Worm

by Anthony Neil Smith

  Running had become tedious. Fuck, it didn’t even feel like running anymore. He’d gotten so much of a head start that no one was looking for him. They thought he was dead.

  Then Jersey. Dealing with those “gangsters”, what a joke. He outsmarted them all and grew bored. Took off to the West. Bakken. Lied his way into an oil job. When he got bored with that, too, he started his meth empire. If you could call it an empire. He still had a handful of dealers out there, and the money had been good, but again, he grew bored. When it came right down to it, he couldn’t scorn these men. He couldn’t discard them like the Muslim dogs back home. These were good men. Stupid men, but good men. Like Ferret, Finn, a small man, but a proud man. What he had in life, he worked for. He was satisfied with it. And now it had all been taken away.

  Pancrazio felt the pain of it with the boy. He had never thought he would feel that sort of pain again. But here it was, up in his throat tonight. The lawyer had called to tell him that Ferret had disappeared. The lawyer was pissed, too, threatening to quit. And then the call from the man camp. Ferret, Bad Russell, Good Russell, Slow Bear. Jesus. What was happening tonight?

  What had he done?

  It was after eleven when he heard the car doors slam right outside his door. Footsteps. They didn’t even knock. They opened the door, Ferret and Good Russell, and walked right on in. Whatever fear or deference they’d shown him in the past was wiped clean from their faces. What he saw now was pity.

  “Finn?” Not Ferret this time. “Good, the lawyer?”

  Ferret nodded.

  “I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry.”

  Ferret blinked, looked at Russell, then back at Pancrazio. “Bad Russell knew who killed her. It was Gene Handy.”

  It hit the old man like the death of his own soldiers had, young smiling souls one minute, burned beyond fear the next. It hurt him to exhale. He struggled to push himself up from the couch. Ferret took the old man’s elbow, helped him up.

  Ferret said, “I guess, you know, thank you. For looking out for her.”

  “No, son, I failed. I trusted the wrong men. I’ve done that often.” He shook his head, grinned. “Did you know, Finn, what you were looking at when you found those photos?”

  It surprised even him, the accent coming back so easily after he’d worked so hard to hide it all these years.

  Ferret nodded. “Someone told me.”

  “And what do you think about me now?”

  Ferret looked away. “I’m not gonna...”

  Pancrazio stepped quietly over to Ferret, who didn’t move, didn’t look at him. He hugged the boy. “I’m so sorry. I swear to you, I did not know.”

  Muffled on his shoulder. “I know.”

  “I still don’t know. It is a hole in my soul, I swear to you.”

  Good Russell said, “Gene killed her. Gene knows all about you. Who you really are.”

  Pancrazio squeezed his eyes shut and held onto Ferret tighter. He felt the young man’s arms rise to his back and cling to him. “Gene Handy.”

  It was as if the whole universe had chosen this moment to show Pancrazio—Blagoje! Own it!—the bitterness of it all. A man with a secret past was dumb enough to trust another man with a secret past. A man who had set him up all along. He had always been wary of Gene Handy, of course, but in the same way he had been wary of his Lieutenants in the old country. Wary that they might stray, go AWOL during the night, or disobey in front of the other men and shoot Blagoje dead. But they never had. They were loyal. If he had expected Gene Handy to be as loyal, then the joke was on him. He didn’t deserve to call himself Colonel anymore.

  He released Ferret and took a step back. There was nothing else to say. He knew what was next.

  Good Russell said, “I need you to come with me. Something...something important.”

  “I understand.” A sad grin. “Don’t say another word.”

  “We have a plan.”

  “I understand.”

  No one moved.

  “You haven’t decided what to do with me yet, have you?”

  Ferret and Russell looked at one another.

  Pancrazio said, “It’s okay. We’ll deal with that when we get to it. Let’s go.”

  The driller turned off all of his heaters one by one. He didn’t feel any colder for it. Exactly the same. He turned off the light beside his couch, and he followed his boys outside, down the steps. He wasn’t exactly surprised to see Slow Bear behind the wheel of the girl’s green Fiesta. Of course that’s what he would be driving. He imagined that at the end of the night, it would also be Gene Handy’s final resting place.

