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In the Night of the Heat

Page 36

by Blair Underwood


  “You want me?” she said.

  “’Course I want you, girl,” I said, lathering my voice with desire. “Just let me go…”

  “If you want me, prove it,” she said. Her toes wiggled across my zipper. The pressure was firm, but I might as well have been numb below the waist.

  Her expression soured. She looked like a child denied her candy. “If you want me, then how come you ain’t ready for me?”

  Shit shit shit shit.

  “Wait,” I said, my voice urgent, and I closed my eyes.

  To this day, I still wonder how I did it. I know I tried to remember the meditation from a yoga class I’d taken with Alice, which she always claimed was her Fountain of Youth. I tried to concentrate on my own heartbeat, which wasn’t hard; my heart was shaking my chest. I tried to forget everything in the room and the armed men outside. And the dog. I focused on imagining a burning white light six inches beneath my navel. The second chakra, Alice had called it. The pathway to the sex drive. I saw April’s nakedness in my shower, before she went away.

  Janiece’s big toe plunged deep between my legs, nudged my testicles, and journeyed back up across my fly. I felt a weak glow, getting stronger, as she stroked me with her foot.

  “What are you gonna do for me, girl?” I said to April’s vision. “Tell me.”

  “I’ll show you,” she said.

  In character, her voice was sultry. My anatomy did its part to be free, and Janiece’s grin widened, appreciative. Her foot pressed against the growing firmness. I braced, expecting her to dig her heel in hard.

  “You’re a big boy, huh?” she said.

  “See for yourself.”

  “Call me Mistress, bitch,” she said. Her foot’s pressure grew.

  All right, Mistress Bitch. “How far to the road, Mistress? Is this the barn off Route 66?”

  She slapped my cheek, hard. My face burned with a flash. She was practiced at hitting. My erection stopped growing.

  “You talk when I tell you,” she said.

  “Yes, Mistress,” I said between gritted teeth.

  Janiece knelt in front of me, staring me down with a gleam in her eyes. She slid her hand across my fly, massaging. Janiece yanked my jeans open. When she slid her hand beneath the denim, the zipper unfurled. Her fingers knew what they were doing.

  I hissed between my teeth as her fingertips glided. All the while, I expected pain.

  “Give me the keys, Mistress?” I said to those impenetrable eyes. I could smell her arousal, so I caressed her with my gaze. Begged her, just the way she liked it. “Please?”

  “Can’t do that,” she whispered, out of character. Her gentle thumb rubbed circles across my sensitive ridges. “But I’m gonna send you out right—give you something worth dying for.”

  No key was coming; I was just a prop in her fantasy. So much for the easy way out.

  Sorry, Janiece. As she leaned over to bring her face closer to my crotch, my right knee caught her under the chin. As she jolted up, I head-butted her directly between the eyes, and she dropped like a sack of rocks.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, darlin’.” Don’t get me wrong: A woman’s mouth is one of nature’s greater creations. But no blow job is worth dying for.

  I looked over my shoulder down at the chain. It was thicker steel than the cuffs. No help there. What, then…?

  The wall. The barn’s wood was ancient and worm-eaten. The weak link. I braced my left leg and smashed back into the wood with my right heel. The shock ran up my right leg to my twisting hips, then down into my planted left heel, then I switched to the other side, mule-kicking right next to where the bolt fastened into the wall. And again, right-left, back, and forth. With every kick, the barn wall shook, and the cuffs tore at my wrists. I felt something give—the wood, not my wrists, thank God. I shifted angles and set my heel against the wall next to the bolt, and pulled or pushed with damned near every muscle in my body. My shoulders screamed.

  Either my bones and tendons were going to give, or that damned wall. I stifled a yell as the wood splintered, but clamped my mouth shut as I fell forward, landing on my shoulder. I was free!

  I heard voices outside, dimly. Getting closer. I tried to get to my feet, and the first time I landed on my face, falling nearly headfirst into Bear’s chair. A hurricane roared between my ears, and I gasped to breathe. My body felt unfamiliar and new.

  GET UP GET UP GET UP.

