A Bullet for the Shooter

by Larry Hoy

“Right. Look, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.”

  The doctor hung up the clipboard. “If you need anything just ask one of the nurses.” She turned on one heel and left.

  “I think she wants you to ask her out,” Warden said.

  “She is my type.”

  Warden raised her left eyebrow in a question.

  “Rich.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “She’s a doctor.”

  Warden leaned back, rubbed her eyes, and made a point of shaking her head so he could see it. “God, I hate it when the British Bitch is right.”

  He began to drowse again from the latest dose of meds the nurse had given him during the doctor’s visit. “Are you sayin’ I’m stupid?” The words were barely out before he began to snore softly.

  “Not stupid, Luther,” she said, “just naïve.”

  Chapter 24

  Elvis Presley Trauma Center, Memphis, TN

  The Med, as the Elvis Presley Trauma Center had been known in Memphis for decades, was the only Level One trauma center for more than 150 miles in any direction. As such, and despite the new draconian laws regarding murder, gangs kept the trauma bays filled with gunshot victims to go along with the usual drownings, people cut from mangled cars, and drug overdoses. Rush hour came between midnight and four am.

  The wail of an ambulance roused Sweetwater from a drugged sleep at 2:26. He’d half-rolled onto his right side, and through half-open lids read the digital clock beside his bed. Teri Warden snored lightly on the bench-style couch against the outside wall under the blinds, with the only light coming from a recessed fixture over the nurse’s station near his room. Lying in that position hurt Sweetwater’s chest so, after closing his eyes again, he rolled onto his back to go back to sleep.

  But in the same way that some people could sense danger, he could sense the presence of…something else. Through the fog of sleep, he cracked open his left eye.

  “Ah!” he cried, trying to scoot backward on the mattress. Two empty eye sockets set in a face of flaking black skin leaned within inches of Sweetwater’s nose. Straight, white teeth grinned past the char-broiled remains of lips that had vaporized in fire.

  Warden kicked off her covers and was at his bedside within seconds.

  “What?” she cried, her hair tangled. “What’s the matter?”

  “That!” he said, pointing at the ruined face, which hadn’t moved.

  “Huh?”

  “Can’t you see him?”

  “Luther, wake up, you’re dreaming.”

  “No, I’m wide awake! He’s right here, all burnt up like somebody poured gas over Gumby and tossed him a lit match.”

  Involuntarily, Warden took a step back and straightened. Glancing around the room, she had the same wide-eyed expression as paranormal investigators on all those TV shows.

  “They’re here, aren’t they? That Cooper guy and the woman, Grace Allen Tarbeau.”

  The roasted face filled Sweetwater’s vision. To see past it he had to move sideways a few inches. Four other figures stood nearby. He recognized two in the back as Cooper and Grace Allen despite their advanced states of decomposition: Cooper by his ever-present cigarette and Grace Allen by the sparse strands of red hair draping down her forehead. Over the shoulder of the burned-up figure was a big black guy with his arms folded, standing beside a slim brunette. Despite their dark color, both had a greenish hue with patches of dark red. Neither looked happy to see him.

  “Fuckin’ A, they’re here! They’re here in the back, but now there’s five of them, and Barbeque Boy won’t get out of my face!”

  Warden turned as footsteps grew loud in the hallway, undoubtedly the nurse coming to find out what the yelling was all about.

  “Luther, ssshhh, they’re gonna think you’re tripping.”

  But Sweetwater wasn’t listening, he was fixated on a flap of crispy skin hanging off the dead man’s chin. When the corpse spoke, his teeth appeared to be champing like a horse.

  “My name is Shields, dickhead,” he said. “Mark Shields, and it’s your fault I’m dead right now.”

  The night nurse was tiny, but came through the door ready to kick ass.

  “What’s going on in here, Mister Sweetwater?”

  “Bad dream,” Warden said, stroking his hair like she was his girlfriend. “It’s okay, this happens sometimes.”

  Sweetwater’s mouth hung open as Shields came close enough for him to smell the charred flesh, and he didn’t say anything as the nurse checked his vitals.

