IQ(69)

“Skip is the only lead we have,” Isaiah said. “We have to make him talk.”

“Make him talk how? Waterboard him? My old man showed me how to do it and damn near drowned me. Oh I know. Let’s kidnap Skip’s mama and cut her toes off ’til he talks. Shit. That crazy muthaf*cka might not even have a mama.”

“It’s not his mama.”

Dodson thought a moment—and then his face exploded into abject terror. “No, unh-uh, forget it. Get that out of your mind, you hear me? I ain’t doing that shit no matter what you say.”

“It’s that or give up the fifty grand.”

“What am I gonna spend it on, my tombstone? I don’t want no part of it and you know why. Let me out of the car. I gotta pick up some ice cream for Cherise.” Isaiah stopped and Dodson got out of the car. “I’m not playing, Isaiah.”

“I know you’re not playing.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“I heard you.”

“No, I don’t think you did. I’m not doing it.”

“Okay, you’re not doing it.”

“Well, all right then.”


The Drop In Diner was open twenty-four hours, the animal control truck parked in the lot. From there you could see the dirt road leading to and from Skip’s place. The truck was on loan from Harry along with a tranquilizer gun and a special gurney for transporting unconscious animals. The gun came with darts loaded with Sucostrin, a muscle relaxant, the dose calculated by species and weight.

“Why do you need me?” Dodson said. “Can’t you shoot the dog by yourself?”

“I told you ten times already,” Isaiah said. “I need you to help me get the dog on the gurney. That’s a hundred and thirty pounds of deadweight.”

“What if he gets loose? What if all them dogs get loose? Shit. You don’t even know if that dart gun’s gonna work. They don’t use ’em on dogs.”

“No, just bears and mountain lions. Will you please relax? All you have to do is bring the gurney and you’ll only be in there for a minute.”

They saw headlights. Skip’s truck was coming up the road. It turned onto the pavement and drove away.

“Ready?” Isaiah said.

“No,” Dodson said. “And I never will be.”


They drove the two miles to Skip’s place, the moonlit desert like the desert on the moon. The house looked more isolated than it did in the daytime.

“Every scary movie I ever seen happened in a house just like that,” Dodson said.

The animal control truck was too wide to make it around the fence posts and the exercise yard, so they parked it alongside the house with the archery target and the mountain bike with the bent fork. Dodson waited on the back patio with the gurney. He’d come when he was called. Isaiah walked off toward the barn wearing a backpack and carrying a ladder.

“Hurry up, you hear me?” Dodson said. “Don’t leave me out here forever.”


Skip was on Highway 58 heading into Barstow and he was already low on gas. He should have filled up in Fergus but he was distracted, thinking about Q Fuck meeting someone that knew him. He couldn’t figure out who that could be. Having no friends made the list of suspects really short. He called Bonnie.

“Let me get this straight,” Bonnie said. “This IQ guy is going to meet somebody who’s got info on you?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Like who? You don’t have any friends.”

“That’s why I’m calling, Bonnie, I want to know who it is.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to call me Bonnie?”

“Okay, Jimmy, what do you think’s going on?”

“Well, it’s not any of the people you worked for. They’d give you up to the police, not some ghetto detective. What about a housekeeper or a gardener?”

“You’ve been to my place, haven’t you?”

“One of your dog breeding people?”

“None of them know what I do for a living.”

“Then it’s a setup.”

“Setup how? I go to this bar and that * puts a gun to my head and forces me to talk? He couldn’t do that if he wanted to.”

Jimmy was quiet a moment and then he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Skip said.

“This guy is pretty smart. No wonder they call him IQ.”

“Quit f*cking around, Jimmy. What?”

“He’s not trying to get you to some bar. He’s trying to get you out of your house.”

Skip’s heart shot up to his throat. He yanked the wheel, the tires screeching, the suspension bucking as he drove over the median and made a U-turn across all four lanes of Highway 58.


Isaiah was eager to get this done, telling himself it was all about the case. He didn’t like thinking he wanted to hurt Skip. Take something from him. Make him feel the pain of losing a loved one. When he got to the barn, the dogs were barking and yowling and banging against their kennels. Attila was loose, his wet nose snuffling on the other side of the door. No way to shoot him without opening it and Harry had warned him the dog might not go down right away. Fifteen feet overhead was the bay door to the hayloft. On his last visit here, Isaiah had seen a big sliding bolt on the inside. Getting in that way meant removing the track that held up the door. Take out a bunch of heavy bolts and move the ladder from side to side. The easiest access was through one of the two skylights but the roof was steeply pitched. He’d have to wield the circular saw while he stood on what amounted to the side of a pyramid.