Mohall/Bismarck, North Dakota
Michelle Schmidt stood back from the small mirror in the trailer bathroom and examined her look. She turned her head to one side and reapplied the red gloss lipstick she had picked up at a Walmart on her way out of Minot earlier in the afternoon. A thick woman with full breasts and big brown eyes, she’d recently lost five pounds in anticipation of her Internet arranged date. When she was satisfied with the lip gloss, she adjusted the straps of her blue lace teddy and pulled down on the lingerie to expose more cleavage.
She had arrived at the trailer outside of Mohall a few hours early to prepare for the weekend tryst with Private Lester Gooden. After ten years of a marriage that had turned dull and a dozen unfulfilling extramarital affairs, Michelle had bought a computer. First she’d discovered the chat rooms that led to cybersex. When she was bored typing the sexual encounters she craved, Michelle moved on to meeting with men who’d emailed her pictures. To satisfy her attraction to black men, Michelle started flirting with a private stationed at the Minot Air Force base.
She had found private Gooden’s emails both clever and charming and had decided to skip the prerequisite safety-first public lunch or dinner date. After speaking on the telephone a few times, they had planned the weekend-long tryst. She was excited as she slipped her feet into the black pumps she had grabbed from her bedroom closet back in Minot. She felt herself sweating and adjusted the thermostat to lower the heat inside the trailer. Outside it was ten degrees.
Michelle was playing a Lady Gaga CD and didn’t hear the car when it pulled up outside the trailer. She gasped when she heard the knock on the door, took one last look in the small bathroom mirror, brushed her hair quickly and smoothed her teddy. She opened the trailer door and was confused when she saw a tall black man wearing a face mask that covered his left eye and extended down across his cheek.
Private Lester Gooden hadn't mentioned anything about a bad eye or a mask. Michelle cocked her head to one side and started to ask who he was when she was shot in the stomach. She folded at the waist from the impact of the bullet. She felt blood trickling out of her mouth as she slumped to the floor.
Then the man with the face mask was standing over her.
“Sorry,” he said, just before he fired two more rounds and killed her.
* * * * * * *
Washington Stewart had left his ride where he’d planned to in Lansford on the way up to Mohall. He left the stolen car he’d used to drive from Lansford to Mohall in the post office parking lot, walked three blocks on Laurel Street and found the Dodge Ram exactly where he’d left it. He spent the next few hours driving south to Bismarck to meet Roger Daltry at the airport there. He watched from outside the baggage claim area until he spotted the short man wearing a LeBron James, Miami Heat basketball jersey.
Ten minutes later they were on their way to the parking lot. “I hope you smart enough to fly out of LaGuardia like you supposed to,” Stewart said to Daltry.
Daltry pulled at his jersey material. “Where I got this,” he said. “Our boy’s jersey everywhere, man. They had a few Knicks on a couple hangars, Stoudemire and Carmelo, but then half a wall of LeBron. That boy still be killing, even after he fucked Cleveland over.”
“You right about that. Prob’ly hundred niggers a day flying out New York wearing LeBron.”
The cold air was a shock when they stepped outside. The temperature had dropped to two degrees. Their breath condensed upon contact with the frigid air.
Stewart spoke over his right shoulder at Daltry. “We had some shit up here you gonna need to handle.”
Daltry was carrying a small gym bag that slapped against his right thigh when they had to pass between parked cars. “What’s that?”
Stewart unlocked the doors to his Dodge Ram and climbed inside the cab. Daltry climbed into the passenger seat and set his gym bag on the front floorboard.
“What happened?” Daltry asked.
Stewart started the engine, then turned the heat up. “You first,” he said.
“Kincaid,” Daltry said. “The Indian freaked.”
Stewart waited for more. Daltry couldn’t look him in the eye.
“That it? He freaked?”
“He too involved with the woman,” Daltry said. “Saw her snatch and went crazy. Had pussy on his mind the whole damn trip. Couldn’t pay attention.”
“He couldn’t or you couldn’t?”
“That bitch too skinny for me, man. That was Kincaid.”
“You’re talking about Eddie Senta’s wife, her snatch? The Indian saw it how?”
“Tore off her robe,” Daltry lied. “She wearing a bra and panties when she opened the door. He tore those off, too.”
