An Incidental Reckoning (19 page)

He flipped to the help-wanted ads, out of curiosity, as to what might be available to him should he, theoretically, go straight and try to make an honest living. Most of the jobs he wouldn’t qualify for, a thought that strangely depressed him, but then he wondered how many of those with credentials could survive in his world. Not many. If they screwed up, they got fired or maybe sued. If he screwed up, he died or went to jail.

An ad for an armored car company, for a driver, caught his eye, and as he read, his interest mounted. This fit the template. He could never get hired there, with his record, but Jon or Will could, thus putting a man on the inside. Of course, that man might necessarily be expendable, an immediate suspect, and require elimination before the police caught up. He didn’t prefer that ending, but better than another, longer sentence, or a shootout that would take his life on the brink of a comfortable retirement. He would think about it later, but a first step in the right direction. He carefully tore out the ad and set it on the kitchen table, and tossed the rest of the paper in the trash.

Brody got up, heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth and prepare for bed. He looked at his lined face in the mirror, aged by jail time that counted for twice what that same time meant on the outside. Readjusting had not been easy, and what no man had ever done, break him, time accomplished in small increments that accumulated with terrifying speed. Seeing Jon and Will again had only punctuated this truth, but also had the opposite effect: made him feel young again, able to believe the world was yet pliable and could be fashioned to suit.

He splashed some water on his face, and when he straightened back up, he caught a smile in the mirror. Jon and Will. Son of a bitch. He hadn't believed he could be so surprised by anything. Not anymore. And he couldn't remember the last time he had had so much damn fun, improvising as he went and making the most of a crazy weekend. Soon he would contact them about a new free e-mail account set up for correspondence -although none of the e-mails would ever be sent. They would all have the password, and communicate by drafts: saved, read and then deleted. He would create other new accounts at regular intervals. But first he planned to pay an unannounced personal visit to each of them, as a reminder of their standing while everything was still fresh.

Jon. With his energy channeled in the right direction, he had potential, the right balance of caution and willingness to act, as long as his fear and reluctance could be surmounted. Will was more malleable, but something in his make-up struck Brody as unstable, and too much encouragement might have serious consequences. Then again, it might be fun to see it all play out.

He thought of the camera with the photos on it, and considered having them developed for kicks. But he wasn't that stupid, and he didn't need to kill some pimple faced photo clerk to indulge in his whims.

Brody felt the stirring of sexual desire, a steady thrumming in his brain that had been there all along, but now at the forefront without any other immediate concerns. Sleep would need to wait. He made some phone calls, then showered and shaved, put on clean clothes, and got into his Mustang for a ride into town. He almost took the Harley hidden in his garage, doubted the Barney Fifes that Tanville employed as peace officers could ever make a connection even if shown a slide show of his recent vacation photos, but decided against it. He now had something to look forward to, and wouldn't risk spoiling it.

"I missed you, Brody."

Sharon rolled over and kissed him on the lips and then put her head on his chest. He patted her bare behind and then looked at his watch. He'd been here over an hour. Should happen any time now. He reached down and felt the cold and reassuring steel of the gun he had slid under the bed when Sharon had got up to use the bathroom and instead had made a phone call, and then pretended to relax. Instead, he listened intently for any sound that indicated that her guests had arrived.

"I missed you too, baby." He stroked her hair, hoping he wouldn't have to kill her. Sharon had been one of his first and best, he fifteen and she eighteen, and with her husband away now eager to rekindle their casual but often intense relationship. He used to give her drugs for free, until being sent away, and he had a good idea who now supplied her now and would be arriving soon.

Sharon still had remnants of her homecoming queen beauty, but tainted now with the years of cocaine use and failure to accept the transition into middle age. She dressed too young and looked too old for her forty-five years. He had come around for sentimental reasons, not expecting her to look eighteen anymore but disappointed in how she clung to the past and her addiction that he had tried to break her of. Despite distributing drugs in the past as a primary source of income, he didn’t like to see people he cared about destroyed by them. But once the lights had gone out, all of this evaporated, and they had been young again, if only for a time.

When she had opened the door to let him in, he knew immediately that something had changed. She was nervous, and tried to hide it with too much laughter and alcohol, drinking half a bottle of wine before they made it to the bedroom. And then the phone call. She should have known he would listen, that he always stayed alert and trusted nothing on its face. Maybe she did know and did it anyway to provide him a warning, and for that reason he held out hope that she could go on breathing after tonight.

He heard a car door close down the street and yawned and stretched.

“Need to pee, hon. Be right back.”

He grabbed his jeans and pulled them on.

“What do you need to get dressed for, Brody?” A slur still marred her speech from the wine, although it hadn't impaired her performance.

“What if your husband comes home? I don’t want go running through backyards naked trying to get away.”

She laughed, a girlish sound that nearly broke his heart and called to mind who she had once been, and who he had once been, too.

“Brody Stape running away. That’ll be the day. And anyway, Joe’s away until Saturday and I doubt he’d even care. What do you think he’s doing right now, up there in Buffalo. At least I don’t have to pay for it.” She laughed again.

I hope you’re right about that, Sharon.

Brody shook his head, both at her casual approach to mutual infidelity and to clear his mind of the melancholy mood settling over him, this yearning for the past both pointless and dangerous. He picked up his gun, stood up, and crossed the bedroom floor, keeping the pistol against his leg and blocked from Sharon’s view; but she kept her head on the pillow and never looked at him.

