The Subway

by Dustin Stevens

  Wherever there were hardscrabble people, folks that had tired of the system, were ready to cash things in and succumb to their vices, the Baxters were only a call away.

  For years, they had been the target of numerous local and federal efforts, a list that included even the resources of the reservation.

  Touched men like her father, acting Chief of Police before his own untimely death.

  Last she’d heard, the entire thing had gone offline in the wake of Eric’s arrest six years before. Plenty of people had openly speculated about where they were or what they were up to, the most common belief being that they were just biding time until his sentence was up, searching for their chance to emerge again.

  Only Davis knew better.

  Much, much better.

  More than one young and aspiring law enforcement agent in the area had spent every free moment digging into them, wanting nothing more than for them to be the rocket they hitched their career to.

  And now here was Tim, potentially offering some such story.

  If any of it could be believed.

  Letting him get to the end of the story, Davis nodded in silence, fighting to keep her visage free of expression, fitting everything he’d just shared against what she already knew.

  It was seated in that position, waiting for him to add the final bits to his tale, to complete what he’d already begun, answer her question about his next move, that she first spotted it.

  With a simple glance to the rearview mirror, she saw the oversized pickup rumble into view. Starting as nothing more than a blurred line on the horizon, rising up out of the heat waves swaying above the pavement, she watched as it grew closer.

  Fast.

  Much too fast for a road as small as the one they were parked on.

  Feeling her nerves tighten, she extended her right hand from her thigh to the gear shift between them, alternating glances between Tim and the mirror.

  For his part, he was back to staring out the front, his mind in a different place, trying to determine the best way to answer her question.

  As if she didn’t already know why he was really there.

  Behind them, the truck grew ever larger, a rig the size of a small tank, painted yellow, a chrome grille glinting beneath the summer sun. While the last few cars to move past had edged into the opposite lane, taking care to give them ample room along the shoulder, this one kept its front aimed at them, the sound of its engine becoming audible over the air conditioning piping out at them.

  A spike of adrenaline jolted through Davis, a flutter rising from her stomach to her chest in milliseconds. Watching, waiting, she spied the truck continuing to bear down on them, the thundering blare of a horn rolling out from it, as deafening as a fog horn in the still air.

  “Hold on!” she snapped, drawing Tim’s attention her way as she jerked back on the gear shift, simultaneously pressing the gas pedal to the floor.

  On contact, the RPM needle swung in a quick arc, the engine rumbling, tires grabbing at loose grass, the backend swaying from side to side, fighting for purchase.

  Releasing her hold on the gas for just an instant, Davis watched the truck close the gap between them, no more than fifteen yards separating the two sides. Crushing it against the floorboard a second time, she felt the tires spin just an instant before grabbing hold, hurtling them forward.

  The angry braying of the horn erupted again behind them as they fishtailed out onto the road, a furious mix of grass and dirt and scorched rubber. A host of sounds and smells filled the car as Tim rose from the passenger seat, turning to peer through the back window.

  “What the hell?!” he screamed, looking from the window to her and back again.

  Doing the same through the rearview, Davis kept one hand on the wheel, the other reaching for the radio under the dash.

  “Friends of yours?” she asked, snatching the microphone free and bringing it to her lips.

  Beside her, Tim made some response, the words not finding their way to her as she held the receiver close, aware that the truck behind them was less than ten yards back, so large it filled the width of her view in the mirror.

  “Tanner!” she screamed into the device. “Officer requesting backup! Repeat, officer requesting backup!”

  Releasing her grip on the side lever, she waited for a response, praying he was sitting at his desk and not off for his third lunch of the day.

  “Tanner, goddamit! I am on Briar Road, being pursued by a yellow pickup truck with Georgia plates, numbering-“

  Looking back to the mirror, she tried to focus on the swaying image, fighting to pick out the exact digits scrolled across it.

  “Shit,” she spat, jerking a glance over to Tim. “They’re too close for me, can you see-“

  The rest of her question never made it out, his hand instead finding her shoulder, shoving her low behind the wheel.

  “Gun! Gun! Gun!”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I would have thought that the windows on an official police vehicle were bulletproof. At the very least, that they would have been strong enough to withstand a simple round from a handgun.

  No such luck.

  The first round struck the rear window, a crystalline patch forming almost a half-inch across, tendrils of various size and length snaking out around it.

  The second was enough to shatter the tensile strength of the glass, a shower of shards erupting into the rear space, the smaller ones becoming projectiles inside the cabin. Aided by the hot air swirling around us, they tore at every bit of exposed skin we had, shearing minute stripes into my exposed bicep and shoulder as I reached across the middle console, pushing Lou down behind her seat.

  “This damn thing go any faster?” I yelled, keeping one hand on her shoulder as I lowered myself down below my own chair. Turning sideways, I tucked my shoulder up tight against the cloth, peering out around it.

  “I’m going fifty!” Lou screamed back, twisting the wheel hard to the right, the sensation of us losing contact with the ground filtering in.

