Outside the Law

by Phillip Thompson

  He closed his eyes and sat at his kitchen table. “Fuck,” he said.

  “Yeah, you right about that.”

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “I know you ain’t that dumb, but I’ll spell it out. You got money don’t belong to you. Me and my…associate want it back.”

  He stared up at the ceiling. His phone buzzed in his hand, and he saw he had another call coming in.

  Shit, first this guy and now Harper.

  He ignored the incoming call. “OK, I got your money,” he said. “But why should I just hand it over?”

  “’Cause you don’t and Hack—my associate—is going to fuck you up.”

  “The way he did those other two guys?”

  “Something like that.”

  He saw an opening. “Naw, man, y’all know I got the money, but you don’t know where it is. I’ll give it back, but I want something in return.

  A snort from the other end of the call. “Oh, you want to bargain now?”

  “That’s right. I’ll give you the money, and your associate lets me go anywhere I want to as long as it’s not in this state.”

  “And why should he agree to that?”

  “I just spent a few hours sitting in the sheriff’s jail, and he’s real interested in you and your associate. I’m sure he’d love to hear about this conversation.”

  “Hold on.”

  He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. He could hear voices in the background, probably discussing him. Or interesting ways to kill him.

  “OK, look,” the guy said when he came back on. “Here’s how it’s going to go. Hack says you bring the money tomorrow night. You tell us everything that sheriff has, give us the money, then get the hell out of the state. Just don’t show up Memphis.”

  He breathed a sigh. “OK, deal. Where?”

  “There’s an old bridge just off of Highway 45 south of here.”

  “Yeah, I know it. Right after the four-lane goes back to two, down toward Brooksville.”

  “Whatever. Eleven o’clock tomorrow night. Money in a gym bag. Come alone. Park on the south side of the bridge. We’ll come up from the north side and meet you halfway across.”

  “OK, I got it. What else?”

  “Nothing. Don’t fuck this up like you did the last time.”

  “Kiss my—” the connection broke.

  His hands were shaking as he looked at his phone. He punched up Harper’s number.

  “It’s Delmer,” he said when Harper answered. “It’s on.”

  “That was fast.”

  He told Harper about the voice mail and the conversation he had with Hack’s “associate.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know this guy,” Harper said.

  “I don’t. Other than I shot the guy I was talking to.”

  Harper scoffed. “Yeah, you really know how to make friends. So, details.”

  “No, not until I get some assurances.”

  “Assurances? Delmer, what assurances do you think you rate? You could be laying in the morgue with your eyes shot out right now.”

  “Yeah, and I may still be if this shit goes bad for me. I’ll give you what you need, but you gotta assure me you’ll leave me alone.”

  “And by leave you alone, you mean let you off for shooting those two dealers?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence on the other end. Finally, Harper said, “OK, Delmer, here’s my deal. Under one condition. This goes sideways—in any way at all—and I’ll run your ass right back to jail. You hear?”

  “Yeah, I hear.”

  “You help me get this guy, and I’ll talk to Gideon about a lesser charge, something that gets you down to county time and probation. Deal?”

  He still didn’t like the sound of it, but he had no choice, really. “OK,” he said. “Deal.”

  Ahite, so where’s this going down?”

  He passed the details to Harper, who said he’d call back when he was ready, then hung up.

  He sat in his kitchen, breathing a little easier. He felt good about the situation now. He had a deal in place that covered his ass no matter what happened.

  COLT

  He checked the map on his phone as he and John rolled down Highway 45, headed south toward the tiny town of Brooksville as the sun crept toward sunset. Long shadows fell across the roadway, breaking up the contours of the parched green hillocks that formed the east Mississippi prairie.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked as John stared out the window at the wide green fields that opened up after they’d left town.

  “That farming in this heat would suck.”

  He smiled. “No, I was talking about the plan.”

  John sighed. “Man, the plan is fine. It’s all the rest I’m not sure about. I mean, what the fuck are we doing here, Colt?”

  He shrugged. “Shit’s personal now.”

  “According to one scared dope-dealing drunk and one scared thief.”

  “Brinks said he wasn’t a dope dealer.”

  “Still.”

  “Still, I believed him,” he said as he spun the wheel through a right-hand turn off Highway 45 onto a dirt road. The car bounced toward a sluggish brown gash of water, where an ancient metal truss bridge stood like an exhausted sentinel.

  “Well, obviously,” John said. “So, what are you thinking?”

  He grinned and stopped the car on the north side of the muddy stream. “Let’s recon this place, like we talked about. See if we can find an edge.”

  They climbed out of the car and walked the baked clay path to the bridge. Weathered, bowed planks ran its length in two rows. The rusted metal trusses were a relic from the original highway built decades earlier. The railings sagged in places, and leaned out over the creek in others.

  “Motley Slough,” he said, pointing at the water. “I’d forgotten this bridge was still standing.”

  John put his hands on his hips. He looked like a drill instructor in the wrong uniform. “Yeah, well, there ain’t shit for cover or concealment out here,” he said, squinting up and down the creek’s path. He started down the crumbly dirt shoulder toward the thick foliage lining the water’s edge.

