Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom Read Free Page B

do. I took the money and gave her the painting. I swam in her gray eyes.
    “ ‘I want to be your love slave,’ I said.
    “ ‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘but that won’t be necessary.’
    “She gave me her business card and told me to have you come see her in Los Angeles. I stood in the center of the highway and watched her drive away. Death in the form of a semi hauling melons from California to Nebraska missed me by inches, its horn a blast of hot wind. I took the hint and got out of Death’s way and went back to the Purgatory Truck.
    “I doused your black velvet painting of me and Woody with gasoline and threw it on the asphalt. I touched a match to it and watched it burn. Then I got in the Purgatory Truck and headed for the Circle D.” Benjamin shrugged. “Now you know as much as I do.”
    “Wrong,” Duncan said, “I finished high school.”
    Benjamin pulled into the parking lot of a Lazy Rancher Market and shut off the engine. They got out and went inside. Benjamin stood by the door and stared at the clerk, a fat, balding man of forty-five with a raw neck and a tattoo of a snake on his forearm. His name was Leroy Kern, and ten years before he had accused Benjamin of stealing a Milky Way, beating him with a yardstick when he could not find the candy bar. Nothing came of it. Benjamin had been picked up for shoplifting before.
    If he didn’t rate a beating today, the sheriff had said, he’ll rate one tomorrow .
    “What’s his problem?” Leroy Kern asked Duncan. He had forgotten about the Milky Way a long time past.
    “Beats me.”
    Duncan was not feeling particularly verbose. He was upset that Benjamin had burned the cowboy and Indian painting. He took a case of beer from the cooler and a cheese pizza from the freezer. He grabbed a bag of corn chips and went to the counter. Leroy Kern rang him up.
    “Tell him I got a gun,” he said, one eye on Benjamin.
    Duncan took a box of miniature chocolate donuts from a rack beside the counter and put it with the beer. He glanced at Benjamin.
    “He’s got a gun,” he said. Benjamin kept staring.
    “I’m not afraid to use it neither. Killed a punk who came in here four years ago.”
    He held up a yellowed newspaper clipping containing a photograph of Leroy Kern behind the counter, a smirk on his gap-toothed face and a forty-five Colt in his hand. Blood Bath at the Lazy Rancher, the caption said.
    “Did I ever show you this?”
    “Only about twenty-seven times.”
    Leroy Kern put the clipping back under the counter and held up the chips. “You see how much these were?”
    “One ninety-nine.”
    Leroy Kern rang up the chips. “He was a heroin addict from New York on his way to lotus land to play guitar in a rock band. He pulled a knife and I blew his brains across the dairy section. Three rounds between the eyes. You tell him that.”
    Duncan looked at Benjamin. “He heard you,” he said, “but he doesn’t seem to care.”
    “Well, he ought to. That’ll be twenty-nine thirty-five.”
    Duncan paid and took his change. Benjamin left and got in the truck. Leroy Kern looked miserable.
    “Every time he comes in here he stares like that. It bugs the hell out of me. One day I’m going to put a stop to it. You tell him that.”
    Duncan picked up the beer and groceries. He stopped at the door. “That wouldn’t be smart.”
    “You think I’m scared of him?” Leroy Kern’s breath came in ragged bursts. His eyes were wide and his face cherry red. The artist in Duncan appreciated the color. “You tell that shit-ass punk the next time he comes in here I’ll blow his head off!”
    “Ok,” Duncan said as he left, “your funeral.”

Two
 
    “Sure it has a lot of miles,” Smiling Jack Sweeney said, “but that just means the engine’s wore in proper.”
    Duncan and Benjamin stood beside a white sixty-nine Volkswagen mini-bus beneath a cool morning sun. A diverse multitude of used cars in various states of repair were parked about them. A flaking