Walk In the Fire

by Steph Post

  “We already put all that on Jack.”

  “Hold on. And he was asking how we knew Tulah. Ratface said that was what the guy was hounding him about. Our connection to the preacher. You know, the connection we don’t have.”

  Slim Jim cradled the receiver between his ear and shoulder and picked at a ripped cuticle. He was tired of the conversation already.

  “So? Legs, what’s your point?”

  “You got mush between your ears, Slim? Are you so far away out there on the beach that you can’t think straight?”

  Slim Jim sat up. He could have punched Legs in the face. He didn’t want anyone, not even the guy standing in line behind Legs for the phone, to know where he was. He tried to keep his cool, though. He had gotten lucky, Legs hadn’t. He needed to remember that.

  “Okay, Legs. Just keep to the story you’ve been telling all along. Don’t worry about the Cannons. Don’t worry about that crazy preacher. This ATF guy is just fishing.”

  “There’s one other thing you should know.”

  Slim Jim squeezed his eyes shut

  “Now what?”

  “The agent brought you up.”

  Slim Jim swallowed hard.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Ratface said that the ATF guy mentioned you. How you’re on the run. Tried to get Ratface to, well, rat on you.”

  “He didn’t say anything, did he?”

  “Come on, Slim. Ratface knows I’d cut his balls off and feed them to him for breakfast if he said a word about you. He may be scared of going to prison, but he’s a lot more scared of me and Tiny. We’re keeping him in line, don’t worry.”

  Slim Jim nodded.

  “All right. I appreciate it, man.”

  “Hey, you just keep doing what you’re doing. We’re gonna need someone on the outside looking out for us, you know.”

  Slim Jim felt his gut twist. The rest of the Scorpions were only following the code, but he still owed them. It had been his idea to attack the church. And as a result, Jack and Toadie had ended up in the ground and the other three were awaiting trial, looking at ten plus years if it all went south. He was the only one who’d made it off scot free. For now, at least. Slim Jim hoped that what he was feeling came through in his voice.

  “Thanks, brother. I mean, it really.”

  “Nah, man. No problem. What’s family for, right?”

  “Right.”

  The clanging sound had picked back up and it was hard to hear Legs now.

  “Well, Slim. I gotta go. You take care of that old lady of yours, you hear?”

  Slim Jim smiled to himself.

  “Shelia ain’t my old lady.”

  “Not yet. But take care of her anyway. She’s putting up with your dumb ass. She deserves something. At least give it to her right.”

  “Now that I can do. And take care of yourself, Legs.”

  “Sure.”

  The line went dead. Slim Jim dropped the receiver and banged his head back against the headboard. One more thing to worry about now. Jesus. Though there was still no one to listen to him, he yelled anyway.

  “There had better be some goddamn beer around here somewhere!”

  He waited for the thump from above, but it never came.

  JUDAH WAS sick of Daytona Beach. He was sick of the candied neon signs, the thumping music blaring from every bar, the jackasses zipping between lanes on their buzzing ninjas, the families walking out in traffic with ice cream dripping down their arms and inflatable sea creatures in tow. Even the sunburned co-eds in thong bikinis, who winked and waved as they stumbled along the crumbling sidewalk in jelly flip-flops, held zero interest for him. He wanted to be home. With a cold beer in one hand, a lock of Ramey’s tangled hair in the other, and nothing else but the tree frogs and screech owls for miles in any direction.

  Judah stomped on the brakes to avoid hitting a pack of club-goers, slick already with sweat, gel and glitter, crossing the street from one bar to another. A girl in a rebel flag print tube top blew a kiss to him. The much older guy tagging along at her elbow flipped him off. Judah ground his teeth. He could daydream all he liked about going back to Silas and sitting out on the front porch in the moonlight, but he knew that wasn’t what was really waiting for him at home. Instead, he had his bitter, pill-popping brother and his pissed-off, and now mistrustful, girl to deal with. And Nash tied up in the shed. And Lesser in the ground. He had come to Daytona seeking answers and was driving away with none. He honestly didn’t know if he should be thankful or not.

