The Cure

by Freddie Villacci Jr

  “Your name isn’t McNally, is it?”

  The bulk of his mask off, the man stood and glared at her, bits of latex still hanging off his face like leper’s skin. “Not now, princess.”

  “Listen,” she said, “I don’t know who—”

  The guard—if he was even a guard at all—held up a hand and placed his finger on his lips. His attention was drawn to Swanson at the controls.

  He leapt toward the pilot. “What are you doing with that?”

  “With what?” Swanson replied.

  “The detonator you just turned on then slipped back in your pocket.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  He reached into the Swanson’s pocket and pulled out a device that looked exactly like the one the terrorists had used to blow up her lab.

  “Does Jaco know about this?”

  “Listen,” said Swanson, “my orders were to destroy the chopper after we landed.”

  The guard looked at the detonator. “Take your chute off.”

  “Not happening,” said Swanson.

  “Take it off, Swanson. I’m not gonna say it again.”

  “Say it 87 times. You don’t scare me, Farmer. You know how to fly this thing? Be my guest.”

  “If you insist.” The Farmer drew his .357 and fired a round at Swanson’s feet. Then put his gun to his temple, pressing the barrel against his head, hard. The hot barrel singed Swanson.

  Swanson stole nervous looks as sweat began to drip from his temples. “Now, just a second…”

  “One good old second. That’s all you have before I blow your brains all over that there control panel. You wanna play around, city boy? Let’s dance.”

  Swanson complied, his face twisted with worry and fear. He held the chute out.

  “Good, now get us some altitude,” he barked grabbing the chute.

  Swanson did as he was told, muttering, “Psycho.”

  The helicopter ascended rapidly.

  The Farmer walked back to Gracie.

  “What the hell do you want from me?” she said.

  “What do I want with you. Not from.” He chuckled. “You’re bait.”

  “What?” Gracie blinked in surprise.

  He took off his headset and threw it on the floor. He motioned for her to do the same, then pointed to the detonator in his other hand. Scrambling to comply, it took her a second to understand, then she replied frantically, throwing the headset away from her. He put the chute on. Then he took aim at Swanson’s head.

  The hand cannon flashed. Swanson’s body chucked forward, brains and blood spattering the windshield.

  Gracie screamed. Before she could react further, the twisted Farmer guy grabbed her.

  “Grab on tight,” he screamed, wrapping his arms around her. She threw her arms around him, a numbing fear taking hold of her body.

  The chopper jerked to the right, and the man spilled himself and Gracie out into the sky.

  Everything spun into a hysterical blur.

  Solid colors turned into streaks of lights and shadows.

  The wind slammed into her face, her eyeballs pushed back into their sockets.

  And seconds into their tandem fall, she saw the detonator in his hand, and the movement of his thumb…

  The chopper exploded in a horrendous ball of flames. Its flaming carnage dropped to the ground like a meteor.

  The Farmer yelled out, “Yeah! A country boy can survive,” as he pulled the ripcord and the chute blossomed above them.

  45

  Hawk slouched in the chair of Bic’s hospital room, watching the news with the volume turned down as Bic lay still beside him. He didn’t know how he was going to tell him that Gracie’s chopper had crashed. What was worse, according to the news, three bodies had been found, one of them alleged to be Gracie’s.

  Anthony Parelli, in a three-piece suit, walked into the room.

  Hawk jumped up from his chair and hugged the man. “Hey. It’s been a long time, brother.”

  “Easy,” said Parelli. “The back’s been giving me trouble. Damned sciatica. How is he?”

  “They’re not sure.”

  “Look at that bruiser. He can’t be taken out just like that.”

  “Thanks for getting him in here.”

  “The least I can do. Bic will be treated like a king here, no questions asked.”

  “How’d you manage it?”

  Parelli looked over his shoulder, then back at Hawk. “The president of this joint owes me a favor. I told him to put his absolute best on this, around the clock.”

  “They have been.”

  “I’m telling you,” said Parelli, a forehead vein bulging, “if some intern’s working on him—”

  “The docs have been top notch.” Hawk looked away for a second. “They have no idea what’s wrong.”

  Parelli raised an eyebrow. “He took a fall. It’s not a concussion?”

  Hawk bit his lip.

  “What is it?” said Parelli. “You look like you know something.”

  “Man, you’re not gonna believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  Hawk hesitated for a moment. “It’s just that… well, Bic was under the impression that maybe his dad had something to do with it. Like, you know, that voodoo stuff? And, I mean, that would explain why none of these docs can find anything wrong.”

  Parelli put his head in his hand. “Jesus. I’ll talk to the doctors myself. There’s no such thing as a curse. Where I come from, there was all these Sicilians constantly putting curses on each other. Trust me, if any of them stuck, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m more afraid if he wakes up. What with Gracie…”

  Parelli shook his head, “There’s going to be some heads rolling for sure.” He clenched his fists and said, “I’ve got to get some air. I’m gonna go talk to the docs.”

  46

  With the rising sun to her right, Gracie figured they’d been trekking north. They’d be going nonstop for at least eight hours. In the distance, she saw a small town.

