Thin Gray Lines

by Mark Hazard

  “Shit!”

  A wave of shame hit him that he could be so stupid. He cursed a few more times as he fumbled at the rear hatch and pushed it up. Launching himself out at a run and splashing through knee-high water and reeds and unfamiliar grasses, he kept the SUV between him and the approaching men.

  He had thirty yards on them by the time his feet hit dry land. Ducking into a stand of evergreens, he scoured the ground for anything he could use as a weapon, while forcing himself to slow down and catch his breath. The nearest building was three hundred yards away back at the airport complex. He’d have to run fast enough to stay out of effective pistol range. If they didn’t get lucky, and he made it over, then he’d have to scale a tall fence, where he’d be a practically stationary target as his pursuers closed on him.

  He looked for a better strategy.

  The trees surrounding him were tall with twisty branches like something out of a Doctor Seuss book. He leaped onto one, but his fingers tore the bark away easily and he slipped off. He tried again, and this time his weight snapped the branch free. He examined the broken end, hoping for a razor sharp splinter he could stab with, but the break was knobby and dull. He threw it down as the men yelled to one another, splashing through the water. In seconds, they’d realize he wasn’t in the vehicle. He needed a real weapon.

  From where he stood, the road was about fifteen feet higher, stretching to the right toward the freeway, and to the left toward the airport, most of which wasn’t visible. He gauged the distance and his exposure to the men near his vehicle, one of whom was surely Corus who was a dead shot.

  It was too far, but Joller didn’t have a better option.

  He sprinted along the south end of the marsh. In ten seconds, he met the incline up to the road, slowing him considerably. As Joller pumped his thick arms, willing his legs to carry him faster, bullets snapped the air around him, little sonic booms only he could hear, followed by the barking of pistols.

  He felt something brush his back, like the hand of a passerby in a crowded bar, but his legs and arms still worked, and that was all that mattered. He reached the road and ran out into the right-hand lane, waving his arms.

  A little blue sedan skidded to a stop, but not soon enough. Joller took the hit with grace, picking his feet up and riding on the hood, until the car finished its braking maneuver. He ran around to the driver’s side and yanked the door open.

  “Out! Out!”

  “You ran into the road man! I tried to stop.”

  “Police business. Get out of the car!”

  Joller reached down and popped the man’s seatbelt out, put the car in park and yanked him out of the seat onto the asphalt. He jumped in the seat and shouted at the man’s wife, “Get the fuck out if you wanna live.”

  Shaking all over, she calmly opened her door, careful not to mess up her manicure and got out.

  Now that he had wheels, he considered his options. He could drive to the store and buy ammo, but by the time he returned, the men would be gone, and his vehicle would’ve been spotted by law enforcement.

  The driver stood up. “What the hell, man?”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “No. No way.”

  Joller closed the door and gritted his teeth, as the driver and his wife ran onto the shoulder, clutching one another.

  A Latino man with curly hair appeared at the shoulder of the road, holding a gun low by his leg. It wasn’t Corus.

  “Not a cop, either,” Joller said to himself, putting the car in drive. “Who are you?”

  The man took in the scene, realizing Joller was now the driver of car. Before he could raise his pistol, Joller’s instincts jacked his foot into the accelerator. Tires peeled out as the car lurched forward with surprising acceleration. He ducked down and veered blindly as the bullets hit the windshield. The sedan sounded like tennis shoes in a tumble drier as it ran over the man.

  Before careening down the slope, he braked and popped his head up, peering through bullet holes, each surrounded by crystalized circles of glass.

  The second fastest man coming up the slope was another Latino. He had skinny legs Joller could hear shatter as he ran into him. His body caved in the center of the windshield and toppled off the roof onto the ground. Joller braked again, just long enough to find the window controls. He rolled all the windows down to protect his sight lines from damage.

  In the rearview, the first man lay motionless beside the road, but the skinny man wasn’t visible. Two much larger men stomped their way out of the marsh and watched him, but they seemed unsure what to do.

