Bad People (47 page)

“No,” she said. “You come here.”

He seemed to consider this. “I have your gun, Connie,” he said.

Was he trying to decide is she was armed as well?

“I have another one,” she said.

“Really,” he said. This seemed to amuse him, perhaps he did not believe her. “Why didn’t you use it downstairs then.”

“I thought my car hitting you would be enough.”

“It wasn’t. The car barely touched me. I leaped to the side. But you tried to hurt me. Why did you do that Connie?”

She almost guffawed. Almost. “Just go away, and leave us be,” said Connie. “I have a gun too,” she said.

“Who’s we?” then he paused. “Oh, you mean Steven-David. Are you there, S/D? How’s your head feeling. Better now?”

She gritted her teeth. How dare he taunt her through her son. “Never mind about him,” she said. “I can take care of him. Keep focused on me.”

“That’s always the way it is with you. ‘Focus on me.’ Hm. That tells a tale. You tried to
hit
me Connie. With your
car
.”

He was really dwelling on that, as if it were somehow outside of what he possessed any ability to perceive.

“I’m sorry about that, Luke. I was scared. I didn’t know it was you. I just saw a shadow in the garage. I only came for Stephen-David. That’s all.”

“And now you have him, but you can’t get out. We could go on and on, but we both know what has to happen next. You need to accept it. No more tricks now. Come out.”

He definitely was concerned that she could hurt him, somehow. That was the only thing she could think to use. “No Luke!” she shouted. “For the last time, I’m not coming out. You come in here, or just leave. I mean it!”

“That won’t work,” said Luke. “But here. I have your gun. Here, take it.”

She heard something metal hit the floor, and then he must have kicked it, because from down the hall came the sound of something sliding on the floor. Her gun, and it came sliding into the bedroom. He had kicked it hard enough that it slid all the way to the back wall, near the wide window.

Connie knew Luke wanted her to run for the gun and expose herself in the middle of the room. But still, was it worth the risk anyway? Would he have risked it if he had loaded the gun? Or did he figure, probably rightly, that he could shoot her before she ever had a chance to pick it up and aim it?

Before she could think, Stephen-David bolted toward it. “No!’ she cried. She slammed the door shut, grabbed the tail of his shirt, just enough of it, and because she refused to let go, she got dragged behind him. She managed to pull him back enough so that he lost his balance, falling backward.

Luke fired.

Buckshot ripped the bedroom door to splinters, sprayed into the room. It missed Connie.

Stephen-David sprawled onto the floor. Connie screamed. Stephen-David grabbed his flank. Most of the blast had missed him too, but some shot, slowed by its travel through the shattered door, had still buried itself in his flesh. Before Connie could see how badly Stephen-David was hurt, Luke roared and sprinted forward. He held the shotgun high, by the barrels, like a club. It gashed the doorjamb as he ran through.

Connie lost sight of the handgun on the floor in the dark. She rolled away from Luke’s first heavy swing. The butt of the shotgun broke into the floorboards.

S/D tried to rise. Luke swept the shotgun, hitting her son in the chest. Luke aimed a second blow, this time at her son’s head.

“No!” she cried. She rolled, and sprang at Luke from behind.

Hitting his back with her body was like hitting brick, or pavement. He was too large for her.

He whipped around, caught her hair in his open hand, and shook her. Stephen-David attacked too. Luke struck again with the butt of the shotgun, sending her son back hard against the far wall. While still struggling with Connie, Luke broke the shotgun barrel again. He tried getting his hand toward his pocket—where he must have shells—while still holding the shotgun with the same hand.

Connie snatch hold of the pocket with both hands and torn down. The thick fabric ripped and the shells came tumbling out.

“God dammit!” shouted Luke.

Still holding her hair he pulled her up. He yanked her forward, throwing her at the same wall Stephen-David had fallen against

The shells rolled. The grade of the house had always been a little higher in the back. Luke took two broad strides, and slammed the door shut. He stood there, blocking it.

The shells rolled toward the door.

Toward Luke.

A shell bumped, arrested by the thick sole of his black shoe.

She heard him chuckle.

“You see how this works,” he said. “I’m going to kill your son in front of you,” he said.

Chapter 54: Luke

From the time Luke had reentered the damn house, nothing but problems.

S/D had not been where Ardiss had told him.

Then as soon as Luke heard S/D’s footsteps upstairs, Connie had tried to kill him with her car.

He managed to sidestep some of the impact, but still got the wind knocked out of him.

He stood, and standing told him he had broken a couple ribs.

He’d dropped the shotgun and had to wedge himself back down again to get under the car and retrieve it. That hurt. And it gave Connie time to run into the house.

But it turned out lucky that he was down. No sooner than he had his hands on the shotgun, an unmarked police car pulled up.

Ardiss had called and turned him in.

All a trap for her to be with S/D. She wasn’t even on the lawn anymore where he had left her.

Probably safe at police headquarters, wrapped in a blanket, and telling her story. Anyway it was her word against his.

He shot the two policemen quickly. He was certain he had killed the younger one. Took his head off.

The older one fell sideways, trying to crawl back into his driver’s seat.

His legs shook, and then he slid down to his knees and was still, still leaning into the car, like he wanted to give a blowjob to someone seating inside.

Luke closed in on the cop to make sure, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt someone watching him.

He caught sight of Connie in an upstairs window, watching him, just watching.

He hurried inside to finish Connie and S/D quickly.

