by Vivien Sparx
The old man nodded solemnly.
Stone turned away. Stuffed his hands down inside his pockets and started walking towards the police station.
He got as far as the sidewalk before he heard a sudden crack and crash of timber, felt the surge of heat against his back, and heard the crowd in the street gasp in tragic shock. Stone stopped. Glanced back over his shoulder. The roof of the bar had collapsed. The whole building had fallen in upon itself – iron, brick and timber in a haze of dust and a billowing pyre of black smoke. And still the fire raged.
Stone kept walking towards the police station.
Hank Dodd was dead, either burned alive in the blaze, or crushed to death when the building collapsed. No matter.
Dead was dead in Jack Stone’s book.
Thirty.
Stone went through the gateway, down the concrete path, and stood beneath the fluorescent light that hung over the entrance to the police station.
The door was solid timber. Painted drab green. The door was unlocked. Stone pushed with his foot, let it swing slowly back against its hinges. The smell of industrial cleaner and antiseptic hung in the air.
He waited. The inside of the station was dark but not completely black. The floor was linoleum. Polished. Probably polished twice a week whether it needed it or not by a janitor. Across the floor directly opposite was another door with a thin slice of light coming from the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor.
Stone turned his attention back to the space before him.
He edged into the police station cautiously. Took one slow silent step after the other. There was a long reception desk, and behind it some kind of an open space. He couldn’t see detail. The area was lit only by ambient light filtering in from the street, and the soft green digital glow from sleeping computer terminals. It looked like there were a couple of desks behind the counter, with one chair behind each desk and another chair at the side of each desk.
Stone waited. Concentrated. He couldn’t sense any threat. His instinct told him the area was empty, but he needed to be patient.
He started counting to a hundred, allowing his eyes time to adjust in the darkness and letting his breathing settle. He was tense. Wondered if the sheriff was waiting in the dark, or beyond the door opposite.
Seventy. Seventy-one…
Okay, there was a limit to his patience. He crossed the floor, footsteps light, moving on the balls of his feet. He reached the door opposite the entrance and pulled Lilley Pond’s pistol out of his jeans. Held it up in front of his face, curled his finger around the trigger.
The door was another solid panel of drab green painted timber. Stone turned the handle slowly, cracked the door open an inch. Soft yellow light spilled into the reception room, coming from an open doorway on his left down a short corridor.
Stone eased the door open just wide enough for him to edge through. There was a large cork noticeboard on the wall. It was filled with different colored paper flyers for bake stalls, church fairs and police bulletins. The wall was bare brick, painted over white. He flattened himself against it. Edged slowly towards the open door.
Stone spun around the open doorway, pistol extended, and stood perfectly still.
A single shaded desk lamp lit the room dimly. The office was heavy with the stench of old sweat and the smell of cigar smoke. There were two flags behind the desk. One was the Stars and Stripes. Stone didn’t recognize the other one, but he guessed it was the Arizona State flag. In one corner of the room was a grey metal filing cabinet, and hung on the wall was some kind of a framed football jersey, covered in marker-pen signatures and protected behind thick glass.
Stone’s eyes took in everything in an instant, and then flicked to the man in the room.
Sheriff Cartwright was sitting behind a wide timber desk littered with papers, filing trays, a coffee cup, an ashtray – and a shotgun.
He was a fat man with a heavy fleshy face, blotched red and covered in a fine sheen of sweat that beaded on his upper lip. He had black, tiny eyes and a wide mouth with thin pale lips above a couple of chins. His hair was swept back off his forehead in the style of a young Elvis. Only the sheriff wasn’t young, and he didn’t look like Elvis. Stone guessed he was in his fifties. His hair was grey, thinning. He was wearing a tan uniform with the top button of his shirt undone. He looked up at Stone as he stood in the doorway – no real expression of surprise in his face.
“I’ve been waiting for you, boy,” the sheriff said, his voice sounding wheezy and rasping like the air in his lungs was having trouble getting out.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Stone said. “How’s your arm?”
