The older man smiled. “I’m Wally. That’s The Beav.”
They all laughed except Paul, standing at the edge of their circle with his arms crossed.
The two bruisers damn near fell over laughing. One said, “Eddie Haskell!”
Paul crouched beside me. “The whole thing’s fucked, man. These guys, well, I should’ve told you first.”
I pushed up on my elbows, whispered to Paul, “Did you know what they were? Really?”
He turned his face to the river, finally saying, “Maybe. I needed something, you know? I needed guidance, meaning…”
“You’re not, like, them or anything.”
“No, no, I mean, you run into some guys living in my apartment complex, ask them some questions. They sound like they have commitment, honor, like they have a real fucking cause, you know. I’m no fan of the government myself after what happened on the Coast. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“They recruited you?”
“Didn’t feel that way at the time. I just needed a place to fit in. It’s not like I pray to Mecca. Couple of Saudis introduced me to a couple of Malaysians who needed help getting things.” He looked down on me, hand resting on my shoulder. “On my own, I’m pretty good. But I thought with us working together…you weren’t supposed to know about these guys.”
“What was I supposed to do, then?”
“Get a system going, protect it, and look the other way while the money funneled back to Detroit.”
“You thought I’d want to be under someone else’s thumb?”
Paul shrugged. “For the money, maybe.”
“I thought you knew me better than that.”
He leaned closer, whispered. “I’m sorry, I really am. I had no idea.”
“You’ve got to say something to them. Come on.”
“Listen.” He swiveled his head, checked out the Asians. Then, to me: “In case this goes bad, I left you something.”
“What?”
“Just trust me, okay? You still like brunettes more than blondes, right?”
He was talking nonsense. “Paul, what are they going to do to us?”
He started to say something else, but the big man said, “Enough talk, all lovey-dovey. Plan didn’t work, so you two no longer needed. All evidence points back to Lafitte. We make it look like he killed the drug dealers, killed the band, and those students, then killed you, too. Next, he’ll have risen from the grave to kill his redneck Sheriff. And his niece, his nephew.”
Paul looked over his shoulder. “Hey, this isn’t our fault. If you’d just let us do what we do best—”
“No, not anymore.”
He had the gun in his hand before either of us could react, an auto with a silencer, pointblank at Paul’s temple. I watched the bullet exit, spew blood and brain across the sky, rain down on me as his body collapsed in slow motion, going to land on top of me. Please, not Paul. I needed Paul. I was supposed to be the one saving his life. I couldn’t beat these guys alone.
My body reacted: Roll, roll, roll!
I did. Paul’s body missed me. I glanced over my shoulder, willing him to move. Maybe I had seen the whole thing wrong. That wasn’t his brains. Yeah, he would pop right up and help me kick some terrorist ass.
No movement. He was gone. And it looked like I was next.
I swept the legs of one bruiser. He went down, and I was up. Another bullet aimed for me took out the bruiser’s shoulder. He let out a wail and I started running. A big open yard. Too far away from the garage, the driveway. Shit! The closest place to hide—the river.
The embankment was steep and the river was still low, the Spring melt only just beginning. Dead tree limbs had weaved together a wall.
Another shot. A sting on my side and then a fire. The bullet split the flesh under my arm, between ribs. Adrenaline overpowered it enough for me to reach the bank and jump.
Midair.
Falling fast.
I missed the water and was nearly impaled on broken stumps. Bruised, gashed, shot, beaten, but I still had sense to start rolling towards the water. The icy chill was a shock to the system—thought I was going to stroke. But I slipped under, the pain dulling. I kicked. Bullets plopped in around me, missed my head by inches. I kicked. Kicked hard. Kicked and didn’t know if I’d live or die but I sure as hell wasn’t going to die at their hands, for their twisted reasons, for their cause.
