The Holdup

Chapter 2

2

Rattlesnake is dominated by a backdrop of mountains. It's an island in a sea of sand. Another stop on an endless highway.

According to the road sign, the population is seven-hundred.

Less of a one-horse town and more of a three-legged mule.

From first glance, I notice a bar, general store, butcher's, post office, town hall and hardware store. There's a church steeple peeping over the rooftops and a few other places. Most of 'em up and down a short strip of a main street. Basically the highway, with slower speed limits.

Otherwise, the locals seem to live in small clutches of houses dotted around the outskirts of the town.

Exhausted and numb, I walk along the main street. I find a small doctor's surgery. The blinds are shut and the sign on the door says CLOSED: Doctor on Vacation.

I look around me and see a bar called Al's across the street. It's got all the medicine I need.

So I cross over and enter the bar.

Thank Christ for air con. And the dark, dingy atmosphere. It's much easier on my head. Slow country music plays quiet. The place near empty, except for a couple of old drinkers at the bar nursing beers.

They nudge each other and turn to stare my way. The barman stops what he's doing and throws a towel over one shoulder. He stares at me, too.

I take a stool. Ask for a whisky and two beers—one with the bottle top on.

The barman slides me a beer with the top still on. I wrap my hand around the ice cold glass and hold it to my head. The barman pours me a whisky. He's a rake of a guy with jet-black hair slicked back over his head. He wears a white open-neck shirt that has Al stitched into the breast pocket. He sees the world through a pair of dark, letterbox eyes.

I neck the whisky and slam the glass down. Al slides me another beer. This one without the top.

I take a few gulps and sigh in relief.

Al puts both hands on the bar and leans in, looking me dead straight in the eye. "Well?" he says, under his breath.

"Well what?"

"How'd it go?"

"How'd what go?" I say, taking another drink.

"The job," Al says.

"What job?"

'Quit screwing around, Charlie."

I lean forward on my stool. "Listen pal, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know you. And I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here . . . Unless you care to fill me in."

The guy looks both ways along the bar. "Hell, I'm not gonna say it out loud."

"Good," I say, putting down the empty beer bottle. "Then don't." I take a twenty dollar bill of my own from my wallet and slap it on the counter. I slide off my stool and head to the far end of the bar. I find the gents and head inside.

There are two urinals up against the left wall and a pair of cubicles to the right. Like most pissers, it smells like heaven. If heaven smelled like s**t, piss and crumbling cakes of blue detergent.

I unzip and take a piss. Try to remember. Try to think. Neither come easy when your head feels like there's a man inside your skull, hammering nails into your brain.

All I remember is—

A toilet flush breaks my concentration. I hear a guy cough and spit out his lungs. The latch on the door opens. I carry on pissing, staring at a rusty urinal pipe.

I sense a lingering presence behind me. And not just the hot funk from the guy's private business. I glance over my left shoulder. The owner of the offensive smell stares at me, a nasty black and blue swelling around his right eye. He has a dishevelled beard and long ginger hair in a ponytail.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

The guy takes a snub-nosed black revolver from under a baggy grey Guns 'N' Roses t-shirt. "Remember me?" he says.

"Should I?"

"You're gonna get yours," he says.

"Can it wait 'till I've emptied the tank?" I say.

The guy considers it a second. “Sure.”

I whistle as I piss and turn around as I finish, dribbling over his dusted old boots.

"s**t, sorry pal," I say.

The guy hops away. "Son of a—"

While the guy's still staring at his shoes, I tuck away fast and punch the guy in the jaw. The force of it rocks him back into the cubicle. He lands on the toilet seat. I follow him in and snatch the revolver off him. As he slides onto his back on the tiles, I empty the chamber, bullets dropping into the water in the toilet bowl. I toss the gun in too and flush.

With the guy out cold, I wash my hands and look in a cracked mirror. At my sun-tanned face. The purple lump on my forehead. Heavy stubble and a light bruising around my neck, like someone had their hands around my throat.

The guy in the cubicle murmurs as he comes round.

I turn on the tap. "Filthy bastard," I say to him. "Next time you draw your gun, wash your hands first.”