Free Ask the Dice by Ed Lynskey Page B

own Realty TV series if he conjured such a fanciful notion, you know what I mean?”
    Now only silence filtered from the radio speakers. Shine had vanished, and my laughter trailed off like the fading echo in a canyon. Sad to say it, but my feel-good fantasy had no shot at coming true, so I extinguished the radio and hauled out.
    Stretching my cramped legs, I left the coupé and sallied forth, pacing between the steel rails and over the crossties still strong with creosote smells. This switchyard was the place where the trains steaming into Old Yvor City had stopped. A labyrinth of switches and tracks enabled the cars—flatcars, hopper cars, tank cars, and cabooses—to shuffle in and out like playing cards as the railroad engineers built the new trains.
    Tonight the trains didn't run. The old railroad's blue stone bed knifing through the city had become a bike path. Turning more curious, I picked my way toward the boxcar, a lone sentinel guarding this moonlit wasteland of rusty tracks, loose blue stone, and weedy clumps. Boxcars had grown more obsolete, in part, because of those long autoracks you see towed by the eighteen wheelers terrorizing the interstates. The automakers had once shipped out their shiny, new models inside the boxcars until the cheaper trucks hauling the autoracks cornered the market.
    The boxcar I crept up on from the rear belonged in an open-air museum before the vandals demolished it, or the gangbangers spray-painted their gaudy tags on it. As I cleared the boxcar's corner, I observed the pale glow emanating from where the side door gaped wide. The musty fruit odor indicated I wasn't alone.
    "Freeze, dildo."
    The man's syrupy drawl revealed he was a brother.
    "Go easy there," I said. "I'm alone and carrying no heat on me."
    "Then I got you trumped. My Glock can dust off your balls. Keep on talking, and just maybe I won't do it."
    "There's not a lot to say. I'm checking around is all."
    "Why? Are you a Sam Spade?"
    "Me? Shit, I couldn't locate my ass with both hands and GPS."
    "You pick a funny hour to get nosy."
    "Uh-huh. Do you mind dropping your aim?"
    "Not so fast. Who are you?"
    "Tommy Mack Zane. I was born in Champagne 's Folly, Texas , but I've lived in Old Yvor City for most of my life."
    "What brings you here at 1:33 a.m., Tommy Mack Zane of Champagne 's Folly, Texas ?"
    I didn't see any merit to bullshit him, so I played it straight. "I'm hiding from a bad white dude who's out to kill me."
    "Are you shitting me?"
    "I’m not a looney. Can I mosey in closer? Shouting like we're doing could draw us unwanted attention."
    "Uh-huh. Come on then, but do it slow. Hands propped in high sight, too."
    I hoisted my hands above my shoulders and maneuvered over the loose blue stone without wrenching a knee.
    "That be close enough, Tommy Mack."
    Several paces in front of him, I pulled up. He stood framed by the boxcar's side door where I lowered my hands without asking for his damn permission. From the backlight silhouetting him, I saw my host was a fricking dwarf, topping out possibly at my mid-chest. The Glock was a cannon clutched in his hands. No wonder he acted so defensive. "How do I address you, brother?"
    "Big Jamal works fine."
    Big, yeah right, dream on . "Yo, Big Jamal. What's with the Glock?"
    He shrugged a shoulder. "I fished it out of a dumpster in the dog park. A dope runner ditched the Glock there is my guess. But it's loaded, and it shoots straight, and it's a comfort right now to me."
    By using his name again, I gave him reassurances to relax his white-knuckled finger on the Glock's trigger. "Big Jamal, I ain't here to crimp your style." I nodded toward the boxcar. "Say, is that bud I smell?"
    "It was bud. I burned a jay and caught a buzz, but I ain't got any more for you."
    "I can't get high anyway. How long have you been on the street?"
    "Centuries, it seems. I used to drive a hoopty to jungle up in until the loan company repo'ed it."
    "This boxcar beats sleeping under an overpass or on