Authors: James W. Hall
“And you didn’t dispose of them after,” Cruz said, acid in her voice.
“This was my daddy’s gun,” Dobbins said. “It’s a family heirloom with strong sentimental value.”
“Tonight when we’re done,” she said, “they go into the river. The AR and the heirloom.”
“We’ll see about that,” Dobbins said.
X-88 felt the power shifting from Cruz. She was losing her hold on them. She’d also lost Pixie, and she’d lost X long ago with her fanatical focus on the redhead and her lack of attention to loose ends. And Dobbins seemed ready to mutiny, bonding with X-88, choosing him as the natural pack leader. Which he was.
He’d never been in any group where that wasn’t the case. He was usually stronger, more vicious, willing to do the crazy shit no one else had the stomach for.
After so many years of falling in with groups of brutal thugs and cold-eyed hoodlums and every time rising to the dominant position, X believed he’d gathered a force field around him. People deferred. They didn’t have to be told or shown. He never had to demonstrate it, he simply walked into a room, didn’t say a word or act tough, and the seas parted.
Even lately as his brain ballooned and the pressure inside his skull grew, even as the migraine pain doubled and tripled, he didn’t reveal how much it cost him, didn’t complain, didn’t even admit it to himself. He was the big dog. That’s what the big dog did.
Yeah, Thorn had faked him out, pretending to be drugged, and he’d sucker-punched X, knocked him semiconscious, and earlier he’d pulled that stunt with the gasoline hose, hammered him from behind, left a painful knot on his skull, but those were the early rounds, and no way that was happening again, next time the guy was going down, all the way down, and staying there.
“Cut the light,” Dobbins hissed at Cruz.
The light went off, the engine shut down, and they drifted through the darkness. A minute of silence, another minute, the boat gliding near shore.
“Still got her scent?” Cruz asked.
X nodded.
“Getting stronger?”
He nodded again.
When the collapsed dock appeared, Dobbins handled the boat hook, reaching out, snagging a piling smoothly. He drew the small boat up to it and looped a line around the piling and tied it off, then the boat swung around, facing into the current, and Dobbins used the hook to pull the rear end up close to the shore.
“Good work,” X said quietly. “Handled like a pro.”
Dobbins grunted his thanks, and even through the darkness X could make out the cold look on Cruz’s face. Not liking what she was witnessing, these two men forging a connection, getting along fine without her.
One by one they jumped to shore, Dobbins pointing the way toward the house. At the crest of the slope, they stepped across a fallen chain-link fence and entered a weedy field. X stopped them with a hiss.
Cruz asked him what was wrong.
“I believe the woman may have crisscrossed her own trail.”
“What?”
“There’s two trails. One cold, the other fresh.”
“Where’s the fresh one lead?”
“From up there to down here,” X said. “She came along this path, went to the house, stayed a while, then left recently, no more than half an hour ago.”
“Left?”
X-88 motioned at the river.
“I’d say she probably left the way she came, in a boat.”
“Then we get back in the boat, go after her.”
“Fuck if we are,” Dobbins said. “I’m getting that video. The kid’s up there, right? That spoiled meat smell.”
“Yes,” X said. “He’s up there. You can’t hide that.”
“We’re going after Cassandra.” Cruz had drawn her Glock, holding her arm slack at her side, the gun pointing down.
“Take the fucking boat yourself,” Dobbins said. “My gift to you. Go on, chase after her. I’m getting that damn video.”
“Fine, Dobbins. Do what you need to. But X, you come with me.”
“Why’s that? Why am I coming with you?”
“I need you,” she said. “I need your skills.”
“I like that. You need me. First time I’ve heard those words out of your tight little mouth. It’s always been the other way around, hasn’t it? Me needing you, me needing the cash you’re handing out. Me staying true to your husband, Manny, my oath to him, to guard your ass, make sure the money was still there when he got out. But the truth is, you need me more than I need you. That’s how it’s turning out, isn’t it?”
“Don’t do this, X.”
“Here’s how it is, Cruz. We’re here right now. Shouldn’t take long, we grab the video, then we sit down, discuss what’s next. Do it democratic.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. She’s getting away. We’ll lose her.”
“I’m not bargaining,” X said. “I’m telling you how it’s going to work. First, the video, take care of the asshole Thorn, then we see how we feel, if we got any energy left to chase after the redhead. It’s been a long day, that drive alone has me tired out.”
