A Hard Death

by Jonathan Hayes

  They didn’t have enough time. This fucking thing was blown, and there wasn’t enough time, and Brodie knew it.

  The cook cycle still needed a good thirty-six hours; Brodie didn’t think they had it anymore, but he’d received his orders and he had no choice. The pseudoephedrine had been processed, and the cooks were in the kitchen. If it worked out, by tomorrow night they’d have another forty pounds of pure meth, with a street value—once the middlemen had cut down the purity—of well over a million; that wasn’t chicken feed.

  How much time before the bust? It had to come, and soon. He’d learned in California that it doesn’t matter how many cops you have on your team: if one dies, they all come after you. Craine was connected, sure, but not connected enough to stop that wave when it came. Their best hope was that the locals wouldn’t get their act together—it would take the feds at least a couple of days to pull their thumbs out of their asses and green-light a strike team on some rich guy’s property.

  Of course, it was cake for some guy sitting at a desk in a shabby office in Tepalcatepec to tell them to risk everything to finish that last batch—he, after all, risked nothing. But that was the nature of the business.

  That morning, when word had come to close up shop after this cycle, Brodie had taken it as a sign. This was a good time to retire. He’d fly down to Costa Rica, take a cab to his beautiful mountainside villa in Playa Hermosa, and unpack for the last time. He’d shower off the filth of the last three years, scrub himself until his skin was pink and stinging, then walk naked through his palatial home and climb into his beautiful pool, cantilevered out over the mountainside, the pool’s invisible edge fusing with the horizon so it looked like he could swim forever. He’d float in the warm water and look at the stars and think about the millions in cash buried in the grounds and buildings in insulated steel cases, and it would be the last time he’d ever think about the things he’d done to get that pool.

  The western sky had grown dark and heavy, the clouds sinking onto the horizon; it’d rain soon. Down the slope, a farmhand chased a loose piglet across the field, laughing, driving it back toward the feeding pen.

  The pathologist was pretty much buttoned up now, Brodie figured—too compromised to be a threat. It had cost Craine a little cash, but nothing compared to what that rich fucker had raked in over the last couple of years.

  Brodie hated the way the cartel handled Craine, all white gloves and finger sandwiches. One time in Sinaloa, he’d watched them cut the ears off every member of some poor bastard’s family when they thought he’d shorted them—sliced the ears right off the grandmother, the father, the wife, the daughter, the baby. It made him sick they pulled shit like that while they massaged Craine like a prize cow—filled his offshore accounts to overflowing, gave him cash by the bucket-load, fed his hunger for skinny little girls.

  Brodie spat. The fucker made him puke. Craine was visiting the farm that night, and Brodie would have to listen to him prance around like some kind of criminal mastermind. The man was totally in awe of his ability to straddle two worlds, one foot on the top rung of Port Fontaine society, the other in narcotrafficking. And that was the word Craine used—narcotrafficking.

  Fucker.

  In front of Bunkhouse A, Tarver and Bentas were bickering like an old couple; Tony sat on a chair, watching in mute disgust.

  Brodie’s lip curled. God, Tarver was a loathsome fuck. When everything wound down, they’d do a cleanup operation and then they’d clear out. Brodie had decided that, son-in-law or not, Tarver was one of the things that needed cleaning up.

  The thought cheered him, and as he felt the first drops of rain strike his face, he looked up and grinned. His daughter would never know exactly what happened—in this business, bad things happened all the time. When she got out, her life would be all the better for being rid of that psycho.

  Besides, it would leave the world a better place.

  CHAPTER 108

  Doctor! Get her gun! Get her pistol. Now! Get it now!”

  Nash was near-hysterical. Deb lay there panting, eyes shut tight with pain, arm pressed across her belly.

  Jenner tried to keep Nash calm as he leaned over her body, moving and speaking slowly. “Okay…I’m going to take her pistol out now.”

  “Don’t move!”

  Jenner didn’t move. He squatted next to her, his reaching hand frozen in midair, the muzzle of Nash’s gun now floating in front of his face.

