It wasn’t exactly Washington, D.C., but Smith guessed it was good enough for Gaffney…and the man who called himself the Judge.
Hobson led him through the courthouse, which was mostly empty except for an elderly man sweeping the floors and a woman, about the same age, wiping down all the glossy and glass surfaces with a wet rag. Smith couldn’t help but notice that all the menial labor jobs were done by older people in Gaffney.
Their boots echoed off the polished tile floor and up the steps to an office on the second floor. Another man that Smith remembered from Hobson’s posse yesterday stood guard outside a door marked, simply, JUDGE. The man was wearing the same Cornhuskers cap and was eating breakfast from a metal tray when they arrived.
“Judge in yet, Dunham?” Hobson asked.
The guard nodded. “Inside.”
Hobson opened the door and motioned for Smith to enter first.
He did.
The Judge was at the window inside the large room, peering out at the immaculately clean streets outside. Sunlight reflected off his bald head as he turned it to look over at Smith. “Mr. Smith. Welcome to Gaffney.”
The man who called himself Judge was in his late fifties, with a balding head and a round shape that told Smith he hadn’t starved during The Purge, or the years since. He wore a flowing black robe that looked tailored for his generous paunch, and the sight of him in his “official” garb made Smith wonder if the man wore it all the time.
“Not your real name, of course,” the Judge was saying.
“What makes you say that?” Smith said.
“John Smith? Really?”
“You don’t think there are people out there actually named John Smith?”
“Oh, I’m sure there are. I just don’t believe you’re one of them.”
“That’s your prerogative, Judge.”
Hobson had taken up position behind Smith, while Kyle stood in front of the closed door. Stephens had remained outside with Dunham.
The Judge pulled down the curtains to cut off some of the natural light and walked over to his desk, where he opened a drawer and took out a box of hard candy. He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth before working it around his gums and, on occasion, clamping down with pearl-white dentures.
The big man picked up one of those candies (Smith glimpsed Jolly Ranchers on the side of it) and offered it to him. “Did you have breakfast yet?”
“Not yet,” Smith said. “And no thanks. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”
“That’s my problem. Too much of a sweet tooth.” The Judge unwrapped the proffered candy and added it to the one already in his mouth. “Is that the latest fashion?”
“What’s that?”
The Judge tapped his own temple.
Ah, Blake’s bra.
“It’s all the rage with the kids,” Smith said.
The Judge chuckled. “That’s my other problem. No sense of fashion trends.”
One of many, I’m sure, Smith thought.
He said, “So what am I doing here? It’s not to discuss trends, is it? ’Cause I have to tell you, I’m going to come up pretty short on that subject.”
“Right to business, eh?” the Judge said.
Smith shrugged. “It’s early, and as previously pointed out, I’m hungry. I’m hoping that once we’ve had our talk, you’ll let me eat something.”
The Judge sat down in a swivel chair that squeaked loudly as he settled his large heft on it. The man heard it too, and glanced past Smith at Hobson. “Remind me to get Henry to put some WD-40 on this thing, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” Hobson said.
The Judge folded his hands on the desk in front of him and stared across the huge furniture at Smith. “I’m trying to decide what to do with you, Mister Smith.”
“Is that why you abducted me from Mandy’s junkyard?” Smith asked.
“Is that what happened last night?”
“You don’t know?”
The Judge shrugged but didn’t confirm or deny. The man said instead, “I read Mr. Hobson’s report. He says things were a little chaotic last night. You know what they say about the fog of war.”
“And what do you know about war? All you did was attack a junkyard full of women.”
The Judge smirked. “Dangerous women.”
“To you.”
“To all of us. To Gaffney.”
“From what I hear, they don’t want to be a part of Gaffney.”
“Is that what they told you?”
“It’s not true?”
The Judge shrugged before leaning back in his chair, which creaked loudly under the strain. “It’s complicated.”
“Of course it is,” Smith said. “But I still don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Mister Hobson and the boys retraced your steps yesterday. They found the bodies you left behind. You killed those men in my jurisdiction, Mr. Smith.”
“And who gave you this jurisdiction, exactly?”
“I did.”
“Is that how it works?”
“It is, these days.”
“I suppose anyone can do anything they want, as long as they have the guns to back it up,” Smith said, turning his head slightly to “look” back at Hobson without actually following through with it.
“I brought law and order to a lawless land, Mr. Smith,” the Judge said. “The people appreciate that.”
“Not everyone.”
The Judge smiled without showing a single one of his gleaming white teeth. “Yes, well. As the saying goes, you can’t please everyone. So only a fool would try.”
“And you’re not a fool, I take it.”
“Far from it.”
The man leaned back across the desk, round black eyes focusing in on Smith with the kind of intensity that was supposed to be intimidating. Except Smith had been under the harsh glare of better, tougher men, and the Judge didn’t come close.
