The Big Finish

by James W. Hall

  Something new was happening to his vision. Now his hangover was glazing everything in the room with a slippery radiance, as if the walls and floor had been sprayed with heavy layers of lubricant. Though his mind felt calm enough, his limbs were still untrustworthy, as though the drug had frayed the link between brain and body. His stomach squirmed uneasily, and the more he focused on his work, the more it writhed.

  The queasiness, the aches, and fumbling fingers, those he could cope with. It was the hollow itch in his chest that concerned him. That small hit of dope had given him a taste, a low-grade tickle of desire to regain his X-ray vision, abandon his free will and surrender himself to the sway of any suggestion, the vagaries of a casual bump or nudge.

  Under its power a stray breeze might guide him left, a random shadow might steer him right. For those hours in its thrall, the drug had allowed Thorn to escape. Liberated him from his resolve and pragmatism and his almighty sense of duty and permitted the whims of others to guide him. It had been a strange and blissful pleasure to indulge in such bovine stupidity.

  He blinked his eyes several times, rubbed away the blur, and forced himself back to work. He popped off the rose, a circular plate made from the same polished aluminum as the knob. Beneath it was the mounting plate, the last layer before he broke into the heart of the mechanism. The mounting plate was held in place by two screws. Tiny screws, only a few turns would release them. If he had a damn screwdriver, if he had anything with a narrow edge, a dime, a credit card, anything, it would be five seconds’ work.

  He tried his fingernail. Twisted the top screw. Broke the nail. He tried using the nail on his middle finger. Screw you, screw. Twisting carefully and breaking that nail.

  So much for the top one. He tried the bottom. And found this screw wasn’t as snug as the others. It budged a fraction before he broke another nail. Then tried his left thumbnail, thicker, harder, and yes, he got the little bastard moving, a quarter turn, a half turn, then finished it with a pinch and a twist. He swiveled the mounting plate aside and looked into the interior of the mechanism. Standard piece of hardware.

  Using his little finger, he probed the mechanism, going deep into its gut, then twisting clockwise. The metal pins bit into his flesh. He’d done this before. He couldn’t remember when. Locked inside a room somewhere, successfully breaking free. Brain still not operating at full speed, memory moth-eaten and sluggish.

  He felt the latch assembly respond and rotated his finger ever so slightly in the painful slot, turning the cylinder, the tumblers reacting to his flesh. The latch drew back, then in the next instant he lost the combination of pins and was back at zero.

  He’d gotten lucky, solving it so quick, but he’d lost it just as quickly. It might take hours to find that correct angle and pressure again. He didn’t know if he had hours. Maybe only minutes.

  He looked back at the Mexican man, who was looking at him dubiously, not impressed with Thorn’s skills. And it was true. He hadn’t been thinking clearly. He’d been going at this the hard way.

  His eyes moved to the cot. On the underside of the heavy cotton sling was a card with printed instructions about the care and operation of the cot. He went over and fingered the card, testing its strength. It was a thin plastic sheet, the size of a business envelope. On it was printed the step-by-step process a total idiot might require to unfold and refold the cot. The card was stitched into the cot’s back side.

  He worked a finger under an edge and ripped one end loose, then tore the card free. Flimsy, but it might do.

  In case someone chose this awkward moment to check on him, Thorn reassembled the doorknob. When he had it all snapped and screwed back in place, he got to work with the instruction card. He slid it into the door edge above the knob, working it down, forcing the plastic against the spring-loaded pressure of the latch.

  As he’d thought, the card was too flimsy for the job. It bent and scrunched up at the contact point. He drew it out, studied it for a moment, then folded it in half. He planted the folded edge against the wall and pressed down hard on the crease to flatten it.

  Reinserting the bent card into the door edge, he jimmied it downward, wiggling it gently, increasing the pressure little by little until he felt the latch give, then ease free of its slot. He kept the card in place as he edged the door open a notch and put his eye to the crack.