  As Jenner stared at the pistol, the black hole of the muzzle wavered and bobbed; Nash was losing it.

  “Okay, Nash. I need you to listen to me.”

  “What?”

  “I need to look at her…Just let me see if she’s badly hurt, okay?”

  Nash squinted down at them, his eyes filling with tears.

  “You have to move her gun first!” It came out as a squeak, a plea from a frightened boy. “I’m going to stand behind you—my weapon will be pointed right at your head, man.”

  Jenner said, “I only want to help her. I don’t care about you, or the shooting—I know it was an accident, I know you didn’t mean to do it—I just want to look after her, make sure she’s okay.”

  He looked up at Nash. The cop’s face was wet with tears, watery snot dribbling from his nose as he sobbed.

  “Come on, Tom. Let me help her. I’m a doctor, just let me help her.”

  Nash nodded. “I didn’t want it to be like this—you gotta understand.”

  “I know. I saw it—it was an accident. You were looking at her and the gun just…went off.”

  Jenner was surprised by the first drops of cool rain. He leaned over Deb to keep her dry, then wondered why; across her belly, her khaki shirt was already soaked with blood.

  He did what Nash wanted.

  “Okay, Tom, you see? I’ve snapped open her holster…I’m going to take the butt of the gun between just my thumb and finger, see?”

  Nash nodded again. “Dr. Jenner, please, you gotta believe me. Mr. Craine just told me to get his money back. He told me there wouldn’t be a problem. Why did Deb have to come along?”

  The gun was wobbling in Nash’s hand. Christ—Jenner didn’t even want to think about what would happen if a car passed them.

  Jenner said, “Keep it together, Tom. I need you to keep breathing, just be steady now, okay? Pull it together. I think she’s going to be fine, okay? Just hang in there…”

  He showed Nash her gun, dangling from his fingers.

  “Okay, I have her weapon. Now what do I do?”

  “Throw it over toward my car.”

  Jenner tossed the pistol, but with the gun’s weight and the two-fingered throw from his weaker arm, the pistol landed less than six feet from him. Nash circled around to the weapon, kicked it farther away, and kept his Glock on Jenner as he squatted to pick it up. He jammed it into the back of his waistband.

  “Now get me her cell phone. And I want yours too.”

  Jenner unclipped her phone from her utility belt. He made a show of searching his pockets, then looked up at Nash. “I don’t have it. Must be in the car.”

  “Find it.”

  Jenner stood reluctantly. “I should look at her first.”

  “No. Find your phone first, then you can look at her.”

  Jenner walked to the car and leaned into the open trunk. He moved the money, glanced at his phone. The screen was dark now; either the cell had lost the connection or the battery had died. But at what point? Had Rad heard the shot? He made a show of looking around a little longer, then shut the phone and announced, “Found it.”

  He handed it to Nash, who said, “Okay. You can go ahead.”

  Deb looked up at Jenner. He nodded at her, then knelt to examine her. He tugged her shirt up, untucked the tank top underneath and yanked it up, too. His hands were quickly slick with blood.

  He pulled the tank top down, and wiped her belly with it.

  There was a dark hole the size of a penny below her rib cage on the left. Jenner pressed it gently; b
lood welled out freely.

  Deb flinched, her eyes open.

  “Jenner…”

  “Deb, I need to turn you on your side, okay?”

  “He shot me.”

  “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt a bit…”

  She grimaced as he moved her to the right, but she brought up her knee to brace herself and rolled silently into the turn.

  “Why did he shoot me?”

  “Shhh…Let me have a look at you, then we can talk.”

  Deb’s back was smeared with blood, too, which was seeping from a ragged little slit in her left flank where the bullet had exited.

  “Can you breathe okay?”

  “Why is all that money in your car?”

  Jenner rolled her back flat; again, she flinched, then lay still, breathing fast.

  “We’ll talk in a second.”