He took two steps into the room, gun still extended, aimed at the spot between the sheriff’s beady dark eyes.
The sheriff looked mildly amused. Under the sleeve of his uniform was a thick wad of bandage. He glanced down and flexed his fingers almost like a reaction.
“Got myself bitten,” he said vaguely. “But it’s getting better.”
Sheriff Cartwright rocked forward in his chair. It was an old leather thing with a high back and a couple of padded armrests. It groaned under the weight of his body as he turned slightly and set his hands flat down on the desk, his fingers a couple of inches from the stock of the shotgun. Then he smiled.
“You’re a might skittish considering everything I’ve heard about you,” the sheriff said, puffed up with confidence and arrogance for some reason. “Set the gun down, and then sit your ass down. I think it’s time we had a long talk, you and me.” The sheriff nodded to a steel framed interview chair across the desk. Stone sat down, kept the gun in his hand, let it hang low against the side of his leg.
“So talk.”
The sheriff shook his head and smiled. “Gun,” he nodded. “Put it on the desk first. Then we’ll talk.”
Stone assessed the threat. He was on the sheriff’s turf. The environment was unfamiliar to him. The sheriff looked calm and confident, like he had a secret. Like he had an Ace up his sleeve. But in a man-on-man situation, Stone knew he could take the guy down. And if it came to a scramble for the weapons, Stone knew he would be faster. He set the pistol down on the desk.
The sheriff sat back. Smiled.
“Better,” he said. “Now we can have that talk.”
“About what?”
The sheriff frowned. “About those two local girls you’ve been asking around town about, of course,” he said amiably. “And about the damage you have been doing since you arrived in my town. You’ve caused a lot of upset, son. Do you know that?”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “I don’t like people who traffic young girls as sex slaves. And I’m not your son.”
The sheriff shook his head. “You’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing, boy,” he said. “Those girls were asking for everything they got.”
“Because one of them bit your arm?”
“Because of who they are – and what they are.”
Stone sat back. “And what exactly are they?”
The sheriff shook his head again. Waved his hand in the air like he was waving away Stone’s question. Gave a long wheezing sigh and started afresh. “There is a basic law of supply and demand you are ignoring,” the sheriff said. “The truth is there are a lot of men who are willing to pay big money for fresh young girls, trained to obey their every need and to provide them with every pleasure they desire. This is just the free market in action. It’s as American as apple pie – and you’re getting in the way of that.”
Stone stayed calm. “So you prey on young girls and you sell them to the highest bidder.”
“No. Not normally.”
“But you did this time. You snatched those two girls from the roadside and you were going to sell them to the guys in the SUV.”
The sheriff nodded. “That’s true. Hank snatched them girls. But that’s not how the system works, normally. This little incident was…. unexpected.”
“Meani
ng?”
“Meaning I had an order for two girls and my supplier couldn’t fill that order in the usual way,” he spread his hands wide in a friendly gesture. “What is a man to do?” he smiled. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Your supplier. You mean Harper.”
The sheriff paused, tilted his head to the side. “You are very well informed,” he said slowly.
“So you snatched the girls?” Stone asked again.
“That’s right.”
“And you have them somewhere.”
“That’s right.”
“But you no longer have clients. The two guys in the blue SUV left town. I made sure of it.”
“That’s right,” the sheriff’s voice suddenly had a growled edge to it. “You cost me and my associate a lot of money tonight, boy. I’m not happy about that. Not happy at all.”
“Your associate. You mean your brother-in-law, Hank Dodd.”
The sheriff nodded. “You owe Hank a front door, by the way.”
Stone shrugged. “Put it on my bill.”
The sheriff smiled. “Oh, I will. I will – I promise you.”
There was a long silence in the room. The two men just stared across the desk at each other. Stone saw the sheriff’s eyes flicker down at his desk, maybe trying to gauge what would happen if he suddenly went for the shotgun.
