Surviving the Dead (Book 7): The Killing Line (26 page)

Ross was still behind the bar, only now instead of polishing glasses he was thumbing through a faded copy of a pre-Outbreak men’s magazine. The passage of years had not made the young actress on the cover any less beautiful, or any less scantily clad. I walked up to the bar and stood across from its owner.

“Got a minute?”

He did not look up. “Got lots of minutes.”

“I’d like to talk in private.”

“What about?”

“Like I said. In private.”

He glanced up at me speculatively for a few seconds, then put down the magazine. “Let’s go.”

He lifted the folding divider so I could step behind the bar and I followed him down a short hallway and turned right into an open office. The space was about the size of my hotel room but much more nicely appointed. There were lanterns mounted in wall sconces in all four corners of the room, the soft yellow light creating a pleasant ambience in the windowless space. Richly stained bookshelves lined the walls complete with leather-bound tomes boasting such titles as
Robinson Crusoe
,
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
,
The Sound and the Fury
,
The Three Musketeers
,
War and Peace
, and perhaps a hundred others I did not have time to scan. The desk was polished oak, the chairs were upholstered leather with little brass studs around the edges, and the floor was smooth and stained a dark walnut color. A dark brown leather couch lined one wall, supporting the considerable weight of a man whose skin tone nearly matched the flooring.

“This Terrell,” Ross said, flicking a finger in the big man’s direction as he walked behind his desk. Terrell stood up. He was not quite the size of a rhinoceros, but it was a near thing.

“Eric Riordan.”

The big man nodded once. “Got to search you.”

I glanced at Ross. His face remained impassive as he sat back in his chair. I looked back at Terrell.

“Okay.”

Terrell was quick and professional. The Berretta and knife were out in the open, and he lifted them as light and quick as a talented pickpocket. His hands skimmed my arms, shoulders, waist, chest, stomach, legs, and he paid special attention to the ankles. When he was finished, he added my little revolver and a clip-point folding knife to the pile of weapons on the table next to the couch and flipped an enormous hand in Ross’ direction.

“He safe.”

“Thank you, Terrell.” Ross motioned for me to sit down. I did.

“What’s on your mind?”

The couch creaked as Terrell sat down behind me. I did not need to look in his direction to know he was watching me.

“I have a problem I need help with.”

Ross spread his hands. “Everybody got problems. What yours got to do with me?”

“I may have attracted the unwanted attention of a few unsavory types.”

“This Dodge City, baby. Unsavory the only type there is.”

“There were three of them. Two young white guys with beards and an older Hispanic man. Older guy seemed like the one in charge.”

“Where they at when you saw ‘em?”

I told him the name of the bar.

“The old man be Lopez. You don’t want no trouble with him. He bad news.”

“I may not have much choice in the matter.”

“You still ain’t said what this got to do with me.”

“I’m not a rookie when it comes to life on the road. I’m here with two women and some good trade. This Lopez guy thinks I’m an easy target and is looking to make a run at me. I would like to ensure he fails in this endeavor. With prejudice. You seem like a man who might know where I could enlist help in that area.”

Ross grinned, once more exposing the two missing teeth. “I like the way you talk. Sound like you got some schoolin’.”

“Princeton. Most people don’t hold it against me.”

“Ain’t too many of you ivy leaguers around no more. Too spoiled. Too weak.”

“There are outliers in any population.”

The grin widened. “Say I help you. What you do for me?”

“What do you want?”

“I already told you what I want.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Not an option. What else?”

The grin went away. Ross’ eyes glittered black in the dim light. “I could just kill you. Take those women for myself.”

It was my turn to smile. “Good luck with that.”

“I want you dead, white man, you dead.”

“Isn’t me you have to worry about. Those women are no wilting violets. They won’t be taken alive, and even if you do, they’ll spend every second of every day making you regret it. And if you give them half a chance, they’ll kill you.”

Ross crossed his legs and drummed his fingers on one knee. “They so tough, why you need me?”

“You’re local. You know the score around here.”

“You right about that.”

I sighed. The conversation was starting to bore me. “So can we do business or what? If you can’t help me, there are other people I can ask.”

Ross stared a few more seconds, then opened a drawer and took out a ledger. “Lopez be a problem for me too. You see, after the Army clean up this town, we the first ones here looking to do business.”

