by Harvey, JM
He hadn’t made ten feet before a brand new Lincoln Continental pulled to a stop beside him, blocking the exit to Mockingbird. The car was immaculate black, long and low, with an old fashioned chrome hood ornament that was large enough to be the prow decoration on a pirate ship.
“Fine looking boys you got there,” Garland Sutton said from where he sat, hunched over the steering wheel of the vehicle. Jasper Smith lounged in the passenger seat, one crucifix-scarred forearm propped on the window ledge, a longneck Lone Star in his fist. Smith had a blackened right eye and an un-bandaged cut on his cheek that had gone scabby. Sweat was running down Jasper’s torso, but Garland didn’t seem to mind the heat. His pressed jeans and long-sleeved white shirt looked dry, the shirt buttoned all the way to the top. He had a beer bottle between his legs and a lopsided smile on his face.
Between the two men sat an open cardboard twelve-pack of Lone Star. There were several unopened bottles left, but it wasn’t the beer that caught Val’s eye, it was the checkered grip of an automatic pistol tucked down in the box with them.
“I had me two little tow-heads like that once,” Garland continued, his eyes slipping to the boys. He didn’t sound drunk, but his eyes were muddy and dark, the whites as runny as undercooked eggs. He smiled at the boys and Kyle let out a whimper of fear as instinctive as the cry of a baby rabbit being stalked by a coyote.
Val’s fingers knotted around the stroller’s handlebar, his eyes stuck on the pistol. Jesus, he wished he had brought a gun. He should have known that Garland was too stupid to lay low even though the Special Tactics Unit out hunting him. Now that mistake had just put Max and Kyle in the line of fire.
Val tore his eyes off the gun and looked Garland straight in the eye.
“Not like these, old man,” he said, turning sideways, putting himself between the car and the stroller, using his body as a human shield. “Not even close.” Val looked at Jasper. “I heard you had a conversation with Deputy Erath, too,” he said, eyeing the cut on Jasper’s face. “Thanks for siccing him on me.”
Jasper brought the longneck to his lips, took a swallow then gently pressed the cold belly of the bottle against the swollen flesh under his eye. There was a spot of blood on the plastic earpiece of his old-school hearing aid. He shrugged.
“The man has a persuasive way about him,” he admitted. “And he didn’t figure to stop persuading until I gave him someone else to whup up on. Then I thought of you and…” Jasper lifted his shoulders and let them fall.
“Fine looking boys,” Garland said again as he pitched the empty beer bottle over his shoulder into the back seat. He reached for another bottle, nudging the pistol aside as he did so. “All the gold in the world won’t replace a child. I know that better than most.”
The blood rushed to Val’s face, and his molars ground sparks. All of his instincts told him to attack, to take the fight to his enemy, that the best defense was a swift and brutal offense, but he couldn’t do that, couldn’t take that chance, not with the boys in the line of fire.
A horn bleated and Garland looked up from behind the wheel. A red minivan was trying to exit the parking lot but couldn’t squeeze past Garland’s car. It stopped almost nose to nose with the Lincoln. The driver, a fat man with a red face and a loosened tie, honked again. Garland just stared at him through the windshield, lifted his beer and took a long, slow swallow.
The van’s driver got the message. He backed quickly into a parking space, turned and exited the parking lot through the Greenville avenue exit.
“I heard you was playing mommy, but I sure didn’t believe it,” Jasper said, cocking his head to the left to get a better look at the boys. “Not after all the stories I heard down there in Huntsville. You’re a legend, you know. A real bear-killer. You mightn’t believe it, but you got you some admirers down there. Us mainline convicts like our lawmen with the bark on. Some say different, but it ain’t true. We like it just as rough as we can get it, and, believe me, we get it plenty rough.”
“I told you I didn’t want to see you again, Jasper,” Valentine said, ignoring the bantering convict-bullshit as he shot another glance at the gun in the beer box. He had never felt more naked, more defenseless, but these men were hyenas; showing fear would only draw violence and blood. And a couple of dead toddlers wouldn’t even make these boys flinch.
