Devils And Dust. J.D. Rhoades

back,” he said.

      “What are you going to…” the truck hit them again, causing them to swerve slightly.

      “Guess we’re going to have to give it to them,” he said. He saw a sign up ahead and put on his signal.

      “Jack,” Angela said.

      “Listen,” he said. “We don’t have much time.” As he began slowing, he told her what to do. They reached a wide spot in the road where an abandoned gas station stood. The front plate glass windows were long gone and boarded up and rusted stumps of piping stuck up through a crumbling concrete island where the pumps used to be. Keller pulled to a stop on the time-shattered concrete slab of the parking area. Weeds grew up between the cracks, brushing against the bottom of the car as they stopped. The truck pulled in right on their tail. Keller took the phone from Angela and got out. Three men got out of the truck. One was Frank, the older man who’d greeted Keller when they’d first arrived. The other was a squat ugly man with acne scars on his face and muscles bulging against his tight T-shirt. The third one was Cesar. He was grinning and holding an L-shaped tire iron.

      “Howdy,” Keller said. “How can I help you fellows?”

      “Your friend took something that didn’t belong to her,” Frank said. “And we need it back.”

      Keller held up the phone. “You mean this?”

      The man nodded. “Yes. That.”

      “And if I give it back,” Keller said, “We can go on our way?”

      Frank shook his head in apparently sincere sorrow. “I’m afraid not,” he said.

      Cesar broke in. “We’re going to fuck you up, bitch.” He slapped the tire iron into his palm for emphasis. Acne Scars had come up to stand on the other side of him.

      “Cesar,” Frank said impatiently. He turned back to Keller. “Tia Rosita says you need to be taught a lesson. And warned to stay away.” He nodded at the car. “Your lady friend will not be harmed.”

      “She’s too messed up to fuck, anyway,” Cesar said nastily.

      “Oh,” Keller said. “Well, that’s a relief. I guess. Still, I’m not sure I can give you what you want.”

      “Then,” Frank said, “we’ll have to take it. Cesar. Mateo.” The two men advanced on Keller, grinning.

      “Oh, all right,” Keller said when they were a couple of feet away. “Here.” He tossed the phone underhanded at Cesar’s face. Startled, the young man stepped back and instinctively swung the tire iron as if he was trying to bat the phone away. He missed, the wild swing almost catching Mateo in the chest. Keller stepped forward, seized the iron with his left hand, and punched Mateo in the face with his right. Mateo’s head snapped back, but he recovered from the blow quickly. He swung at Keller, who was twisting to his right, grabbing the iron with both hands now and using Cesar’s grip to pull him sideways into Mateo and throw off the aim of the punch. In the tangle that followed, Cesar loosened his grip on the tire iron and Keller ripped it out of his hands. He used the momentum to spin around, drop to one knee in front of Cesar, and smash the iron into the younger man’s knee as the counterpunch went over his head. Cesar screamed and fell to the ground, clutching the shattered knee in both hands. Keller stood up, reversing his grip on the iron, and jammed it into the gut of Mateo, who was charging forward, arms outstretched to wrap Keller up and bear him to the ground. Mateo grunted in pain and doubled over. Keller raised the iron above his head, ready to bring it down in a blow that would have crushed Mateo’s skull. He checked himself at the last second, tossed the iron aside, and waited for Mateo to try to straighten up. When he did, slowly, Keller finished him with a short, chopping right to the jaw that dropped him next to Cesar, who was still writhing on the ground, holding his knee and keening in a high, thin voice.

      “I tried to tell you, kid,” Keller said to Cesar. He looked over at Frank. “He’s going to need to go to the hospital for that knee.”

      “You don’t know what kind of trouble you’ve brought down on yourself,” Frank said.

      “I think I do.” Keller looked at the pieces of the cell phone scattered on the concrete. “Tell Mrs. Miron I’m sorry about the phone. But tell her, and whoever she works with that I have the SIM card.”

      Frank looked confused. “The what?”

      Angela was out of the car, standing beside it. “It’s the little computer card that has the phone’s information on it,” she said, “including the contacts.”

      “Tell her for me, I meant it when I said I don’t care about how she makes her money,” Keller said. “I don’t care about getting any of her friends in trouble. All I care about is finding my friend. That’s it. And to do that, I need to talk to the people he talked to. That’s all I want. If I don’t get it, though, I know some people who’d probably like to have the information I have. About Delgado, and Miron, and what’s on that SIM card. Think about it.” He turned and walked back to the car.

      “I’ll tell her,” Frank called. “But these people you want to talk to…they do more than just move immigrants. You’ve made some very bad enemies.”

      Keller turned as he opened the car door. “Well,” he said, “it won’t be the first time.” He and Angela climbed in and drove off.

      

      “WELL,” ANGELA said, “that was…interesting.”

      “That’s one word for it,” Keller said. “You do have the card, right?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Okay. We get another phone that uses the same kind of card. See what we can pull off the contact list.”

      “You think that’ll give us anything?”

      Keller glanced in the rearview mirror to confirm they weren’t being followed. “Probably not.”

      “They’re most likely using burners,” Angela said, referring to the prepaid cell phones meant to be used a few times, then discarded so they couldn’t be traced.

      “Most likely,” Keller said.

      “Which is why you were provoking them. You want them to come after you.”

      Keller just nodded. “Yeah.”

      She shook her head. “You’re enjoying this.”