  The van behind him honked at him to go and Judah glanced up at Alvin and Gary in the rearview mirror. He eased his truck into gear. They hadn’t yet talked about what had happened with Weaver upstairs at Stingrays, but from the looks on their faces as they had walked away from the club in the descending violet twilight, he knew they were thinking the same thing as him: what the hell was that? Followed by: now what? Their eyes had been questioning, but Judah had only shaken his head as he yanked open the truck’s door. They could pull over and talk about it once they cleared the Volusia County line.

  Judah had barely gotten the F-150 into third gear when he had to stop for yet another light. Between the stoplights and the jaywalkers, he thought he’d never get off A1A. At least it seemed now that the bars, clubs and hotels were behind him. It looked like mostly gas stations and strip malls ahead. Soon, it would all peter out into familiar open highway. The light turned green and Judah stepped on the gas. Immediately, he had to switch over to the brake.

  “Holy shit!”

  It took Judah a few seconds to realize what was happening. At first, it just seemed as if an SUV had run the intersection. But then it all fell into place. The silver Range Rover had stopped directly in front of him and was blocking his truck. Two more identical vehicles had pulled up alongside, caging him in. In the rearview mirror Judah saw a fourth, up close behind Gary’s van. They were trapped. Judah reached for the .45 beneath his seat and had it aimed at the passenger’s side just as a man appeared at the open window.

  “Stop right there.”

  The man raised his empty hands and grinned at Judah. His gold bottom grill flashed in the disorienting glare from all the headlights.

  “Hey, amigo. I was you, I’d put that piece away and offer me a ride.”

  Judah kept the .45 aimed at the man’s chest. He put his left hand on the steering wheel and, although he was trying to size the man up, he also tried to see what was going on around him. Horns were honking a little ways back, and on the other side of the intersection, but no one seemed to be doing much else. He spoke cautiously.

  “Why would I do that?”

  The man rested his fingers on the edge of the window and shrugged.

  “You want to talk to Weaver. The real Weaver, right? And you don’t want my friends and their AKs back there to blow you and your friends to rainbow sprinkles.”

  Judah’s mind was racing. Real Weaver? Who the hell had he just talked to? The man twisted his jet black goatee between his fingers and then opened the front of his white Guayabera shirt.

  “Plus. Kevlar, baby.”

  The man grinned again. Judah was trying to think it through, but did he even have a choice? He raised the gun slightly so that it was pointed at the man’s head now. The man frowned.

  “Come on, don’t do this. Look around. You got kids, you got grandmas, all up on the sidewalk and shit. You want us to shoot up the whole street? You know we will.”

  Judah kept the gun pointed at the man, but nodded slowly.

  “Get in, Paco.”

  The man slid into the passenger’s seat. As soon as he closed the door behind him, the Range Rover blocking the intersection backed up and turned. The man raised his hand and pointed to the back of it.

  “My name is Miguel, cracker. You’d better drive on.”

  Judah followed the SUV in front of him, intensely aware of the four other vehicles in their little convoy. He didn’t put down the gun.

  “So, we’re going to m
eet the real Weaver now, huh? Who was that guy I was just talking to back at Stingrays, then?”

  “Who, Travis?”

  Travis. Jesus Christ. That explained some things.

  “So, what, he likes to pretend he’s Weaver? He’s a front for the real guy?”

  Miguel shrugged.

  “I just do what Travis tells me to do. He does what Weaver tells him to do. It works out.”

  Judah nodded as he followed the SUV down a side street. It was hard to turn the wheel with the gun still in his hand.

  “So, where are we going now? The Pink Pelican?”

  Miguel snorted.

  “Not unless you want to talk to Rufus.”

  The SUV turned again. Judah was losing his sense of direction. They were off the main drag, but he couldn’t tell if they were heading toward or away from the water. The streets were lined mostly with laundromats, dollar stores and nail salons. They turned yet again.

  “I’m guessing Weaver doesn’t run out of strip clubs.”

  Miguel shook his head.

