by David Gordon
Joe steered the van back up the lane, going as fast as he could while still trying his best to avoid the worst pits, as Lex sat beside him, tensely holding his weapon in his lap.
“Hey, point that thing out the window,” Joe told him. “It could go off if we hit a bump. And put your belt on.”
“Relax, Dad. Who said you’re the boss now?” he asked.
“Fine,” Joe said. “You’re the boss, but try not to blow anyone’s balls off while you’re figuring out the new plan.”
“Asshole,” Lex muttered, but he lowered his rifle, resting it on the window frame. It was a good thing, too, because just as they came bouncing over a big bump, the gun dealer came around the bend, going fast in his Jeep Wrangler, and ran straight into them.
Lex went through the windshield, headfirst, still holding his rifle, which sprayed bullets harmlessly into the woods as he rocketed over the hood and died. Joe, who always had his belt on, ducked and braced. He took a hard hit against the steering wheel, bruising his forearms, but he was okay. Derek got thrown from the jump seat and went rolling through the empty van, banging his shoulder and hip against the rear doors, which flew open. He was okay, too, and as soon as he got his bearings, he started searching for his gun.
The Wrangler was hardly damaged at all. Riding higher than the van, it had a broken headlight, a bent front hood, and a crumpled fender, but it would run. The driver, however, was freaked. He had a load of illegal weapons, he had just seen some sort of cop or state workers blocking the road to the market where he planned to sell them, and now a body had come flying over his hood. He threw the Jeep into reverse, but no luck, his fender was hooked on the busted grille of the van.
As soon as he could focus, Joe unhooked his seat belt and hopped down. He came quickly around to the driver’s side of the Wrangler, noting the crates in the back—rattled but still tied down under a tarp. The goods. He also noted Lex’s mangled corpse but didn’t see his rifle, which had flown off somewhere, maybe into the ditch. He put a concerned look on his face and opened the driver’s door.
“My God, you okay? I think my friend is dying.”
“He’s alive?” the driver asked, getting his belt undone.
“I think so, we need help. Please come take a look.”
“Look, my fender’s hooked,” the driver said, climbing down. “Help me get it loose and then we can take your friend to the hospital.”
“Sure,” Joe said, reaching up as though to help him down, then grabbing his arm and jerking him out the door, letting the driver’s own body weight slam him to the ground. He hit his knees and grunted, as Joe chopped him hard across the back of the neck. He was out.
“Derek!” Joe yelled. “Come help me get the Jeep loose!” But it turned out not to be necessary, because just then, another truck coming from the other direction, this one a four-door Ford pickup, hit the van from behind, knocking the Jeep’s fender off completely and setting it free.
Derek had just found his rifle, which had bounced around the van, luckily with the safety on, and landed under a seat. He grabbed it up and jumped out the back door, just in time to see a Ford pickup with a Confederate flag front plate coming right at him.
I’m dead, he thought, and in the split second of consciousness he had left, he flashed forward to a vision of his wedding, of the traditional ceremony his fiancée’s family had insisted on, which he had dreaded but now, in his vision, saw as beautiful: the procession from their family home to his, the Confucian ceremony, the elaborate banquet with shark fin soup, sea cucumber, abalone, lobster, squab. He saw his proud uncle, his crying mother wishing his father were alive. He saw his bride.
Then the truck hit the spikes. The tires blew and it spun out of control, skidding wildly. Realizing he was alive, Derek stepped aside and watched in amazement as the truck slid sideways into the back of the van. The truck was full of gun nuts, fleeing the illegal meeting that the Feds, springing from their positions in the woods as soon as Donna had sounded the alarm, had just raided. Now the gun nuts, their escape route blocked and their vehicle disabled, came spilling from the doors, wearing body armor, armed to the teeth, scared, and half drunk. They saw Derek standing there with a rifle in his arms, and thinking he was some kind of Federal cop come to revoke their inalienable rights, they shot him dead.
