by Larry Hoy
Julia bowed her head, took a deep breath and held it. With her eyes closed tight, she kissed the slug and threw it toward the fountain. She didn’t open her eyes until she heard the splash of water.
“What did you wish for?”
She gave him a playful nudge in the ribs with her elbow. “You’re not supposed to ask that…so, what did you wish for?”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to ask that.”
“No, I said you weren’t supposed to ask. I didn’t say anything about me.”
Bonney laughed and hugged her close for a moment, then spun her to face him. “Honey, I need your help to make my wish come true.”
“Here? Aren’t there cameras?”
This time he laughed even harder.
“Not that. Or not that right now. Later, yes.”
She looked up to his face. His little crooked smile seemed to shine in the moonlight.
Billy reached into the collar of his shirt and brought up the edge of a gold chain. It took him a moment to open the clasp behind his neck. When he had the ends apart, he pulled a necklace from under his shirt. Hanging from the chain was a key.
Julia reached up and pulled the key close for a better look. It was a simple door key.
“I don’t get it.” She squinted at the key as if she was working on a puzzle.
“That is the key to my apartment. I think it’s time you move in with me.” Bonney wrapped the chain around her neck and fastened the clasp behind her neck. Then he leaned down and kissed her on the side of her neck right where the chain rested. “Tell me you’ll move in with me.”
“I’d love to,” she said in a whisper. “I love you so much, Billy, but…” her voice caught as she twisted the key in her fingertips. Her expression became pleading. “…I can’t. I don’t want to be your live-in mistress. I want you forever or not at all.” She pulled the chain back over her head. “I know that sounds ridiculous in today’s world, but it’s how I was raised. Sex I can rationalize…well, not really, but I have. But moving in together is different.”
He put a hand out to stop her, pulling her arm down until it rested between her breasts. It wasn’t a sexual gesture, and his smile became gentle. “I figured that went without saying. At least, I hoped it did.” Lowering himself to one knee, Bonney withdrew a small black box from his pants pocket and held it out between them. “That’s why I brought this.” Inside was a gold ring with a brilliant cut ruby whose facets glowed in the dim lighting. “Julia, I don’t want you to move in with me for a while, I want you forever. Marry me?”
She reached out and slid her fingers along the ring just to convince herself it was real and not some dream. “Oh my God…” She reached out to touch his hand. “I love you so much,” she said, then pulled him forward and kissed him.
When they finally broke for a moment, both lovers were short of breath. “Do you like the ring?” he asked. “It’s not a—”
“It’s perfect.” She cut him off with another kiss. Then he felt her stop responding, and she leaned backward a little.
“Hello?”
Annoyed at being interrupted, Bonney turned his head to see a middle-aged man in dark slacks and a University of Memphis Tigers jacket standing under a streetlight. Caught off-guard, he reflexively half-spun toward the man and moved his right arm away from Julia’s back. Instinct flashed warnings to his brain.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” the man said. “Uh, sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing…congratulations?” The man held out a piece of paper. “I’m really sorry to disturb y’all, but there’s nobody else out here to ask.” He stepped closer to the couple, still holding out the paper.
“What is it?”
Bonney stepped between the stranger and his new fiancée, his hand slipping to the grip of the pistol on his belt.
“I’m really sorry. I just need directions. I certainly didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Where are you trying to get to?”
“I’m supposed to meet my buddy at the Peabody Hotel lobby bar. He said anybody could tell me how to get there, but so far nobody could.” The man took another step. “I’ve got the address, but I got turned around somewhere.” He held the paper in his left hand, while his right disappeared out of sight. Bonney noticed, and he knew what was coming, but with cameras everywhere, he still had to let it play out, or he’d be the aggressor. It happened precisely as he knew it would, and he knew how to keep Julia safe during what came next.
First, he took the paper and pretended to skim it, while keeping his focus on the man.
“This is just a Subway receipt.”