“What kind of business?”

Ross’ face registered amusement “Way you say it, you think I be engaged in some kind of illegal activity.”

“I think the hotel and livery and warehouse operations make an excellent front for a smuggler. And I can’t help but notice the way the whores in this district never cross the street. I’m guessing you control one half of the vice trade around here and Lopez controls the other.”

“And you only been in town one day. Maybe you smarter than you look, Ivy League.”

“Maybe. Can we get to the part where you tell me what you want?”

Ross spun the ledger around. Inside were sheets of paper with small photos clipped to the upper left corner. I pulled the top photo from the folder and looked at it closely. It had been printed on photographic paper from an inkjet printer. The materials for making photos like this were rare and extremely expensive, not to mention the fact they required electricity to produce. I put the photo back in the file and read the papers attached to it.

“This is a dossier,” I said.

“Got a file on everybody in Lopez’s operation.”

I closed the file and sat back in my chair. “Why me? You need a hit man, there’s plenty of people around can do the job for you.”

Ross shook his head. “Nobody who take on Lopez. Same reason he don’t send no trigger man after me.”

“Sounds like an uneasy truce. Maybe even a forced one.”

“Might be.”

“I’m guessing things haven’t always been this peaceful between the two of you.”

A laugh. “Hell no. We at it like cats in a bag till Major Santino show up.”

I remembered what Sergeant Thornberg said about the time the locals disrupted trade, and how the Army had handled it. The picture was starting to come together.

“How deep does Santino have his hands in your pockets?”

Ross looked mildly impressed. “Deep. Same for Lopez. And he like us in competition with each other so neither one of us get too much power.”

I nodded, one hand rubbing my chin. “Let me see if I understand the situation. You and Lopez show up here at the same time looking to establish a monopoly on the vice trade in Dodge City. You tangle. The locals get scared and complain to the Army, say all this fighting is bad for business.”

Ross fluttered his hands in the air. “Think of the children!”

“Of course. So Santino shows up with Humvees and heavy machine guns and troops just itching to bust some heads, and takes the two of you somewhere private and tells you how things are gonna be.”

A nod. “How I lost my teeth. Pair of pliers be a motherfucker on your dental work.”

“And Lopez?”

“He got a bad knee won’t never heal.”

“And afterward, you and Santino build your headquarters on either side of the district from one another, close enough so your troops can glare and posture, and Santino dips from both buckets. Meanwhile, he forbids you from making a run at each other to keep you both in check.”

“And if we try to take each other down legit, go to the cops or the city council, Santino hear about it.”

“And maybe you end up with your own bad knee.”

“At least.”

I tapped my fingers on the arms of my chair. It was a very comfortable chair. “Which brings us to the crux of the conversation. You can’t make a move on your own, can’t go to the cops or the city leaders, and Santino has his boot on your neck. Which leaves you only one way out of this situation.”

Ross pointed his thumb and finger at me like a gun and dropped the hammer.

“You need an outsider,” I said.

“Got to make it look like Lopez made the first move.”

“Self-defense.”

“Exactly.”

“What makes you think I’m up to the task?”

“You got no choice. Lopez coming for you.”

“You sound awfully sure about that.”

“I know Lopez.”

“Still, for a guy with an operation like his, I’m small fry. What’s he want with my trade if he’s so big time?”

“Maybe he not as big time as you think.”

“Meaning?”

Ross sat forward and steepled his hands in his desk. “We two different kind of squirrels, him and me. He a lazy squirrel. Greedy. Like to fill his belly and don’t worry too much about the future. Not like me. I be a smart squirrel. Store my acorns for winter and make sure all the little squirrels got something to eat till springtime. Lopez, he all out of acorns. Got nothing to keep his men in line but promises and threats. He can’t take from the locals ‘cause Santino bust his other knee for him if he does. Can’t take from me for the same reason.”

“Caravans?”

“Not them either. He can sell ‘em booze and women and whatever else they want, but it got to be voluntary. No highway robbery. And as you may have noticed, ain’t no caravans right now. Even if there was, you ain’t with no caravan, now is you?”

“I is not.”

“There you go.”

