By the time I pulled off the highway and took the dirt road to nowhere, darkness had fallen. Christ knew what kind of evil critters were out here. Lizards, snakes, coyotes. I decided not to take Jerry off exploring, risking the Mustang on sand, and instead to stay on the dirt strip. I stopped five miles or so off the highway. No lights of houses were visible, just stars and scrubby silhouettes of yucca and cactus against darkness diminished by a fingernail trimming of moon.

I hauled the slumbering Jerry out of the car and dragged him onto the dirt road and let him sleep there. I did crouch to take his wallet from his back jeans pocket and the wad of cash from in front. Otherwise, I didn’t disturb him. He lay sprawled, ripping the night with the z’s he was cutting, blissfully unaware of his circumstances, even the Mustang’s headlights not disturbing him.

When I drove the front right wheel over his head, vehicle barely moving, the crunch made an unsettling sound in the stillness. The back right wheel rolling over him made only the slightest bump and no discernible sound at all. The bad part was I had nowhere to turn around, and had to back up the whole five miles. Had somebody swung down that road, I might have had a problem.

But like I said, I got lucky.

TWO

You’re probably wondering how a nice guy like me could end up killing people for money. A lot of nice guys, particularly young ones, start out their adult lives killing people for money. It’s called being a soldier. In my day, it was also called getting drafted, although with a lottery number breathing down my neck, I enlisted and managed to get into the Marines.

I understand plenty of guys who came back from World War Two spent their post-war years being seriously screwed up, nightmares, drinking, smacking wives and kiddies around, among other diversions.