Hogdoggin'

by Anthony Neil Smith

  He felt as far as he could with his fingers, trying to find where they’d tied the wire on his wrists. Not really heavy, more like speaker wire, maybe. But they tied enough loops to make it really fucking hard to break free even on a good day.

  Lafitte didn’t even try. It obviously wasn’t a good day.

  He swiveled his head, checking the beam for a nail or something. Needed to slice through. Nothing. Took another trip around. Still nothing. Shit.

  “SHIT!” He yelled, listened. No one was there to hear.

  He bounced his back off the beam long enough to grate his arms up the wood. Not as bad as the splinters in his back, but still a painful trip. Felt good to take in a full breath, even one tinged with paint fumes. No clue when Perry and Fawn would be back. If they figured out he really was who he said he was, then maybe they’d hurry back and turn him in quickly. At least then he could get some medical attention, a good meal, and some sleep. Perhaps prison wouldn’t be so bad. He was pretty well versed in hand-to-hand these days. Got trained by the cops and the bikers, so he was the full package. Yeah, he could do well behind bars—makes some deals, kill the right enemies, bribe the right guards. No one would turn him out. Maybe a target on his back from Hell’s Angels or Mongols or Outlaws who knew he rode with Steel God, but then there would be those bikers who saw him as a hero for the same reason.

  Unless Steel God had sent down the Word that Lafitte was persona non grata.

  Then he was toast.

  Worth the shot? Willing to see if the pen was the best place for a guy like him?

  Lafitte looked around to see if he’d missed anything. Maybe a loose rock or broken bottle or anything he could reach with his feet. He tried running the wire back and forth over the corner of the beam, but the wire dug deeper into his wrists. No, he needed something to snap it, and fast.

  He looked up again at where the post met the stairs above his head, the two boards meeting at an angle. Like a pair of scissors left open. If he could wedge the wire in there hard enough, that might do it. If he were a goddamned acrobat.

  Could it be that hard? He tried gripping the beam with his fingers but couldn’t reach. Maybe with his feet, like a monkey. He reached one back there, bent his ankle, imagined trying to do that with both feet and no help from his hands. No go.

  Hurry. Think. Blow the clouds out of your head.

  The stairs themselves. Impossible to reach those. But if he could, yeah, that would give him what he needed to stretch and break the wire. Riiiight, and how about a good sharp knife, too? And while we’re dreaming, maybe a nice hotel room with fluffy pillows and Pay Per View porn.

  Okay, but what if you didn’t have to walk up them, not necessarily? Use them for leverage. Think it out.

  Lafitte lifted his boot and landed it on the edge of the third step. Tried the same with the other foot while he pushed his back against the beam. Okay, so there he was in midair, a lot of pressure on both ends of him. But it was a start. One foot then the other up to the fourth step. Made him more horizontal. That didn’t feel good. A fall now would rip all holy hell out of his back. The pressure was building, getting to him. He put it all into his back and ass and tried scooting up the beam. Inching. Straining, teeth bared. Working. He was closing the space between the beam and stairs, too, having to crunch himself a little more.

  Ready to try another step. First attempt, his foot slipped and he nearly lost it. Fought to hold on and get his foot back on the steps. Aching, flailing, he finally got it to stick. He took some time, breathed some energy back into his limbs. Second attempt, he got his foot up on the next step. Stretching him hard now. Then the other foot. Slowly. All out of whack, feet higher than his head. Shit, could he give any more?

  One more push.

  It was all teeth and veins and muscles. The wire caught once and he had to inch it down off a jag of wood, get it over. The whole deal was feeling like a bad idea, but he was already this far up. Even more crunched. Only way to go now was to brace his knees and get his torso higher, try to move his wrists as high as his shoulders.

  One of the wire loops snapped. Shit. Might be easier than he thought. He leaned forward as far as he could, abs tight, not happy. Lafitte remembered contortionists he’d seen on TV, could cram themselves into a small glass box. Some sort of yoga bullshit. Fuckers had to be mutants or something. Even with training, steroids, and some awful beatings that left him twisted all sorts of ways, this deal was rocketing up the All Time Bad list in Lafitte’s head.

