And the weed, I realized.
After the gunfight comes the communal high. Then we’re all gonna eat Twinkies.
“Fuck,” Bassi said. “You’re killing it.”
Running, he crossed the patio and jumped the patio’s knee fence. Without stopping, without seeing anything but the truck, waving his arms, Bassi darted into the street.
“Fucking stop! That’s my weed.”
The Judge blasted the horn, a deep, booming sound I felt in my chest like the bass guitar coming up through the floor at a stadium concert.
“Fuuuuuuuuuckkkkk youuuuuuuuuuuu.” Bassi’s voice disappeared beneath the horn as he disappeared beneath the truck, chrome bumper against knees, grill against chest. His head snapped backward, but he managed to hang on.
“Y’all got to be fuckin’ kidding me.” Cope’s mouth hung open.
Bassi climbed onto the long nose of the truck and scooted toward the windshield. One leg hung behind him, damn near at a ninety-degree angle from the knee. Bone stuck through his pants. He kept crawling until he reached the cab. Braying, he reached in and grabbed the Judge. But the Judge’s massive paw blasted through the shot-out windshield and popped Bassi square in the face.
Bassi snapped backward, lost his handle, and slid down the nose. He went over the front edge and his face rode down the grill to the pavement.
Now the Judge’s blaring horn was joined by another. This from a United Freight delivery truck. The truck came around the corner just as the Judge’s truck got to the corner. Tires locked and left smears of themselves on the pavement while the delivery truck tried to figure out how to not get smoked by the semi. Half a second later, the delivery truck’s motor coughed and screamed and the thing took off.
“Darcy.” The voice wasn’t weak so much as quiet, maybe surprised.
About ten feet away, Johnny lay dead, two bullets as perfect geometric math problems solved in his face; perfectly spaced on either side of his nose.
I looked at Kurston as Bassi’s screams became those of the Barefield squad cars. “Kurston?”
He was on his knees, leaning on Cope.
His head covered in blood.
“Oh, my Holy shitting God,” I said.
The snap from Cope’s slap rocked him.
“Darcy.” Kurston flicked his head toward the exit. Blood spattered like rain. “I need Dr. Jenson. And we oughta think about getting the hell outta here.”
“The man lays it out true,” Cope said.
“Hospital,” I said. Panic worked up through me, a disease filling every cell of my body. “We’ve gotta get—”
Kurston grabbed my arm, jerked me toward him. “Calm down, it’s not that bad. A flesh wound. Just grazed me.”
“It’s a fucking head shot, you fucking moron. Are you crazy? You’ll die unless we go to Barefield Memorial, they’ll—”
“It’s not a head shot or I’d be dead. Calm down. It’s just a flesh wound. Grazed my skull and went somewhere else.”
“Bounced off that hard noggin,” Cope said.
“No hospital,” Kurston said. “It’ll cause...problems.” The man’s eyes pinched closed for a second. “Wow, it does hurt a little.” His eyes rolled and panic ripped through me. “Darcy, no hospital, okay? Hospitals have to report gunshots.”
“So? You were in a gunfight.”
“Not today, I wasn’t.”
Cope nodded vigorously. “I’m good with that, White-Boy Darcy. No hospitals, no cops. Totally groovy with that.” He lifted Kurston to standing as though the man weighed nothing at all.
“Think I’m gonna take a nap,” Kurston said.
Cope chuckled. “First time I got shot, I wanted to sleep for a month.” He frowned. “Of course, that was after I’d gotten all fixed up. Hey, y’all coming? Gots to tell me where we’re going.”
The sirens grew, a keening wail that grated on my ears. “Yeah, I’m coming.” I took a deep breath. “And we’re going home.”
“Been thinking about going home,” Cope said.
***
Except home wasn’t quite how I remembered it.
“The fuck is that?” Cope asked, keeping his head straight, his glare on the road. He never slowed the bike.
“Son of a bitch.”
“White-Boy?”
“Shut up, lemme think.”
Cope’s jaw set hard. “Think? What’ch’all need to think about? We going to his house, right? Nothing to it.” He tightened his grip on the handlebars. “Except they all kinda people staring at his house, ain’t there?”
