B009XDDVN8 EBOK (48 page)

“What are we waiting for?” said Derek. “They’re not here to look at the tract map, they’re here for blood. Hell, give me a gun. If we don’t start the shooting soon, they will.”

“They’re going to feed us to the crocs,” said tall-and-morose.

“Quit your bellyaching,” said Clevenger.

“It’s a tight spot, boss,” said short-and-squat. “You got to admit.”

“I’ve been in tighter,” said Clevenger calmly, before taking a slow drag from his cigarette. “So let’s figure some things out before we go off half-cocked. In these kinds of situations, there are only two questions: What do they want, and how do we get it to them?”

“You want I should ask them?” said tall-and-morose.

“Don’t need to,” said Clevenger. “The answer to the first part is sitting right there on that couch.”

“Him?” said tall-and-morose.

“Me?” I said.

“The money you stole all that time ago belonged to that gang out there. They want you and they want the money.”

“And they want Derek,” I said.

“Shut him up, please,” said Derek.

“Your head should satisfy them, Frenchy,” said Clevenger. “And we’ll throw in your cash if we need to. Gaines, watch the rear.”

Short-and-stocky headed back into the kitchen.

“Now, fire a shot,” said Clevenger.

“Boss?” said the tall collection agent.

“Aim for the fat one,” said Derek. “He seems to be in charge.”

“It’s a she,” I said.

“That’s just a tragedy,” said Clevenger.

“It’s Flynn’s daughter,” I said.

“Christ, she’s as ugly as her father,” said Derek. “Put it between her eyes.”

“Over her head,” said Clevenger, “but close enough to put a scare into her. She’s having fun playing her little biker games. Let’s let her know we’re serious as a bullet in the head.”

Tall-and-morose smashed a window with the butt of his gun and fired into the sky.

From the street, a harsh call fired back, like the mating cry of the Bornean orangutan. “You missed me,” shouted Billie Flynn.

“It wasn’t easy, the size of you,” shouted back Clevenger. “And we won’t miss again. Let’s talk before this gets out of hand.”

“That’s not how we work,” said Billie. “First we let it get out of hand, and then we talk. Is that fucking traitor Derek Grubbins in there?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell him he murdered my daddy and it’s time to pay the price.”

“So it’s Derek you’re after,” said Clevenger.

“We didn’t come down for the mosquitoes.”

“Give us a minute,” said Clevenger, before turning from the window and looking at Derek. Derek backed away until he backed into tall-and-morose’s gun.

“What did you do to them?” said Clevenger.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I might have testified against some of them back in the day,” said Derek. “But I only told the truth.”

“Only the truth,” said Clevenger with a sneer. “What do you think, Henry?”

“I’d trade my mother to get out of here,” said tall-and-morose.

“I’d trade your mother, too,” said Clevenger. He rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, gave a little shrug. “I guess we’re going to have to give up Derek here along with Frenchy.”

“You can’t,” said Derek. “They’ll tear me apart.”

“And that’s my problem how?”

“Because, what? But…” Derek sputtered. “But then I won’t be able to pay the rest of what I owe.”

“You weren’t going to pay anyway.”

“I’m working on some things that—”

“You’ve got nothing,” said Clevenger. “Other than the boat, you’re worth less than a pile of manure. You’re only still alive because of what you told me about Frenchy here and the stolen cash. That was a bargain I could keep off the books, keep for myself. But I don’t see a reason to delay the inevitable regarding you any further.”

“We had a deal,” said Derek.

“And now I’m breaking it,” said Clevenger, flicking his glowing cigarette right at Derek’s face.

“You lay down with dogs, dude,” I said to Derek.

“Shut up, pal,” said Clevenger. “No matter what we do, you’re already dead. Which is fine, because we don’t need you anymore. With your daughter in hand, we can still get what we’re owed from your wife.”

“You were never going to give her up,” I said, not a question but a statement of fact.

“You shouldn’t have taken his daughter,” said Derek.

Clevenger made a gesture with his hand and tall-and-morose pistol-whipped Derek so hard Derek fell to his knees and then collapsed to the floor, blood welling into his hair before leaking onto the Brazilian-cherry floor. Clevenger watched all this with satisfaction and then turned back to the window.

“You want to kill Grubbins or should we?” called out Clevenger.

“You’re offering him up?” said Billie Flynn. “Just like that?”

“Sure we are,” said Clevenger. “And we have something else to sweeten the package. J.J. Moretti. You want him, too?”

“Who the hell is Moretti?”

“The cluck who took your money all those years ago.”

“What color are his pants?”

Clevenger gave me a quick once-over. “Tan.”

“Christ, he deserves what he’s getting just for them pants. What do you want in return for all your goodies?”

“All we want is a route out. And one other thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“The two guys who called you in? The big black guy and the old man? We want them dead and the toolbox they’re carrying.”

“You’re negotiating for a toolbox?”

“They’re good tools. Craftsman.”

“Those two called us in. You want us to betray them for their tools?”

“Now you’ve got it.”

“I like the way you think,” shouted Billie. “Deal.”

“Grand,” said Clevenger.

“With one more condition.”

“Go ahead.”

“Is there a Clevenger in there?”

Pause. “Maybe. What about him?”

“We want him, too. The only way any of you get out of that house alive is with Clevenger’s head on a pike and his prick stuffed in his mouth. How do you like them fucking apples?”

Clevenger stepped away from the window, turned to tall-and-morose. “Shoot the bitch,” he said.

But before tall-and-morose could get back to the window, a howl arose from the rear of the house, followed by the sound
of something cracking, something like a thick tree branch or a bone. And then another howl.

Clevenger wheeled and fired three times through the dining room, into the swinging door to the kitchen. Something fell with a thud.

“Finish him off,” said Clevenger.

