Page 55 of Three-Inch Teeth

“You don’t have to,” Soledad assured him. “I’ll take care of that. And I don’t hate our country. I hate our leaders and the elites who don’t have accountability. But when we’re through with this, maybe you’ll think highly enough of me to help me out with Mr. Jones.”

“Maybe,” Cates said. “But figuring out how to do it is another thing. I’m afraid they’ll see me coming.”

“I believe we’ll come up with something,” Soledad replied. “Something they’ll never suspect until it’s too late.”

Cates had agreed with that.

“There’s one thing you should know,” Soledad said.

“What’s that?”

“When I mentioned that I had people with me. They’re in some surprising places.”

“Are you saying you have someone on the inside?”

Soledad didn’t reply. Cates wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not.

*

CATES WAS A little surprised by Soledad’s actual arrival in Jeffrey City. His physical appearance was divided into halves. His upper body was strong and fit and imposing. He had a shaved scalp and a five-day growth of dark beard, as well as a large bladelike nose and piercing dark eyes. Like Cates’s, Soledad’s arms were festooned with tattoos. Only, in Soledad’s case, all of the art was devoted to falcons and falconry.

Soledad’s lower half was that of an eighty- or ninety-year-old man. His legs were thin and spindly, and his boots often splayed out to the sides as he glided along using braces that strapped around his forearms and extended on tubular legs to the ground.

Later, Soledad showed Cates that one of the braces contained a hidden eighteen-inch stiletto, and the other a razor-sharp flexible steel garrote that could behead a man in seconds. He’d had them custom-made, he said.

*

“HOW LONG DO you plan to keep LOR around?” Soledad asked Cates.

Soledad was propped up in the corner of the pool, his elbows splayed out on the lip of the painted concrete wall, while his legs were suspended uselessly below him in the murky water. His two aluminum braces were stacked on the deck within reach.

Cates shrugged. “Until we can get that machine right. He’s the only one who understands how it all works, since he built it in the first place. I want it to operate like a Swiss watch.”

Soledad reluctantly agreed.

“I didn’t like it when we almost missed the first time with that CO,” Cates said. “That could have been a fucking disaster. It hit high and to the right. Another couple of inches and we could have missed that guy altogether. We need a way of sighting in that shooting head better, like a red-dot sight or something. As it is, we’re making a big guess when we pull the trigger.”

“It worked with that lady lawyer,” Soledad said.

“Yeah, but that was pure luck. I was guessing distance and impact. It helped that she leaned into the jaws at the last second.

“I think we need to buy some watermelons at the grocery store to practice on,” Cates said. “Do you think they have watermelons here?”

“Probably not this time of year,” Soledad said. “Not in Thermopolis, Wyoming.”

“Cantaloupes might work,” Cates said. “They’re about the right size. I’d bet they have cantaloupes in that store.”

“Maybe,” Soledad agreed.

Then the lights blinked on and off twice.

“It must be closing time,” Cates said.

“Let me go talk to the attendant,” Soledad said. “Maybe I can get him to extend our time, given you’re such a celebrity and all.”

Cates watched as Soledad launched himself out of the pool using his impressive upper body strength, then gathered up his braces and glided toward the front office.

LOR made his way to the men’s locker room to change, and Johnson made her way to the women’s.

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