At least three units. One at the end of the block, watching the cross street. Two cops sat in that, one reading the paper, the other taking a nap, his head back against the headrest and the window glass. A second car sat boldly across the street from Kurston’s place. One cop, alert and watchful. He stared at us as we passed, and wrote down the bike’s license plate number.
“Who’s the plate going to come back to when he runs it?” I asked.
Cope chuckled. “Ben Atkinson.”
“Who?”
“Cop from back in the day.”
“Fabulous, tie us to a cop.”
“Ain’t a cop no more. Had a problem behind some pepperoni pizza. Shaking down a Mom and Pop place, traded protection for pizza.”
“Protection for money,” I said.
“Y’all ain’t listening? Didn’t want the money...wanted the pizza. Man had it bad for pizza.”
The third unit was a plumbing van. At the far end of the block, no one in the cab. I was certain at least one officer was in the back, listening to some planted mics or watching video from some planted cameras. Or hell, maybe rubbing one out while thumbing through Penthouse.
In the sidecar, Kurston stirred.
“I ain’t thinking that shot is too bad, but your boy’s hurting,” Cope said. “We gotta get him somewhere.”
“Where are we?” Kurston asked.
“Stay down,” I said. “We’re at the house. Why would there be—”
“The house? What the hell— Why’d you bring me here?”
“Guess I’m wondering why y’all’s own PD is watchin’ y’all’s crib.”
“Damnit, get—” He coughed and hunkered down in the sidecar. “Nice and slow, but get us out of there. Don’t get stopped.”
“And go where?”
Kurston put his forefinger and middle finger together, miming a pair of scissors.
I nodded. “Left here, Cope. Then next right.”
“Where we going?”
“Apparently Val’s Barbershop rather than a hospital,” I said. “Not sure why though. This is stupid.”
“Off’a them books.”
“What?” I looked at Kurston. He stared back at me.
“Y’all Mister Know-It-All. Daddy’s a cop, and y’all cain’t even tell when he’s working off the books?”
Twenty Hours, Twenty-Four Minutes Ago
Val’s Barbershop
Barefield, Texas
“Can’t fucking believe you didn’t get killed,” the doctor said. “Nine thousand bullets and only one of them hit you and it’s a pretty pantywaist hit. Please. Maybe you guys should buy a crapload of lottery tickets, lucky as you were tonight.”
“Ooowwww. You monkey fucking son of a bitch,” Kurston said.
“Shut up, sissy.”
“Sissy? I kicked more asses than you ever worked on. I spent five years walking the block at the Zachary County Jail. I took punches from—”
The doctor cranked down with his instruments.
“Oooowwwwwwwww.”
Weak though it was, Kurston’s voice was mostly pissed. Every few seconds, as the doctor cleaned the wound and sewed him up, Kurston gasped. Blood seemed to cover his entire body, head to toe. It freaked me out, didn’t matter what the doctor said about he’d be fine and everything was cool and wouldn’t I just shut the hell up.
I just saw my father bloody.
From a head wound.
I was plenty f
reaked out.
“You fucking quack,” Kurston said. “You’re killing me.”
“Would that I were.”
They used Val’s desk as an operating table. Cleared of Val’s books and supply catalogs and maybe fifty pairs of scissors, covered with a tarp I’d found in the abandoned crackhouse behind the barbershop.
After another moan, Kurston was out again, the third time since he’d gotten shot.
“Can’t figure out why the puss is passing out. It ain’t much of a wound, but thank God,” the doctor said. “Least I can get some silence now.”
Sunlight, late afternoon harsh, made of nothing but heat and angles, flooded the office. It blasted through windows that ran the length of the office at the top of the outside wall. A ceiling fan turned lazily, as though it couldn’t work up much excitement about all the commotion beneath it.
Kurston’s shirt was bloody. His pants were stiff with ketchup and mustard and probably some blood. For some reason I couldn’t remember, Kurston was minus one shoe.
“Where’s the other one?” I asked.