He saw the man pull a Sig Sauer P320 from his right jacket pocket, but like an amateur not a Shooter, and far too slow against a trained killer like Billy. Before the mystery man could point his gun, Bonney’s Kimber Model 1911 .45 caliber was aimed at his forehead. It was a big gun to carry concealed, but experience had taught him to appreciate stopping power.
“Keep the gun pointed down, mister, and you can walk away from this.”
“I got the five-dollar footlong,” the man said, with more bitterness than those words should contain. It took Bonney a second to follow the non-sequitur. “You know what that sandwich and you both have in common? You are both selling a lie!”
The man changed as he spoke. Where he had first appeared hunched and timid, blending into the background, now he seemed to grow inches in height as his back straightened. He rolled his shoulders and rocked his head to the side with an audible crack. Although flabby and pale, Bonney now recognized the insanity latent behind those bulging eyes. Crazy people were damned dangerous.
“I’ve got no idea what you think is going on, mister, but I’m just out spending the evening with my girl here. If you were after my wallet, I’m guessing you’ve figured out that you can’t have it, so ease up on that pistol before somebody gets hurt.”
Julia’s shaky voice came from behind him. “Billy, what’s going on?”
“Don’t move, honey, I’ve got this. The man needs some fast cash and picked the wrong people to target, that’s all.” Even as spoke, the gun never wavered from the man’s head. As for his words, Billy knew better. The man had found exactly the target he was after.
“William Bonney,” the mystery man said through clenched teeth. Unlike Bonney, his hand shook so bad that if he fired, the bullet was as likely to hit a passing trolley as either of them. “I know who you are, and I know what you do.”
“Listen, buddy, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m sure we can talk this out.”
The man laughed again, but with a bitter edge. “So, you just happened to have a gun ready?”
“This is downtown Memphis after dark, so yeah, I had a gun ready.”
“You can’t fool me; you kill people for money. Your code name is Billy the Kid. You are an assassin for LifeEnders. You have executed six contracts for the company. You are a Memphis…”
Bonney’s heart froze over when he heard the name LifeEnders. Julia didn’t know, and he didn’t want her to know, but he also didn’t want to kill the man. That would attract too much of the wrong kind of attention, and if he did Julia couldn’t avoid finding out his profession. Instead of blowing out the back of the man’s skull, he shifted to his right foot and without warning launched himself across the eight-foot distance separating them.
He wrapped his hands around the gunman’s arm, but adrenaline gave the guy added strength, and he jerked his arm free. The pistol went off and the deafening report echoed through the park, scattering the few other parkgoers off into the darkness. The man with the gun brought his hands up and pressed them against his ears, more evidence that he didn’t know guns. Bonney could see him screaming, but his own ears were ringing, and he couldn’t make out the sounds. His world froze.
The gunman backed away, out of Bonney’s reach, and brought the gun back up even as Bonney did the same with the Kimber, but his arm wavered. He focused on the barrel, trying to bring it back in line with th
e man’s forehead, but he was unsteady. He overcompensated and the barrel swung wide. Bonney’s brain seemed sluggish as he struggled to aim…then his arm started to drop from the pistol’s weight, until his arm hung limp, the pistol pointing at the ground.
Bonney saw horror twisting the gunman’s face. Had the man really shot him? How could that happen? The other man paced in circles, waving the gun in his hand, and the truth flashed through Bonney’s mind: he was dying.
“You did that. It’s not my fault!”
Billy felt his body sway as a wave of nausea drove him to his knees. He reached for his forehead, but blood dripped from his hand, and instead he stared at it, wanting to vomit.
I’m not dying, he told himself, I’m engaged now, I can’t die. It’s just some blood, and I can handle blood.
Then the gunman’s screaming finally penetrated through the fog as his brain started to shut down.
“You did that! Not me, you! You, you, you! You did that.” The man backed away two more steps, fear choking his voice. “You did that. You grabbed my hand, and the gun went off. It’s your fault.” The man in the Memphis Tigers jacket turned and ran.
