Kurston nodded slowly. “So instead, a guy ends up dead, the plates disappear, and you have no clue in hell where Fagan is.”
I could see Petunia’s jaw grinding.
“And I guess I’m wondering ’bout that big ol’ hundred grand pot,” Cope said. “Where all them entry fees go?”
“Give the sexy man a kewpie doll,” she said. “He has it right. Not only the plates, but the money, too.”
I said, “So you gave Fagan a million bucks and he was going to bring you the plates.”
Her face colored. “Absolutely not. Jefe Arabalo gave me the money, but I refused to lay any of it out.”
“Words say no, face says yes,” I said. “How much did you give him?”
“That’s between me and him.”
“How much?”
“All of it,” Kurston said. “She’s that stupid.”
“Not quite that stupid,” she said in a rush. “I only gave him two grand.”
I laughed. “You fronted him two large and he was cool with that?”
“When a person is jonesing, he’s happy with anything.”
The shrill yap of a cellphone shattered the conversation. No one moved. It continued to ring. Three...four times.
“It’s mine,” Petunia said. “It’s in my pocket. Bad news if I don’t answer it.”
“Nice and slow,” Kurston said.
She moved exactly that way. Slow and deliberate. Slowly enough that I wanted to jerk the phone out of her jacket and answer it myself, just to shut the fucking thing up.
“Yes?” she said. “I knew it was you. Because it’s been fifteen minutes, lover. Did you miss me?” She pulled the phone from her ear. “It’s Jimmy.”
Cope gaped. “Y’all brought the broken nose with you?”
Grinning, she nodded. “Of course, I missed you, too, I’ve been sitting here telling them all about you.” She paused. “Stop it, you’ll get me all worked up. Do you know how hard it is for a girl to walk with soaked panties?” Another pause, then a sigh. “Yes, I suppose it’s true, it has been a little while. Yes, you’re probably right, this is probably a futile meeting. No, they’re not going to give me the plates.”
The last pause felt different and I knew the vibe had just changed.
“Yes, love, you may do your thing.” She kissed into the phone. “Just remember not to kill me, too.”
I frowned. “What the hell does that—”
The window shattered under the weight of a Molotov cocktail.
Seven Hours, Fifty-One Minutes Ago
“Fuck!” I dove to the floor, gun in my throat be damned.
Kurston and Cope, even Petunia, hit the stained tile after me, Cope’s eyes wide and scared. In the split second it took for the glass to shatter, for the bomb to hit the floor and explode, for the air to whoosh from the room, and for the room to begin to burn, I was back at the Church of the Bloody Souls. I was back in the sanctuary with everyone who burned. I was with the charred wood and cooked flesh. Then, as now, the air was thick and pungent and hot and I could almost smell the temperature of the heat, smell the very moment at which heat became flame.
“The shit is this?” Kurston said, barely audible.
“Incentive,” Petunia said. She jerked her gun around to train on me once again.
“You’ll burn down with the shop, you dumbass.” Kurston’s voice rose into hysteria.
“Why, Officer, we haven’t even begun to burn yet.”
Through the smoke and flames, around the guns and Cope’s urgent praying to Monea, I saw Jimmy. He stood just outside the SUV, cigarette dangling from his mouth, giant white bandage smack in the middle of his face. It was like a bird had taken an extra-large crap on him. A box lay at his feet, filled with bottles. With a whoop, Jimmy jerked a bottle from the box, lit the rag sticking out of the end, and tossed it with his good arm.
“Damnit, call the fire department.” Kurston ran into the back room, grabbed an extinguisher, and dashed back out. His face was red, his skin sweaty, his mouth moving a million miles an hour.
The second cocktail Jimmy had thrown moved slowly. I watched the entire flight; the short arc up, the long arc down, the smash through the remaining glass in the window, the bounce off the counter to a chair, then another bounce to the floor. It rolled under Val’s TV stand, burning.
