Except for a single man in the far back corner, the place was empty.
And that single man, staring hard at him, sure as hell wasn't Brooks.
"Mother Christ." Hal swallowed, hating the taste of his fear.
With a quick hand over the pistol, checking it, making sure it was there, Hal climbed out of the car. The night around him was mostly silent; the hum of a few cars, the bark of a few dogs, and the whir of a washing machine, loud and clear even outside.
The man's gaze never left Hal. A smirk crawled across his mug as Hal licked his lips and opened the door.
"Getting some laundry done?" Hal asked. He nodded toward the running machine.
"No."
"Uh-huh." Trying for nonchalance, thinking maybe he'd already blown it, Hal sat in one of the folding plastic chairs near the front door. He crossed his legs and hoped the gun, which pressed uncomfortably in his back, wasn't obvious by his posture.
"Shouldn't carry it in the small of the back."
So much for that.
Hal held one hand in front of him, palm out, and reached behind him with the other hand. When he brought the gun out, he held it by the barrel.
"A man of integrity," the man said.
"Yeah," Hal said. "I reek of the stuff."
The man chuckled. "We both knew you were carrying and you chose not to lie about it." He stood in the far corner. An older guy, call it mid to late fifties. Husky but not muscled or fat, kind of a mushy in-between, though he was trying awful hard to make those muscles on his arm look pretty tough. His black shirt was too tight by about a size and a half. His pants, also black, were tailored. The all-black motif would have made Hal laugh had he not been so goddamned scared.
The goon had said don't worry about Brooks and Brooks had never asked for the DVD, he'd asked for the money.
"I figure I know what you want." Hal set his gun in his lap.
"Yes."
"I figure you got two goons waiting somewhere to pop me if I shoot."
"Yes."
With a sniff, Hal said, "Just can't figure who you are."
The man leaned back against the wall, his weight on one foot, the other cocked across it with toe down. "Well, I'm not sure you need to know that. What you need to know is that I've got a pocket full of bills and I'm ready to deal. Take some and you can go on about your merry way to Mexico with the wetback."
Hal fought the urge to stand. He kept his mouth shut.
The man grinned. "Did I offend you? Go ahead, then, put your finger on the trigger. You'll see the goons then." He waited for Hal to make a move.
Hal declined, plugged his ears with his fingers. "Can we turn the washer off?"
The man smiled. "I say you have integrity because you've been through a shitload of grief, my friend and--"
"Ain't your friend."
"What?" The man frowned.
"I ain't your friend. If you don't have those goons around her house, I ain't here."
With a shrug, the man said, "Fair enough. You have integrity because in spite of everything he's thrown at you, you keep moving. Always moving, getting to that brother."
Hal's lips twitched. He looked again around the laundry. Glanced at the parking lot.
"How close are you? Four hundred miles? Five hundred? Shit, it's like you can see Huntsville over the horizon."
Hal shook his head. "Ain't going there."
"Right. Mexico."
The man fell silent and in the gaping hole, desperation began to howl. Maybe it was the guy's quiet voice or maybe the sparse way he moved, all compact and certain. Maybe it was his damned eyes. Or maybe it was as simple as the goons watching from points unknown.
"You're the one who beat Shawn up." Hal was certain of that. Why hadn't Brooks done it himself? "Shoved her in front'a the car, too. What if I'd killed her? What's the message then? That was why you pushed her out there, wasn't it? A message?"
Feeling the shake in his hands, Hal held his hands together behind his head, spread his legs out along the floor. Just a man taking in some night time laundry, nothing more.
"The message is, I want my disk."
"My disk. I bought it. Got a receipt and everything."
The man chuckled. "You bought a stolen DVD."
"Why not? I bought it with stolen money."
"Quite the life of thievery." The man took a few measured steps toward Hal. "Isn't that the problem with your brother?"
The hair on the back of Hal's neck stood. "Leave my brother outta your mouth."