“So if he kills me and steals my trade and women and livestock…”

“Ain’t no skin off Santino’s back. Not so long as Lopez keeps it quiet.”

“Sell the livestock, offload the trade, send the women out of town, bury the bodies, that kind of thing.”

“Exactly.”

I sat and observed Ross for the better part of a minute. He stared back placidly. I did not trust him. I did not believe he was telling me the truth, or at least not all of it. I had the feeling there was something I was missing, some piece of the puzzle he had laid out that I had not accounted for. The thing about him and Lopez being at odds was believable enough, but the rest of it smacked of contrivance. Whatever the missing piece was, I did not have time at present to dwell on it, nor did I have the luxury of refusing Ross’ offer.

“So how do you want to play this?” I said. “You got a plan?”

Another smile. “Oh, I got a plan.”

“Of course you do.”

Ross slid the dossier closer to me. “You got some homework to do. Use my office. Terrell stay with you, keep you out of trouble.”

With that, Ross stood up and left. He did not look back as he shut the door behind him. I looked at Terrell.

“Got anything to drink around here?”

He pointed at a cupboard behind Ross’ desk. “In there.”

I walked around the desk and opened the cupboard. “Chivas Regal,” I said. “Not bad.”

“Don’t much care for it myself,” Terrell said. “I’m a gin man.”

“To each his own.”

I poured myself a drink, sat down in Ross’ chair, and started reading.

The day after meeting with Ross I sent a runner to a book store down the street. He came back with a box of paperbacks and a hardback copy of
For Whom the Bell Tolls
. I promised Elizabeth there would be no spoilers this time. I felt bad for ruining the ending of her last Hemingway novel.

We stayed in the room most of the day, only coming downstairs to eat in the lobby/bar/restaurant that comprised the ground floor. The food was simple but well prepared. We slept in shifts that night, someone always armed and watching the door.

The next morning I went out to check on the livestock. Ross said he would send a couple of guys to shadow me and make sure Lopez didn’t move too early. The couple of guys turned out to be four. None of them was particularly good at tailing, but having so many following me told me I was a priority for Ross, which meant I was vital to whatever he was planning to do. This did not make me feel better. Ross did not know me and would not have given a damn about me if he did. To him, I was a pawn. Nothing more.

The oxen and horses were in good shape. They had been well fed and given plenty of water and allowed to exercise in a large corral. A stable boy brushed the horses down every night and gave extra hay to the oxen, per my instructions.

Done with that, I checked on the trade at the warehouse. The guards searched and disarmed me at the door. Two of them followed me and waited while I took inventory. They did not speak, not even when spoken to. When I was finished they showed me the door and gave me my weapons back. I left without comment.

Later that evening, I took the first watch. Liz and Sabrina bedded down and were snoring gently in less than twenty minutes. At the end of the first hour, as I lay on my bedroll, head propped on a hotel pillow and reading a copy of
A Catskill Eagle
by candlelight, I heard a soft knock at the door. My pistol appeared in my hand as if by magic. I did not remember drawing it or telling myself to do so.

“Just a second,” I said.

Sabrina opened an eye to let me know she was awake. Her hands came out from under the blanket, one holding her Beretta, and the other holding a karambit. I turned to Elizabeth. Her eyes were wide and nervous. I placed a finger over my lips and she nodded. A sun-browned hand went under her pillow and settled on the grip of the pistol waiting there.

The door to the room was secured by a padlock that fastened to a sturdy latch on my side of the door. When the room was unoccupied, the padlock went on a latch on the outside. It occurred to me when I rented the room if anyone wanted to imprison me all they had to do was put a lock on the outside latch, so I had used my multi-tool to remove it. The last couple of nights, rather than lock the door, I had left the padlock open and tucked the shackle through the eye of the interior latch. This kept the door locked from the inside, and if I had to open the door, anyone outside the room waiting to take a shot at me would not hear me fiddling with the lock.

I removed the shackle quietly, stood aside from the door, and placed the pistol against the wood about where I figured center-of-mass would be for anyone in the doorway. 

“Come in,” I said. “It’s unlocked.”

It was dark in the room, a pale glimmer of silver moonlight the only illumination. Someone pushed the door open and said in a low voice, “Ross need to talk to you.”

