“I thought you said the front door was open,” Billy said.
“I told Elsie to lock it. I don’t need to get robbed twice tonight,” Gabe said.
“Is that Nate’s car parked in the driveway?”
“Yeah, that’s his car.”
Nate drove an aging Kia with a roof burned orange by the desert sun. Billy walked over to the car and peered through the window to see if Nate was by chance asleep in the front seat. Nate’s bad heart often got the better of him and he’d napped in his car many times.
“He in there?” Gabe asked.
“Afraid not.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Billy returned to the front porch and Gabe handed him the key. As Billy opened the door, a rustling noise snapped his head. Gabe’s neighbor Elsie emerged from the shadows wearing an oversized pair of jeans and a floppy sweatshirt. Elsie ran the neighborhood watch group and made it a point to know everyone’s business.
“Gabe, is that you?” she asked tentatively.
“It sure is. How you doing, Elsie?” Gabe said.
“I’ve had better nights. Who’s that handsome fellow with you?”
“This is my friend Billy. Billy, this is Elsie. Any sign of Nate?”
“I haven’t seen him. Are you sure you don’t want me to call 911?”
“Positive.”
“I think you’ve been robbed. What if they rob me?”
“With that big dog of yours? It’s not likely, Elsie.”
“I want to call the police, just to be on the safe side.”
“Let us deal with this, okay?”
“You got something against the police?”
Gabe stiffened at his neighbor’s line of questioning. Billy could feel it and wondered if Elsie felt it as well.
“I don’t have anything against the police,” Gabe said. “I just don’t want to waste their time over something that’s probably not important. Okay?”
Elsie took a moment processing this remark. A flashlight in her hand came to life and she walked away without uttering a word. Billy’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he watched her go. “Go walk her home,” he said under his breath.
“She knows her way home,” Gabe said.
“She didn’t buy your line about the dog. She’s going to call the police. Look, she’s pulled out her cell phone and is punching in a number.”
“Jesus Christ — she is. I’ll be right back.”
Gabe hustled across the front lawn in pursuit of his neighbor. Normally, Billy would have waited for Gabe to come back before venturing inside the house, but they were on a job and every minute away from the job was a risk. He needed to get this done and go back to Carnivale to resume his charade of pretending to be a whale.
He entered the house. A busted lamp lay on the floor in the foyer.
“Hey Nate, where you hiding?”
No response. He shut the door behind him.
“Nate? You here?”
He treaded down the hallway into a spacious living room. It had taken a while, but Gabe had finally broken down and decorated the place. Instead of hiring an interior designer, Gabe had tapped his inner adolescent and filled the rooms with an elaborate model train set. Hundreds of yards of tracks snaked through model villages, up steep hills, across suspension bridges, and through underground tunnels. There were miniature people as well, tending to gardens, walking dogs, and driving tiny cars with the tops down, their faces painted in happy smiles. It was a fantasy world where every detail was perfect. He found a remote and pushed the start button. A train came out of a tunnel tooting its horn, its cars filled with passengers. A sound snapped his head. Like a cough, but weak, gasping for air. He followed it to the rear of the house. The study door was ajar and a light burned inside. He pushed the door open with his foot.
“Nate, you in there?”
He entered cautiously. The study had a desk covered with photos of Gabe’s girls, a PC, and a printer. He walked around the desk to find Nate sprawled on the floor. Or at least he thought it was Nate, his face so battered that it was hard to tell who it was.
He knelt down and tried to give comfort. Nate’s nose was flattened and two of his front teeth were missing. Dried blood caked his nostrils and blood dripped from one of his ears. Nate’s eyelids fluttered and he tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“For the love of Christ,” a voice said.
Gabe rushed into the study, his eyes filled with tears.
“You still have that bottle of Glenlivet I gave you?” Billy asked.
“I think so,” Gabe said.
“Go get it.”
When Gabe returned he was holding the whiskey and a glass. Gabe poured a liberal shot into the glass and passed it to Billy. Billy poured the whiskey into Nate’s mouth and got half of it on Nate’s chin. Nate’s eyelids snapped open and he sparked to life. Nate gave Billy a puzzled frown before seeing Gabe and breaking into a sad smile.
“I didn’t tell them nothing,” Nate gasped.
Gabe knelt down. “About what?”
“You know,” Nate said.
“No, I don’t.”
“The cheating. I didn’t tell them about the cheating.”
Billy looked at Gabe, wanting to kill him. Rule #1 was never to talk about work. Not to friends or family or anyone else.
“I didn’t tell him. Honest, Billy,” Gabe said.
“I figured it out myself,” Nate said, filling in the blanks. “I saw the equipment in the garage and knew you were scamming the fucking casinos. Good for you.”
Nate’s eyelids grew heavy. Another liberal dose of whiskey revived him.
“Who did this to you?” Gabe asked.
“Two guys tricked me into letting them in,” Nate said. “Wanted to know where you were. I told them to fuck off and they beat me up. I didn’t tell them nothing.”
“Thanks, man,” Gabe said.
Streams of bright red blood poured out of Nate’s nostrils like water coming out a spigot. Nate was going down fast and there was nothing they could do to stop the slide. Billy had held the dying before and knew the drill. He drew Nate’s head into his lap, not caring if the blood stained his clothes, his only concern to give comfort to Nate as he passed to the other side.
He said a silent prayer. As strange as it sounded, he still believed in Almighty God, the heavenly father the only policeman he cared about. Someday they’d have a nice chat about all the bad things he’d done, but he wanted to believe that day was far off, and until it happened he would go right on scamming and jamming and filling his pockets with other people’s money.
Nate stopped breathing and his head flopped to the side.
Gabe bawled like a little kid. Billy crossed himself and let a moment pass.
“Call the others,” he said.
“You mean Cory and Morris and Travis?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah. We need to bury your friend.”
Gabe tried to process what Billy was saying. “Bury him where?”
“In the desert, where do you think?”
“Why not a funeral home?”
“We take him to a funeral home, they’ll want to see a death certificate. The only way we get one of those is to bring in the cops. Not happening.”
“I don’t want—”
“I don’t care what you want. Your friend’s getting plopped in the ground. If we call the cops, how do we explain what happened or the cheating equipment in your house? We can’t.” He paused. “Now, call the others.”
Gabe shook his head. “Oh man, this is so wrong.”
“Do it anyway.”
“I need to think about this.”
“Think about what?”
“What you’re saying to me. It’s not right. Nate deserves better, you understand what I’m saying? He served in Vietnam and all that shit. He deserves a proper funeral.”