“What do you want?” Smith asked.
“I want you to go back to that junkyard and bring Mandy back here,” the Judge said. “Or, failing that, end her life.”
Ah. There it is. The real reason I’m being “judged.”
He wished he could say he was surprised, but he wasn’t.
“And if I don’t?” Smith asked.
The Judge leaned back and folded his hands across his wide chest. “I’ve gone over the evidence that Mr. Hobson presented to me. Having done so, I’m confident in making the judgement that you murdered those three men in cold blood, without just reason or due process.”
“You did all that in less than one day, huh?”
“Justice moves speedily around these parts.”
“I can see that.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’ve been found guilty.”
“So no trial, then? Your boy Travis said I was going to get a trial.”
“Travis was…misinformed. I made my judgement based on all the evidence before me last night. Since there was very little doubt as to what the verdict would be, I saw fit to skip right to the judgement. You know, to save everyone time.”
“So I don’t get to defend myself?”
“You can, if you want, but it won’t make any difference. My decision is final.”
“That’s convenient.”
“This is Gaffney.”
“I guess so,” Smith said. Then, “So what’s the punishment?”
“Hanging, or death by firing squad. Your choice.”
“I get to decide, huh?”
“Or I can decide for you, if you would like.”
“What’s option number three?”
“I already told you.”
“Kill Mandy for you.”
The Judge shrugged. “Or bring her back here alive. Whichever is easier for you. I have no preference.”
“What do you want with her?”
“She has crimes to answer to. I have stacks of charges against her.”
“So unlike me, she gets a trial.”
The Judge smiled.
“Or not,” Smith said.
“The evidence against her is even more overwhelming than it was against you. And like your case, the judgement against Mandy wasn’t ever really in doubt.”
“More swift justice.”
“It’s the only kind that works out here.” Then, without a pause, “So what will it be, Mr. Smith?”
“Seems like I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice. Everyone has a choice.”
Smith smiled.
The Judge returned it.
“I’ll need a gun,” Smith said.
“Of course you will,” the Judge said.
Eighteen
“So this is how it works in Gaffney, huh?” Smith asked.
“Just about,” Hobson said.
“No wonder you guys are so popular with your neighbors.”
“We get by.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I took you for a decent man when we first met.”
“Did you, now?”
“I guess I was wrong.”
“I guess you were.”
Smith smiled and nodded, even as he thought, I’ll keep that in mind when we’re standing across from each other with guns in our hands, sheriff.
After the very short meeting with the Judge, where Smith was given his “do or die” options, Hobson and Smith’s other two guards walked him out of the courthouse. But instead of heading back to the police station to rejoin Blake, they took him to a small building that turned out to be a clinic, where a woman who called herself Amy took the silly bra off Smith’s head and treated his bullet graze and last night’s bleeding properly. The clinic wasn’t much to look at, but it had everything Amy needed to make sure his wound wasn’t infected.
Hobson had left after dropping Smith off at the clinic, but Kyle and Stephens remained behind. Both men stood watching as Amy worked on Smith, as if Smith was going to do anything.
Right now, Smith was biding his time. There was no need to take chances. Sooner or later, the opportunities would present themselves. When that happened, he would grab them, and God help anyone who stood in his way.
Amy was standing next to Smith, finishing up, when he noticed the tattoo on the interior of her forearm. It was two plain black X’s resting on top of one another. Except, of course, Smith knew what they really were. It was a rune called an inguz.
“You used to be Black Tide,” he said.
The doctor—he wasn’t sure if she was actually a doctor in the MD sense, but she was the closest thing Gaffney had to one—gave him a surprised look even as she taped the bandage into place. “How did you know that?”
“Your tattoo.”
“Oh,” she said.
From her slightly surprised reaction, he guessed she’d forgotten she even had it. She was young—early thirties, with curly brown hair and sympathetic blue eyes—and reminded him of a lot of the younger medic trainees back on the island. And maybe she had been one of them, once upon a time, so how did she end up here?
From the way Amy seemed to sneak a look back at Kyle and Stephens without letting on that she was doing it, it was pretty obvious to Smith that the two men didn’t know about her past, and she wanted to keep it that way.
She confirmed that by saying to him, “It’s history.”
“Understood,” Smith said.
She gave him a Do you? Understand? look.
He pursed a smile. “The past is the past, right?”
“Right.”
“Thanks for the touchup, doc.”
“Sure.” She walked to a wastebasket and snapped off her surgical gloves, then dropped them inside. “You should be more careful out there. That wound could have gotten infected easily.”
“I wasn’t looking to get shot, doc. It just happened.”
“You should still be more careful,” she said, looking at him as she said it the second time.
He nodded, and thought, Message received, doc. Message received.