  Bang, bang.

  Two shots popped off close to the rear of the sedan, bullets thunking into the trunk and tearing a chunk out of the roof. Fabric fluff rained down around Joller.

  Joller reversed over the skinny man with rear and front tires, then ran him over again going forward. That put an end to his shooting.

  One of the big white men dropped to a knee at the bottom of the slope and took careful aim.

  Bullets smashed into the windshield and front end. Joller ducked with his door open and reversed again, turning the car in a semi-circle, until the mangled face of the skinny Latino emerged from under the chassis. He snatched up the man’s pistol.

  Joller aimed out the passenger window and fired off three rounds at the man kneeling, then three rounds at the man in the tan jacket.

  As Joller took cover, two more bullets rattled off the interior of the car.

  He waited a second, then released the brake, letting the car roll backward down the slope. When Joller hazarded a glance, both men were still on their feet, moving at an angle to intercept his vehicle. The sedan picked up speed and coasted across the open grass, as if the driver had lost control due to death or injury, luring them closer.

  They fired two more shots, and one bullet penetrated the passenger door and blew bits of seat upholstery across Joller’s face, but he kept his head down, teeth snarling in rage and terror. The car came to a rest against something that sounded soft like a clump of grass, and he furtively pressed a foot into the brake and shifted into drive.

  “Come on… Come on…”

  He counted to five, willing them into his range, then rose. Before he could properly aim, a hasty twitch of the trigger finger cost him the element of surprise. The two cagey men ducked, one to the rear of the car, the other to the front.

  Joller hit the gas and steered for the gray-haired man in the leather jacket. With nowhere to run, he jumped on the hood, where the already smashed safety glass cradled him. Joller popped off a shot, hitting him in the shoulder, then fired again at point blank range, but the man rolled off the hood and into the grass.

  Joller kept his momentum and turned right, entering the stand of strange trees at the side of the marsh. He wove through them, filling the interior with pine needles and big flakey bark when he scraped alongside one.

  Tires bounced on tufts of sedge grass when he drove into the field stretching between the marsh and the airport. He kept the sedan in a wide turn back toward the marsh, carving big tire ruts in the soft earth and firing when possible at the big man in the tan jacket as he ducked into the trees for cover.

  Click, click.

  Joller was out of ammo. The car was his only weapon. He dropped the pistol and took the wheel in both white-knuckled hands. As he completed his revolution, Joller stuck his head out the driver’s window and gunned the engine.

  The gray-haired man clutched an arm. The pain on his face was replaced by shock as he saw the car barreling down on him once again, but this time with much greater speed. He sprinted for the marsh on long legs but slowed as he hit the water and struggled to keep his balance.

  The sedan hit the marsh at forty miles per hour and hydroplaned across it, striking the man in the back and sending his body skipping and skidding across the clear marsh water like an ungainly stone. He came to a stop near the rear tires of Joller’s rental SUV.

  Joller abandoned the sedan and advanced to his rest
ing place in a high-stepping run.

  The man lay prone, struggling to keep his mouth above the water.

  Joller flipped him over.

  “Who are you?”

  “Please-don’t-kill—”

  Joller shook him by the lapels of the leather jacket. “Who are you?”

  “Rodger Tanner.”

  “Tanner?” Joller’s brows knitted together. “Where’s Corus?”

  “Tell your people we can talk this out. Please don’t kill me.”

  Rodger’s jaw began jackhammering in the frigid water, and his eyes went out of focus.

  “Stay with me.” Joller smacked him. “Where is Corus?”

  “Corus?” he asked blearily. “Who’s Corus?”

  Joller checked his six. The big man in the tan jacket ran to the border of the trees and marsh, but his hands hung at his sides.

  Sirens blared in the distance.

