Free Voodoo Ridge by David Freed Page B

approached the bungalow.
    Among operators tasked with breaching a targeted structure, the first man through the door is known by various monikers. The Point Man. The Bullet Catcher. The Meat Shield. The guy voted Most Likely to Succumb. You never know who or what’s waiting for you on the other side. A task for the faint of heart it’s not. When you’re unarmed and there’s only one of you, as I was, the task can be especially daunting. I could’ve waited out whoever was inside, assuming anyone was, but waiting was never my style. That left two tactical options: storm in or sneak in. I opted for the latter, if only because it was the less confrontational way to go and thus, philosophically, more Buddhist-like.
    I pressed my back against the wood siding of the adjacent wall. With my right arm extended, I slowly pushed open the door a few inches, careful to keep clear of the gap and the door itself, where a shooter was likely to fire if his intention was to stop me from coming in. The hinges were well-oiled. They didn’t squeak. Nobody shot at me.
    Had I still been with Alpha, serving as the point man in a standard, five-man entry team stacked up outside the door, I would’ve waited for the last guy in the stack to squeeze the shoulder of the guy ahead of him, indicating he was ready for action. That “ready” signal would have been passed up the train until the guy behind me squeezed my shoulder, telling me we were all good to go. Then we would’ve gone. With my submachine gun or short-barrel shotgun raised to my shoulder and ready to fire, I would’ve moved to my left, sweeping the room and my field of fire from left to right. The man directly behind me would’ve entered, shifted to my right, and scanned from right to left. We would’ve stayed a foot away from any walls because bullets tend to ricochet within six to eight inches of walls. And we would’ve put multiple hollow-point rounds into the vital organs and skulls of anyone remotely threatening. But, like I said, it was just me, and I was without the comforts of a good gun.
    I waited a few seconds, exhaled slowly, and walked in.
    The bed had been made. Things tidied up. Nothing looked amiss. Nobody was there. That’s what I thought initially. Then, from inside the bathroom, I heard a male voice mutter, “Mmmm. Oh, yeah.” I moved quietly and peaked around the corner:
    Preston Kavitch, the son of our B&B hosts, Johnny and Gwen, was standing at the pedestal sink, in front of the antique, gilt-framed mirror. He was stroking his crotch with his right hand and caressing his left cheek with a pair of Savannah’s black lace panties.
    “Hey there, sport.”
    Startled, he stumbled backward and fell into the claw-footed tub.
    “I was just—”
    “—Just what? Doing your best Pee Wee Herman imitation?”
    “Actually, I was . . .” Preston cleared his throat. His eyes darted in every direction but mine. “I was changing the light bulb over the sink. It went out. Your lady told my mother it was out before she left to go wherever. I’m in charge of maintenance. It’s what I do. Only I couldn’t find a sixty watt, so I had to get a seventy-five watt, which’ll be bright, but that’s OK. Not that big a difference between sixty and seventy-five. Uses more energy, but whatever.”
    His nervous eye movement and his manic elaboration of insignificant, irrelevant details, instead of sticking to the topic at hand—namely, him being a pervert—more than confirmed my suspicions that Preston Kavitch was exactly that.
    “Please don’t tell my parents, OK?”
    “Why wouldn’t I tell them?”
    Preston had to think about that one for a second. “Because I’m really a nice guy?”
    “Nice guys don’t go round sniffing their guests’ underwear, Preston.”
    “I wasn’t sniffing. I was . . . appreciating.”
    “Hand ’em over, Preston.”
    He handed me the panties. Then he started crying.
    “They’ll kick me out of the house if you tell ’em,” he said,