I delivered for you, lady. So what I do on my time is my business. I ain’t your damn slave, Gwen.”
She kept the pistol pointed at him. “Web London is still standing.” “Well, hell, you said to keep him that way. Make him look like a coward. We got lucky when I found out the shrink he was seeing was an old acquaintance of mine from Vietnam. So everybody thinks Web’s rotten to the core. This whole thing took a lot of planning, had a lot of risk, and let me tell you we executed it to damn near perfection, and you got it for pennies on the dollar ’cause I think what happened to your son stinks.” He looked at her with a hurt expression. “And I don’t even remember you saying thank you.”
Her tone was businesslike, her expression unreadable. “Thank you. How much money have you made off the drugs?”
Surprised, he lowered his drink. “Why?”
“After what I’ve paid you and what we’ve sunk into this place, Billy and I are in the hole. They’ll be coming to take his antique car collection pretty soon because we borrowed against that too. We could use some free cash flow, because we’re going to be selling out and moving on too, especially since however you got that injury tells me that one day somebody’s going to come knocking on our door with questions I don’t have answers for. And frankly, I’ve had enough of Virginia hunt country. I’m thinking our next stop is a small island where it never gets cold and there are no damn phones.”
“You want me to give you a share of my drug money?” he asked incredulously.
“Actually, demand would be more accurate.”
Nemo spread his hands. “Well, I wasn’t kidding, darlin’, we got some good prices for those fine yearlings,” he said in a very sincere tone.
She laughed at him. “This place never made any money before we bought it and it’s not going to make any money now. Fine year-lings or not.”
“Well, what do you want from me?”
“It’s very simple. I want you to tell me how much you have made from the drugs.”
He hesitated for a moment before answering. “Not that much, actually.”
She raised the pistol and pointed it in his direction. “How much?”
“Okay, ’bout a million. There, you satisfied?”
She gripped the pistol with both hands and took very careful aim at his head. “Last chance. How much, Nemo?”
“Okay, okay, don’t get your panties all twisted.” He let out a deep breath. “Tens of millions.”
“Then I want twenty percent. And then we go our separate ways.” “Twenty damn percent!”
“Wired to an offshore account. I’m assuming that a great businessman like yourself has set up some secret accounts somewhere to hide your millions. Excuse me, tens of millions.”
“But look, I got expenses.”
“Right, you probably paid your help off in pills, since most of them are too stupid to know better. And since running prescription drugs means low cost, lower risk, I imagine your profit margins are pretty nice, and I don’t think you’ve been paying taxes on the income. And on top of that, you use our equipment that we paid for to move your product and also the manpower we’re paying to work the farm to do it for you. So there was very little capital out of your pocket, and that makes for an even greater return on investment. And so, yes, I want my share. We’ll call it rental fees for equipment and labor. And you’re lucky it’s only twenty percent.” She slid a hand enticingly down her front. “In fact, you’re fortunate that I’m in a generous mood right now.”
Strait just shook his head. “What, was your dad a damn MBA too?”
“Billy and I have gotten the wrong end of the deal for long enough. At least we’re still alive. My son only had ten years. Does that sound fair to you?”
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“In cold blood. A religious woman like yourself?”
“I pray for my son every day, but I can’t say that my faith in God is absolute anymore. And I can always call the cops.”
Nemo smiled and shook his head. “And tell them what? I’m dealing drugs? And oh, yeah, I killed a bunch of people for you? What’s your leverage?”
“My leverage, Nemo, is that I don’t give a damn anymore what happens to me. That’s the best leverage of all. I have nothing more to lose because I’ve already lost everything.”
“What about Billy?”
“He knows nothing about this. And now it’s twenty-five percent.”
“Well, hell.”
Keeping the gun trained on him, she stood, unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor, then stepped out of it completely naked.
“And here’s the sweetener,” she said. “Going once, going twice . . .” “Deal!” said Nemo Strait as he held his arms out for her.
The sex was hard and left them both breathless. Strait collapsed on his back nursing his aching arm, while Gwen let her legs down and stretched them out. Strait had almost driven her right through the box springs and twisted her legs back into positions they were never meant to go. She would be hurting for a couple days, but it was a wonderful pain, something her husband had withheld from her for so long. And not just the sex, but also the love, which was far worse. In public he made a pretense of affection; in private he bothered not at all. He had never been abusive to her—on the contrary it was extreme diffidence coupled with irreversible melancholy; being ignored had never been so painful.