  I tried to stand more carefully, this time with a wider stance. There were five or six pounds of extra weight tugging on my handcuffs from the large metal ring swinging behind me from the broken wall, but I adjusted, staggering to stand up.

  Bobbing flashlight beams approached the barn door. I heard barking.

  I didn’t have time to grab Janiece’s flashlight, or hunt for my cell phone or the handcuff keys. The barn’s wall planks were like missing teeth, and I ran toward the first open space.

  The space wasn’t open, just dark. I ran nearly headfirst into solid wood, and I was on the floor again. I felt dazed. My name was slipping away from me again.

  Barking, someplace close.

  I got up somehow. With my shoulder, I broke through a cracking plank. I banged my head, but I was beyond noticing. The old wood gave, and I stumbled through.

  I was outside. I saw trees.

  It was dark. I heard barking.

  I ran for my life toward the night.

  I was shoelace deep in the swampy woods, and I was about to get caught. Even while I ran with all my might, I knew I couldn’t get away.

  Think think think think think.

  Running was hard enough without having to think, too. With no flashlight to light my way, and my arms chained behind me, it was a challenge to stay upright. My feet sloshed in soggy ground that sometimes dipped until it was covered by a foot of murky water, making each shoe weigh half a ton. I tripped over the things I couldn’t see, bumping my knees and stumbling off-balance. Every step was a triumph. The air felt as thin as if I were climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro again. Still, in the dark I might have been able to evade the men until daylight.

  But I couldn’t escape the dog. His bark was getting closer. Fast.

  I’ve had more than a few fights with men, but I’d never faced off with a beast. A dog changed everything. No cheap psychology, no bargaining, no bullshit. Just teeth, and my fly was hanging open. If I wasn’t very careful, I was about to get mauled. And then shot.

  Thinkthinkthinkthinkthink.

  In only ten seconds, the dog’s barking sounded twice as close. It was running at full speed, and he would catch me in less than a minute. Maybe forty seconds.

  I fell to my knees behind a pine tree trunk, an elevated patch. Panting for breath, I lay as flat as I could on the damp forest floor and wriggled my hips and legs through my handcuffs. I expected to feel the hot canine breath on my neck any moment.

  Disorientation slowed me down, but I got my bound hands in front of me. There was still a rusting metal ring swinging from the handcuffs, but there was nothing I could do about that.

  The dog’s barking told me I had ten seconds to find a weapon.

  I zipped up and searched everything I could see within easy reach—branches, rocks, anything. The ring hanging from my handcuffs was a last-resort weapon. Anyone in the ring’s range was too close for comfort. At least I could use the cuffs to strangle someone, or something.

  I tripped and fell again, scraping my knees and palms. I looked to see what I’d stumbled over: a concrete cinder block. I thought I saw other pale blocks nearby, but it was too dark to be certain. I had found the remnants of a construction site.

  The block felt like it weighed three or four times its twenty pounds, but I tensed my gut, exhaled hard, and heaved to lift it.

  You wanna catch me?

  I hid behind a tree trunk and waited. It would be up to my ears. I might not have more than one chance to get it right.

  I’d barely taken three breaths before the barking was on top of me.

&nbs
p; I quieted, calming the roar of blood, guessing which side of the tree he’d come around. Quiet. Breathe…

  Then…

  I felt a POP in my head, and the dog’s barking roared on my left side. My bad ear.

  I can hear! I thought, just as the blur of the dog’s pale muzzle rounded the side of the tree, snapping toward me. The dog growled like he’d found dinner.

  My first swing was low. Instead of hitting the dog’s head, where I was aiming, the block slammed into its shoulder. The shepherd yelped and skittered sideways, but stayed on its feet. The dog lunged while I staggered, flung off-balance by my own swing.

  Teeth pierced my forearm, seeking purchase, tearing but slipping. It hurt like hell.

  But I never let go of that concrete block. With its extra weight I was able to yank my arm away from the dog’s jaws with another flash of pain. When the gray shepherd lunged at me the second time, my aim was better. A CHUNK sound reminded me of my head-butt with Janiece, and the dog was limp on the ground.