“He rape her?”
“Tried to,” Daltry said. “Then she got loose and started to take off. I had to stop her. Kincaid wasn’t watching the door.”
“The man, Eddie Senta, he snuck up on you, that what you’re saying? You had a gun, that big fuckin’ Indian, but the man snuck up on you?”
“Your boy wasn’t home when we got there,” said Daltry, nervous now. He fumbled a pack of cigarettes onto the console. Stewart caught them and pulled one from the pack.
“Thanks,” Daltry said. “Senta wasn’t home we first got there. I went in with the Indian and we went upstairs, grabbed the woman. She all done up, too. Had a robe and some fancy panties and shit. Bottle of champagne in a bucket like she about to party. The Indian couldn’t control himself.”
“Cochise couldn’t control himself, okay. What about you?”
“The man six-six, Wash. The Indian, I’m talkin’ about. Had a fuckin’ hunting knife like Daniel Boone. I let him have the bitch.”
Stewart squinted at Daltry. “You could’ve knocked on the door, shot the woman, waited for the man, shot him and been on your way. You could’ve done that.”
“We got in easy so we just went with it,” Daltry said. “We didn’t know he wasn’t there. We went up the stairs quiet. She never knew it. She opened the bedroom door and there we were. She half naked in that robe, the way it was open. Kincaid went off, man. The Indian freaked.”
“You keep sayin’ that, ‘he freaked,’ but I still don’t know what the fuck happened, do I?”
Daltry began to sweat. He removed his wool hat.
Stewart’s eyes narrowed.
Daltry felt the stare and looked up. “What I just said, that’s what happened.”
“You shoot Eddie Senta?”
“Yeah, man,” Daltry said, sensing some relief. “That was me. I shot him two times. Three maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“It was crazy, Wash. I think so, yeah. Three times.”
“He dead?”
“He should be. First one caught him in the chest. Took two more shots after that, he on the floor already.”
“And?”
Daltry shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I shot him, I know that.”
“You shoot with a blindfold on?”
“Hey, it was scary, Wash. Kincaid on the floor, his eyeball out the socket, blood all over the place. I shot the man and got out of there. I knew there was no helping the Indian.”
“He gonna die?”
“Probably.”
“But you don’t know.”
“Wash, it was scary, man. Very scary.”
“I don’t suppose you shot the woman either?”
“She already unconscious. From Kincaid. Might be dead, too, all I know. He hit her hard, knocked her out.”
“I thought it was you stopped her?” Stewart said. “You confused or is it me?”
“What? Oh, no, it was me stopped her, when she took off, but Kincaid the one hit her. I think with that big ass knife he carrying, the back end. The handle, I guess.”
Stewart listed off his fingers. “She might be dead, the Indian might be dead and Eddie Senta might be dead. Or they all alive. That what you’re telling me?”
Daltry started to shrug, saw the exposed half of Stewart’s face start to tense, and shook his head instead.
“It got out of hand, man.”
“I have a mind take you out to Montana, the Rocky Mountains there, and leave your dumb ass for grizzly bait,” Stewart said. He let himself think a moment, then added, “Meantime there’s something happened back in Minot while you playin’ with yourself in New York.”
Daltry was anxious to shift the conversation. “What happened there?”
“Some college kid overdosed.”
Daltry tried for drama. “Uh-oh.”
“You goddamned right, uh-oh,” Stewart said. “And one of your flyboy friends is selling in town. Nigger named Tyrone?”
“That’s the guy I told you about from ’Lantic City,” Daltry said. “He servicing Minuteman IIIs. Came in from London six weeks ago. He about to transfer over to Security Forces.”
“That what they calling you now, Security Forces?”
“Used to be Military Police. Then we Air Police and now Security Police. We have to know that shit, what we used to be called.”
“You close with him, this Tyrone?”
“I know him. We met in Sioux Falls a few times before he come up to Minot.”
“He another fuckup?”
“He alright.”
“You know that or you just blowing me off?”
“He okay.”
Stewart could see Daltry was sweating. He turned down the heat. “You know the boy, forget him for the return trip you making in a few days.”
“I’m going back to New York?”
Stewart stared at Daltry a moment, then said, “Unless you can kill Eddie Senta from here.”