sheriff glanced around him. His eyes were pale and hooded, and threw out a flat cop stare that landed first on the prone shape of Billy Bob Lafleur, then on his unconscious partner in crime, and finally on Ben, scrutinising him carefully.
Ben noticed that in place of his regular service gunbelt and sidearm, Roque wore a fancy buscadero cowboy rig with an old-style Colt revolver nestling snugly in its holster. The floral pattern tooled leather went well with his boots, which were definitely non-issue as well. Deviations from the standard uniform evidently didn’t matter too much down here.
Without taking the stare off Ben the sheriff asked, ‘What the hell happened here, Elmo?’ He spoke loud and slow, as if measuring every word. Which might have been partly to make himself heard by Elmo, knowing the old guy was hard of hearing. Ben guessed that in a small community like this one, everyone knew everyone else, their secrets, their problems, their history.
Elmo answered, ‘These boys tried to hold up the store. And this fella here, he stopped it. Took ’em down in one second flat. You shoulda seen it, Waylon. Ol’ Billy Bob had a gun right in his face. I never saw anyone move so fast.’
‘They dead?’
‘They’re alive,’ Ben said. ‘Just sleeping. But they’re going to need those ambulances PDQ. That one has a badly dislocated wrist. The other’s got probable concussion, and he’s losing a lot of blood from a gunshot wound.’
‘Meatwagons are on their way,’ the sheriff replied. Still in the same loud, slow drawl, strong and authoritative. He aimed a thick, gnarly finger towards Ben. ‘Who shot’m, you?’
Elmo answered for Ben. ‘He shot himself, Waylon. Damn fool blew off his own pecker.’
Apparently quite unmoved, the sheriff gestured to his deputies. One drew a pistol and kept it trained on the two robbers, as though they were in any state to resist arrest, while the other slapped on cuffs. A few late-night passersby had gathered in the street, drawn by the police sirens and rubbernecking through the store window at what was going on.
Keeping his back to the window the sheriff said, ‘Elijah, would you move those folks on?’ The deputy called Elijah hastened outside to carry out the command. The sheriff said to the other, ‘Mason, get on the radio and find out where those meatwagons are at, before this asshole goes and bleeds to death right here in front of us.’
Mason was the deputy with the drawn pistol. He was hatless, with brown hair spiky on top and shaved up the sides like a Marine. His face was fleshy and pasty and burned by the sun and his eyes were somewhat dull. He glanced nervously at Roque. ‘What about these boys?’
The sheriff replied calmly, ‘They’re unconscious, Mason. I think I can handle it. Now scoot and get on that darn radio.’
Mason holstered his weapon and ran out to the car. The sheriff watched him go, and shook his head with a sigh. ‘’Bout as sharp as a bowlin’ ball, that one.’ Then he turned his flinty eyes back on Ben. ‘I’m Waylon Roque, Sheriff of Clovis Parish. I don’t believe I know you, Mister—?’
‘Hope. Ben Hope.’
‘You ain’t from around heah.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ Ben said. ‘I’m just a tourist, that’s all. Arrived here in Villeneuve this afternoon and I’m staying at the Bayou Inn. I’m only in town for the Woody McCoy gig the night after next, then I’ll be heading back home.’ He slipped his passport from his pocket and held it out.
The sheriff took the passport and gave it a quick once-over, then seemed satisfied and tossed it back. ‘A Brit.’
‘Half Irish, for what it’s worth. But I live in France.’
Roque pulled a face, as if he thought even less of the Irish than the Brits. ‘Jazz fan too, huh? I’m more of a Jimmie Davis man, myself.’
Ben smiled. ‘You are my sunshine.’
But Roque wasn’t one for chitchat. ‘What’s your occupation, Mister Hope from France?’
‘I work in education,’ Ben replied. Technically correct although economical with the truth. He didn’t think it necessary to reveal to Roque what kind of education the training facility at Le Val offered, or to whom. Information like that tended to invite too many questions.
‘Teacher, huh?’ If Ben had said he was a smack dealer, Roque wouldn’t have looked any less impressed.
‘Near enough,’ Ben said.
Roque reflected for a moment, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘Well, Teach, seems to me you must either be the luckiest sumbitch alive, or you’re some kinda trained ninja assassin in your spare time.’ He jerked his chin in the direction of Billy Bob Lafleur. ‘Sleepin’ beauty here is a local white-trash scumbag well known to Clovis Parish PD for his violent and intemperate ways. Put many a man in the hospital, and keeps all manner of unsavoury company out there on Garrett Island. His buddy looks kinda rough, too. I’m just wonderin’ how in hell an ordinary tourist, a schoolteacher, could manage to take these bad boys both down in one second flat like Elmo said, bust ’em up real good and walk away without taking so much as a scratch hisself.’
‘I never said I was a schoolteacher,’ Ben replied. ‘And actually it was more like two seconds. Maybe even longer. I must be getting slow in my old age. And they’re not as good as they think they are.’
The sheriff eyed him for the longest moment. ‘Just who exactly are you, boah?’
Ben didn’t like being called ‘boy’. In fact there was little he was liking much about Sheriff Waylon Roque in general. Which came as no great surprise to him. ‘Would you care to rephrase that question, Officer?’
A knowing kind of look crinkled the sheriff’s pale eyes. He nodded to himself, as though savouring an idea. ‘I have a pretty good notion who you are. Tell me. What’s your unit?’
Ben said nothing.
The corners of Roque’s lips stretched into a humourless smile. ‘I knew right off you weren’t no teacher. You got the soldier look, for sure. Maybe you think you can hide it, but I can see it as sure as if you was still wearin’ the uniform. I can see it in your eyes, and from the way you’re standin’ there lookin’ back at me. I saw it before I even walked in here.’
Roque paused. Enjoying the moment. ‘Am I right, Mister Hope? You a military man?’
‘I’m not a soldier,’ Ben said. Which was another technically truthful answer, as he had quit that life a long time ago. ‘But even if I were, Sheriff, I can’t see how it would be any business of yours.’
The deputy called Mason had got off the radio and now returned from the car to say the ambulances were en route and would be with them ‘momentarily’. Ben always wondered at the way Americans used that particular word. In the Queen’s English it meant the ambulances would appear one instant, and then vanish again the next like a disappearing mirage.
In the event, when they did turn up a couple of minutes later and parked behind the police cars, the paramedic units hung around long enough to strap the wounded robbers onto a pair of gurneys and prepare to ship them to hospital, from where they’d be going straight to jail.
Billy Bob Lafleur had woken up by then and had to be sedated to prevent him from trying to escape. He had his Miranda rights read to him before he fell back unconscious. The sheriff directed the police deputy called Elijah to ride with him in the back of the ambulance. Meanwhile, Billy Bob’s friend was still passed out and looking very pale. The medics wheeled him hurriedly aboard and took off with the lights and siren going full pelt.
‘Now what?’ Ben said to Sheriff Roque.
‘Say you’re gonna be in town until the night after tomorrow?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Or the morning after that. I’m not in a rush.’
‘Good. I’ll need you to come down to the station