  “Man, from what I hear, he don’t go near them. I don’t know which way he rolls, but he don’t seem to like the mamacitas at the club. He’ll take their dollars, but he don’t want to look at no girls.”

  They turned one more time. The strip malls gave way to bars, seafood shacks and run-down motels advertising extended stays and free HBO. Judah could smell the ocean, but couldn’t see it. At least he was more comfortable with the area. Less flash and more dive. Judah pulled into the sandy, mostly empty, parking lot of a bar and parked next to the Range Rover he’d followed. Gary’s van came up beside him and then one of the tailing SUVs pulled in sideways, blocking them in. Judah cut the engine and glanced at Miguel.

  “This Weaver guy’s a bit of a control freak, huh?”

  Miguel bared his gold teeth in a menacing grin.

  “He just don’t want nobody leaving ’til he says so. The jefe can do that. He can do whatever he wants.”

  Judah glanced at his side mirror. Three men had gotten out of the SUV behind him and were coming up to his truck. One had an AK-47 held down low at his side. Behind them, he could see a neon sign blinking the name of the bar on and off. The Salty Dog. Judah looked at the .45 still in his hand.

  “I’m guessing I should leave this here.”

  “If you want to keep it. Same with your phone. It leaves this truck and it’s ours.”

  Judah stashed the gun back under the seat and pulled out his cellphone. He held it up for Miguel to see and then tossed it into the cup holder. He looked out the window. Gary and Alvin were standing in the parking lot, with arms stretched out, already being patted down. He turned back to Miguel.

  “Can I at least take my cigarettes?”

  Miguel opened the passenger’s side door and started to get out.

  “You want to kill yourself with cancer, go ahead. Makes no difference to me. Now move.”

  RAMEY RACED into the kitchen and frantically searched through the purse she’d left sitting on the countertop. She pushed aside crumpled receipts, her wallet, the little .9mm she always carried with her now, and finally yanked her cellphone free. She flipped it open, punched in Judah’s number and held the phone up to her ear. Ramey gripped the edge of the counter, listening to the rings. From the living room, she could hear the TV blaring. Benji had turned the volume up.

  “And now here’s your host, Alex Trebek!”

  Ramey shut her eyes and counted the rings. After six, it went to voicemail. She hung up and immediately redialed. Six more rings.

  “You have reached the voice mailbox of area code nine zero four…”

  Ramey dialed again. There could be a million reasons why Judah couldn’t pick up. He could be driving fast with the windows down, radio turned up, and couldn’t hear the call. He could have put his phone on silent. He could still be mad at her from their fight the night before and was staring at the screen of his phone, trying to decide whether or not to answer.

  Or Judah could be meeting with Weaver right then, telling him that they had Nash, alive, and trying to use him as a bargaining chip. Promising something they now couldn’t deliver. Making a deal that he’d have to go back on, which would most likely mean hell raining down on them from Daytona Beach. Or he could be dead. There was still no answer.

  Ramey ended the call and looked down at the cellphone she was gripping with both hands. She grit her teeth and then typed, NASH IS DEAD. She hit send on the text and raised her arm, ready to fling the phone across the kitchen, needing the force, the smash, something to give a physicality to the helpless frustration, and now fear, that was welling up inside her. She caught herself; she’d need the phone. Judah could call her back any second. She dropped it on the counter and picked up a half-full bottle of Jack Daniel’s standing next to the sink. She gripped it by the neck and hurled it as hard as she could at the opposite kitchen wall, screaming as the glass shattered in all directions. She stood leaning back against the counter, digging her nails into her palms, and waited for Benji to call out some stupid quip from the living room.

  There was only silence. And a spray of whiskey trickling down the wall.

  IT WAS dark in The Salty Dog, and smoky, just the way Judah liked his bars. It was the sort of dive that he felt at home in. The vinyl booths were ripped and worn, the row of bottles behind the bar were only dimly lit and Waylon Jennings was softly playing in the background. If he hadn’t been sitting across from a man who looked like a complete psychopath, Judah might could have enjoyed himself.