  A moment later we leveled out, weight squaring back up, bodies bouncing slightly as we landed.

  Without the tinted rear window, the truck on our tail was much clearer, a hulking rig that towered above us, the downward angle likely being the only reason the first few rounds hadn’t been placed with better precision.

  The truck had three people in it, all males, all looking young and large. One driving, two more were positioned in the bed, leaning out over the top of the roof, handguns extended before them.

  “Three guys, two shooters,” I yelled, maintaining my post long enough to see a pair of orange blossoms erupt from the end of them, one on either side of the roof.

  The first we could hear pinging off the metal above our heads, the other drawing nothing.

  “Tanner!” Lou screamed into her microphone beside me. “Tanner, where the hell is my backup?!”

  I had no idea who Tanner was or what he was responding, but I could tell from the tension in Lou’s voice, her death grip on the receiver in her hand, that they weren’t giving her the response she wanted.

  Chancing a glance back, I saw another flash of light, the truck continuing to fire on us.

  This one too struck nothing as I retreated below the seat. Tucking myself up tight, I peered at Lou beside me, a cocktail of emotions splayed across her features. I heard another round ping against the rear body of the Bronco, feeling us bounce over the uneven country road.

  I thought of the reason I was even in Tennessee, of the smell of my uncle’s blood in my old house.

  Of the queen left in his bedroom.

  I won’t say it was like a moment in a movie, Kurt Russell in Tombstone or even The Rock in The Rundown. There was no massive epiphany, no special words or me doing something stupid.

  But there was damn sure the realization that I had had all of the shit I was willing to take from these people.

  Leaning forward, I grabbed up the backpack between my feet, jerking the z
ipper open, the top gaping wide. Moving by pure touch, my fingers slid around the gnarled grip of the Beretta, pulling it free.

  Two feet away, Lou’s eyes went wide as she stared at it, her mouth half-open, the microphone just inches away from it.

  “Keep it steady,” I said, pressing the window down beside me, more air flooding in, a vortex whipping around us in both directions, flying in a twisted pattern.

  Without waiting for a response, I shoved my body out through the opening, balancing my ass on the window ledge. With my chest tight up against the frame, I held the Beretta in my left hand, arm tracing along the contour of the Bronco.

  Maintaining our speed, Lou keeping us aimed down the center of the street, I felt wind flow over my body, could feel the heat of the air on my skin, the adrenaline rushing through me. Vaguely I registered a flurry of shots coming from the top of the truck, both guys extended forward, gripping their guns in both hands.

  And, just like Uncle Jep taught me, I blocked it all out.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled back on the trigger, the first shot bisecting the space between them. Adjusting an imperceptible amount to the right, I squeezed another time, less than a second separating the two.

  Striking true, I watched as the man on the right jerked back, a spastic movement that could only be caused by a bullet hitting at full force.

  Shifting back in the opposite direction, I let loose aquick flurry, sending the other gunman down behind the hood of the truck for cover.

  One last time I adjusted my aim, this time coming after the man behind the wheel.

  Seeing me do that, he jerked the rig to the side, the big yellow machine facing us broadside as it swung across the road, disappearing down a dirt lane to the left. At our given rate of speed, we kept hurtling on ahead, the gap between us growing until they were gone from sight.

  Even after that, I maintained my pose for a full minute before sliding back inside. Returning down to the seat, I felt the prick of a few shards of glass that were embedded in the cloth jab up into the back of my thighs, puncturing the skin.

  With the receiver still clutched in her hand, Lou slowed the Bronco to a stop, coming to a standstill in the middle of the street, her lips parted as she stared right at me.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked.

  The most immediate response was that it was me saving our asses, keeping that truck from running us into the lake or shooting us one at a time or even worse, wounding us and delivering us back to where they had come from.

  The more prudent answer was to say nothing of the sort.

  “That was me answering your question from earlier,” I replied. “That’s why I’m here now.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The meetup with the group of three young men Vic Baxter had sent over left a sour taste in Radney Creel’s mouth. Despite the best efforts of his employer to assure him they were meant as nothing more than posturing, extra reinforcements to be moved around, trotted out, cast aside at his discretion, he couldn’t help but feel like their presence represented some form of personal slight.

  Like Baxter was stating he alone wasn’t sufficient for what they were up against.

  Which, as far as he could tell, was a single guy that had spent a few years in the army.

  Once upon a time, Creel had been as well. In more reent times, he had beaten four of them in a bar fight by himself. And two of them were armed.

  It was bad enough that he had already been saddled with Elijah Pyle, a situation that he was yet to completely wrap his mind around, and something that was definitely non-negotiable when it was first presented to him.

  With that assortment of thoughts roiling through his mind, Creel sat behind the steering wheel of his truck. Bypassing the air conditioning, he rolled with the windows down, letting the wind whip through the narrow space, passing over his skin.

  Reclined against the seatback, he draped a hand over the wheel and let his eyes glaze, thinking through his next steps. Outside, the world had receded into an even mix of green and gold – pine trees and dry, brittle grass.

