A Gallery of Death is a collection of short stories of which Coyote is the first.

Coyote

“I know I’m not a good man, Lieutenant,” Rosco said. “But my wife, Alice, ha…had nothing to do with it. She shouldn’t pay for my mistakes.”

The man sitting across my desk was scared. Not top of the rollercoaster scared. No. He was Devil foreclosing on your soul terrified.

After twenty-five years on the force, first Homicide, now Plainclothes, I’ve learned that keeping the victim focused on details helps hold them together.

“When’d Alice go missing?” I asked.

“Last night.”

“And the ransom note?”

“This morning. Stuck in my front door.”

“Let me see it.”

The paper was poor quality and Rosco’s fingerprints were probably all over it, but I put on exam gloves before taking it from his trembling hand.

Ur wife is with us. U pay what U owe by 12 tonite or she die.

A telephone number followed.

“You sure it’s genuine?”

Rosco looked down at his shoes, the red of his eyes showing. Before I left the reservation, I’d worked as a blackjack dealer at the casino, and Rosco was the kind of guy the house loved. A Loser, and he knew it. They all knew it, but they kept coming back, hoping the next hand, the next turn of the wheel, would somehow change their life and they could finally beat the house. Rosco was out of luck. He’d come to me for a miracle.

He swallowed. “Yeah. I owe money to some guys. Hard guys.” He swallowed again. “Russian mafia.”

“Shit.” I said. Those guys didn’t just talk. I looked at the clock. Ten A.M. Midnight was only fourteen hours away. I looked at Rosco. It was a cold blustery late-winter day, but his shirt was soaked in sweat.

“You got a million dollars?”

“No,” he said, wiping his hands on his pants. “Friend of mine got me in on something, said it was a sure thing. I believed him. I went to the Russians for the cash, and lost it all.” He put his face in his hands. “It was a sure thing.”

He probably still sends checks to exiled kings in Africa, I thought.

“How much can you raise?”

“Two-hundred thousand, tops. Think that’d be enough?”

I knew the Russians would kill her if he was a dime short or ten minutes late. They’d lose the two-hundred grand he could pay, but the word would get out. Don’t mess with the Russians.

Probably best keep that opinion to myself, I thought. I remembered the last time I’d dealt with the Russian Mafia. We’d found the body floating in the harbor a week later.

They say we came from the ocean, and I believe it. The longer a body’s been in the water, the more it looks like a fish. Pale. Bloated. Thank God for dental records, or we’d never have been sure it was her. I tried to shake the image from my mind.

My Cherokee grandmother used to say, “Don’t let yesterday use too much of today.” I looked at Rosco. I couldn’t change what happened. Maybe this time would be different, but deep inside I was nearly as scared as he was.

Coyote is always out there waiting, and Coyote is always hungry.

Coyote won the last time. I needed to win this one, as much as Rosco did.

“We can try. Call the number and ask to speak with her, to make sure she’s still alive. They’ll do that.”

Rosco nodded, and straightened in his chair.  Having something to do gave him focus.

“It’ll be a disposable cell phone,” I said, “and they won’t talk long enough to trace, but right now it’s all we got. Disposables don’t have caller ID, so use my office phone once I set it to record.”

Rosco sipped some water, his hand shaking. He was hoping for a miracle, and so was I.

I gave him the thumbs up when I was ready, but his hands were trembling so much that after three failed tries to punch in the number, I did it for him and handed over the phone.

The voice on the other end was distorted, like throat cancer patients with prosthetic vocal cords. “Da? You have the money?”

“I ain’t saying nothing ‘til I speak with my wife.”

We heard a gasp, like a gag had been removed, then a woman’s voice. “Rosco?”

“It’s me, Alice. It’ll be alright.”

“Sea pen,” she said, then Mister Cyborg was back.

“So, you have the money or not?”

“I’ve got two-hundred grand. Please. It’s all I’ve got.”

“Not enough. No one cheats us and gets away with it. Call by midnight to arrange drop-off of one million, or she in morgue tomorrow.” The line went dead.

“Oh God, what have I done?” Rosco moaned.