*
I can’t say I blacked out in the water. More like froze out. I would either drown or wake up in a hundred years, a psycho Rip Van Winkle. My mind was protecting itself, sending me towards the light. But then I hit a tree branch, the naked limbs scratching my face, my eye. I thrashed and grabbed at the branch until I was fully awake. My hands were nearly frozen, my fingers numb, but still alive. Which meant pain. Lots of it. And I was still seeing my old partner fall over and over again, an endless cycle. Damn it, it wasn’t fair. None of this. If we’d both just played by the goddamned rules. I blocked out Paul as best I could. Didn’t want to join him in the afterlife quite yet. I needed to get my ass in gear.
I was sitting in a foot of water near the shore, seething through my teeth, my side throbbing in the icy flow. This looked like an area without easy road access, but I had to believe those guys were on my tail.
I crawled to the bank, not as steep as it was near my home, but still a muddy five foot climb into the woods, which didn’t offer as much protection in March as it would only a month later. Everything was gray, stripped. I had climbed out on the opposite side, so at least we were separated by the river, but that didn’t stop bullets. I forgot about the wound under my arm until I started walking upstream. I’d never been so cold before, aching whenever I flexed my fingers. My face was ice, stinging worse every time the wind blew. And I could barely see, the skin around my eye caked, swollen, causing me to see double. Hypothermia coming on fast. I had to hurry. A hand to my right side showed me that the bullet had cut across thin skin, leaving a massive cut that pulled wider with every step. I yanked the sleeve off my right arm and tucked it under my arm trying to cover at least part of the wound. Complete failure. But I left it there anyway to soak up new blood.
Walking upstream, yes. Back to the house, back to the truck, back to the only way I knew to get out of there. It was slow going—my clothes were saturated, ten pounds heavier, freezing to my skin. Shoes were like waterlogged sandbags. If the bastards were waiting for me, I wasn’t in any shape to run. I would have to hide out until the middle of the night and do some damage with tools from the garage, then take their car. Probably drive to the hospital. Probably tell the sheriff everything I knew, go ahead and tell the Feds the same. Anything. It was the only way left that I could fight back.
If I wasn’t dead, that is.
Thinking of home drove my steps. Shivering, aching, bruised, but moving forward. My mind wasn’t playing fair: Tell them everything? Okay, sure. All the evidence points to you—your knife in the photos, your old partner vouching for you with the terrorists, your connection to Ian and Heather, the blonde girl’s head fished from the river. Tell them your fairy tale, but you’re the one going down.
Wait, the Feds knew it was our little terrorists. Rome knew.
No, he knows someone is working with them. Why not you? If it fits, it fits.
Sharp pain, rocketing from side to shoulder to brain. I fell. Fuck! I rolled onto my stomach and tried to push up. My chest wasn’t having any of it. I wanted to scream out the hurt, but that would give the bastards a blip on the radar to hunt me down.
I held it in. Let the air out slowly. That’s when I decided to stop worrying and get on with it. One step at a time. The house was the only destination. After that, I had all eternity to make up my mind.
I rolled onto my back, feeling the skin rip wider on my side. Anywhere I applied pressure, a rush of river water stunned my skin numb. The throbbing wouldn’t stop. It was a steady rhythm of pain, disorientation, my heartbeat shaking the doubled-vision trees. I had to kee
p going. Sat up, more tearing. Just grit my teeth and did it. Caught my breath for several minutes before getting too cozy, wanting to drift to sleep rather than continue hurting so much.
I slapped my dead face with my dead hand. Another, harder. The new pain dulled the old. I grabbed the nearest tree and pulled myself up. I had promises to keep.
NINETEEN
I woke again. I was looking up at Drew and Graham. Drew sat on the side of the bed—my bed, I was in my bed—holding my hand. Graham was over her shoulder.
“Can you hear me?” he said. He snapped his fingers in front of my nose.
“Shut up.”
A few more snaps. “What was that?”
I pulled my arm out from the sheets and grabbed his fingers. My grip was weak. He slipped away. To Drew, “Same old self.”
“You should see the rest of him.”
Graham nodded, a sad grin on his mouth. “I’m just glad he’s not dead.”
I said, “Are you?”
