by Ace Atkins
A clerk offered me assistance in dress shirts. Another wanted to show me a perfume sample for a special someone. Wells moved with his head down and more speed than I thought he possessed.
We were through Neiman Marcus and out into the mall, passing the storefronts for the Tesla dealer, the Polo shop, and Ferragamo shoes. He turned away from Macy’s and toward Bloomingdale’s. The mall was packed. Shoppers in heavy coats, loaded down with heavy sacks, blocked the way forward. Wells was tough to follow in the dark coat moving in and out of people, pushing past the shoppers and making his way to the escalators. I nearly body-checked an elderly man carrying a large box. Wells disappeared down the escalator. A sign with a down arrow said Shops and Food Court. I took the steps, turning round and round, until I came out on a small floor with more shops. California Pizza Kitchen. Urban Outfitters.
I saw Wells’s new dye job sliding down another escalator to the food court. I pushed past two women who called me a few choice names and then slid past a woman in a bright red coat. I was closing in. And then Wells turned. He hit the ground floor at a dead sprint and turned toward the food court. Chinese food, Mediterranean Market, Chick-fil-A. But no Wells. I ran toward the exit to the ground-floor parking lot.
A car slammed on its brakes and honked its horn. As I stood in the middle of the street, I saw Wells jump into the passenger side of a blue sedan and burn rubber into traffic and then out toward Peachtree Street.
I couldn’t see who was driving, but I was pretty sure it was Bliss. I was out of breath. And they were long gone.
I walked the long way around the shopping mall to the deck where hopefully they’d caught the reverend with a lot of dough and a solid sermon on tape. On the upper parking deck, I found Nguyen talking with a large group of Atlanta cops. Patrol cars blocked the exits. Lights spun.
“Wells is gone.”
“We’ll find him,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “If only we knew who he’ll be next.”
58
You don’t think Wells will go home?” Susan said.
“He did leave a wife and three daughters in Rockdale County.”
“But he’s not really what you’d call a family man.”
“Nope,” I said. “Or a true Christian soldier. But at some level he believes the lies he tells. It’s intertwined with his ego. His ego will make him try and reclaim some semblance of the lie.”
“The reason he couldn’t fully change his name,” Susan said. “Or break from his identity in Georgia. Starting over might be inconceivable to someone like him.”
“I think he loves the accolades and the respect more than a con.”
“It’s a form of a con,” she said. “Only the mark is themselves.”
“He’ll be back,” I said. “Separating himself from the church and proclaiming his innocence.”
We sat on my long sofa facing the boats in the Navy Yard. Most of the lights were off, my canvas travel bag dumped by the front door. I had a bourbon with ice in hand and my feet up on the coffee table. Pearl snored in my lap. A small, sad rosemary bush cut in the shape of a Christmas tree sat on the kitchen counter.
“And Hawk?”
“We flew back together.”
“Tedy?”
“Home with his ophthalmologist.”
“So the preacher gets arrested,” she said. “But most of the bad guys go free. Including the two most responsible for Connie’s death.”
“Looks like it.”
“Are you all right with that?”
“Nope,” I said. “But stay tuned for my next thrilling episode.”
“You look like hell.”
“It matches the way I feel.”
Susan leaned into me, head resting on my shoulder, and we watched the colorful lights twinkle on the ships. The water stretched out choppy, gray, and forever. It seemed as if I’d been gone for a year, although it had only been a couple of days. Susan smelled of lavender and good soap as I kissed her on top of her head. I could feel some warmth spreading through my chest.
“When do you leave?” Susan said.
“Bright and early Christmas morning.”
“Maybe I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either.”
Pearl snuffled a bit and flipped full on her back, legs stretched straight in the air. I rubbed her ears with one hand and lifted my other for the bourbon.
“Perhaps you should rest a few more days?”
“If I sit down any longer, I might not get back up.”
“I guess you are too sore to . . .”
“I’m willing to risk it.”
“And where exactly does it hurt?”
“Almost everywhere, doc,” I said. “Almost.”
I finished the bourbon and held out my hand. “Help me to bed,” I said. “And I promise not to yell too much.”
“We shall see.”
59
Late Christmas day, I cooked two dry-aged T-bones from the Public Market on my potbellied stove at the cabin in Maine. A kale salad with pears and goat cheese and scalloped potatoes waited on a sideboard while Hawk loaded shells into his twelve-gauge Mossberg and whistled “White Christmas.”
“You heard from Paul?” Hawk said.
“Sure,” I said. “He sent me a bottle of hooch.”
“He never sends me hooch.”
“You never made him build a cabin.”
“I call that free labor.”
“It was character-building for a young man.”
“If you say so, babe.”
I seared one side of the steaks in fresh salted butter and turned the other side to get it just right. Hawk said he liked his steak bloody as hell.
He set the shotgun by the front door and walked to the window. He had on a pair of Levi’s cuffed above some tall hiking boots, a tight-fitting flannel shirt rolled to the elbows, and his .44 Magnum stuck into a hand-tooled leather belt.