With a yell, Kurston dropped the extinguisher and ran at the cocktail. He wrapped one of Val’s white barber’s coats around his hand and grabbed the burning monster. He tried to fling it back outside, but it banged off the wall and came back in at him.
“Where are the plates?” Petunia asked, her voice somehow light and pleasant.
The flames had spread, orange and yellow, red and blue, like spilled water color paints, bright and innocent. They splashed into the corners, onto the walls and beneath the furniture.
“Where are the plates, dear?”
“I don’t—” I coughed and tasted the edge of panic.
Smoke, thick and black, as choking as hands around my neck, filled the room. Already it was impossible to see the ceiling.
“Oh, but you do.”
Kurston kicked at the next cocktail Jimmy tossed, but he only managed to spread the burning gas around the floor. More flames caught. “Call somebody. Call fucking 9-1-1. Tell ’em—”
Frustrated, scared, Kurston turned and blasted three shots at Jimmy. Jimmy looked surprised, then tried to dance his way into the SUV. A bullet slammed into the passenger side window, shattering it in a shower of tiny stars. They caught the white street light, showering over him in a crystal rain.
More bullets banged into the door, into the front quarter panel. Jimmy’s hands rose to his head, trying to shield himself from the onslaught, as though he could bat the bullets away.
“Don’t kill him, don’t kill him,” Petunia said, her voice a shriek, “I’m not done with him.”
Petunia popped a round at Kurston. Kurston, still firing, still watching Jimmy dance, yelped and stumbled backward, fired twice in Petunia’s direction, but kept his eyes on Jimmy. He fired again at Jimmy; once, twice, three times. One hit Jimmy’s foot, one skipped off the parking lot asphalt, and the third put a bloom in the center of Jimmy’s forehead.
Jimmy spasmed, his mouth opened in a surprised and jagged “O.” He fell against the SUV and at his feet, the box puffed and exploded, showering him in gas and bottle shards. He fell forward, face first into the box.
And all I could see, for the length of a single breath before the flames devoured me, was that damned cigarette falling out of his mouth.
Mouth and cigarette. Head and cigarette. I’d seen that before.
Petunia kept her gun on Kurston, firing and firing, as though there were nothing left but the shooting. Bullets barked, wanged off the floor, into the walls, into the flames. She howled and I didn’t know if it was because of the plates or Jimmy.
As if in sympathy, the shop began to moan, a death-cry.
We’re tearing its skin off, burning its muscle and bone.
Most of the wall board in the main room was already gone, what was left was blackened and curling under the heat. The windows had blown out, whipping the soft breeze into a frenzy that blasted the small shop. Plastic combs on the counter, magazines in the rack, the school pictures tucked neatly in the mirror’s frame, all curled in the face of the heat, trying to find their own protective fetal position.
Cope staggered into the hallway, the phone in his hand. “The fuckin’ line’s busy.” His voice rose, frustrated and scared, over the din of the fire. “How the fuck can the fuckin’ line be busy. It’s fuckin’ 9-1-1. For fuck’s sake.”
Petunia had seen to that. Most of the firemen were at the country club, dealing with million dollar houses burning down. The cops were out there, dealing with one man with a gun. Maybe they’d found him, maybe they hadn’t. Cope’s call would wait.
Eventually, a few uniforms would come out, try and get the scene under control. Maybe one of the volunteer fire departments
from Spraberry or Greenwood would come battle the blaze. And maybe, finally, if word got out that Kurston was involved, a few of his buddies would come out, would want to see what happened, see if he was okay.
But right now, as my memory endlessly showed me the mouth and the cigarette, as the shop slowly burned down, as Jimmy lay dead and Petunia dodged falling hunks of burning ceiling, everyone was on their own.
“Get out.” Kurston shouted it as he fell sideways, trying to avoid burning wood and wallboard, burning ceiling tiles that fell like meteors from the sky.
I started for the door, but turned back. Where Kurston had been zig-zagging back and forth to avoid debris only seconds ago, now there was simply a yellow-orange screen of flame.
“Kurston.”