He stepped around to the other side of the bed, knelt down. “You know there’s a dead man in your yard, and the gun that probably killed him is on your living room floor. There’s a bunch of files with plans of some sort, some in Chinese or something.”
I remembered what Paul had said. Couple of Saudis had introduced him to Malaysians who needed help. “Not Chinese. Malaysian.”
“I can’t read either. Photos, a list of names. Mine’s on it.”
He watched my eyes. Casting aside all the gut feelings and good faith, instead relying on his training, thinking of all the suspects he’d ever questioned.
“Graham, I didn’t do it.”
He took it in, squinted just so, and then looked down with a shrug. “Yeah, I know you didn’t, Billy. I wish that were enough, though. I don’t know what we can do.”
He stood, adjusted his hat. All decked out in uniform, there was nobody I trusted more at that point. He pulled a warrant from his back pocket. “I was supposed to serve this on you if I found you first. Arrest warrant. Agent Rome is pushing hard for it.”
“He’s crazy. You think that’s me? Have you ever seen anything that would make you think—”
“It’s not that. It’s the money. Rome says someone offered you some money, and that you took it. All cash.”
“I turned them down.”
Graham raised his voice. “How am I supposed to know that? You know good and well you’re hiding a bunch of stuff from me. I’ve known about the protection money you’re getting from meth dealers for a while now. I didn’t call you on it, though. As long as you keep sending checks to Ham and Savannah, I was letting it slide. Now I’m supposed to trust you’re clean on this all of the sudden?”
I had no clue he’d been onto me. Smarter than the average bear. Not so goody-two-shoes as I first thought, either. The only thing I could think to say was, “If I’d accepted that money, I would’ve been under their thumb. And if there’s one thing you know about me, it’s I don’t like working for anyone but myself.”
Another moment, Graham slowly nodding. “One of the things Ginny said to sway me was that at least you’d be low maintenance. Able to amuse yourself. But she also said that’s how you get in trouble. I admired that.”
Flashed back to what the Malaysians had told us right before they shot Paul: kill your redneck Sheriff, too…
“They’re coming after you next. Your whole family. My family.”
Graham stepped closer. “How do you know?”
“They out and out said it. Said the redneck Sheriff and his kids were next. They wanted to kill me, but still make it look like I had killed you.
“Rice pickers want to call me a redneck? You’re the Southerner. Why the kids?”
“Anything to get their way. They want me. I said no. That’s enough to rile them up.”
Graham crumpled the warrant into a ball, threw it across the floor. “I don’t believe you deserve this sort of treatment. None of us. The Feds can’t help. We need another way. Fast.”
I coughed. “When you think of it, let me know.”
He turned for the door. “I’m going to get rid of that gun, those papers.”
“The papers,” I said. “That’s evidence.”
“Evidence against you. Right now I’m just worried the Feds are about to railroad you.” He stopped. “So, who’s the guy in the yard?”
“Asimov. He was my partner in Mississippi. He’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
He clapped his hand on the doorframe a couple of times. “If I didn’t think your kids needed their father so much…” Then a sigh.
“That man out there was my friend. Not perfect or anything, but I owe him one. I couldn’t save his life, but we can at least make his death less, you know, pointless. No one needs to see him like that.”
It took Graham a few minutes to let it sink in, but he finally said, “Okay, I’ll deal with that, too.
When he left, Drew squeezed my hand.
“What happened?” I said.
“You tell me. You didn’t show up. So the sheriff and I drive over, no one’s here.”
I shivered a little thinking of what would have happened if the terrorists had hung around. I had gambled on them leaving because of all the gunfire, thinking it might draw attention. Not here in the boonies, it wouldn’t, but they didn’t know that. Drew thought I was cold, lifted the quilt to my shoulders.
She said, “Your truck was in the driveway, the front end smashed and the tires cut to ribbons. I got scared, started shouting for you, looking around. Then the dead guy in the yard.” She closed her eyes. I didn’t know if she was remembering or erasing. “Which, for just a second, I thought, you know … but then we heard you down by the river.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
Drew smiled. “I’m starting to think you’re a superhero.”