The doctor stopped working and turned his head about halfway over his shoulder, silently telling me to shut up. Then his instruments clanked and he went back to work.
Once we’d gotten in the hair shop, I had snagged Kurston’s cell phone and climbed onto Jenson’s ass to get him down here.
“You fucking drunk, get your ass down here,” I’d screamed into the phone.
Not my finest moment, but it had gotten the doc off his couch and to Kurston’s side. Hadn’t done anything for the doc’s stupor, but the more he sewed, the more competent he seemed.
“Did I kill him, too?” I had asked.
I’d gotten no response.
“Doc?”
The delicate metallic clink of the instruments had stopped. “Guess it’s hard to see I’m working here, isn’t it?” He eyed me. “Too? So you’ve got some others notched into your gunbelt? Shut the fuck up, gangsta. He ain’t dying. Just needs some sewing. Now let me do it.”
I turned away from the table. “Where’s my cooler?”
“What’ch’all need that for?”
“Where is it?”
The doc stopped working. “Shut the fuck up, you hear me? Another fucking word and I will walk right the fuck out and not give him a second fucking thought.”
“Hey, whoa, y’all wanna dial back on the F-bombs?”
“Fuck your F-bomb.” Again, his instruments clicked and clanged and his shoulders hunched.
“So,” I said. “Where do you think that shoe is?”
“Y’all need to focus, White-Boy.”
“Maybe it came off when you picked him up.”
“Y’all maybe wanna forget the damned shoe?”
Yeah, that seemed sensible. We could get another shoe. Slip into the house or go to Payless or JCPenny or—
The house.
Being watched by the PD. Why?
For you, Darcy, waiting for the day you come back.
And I did. Just like they’d known I would. But first I’d stopped for brisket and managed to get my father shot.
Had Kurston told PD I’d be back? Had Kurston dropped a preemptive dime on me?
Did he bust his own son?
Fuck yeah. How many times had he already done it? Five? Six? Maybe ten? The man lay in front of me, bloody, and all I could think of was whether or not he’d try to pop his own kid.
“Fuck,” the doctor said. “This fucker on thinners?”
Bad sign when the doctor starts getting nervous.
“What?”
“Asshole, is this man, your father, on blood thinners? ’Cause he’s bleeding all over the fucking place. That ain’t good, boyo. This doesn’t stop and we might as well call the coroner.”
***
No whap.
Not this time.
I had the whip. I had my shirt off.
But I had yet to lay whip against skin.
On the backside of Val’s lot there was an old house. Tiny thing, up on bricks. It had been moved there decades ago, no one knew why, and had become a low-rent shooting gallery.
Daddy was dying...again.
The walls around me were spattered with blood exactly as the church had been. Maybe from stabbings or beatings or shootings. Or maybe just syringe junkies cleaning out their tools and leaving their blood like Church of the Bloody Drug congregates.
I held the whip and part of me itched to blood it out.
The previous bloodings were just starting to heal. They were delicate and I’d be able to open them easily.
I watched Fagan’s foot. It was in the cooler, obviously not moving, but I watched it anyway.
Kurston’s blood had been too much for me. And the doctor’s yelling. Yeah yeah, flesh wound, yeah yeah he’d be fine. But it was so much blood. Head wounds always bleed, Mama had told me long ago, but it was too similar to the tattoo parlor.
I wanted to blood. I wanted to feel it burning my skin. My blood. Fagan’s blood. Mama’s blood.
But for all of that, it would also have been Johnny’s blood. Lucas’ blood. The priests’ blood. The cardplayers’ blood.
It was too much blood. Too much and it might not ever end until I died.
“Man, this is all kinds’a fucked, ain’t it? Standing half naked in a crackhouse, whip in hand, staring at a foot. But crying like a baby.” Cope shook his head as he stared into the place. “Y’all even more fucked up than I am...and that’s going some.” He jerked a thumb toward the barbershop. “Doc’s done. Wants to see y’all. Then I’m’a go see Monea.”
***
No major damage, the doctor said.
A grazing wound, no more, the doctor said.
