Smoked

  "Check him," Hal said.

  Darren kneeled and patted the man down.?

  Hal watched the guy.? There was a lot to watch.? His arms were like a normal person's legs.? His legs were like redwood trees.? The big boy was still breathing, but not moving, and probably good and fucked up.? He wouldn't cause them any more trouble.? Now if only his friend would stay away for a while longer.? Hal peered in the direction of the gravel driveway to the main road.

  "Nothing," Darren said.?

  "We better hurry," Hal said.? "Before this other guy gets back.? Go get the car and I'll go grab Lola."

  Darren gestured at the slot at the bottom of the soda machine.? "You want that Coke he bought?"

  Hal shook his head.? "You go for it."

  As he turned to walk off toward the cottage, Hal saw Darren reach down to grab himself a free can of soda.? Simple pleasures for simple minds.? And why the hell not, Hal figured.? Why the hell not?

  ?

  * * *

  ?

  Moss faded in and out of consciousness.

  He sprawled face down in the dirt, cataloguing the pain.? His head was the worst of it.? It throbbed behind his eyes with each beating of his heart.? Some moments, it would get so bad that he would drift away with it, and then both he and the pain would be gone.? Then he would return and the pain would return with him, if possible, worse than before.

  THUD.? THUD.? THUD.

  He wasn't sure how long ago they had attacked him.? It might have been hours, but he felt like it was only a few minutes.? He didn't know who they were, or why they jumped him.? The only thing he could think of was it was Dugan and somebody he had enlisted to help him save the girl.?

  As soon as they clobbered him, Moss had gone limp.? If you went limp, there was a chance they'd think they had finished you, and then they'd leave you alone.? The whole strategy was geared toward conserving energy and not getting mangled too bad.? You wanted to be able to come back and fight some more.?

  Moss thought maybe he could do just that.

  He opened his eyes.? The hard-packed dirt filled his vision.? The light from the soda machine glimmered behind him.? He hurt so bad he thought he might vomit.? He could move his head, and this he did, affording him a better view of the way he had come.? Moving his head sent a wave of nausea from the pit of his stomach up to his throat.?

  A long car pulled into the lot.? It wasn't the Taurus he and Cruz had.? It was a bigger car, looked like a Cadillac.? It pulled around the compound slowly, tires crunching gravel, and eased up to the door of the cottage.? A man got out, and entered the lighted cottage.? Sure, they were rescuing the girl.

  Not if Moss could help it.?

  He did a push-up, and forced himself to a kneeling position.? Blood was caked to the ground where his head had lain.? He felt the dirt from the ground stuck to his head and his face.? He reached back under the hem of his right pants leg, inside his boot, and ripped out the knife he kept taped to his calf.

  The fucker who had patted him down must have learned from watching TV.

  The knife gleamed in the light of the Coke machine.? It was a folding knife, a big hunting job with one side razor sharp, and the other side razor sharp and serrated.? You could clean a deer with that knife.? You could clean a man with it, too.

  Slowly, awkwardly, as if he had never balanced himself on two legs before, he worked his way up to a standing position.

  He began the long walk across the compound.???

  From the start, he weaved and staggered like a drunken man.? Try as he might, he could not keep his balance.? His vision faded, then came in sharper than ever.? He thought about a time when he was a kid.? The school, or somebody, some program, who the fuck could remember these things now?? Some program had taken them horseback riding.? It had been a sunny day, and as the ride went on, it got hotter and hotter.? He started to get dizzy way up there on that horse.? He began to slide off.? But even then, at that young age, Moss was tough.? He wasn't going to tell his teacher he was sliding off the horse.? His face was close to the horse's neck.? And he was sliding down.? He was sliding down off that horse and the ground was far below him.??

  He had sunk to his knees again.? Now he was on gravel, and the tiny sharp stones dug through his pants and made themselves known to his knees.? He looked up, and there was the cottage with car parked in front, not too far away.? It seemed to shimmer and vibrate.? Light came through the open door.?

  Okay, they had jumped him and done him in pretty good.? But that didn't mean he couldn't do some damage back.? He could do anything he wanted.

  ANYTHING HE WANTED.???

