When Old Men Die Read Online Free Page B

rotted it away, and I wondered if it would hold my weight or if one of the steps would crumble away to nothing when I put my foot on it.   Or maybe it would just break in two.
    There was one way to find out.   I squished over to the stairs and started climbing.
    I got up them with no trouble at all.   They were still solid, no matter how bad they looked, but they squealed when I put my weight on them.   If Harry was there, he would know I was coming.
    Or he would know that someone was coming, though he wouldn't know who it was.   I thought I'd better tell him so he wouldn't try to hide and make it harder for me to find him.
    "Harry!" I said.   "Are you up there?   This is Truman Smith."
    There was no answer, but I thought I heard something scratching around on the concrete floor.   It could have been Harry, or it could have been a cat.   It could have been nearly anything.
    "Harry?   You up there?"
    Still no answer, but I was beginning to feel a little uneasy.   Maybe Harry wasn't there, but maybe whoever else was looking for him was.   I was sorry I'd ever let Dino and Evelyn talk me into this, but I kept on climbing the stair.
    When I got to the top, I called out again.   "Harry?"
    My own voice echoed back off a concrete wall, but aside from that there was no sound at all except the surf and the wind in sea oats.   Somewhere along the beach a car horn honked.
    I went inside the building and found myself standing in a large open room with two doors leading into the rest of the building.   There was some trash over in one corner, and I shined the flashlight on it:   some aluminum soft drink cans, a few old newspapers, and what looked like some flat tins that might have held tuna or cat food.   Harry's kind of meal.   Maybe he was there after all.   I turned off the flashlight.
    "Harry?" I said.
    There was a soft scratching from somewhere farther inside the building.   I walked to the far end and went through one of the doors.
    The next room was very dark, and there was no one in there either.   There was also no trash on the floor.   I crossed it and went through another door.
    As soon as I stepped through there was a soft pop and sparks jumped from the side of the doorway near my head.   A sliver of concrete hit me in the ear.
    I dived forward and hit the floor, sliding along it, scraping my hands and tearing a hole in the knee of my jeans.   I felt a sharp pain in my right knee, which meant that the old football injury hadn't taken the fall too well.   Just another thing to thank Dino for the next time I saw him.   Assuming that I ever saw him again.
    The next shot went over my head and hit the wall behind me.
    The good news was that I still had my flashlight, which might have been fine if there had been any use for it.
    There was even more good news.   It was extremely dark in the room where I was lying, and I was wearing a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans, which would make me very hard to see.
    But that was pretty much the end of the good news.   The bad news was that I was trapped.
    I was also scared.   I didn't like being shot at.   It made my palms sweat, and it gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.   It's pretty depressing to know that someone is trying to kill you and that there's not much you can do about it.
    I might have felt a little better about things if I'd been carrying a pistol of my own, but I wasn't.   So there wasn't much I could do except lie there on the cold concrete floor and sweat.   And wait.

Five
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    I t might come as a surprise to a lot of people to know that I wasn't carrying a handgun, but contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Texas goes around armed to the teeth.
    In fact, there are laws against that sort of thing, though the state legislature is beginning to make an effort to change that.   Sometimes it seems that there are members of that august body who would like to see