That’s How I Roll: A Novel (30 page)

I promised nothing but truth in this record, so, even though it shames me to admit it, another part of me was offended. If I’d been sitting behind that sniper’s scope, I wouldn’t have missed.

But all I said out loud was “That box you were sitting on, sliding a little like it did, that probably saved your life. You said you didn’t hear the sound of the shot until after you felt it kiss the side of your face. That means it was fired from a long distance—half a mile, minimum. There’s no shortage of mountains around here, but they’re all covered with leafy trees, especially this time of year. That’s how I figured it had to be Grant’s Tomb—where else could a sniper get a clean shot at you from that far away?”

That calmed him down right away. I could see it on his face as he followed the trail I had reasoned out.

The trail actually started about fifty or sixty years ago, depending on who you ask.

A big-time strip miner named Silas Grant had a vision come to him. Lots of folks have visions, but Silas Grant had piled up enough coal money to actually chase his vision down.

Gold, that was his vision. A vein of gold so thick it would take you a day just to walk across it. So much gold that it made the Mother Lode look like her baby.

Silas Grant spent his whole fortune trying to find that gold he saw in his vision. He bought up hundreds of acres, set up his mining operation, and built a whole little town around it. Years and years went by. Folks said the workers dug down so deep they could feel the heat of Hell.

But Silas Grant died without ever extracting anything but tons of rock so worthless that he even lost money having it hauled away. That’s why the folks around here call that spot Grant’s Tomb—Silas Grant was a man who worked himself to death digging his own grave.

When he died, that property was about all he left behind. There wasn’t any reasonable use for it—just to fill it in and level the ground would cost a thousand times more than the land was worth.

His family was rendered poor. Well, poor by the standards they were all used to. That made them so bitter that they didn’t even bother to put on the kind of funeral folks would expect from people of their standing.

For years, the ground stood fallow. The whole mining town ghosted out. All that remained was a bunch of rickety old buildings, a couple of looted trailers, and some heavy equipment that was rust-shut forever.

When Lansdale went and bought the whole site from Grant’s family, they thought he was Heaven-sent. He probably hadn’t paid all that much, but it was enough for them to leave here and start over someplace else. Someplace where they weren’t known.

Nobody knew what Lansdale wanted that place for, but it was no secret that he held meetings down there.

“So …” That was just Lansdale, thinking out loud. I kept quiet. I waited in that quiet because I knew he’d ask me questions when he got done with whatever he was thinking through in his head. That had happened so often that I’d come to expect it.

“So it could only be one of two things, then,” he finally spoke out loud.

I nodded. When he didn’t say anything else, I knew he was waiting for me to spell it out.

“Somebody’s camped up there permanent,” I said. “Built himself a hide he could live in for months, if he had to. All he’d need was restocking—supplies, food, batteries for his phone and radio, maybe stuff to read. And he’d have to be the kind of man who could handle being alone.”

Lansdale nodded. Then he held up two fingers, like making a “V” sign.

There was no sugarcoating the other possibility, so I just said, “Or one of your men is taking someone else’s money.”

“Or just plain talks too much,” Lansdale said. He shifted his body a little, and looked at me real close. “So that’s three possibilities, Esau. If you were a gambling man, which horse would you put your money on?”

“Those last two, you’re splitting the same hair.”

“The same? Come on. There’s a million miles between a man who will sell you out if the price is right and a man who can’t keep his fool mouth shut when he gets liquored up … especially around a woman.”

“Still no difference, really.”

“Meaning, if he
isn’t
camped up there permanent, that sniper had to know I’d be out there that day he took his shot. So, a traitor or a drunk, it still comes out the same?”

“The reason the sniper was in place doesn’t much matter—if he’d’ve hit you, you’d be just as dead.”

“I’m trying to be cold-blooded about this,” he said, “but I just can’t see any of my men selling me out. Or even talking out of turn.”

“That’s what doctors call a ‘rule-out.’ One of the football players from the high school takes one of those helmet-to-helmet hits. Knocks him unconscious. Even if he comes to on his own, even if he gets up and walks over to the bench, even if he says he wants to go back in, they’ll still carry him over to the ER.

“That’s why they perform all those tests—CAT scans and other stuff like that. They have to rule out brain damage. Some concussions, the brain actually bounces back and forth against the inside
of the skull. You send that kid back to play too soon, he could end up talking like some of those old boxers do.

“That’s the scientific method of working: there are times when you have to make sure what something
isn’t
before you can start looking for what it is.”

“That sounds right to me, Esau. Ruling out a sniper camped out up there first. That was the case, they wouldn’t need an inside man in my crew.”

“If you want to know for sure, just take me out there. If you can show me the exact spot where you were when—”

“Nothing’s been moved,” he interrupted.

“Makes it even easier, then,” I told him. “That bullet left a nice trail down the side of your face, but it would have to flatten itself out on the rock behind you. Too much of a mess to tell you much from looking at it, but I’d put my money on it being a NATO round.”

“That’s like a .22, right?”

“Not much difference in size,” I told him. “But a whole lot in speed.”

