by Tim Willocks
Paranoid or not he was exhilarated. Filmore Faroe had been right to send them up here on a wing and a prayer; Cicero Grimes had arrived in Jordan’s Crossroads and had made contact with Holden Daggett. But it was Rufus Atwater who had found that lead to Daggett, and Atwater who’d had the foresight to get Gough Lovett over there from Savannah. Atwater had met Lovett over too many beers with Jack Seed one time, when Lovett had been in the City for a snoopers’ convention. Lovett had called Atwater back about forty minutes ago and told him that he’d tailed Grimes and Daggett to some kind of derelict farmhouse and that Grimes had gone inside. There’d been no sign of Par -illaud. Lovett had located the position of the farmhouse for them in a triangle between a pair of county roads and the Ohoopee River and Herrera had pegged out the area on his charts. Atwater felt a faint trembling in his hand and looked down.
His phone was ringing again.
Atwater cursed the noise of the rotors and switched the phone on and jammed a finger in his left ear.
“Yeah?” he shouted.
“Atwater?” Lovett’s voice was crackly and faint but recognizable.
“Yeah it’s me.”
“I got the suitcases,” crackled Lovett.
“You got the suitcases? What suitcases?”
“Grimes brought two suitcases out of the farmhouse. Got to a point where I had to make a choice: the guy or the goods. I figured Grimes wasn’t going nowhere fast, so I nailed the goods. That okay?”
Atwater’s stomach pitched again, though not from the flight. It was too good to be true, man. He crouched forward in his seat. The suitcases? The goods? Jefferson’s hoard? What the fuck else would Grimes be picking up? The sly cocksucker. Atwater jammed his finger in deeper.
“Yeah, that’s good, that’s perfect. You got a bonus coming. Where are ya?”
“I’m in lawyer Daggett’s office,” said Lovett. “What do you want me to do?”
Atwater looked around the cramped interior of the chopper and its sullen crew. They couldn’t land in the middle of Jordan’s Crossroads, that was for sure.
“Can we land a chopper out at this farm place?”
“No problem. Quiet as …”
The voice crackled inaudibly.
“Gough? You still there? I didn’t hear ya!”
“I said the farm is as quiet as a grave!”
“Good. Bring the goods out to the farm,” said Atwater. “We’ll meet you there.”
“Okay. What about Daggett?”
“Bring him, too. We can set up base at the farm and go find Grimes and the woman later. You got that?”
“I got it.”
“We’ll be there in … Hang on.” Atwater leaned forward toward Herrera in the copilot’s seat and yelled, “Roberto? How much farther, amigo?”
Herrera jabbed his index finger at the floor.
“We’ve just located the river. Now we’ll follow it to the farm. I don’t know, say ten minutes, more or less.”
Atwater bent over the phone again. “Ten minutes more or less.”
“I’ll see you there,” said Lovett.
“Ten-four.”
Atwater switched off the phone. He could hardly swallow. He could hardly breathe. Before the night was over he’d have Mr. Filmore Faroe licking clean the ginger hairs on his ass. They had to find Parillaud, but she was somewhere close by, Grimes too, both of ‘em just waiting to be scooped up. Why, Atwater even began to feel more kindly toward Herrera; the guy had gotten them here after all. Herrera was a cold fish for a Cuban. Atwater had learned that after Herrera had defected with the MiG, the communists had put his parents and sister in some kind of military prison and they’d never been heard of since. Maybe that’s why he didn’t seem to have any nerves. But that was okay too; that’s what you wanted in a hired gun.
Atwater peered out at the landscape rushing by below. The light was fading but the river was there, snaking through the thinning trees. He watched and waited, watched and waited as the minutes crawled and the miles flew. As he stared his concentration kept slipping and all his eyes would take in was a green blur while his mind roved wildly across fantasy landscapes of power and wealth, of mistresses in slinky gowns and maître d’s snapping their fingers for the best tables in restaurants he’d never even heard of. Herrera’s voice broke through into his reverie.
“There it is,” said Herrera.
