Free Easy Death by Daniel Boyd Page A

could satisfy my curiosity?”
    “About what?”
    “How does a police officer happen to be driving around in a pick-up truck full of hay bales?” she asked. “And back at the ranger station, why didn’t you call for more officers?”
    “That’s easy,” I said, trying to think of an answer.

Chapter 18
Thirty Minutes After the Robbery
    December 20, 1951
    9:30 AM
    Walter and Eddie
    As the car that looked a little like a police car went through another patch of woods, the drifts eased up, the driving got better, and Walter felt he ought to speak what was on his mind.
    “You think he meant that?” he said suddenly.
    “Who meant what, do I think?”
    “You think that guard, the dumb one, meant what he said about them losing their jobs because of this? Because we robbed them?”
    “Hell, no.” Eddie moved around on the seat, still trying to get comfortable in the long, heavy police coat and still not getting there. “Guy takes a wound like that protecting somebody else’s money, he’s a hero.”
    “You think that?”
    “Sure. Guy gets his ear shot off, how’s it gonna look do they fire him for it?”
    “That’d be a damn shame, getting fired right at Christmas.” Walter gripped the wheel a little tighter as they passed a plowed field and the wind coming across it tried to whip the car broadside, then eased a little as the road cut through a strip of woods.
    “Well, I don’t figure them to fire either one of those guards. One of them gets shot up and the other one puts bandages on him and saves his life…they’ll be heroes and get their pictures in the papers is what’ll happen. And maybe someday they’ll make a movie about Vincent Van Gogh, and that dumb guard, he’ll play the lead.”
    “Movie about who?”
    “Vincent Van Gogh.” Eddie watched the woods grow thicker around them again, hoping it would keep some of the falling snow off the road, or maybe just keep it from drifting as much.
    “Who’s Vincent Van Gogh?”
    “He was a painter. He painted pictures, I mean. He was French or something, and he lived a hundred years back maybe, long time back in the days like you see in movies when everybody wrote with feathers.”
    “And what about him?”
    “Well, he only had one ear.”
    “No kidding? Born like that with just one ear?”
    “Naah.” Eddie decided the woods weren’t helping much. “He fell hard for some gal and I guess she always got mad at him or something because everybody thought his paintings stunk, so one time when she got mad at him, he cut off his ear and sent it to her to show her he was sorry.”
    “Damn! No joke?”
    “No joke.”
    “He cut off his ear?”
    “Yep.”
    “And sends it to his girlfriend?”
    “That’s what he done. Just to show he was sorry.”
    “Damn.”
    “I couldn’t say it better myself.”
    “He must of been awful sorry.”
    “Well, that’s how come he to have only one ear, and I figure maybe sometime they’ll make a movie about him and start looking around for actors who got just one ear, and then they don’t find any so they come to this guy and they make him a big movie star or something.”
    “Yeah.” Walter studied the road ahead and shifted hands on the steering wheel. “How come you to know about this Vincent Van Gogh?”
    “That stretch I did give me plenty of time to read.”
    “I guess so.” Walter sounded awkward about bringing it up.
    “It wasn’t so bad, I guess.” Eddie sounded unconvinced by his own words. “I read a lot and learned card tricks—”
    “You can do card tricks?”
    “It ain’t hard. Like selling something. Mostly it’s getting the other guy to look where you want him to look. And like I say, I got to read a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
    “My brother,” Walter said, “he was a big one for reading.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Oh yeah.” Walter crawled the heavy car around a gentle curve, easing the clutch in and out, moving the gearshift up and back with the efficiency of long