switched it for one that he had been dealt. The card he had rightfully been dealt simultaneously went into the cuff. A blink would have covered it, and it was the slick move of a true card mechanic, but Creed was sure of what he had seen.

His heart began to beat harder as he put his cards facedown on the table and reached for his gun grip. His index finger slipped behind the bend of the trigger guard and he began to draw the gun, sure of his decision to expose the card cheat.

The barn door flew open and a shotgun blast sent buckshot into the ceiling. A girl screamed and dropped a tray of drinks. “Nobody freakin' move!” yelled a man with a kid's Halloween mask over his face. “This is a robbery!” Two other armed men were coming in behind him, and Creed could see the young bouncer laid out on the ground outside the open door.

Creed stood and leveled his forty-five on the bandit leader as the robber lazily pumped another round into the chamber of his sawed-off twelve-gauge. Squeezing off a round, Creed hit the man in the chest, causing him to drop his weapon, knocking him back into his cohorts. One of the bandits got a round off that flew over the heads of the gamblers, but Creed was blasting splinters from the doorway with such relentless purpose that the thugs could only grab their fallen leader and drag him away.

With the first shotgun blast, Boss had hit the floor, but now he rolled over with a revolver in his hand and began shooting in the direction of the robbers under a vacant table. Now other handguns came out of other hidden places and continued to fire out through the door even after the bandits had disappeared.

“Hold your fire!” Creed shouted. “That boy's laid out on the ground out there.” He peeked out of the doorway in time to see a pickup spray dust and gravel across the pasture. He checked the young bouncer for signs of life and found him breathing and moaning, a gash on his scalp. “They're gone,” he said, slipping his weapon into the back of his jeans.

“How's the kid?”

“Just cold-cocked.” He was looking at the floor where the bandit leader had fallen. The sawed-off pump was still lying there.

“You're pretty quick on the draw!” Boss said, getting up from the floor.

“No blood,” Creed replied, sensing the relief in his own voice.

“Bullshit. You hit him square.”

“Must have been wearing a flack jacket,” Creed said. “Lucky for him. And me.”

By this time men were filing out of the barn, for they all knew that much gunfire at three-thirty in the morning was likely to attract a visit from the law.

Gordy, the pit boss behind the iron bars, was hastily sacking up cash and chips. “Anybody with chips left can cash 'em in at the game next week. We'll be using the Jollyville location. Now, clear out. Everybody!”

Creed flipped the safety on the shotgun, put it down, and went to collect his chips. Joe was raking in the pot on the table.

“Whoa, now, stud,” said Boss, slipping his snub-nosed thirty-eight back into his jacket pocket. “We haven't played out that hand yet.”

Joe paused, flipped his cards over. “Three kings.”

“Damn,” Boss blurted.

As Joe reached for the chips again, Creed pinned his forearm to the table and pulled the card from Joe's cuff before he could even attempt to struggle free. He showed the five of diamonds to Boss.

“I believe you had a
pair
of kings,” Creed growled. “This was the card you were dealt. I saw that third king come out of your sleeve.”

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Boss snarled, reaching back into his pocket for this gun.

“Better not,” Creed said. “The law could be halfway here from town by now. Better let him go.”

Boss left his piece in his jacket, but kept his hand in his pocket. “You lucky little shit. If I ever see your sorry ass again…”

Creed flipped his cards over to reveal a pair of aces.

“I'm gettin' out of here,” Joe said sheepishly, reaching for his stacked chips in front of his chair.

Boss stiff-armed him away from the table. “Don't even think about it. And I'd get clean out of Texas if I was you.”

Joe fumed briefly, then trotted out of the barn.

“Let's go, gentlemen!” Gordy shouted.

“I'll split his chips with you,” Creed said. “He was cheating both of us.”

“No, you earned it, Creed. That was some real fast shootin'.”

“Not really. I was already drawing on that asshole, Joe. The bandits just happened to bust in at the right time.” Creed scraped his little fortune into his hat and headed for the door, where the pit boss waited impatiently.