“Darcy.” Kurston’s voice was muffled, nearly lost in the moan and howl of the fire.
“Where are my plates?” Petunia howled as a bottle of hair tonic exploded, peppered her with bits of glass.
I grabbed up a gun from the floor and whirled to face her. “Fuck off.” I yanked the trigger as I said it.
Petunia grinned. “Get some bullets next time, hit man.”
With a laugh, she dove through the window and landed hard in the asphalt lot. Scrambling, she got to the SUV as the flames from the box began to lick at the open door where Jimmy had tried to get in. With a roar, the truck shot down the street, passing gape-mouthed barflies.
“Kurston!”
Was the entire world black? Was the entire planet shrouded in this endless, thick blackness that stung my eyes and burned my lungs and covered me in a greasy second skin? I dropped to my knees, then to my belly, looking for some break in the smoke.
“Kurston. Where are you?”
Seven Hours, Twenty-Nine Minutes Ago
On the streets again
Barefield, Texas
I had wanted to throw up.
Instead, I followed Cope as we ran through the abandoned shooting gallery behind Val’s. He led me down an alley and through a second alley. A couple of streets, a school yard. It was like running in Valentine, Cope leading and driving the bike, me along for the ride. We moved through the stark clarity of early morning while the sun tossed a handful of pink slivers over the eastern horizon.
Four or five blocks away, I discovered where he’d hidden the bike. It was under a pile of rags and garbage bags. We jumped on and took off.
“Where are we going?”
He hadn’t answered, just kept moving. The buildings around us had gotten cheaper, the facades bent and broken, with chipped paint and many times no paint. Then the sidewalks had begun to crack, weeds up through the middle. The asphalt on the streets became pitted and rutted and at least once, a jackrabbit darted out of one and disappeared into the dark.
Eventually, we had stopped near an abandoned garage on the outskirts of Barefield’s original industrial section. In the minutes after that, Cope had disappeared.
Now I held the whip tightly. Damn near a fucking death grip, actually. The cooler and the foot were at Val’s, burning, but the whip I had grabbed.
You have no idea where Kurston is, but you damn well got the whip.
I am my father’s son. He hid in drugs, I hide in blood.
Laughter, crazed, maybe hysterical laughter, blew out my nose, out my mouth and lungs, doubled me over, to my knees.
What kind of monsters are we?
***
—Whap!—
With a howl, I raised the whip gain. It stopped when the barrel pressed against the back of my head.
“Enough with the fucking guns,” I said.
“The fuck are you doing?”
My blood dripped from the end of the whip, tracing down around my ears and face like a lover’s fingers.
“Trying to get you out of me,” I said.
“Whatever that means.”
Fagan slid around from behind me, his face a gaunt, haggard, almost broken thing. Saliva sat on his lips and chin. His hair was wild, like his head was nothing but static electricity.
“Going to kill me now? You figure you’ve done all you can to fuck up my life so now you’ll just end it?”
Fagan grinned. “Fuck up your life? I’m here trying to save you, boy. I am your way out of this bullshit mess.”
“This bullshit mess you created.”
Fagan shrugged. “Sometimes, things don’t go how we want them to.”
“You think?”
That was how it had gone since that first day. Could it only have been a few weeks ago? Nothing had gone how it was supposed to and maybe that was just a smaller reflection of how life had been. Daddies weren’t supposed to leave. Other men weren’t supposed to fill Mama’s bed. And damn sure Mamas weren’t supposed to die when their kids were still young.
And here stood the original fuck up, promising to make it all better.
“How are you going to fix it? How are you my way out of this? I’m in pretty deep. Cops think I killed a Secret Service agent.”
Fagan laughed. “You didn’t, trust me. You ain’t got the nuts for killing.”
I lowered the whip slowly. “Yeah? You’re not paying attention. I killed one father about an hour ago.”
Another grin, this one tighter, more predatory. For a second, the man almost didn’t look like a meth junkie. “I can get you outta this mess, I’ve been telling you that.”