Atwater’s eyes reeled for focus. He scanned the countryside in the direction of Herrera’s pointing finger. He couldn’t see a fucking thing. Then there it was: in the middle of the open fields spreading up from the river was a black cluster, resolving as they got closer into two separate boxes. Buildings, no doubt about it. A farmhouse and barn.
Rufus Atwater jiggled in his seat and thought, This is it, man. This time this is really fucking it.
TWENTY-SIX
AS THE BLACK CHOPPER made a wide turnover the valley, searching for a landing spot, George pulled Ella from the edge of the porch to the kitchen door. He motioned to Lenna with his head.
“We’d better get inside.”
Ella looked at Charlie, stumping toward them on his crutch. He nodded to her. She still found it hard to think of him as Clarence Jefferson; Jefferson was the man of whom she knew nothing, the man of many evils who so many feared. She didn’t want him to be Jefferson. Charlie put his blunt, handless arm across her shoulder and followed her through the screen door. Inside the kitchen the clatter of the chopper seemed closer than ever. Ella felt useless and scared. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She became aware of the Smith & Wesson in her hand, the one she’d carried so blithely all that day. Suddenly its weight felt real. She swallowed a lilting surge of nausea. She also felt caught between Charlie and Lenna in some strange way that she didn’t understand. She watched George take up a position by one of the windows with his shotgun and squint out. She decided to stick with George. George turned from the window to Charlie.
“This place is too big to defend,” said George. He pointed. “And they’ll have all the cover they need from the barn and those outbuildings.”
Charlie said, “A man with the right kind of nerve would let ‘em come inside before starting the ball.”
George looked at him, then cast his eye around the room, down the hallway to the front door and back to Charlie.
“Suits me,” said George. “You watch the front, I’ll take them in here. From the hallway.” He turned back to the window. “There’s no markings on that machine. Any idea who these guys are?”
“No,” replied Charlie.
“I’m no friend to the G man, God knows,” said George, “but that don’t mean I want to cut ‘em down without a call, if that’s who they are.”
“Listen to me!”
Ella turned. Lenna stood in the dusty twilight, her hands clasped together in front of her. Her face was white. Her eyes bored into Charlie.
“Last night Faroe got out of the Stone House.”
George said, “Filmore Faroe? I thought he was dead.”
Without taking her eyes off Charlie, Lenna shook her head. Ella looked at Charlie too.
Lenna said, “The chopper must be Faroe’s people.”
It wasn’t in Charlie’s nature to show fear but Ella could tell he thought this was as bad as the news could get. His face was covered with an oily sweat she hadn’t noticed outside and she realized he was ill, very ill. He didn’t answer Lenna.
Lenna said, “If I turn myself in there’ll be no trouble.”
“Don’t be naïve, Lenna,” said Charlie.
“Faroe wants to settle with me.”
“Faroe wants to settle with the world.”
From the window George said, “They’re unloading.”
George turned and looked at Lenna, and Ella knew from the set of his jaw that he wasn’t going to give up anyone without a fight.
George said, “Dead or not, this guy wants you pretty bad.”
Ella ran across and looked over George’s shoulder. In the middle of the
meadow beyond the cobblestoned yard the black chopper hovered a few feet above the flattened grass as what looked to her like soldiers jumped out carrying rifles.
“Four, six, eight,” said George. “And you were right, Mr. Jefferson. They’re taking off again.”
As the chopper rose back up into the air Ella watched the eight soldiers fan away to left and right in two groups of four, and run, crouched low, toward the yard and the barn.
Charlie said, “Does Faroe know?”
Ella turned and found Lenna staring at her with dread, as if Charlie’s question had something to do with her. Who was Faroe? And what did he know?
“No,” said Lenna. “He knows nothing. No one knows but you and me.”
“And the good doctor Grimes,” said Charlie.
Lenna blinked. “Yes.”
Ella was convinced they were talking about her. “Who is Faroe?” she said.
Lenna looked at her in a way she couldn’t read. Charlie stuck his revolver in his belt and walked toward Ella. Neither of them answered her question. From his pocket Charlie pulled a brown paper packet and slipped it into the bag slung from her shoulder.