  She had tried to talk to this man to figure out what he wanted. By what she’d witnessed, she knew how lethal he was and that he was keeping her alive for a reason. But so far, every attempt had gotten her nothing but silence.

  Now, fed up with eight hours of cluelessness, she cut in front of him and spoke, walking backwards. “Enough of the silent treatment. I want you to tell me who you are and what’s happening.”

  “Can’t hurt, I suppose. They call me the Farmer.”

  “So you’re a farmer.”

  “Yeah, I am. But it’s Farmer with a capital F. The Farmer. That’s my name.”

  “Mr. The Farmer.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No. Tell me what’s happening. And I want the truth.”

  “I don’t lie.”

  “Oh, a virtuous vicious killer.”

  “Yeah. I got no reason to lie. I’ll answer a question, but first you gotta answer one for me.”

  Gracie nodded.

  “What’s with Bic and the pork chops?”

  This floored her. “Bic? My Bic? What’s he got to do with this?”

  The Farmer smiled. “Well, girl, who the hell did you think I was fighting with underneath that damn machine? The Tooth Fairy?”

  Her pace slowed as her heart sank in her chest.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Nah.” The Farmer walked past her. “He didn’t fall far.”

  “But did you kill him?”

  The Farmer stopped and turned. “No. He fell. That was that. Come on.” He resumed walking and she kept up with him.

  “So,” he said, “you gonna answer my question?”

  “What was it? Something about a pork chop?”

  “Yeah, a pork chop. What’s the deal with that?”

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

  He stared straight ahead. “Then we don’t have nothin’ else to talk
about.”

  There was so much turmoil within her now, roiling like the base of a waterfall, with all that she’d learned about her uncle. She didn’t know whether she could trust this strange man who called himself the Farmer, but she was sure as hell she couldn’t trust Bic. Her memories of the man he used to be threatened to drown her. She couldn’t bear it.

  A pork chop?

  A thought came to her. “Wait a second. When my mom had just passed away, Bic had told me he lost his mother too, when he was a kid.”

  “Okay.”

  “He never spoke of it, but I remember finding a police blotter in the newspaper about it. His father had beaten his mother to death right in front of him with an iron skillet. He then tried to choke him to death by stuffing a pork chop in his mouth.”

  The Farmer looked at her, his attention obviously piqued. “Really…? That’s pretty messed up.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It is. That’s why it stuck with me. Now, I answered your question. My turn, why did you break me out?”

  “I was supposed to break you out of prison, then kill you. Simple as that. But I’m guessing Jaco knew that I wasn’t going to kill you until I took care of some unfinished business. He’s a smart dude. He was going to blow us both up on that chopper.”

  “And what’s this unfinished business that’s keeping me alive?”

  He looked at her. “I’m going to kill Bic, Princess.”

  Gracie concealed the twisting emotions inside her. “So,” she said, wearily, “where does that leave us now?”

  “You’re going to help me kill him.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  The Farmer stopped and turned. “Because if you do, I will make sure your cure gets out there.”

  Anger and skepticism burned inside her. “You would do that?”

  “To pay back the men who tried to kill me? You bet. Ain’t nobody friends with nobody in this business. I reckon I can do my job and get double payback, and get you what you need too.”

  Gracie cocked her head to the side. So many questions…

  The Farmer handed Gracie his phone and a piece of paper with an address on it. “Call him, tell him I have you here.”

  Gracie hesitated.

  “I give you my word. I will clear your name after I take care of my business.”

  “I’m not going to take your word.”

  He shook his head in frustration. “Think of it this way. Bic wants to come save you. If he kills me, then he will save you. If I kill him, I clear your name. Now, if we don’t have a deal, fine. I’ll just save us both a lot of time and heartache and snap your neck right here.”

  He held out his phone.

  She took it.

  47

  Hawk sat in Bic’s room alone. About ten minutes ago they had taken him for a full body MRI, thanks to Tony Parelli ruffling more than a few medical feathers.

  Bic’s phone rang on the bedside table. Hawk stared at it. Only a few people had his number. Important people. He picked it up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bic? It’s me, Gracie!”

  Before Hawk could respond, there was a rustling sound on the other end, and then a man’s voice said, “You have twenty-four hours to save her.” The line went dead. A moment later, a text appeared. It was an address.

  Hawk sat back down and began to think.

  Forty-five minutes later, the nurse rolled Bic back into the room.

  “Any changes?” Hawk asked.

  “Unfortunately, no,” the nurse replied. “The doctor will be in shortly to discuss.”

  After she exited, Hawk stared at Bic for several minutes, then finally said, “Hey. We got a little problem here and I can’t solve it myself. Now, we been friends for a long time, me and you. One thing I know is, Bic Green ain’t a quitter. So what do you say you kick this thing and wake up, my brother?”

  He stared at his friend, the massive chest heaving with every breath.

  “Hey, ‘member that time we were in Kennesaw? Or better yet, how about that girl I met in Tampa?” He laughed at the memory. “You thought she had a face like twelve nightmares. Then you looked at her again and said she was a cop that was about to raid the joint for allowing underage drinkers. I swore you were full of it. Well, you were right, my man. She got up in the middle of me trying to pick her up. Said she was going to the ladies’ room. Then out comes the badge.” He threw his head back and laughed again. “Dammit, Bic, you got like six senses about that stuff. I never understood it.”