I slid his steak off the stove and onto a bright blue Fiesta plate. I’d already cooked the potatoes and set them on the small table that only sat two. The kale salad was in a wooden bowl waiting to be dressed. Hawk let go of the curtain and walked back to the table and uncorked a bottle of red.
“Almost romantic.”
“Almost.”
“Susan mind you gone?”
“No,” I said. “How about Nicole?”
“Oh, yes.”
“How sure are you they’re going to come?”
“As sure as God made little green apples.”
“You talk to Sarge?”
He nodded and sat down at the table. He took a little slice of the potatoes and waited for me to dress the salad with some olive oil, vinegar, and fresh lemon. He watched me with hands tented over his plate.
“Ain’t no way Bliss gone let this go.”
“Lucky for him that he didn’t show for the guns.”
“Lucky?” Hawk said. “That ain’t the right word.”
I cut into the T-bone. It was bloody, but not as bloody as Hawk’s. I forked a little potato with the meat and ate. Hawk reached over and filled my wineglass. Hawk sang, “I wish every day could be like Christmas.”
“Reverend Ridgeway is looking at a ten-year stretch.”
“Too bad,” Hawk said. “So sad.”
“ATF raided the church yesterday,” I said. “Guns weren’t the only shit he was into. Bobby Nguyen said he had a pretty impressive pyramid scheme in the works.”
“Greater Faith,” Hawk said.
“No word on Wells,” I said. “He never returned home.”
“And now we get to wait for that shit to roll downhill.”
“Clumsy as hell tail job.”
“Almost disrespectful.”
I got up and poked at the apple wood in the stone chimney and returned to my ch
air. The only thing bad about the cabin was that it only had one room and one bed. I took the chair. For the rest of the night, Hawk lay in bed by a kerosene lantern reading the collected essays of James Baldwin.
I rocked in an old chair made by my uncle Cash, a quilt over my legs and a .45 lever-action Winchester in my lap. It might’ve been Christmas a hundred years ago. The only sound was the crackling and popping of the wood and the bright electric silence out in the forest.
Sometime before midnight, I heard a car engine and doors shut.
Hawk snapped the book closed, doused the light, and moved close to the window with the shotgun.
“I figured Bliss for a more subtle approach.”
“Ain’t nothing that man ever do is subtle.”
Hawk peered through a side window and then crouched down to the floor.
“How many?”
“I see two,” he said. “That means four.”
“Like we planned?”
“It’s time for Operation Surprise, motherfuckers.”
He opened a back door and slipped into the woods. I slid open the window a notch and rested the Winchester on the ledge and peered through the scope.
60
Bliss and another man moved down the crooked gravel road, carrying shotguns in their hands. Through the scope, I had a clear shot at both. Hawk figured Bliss would make a direct approach to talk while two of his men snuck around back.
A shotgun blasted twice in succession. And then there was silence. Bliss and friend scattered to the woods. So much for the best laid plans.
Hawk and I had worked out for him to get halfway down the road to a large oak where he’d get some cover. I watched the tree line through the scope, a .45 in the chamber and finger on the trigger. It had snowed earlier in the day, our tire tracks clearly visible up to the cabin. The tree branches drooped heavy with the bright white snow. Up the hill, a car waited. Headlines on, shining into the night.
I breathed in the cold fresh air and steadied my breath. He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow.
“Hawk,” Bliss said. “We came to talk.”
Hawk, being Hawk, didn’t answer.
“We don’t want trouble,” Bliss said.
I could not see Bliss but figured him for about twenty to thirty yards away. I scanned the woods. The white snow almost bluish in a nearly full moon.
Snow fell heavy off a branch. I shot at it and jacked another round into the Winchester using one hand. John Wayne.
Hawk would be directly opposite of them now. Bliss and his man would have separated, fanning out in the snowy woods.
I heard the creak of the steps behind the kitchen. I got to my stomach and crawled with the gun the way I’d been taught in basic training. I moved on elbows and knees until I saw a face in the glass. I fired off a quick shot and heard a loud grunt. And then a fall.
The apple wood blazed a bright red in the fireplace, popping and crackling. I duck-walked to the back door, opened it, and found the man splayed in the fresh white snow. He didn’t move. Blood poured from his chest. A sucking sound came from his mouth.
I spotted Hawk’s tracks leading away from the cabin. And I spotted the man’s tracks moving into the opposite tree line. I picked up his assault rifle and followed his and moved into the woods. Every step seemed to make a crushing, crunching sound. I made use of the trees, walked low, tried to make myself small.
A shotgun blasted. Hawk.
I figured we could pinch Bliss in from each side. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
“Hawk,” Bliss said, calling out.
“Show yourself,” Hawk said. “Let’s do it right.”
I spotted Bliss’s bald head behind a fallen tree. He had a rifle propped on it, aiming directly into the woods. I could hear the car’s motor still running. The headlights were shining brightly into the snow lightly falling on a fine Christmas night.