"He knows you're a thief, knows you've spent time inside for robbery and burglary and deceptive practices and a host of other charges. But now--" The guy's head tilted slightly, like a mutt hearing an odd sound. "Now he believes you're a killer. And all this was to prove him wrong."
Hal stood, kept the gun light in his hands.
The man ignored it. "Everything got bloody, didn't it? And that fouled you up because, really, deep in your guts, you've got no guts. You're not a killer, you're not even a very good hustler."
"I ain't got no notches in my gun right now," Hal said as hard as he could. "That don't mean I'll never have any."
The man nodded. "Again, a fair point. People do graduate. Here's my problem, Hal. If I let you show that disk around, even to your brother, that could seriously jeopardize some business opportunities…given who your brother is."
Hal frowned. This guy hadn't been involved either, at least not that Hal remembered. "Business opportunities? What are you talking about?"
"VPN."
"Guzhundheit."
"Virtual private network. It's where my friends and I meet and discuss our interests."
"Son of a bitch," Hal said. "You guys get on-line and watch people getting snuffed." And probably considered themselves a simple society club with exotic tastes.
The man said nothing.
"How, exactly, did that DVD come to be?" Hal asked. "If you do all this murder-watching on-line, why is there a disk of it?"
Another few steps toward Hal. Hal moved to his left away from the man.
"You are not so stupid, are you?" he asked. "You have to realize Missy isn't the only person on that disk."
Hal sucked his teeth. "Am I stupid? Of course I know there are more. I watched this thing soon as I got it. Had to make sure I got what I paid for. Sure I know there are more." Hal rolled his eyes, made a big presentation of shrugging his shoulders. At the same time, he tightened his grip on the gun.
Truth was, he'd never thought about the DVD beyond it getting him clear with his brother. More murders? He could hardly stomach that there was one.
With a smirk, the man nodded. "That's not the way I heard it, but whatever you say."
"How'd you make it?"
"What makes you think I did?"
Hal didn't bother with a shrug. "How else would you know about them all? Unless you're just distribution. You got a bigger ego than just distribution, though, don't you?"
"Everyone wants to be a director, don't they? Or a producer. Missy's murder, like so many killings in this fine country, was taped. Everyone has a videocam anymore, Hal, and everyone enjoys watching themselves."
It was then Hal noticed the security camera in the far back corner. It was a small, black bird, hovering and watching--and recording--everything.
"You, too, I guess." Hal nodded toward the camera.
The man gave it a quick glance. "No. If I wanted to record what happens here, I'd use something a little more subtle." He looked hard at Hal. "Shootings, knifings, beatings. I've got whatever you want to see."
"Including Missy getting killed." Bile rose in Hal's mouth. One shot and this guy was gone. One shot and him and all his bullshit were gone.
"Raped and killed, Hal, but I've got more than that. I've got grandmothers being tortured. I've got retards being burned. I've got people in wheelchairs dragged out of their chairs and then beaten to death with them. I've got people buried up to their necks who then get their heads sliced off with chainsaws."
Hal's stomach rolled. "Man, that's the sickest bullshit I've ever heard."
"Oh, but there's more, Hal. I've got executions galore. Two from Alabama, one from Florida and five from Texas. Not all taped. February 3, 1998, Carla Faye Tucker, executed live by the State of Texas on my VPN."
Silence slipped between them like a blade between ribs.
"I can get a camera anywhere I want. Or I just wait until someone brings the product to me."
"Then you make a DVD, call it Faces of Death or some shit, and sell it everywhere."
"Faces of Death is frat-boy fare, call it murder lite. Plus, I don't sell anything." The man nodded. "Ah, now I see some spark of understanding." He pointed toward Hal's car. "A man named Harwell stole that disk from me. Thought he could extort a few hundred thousand from me. He's dead now but the disk slipped away."
"Few more times stolen, or maybe bought, and good old Templeton's got it. Then he's selling it to me."
"And I sent someone to get it back."
It laid there between them for an eternity. Finally, Hal understood. "Shawn." Son of a bitch. How had he not seen it? How had she traveled 1,500 miles with him without him tumbling to it? "That was why she was with Dogwood. She knew I'd snagged the dough and that I'd be looking to buy."