  He pulled her shirt higher, above her bra, then leaned over to press his ear against her chest.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  Deb put a hand on his head and tried feebly to push him away, then gave up and let her arm down. He pressed his head to her chest; close to her skin, he could smell the blood now, feel his ear sticking to her skin. She coughed, then inhaled sharply; he heard her breath sliding clearly in and out of her lungs. He listened on the other side of her chest, also okay. He lay his left hand flat on her chest, then tapped it firmly with his right hand; the sound was hollow. Her chest was not filled with blood; the bullet had passed lower.

  “It hurts when I cough.”

  Jenner smiled grimly. “So don’t cough.”

  He sat up. The drizzle swelled to a roar, the rain pelting down on them. He blankly watched the blood on her belly turn pink and thin, and wash off into the grass.

  The wound site below her rib cage meant possible injuries of internal organs, arteries, and veins. But the hole was far enough to the side that her liver and stomach were probably spared; Jenner was more worried about her kidney and spleen, because they could really bleed. And all the fucking arteries and veins.

  Jenner leaned over Deb, staring at her injury, shielding her from the rain with his back. She was looking up at him. He took her wrist, felt her pulse. Fast but strong; a good baseline. Maybe it was just soft tissue and muscle…

  “Jenner? Where did you get that money?” Deb pulled her wrist from his hand. “Did you kill Rudge?”

  Her hand floated down to lie across her chest. Her eyelids blinked weakly; her voice was quiet. “Did you kill…Dr. Roburn?”

  CHAPTER 109

  Nash motioned down the highway ahead, tapped his gun against the Taurus’s windshield, and said, “Drive faster, doctor.”

  Jenner glanced back over his shoulder at Deb, stretched out on the garbage bags Nash had taken from his car.

  Nash was sharper now that the initial shock of actually having shot someone was subsiding. He’d taken their cell phones and thrown them out on the highway.

  “Faster—I want to get off the street.”

  They passed the combination piñata shop and Haitian hair salon, a former gas station painted an electric blue on the Mexican side and bright pink on the Haitian. They’d reached Bel Arbre.

  Nash lowered the gun to his lap, keeping it trained on Jenner next to him. He was being careful to stay as far from Jenner as he could, pressing himself against the door, waiting for Jenner to try something reckless.

  “Okay, now, be cool. We’re about to pass the sheriff’s substation, on the left.”

  They were passing through downtown Bel Arbre—all six or so blocks of it. The streets were dark from the downpour, the backlit signs and streaks of neon blurring brightly in the windshield. Taco Bell, furniture stores, check cashing, a 7-Eleven. Cars on the street, a few people on the sidewalk hurrying through the steady rain.

  Nash said, “Slow down, drive careful. No stopping.”

  The rain eased to a drizzle. Jenner did as he was told, listening half to Nash, half to Deb’s shallow breathing. He needed to get her to a hospital; he couldn’t tell if this was the pain and shock of being shot or if it was more than just a perforating soft-tissue injury.

  “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck…” Nash’s voice had turned desperate again, and Jenner saw why: up ahead, idling in the middle of the road, two police cruisers had pulled level with each other, one facing north, the other south. Periodically, a tanned arm poked out of the cop car in their lane to gesture emphatically.

  Several cars ahead of them slowed to a halt behind the cruiser; no one in this town would give the cops grief. They were in no hurry.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Nash shook his head. “I don’t know! Let me think…”

  Jenner said, “I can turn here, go a block east, then a few blocks north before cutting back onto the highway?”

  Nash nodded. “Okay, do that. But slow.”

  Jenner steered the car onto the shoulder, then took the right.

  They moved through the back streets. Half the houses were ram-shackle and overgrown, with grubby children and chained pit bulls sheltering from the storm on porches behind the junk-clotted yards. But the other half was new; clean, modern homes, freshly painted, with small, neat lawns and metal mesh fencing still silvery-bright.

  Beyond a new low-income development of townhouses, Jenner saw a sign that read BEL ARBRE QUICKMED DROP-IN CLINIC; it was brightly lit, although the parking lot was empty.

  Feeling Jenner slow the car, Nash said, “What are you doing? Keep going!”

  Jenner said, “Look, if she doesn’t get real medical help soon, she could die.”

  “It’s her fault! She was going to draw on me.” Nash’s voice was shrill. “I’m sorry, but she…She brought this on herself.”

