Surviving the Dead (Book 7): The Killing Line

by James N. Cook

  To my right, Salazar reached down as though to grab something from a low shelf. Sabrina pulled something from under her shirt and threw it at him. I watched it spin for a few hours until it came to rest point-first in Salazar’s shoulder. There was a scream and Sabrina leapt over the bar, a karambit in each hand.

  At the same time, the three men at the table stood up and moved to draw weapons. The men who had been sitting outside the bar on the porch railing rushed through the doorway, guns in hand. I saw Elizabeth behind them, raising her M-4.

  Still holding onto Bruiser, I kicked his feet out from under him and went over sideways. I landed on my back and Bruiser landed on his side, his body shielding mine. I knew it probably would not do much good—a body isn’t much of a barrier to a bullet—but it was better than nothing.

  Liz opened fire, two short bursts. The two men on the porch arched backward and fell. The three men at the table turned toward Liz. I raised my pistol and fired twice into one body, shifted aim, and fired twice again. Liz squeezed another burst from her rifle and dropped the third as he pulled the trigger. The round hit the doorframe at the bar’s entrance, splintering the wood. Otherwise, it did no harm.

  I sat up and looked at the bar. In the time it had taken to kill the gunmen, Sabrina had reached Salazar. I watched him pull the throwing knife from his shoulder as Sabrina launched her attack. He dodged backward from a slash aimed at his face and countered with a front kick. Sabrina tried to jump out of the way, but the kick caught her on the hip and drove her back a step.

  Salazar waded toward her, the blood on the throwing knife splashing the polished wood around him as he attacked. Sabrina weaved left and right, avoiding two slashes at head level, and then Salazar dropped and tried to cut her legs. Sabrina stepped in, caught Salazar’s wrist with the outside of one forearm, and used a karambit as a hook to trap Salazar’s hand. At the same time, she whipped her other blade in a quick up-and-down motion, severing the muscles and tendons in Salazar’s forearm like thin cables. Salazar screamed again and dropped his knife. The scream became a gurgle when Sabrina cut both his carotid arteries with two lightning-fast slashes. Salazar’s good hand went to his throat as he stumbled backward and ran into the wall. Sabrina stared coldly and watched the light go out of his eyes until he tipped forward and landed face-first with a floor-shaking thump.

  I heard whimpering and looked at Bruiser. He had curled into a ball, arms shielding his head and face.

  “Get up,” I told him as I struggled to my feet. The room was beginning to regain its color and the pounding in my ears was fading.

  “Don’t shoot me,” Bruiser whined. He sounded like a schoolboy begging a bully to leave him alone.

  “I said get up.”

  Bruiser got up, hands in front of his face.

  “Please…”

  “Get the hell out of here,” I said.

  “What?”

  I put the Beretta’s barrel against his nose. “You want to live?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get the hell out of here. Ross owns this district now. He knows who you are. Show your face here again and you’re a dead man.”

  Bruiser nodded vigorously. “Okay, okay.”

  “Go!”

  He went, tripping over a dead body on his way out the door. I followed him out and watched him run away, then turned to Elizabeth.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” she said, breathlessly. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Give me your rifle.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Sabrina came around the bar, knives in hand, arterial blood staining her shirt. “You two still alive?”

  “More or less,” I said. I walked back into the bar, asked Sabrina for one of her knives, and used it to cut a strip of cloth from a dead gunman’s shirt.

  “Get out of here,” I said to Liz as I wiped down her M-4.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Go now.”

  She gave a single nod and walked briskly back toward the alley she had come from. In seconds, she vanished into the gathering crowd. Ross’ men emerged from their hiding spots and began circulating, giving terse orders, and generally ensuring that everyone present knew if anyone asked, they hadn’t seen a damn thing.

  When all traces of fingerprints were gone from Liz’s M-4, I threw it into the street. I doubted it would stay there long. Guns are valuable things, and Dodge City was not the most affluent town I had ever been in. I motioned to Sabrina and stepped away from the entrance to the bar.

  “Lot of good trade in here,” I shouted to the crowd. “Free for the taking.”

  There was a moment of hesitation as a few people poked their heads through the doorway and one of the open windows. When they saw everyone inside was down and no one was moving, the crowd surged through the entrance and the feeding frenzy began.

  Sabrina and I walked down the street and sat down against the side of a building and waited for the police to arrive.

  *****

  The Dodge City Police Department was a newly constructed building on the north side of town. It reminded me of the concrete and steel structures at Fort McCray—big and imposing with all the charm of a shipping crate. Government construction at its finest.

  My holding cell consisted mostly of bars with a bare concrete wall in the back. There was a toilet and a sink and running water and a flat metal shelf to lie on. The lights were electric and the constant hum of a large generator buzzed through the walls and bars. I imagined Sabrina arriving at her own cell, looking around, shrugging, and thinking to herself, Hey, I’ve seen worse. At least I’m indoors.