When the pickup sideswiped the van, ramming it against the Jeep, Joe had leaped for cover, rolling into the ditch, where he saw Lex’s rifle but let it lie. He peeked over the edge and saw that the new impact had knocked the Jeep free. A moment later, he heard the bursts of automatic fire. The smart thing, now, would be to hop into the Jeep and get going, make for the open road. But where was Derek? With a sigh, he reluctantly took up the rifle, checked it quickly to be sure it was loaded and functional, and, staying low, ran along the ditch toward the shooting.
Peering out carefully, he saw Derek down on the ground, a bunch of armed men in body armor standing over him. Joe fired a burst into the air over the men, hoping to send them fleeing so that he could help Derek. Instead they turned and fired wildly, tearing the trees behind him to shreds as he took cover in the ditch. Pine needles rained down and a few cones landed softly, like eggs.
“Goddamn it,” he said to himself. He crawled rapidly along the ditch and then snaked out from a spot shielded by the van, lying prone and resting his weapon on both elbows while they continued to blast the shit out of the forest. Joe took a deep breath, let it out partway, and held it. Aiming carefully, he shot one man right under the kneecap, where his shin guard and thigh protector left a gap. The man screamed as his knee was blown out and went down. Joe took a second shot, this time hitting another guy in the gap over his elbow. The guy dropped his gun and took off, cradling his shattered limb. Joe fired twice more, ripping apart the toes of a man who was wearing sneakers along with his battle gear. They fled, limping for cover behind their truck.
Joe rose up, firing bursts over the pickup as he ran to Derek, and saw in a glance that he was dead, his eyes staring up at the sky through the trees. Joe didn’t hesitate; he turned and ran, firing behind him until the magazine was empty. He tossed the gun, hopped into the Jeep, started the engine, and threw it into reverse. He could see one of the gun nuts watching in confusion. He didn’t even bother to shoot.
Joe reversed down the lane, going as fast as he safely could, hearing sirens and more gunfire coming from back where the van was. It was clear now that someone had called the law, but less clear was whom the law had been called on. As he got close to where the lane joined the main road, Joe spun the wheel, swinging around, and parked on the shoulder. He didn’t want to risk driving out into some kind of trap. If need be, he’d ditch the Jeep and its cargo and flee through the woods on foot.
He moved quickly but carefully, dodging from tree to tree, and saw the stolen pickup where they’d left it, but now there was a black Chevy with government plates parked alongside. Getting down low, he inched forward. There was Clarence, cuffed and sitting with his back against the tire of the truck. And standing over him, peering down the highway through binoculars, was Agent Zamora, the one he’d asked to the wedding. She’d said no, of course, as he knew she would, but she had flirted, there was no denying that. And there was no way to fake that smile.
Joe pulled the ski mask over his head and came out of the woods on his belly. He crept up behind her, which wasn’t that hard with her attention on the binoculars, and then, when he was within a few feet, he sprang forward and pulled her legs out from under her. She went down, binocular strap impeding her movement, and he was on her, with his knee in her back, before she could draw her gun. He used the plastic tie on her wrists, unhooked her holster, and tossed the whole thing under the car. Then he took her keys and went to Clarence. He saw that he was wounded. He leaned in close and lifted his mask up.
“Thank God you’re here,” Clarence said.
“Can you walk?” Joe asked, unlocking the cuffs.
“I doubt it.”
“Okay, w
ait here.”
“Hey, hey, where you going?” Clarence yelled, but Joe ignored him, running back to where he’d left the Jeep, a short distance now that he was running on open ground. He drove back to where the two vehicles were parked and got out. He hoisted Clarence, who moaned as he helped him into the passenger seat.
“One more thing,” Clarence said. “You’ve got to take care of her. She saw my face, heard our voices …”
Joe nodded, pulling his mask back down. He took her key ring and went to the trunk of her car. Inside was the shotgun he knew she’d have and various loads. He cracked the gun, loaded it, and, while Clarence watched, walked back around to Agent Zamora. She’d managed to roll over by now and was pushed up into a half-sitting position, trying to crawl away. Joe leveled the shotgun at her. She shuddered, closing her eyes, then reopened them and stared right at him.