“Where are the girls?” Stone asked.
The sheriff smiled. “I have them.”
“They’re safe?”
“They’re safe for the moment. And if you play the game, they’ll stay safe. But if you keep pushing me, boy… well…” He cocked one eyebrow at Stone in a cynical mocking gesture.
“So what do you do with them now you don’t have a buyer?”
The sheriff smiled. “Boy, there are always buyers,” he said. “And those two girls are sweet.” He drew out the last word, giving it emphasis. Then he lifted one hand to his face and drew one of his fingers under his nose, as though he was inhaling the aroma of a cigar. “This just means old Jim Cartwright gets a few more weeks of sampling their goodies before the next buyer turns up.”
Stone felt his anger building like the pressure in a cooker that needed release. The instinct to kill came upon him like a black unholy rage. The two men glared at each other. Stone bunched his fist and thought about heart-punching the guy.
He clenched his jaw, fought the urge to leap across the table. Fought to keep his voice unaffected.
“But it’s all over, sheriff,” Stone said simply. “You see I’m taking you down.”
The sheriff laughed. Laughed long and hard. Laughed until his big stomach rippled and his eyes watered.
“You think because you beat up two strangers, and put a bullet in the leg of one of my boys that you’re going to take me down?” he shook his head sadly. “You think because you drove a truck through the window of Hank’s bar and set it alight that everything I’ve built up here is coming apart? Who do you think you are, boy?”
“I’m your worst nightmare,” Stone said. “I’m the guy who won’t go away. I’m the guy who has nothing to lose. I’m the guy who won’t hesitate when it comes time to cut out your heart and spill your guts across the gutter. I’m the guy you can’t stop.”
The sheriff ‘s heavy jaws started chewing like a bulldog with a bone. He took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead and under his fleshy chin and then paused to stare hard at the man across the desk.
The tension in the room became adversarial. The sheriff stared belligerently at Stone for a long time, then glanced down at his wristwatch. It was a cheap gold thing, wrapped around a wrist that was thick as a leg of ham.
“I think you’ve underestimated me,” the sheriff said, measuring his words. “You’ve forgotten about Hank and big Davey Barstow. They’ll be back here any minute. Then it’s three against one.”
Stone smiled. Now he understood the sheriff’s confidence, and why he had been so willing to answer Stone’s questions. He had been playing for time until his back-up arrived. He figured it was only minutes now before Jack Stone was dead on the floor.
“And you underestimate me,” Stone said calmly. “Your help isn’t coming, sheriff. The big guy with the ponytail and beard who owns the flatbed truck is laying in the gutter on Main Street. I broke his leg so badly he will probably never walk again – and Hank isn’t coming back either. Never. He just died in the bar fire. The building collapsed when he was inside, trying to recover money. It saved me killing him,” Stone smiled. “So now you’re the only one left.”
Stone leaned back and saw the sheriff’s eyes shift and narrow. There was a little jump of nerves in the point of his clenched jaws and his expression slowly began to transform into a look of alarm. He stared at Stone with his lips parting soft and thin and slack. Then he lifted his eyes to the empty doorway and Stone saw some of the color and all of the man’s arrogant confident drain away. The sheriff glanced back down, but this time his eyes were on the shotgun. He stared at the weapon for three long seconds – and then he made a lunge for it.
Stone didn’t go for the pistol. Instead, he threw himself sideways off the chair. Dived to the ground and rolled to his left. Came up on his feet, fingers tensed into claws and threw himself clear across the big desk. His fingers dug into the sheriff’s throat just as the big man was coming to his feet and swinging the shotgun around from his hip.
The sheriff went over backwards with Stone on top of him. The shotgun was wrenched from his hands and went clattering away out of reach.
They rolled together on the floor. Stone’s hands were digging deep into the soft flesh of the sheriff’s throat, growling his anger as the sheriff’s voice began to rise in a scream of panic and despair and desperation. His legs kicked out, thrashing and his hands clawed at Stone’s face. Stone levered himself back and then smashed his forehead down against the sheriff’s nose.