Bonney couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He swayed on his knees, and his head seemed to weigh twenty pounds as he tried to follow the path of the man who’d just shot him. Like a flash of lightning, Julia’s face made him turn and nearly fall over as he scanned the suddenly empty park.
He found her.
She lay crumpled on the ground, and even in the darkness he could see the bloody hole in her chest. The still functioning part of his brain guessed that the bullet that hit him must have been a through and through. He struggled to crawl to his fiancée, each breath a burning torture, as blood poured from his chest to the cobblestoned sidewalk that crisscrossed the park. Julia had fallen on her side, facing him. He could see no rise or fall in the shirt that was plastered to her chest by her blood. Once he was close enough, he could see no life in the eyes that reflected the streetlights surrounding the park.
Still gripping his unfired pistol, he fell on his side as the strength left his body.
Why hadn’t he fired? Why hadn’t he honored the threat?
Conscious thought faded. He felt no pain, only a pervasive sense of guilt.
I could have saved her…but I failed.
Then he couldn’t remember why he was laying on the ground, or why Julia looked so strange. Thoughts became formless, and then images flashed by like a movie running at 50 times normal speed. He felt the air leave his lungs, and his last thought was panic because he desperately wanted to draw another breath but couldn’t. The lights of the park grew progressively dimmer, and a few seconds later everything turned dark.
Erebus pushed his overweight body into a pounding run toward an alley west of the park. He had to move before the cops got there, except Erebus wasn’t the sort of man who moved more than necessary in his everyday life.
He had screwed this one up, but good. Erebus knew he could never tell Herbert about what he had done tonight. Revenge for his mother’s death or not, he couldn’t risk seeing the disappointment in his son’s eyes. Herbert would never understand his father murdering someone regardless of the circumstance, or even if it was an accident. True, he’d gone there to kill Bonney for killing Grace, but hadn’t he changed his mind and resolved just to scare the man? Yes, yes, he had, and then Bonney grabbed his hand.
“It’s not my fault.” Erebus repeated the refrain with every step.
He’d been sloppy, though, that was his fault. He’d gotten too close to a licensed killer for God’s sake! What was he thinking? And the girl…no, he wouldn’t feel sorry for the girl, she got what she deserved. If you date a killer who lives by the sword, then you’d better be ready to die by the sword. That was in the Bible.
Wheezing from the effort of jogging to the alley, Erebus climbed a fire escape to the adjacent building’s roof. It was only a three-story building, but he barely made it to the top before collapsing on the roof, where the chill breeze dried the sweat streaming down his face, and gasps of foggy breath trailed away into the night.
Once he was able to catch his breath, he managed to crawl to the ledge and peek over the side. From his vantage point, he could see the entire park and all of the surrounding streets. The park’s canopy of tree limbs would have blocked his sight lines during summer, but winter stripped the branches of their leaves, giving him a clear view.
Within four minutes, the cops showed up and swarmed the scene, setting up Klieg lights while dozens of flashlights crisscrossed the area. A dozen patrol cars disgorged double that number of officers, who set up a perimeter using crime scene tape and then spread out to look for clues. Erebus knew it was only a matter of time before they found him.
A tall detective in plain clothes—because what else could he be—pulled out Bonney’s wallet, called to a slender woman and showed it to her. Within 20 seconds, it was over. The female detective spoke into a hand-held radio, and all of the uniformed cops packed up and left. The detectives waited for the coroner and her crew to arrive, but, after a brief conversation, they loaded the bodies into a meat wagon and left, followed within minutes by the detectives.
Court Square Park was once again a dark, quiet place on a cold winter’s night. The only signs of recent violence were dark smudges on the footpath and a single police cruiser parked at the curb. It reminded Erebus of a scene from some movie, where a dozen men invaded a guy’s house, but he killed them all and then a cleanup crew wiped up all the blood, wrapped the dead bodies in plastic, and hauled them off.
