The Austin Job by David Mark Brown

specific? You want me to be more—” he flicked the chewed up piece of wood out the opened balcony door. “Tomorrow’s auction in and of itself is a disaster waiting to happen. How do we know he won’t pull the job then and there?” He stood. “Because we’d be expecting it? You’re damn right I’m expecting it.” He sat.
    “Alright, I’m sorry.” He nodded his head. “It’s just that—yes she’s my—” A heavy rapping on the door interrupted him. “Sorry, gotta go. Fine. Yes, you’ve got my word.” He hung up. “Coming, baby girl.” But the door opened before he could get there.
    On the other side stood a man holding a gun, blood oozing from the right side of his face, his clothing and skin charred. “What in Sam Hill?” Lickter lunged forward, knocking the gun to the ground and clutching his mole by the shoulders before he could collapse on the Persian rug. Tugging him inside, he shut the door.
    “I,” the mole gasped for breath, but cooked flesh around his mouth, chin and neck had stretched to constrict his airway.
    “Daddy?” Daisy’s voice drifted from the hallway.
    “I ain’t decent. I’ll be right out.”
    “What’s new?” She huffed.
    Lickter snatched his towel from the back of the door and threw it down, lowering the man onto it. “Say it, boy. What happened?” In response, a gurgling exhale of foul gases escaped through a hole in his throat. Lickter shook his head and winced as he grabbed the man’s head and snapped it to the side. “No man deserves this.”
    He pulled the towel tight and hefted the corpse onto the balcony. Low in the sky, the sun reflected off the underbellies of the remaining clouds and bathed the city in a fiery hue. He shifted a large potted plant to obstruct the body from the upper floor windows of the Grandview building. Experience told him more bodies would pile up before this Austin job was through, and he briefly pined for the simple border violence of his beloved Del Rio. But the life of intrigue proved a lurid mistress always drawing him back. He’d seen the slaughter house, and when he ordered a New York strip he knew exactly where it came from.
    Just before he closed the balcony doors, he doubled back to check the mole’s pockets. The right side of his clothing had been burned or melted into his skin, but the left side remained intact. Lickter found a piece of paper, folded several times. He hoped to God it would be worth a man’s life, even an arrogant little snot’s. Shoving it into his own pants’ pocket, he hurried inside.
    His reflection in the mirror revealed a bloody mess. He tore his shirt off, scattering buttons in the process. Kicking it under the bed, he muttered to himself, “Damn nice shirt, too.”
    Daisy pounded on the wall between their rooms. “We’re going to be late. Starr’s probably waiting. Speaking of Starr, I’ve got a bone—”
    “Hold your damn horses!” Lickter wiped his face with a cloth from the basin and tidied himself in the mirror. Why the hell am I still doing this? But he knew the answer; he just hoped it wouldn’t cost him his daughter. She still believed in right and wrong and day and night and good and bad. She still hoped for love in life, and her hope was all he had left.
    Her room door slammed shut, followed by the click of angry heels in the hall. As she flung the door open, he spotted his mole’s weapon still on the floor and kicked it out of the way. One eyebrow raised, his little girl silently gave him the ugly. “The expression doesn’t match the outfit,” he said, trying to soften the situation.
    Daisy craned her neck to see past him into the disheveled room. “What are you up to, Sheriff?” He opened his mouth to respond. “I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.” She pushed him back into the room and shut the door behind them. “You know what I do like? I like James Starr, and I told him as much today. What I don’t like is that you like