  “Watch out for snakes,” he called as he started across the span, the planks creaking under his boots.

  John swore and stepped back onto the road.

  “Looks like a turnout there on the right,” he said, pointing to the other side.

  “Yep, and another on the left, closer to the bridge,” John said.

  He stopped on the south side of the bridge. “Delmer’s going to be coming up this way. You’re right, there’s not much room to be stealthy. But,” he said, waving a hand over the south bank, “we’d be below the line of sight right here.”

  “Sure,” John said, “provided we get there without being seen. What about up there?” He pointed to a dirt track twenty yards ahead on the left, running from the dirt track into a stand of trees.

  “We could use the trees for cover,” he said, “but I’m not sure we could see anything or close the distance to the bridge in time.”

  John nodded again. “Good place for a handoff,” he said. “One way in, one way out.”

  He walked back to the middle of the span. Cicadas screamed in the distance, announcing the coming evening. Below him, the creek barely moved, its current creeping past hardly noticed.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “We get here around dusk—eight, nine o’clock, and park off in that low spot. We’ll be out of sight, but we’ll see Delmer go by. After Delmer parks, we’ll use his car for cover—and it’ll be dark as hell out here then—come up from behind.”

  They walked back to the car.

  “It’ll probably be two on two, from what Delmer said,” he said as he cranked the car and John turned the A/C up a notch.

  “And you trust what Delmer said?”

  “It’s all we got at the moment.”

  John sighed, then nodded. “You ever think the bad guys are doing the sa
me thing we are, and coming up with their own plan? What happens then?”

  He shrugged. “Well. Then we make it up as we go and hope the right people get shot.”

  He pulled back onto the highway, headed back toward town.

  “Boss, are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I don’t have much of a choice anymore, John.”

  “The hell you say. There’s all kinds of ways we can snag this guy.”

  He growled and shook his head. “The hell I don’t. I don’t know who this guy is or why he’s after me—other than I shot a little dirtbag I went to high school with who happened to work for some two-bit redneck mob in Tennessee.”

  John lowered his head, a sure sign his temper was rising. “Other than that, no—no reason at all for him to come after you. If that’s what he’s actually doing. I mean, he was face-to-face with you. If he was after you, he missed a perfect opportunity.”

  He looked at the man who had been his closest friend for more than twenty years. “You doubting me?”

  John looked out the window at the catfish farms flying past. “No, I’m not doubting you. Necessarily. I just think we—”

  “What?” he said. “Have you forgotten this guy was asking about Clifford -- and maybe Rhonda?”

  “That’s a cheap shot, Colt,” John said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat.

  He sighed. “Yeah, maybe it was. But it’s true.”

  “You’re supposed to be running for reelection. You can’t really be contemplating…whatever the hell it is you’re contemplating.”

  He looked John in the eyes. “Only thing I’m contemplating is stopping this guy.”

  John frowned. “Just stopping him? I know you. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “What part of stop do you not understand?”

  John drew a sharp breath and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t play that shit with me, Colt. We been through too much together for you pull that kind of crap on me.”

  He gripped the wheel with both hands. “John, this ain’t about reelection or any other shit. This is about—”

  “Justice?” John’s tone had softened, but not his expression.

  He stared at John. “No. This is personal. That’s it.”

  John’s eyes widened, and his face fell. “Dear God. Rhonda was right.”

  “What?”

  “She said you’re the kind who wants redemption but only understands violence.”

  He threw John a look. “The fuck are you talking about?”

  John’s eyes flashed angry. “Really? I think you want this guy to come after you. You might even need this guy to challenge you. That’s what I think.”

  He sighed. The man had taken a bullet in the ear for him. Had kept confidences and upheld the bond of loyalty. They had been side by side for as long as he could remember. “I’m going to nail this guy. You in or out?”

  “Just shut up and drive. Tomorrow night, it’s me and you. Like always.”

  DEE

  This is a real stupid idea, he thought. He sat behind the wheel of the car, which squatted on the side of a rutted dirt road, next to a darkened field of soybeans, between Highway 45 and the bridge.

  Hack leaned against the hood of the car, his shoes crunching the gravel every so often. He just leaned, peering into the blackness, wearing a gray suit that must have cost a thousand dollars.

  The whole drive out here, Hack had gone from silent to preaching some weird shit about being a beacon, drawing people to him so as to show them retribution and atonement for their sins. Or some shit like that. Then silent, then another fucking rampage about this asshole Delmer Blackburn, who was going to pay for his sins and crimes, and how he was going to do that.

  The plan was simple. Hack would meet Blackburn halfway, take the money, shoot Blackburn, and dump him over the side of the bridge into the river.

  But simple don’t mean smart.

  Doing this shit out in the open—even late at night on this country road—made him nervous. He liked the isolated spots better, like when ol’ Mr. Freeze shot that dude out in the woods.

  Hack made the calls, though. And he paid well. So he could talk all the crazy shit he wanted, and kill whoever he thought needed killing, sins or no sins. Long as he didn’t get shot again, he was good with it. And he damn sure wasn’t getting shot again. Not tonight.

