An American Bullet

by John Stonehouse

  Whicher sees part of the main front door; a reception area, a counter—the back of a woman in a white blouse.

  Moving a fraction, he sees the shooter side-on—he’s holding a gun to Lauren’s head.

  There’s no clear line; no shot.

  Kinawa ducks beneath the staircase—opening up an angle.

  The gunman snaps around, fires twice, noise exploding, deafening.

  Kinawa falls to the floor.

  Whicher holds the iron-sights of the Glock on the shooter—Lauren fully facing him now, the gunman behind her, the muzzle of his pistol against the side of her head.

  “US Marshal—drop your weapon.”

  Lauren’s face is screwed up in pain, the man’s arm wrapped about her neck.

  “Let her go...”

  The woman in the white blouse gapes across the lobby.

  A groaning sound rises from Kinawa on the floor.

  “Oh my God...” The woman stares. “There’s blood pouring from his neck...”

  The FBI man lets out a choking sound.

  “Drop your weapon,” Whicher shouts. “Drop it, and let her go.”

  “He’s going to bleed to death...”

  The gunman’s eyes fill with a strange light. He pulls Lauren in tighter—her face a mask; confusion, fear.

  “Please,” the woman in the blouse cries out.

  The shooter leans his head over on one side.

  “He’s bleeding,” she says, “he needs help, now.”

  “Put down the weapon,” the marshal says.

  The gunman twists his pistol against Lauren’s temple. “A cop’s life,” he says, “got to be worth more than her life.” His hawk-face splits into an ugly grin.

  The woman drops to her knees, she lets out a sob.

  “The building’s surrounded.” Whicher locks eyes with the shooter.

  “You help him,” the man says. “You get him out. You take him out of here...”

  The marshal glances at Kinawa—in a ball on the floor. His knees are drawn up, both hands clamped at his neck, blood oozing between his fingers.

  His gun’s laying out of reach—in a corner by the wall.

  Whicher turns to the kneeling woman. “Her,” he says.

  The gunman shakes his head.

  “She takes him out—I stay.”

  “One chance,” the shooter says.

  Whicher takes a breath—bends slow, extending out his gun arm.

  “What the fuck’re you doing?” The shooter grinds the muzzle of the pistol into the side of Lauren’s head.

  The marshal lays the Glock down flat against the floor. “I stay.” He straightens, raising up his hands. He nods at the woman. “But she goes. She takes him out.”

  Beneath the wool coat he feels the weight of the Ruger in the shoulder-holster.

  The gunman stares at the kneeling woman, eyes alive.

  Lauren pulls at the arm about her throat, choking her.

  The gunman grips tighter. “Do it, then,” he says.

  The woman looks to Whicher.

  The marshal nods.

  “I let you do this,” the shooter says. “Tell them that—you tell them that out there.”

  She crawls on hands and knees across the lobby space.

  Whicher keeps his hands high. “Let me help her. Let me help her get him to the door.”

  “Bullshit. She can do it, cowboy...”

  Whicher looks at the man—looks right through him, thinks of the big revolver just beneath his coat.

  “Alright, fuck it, do it then—do it, help her...”

  The marshal steps along the side of the staircase to Kinawa, sees the impact mark of a round in the Kevlar vest. The second round has caught his unprotected neck. He’s losing consciousness, bleeding out.

  The woman has her hands over Kinawa’s hands, pressing down on the wound.

  Whicher reaches, gets a grip, heaves the FBI man from the floor. He gets his weight against his body, the woman still pressing against the man’s neck.

  Kinawa folds, the marshal catches him—they stumble, stagger to the door.

  “Open it,” the shooter tells the woman.

  She takes away her bloodied hands, works the mechanism.

  The FBI man’s head jerks, his eyes are open, he tries to lock out his legs.

  The woman pushes the door wide—she faces out, holds up both hands.

  Whicher shifts into the line of the doorway—sees the black and white PD cars, police officers, the tall figure of Chief Eriksson.