  But even more so, he was glad to see Slow Bear on his side. Even if the prairie-nigger cop was being loyal only to the money rather than the man, it was still good enough. A bought soul is still a soul.

  He climbed into the backseat, Russell at his side. There was the slightest tinge of decomposition in the air. Sweet death. Slow Bear nodded into the rearview mirror. Pancrazio nodded back. “Anyone feel like dying tonight?”

  Slow Bear said, “Fuck you and shut up.”

  A tickle in his throat, maybe even a laugh, Pancrazio felt warmer already. “Me neither.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Slow Bear stopped and got out of the car on the road before the turn into the trailer park, the same one where the meth dealers had kept Stevie, poor girl. He opened the back hatch, pulled his rifle from under a blanket, where it had rested next to her body, and closed the hatch again. Ferret took over the driving after Slow Bear disappeared into the trees.

  Slow Bear had stopped at Walmart and bought Bluetooth earpieces for everyone except Pancrazy. Ferret fit his in, linked it to his phone, and said, “You there?”

  Some crackling, snow and leaves, and then, “Yeah. Stand by.”

  A few more minutes passed. Then, “Okay, I can see him. Barely, but I can see him.”

  “Here we go.”

  He drove slowly. Gene Handy was only expecting Russell and Pancrazy, but there was no way Ferret was going to sit this one out. They’d told him it might fuck things up, might make Gene Handy nervous. But it didn’t matter. Ferret said, “I’m going to watch him die.”

  That was it. Gene Handy was going to die tonight. It was the only justice that satisfied them all, even Slow Bear. He would make sure they found Gene Handy and the Fiesta, right outside this trailer, the dead girl in the back beneath a blanket. It might raise more questions than it answered—who had killed him with a hunting rifle? How did the girl get here? Why was she almost frozen?—but he would be dead, and that would be enough for now. Even if it meant Ferret was still a fugitive, he would deal with that later. Slow Bear had promised to do whatever he could to help.

  Ferret rolled to a stop outside the trailer. Turned the car off. They sat still for a long moment. No one looked at the trailer.

  Slow Bear’s voice: “You ready?”

  Ferret glanced back at Russell, pale like someone on Faces of Meth. He nodded.

  “We’re good.”

  “Wait, open the glove compartment.”

  Ferret reached over, clicked it open. Inside, the gun Slow Bear had already given Ferret, the one he’d left in his car. Beside it, a little .380 auto. “How’d you get it back?”

  “Even a Rez cop is a cop. A Williston cop I know told me, and an hour later, it was back in my hands. Don’t lose it this time.”

  “What, are we supposed to show him?”

  “Put the damn things in your back pockets and kill him if I miss.”

  Ferret handed the .380 over the seat to Russell. Pancrazy looked on, asked, “And me?”

  Russell opened the door. “Since when have you ever needed a gun to get what you want?”

  They all got out. Gene Handy had to have known they were here by now. Had to have. And that meant he knew Ferret was with them.

  Russell and Pancrazy first. Banged on the door with his fist. Gene Handy opened it, loomed over them all. No steps, no bricks. The big man looked past Russell a
nd Pancrazy, right at Ferret. “Who invited you?”

  “I did.”

  “But I didn’t.”

  A shrug. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Gene Handy let out a long breath, whispered, “Fuck,” then reached down for Pancrazy’s hand. Russell helped push him up into the trailer. Same for Russell, up and in. Ferret stepped up to the door, but Gene Handy turned away, thumbed at him. “You brought him, you help him up.”

  Russell tried to keep his eyes on Gene Handy and Pancrazy while helping Ferret into the trailer. It was a scrabble. Both of them lost track for a moment, and when Ferret was finally in, they looked back inside to find Handy holding a shotgun with Pancrazy on his knees in the middle of the room. Handy swung the gun towards Ferret and Russell. They kept their hands up, open. Stood stock still.

  “You’re both packing. Toss them over.”

  Russell said, “Bullshit.”

  “I saw it in your pocket. I have a shotgun. Toss them over.”

  Ferret thought they could fake him out, but Russell had flinched, his hand already reaching for his back pocket. He said “Shit” and just went ahead and got it out, tossed it onto the floor.

