The Reapers

It was shortly after 6:00 A.M., and the sky was only just begi

The Detective was seated in a red vinyl booth at the back of the room, a little fake hay bale made from wood shavings on the windowsill beside him, topped with a miniature scarecrow and plastic pumpkins. He was wearing dark-blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black military jacket. He hadn’t removed the jacket, despite the warmth of the diner. Willie could guess why. There was a gun under there somewhere. The Detective was supposed to have surrendered all of his weapons after his permit and license were revoked, but Willie figured that only counted for the ones the cops knew about. Like Louis, the Detective wasn’t the kind to go around advertising all of his possessions.

There was a cup of coffee before him, and the remains of bacon and poached eggs. Willie took the seat across from him and a waitress appeared. He ordered coffee and toast. He wasn’t very hungry. He wasn’t tired either, or not as tired as he had expected to be. That surprised him. Then again, he wasn’t a big sleeper at the best of times. Four, maybe five hours a night was usually enough for him.

“I see you couldn’t resist giving the Mustang a once-over,” said the Detective. He was smiling.

“You send them out into the world, and all you can hope is that the world treats them the way it should,” said Willie. “Like children.”

He saw the Detective’s smile flicker slightly, and wished that he hadn’t mentioned children. You lose a child, especially the way this man had lost his, and it will always be a red, raw wound to you.

“She ru

“She’s ru

“Helps not having her shot up by folk.”

Willie had never quite forgiven the Detective for allowing his previous Mustang, also sourced by him, to be shot to pieces in some godforsaken Maine town. The car had been beyond salvation, although Willie had been forced to rely on Angel’s testimony in that regard. Willie had offered to transport the car back down to Queens at his own expense to see what could be done, but Angel had put a consoling hand on Willie’s shoulder and quietly suggested to him that this might not be a good idea. He reckoned the sight of what was left of the car would be too upsetting for Willie. It was the equivalent of a closed casket at a beloved relative’s funeral.

“I do try to avoid getting shot up whenever I can,” said the Detective.

How’s that working out for you, Willie was tempted to ask. The Detective exerted a seemingly irresistible force of attraction over bullets, knives, fists, and just about anything else that could potentially do a body harm. Even sitting this close to him made Willie nervous.

The coffee and toast arrived, distracting him for a time from his concerns for his personal safety. The coffee tasted good, and he could feel his brain responding to the rush of sugar and caffeine.

“Is it okay to talk here?” asked Willie.

“I wouldn’t. We can talk in the car. I take it they haven’t called, though?”

“No.” Suddenly, Willie’s cell beeped. He found it in his overalls and felt his hopes rise, until he saw the message welcoming him to Canada.

“We’re not in Canada, right?” he said.

“Not unless they’ve invaded quietly.”

“Fucking Canadians,” said Willie, turning his disappointment to anger and aiming it north. “Be just like them.”

He went back to nibbling at his toast. He had a lot of questions he wanted to ask, not least of which was if they were up here alone. The Detective was good at what he did. Angel and Louis had said so often enough, and Willie had no reason to doubt their word, but he wasn’t sure if two men would be able to handle whatever they were about to face. Much as he loved Angel and Louis, Willie had no pressing desire to throw himself on their pyre for no good reason. Suddenly, the gravity of the situation impacted upon him fully. He put down his piece of half-finished toast. What little appetite he had disappeared. He excused himself and went to the men’s room, and there he doused his face and neck with cold water and dried himself with a wad of paper towels, then went back outside.

The check had been paid, and the Detective was waiting for him at the door. If he knew what Willie was feeling, he gave no indication of it.

“You need anything from your car?” the Detective asked.

“No. I got all I need here.”

Instinctively Willie patted the Browning once again, and instantly felt ridiculous. He sounded like a gunfighter: a smug gunfighter, the kind that got shot at the end of the third reel. The Detective looked at him quizzically.

“You okay, Willie?”

“I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did,” said Willie apologetically. “You know, like I was Dirty Harry or someone. I’m just not used to this kind of thing.”

“If it’s any consolation, I do this a lot, more than I’d like, and I’m not used to it either.”

They both got into the Mustang, and the Detective pulled away from the curb. He drove for about a mile until he came to a deserted lot, then pulled in and killed the engine. The Detective produced a series of pages. They were satellite images, printed in high resolution from a computer. One showed a large residence. The second showed a town. On others there were roads, streams, fields.

“Where’d you get these, the CIA?” asked Willie.

“Google,” said Parker. “I could plan an assault on China from a home computer. Arthur Leehagen has a compound south of here; that’s the main house by the lake. It looks like there are two roads in and out, both heading roughly west. They cross a stream, which means Leehagen’s land is almost entirely surrounded by water, except for two narrow tracts to the north and south where the stream comes close to the lake before veering away. The southern road veers northwest, and the northern road southwest, so they come close to meeting near Leehagen’s house. Two other roads intersect them, ru

As he spoke, the Detective pointed out the details on one of the images. Willie didn’t own a computer. He figured it was too late in life to worry about these things, and he had little enough spare time as it was. He had a vague notion of what a Google might be, but he couldn’t have explained it to anyone in a way that made sense, not even to himself. Still, he was impressed by what the Detective was showing him. Wars had been fought with less detailed information in hand than this. Hell, he’d fought in one of them.

“You okay with the gun you’ve got?” asked the Detective.

“Louis gave it to me.”

“It should be good, then. You fired a weapon recently?”

“Not since Vietnam.”

“Well, they haven’t changed much. Show me the gun.”

Willie handed the Browning to the Detective. It weighed less than two pounds fully loaded, and had a blued finish. It was a pre-1995 model, as the magazine had a thirteen-round capacity, not a ten. The chamber was unloaded, according to the indicator on the extractor.

“Nice and light,” said Parker. “Not new, but clean. You got a spare clip?”

Willie shook his head.

“With luck, you won’t have to use it. If we have to empty clips, then we’re probably outnumbered, so it won’t matter too much either way.”

Willie didn’t find this entirely reassuring.