Two for Flinching

by Todd Morgan

  “This fresh?”

  “No.”

  He sat in one of the client chairs and put the coffee on my desk. He had had worse, after going overseas. My relationship with Nero was complicated. I had helped him out of a pretty serious jam and felt responsible for him. I might have become a surrogate father except the things I taught him, no responsible father would have taught his son. Nero was who he was—without complaint or excuse—and I guess I wanted him to be the best Nero he could become. Must have been that old Army slogan ingrained in me and I wanted to pass it along. Be all you can be.

  “Who’s Caspar?”

  “Caspar?”

  “The littlest ghost that just left.” He nodded at my face. “I hope he’s not the one who clocked you.”

  “No,” I said. “Friend of the clocker.”

  “Clocker still in the hospital?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You going to have trouble with them? I don’t know who the clocker is, but I can tell you Caspar is the one you need to watch.”

  I had to be careful what I told him. Nero lived by the preemptive strike. You didn’t have to be a threat for Nero to act. Only a possible threat and your friends would be wondering whatever happened to you.

  I hedged my bets. “Maybe. At some point in the future.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  I said, “No.”

  Nero looked disappointed. He reached into his jacket and dropped Stella’s journal on the desk. “I figured you’d be wanting that.”

  “You figured right.” I slid the journal over, squaring it on the desktop.

  “I remember how fucked up you were when she left. This is going to be worse—much worse. I think you should leave it alone, let the police do their thing and hope for the best. You need to let this one go.”

  I tapped the ticking time bomb with my index finger. I had a pretty good idea what it held, that damage it would do to me, the pain I would have to go through if I opened it. It seemed to almost vibrate with unseen energy. A dark energy.

  “I can’t.”

  Nero nodded. “Figured that, too.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  April 8,

  I think I’m ready to get back in the saddle. It’s been six weeks and I’ve been working out, eating right. My body still doesn’t feel like my own, though. I had got so fat! The jerk has been sniffing around, telling me I look good and A has that light in his eyes when I see him. I almost blush when he looks at me with that naked desire! He’s been patient (impatiently patient!) He’s been waiting for so long, I’ll have to make sure it was worth it.

  I quit when I started to show. Carrying another man’s child, it didn’t feel right having sex with A. Not that it ever did. But with a baby inside, it was a bad kind of wrong. If that makes any sense. I was so scared—right up until she finally came out. I have always been careful, used protection and all that, but those things say something like 99.8% effective. What if that .2% bit me in the ass? If that baby had not been B’s and he saw that…

  I’m not sure why B scares me so. I know he is a man capable of great violence. I know he has killed men. He never talks about it, but from what I’ve read, it’s a safe bet he has taken some of those lives with his bare hands. That was why I was so attracted to him to start with. That power, that strength he has. He has never threatened me physically. In all of our legendary arguments I’ve never been afraid. Afraid he would leave, sure, but not for my safety. Every man has a breaking point, though, and when B breaks, nothing will be capable of containing him.

  I dodged that bullet. Time to get back in the saddle. For some reason.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I slammed the journal shut. The sun had begun to set, my office collapsing in gloom. What the hell?

  I had never doubted Sarah was my child. Stella and I had been trying to conceive and we had. Toward the end, I knew she had been unfaithful—I just didn’t know how unfaithful and for how long. Maybe I should have had my doubts, but I didn’t and evidently they would have been unfounded anyway. Since my beloved wife had used protection with all of her lovers.

  Stella was worried the child might not have been mine and that I would freak. How would I know? Sarah came out covered in blood and umbilical fluid, an eight pound bundle of joy and screams. It would have taken a DNA test to prove she wasn’t mine.

  Son-of-a-bitch!

  I jumped out of my chair and stormed out of the office. There was going to be hell to pay.

  ***

  I didn’t obey the speed limit. I didn’t come to a complete stop at intersections. I didn’t check my rearview for a tail. I didn’t slow down, count backward from fifty and plan out my next move. I did grip the steering wheel with all my might.

  I parked the Jeep in the circular drive and ran up the steps to the grey stone house. I didn’t knock. The knob turned under my hand and the door opened.

  He rose of his easy chair, hurrying to meet me in the hall. “Beason? What the hell do you think you’re—“

  I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the wall. A framed picture of the Drake family fell, the glass shattering.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.” I wasn’t yelling, my voice a tense whisper. I noticed the signs and I didn’t care. “Right here. Right now.”

  He struggled, fighting to break my grip. Fifteen years ago, he might have given me a run for my money. Not today. “Beason, let me go,” he ordered in his most authoritative judge’s voice. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You were fucking her. My wife.”

  He wilted, might have even slinked to the floor if I had hadn’t had him in a vice grip. “Oh Lord.”

  I pulled Drake back and slammed him into the wall again. “He can’t help you now. How could you do that to me?”