  Gene Handy moved the barrel to the right, stared down Ferret. “You too. And the phones in your ears. Who are you talking to? The Indian? Are you kidding me? Or the idiot? Hand it all over.”

  “What do I care? You already killed my wife. Might as well have just shot me at the same time you did that.”

  Gene Handy actually smiled a little. Showed his teeth. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

  “Piece of shit.”

  “Your wife? Yeah, she was a piece of shit. You told me how she treated you before she came here. Look at what she did to you. Made you a pussy boy. Me killing her, that was my gift to you. Now you are man enough to help me catch this one.” He pointed at Pancrazio. “Blagoje the Cock!”

  Pancrazio laughed loudly, shot out something in his native tongue.

  Gene Handy gave it right back to him in the same language, louder, harsh and growling. He stepped up to Pancrazy and sideswiped his face with the butt of the shotgun.

  Shock on Pancrazy’s face, not just from the shotgun. “How do you know my language?”

  He shrugged. “Picked up a little over there. Can’t spend two years in that shithole without learning twenty ways to talk about fucking a guy’s mother.”

  “I don’t know you. Do I know you?”

  “Not me. But another guy. Might remember him. Take a closer look.” Gene Handy crouched in front of Pancrazy. “Ring a bell? Just imagine grease paint across my face. Imagine me trying to stop you from raping...which one was it?”

  Handy reached for the Polaroids in his pocket, started flicking through, tossing them on the floor as he went. Pancrazy turned his head from them. Finally, Gene Handy found the one he was looking for. “Remember her? You must, because I’m sure you look at these a lot, right? Fuzzy memories? This one, she was sweet on this guy you sliced from belly to throat. This guy you left dying on the ground. Shit, you fucking pissed on him while he choked on blood.”

  Pancrazy said something in his own tongue again, a sad note, almost like singing a dirge. Gene Handy grabbed him by the chin, forced his eyes forward. “Look at me! Tell me you remember, motherfucker! Tell me you remember when my brother Christopher tried to stop you from raping this girl, and you murdered him. We were supposed to be allies! We were paid to help you!”

  Pancrazy, silent.

  Gene Handy shook his face. “Tell me!”

  “I don’t remember his name.”

  “Liar!”

  Pancrazy looked into Gene Handy’s eyes. “Your brother died for not following orders. It didn’t matter anyway. He was only there for money. He was a fake soldier. Were you, too? Were you a phony like he was?”

  Another blow across the face from the shotgun butt. Bones cracked, the wooden stock cracked.

  “The fuck?” Good Russell said. “The fuck are you talking about?”

  Gene Handy sniffed, spit. Then said, “The UN was trying to save the Muslims, right? What did they call it? Said Blagoje’s people were wiping out a whole race. Wiping out Muslims like they were flies. Helpless flies. Please, fuck that. Helpless, my ass. So my brother and me, you know, we were both Desert Storm guys. Only three years’ difference. He joined because I joined. After, one of our captains got into the private sector. We were hired on as consultants.”

  Pancrazy barked a laugh. Tried to talk. “Mur. Mur-sheen-arries.”

  “Private contractors. The best soldiers in the world, sitting on their asses while these fucking Islam types are taking over? Shit. You know what could’ve happened if they’d let us loose on those pigs? Like, officially? We could’ve prevented Nine Eleven. We could’ve caught bin Laden.” He pointed at Pancrazy. “Instead, my brother gets sent to help this fucking shitbag while I’m laid up in the hospital. It wasn’t even that bad, just a sprain, total accident. But as soon as they heard what happened to Chris, shit, they got me on a plane home before they told me. Damn sure didn’t want me going after his killer. Supposed to be on our side. Wouldn’t be good for business if I cut off his motherfucking head.”

  There wasn’t much to say. Ferret and Good Russell, only right then realizing how deep the shit around them really was. Then the radio clicked on.

  Slow Bear in Ferret’s ear, “Lost him, goddamn it!”

  Ferret glanced around the room. The windows were still blocked, so the only place Slow Bear could see him from was an unblocked corner of the kitchen window, a triangle of moonlight coming in.

