by Bobby Adair
Down toward the end, I saw the source of the noises I’d heard, a steroid-juiced Bully Boy was struggling to get his pants open with one hand while he held a blonde woman bent over a desk in front of him. I saw a familiar tattoo on her arm. I’d found Sienna Galloway.
I’ve heard it said that it’s those choices you make when you don’t have time to think that tell you who you are—behind the façade you show other people, behind the lies you tell yourself.
I don’t know if it’s true.
I think maybe it’s a rationalization to help people feel good about mistakes they’ve made that happened to turn out well.
Either way, that’s how I made my decision, in an instant, when I saw that bald-headed gorilla trying to rape the blonde woman I’d almost shot the night before.
I let go of the door and ran on feet practiced at silent sprints, like a jungle cat coming in for a kill.
The Bully Boy could have seen me running at him had he glanced up just once. He didn’t. His libido had hypnotized him with naked skin and the possibility that his waggly little Johnson was going to do something naughty.
I was running at full speed when I passed through the doorway into the office, when something—a sound maybe, or a peripheral blur in his vision—caused Bully Boy’s head to tilt up for a look.
I’d made my leap by then, and if his mind had time to understand what he was seeing, he’d have seen an angry looking d-gen flying at his face.
He had no time to react. In fact, his fate was sealed the moment I passed through the inner door at a run. After that, nothing he could have done would have made a difference in the outcome. No time.
My shoulder hit Bully Boy square in the face as I wrapped my arms around his giant head. I gripped tight and let my body swing around over his left shoulder—I wasn’t trying to tackle him. My momentum carried me, torquing all my weight on his massive neck.
Through my hands pressed tight against his slick head, I felt the vibrations of bone snapping and grinding. My feet, and then my knees, hit the wall behind the desk, and I let go of him so I could catch my balance.
My back hit the wall, and I landed on my feet, looking at Bully Boy, who was looking at me with wide eyes, an opened mouth, and a body facing 180 degrees in the other direction.
His neck was broken. His spine severed. He collapsed between me and the desk.
I stepped on his genitals out of spite as I made my way quickly around to the side of the desk. Sienna Galloway was breathing, but she wasn’t moving much. I laid a hand on her back. “Hey. You okay?”
She jerked.
“It’s okay.”
She looked at me, confused. She pulled away.
I stepped back to let her know I wasn’t a threat.
She pushed herself off the table, covering her breasts with one hand as she looked down and spotted the dead Bully Boy at her feet. She stumbled and fell against the wall beside the desk.
“You okay?” I asked.
She had blood dribbling out of her mouth and flowing out of her nose.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
She looked down at the Bully Boy, tried to get away, but tripped on the jeans pushed down around her knees.
I pointed. “He’s dead.” I spotted what I guessed was the remains of her blouse laying on the floor on my side of the desk. I squatted down and picked it up. I reached it out to her. “Why don’t you put this on?”
She was struggling to get her pants pulled up and giving me fearful looks.
I laid the blouse in front of her, turned my back, and took a few steps down the aisle between the desks. “Take your time. You’ve got a bloody nose and mouth. Are you dizzy? Can you keep your balance?” I was concerned she might have a concussion. “Anything broken?”
“I…” She was fighting with tears. “I’m fine.” That sounded angry.
I decided that was probably good.
I heard the thud of a foot kicking dead Bully Boy meat. Maybe she was stomping his dead dick, too. Also good.
I gave her a moment and then glanced over my shoulder. She had her pants pulled up but was having no luck getting them fastened with shaky hands. I turned away.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Christian Black.”
“Why are you dressed like a degenerate? Why do you have a Blue Bean collar on?”
I glanced back again. She had her blouse on, open at the front except for a hand holding it together. Her other hand was keeping her jeans from falling down.
“Do you have something else to wear?” I asked, not knowing what she could possibly have. I was planning the next step, which I figured had to include leaving the building—that meant clothing. I was guessing she wouldn’t want to remain.
She glared at me. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I did,” I offered as an argument. “I told you my name.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything.” She was already getting her fight back. “What are you doing here?”
I saw her face turn suddenly to hate, and she looked around for something.
I took a quick glance and saw a cattle prod on the floor between the desks near my feet. I leaned down, picked up the prod, and held it out to her, handle first. “You looking for this?”
She snatched it away. “Did Goose send you? Did you bring Toby in here? Because you can tell Goose—”
“I don’t know any Goose.”
“Goose Eckenhausen?” She clarified. “Your boss. Redneck with bad teeth. You don’t know him?” She pointed at the corpse. “The moron who holds his leash?”
I shook my head.
“Who sent you?” she demanded.
I glanced down at the body. “I don’t have anything to do with this. I heard the noise. I came in.”
“You don’t make any sense. You better stop lying.”
Stop lying? “Or what?” Probably not the best thing to say. I looked down at myself. “This is a long story. I can tell you the whole thing if you want to hear it but it’s not interesting. I’m here to see you. You are Sienna Galloway, aren’t you?”
Sienna didn’t answer.
