Page 26 of Lamb

I stepped back, waiting for the clouds of dust and dirt spinning in the air to settle.

Rust covered more of the car than the flaking silver paint, and the wheels were more threadbare than a burlap sack. It shrieked in protest as the handbrake was engaged and creaked when the driver’s door swung open.

A middle-aged, emaciated man stumbled from the car. He ran a sun-spotted wrinkled hand over his whiskered chin, gunmetal gray hair slick back with wax. His white wife beater, patchwork jacket, and torn jeans weren’t a fashion statement but a visible depiction of a harder life. As was the beaded chain that hung around his neck, a familiar emblem dangling at its end.

“Detective.” I stepped out, extending an outstretched hand. “It’s good to see you still breathing.”

“Wish I could say the same.” The grizzled man turned up a lip, his scraggly gray whiskers shifting with the movement. He turned narrow sunken eyes on Jax, scanning him up and down with scrutiny before turning back to meet mine.

“Hopefully, we can make this meeting our last.” I presented a friendly demeanor, but the detective had little interest in it.

“Better be,” he growled, turning on the heel of his worn and dusted boots. “The next time I see your face will be in hell.”

Jax took this moment to intervene, stepping up toward the car. “Did you make sure you weren’t followed?”

Steam piped straight out of the man’s ears as he whirled on the young upstart. “Followed!” he hissed. “I was in the force for fifty years! Ain’t nobody able to follow me while I got two working eyes.”

Jax flashed his hands up in surrender. “Look, old man, I just—”

“Hush up,” he growled, and I saw the white of Jax’s eyes widen. “I don’t need some greenhorn telling me what to do. Do you think I chose to be out in the middle of nowhere forno reason? Don’t be such a fool.” The detective stomped back to his car, his chain jingling with each unsteady limp. He gave the trunk an irritated kick and a hard pull before the old thing popped open.

Jax sent me a deep frown, coming close to my side. “You sure this guy is sane?”

“He isn’t.” I shrugged, leaving Jax with the passing comment as I walked over to the detective, getting a glimpse into the open trunk.

Inside were old luggage trunks, suitcases, cardboard boxes, and duffle bags, filled to the brim with things from CDs to VHS tapes and articles of clothing.

He reached in with thin, branch-like arms and lifted a cardboard file box from the mass. The lid sat haphazardly on the top, a file, stray papers, and the corner of a Ziplock bag peeking from inside.

I offered out my hands, ready to take the box from him, but before I was within reach, the man snatched the box back toward his chest.

“With this,” the detective grumbled, small dark eyes thinned into tight slits, “our slate is clean.”

It was worded like a statement or demand, but I could see the inquisition in his eyes, the uncertainty.

I reached forwards again, my fingers pressing around the edge and bottom of the soft cardboard box. “Consider your debt paid,” I reassured him, lifting the box out of his hands.

Relief slumped into his brittle bones as he glanced down at his empty hands with a stuttered breath. His eyes then jumped up to the box now held tightly in my hands. For a moment, something flittered past his eyes. Hesitation. To leave it with me or to take it back.

“It took a lot to get that information.” He gave the metaphorical bomb in my hands an uneasy stare. “Don’t waste it.”

I didn’t get a chance to reply. The old, weatherworn man staggered back to the heap of rust he called a car. He dropped inside, slamming the door closed with a gallant effort.

Spluttering screeches started the machine back to life, and with the last of his hesitation lost to the wind, the wheels spun, spitting dust clouds into the air as it peeled out onto the road. For a while, the car stayed in sight, the sound softening into the distance, murmuring until nothing, but the disturbed earth remained.

“Well, wasn’t he a delight?” Jax propped his hands on his hips, looking into the empty distance with a puzzled expression.

“He’s a crazy old man,” I explained, moving to my bike and setting the box on the seat. “But he’s the type of crazy that’ll dig, and dig, and dig until there’s nothing left to find.”

“So, that’s how he ended up owing you a favor? Dug too deep?”

“No,” I indulged. “We met at the races, actually.”

“The horse races?” Jax questioned. His surprise was amusing. “So, he lost a bet?”

“Of sorts,” I spoke. “He was chasing horse dopers. Got caught snooping.”

“By the dopers?” Jax leaned forward, intrigued.

---