Exit Blood (Barefield Book 2)

by Trey R. Barker

  I chuckled. “I’m not doing anything special.”

  The man winked. “Schtoinking the missus a little more, huh? Getting some good leg’ll keep a man young forever.”

  “Detective,” Milner said, suddenly reappearing. He resumed his seat and his eyes never left me.

  “Any luck?”

  “Yes, in fact. He visited our facility about three and a half weeks ago.”

  I tried to stay calm. “Really.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And the safety deposit box?”

  “I have no box registered in his name.” The man’s face was completely neutral.

  “And the number?”

  As though holding the final piece of a treasure-laden puzzle, Milner said nothing, kept his eyes tightly on mine. Without looking, his hands found a cigarette box, pulled one, lit it easily with a lighter that looked like a hundred dollar bill sitting on the corner of his desk.

  A tiny flicker of hope flared inside me.

  “Nothing,” Milner said.

  Lucas patted my shoulder as he stood. “Well, I’m sorry you wasted your time, Detective. It was good meeting you again, but the door needs to be watched.” He jerked a thumb toward the main door.

  “Thank you, Mr. Lucas,” Milner said.

  “How’d you find him so quickly?”

  “Our internal security system. The man is not a customer of ours. When he came in, he spoke to our former vault manager, Mrs. Williamson. Unfortunately, her last day was, in fact, that day. She is no longer in the area.”

  “You’ll get me a copy of the still pictures or video or whatever it was?”

  Milner shook his head. “Not without a subpoena, I think. I have to protect our customers’ privacy.”

  “That’ll make the situation much more messy.” Come on, asshole, give it up.

  “Not for me. We have an excellent team of lawyers to handle all matters legal.”

  And I, of course, would never get a subpoena. Which meant I was never going to see the picture of Fagan in this bank.

  I only had a few pictures. Mama had burned the wedding pictures the night she escaped Fagan’s violent wrath by squiggling out a bathroom window with a wailing baby tucked under her arms. There were no friends left, no other family, no one who might have shoved a handful of pix into a shoebox and forgotten them. I had taken quite a few pictures that last week, between when Fagan had driven up and I awakened bloody, but aside from the one, there were none that actually had Fagan in them.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said, standing and shaking Milner’s hand. “I appreciate it. You’ve really helped with this investigation.”

  “I am certainly glad to do all I can for Barefield’s finest.” Again, the smile/smirk.

  Fuck off, I wanted to say. At the door, I turned back. “How’d you know he wasn’t a customer?”

  “His name didn’t pop up on our computer, but I knew even before that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Our internal system is based on facial recognition. That program looked at your picture, found the day he was here, and told me he wasn’t a customer.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You have your customers in a facial recognition database?”

  “Absolutely.” He said it with such confidence, such certainty, that my insides froze. “Would you not have me protect my customer’s assets to the best of my abilities? Much like you, trying to protect the public?”

  “Uh-huh.” Turning to leave, I caught sight of the globe again. “What’s up with that globe? Snow isn’t green.”

  Milner gave me one last smirk. “Money is.”

  Without another word, I left. I slipped through the lobby as quickly as I could and was out the door in a heartbeat. Stopping, I let the sun warm my face and thaw the thick, fear-frozen blood churning in my veins.

  “Fucking unbelievable.”

  “Not as unbelievable as your performance.”

  I turned to the voice.

  And maybe, just maybe, a few drops of piss slipped outta my dick.

  Lucas, now a guard, formerly of the Barefield Police Department, stood less than a foot from me. His face was stone cold, his hand lightly on his gun.

  “Who the fuck are you, asswipe?”

  Four Days Ago

  A diner

  Marathon, Texas

  The sun burned my eyes. Maybe someone had poured acid in them. I couldn’t see, then I saw him again, his hand hovering over that hunk of metal loaded down with lead. Scared me so badly I thought I’d see that image forever, like nuclear-blast shadows scorched into my eyeballs.

