Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(42)

Charlie did not make another grab, but the threat behind his words filled the whole street.

Benny didn’t move. He held the card down by his hip and out of sight. He flicked a glance at Sacchetto, but the Hammer was up in the artist’s face, and he had his hand resting on the top

of the black pipe he carried as a club. There was no help there.

“Now,” commanded Charlie. He held out a huge, callused hand, palm open and flat to receive the card. A stiff breeze filled with heat and blowing sand suddenly whipped out of the west. The

card fluttered between Benny’s fingers.

“Give him the card, Benny,” urged Sacchetto.

“Listen to the man,” agreed the Hammer, laying a hand on the artist’s shoulder. The tips of his fingers dug wrinkled pits through the fabric of Sacchetto’s shirt.

Charlie stretched his hand out until his fingers were an inch from Benny’s face. The bounty hunter’s skin smelled like gunpowder, urine, and tobacco.

“Boy,” Charlie whispered.

Benny raised the card. He did it slowly, holding it between thumb and forefinger, and all four of them watched it flutter like the wing of a trapped and terrified butterfly.

“Give me the card,” said Charlie in a voice as soft as the blowing wind.

“No,” said Benny, and he opened his fingers. The hot breeze whipped it away.

The artist gasped. The Hammer cursed. Charlie Pink-eye snaked a hand after it, but the card tumbled away from his scrabbling fingers. Benny almost cried out as the small rectangle of stiff

cardboard and printer’s ink tumbled over and over, bobbing like a living thing on the wind. It struck the sign at the corner of the artist’s property and dropped to the street where it

skittered for a dozen yards before it came to a sudden stop as a booted toe stepped down on it, pinning it to the hard-packed dirt.

Benny, the artist, and the two bounty hunters had followed the card’s progress with their eyes, and now—as one—they raised their eyes to look at the man who now stood in the street. The

man bent and plucked the card from beneath his toe. He studied it for a moment, then blew dust and sand from its surface. He glanced over the card, then at the four people clustered together

in front of the artist’s door. He smiled and slid the card into his shirt pocket.

It was the first time Benny had ever been glad to see him.

“Tom,” Benny said.





19


TOM IMURA WAS DRESSED IN FADED BLUE JEANS AND A GREEN TRAVEL-stained safari shirt with a lot of pockets. He wore old boots, an ancient Pittsburgh Pirates ball cap, and a smile that was every

bit as friendly and inviting as a pit viper’s. As he strolled slowly toward the front of the house, Charlie and the Hammer took small sideways steps to be clear of any obstructions. Both

men wore knives on their belts. The Hammer had his black-pipe club, and Benny knew for certain that Charlie had a four-barreled derringer in his boot top.

“So,” said Tom amiably, “what are we doing today?”

The question sounded as ordinary as Nix asking if Benny wanted to go swimming or Chong suggesting they entertain the trout down at the stream.

“Just having a chat, Tom,” said the Hammer. “Ain’t nothing.”

“Happy to hear it, Marion.”

Benny gasped. No one ever called the Hammer by his birth name. There was a story Morgie liked to tell about how when the Hammer turned fourteen, he killed his father with a screwdriver for

giving him that name. And yet the Hammer didn’t say a single word about it to Tom.

“You doing okay, Benny?” Tom asked.

Benny didn’t trust his voice, so he gave a short jerk of a nod.

“Rob?” Tom asked with an uptick of his chin.

The artist said, “Just a friendly chat. The boys were just passing the time of day.”

Tom stopped a yard away from Charlie. He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and looked up at the hard, blue dome of the sky.

“And it’s a hot one, ain’t it?” said Tom, squinting at a buzzard floating like a black kite, high in the sky. Without looking down he said, “I see they put the Lost Girl on a Zombie

Card. How about that?”

“She ain’t none of your business, Tom,” said Charlie with quiet menace.

Tom nodded as if agreeing, but he said, “I seem to remember you telling folks that the Lost Girl was just a myth. Or was it that she was dead ten years ago and more?”

Charlie said nothing.

Tom finally lowered his eyes and turned toward Charlie. If there was anything to read in Tom’s face, Benny wasn’t able to see it.

“And then I see you getting all worked up over her picture on a kid’s trading card. What am I supposed to think about that?”

“Think what you like, Tom,” said Charlie.

“Yeah,” added the Hammer with a laugh. “It’s a free country.”

The bounty hunters laughed, and Tom laughed with them, sharing a joke that clearly no one found funny. Benny shifted uncomfortably and threw an inquiring look at Sacchetto, who returned the

look with a shake of his head.

“Charlie, you and Marion wouldn’t be looking for the Lost Girl again, would you?”

“Can’t look for someone who’s dead,” said the Hammer.