  He staggered to his feet again.??

  He made no attempt to hide himself.? He just stumbled toward the cottage, keeping himself as steady as possible.?

  They weren't taking the girl.? It was just that simple.?

  The two men came out of the cottage dragging the girl along with them.? Her arms were tied together, but her legs were free.? They opened the back door of the big Cadillac on the side away from Moss.? They stuffed her in there, then slammed the door.

  Moss ran for the car, a shuffling shambling wreck of a run.?

  Neither one of these was Dugan.? That registered on Moss for a second, then went away.? It didn't matter who they were or weren't.? The fat guy climbed in behind the wheel.? He had a shotgun in one hand.? The other guy came running around the back of the car, his head down.

  Moss crashed right into him.

  He plunged the hunting knife into the man's stomach, then ripped upward with the serrated edge.? The man's eyes went wide.? Moss collapsed on top of him, still stabbing, gutting him like crazy.? The man fell over backwards with Moss on top of him.?

  Moss lost consciousness, for how long he didn't know.? Everything was confused, hazy, remote.? He rolled over onto his knees.

  He had lost the knife.? It was still in the man's gut.?

  The man lay on his back, convulsing.? He clawed at the ground.? His eyes were wide open.? There was a look of shock mixed with pain mixed with terror in those eyes.? He stared at the sky.? His mouth fell open into a horrified O.? Blood drooled down his neck.? Dark blood.? The man reached up for something only he could see.?

  "Aah?" he said.? "Aaaah."

  It wasn't Dugan.? Who the hell was it?? Some guy, a much younger guy.

  "Darren!? What the fuck are you doing?" yelled the fat guy.

  Darren said nothing.

  Moss thought about that shotgun.? It was coming into play any second.? Fuck the girl, he decided.? It was time to bail out.?

  He dragged himself to his feet and ran for the cottage.? There were two doors, three doors.? The cottage went sideways.?

  A scream came from inside that car.

  Moss made the shack and crashed into the wall.? He reached for the door, found it and tore through it.? He dove for the floor of the shack.? The gun.? He had thrown the gun on the floor somewhere.???

  A shotgun blast ripped open the night.

  Chunks of the door and the wall flew through the air.? Another came and the door broke in half.? The top part went flying off its hinges.?

  Another blast came.

  Another.

  Here was the gun, under the bed.? Moss slithered like a worm, his whole body propelling him in a whipsaw motion.? He snatched the gun and crawled out the other side.

  He turned and braced the gun on the bed.

  The fat man was in the doorway, shotgun in hand.? He racked the slide, chambering a round, an evil sound.?

  There were two of him.? There were three of him.?

  Moss aimed for the middle one.? He fired the big .44 Mag.? And missed.? The shot took a chunk out of the wall.? There was no sound.? He fired again.? And again.? And again.? He kept firing.? He was gonna use up every round he had.

  Another clip.? Did he have another clip?

  Shit.???

  The big man had disappeared.

  A few seconds later, he heard the Cadillac tearing ass ou
t of the compound, sliding on the loose gravel, gaining traction, and barreling down the driveway toward the main road.? It screeched as it hit the blacktop.? The engine roared off into the distance.???

  Moss held his position.? How many shots had he fired?? He had no idea.? Time passed, and soon there was no sound but the wind.? Moss held out a moment longer, gun still pointing at the door.?

  It was no good.? He could not keep his arm steady.? He could not keep his eyes open.? He gripped the gun even harder.

  When he collapsed, he wasn't even aware it had happened.?

  Sometime later, he opened his eyes.? The pain was intense, the light in the room stabbing into his mind.? He was lying on the floor and looking up.? The gun was gone.? A pair of leather shoes scraped the floorboards and then a figure stood over him.? He gazed up into the eyes of the man who had just walked through the door.

  * * *

  ?

  "Hang in there!" Hal screamed.

  His hands gripped the wheel like twin vises.? His foot mashed the accelerator to the floor.? The needle pinned at 120 and stayed there.???