“What is this about? What’re you doing, X?”
“Doing what I should’ve done weeks ago. Now let’s get that video.”
THIRTY-TWO
DOBBINS SAID HE KNEW THE
layout of the house.
“Millie’s folks had parties, everybody in town invited. Black, white, even the Latinos. Music, lots of cold beer and booze, dancing on that lawn, skinny-dipping in the river. Real party people, the Johanssons, big-time drinkers.”
X could see Cruz chafing to be on her way down the river, pissed Dobbins was wasting time reminiscing. The guy had to see it too, how angry Cruz was, how frustrated. Every delay getting deeper under her skin.
“That Millie used to be a looker.” Dobbins winked at X, enjoying his chance to stick it to Cruz. “Always had a sweet spot for that gal. Can’t believe she’d betray me like this, hiding that son of a bitch when she damn well knows the future of Pine Haven depends on handing him over to the lawful authority.”
“Burkhart,” X said. “Real lawful guy.”
“He’s got the badge, that’s all that’s required.”
“You guys want to do this?” Cruz waved her Glock at the cabin. “Or you planning on staying out here, chitchatting like a couple of teenage girls?”
“Okay, okay.”
Dobbins laid out the floor plan of the house, one bedroom downstairs, the master at the top of the stairs, two other bedrooms beyond that. Kitchen in the back, big living room in front. A back door leading into the kitchen, front door opening into the living room. Just those two entrances.
X-88 figured the kid to be in the downstairs bedroom. Sick as he was, they wouldn’t haul him upstairs. So they agreed to attack from the rear. Storm the kitchen, go into the hallway, bedroom was first door on the left.
X and Dobbins would take the kitchen route, Dobbins in the lead since he knew the way and had the room-clearing shotgun, X would follow as mop-up. Cruz, with the least firepower, just the fifteen rounds in the Glock 19’s magazine, she’d take out whoever tried to exit the front.
“Side windows?” X asked. “One of them jumps, that could be an issue.”
“House has a ten-foot elevation,” Dobbins said. “Flood protection. Another few feet for the window height, that’s a hard landing. Could be done, but if they’re in a hurry, first choice, they’ll go for the doors.”
“And what if Cassandra took the video?” Cruz said. “We’re losing her.”
“Decision’s made,” said X. “We’re going in. Once that’s done, we’ll deal with your obsession.”
Even in the gloom X could feel the heat of her glare. An odor radiating from her, something new from Cruz he hadn’t smelled before. Flop sweat of a special kind. Vinegary with an undertone of curdled milk. She’d worn through her baby powder deodorant and this, he believed, was the woman’s natural scent. Rancid, brackish, like the stagnant water in a vase where flowers were left too long. Her adrenal gland was working overtime. The woman’s sweat was ripe with hate.
“We’re taking down everybody?” Dobbins said.
“Only way to go,” said X. “Anyone in that house is fair game.”
Cruz was silent, looking downriver.
“Even little Emma? I don’t think I can shoot an eight-year-old.”
“Kid that age can tie a noose around your neck tight as anyone. If you’re squeamish, I’ll do her. But Thorn is mine.”
“Main job is the video,” Dobbins said. “Don’t kill everybody right off, they could’ve hid it, we’ll have to tear the damn house apart, might never find the damn thing.”
“Sure, sure.” X was going along with him, making nice. Even feeling a soft spot for the redneck. But when the time came, none of that would matter. Dobbins was a fucking pig farmer. Lord of the concentration camp, emperor of abominations.
Cruz dropped back while Dobbins and X-88 slipped around the north side of the house. Lights on in the living room and in the back, and upstairs a couple of rooms were lit. Voices coming from an interior room on the ground floor. An argument of some kind.
X ducked around the corner of the house, brought his rifle up, covering Dobbins as he slid from the corner to the back porch. A single yellow bulb was burning on the small screened-in entryway, attracting bugs that battled at the mesh. He could smell a vapor trail of the kid’s rotting flesh like candied sewer gas, stronger than out front, so harsh and cloying it was a wonder the jackals and hyenas hadn’t started to swarm. A feast for vultures.
The chatter inside the house continued, slow-talking man versus high-pitched woman, a debate. Dobbins mounted the steps up to the screen door.