Lots of blood, the doctor said.
And lots and lots of damned lucky, the doctor repeatedly said.
“I’m done.” He stared at me and Cope, his lips in a sneer. “I owed him a favor, it’s paid back.” His long finger poked my naked chest. “In full, you fucking bloody freak.”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. You’re done when I say you’re done, got me?”
The doctor grinned, “No problem,” and yanked his cell phone out.
“No, no. Don’t do that.”
The doctor waved me off and jammed the phone against his ear. “Captain Garcia? I wonder if you’re still looking for one of your detectives? Son killed a fed?”
I made a lunge but missed. I tripped over the man’s bag and hit the floor.
The doc leaned in my face. “You listen to me, you little puke ass son of a bitch. Your pile of shit is way deeper than mine. I’m done when I say I’m done, got me?”
Still on the ground, I grabbed the finger the man had jabbed against my chest and bent it backward until the doctor’s knees bent. The man’s face registered shock rather than pain. I bent the finger a bit more.
“You keep your fucking finger out of my fucking face, you fucking hear me? I don’t have time for your bullshit. I’ve got nothing but thanks that you saved him, but I don’t need the grief. Leave the meds and the IV bags and whatever else and get the hell out.” A bit more pressure and the man arched backward until his knees were on the floor. “Remember this: I know the secret. I know what brought you down here and I don’t have the moral streak Kurston does. I hear a word of this on the street and everyone’ll know your little problem.” I winked at the man. “Or maybe I’ll just kill you.”
The man cringed and I knew he was feeling the bite of pain. Not much, it wasn’t a hold designed to hurt as much as to get an inmate’s attention.
“Christ’a’mighty, let the fuck go.”
And there was Cope, laying an open palm across the guy’s face as I let go of his digit. “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.”
The doctor, his fat face red and sweaty, shook his head as he walked out the door. “Lord’s name in—? Are you kidding me? You bring me a shot cop—” He started to jab a finger toward me, but thought better of it. “He threatens to beat hims
elf with a whip while staring at a cooler with somebody’s fucking foot it in and you tell me to watch my language?”
“Pretty much,” Cope said.
The doctor pulled a few bottles from his pocket, tossed them to the floor as he headed out. “Good luck, assholes.”
I snorted. Good luck was a pipe dream.
“Y’all found a peach of a doctor,” Cope said. “By the by, what is his secret?”
“I have no idea.”
Cope laughed. “Nice bluff, White-Boy.” He pointed toward the door. “Left or right get me back to all those clubs we passed?”
“Monea.”
“Y’all catching on.”
“She’s pretty impressive.”
Cope frowned.
“She’s everywhere we go.”
“We’re all of us everywhere we go.”
I pointed to the old man’s diminishing rings. “Seems like you give her one of those at every stop, too, just like Brother Enrico and Esther.”
“Keep y’all’s nose outta my rings.”
“Okay...yeah, whatever.” I nodded south. “Out the door left. Couple of blocks. King’s Inn. Dew Drop Inn. 19th Hole. Hitching Post. You can find anything you’re looking for.”
“Y’all sure about that?”
“Uh...the look on your face is freaking me out, but yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
“Good,” Cope said with a nod. He headed for the door. “Glad one of us is.”
When he was gone, I twisted the blinds over Val’s windows until the room was as dark as it could be. Then I silently climbed on to the desk next to my fragile father, wrapped my arms around the man, and held him while he slept.
***
In dreams, it was different.
In dreams, I wasn’t on the run from a murder rap. Or chasing a stolen pendant through every dusty street and weed infested parking lot in every cow town in west Texas. Or beating myself silly trying to blood it out.
Through dream-fog, where sounds were elongated into long, looping strands, Kurston and I drove into a parking lot. A giant red and blue sign proclaimed Gibson’s store. We grabbed a grocery cart and why the hell couldn’t we hurry up past the bread and chips, past the meat and milk and cheese, past even the toy aisle? Push and push and push the car and why couldn’t we hurry up just a little until we were in what Mama called seasonal?
Exit Blood (Barefield Book 2) Page 15