  And oh, by the way, it wasn’t a nervous twitch, this hand over gun thing I’d seen earlier in the bank. Seeing it now, standing on the sidewalk, traffic whizzing by, I knew straight up it was a message twitch.

  As in: Dare me, motherfucker.

  “I don’t know who the hell you are,” Lucas said in a low voice. “But I know you ain’t Kurston.” Lucas looked carefully me up and down. I heard contempt in his breathing. “Kurston was a great cop. Kurston never forgot his cases. Kurston was it, buddy.”

  “Yeah, SuperCop Kurston, I know. Listen, I—”

  Lucas held up a finger and there was so much threat in the gesture that I snapped my mouth closed. “And Kurston was about twenty years older than you.”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘was’? You know something I don’t?”

  The man laughed. “I know a shitpot more than you.” He nodded toward a coffee shop across the street. “So let’s you and I go across the street. We’ll get some joe, and we’ll talk about all the good old times we’re gonna have...and what might keep your skinny ass outta jail. How does that sound...Detective?”

  “What about Milner? He let his pit bulls take breaks?”

  “I appreciate your concern about me and my job.” Lucas backed away, but kept a hand on my arm. “I’ll worry about the job. Your worry, far as I can see, is telling me a lie that’ll make me happy.”

  Together, Lucas’ free hand still twitching over that goddamned gun, we crossed the street. Our feet sank a quarter inch into asphalt softened by the harsh Texas summer sun. I glanced over my shoulder. We’d parked the bike on the side of bank under the shade of the bank’s sign. Cope had stayed with the bike. He would see us. He would come get me. Cope would take care of it.

  Cope never moved.

  Fucker’s sleeping.

  Laid out on the bike, legs propped on the handlebars, head back, eyes closed, that damn train coming out of his chest on his T-shirt.

  “The fuck you looking at?”

  My gaze snapped back as I tripped over the curb. “Nothing.”

  “Careful, dumbass.” Lucas opened the door. “I’m going to let go. You run and I’ll shoot you deader’n shit, you understand?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I ain’t stupid.”

  He snorted, but said nothing.

  It was a cheap diner, the kind that takes root in the desert mesquite and never dies, no matter how few customers spend a buck. Neon signs and clocks, each adorned with beer brands, dotted the walls. The place obviously couldn’t afford any decoration except what the suppliers offer for free. A simple metal counter that ran the long axis of the shop, near the closest wall, slipping away from us toward the kitchen and looking as though it might continue through the alley and across the Texas dirt and scrub. Hell, maybe it was the same counter than ran through every shitty dive in the state, all cosmically connected to each other. The World held but a single shitty dive, everything else was just different ornaments and free beer clocks.

  But the place was clean and even now, a thin waitress cleaned. No one else was there, no other wait staff or cooks, no customers, and the emptiness got under my skin. Maybe Lucas and I and this heroin-thin waitress were the only people left alive.

  Lucas herded me toward a table in the middle of the place. It had dented metal legs, two of which were slightly shorter, making the whole table rock and back and forth. Before he sat, he shoved me int
o a chair directly across from him. He signaled the waitress.

  Her face was exhausted, I realized. She stared at us for a long minute from behind the counter, then finally came over, her movements as slow as a creeping summer. She was maybe twenty-five, but she had about fifty years’ mileage on her.

  “Jeremy,” she said.

  “Yeah, how you doing?” He said it dismissively and immediately looked at me.

  She went quick from empty to angry. “How am I doing? I’m sick, Jeremy, that’s how I am. Been fucking telling you that for weeks. Went to the doctor—again—yesterday.”

  Lucas oiled up a greasy, ill-fitting smile. “And I keep telling you not to worry. All pregnant women get sick.”

  “Not that kind of sick.”

  “Okay, well, we’ll talk about it later.” He nodded toward me. “Gotta do some business.”

  “Listen, you think about a name yet? For your kid?”