“Sorry,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
Joe sped the first ten miles or so, gas pedal to the floor, the revolver he found in the glove box beside him, but as soon as he found the highway, he joined the traffic flow, slowing down and keeping pace with the other drivers. He tried to slow himself down, too. Before, when he’d seen the danger, his conditioning had kicked in and he felt completely calm, his mind able to function clearly, to make decisions, and his body able to react swiftly and effectively, without panic. But now the adrenaline was making him nauseated. His head ached and his skin crawled with clammy sweat. He could feel his hands trembling and gripped the wheel tighter.
But what really got him was the moaning. Clarence was delirious now, shock giving way to acute pain and confusion from loss of blood, which was slowly seeping into the seat, puddling in the leather creases. He writhed against the seat belt, and each pitiful scream when the Jeep hit even a slight bump was like a nail running through Joe’s skull. Joe turned on the radio to try to drown him out, but it was some kind of religious station, a ragged voice ranting hysterically about Jesus, and that just made him feel crazier, as the noise in his own head got louder. Bugs splattered themselves on the glass before him, and the tree line blurred in a smear across the windows while the voice beseeched Jesus to save him. He punched the button. Now it was talk radio, two men arguing about something, politics or baseball, he couldn’t tell. The coppery reek of fresh blood and the glandular stink of fear filled his nose. A new scream tore through him, circling his head like feedback.
“Shut the fuck up,” he yelled, out loud, to everybody, and turned the radio off, but it didn’t help. The scream was in his own throat now, choking him. He covered his mouth, like a hostage, and while sad whimpers leaked through the fingers, tears dripped from his eyes. All they wanted was to close.
He saw an exit for a town and took it. And at the first red light, when he was sure no one was looking, he grabbed the revolver by the barrel. Turning in his seat, he thumped Clarence hard on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious, then gently settled him back against the seat, like a snoozing passenger. He took a deep breath and drove on, cruising till he saw a large chain pharmacy with a parking lot of its own. He parked around back near the dumpsters and got out. Then he leaned over and puked.
PART II
11
When Donna looked up and saw a masked man pointing a shotgun at her—her own shotgun, she was pretty sure—she fixed her thoughts on her daughter. She thought of her mother next and then, to her surprise, she thought of God, whom she had not considered in a couple of decades. Maybe since her father had died. But now she shut her eyes and prayed in earnest, for the welfare of her child and for her mother and for her own soul, whatever that meant, and then she thought, Fuck this, if I’m going to die I might as well see it coming, and she opened her eyes again. Defiant, she raised her head and looked up, from the looming barrel of the shotgun to the eyes in the holes in the mask. Somehow, to her surprise, they seemed weirdly familiar and kind. As if she almost knew who it was. She had always known death was waiting nearby, a constant companion in life and work, but she had not expected it to come as a friend, with comfort in his eyes.
“Sorry,” the man said, and he pulled the trigger. The gun went off, she fell back, and there was an instant of pure … what? Terror? Blankness. Of thinking, I’m dead. Of hanging on and then letting go, like surrendering to a wave at the beach, knowing if you fight you drown, if you float you’re free. And then a microsecond later: I’m not. She realized he had fired a beanbag round. There it was, lying beside her where it had bounced off her chest. Holy shit, I’m alive, she thought. I’ll hug my daughter again and kiss my mother. It’s a fucking miracle—sent by the God she didn’t believe in. But still, she waited until the Jeep pulled away and she was sure they were gone before she let herself cry. And when she heard the ambulance approaching, she stopped.
After he got done puking, Joe walked around the dumpster to the back door of the drugstore. He pulled his mask back on and waited, holding the revolver at his side and spitting occasionally to try to get the awful taste out of his mouth. Finally the door opened and a young man in a pharmacist’s uniform came out and lit a cigarette. Joe stepped out of the shadows and hit him on the head with the butt of the gun. Then he looked inside. He walked across a short hall into the pharmacy storage area, where a pale young woman with a lot of freckles was filling prescriptions.