Jasper frowned as he reached down to the hearing aid’s speaker box clipped to his belt and adjusted the volume. “We didn’t come here to cause no trouble,” he said. “I just had to see it for myself. Vicious Valentine playing wet nurse.” Jasper took another swallow of beer, grinned at the boys then waggled his fingers in a wave. They had the good sense not to wave back. “I’d think a pretty little family like you got would make a man realize what’s important in life. I’d say protecting those children would be more important than any amount of money. I—”
Val was done listening, and he sure wasn’t thinking. The aggression that had been hardwired into his skull by the Army and his years on the police force took over. He crossed the sidewalk in a single stride, jerked the Lincoln’s door open, grabbed a fistful of Jasper’s hair, and spilled the ex-convict face-first into the gutter. Jasper’s beer bottle shattered on the curb.
Val had been blessed with a whole lot of quick, speed he had honed during his years behind a gun. It had been four years since he retired, but he hadn’t lost much of that speed. Before Smith could react, Val had ducked into the car and grabbed the pistol from the beer box. Garland made no move to stop him. The old man just took another swig of beer, his eyes following Val with all the interest of a man watching reruns on TV.
Jasper landed on his hands and knees, but he didn’t stay down long– he rocketed up off the pavement, his oversized hands knotted into fists, ready to throw a punch, but he froze stock-still when Val jammed the pistol’s barrel into the hollow of his right cheek.
Jasper’s skin shrunk tight to his skull, outlining every bone and vein, his pupils were hard pinpoints, his teeth locked in a snarl. Val waited for him to make a move. Waited for an excuse to kill him.
But Jasper wasn’t that stupid. He chuckled and the tension evaporated from his body. He lowered his hands to his sides and un-balled his fists.
“Looks like you got the drop on me, boss,” he said, a rueful smile playing across his face. “And with my own gun.” He twisted his head against the barrel of the pistol to look at Kyle and Max. “You boys should be proud. Your daddy here sure is quick with his hands. He’s even quicker with a gun. Kills people for a hobby. Cripples little girls and—”
That was as far as he got before Val smashed the barrel of the pistol into his face, slashing Jasper’s cheek to the bone. Blood flew, Jasper’s eyes rolled and he sagged toward the pavement. But Val didn’t let him go down. He grabbed Jasper by the hair, twisting his fingers into the greasy blond tangle, jerked him back up and shoved him against the side of the Lincoln just in time for Smith’s front teeth to meet the downward arc of the pistol’s barrel. Jasper threw up his hands to protect himself, but Val battered them down then continued to hammer at the man’s face and head with the barrel of the pistol until Jasper’s knees buckled.
A deep laceration in Jasper’s scalp pulsed blood in an angry flood and bone peeked through the gash on his cheek. Broken teeth glittered in the gutter alongside Jasper’s hearing aid, its plastic case cracked down the middle. But Smith was still conscious, still looking up at Val, his eyes bright with fear and hatred. He knew he was going to die.
You’re damned right he was. Val jammed the 9mm into Jasper’s eye socket and cocked the hammer. His finger tightened on the trigger, centimeters from sending Jasper on to the next life.
“Good bye, Jasper.”
Kyle screamed, a shriek that sliced right through the black spell Val was under, jerking him back from the edge of insanity.
Val released Jasper to crumple to the pavement, turned and dropped into a crouch beside the stroller, keeping Jasper and Garland in the corner of his vision
.
“Hey,” he said to the boys. “It’s okay.” Kyle’s eyes were pinned on his father’s face, tears running down his cheeks. Max looked even more frightened than his brother, though his eyes were dry. Those tears and that fear shamed Val, but he didn’t have time to apologize or make amends. He stood and turned back to the Lincoln.
Two doors down from Campisi’s, a tall brunette in a very short skirt came out of Dee’s Bridal Boutique, She stopped when she saw Val and Jasper, turned and darted back inside. Jasper had struggled to hands and knees by then. Blood spooled from his mouth into the gutter.
“This pistol is going to put you back in Huntsville,” Val said. “A convicted felon with a gun is an automatic remand.”