  Kinawa grunts as the woman puts her arms around his waist.

  The marshal eases off his grip, lets the man go.

  Limping through the doorway, the pair step out.

  Whicher turns around—the gunman’s easing back into the lobby, eyes darting, trying to see outside.

  Lauren dips—no warning—she kicks a foot between the man’s ankles.

  He trips, counters for balance.

  Whicher snatches at the zipper on the coat—it snags halfway.

  The man grabs at Lauren’s hair, he smashes the butt of his gun into the base of her skull. “Get in front of the door,” he shouts to Whicher. He thrusts the muzzle back against Lauren’s head.

  “Police...” a voice calls from a Tannoy. “Drop your weapon.”

  The marshal stands stock still.

  “Drop your weapon, step outside.”

  “Shut the goddamn door...” The gunman stares at him. “My name’s Belaski—Jerzy Belaski. I’ll trade, I’ll give her up. You call the Chicago DA...”

  The marshal looks into Lauren’s face.

  “You call. I’ll give her up, they can have her. I’m not talking to anyone out there.”

  Whicher swings the door shut.

  The shooter juts his chin toward the staircase. “Get over here...”

  “What for?

  “You’re going to tell that bunch of hick fucks who I am,” Belaski says. “But first we’re going up. We’re going up the stairs.”

  Whicher leading.

  Belaski behind on the staircase with Lauren—an arm around her neck, his pistol at her head.

  The marshal lets his arms dip a fraction.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them...”

  He climbs the few more steps to the next floor.

  In front of him is a long, dark corridor—blackened at its end. Overhead lights extinguished, a gun-metal sky at the windows.

  “You’re going to call Chicago,” Belaski says. “I want a helicopter...”

  “We’re going on the roof?”

  “We go wherever the hell I say we go.”

  The marshal steps out, into the corridor, into its center.

  “You call the FBI, you talk to them...”

  At the end, Whicher sees a figure—in the shadows—a crouched figure.

  Hooper.

  Sergeant Hooper—his gun arm out.

  The marshal slows, swallows, eyes fixed on the kneeling man.

  Hooper’s eyes are wide.

  Whicher thinks of the Ruger just inside his coat—no way he can get it fast enough—no way they’ll make it to the end of the corridor. “That’s it,” he says. He stops.

  “Keep moving...”

  Whicher senses the man right behind him, hears the effort in Lauren’s breathing.

  “I’ll shoot you in the back of the head, you son of a bitch.”

  “You ain’t making it out of here.” Whicher feels his heart in his ribcage. “You want to deal, the time is now. I’m turning around...”

  He forces his torso to twist, lifts a leaden foot from the floor.

  Belaski’s gun is point-blank in his face.

  The marshal shifts, one foot to the other. Feints toward Lauren—a shot explodes—Hooper at the end of the corridor.

  Belaski fires back, Lauren drives sideways, legs thrashing.

  Hooper fires again—as Belaski hits the side of the wall.

  Lauren buckles, both hands at the arm around her neck—Belaski fires as sh
e tries to drag him down.

  Whicher whips the Ruger free, snaps a single round into the top of the man’s shoulder.

  The shock drops him.

  He crumples with Lauren, loses grip on the gun.

  She grabs it from the floor, braces—fires two times, three into the his body.

  Belaski jerks sideways, face contorted.

  She pulls back—takes aim, fires into the centre of his head.

  Epilogue

  Space and silence and empty fields running to woods. Among the bare-stripped branches, a crow sits black-winged, eying a deserted road.

  Dead stems and husks of maize are bent and ragged beneath the piled snow. The sky outside the farmhouse is flat, opaque, no wind, no movement of air.

  Whicher rises from his place at the window.

  He crosses the room, boots loud against the wooden boards of the floor.

  Inside the house, time is suspended, a world on hold.

  Lauren DeLuca sits by a fire in an open grate, her face still, her eyes half-closed.

