In the Night of the Heat (36 page)

Thinkthinkthinkthinkthink.

In only ten seconds, the dog's barking sounded twice as close. It was running at full speed, and he would catch me in less than a minute. Maybe forty seconds.

I fell to my knees behind a pine tree trunk, an elevated patch. Panting for breath, I lay as flat as I could on the damp forest floor and wriggled my hips and legs through my handcuffs. I expected to feel the hot canine breath on my neck any moment.

Disorientation slowed me down, but I got my bound hands in
front
of me. There was still a rusting metal ring swinging from the handcuffs, but there was nothing I could do about that.

The dog's barking told me I had ten seconds to find a weapon.

I zipped up and searched everything I could see within easy reach—branches, rocks, anything. The ring hanging from my handcuffs was a last-resort weapon. Anyone in the ring's range was too close for comfort. At least I could use the cuffs to strangle someone, or some
thing.

I tripped and fell again, scraping my knees and palms. I looked to
see what I'd stumbled over: a concrete cinder block. I thought I saw other pale blocks nearby, but it was too dark to be certain. I had found the remnants of a construction site.

The block felt like it weighed three or four times its twenty pounds, but I tensed my gut, exhaled hard, and heaved to lift it.

You wanna catch me?

I hid behind a tree trunk and waited. It would be up to my ears. I might not have more than one chance to get it right.

I'd barely taken three breaths before the barking was on top of me.

I quieted, calming the roar of blood, guessing which side of the tree he'd come around.
Quiet. Breathe…

 

Then…

I felt a
POP
in my head, and the dog's barking roared on my
left
side. My bad ear.

I can hear!
I thought, just as the blur of the dog's pale muzzle rounded the side of the tree, snapping toward me. The dog growled like he'd found dinner.

My first swing was low. Instead of hitting the dog's head, where I was aiming, the block slammed into its shoulder. The shepherd yelped and skittered sideways, but stayed on its feet. The dog lunged while I staggered, flung off-balance by my own swing.

Teeth pierced my forearm, seeking purchase, tearing but slipping. It hurt like hell.

But I never let go of that concrete block. With its extra weight I was able to yank my arm away from the dog's jaws with another flash of pain. When the gray shepherd lunged at me the second time, my
aim was better. A
CHUNK
sound reminded me of my head-butt with Janiece, and the dog was limp on the ground.

I couldn't take any chances that it would wake up and come after me again. I stood over the dog, closed my eyes, and hammered the block down to make sure he'd keep sleeping.

I was in chains, and the men chasing me had guns.

I liked my odds better without the dog.

ONCE, I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMEONE TO THE RIGHT,
and was starting at shadows. A flashlight beam probed the woods to my left, and I froze in place for almost a half hour. Twice, I thought I heard a truck engine, off through the woods ahead. A road? Carefully, I set out through the woods, gliding from shadow to shadow, until I reached a glade about thirty feet across. On the other side, more woods. And beyond that…I hoped…a road.

I could stay in the woods and go around the meadow, wasting time. Or I could cut across, risking exposure. I chose the direct route.

I had only taken a few steps before I knew I'd made a mistake. Only one of my hunters had been smart enough to track me.

The flashlight pinned me like a bug in a blowtorch. I froze, knowing that guns were trained on my head. How many? Where? And was there anything left to do?

“I hate you killed my dog.”
The voice floated in out of the darkness ahead of me, and its very calm gave the words greater gravity.

Wallace Rubens was breathing in rasps, either from running or
rage, or maybe both. His bulk was a mountain rising and falling. I saw moisture glistening on his face. Tears.

“Now you've crossed a line, son. Drop that stick. I'm out of good manners.”

I dropped the rebar I had found. There are good reasons guns are more expensive than sticks.

“I'm sorry about your dog,” I said gently, “but you would've done the same thing.”

“You could've broke his leg,” Rubens shot back.

“I didn't think of it.”

“Well, you're gonna wish you had.”

I already wished I had. “If you wanted to kill me, I would've been dead hours ago,” I said. “
You don't want to do it.
You're not a murderer, Bear. Things got out of hand when Hankins sent you after Chad Ebersole, and T.D. Jackson had to be stopped—but don't kill me over a dog.”

“Don never told me to kill Ebersole,” Rubens said, eyes glimmering. “Just said he had a problem. I came up with the fix. Didn't know Ebersole would die, but truth is I really didn't give a shit. Since '67, there's only one thing I give a shit about: Heat looks out for Heat. You didn't mean no harm, did you? Just wanted to find out what happened to Emory's boy—trying to help Heat. Hell, I wish I could buy you a beer and wish you luck.”

“It's not too late,” I said. Hope springs eternal.

“Reckon it is,” he replied, and he didn't hide the regret in his voice. He sighed massively. “Grayboy didn't mean nothin' to you, but I raised that dog
and
his mama, so we went back some years. And now I'm recalling that question you asked me when you were tied in the barn: You asked if I was man enough to put down my shotgun and take you straight up. I'ma tell you what: Today's Fire Sale day, boy. You're surely about to find out what you wanted to know.”