  I couldn’t take any chances that it would wake up and come after me again. I stood over the dog, closed my eyes, and hammered the block down to make sure he’d keep sleeping.

  I was in chains, and the men chasing me had guns.

  I liked my odds better without the dog.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ONCE, I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMEONE TO THE RIGHT, and was starting at shadows. A flashlight beam probed the woods to my left, and I froze in place for almost a half hour. Twice, I thought I heard a truck engine, off through the woods ahead. A road? Carefully, I set out through the woods, gliding from shadow to shadow, until I reached a glade about thirty feet across. On the other side, more woods. And beyond that…I hoped…a road.

  I could stay in the woods and go around the meadow, wasting time. Or I could cut across, risking exposure. I chose the direct route.

  I had only taken a few steps before I knew I’d made a mistake. Only one of my hunters had been smart enough to track me.

  The flashlight pinned me like a bug in a blowtorch. I froze, knowing that guns were trained on my head. How many? Where? And was there anything left to do?

  “I hate you killed my dog.” The voice floated in out of the darkness ahead of me, and its very calm gave the words greater gravity.

  Wallace Rubens was breathing in rasps, either from running or rage, or maybe both. His bulk was a mountain rising and falling. I saw moisture glistening on his face. Tears.

  “Now you’ve crossed a line, son. Drop that stick. I’m out of good manners.”

  I dropped the rebar I had found. There are good reasons guns are more expensive than sticks.

  “I’m sorry about your dog,” I said gently, “but you would’ve done the same thing.”

  “You could’ve broke his leg,” Rubens shot back.

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “Well, you’re gonna wish you had.”

  I already wished I had. “If you wanted to kill me, I would’ve been dead hours ago,” I said. “You don’t want to do it. You’re not a murderer, Bear. Things got out of hand when Hankins sent you after Chad Ebersole, and T.D. Jackson had to be stopped—but don’t kill me over a dog.”

  “Don never told me to kill Ebersole,” Rubens said, eyes glimmering. “Just said he had a problem. I came up with the fix. Didn’t know Ebersole would die, but truth is I really didn’t give a shit. Since ’67, there’s only one thing I give a shit about: Heat looks out for Heat. You didn’t mean no harm, did you? Just wanted to find out what happened to Emory’s boy—trying to help Heat. Hell, I wish I could buy you a beer and wish you luck.”

  “It’s not too late,” I said. Hope springs eternal.

  “Reckon it is,” he replied, and he didn’t hide the regret in his voice. He sighed massively. “Grayboy didn’t mean nothin’ to you, but I raised that dog and his mama, so we went back some years. And now I’m recalling that question you asked me when you were tied in the barn: You asked if I was man enough to put down my shotgun and take you straight up. I’ma tell you what: Today’s Fire Sale day, boy. You’re surely about to find out what you wanted to know.”

  He reached into his front pocket and tossed me a small key ring. I snatched it out of the air. A single key dangled. “Go on, unlock it,” he said. “What we got here is a generational difficulty, but I do believe men of goodwill can work things out.”

  I’d pissed off Wallace Rubens enough that he wanted to kill me with his bare hands. My day had been so bad, that was the good news. I was nauseous, half-dizzied, and weak, but I was grateful. He was giving me a chance.

  I worked quickly on the cuffs, getting my hands free. Rubens hadn’t lowered his shotgun.

  “Toss the cuffs and rebar as far as you can,” he said. “Then these ugly hands an’ that pretty face are gonna talk.”

  I considered my options and did what he’d asked. The rebar flew about thirty feet, landing near a V-shaped tree trunk. Rubens had size and strength on me. And lack of intoxication. On a good day I had speed, and hopefully training and smarts. I hoped to God this was a good day. It hadn’t been so far.

  Rubens set his lantern down against a tree, casting a misshapen shadow across the bark. He took off his fishing cap, the gun still raised.

  “You set that dog on me, Bear,” I said, trying one last appeal. “Only a fool wouldn’t have done whatever he could.”

  “You broke Janiece’s jaw.”

  “You would’ve killed her,” I said.

  “Maybe so. But I wouldn’t have expected understandin’ if I’d been caught.”