Teeth chattering, Erebus wanted to go home and crawl under his warm blankets and tell Herbert all about what he’d done. His son might or might not understand the circumstances, and Erebus dreaded telling him, so when he saw an excuse to stay, he stayed. They both needed to know why the cop in the car was sticking around, but whatever the reason was, he hoped they found out soon. It was damned cold up there.
Chapter 11
Downtown Memphis, TN
The brown waters of the Mississippi River swept passed on his left as Luther Sweetwater drove north along Riverside Drive. He’d really been looking forward to today’s lunch meeting with some high school buddies at the old Pyramid, now converted to a sporting goods store-slash-hotel-slash-restaurant. He felt great. The morning was lovely, bright, and crisp, but not too cold even that close to the river. What more could a man ask for out of life?
That’s when his phone started playing “Killing in the Name,” a song by Rage Against the Machine that was his ring tone for LifeEnders. He’d once laughed at the irony, but now he dreaded hearing the first four power chords start their haunting melody. He reached over and touched the button to accept the call, making a mental note to change the ringtone.
“This is Luther—” he started, but the voice of Ms. Witherbot cut him short.
“Yes, Mr. Sweetwater, I have a job for you.” The heavy British accent felt like a hammer pounding nails into his ears with every word.
“Yeah, I’m not available at the moment. I have a lot going on. You need to find another Shooter.”
“You have passed on every job I’ve sent your way. I’m starting to think you may not appreciate the opportunity you have with the company. Would you like us to cancel your credentials?”
“It’s not that, I…” He let the sentence hang, unsure just what he wanted to say because she was right.
“Unfortunately, neither of us has a choice this time. You are the man we have on site, so the job is yours whether you want it or not. I refer you to Article 4, Section A17 of your contract.”
“Wait, this is a Company Priority?” Company Priorities paid double; that got his attention.
“Yes, and before you make some weak excuse, it’s a simple retrieval. We’ll not be requiring you to execute a contract.”
“Oh.” Now that was more like it. Double pay and he didn’t have to kill anybody? Sign him up! But Sweetwater didn’t want to give in that easily.
Even though the company had credited him with his first kill, he hadn’t really done it. He’d only taken credit to get paid and still wasn’t sure he wanted his LEI badge and License to Kill. “So, what do you need?” The sound of defeat filled his voice, just to let her think he wasn’t happy.
“One of our assets was murdered last night, and in your city as it happens. We need you to retrieve his credentials, nothing more. As you know, collectors and forgers would pay a lot to get their hands on an authentic LifeEnders badge and License, so we simply can’t allow them to get into the general population. Retrieving those credentials is our utmost concern. I’m sure you can appreciate the situation we are in. Do you have any questions?”
“There’s another Shooter in Memphis?”
“There was. Were you not listening?”
“Shouldn’t I know details like that?”
“Why?”
“Are there any more?”
“Again, Mister Sweetwater, what difference would it make?”
She had a point. So Sweetwater sighed, trying to sound reluctant while secretly planning how to spend the money. “No, I understand. Where do I need to go?”
“Turn right at your next light.”
He leaned forward to get a better look through the windshield, searching the sky for a helicopter or something else hovering above. “Are you tracking me? How do you know where I am?”
“Of course, we are tracking you. You are a licensed Shooter, so we follow you wherever you go. Now concentrate. Turn right onto Beale Street.”
“I don’t think I like that.”
“Oh, stop being childish, Mr. Sweetwater, and follow directions.”
A tracker under the car; it had to be, he thought. He’d get rid of it the first chance he got, but, for the moment, Sweetwater followed the voice on his phone like it was a British GPS. She directed him to a side road that took him to Court Square Park, where a single policeman was leaning against the wrought-iron fence surrounding the large, two-tiered fountain. Sweetwater pulled to the edge of the street and killed the engine.