With his gun leading, tall-and-morose made his way to the back of the house. Derek, still on the floor and only barely conscious, slowly turned his bloodied head toward the kitchen door, uncertain what was happening.

“They won’t get him,” I said softly to Derek.

“What?”

“They’re not good enough.”

Clevenger, while still staring at the back of the house, said, “Shut up, both of you,” before taking a step into the dining room.

“Who’s back there?” whispered Derek.

“Your brother.”

Derek’s dull eyes brightened. “Tony?”

“If anything happened to me,” I said, “I told Ben to call your brother first. There’s no way that gang is here and he’s not. And there’s no way he’d let someone like Clevenger threaten to kill you without his doing something about it.”

“Tony hates my guts.”

“Sure he does, but you’re still his brother. How sweet is this, Derek? Even though you’re an asshole, your brother has come to save your life.”

There was a shot, two quick cracks, and a long, morose howl before Clevenger put two more bullets through the door.

“Come on out, friend,” said Clevenger, stepping farther into the dining room, gun trained now on the door, waiting for it to swing open so he could kill whoever was standing behind it. “Show yourself and we’ll do this right, mano a mano.”

The door shivered, then opened just wide enough for someone to burst through the opening, and someone did, leaping
through the gap as if hurled. Clevenger put two slugs into him. Quick as that, he ejected the clip, banged in another, and fired two more at the now-prone figure lying in a growing pool of blood.

He stepped up to it and kicked it over. Tall-and-morose stared dead up at him, blood smeared across his horrid yellow grimace.

“You’re a clever one, aren’t you?” called Clevenger into the dining room, backing up as he aimed once again at the door. “Don’t be shy. Come out, come out, whoever you—”

He didn’t finish his sentence because, like a dead man come to life, the bloodied body of Derek Grubbins rose off the floor, lifted the low coffee table with both hands, took two steps forward, and slammed the table flush into Clevenger’s back. Clevenger dropped as if from a hangman’s scaffold.

Derek, a whole side of his face smeared red, stood hunched and ruined over the still form of Clevenger. He turned his bloodied face to me. “He shouldn’t have done what he done to your daughter,” he said, before leaning over and picking up Clevenger’s gun.

“Tony?” he called out. “Is that you?”

“Who’s asking?” came Tony’s hoarse voice from behind the door.

“It’s me. It’s Derek.”

“He’s got a gun,” I said loudly.

“Are you going to shoot me?” said Tony.

“Why would I shoot you?”

“I don’t know,” said Tony. “Who the hell knows what you’re going to do? You’re a maniac.”

“You’re right,” said Derek. “I am. The worst kind. But I ain’t going to shoot you.”

“Who else is out there?”

“Just Frenchy. You want me to shoot him?”

“No, he’s all right, the same little dork as always, but all right. Okay, I’m coming out,” he said, and the door swung open to
show an empty entranceway before it swung shut again. Then it swung open once more and there, standing in the doorway, was Tony Grubbins.

They stared at each other for a moment, two brothers, long estranged. There was electricity between them, but I couldn’t tell if it was violence or compassion, bitterness or love, I couldn’t tell if they were contemplating warm family memories or great family slights. Whatever was between them was as much a mystery to me as had been the Grubbins house all those years ago.

“You got big,” said Derek.

“You got old,” said Tony. “What’d you do to Clevenger?”

“I clocked him with the coffee table.”

“I ought to clock you.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do with that gun?”

“I don’t know.” Derek looked at it for a bit and then dropped it.

Tony took a step forward and stared a bit more, before jumping and grabbing his brother by the neck, as if he were about to wrestle him to the ground. But he didn’t wrestle him to the ground, instead he pulled his brother close and embraced him, hugging his brother tight, so tight the breath was forced out. Or was Derek gasping from something else? And were the tears from the pain of the brutal embrace or something else? I remembered the way Derek had thrown his brother out of the house that afternoon so long ago when we were flipping cards on my stoop, and Derek had kicked his brother in the side as if Tony were a mangy dog. There had been utter brutality between them then, and now there were tears as they hugged like two little boys still missing their dead mother and father.

And who among us ever knows the secrets of the heart?

While still holding his brother, Tony lifted his chin and stared at me, his own eyes wet. “Get the hell out of here,” he said.

I was standing now, and I backed away, unsure of what I should do.

“Just get the hell out,” he said.

“With you,” I said.

“Alone. And fast, before it all goes to hell.”

“They’re going to kill Derek.”

“They’re going to try. Now go. Run. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“That’s twice,” I said to Tony.

“Two times too many.”

I rushed forward, kneeled over the prostate Clevenger, reached around into his pockets with my tied hands until I found his BlackBerry, shoved it in a pocket of my own. Then I turned from the brothers and their embrace, ran like a frightened house cat through the front room, and scrabbled at the doorknob with my still-bound hands.

I
RAN FROM
that house with my bound hands high, like a plucked turkey scuttling out of a Thanksgiving kitchen.

The sun now had set; the sky now was a dusky gray. The air was filled with bike exhaust, and under the exhaust the smell of something deeper and more acrid, as if the gasoline from the tanks had started spilling. Once I realized I wasn’t going to be mowed down like Jim Brown in
The Dirty Dozen
, I slowed my step as I headed toward a singular presence in the middle of the gang, the unlikeliest savior I could ever have imagined.

Billie Flynn leaned insouciantly on her Harley, her arms crossed, her mien as fearsome as Grendel’s mother. She was flanked on one side by her old man, Stoner, and on the other by Corky and his knife. “What happened to Clevenger?” she said.

“Tony took out his men,” I said. “Derek did the rest.”

“My daddy always said Derek Grubbins was as hardy as a cockroach. Where the hell are they?”

“Still inside.”