He reached into his front pocket and tossed me a small key ring. I snatched it out of the air. A single key dangled. “Go on, unlock it,” he said. “What we got here is a generational difficulty, but I do believe men of goodwill can work things out.”

I'd pissed off Wallace Rubens enough that he wanted to kill me with his bare hands. My day had been so bad, that was the
good
news. I was nauseous, half-dizzied, and weak, but I was grateful. He was giving me a chance.

I worked quickly on the cuffs, getting my hands free. Rubens hadn't lowered his shotgun.

“Toss the cuffs and rebar as far as you can,” he said. “Then these ugly hands an' that pretty face are gonna talk.”

I considered my options and did what he'd asked. The rebar flew about thirty feet, landing near a V-shaped tree trunk. Rubens had size and strength on me. And lack of intoxication. On a good day I had speed, and hopefully training and smarts. I hoped to God this was a good day. It hadn't been so far.

Rubens set his lantern down against a tree, casting a misshapen shadow across the bark. He took off his fishing cap, the gun still raised.

“You set that dog on me, Bear,” I said, trying one last appeal. “Only a fool wouldn't have done whatever he could.”

“You broke Janiece's jaw.”

“You would've killed her,” I said.

“Maybe so. But I wouldn't have expected understandin' if I'd been caught.”

Wallace Rubens grunted, broke the shotgun and shucked the shells. He set it down behind him almost tenderly, never turning his back on me.

Then, he charged. I spun out of the way, and as he went by I balled my fist and punched him in the right side of his neck. It felt and sounded like hitting a side of beef.
Rocky
sucks.

He grunted and swung around, big meaty hands stretching out for me. I batted his arm up and slid under, too damned close to him, but hooking his rear foot as I went by. He stumbled, and I stomped his knee, driving it into the ground.

You watch WWF wrestlers on television, and marvel at men of such superhuman size and agility. Something in the back of your head screams
He isn't human! He can't be stopped!
And it takes every bit of control you've got to believe you have any chance at all, and look for the opportunity. There's always an opportunity, always a chance.

That's the theory. In practice, it was like trying to fight an avalanche. Bear twisted in midair and caught my left ankle with a grip like a torque wrench, punching me in the left thigh as I kicked him in the belly with my right foot.

I tore my leg free and stumbled back, leg numb, as he sprang to his feet and charged. I had just enough time to shift my weight to the side to avoid his full impact, but he hit me hard enough to send me crashing backward into an upright tree, pinning me. While I was processing the pain, Rubens hit the side of my head with a great sweeping right cross. I rolled with most of it, thank God, but for a timeless instant, the night became day.

I tasted blood, but for the first time that night, my head was clear. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. I feinted left, and then pivoted right again, moving toward his wounded left leg, where he would be less mobile. I was loosening up finally, finding a rhythm. I jabbed, then hit him with a half fist to the throat, followed by a feinted groin kick that drew a sweeping forearm block—
damn
! There was no way he should have been that fast, but at least now I knew.

I barely evaded another charge, and he hooked my left wrist. He was off-balance, and I should have been able to twist his arm around, skate his entire body on his momentum, but I couldn't. His balance was unnatural. He might have been a fat old man, but un
der that fat was twice my muscle, and he knew how to control every ounce of it.

He clipped me. I absorbed his second and third punches with peekaboo forearms, but a wrecking ball to the ribs stole my breath and gave Rubens time to ram me against the tree with his shoulder. My right arm was useless beneath him, my rib cage collapsing against my lungs.

I had to get away from that tree. Away from him. Just…away. Nothing I hit him with stopped him or slowed him. Every time he hit me, I felt something give. He was killing me.

I tried to stomp his foot, but he shifted his knee, pinning my leg with his mass, too. He grabbed my forehead with one huge palm, vise-like, and smashed the back of my head toward the bark behind me.

GET AWAY FROM THIS MAN, OR YOU'RE DEAD.

Finally, my Evil Voice had some useful advice. I managed to knee him in the crotch, and his moment of weakness let me slip out of his grip. I levered him away from me with my elbows, and slipped from beneath Rubens like an eel.

When he turned, I hit him with a straight right to the left side of his jaw. He barely blinked, but his feet slipped sideways so that they were both on the same line. I kicked his front knee. Bear grunted and thumped down, and I kicked him in the face as hard as I could. Dammit—he got one of those giant hands up to absorb some of the shock, but blood burst from his nose and upper lip. I stepped way back and glanced around me to better weigh my options.

I saw the V of the tree I'd spotted, and I ran for it. My rebar.

“Where you goin'?” Bear panted. “Huh?”

