Reflections. Chapter One Pt. Two

Two more games and twenty minutes later the trio left without further upset. Maria had cleared and wiped-down their table before she got her coat and went over to Carter, who didn’t notice her as he looked beyond his own reflection in the window, again twisting his wedding ring around on his finger. And again wondering why, on that sunny July afternoon five years ago, it had all gone so terribly wrong.

‘Thank you, Carter.’ A distant voice said.

He blinked, forced a smile. ‘Just doing my job, Ma’am.’

Maria smiled back.

‘It’s late,’ Carter said. ‘How are you getting home?’

‘Frankie and I usually go home together but tonight I catch the last bus in ten minutes.’ She looked at the door, then over by the pool table. ‘And those guys who just left, I think they take three of my pool sticks.’

Carter looked at the cue rack by the pool table to see three of the five slots empty. He pointed behind the counter. ‘Do you keep all your cleaning equipment in that cupboard?’

She nodded. ‘Si.’

‘Will I find any duct tape in there?’

‘Duck tape?’

‘Yeah, grey sticky tape.’

Again she nodded. ‘Si, on the top shelf.’

Carter made his way behind the serving counter and through a door marked private. He was in there for three or four minutes before he came out again, empty handed. He removed his Glock-17 from its shoulder holster and his wallet containing his ID from his jacket pocket and passed them to Maria.

‘Look after these for me,’ he said. ‘And lock the door when I go out.’

‘But it’s not fair, there are three of them and they have sticks.’

Carter shrugged. ‘Life’s never fair, Maria,’ he said. ‘But if it makes you feel better, I’ll see if they want to go fetch some more friends to help them.’

She frowned. ‘But…’

‘Back in a couple of minutes,’ he said.

Before Carter opened the door he cupped a hand to the glass to see the pick-up still on the sparsely lit parking lot. He didn’t think his assailants would be dumb enough to be tucked-in close to the diner; they’d want as much room as swinging a pool cue would require. He reckoned if none of them had emerged before he’d taken twenty steps, then they’d all charge from the shadows about the same time.

He opened the door then turned, and in a raised voice said, ‘Good night, Maria, tell Frankie I’ll see him tomorrow.’ Then pulled the door closed and waited until the lock engaged before he took the first of those twenty steps.

At step fifteen the three stooges still hadn’t revealed themselves, and steps sixteen seventeen and eighteen had also past uneventfully. But at nineteen, and around halfway to his car, he heard hurried footfalls from behind; the one farthest away was making his move. Step twenty brought the second of them from the shadows to his left, and the third from between his car and their pick-up.

The one coming from behind was almost on him and Carter spun to see Baldy stop running and swing his cue horizontally at head height. Carter raised his left arm to block the blow and the cue snapped in half, its loose heavy end skittered across the parking lot and disappeared into darkness. Carter showed no sign of pain as he strode forward and hit Baldy flat on the nose with the heel of his right hand. He heard the crunch of cartilage as the man’s feet shot from under him. His head flew back and he hit the ground and stayed there, his face a mass of blood.

The swoosh of another cue soon followed, Carter ducked and rolled forward toward the diner to put space between him and his second assailant. But Red Sox had already made up the gap and swung his cue in an overhead arc, ready to bring it down on Carter’s skull. Carter raised his right arm this time and again the cue snapped in two. Red Sox looked first at the flimsy bit of cue he still held and then at his bloody-faced buddy lying between him and Carter. The third guy, Dumpy, was fatter, slower, and still ten feet away. Carter let fly with his right foot and caught Red Sox deep in his crotch. Red Sox doubled over into the perfect position for a swift kick under the chin, which took him clean out the game.

Two down, one to go.

Dumpy stopped, breathless, he looked at his two friends.

‘Choice is yours,’ Carter said. ‘Toss away the cue and I’ll help you put these two in the bed of your truck and you drive out of here.’

Dumpy seemed to contemplate the proposition. He looked at Carter and then at his two motionless buddies, he smiled and raised the cue over his right shoulder. ‘I say we do this,’ he said.