I pulled the door open the rest of the way. Terrell stuck his head in. “You coming?”

“In a minute.”

“I’ll wait in the hall.”

The door shut and several footsteps creaked in the hallway. The creaking stopped and I felt a slight tremor against my shoulder. I knew if I looked around the corner I would see Terrell leaning against the wall, arms hanging loose so he could get to his weapons quickly.

I evaluated my position. There was no choice but to go down and talk to Ross. But there was the very real possibility things were going to get rough. I had dealt with men like Ross in the past, and I knew how they operated. At some point he was going to establish dominance, or attempt to. People like him can’t stand to let someone be on equal footing. They always have to have leverage, some kind of button they can push to obtain compliance. Ross knew Sabrina and Elizabeth were exactly the kind of thing he could use to manipulate me, but there was also the threat of physical violence. The former concerned me very much, whereas the latter merely made me angry. I had a feeling the next few minutes were going to decide if Ross viewed me as someone working
with
him, or
for
him.

Before I left I dug in my pack and removed a homemade sap. It was made with two thick strips of cow hide, thin hemp twine, and the contents of several shotgun shells containing number 8 bird shot. If the meeting with Ross went south, I wanted a non-lethal option. The sap went into my left hip pocket.

Terrell was waiting around the corner. “Leave your weapons here,” he said.

“No.”

“Boss’s orders.”

“He’s not my boss. I don’t take orders from him.”

“You do when I tell you to.”

“No. I don’t.”

My right hand hung near my Beretta. Terrell’s eyes shifted to it, then back to my face.

“Have it your way. Come on.”

I followed him downstairs at a safe distance. We emerged into the lobby and Terrell proceeded toward the back room. I stopped and took a seat on a stool facing away from the bar. The tables were empty, the door was barred, and only a single lamp above the liquor bottles provided illumination.

“You coming?” Terrell asked, holding up the bar divider.

“Ross wants to talk, we can do it out here.”

“He want you to come to his office.”

“Too bad.”

Terrell stared a few moments, his breathing growing a little heavier. “You walking a thin fucking line, white man.”

“Story of my life.”

The big man turned away and disappeared down the hall. He came back a minute or two later with Ross and two other men. The two newcomers were both large and visibly armed, one white and one Hispanic.

“Nice to see you’re an equal opportunity employer,” I said.

“This here business be a meritocracy,” Ross said. “I promote based on talent.”

His voice was jovial, but his eyes were steady and cold. Terrell stepped around the corner and began walking toward me. There was purpose in his stride and a gun in his right hand. I slid off my stool.

“Sit down,” Terrell said, still closing the distance.

I knew the big man was fast; he had demonstrated that when he had searched me. But doing so had been a mistake on his part. If he had taken his time, I might have underestimated him. One should always attempt to seem less dangerous than one actually is. But evidently no one had ever bothered to inform Terrell of this rule. So when I drew my Beretta and pointed it at his head faster than he could bring up his own weapon, the surprise on his face was highly satisfying.

“That’s far enough, big guy. Put the gun on the ground and kick it away.”

He stood and stared. There was motion to my right. In a practiced move, I dropped the Beretta, caught it with my left hand, and whipped the little revolver from the small of my back.

“Ah-ah,” I said to one of the thugs behind Ross. “Hands where I can see them. All of you.”

No one moved. I fired a round from the revolver between the heads of Ross’ two thugs, splintering the wooden wall behind them.

“Do it now!”

Their hands came up slowly, as did Ross’. The veneer of amusement on his face had disappeared.

“You’re buying yourself a world of trouble,” Ross said. The Southern accent and ghetto diction was suddenly gone from his voice. I’d figured it for an affectation, but its absence was still a startling contrast.

“Don’t bullshit me, Ross,” I said. “Want to explain why you closed the bar, locked the place up, and told Terrell to bring me down to your office, unarmed, in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe you worry me.”

“That what the two goons are for? Figured you needed to make it four-on-one for a fair fight? And I can’t help but notice you’re all armed.”

“You readin’ too much into it. Put the guns down and we talk.”