  Pigs everywhere, bumping one another, squeezing their heads through narrow grates to reach the food trough, some munching at the bars of their pens. All of them young. Piglets jostling, rooting their snouts under the bellies of their pen-mates, biting at tails, playing or struggling for dominance, a sea of white flesh, pinkish ears and snouts, their rubbery, bristly hides gleaming in the sunlight that filtered through window slats high on the corrugated metal walls.

  He drew the door open wider, stepped one foot forward, ready to make his move, when he saw them marching down the central walkway through the middle of the sea of pigs, a group of people headed his way.

  Cruz, X-88, and Pixie. Followed by a large man and a lithe woman, both with reddish hair. It was the woman without a heart, Laurie, and the man who’d cold-cocked him out on the streets of Pine Haven. Webb Dobbins.

  Cruz had changed clothes. Her new outfit was from the suitcase Thorn had searched, a dark long-sleeved T-shirt, gray slacks. They’d found Eddie’s Taurus.

  As the group passed by the pens, the pigs bleated and surged against the bars as if trying for a better view of passing royalty.

  Thorn shut the door, slipped the plastic card in the back pocket of his jeans, and hustled back to the cot. He flipped it on its feet. There was no time to repair the hinge on the middle set of legs. If he lay on the cot, it would surely collapse.

  Clearly there was no way he could take them on, ambush them, overpower so many. If he stayed on his feet, they’d know he’d sobered up and needed another dose of whatever they’d hammered him with. His irrational chemistry hungered for another hit, but his good sense told him otherwise.

  “Están viniendo,” Thorn said to the Mexican.

  Thorn sank to his knees and sprawled facedown on the cold concrete floor and stretched out his arms like a shipwreck survivor clawing his way onto shore. He thought of Flynn Moss, his son, the gifted actor, and tried to summon, through some cosmic sorcery, a pinch of his son’s theatrical magic.

  TWENTY-ONE

  MAYBE WHEN THEY ROLLED HIM over and yanked him to his feet, Thorn could try a goofy falsetto, speak in a helium-laced screechy voice and convince them he was still loopy. Flip through his scrapbook of drunken clownishness and retrieve some gems. But for that to work he needed to believe it. Play it with bravura. That’s what he’d seen Flynn do on the set of his TV show, and by god, his audience of grips and best boys and assorted Hollywood cynics were mesmerized.

  But he didn’t get a chance to test his acting skills, for no one came to his door. He lay still and listened for human voices or any indication of their passing. A minute went by, another. He heard a door shutting nearby and moments later raised voices filtered through the adjoining wall.

  Because now they were occupied, quarreling about something, but it was clear Thorn wasn’t going to be left alone much longer. The inquisition would be starting soon, probably another round of meds to loosen his tongue.

  He got to his feet, went back to the door, used the plastic card to open the latch. He drew the door open. The pigs had quieted down, preoccupied with their food, with acquainting themselves with their new surroundings, or napping after their long journey. A single worker was shoveling grain from a wheelbarrow at the far end of the barn. He had his back to Thorn.

  “You coming?” Thorn said to the Mexican. “Vienes?”

  The Mexican shook his head. Not going to risk it.

  “Bueno suerte,” the Mexican said.

  Thorn shut the door behind him and stepped out onto what appeared to be an elevated walkway, something like an observation platform. Ahead of him were two more doors. The middle one was sta
nding slightly ajar. He could hear their voices, the argument continuing. Nearby on the floor of the barn several pigs noticed his presence and bleated quietly as if pleading for his help.

  Ahead of him, beyond the two remaining doors, was a short stairway leading down to a corridor, possibly a back exit.

  By god it better be. Trying to make a run for it out the main walkway where he’d seen Cruz and the others enter was out of the question. There was a set of glass double doors at that end of the barn, and beyond was a grassy plaza where he could see workers passing by. No way he could risk being exposed for fifty yards. He headed for the door to the redhead’s cell.

  When he was halfway down the ramp, coming to the final doorway, a voice spoke out behind him, deep, and belligerent. Thorn swung around in time to see the middle door come open, and Webb stepped out onto the platform. He was barking at someone inside the room, saying he didn’t like this one bit. Not one fucking bit. He wasn’t playing her game.