I dropped the assault rifle and took aim through the scope of the Winchester. Hawk fired off a shot, spooking Bliss and sending him rolling and disappearing into the woods. I trotted to the fallen tree and called to Hawk. He ran across the road, snow covering the tire tracks.
We dropped to a knee in the woods and listened.
“Somebody’s waiting in the car,” I said.
“You take care of the driver,” Hawk said. “I’ll flush out Bliss.”
“How are you planning that?”
“Shit,” Hawk said. “I was born and raised in the briar patch.”
“You said you were born and raised in the ghetto.”
“Just a walk in the woods, babe,” he said.
I followed the tree line, creeping low, sticking to the cover, and away from the moonlight shining upon mounds of snow. The snow covered my boots, halfway up my calves. It was tough going, but I made it to the road.
A young guy waited outside the car. He stood openmouthed and quivering. I walked toward him with the gun. He looked at me, shaking his head slowly, and then turned and ran. I walked to the car, reached inside, and turned off the ignition.
Everything was quiet now. Electric and still. The bluish light fell on jagged outcroppings of rocks and trees. I heard a crack of a branch in the woods. I watched as Bliss, and then Hawk, stepped onto the snow-covered path. They stood ten feet apart. Headlights still shining toward the cabin.
Bliss threw down his gun. And then Hawk. They moved in closer and then started to circle each other. I watched Hawk hold up his right hand before it turned into a fist. Bliss leveled a double overhand right at Hawk, Hawk ducking both. They circled and kept moving.
Bliss ran toward him, tackling Hawk to the ground, wrapping up his body and driving him deep into the snow.
I moved in closer, keeping the .40-caliber close but knowing Hawk wanted to finish it.
Hawk twisted and scissored his legs around Bliss and flipped the man hard onto his back. On top, Hawk punched a right and left with such speed it appeared as a blur.
They fell and tumbled. More fists and kicking legs until they were on their feet. Bliss had blood on his face. Hawk moved in a slow circle, keeping his breath.
Bliss spit blood onto the snow. He feinted a lunge at Hawk. Hawk darted away. Bliss moved right, and then left, and then took a run at Hawk. Hawk popped an uppercut so fast and so hard that Bliss’s head jacked up like a PEZ dispenser. Bliss turned in a semicircle and crumpled to his knees.
Hawk looked to me. And nodded.
I walked toward them down the road. Hawk placed his hands on top of his head and took in a breath.
If the headlights had not been shining, I might have missed it. Bliss rolled up onto his knees and reached behind his back. He pulled out a pistol and aimed right for Hawk.
I emptied my .40-caliber into Bliss and he fell with a heavy thud. Snow scattered and twirled around us. Hawk walked up to me and nodded. I placed the warm gun back into my pocket. The air smelled like cordite and wood smoke.
“Man didn’t have a code,” he said.
“No rules.”
“No compass,” Hawk said. “No direction.”
“You owe me.”
“Shit,” Hawk said. “You want to keep score?”
We walked back up to the cabin, where we called the local police. Hawk finished his bottle of champagne and stared long and hard at the crackling fire.
61
And that’s it?” Rachel Wallace said. “This asshole Wells disappears and nobody does a damn thing?”
“I’d do a damn thing,” I said. “If I could find him.”
“Aren’t you some hotshot PI?” Rachel said.
“That’s the rumor.”
It was six weeks after the little party we’d thrown for Brother Bliss at my Maine cabin. Rachel and I were having afternoon cocktails at the Campbell Apartment in Grand Central Termin
al. The cavernous room was dark and cozy, with Art Deco furnishings like a Depression-era movie house. I felt like I was trapped inside an Edward Hopper painting.
“At least you made good on your promise,” she said. She raised her bourbon on the rocks in my general direction.
“Was there any doubt?”
Rachel smiled a bit. And shrugged. She hadn’t changed much in the years after her publisher had hired me for protection. She’d developed a few small wrinkles around her eyes and had a long streak of gray hair that ran through her blunt-cut bob. Her clothes were gray and tailored, a no-nonsense pantsuit with a silk shirt. The shirt collar had been splayed neatly over the lapel. She didn’t wear lipstick or nail polish. Doing so would be very anti–Rachel Wallace.
“If I remember correctly,” I said, “you didn’t like me when we first met.”
“I thought you were a horse’s ass,” she said. “And a meathead antifeminist.”
“In the end, I was simply a meathead.”
“To the contrary,” Rachel said. “You are a warm and thoughtful man. Some might even deem you an intellectual, heaven forbid. And even though you’re good at rescuing women, you are a feminist at heart.”
“Don’t tell the boys at the gym.”
“Don’t you think they already know?”
I put a finger to my lips and lifted my draft beer. We had a comfortable corner table, our winter coats resting on the backs of chairs. The booze bottles behind the bar gleamed in the darkness. It was a fine place to share a drink as the world bustled around us.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” Rachel said. “Even my friend at the publisher didn’t know. She said Wells pulled out of a national book tour. He says he’s being hunted by ISIS and other assorted international assassins.”