  Tears spilled from his eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”

  I slammed him into the wall once more. I was getting the hang of it. I enjoyed it. “Tell me what it was like.”

  “I was in love with her.”

  Another slam.

  “I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

  “What? You were walking along one day and tripped and your dick fell into my wife?”

  Luther Drake cried without shame. “I—there was something about her. She was special.”

  “Tell me about it. She was my wife.”

  “I’m sorry, Beason. I couldn’t help myself. She was like a drug. Once she got in my system, I couldn’t get rid of her.”

  “And when she rejected you, you killed her.”

  “What?” He blinked, as if he was seeing me for the first time. “No. Never.”

  “Once it had run its course, she tossed you aside. You couldn’t let that happen, could you? Not the Honorable Judge Luther Drake. You couldn’t take that.”

  “No—I—it—“

  Another slam. “You couldn’t let her go and you killed her.”

  “It’s true. I couldn’t let her go. But I would never hurt her. Never.”

  The tears ran down his face.

  “I was in-love with her.”

  Suddenly, my anger was spent. Luther Drake was just another man Stella had ruined. Beating him to death would not solve anything, prove anything. An old man.

  Just to be sure, I hit him one time, a powerful right hook to the ribs. He groaned and I let him slide to the floor. Without another word, I turned and left.

  I had been mistaken. It did feel good.

  Chapter Fifty

  The flashpoint subsided. The burning embers remained. The coals of rage that could fuel me, carry me far beyond where I believed I could go. They had done it before, they would do it again. Now.

  I parked in the garage, entering the house through the kitchen. The sound of the television came from the den. Sarah was laying on the couch watching cartoons, Erin in the easy chair, her textbooks and notebooks balanced precariously.

  “Hey, Uncle Bees.”

  “Hey.”

  “You want your chair?
”

  “No.” I turned to my daughter. “Sarah.”

  She ignored me.

  “Honey, I’m talking to you.”

  She blinked. “Huh?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Sir?”

  I nudged a Barbie doll with my foot. A modern marketing marvel. Take the same toy, change the clothes, and sell the same toy to the same people. “This place is a mess. You need to clean it up.”

  “Okay.”

  I waited. When nothing happened, I took the remote and the screen went dark. “Now.”

  Sarah sighed. Heavily. Finally, she pulled herself from the couch.

  I went into the kitchen, put a pot of water on the stove and took a box of macaroni from the pantry. Another healthy meal. I dug in the refrigerator and came out with a cucumber.

  The front door opened, no knock, and I heard my daughter squeal, the dog bark. My father was here. I stood over the trash can and peeled the cucumber. My daughter wouldn’t eat the peel. I had to focus so I wouldn’t lose a finger. It wasn’t easy.

  Dad joined me in the kitchen. Fresh from work in dirty blue jeans and green t that read Ray’s Plumbing with a picture of a stick figure holding a giant wrench. He hadn’t changed the design since I was in high school. He watched me work.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  “Hey.”

  “Luther called me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s got a couple of cracked ribs.”

  “He’s lucky.”

  “I expect he is.” He took his hat off, ran his hand through his blond/white hair. “You want to talk about it.”

  “No.” I reached into the cabinet for a cutting board and began chopping the cucumber with probably a little too much vigor. “We’re done. Luther and me.”

  “Don’t blame you.”

  I looked up suddenly at my father. “You knew? Didn’t you? That’s why the two of you are on the outs.”

  Dad sagged. “I suspected.”

  “How could you not tell me?” I had to fight to keep from screaming, to keep my daughter from hearing. “My wife having an affair with your oldest friend and you don’t say anything?”

  “What was I supposed to say? Your wife seemed too friendly with your mentor? That she laughed too hard at his jokes? She put her hand on his arm when she spoke to him?”

  “It was enough for you to cut bait.”

  Dad shook his head. “That man cheated on both of his wives—for years. You want to know why I cut him off? Because I could even suspect him of doing that to you. I decided I didn’t need somebody like that in my life any more.”

  “At least you could have told me.”

  “What good would it have done? You would blown up, Stella would have denied it. The two of you were already having problems. If I’d had any proof, believe me, son, I would have said something.”

  The television came back on. The water had begun to boil. I opened the box and dumped the noodles in the pot.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Luther may have killed her.”

  Dad’s head rocked back. “You really think that?”

  I nodded.

  Dad said something under his breath. I wasn’t certain, but it sounded a lot like a swear word. If so, that would have been the third I’d ever heard him utter. The first had been when he banged his thumb with a hammer. The second when Gus and I came home stumbling drunk at four o’clock in the morning. It was not something my father did lightly.

  I turned my back on him and walked into the dining room/playroom. Dolls and doll clothes and crayons and coloring books still littered the floor.

  “Baby!”

  Sarah thumped off the couch and sheepishly approached, eyes wide. “Sir?”

  I began counting backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. I scooped her up and hugged her tight. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, daddy.”