  After being taken into custody, the cops had kept us separate for two days. Both mornings someone brought me a plate of beans and eggs and a cup of water and the Chief of Police. His name was Stanford Ellis. He was about my height, lean, iron gray mustache, and had flat black cop eyes that had seen everything, heard all the lies, and found nothing terribly impressive anymore. He would sit in a chair across from me and ask me the same questions over and over again in the presence of Elizabeth Stone, my attorney.

  I had known for a long time that Liz had a juris doctorate, but I had not been aware she had spent four years with the Metro Public Defender’s Office of Nashville and Davidson County before moving back to Hollow Rock and running for mayor. She was not barred in the state of Kansas, but that didn’t matter. In the post Outbreak world, anyone with a law degree could act as a defense attorney.

  So the chief would ask questions and I would answer some of them and Liz would tell me I didn’t have to answer others. The chief was sharp. He tried to poke holes in what I told him. But I stuck to my story. On the first day, before Liz arrived, Chief Ellis had tried the old trick of lying and saying Sabrina was selling me out and had confessed to murder, and I had laughed and told him nice try, buddy. Not buying it. After that we seemed to understand each other.

  “There’s something still bothering me,” Chief Ellis said on the morning of the third day. “Those two men you say were outside the building. You sure you didn’t get a look at who shot them?”

  “My client has already answered that question,” Liz said.

  Ellis glanced at her with his blank eyes and nodded. “Sure he has. All the same, I’d like to hear it again.”

  “Like I told you,” I said. “No, I didn’t.”

  Another nod. Ellis looked at his notes and flipped a few pages. “So let me make sure I have the story straight. You came to see Mr. Lopez because Demetrius Ross, owner and proprietor of the Sky River Hotel, said you might could hire Lopez and his men as caravan guards. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right. And so you go there, and make him an offer, and he tells you he’s gonna steal your trade, and the next thing you know his men are trying to kill you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Except you somehow managed to get the better of three hardened criminals, all armed, and you unarmed.”

&n
bsp; “Yes.”

  “You must be tougher than you look.”

  I said nothing.

  “And when you went to exit the building,” Ellis continued, “there were three men in the bar brandishing weapons and two more trying to enter the premises.”

  “Right.”

  “So you hit the ground, and someone outside starts shooting, and the two men on the porch go down.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you see the three armed men turn toward our mystery shooter, and you decide to intervene.”

  I shrugged. “Whoever they were, they were on my side. I wasn’t going to just lay there and let those guys shoot at them.”

  “Right. And after you and the mystery shooter dispatched five gunmen, the guy behind the bar grabs a shotgun and instead of pointing it at you, he goes to point it at your friend, Sabrina.”

  “Yes.”

  “And before you can say spit, the girl throws a knife at him. Then Salazar, the bartender, drops the shotgun, pulls the knife out of his own shoulder, and attacks the girl with it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this little fourteen-year-old slip of a girl, armed only with a knife, kills a man with a record of felonies a mile long and ten years of federal prison under his belt.”

  “Actually, she had two knives.”

  “Mm-hmm. I’ll tell you something else that’s bothering me, Mr. Riordan. I tried looking you up in the Archive, and I found your name, social security number, where you went to school, who your parents were, and a whole lot of files I couldn’t access because they were classified. So I contacted Major Santino and asked him if he could help me out. You know what he told me?”

  “No.”

  “He said, and I quote, ‘I’m not at liberty to disclose Mr. Riordan’s files.’ Just like that. No explanation, no apology. I’ve known Santino since I took this job. We’ve always cooperated, always helped each other out. But you come along, and all of a sudden I get stonewalled by a man with whom I share a mutual respect. Any idea what would motivate him to do that?”

  I shrugged and said nothing.

  “Any idea why a police chief would be unable to access information about a suspect in a murder investigation involving multiple homicides?”

  “I couldn’t imagine, Chief.”

  Ellis looked at Liz. “Can we speak off the record for a moment?”

  “Of course.”

  Ellis dropped his notepad on the ground and let his pen fall on top of it. Then he sat back in his chair, crossed his arms, and stared at me.

  “I notice you have blue eyes, Mr. Riordan. I find that surprising.”

  “How so?”

  “Because you’re so full of shit they ought to be brown.”

  Against my better judgement, I laughed. “You sound hurt, Chief.”

  “I’m not. Between you and me, I ain’t gonna lose any sleep over Lopez and company. They were a bunch of scumbags, and the world is a better place without them in it.”

  “I tend to agree.”

  “But still, I’d like to know what really happened in that bar. I’d like to know why you went there and took on a bunch of armed criminals and how the hell you managed to get out alive. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. Thing is, we can’t get any witnesses to come forward. Street full of people and nobody saw anything.”

  “Sad times we live in.”

  “Yes they are. And what’s worse is the looters tore the crime scene up so bad I got no way to prove or disprove what you say one way or the other.”

  “Those filthy animals.”

  Ellis leaned forward and put his elbow on his knees, hands clasped. “Here’s the thing, though. I don’t much care for people who think they can operate outside the law. I don’t much care for mystery men with classified files under their names. I don’t much care for being lied to. And I sure as hell don’t much care for shootouts in my town. Shootouts have a way of killing innocent people. You catch my meaning?”