  “I need a new angle. Hold on!”

  Fuck that. Ferret whipped out the revolver, bobbled it, shit, finally got it right and pointed and he should have been paying attention to Gene Handy, who already had the shotgun up and Ferret dove left just as the BOOM deafened him, the slug tearing a hole in the wall beside him. Slugs, not pellets. Shit, Handy was loaded up with slugs. Another BOOM. Ferret landed face first, covered his head, but there wasn’t another explosion. He turned, Gene Handy towering over him, barrel inches from his head.

  Pancrazy shouted, “I thought you wanted me! You filth. You dog. You slime!”

  “You’re next.”

  “Leave them alone! You want your revenge, you take it, and if you had a soul, then you’d let Ferret take his!”

  A smile on Gene Handy’s lips. He didn’t look like the same man. He didn’t sound like the same man. Ferret could barely make out who he was. Ears ringing. Gene Handy said, “It’s been a long time since Bosnia. There are no more rules.”

  Ferret turned to Pancrazy. The old man’s chin was up, defiant. He was a monster. A monster through and through. And Ferret knew what he wanted. That look in his eye. Don’t give Gene Handy the satisfaction. Don’t.

  Ferret lifted his gun, aimed it at Pancrazio’s head. Blagoje. The Butcher.

  But Gene Handy caught on and swung the shotgun around, unleashed on Pancrazio’s face. His features caved in. A wave of blood and brains swept across the room.

  Ferret shot Gene Handy in the lower back. Shaky hand. It didn’t kill him, but he dropped his gun, fell to his knees.

  Ferret scrambled to his feet and grabbed for Russell’s arm. “Come on.”

  Russell was slumped against the wall. His neck was a river of blood. Hacking up blood from his mouth. Eyes, wide, flicking all over, no focus. Jesus.

  Slow Bear in his ear. “Get out. I’ll take him. I’ll do it. Just get out.”

  Ferret ran for the door, slipped on the blood, finally got the knob to turn right as the rifle barked outside and the bullets flew through the trailer, windows breaking, walls cracking, Ferret screaming, “Not yet! Not yet!”

  And then, just like before, free fall. He hit the ice below hard, rattled him for a moment. His arm snapped beneath him. The pain surged up suddenly. And right beside him, Slow Bear, firing wildly into the trailer.

  “Where is he? Where do I aim?”

  Ferret tried to
catch enough breath to tell him. “Floor!” Pointed. “Lower!”

  The rifle barked again and again, then a metallic click. Slow Bear reached for another clip in his jacket.

  Two seconds later, that’s all it took, Gene Handy was kneeling in the doorway, shotgun in hand. BOOM! Slow Bear screamed and Ferret watched him fall, the cop’s shoulder flying apart, his arm hanging on by muscle alone.

  He racked up for another shot at Slow Bear, but Ferret was able to fire a couple of wild shots, made Gene Handy flinch. Just enough time for Ferret to get up and run. What few people were left in the trailer park—stoners and methheads and old people—were outside now, cell phones up and filming, in their shorts and snow boots, some calling 911. Ferret didn’t have time to tell them to go back inside, save themselves.

  The car? The car? He could make it—

  BOOM!

  Ferret dropped to his knees, and the Fiesta’s back tire flashed and went flat. Ferret cut left and was out of choices. No idea how many slugs the motherfucker had on him. The road, the open field, or the trees.

  It didn’t matter, because trying to make the decision, he got tripped up and fell into the snow and dirt bank the plows had pushed aside, hard ice on the outside like smacking into a brick wall. Dazed, confused, bad time for a Zeppelin song to run through his brain, but that’s what happened. Couldn’t help it. Robert Plant screaming over Jimmy Page’s guitar while all he could see was Pancrazio’s face imploding. Not even his sweet Dee Dee’s face, living or dead. His lungs were hot. His body was coiled like a cobra. He pushed off the snow with the one hand still working and flipped onto his back.

  Gene Handy. Standing a few feet away now. In plenty of pain, curving to the left. Staggering. Whispering in his own language. The other residents keeping their distance but still filming, someone shouting, “The cops are on their way! I swear it, they are!” and the others telling her to shut up.