  He tore along a blackened country road, following the double yellow.? The line writhed like s snake.? The trees were so dense it was like being in a tunnel.? He came out of the trees and a small area of stores zipped by, all closed.? Darren lolled in the seat next to him like a big dummy, his face bled white, his mouth gone slack, his throat and his shirt stained with blood.??

  He had no idea where he was heading, no idea where the nearest doctor might be.?

  It didn't matter.? If he had to go to prison so that Darren might live, so be it.? The first cops he saw, he would crash right into them.? Hell, at these speeds, the cops should find him first.? He was gonna find somebody.? He was gonna find anybody.

  "Just hang in for a few minutes longer. ?We're gonna get you a doctor."? He put a hand on Darren's knee.

  "Uh," Darren said.? "Uhn."

  "Shit, oh shit.? Motherfuck."

  Hal kept driving.? He was all over the blacktop, going so fast he could barely follow the curves.? There wasn't a single cop on these goddamn roads.? There wasn't a single cop anywhere.? Hadn't they heard all that shooting back there??

  He turned to look at Darren again.

  Darren was slumped all the way back against the seat now.? His head rolled to the left.? His eyes were wide open and staring.?

  "Darren!"

  Hal slammed on the brakes.? The tires shredded on pavement and Darren's lifeless form leapt off the seat, his chest hitting the dashboard, his head smashing against the windshield.? He bounced back into the chair, flopping like a fish.? He made no sound, his eyes still gazing at some point far in the distance - gazing at nothing.?

  Behind him, Hal was dimly aware that the girl had rolled off the seat and onto the floor with a thud.? He had a girl back there, a sexy girl in handcuffs.? That was going to be part of the act, remember?

  The car skidded to a halt, straddling the double-yellow line.

  Darren, what had been Darren, slid halfway into the space between the bucket seat and the glove compartment.? He had fallen in sideways, his head, his eyes, still facing Hal.? It was obscene, the way he was stuffed down there.

  "Aw shit," Hal said.? "Fucking shit."

  Hal sat for a long time, his head on the steering wheel, his friend's lifeless body slumped next to him.? He didn't think.? He didn't feel.? There was a great big tidal wave of a thought out there, literally a tsunami of a realization, but at this moment he managed to keep it at bay by going blank.? Somewhere deep inside, he knew what the thought would be when finally it came.

  His plan had killed his best friend in the entire world, the best friend he had ever had.? In essence, when all the bullshit was boiled away, he, Hal, had killed Darren.? But there would be time for that - time during the deep darkness of years and years to think that one over.? To chew on it, as it were.?

  He had killed Darren.

  Yes, yes.? In some way that was true.? But in a more immediate way, in the way that really mattered, that big fucker back there had done it.?

  And that called for revenge.

  Revenge.? It was something he could focus on.? It was something that could carry him through the difficult tasks that lay just ahead.? It could become everything to him, blotting all this out until some future time he could not imagine now.???

  Yes.? Revenge.???

  The car had stalled.? He started it again and pulled away, driving slowly this time.? No sense getting pulled over with a corpse in the front seat.? As he drove, he gradually became aware that he was weeping.

  After a time, perhaps twenty minutes, he pulled down an old dirt road.? The road was rutted and pitted, and there were no lights.? Trees hemmed in close on either side.? He stopped the car, killed the headlights, and sat there.? He let himself cry until all of it was out of him.? It was over.? He would never have a better friend than Darren.

  When he was ready, Hal put on his leather work gloves and dragged the body of his best friend deep into the woods.? It was tough going in the thick underbrush with nothing to guide him but the headlamp-style flashlight he wore.? In death, Darren seemed a hundred pounds heavier than in life.? Hal tried not to think about how this heavy object trailing behind him was Darren.? He tried not to think how the best plan he could come up with was to leave ol' Darren in the forest for the crows and foxes and the flies and the worms, and whoever else might want a piece of his action later tonight and tomorrow.? He tried not to think about it, but there wasn't much else to think about.

  "I'm gonna come back for you," he said.? "Tomorrow or the next day, when I get this thing worked out with these assholes, I'm gonna come back with a shovel and give you a decent burial."