Carter shook his head as Dumpy rocked from foot to foot, the cue coming forward, moving back, coming forward. Eventually he swung it in a horizontal arc with all the venom he could muster, but was two feet farther away than he needed to be in order to hit Carter. He tried again and seemed to swing harder this time, but the power of the swing took the cue from his hands and sent it spinning under the pick-up. Carter shook his head again, sighed, took three steps forward, and landed a straight right to the front of the man’s chin. Dumpy let out an “Ooff” and landed on his ass before falling all the way back, where he stayed.

Carter dragged them one by one over to the pick-up, he pulled back the tarp to see a full-grown buck with its legs hogtied. There were three crossbow bolts buried deep in its left flank and a single gunshot wound below its left ear, and probably posing for a snapshot as he did it, one of them had cut its throat.

One by one he hauled each of the hunters onto his shoulder and dumped them next to their prize. He searched each of them and took all the cash they had, four-hundred and sixty-two dollars in total. He took the rope they used on the deer and tied their hands and feet together. Next he used the keys he’d found in one of Dumpy’s pockets and searched the cab.

Over the rear window was a rack that held a foldaway crossbow and six bolts still in their slots, with three more slots empty. In the glove box he found a dozen unused small Ziploc bags and a bigger Ziploc bag  containing around a hundred dollars of marijuana and several ready-rolled joints. He pulled the bag from the glove box to find a loaded forty-five underneath it that Dumpy probably didn’t have a licence for.

Carter took some of the big bag’s contents and filled three of the smaller bags and put one in each of the three stooges’ pockets. He then left the big bag and gun in plain view on the dashboard before wiping down the cab and everything else he touched. He covered the three men and the buck with the tarp and made two phone calls, the second of which he knew would go to voicemail. After he ended that call he found Dumpy’s pool cue and went back to where Maria waited inside the diner.

She switched off the lights and opened the door. ‘Wow,’ she said, handing him his ID and gun. ‘That was amazing,’

Carter handed her the cue and pulled out the wad of cash. ‘The guys hoped you’d take this as an apology for their rudeness and them breaking two of your pool cues and two of your mop handles.’

She placed the cue behind the door and locked it after her.

She looked at Carter, puzzled. ‘Mop handles?’ she said.

Carter removed his jacket and tore away the duct tape that held two eighteen-inch lengths of wooden mop handle to each of his forearms. Maria smiled and was applauding his ingenuity as the first of his phone calls arrived on the parking lot.

‘I figured you’d already missed your bus so I called you a cab. And because those three nice people are paying for it, be sure you tip the driver well.’

Maria rose onto her toes and pecked Carter on his cheek as he bent a little. ‘I change my mind,’ she said. ‘Don’t catch all the bad guys for me all at once. With you around I think we are all much safer.’ She climbed in and wound down the window. ‘And don’t tell Frankie about tonight, he already worry too much.’

‘It’ll be our secret, Maria.’

She smiled, rolled up the window, and waved as the cab pulled away.

Carter collected the broken pool cues and put them and the tape and broken mop handles in a dumpster at the side of the diner. He started to walk back to his Taurus when a police cruiser pulled onto the parking lot.

‘Hey, Carter,’ said the cop who climbed out.

‘Evening, Clive.’

'I got your message, what gives?’

Carter pointed. ‘I thought this looked a little odd just parked-up with no one around and the diner closed. So I checked it over and found a loaded gun and a large quantity of marijuana in the cab, and there’s a dead deer in the back. Oh, and three guys that might need some hospital treatment.’

‘Jesus, Carter,’ Clive said. ‘Any witnesses?’

‘No. None that would back them up.’ He checked his watch to find he wouldn’t make his rendezvous on time. ‘I gotta go, got an appointment with a rapist and some of his friends. But remember…’

‘Yeah I know. I was driving by when I saw the pick-up so I stopped and checked it out.’

Carter smiled, climbed in his Taurus, and left.