“I’ll do that from now on,” he said.
“You done with wasting the good doctor’s time?” a voice asked.
Smith glanced over at Travis, brushing aside the curtain that separated the back of the clinic with the waiting area. He was wearing that Cornhuskers ball cap again and looked every bit as punchable as he had since the first time Smith saw him.
“He’s good to go,” Amy said.
“Come on, then,” Travis said to Smith. “Time for you to earn your keep, tough guy.”
Kyle took off, leaving Smith to be guarded by Stephens and Travis. The former remained behind Smith, while the latter took Hobson’s place up front. Smith thought they would take him right back to Blake, or somewhere else where he could get ready to earn his “keep,” but instead they walked him over to a park about half a block from the police station.
It was a nice, bright morning and there should have been a lot of people out and about, but most of the benches were unoccupied and birds were left to fend for themselves from the scraps, of which there weren’t that many because Gaffney was impossibly clean. Two large sandlots were empty, but there were kids hanging around the slides and seesaws across the park from them, while a half-dozen moms stood watching them diligently. The oldest kid couldn’t have been more than five, and the rest were even younger.
Next to the group of moms and their kids was a young blond boy riding a swing, while a woman pushed him higher and higher.
It took Smith only a few seconds to recognize them:
Mary. The woman pushing the boy was Mary.
And the boy, of course, was Aaron.
Travis was standing next to Smith, giving Smith a good whiff of the man’s strong aftershave, while Stephens hung in the back.
“What are we doing here?” Smith asked.
“Thought it was a day for a stroll, that’s all,” Travis said.
“That’s all, huh?”
“Don’t be so suspicious all the time. It’ll give you ulcers.”
Across from them, Mary pushed Aaron even higher, and the boy laughed as he soared. Mother and son both looked reasonably healthy to Smith. Certainly, he didn’t see handcuffs or chains on them, or anything keeping them in Gaffney against their will.
Travis feigned shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked across the park. “Say, aren’t those your old friends, Mary and Aaron?”
Smith grunted but didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, I think that is them,” Travis said, lowering his hand. “Small world, huh?”
“Yeah. Small world.”
“They look pretty happy. What do you think?”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“It can, yeah, but they look like they really like it here. The boy, especially. I heard he was a mute.”
Smith remained quiet.
“You know,” Travis continued, “it would be a shame if something were to happen to them. To both of them.”
“Yeah,” Smith said. “It would be a shame.”
“But hey, Gaffney is a pretty safe place.” He turned to look at Smith. “What do you think? You think they’ll be safe here, while you’re out there doing what the Judge asked you to do?”
“Did the Judge tell you to bring me here?”
“Nah. I told you. It’s a nice day for a walk, and I thought you’d appreciate some sunshine after being cooped up in that jail cell all night.”
“Mighty kind of you.”
“Hey, that’s me.” He glanced back at Stephens. “What do you think about Mary, Stephens?”
“I think she’s a good-looking woman,” Stephens said.
“She’s definitely that. And single, I hear.”
“You don’t say.”
“Nope. Would be a real shame if anything was to happen to her.”
“Yup. Definitely would be a real shame.”
Travis looked back at Smith. “So why don�
�t you and me make sure nothing happens to her and that boy while Mr. John Smith here is carrying out his mission.”
“You can count on me to keep an eye on those two like a hawk,” Stephens said. “Especially her.”
Almost as if she could hear them talking about her, Mary glanced around the park. She shielded her eyes, the way Travis had faked it earlier, but Mary’s was genuine as she squinted, trying to get a better look at them.
At him.
Then, when she was sure it was him, she waved.
“Wave back, tough guy,” Travis said.
Smith smiled and did as he was told.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Why don’t you go say hi?” Travis said. “Would be rude not to.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to check up on you and the boy.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I was in the area.”
“Well, it’s good to see you again, Mr. Smith, even though it’s only been a day since we last saw each other.”
“Feels longer.”
“Yes. To me, too, oddly enough.”
Smith smiled. It was the best fake smile he could muster, and he hoped it was at least semi-convincing.
Mary narrowed her eyes slightly at him, almost as if she could see through it. He guessed it wasn’t all that convincing after all.
“We’re doing well,” Mary said. “Aaron is doing very well. He’s made some friends and is adjusting as well as I’d hoped. Better, actually.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
They both glanced back at the boy, who had moved from the swings and over to the slides, and was now taking turns to climb up and down with two other kids, both much younger than him. Aaron really did look like he was having the time of his life, though.
His mother, on the other hand…
Smith had to remind himself that he hadn’t known Mary long enough to be able to read her expressions with 100 percent certainty. Even so, it was hard to miss the not-entirely-comfortable smile she gave him when they first met; and now, as she talked about how well Aaron was doing.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith (Book 2): Run or Fight Page 12