“Don’t scream,” Joe said calmly, showing her the gun. “I won’t hurt you unless you scream.”
Her eyes went wide, showing white all around the green irises, but she didn’t scream.
“Now you’re going to stay calm and do what I say, right? I don’t want to hurt you. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Get a bag and fill it with what I say.” She jumped up and grabbed a plastic shopping bag, knocking over the pill bottle she was filling.
“Easy, easy. Stay calm. Everything’s okay. Now here’s what I want: rolls of gauze, surgical tape, gauze pads.” She moved smoothly now, like a robot, gathering the items. “I want alcohol, a whole bottle, and dental floss and a needle.”
“You mean a syringe?” she asked.
“No, I meant a sewing needle, but, yes, I will take some of those diabetic syringes, too.”
She gave him a box. “I don’t have a sewing needle. That’s in notions.”
“That’s fine. Skip it. You’re doing great. Just one more thing: I want Dilaudid.”
Joe made the pharmacist step outside with him and then shut the door behind them so it locked. She stared in horror at her unconscious colleague.
“Don’t worry, he’s fine.” Joe took the cuffs he’d taken off Clarence and cuffed her to the dumpster. “Sorry to have to do this,” he said. “The key’s right here.” He placed it out of reach, near the door, and picked up the bag. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome,” she said reflexively, as he went back around the dumpster to the Jeep.
12
Clusterfuck. That, Donna believed, was the official term. And that meant the term for her current status, she supposed, was clusterfucked. “A little sore” was what she said when colleagues asked how she felt: Sore from the bruise where the beanbag load had struck her and left a gorgeous purple contusion. And sore from the ass-chewing her boss had provided.
But it was an ATF operation, after all, with the FBI merely providing intel, so most of the shit got on them. And even though the stolen military hardware slipped through, they did round up a bunch of black market dealers and seize plenty of other illegal arms being traded. And it was Agent Zamora who had the brains to notice something off with the public works detour. On the other hand, it was also she who let the guy escape. So …
In the end, she was back where she started, in the dungeon, shoveling tips. She called her source, Norris, the sleazebag gun dealer, who had just added double-crossing liar to his long list of bad character traits. He didn’t pick up. The little creep was probably out selling bullets to schoolkids.
Then she sat back do
wn at her desk, saw the pictures of her daughter and her mom, and remembered that she’d been spared. She was lucky to get away alive and with nothing really wounded but her pride. She also had a hunch, an itch of curiosity. Why hadn’t that masked bandit killed her, as she heard the prisoner, the fake road worker, tell him to? And why had he apologized? He was fine with stealing weapons, assaulting officers, and helping a federal prisoner escape, but he felt bad about hurting her? What kind of villain was that?
And then there was his voice, which sounded vaguely familiar, and the funny/sad twinkle in his eyes that she swore she remembered, too. Suspect had funny/sad eyes that I vaguely remember. That was not in her report.
But she did go back and check the arrest logs from the other night for a name, and then typed that name into the system: Joseph Brody, a.k.a. Joe the Bouncer.
Gio’s day was going fine until he got the call from Flushing. Actually he’d been on a high. Orchestrating that big meeting with all the bosses had been a real coup, in some ways the first of its kind. Sure, plenty of councils were called, but usually within one organization, like the gatherings of the Five Families in the old days, or else meetings between bosses to resolve disputes, cut deals, or end wars. But getting everyone on board, the whole town working together, was fucking historic, or so he’d been told with lots of handshakes and backslaps afterward, and he’d gone home feeling like a king. He’d taken his family out to sushi for dinner and shared his overflowing positive energy with his wife in bed that night as well. Then, after she was snoozing blissfully, he’d gone out into his backyard and smoked a cigar under the stars. And now here he was, less than twenty-four hours later, with the whole thing shot to hell.