“No, what you told me was we could spend the rest of our lives together.”
“Yeah. I get that money and we’re outta here. We’re on the road, go anywhere you want.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Right, the mythical money in the deposit box.”
“Ain’t no myth, boy. It’s there. I put it all away when you were a baby.” His eye brows waggled maniacally. “Time to collect.”
“What about the poker money?”
A quick frown shot across Fagan’s face. “What about it?”
“Do you have that?”
“You think I’d be asking for money if I already had some?”
“That’s exactly what I think. Enough money is never enough.”
“Well, I don’t have that. I think Petunia’s got it.”
“Scamming Arabalo?”
“Wasn’t his money to begin with, belonged to those dead poker players. The entry fees were the winning pot.”
I shoved him out of the way, went to the garage’s open doorway, traced my finger through the blood on the walls and wished it were Kurston’s blood. Maybe that would give me some kind of charge, some kind of nerve to end everything here and now.
Instead, it was my blood.
Fagan’s blood.
“Why can’t you remember where your own box is?”
“Give me the money.” Fagan’s voice roared in the garage, banged off the brick walls, came back at me even larger, more ferocious. “Give me the goddamned money.”
The gun flew up, trained directly on my face.
“I don’t have your money, Fagan.” I tried to keep my voice calm. Tried to keep the shake out of my hands and body. “I don’t have any money.”
“Goddamn it. Do you know who you’re fucking with?” Fagan had come close, the gun still up. His face was as wild now as his hair. Blasted open by anger and some kind of fear I couldn’t define.
“I’m not trying to screw with you, Fagan, I just don’t—”
“Not me, you stupid bastard.”
I frowned and thought for a long minute. “Business interests. New Mexico.”
“Just give me the—”
“How much do you owe?” I tried to sort through the anger and tension filling the garage; mine and Fagan’s, intertwined until it became one, until it became the same suffocating anger. “You asked me for directions first.”
“What?”
“When you pulled up to Kurston’s house. You asked for directions. Then you told me who you were.”
“What the fuck does that have to do—”
“You said you had to win it all. Get in the money, win th
e game, and I’d bet even money you’d have robbed everyone if you hadn’t won, and get out of town quick.”
“Where is the money?”
“Good question. If you put it away, how come you can’t remember where?”
“I told you. I was fucked up for a long time, Darcy. There are parts of my past that I can’t get hold of.”
“Where is the pendant?”
“The what?”
The lie, so obvious and bold on his face, enraged me. I grabbed my father around the throat. The man yelped, tried to land a blow against my head with the gun.
I ducked, slammed Fagan against the wall, banging him over and over until the gun popped free. “Where is the fucking pendant?”
“I don’t know what—”
“The one you stole, you son of a bitch, the one you stole from me.”
And then I couldn’t stop. Flesh against flesh, fist against face. Blood spattered us both, from whose nose and lips I didn’t know, didn’t care. Fagan managed to scramble sideways, get out of my grip. He grabbed the gun from the floor and I fell backward, his hands up.
This is it now. Not whacked by some cop, or a Fed or something. Whacked by my own father in a shitty warehouse.
But Fagan didn’t fire. Hammer cocked, finger on the trigger, an obvious bit of pressure. He shook his head. “Goddamnit, I need that money.”
I shrugged.
“Fine, fuck off. Don’t tell me. But don’t be surprised where we are when that fucking sun comes up.”
And then he was gone and for a long moment, split only by the silence of the beginning of the day, by the occasional hum of a truck or car, I could imagine he had never been here. Maybe it had been a vision, something given me by my fevered brain, or by my blood loss from ritualizing.
Then the pain came through; pain from Fagan’s fist, from Fagan’s teeth, from the man’s feet.
No vision, I knew.
The pain was too real.
***
“What in hell happened here?”
Cope’s voice was surprised, strained. Maybe angry. He stood in the doorway, a white bag in one hand, a cup of steaming coffee in the other.
Exit Blood (Barefield Book 2) Page 22