“Yeah. My special power is making the world bad for everyone I know.”
“At least you can’t fly. Then you’d be a real ass.”
*
After another hour of recovering, I struggled off the bed and into sweats and my boots before walking outside to watch Graham get rid of Asimov. I could walk but it hurt like hell. I needed to. I still had a little trouble with the eye—hard to judge distance, and I really had to concentrate to focus. The sun had warmed the air just enough so that I didn’t want a jacket, being that time of year between winter and spring that made you hate the changes until it had all changed already. Deadly wind. Nearly all the snow had melted in the past couple of days. The ground in the river valley wasn’t quite as hard as it was on the prairies.
When I caught up with Graham behind my garage in the acre of yard bordering the river, he was trying to dig a grave in that cold dirt.
“What’re you doing?” I said.
He kept shoveling. “Don’t worry, I can handle it. We’ve got time.”
“No, I mean, ‘why’? A fresh grave might draw some attention, you think?”
He set a foot on top of the blade, leaned the handle against his shoulder, hugged it. “Mm hm.”
“What?”
“I don’t see another way.” He turned his head, looking at me over his shoulder. Me, hobbling. Me, bruised and barely able to speak for the pain, only able to see out of one eye. Me, saved by Graham. Even then I still challenged him. It’s just that he hadn’t spent enough time in his life thinking about ways to lose evidence and bodies and witnesses. I had.
“We can put him on the burn pile.”
Graham nodded. I was surprised by how he was taking all this. “That won’t take care of the bones, though.”
“We’ll get rid of those later. Right now we’ve got work to do.”
“Are you able to help drag him over there?”
Again, I had to hold my tongue. Finally said, “I’ve got an axe and some tools in the garage. I’ll do what I can, but you’ll have to carry my load.”
He dropped the shovel. “No, wait, no.”
“It’s the best way. Smaller p
ieces burn much faster.”
“Jesus, Billy. He was your partner.”
I looked down at Paul’s bloody face, eyes frozen open. The thick blood made him nearly impossible to sympathize with. It could be my own son, Ham, and I’d probably build the same wall—it just wasn’t him. I didn’t like that about myself, but it wasn’t the time to make a change. “Exactly. I’m doing him a favor. Let’s go.”
*
A hand ax. The shovel. A rusty saw. We spent the next hour dismembering Asimov. Gagging, turning away. We both stopped two or three times, said, “I can’t do it,” then got our shit together and started again. When I swung the ax, my sore muscles flared. The best I could do after that was pull the arms and legs taut while Graham hacked and sawed through muscle, ligament, bone. We had to twist the limbs from the joints like you would a chicken wing. Paul’s joints made the same sounds. That’s what you remember when you chop up your friend, the weird noises and the surprise at finding just how well we’re put together. The worst was when I had to bash the teeth out of his skull with the back of the ax. Had to pick them out of his mouth one by one.
No funeral, no words, not even a moment of silence. We carried the pieces two at the time over to the pile of tree branches, dead leaves, cardboard boxes, broken furniture, dead squirrels, and used charcoal from the grill, threw them on. We kept looking around like we expected to get caught, but there was nothing but an abandoned house next door, a deserted boat launch, the river, and Drew occasionally looking out the window for a few moments before disappearing again.
When all of Paul was scattered on the burn pile, Graham soaked it with lighter fluid. I flicked a match and tossed it on. Then another, another, and another. The flames spread, caught the rough breaks on the branches, the leaves that weren’t wet. The dampness caused more smoke than you’d see when we burned leaves in the fall, but eventually everything burned low and steady. The wind chilled us and we stood closer to the fire, shoulder to shoulder.
“Were you close?” Graham said.
“Close as partners.” I hunched my shoulders, tried to zone out the aches. “Loyal, but definitely different. We didn’t hang out much off duty, and while I was the type who’d bend the rules, you know—”
Yellow Medicine Page 14
