The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3)

by Smith, Anthony Neil

  He goes down on one knee. Coughs. The current must have hurt him worse than she thought. He says, "Get…um…get the heat going for them. Please."

  "You stay back, though."

  "Shit, Colleen, I'm not coming with you. I'm going back inside. Come on."

  No rifle. No Tazer. Nothing. There's the .380 in the glove box, though. She opens the car door and kneels on the seat, reaches over and inserts the key, cranks it and rolls the heat up. Over her shoulder, in her periphery vision, she sees Lafitte make it up onto both feet again, and she panics. Fuck. What, after all this. After all this…

  She opens the box and grabs the gun. Racks the slide.

  He knows. Of course he does.

  She pushes back from the car and he's right there, ready to swat the pistol away but she gets a shot off first. Then another. Lost in the wind almost immediately. One blooms across his chest. She gets out of his way as he falls into the snow. She covers him. The other guard is coming now, Tazer out for her, shouting, but she can't make it out. Not a word. All the cons looking, too.

  Lafitte rolls over, sits ups. He turns his face to her. "Colleen…"

  Another shot. She doesn't know where it hits, but it does, and he goes down again.

  Then a bolt of goddamn lightning hits her in the thigh and seizes her all over. Her hand goes tight on the gun and pops off a couple of random shots into the air because she can't help it and it hurts, oh god, it hurts, and she wants to cry but doesn't want to let the bastards see. She's down in the snow. Can't remember any of it. Throbbing. The guard rolls her onto her stomach, kneels on the small of her back. He takes the little pistol from her hand.

  "Did you shoot Billy Lafitte? Jesus, woman!"

  She can barely talk, but when she does, she says, "Make sure he's dead! Please. Forget me, make sure he's dead!"

  The pressure lifts and the guard steps over her to where Lafitte should have fallen. She hears the guy shout, "But he was just here. How did he..."

  Colleen turns her head. Lafitte is gone. The guard is looking around, straight-arming Colleen's gun.

  "He can't, like…disappear. There's blood, and, then, then where does he go? Where the fuck…where the fuck?"

  Colleen glances at Mrs. Hoeck in the backseat. The old woman is looking right at her, back to her stern Bible-banger face. She lifts a finger to her lips. That is all.

  Colleen squeezes her eyes shut. The throbbing radiates through her numb limbs, and there's a hole that opens inside her mental gut that she had stitched back together slowly these three years since Nate had died. Now, here it is again, just as the plows rush past and the screaming, blinking, strobing cavalry swings into the parking lot, all the brakes screeching at once and all the cars and trucks and vans sliding sideways.

  What she feels is wide open and aching. This is it, she knows. This is what it feels like to lose for good.

  Epilogue

  He's in and out of consciousness for fuck knows how long. Can't tell the doctors and nurses apart. Can't feel his body. He can't tell when he's dreaming and when he's awake. All he knows is that it's warm here. He's been cold for far too long, but he's warm now. The prison, when he's there, feels like a dream. It must be. None of it makes sense. He's not afraid of anyone there, not Ri'Chess or Jean Robert or Garner. Not the others cutting eyes at him, talking real low. And sometimes his family and friends are there, as if it's not weird for Mom to be in his cell. And sometimes, he's in one of his favorite video games—Call of Duty or Gears of War or something. And sometimes, he and Danny DeVito hang out with the gang in sunny Philadelphia.

  But the one guy who never shows up is Billy Lafitte.

  Can't bring himself to think about that guy. Not yet.

  At some point he becomes aware of morning and night again. He can differentiate people, remember them from visit to visit. It actually is Mom, and Uncle Burt, and his brother Keiran. It's a hospital. An honest to fuck hospital. He still feels weird, disconnected, and sometimes when a doctor or nurse comes in, he gets a peek outside the door at a gun in some sort of uniform, pistol on his hip. He never gets enough of a glimpse to notice if it's the same guy each time, but there is always a man in a uniform with a gun. For once it makes him feel better, not worse.

  One doctor keeps coming back. He's thin, fifty-something, looks like Dad a little. Once or twice in scrubs, but often in a white coat and a bright polo shirt under it. No ties for this doc. Never says hello. He always comes in and starts with, "You've seen the new girl on the floor, right? With the nerd glasses? That's pretty hot." Or "Goddamned Vikings. All they had to do was win two games…" So I'm in Minnesota? Or I guess they root for the Vikings in ND, too. Or the doc says "Feel this?" and pretends to stab him with the hunting knife he's wearing in a sheath on the belt of his dress slacks. What the hell?

  The rest of the time, he spins it around in his head. Fascinated by how normal everyone is. Is he strapped down? Can't tell. Why can't he move, though? Is it the drug in the IV? He moves his head. Just clear liquid. But all IVs are clear liquid. Like he can tell what any of it really is. It feels weird to move his head. Has he moved his head at all while in the hospital? He can't remember. But he's starting to think not. Doesn't feel like it usually does—takes effort, like the part of his brain that does it is yelling at his muscles, but they've all gone to sleep. Except this time it's working. He shouts. His voice is strained. He barely has the air to make a sound. Another head turn, farther this time, to the bedside. A machine doing his breathing for him? The fuck?

  Where's the nurse's call button? Come on. Should be on one of the bedside panels. There, I see it, there by the channel changer buttons, but there's no TV in here. They should let him have a TV. Fuck that. The nurse button. Go on and press it.

  He can even crane his neck down far enough to see the tips of his fingers over the thick foam ring they've wrapped around his neck, which feels cold at the back. The first cold he's felt since waking up.

