That's a nice story, Bell said. I hope it has a nice endin.
It happened just like that.
I know it did. I appreciate you talkin to me. I guess I'd better cut you loose, late as it is.
She stubbed out her cigarette. Well, she said. I'm sorry you come all this way not to do no better than what you done.
Bell picked up his hat and put it on and squared it. Well, he said. You do the best you can. Sometimes things turns out all right.
Do you really care?
About your husband?
About my husband. Yes.
Yes mam. I do. The people of Terrell County hired me to look after em. That's my job. I get paid to be the first one hurt. Killed, for that matter. I'd better care.
You're askin me to believe what you say. But you're the one sayin it.
Bell smiled. Yes mam, he said. I'm the one sayin it. I just hope you'll think about what I did say. I aint makin up a word about the kind of trouble he's in. If he gets killed then I got to live with that. But I can do it. I just want you to think about if you can.
All right.
Can I ask you somethin?
You can ask.
I know you aint supposed to ask a woman her age but I couldnt help but be a bit curious.
That's all right. I'm nineteen. I look younger.
How long have you all been married?
Three years. Almost three years.
Bell nodded. My wife was eighteen when we married. Just had turned. Marryin her makes up for ever dumb thing I ever done. I even think I still got a few left in the account. I think I'm way in the black on that. Are you ready?
She got her purse and rose. Bell picked up the check and squared his hat again and eased up from the booth. She put her cigarettes in her purse and looked at him. I'll tell you somethin, Sheriff. Nineteen is old enough to know that if you have got somethin that means the world to you it's all that more likely it'll get took away. Sixteen was, for that matter. I think about that.
Bell nodded. I aint a stranger to them thoughts, Carla Jean. Them thoughts is very familiar to me.
He was asleep in his bed and it still mostly dark out when the phone rang. He looked at the old radium dial clock on the night table and reached and picked up the phone. Sheriff Bell, he said.
He listened for about two minutes. Then he said: I appreciate you callin me. Yep. It's just out and out war is what it is. I dont know no other name for it.
He pulled up in front of the sheriff's office in Eagle Pass at nine-fifteen in the morning and he and the sheriff sat in the office and drank coffee and looked at the photos taken in the street two blocks away three hours earlier.
There's days I'm in favor of givin the whole damn place back to em, the sheriff said.
I hear you, said Bell.
Dead bodies in the street. Citizens' businesses all shot up. People's cars. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Can we go over and take a look?
Yeah. We can go over.
The street was still roped off but there wasnt much to see. The front of the Eagle Hotel was all shot up and there was broken glass in the sidewalk down both sides of the street. Tires and glass shot out of the cars and holes in the sheet-metal with the little rings of bare steel around them. The Cadillac had been towed off and the glass in the street swept up and the blood hosed away.
Who was it in the hotel do you reckon?
Some Mexican dopedealer.
The sheriff stood smoking. Bell walked off a ways down the street. He stood. He came back up the sidewalk, his boots grinding in the glass. The sheriff flipped his cigarette into the street. You go up Adams there about a half a block you'll see a blood trail.
Goin yon way, I reckon.
If he had any sense. I think them boys in the car got caught in a crossfire. It looks to me like they was shootin towards the hotel and up the street yonder both.
What do you reckon their car was doin in the middle of the intersection thataway?
I got no idea, Ed Tom.
They walked up to the hotel.
What kind of shellcasins did you all pick up?
Mostly nine millimeter with some shotgun hulls and a few .380's. We got a shotgun and two machineguns.
Fully automatic?
Sure. Why not?
Why not.
They walked up the stairs. The porch of the hotel was covered in glass and the woodwork shot up.
The nightclerk got killed. About as bad a piece of luck as you could have, I reckon. Caught a stray round.
Where'd he catch it?
Right between the eyes.
They walked into the lobby and stood. Somebody had thrown a couple of towels over the blood in the carpet behind the desk but the blood had soaked through the towels. He wasnt shot, Bell said.