Bear was panting worse than I was, but he pulled me down by the seat of my pants, and pure force brought me to my knees. While we rolled back a few yards, Bear had my right arm and was twisting it like a giant Indian burn, and I jackknifed and kneed him under the chin,
breaking away. The kick was solid, but he snapped his hand around my ankle. I lifted myself up with my palms to try to twist my leg free, but he only tightened his grip.

I wrenched my leg away, losing skin in the process.

My best chance would be on my feet, no barriers. Open air. I scrambled up and ran.

If I could keep Bear moving, I could wind him. Fatigue would drain some of that strength. He couldn't afford to let me go, and I couldn't afford to run into the woods and let him recover, gather his allies, and hunt me down. Both of us had to finish it there.

I ran toward the tree marking the place where my rebar had landed. If Rubens wanted honorable hand-to-hand combat, more power to him. I wanted my weapon back.

The adrenaline seemed to be burning off. The drug, the exhaustion, the pain, all combined to turn my legs to spaghetti. He was coming. A quick survey of the grass: no rebar.
SHIT!

I had to run. Fifty paces, then I slowed and looked back at him, moving like a rhino. Another twenty paces. He was wheezing, but kept coming. He might catch me, I realized. Just like the dog. We were running uphill, and I was already dizzy.

The next time I checked over my shoulder, Rubens had stopped, a slightly quizzical expression on his face, as if he was listening to something. He was panting hard. Was there a godson in sight? I expected to hear gunfire.

Suddenly, Rubens moved from stillness the way he must have exploded off the line that day in '67, a blur of mass that caught me by surprise. I had time to get set, but not to run.

I had a roundhouse waiting for him, slipped to the side and connected dead in the center of his face, snapping his head back.
You might still kill me, but you won't forget me.

Turned. Ran.
Three more steps up the hill…

Bear spun me around and sank his fist into my stomach. I swear it rattled my spine—I thought he'd punched me all the way through my back. That punch was the hardest I've ever been hit. The hardest I thought anyone could
get
hit.

The ground smashed up against my knees.

Then, I was facedown in the soggy earth. Bear's punch had paralyzed me as surely as the drugs had. I knew he would kill me if I didn't get up, but I couldn't convince my body to move. Not even my fingers.

I was helpless again, forgetting my name. Soon, I might be glad to forget.

Everything was quiet except for Bear's wheezing breaths as he walked to where I lay.

High above me, he laughed. His laughter started so softly at first that I wondered if it was crying. But soon he was laughing so loudly that there was no mistaking it.

He stopped laughing, struggling to catch his breath.

Suddenly he was lowering himself to sit at the base of a wide fallen pine tree, atop a mound of dried needles. He was laughing, but his face was racked with pain. The pain wasn't from the blood staining his nose.

“I've got a daughter in Quincy. Imani,” he said. “She's at Quincy Gardens. Don't let her find out from a stranger. Have Jamal, the manager, tell her.” Rubens laughed again, suddenly. “Serves my ass right, don't it? I shoulda drowned you in the bucket. That's what Demond said.”

My double and triple vision finally converged. Rubens came into focus again.

He was clutching his chest.

“Heart?” I gasped.

“Used to be,” Rubens said. He had more trouble speaking. I
didn't think he would be laughing anymore.
It could be a trick,
my Evil Voice warned me. Had he faked a hysterical fear response too?

“Do you have a cell phone?”

Wincing in pain, Rubens patted his front pocket and pulled out a red Palm Pilot. It looked like a toy in his giant hand. He tossed it over to me. “Won't…work out here.”

He was right. The phone got no signal.

“Don't move,” I said. “I'll send someone back for you. The road's that way?”

“There,” he said, pointing right. “Northwest. You'll hit the interstate in two miles.” His face twisted. “Don't go.”

“I'm gonna get the shotgun.”

Rubens shook his head. “Don't go.”

For the first time, I believed his heart attack was real. No one wants to die alone. “Breathe slowly,” I said. “Sit still. I'll be right back.”

My walk was a stagger. It felt like hours before I made it back to the lantern, and from there I found the shotgun. I groped the uneven grass until I found both shells.

For the first time all night, I didn't feel naked.

By the time I got back to Rubens, he had aged twenty years. Perspiration slimed his face, and his pale moist lips never fully closed, sucking air thinly. I had seen that look on my father's face, when he nearly died.

But Dad had an emergency room to save him. Rubens didn't.

“Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?” I asked.

“Why don't you, now?”

That seemed to settle the question for both of us.

“Doctors had to open me up before,” Rubens said. “Told me to slow down. Change my ways.” He gave a wet laugh. “Shit man, leopard can't change his spots.” He closed his eyes. Something titani
cally painful was happening inside his chest. “Why'd…you come here?”

There was no reason not to tell him now.

“Judge Jackson hired me,” I said. “Said he wanted the cops out of it. When your name came up, I wondered if he would send someone after you. Hell, I don't know. I wanted to know what happened. The truth.”