“Oh, I did it to myself,” Roger said. “I told you I was a country boy, but I didn’t tell you that I had a cousin who was a drug dealer in the city. He came to me with this plan for us to make a bunch of money, by bringing some of his product to the little towns around where I lived. It sounded like fun, and quick bucks, so I went along with it. The trouble was, his end of the business wasn’t doing so well, and he was losing money. He was taking some of the money I was bringing in and covering his own ass with it, and then he pointed a finger at me when things came up short. His boss paid me a visit, and explained the situation. He made it clear that my mother and little sister would suffer if I didn’t come up with the money, and there was no way I could, so after he left, I stuck a gun in my cousin’s face and made him show me where to find him.” He took a bite of his burger, and chewed it up slowly before he went on. “Ten o’clock in the morning, I showed up at his front door and started blasting away with a 12-gauge and a Glock. Once I started, I just couldn’t stop, and I killed our supplier, his wife and all five of his kids.”
Noah saw the tears that were running down Roger’s face. “Well, I know how terrible that must look to other people, but from what I know about the drug business, it tends to run in families. You may have saved lives fifty years into the future, and it’s a safe bet that a lot of innocent people have already died because of that supplier. Your solution might not be the one that’s politically correct, but it’s probably the only one that could ever really eliminate the drug problem.” Noah paused for a moment. “It may be hard for you to understand that, because you’re looking at the deaths of those children as nothing but murder. The thing is, while it may be tragic that they had to die, if they carried on the family business then they would eventually be responsible for hundreds, possibly thousands more deaths. Sometimes you have to look at the greater good, no matter what the consequences to yourself might be.”
Roger quickly wiped away his tears and grinned sheepishly at Noah. “Yeah, well, other people told me that, too, even Doc Parker. That doesn’t make it any easier to live with, though.”
Noah thought quickly about the men he had killed, the ones that had led to the murder charges, and tried to feel any remorse, anything that might be considered sadness. With each one, though, all he could sense was the necessity of the shots that he fired. He had felt no desire to harm or kill those men, nor any hatred or animosity, not even anger; the situation had forced his hand, and he had done what had to be done. To Noah, everything came down to a simple black or white. In order to feel remorse, there had to be a gray area, some part of the situation that made you uncertain of your choices.
Noah was never uncertain, so he had no clear idea of how to help Roger deal with his own guilt. All he could do was mouth the same platitudes he’d heard others use in Iraq and the ‘Stan, when they were trying to comfort the new guys after their first kills.
“Sometimes,” he said, “you’re faced with a choice. You can kill, or you can die, and in this case you had the threats against your family, too. Roger, it sounds to me like you did what you had to do. All you gotta do now is learn how to live with it.”
They finished eating and tossed their trash into one of the nearby cans, and Roger started the truck for the drive back to Alley Town. He stayed quiet all the way to the motel, and just waved as Noah got out. A moment later, the truck turned the corner and was out of sight.
Noah fished the key to his room out of his pocket, and let himself in. Like in every motel room, there was a telephone beside the bed, something he hadn’t even paid attention to before, but now it had a red light blinking on it. In motels, he knew that meant there was a message, so he picked up the phone and dialed zero for the operator.
A computerized voice said, “Room seven has one new message,” and then he heard, “Noah, this is Allison. You made it through your first day, and I’m glad to say I’ve had nothing but good reports. Tomorrow, we’re going to go ahead and schedule you in for intake and ID, so someone will pick you up at your room at about eight AM. For tonight, kick back and relax. If you need anything, Marco should be around, so you can get him to drive you wherever you need to go.”
Noah hung up the phone and walked over to open the mini fridge. As he suspected, there was nothing in it, so a moment later he walked out the door and over to Marco’s room. He knocked, and Marco opened the door a moment later.
“Hey, Noah,” Marco said. “How’s it going?”
“Well, the dragon lady left me a message that she’s had good reports, so I’m guessing I’m doing okay in that regard,” he said. “I got to see the exciting town of Kirtland today, and I was wondering if I might talk you into a ride over to one of the stores. I’d like to pick up some snacks and stuff.”
Marco grinned. “Settling right in, aren’t you? Sure, give me a second to grab my keys.”
Noah walked over to Marco’s car and waited, but it was only as few seconds before his friend came out and got behind the wheel. He hit the lock button, and Noah climbed in; then he fired up the car and they were on the way.
“You want a convenience store,” Marco asked, “or something bigger?”
“Convenience store will do just fine. I just want to grab some chips and pop, stuff like that.”
It turned out there was a convenience store not too far away, and Noah took only a few minutes to grab the snacks he wanted. There were a lot of things to choose from, and he paused to look at the coolers full of beer.