He had his finger inside the trigger guard, holding the weapon one-handed, bad gun safety, could shoot off his own foot that way, but it was too late to teach him anything. X hustled over to the steps and took them two at a time and settled in behind Dobbins. He could hear the man swallowing back his fear.
He whispered over his shoulder to X, “They could be expecting us.”
“Don’t be a pussy.”
“Do we yell and try to scare them, or sneak up?”
“Sneak,” X said.
“I can smell that stink now. Like a zombie’s halitosis.”
X punched him lightly in the middle of the back. No time for jokes.
“Tell me when to go.”
“Count to three, that should do it.”
Dobbins bobbed his head once, twice, then threw open the screen door, ducked into the small porch, X on his heels.
The sewer gas was switching around, some ahead of him, some behind. Could be a random breeze tearing apart the trail. But it concerned him. Inside the voices were still hashing out some problem. Preoccupied and gathered in one place. All good.
Dobbins tried the knob to the back door. It turned and he glanced over his shoulder at X and gave X a
you ready?
shrug.
“Go,” X said. “Get it done.”
Dobbins pushed through the door and stepped inside the lighted kitchen. Ancient wood-burning stove, knotty pine cabinets, black and white floor tiles, white walls peeling here and there, bright overhead lights, calendar on the wall, a little girl’s drawings fixed to the fridge. Beyond the kitchen entryway the hallway was clear. The voices sounding closeby.
X signaled Dobbins toward the closed door on the left. The single downstairs bedroom where the voices were coming from.
Planting himself on the hinge side of the door, X motioned Dobbins to go ahead, throw it open.
The redneck swallowed, put his hand on the knob, looked at X hard as if trying to absorb some of his courage. The voices inside the room reached a peak, a woman yelling out, “I’m sick and tired of you being sick and tired.” And there was laughter, an entire TV studio audience laughing in unison.
“Shit,” X said.
He felt something shift inside his skull, a stab of pinkish-green migraine lightning that made him cringe.
He blinked hard and pushed it away, threw Dobbins aside, kicked open the door, and sprayed the empty bedroom with a dozen rounds.
Afterward, going room to room, door by door, it took him and Dobbins another jittery ten minutes to be sure the house was vacant.
“Where’d Cruz go?”
By then X and Dobbins were standing on the front porch looking out toward the dark river.
“Where else
would
she go?” X said. “That woman’s got only one destination.”
“She stole my goddamn boat?”
“You got a cell phone,” X said. “Call Burkhart, have him pick us up.”
“We’re fucked. We had them cornered, now they’re gone. That bitch took my goddamn boat. That video is going to crucify me. I’m finished, man, I’m fucking finished.”
“Call Burkhart to come get us,” X repeated.
Another thunderbolt fired inside his head. This one shut his eyes.
“We can track them,” Dobbins said. “At least we got that. They couldn’t have gone far. We can track them. Your nose, man. I didn’t believe it was true. That’s one fucking amazing skill you got, pardner.”
Dobbins wandered down the porch searching for a good phone signal. X-88 looked out at the river and inhaled the night air.
Nothing.
Not even the aroma of the muddy riverbank, the nearby evergreens, the ever-present pig shit hovering in the air. Something inside his head had finally grown too large, maybe the hippocampus swelling an extra millimeter against the inside of his skull, extinguishing its glow like a cigarette crushed against stone. Maybe it was the blow Thorn gave him to the back of his head. He couldn’t smell a goddamn thing. He could barely breathe without setting off another zap of current behind his eyes.
“Burkhart’s bringing my truck,” Dobbins said.
Dobbins followed X down the front stairs.
“We go out the driveway, meet him on the road. Shouldn’t take him more than ten minutes. Hey, you feeling okay? You look like ever-loving shit.”
THIRTY-THREE
AFTER HURRIED INTRODUCTIONS, SUGARMAN SHAKING
hands with Emma and Millie, everyone piled into Millie’s station wagon. With the tailgate down, Duke jumped into the back, lay down, and released a long sigh that seemed to capture the mood of the moment.
Emma was strapped into a high-backed booster seat behind her mother, with Flynn stretched out beside her, his head on a bed pillow propped against the door behind Thorn, his lower legs wrapped tightly in sheets. Sugar was squeezed in the middle of the front seat. All the windows were open because of the smell.