Still on his knees, Jasper plucked his hearing aid’s amplifier from the gutter and spat out a piece of broken tooth before he replied, his words coming out cottony through busted lips.
“Now, boss, I never seen that pistol until you pulled it on me,” he said as he fingered the crack in the hearing aid’s amplifier. Slowly he pushed himself up the side of the car until he was standing shakily, leaning against the Lincoln for support. He touched his mouth and winced then shook his head, still looking at the hearing aid. “You broke my listener.”
Quickly, Val did the math: the cops would arrive to find Jasper Smith pistol-whipped and Val holding a gun. One call downtown would supply the information that Val was a suspect in the death of Gus Perdido and Abby Sutton…the uniformed cops wouldn’t even try to sort this out on the street; they’d hook up Jasper and Val and let the DA sort it out.
Val lowered the pistol. The gun was gory with blood, the stainless steel dark with it. He ejected the clip from the pistol, racked the slide to eject the bullet under the hammer then pitched all of it into the Lincoln’s back seat to clatter among the cast off beer bottles.
“Get out of here, Smith,” he said.
“You going to kill me if I don’t?” Smith asked then laughed, flashing broken teeth and a mouthful of blood. The fear had left his eyes, replaced by burning, feral contempt, like a hyena eyeing a wounded lion. He turned and dropped heavily into the Lincoln, pulled the door closed and laid his battered head back against the headrest.
“I think we made our point, daddy-O” he said to Garland. “Let’s roll it before the law puts the light on us.”
But Garland was in no hurry. He took a sip of his beer, his eyes on Valentine. The old man hadn’t made a move or spoken a word of protest as Val had pistol-whipped Jasper. In fact, the incident hadn’t even seemed to make a dent in Garland’s beer buzz.
Garland tucked the beer bottle between his thighs and reached for the gear shift. “This ain’t over. I want what’s due me,” he said as he slipped the Lincoln into drive and eased away from the curb.
Val watched Garland exit the parking lot and make a U-turn on Mockingbird, looping across four lanes of oncoming traffic. Tires squealed and horns blared as Garland punched the gas, fishtailing the Lincoln down the middle lane, one arm jutting out the window, middle finger extended.
“Bad men,” Kyle said, snot bubbling from his nose. Val wiped it away with the tail of his shirt.
“You got that right, Kyle,” he said. “But daddy will take care of them.” He gave the boy a reassuring smile then stood and wheeled the stroller back to the tow truck. He secured the twins and the pizza and cranked the engine, catching a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror as he reached for the gearshift. There was blood on his face. Val grabbed a Wet-Nap from the diaper bag and cleaned his face as he headed west toward the highway.
You’re damned right Daddy would take care of them.
33
A call from Renee Petersen of the Dallas Morning News awakened Victoria from a fitful slumber. She made the mistake of answering the bedside phone without checking the caller ID then ‘No commented’ the nosy witch until the reporter finally slammed down the receiver in frustration, but only after insisting that Victoria have Val call her back.
Right. Victoria wasn’t a messenger service for Valentine’s ex-girlfriends, especially not the smart, pretty ones. She turned the phone’s ringer off and tried to go back to sleep, but it was useless. Every time she closed her eyes images of the murders at the jail assaulted her. Like jerky film footage from a bad horror movie, she saw Albert Pico and Sandy die; Randall Rusk charging down the corridor at her, the bloody knife in his hand; Axel Rankin as limp as a rag doll, his head twisted at an impossible angle; and, finally, the deputy firing point blank into Rusk’s face. Victoria shuddered in her bed, wrapped her arms tight around herself and tried to shove the memories into the darkest corner of her mind, to padlock them down and toss away the key. Val had set that example for her, she suddenly realized…but she wasn’t Valentine. He had embraced the darkness long ago. Had given himself over to it.
That thought made her cold to the marrow. As cold as Val’s eyes had been when he had spoken of the men he had killed. The seven men he had killed. She shivered again. She couldn’t deal with that train of thought. She was too tired to think straight. But there was no hope of getting more sleep. She sat up, shrugged off the covers, turned her feet out onto the floor, and dragged herself out of the bedroom and down the stairs, limping all the way. She could at least spend time with the boys, get lost in their world for a little while, a distraction from her nightmares and her troubled marriage.