  Wallace Rubens grunted, broke the shotgun and shucked the shells. He set it down behind him almost tenderly, never turning his back on me.

  Then, he charged. I spun out of the way, and as he went by I balled my fist and punched him in the right side of his neck. It felt and sounded like hitting a side of beef. Rocky sucks.

  He grunted and swung around, big meaty hands stretching out for me. I batted his arm up and slid under, too damned close to him, but hooking his rear foot as I went by. He stumbled, and I stomped his knee, driving it into the ground.

  You watch WWF wrestlers on television, and marvel at men of such superhuman size and agility. Something in the back of your head screams He isn’t human! He can’t be stopped! And it takes every bit of control you’ve got to believe you have any chance at all, and look for the opportunity. There’s always an opportunity, always a chance.

  That’s the theory. In practice, it was like trying to fight an avalanche. Bear twisted in midair and caught my left ankle with a grip like a torque wrench, punching me in the left thigh as I kicked him in the belly with my right foot.

  I tore my leg free and stumbled back, leg numb, as he sprang to his feet and charged. I had just enough time to shift my weight to the side to avoid his full impact, but he hit me hard enough to send me crashing backward into an upright tree, pinning me. While I was processing the pain, Rubens hit the side of my head with a great sweeping right cross. I rolled with most of it, thank God, but for a timeless instant, the night became day.

  I tasted blood, but for the first time that night, my head was clear. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. I feinted left, and then pivoted right again, moving toward his wounded left leg, where he would be less mobile. I was loosening up finally, finding a rhythm. I jabbed, then hit him with a half fist to the throat, followed by a feinted groin kick that drew a sweeping forearm block—damn! There was no way he should have been that fast, but at least now I knew.

  I barely evaded another charge, and he hooked my left wrist. He was off-balance, and I should have been able to twist his arm around, skate his entire body on his momentum, but I couldn’t. His balance was unnatural. He might have been a fat old man, but under that fat was twice my muscle, and he knew how to control every ounce of it.

  He clipped me. I absorbed his second and third punches with peekaboo forearms, but a wrecking ball to the ribs stole my breath and gave Rubens time to ram me against the tree with his shoulder.
My right arm was useless beneath him, my rib cage collapsing against my lungs.

  I had to get away from that tree. Away from him. Just…away. Nothing I hit him with stopped him or slowed him. Every time he hit me, I felt something give. He was killing me.

  I tried to stomp his foot, but he shifted his knee, pinning my leg with his mass, too. He grabbed my forehead with one huge palm, vise-like, and smashed the back of my head toward the bark behind me.

  GET AWAY FROM THIS MAN, OR YOU’RE DEAD.

  Finally, my Evil Voice had some useful advice. I managed to knee him in the crotch, and his moment of weakness let me slip out of his grip. I levered him away from me with my elbows, and slipped from beneath Rubens like an eel.

  When he turned, I hit him with a straight right to the left side of his jaw. He barely blinked, but his feet slipped sideways so that they were both on the same line. I kicked his front knee. Bear grunted and thumped down, and I kicked him in the face as hard as I could. Dammit—he got one of those giant hands up to absorb some of the shock, but blood burst from his nose and upper lip. I stepped way back and glanced around me to better weigh my options.

  I saw the V of the tree I’d spotted, and I ran for it. My rebar.

  “Where you goin’?” Bear panted. “Huh?”

  Bear was panting worse than I was, but he pulled me down by the seat of my pants, and pure force brought me to my knees. While we rolled back a few yards, Bear had my right arm and was twisting it like a giant Indian burn, and I jackknifed and kneed him under the chin, breaking away. The kick was solid, but he snapped his hand around my ankle. I lifted myself up with my palms to try to twist my leg free, but he only tightened his grip.

  I wrenched my leg away, losing skin in the process.

  My best chance would be on my feet, no barriers. Open air. I scrambled up and ran.

  If I could keep Bear moving, I could wind him. Fatigue would drain some of that strength. He couldn’t afford to let me go, and I couldn’t afford to run into the woods and let him recover, gather his allies, and hunt me down. Both of us had to finish it there.

 

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