Gwen sat back against the headboard, lit a cigarette and blew fat rings to the ceiling. She lay there for about an hour and then reached over and put a hand on Strait’s hairy chest, slowly rousing him.
“That was wonderful, Nemo.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted back.
“Think you can do it again before sunrise?”
He opened one eye. “Damn it, woman, I ain’t nineteen, and I got a bad wing. You get me some of that Viagra crap, maybe I can.”
“In your line of work I’d think you’d be tired of pills.”
He raised his head slightly and looked at her. “Hey, you wouldn’t entertain the notion of moving to Greece with me, would you? It’d be a hell of a lot of fun. Guaranteed.”
“I have no doubt, but my place is with my husband whether he knows it or not.”
He slumped back down. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”
“And you’re really just looking to cut me out of my twenty-five percent.”
“Okay, I give up.”
“Nemo?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think happened to Ernest B. Free?”
He sat up, used her cigarette to light his, then sat back next to her and put an arm around her.
“Hell if I know. That one’s really got me stumped. I thought he’d be at the compound HRT hit, but he wasn’t. Unless the Feds are lying, but why would they? They bag him, they’d be screaming that to the world. And the guy I used to set up the Frees also planted the drugs and other stuff down there, including some made-up files on the judge and two lawyers. He actually knows old Ernie, so he would’ve seen and recognized him if he was down there. Even if they had him real well hidden.”
She ran her fingers through his hair. “Web and Romano are leaving soon.”
“Yeah, I know. Good riddance. They’re cramping my style, although it was pretty sweet driving fifty thousand stolen pills right out under the Feds’ noses. But to tell you the truth, I kind of like those guys. If they found out what we’ve done, they’d try and put us on death row, but except for that, I wouldn’t mind popping back a few brews with them from time to time.”
Strait glanced over at Gwen, and the look on her face startled him. “I loathe Web London,” she said.
“Look, Gwen, I know what happened with your son and all—” She exploded and beat the mattress with her fists. “It makes me sick to see his face. They’re worse than the Frees. They come rushing in to save the world and innocent people start dying. Those people swore to me that once HRT was called in, no one else would die. And then they par
aded around Web London as this big hero while my son lies dead in his grave. I’d love to shoot them all down myself.”
Strait swallowed nervously at her wild tone and words as she knelt there on the bed, her hair in her face. Her lean, naked body, every muscle tensed, made her look like a panther about to spring. He eyed the gun where she’d put it on the nightstand and was ready to make a lunge for it, but she was quicker. She pointed the gun all around the room as Strait looked on nervously. Finally the barrel ended up pointed at Gwen herself. She looked down at it, as though she wasn’t sure what it was. Her finger eased closer to the trigger.
“Then why don’t you do it yourself?” he said, eyeing the gun. “Kill Web, I mean. Like you said, accidents happen. Especially on horse farms.”
Gwen thought about this and finally dropped her angry look and smiled at him, putting down the gun.
“Maybe I will.”
“Just don’t blow it, though, ’cause we’re in the home stretch.” She got under the covers, snuggled against him, kissed his cheek and put her hand under the sheet, rubbed him down there. “Just one more time,” she said in a low, throaty voice, her gaze holding his. She slid the sheet off them both and looked down and smiled.
“My goodness, who needs Viagra, Nemo?”
“Woman, you are playing me like Charlie Daniels plays the fiddle.”
Even without the potency drug, Strait managed to satisfy her one more time though it about killed him.
Later, as Gwen dressed, he watched her.
“Damn, you are a hellcat.”
She zipped up her dress and held her shoes in one hand. Strait got up and started gingerly pulling his shirt over his bad arm. She looked at him. “Early morning plans?”
“Aw, you know how the life on a horse farm is, there’s always something to do.”
She turned to leave.
“You know, nothing personal or anything, Gwen, but it ain’t good for a person to carry that much hate around. You just got to let it go at some point or else it’ll ruin you. I was like that when my ex took the kids. At some point you just got to let it go.”
She slowly turned and looked at him. “When you’ve seen your only child lying dead right in front of you with a bloody hole in his chest, Nemo, and then you lose the only other person you love because of it; when you’ve reached the lowest point of despair a person can reach and then watch yourself drop even lower—then you can come and talk to me about letting go of the hate.”
51
Claire jerked up from a deep sleep that she had fallen into from exhaustion and despite her terror. She felt the fingers against her skin and she was about to strike out at her attacker when the voice made her stop.
