Stagger Bay (27 page)

“Ah-ah,” Hoffman said. “Close enough.” He didn’t point the riot gun at either of us; instead he aimed it dead between us at Elaine and Little Moe.

Sam and I both stopped cold. I was still just outside of striking distance, and Sam was smart enough not to display the Glock till it was time to use it. I was ever so grateful then, that Karl had schooled my son after all instead of just letting him raise himself.

Hoffman took one hand off the shotgun and reached over to open the back door of his roller. He tossed a couple pairs of handcuffs on the asphalt in front of us. “You two put these on first.”

“So what happens up at the house?” I asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough, Markus.”

Desperate, I lunged in as quick as my gimp leg would allow, hands outstretched. But he was just leaned forward with the riot gun’s butt shouldered. The shotgun’s barrel jabbed against my forehead and I stopped, still out of reach.

I stood for a moment with my hands out-stretched uselessly, the riot gun firmly planted against my skull. Hoffman laughed softly as I lowered my arms to my sides.

I leaned forward against the barrel, pushing with my legs. He tried to back off but I didn’t let him; I moved forward, following him and keeping the riot gun barrel firmly against my forehead. He couldn’t pull it away without taking the butt from his shoulder, without having to stop aiming the shotgun at us for a fatal second.

I heard Elaine and Little Moe exit the car and run into the underbrush.

“Go ahead,” I told Reese. “I’ll bet in the time it takes you to blow my head off, my son will stick that scatter gun up your ass sideways. Go ahead motherfucker – I even know what it’ll feel like.”

“Don’t do it, Dad,” Sam said. “Not like this. I still need you.”

“You called me Dad.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

I pulled away from the riot gun and Hoffman scampered back out of reach. “I’m the one with the shotgun,” he shouted, eyes crazed. “I’m the one in charge.”

“You might want to shut the fuck up,” I said. “Me and my boy are having a moment here.” I turned back to him, though. “You’re fooling yourself if you really think you could ever be the Driver. You really want to reassess here, it’s not too late. You could never fill those shoes – you need someone over you to shield you; you’re not strong enough to go it alone.”

He scowled as if considering whether to feel insulted or not. But then he stopped trying to pretend he even thought we really existed. “It’s time for that drive, Markus.”

I heard a car engine coming up the incline and Mr. Tubbs’ Bronco chugged into view. They took their time getting to us, like they were in no hurry at all. They pulled up about fifty feet away; Tubbs got out and stood next to his jacked up ride.

“Rick,” Tubbs said. “How’s about you mosey your sorry ass on over here?”

His two Brahma-bull mesh-back bodyguards climbed out to flank him, looking as unexcited as ever. Each Meshback had a scoped Weatherby hunting rifle nestled in the crook of his arm.

Hoffman shuddered. For a second a wild blaze of defiance seemed like it was about to blossom from him into a Tombstone shootout. Then he wilted and choked, and his riot gun lowered to point at the ground as he slumped. Without looking to the right or to the left, he marched toward where Mr. Tubbs stood waiting.

After Rick reached him, Tubbs subjected Hoffman to a quiet harangue I was too far away to understand the words of. The old man snapped his fingers with a pop! and pointed his index finger right up in Hoffman’s face, inches from his nose.

“I’ll buy you some time,” I whispered to Sam.

“I can take them all,” Sam whispered back, twitching the Glock from behind his leg before re-concealing it.

I looked at him incredulously. “You really want them pumping rounds in Moe and Elaine’s direction? Backstop is the beaten zone, boy, never forget it.”

I headed toward Tubbs, not dreading the approach as much as I might have under other circumstances: both because of what it might buy for Sam, Elaine, and Little Moe; and because, truth to tell, I wanted to talk to Tubbs my own self.

Meshback One immediately aimed in on me with his Weatherby while Meshback Two ‘assisted’ Hoffman into the back seat. Tubbs signaled Meshback One to hold off, but the big bodyguard still aimed in on me as I approached, awaiting the release signal.

Jansen had been pest extermination, Reese had been assisted suicide, and Hoffman was no more than a Bozo minus the clown suit. But rolling up on Tubbs, I knew I was coming to the true knife edge of the evening.

“Seeing you here and upright, I don’t have to ask about Reese,” Tubbs said. He stood with one hand in his pocket, the other holding Hoffman’s riot gun by the barrel with the butt on the ground.