He planned to bring S/D’s body downstairs, and leave him in the garage with the shotgun cradled in his arms. As if he had shot himself after killing his mother and the cops.

It made more sense. For all anyone knew Luke was a complete stranger to these people. He would tell the police it was some weird teenager the Ardiss got involved with. That he knew nothing else about. He knew how to talk to people. How to manage people. Ardiss didn’t. Ardiss was a girl.

Upstairs, Luke sensed a trap. Connie was in the back room, and she had to know he was coming. She had to know it was over. Yet she didn’t surrender.

Robb Hart had cried when his time came. Jay Porter had giggled like a girl, and Barry Taupe’s life seemed to leave his body even before Luke killed him. But Connie was running. Why?

He was unsure, and he waited in the hallway for the Mind to give him the answer. And strange too, that he did not smell any surrender in the house.

Sweat. Adrenaline. Yes. And fear. He smelled the fear, but fear could lead to desperation. Connie lacked the smell of submission. But then, she had never had that. Now he understood what it was that had interested him in her for that length of time. She lacked the gene so prevalent in all those others. The gene to just give in, lay down and submit, even though she was miserable and unhappy. He never had that crippling gene either. Too bad it had to end.

Maybe there was another way. Once he killed her; he could open her chest, her skull, look for something different there. It would be a useful experiment. In fact, he might take her body away for study. Her insides maybe could tell him her secrets, the ones she had so stubbornly refused to impart to him in life.

He slid the gun across the floor to see what it would make her do.

If she did not take the bait, then she was playing some other game—had in fact, another weapon of her own, one he hadn’t in his numerous searches of her condo. One she may have had stashed in her car.

He did not mind sliding the gun across the floor loaded. He could fire before she could pick it up. Besides the Mind would not allow bullets to penetrate him. Something would happen: the gun would jam, or something like that. Like when she’d tried hitting him with the car. It only forced him down, so he was hidden when the cops drove up.

The gun slid into the bedroom.

S/D dived for it. Luke should have anticipated that.

Luke fired and missed because S/D stumbled or fell,

He charged without having time to reload because they fought him. Finishing this was taking too long. The cops had radioed and though that was probably less that two minutes ago, he didn’t have forever. Connie torn open his jacket pocket as he tried loading and all his shells fell out. She should not have been able to do that.

He trapped them in the room, slamming the door. Now, without the shells, and having lost the handgun, he had no easy way of putting them both down at once.

He should never have doubted. The Mind provided.

By the universal law of attraction the shells started to roll toward him. Surely now she would get it. She would understand and stop fighting. The Mind wanted Luke to win, so Luke would win.

One shell rolled right up to the tip of his foot and rested gently against him. Luke did not even stoop down to pick it up yet.

“You see how this works,” he told Connie. She must have some understanding of him by now. Some, at least, after so much time.

But she did not even pay attention to him. S/D was stunned, fallen lumped into the corner. Connie crouched in front of him, seemingly more concerned with S/D’s welfare than her own. She breathed heavily, but she was still possessed of some air of quiet about herself, as if time stood still in her.

“I want you to say something, Connie.”

“What is it?” she said.

“You have to admit that I am superior, and express regret that you allowed all this to happen.”

“I—?” There was outrage in her voice, an arrogant and nonsensical reaction, but she soon must have realized it, but she caught herself, and attempted to sound much more reasonable. “You’re right Luke. It’s my fault.”

He suspected a trap. She started to move, and he squatted down, retrieving the shell. He pressed it into one of the barrels. “You don’t mean that,” he said.

“I do.”

“Everything. You do realize that. Everything is your fault.”

“That’s what Barry thought too.”

“Him, you don’t have to worry about anymore.”

“No? Okay, Luke. That’s okay.”

“Do you remember the night in the hotel? The night you told me you wondered if you are a good person?”

“Of course I do,” she said. “You are a good person, Luke. Just like you said you were.”

He started to see red. How could she have messed that up! “No! I guess you weren’t listening very closely, even then! Good, bad, what are those things? I am the
Person
. I possess the Mind,” he had never spoken this aloud before, but it felt right that she learned what it was she was going to miss out on now.

“I get that, Luke. I understand.”

She was moving toward him, trying to pull some trick. Useless trying to reason with her. He wanted S/D to die first, and see if that would break through to her, but he made a show of pointing the gun at her, his finger wrapped around the triggers, so that instinct would make her flinch.

She didn’t flinch. She leaped.

He pulled the triggers, but she had already grabbed the barrel and pushed it up; the buckshot went harmlessly into the ceiling. His finger, caught, twisted. It snapped. He shouted.

He tried to pull the barrel of the shotgun free from Connie’s grip, but she would not let go. He pushed her forward then, to ram her with the barrel against the far wall.

Instead of fighting him, she seemed to go with the weight, pulling him faster.

She angled not for the wall, but for the wide window. Still holding the barrel tight in both hands she ran backwards, hitting the window with her back and smashing through the glass. She tumbled out, her momentum dragging Luke with her.

They fell to the patio awning together. They rolled off. His right shoulder shattered as he hit the concrete. Connie landed atop him, and, though she had lost her grip on the shotgun during the fall, she now grabbed it again, trying to twist it free.

Adrenaline drove her; she seemed hardly conscious of the second-story fall. Nothing else excused or made possible her resistance.

His shoulder hurt; Connie seemed uninjured.

He tried to fire the shotgun. He did not have it pointed at her; it was pointed to the sky, as they fought over it, but he thought the shock of the blast and the heat of the barrel would force her to let go.