  Joller opened the back of his rental SUV and snatched his rifle case out, then ran around and pulled his carry-on bag off the rear seat. He slogged out of the marsh and up the bank, throwing his things in the back of the black truck which still hummed at idle, sweet diesel fumes perfuming the air.

  Joller pulled onto the highway.

  As the adrenaline ebbed, the all-over cold hit him like normal, but far worse since he was soaked with early spring marsh water. His back and rear were pleasantly warmed, though. He thought it was residual warmth from the driver’s ass, then realized the truck had all the bells and whistles, including heated leather seats.

  He reached over and cranked it all the way up.

  “Now that’s an upgrade.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Iris sat in her den, holding a bottle of vodka between her thighs, taking intermittent swigs while dabbing her face with the hydrogen peroxide her daughter had left on the kitchen table.

  The sun had risen hours ago but no call had come from her husband yet. She’d finally called but got no answer. Arlo didn’t answer either.

  Naturally, the fear ran wild, but she’d built up a feverish tolerance to it, always welcoming it and seeking to make her mind that much stronger, that much less susceptible. That was the only way.

  She winced when the peroxide hit a deep cleft in her skin, a shock of pain worse than the wound itself. Iris smiled then, taking mild satisfaction that her useless runt daughter finally showed some mettle, and took another swig from the bottle.

  She started laughing to herself, reveling at the dark pleasure of it all, at finally teaching Olive about pain the way she’d always wanted to. Rodger had limited her to spankings when Olive was young, so she’d found other ways to teach her daughter about pain, but none of the lessons ever took. How delightful a feeling to punch Olive right in the face, to knock her out cold with the butt of a shotgun. Perhaps it would be the last time such an overt show of force was necessary, thus proving her method once and for all.

  She replayed Olive’s aggression in her mind. “Get it all out, dear one. Get it all out so we can begin to work.”

  Iris realized she was grinning dumbly and swaying. She’d drunk too much.

  “I must eat something. But first…”

  Iris stumbled to the dining room office and pulled a little sachet out of a drawer in the buffet. After arranging three little white lines on the varnished wood surface, she bent low and sucked one up into her nose.

  She pressed her nostrils and sniffed hard on either side then went in for another. It was, after all, a special occasion.

  She left the third line for after breakfast and wandered into the kitchen feeling strong, feeling no pain. She drummed at her chest like a gorilla as she stood before her open fridge, deciding what to make.

  Pancakes. Of course, it was pancakes.

  She pulled out the eggs and set them on the counter, then reached up into a cupboard for the pancake mix, when her phone rang in the den. She rushed over and picked it up. It was Arlo’s number.

  “Arlo?”

  “It went bad.” Arlo cursed. “It went real bad.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Luis is dead. Moses and Rodger are hurt bad. I barely got away before the cops showed up. Now, I’m hiding in a field, freezing my ass off.”

  “Back up. What did you say about Rodger?”

  “He got hit by a car, shot too. But he was alive when I left him.”

  “You left him? What do you mean? You didn’t leave him, Arlo.”

  “The scene was a mess. That assassin got away in Rodger’s truck.”

  Iris made Arlo recount the story which was difficult as the big man was running and out of breath. “Iris, that bastard is coming to the farm,” Arlo said between huffs. “I just know it. I’m gonna get back there as fast as I fucking can, but you gotta lock it down and get Olive and get out of there.”

  “I can’t do that,” Iris yelled. “I can’t—”

  “Just get out!”

  He hung up.

  Iris stared at her phone, mouth hanging open.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Corus spent the night fending off anxieties that he’d made a horrible miscalculation. Instead of pitting the Tanners and Joller against one another and weakening both, he imagined they’d talked out their differences and come to a new accord centered on harming Corus. Arlo would unlock the cell and open the door, allowing Joller to empty a magazine into the confined space.

  The thought of what they’d do afterward was what made the idea so preposterous. Get pizza? Play a round of putt-putt golf? Arlo and Joller becoming 1980s private detectives in Miami?

