And with that, Eric strode to the big powder-blue Caddy, and Brady—after staring after him for a few heartbeats—took his leave of the odd little garage and vouchered the patient tow-truck driver so they could both be on their way.
HE WOULDN’Tsay it wasoddthat his patrol took him near Palm Springs that afternoon. It was a vast desert, but there were only a couple of routes through it. One of them took him to Palm Springs with San Diego beyond that. Another way took him to Barstow. Another way took him to an old military base that hadbeen out of operation for years so nobody went there, and yet another way took him to Las Vegas.
Today, he was on the roster to patrol the strip of highway between Victoriana and Palm Springs, so he was right outside the city limits when he got a call for all possible units for a robbery about a mile from his position.
He probably could have guessed it was Walmart.
Regular Human Things
ERIC HADN’Twanted to tell Ace or his friends this, but he’d worked most of his adult life to avoid shopping at Walmart.
Walmart was his mother counting pennies and clipping coupons to feed him and his siblings. It was jeans that smelled like formaldehyde and fell apart in a year, and tennis shoes that broke in a month but had to last far longer. It was knockoff Twinkies and off-brand SpaghettiOs (called spa-ghettos by his older brother long before kids knew that was rude) and interminably long lines because the cashiers were exhausted, overworked, and understaffed.
His first kill had put him on the run—from his family, from the law, from himself.
His second had garnered him $10,000 cash, and he’d bought himself some upscale clothes, a lease on a decent apartment, and food from a yuppie grocery store.
He’d made his third kill with a little more skill, a little more discretion, and a lot less desperation.
It had bought him two years in the apartment, a new identity, and a chance to hone what had become his craft. It seemed that if somebody was a dirtbag—arealdirtbag, not a victim of petty jealousy or greed, which some people had attempted to hire him to off—but a drug-dealing pedophile or an unrepentant racist fuckhead or a sociopath in a business suit who took down anybody in his or her path—apure evildirtbag—“Eric Christiansen” didn’t have a qualm in the world relieving the world of that person and profiting off the deal.
He’d been smart as a kid—good in school, good at computers, great at research. He’d even, behind his father’s back, been good at theater, although he’d had to sneak it in between baseball practice and games, which was supposed to be his way out of the family cycle of poverty. He’d been cultivating a 90 mph fastball that had a good chance of nailing 100 if he’d continued on into pro-ball.
As a young adult (not even legally an adult that first year), he’d capitalized on being a blandly good-looking white kid. He lurked, looked innocuous, played with his phone. Was polite to his elders, charming to women, and kept his business to himself.
And he’d carefully avoided Walmart, Costco, and Dollar Tree, because he wasn’t Leon Grackle’s second oldest white-trash kid anymore.
It was easy to carry that level of defiance when you were seventeen. When you were thirty-seven, and had quiteliterallykilled your father twenty years ago, you began to realize that being a chameleon was easy. It was deciding what kind of lizard you should be on the inside that made you a man.
So if the nearest place to get food on a budget was Walmart, Eric would go there. He wasn’treallyon a Walmart kind of budget—he’d retired very, very rich, with funds in encrypted accounts not even the government could touch.Especiallynot the government could touch, rather. But borrowing a car to go to the expensive boutique grocery store across town felt… rude.
And while Eric had spent the last twenty years killing for a living, he’d made it a point to not be rude.
His mother had some shortcomings—not least of which had been turning a blind eye to her husband’s deviancy—but she had knocked manners throughhisthick head, by God if she hadn’t.
And he found he rather enjoyed Walmart. The clothes had improved in quality, and he grabbed a couple pairs of cargo pants and jeans in his size, as well as some hooded sweatshirts ingray and pastel colors, and some basic-colored tees. Even some tennis shoes, one of the few name brands in his size. He had a closet full of bespoke suits and fashionable casual clothes, but it felt… gauche to wear that to Ace’s garage or across the street to have cinnamon heaven with his neighbor.
He avoided the knockoff brands and reveled in the fresh produce, the whole-grain noodles, and the canned tomatoes and olives for bruschetta. He took advantage of the bakery and bought some flour for pasta, thinking he should be able to ask Ernie if he might avail himself of some of Ernie’s kitchen appliances. He bought a pasta cutter, just in case that wasn’t where Ernie’s talents might lie. (So far he’d seen fried chicken to die for and cinnamon rolls he’d trade for what was left of his soul. He was pretty much an Ernie convert in the cuisine department, but a pasta machine was a bit esoteric, even for Ernie.)
In general, he was enjoying himself far more than he’d anticipated when he felt it. An electrical frisson that raised the hairs on the backs of his arms. Seventeen years dodging the fist of Leon Grackle had made sensing violence almost a sixth sense.
He stood for a moment in the canned food aisle, holding his breath, listening for clues to tell him where the danger was coming from.
Without conscious thought, his hand slid to the concealed holster under the waistband of his high-waisted grandpa slacks, making sure the small Berretta was there.
Yup, hello, Hal, are we ready for some work today?
Then, in his head he heard Ernie’s frantic order.Don’t shoot!For a moment he warred with himself. Ernie had proven uncannily right so far, and what kind of fool ignored a psychic with specific, concrete advice?
With a silent breath, Eric glanced around him, looking for another weapon, and found in his cart, among the bags ofproduce, the clothes, and the shoes, three small cans of sliced olives.
Perfect.
After scooping them up, he left the cart in the aisle, as out of the way as possible, and listened for any odd sounds, any high-pitched voices any—
The babble of panic caught his attention, and he edged that way.
“Please, Bruce… please, man, put that away. There’s no reason to pull that out here—”
