No Good Deed

by Victor Gischler

  The thug slapped the stun gun away, and it spun off into the distant, dark reaches of the barn. The thug kept coming, barreled into Francis, and both of them went down. The thug ended up on top. Francis punched upward. The thug’s chest absorbed it as if it were nothing.

  One of the thug’s hands took Francis by the throat. The other hand squeezed tight into a hammy fist. He raised it high. “You little fucking shit. Zap me with my own stun gun.”

  Francis tried to talk, to plead, but the thug’s fist tightened on his throat.

  The fist came down hard, and a whole new world of pain exploded in Francis’s jaw. His eyes filled with tears. The man sitting on his chest was a blur.

  “Little fucking cocksucker,” the bald thug said. “Fucking kill you.”

  The thug squeezed harder, and Francis tried to suck for air and failed. His vision grew cottony around the edges, and he felt himself fading, slowly being drawn down into a cold blackness. He tried to pry at the fingers at his throat, but there was no strength remaining in him. As darkness closed in, his ears filled with a roaring like the blood in his body rushing to a single spot.

  Francis shoved his hand down between his body and the thug’s, fingers clawing, searching.

  “You’re going to die now, little man,” the thug said. “And then we do whatever we like to your freaky little bitch girlfriend. That’s what I want you to know. You’ll be dead, hero, and nobody will save her. Is that what you think you’re doing? You’re not saving nobody.”

  Francis’s hand closed around the butt of the revolver stuck in his waistband. He twisted it, and the thug felt the cold metal in his gut. The recognition of what he was feeling dawned in his eyes.

  The gun went off, the report muffled by the two bodies sandwiched around it. Francis felt a burning force against his stomach as the revolver bucked.

  I’m shot. Oh my God, I’m dead.

  Francis realized the thug had gone limp on top of him. He pushed the body off and scooted away. The thug rolled back up against the tractor, and at first Francis thought he was dead. The thug blinked once slowly, an expression of disbelief on his ashen face. One of his trembling hands went up to the hole in the center of his chest, blood seeping between each finger.

  Francis inched away from him, looking on in horror.

  The thug worked his mouth to say something, but suddenly coughed once so violently it made Francis flinch. Blood erupted from the thug’s mouth, dripping down his bottom lip and chin. His eyes met Francis’s, pleading.

  In the second Francis’s brain spun, wondering what to do, it was over. He watched the light fade from the thug’s eyes. Francis imagined he could almost see the life lift out of the man and drift away like a puff of smoke. The dead man’s eyes looked like glass. And in that moment, it didn’t matter if he was a good guy or a bad guy. In the single pull of a trigger, Francis had ended the man, something so final it was hard to believe. Of course it was self-defense, but Francis stood, weak and sweating, the feeling that something inside of him had shifted and could never shift back into place again.

  He took three deep breaths and steeled himself. There wasn’t time for this. Francis couldn’t afford the luxury of self-reflection. Not now.

  He looked down at the revolver dangling loose in his hand. He didn’t want it anymore but knew he might need it. He picked up the shotgun where it had fallen and took both to the back seat of the Pontiac. He dumped them in the floor behind the driver’s seat and paused to look at Emma.

  She breathed easily, eyes closed, legs pulled up slightly. If it hadn’t been for her face, she might simply have been napping peacefully. Her bottom lip was split, and the left side of her face swelled badly.

  Francis went back to the tractor, climbed up into the seat. At first, he had no idea what he was looking at, but then it turned out to be as simple as he’d hoped. He thumbed the starter button and was relieved when the tractor cranked immediately. It made a thunderous rattling sound much louder than Francis had expected. He needed to hurry and get the thing out of there. He wanted to attract attention, but not to the barn.

  He hopped down from the tractor and turned out the lights before throwing the barn doors wide. Back atop the tractor, he shifted into gear and headed out, the tractor’s headlights impotently trying to penetrate the fog. He tried to remember what his environs looked like without the fog and pointed the tractor toward what he was fairly sure was the widest part of the pasture.