I wonder if he knows?
I remember thinking. But I let that thought go. Lansdale was a subtle man, but he wasn’t a game player. So I just kept rolling:

“You put yourself in the exact same position, give me some time to work with my instruments, I can probably point you to within ten yards of wherever that sniper was roosting.”

“What good would that do me?”

“It’ll answer your question. If it was a sniper planted up there, that’s a card whoever wanted you dead can only play once. If a hide was built, there’ll still be plenty of traces left behind. The sniper fired only once, and you went down right after. He couldn’t see you behind those rocks, so a second shot wouldn’t do any good—he either nailed you or he didn’t. So he probably took off without stopping to clean up after himself. And even if he’d tried to, there’s no way he could have covered up the signs a man would leave being up there for that long.”

“I’ll do it,” Lansdale said. He’d started to get to his feet when
I made a little motion with my hand. When he sat down again, I leaned close:

“What I just said only works if the sniper had really been planted there, waiting. You understand? If he
didn’t
know when you’d be showing up …”

I could tell Lansdale didn’t like even the thought of any other possibility. “Yeah,” he said. “And so?”

“So, if you go out there, and you don’t find a blind, you’re as good as telling whoever betrayed you that you’re on to him. Maybe not to him, exactly, but you’d still be showing your hand without making him pay to call it. If you know it was someone from inside your organization, would you want them knowing you knew?”

“I can’t
not
go out there, Esau. I’ve got … all kinds of business that needs to be done from that place. Hell, that’s why I bought it—nobody could get close enough to listen, and there’s no place to plant a microphone.”

“Can’t have your men think you were scared off, either. Or that you might be questioning someone’s loyalty.”

He smiled at that. “So you’ve got a plan, do you?”

“I do.”

“How are you going to spot a sniper’s roost up in all that mess? It could be damn near anywhere.”

“I’d need two men,” I said. “Not hired hands, men you’re willing to trust with your life. I’m guessing that both Eugene and Coy are on that list.”

“If I’m wrong about them, I’d rather die than learn of it.”

“I understand,” I told him. And I truly did.

oy put me over his shoulder and carried me all the way to where we finally found the sniper’s hide. Whoever had put it together had spent a lot of time and effort on the job.

And I was right—the sniper had bailed out after his one shot missed. No point in hanging around. Lansdale’s survival instinct
had kicked in the second he’d heard the shot. He rolled behind one of the boulders, and all his men had taken cover, too. Some had scoped rifles; they were already scanning. A couple of others had backed all the way out without showing themselves, and the sniper had to figure they were on their way up to where he was.

He’d left plenty of things behind. Nothing that would tell us who he was, but more than enough to catch sun-glints from the refractory mirrors I’d set up for Eugene and Coy to move around every time I told them to.

“A setup like this, he wouldn’t need anything but patience,” I said.

“Yeah,” Lansdale said, “I’ve got a bit of that myself.”

But I could see he wasn’t really paying attention. From the moment we’d found that hide, he’d been grinning like a kid who got a pony for Christmas.

“I knew that stupid Polack couldn’t wait his turn,” Lansdale crowed. “Probably thinks all that’s left to do is pay the sniper off with the same coin he deals out, and then everything’s his.”

“Can you be sure it was Judakowski?” I said, more out of concern for Lansdale than anything else. “Might be more than one person around who felt unkindly toward you.”

“Might be at that,” Lansdale said, chuckling. “Come on, Esau, aim your own weapon. Use that deadly brain of yours. A man might get mad enough to take a shot at me, sure. But any sniper that patient
and
that professional, he’s not going to come cheap. Times are hard. Who’s got the money to be throwing around like that?”

f you’re wondering about how Lansdale knew I’ve got what it takes to shoot a man in cold blood, I can tell you how that came about.

It was mid-afternoon when we all heard a car’s tires crunch against the pebbled parking lot behind Lansdale’s office. In front,
it was a poolroom, but it was no secret that the back office was where you had to go if you wanted to do business.

“It’s a dark-red Hummer, boss,” Zeke said, peeking out between the blinds. “Tinted windows, big wheels. Parked sideways.”

Lansdale didn’t say anything, waiting on more information. I rolled my chair into a corner, adjusted the blanket over my lap, and slitted my eyes.

“Three men,” Zeke said. “Could be more of them in there—that’s a damn big ride, and the windows are tinted so dark I can’t make out a thing inside.”

“Strangers?” Barton asked.

“Niggers,” Zeke said.

“Not what I asked,” Barton said. He was just as loyal as Zeke, but a whole lot smarter.

“If they know enough to come in the back way, we may not know them, but they know us,” Lansdale said. He pointed to his right. Barton stepped into that spot. Zeke went over to the door and opened it, like it had been standing that way all along.

There were three of them, but it was clear there was only one in charge.

“My name is DeAngelo White,” he said, talking right at Lansdale, who was still behind his desk. “I came a long way to see you. We can make some money together—serious money, I’m saying.”

He hadn’t offered his hand. Neither did Lansdale. “Have a seat” is all he said.

As DeAngelo sat down across from Lansdale, his two men moved smoothly to each side, standing like bookends. That triangle-forming move looked so natural you could tell it was something they were used to doing. Even though each of them was outflanked by one of Lansdale’s men, they stood relaxed, keeping their hands in sight.