Instead of going to the bathroom, he padded silently down the stairs and peered out the window, made out three dark shapes moving up the sidewalk. He recognized Marcus from his swagger, unchanged after all of these years. Instead of approaching cautiously and staying out of sight, he walked in plain view, so sure that nothing could touch him. Brody smiled, glad now that he finally knew who had set him up to be discovered with the pile of heroin in that warehouse, and then ceded his operations to the Colombians in exchange for a new position of a glorified lackey: too weak and ineffective to hold onto what he had stolen.

He went to the backdoor and stepped outside, quietly shut the door, and then slid down the side of the house, coming to rest crouching behind a bush long overdue for trimming but well suited as a hide. Marcus finally showed some intelligence and sent one of his companions, no one that Brody recognized, to the backdoor. The man passed right by him, and Brody could have shot him dead but remained still. If possible, he would only take Marcus, and let the other two go and live another day, for as long as they could stay alive.

He felt impatient, wanting only to complete a necessary task and move on. He had things to do. He was, on one hand, glad to get this out of the way now. On the other, he didn't need the risks right now. He could have waited.

But Marcus had come, a preemptive strike to head off the vengeance that he no doubt feared since the moment of Brody’s release, that had built up inside and drove him to turn someone Brody trusted and maybe even loved into a traitor. But each person ultimately had a choice. Sharon could have come to him instead of siding with Marcus. It was time to clean house.

He heard the door open, a soft click. Sharon had left it unlocked, and he felt deep sadness at her betrayal. Brody got up from his hiding spot and glanced towards the back of the house. He didn't think the man stationed out there would go in, instructed rather to wait outside and catch anyone trying to escape.

Brody moved through the damp grass in his bare feet to the front of the house and peeked around the corner at the small porch. They had both gone inside. He heard a shout, and then Sharon screaming in pain and fear. He stepped into the house, senses piqued, looking for movement, listening to the conversation upstairs.

"I didn't tell him anything! He must have just left on his own! Stop it Marcus you're hurting me!"

"That's right, bitch. And I'm going to keep hurting you until you tell me where he is!"

"I don't know! Please!"

"Hold her Raymond. Going to teach her what happens when you fuck with Marcus."

Brody had heard enough. Whatever Sharon had done, she didn't deserve to be raped by a petty thug. He raced up the stairs, Sharon's screams covering the sound, and burst into the bedroom. Raymond was on the bed, on his knees with his arms wrapped around her from behind. Marcus had put down his gun on the coverlet and had one arm out of his jacket while pulling the other free. The expression on his face would amuse Brody for a long time. He stepped rapidly across the carpet, his gun held out in front until the barrel met Marcus' forehead. With his other hand, he reached down and picked up Marcus' weapon.

Marcus was a tall, muscular black man with dreadlocks and a thick scar on his left cheek. He claimed a police bullet had grazed his face, but Brody suspected he had cut it himself and made up the story. Brody had hired him two years before he had been arrested, despite misgivings about his wild and boastful nature. He had needed assistance with a major shipment immediately so ignored the character flaws. Marcus had worked out well enough to stay on, but now Brody suspected that he had begun scheming to take over his entire operation his first day on the job.

"Brody, man. This isn't what it looks like. I was going to stop by and see you, heard you got out..."

"This is exactly what it looks like. Whatever you think I am, Marcus, I'm not stupid. Never stupid. So now you've got me curious. You were going to teach Sharon what happens when you fuck with Marcus. Got a better idea. Teach me. Show me. I'm fucking with Marcus, so go ahead."

"Come on, Brody. You know how it is. You got to act tough. You got to say things to keep people in line, else they'll lose respect. I haven't lost respect for you. That could never happen. Just put down the gun. Let's talk about this, man to man."

"You're wrong Marcus. You got to
be
tough. You say something, you got to follow through. That's how you lose respect, not following through. And I have no respect at all for you, so man to man just isn't possible."

"Kill him, Brody." Sharon said, her tone even and almost conversational. She sat naked on the bed and made no attempt to cover herself. Raymond had slid off to stand on the other side and held his hands up in front of his body, breathing hard. He appeared to be no older than twenty, a scrawny boy with downy blond hair sprouting in patches from his face, his scalp shaved like the skin-heads in prison. At least one of these two understood how far out of their depth they had gone. It might have angered him that Marcus had brought a couple of pups to deal with him, but he liked that it put the odds in his favor. He only wanted Marcus and had nothing to prove to him. Brody kept an ear cocked for any indication that the third man had come into the house.

"Maybe I should shoot you, Sharon. You told him I was here. You sold me out for a little bit of powder. Is that all I'm worth to you? I'll bet you've let him in your bed, too." He didn't look at her, but kept his eyes on Marcus. He was waiting for the moment when Marcus rallied, pulled himself together enough to make his move. He didn't expect him to go down without a fight.

Sharon began to cry. "I'm sorry, Brody. It's just...I need it."

He shut her off, refused to listen. She would live, but he would never speak with her, touch her again, and she would need a new supplier after tonight as well. She should have known better, known him well enough to understand how this would go. Ah, well.

And then he saw the slight change in Marcus' eyes. His ragged heavy breathing evened out, and his muscles tensed, only just.

Brody cried out and swung his left fist in a hard punch to the kidney, then in the moment of shock swung the gun around and clocked him in the temple. He had to reach up to hit him, as with so many he had faced in his life, the ones that fell anyway. He met aggression with more aggression, wanted his opponent to know that when he brought all that he had to the front, it wasn't enough. If not for Raymond and the unknown gunman, he might have put down the gun and faced Marcus without any weapons but fists. Sure, the chance existed that he could lose, but that chance always existed. He had no qualms using the gun, however; that he stood at an advantage also proved that he had outsmarted his opponent. Often brains beat raw physical strength, a lesson he had learned and kept from the history books.