Midnight Crossroad (Page 32)

“They came here,” the man insisted. “And they never came back.”

“We need to think about you, rather than your invisible friends,” Arthur Smith said, squatting beside the downed man. “You want to start with telling me your name and why you were waiting in a dark alley for these guys?”

“I don’t want to tell you shit,” the man said, trying to sneer, but not managing very convincingly. “Hey, help me up. I can stand now.”

“Oh, so your back isn’t broken?” Manfred said. He stepped back as Smith hauled the man to his feet with apparent ease. The man gasped, and Manfred saw he was in genuine pain, but as Manfred tenderly touched his own ribs, he felt no sympathy at all.

“I am a citizen of the free country of Stronghold,” the newly upright man said suddenly. “I’m not obliged to give you my slave name. My true name is Buffalo. I’m a soldier of the army of the Men of Liberty. You must treat me as a prisoner of war according to the Geneva Convention.”

That speech stopped all movement. Everyone gaped at him. The second man, who seemed exhausted now that Lemuel had been holding his arm for almost ten minutes, said, “I am a citizen of the free country of Stronghold, and I am not obliged to give you my slave name. My true name is Eagle. I’m a . . . I’m a soldier in the army of the Men of Liberty. You must treat me as a prisoner of war according to the Geneva Convention.”

“Damn,” said the uniformed officer, who happened to be black. “That’s pretty big talk, coming from you two. Buffalo and Eagle, huh? Those the names on your drivers’ licenses? And I’d like to know who enslaved you.”

“The false government of the United States.”

Lemuel let go of the second man, who almost collapsed. The patrolman took advantage of the moment to cuff him.

Arthur Smith dipped into the pocket of “Buffalo,” and his hand was clutching a wallet when he pulled it out. “This man’s slave name is Jeremy Spratt,” he said. “No wonder he likes ‘Buffalo’ better. Tom?”

The patrol officer extracted his prisoner’s wallet. “This here’s Zane Green,” he said. “Otherwise known as Eagle. He lives in Marthasville, it says here.”

Smith reexamined Jeremy Spratt’s license. “He’s from Marthasville, too.” He looked at Jeremy Spratt quizzically. “Now, where did your missing buddies live, Buffalo?”

“Lubbock,” Buffalo said, and immediately looked as though he’d bitten into a lemon. “Damn,” he muttered. Bobo started laughing, which made Buffalo (aka Jeremy) even angrier.

“And why did you drive thirty miles from home to hang around in an alley in Midnight? Is there something wonderful about Midnight that I don’t know?”

Both prisoners clamped their mouths shut, and that was the end of their answering questions. They were hauled off to jail in Tom’s patrol car, with Arthur Smith following behind in his own vehicle.

Lemuel vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, and Manfred wondered why his buddy Olivia hadn’t shown. Maybe she was out of town. No one else seemed to have heard the ruckus.

Manfred and Bobo thanked Creek and Shawn profusely. Creek was still twitchy with excitement, while Shawn just as clearly wanted to get rid of them.

“Time to go home,” Bobo said, and began to walk toward the pawnshop. “You coming, Manfred?” As they crossed the Davy highway, he added, “Thanks for giving me a heads-up, even if we ended up walking into the lion’s den.”

“Sure. I was real helpful,” Manfred said ruefully.

Bobo laughed. He sounded more like himself than he had since the body had been found. To Bobo, the fracas had been stimulating, apparently. Manfred was deflating like a balloon with each step he took, though.

He unlocked his front door in a daze and barely made it to the bedroom before he crumpled. He toed off his shoes, pulled off his blue jeans, and crawled under the blanket.

And he was out. He didn’t think he’d changed positions all night when he opened his eyes to find sun streaming around the edges of the bedroom curtains.

Getting up was an unexpectedly painful process. Since Manfred had never been in a serious fight before, he was not prepared for how sore he’d be. He hadn’t realized he should take some pain reliever, or at least soak in a hot tub, before he slept. This is what it must feel like to be old, Manfred thought, as he hobbled into the bathroom. After a hot, hot shower, two Advil, and a multivitamin, plus some toast and Coca-Cola, Manfred could walk without looking weird. But as he went to his desk, he still felt tender and achy in many places.

He gripped the back of the chair, telling himself to sit, but he stood in the middle of the floor indecisively. He felt that he should do something . . . go see Bobo, drive to the jail in Davy, call someone. But if Bobo was as uncomfortable as he was, he wouldn’t want to be bothered by Manfred’s dropping in, and what would he do at the jail? Yell at the men who’d attacked him? And who should he call? His mother would just freak out.

He’d finally resigned himself to sitting down at his computer (with a definite feeling of anticlimax), when there was a knock at the door. He hobbled over to open it. He was astonished to see that his caller was the Rev. He was just beginning to say, “Please come . . .” when the Rev began speaking himself, in his rusty voice. He put his thin mummy hand on Manfred’s head.

“Lord, thank you for saving this thy servant Manfred from serious harm. Thank you for his courage in defending our brother Bobo. Bless him in his endeavors and keep him in the councils of the wise.” The Rev walked away.

Bemused, Manfred watched the older man stride over to Midnight Pawn, presumably to bless Bobo in the same manner. He wasn’t surprised that his cell phone began to ring, or that the caller was Fiji.

“The Rev gave you a blessing,” she said. “I saw it out the front window. What happened last night? Because I’m really, really tired of being left out.”

“You didn’t hear me scream like a stuck pig?”

“No! What time was that?”

“A little after ten,” he said. “Bobo and I got jumped on our way home from Joe and Chuy’s.”

“Is Bobo all right?” He couldn’t miss the alarm in her voice.

“Sure, though I have a broken leg and a concussion,” he said, and then had to listen to Fiji apologize for several seconds before he could break in to tell her he had exaggerated.