  “Is Anthony awake?” Whicher studies her.

  No reply.

  The marshal takes up the pot from a drop-leaf table—pours hot coffee, filling up a china mug. “I’ll go on and take him some up.”

  He walks by Lauren, toward the hallway.

  She reaches out, places a hand on the arm of his suit.

  He stops.

  She looks up. Her eyes hold his.

  Nothing moves inside the house, the only sound is flame lapping at the firewood, a clock ticking in the hall.

  “It’s alright,” he says.

  Her eyes cut away.

  The marshal raises the mug, gestures at the door.

  He steps from the living room, walks along the hallway to the foot of a staircase.

  Climbing slow, he reaches the next floor, sets the mug down on a bureau top.

  He knocks at the door to a bedroom. A muffled voice comes back.

  “It’s Whicher...”

  He listens to the sounds of movement from inside the room.

  “You want coffee?”

  The door opens. Anthony stands in the frame. He’s dressed in jeans, a sweater, socks.

  “You catch some sleep?”

  “No,” Anthony smiles. “Well, maybe.” He flattens his messed-up blonde hair.

  Whicher holds out the mug.

  The young man takes it.

  “You doing alright?”

  “I guess.”

  “Tired?”

  “A little.”

  “Keeping warm?” The marshal looks him over.

  Anthony takes a sip at the mug of coffee. “I’m keeping warm.”

  Whicher scans the small room—an antique bed, a closet, a view out over white fields. “There’s food in the refrigerator. You want, I could fix something for y’all?”

  “I’ll come down,” Anthony says. He grabs a pair of new-bought boots off the rug on the floor. “At the ranch, the cookhouse was one of my jobs,” he says. A smile forms across his face. It quickly fades.

  The marshal steps from the room, clips back down the staircase, checks the window in the hall—nothing out there.

  Lauren shifts in her seat at the fireside.

  “You want to eat?” Whicher says.

  “Is he alright?”

  The marshal nods. “He said he’s going to come on down.”

  Lauren stands, picks a shawl from a chair back. She wraps it around her shoulders. “Will you call the hospital?”

  “I already called.”

  “Will you call them again?”

  “They’re safe,” the marshal says.

  She looks at him.

  “Kinawa’s in the hospital in Rapid City. Maddie Cook and Agent Rimes are somewhere they can be protected.”

  Lauren doesn’t respond.

  “You did all you could.”

  Her face is suddenly tight. “I remember every second—every second from when that man got into the Jeep...”

  Anthony’s footsteps sound on the stairs in the hallway.

  “They never would’ve found Janice Rimes,” Whicher says, “without you.”

  She shudders.

  The marshal eyes her. Beneath his breath he says; “Don’t let him see you’re afraid.”

  The young man enters the living room.

  Lauren steps from the fireside, puts her arms around him.

  “What?” Anthony says.

  She grins. Lets go, steps back.

  Anthony catches the shawl as it falls from her shoulders, his face coloring. “I’m alright,” he says. “Come on, look, I want to fix us something to eat.”

  “I can do it...”

  “Laur...” He steps away, shakes his head.

  In the kitchen, Anthony pulls open the door of the refrigerator. “Huh,” he says. He runs a hand over the food on the shelves. “How about steak? Steak and eggs. Bell peppers, onions. Everybody eat that?”

  Beyond the picture window at the sink, the winter fields stretch to woods—stark, vivid, etched in white. The middle of the Illinois countryside, hundreds of miles from Rapid City, from Redwood. A safe house, isolated—a farm two hours from Chicago.

  “Laur?” Anthony looks at her.

  She nods.

  He turns to Whicher.

  “You cook it,” the marshal says, “I’ll eat it.”

  The flight to Illinois was last-minute, the weather just holding—a prop plane arriving in Peoria before nightfall—an FBI agent to meet with them, drive them out to the farm.

  Whicher watches as Anthony takes a fry-pan from a hanging row of saucepans and skillets.

