Ransom X

Chapter 62 Bar Tag

  “Do you think he’s going to bust up the place again?” Mac grumbled. The memory usually brought a laugh from the group, but tonight, not even a smile.

  Vorest spat back, “This dump could use a kerosene and a spark plug to complete the make-over.” He flipped his lighter back and forth with a clicking sound like he was threatening the timbers around him. The timbers, comfortable in the dark recesses of ancient slumber, were unimpressed.

  Sean nodded, staring at the door where Blade would soon make his entrance. He turned to Mac, smiling belatedly at his joke. He scanned his eyes over to Vorest, who was so jittery that parts of him looked out of focus. Some men, when they are threatened, like to intimidate weaker people or break things. Sean sat silent like he expected everything.

  His father was a mechanic and every day he’d come home like clockwork, stoned beyond reason. Father would hit mother, mother would slap oldest daughter Kim, Kim would lock middle child, Sean in the closet where he’d take care of the youngest daughter, Nelle. He didn’t remember molesting her, there was no agreement whether it was him or his dad, but the accusation had sent him away from her for life. He had ridden thousands of miles to get away from the cycle, and yet he’d become a participant and enabler in the torture and violence against innocents. He’d become his father. Experts would add him to the statistics. He sometimes wished that he could bring himself to put a bullet between his own eyes.

  The thought spurred him to speak, “He’ll be here any minute. What do you think he needs us for?”

  “It’s obvious, Feely and Stones fucked up. We need to find a replacement.”

  “Should have taken that sweet piece of candy sitting in the bar, where did she go anyway?” Vorest growled.

  “Why didn’t he just call us back to camp?”

  “He wants to make this beating public.”

  “You call this public?” Sean looked around the bar, only a square head from town sitting talking into a hands free cell phone headset. “I think he just wanted to know where we were – he’s cut and run.”

  Vorest punched Mac in the chest, half because he was closest, half because he had never been able to read Sean. He might be one of those quiet killers, and right now he didn’t need enemies, he needed allies. “Fuck you. He’s walking through that door and kicking our asses and then you’ll be sorry you said that.”

  Sean waited for him to catch up to his own logic. It didn’t happen. “Sure, I’m wrong.”

  The tension suddenly shifted. Before they were afraid of Blade walking through the door and now, strangely, they worried that he wouldn’t.

  Ten minutes later, the phone rang and a message was delivered through the fat bartender. Blade had fixed the problem, and he wasn’t coming after all.