  “We could just slow down, drop her in the parking lot and go.”

  “Are you insane? This county is OxyContin Central—every clinic has CCTV security. We can’t go in there! Besides…” He trailed off.

  Jenner knew what he was thinking. Besides…if she goes in there, and they patch her up, she’ll say who shot her, and that’ll be that.

  But Jenner knew that it really was already all over, for Deb and for him. When Nash shot Deb, he’d signed their death warrants. There was no getting past that now—Nash couldn’t take the bullet back. The cop just didn’t have the stones to shoot Jenner in cold blood, to put another bullet in Deb. Nash would take them to the farm, where someone else would take Jenner and Deb out back and shoot them, dump their bodies in the Glades.

  The Taurus bumped over railway tracks; in the backseat, Deb moaned. Jenner and Nash turned. Her shirt was open, the tank top underneath soaked with blood, blood puddling along her hip and flank as she lay there. But Jenner was surprised that there wasn’t more blood—the bleeding seemed to be slowing. A good sign.

  Unless, he thought. Unless she’s bleeding internally. Or out of her back wound. Or going into shock.

  There was another jolt as they dropped back onto the main road out of Bel Arbre.

  And then there was open highway in front of them. To the sides of the highway, the fields fell away, replaced by saw grass marsh. After a while, the marsh got wetter and wetter, and soon there were small, stunted trees, all intertwining branches and twisted, knotted roots plunging into cloudy gray water, and they were over the mangrove swamp.

  And then, finally, ahead was the bridge over the river through the mangroves, and beyond that, the road to Chip Craine’s farm.

  CHAPTER 110

  Smith and Bentas watched the Taurus approach up the main drive.

  Bentas called out to Brodie, “It’s Nash—and he’s brought the coroner.”

  The Taurus pulled to a halt in front of the farmhouse. Nash leaned over, turned off the ignition, took the key. He got out, walked up the slope toward Brodie, and said, “There’s a problem.”

  Brodie said, “Is it my problem?”

  Nash looked befuddled, so Brodie snapped, “Have you jammed me or my operation up with some bullshit?”

 
; Nash shook his head, then stammered, “I…No, I don’t think so.”

  Brodie said, “Well, okay then. Go sob on Craine’s shoulder.”

  “I shot a cop.”

  “Really?” Brodie grinned at Bentas and Smith. “Well, that ain’t right!”

  Bentas smirked. “Particularly what with you being a cop and all, too, right?”

  Brodie said, “So let me guess—you’re here because you want our help with the body?”

  Nash shook his head. “No. She’s not dead.” He turned and gestured to the car. “Just wounded.”

  Brodie bounded off the porch and grabbed Nash by the scruff of his collar, shaking him like a rat. “You stupid fuck! You shoot a cop, and you bring her here?”

  Brodie stared at the car. Jenner was watching impassively from the driver’s seat; Brodie could almost feel the man figuring his next step.

  He turned to Bentas and snapped, “You and Tony get rid of the cop and the ME. Strip the bodies, burn the clothes. Fuck up their faces, tell Tony to cut off the fingers. Then take the airboat and dump them out there—I don’t give a fuck where, somewhere far out enough they’ll stay gone a while, though.”

  Bentas was walking to the car when Brodie said, “No, wait. Hold it.”

  He turned to Nash. “I want to get this straight: you shoot a cop, then you bring her here with another witness? What are you, some kind of fucking retard? This can only end one way—they both die.”

  Nash nodded slowly.

  Brodie spat, then said, “You started this, you finish it. Take them down to the water and get rid of them.”

  He started back to the cookhouse, leaving Nash standing there, pale, nerves jangling.

  Bentas clapped Nash on the shoulder. “Hey, nut up, buddy! It’s your chance to show us what kind of man you are!”

  Smith called out, “Yo, Brodie! It’s a chick! She’s pretty fucked up, there’s blood everywhere…” He was leaning against the car, peering into the back. He straightened. “She’s not a regular cop, she’s wearing a green uniform…I think maybe she’s a park ranger or something.”