  Holy Christ. I plastered a sort of bored neutrality across my face. Not only pregnant, but pregnant by this fucker. She was maybe twenty years younger than baby-daddy and the level of tension that wormed across our table told me he could give a shit about her being knocked up.

  “Damnit, Jennie, I haven’t had time. Now gimme the regular and let’s talk about this later.”

  “Sure, Jeremy, what the fuck ever.” She jammed her pencil stub against her order pad. “Coffee. Black as tar.”

  Lucas said, “He’ll take a soda.”

  “He can’t talk for himself?”

  “He’s thinking.”

  She looked right at me. “Sir, what can I help you with today?”

  Just managed to keep the snicker locked behind my teeth. I liked this chick. Gets banged full by this dickcheese, who then bitch slaps her in front of me, and so she shits all over him by being pleasant to me.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “And may I say, you’re looking especially lovely today.”

  She sucked her teeth and snarled at me.

  “He’ll take a soda,” Lucas said. “We don’t have time for this, Jennie, he’s got some serious thinking to do.”

  Figuring how to get the fuck outta here. Wondering how to avoid getting killed. Thinking about what kind of shitty fate brought me to you...the one person in this whole end of the state who knew Kurston.

  Jennie disappeared behind the counter. While a fresh pot of coffee brewed, she plopped a burger on the grill. A soft hiss filled the air.

  Lucas banged a hand on the table to get draw my attention back to him. “Keep her outta your eyes, asshole.”

  “Listen, I don’t know what—”

  “Where’s my money?”

  Through the front windows, I saw everything from a block north to a block south of the bank. Just past the bank was the side street where we parked. It was impossible to see around the corner of the bank to see if Cope was still sleeping.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  “Talking at me.”

  “Better than shooting at you.”

  “Okay.” I held my hands up in surrender. “Where is what money?”

  “Look, man, that’s all I’m interested in. I don’t care why you’re acting like a cop...or why you’re acting like that specific cop. I only want the money.”

  “What money?”

  “Nice try.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You better get an idea damned fast, or I’ll—”

  “What do you want me to say?” My voice was loud enough to catch Jennie’s attention. She glanced at us, glared at Lucas, then looked back down. “I don’t know anything about any money. I sure as hell don’t have any money.”

  Lucas nodded as Jennie dropped off the drinks. “Jeremy, can I please just tell—”

  “Damnit, Jennie, how many times do I have to say? I’m working here. Do you not see the uniform? I’m on duty.” He drank his coffee, a gesture of dismissal.

  I left the soda untouched and watched Jennie slink back to the kitchen.

  “Eyes front, mister,” Lucas said.

  “Yeah, ’cause I really want a piece of that action.”

  “She not good enough for you?”

  “Serious? I show interest and you get bent? I say not interested and you get bent. Fucking bipolar.”

  Lucas yanked the pistol from his belt and slammed it on the table, barrel toward me. A Glock 23, a .40. Not huge, but could kill me just as dead.

  “Easy,” I said. “Everything’s cool.”

  “Getting hotter.”

  Carefully, I leaned over the table, toward him. Tried to hold his eyes off that gun. “What money am I supposed to have?”

  He leaned back, away from me and shook his head. “That’s bullshit. Bullshit I don’t need.” But he was calm. “You got two choices. Hand over the money or I’ll—”

  “Are you listening to me? I don’t know what money you’re talking about.”

  “From the killing, asshole. You whacked the guy, then took all his cash.”

  I nearly laughed. Fagan with money? That’s a fucking riot. He was as broke as a wagon wheel when he got to Barefield. I had spent most of the tiny bit I had saved up making sure Fagan had something to eat and someplace to stay; McDonald’s and the Triple D on Highway 80 was the best I could do.

  “...gonna make us rich....”

  Fagan’s words. I licked my lips. Was Lucas talking about money Fagan had had? Maybe before he’d gotten to town? Or maybe there was money in Fagan’s deposit box? Except that made no sense. If there’d been money in there, Fagan would damn sure have known where that box was.

