Frames Per Second

by Bill Eidson

  Sarah cocked the rearview mirror so she could see Teri.

  “Go on,” McGuire urged Teri. “The two of them are interested. Look at them, goddamn bloodhounds for the facts.”

  Teri said in a flat voice, “We knew someone was following us, we didn’t know who. That reporter kept following me in your van. So I had Sands follow him back to your place.’’

  McGuire snorted. “Hell, you didn’t even send him after the right guy.”

  “Turned out I did,” she said. There was a silence.

  “And?” he said.

  “And Sands called me,” she said, impatiently. “He said he’d looked inside the van and apartment, figured out that Harris was the photojournalist for Insider who nailed Jarrod Johansen. That was enough for him to kill you right there. I freaked because I figured you had a photo making me as the link between Cheever and Jimbo. So when Sands said he wanted to wire something that night to take you out, I said do it.”

  “Peter figured it out,” Sarah murmured.

  Ben opened his eyes to see her look at him; her eyes were shining with tears. “He made the connection.”

  “Smart-ass reporter,” Teri said. “Look what it got him. Look what it’s going to get you.”

  “All this over the picture of you two together,” Ben said, slowly. “But her face wasn’t even visible.”

  “Tell me about it,” McGuire said. “I didn’t even know who Peter Gallagher was until I read in the paper the next day that he blew up. Couple days later, Teri comes crawling to me, says she made a big mistake. She thought Sands screwed up, got the wrong guy. That the picture must be someplace in your apartment. So I sent Dawson. Another frigging fiasco.”

  “The cops didn’t show the photos to you? Brace or Calabro?”

  “Naw. I own some cops, but not those two. I didn’t know you couldn’t see Teri’s face until you two came in and laid the photo out on my desk. You’re telling me you were on vacation, that it was Gallagher who made the shot, and I’m trying not to laugh in your face. I let you think that it was Suzanne in the picture and you went for it.”

  “So why’d you kill Cheever?” Ben asked.

  “He was going to spill it all,” McGuire said. “He got religion.”

  Ben turned in time to see McGuire’s grin.

  “Besides, I’ve got a problem with authority,” McGuire said. “I can’t stand it when people won’t do what I tell them.”

  CHAPTER 48

  KURT STARED AT HIS HANDS.

  So much of his blood had dripped down onto them.

  He sat beside Jake. Third seat back. Window seat. Wedged in tight with Jake in the middle, the one called Paulie beside him. The gun on Paulie’s lap, finger inside the trigger guard.

  Lainnie and Andi sitting in front of them.

  Reynolds was driving, the map spread out on the passenger seat.

  An American family, Kurt thought. Out for a drive.

  Kurt’s entire head pulsed. His left cheekbone had puffed up into his line of vision, a white blur just under his eye. He touched his cheek and winced. His eyes immediately began to water.

  The cheekbone must be broken, he figured.

  But his figuring was abstract, thoughts that he recognized as his own, but from far away.

  Maybe the damage from that gun whipping in his face had been so severe that he truly had no choice.

  The thought was comforting. No choice. Kurt took it for a while, hid with it, avoided Jake’s questioning looks, his scared eyes.

  Jake whispered, “What are we going to do?”

  Andi turned in her seat. “Leave him alone now. He’s hurt.”

  Damn straight, Kurt thought. He was hurt. And this was no longer his problem.

  He let his forehead settle against the cold window glass and watched the night stream by in miles and miles of time.

  He’d done what he could, he told himself. And maybe it would be enough.

  That was always a possibility.

  But until it came true, he was hurt. He was keeping to himself. That’s all he’d ever had, was himself. And that’s all that it looked like he was going to leave with.

  Maudlin, self-pitying, weak thoughts. A part of him knew that.

  But still he kept his head against the glass and let the miles pass by. Looking at his hands.

  To try to do anything more would be a foolish gesture.

  He’d done all he could.