  Moving past his blurred vision in two enormous stripes - the only other color registering with him the blue of the sky above - Creel set a course for the farmhouse.

  Fifteen minutes later he arrived, his mood no better, a plan in place for how to proceed. At least for the next hour or two, everything after that being pretty pliable, depending on how things played out.

  Leaving his truck in the center of the driveway, not bothering to pull into the garage and stow it from view, Creel climbed out and strode across the front walk. Bursting through the front door, he entered to find Pyle still in his usual position.

  Without a shirt and wearing a thin layer of sweat, muscle definition and veins were plainly evident, as if the man had just finished working out in the minutes before his arrival.

  Where or how that could have happened, Creel didn’t feign to know, not particularly interested in the man’s fitness regimen.

  Jerking his head up from the weapon he was cleaning once again, Pyle asked, “You have him?”

  As he delivered the question, a gleam that looked almost ravenous settled on his features, a vulture eager for his next meal.

  Having witnessed what the man did to Jessup Lynch, it was a look almost enough to make Creel’s stomach turn.

  “No,” Creel replied. “God damn media showed up at the exact same time.”

  Setting the gun down, Pyle leaned back in his chair. Tilting his chin toward the ceiling, the hollows of his collarbones growing more pronounced, he dug at the stubble growing along his throat.

  “The media? Did you...?”

  “No,” Creel said. “Baxter.”

  Finishing his scratching, Pyle lowered his chin back to square. “Huh. Where is Scarberry now?”

  Opting against answering just yet, Creel pulled out the chair before him. Settling himself down into it, he rested both elbows on the table, measuring up Pyle square.

  In the business that he and Baxter worked in, the community was actually quite small. There were only so many people that did what they did, the number able to be counted on both hands, less than that if one was considering only major players.

  Even in a place as gun crazy as Georgia, there was only so much demand to go around.

  Especially when most people could just walk into Wal-Mart and snatch up most anything they wanted these days.

  As such, Creel had a pretty good hold on who was who, on a first name basis with everybody worth knowing.

  Not once had he ever heard of, let alone encountered, Elijah Pyle.

  Yet still, Baxter insisted on his presence.

  A few years older than Creel, he clearly had some experience, some skills that lent themselves to being a veteran of the life, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  Just like the young men currently being fed out as bait, someone looking the part and actually having the ability to handle themselves were two vastly different things.

  “Who is E?” Creel asked.

  If Pyle was surprised in the slightest at getting the question, he didn’t let it show, his only response being a slight raise of his eyebrows.

  “You really want to have this conversation right now?”

  “I really wanted to have it a few hours ago, but we got cut off,” Creel replied.

  There was no immediate response to that, the two sides sitting and staring at one another, each measuring their adversary.

  For the first days of their tenuous partnership, it had been pretty easy to maintain distance. They were two professionals brought together for a job, bought and paid for by a trusted source.

  Now, as things were evolving a bit, the definition of their interaction was shifting with it.

  “How long you been with Baxter?” Pyle asked.

  Feeling vitriol well within him, Creel snapped, “You asked me that already.”

  “And remind me what you said,” Pyle countered, his voice not rising, his feat
ures intimating he was almost enjoying the back and forth.

  His molars grinding slightly, Creel could feel his heart rate increasing, spite rising.

  “Two years.”

  “Two years,” Pyle said. Nodding, he pursed his lips a bit, adding, “So you don’t know a damn thing then, do you?”

  All eight of Creel’s fingers curled back, his nails digging into his palms as he stared across the table.

  “About what?”

  “About how things used to be round here,” Pyle replied. “What, you think an operation that large got there by hiding in a warehouse out in the woods? That Vic was the man that built this empire?”

  Having never thought much about either question, or having the slightest clue where they were meant to lead to, Creel remained silent, sitting and staring.

  “E is Eric Baxter,” Pyle replied. “The older brother. The smart one of the family. The guy who based things on the western edge of Atlanta, where the real money was at.”

  Only a time or two had Creel heard the name Eric Baxter, someone that was alluded to and nothing more.

  Why he was E, how Pyle fit in with him, he still hadn’t the slightest idea.

  Leaning forward, Pyle braced his upper body against the table, matching Creel’s pose as he lowered his voice. “The one that got sent to prison, leaving the whole damn thing to Vic, who promptly turned tail and ran away.”

  As he spoke, hints of bitterness, resentment, crept into his words, bleeding across his face.

  For a moment, neither side said a word, sitting and staring, each searching the other for some visible response.

  “Jesus, you’ve never heard a word of this, have you?”

  Defensiveness crept up inside Creel. “I’m not from around here. No reason for me to have followed this backwoods bullshit.”

  “Backwoods bullshit,” Pyle repeated, his eyebrows rising as he pushed himself back a few inches. Taking his gun up from the table, he began again with his cleaning rag, his gaze averted. “You just whore yourself out to the highest bidder, cash the checks with a clear conscience. That it?”