  Thorn whipped open the door beside him and ducked into a darkened room and shut the door and it locked behind him. He felt around for the light switch and flipped it on.

  In the center of the room Cassandra was lashed to a metal chair, mouth sealed with duct tape.

  He’d never learned her last name. It was a year since he’d last seen her, on the night Flynn Moss drove away with his new comrades, the ecowarriors. She was one of their leaders. He remembered her wild red hair, her broad shoulders, her patrician manner. But in the interval since that night she’d been badly scuffed. Her hair hacked short, bruises on her face, a lump the size of a small radish disfiguring her right cheek. Her dark eyes were older, harder, but they still crackled with voltage.

  In their last brief contact, Cassandra pledged to Thorn that she’d look after Flynn, protect him, that he shouldn’t worry about the kid’s safety, then she’d escorted his son to a van and they drove away together.

  He tore off the duct tape and began to work on the knots.

  In a harsh whisper she said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m getting us out of this place.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Your face? They did that?”

  “Fucking goons, Dobbins and Burkhart. I’ve got some kind of resistance to their truth serum. So they tried cruder methods. Burkhart, he’s a sweetheart. I think I hurt his feelings. Tried every trick he knew, poor guy. Didn’t get shit out of me.”

  When she was loose, Thorn helped her stand. She wobbled as she rubbed at her wrists and looked over into the far corner of the room where clumps of curly red hair were piled.

  “They’re next door,” Thorn said. “Five of them.”

  “It’s some kind of conference room,” she said. “Donuts and coffee. Their hangout. Who is it, the five?”

  “Dobbins, his sister, Laurie, and three more that brought me here.”

  “Who’re they?”

  Thorn gave her a quick run-through of X-88, Pixie, and Cruz.

  “That’s what she’s calling herself now?” she said.

  “You know her?”

  “I’d recognize that voice anywhere.”

  Thorn waved a loose hand as if to clear the air.

  “And Flynn? Is he alive?”

  She shrugged and made a noncommittal groan.

  “All I’m sure of, I didn’t see him go down with the others. But Dobbins thinks he’s alive, that’s what counts.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “There’s a chance he is. He headed for the river, maybe he swam.”

  “Hogs? This is all about goddamn hogs?”

  “Hell no. We stumbled on something else.”

  “What?”

  “A building full of dope, not weed, some kind of trumpet flower. Potent shit, I hear.”

  “Yeah,” Thorn said. “I heard the same.”

  “We got it all on video.”

  “What video?”

  “A little spy camera video,” Cassandra said. “Their drug operation, pill-making assembly line. We had one copy, it was on a laptop Dobbins got hold of when they raided our camp, so they’ve seen it, know it would destroy them. They think Flynn escaped with a copy.”

  “Did he?”

  She was slinging her arms now like a swimmer on the blocks.

  “There’s no copy,” she said. “But I convinced them there was.”

  “You did what? Why?”

  “To fucking stay alive. I’m their bargaining chip. Me for the video, if they can get word to Flynn, they’ll offer him the swap. I convinced them it would work. Buying time, that’s all, because they’re never going to let me go. But now you’re here, the game’s changed. That’s what they’re arguing about in there, Cruz wants to execute me right now, Dobbins wants to wait and see how you perform. If you draw Flynn out of hiding. Either way I’m done.”

  She looked at the wall where the voices were heating up again.

  “If Flynn’s alive, why hasn’t he called in the cops?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Tell me.”

  “He wouldn’t get the cops involved because of me. If they stormed this place, took down Dobbins, I’d be riding in the same paddy wagon. Next day Dobbins is out on bail. No one ever hears from me again. That’s what Flynn’s got to be thinking. He’s protecting me. If he’s alive.”

  Thorn walked to the door.

  “Did you kill Cruz’s daughter? Push her off a roof?”

  “She fed you that story?”

  “Did you?”

