Free The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 by James Patterson, Otto Penzler Page A

different from the time in boot camp when they had to go into the tear-gas chamber. He saw a table full of equipment: burners, pans, boxes of cleaning supplies. He saw bags of powder on the counter, lots of them. An AK-47 was leaning against the wall and an Uzi was sitting by the sink next to a box of Cheez-Its.
    Misfit led him through the house and he followed. A couple guys were sitting on the sofa watching an old Clint Eastwood western. Jack couldn’t tell which one. Beer bottles and ashtrays were all over the coffee table, and a sawed-off shotgun. A pit bull in the corner stood up and started barking at him, then someone—Jack couldn’t figure out who—yelled at it. It sat back down. Jack noticed the dog was lying near a rusty brown stain about the size of a stop sign on the gray carpet. Jack wondered if it was blood.
    They went down a hall and Misfit knocked on a door.
    “There’s a cowboy here to see you.”
    “A what?” It was a girl’s voice.
    Misfit cracked the door.
    “A cowboy. He’s just passing through. Said Stuart Kicking Bird told him where to go.”
    “Jesus fucking Christ.” A male voice this time. “Okay. What the fuck ever.”
    Misfit opened the door, and Jack looked past him and saw it was a bathroom. A pretty Indian girl sat on a chair facing the tub, where a man was lying in bathwater. Several candles were burning. Incense. A two-by-four lay across the tub, spanning the guy like a bridge. A black rubber strap and an empty syringe sat on the wood. A pistol sat on the linoleum floor by the tub.
    “Wow,” the girl said. “He really is a cowboy.”
    Jack reached up and tipped his hat.
    “Ma’am,” he said.
    It wasn’t something he would normally do. He felt giddy.
    The guy in the tub shifted to get a better look at Jack. He had brown hair, shaggy and almost to his shoulders. The hair on his face was an unruly mess somewhere between a beard and a few days’ stubble. His eyes were so bloodshot Jack could see the red from where he was.
    “Well, come on in, cowboy,” Gabe said, his smile suggesting he found this funny in a way no one else quite would.
    The girl stood.
    “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said.
    She walked past Jack and stared at him as she passed by, so close that he could smell her over the chemicals. She was so pretty he couldn’t believe it. Not pretty in any done-up way. Just cute. Long straight brown hair. Clean almond-colored skin. Eyes dark like rich fertile soil. Why couldn’t he meet a girl like this back home?
    “Be nice to him,” she said to Gabe, not taking her eyes off Jack. “He’s a cute cowboy.”
    Jack smiled at her. He wondered if there was still hope for her. He thought about not going through with it all, then he stepped into the bathroom, telling himself to get his head straight.
    “Pedro frisked him,” Misfit said. “Motherfucker’s clean.”
    Misfit shut the door behind him, leaving Jack alone with Gabe.
    “Sit down,” Gabe said, picking up the pistol, a Glock, and laying it on the two-by-four.
    Jack sat.
     
    Jack stared, unblinking, at the campfire. He and David had hardly spoken all evening. They built the fire, cooked hot dogs over the flames, and sipped beers in a sort of robotic daze. Now a mound of red and orange coals lay beneath the few logs. The coals were hot, twisting with orange and red and black shapes. Jack could see images in the coals, like flaming clouds. Faces, tortured visages. But he couldn’t seem to make himself look away. He felt almost like he was losing his mind. He’d looked at his brother’s dead body in the Carson City morgue that afternoon, and now he couldn’t quite make sense of anything.
    Across the fire, David pulled out his can of Kodiak, hit it against his palm to pack it, and then put a pinch in his lip. He spit into the fire.
    “Want some?” he said.
    Jack shook his head no.
    David took a deep breath. “I tell you what,” he said.
    Jack knew immediately that his brother had been planning to