  CHAPTER 49

  BEN WAITED UNTIL THEY STOPPED TO PAY THE SECOND TOLL BEFORE opening the blade. McGuire was leaning back in his seat, keeping his face out of sight as the woman in the booth took Sarah’s money.

  “Going up late,” the woman said.

  That was when Ben did it, opened the blade with his thumb and forefinger. The faint snicking sound was hidden under Sarah’s voice as she said, “We want to get a start on the weekend.”

  She pulled away.

  “That’s good,” McGuire said. “Just keep that up.”

  “How about calling those guys off my daughter,” Sarah said, looking in the mirror.

  McGuire was silent for a moment, and then said, “Yeah, why not?” Ben heard McGuire tap a number into his cell phone. “It’s me,” he said, moments later. “Go home. You’re done.”

  Sarah’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you,” she said.

  “What the hell,” McGuire said. “I’m only doing what I have to do. No more.”

  Ben slipped the blade between his wrist and the rope. And slowly began to run the blade up and down.

  * * *

  The sky was just beginning to lighten as they pulled in the narrow dirt road leading to the cabin. Ben’s shoulders and neck were stiff from the tension and effort of keeping his arms behind his back. He felt the remaining strand that held the rope together to be certain he could break it with a hard tug.

  He had slipped the knife back into his pocket, the blade still open. As Sarah wheeled the car in front of the cabin, he pushed the blade a little farther down into his pocket, being careful not to catch it in the cloth.

  “Nice old place,” McGuire said. “I could use something like this myself.” He said to Teri, “You want me to buy something like this up here, babe?”

  Ben heard her sigh. “Jimbo, you’re dreaming. All this stuff we’re doing now, that gives us some time maybe. A few days. But we have to leave, we have to do what he was talking about before, go to Europe or South America, change our faces. How’re we going to get past all this? Past them.”

  “You’ll see,” McGuire said.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to. You do what you have to do, but I don’t want to see it.”

  “Calm down,” McGuire said. “It’ll never come back to you. It’s going to be on him.”

  Ben turned.

  Teri Wheeler couldn’t meet his eyes.

  Reynolds stared at the cabin, then the woods around them. “Private, all right,” he said. “This might work out.”

  “Told you,” McGuire said.

  Reynolds drew the revolver from his holster and said to Ben, “You come with me.” He looked back at McGuire. “Send them in when I tell you.”

  McGuire said to Teri, “It’s what my uncle’s always said about Bobby. You give him a plan, he makes it happen.”

  Reynolds pushed Ben up to the door. “Where’s the key?”

  Ben nodded to the low-hanging eaves of the porch roof. Reynolds squinted, and then saw the key. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, took the key down, slid it into the lock, and opened the door. It was dark inside, the gray light just barely penetrating. The familiar smell of the cabin came back to him, of smoke, of split firewood.

  Ben felt the presence of his father and grandfather more strongly than ever before. He could feel them waiting and watching him. Looking to see how he would protect his family.

  Reynolds scanned the room, his quick eyes taking it all in. He looked at the fireplace, and brief irritation flashed across his face. “Where’s the shotgun? The one behind you and
your daughter in that picture.”

  Ben’s stomach dropped. “Sold it,” he said.

  “Bullshit,” Reynolds said. He walked over to the kitchen area and flipped a light switch. Nothing happened. “Where’s the circuit breaker?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he looked around the room quickly and then came back to Ben. He shoved him up against the wall. “Show me the circuit breaker box. I want that shotgun, and I want it right this goddamn minute.”

  Ben stared at him and then said, evenly, “The police and FBI know we were looking at McGuire. My van’s not even here. Who’s going to believe Sarah and I came up with Andi and Kurt?”

  Reynolds shrugged. “It’s not perfect. But his uncle said to give him a few days to get out of the country, get free. And this’ll do it. Hell, you might go a week before somebody finds you in this godforsaken place.”

  “Why are you protecting that little shit?”

  “Don’t waste your time on that. I do what his uncle tells me. He says save the guy’s ass.”

  “Even if it means killing my kids. Making it look like me.”