  Even with one loop snapped, it felt like it was in the middle or something and wasn’t loosening the overall bind. Lafitte yanked his wrist, stretch, stretch, nothing. So it was the wedge or nothing. One more time. He thrust up and felt raw scraping on his arms. Still half an inch off.

  “Oh, Jesus fucking Christ motherfuck!”

  The wire caught the wedge good and tight. Lafitte laughed. Now what?

  He needed more…something. Needed to flex or pull or slice.

  The stairs. The steps. Yeah, stretch across those. See if it would free up his arms. He lifted a boot, straightened his leg along the step until he hooked the steel toe around the edge of the next one. Good. Shit. It hurt but it worked. He could feel the muscles relaxing, giving him more options. Lifted the other boot. His body fought, wanted to sag, drop, give out. Lafitte fought back. Rigid as iron while reaching slowly, slowly, then wildly looking for a toehold once he was fully extended.

  Got it.

  Half-twisted across the steps, the wire cutting off circulation in his hands, Lafitte knew if this didn’t work, he was at the mercy of gravity and those two hicks. His fingers were getting tight with all the blood, numbing. He pulled hard with his toes, sliding his body further along the steps, arms stretching behind him. His calves hung off the other side and he was able to scramble his boots back onto the steps.

  Rise, damn it, rise!

  It was circus freaklike, bowing his back, feeling dizzy and nauseous all over again but holding his breath and yanking the wire with everything he had in him. It was stuck firmly in the wedge now, and it wasn’t giving an inch.

  Until it snapped without warning. The slack in Lafitte’s arms shocked him and he started to fall backwards. Turned just in time to catch his side on a step, reached across and grabbed two more for support, and he was free. Fingers tingled liked electricity was running through them. His mouth hung open, a thick rope of spit dripping five feet down to the floor below. Sure, he was free, but he had used up all his strength getting that way.

  They’re going to come back. They’re going to come back with cops or Feds or some garbage bags, so get up. Get the fuck up. GET THE FUCK UP.

  Lafitte crawled up the remaining stairs. He put his back to the door and pressed against it. It didn’t give. He kept pressing, using the leverage to help him lift and stand on wobbly legs. He tried the knob. Locked. Didn’t look like much to it, though. He twisted it left, slipped off.

  Wrapped both hands around, took in a deep lungful of air and tried again.

  Pop.

  He opened the door and immediately fell down. Face first. Used his hands to brace himself but couldn’t stop his momentum. His hands slapped linoleum and stung. Took a knock to his cheekbone but avoided another one to his nose and swollen eye.

  A quick look around. A dark kitchen, cluttered. Lafitte made out the fryer, a sink, stack of plates. Some cardboard boxes. Took him a moment to remember what Perry had said to Fawn: Grandad’s bar. Okay, that gave him something to go by. Can’t be out too remote if it’s a bar. Need people to make a bar work, right? And people meant cars.

  Lafitte’s head was clearing a bit. Blood flowing better, yeah, yeah. Still not up for a game of hoops or anything. He rolled onto his back, sat up. Felt hammers on his body in places he didn’t expect. Pulled his hands close to his good eye. Still swelled red with blood but getting better. The wire had cut his wrists, gave him a few burns, but nothing that wouldn’t heal itself within a day or two.

  Still, he knew
escape was a lost cause on his own. Sitting up made him want to puke again. Everything was swimming, much worse than a marijuana buzz or the high he got slinging back a whole bottle of wine. All that fucking paint they made him huff, Jesus. He was weak and thirsty and hungry and sick. Best he could hope for was to thumb a ride, maybe convince someone he had been in a motorcycle wreck and needed a lift to the hospital. Of course they would ask questions, but he’d make shit up until he felt strong enough to jack the car. No time to waste on doctors. Lafitte needed to get South.

  He reached over for the closest counter, used it to get himself on his feet. Waited for the muscles to straighten themselves out before he tried walking again. From up here, he could see through the service window out into the main bar, not all that much bigger than the kitchen. A dump. Cheap particleboard tables, mismatched chairs, a home-hammered plywood bar covered with what must’ve once been pieces of a dining room table. Not bad for a guy’s home rec room, but as a business it reminded Lafitte of the daiquiri shops in New Orleans, most little more than a menu, a cheaply-built wooden counter, and a couple dozen frozen drink machines. Small investment, pays back a nice living.