  “I think I do.”

  “Good.” Ellis stood up and nodded to a uniformed officer standing outside the cell. The officer produced a set of keys, opened the door, and stepped aside. Ellis stood still a moment, and then said, “I can’t pin nothing on you, Mr. Riordan. As far as the DA is concerned, it’s a clear-cut case of self-defense. But just because I can’t put you in jail don’t mean I got no recourse. You got any sense, you’ll get your ass out of my town at your earliest convenience and stay gone. We clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  Ellis motioned to the door. “You’re free to go.”

  “And Sabrina?” Liz said.

  “Her too.”

  A female officer brought Sabrina to us in the lobby. She smiled when she saw us and gave Liz a hug.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said.

  As we walked out the front door, Sabrina slipped her hand into mine and gave it a squeeze.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Three days after I got out of jail, Gabriel walked into the lobby of the Sky River Hotel and joined me at the bar. He smelled like a sweaty horse, his clothes were stained and filthy, and there was dirt caked in his beard and creased into the lines of his face.

  “’Bout damn time,” I said.

  “Would have been here two days ago if you’d left me a few more markers.”

  “Excuses, excuses.”

  He shook his head. “Asshole.”

  “I heard Hicks had to go to the Springs. Some kind of special assignment.”

  Gabe turned his head. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “General Jacobs.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “Long story. Tell you later. Any idea what Hicks is up to?”

  “No. I don’t think Jacobs told him much. Generals aren’t usually in the habit of explaining themselves to sergeants. They give orders and expect them to be followed.”

  Ross came over and poured him a drink. Gabriel downed it in one swallow and pushed the glass across the bar. Ross poured him another and set the bottle in front of him.

  “Let me know when you done,” Ross said, Southern drawl firmly in place. He glanced at me briefly before walking to the other end of the bar. I took the bottle and refilled my glass.

  “Took me a few hours to find you after I got into town,” Gabe said. “Had to ask around. Talked to a few cops. Sounds like you’ve had some trouble.”

  “Nothing me and the girls couldn’t handle.”

  “How are they?”

  “Tired. It’s been a rough week. Liz is a little traumatized. Sabrina’s worried about you.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Upstairs in our room. You should take a bath before you go see them. Maybe put on some clean clothes.”

  “Don’t have any.”

  “I’ll get you some.”

  Gabe looked me with one eyebrow raised.

  “We went back for Liz’s trade before we left Haviland,” I said. “Brought some of your clothes along. I’ll leave an outfit with Ross while you clean up.”

  “Sounds good. You manage to save any of the livestock?”

  “All alive and well.”

  Gabe nodded. “You made out better than I’d hoped for. Want to tell me what happened since you got to town?”

  “Later. Go get cleaned up. My eyes are starting to burn over here.”

  Gabe nudged me in the shoulder with an elbow as he stood up. When I looked at him, he was smiling.

  “Good to see you alive, old friend,” he said.

  “Bath. Now.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m going.”

  Ross guessed Gabe’s intentions and rang a bell above the bar. One of the hotel employees came out and asked Gabe if he would please follow her. They went through a door and out of sight. I went upstairs to pick out an outfit for Gabe.

  “What are you doing?” Sabrina asked as I rooted through our luggage.

  “Getting some clothes for Gabe.”

  She and Liz both sat bolt upright. “He�
��s here?” they asked simultaneously.

  “Yes. Just got into town today.”

  “Where is he?” Liz asked.

  “Taking a bath. You want to let him clean up before you see him. Trust me on that one.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. Smelly, but fine.”

  The relief on Liz’s face was heartbreaking. “Thank God.”

  “Tell him to hurry up and get his ass up here,” Sabrina said.

  I faked a truly terrible British accent. “I shall relay the message, my good lady.”

  Ross was still at his usual perch behind the bar. I handed him Gabe’s clothes, which he passed off to another hotel employee.

  “Going to need another room,” I said.

  “One next to you open.”

  I thought about Gabe and Liz, and how long they had been apart, and had a vision of Sabrina holding pillows over her ears to block out the grunts, moans, thumping of bedframe against a wall, and creaking of strained mattress springs.

  “Maybe something down the hall,” I said. “Or on another floor.”

  “No problem.”

  “Still on the house?”

  Ross put down the glass he was polishing. “I told you. You in Dodge City, this where you stay. You eat free, your room be free, you drink free. You and everybody with you. Just so long as you don’t abuse the privilege.”

  “Never would have pegged you for the grateful type, Ross.”

  A shrug. “Depends on the favor rendered.”

  The bottle Ross had left for me and Gabe was still on the bar. I retrieved it and sat down in front of Ross. He handed me a clean glass.

  “How go the, ah, acquisitions?” I asked.

  “They going fine. Had to bust a few heads, get some folks used to the new regime. But things be linin’ up good.”

  “Have any trouble buying up Lopez’s properties?”

  Ross looked at me with a blank expression.