  Reynolds grimaced. “Jimbo told you that? Sadistic bastard. I can’t explain this so it’ll be right. If it was up to me, I’d shoot the prick and be done with it. Fact is, when I was up in the woods I called his uncle for permission to do just that. But the old man said no, the kid’s family, that’s it. And Clooney told you himself to stay away.”

  “He also told me he wouldn’t take it out on my family.”

  Reynolds gave a small shrug. “Yeah, well things got complicated, didn’t they? Now show me that circuit breaker.”

  * * *

  Reynolds kept Ben in front of him as they went into the bedroom. It was dark, with the morning light just beginning to filter through the pine trees out back. Ben went straight for the closet door, and Reynolds said, “Hold it.”

  He shoved Ben to the middle of the room. “You stand right there.” He slid along the wall and opened the closet door.

  Ben tensed his muscles and the strand of rope broke behind him. He grasped the knife, squeezing it tight. He had to fight the urge to lick his lips, to not wipe away the sweat that was beading his forehead.

  The shotgun was right there, propped up against the right wall of the closet.

  Reynolds didn’t see it at first, and Ben made himself wait until he did.

  “Here we go,” Reynolds said, reaching down.

  Ben took one big stride and grabbed the man’s wrist, the one holding the revolver. Reynolds pulled the trigger immediately, and Ben felt the flash alongside his thigh, but he wasn’t hit. He could feel more than see the next move, that Reynolds would club him with the shotgun.

  Ben knew he couldn’t win a fight with Reynolds. The man was simply too strong, too experienced.

  So Ben did what he had been visualizing those long hours up in the car. He hadn’t known who it would be, whether it would be Paulie, or Reynolds, or McGuire. But he had known if his chance came at all it would come down to this.

  Ben jabbed the point of the little blade into Reynolds’s throat until he felt it grate on bone. Then he pulled the cutting edge straight back. He was covered instantly in a gout of hot blood.

  The gun flashed again, and Ben’s ears were ringing too much to hear what Reynolds was trying to say as he grabbed at his ruined throat, and fell to his knees.

  Ben wrested away Reynolds’s gun and ran out of the bedroom.

  CHAPTER 50

  KURT STOPPED BREATHING.

  The second gunshot made a hollow booming inside the house, and McGuire looked at Paulie, surprised. “Already?”

  Paulie started to the front door. “Hey, Reynolds, I …”

  He suddenly bent down, raising his gun. But before he could get off a shot, it seemed like he was punched once by something. He staggered, and there was another gunshot, and the hair on the back of his head moved, and he fell onto the porch, one leg twisted beneath him. A small red hole streamed blood from his forehead.

  Ben stepped through the doorway, and over the gunman. He was covered in blood, a shocking amount. From his chest down, he was dripping red.

  Andi and Sarah turned and threw themselves onto the children. Andi onto Lainnie; Sarah onto Jake.

  Kurt stood there. Not as dazed as before. The fear, bright and sharp in him now. Unable to move.

  Without a word, Teri Wheeler started to run back to the cars. But McGuire backed away and swung his arm around her neck to pull her in front of him. He reached around to shoot at Ben.

  Ben fired back, the two guns booming in the early morning light, shocking flashes of light.

  Suddenly Teri Wheeler’s white shirt was covered with red. She looked down at herself, her palms open wide, looking down at the spreading stain on her shirt. “Jimbo,” she said, her voice quavering. “Jimbo, look at me.”

  He reached over her shoulder and took aim at Ben.

  With the sense of remoteness he had known all his life, Kurt could see how it was going to play out.

  Ben hesitated.

  He stood there looking at what he had done to Teri Wheeler, and the gun wavered in his hand.

  McGuire shot him. The bullet threw him back against the wall.

  “Dad!” Jake screamed.

  Kurt looked at him. Grief and shock and fear all welling up in an instant in the boy’s face. The woman, Sarah, her face showing the same even as she tried to hold the boy back.

  Kurt felt as if his head were on a swivel. Just the observer.

  He looked back at McGuire as he dropped Teri’s body to the ground.

