One Day in a Small-Town Desert, chapter 15, page 6

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Umo Amuéné cruised down East Crater Road in his beige Rènzas sedan.

As it turned out, East Main Street changed names to East Crater Road at the edge of town. It only took them a Tara-fucking half-hour of driving in circles to figure that out. Umo had tried to avoid using the same streets when going back and forth, in case anyone happened to be looking out their window in the middle of the night, but he had been forced to use a couple streets much too often for his liking. Even an otherwise-nondescript automobile can start seeming suspicious the fourth time it drives past with no other autos on the road.

“I don’t think Zhudıro ever intended to deliver the weapons,” opined Lango, who was back to clacking his pen.

Umo grunted. “Then why would he be on the same plagued planet as the drop-off location? He’d have to be a bigger Koro-brain than you.”

Lango clicked his pen repeatedly. “Maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

“A coincidence? Do you truly believe there are two gun-toting paranoid men named Zhíno in all the worlds driving around in the middle of the night with a blonde girlfriend in an old brown Sonla sedan that just happens to be registered to one Fírí Parızada of Mínıhotı, who lives at Zhudıro’s last known residence?” Umo huffed. “You really are a Tara-fucking idiot.”

The clacking of Lango’s pen filled the auto.

Umo sighed. “Look. Zhudıro obviously intended to deliver the guns. The only question on that front is whether he had the chance to hide them between the time everything got plagued and when the police showed up.”

Lango tucked the pen away and began feeling his gelled pompadour. “Right,” he muttered.

Their tour of Tuhanı had not been entirely for naught. They had located the police station. Umo hadn’t stopped, but he and Lango had studied it closely. No autos were in the front parking lot. The back lot was fenced-in and hidden behind the building. There was no telling if Zhudıro’s auto had been transferred there yet. If it wasn’t at the Kılímo residence, they’d soon be back in town.

Up ahead, several autos closely lined both sides of the road. Umo slowed as they approached. The first automobile on either side was a police cruiser. This had to be the place.

The cruiser on the south shoulder was a Colonial Enforcer auto with a broken windshield. The one on the north was a Pívo County Constabulary cruiser with a lawman behind the steering wheel. Umo made sure to not jerk his eyes away like a suspicious person would do. Perhaps he should have removed his sunglasses, however. Too late now.

The second auto on the south side was a brown sedan with a broken rear window and the driver’s window rolled down. Zhudıro’s auto. The police hadn’t had it towed yet. The trunk was closed. Could the police have not looked inside yet? Or had they removed the weapons already?

Past a gravel driveway on the north side of the road, an old blue truck sat at an angle in the ditch. Its windshield was busted, too.

At the end of the long driveway sat a house with very bright floodlights. A second constabulary cruiser sat in front of the garage.

As the scene drifted away behind them, Lango asked, “Now what?”

Umo softly accelerated down a slight hill. “I’ll have to think about it.”

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