  “Fuckin’ rookie,” Shields said. “Fuckin’ incompetent, mother fuckin’ new guy fucks up and I get killed. One minute I was livin’ the dream, filled up with the finest beef steak and two bottles of forty-thousand-dollar whiskey sitting on the seat next to me to drink whenever I felt like it. And the next thing you know I look like the stuff you scrape out of a dirty oven. I had a ’69 Corvette, shit for brains. Better than any wet dream you’ve ever had. A gorgeous, sleek, black 1969 Chevrolet Corvette that’s now a heap of melted fiberglass, and it’s your fucking fault! I was single, good lookin’, and getting’ laid with a different girl every night. I had three million in the bank—three fucking million dollars! And now I’m not just dead, I’ve gotta listen to some swinging dick Marine asswipe call me Barbeque Boy, and I don’t fucking like it!”

  “I don’t even know who you are,” Sweetwater said. It was impossible to read facial expressions in a man with no eyes, nose, lips, and with skin the consistency of an unwrapped Egyptian mummy.

  The nurse glanced at Sweetwater and then at Warden. “I’m Dottie Laforce, Mister Sweetwater, I’ve been your nurse the past two nights. Don’t you recognize me?”

  “The nightmare rattled him,” Warden said. “He just needs to go back to sleep. He’ll be fine in the morning.”

  Sweetwater’s eyes looked past Shields to the black man.

  “You must be Bonney,” he said.

  “No, not Bonnie, Dottie,” the nurse said. “Dottie Laforce. Are you all right Mister Sweetwater?”

  He finally heard the nurse’s voice and focused on her. Having said his piece, Shields backed off a little.

  “I’m fine…uhh, Dottie, right? Sorry, I get weird dreams sometimes and it takes a while to shake them. I’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t go gettin’ excited or moving around a lot. You’ve gotta lie as still as you can. I know it’s uncomfortable, but you’ve got to.”

  “You know what’s uncomfortable?” said the woman with Bonney. “Being dead, that’s what. It’s cold and dank and all you’ve got to do is watch your body rot off your bones.”

  “I’d kick your ass if I could,” Bonney said, and Sweetwater had no doubt he meant it.

  He ignored both of them as best he could. “Thanks for checking on me, Bonnie—I mean Dottie. Sorry. I’ll be fine.”

  It took another minute to convince her, but eventually Laforce left, came back with two sleeping pills and two pain pills, and waited for him to take them. Only then did she leave for good.

  “Having fun yet, Luther?” Cooper called from the back of the room. The orange ash of his cigarette flared as he inhaled. Sweetwater briefly wondered how he could smoke without functioning lungs before Bonney got his attention again.

  “Those pills are gonna knock you out boy, but don’t think you’re getting off that easy, ’cause we aren’t going anywhere. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

  “For how long?” Sweetwater said, regretting how weak it sounded the instant the words left his mouth.

  This time Grace Allen answered. Her lower jaw had come unhinged as the muscles holding it in place decayed, so now it just flopped around as she spoke.

  “Until this is over,” she said.

  Adrian Erebus huddled in the tiny motel room’s bathroom. The television was blasting in the other room, some action movie with lots of machine guns and explosions, the kind of thing Herbert loved to watch.

  From his back pocket, he pulled out a rumpled ph
oto with the name Mark Shields written across the bottom in red Sharpie, along with the asshole’s code name, Mad Mok. He picked up an old Zippo, flicked the little wheel, and ran the flame along the bottom edge of the photo. The film on front bubbled as the paper backing burned. With a stylized snap of his wrist, the lighter clicked shut, bringing images of Humphrey Bogart to his mind. If any man knew how to handle a lighter, it was Bogie. Fire climbed along the photo’s edges and curls of smoke tickled the bathroom smoke detector. Nothing happened. Dead batteries, he assumed.