  He peered through the windshield’s dirty film of dust and smashed bugs into the moonless night. A tree stood off in the soybean field, and one dead limb stretched out from the canopy of the healthy branches, a grotesque hand grasping at the black sky. He was a long way from Memphis.

  JOHN

  He drained the paper cup of bad coffee and set it on the floorboard of Colt’s truck. To his right, across the bridge and into the black night, he knew there was trouble to be found. If he was sitting on a stakeout with Colt and not talking, he knew trouble was coming.

  He looked across the seat at his boss. Colt, as usual, was cool, with his head back against the seat, eyes closed but still very alert. He’d never seen Colt not alert.

  Outside, the bridge loomed black against the faint blue moonlight like the skeleton of some prehistoric beast. He stared at the span as if it were an electric chair or a gas chamber. Somebody would likely die on that bridge tonight, he thought. That’s the only reason Colt was here. And, for that matter, himself. He and Colt had been in this spot before, and, on one occasion, he’d gotten half his ear shot off, a fact that remained something of a running joke between them.

  I’m not scared, he told himself. And he wasn’t lying. A little concerned about the unknowns, but not scared.

  “So, regret shooting Kenny Jenkins now?” he asked in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  Colt’s eyes opened, and he glared at him. “Hell no. Jenkins had it coming. ’Course I never counted on all this shit happening.”

  “Yeah, good thing you don’t like doing this kind of stuff.”

  Colt shot him a look. “Don’t start with me, Carver.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Delmer rattled on, didn’t he? Back there at that gas station?”

  “Yeah, I was a little worried he was too drunk and too scared to make it the rest of the way, or to even hear what I was telling him. But he seemed to pull it together when he finally grasped the idea that we’d be behind him when he got to the bridge here.”

  “You check him for a weapon?”

  “Of course I did. You think I want that idiot carrying a gun?”

  “Well, now, give him credit. He has killed two men.”

  Colt snorted. “Well, he ain’t killing anybody tonight.”

  “Nope,” he said, peering through the windshield. “He’s scared to death of this guy. To hear him talk, this Hack cat is a brutal son of a bitch. And he sounds like a ghost.”

  “Ghost, my ass,” Colt said. “Ghosts don’t show up on bridges in the middle of the night demanding money.” Colt sat up. “I don’t give a damn if he’s a ghost or a cheetah. Sumbitch wants to come after me, I’ll make it easy for him.

  DELMER

  He remembered reading in a military history book—one of hundreds he read as a kid to try to learn something about his dead father—that men in combat nearly always suffered from a debilitating, seemingly unquenchable thirst, brought on by a level of fear—terror, really—that was difficult to understand for most people.

  He was terrified now, and felt as if he would die from thirst. He’d stopped on the way out of town to get a liter of water at the Stop-N-Shop. The empty plastic bottle rattled on the floorboard on the passenger side. He hoped the water would also clear his head a little. He’d had too many shots of bourbon, so his head was a little fuzzy. He could hardly concentrate on what Harper was saying at the Stop-N-Shop, where they went over last-minute details.

  He wished Harper would have let him have a goddam piece, something to defend himself with should that black guy get an itchy trigger finger. But Harper was a dick, one of those take-charge
, my-way-or-the-highway assholes.

  He sighed. But at least Harper had a plan. He tried to focus on that and the road as he drove toward the rendezvous, rather than the sense that the rendezvous would culminate with a bullet in his head.

  Harper had laid it all out like it was some kind of military operation in a war movie. He and his deputy were already at the bridge, hidden off on the right side of the road in a spot Harper assured him wouldn’t been seen from the other side.

  His job was to follow Hack’s instructions to get to the bridge. After he parked his car—and slammed the door hard enough for Harper to hear—he was to take the gym bag with the money and meet Hack halfway across the bridge.

  While this was going on, Harper and Carver would walk up the shoulder of the highway until they got close to the bridge, then make their presence known.

  Harper was going to do all the talking—naturally—and had made it clear that he intended to kill this Hack guy.

  He heard a loud, rending noise in his car, then realized he was hearing his own sobbing. He clamped his mouth shut and gripped the steering wheel until his fingers went numb.

  The car hummed down the dark highway that glowed like a pale gray ribbon shining in the gloom before falling away into darkness. The far edge of his headlights found the turnoff to the southern approach to the bridge, and he wheeled onto the dirt road, kicking up dust and sending bugs flying in all directions. As he closed on the bridge, a glint of light reflected from the right side—Harper’s truck—and he hoped to God it wasn’t visible from the other side.

  Up ahead, across the creek on the side of the road, twin headlights blinked, then began moving toward him. His throat tightened as he watched Hack’s vehicle make its way toward his own.

  Once past Harper’s truck—he didn’t even throw a glance that way—he slowed, then stopped. The other vehicle did the same, but then swung into a U-turn and stopped facing the opposite direction—in the right-hand lane—at the far edge of the bridge.

  He cut off his headlights and huffed out a foul breath. He held on to the steering wheel to still his shaking hands. The money bag sat next to him in the passenger seat like a limp, sleeping dog.