“For later,” he said.
Before she could ask what it was George said: “It’s zero hour.”
George stepped back from the window and herded them all into the hallway. Charlie went to the far end and stood by the door to the parlor with his revolver poised. Behind him was the bigger door that led to the front stoop. The house shook around them as the chopper roared low overhead. Ella felt George’s left hand close tightly on her shoulder. His old hawk’s face was stretched with tension.
“Look at me,” he said.
Ella looked at him.
George said, “Like it or not, Ella, you are the priority here.”
Ella suddenly felt hugely alone.
“Say, “I understand,’ “ instructed George.
“I understand.” Her voice scraped in her throat.
“If you don’t accept that, you will bring us down. Say, “I understand.’ ”
A whisper. “I understand.”
“Will you do as I ask you?”
George’s eyes were brimming. For her. This time her voice was strong.
“Anything. Anything you want.”
“Okay.” George turned to Charlie. “Tell her where to hide.”
Charlie looked at her from the end of the hall and pointed his stump up the stairs.
“The attic,” he said. “You remember?”
Ella nodded.
“The cold water tank next to the boiler is empty. Take the lid off, get inside, close the lid. Wait. Anyone opens it without declaring themselves: kill them. Then you come up, look around. You see anyone else, you keep shooting.”
Ella nodded again.
Suddenly Lenna lunged desperately past Ella and George toward the kitchen. George blocked her across the chest with his arm and slammed her against the wall.
“Lenna, I know what you’re doing, and it’s brave and it’s right,” said George. “But if we give up without a fight they’ll be over this place like ants. They will find Ella. If we at least bloody their noses before surrendering, they’ll be more inclined to believe they’ve got what they want. Trust me.”
Lenna’s shoulders relaxed. What George said made sense. She nodded.
“You take Ella upstairs,” said George. “Then wait on the landing there till the shooting stops.”
George turned back to Ella. Unexpectedly, he grabbed her around the waist, pulled her into him and kissed her on the cheek. He whispered in her ear.
“God bless you, girl.”
As suddenly as he’d taken her George shoved her away down the hall.
“Now, go. Goon!”
He turned his back and Lenna caught Ella’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs.
Charlie was no longer by the front door. Ella heard him moving around inside the parlor. She was desperate to say goodbye to him but she owed it to them all to be cool. As she started up the stairs behind Lenna she saw George lay himself down full length on the floor of the dark corridor. He and his shotgun were hidden from the kitchen by the half-open door. Why was the terror of leaving him so much greater than the terror of dying? She couldn’t understand it. Lenna pulled her on and they reached the landing, where the stairs doubled back on themselves toward the second floor. They stopped. Ella looked up. The second-floor corridor was almost dark. At one end she knew she’d find a retractable ladder up to the trapdoor into the roof space. The thought of the water tank filled her with dread. Her resolve weakened.
“Ella?” said Lenna.
Ella looked at Lenna.
“When it’s quiet here, go back into town and find Grimes. Wait for him at the diner where we met. He’ll know what to do.”
“How will I recognize him?”
“He’ll have a black dog with him.”
“Okay.”
Lenna took a deep breath and when she spoke her voice was tremulous and her words jerked out as if forced past some intense constriction in her chest.
Lenna said, “Ella, I’ll never see you again, and this won’t make any kind of sense to you. But there’s something I want you to take away from here, for me. Will you do that?”
Ella nodded. “What is it?”
“I love you,” said Lenna.
Lenna’s eyes held on to hers and all Ella could see in her face was that it was true. It was desperate and terrible but it was true; utterly true. And as Ella felt its truth she also felt, somehow, that it was she herself—and not Lenna or Charlie’s hoard—that stood at the very center of all that was happening around them. Ella was at the center, she and the terrible love in Lenna’s eyes.
Lenna said, “Will you take that away for me?”
“Yes,” said Ella. “I’ll take it away for you. And I will make it mine.”
Lenna threw her arms around Ella and Ella held her.
Then, from below, came a roar of gunfire.