She found Val’s note on the kitchen table. She was reading it when he wheeled the stroller in through the backdoor with a pizza box and a six-pack of beer balanced on top.
He looked haggard, but not contrite. His eyes had the same icy edge they had contained earlier that afternoon. It dried up any words she might have mustered.
Val didn’t seem to have anything to say either, other than a brief ‘Hello.’ He got out plates while she unloaded the boys and placed them in their highchairs.
They ate the pizza in relative silence. Even the boys were unusually quiet.
And that silence was causing Val’s brain to cook at a slow broil. He knew that the boys were still getting over his bloody confrontation with Jasper Smith. He sat there and stared at his plate, his teeth grinding, head filled with dark static. He’d make Garland and Jasper pay for this. He’d kill them both if he had to.
“What are you thinking?” Victoria said suddenly, her tone hesitant.
Val realized then that he was hunched over his untouched pizza, his hands knotted into fists. The flesh on his face felt hot and tight. He shook his head and picked up the pizza. He wasn’t going to tell Victoria about his most recent run in with Jasper and Garland. It would only make the situation worse. If that was possible.
It was almost funny when Val considered that only two hours before he had promised himself that he would leave this to Jack Birch and the DPD. He had intended to make that same promise to Victoria. To repair the rift between them before it tore them apart. But he couldn’t make that promise now. He couldn’t live up to it.
“Nothing,” he said, mustering a brittle smile. To cover it, he put pizza in his mouth and chewed, barely tasting it.
“The Suttons,” she said dully, but it wasn’t a question. She dropped her eyes and went back to her food, eating without appetite, her stomach balled into a clammy knot.
After dinner, Val made the boys their favorite cheesy, low-fat popcorn and the four of them watched Shrek Forever for the seven-hundredth time. Valentine knew every line by heart. The words kept coming a second before they were spoken on screen. It made his head hurt. But the twins had a great time, especially the tickle-war with their mother during intermission while Val microwaved more popcorn and broke out boxes of Juicy-Juice. But there was no tickling coming Val’s way. Or anything else for that matter. Victoria was polite, but spoke little, concentrating her attention on the twins.
The boys didn’t seem to notice that the space between their parents had taken on the oppressive pressure of an impending storm. Or the fact that their father kept circling the house, peering out windows,
while their mother watched him with fear in her eyes. No, Max and Kyle had the best family night in weeks.
By 8:30, the boys were already nodding off, but Victoria didn’t want to put them down in their nursery. She wanted them close. And so did Val. He fixed a palette of blankets and pillows on the floor and their mother snuggled down with them like a mother cat with her kittens.
Victoria’s father called on her cell phone at 8:45. She took it in the kitchen. Val could feel his ears burning. Or maybe it was Victoria’s hide? Val knew Andrew would be grilling her about her actions of the last two days. Andrew, a former chairman of the State Republican Party, would have undoubtedly heard all the details from his network of friends in high and low places, and he wouldn’t take her risking her life lightly. Victoria was his only child and he protected her like a rhino with an injured calf.
Val’s relationship with Andrew had started out rocky. About what you’d expect when you impregnate a man’s unmarried daughter. When Andrew had been told of the pregnancy by an ecstatic Victoria and a scared shitless Valentine, the old man had cracked a series of jokes about shotgun weddings. Victoria had laughed her ass off, but Valentine and Andrew had known it wasn’t a joke. If Val hadn’t come up with a wedding ring he would have come down with an overdose of buckshot.
Victoria was on the phone for half an hour. When she came back to the living room, she didn’t relate the conversation to Val and he didn’t ask. They watched old movies on Channel 39 until 11:00 then trooped upstairs, each of them carrying a sleeping twin. They put the boys in their crib and turned on the nightlight.
Outside the half-open nursery door, Victoria grabbed Val’s rumpled shirtfront, pulled him in tight and turned her face up to him.