"I don't know about that. All I know is I sent her to retrieve it. She fucked that up and then Brooks got involved and continued to fuck the situation up and the next thing I know, the disk is halfway across the country."
"Why her?"
"She owed me a favor."
"How's that? You're the dealer."
The man brushed a finger past his nose as though brushing away coke residue. Or giving a signal to the goons. Hal drew the gun tight into his hand, brought it up quickly, aimed it dead center at the man's head.
"Whoa, careful, Hal. Don't do anything that will get you killed."
"They kill me, they'll be looking at your corpse."
"Right, the first notch." He looked out the front windows and shook his head. "Those disks, what few exist, are kept by members of the…society, let's call it. Those disks are made special for each client, according to his…or her…taste."
"Because they're junkies, ain't they? Some of them need more than what they can cram onto their computer."
He smiled. "You know more about the darker areas of the heart than you think you do."
Probably so, Hal thought. But not nearly as much as you and you can just keep that knowledge to your fucking self. "How'd you know where I was? Brooks tell you?"
"Brooks never said a word." He took a few more steps toward Hal, slowly, measured steps. "He's not a rat. Prided himself on that."
"Then how?" Hal stepped away, further from the door, closer to the whirring washing machine.
"Like I said, dangerous DVDs, custom burned. In fact, even the blank DVDs are custom pressed. I can track each and every one."
"Bullcrap."
"Enough money and you can do anything you want. The technology is there, Hal. But this isn't even cutting edge. It's the same microchip vets put under the skin of animals and doctors put under the skin of kids."
Shitshitshit. The very disk that was going to free him had put him in another prison, one he hadn't even known he was in.
"Now, let's finish with this bullshit. Give me the DVD, I'll give you a few bucks and we'll call it good. You'll be on your way to retirement with Theresa."
The moment the man smiled, Hal knew it was going to end here. No disk for cash, no walking out the door. This was it. This guy had no intention of ever letting Hal drive away into some sort of Mexican sunset.
He thought he'd been scared over the last few days but this--as suddenly and powerfully and brutally as an ice pick to the face--was the real thing. This was fear, this was certainty of death.
"Holy fucking shit." Confused, scared, Hal stepped sideways, trying to see everything at once without taking his eyes off the asshole. He kept the gun trained dead center on his forehead.
"You really should sit down. It'll be easier for you to see where they're coming from if you're sitting still."
"Easier for them to shoot me if I'm sitting still."
"You make so many fair points."
"Goddamnit, can't we turn off that washer?" The sound was in Hal's ears now like a stack of guitar amplifiers at some hepped-up rock concert. The machine, almond colored but scratched and dented, banged against the machines on either side of it.
"It'll be done in a minute."
"Why you doing your underwear right now? We got business other than cleaning up your dainties."
"What's in there is my business."
"What the hell's that mean?"
"I realize you don't need my money because you have all of Brooks' cash, but I'll make a good faith gesture. You paid twenty large. I'll pay you fifty."
The machine stopped. In the sudden, screaming silence, Hal nearly yelped. He jerked the gun toward the machine.
"Blast away," the man said. "But whatever you destroy, you'll have to pay for, that's just good manners."
"Ain't worried about my manners," Hal said. "I'm worried about my ass."
"Wise choice. Now take a peek."
The laundromat was dead silent now. The machine was dead still, as though it had never been alive. Hal stared at it.
"Go on, Hal."
"The money in there?"
The man smiled, shook his head, and sat in the chair where Hal had been originally. "We've moved beyond money, Hal. I made an offer and you chose not to take it."
"Ain't decided yet."
A curt nod. "Yeah, you did."
The man shrugged again and Hal nearly shot him just for the annoyance. His feet, shaking nearly as badly as his hands, stepped toward the washer and stopped, then stepped again. He was about ten or twelve more steps away and for whatever reason, he couldn't stop himself. The guy's face held no expression.