“It’s just me, Claire,” said Kevin as he lifted off her blindfold.
There was no light, so Claire had to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She looked down at Kevin, who was sitting next to her, his hands around the cuffs that held her to the wall.
“I thought you were tied up too.”
He smiled and held up a small bit of metal. “I was. But I took this off one of the markers they give me to draw with. Picked the lock. I’m good with my hands.”
“I can see that.”
“Give me just one more minute and I get you loose too.”
In less time than that, Kevin had her free. She rubbed her wrists and sat up, looked around and eyed the door. “I take it the door’s locked?”
“Always has been. Maybe not now, if they think we chained up.”
“Good point.” She stood, taking a moment to get her balance after being off her feet for so long, a condition that was compounded by the darkness. She looked around again. “Anything we can use for a weapon, in case someone’s on the other side of that door?” she whispered.
Kevin went over to the cot, turned it over on its side and un-screwed two of the metal legs. He kept one and handed the other to Claire.
“You hit ’em high and I hit ’em low,” he said.
Claire nodded, without a lot of confidence, though. She wasn’t sure she could hit anybody.
Kevin seemed to sense her trepidation, because he added, “We only hit ’em if they trying to hurt us, right?”
“Right,” said Claire a lot more firmly.
They inched over to the door and tried it. It was locked. They listened intently for a bit yet could hear no one on the other side, even though the machinelike sounds were not as loud now. “I guess we’re not getting out of here until they want us to,” said Claire.
Kevin eyed the door and stepped back. “I ain’t never noticed that before.”
“What?”
“That the door hinges are on the inside.”
Claire looked hopeful, but only for an instant. “But we’d need a screwdriver and hammer to get them out.”
“Well, we got the hammer.” He held up the metal table leg. “And right here is the screwdriver.”
He went over to where the cuffs that had held Claire were attached to a bolt in the wall. With Claire’s help, they finally managed to unscrew the bolt from the wall and Kevin slid off the cuffs. He held up one of the cuffs. “It got an nice edge to it, like a screwdriver.”
“Good thinking again, Kevin,” said Claire with considerable admiration. Here she was, feeling totally helpless, and Kevin was pulling one miracle after another out of his hat.
It took them some time and they kept stopping and listening for anyone coming, but the hinge pins finally came out. They were able to pry open the door and step through. It was dark here too, and they stumbled along, touching the walls of the narrow corridor for guidance. The smell of chlorine was very strong now. They were confronted with another locked door that Kevin was able to pick with his pen clasp. They encountered yet another door that, thankfully, was unlocked.
Claire took in a long breath, as did Kevin. He smiled at her. “Feels good to finally be outside.
“Well, let’s get going before they come and lock us back up.” They moved past the covered pool, crept through the bushes and then down a winding grass path. As they neared the end of the path, Claire could see a building far up ahead. It was the mansion. She had glimpsed it on her visit. They were at East Winds Farm!
“Omigod,” she exclaimed.
“Shhh,” said Kevin.
She whispered into his ear, “I know where we are. I have friends who are here, we just have to get to them.” The problem was that, in the darkness, it was hard to tell in which direction was the house that Web and Romano were using, even with the mansion as a marker.
“If they at the place where we been locked up, how you know they really your friends?”
“I just know. Come on.” She took his hand and they made their way in what Claire thought was the direction of the carriage house. Long before they could reach it, however, both stiffened when they heard a vehicle coming. They ran back into the bushes and peered out. Claire’s spirits plummeted. It was a truck, not the Mach or Romano’s Corvette. She gasped when the truck pulled to a stop and several men with guns climbed out. Their escape had apparently been detected. She and Kevin ran deeper into the woods, such that Claire totally lost her bearings.
They finally stopped, caught their breath. Kevin looked around. “I ain’t never seen so many trees in one place. Can’t tell which way’s out.”
Claire breathed deeply, attempting to get her lungs and her nerves under control. She nodded. “I know.” She studied the lay of the unfamiliar land and was attempting to make a decision on which direction they should go when they heard footsteps. Claire pulled Kevin to her and they squatted low in the underbrush.
The person was on the path and walked right past them, obviously unaware of Claire’s and Kevin’s presence. Claire peeked out. She didn’t know Gwen Canfield and thus had no idea why a woman in a long red dress was walking barefoot through thick woods at this hour. Claire thought about calling out to her but finally decided against it. She had no idea who their captors were. This woman could be part of that group
.
Once Gwen was out of sight, Claire and Kevin started moving