  “Hell no. Carmen, her daughter, I knew her in vet school, took her on a couple of incursions. She was a rah-rah go-getter. Too much so. She went overboard, people started worrying. She wanted to set everything on fire, hurt people. She was nuts, like her little sister, only more so. Finally we had to kick her out, and of course, she goes squealing to her mother. Two of my friends got ten-year sentences because we hurt the bitch’s feelings.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “Nobody killed her. She got so dark and miserable when we rejected her, she took a flying leap. Her old lady can’t accept it, so she puts it on me. Mother’s just as batshit as the two daughters.”

  Thorn absorbed that for a five count and said, “Okay, can you run, the shape you’re in?”

  “I can outrun your ass.”

  Thorn pulled the plastic card from his back pocket.

  “Follow me.”

  “You even know where you are? The layout of this place?”

  “We’re about to find out.”

  Once he had the door unlocked, he put his eye to the crack. Down the platform toward the short stairway where he thought the back exit might be, a man stood smoking, looking out at the big floor of noisy pigs. A guy with a silver flat-top who despite his age looked very much in shape.

  Thorn motioned Cassandra over and she looked out.

  “Burkhart,” she whispered.

  “Then we use the center aisle.”

  “It won’t work. Too visible.”

  “Trust me,” Thorn said. “You go first.”

  “That asshole, Burkhart, he groped me three times a day. Stood there smirking with his fingers inside me, working me over.”

  Thorn lay a hand on her shoulder, felt her tense at his touch.

  “When we get out of here, we find Flynn, then deal with Burkhart. Deal with all of them. Now stay in front of me. Don’t look back, don’t stop, move as fast as you can.”

  “Usually I give orders, I don’t take them.”

  “Once won’t kill you. Now go.”

  Thorn opened the door wide and Cassandra didn’t hesitate. At a lope, she headed down the central stairs toward the floor of the barn.

  Thorn held back, staying inside the room, door ajar. Burkhart spotted her and yelled for her to stop. A few seconds later he came sprinting down the platform and Thorn caught him midstride, kicked his legs from under him.

  Burkhart pitched headlong, banged his fa
ce against the pebbled steel. Thorn slipped out the door, measured the distance, took a skip step, and drove his shoe into Burkhart’s temple. The man groaned and rolled onto his back and Thorn was about to deliver a second kick, one for Cassandra’s sake, when the door to the center room opened.

  Not waiting to see who it was, he swung down the stairway, using the handrails as parallel bars, slinging himself over the six steps and hitting the concrete floor in stride.

  At the first pen, he halted, searched for a latch, hearing the footsteps behind him rattling the metal stairway. He found the clasp, threw open the gate, stepped in the pen, and herded the excited pigs onto the main floor.

  He skipped the next two pens to build up a lead, then flipped the latch on the next pen, waved his arms and clapped and sent another fifty pigs scrambling out to block the passageway. Two more pens, a hundred more pigs, then he was out the double doors and into the chilly sunlight, Cassandra about fifty yards ahead, running with a long graceful gait across a green field toward what appeared to be the main entrance road. Her stride as light-footed and smooth as a veteran marathoner, eating up the distance with an effortless glide.

  Problem was, she should’ve headed for cover, the nearby woods, some outbuildings, anywhere to hide, but she was too far ahead and running too fast for Thorn to call to her. So he followed her track, sprinting to catch up.

  Maybe she knew something Thorn didn’t, the shortest route to safety, maybe she’d made a careful appraisal of the farm’s layout when she’d been transported there. Thorn’s memory of his arrival had been washed clean by the drug, so as he ran, he gave her the benefit of the doubt, hoping she had a good reason to be leading them in that direction.

  He was gaining on her, nearly close enough to get her attention, when a gleaming black four-wheeler roared past him. Burkhart driving. Bouncing over the rutted gravel drive, gunning up behind Cassandra, then slowing to follow in her wake, staying just a couple of feet behind. He revved the engine as a taunt, to break her, make her surrender. But she didn’t. She kept running without a hitch in her rhythm, her arms pumping evenly, legs stretching out.