"Gonna tell me who you are?"
"Names are facades."
Eight steps.
"Ain't everything?"
"Again, you make a fair point, Hal."
Five steps and the sweat ran down Hal's back, slipped between his ass cheeks and down his legs, where it ran on his legs. It leaked into his eyes, tipped his nose.
"What's in here?"
Silence.
"Damnit, what in the hell is in here?"
His hand shaking, Hal lifted the lid.
"A buddy of yours."
Brooks' head, ragged at the neck where it had been cut off, stared up at Hal.
"Fuckfuckfuck," Hal screamed. He vomited into the washer and fell back just as the front glass shattered in an explosion of bullets.
459 Miles (One Last Time….)
The guy, still nameless and why in hell was Hal worried about that right now, fell sideways into the wall. Hal went down too, glass flying around like pissed-off bees looking for someone to sting.
And damned if Hal didn't get stung. A piece bit into his cheek. He ignored it as the air filled with the sound of guns and the stench of cordite. They're shooting at me, sure as shit.
Scrabbling against the washer, down the sides of which ran strings of vomit, Hal waited to see someone at the far end of the laundromat, their gun looking for him. The barrel of his own gun smoked where he'd laid off two shots.
God knows where those had gone 'cause they damn sure hadn't killed the guy who brought Brooks' head. From the other side of the washers, call it twenty feet away, his scream was loud and clear and righteously angry. Nor had his shots killed who ever had started this madness because that gun was still blasting away.
Bullet after bullet slammed into the washing machines. It was a thin, metallic pop, and made Hal think of a kid thunking cars with a golf ball. Then the bullets hit wood. Hal looked at the closet behind him as the door opened lazily and disgorged one of the goons. He fell slow, cheap-movie slow, right out of the closet. Face first on the floor. Blood meandered along the stained tiles.
"How
'bout that, motherfucker?" the shooter said. "Think you can beat me?"
"Who the hell are you?" the VPN guy called.
"Guy who's gonna kill you."
More bullets, more frenzied shooting and damned if Hal wasn't back at the sewage plant. Bullets flying and people yelling and the smell of testosterone thicker than gun powder.
"Gonna kill you good, too. Asshole watching my sister and beating people up."
Hal raised his head. "Domingo?" A bullet pinged the nearest machine, whizzed past his ear. He ducked quickly.
"Shut up and maybe get outta here?" Domingo said over the shooting.
"There's another guy." Hal scrambled down toward the front door, belly crawling.
"I know--"
His words disappeared beneath a volley from VPN Guy, who didn't say anything as he fired, just plugged away. Hal had no idea, other than near the back, where he was. He had no idea, other than toward the front, where the man's bullets were going.
"Hal? You wanna get out?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going. But watch out for--" He swallowed as he raised up just enough to see the front wall. All the glass was shot out and Hal hadn't even realized he wasn't hearing exploding glass anymore. Bits and pieces twinkled in the incandescent light like yellowed stars. They were all over the floor and the sidewalk outside. They dusted the back of his car and decorated the parking lot.
"Go, you stupid ass gringo."
A bullet, no doubt fired by VPN Guy, popped a water pipe behind and above Domingo's head. Hot water geysered down on Domingo. He yelped and danced out of the stream.
At least it wasn't blood soaking him, Hal thought.
And then it was. A single shot to the shoulder. Through and through. It came from behind and Hal clearly saw the bullet exit Domingo's front.
"Son of a bitch." Domingo's voice spiraled up through the air.
Hal jerked to his feet and fired steadily toward VPN Guy. Domingo whirled and shot through the empty front window. The second man, the one in the green knit shirt, howled. Hal glanced over, even as he continued to fire at VPN Guy, as the flunkie stumbled out of the dark.
He slumped onto Hal's car, an after-market hood ornament, and bled all over everything. A lop-sided grin rode his face but Hal was pretty sure it was from the pain of having his balls shot off. Blood poured from between his legs and streaked the stolen car.
2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield) Page 19