  Francis leaped from the seat, hit the ground, and rolled. He sprang back up, looked to see the tractor still on course, its shape slowly being swallowed by the fog, only the fuzzy glow of the headlights still visible.

  Francis cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “There he goes! He’s getting away!”

  For a long, tense moment, Francis thought he had accomplished approximately dick.

  Then suddenly shouts back and forth through the fog. Francis glimpsed dark shapes running after the tractor. More shouting.

  Francis stood frozen, listening. Had it really been that easy?

  The sound of gunshots sent Francis running back to the barn.

  He climbed in behind the wheel of the Pontiac and cranked the ignition. The engine rumbled, and the vibrations felt like raw power. He shifted into gear, and the car erupted from the barn like it had been shot from a Howitzer.

  As he sped past the house, he saw the one with the shaggy mustache stumble out the front door, gun in hand. Francis mashed the gas pedal and shot down the narrow dirt road. If he could just remember the zigs and zags between here and the highway, he should be home free. He glanced back to check on Emma, saw she was still sleeping.

  When he faced forward again, a large SUV loomed large in the fog directly ahead of him.

  “Shit!”

  Francis jerked the wheel and hit the brakes. The Pontiac fishtailed and missed the SUV by an inch. There were two more vehicles parked behind the SUV. He realized this was where Cavanaugh and his goons had parked before slipping up on him through the fog.

  The sun was up now, and soon the fog would burn off. Until then, Francis decided to drive on a little more slowly. He was desperate to put miles between him and the gunmen, but escaping only to wrap the car around a tree wasn’t something he wanted to explain to Emma.

  * * *

  When his men had found the tractor spinning its wheels in a ditch on the other side of the pasture, Cavanaugh cursed and knew they’d been suckered. “These little shits are making us look like clowns.”

  Ernie sat behind the wheel. There was still a little fog, so he leaned forward, squinting as he drove. The other two vehicles with the rest of the boys followed behind. They were trying to hurry. If Berringer and the girl made it to the highway, then they could head off anywhere, and Cavanaugh would be back at square one.

  “What year?” Cavanaugh asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ernie said. “Sixties.”

  “Sixty-one? Sixty-two? Sixty-three?”

  “Give me a fucking break, okay? I’m not a car guy. Late sixties. Sixty-eight or sixty-nine.”

  “You didn’t see a logo? Ford or Chevy?”

  Ernie shook his head. “I’d know it if I saw it again.”

  Cavanaugh pulled up a photo of a 1969 Camaro on his smartphone and showed it to Ernie. “That?”

  “No. The front end looked more pointy.”

  “Pointy?”

  “Yeah, I dunno. Pointy.”

  Cavanaugh showed him a picture of a 1969 Corvette.

  “Jesus, I know a Vette when I see one,” Ernie said. “Not that pointy. A muscle car.”

  Cavanaugh showed him a half dozen more photos, but Ernie kept shaking his head.

  Then Cavanaugh showed him a picture of a 1968 Pontiac GTO.

  “That’s it,” Ernie said. “I’m positive.”

  “What color?”

  “Red.”

  “What kind of red?”

  Ernie frowned at him. “Red red.”

  Cavanaugh sighed. “Th
ere’s a whole spectrum, you know. A bright primary sort of red but also a red with some purple in it like a burgundy or something.”

  Ernie glanced at Cavanaugh like maybe he wondered if he were being put on. Then his brow wrinkled as he thought about it a moment. “A little darker. Like red with some cherry in it, maybe.”

  “Okay.” Cavanaugh dialed the number into his smartphone. “We’re going to find this Berringer son of a bitch and get him for what he did to Ike. We’re going to feed him his own balls.”

  * * *

  Bryant was eager to see how this would work. Middleton had ordered the new software to be completely uninstalled from Bryant’s setup and relocated to the facility built into the new Sonoma house. So Cavanaugh’s request might be one of the few chances remaining for Bryant to see the software in action.