  Hawk watched his friend, and his smile faded along with the memories. He bent down and spoke into Bic’s ear. “They say nothing’s wrong with you, so wake up, you SOB.”

  He fought back tears as a strange anger came into him. “You know what? I read online that a good crack across the face can wake you up from the deepest of sleeps. So you better wake up, cuz I’m fixin’ to lay my five spot across your face… you don’t think I’ll do it, do you?”

  Hawk started at Bic for a long moment. He took off his two heavy metal rings and dropped them onto the food table, making sure they made as much noise as possible. “That’s it, I’m going to count down from three…” He held his hand up high. He couldn’t stop it from trembling. “Three… two… one!” He slapped his friend hard across the face.

  Bic showed zero response.

  “Sorry, brother,” said Hawk, tears now flowing freely. “I had to try.” He replaced his rings, then grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a note:

  The girl is alive!

  Tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t.

  Went to save her.

  Won’t let you down brother.

  Hawk.

  He folded the note and placed it on his bedside table, then put his hand on Bic’s shoulder and said, “I won’t let you down, brother. I’m gonna go get the girl.”

  He grabbed Bic’s phone and left the room.

  48

  It was just after midnight when Mack bit into his third bean burrito for the evening and washed it down with his fifth beer.

  “You really like burritos, huh,” said Agent Quinn.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said.

  They sat on a picnic bench outside a taco truck called Fooditos, located in the parking lot of a dive bar by the name of Shawshanks.

  “My wife and I are nuts about Mexican food.”

  “I don’t trust anyone who isn’t,” said Quinn.

  Mack sucked his teeth and stared at the tiny Mexican flag on the top of the truck, blowing in the sweet night air. “There’s this little joint around the block from us that keeps changing its name. We used to go there every Wednesday night when we first got married. Drinks and apps were half price on Wednesdays. We’d start with margaritas. Best damn margaritas on the planet. They muddled jalapenos into them. I never heard of that before. We’d drink three of those and get totally buzzed.”

  “Sounds like a night,” said Quinn. “I’m getting another Corona. Want another?”

  “You read my mind.”

  Quinn left and returned with two bottles. He handed one to Mack and clinked it with his.

  “Yeah, it was really great back then,” said Mack, noticing he was starting to slur his words. “We’d play the Would You Rather game, drunk. Ever play the Would You Rather game drunk?”

  “No, but I once played with a Ouija board while on acid.”

  Mack stared at him. “That must’ve been… weird.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said, winking.

  Mack twirled his bottle. “One time, she asked me, ‘Would you rather live in a world where burritos existed or a world where they didn’t exist but there was no paperwork on case files.”

  Quinn chuckled. “Man, that’s an easy one.”

  “I tell ya, I hate paperwork like anthrax, but I don’t think I’d make it a month without a burrito. I told her so. Then I asked her a serious one. ‘Would you rather die in five years with
no regrets or die in sixty with many regrets?’ You know what she said? She said, ‘Five years with no regrets.’ I just remembered that.”

  He raised his beer to Caroline and took a swig, then stuffed another bite of the #5 Barbacoa y Carnitas into his mouth.

  Quinn had dropped him off at home just in time. It was three o’clock in the morning when the plan kicked in.

  After three bean burritos and one with meat, an entire six pack of Coronas plus one Corona Light, and three trips to the bathroom since late last night, Mack finally recovered the key he’d swallowed. With the second key, now all he had to do was figure out how to get into the bank’s vault and get access to Anna’s safe deposit box without getting a subpoena and losing the probable contents to evidence.

  A knock at his door. “Mack, it’s Quinn.”

  Quinn entered his hotel room.

  “I got the key,” he said, holding the triple-washed thing up for Quinn to see. Best not to tell him.

  Quinn stared at it for a moment, lost in thought, then said, “Mack, I have some bad news.”

  He cleared his throat. “Gracie died last night in an attempted prison escape.”

  “What?”

  “They just confirmed it.”

  “This can’t be.”

  “I know, partner. Listen, if you want to go be with Caroline, I understand.”

  Mack looked to Quinn. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea.”

  “I can go check the box, let you know if I find anything.”

  Mack stared at the key in his palm, thinking about Caroline and what she’d do, then said, “No. I’m going to see this through.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Quinn shook his head once. “Your call, partner. I’d hate for you to… you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. But there’s too much riding on what might be inside that box.”

  Quinn put his hand on Mack’s shoulder.

  “I got an idea,” said Mack.

  49

  The address Hawk got from the text on Bic’s phone was a Nebraska one. The sun had slunk behind the horizon and night peppered the sky with stars by the time he got there. He decided to park his car a mile away and walk, hopefully to gain the element of surprise. Lying in the tall, unkempt grass, he looked through the scope on his sniper rifle. The moon hung smoky and grayish in an otherwise inky sky behind the small house sitting on its acreage.