“You sent him?” I asked casually.

Tubbs shook his head. “You should be more focusing on me pulling your feet out the fire here.”

“Don’t make too much of it,” I said. “Hoffman was a putz. I probably would have had to make a sacrifice bunt, but Sam would have taken him easily enough then.”

“Sam? Is that who I saw skulking into the bushes back up there?” Tubbs shrugged. “I want you to know that it was never about color for me, Markus. Maybe for some of my people, but not for me.”

“Sure,” I said, aping agreement. “Your favorite color is green anyways. People disappearing on a regular basis? That’s fine as long as it’s not racially motivated. Rogue cops, neighborhoods being declared blighted in the interests of new development? Good business is where you make it, right?

"You knew you were framing me from the start, you knew I didn’t kill the Beardsleys – but you protected Jansen all these years for some ungodly reason. Why, was he family or something?”

“Don’t push it, boy. I’ve got your number now, and I don’t owe you any explanations. But I do owe you for my girl,” Tubbs said, honest anger twisting his face. “I hate owing you. I won’t be in anyone’s debt.”

His face cleared and he gave me an enigmatic stare, his raptor eyes glowing. “You’re a lot like she was. She always gave me hell too.

“I’m not admitting to nothing, wasn’t there, didn’t do it. Reese was a good man, I’ll miss him. But Rick here, maybe he was overstepping his bounds. Maybe he was going way beyond a certain agenda I’m not gonna explain, and maybe he was getting inexcusably sloppy.”

“And the car nut who just mysteriously died up at the house?” I asked.

“Some people are hard to kill. Maybe you want to take them out, but they’re like cockroaches, they keep finding their way through, they keep coming out of the shit storm smelling like a rose.” Tubbs chuckled nastily, his eyes gleaming. “Then you just have to live with them for a while no matter how much of a pain in the ass they are. Try to find some use for them.”

“Some use,” I said, trying to keep the contempt from showing in my eyes. With Jansen, Tubbs thought he’d harnessed Grendel to the plowshare. But in the end he’d as much as traded his only child for his own tacky definition of the good life.

I looked at this tough, foolish old man, whose hole cards had proved nothing more than a busted flush. I studied this sick disease-raddled old termagant, his eyes rheumy with the inner knowledge he'd fed his only daughter to Moloch. There was a desperate self-denial happening inside him, but he knew what he’d done – he knew just fine.

And as for me? I knew that making a single comment about it would be sure and certain suicide. Pardon me if I kept my yap shut on that one. You’d have done the same I’ll bet.

“I’m cleaning up loose ends tonight,” Tubbs said. “So tell me, Markus – are you a loose end?”

Tubbs laughed when I didn’t answer. “What do you think Spale?” he asked Meshback Number One. “Is Markus here a loose end?”

“Yeah, boss.” Spale’s cheek was glued to his rifle stock as he aimed dead at my head. “He’s a loose end all right.”

Tubbs laughed again, glanced at me slyly. “That’s one vote against you, but I got the executive veto power. The way I see it we have two ways to go Markus: either I treat you like a loose end, like your friend Rick here – or I let you call in your marker and I let you leave. Which is it gonna be?”

“Marker,” I mumbled.

“What’s that?” he asked, cupping his hand to his ear. “Show some gratitude, boy. Who do you think made them hold off on you this whole time? Who do you think called SBPD off Moose Creek Road tonight so you had a free shot at Jansen? Speak up and show some respect here, son – you’re in my ballpark.”

“I’m calling in my marker, sir,” I said, looking at the ground. I almost had to admire his bald faced lying. They’d only held off because I was too prominent with the cameras right now for me to conveniently disappear just yet. Tubbs had only pulled the cops off Moose Creek Road so Reese could take out Jansen without interference.

My politeness was less than sincere, but Tubbs nodded as if satisfied. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He glanced down the road in the direction of the Gardens. “Looks like you’ve built up quite a little following amongst those people, Markus – some of the other folk in Stagger Bay seem to like you some too.

“I know what that’s like: You take responsibility for things; you think you can make a difference in their lives. But pretty soon you’re compromising yourself and you’re trapped by the power. You know things are going to go smash soon enough, but there’s no stopping that machine – you’re in for the duration.