  He plugged 1968 or 1969 Pontiac GTO, cherry red or candy-apple red into the search string for Berringer and the girl, then sat back and waited. He didn’t need to add any other search parameters. The software knew what to do, and it was a pleasure to see the thing in motion. He’d had it put up on the big monitor so he could see everything unfold as the program went step-by-step through the process.

  The software accessed multiple websites to get the average gas mileage for that year and make of automobile. Speed limits for the surrounding roads and highways. Numbers flashed across the screen as the software used the information to calculate a search radius.

  Then a blur of photographs across the screen, vehicles with rest stops or highways in the background. Bryant could tell they were digital image captures from various surveillance cameras.

  One of the images suddenly blinked, an accompanying bell, alerting him the computer had a hit. A picture-in-picture image of the Pontiac at a gas pump moved up to the corner of the screen. The man filling the car with gas had his back to the camera but could have been Berringer. They didn’t get a credit card hit, so he must have paid cash. The image was from a truck stop on Highway 50 near Vermillion. The surveillance system saved its footage to the cloud, and the software accessed it with ease.

  Another picture-in-picture image flickered into existence directly below the surveillance cam photo of the Pontiac. It was a Google Maps image pinpointing the exact location. A second later, another image appeared in the other corner of the screen. The Pontiac again, but this time a photo from a Nebraska State Patrol dash cam. To Bryant, it seemed the trooper was just parked on the side of the road, and the Pontiac had happened by.

  The next image was again from Google Maps, showing the trooper’s location as just over the state line on Highway 15.

  They’d located Berringer and the girl, and had the direction in which they were traveling.

  The entire process had taken ninety-seven seconds.

  * * *

  “Highway 15.” Cavanaugh jotted it into his notebook. “Got it. Listen, if the computer gets another hit, let me know right away. Maybe you can work up some kind of intercept course for us. Right. Okay, thanks.”

  Cavanaugh hung up and then grinned at Ernie. “I think we got the little bastard.”

  21

  Middleton’s automatic kitchen brewed coffee and toasted him a bagel.

  “Meredith Vines is at the front door, Mr. Middleton.” The computer’s dulcet voice seemed to come from midair.

  “Let her in,” Middleton said. “Computer, make a note.” He refused to call the system Adam and still intended to change the voice as soon as possible. “Whenever Miss Vines is here, she’s to be let in automatically. Just announcing her is all you need to do.”

  “Yes, Mr. Middleton,” the computer said. “I’ve updated Meredith Vines’ profile.”

  Meredith found him in the kitchen a minute later, and he poured her a cup of coffee.

  “Bryant says a complete extraction of the program from his system should be complete in the next seventy-two hours. Maybe sooner,” Meredith told him.

  “How did he take that?”

  “He wasn’t thrilled,” she said. “He didn’t say anything, but I could tell.”

  “He’s a valuable asset,” Middleton said. “He doesn’t have to worry about his job.”

  “Marketing is screaming,” Meredith said. “The words indefinite delay have them pulling their hair out. They want to know why they can’t get their package together for potential buyers. Care to share what you’re thinking?”

  “Who are the most likely buyers for the new software?” Middleton asked.

  “Governments,” she said. “Fortune 500 companies. Research universities.”

  “If a government buys it, what’s half the value?”

  “That other governments don’t have it,” she said.

  “Let’s say the federal government buys it,” Middleton said. “They’ll want exclusivity. Otherwise, they won’t pay top dollar.”

  “We’ve crunched those numbers,” Meredith reminded him. “Selling it to everyone nets us more even at a greatly reduced price.”

  “When everyone is special, then no one is.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “A line from a movie I like,” Middleton said. “Every government intelligence agency will need it to keep up with every other intelligence agency. But they’ll all negate each other then, won’t they? And then this amazing thing we’ve created will be a big nothing.”

  “Sure, but after the company has made a gazillion and a half dollars.”

  “Money isn’t everything.”

  Her eyes narrowed, pinned him hard. “What supervillain scheme are you concocting, sir?”

