Free Doom Weapon by Ed Gorman

insane.
    “Well, I guess I’ll leave all that up to you, Lulu Jane. What I wanted to ask you about was a man named Grieves.”
    She smiled, looking even prettier. “He makes it mighty tempting to move to a big city. Not with him, I mean. But just to a big city in general. All the new fashions and the parties and the interesting people. If my mail-order-bride business wasn’t doing so good here, I’d give it some serious consideration.” Then she looked at me as if really seeing me for the first time: “How come you’re asking about Mr. Grieves?”
    “Your dad said he got into a fight with somebody one night when you were there.”
    “Oh, he sure did. He always keeps saying he just wants to have a party that lasts forever and that’s what it was sort of like. There wasn’t anything shameful going on. Everybody was a little tipsy was all. But then this little fella comes in and they go into this other room and right away you can hear them yellin’ at each other. And then all of a sudden they start into this fistfight. The little fella wasn’t any match for Mr. Grieves, that’s for sure.”
    “Did you ever find out what they were arguing about?”
    She thought a moment, biting her lower lip as she considered my question. “Well, it was something to do with business because Mr. Grieves said, ‘We’re partners and you’re not gonna back out now.’”
    “Did you happen to catch the man’s name?”
    She laughed. She had a sweet girly laugh. “Well, as I told you, everybody was a little tipsy and that was me included. About all I remember was that it started with a ‘D’, I think. And maybe that’s not right. But it could be.”
    “So you didn’t hear any more than that?”
    She blushed. “Not that I can remember.” Then: “I know Mr. Grieves has disappeared somewhere. I just hope he’s all right.” Then: “I’m sure my dad told you how I was left behind by Vern Tiller, who ran off with somebody else. Well, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been pining over him for more than a year. And Mr. Grieves’s party was the first time I just let go and had fun and didn’t think of Vern, not even once. Well, maybe once. But no more than that. I sure hope Mr. Grieves comes back.”
    She smiled. “And invites me to another one of his parties.”
     
    The gravestones weren’t enough. Not for a man of Grieves’s destructive appetites. As day was pushing on dusk, that sad shadowy twilight time that always reminded Dobbs of the family he’d left behind, Grieves suddenly pulled his horse up short and said, “Give me one of those grenades.”
    “What for?”
    Grieves looked genuinely shocked. “What for? You’re askin’ me what for, you little bastard? Because they’re mine, that’s what for.”
    “Haven’t you destroyed enough things for the day?”
    “You still sulkin’ about those headstones? You’re worse than a woman, Dobbs. I’m goin’ to take you to a party tonight that’s gonna make a man of you for sure. You wait and see. Now you drop down and get one of those grenades and you bring it over here, you understand?”
    No use arguing. For all his fancy ways, Grieves was not of the human species. Dobbs had met a few military men like Grieves. No conscience, no restraint. Evil, selfish, self-absorbed little children. Why in God’s name had Dobbs ever thrown in with him?
    Dobbs carefully carried the grenade to Grieves. So far not one of them had misfired, something he’d not yet had to mention to the federal man. Though Dobbs had told him that these grenades never exploded in the hand of the man throwing one of them, this grenade, for all its power, was just as risky as all the grenades that had come before it. Three soldiers had been killed in the trials leading up to Dobbs pronouncing his invention completed. The Army hadn’t cared. If it had one entirely expendable asset, it was the foot soldier.
    Dobbs stood in the chilly half-light, squinting a bit now, trying to figure out where