It was a nice jail - if you liked old westerns.

Crow's cell reminded him of every Rifleman he'd ever seen. It had a cot, a stool, a chamber pot without a lid, and a door that required the keys to the city to open it.

But the deputy was something so special it was almost worth it.

The deputy was a miracle.

To begin with, he had a gut Crow considered an anatomical triumph. But it was in the region of nose-picking where the man achieved greatness. Never in his lifetime (and, he suspected, anyone else's) had Crow seen anybody pick his nose with such fervor - not to mention tangible results - for so many hours at a stretch.

He had other virtues. Besides being a social slug he was also the town bully. During his first hour in the slammer Crow saw him grovel obscenely to his mayor's son-in-law, thump a large red-stoned ring off the crown of some high-schooler for being late to pay a parking ticket, and smash Jack's fingers with a reinforced flashlight to keep them off the bars.

The idea of killing him made Crow feel all warm and tingly. It made the hours bearable. Or rather, setting him up did. "Bullies don't like to fight," Crow's grandaddy had long ago told him. "Bullies are scared of fighting. Bullies like to beat people up." Keeping this in mind, Crow worked on a plan for the first hours. He decided at last on whining.

He whined about being shut up in the jail, about being cheated by all "those rich guys who think they're such a big deal 'cause they got money." He whined about the food - or lack of it - claiming he was starving. He whined about the taste of the water and the smell of the chamber pot and suggested a connection.

He said his fingers hurt, sucked them loudly and often, held them up to show how swollen they were, and demanded to see a doctor.

The third time the deputy told him to shut up it was a snarl.

Crow's reply was equally ferocious. "Make me, fatso!" he snapped back but dropped his eyes when he did.

The deputy smiled, and stood with the flashlight in hand. He stepped around the desk smacking the weapon rhythmically into his fat palm.

"Maybe I will," he purred menacingly.

Crow took a half-step back from the bars, appeared to catch himself, stepped back up, and declared, "I ain't scared of you!" in the least convincing tone he could muster.

It was bully heaven. The deputy's little pig eyes gleamed as he reached for the keys. His yellow front teeth - all three of them - were bared with delight as he saw the prisoner backing to the far wall of the cell. But when he opened the door of the cell his raspy fat-punk voice changed from a smug chortle to a clear-bell high-pitched scream.

Crow bounced him across the desktop.

The deputy pulled himself up off the splintered remains of the desk chair and peeked over the desk in shock. He couldn't believe this was happening to him.

It was.

Crow didn't hurt him. He just dribbled him about the office floor long enough to make him start to cry. Then he put him in the cell.

From the middle desk drawer he took an army Colt and an extra clip. He looked longingly at the telephone, wanting desperately to talk to Cat. But there was no way of telling who would answer the phone at the motel. Hell, he hadn't heard from the rest of his team the whole time he'd been in the slammer. There should have been the usual effort to get him... Then he remembered his braying at Cat about not needing help. But surely Cat hadn't listened. On the other hand, Cherry Cat had the most infuriating habit of obeying him at the worst conceivable times. Damn.

He forgot the idea of calling. Best just get the hell away from the damn police station. He stuck the automatic down deep in his belt and headed to the door. He gave the deputy a little salute. "See ya, Homer. It's been real."

"How," whimpered the deputy like the blob he was, "did you know my name was Homer?"

Crow laughed and eyed the heavens. "There is a God," he whispered to himself. "And He's got a sense of humor."

Then he dropped all other thoughts. He keyed off the lights in the room, took a deep breath, and put his hand on the door.

"All right," he hissed, "rock and roll, dammit!" and jerked it open.

On the sidewalk outside the jail stood every cop in the world.

It was not Jack's best moment.

"Stop him, please!" cried a man Crow recognized as Banker Foster, and the cops surged forward en masse. Crow thought about the automatic in his belt, thought about the odds of winning, about the idea of shooting any policeman under any circumstances, muttered "Shit," and lifted his arms over his head.

"No! No!" shouted the mayor, elbowing his way through the eager constables, "not him!" He grabbed Crow by the upper arm and tugged on it like a child. "Mr. Crow, stop him!" he pleaded and turned and pointed across the street to the town square.

The crowd parted with the gesture and Crow could see, at last, his team. They had the crane set up on its highest elevation clamped onto their longest pike, which ran straight down from the starry sky into the chest of a vampire writhing and hissing on the base of the statue of the town's founder.

Anthony, standing on the hood of the Jeep, had his arm poised meaningfully in the air ready to signal the crane operator, who was even now taking out the slack in the cable.

"Let him go!" roared Anthony, "or we'll start your troubles all over again!"

Crow eyed the "vampire" as it spat and arched and wondered idly why they never recognized Cat in gray makeup. Then he turned to the mayor and said, "Well, what's it gonna be? Do we get paid or not?"

"Really, Mr. Crow!" spouted Banker Foster, "there was never a question about paying your fee, as such. It was just that the expenses seemed somewhat - "

"Foster, you are such a goddamn bore," Crow drawled. He turned to the mayor. "Yes or no?"

"Yes" was decided upon. The procession made its way across the square to the bank. Anthony walked side by side with Crow, but every other member of the team - especially the crane operator and the still-writhing (and now silently giggling) Cat - stayed firmly in place. Crow noticed that there really weren't as many cops as he had at first thought. Perhaps a half-dozen or so counting state troopers and the sheriff's real deputies. The rest were the same crowd present at the mansion all afternoon.

There was some trouble at the bank door, it being ten o'clock at night. Banker Foster claimed he had no keys on his person and suggested they all wait until the next morning and while he chattered away about the door Sheriff Ortega kicked it in with a size-thirteen Tony Lama. It wasn't so much the kick that won Crow's heart but the mischievous grin on Ortega's face while he was doing it.

The vault itself, time lock and all, was a different problem but one Crow & Co. had met before. "You got a cashier's check machine, don't you?" Anthony asked bluntly. So the check was made out and Crow endorsed it and gave it to gray-faced Cat amidst a surprising amount of good-natured laughter - especially from the cops - and Cat drove away to mail it from any other nearby township.

Though Jack Crow was something less than a PR wizard, neither was he a complete fool. "Party time," he announced gaily, being sure to invite each and every one of the city fathers and cops present. Most accepted. The liquor store owner was persuaded by Ortega's dead-eyed smile to give Jack credit. The "store," as befitted a dry county in a God-fearing state, had no sign but was amply stocked. By now everyone was getting into the spirit of the thing. It took only twenty minutes to overload the Jeep with everybody helping.

"To the motel! - hoa!" cried wagonmaster Ortega, waving a bottle of bourbon from the window of his patrol car - Chevy pickup.

"Rock and roll!" chirped the little mayor who then blushed while everyone else laughed and cheered.

And the party began.

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***