  The few barflies lingering over their warm beers had been shooed away when Judah, Alvin and Gary were brought through the front door. The man behind the bar, sporting gold-rimmed aviator glasses and a ponytail that looked like a drowned rat had latched onto the back on his head, had immediately declared The Salty Dog closed, ushered everyone out and locked the door. Aside from him, the goons who were more or less holding Gary and Alvin hostage up at the front near the bar, and a blonde he had vaguely caught a glimpse of, back in the shadows near the bathroom, the bar was now empty. Miguel and his entourage had been left outside. Judah was alone with Weaver.

  Neither he nor Weaver had spoken yet. The man in the glasses had hurriedly brought over a bottle of El Dorado before scurrying back to the bar to watch. Judah was aware that all eyes were on him. He stared hard at the man seated across from him in the booth and made the first move.

  “Everett Weaver.”

  “Judah Cannon.”

  The man with the long dark hair hanging heavy down the sides of his face picked up the bottle of rum and poured out two shots. His movements were slow, almost calculated, and Judah watched his blotchy, callused hands. The gnarled knuckles were faintly tattooed with the message to STAY DOWN. Weaver set the bottle back on the table between them and raised his glass.

  “Will you drink with me?”

  Weaver’s voice was gravelly, almost as if the long, ropy scar on his left cheek, peeking out from behind the curtain of hair, had gashed all the way down into his voice box. His eyes were deep set and a watery blue, which, set against his tan, leathery skin, made them both surprising and terrifying. Judah raised his glass and they drank.

  Weaver smashed his glass down with a sound that rang out across the bar and it was all Judah could do not to jump. He wasn’t sure if Weaver was trying to intimidate him or was just naturally erratic. Judah waited while Weaver slowly folded his hands in front of him, letting the man take the full measure of him if he wanted to. Finally, Weaver tilted his head and spoke.

  “So. I received a call that you were looking for me.”

  “I guess you did. I guess that punk at the strip club called you after I left.”

  There was only the vaguest hint of a smile at the corner of Weaver’s lips.

  “Yes. And Travis is a punk. But I would be wary of the way you speak to me.”

  Judah narrowed his eyes. While he was pretty sure by now that Weaver could back up any threats he issued, Judah refused to b
e bullied. It just wasn’t in his nature, no matter how much trouble it got him into.

  “Why? You gonna feed me to your sharks?”

  This time, Weaver did smile. Though it was the sort of smile Judah imagined Weaver would give someone right before he shot them in the face. Judah pulled out his cigarettes and lighter, just to have something to do with hands. He fit a cigarette to his lips and glanced around for an ashtray.

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Yes.”

  Weaver was staring straight at him. Judah couldn’t help it; he had to look away. He slowly and carefully inserted the cigarette back into the pack. He could feel it, the panic buzzing right behind his ear. A wasp, burrowing its way into his skull. He couldn’t give in to it. Weaver poured out another shot, this time only for himself, and sipped it. He ran his oyster-colored tongue over his teeth and gave Judah a strange nod.

  “You have Nash Conner in your possession. Is that correct?”

  Judah raised his head.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “He is.”

  Weaver blinked at him a few times. He sipped his shot of rum.

  “And why do you think I care?”

  The stab in the pit of his stomach was even worse the second time around. Apparently, no one gave a shit about Nash. Judah knew it was going to sound pathetic, but he had to try.

  “He said you would. He killed a friend of mine, a kid…”

  “I don’t care.”

  Weaver rested his elbows on the edge of the table and leaned over, his hair swinging against his shoulders.

  “I don’t care about your dead kid. I don’t care about Nash.”

  For the first time, it occurred to Judah that he might not be leaving The Salty Dog alive. There was a tremor in his chest, but he kept his voice cool and controlled. He knew that he was dealing with a wild, possibly rabid, animal and the only way to survive would be to show no fear. The wasp inside his head couldn’t win. Judah forced himself to lean back and sling one arm over the back of the booth.

  “All right. Then what am I doing here?”