Shotgun blasts: one blending into the other, too fast for Ella to count them. Machine guns exploded in reply. At the foot of the stairs below them wood splinters and plaster erupted from the walls. The boom of a revolver. Screams of pain, voices shouting in Spanish. Again the shotgun. Then a savage cry, the rage of a human bent on death.
It was George.
Ella broke away from Lenna’s arms. Lenna grabbed at her, caught the strap of her bag. Ella struggled free, left the bag behind, leapt down the stairs two, three at a time. The hallway was swirling with bitter gray gunsmoke. From the parlor came the slam of Charlie’s magnum. Ella plowed toward the kitchen, where the shooting had stopped, her marrow frozen by the berserk battle cries of George Grimes as they echoed through the sudden silence of the guns. Ella stopped by the kitchen doorway and looked inside.
The flagstones were awash with blood. Fallen bodies sprawled bleeding and twitching amid the cordite smoke. In the middle of the floor George was on his back, grappling hand to hand with the soldier kneeling astride him. George’s right fist clutched his .45 but it was pinned to the ground by the soldier’s left hand. The soldier slammed wild, flailing punches into George’s face. George roared at him through the blows, his left hand fingers clawing into the center of the soldier’s throat, crushing the Adam’s apple and windpipe.
Ella wanted to move but couldn’t. She couldn’t step out into the blood.
Suddenly George slipped his hand from the soldier’s throat and around his face instead, jamming his thumb deep into the man’s right eye, gouging and burrowing to dislodge it. The soldier writhed in panic and pain; but he wouldn’t let go of George’s gun hand; he stopped punching and scrabbled at the back of his belt. Ella saw the hilt of a sheathed knife, the soldier’s frantic fingers closing around it.
Ella pushed herself across the room, into the blood and smoke.
As the soldier pulled the knife free, Ella rammed the stubby barrel of the .38 into his left armpit and pumped two wadcutters through his thorax. The so
ldier wheezed a red sigh and was lifted sideways; as he slumped down, George snapped his wrist free, crammed the .45’s muzzle into the soldier’s neck and shot him again.
Ella staggered back, sickened and trembling, her eyes stinging.
“Go away!”
Ella blinked. George had struggled up to a sitting position, the dead man across his lap. There was a moist black hole torn through George’s upper right chest and his face was spattered with gore. He yelled at her again.
“Go! I don’t want to see you!”
Hands seized her shoulders from behind and pulled her back into the hallway.
It was Lenna. Ella didn’t resist as she was bundled down the corridor to the stairs. From the parlor came the sound of tinkling glass and gunshots ripping into walls. Lenna pushed Ella up onto the steps without speaking, then turned to the front door. She wrenched it open.
“Lenna!” Ella cried.
Lenna stepped out onto the stoop and disappeared from sight.
Ella heard shouts outside. The shooting stopped.
She turned and ran up the stairs. At the landing she collected her bag, went up the next flight and climbed the ladder into the roof. She unhooked the ladder, pulled it up behind her and closed the trapdoor. Set into one gable end of the attic was a small window that allowed in enough light to see by. Under the eaves stood the copper boiler and, beside it, the cold water tank. She went over and slid off the wooden lid. Inside the tank was lined with stained gray metal. She would only get in there if she had to. Outside she heard the sound of the helicopter close by, very close. She hadn’t heard any more shots since Lenna had walked outside. Ella slung her bag over her head and went to the window. It was twelve inches too high to see out. Nearby was a sealed wooden chest layered with dust. Ella climbed onto it. She was high enough now but still couldn’t see anything but sky. She reached up and grabbed hold of one of the timber struts between the rafters. Holding on to that, she leaned forward on her tiptoes.
A section of the meadow to this side of the bumpy track came into view. The helicopter was on the ground, its rotors still thrashing, flattening the grass in a wide circle. Ella watched and waited. In the doorway of the chopper crouched a gangly man with a long, thin head and ginger hair. He waved his arm, beckoning. He grinned. Then Lenna, George and Charlie were escorted to the chopper by a group of armed men. George and Lenna were in handcuffs. The gangly man moved back and the prisoners were bundled inside. The soldiers climbed in after them.