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The sounds in the kitchen came to a sudden stop. I swallowed when no answer came. It wasn’t Josie. I stayed quiet for a minute, waiting for the next noises, but nothing came. I’d almost convinced myself I’d been half-dreaming those breaking, rummaging noises when a different sound filled the house. This one I knew, and even though it was just the old floorboards creaking, they creaked the way they did when someone was walking over them.
The sounds got closer, which meant whoever it was was making their way down the hall . . . past the stairway . . . coming to a stop just outside the doorway.
My throat had gone dry and my heart had sped up some, but still I wheeled closer. “Come on out, you son of a bitch. Stop hiding like a coward.”
He stayed there for another minute, but I heard his breath, heavy and rattling. Shit, I could smell him, and it wasn’t as if I were surrounded by a potpourri of pleasant scents.
“Am I going out there or are you coming in here?” I called, and that was when he crept into the doorway and showed himself.
He was a vagrant, a bum—probably one of the train jumpers who laid over in Missoula for a night or two on their journeys West. He wasn’t just a bum though—he was a junkie too. From the way he was shaking and how his pupils looked about to explode out of his eyeballs, he was on a serious tweaking trip.
He looked close to forty, which probably meant he was close to my age, and from the way his coat and clothes hung off him, it was impossible to gauge his size. I could tell that I was taller than he was . . . although he was a hell of a lot taller than I sat in a wheelchair. He had the face of a fox—shifty, wide-set eyes, and a long, narrow face. When he smiled, he looked more like a demon than any kind of mammal or being of this world. His smile, like the rest of him, told the story of a long, hard life of using. What teeth he had left were decaying to the point of practically falling out, and his gums weren’t in much better shape.
“I think you’re lost there, señor,” I said in a calm, quiet voice. Calm to hopefully rub off on him and quiet to hopefully keep Josie from hearing anything and running down the stairs to see what was up.
“I thought so too.” His voice sounded as strung-out as he looked, and his words were more garbled than they were clear—probably because he had a whole five teeth that were a bite into an apple away from falling out. That creepy-as-all-hell smile of his twisted into place again as he studied me with those dilated eyes. “But then I ran into you.”
“Lucky for me.” I eyed the room casually, looking for anything that could work as a weapon when he finally made his move. Being up against a cripple in a wheelchair, he probably wouldn’t wait long. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.” He stepped inside the room, glancing around it the same way I was. Although he was probably looking for a stash of drugs or money instead.
“So what shall I call you?” I rolled closer when he took another step inside the room, if for no other reason than to prove to him I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t the kind of guy who backed down, no matter how high the odds were stacked against me.
“Whatever you want. I don’t care,” he said as a violent twitch rolled down his body.
“Fabulous. How about Shithead?” I suggested. “That seems fitting.”
“My stepdad used to call me that.” His eyes narrowed for just a moment before they went wide again as he searched the room.
“Good, then you’re used to hearing it directed at you. That will make things easier.” I wheeled forward a bit before wrapping my fingers around the neck of the whiskey bottle. Using good whiskey on a lowlife like this seemed like a hell of a waste, but I couldn’t bring him down with a couple swings as I could have before. The whiskey would have to be a casualty of war. “What do you want, Shithead?”
His eyes dropped to my hand gripping the bottle, another shudder rocking through him. His gaze shifted just as quickly—he wasn’t looking for the hooch. That would have been all too easy. What happened to the days when a bum would have been thrilled with a half-bottle of decent whiskey?
His hand twitched for his coat pocket. It twitched again when he pulled it out. Clutched in his trembling hand was a knife. It was a rusted old pocketknife, and he didn’t even know how to hold the damn thing, but with enough force, it could have broken the skin, and a rusty knife usually came with a nasty infection that required antibiotics and daily dressing changes. Not that I’d had any personal experience . . .
“Where’s your wallet?” He held out the knife like it was a number two pencil. The upside was if he did take a slice at me, he’d probably wind up slicing himself in the process too.
“Over there.” I nodded at the air mattress stuffed into the corner. “Under the bed.”
He moved toward it instantly in short, shaking strides.
“I gotta warn you that if you’re hoping to hit the jackpot, you’re going to be way disappointed, Shithead. If you dig deep, you might be able to pull out a couple of bucks. Enough to buy what? A trial-sized tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush so you can try to save what teeth you have left?”
He didn’t reply to my jeer. Instead, he dug around under the air mattress until he pulled out my wallet. His fingers scurried through it, pulling out cards and receipts and whatever was left. In the end, he managed to scavenge a dollar bill and a couple credit cards. He shoved them into the deep pockets of his coat.
“Yeah, Shithead, those are going to get declined if you try using them. Knock yourself out if you want to though. They’re of no use to me anymore anyways.”
I was moving up behind him, hoping he’d stay distracted for another moment so I could take my best swing at him with the whiskey bottle. My reach wouldn’t have gone higher than his chest, so my plan was to whack him first between his legs, which would hopefully result in him dropping to his knees—providing he hadn’t rotted that part of himself off like he had his teeth. Then once he was at my level,
I’d take a solid swing at his head to knock him out until I could get to my phone and call the cops.
I was hoping to get that all taken care of without alerting Josie. Panic settled deep into my stomach when I imagined what would happen if Shithead found out a girl was in the house—on the top floor I couldn’t possibly get to.
Panic filtered into my bloodstream too.
“Where are your drugs?” He chucked my wallet over his shoulder and kicked at the corners of the mattress. “Where do you keep them?”
“Unlike some guy with guts burned out by battery acid and household cleaners, I don’t use. If you’re looking to burn what’s left of your throat, might I suggest the Carson Street Bridge back in town? You’ll find just what you’re looking for there.”
