It was a run-down shack at the end of a gravel road about five miles from town. Bags of trash were scattered around the house like some kind of post-modern shrubbery and a big rusty Hotpoint stove sat on the porch, covering half the front window. The house was dark.

Back up the lane, "Charlie Kerrick" was scrawled on a tin mailbox.

It was after seven, and twilight lengthened the shadows. Richard was waiting in the car parked about half a mile up the road. Steve, it had been decided, would investigate the back of the house.

What I was supposed to do when Charlie Kerrick came to the door was still something of a fuzzy point. I knocked again.

A light bulb appeared through the uncovered half of the window. A crack opened in the door and a pasty face looked out.

"What?"

"Sir, I'm selling magazines. For the high school. I--"

"Get lost." The crack narrowed.

"Sir! Are you Charlie Kerrick?"

He squinted, looked past me. "What about it?"

"Because you're on our list of potential subscribers who are eligible for a special discount on 'Guns and Ammo' or 'Soldier of Fortune'."

He opened the door wider. Wearing jeans and a dirty T-shirt, he was fairly old -- at least thirty -- and muscular. "You kiddin' me?"

"Absolutely not." I looked into the room, saw a half-papered wall, a dingy couch, magazines on the floor.

He edged back, the door still open. I could tell he was going to shut it and I couldn't let him do that because Richard and Steve were counting on me. So I jumped in.

"I can get you a subscription to that magazine," I said, pointing.

There were scissors on the floor. And glue ... and scraps of magazine pages, cut into tiny pieces. I looked around. There was a table, against the wall, and a white door next to it.

"This is real nice," I said. I swear to you, I said that.

"Get out of here." He was now holding a pistol, having apparently pulled it from the air, like Clint Eastwood in a Dirty Harry movie, and I was about to make his day.

"Help!" shouted a voice.

Mike! But where was he?

Now there were sounds behind the white door; pounding noises, like a man with two wooden legs coming up the stairs.

"I said, get out!" repeated Kerrick.

There was an explosion. I fell back to the white door behind me and pulled it open. A chair fell through it, onto its back. Mike was tied to it.

Charlie Kerrick groaned. His right arm hung slack and blood ran from his shoulder. Tinkling glass behind me caused me to turn; Steve entered the room through the shattered side window, hefting a concrete block with one hand. A brick, amid shattered glass, lay beside Kerrick. The gun was on the floor near me.

I picked it up by the barrel. "Are you okay?" I asked Mike.

"Fine," he said. He looked tired and thirsty. "Fine."

Kerrick looked at me with a suggestion of renewed ambition.

"It'll be your face this time," Steve said, lifting the block.

Then the door burst open and Richard dove in, crouching, holding a trash can lid before him, like some kind of overfed Ninja with a tin shield.

"Gadzooks!" said Steve. "It's Sir Eatalot, here to save the day."

I didn't think Mike would ever stop laughing.

© Copyright David T. Jarvis 1997, 1998, 1999