  He didn’t know what would happen up in Spokane, but those two buddying up was not it.

  After mastering these worries, and with substantial help from fatigue, Corus found sleep, until a shrill scream cut though the Tanner house, reaching all the way down to the locked cell in the basement.

  Corus popped an eye open, then sat up, listening. He jumped up and put an ear to the door. Something crashed like glass breaking. A woman screamed again.

  The commotion passed to the rear of the house, nearly overhead. When footsteps padded down the stairs, he sprang into position.

  The keys rattled in the lock. The huffing of labored breathing penetrated the door. With a loud clack-click, the door unlatched.

  Corus launched off the far wall and barreled into the door. His assailant yipped, and a big weapon clattered to the ground. He flew to the polished cement floor, catching himself on his hands and feet, then scrambling to get hands on the shotgun. In the dark, he stomped the assailant in the crotch to little fanfare. The assailant stood and latched onto the shotgun again, so he stroked the butt over a reaching arm, aiming for jaw-height but glancing up off the crown of a head.

  A body went limp at his feet, one that was shorter than whatever he’d been expecting.

  Corus pulled the assailant by a bare foot into the light coming down the stairwell, knelt and peered closer at the face of Iris Tanner.

  He cleared the main floor of potential threats, then went back down and picked her up in a fireman’s carry. She was alive and breathing with a very strong pulse. Her face had been horribly scraped and bruised.

  Corus looked around for a ready explanation, but there was none. By all appearances, she’d been alone, breaking her own things and screaming.

  That might mean…

  A phone rang, and he searched the pockets of her robe as she blinked and stared up at the ceiling. The caller was Arlo Falcone.

  “Hello? Arlo?”

  “Who is this?”

  “This is Diego. Iris can’t come to the phone. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Leave a message? Put her on.”

  “I can have you call her back.”

  “Things went tits up with that Joller guy. We didn’t get him. He put the hurting on us real bad. I’m driving down now from Spokane. Might take me two hours to get back, but I’ll drive fast as I freaking can.”

  “Joller is coming here?”

 
“That’s my guess, pally boy. Rodger’s messed up bad. So is Moses. This guy is no joke. Tell them to get the hell out of there. If Joller shows up before I do, just try and keep him occupied.”

  Arlo hung up.

  Corus closed the phone and set it back in Iris’ robe pocket.

  Iris sniffed loudly and sat up. Just as quickly she closed her eyes and slumped back with a hand on her head.

  “What you do to me, boy?”

  Her words were slurred, and her accent deepened. At first, Corus worried he’d given her permanent brain damage, then he smelled the booze and spotted the bottle on the end table.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Little fight with my daughter. I win. What you do to me?”

  “I cracked you. It was dark. I was scared.”

  “You make pancakes. Make pancakes now!”

  Corus knitted his brows. “Pancakes?”

  “Now!”

  “Sure, yeah, pancakes.”

  Corus left her there and searched the house for Olive. Her bed had been slept in, but she wasn’t inside anymore. He carried the shotgun outside, where he caught sight of something big in the back field that hadn’t been there the day before. He shielded his eyes.

  “A plane?”

  He walked over to the bunkhouse and found it was also empty. It was possible Chito and Jorge went to visit Oswaldo in the hospital, but also dangerous for undocumented migrants. He knocked on Randall’s door on the other side and he wasn’t there, either.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Corus wandered the complex of outbuildings looking for any signs of life, momentarily hoping that Randall and Olive had run off together, if only for their safety.

  A figure on the ground up against the DC caught his attention. Whatever it was hadn’t been there the day before. He approached warily, head on a swivel, taking in every sight line, something golden in the early light of day telling him the scene was ripe with importance.

  He pulled back empty onion sacks to reveal a dead man lying face down, his slender body stretched out from his pointed toes to his sandy, tousled hair. His clothing was dirty in a hue matching the surrounding area, and drag marks led to his current position.