  A whole different kind of fuel.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  I was in the office early, after another night of not drinking myself into a stupor. Mentally drained, I just hadn’t had the energy for it. If I wasn’t careful, it might soon become a habit.

  I had decided to go through the journal at work, hoping it would keep me from the sauce and allow me to think clearly. Plus, it wasn’t as if I had anything else to do.

  The journal sat unopened on the desk.

  The metal stairs did much more than creak. They groaned. It felt like the entire sock factory tilted, that it was in danger of flipping over on its side. The door opened to reveal a man of biblical proportions.

  Six foot six, at least three hundred and fifty pounds, dressed in camouflage fatigues and a dirty black tee. He had dark, stringy hair and a full unkempt beard. He looked behind him. “This the guy?”

  Fletcher, who looked like an insect next to him, said, “Yes.”

  He shook his massive head. “This twerp put my brother in the hospital?”

  I stood, the drawer open. “You must be Little Bird.”

  Little Bird ignored me. “He hit him with a pipe or something?”

  “No,” Fletcher said. “It was a fair fight.”

  “Let’s get to it then.” He stepped forward, cracking his knuckles.

  “I should have known you’d be scared of me.”

  That stopped him. “What? I’m scared of you?”

  “Obviously.”

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s why you came at me in here. If you weren’t terrified of me, we’d take it outside. You know I’m faster than you. This is the only chance you have, close quarters.”

  Starling tilted his head back and laughed. “You won’t try to run? Because if you do, I’ll hunt you down and it’ll be even worse.”

  “I won’t run.”

  “Come on. I’ve got breakfast waiting on me.” He slapped Fletcher on the back, knocking him two steps. Fletcher gave me a quizzical look.

  I slipped into my leather jacket. It was cold outside.

  They were waiting for me, Starling rotating his nub of a neck, Fletcher standing back, hands open to let me know he was out of it. There was a full sized conversion van in the lot next to the Jeep that might once have been brown, but had faded to a murky, indistinct color.

  “Last chance.”

  “For what?”

  “For you to stay out of the hospital.”

  He flashed me a smile of small, stained teeth. “You brave, boy. I’ll give you that.”

  “Have it your way.”

  ***

  “You shot him?”

  “I had to. Did you see the size of that guy?”

  “No, but I heard.”

  “I didn’t have any choice.”

  Randall Rogers sipped his coffee, disbelief spreading across his best cop face. “You shot him.”

  “In the leg.”

  “The femoral artery is in the leg. He could’ve bled to death.”

  “I know how to shoot a man in the leg without killing him.”

  Randall shook his head. We were sitting in a corner booth of an otherwise empty diner. “Why are you telling me?”

  I shrugged. “I thought you should know. I didn’t want you out beating the bushes for a shooter.”

  “It’s not my case.”

  “What’s Starling saying?”

  “Nothing. Whenever the detectives walk in, he goes to sleep. Somebody dropped him at the emergence room without going inside.”

  “Fletcher.”

  “The boys have been looking around to see if he was shot during an attempted robbery. I guess I can tell them to call that off.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I should bust your ass right now. You just confessed to assault with a deadly weapon.”

  I shook my head. “It wouldn’t stick.”

  “Why not? You gonna lie about it?”

  “No. You haven’t read me my rights, I’ll take the fifth.”
>
  “I could still get the admission in.”

  “Maybe. But you’ve got an uncooperative victim. You think he’ll stick around for the trial?”

  “I think he’ll kill you long before we get that far.”

  “There you go.”

  “You’re unbelievable, you know that? You sit here and admit to shooting a man in broad daylight and won’t say a damn thing about taking out Trey’s crew.”

  I leaned forward, speaking in a whisper. “You come after me and my daughter, don’t expect to walk away. That’s all I can help you with on that situation.”

  The muscles of his jaw bunched. “Jeremiah is back on the street.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Is it?”

  “Beats me.”

  “You remember when Jeremiah made his play?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That tension. That electricity, that…feeling it could explode any minute? That’s what it feels like in the Bottoms. You going after Jeremiah?”

  “No.”

  “How about Nero?”

  “Have to ask Nero.”

  “Can’t find him. I’m asking you.”

  “Nero is his own man,” I said, “but as far as I know, he doesn’t have any reason to go after Jeremiah. For now.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Look, I gave you my theory of Steven being connected to Starling. Had any luck running that down?”

  “Actually, I have.” He set the cup down, smiling. Evidently, it was my day for ugly smiles.

  “Well?”

  “Amber disappeared on Sunday night, right?”

  “That’s the assumption.”

  “Starling got picked up on a DUI in Meridian, spent the night in the can.”

  “Fletcher could have made it.”

  Randall shook his head. “They impounded the truck, Fletcher stayed in a motel, bailed him out in the morning.”

  “Meridian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So on Sunday evening, they were already heading to Chickasaw Falls.”

  “One way to look at it.”