  It isn't until the nerdy girl nurse in her Hello, Kitty scrubs and angel wing glasses that he's able to tell her and show her, and she calls the doctor and there are a whole bunch of smiles to go round.

  Bryce West is going to be all right.

  *

  Doc Cormen fills him in: West was airlifted from the prison to the hospital in Fargo. Yes, his neck had been broken, but he was lucky. It was a clean break, and he will probably regain most of his motor skills above the waist in the coming months, but they're not sure if he'll be able to walk. A good chance, but only time will tell. As soon as he's stable enough, he will be taken to a minimum security prison with a very sophisticated medical ward where he can recover in protective custody. Physical therapy everyday. It is most likely this new prison will be his home for the remainder of his sentence.

  Wow. Just…wow. He doesn't know what to say. He's going to be okay. He would be living with men who have good reasons to leave him alone. Peaceful sleep. A hospital ward, even! He thanks the same Lord his mom prayed to for all those years. Finally, the Big Daddy is rewarding him. It's exactly the thing he needs. Yes, Bryce West can go legit. He can use the skills he'd learned at his computer job. He could learn even more about that sort of job, too, actually having something to look forward to each day. He could take classes, including the creative writing class that he'd always been too shy to sign up for because if the guys in Gen Pop knew he was writing poems, well…

  His broken neck. A blessing in motherfucking disguise, bitches.

  They finally move him to a room with a TV. They turn up the volume on the bedside speakers and ask if there's any station he would prefer. West says no, no, just something local. He wants to watch local weather and sitcom reruns and reality shows pumped full of sexy women.

  From then on, it's a beautiful ride. Physical therapy, drugs for the pain, pretty nurses, the weird Doctor Cormen who talks about hunting and fucking and hockey more than he does about medicine. He even figures out a way to make one finger change the channel. But it only works sometimes and he
really has to think about it.

  Like, say, now, when he is trying to find MTV but only moves five channels before the finger gives out and he's stuck on the news. Some goofy kid with acne, bundled up for the weather, standing in front of what looks like…shit, no, wait. That's it. That's the prison. That's the one. Smoke puking out the top.

  He wants to turn up the volume but can't. It's hardly a whisper. He inches his ear closer and strains to listen. Something about a riot. Footage of all sorts of cops and cars. Blurred-out con faces, lined up against a wall. Quick footage of the inside. There's blood. Destruction. The reporter says, "—reportedly planned between two prisoners over a long period of time…"

  They flash a photo of Ri'Chess. They flash his real name under the pic, but it's him. Ricardo. Ri'Chess. West thinks he hears, "Found in the ashes" but can't be sure. Then a photo of Jean Robert. Seeing him like that on the screen, apparently dead, it makes West feel like a kid again, like he can hold his mother's hand and not be afraid of the monsters under his bed any more.

  Next, a big photo of Billy Lafitte, pre-jail days, smiling like a motherfucker. Beside that, his booking photo. They didn't adjust the height of the camera, so his chin was cut off. West strains even more, gets his ear flush against the speaker and closes his eyes.

  "—any information regarding the location of Lafitte, call—"

  Wait, someone's fucking with him.

  "—extremely dangerous, so call immediately. Do not try to engage him. He has been injured, so—"

  They flash Lafitte's stats on the screen with a 1-800 number at the bottom. Red and angry.

  "—the architect of the riot, just a smokescreen for his escape—"

  Then West's finger spasms and he goes past three channels. Lands on some British guy fishing in the jungle.

  Lafitte is alive and out of jail.

  West begins laughing. He can even feel something stirring in his chest, maybe even lower. A nurse rushes in and asks what's wrong, but all he can do is shake his head and laugh, tears leaking all over his pillow.

  It's some sort of motivation, this is. Knowing Lafitte is on the run like that, and maybe one day he might even look up ol' West once he can walk again and has gotten parole and is on the straight and narrow, yes, that's a motivator like no other.

  West is going to work even harder to get his full range of movement back. He's going to hold things again. He's going to change all of the channels at will. He's going to feed himself. And then he's going to force his brain to talk to his legs and get them moving. Yes, he's going to walk and run and dance and groove. He's going to sit on the toilet. He's going to climb stairs.

  Yes, that's it. He's going to do it. And when he's got all of that back, he's going to walk into his new cell, use his hands to rip his sheets and make a noose, then jump off his bunk and hang himself before Lafitte has a chance to finish the job.

  That'll show him.

  ###

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks to...

  Allan Guthrie and Kyle MacRae for doing what they do.

  Ray Banks for telling me what I needed to hear.

  Les Edgerton for telling me the truth.

  And all the Lafitte for Lifers who have waited so long, never wavering.

  A shout-out to Jim Reese and the Creative Writing Class at Yankton Federal Prison Camp.

  All The Young Warriors

  Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

  If you enjoyed The Baddest Ass, you may also enjoy Anthony Neil Smith's Spinetingler Magazine Best Novel winner, All The Young Warriors, an epic thriller spanning continents and cultures, from a double cop-killing on the frozen streets of Minnesota to the burning sands of Somalia. Murder, warfare, piracy, betrayal and revenge – this is a white-knuckle ride for fans of James Lee Burke, Richard Price and Michael Connelly.

  Also by Anthony Neil Smith

  Novels

  Yellow Medicine

  Hogdoggin'

  The Drummer

  Psychosomatic

  Choke On Your Lies

  Colder Than Hell (Dead Man #16)

  Novella

  To The Devil, My Regards (with Victor Gischler)

  Short stories

  The Early Crap: Selected Short Stories (1997-2005)