The accent was creeping back in, telling me Ross’ anger was fading and he was attempting to reassert control. He was used to being in charge, to giving orders, to intimidating people. He was not used to being outmaneuvered. I could kill him if I wanted to, and he knew it. I had shown him I was not someone to be trifled with. I had shown him how badly he had underestimated me. I had shown him he wasn’t necessarily the most dangerous man in the room. And while these were all good things, my problem now was to find a way to bring this confrontation to a peaceful resolution that allowed Ross to save face, and allowed me to retain him as an ally.

“So let’s examine the situation,” I said. “You send Terrell up to my room and he tells me you want to see me. Tells me to leave my weapons. I bet that works most of the time, doesn’t it? Terrell is a scary man. Most people probably fall all over themselves to do what he says. But then I tell him no, and he sees he can’t scare me, and he sees I’m willing to do violence against him. So he does what any good soldier does when he’s faced with a situation he doesn’t know how to handle—he reports back for further orders. Only he was expecting me to come to your office like a good little lamb. Both of you were. Why wouldn’t I, right? You already said you were going to help me. What reason would I have to be suspicious?”

Ross remained silent.

“And the moment I walked through the door your men were all set to jump me, rough me up, point some guns at me, threaten me, tell me how things were going to be. And after that you were going to take my trade, take the women with me, and use them against me as leverage to get me to do what you wanted. And afterward, I wouldn’t be much use to you now would I? How am I doing so far?”

A shrug. “Pretty good, actually.”

“You must think I’m pretty fucking stupid.”

“Till now.”

“Glad to hear it. Because you see, I’ve been doing some thinking since our little meeting. I’ve been thinking about you, and Lopez, and Santino, and Thornberg. I’ve been thinking about how convenient is was that Lopez knew exactly where and when to look for me, and how he seemed to recognize me on the street. I’ve been thinking how quickly you were willing to tell me about your troubles with Lopez and offer to help me deal with him. What do you think about all that, Ross?”

“I think you reachin’. I think you be paranoid.”

“Sounds that way doesn’t it? I was thinking the same thing until something occurred to me and I had what you might call a minor epiphany. Know what that was?”

No answer.

“The morning Thornberg first came to see me,” I said, “he knew my name. He knew who I was. And being on Santino’s staff means he has security clearance, which means he has access to classified files in the Archive. He would have had plenty of time to read up on me before bringing me to Santino. What exactly did he tell you about me, Ross?”

Another shrug. “Few things. You work for the government some. You a trigger man. Shit like that.”

I felt the connotation ‘trigger man’ was an unfair misrepresentation, but decided now was not the time to discuss it.

“So the two of you got together and discussed me. Figured I might be the man to help you solve your little territorial dispute without arousing the ire of Major Santino. And if I couldn’t, no big deal. A small group without a caravan is like chum in a shark tank. I wouldn’t be missed, and neither would my trade or the women traveling with me. Still tracking?”

“You smart, Ivy League. I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now as I’m sure you’ve figured out, there are three ways this can play out. First, and easiest for me, is I kill the four of you and claim self-defense. Santino will probably give me a medal. Lopez moves in and takes your territory. Probably forgets all about me.”

I let the comment hang and watched Ross’ expression. The gears turning behind the coal-black eyes were well-tuned and finely-made. This was his chance to save face—and his life—and he was acutely aware of it.

“Or maybe he don’t,” Ross said. “Maybe he be mad you stole his thunder. Maybe he don’t like some lone wolf did what he couldn’t. Make him look bad. Maybe he kill you on general principle.”

“You missed one.”

Ross raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe he wants to clip you himself. Maybe he wants it so bad he’d kill me for getting to you first. It wouldn’t be unprecedented in the annals of criminal lore.”

Ross laughed quietly. “You talk a good game, Ivy League. But tell me something. Your arms gettin’ tired yet?”

“Hell no,” I said. “Between all the time I spend shooting and working the speed bag and sparring and everything else, I can hold my guns like this all day.”

“Good to know.”

I saw movement in the shadows near the staircase. My face threatened to peel back into a smile, but I resisted the urge. It was time to bring this thing to a close and provide Ross with another demonstration of prowess. Ordinarily I would have considered my next move a dumb one, but I knew Ross was a hard man to impress. Either I instilled a healthy fear in him now, or I would have to spend the rest of my time in Dodge City watching my back.