“Everyone thinks you’re the one driving, but you’re really just the hood ornament. You’re racing head-on at a brick wall. You’re right up front on that hood and you can see it all coming up on you, but there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.” He shook his head, looking at the ground at his feet.

He came back to the present. “Besides, what kind of friends are they? Here we are, you and me, talking about life and death on this beautiful night – and those people are nowhere to be seen. It’s just us, and you’re all alone.”

He shrugged. “You were heading on out of Stagger Bay anyway, weren’t you?”

“Well,” I said, “I was sure thinking about it.”

“Don’t think too long – we’re even now, for what you did for my girl. No more markers from me, and our paths had best not cross again. Time to leave Stagger Bay, Markus.”

Tubbs turned to go but then stopped. “Oh, by the way. Looks like I was premature to be promising you that quarter of a mil. It seems now like the bank account never even existed, and all the paperwork’s been lost.

“That’s the price you pay, eh? But you made it clear you didn’t really want anything I was offering you anyways. Quite a disappointment, I’m sure – but I promise you, you’re not the only one feeling let down these days.”

As Tubbs and Spale got into the car, soon-to-be-ex-Officer Rick Hoffman sat in the back seat, his gaze lifeless, his lips moving silently as he contemplated the reversal of fortune that was about to earn him his own private plot in the piney woods, maybe in the same exact place he’d planned on planting me, Sam, Elaine, and Little Moe. As soon as Tubbs had his butt in the shotgun seat, the Bronco started off down hill toward its ultimate destination.

Chapter 60

Sam, Elaine and Little Moe climbed out from the underbrush where they’d been hiding. Elaine plucked pine needles off her fancy clothes; she really wasn’t dressed for tonight’s brand of entertainment. Sam looked pretty sheepish but I liked that he’d had the sense not to be a hero and watched out for Little Moe and Elaine instead.

“You called me Dad,” I observed as we wrestled the spike strip into the gutter so no one else would drive over it.

Sam snorted and we started to roll the Continental to the side of the road. But my injured leg spasmed and collapsed under me as I pushed, and I wound up on my ass.

“Your leg’s bleeding still,” Sam observed as he continued to push the car alone. Elaine came to me, pulled off her scarf, and began tying it tight around my upper thigh.

I didn’t feel guilty at all for not helping Sam muscle the car toward the shoulder of the road, one hand on the steering wheel, the other pushing on the open door. Judging by how much he huffed and sweated, a 70s Lincoln Continental rolling on nothing but rims was a lot of dead-weight Detroit iron. Maybe his next car would be a compact.

“You were surprised I was waiting when you came out the house,” Elaine whispered, continuing to fuss with her scarf even though it was tight enough around my leg by then. “You know, you may have all the others fooled, but I know your secret.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She chuckled quietly and leaned in with brows arched, her smile mocking but not unfriendly. “You're terrified people will figure out you’re a nice guy.”

I was bemused, wondering why she would say something so blatantly nonsensical. “Sure, that’s me all right. The milk of human kindness just kind of oozes from my pores in a fine mist.”

Elaine glanced over at Sam, who’d finished pushing the Connie to the side of the road but still leaned on the rear bumper catching his breath. “I can’t let you keep on threatening to turn him against me, Markus. It ends right now,” she said. “No matter what I do on the side, I would never do anything to harm Sam, or you.

“Don’t
you
have any secrets, Markus? Leave it lie, I’ve told you all I’m going to. Can’t we just muddle through without being at each other’s throats? Can’t you trust me even a little?” she asked, pressing as Sam approached.

“Well, you’re here, ain’t you?” I said.

“What up?” Sam asked.

“I’m just welcoming Elaine into the family, boy. Such as it is, of course.”

“And what about that?” Sam asked, looking at Hoffman’s cop car. The strobes still turned; that disco trouble light still shot its rays out, painting the surrounding trees as it spun.

“Leave it be,” I said. “It makes a nice nightlight.”

Chapter 61

Little Moe stumbled as we walked down the hill and I was limping pretty bad by then. Sam scooped him up to carry him, and I’ll admit to leaning on Sam’s shoulder fairly hard myself. Elaine was stuck carrying Karl’s box but she didn’t seem unhappy to be lugging it: judging by how she kept looking down into it every few seconds, she was impatient to get some alone-time with Karl’s notes.