  In the darkness, Hal began to imagine all sorts of things.? First, Darren was nearby, watching him drag the corpse along.? Then the forest was filled with eyes, all watching in disapproval as he abandoned his friend.? There were ghosts here.? There were ghouls in these October woods, waiting to feast on Darren's rotting flesh.

  In the end, he dropped the body in a ditch and kicked leaves and dead brush over it.? Then he hastened back to the car.

  He stood, scanning the darkness in either direction.? There were no lights and no sound anywhere nearby.? There was nothing to mark this place by.?

  It didn't matter.? He would come back and find Darren again, regardless of what it took.? He wouldn't leave his friend to rot and be eaten by animals.???

  He leaned against the car and tried to piece together how everything had gone so wrong.? It had seemed funny, hadn't it?? They tried to snatch a little black girl, and she fought them off.? They tried to snatch her again, a little pissed off and serious this time, and found that somebody else had snatched her first.? So they decided to snatch her from the men who had snatched her.?

  I decided.?

  Not Darren.? Darren had gone along for the ride, as always.? And now this.? Darren was dead.? Darren was worm bait lying in a ditch in some woods.?

  It had looked easy.? They had gone easy on the big man.? They gave him a couple of bops on the head, maybe a few kicks to the body.? But the big man hadn't gone easy in return.? He had come back at them with deadly force.? These were serious customers, this big man and his partner, and they needed to die.? They were going to die, in fact, if Hal had his way.? And it was all because they wanted the girl.

  The girl.? Lola.?

  Hal turned around and looked inside the Cadillac.? She was still back there, slumped in the rear seat, staring straight ahead.?

  He walked back around and climbed into the front.? The car shifted to accommodate his weight.? He took the shotgun and pointed it at her head.? He could just as easily kill her right now and worry about these other guys later.? He didn't want to, she was his only link to them, but if she gave him any lip at all he knew he would kill her.

  "Just who the fuck are you?" he said.?

  ?

  * * *

  ?

 
It took some time for Lola to register the shotgun.

  At first, she just noticed the details.? She stared down the gun's gaping maw.? It was big and dark, just inches from her face.? She mused that it could be a cave where a bear lived.? She noticed that Mr. Shaggy's hands trembled just slightly as he worked to hold the gun in her face.? Behind and above his hands, his eyes were wild and angry.?

  She remembered how he had just dumped Mr. Blue Eyes in the woods about a hundred yards from the road.? She had watched him drag the body away, and had seen his light - the one he wore on his head like a coal miner - blundering around out there in the dark.? Then he had returned.?

  During all his time away, it had never occurred to her to do anything but sit here and wait for him.? Now he was pointing a gun at her.

  Did he blame her for Mr. Blue Eyes's death?? That seemed wrong.? It was the big one, that horrible Moss, who had killed Mr. Blue Eyes.? She thought of Moss, how he wanted her to suck him, and how she had refused - and of the terrible fear that had gripped her after he left the cabin.? She thought of how Mr. Shaggy and Mr. Blue Eyes had appeared out of nowhere, smiling and laughing while they untied her.? It was almost like they were old friends of hers, these professional rapists.? Then she almost thought of the killing, but stopped herself.? It was too much.? She had never seen anyone murdered before.? She never wanted to see it again.?

  Mr. Shaggy poked the gun at her.??

  This is what it's like with soldiers, she thought, the ones who go crazy in the war.

  "Who are you?" Shaggy said again.

  "My name is Lola Bell."

  "I know your name.? And what, you do modeling?? Acting?? Are you some kind of cop, or some kind of spy?"

  "No, I work with learning disabled children during the week."

  He waggled the shotgun some more.? "Don't fuck with me, bitch, because I'll blow your fucking head off right here."

  "I'm not fucking with you!? I work as a teaching assistant.? That's it.? That's all there is to it.? Those men grabbed me because of my boyfriend.? He's some kind of criminal or something, and he ran away.? Now they're after him."

  Shaggy lowered the shotgun.

  "Where is your boyfriend now?"

  Lola looked up.? "He's on the run.? They told him to meet them at Governor's in South Portland.? They were going to exchange my roommate Pamela and I for him.? I don't know what they're going to do now that they don't have me anymore.? I don't know what they'll do with Pamela."