“Doesn’t matter. I know you are. I’ve seen your Blue Bean ID. Dr. Sienna Galloway. Five-Six. Green eyes. Behavioral Conditioning Specialist at Blue Bean Agriculture, LLC.”
“You work for Blue Bean?”
“No,” I told her. “I reached into the pocket of my pants and pulled out a damp wad of money and threw it on the table. Maybe it wasn’t the most opportune moment to offer a bribe but I was on a tight schedule, and she seemed to be bouncing right back from her trauma. Perhaps she’d have nightmares later. That wasn’t my concern, though.
She looked at the cash, more confused. “What the hell?”
“That’s ten thousand dollars.” I looked back down at the dead Bully Boy and in the face of what she’d just gone through, the money suddenly seemed like a paltry token. “I can get more if I need to.”
“For what? So I won’t talk? You don’t want me to tell anybody that he tried to rape me?” She pointed at the corpse. “Goose did send you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about with this ‘Goose’ you keep bringing up,” I told her. “I was there last night. I saw you in the clearing.”
The girl’s brow furrowed. She tried to place me. “You…you got away. You were there?”
Shit. She thought I was one of the d-gens. “I wasn’t dancing.”
“But…” then her eyes showed me she understood. “You’re a Regulator. You killed all those degenerates.”
“It was an accident.”
“An accident?” she yelled. “How do you accidentally shoot two dozen innocent people? How the hell does that happen?”
“We had a pending sanction, but the ID never got assigned.” An unformed question in her eyes told me she didn’t have any knowledge of the details of my business. For clarification, I added, “The sanction didn’t get approved. It was a dirty kill.” Everybody knew what a dirty
kill was.
“How do you get a sanction for something that never happened? Nobody was hurt. No violence. They were roasting raccoons and dancing.”
“Somebody called in a tip,” I told her, “said they were sacrificing kids. With the fog, things got confused.”
“Somebody called from the middle of the woods,” Sienna mocked. “Am I supposed to believe that?”
“Look,” I told her, as I gestured at the dead Bully Boy. “You’re worked up. I understand that. I’m just saying that somebody phoned the police. Somebody called from the network here on Blue Bean Farms. That’s why I was out there with my partner. This wasn’t our fault.”
“Why would anybody call from Blue Bean, that doesn’t—” She stopped, mouth agape, like an epiphany was blazing bright in angel fire on the wall behind me.
“You know something. Tell me.”
She shook her head, looked down at Toby, and dropped into a chair that had been pushed into the corner during the struggle. “It couldn’t be.”
“What?” I asked. “Tell me.”
“I think they’re trying to kill me.”
Chapter 61
Lutz looked at Keith Workman in his starched shirt and primped hair sitting across the desk with a wall of windows at his back, rubbing his wealth in Lutz’s face without stooping to the vulgarity of saying it out loud. Workman had shoulders that had maybe worked for a hard living many years ago, but now they were sagging. The callouses on his hands had gone soft, and he wore a gut bigger than Lutz’s.
Bumpkin-done-good country boy masking a slimy business behind a megawatt smile.
Lutz hated him.
He hated the type.
In truth, Lutz hated most types of most people.
Who was he kidding? He hated them all.
Lutz glanced over his left shoulder. The Goose dipshit was lingering there. At the moment, Lutz hated him most of all.
It made Lutz nervous to have that lifer back there. And he had to be a lifer. Lutz knew how the corporate farms integrated with the work camps: d-gens did the grunt work, prisoners supervised them, trustees policed the prisoners—not a one getting paid—and some smiling palm-greaser like Workman sitting astride the golden goose and thinking himself a business genius.
“You’re Lutz, right?” Workman asked. “Franco Lutz.”
Lutz nodded at the plastic bag containing his things sitting on Workman’s desk. “It’s not a secret.”
Workman smiled and leaned back in his chair, as if he and Lutz were sitting on the back porch sharing a beer and talking about a favorite hunting dog. “No, it’s not a secret. I didn’t have to look at your billfold to know who you are. I’ve got people.”
Lutz’s lip twitched. It was a nervous response that fired whenever his background was mentioned unexpectedly. “You smile like you want to pretend we’re friends,” said Lutz. “I’ll play.” He looked over his shoulder again at Goose. “No friend of mine would leave that guy standing there.”
Workman waved a hand and Goose walked over to the window behind Workman’s desk.
“Here, Boss Man?” Goose asked.
Workman looked at Lutz and asked, “Good?”
Lutz nodded.
Goose turned his back to the conversation. He leaned on a wall and looked out the window.
“What do you want with me?” Lutz asked.
“The question is,” responded Workman, “what do you want with me?”
“Nothing,” Lutz told him automatically. He deliberately reached out for the plastic bag containing his things and took it off Workman’s desk. He opened it up and fished around for his phone. “I need to make a call.”
Workman sat forward in his chair, reached out, and scooted a desk phone across to Lutz. “Your cell phone won’t be able to access our network. Use mine if you want.”
Lutz eyed the desk phone warily.
“Call whoever you like.”
Lutz stopped rummaging in his bag, trying to guess what game Workman was playing.