  He used the counter as a crutch, lurching along until he found the swinging door out into the front room. He eased through, using the wall on the other side to keep him standing, took it in.

  The two small windows were covered with neon beer lights, so he couldn’t see outside. Didn’t know what time it was at first, then remembered Perry saying it was really early, just after dawn. Good ol’ Perry, a fount of knowledge, that guy. Lafitte weaved through tables over to one window, panting by the time he hit the wall. Peeked through the small spaces as best he could, but not really able to tell much—gravel parking lot, empty. Streetlamp. No signs of life, no other dwelling.

  “Fuck.”

  He made it to the front door. Went ahead and opened it. Somewhere, the sun was rising, but Lafitte couldn’t place where from. The icy morning air hurt his chest. The dim light was still too fucking bright. He squinted, ached, then wondered how far he could make it across the lot and through the black dirt of the soybean field across the street to the small speck of barn on the horizon. Shit, halfway across he would be winded.

  But free.

  He grunted. Closed the door.

  He braced himself on the closest table, a wobbly one, and his arms wobbled, and he sat down in a chair. Took in a big breath through his nose, everything started to clear up more and more, making it more and more obvious how fucked he was. Like, for fuck’s sake, the Sergeant-at-Arms for Steel God couldn’t even walk across a parking lot at this point.

  Make that was Sergeant, like, “not any more”. At least being in the club was easier. Morally, maybe not, but it sure as hell beat this. He raised his head. This. Taken by surprise, beaten silly and humiliated, chased all over the country, probably heading into a trap anyway.

  So, call him, then.

  God had left him that lifeline, right? The man wouldn’t have reminded Lafitte about Mom’s number if he didn’t mean it. Sure as shit he wouldn’t.

  But you call Steel God to bail you out, there’s no turning back. There’s no family reunion. You sell your soul to Steel God and be whoever the fuck he wants you to be.

  Lafitte held his right hand in front of his swollen eye. Not even a flicker of light or shape. Would probably take a few days to heal. Hard to keep a car on the road one-eyed. He was starving. He was thirsty. He had a free bar to himself right then but didn’t want any of the bottles behind it.

  Look, if you’ve left once, you can do it again. Tell Steel God you’re a One Percenter now, then steal his bike while he sleeps. Why not? You’ve been hunted by worse and lived.

  It was the best he could do. Lafitte headed behind the bar, the whole time feeling his empty stomach sink lower until he felt that he was in freefall. But his hands caught the edge, held him up. He kept on creeping closer to the telephone.

  Picked it up, flipped the handset over and dialed the number from memory. Rang three times. Then, a woman who sounded like somebody’s mom said, “Hello?”

  “Is this…Mom?”

  Quiet for a moment. Lafitte said, “Hey, still there?”

  “Whose Mom are you looking for?”

  Who the fuck was he supposed to ask for? Shit on that. Lafitte laughed low, coughed, said, “The Mother of God.”

  After another long pause, the woman said, “Tell me where you are, Billy.”

  The shock of her knowing his name didn’t register until he was halfway through saying, “I don’t know. Some dive bar out in the soybean fields. God, I don’t know anything. They’re going to get me soon.”

  “Billy,” she did it again. “Is this the bar phone you’re calling from?”

  “Yeah, and they’re coming back.” Coughed, swallowed some bile. “Locked me…in the basement.”

  “I’ve got the number on Caller ID. You stay there, okay? Hang on.”

  The bar spun. No, Lafitte was spinning, standing still but spinning. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. Mom?”

  She said more, but the phone was suddenly falling. He watched it clack against the floor. His knees went, and if he hadn’t held onto the bar until the very last second, it would have been a much harder fall. As it was, it was hard enough.

  *

  Maybe a minute, maybe ten, maybe an hour later, the door of the bar opened and Lafitte heard it but couldn’t see. Half dreaming, half comatose, felt like. Footsteps. Then the swinging door into the kitchen, followed by Perry’s shrill “Shit! Shiiiiit!”