  Lauren searches in the cupboards, finds a stack of plates, lays out three on a marked-up, oak table. Anthony slices onion, lights the stove, puts the pan on the flame.

  The marshal steps from the kitchen, walks back down the hallway.

  Behind him is the sound of footsteps.

  He reaches the living room—Lauren enters after him, she pushes the door closed.

  “Something on your mind?” He walks to the window.

  She studies the floor. “There’s no time.” She steps toward the fire, frowns. “The trial starts tomorrow...”

  He levels his gaze on her.

  “What have you told them—the FBI? About the money?”

  The marshal takes a long breath.

  “The money I stole,” she says, her voice flat. “From the Coletti’s.”

  He turns, stares out of the window—out across the frozen field of maize.

  “Are you going to tell them?”

  He thinks of her, her and Anthony—a life ahead of them; a world of watching the back door, of covering traces. He studies a red-stained barn at a corner of the farmyard, its timbers twisted with age. “No,” he finally says.

  Lauren moves to the window, pulls the shawl about her shoulders. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”

  Whicher steps aside, takes a piece of cordwood from a stack by the fire.

  “Do you remember,” she says, “back on the bus—that Greyhound bus?”

  He feeds the wood into the hearth.

  “That Greyhound bus,” she says, “when we were headed for Denver? You told me about a man you were taking out to a prison?”

  Florence ADX.

  Maitland—Cutter Maitland. Caught with human remains.

  “He said you and he were just the same, you remember?”

  The marshal doesn’t reply.

  “Guard dogs. Only working for different sides.”

  Whicher straightens. Listens to the sound of Anthony moving in the kitchen, dull noise echoed down the hallway.

  “You’re not,” she says. “You’re all that’s left.”

  He looks at her a long moment.

  “The only thing standing in the way...”

  He tilts his head.

  “Of the violence,” she says. “All the greed, the craziness.” She moves from the window. “All I want is to protect my brother. When this is over,
I won’t be separated from him again. I want him with me—wherever we end up.” She steps closer. “What will you do? Will you go back to Texas?”

  He nods.

  “But if you had a choice—another choice?” She takes another step, only inches from him. “When this is all over. The trial. Everything...”

  She searches his face. Doesn’t let him look away.

  Whicher walks the fence line in the breathless air, winter sun low above the frozen wood. An iron-smell rises from the ground, dead stalks of maize crunch beneath his boots. His eye follows a line of telephone poles—stretching out along the only road.

  Nothing is moving. Nothing out there, to the far horizon. A single, burr oak, leafless. Crows gathered among its branches as the light begins to fail.

  He takes a last look at the deserted road, the empty fields, the cold, dark woods. Turns in the weak, brass light of sunset, heads for the house.

  He scans its board facade, its windows, empty. Snow on the shingle roof.

  And Lauren.

  Lauren standing out on the porch.

  Arms wrapped about her. Silent. Watching.

  He makes his way up through the yard—by the red-stained barn. Sets his hat.

  “Teach me how to shoot?”

  He looks up at her, standing on the porch deck. Low sun at the side of her face.

  Beyond the house, across the empty plain, night is coming, stealing in.

  “Would you teach me?”

  He reaches the foot of the stairs.

  “When I close my eyes,” she says, “I can see that man. So close.”

  The marshal pictures the corridor—upstairs in the college building—blood-quick movements, shots, a frenzy, trying to stay alive.

  “I never want it to be that close to me again,” she says. She holds her hands together—out in front of herself, arms extended, as if aiming a gun.

  He climbs the steps. “You think that can keep it all away?”

  She drops her hands to her sides. “Then what?”

  The chill of a breeze moves against his skin. “Witness security will keep you safe. Once the trial is done—nobody ever got killed.”

  “You told me that,” she says. “You told me once before.”

  “Long as they don’t break the rules.”

  She looks at him, head slightly on one side.

  He watches the shadows start to lengthen down the side of the barn. “McBride will be here soon. He’ll take you into the city.”