  “I. Want. The. Hundred. Grand.”

  My heart stopped.

  “Right the fuck now.”

  “There isn’t any—” I thought again about the deposit box. It was possible Fagan had forgotten where the box was. At the end of his life with us, the drugs and booze had been fairly well overwhelming. Shit had gotten worse, too, when he was hanging with Hopper. Plus, that was twenty plus years ago.

  It was way less credible—in fact it was total bullshit—that he’d put together a bankroll. Of any size. In our inabilities to keep a steady, decent job, we were cut from the same damn shitty cloth.

  But maybe that was what he’d meant by ‘going to make us rich.’

  The more I thought about a pile of green bills, the more my head showed me Milner’s snow globe. Green snow. Falling and falling and falling.

  Just like the confetti.

  Green snow.

  It was then, with the damned gun pointed at me, that I realized the night of tats hadn’t actually been the first time Fagan and I had visited Staind Skin. It had been the second. But the first had seemed so minor, so inconsequential, I’d blown it off. We stopped in to check out prices on ink, to check out the guy’s art, what he could do. I don’t think we were in there for more than five minutes and while I went through a book of designs, Fagan had plowed the guy with questions. “Where can I score?” “Where can I get some tail?” “Where can I lose myself?”

  But also, “Where is the Barefield National Bank?”

  And, “Which way is Andrews?”

  And, “When is the game?”

  Drugs and pussy and the banks were easy to find. But getting info on the game had been tougher. The tattoo guy had frowned, had said he wasn’t sure what Fagan was talking about. Eventually, after a few bucks back and forth, some dope, the artist had coughed up the time. Steep entry, he’d said.

  “Not a problem,” Fagan had said.

  I’d had dreams, since that night, of four or five different guys. I’d thought they were just guys waiting for tats. But maybe they were poker players.

  Steep entry. Maybe Lucas’ hundred grand?

  No way in hell Fagan had that kind of coin. Man had never made that much in his life, even if he managed to save every damned cent.

  Maybe there had been enough, stuffed away in that safety deposit box, to get in the game. Maybe finding the box had been how he p
lanned to pop the entry.

  He hadn’t found it so he’d had to sit the game out. After all, Fagan had never touched the cards, at least not that I remembered. He had stood just off from the table, watching the cards and bills fly.

  So Fagan had gotten to town, found out about the game from one of his old cronies...maybe even Hopper...had wanted in but hadn’t had the money. From there the night had gone righteously bad, leaving Fagan dead and Mr. Ex-Blue jonesing for money he somehow knew about.

  “So,” I said. “I give you the money...or what?”

  An easy grin slipped across Lucas’ face. “I’ll hand your ass over.”

  “To?”

  “Kurston, cock knocker.”

  Damnit. There had never been many things I’d wanted in my life. I’d wanted to know the sperm-donor. I’d wanted to get a job in radio exactly as the sperm-donor had. I’d wanted to understand my step-father better, to like him more. I’d wanted Mama to be happy, finally, in her life. But right now, in this shitty diner in Marathon, with a moron security guard former cop breathing bullets and coffee in my face, I just wanted peace of mind. I wanted the nightmares of killing my father out of my head. I wanted to have Mama’s pendant hanging around her husband’s neck.

  It’s what keeps me going, I’d told Cope on the road from Valentine. That twine with the handmade bauble on it, probably some reference to Aztec mythology. Finding that thing had kept pushing me when I damned sure shoulda had my murdering ass out of the country.

  “Yeah,” Cope had said. “That’s what keeps you going. Whatever you say, boy.”

  So now the pendant was probably gone and I wanted to make sure I didn’t get ground up in the gears of justice. Wasn’t much up for dying in this empty diner, but I also didn’t particularly want to see the Texas penal system in my in future.

  And maybe, just maybe, if there was some money, I could get my grubby hands on it.

  I swallowed. Get through this and then worry about the rest. Right now, get yourself focused on this idiot. “Why do you think I have the money?”