  Quick steps, Fawn’s, probably, also through the doors. Then a bunch of yelling he couldn’t understand before more doors, more steps, then Fawn’s loud voice saying, “Found him. And he’s been busy.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  So now the little prick had stopped answering his phone.

  By the time Rome had reached McKeown’s voicemail for the fifth time, he had the car up to eighty-five without realizing it as he sped north through Mississippi on I-55. He didn’t want to tell anyone his plans until he reached St. Louis, where he would liaison with the local branch and explain whatever elaborate lie he’d dreamed up along the way. It hadn’t come to him yet, but it would.

  Desiree had tried to call, but he hadn’t thought of what to tell her, either. Jesus. What was the point of all the painstaking step-by-step rebuilding of a stronger, better plan when all of it could fly apart at the same time? Like right now?

  He tried to keep it in, but he exploded with “Shit!” and punched the roof of the car with the fist in which his cell phone was curled, hurt his knuckles. He flipped the phone into the passenger seat, noticed the cracked screen. Another Shit.

  Desiree had already broken through one layer of protection that night they got back together through rough sex, that sweet release from all the months of anger, and he let it slip that he was after Lafitte again. Bundled it into a convenient lie, sure, telling her that the Bureau had mandated his involvement, more like he was a consultant than anything else. She didn’t buy it completely, though. Now that he thought about it more, he wondered if Desiree suspected him of having an affair with Ginny. The way he’d been sneaking around, made perfect sense unless you had more important fish to fry. Ginny, nervous little white girl. Probably cute, yeah, he could see that objectively. Nothing to write home about. Legs and ass had no shape at all. Plus, how she kept finding ways to bleed, that turned him off.

  She hadn’t even made decent bait. Rome blamed himself for that, mostly. He had pushed too hard, too focused on getting Lafitte to see what the pressure was doing to Ginny. She was all eggshell, and he was all hammer.

  Without McKeown, Rome might as well be a lone vigilante anyway. That’s all this was. A barroom brawl blown up to Super Bowl proportions. Lafitte hurt Rome, so Rome wanted to hurt him back, and someone had to win or lose. No more goddamn stalemate.

  Rome gloried at the spectacle, remembering football broadcasts swelled with bombast and self-impor
tance, computer graphics of robot warriors playing in stadiums ten times larger than the biggest he’d ever seen, all for a Sunday afternoon showdown between the Saints and the fucking Seahawks or some shit. Oh yeah, let Fox TV get hold of him and Lafitte. What could they make of that?

  The phone went again, broke Rome’s train of thought. He figured it was Dee again. Could be McKeown, though. Or another team member who had been in touch with McKeown. He reached for it, swerved over the center line a bit but corrected while lifting the phone’s screen so he could see.

  Well, goddamn. It was Stoudemire. Fucking boss man calling from his own goddamn cell phone this goddamn early.

  Beep. “Rome.”

  He started right in. “So how the hell did Ginny Lafitte end up in a New Orleans hospital after a suicide attempt in one of our hotels? You have anything to do with that?”

  “The suicide attempt?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Rome. It’s all on you. Her mother’s already spilled the whole story. Your guy McKeown’s off in South Dakota looking for a fucking biker, he said. Took one of our planes. But the cops up there are saying it might be Billy Lafitte. Does that sound about right?”

  “I already told you plenty enough that I don’t answer to you.”

  “You do now. We’ve heard from Washington. I’ll forward you the email.”

  The morning chill numbed Rome’s fingers. “Yeah, do that.”

  “As soon as I can reach McKeown, I’m reassigning him and bringing him home to make a statement. You’ll need to make one, too. So come on in, get your lawyer lined up, let’s do this friendly, okay? We don’t want anything to get out of hand, and you’ll still come out the other end all right.”

  What was this? The sort of language you used on hostage-takers, not colleagues. “I’m all right now, Shane. I’ll even forgive your little power trip or whatever this is right now.” C’mon, find something. “I’ve got work to do, and if Lafitte has anything to do with this bike gang we’re after, that’s news to me.”