  The flames licked his finger like tiny yellow tongues. Erebus watched them burn his flesh. Pain shot into his hand, which fascinated the part of his brain that craved stimulus. But there was too much yet to accomplish to allow real damage to the finger, so he dropped the blackened photo into the toilet and the flames went out with a hiss. Then he flushed. The ashes broke apart in the swirl and disappeared through the hole in the bottom.

  Just like Mark Shields, burned, gone, and forgotten.

  He opened the bathroom door, waving his hands to scatter the smell of burning paper. Added to the room’s overall dirty odor came the reek of mold when he opened the mini fridge and grabbed a can of Busch for him and a Coke for Herbert. His son lay stretched out on the bed watching TV on a set so old it had a picture tube. When he put the can of soda on the floor, unopened, Herbert leaned around him to keep watching the movie.

  Erebus used to open the cans for his son, but lately Herbert wasn’t finishing them, he’d just leave the cans sitting around, going flat. When Erebus accidentally knocked over an old, mostly full can of soda, it made a nasty mess that attracted ants. Now he just left them sealed, his son would open it when he was ready. If the boy didn’t drink it, he’d just put it back in the fridge later.

  Erebus sat down on his bed and looked at the television, not really watching it. “You remember the guy that broke into our house last week?” A memory of the house on fire intruded on his thoughts and became part of the narrative. “He’s the one who burned it down and tried to kill us, remember? A friend of mine said he was still alive.” Erebus sat quiet for a bit, wondering just how much he should tell Herbert. “I’m worried he might come after us again. Really, son, I’m worried he might come after you again. He wants to kill you because you’re my son. He hates us because…because of your mom. He thinks if we’re dead, she’ll run off with him.” Herbert didn’t react, his eyes stayed glued to the TV. “Everything I do is to protect you, you know that, right? I really got lucky last time, son. If he catches us again…he’ll be more careful next time. I think he’ll kill me—kill us!” The last part came out just a bit louder than a whisper.

  Erebus wiped away tears to hide them from his son. He didn’t want Herbert to see just how afraid he was of Luther Sweetwater in that moment. Sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes something came over him, and he could stand up to a charging elephant. But now he was scared.

  Herbert frowned, scowled at his father, and sat up. Erebus could feel his son’s disgust. It was like a black mesh curtain thrown over his head. Herbert held up his hands, balled them into fists, and put his hands together, the knuckles touching. Then he pulled them apart and uncurled his fingers.

  “Boom.”

  Erebus blinked, his mouth open as if stupefied. Herbert rarely spoke to him.

  “Another bomb?” The concept blew his mind, sort of. He thought back to the burning fireball of the Corvette. The mere thought of something like that going off in a hospital horrified him. He had never killed an innocent before, and a bomb that big going off in a hospital might kill a bunch of people. Why would Herbert tell him to do that? Unless…of course, the boy saw what Erebus didn’t. People that helped hitmen kill innocent people couldn’t also be innocent; they were every bit as guilty as the killer, and guilty people should die.

  “All right son, I’m convinced. Let’s say that we build another bomb. How do we get it to him? He’s in the hospital. How do we get it in there without getting caught?”

  During his career as a teacher, Erebus preached his own theory about synchronicity and, as if verifying its validity, at that moment, a commercial came on television advertising an upcoming beauty pageant. Two women stood side by side while an announcer read a name. The camera zoomed in for a close up on one of them. Somebody placed a tiara on her head and another person put a bouquet of red roses in her arms.

  “Of course,” Erebus said. “We won’t even have to go in the hospital. Wait until I tell that blowhard Tyler Easton about this. Let’s see him make fun of my theory then.” He glanced over at his son and realized the boy hadn’t opened his soda. “I’m going to need your help again son, since it looks like we’re back in the bomb-making business.”

  Sweetwater scrunched up his face. “Sorry that you saved my life?”

  Warden paced a few seconds before answering, and Sweetwater noticed she had the slightest roll to her right hip.

  “No, I’m sorry I dragged you into that place. I should have called the cops or something. We never should have barged inside.”