  “I keep it.”

  “You keep it.”

  “Yes.”

  “For your own personal plaything?”

  “That’s not quite how I’d put it.”

  Meredith shook her head, eyes rolling. “The board will love this.”

  “I don’t mean keep it forever,” Middleton said. “We do a press release saying that we’re tweaking it. In the meantime, I’ll use it myself. It will make us money with market analysis alone. There are easily a hundred other applications. By the time we’re ready to sell, we’ll already have the gen-two version ready to go. We market the old one, keep the new one for ourselves. We’ll always be one step ahead of the rest of the world.”

  Meredith sipped coffee, brow furrowed, thinking. “It’s really taking the long view, but we might be able to sell the board on that.” She yawned, rubbed an eye with a thumb.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. He’d noticed that her eyes were red, dark circles underneath just beginning to form.

  “Just … long hours.”

  “You’re not still driving back and forth from San Mateo, are you?”

  “That’s where my apartment is,” she said.

  “You know I’m transitioning to working at home full-time,” Middleton said. “Perks of being the boss. But the fact is, I need you. You’re my right hand. The house is huge, and I had an office built for you, but really, it’s a suite of rooms. One could easily be a bedroom. If we work late one night, there’s no reason to risk a long drive if you’re half-asleep.”

  That teasing smile quirked to her face. “My goodness, are you asking me to live with you, Mr. Middleton?”

  He knew she was just messing with him, and yet he literally flinched, stomach fluttering. He’d seriously meant the proposal as strictly work-related, but her offhanded joke had ripped away the veil over his emotions. She watched his reaction, and all the humor drained from her face.

  “No … I … I would never…” Why couldn’t he make his words work? His mouth felt so dry. The more he tried to object, the more obvious it was that yes, he’d like nothing better than for her to be near him always, that every time she went away, his life was reduced to time spent waiting for her to come back again.

  Meredith set her coffee cup on the counter. She looked at Middleton. He looked back.

  She took three slow steps to close the distance between them. He didn’t dare move. She lay a slim hand on hi
s chest, palm flat over his heart. It beat so hard, and he knew she felt it. She tilted her head and very slowly lifted herself on tiptoes until her lips brushed his as softly as a whisper.

  Middleton went dizzy, felt light, as if he might float up and out of his own body.

  Meredith pulled away and said, “Am I fired?”

  “You are so not fired.”

  They kissed harder.

  * * *

  The Pontiac GTO blazed across Highway 84 through brown Nebraska pastureland. The landscape had widened considerably in the last hour, an occasional stand of trees or farmhouse humping up on a small hillock breaking the monotony.

  Francis had spent enough time in Manhattan that it had nearly erased the memory of wide-open spaces. Ohio had plenty of farmland, but so much land stretching between the horizons felt strange instead of familiar.

  Francis had taken random highways, keeping generally south and west. He’d hoped to throw off any pursuit. He hadn’t wanted to stop for gas, but with the needle nearing E, he hadn’t any choice.

  Now, he yet again had to force himself to ease off the gas pedal. It was as if the Pontiac had a mind of its own and wanted to go fast, but Francis equally wanted not to get a speeding ticket.

  Sometime soon he’d need to stop and see to Emma, but he still wanted to put more miles between himself and Cavanaugh and all his goons.

  A pickup truck passed him. The truck’s sudden appearance startled him. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Francis was concerned about going the speed limit, but apparently the locals weren’t. The truck sped ahead and left him in the dust.

  Francis adjusted the rearview mirror to see down into the back seat. Emma still slept peacefully. Seeing her this way, it was difficult to imagine her with that hard edge. She seemed the sort of person who eternally had her fists up against whatever the world might bring. There was a soft prettiness about her now, a surprising vulnerability, and whatever Francis felt for her before doubled at that moment. He realized that whatever happened from here forward, he wouldn’t undo what had brought him here. He’d still take the suitcase in the alley. He’d still follow the girl into peril.