“I know what you and your partner, Christian Black, did last night,” said Workman. “You boys are guilty as hell. I suspect you and I might be seeing a lot of one another pretty soon.”
Goose giggled behind Lutz.
Lutz shook his head.
“Disagree if you want.” Workman shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. What I don’t understand is why you and your partner came here instead of running off to Mexico. Hell, it ain’t that far. You could have been across the border in time for breakfast tacos.”
“Got other plans,” said Lutz.
“And that’s what I need to know,” said Workman, leaning on his desk and turning serious. “What plans brought you back here, because it concerns me. It concerns Blue Bean Farms. It concerns our work camp. So why don’t you tell me, Mr. Lutz, what are these other plans?”
Lutz kept his mouth shut as he stared at Workman, still trying to figure what was up. He was in a conversation he shouldn’t have been having. There was no reason for it, at least not regarding what Lutz understood about the situation. And that made Lutz curious. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“Oh?” Workman rubbed his chin. “It’s a game you want to play.”
Lutz shook his head. “I’m a business man. I’m looking for an opportunity.”
“By trespassing?”
“No,” said Lutz. “By talking to you.”
“Okay,” said Workman. “Let me tell you what I think. My people tell me you’re a ne’er-do-well Regulator with a spotty past—so spotty, in fact, I’m surprised you haven’t been a guest at the work camp here before. Questions abound about the deaths of your former partners. And now you’re hooked up with this Christian Black, some kind of hitman out of Mexico.”
Goose giggled again. “He’s drowned now.”
Drowned?
It wasn’t possible, not with Christian Black.
Lutz didn’t want his disappointment to show, so he masked it with a question. “What about my car?”
Goose pointed toward a line of trees in the south. “He drove it into the forest a mile or two down the road, a little piece from the river. We looked for him a good while. One of the boys heard him go into the water. Damn stupid if you ask me with that current right now. He drowned tryin’ to cross. Maybe a gator got ‘em. Don’t know.”
“My Mercedes?” Lutz persisted.
“Damn thing’s fine,” said Goose. “Still sittin’ over there in them trees, though.”
“Forget about the car,” Workman told Lutz. “What I want to know is why you brought a hitman here from Mexico?”
Lutz saw Workman’s mask of confidence turn transparent for a second and Lutz understood—Workman was afraid of Christian. Lutz couldn’t help but laugh. “You think I brought him here to kill you.”
Chapter 62
She explained her list of clues to me: the brush with death down the sight of my rifle, the deteriorating relationship with Workman and his staff, culminating in the revelation in the meeting with Doggett that he was stuck with her, couldn’t fire her without getting buried in fines from the state, the threats from Goose that morning, and now the dead Bully Boy.
To her, it all added up to concrete proof.
Through the string of stories she grew calm. She had an analytical mind and as it engaged she’d disconnected her emotions from what had just happened. That said something about her. She was strong.
Or she was on the sociopathic side of normalcy.
Sometimes it’s hard to guess which.
“Why’d you come here?” she finally asked, turning her attention to the wad of damp cash I’d tossed on Caleb’s desk. “Why that?”
“A bribe,” I answered simply.
“For what?”
“For you.”
“Why?”
“There’s a warrant out for me. For last night.”
“Because you murdered those degenerates?” She said it with no emotion at all. That seemed odd to me. She was disconnecting.
“That was quick.”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“Don’t know,” I answered. “Sometimes things don’t go your way.” I pointed at the money. “I need you to lie for me.”
“Lie for you? I don’t even know you.”
I cast a deliberate look down at the Bully Boy. “We’re not friends, but I think I did you a favor with that one.”
Sienna looked at her feet. “What do you want me to say?”
“Say there was a toddler on that fire before we arrived last night.”
Shaking her head, Sienna said, “That won’t do any good. I’ll just go to jail for perjury or something. You guys have videos from spotter drones, right?” She was analyzing my problem now. “I don’t watch TV much, but I’ve seen the kill videos. It’s hard to miss them. Weren’t there any drones up there last night?”
“There were,” I told her, keeping my voice steady. “That part’s being taken care of. Mostly. I need an eyewitness to seal the deal. I need you.” I pointed at the money. “Ten thousand. I’ll get you another ten if that’ll make this go any smoother.”
“Twenty thousand to lie.”
I nodded.
“Or twenty thousand plus the obligation you want me to feel for saving me from him.” She pointed at the body.
The obligation should have been enough by itself, but I didn’t say that. “Whatever works.”
Muttering, she said, “Everybody wants me to turn a blind eye so they can kill degenerates with the rubber stamp of the state. Everybody wants my integrity.”
“It’s not that.” I told her the story of how the sanction appeared to me and Lutz, how Lutz thought he saw dead children and more to be slaughtered, how he’d started shooting and I had to shoot to keep him from getting killed. It was just an unfortunate incident made worse by the fog. It was a mistake, not a crime. I finally said, “It’s just one lie.”
“And it’s never just one lie,” she shot back.
That ended the conversation. She pulled her buttonless shirt together, and her eyes fell to the body on the floor as she retreated into herself, maybe thinking about my offer, maybe settling in with the emotions that were just now catching up.