It was only a glancing blow. The sheriff was rolling his head from side to side and wailing in pain and panic, so Stone’s head-butt connected with the guy’s cheek. But it was enough to stun the sheriff – enough pain to shock him into pause. He was still screaming a sound of pain and desperation that had no form or coherence, but enough of the fight went out of him for Stone to drag himself up the desk onto his knees. He snatched up the pistol and jammed the barrel hard into the sheriff’s forehead, choosing a place between the man’s eyes and digging the cold steel barrel deep into the flesh.
“Move one inch and I’ll blow your brains out over the floor!”
Thirty-One.
Stone pushed sheriff Cartwright out the front door of the station house using the barrel of the shotgun to nudge the big man down the side path. Across the road ‘Stan’s Bar’ was still burning fiercely, lighting up the sky in flickering shades of red and orange.
“Your bastard brother-in-law burned alive,” Stone said. “But I’ve got something much more painful planned for you.”
Stone slapped his hand hard down on the top of the sheriff’s head and folded him onto the back seat of the patrol car. There was a heavy wire mesh partition between the front and back seats. The doors had no handles or window winders. They had been removed and the holes in the door trim concealed with pieces of aluminum that had been riveted in place. The sheriff slumped across the vinyl bench seat, half-laying, half-sitting. The car sagged down at the rear under the man’s bulky weight. There was a smell of industrial-strength disinfectant.
Stone tucked the shotgun under his arm. Went to the Taurus that was blocking the driveway and reversed the vehicle onto the front lawn of the station house, the tires digging muddy ruts into the ground as they struggled for traction. Then Stone climbed in behind the wheel of the cop car. Threw the shotgun onto the passenger seat, and then slammed the selector into reverse. Got one elbow up on the back of the seat and stared out through the rear window. Stomped on the gas. The car’s transmission howled as the vehicle slewed backwards out of the long driveway,
skidding on the slippery tarmac. There was still a small huddle of people gathered in the middle of the street watching the bar burn to the ground. The pack split apart as the cop car reversed towards them and the brake lights flared bright red suddenly. Then Stone had the car in gear and was tearing north out of town.
It took just a few minutes of fast driving to reach the mailbox with the name ‘Cartwright’ written on it. Stone didn’t see Lilley’s car on the shoulder of the road, but that didn’t bother him. He expected by now she would be somewhere else in town.
He wrenched the car off the road, and set it onto the narrow dirt track that led to the sheriff’s house.
The trail was a bumpy, rutted piece of gravel. Nothing more than a pair of deep parallel channels worn into the ground. There was a raised hump between them. The cop car heaved and bounced and groaned on its springs. Gravel scraped against the undercarriage of the car and small stones scrabbled under the tires and went skittering away into the night. Stone took the track fast, fighting against the wheel and feeling the tires digging and bogging in the ground that was quickly being turned to mush and mud under the force of the torrential downpour.
Stone skidded to a halt out front of a low single-story ranch that looked similar from the outside to Hank Dodd’s house. He left the car’s headlights on, the glare aimed at the front of the house, lighting up the steps, the doorway and the porch, and throwing them into harsh highlight and shadow through the misting, teeming downpour. Horizontal rain battered against the windshield, sounding like gravel against the glass.
Stone left the engine running. Snatched up the shotgun and shoved at the door. Got out and wrenched the back door of the patrol car open and dragged the sheriff out into the pouring rain. The big man was wheezing, gasping for every breath as though he was hyperventilating. Stone didn’t care. The sheriff fell awkwardly to his knees in the mud. Stone kicked him in the gut. The sheriff groaned painfully. Looked up to Stone with a pleading expression. Waved his left arm in the air like his hand was on fire, then suddenly reached down inside the leg of his trousers and there was a flash of glinting steel in his right hand.