  Foolish gesture.

  The words triggered for Kurt the image of himself, cowering behind the office door when Ludlow had abducted Sarah and Ben. Kurt had told himself the same then, that it would be a foolish gesture to attack Ludlow. That he couldn’t possibly win.

  Jake got free of Sarah.

  Andi saw what he was doing, saw that her boy was going to attack McGuire. “Stop, Jake!”

  McGuire saw him, too, and whipped the gun around onto the boy.

  Andi was scrambling herself now, trying to catch him. But she wouldn’t make it.

  Kurt reached out and grabbed Jake. He threw him to the ground and stepped up to McGuire. The gun moved to Kurt’s midsection.

  Foolish gesture, he thought.

  He said, “I sent the fax. I sent the picture.”

  McGuire hesitated. His eyes widened momentarily, and then he screamed, “You bastard.”

  Kurt threw himself onto McGuire.

  CHAPTER 51

  BEN SAW A HOLE ERUPT OUT OF KURT’S BACK AND ANOTHER ON his side.

  Later, Ben realized he had been moving as fast as he possibly could.

  But his sense of it at the time was an agonizing slowness, as he stumbled off the porch and switched the gun from his useless right arm and fumbled it into his left. Already the grip was bloody, and the gun slipped in his hand as he raised it up. The barrel pointed at an awkward angle, like a broken finger. Ben’s legs were shaking. “Move,” he said. Andi and the kids were too close. “Move!” His voice sounded separate from him. He stumbled, and then regained himself.

  There was another muffled shot, and then Kurt was rolling off McGuire, clutching at the gun as he went, but down on his side.

  “Let go!” McGuire said. He tugged at the gun, but still Kurt held on, and McGuire made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “Let go of the fucking gun!”

  He shot Kurt again.

  Kurt jerked once and then Ben was standing over McGuire. Ben put the gun on the young man’s head and pulled the trigger three times.

  Ben’s revolver clicked twice on empty chambers. But it didn’t really matter. The first round had done everything he needed.

  CHAPTER 52

  ANDI TURNED TO KURT. “OH MY GOD,” SHE SAID. “DON’T DO THIS. Don’t do this.”

  Kurt was curled into a ball, blood spreading beneath into the dirt.

  Ben grabbed Jake and said, “Go i
n and call 911 and tell them people have been shot and we need an ambulance.”

  Ben sat down heavily in the dirt. His right shoulder was bloody and felt as if someone had just swung a baseball bat into it. “Jesus,” he said as the first wave of nausea swept over him. He felt dizzy.

  “Stay down,” Sarah said, coming to him. “I’m going to get something to raise your legs.”

  He obeyed her, suddenly feeling very weak. He watched Andi as she ripped open Kurt’s denim shirt. His left side was punctured with three red holes. There was the smell of burned flesh and Ben could see blisters already forming on Kurt’s belly from the flash burns.

  His face was white, with deep red circles around his eyes. Andi said his name, but he didn’t respond.

  “Kurt!” she said louder.

  Nothing.

  She turned to Ben, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh God.”

  Ben leaned over and put his hand to Kurt’s neck. There was a faint pulse. “He’s alive.”

  Kurt coughed abruptly, and then curled tighter. Blood bubbled from his mouth, and his breathing was labored.

  Sarah came back with pillows, blankets, and a stack of towels. “Let’s try to slow this bleeding down, and keep them warm. Raise their legs for shock.”

  Ben could see Andi become visibly calmer now that she had something to do. She knelt beside Kurt and Sarah helped roll him over so they could slide a compress of white towels beneath him. Then she covered him and lifted his feet onto a pillow while Sarah turned to help Ben.

  “You sticking with me?” Sarah said to Ben.

  “You bet,” he said. Lainnie stood behind Andi, her lower lip quivering. Tears streaked down her face.

  “Come over here, honey,” he said. “Keep me company, will you?”

  “Daddy,” she said. She hurried over and knelt by his head. She touched his face. “Are you going to die?”