Deadlock by James Byrne

Author:James Byrne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

Dez has been stuck in the suburban home for eight days, and he’s going a little stir crazy. Sims tells him that he’s scouted out a park, not three blocks away, near a creek. He, Dez, and Alonzo stroll that way a half an hour before nightfall. The park is small and quiet, and the creek meanders lazily through it. There’s a walking path and benches. They sit and Sims produces a silver flask with his initials, containing good Kentucky bourbon.

Dez is no longer limping. Alonzo is, but he’s using a dashing black cane that he’d picked up years ago, when he studied tap dance. The three men sit under a towering Doug fir and watch the slow-moving creek, and pass the flask around.

Sims’s voice is as slow and meandering as the creek. “What do you plan to do, Mr. Limerick?”

Dez has long ago given up on getting the chief deputy to call him by his nickname. “Go after them bastards.”

“How?”

“Dunno yet. Got a few notions.”

“Oh, Miss Swann, the elder, wants you to call tonight. She and the forensic accountants have discovered something.”

Dez nods.

“I wish the Marshal Service could do more. The political pressure we’re under is … unlike anything I’ve experienced before. I’m sad to say that the Drug Enforcement Administration backed down right after you were shot. They’ve already moved on to other things, rather than risk the wrath of the Justice Department.”

“Clockjack can call in powerful favors,” Dez says.

“I do not relish fighting a rearguard action against my own government, so I’ll do as I’m told, Mr. Limerick.”

“Wise, that.”

Alonzo sees a dog-walker with a Scottie dog and—being nuts about Scotties—limps over to make a friend. Thirty feet away, he kneels and rubs the dog’s ears. The dog-walker, an elderly lady, giggles and takes a photo of the two new best buddies. Alonzo hams it up for her.

Dez and Sims sit on the bench and watch the funny scene. Sims’s voice is smoky and slow, his eyes on the dog and those cooing over it. “Mr. Limerick,” he drawls. “I suspect you are going to have to kill a few men.”

Dez sips bourbon and hands the flask back. “Aye.”

After a beat, Sims nods and takes his own sip.

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