  “That’s kinda my job, you know.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re a trigger man. Your job is to complete contracts, not go toe to toe with slobbering psychopaths.” She looked up, and he saw how closely her cheekbones resembled the British Bitch, cheekbones now streaked with tears. “Stop being so understanding, damn it, I almost got you killed. This was all my fault, so get mad at me. Go on, yell, cuss, throw a shoe.”

  Sweetwater felt one side of his cheek raise in a half-smile. “The shoe might have to wait a few weeks. But, you know, I thought I was a trigger man.” He paused, wondering just how much to confess. “Look, I’m not very good at this job. Working with you to trace down that crazy fuck was the most fun I’ve had.” He paused again. “Well, right up until he shot me; that part sucked.” He laughed, which sent pain ripping across his chest and armpits. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the bed rails and fought through the urge to cough. After five seconds the spasms eased, and Sweetwater relaxed back into his bed.

  “Fuck,” he said through shallow breaths, “I can’t handle any more coughing.” Warden came back to his bedside. Something about her brought out the tough guy in him. At least, as tough as he could be lying in a hospital bed with tubes in his arms.

  “So, partner, can you track down this piece of shit and get us another shot at the title?”

  “He might kill you next time, Luther.”

  “Not possible. Nobody gets to shoot me twice.”

  Chapter 25

  Elvis Presley Trauma Center, Memphis, TN

  “I was hoping you’d want back in the action,” Warden said. “It’s hard to know how people will react to a near-death experience.” She fetched her tablet from the desk in the corner and pulled up a data sheet. “I’m not sure what you remember, but this is what we know. First, his name is Adrian Erebus.”

  Sweetwater remembered some of the discussion from before he was shot, but Warden was on a roll so he stretched out in the bed and listened. He had been awake for an hour and was already feeling as if he had run a 10K.

  “Erebus married Grace Allen Erebus at Third Assembly Missionary Baptist Church near Semple, in Fayette County, Tennessee.”

  “They had one son, Herbert Wilson Erebus. Nothing noteworthy happened until approximately ten years ago, when it all went to shit. In one night Herbert died inside the family home. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation was called in because the house burned to the ground and the fire chief declared it arson. Only the TBI had the resources to investigate it properly. After a reconstructive autopsy, the cause was listed as a blow to the head with a hammer or hammer-like instrument.

  “Adrian Erebus drove himself to a clinic in Oakland, who immediately called an ambulance. Apparently, he was cut to ribbons and almost died from massive blood loss. As for Grace Allen, she disappeared not to be heard again for ten years. The rest of that story you already know.”

  “Her new husband put a contract on her.”
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br />   “Yes, but hold that thought. First let me tell you about the old husband, Adrian. When Adrian left the hospital, he was the primary suspect for the murder and house fire, although there really wasn’t much evidence tying him to it. The sheriff and district attorney thought they’d found their man, and they pushed hard for a confession, but Erebus was catatonic and never said a word to his interrogators. He was declared a menace to himself and others and, with no relatives stepping forward, he became a ward of the state. They locked him in a sanatorium, until five years ago when he just walked out.”

  “How do you walk out of a sanatorium?”

  “Evidently it’s pretty easy. The police report said Erebus was ninety-five percent catatonic. He’d move if directed to do so, but never on his own. If no one led him, he’d just stand there. He couldn’t feed or clean himself. The story was that they stood him in the garden every day for some fresh air, even in the rain, because if they didn’t, he’d start whimpering. That went on for years until one day, when they went to bring him back inside, he was gone.”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  “When I found his address and we raided his home I didn’t know any of this. I should have. It should have all been accessible, but it wasn’t—”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. It was just blind luck that Erebus was there at all. A one in a million shot.”

  “It didn’t feel all that lucky to me.”

  Teri looked up from her tablet, confused. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. But bad luck is still luck.”

  “Never mind; keep rolling.”

  “Well, that’s all I have on Adrian.”

  “Then tell me about Grace.” Luther covered his eyes with his forearm. “Why did her husband sign a contract on her?”

  “LEI doesn’t ask, and they never write it down. As a guess, I’d say the bastard was trying to protect his fortune, and it’s a good bet that he didn’t know Grace was previously married or had children.”