Authors: Anthony Neil Smith
Holy Death (25 page)
All it would take, punch the emergency call button, there was no way Lafitte could react fast enough. Rome reached for the button on the rail right next to the volume control for the TV. He’d accidentally punched it several times the last couple of months, and he knew how it worked. Loud and fast. Rubbed his thumb across it. It was
right there
.
Lafitte didn’t move a muscle. The ghost of his grin still hanging right there. “Go ahead. Try it.”
Rome wondered how Lafitte had gotten into the hospital without being noticed. How he had made it past all the night nurses, the security, the interns. How he had somehow disabled the camera—no, not disable. Turned it, so he wouldn’t be seen. Froze it in place. So there was a chance he knew how to fuck up the call button, too. All Rome had to do was push it and find out.
If he did, this right here was over. Of course Billy would make it out. What was Rome thinking? He wouldn’t have come unless he had an exit plan.
Rome pulled his thumb away from the button. Rested his hands together across his stomach. Settled back onto his pillows.
“Okay,” Lafitte said. He sat up straighter. “Are you ready?”
Rome tensed, but then, why? Funny. He let his muscles go slack. He was....at peace. “Ready for what?”
Lafitte looked around the hospital room. “Aren’t you tired of this place? Doesn’t it smell like chemicals and death and shit? It’s not doing you any good, is it?”
Rome took in a deep breath. He didn’t mind it. He felt alive. “Where?”
“Off the grid. We’ll know when we get there.” Lafitte stood. “How about it?”
The call button. It was right there.
Right. There.
Rome closed his eyes a second, thought of Desiree. First alive beside him in bed, then dead on a slab. Then he opened his eyes. It was the only shot he had.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Lafitte nodded. He first switched off some of the machines at Rome’s bedside, the beeping giving way to the full-on buzz of the nightlight. Dead quiet for a moment. Rome had forgotten what life sounded like without a heart monitor beeping its song at him constantly. It was sweet relief.
Billy picked up his bag of drugs, pulled the wires from Rome’s arms, legs, and chest, then slid his arms under Rome’s shoulders and one remaining knee, lifted him from the bed and held him close. Rome wasn’t as far from the floor as he expected to be. He had forgotten how short Lafitte actually was. But he still had his strength. The man smelled the way Rome had expected him to—a dark musk that made him think of the French Quarter in summer, sitting on a barstool at the Chart Room, wondering if the bar his drink sat upon had been there since the eighteenth century.
Lafitte said, “You ready?”
Rome let out a sigh and nodded.
Maybe Rome expected an escape through the window, across the rooftops. But it wasn’t like that at all.
Lafitte walked out of the room, down the hall, and through the doors to the staircase. Down three flights, then he kicked open doors and they were outside. Rome thought he heard, faintly, an alarm going off, but he could never be sure. Wishful thinking.
Parked right beside the outside door was a Honda S2000 convertible, two-seater, silver, top down.
“Nice,” Rome said.
“You think?”
“Very nice.”
Lafitte lowered Rome gently into the passenger seat, then hopped in himself, cranked her up and drove away as if no one was chasing them and might never chase them again.
Whatever else Rome was feeling, he sure as fuck wasn’t scared. Right then, the wind chilly on his skin, his first time in a car since his ride to the airport with Wyatt, he didn’t feel like his mortal enemy’s hostage. He felt...free.
Finally one way or the other, they would settle this shit, mano a mano.
A few blocks away, Lafitte switched on the stereo. Some heavy metal guitar erupted, mid-song, not Lafitte’s style at all. Must’ve come with the car. The singer was wailing, “Somebody get me a doctor!”
Rome thought,
You and me both, pal.
Lafitte found the interstate, merged on, and headed North.
###
THESE TWO MOTHERFUCKERS WILL RETURN IN
THE SCARS OF BILLY LAFITTE
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T
o Allan, Kyle, and J.T., who publish the sorts of books I lust after. I am proud to be a Heathen.
To Eric Campbell at Down & Out Books for the support and reanimating my backlist. I’m proud to be on the D&O roster.
To Victor Gischler and Sean Doolittle, who write the sorts of books I wish I had written. I am proud to call you my closest buds.
To Rusty Barnes, Travis Neisler, and Sean O’Kane, who brutally and lovingly ripped this book apart before I showed it to anyone else, I am proud to take advice from you gents.
And especially to Brandy Smith, who makes life worth staying alive for, I am proud you married me and that you’re the one I get to spend all my days and nights with.
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Worm
Once A Warrior (Adem & Mustafa #2)
All The Young Warriors (Adem & Mustafa #1)
The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3)
Hogdoggin' (Billy Lafitte #2)
Yellow Medicine (Billy Lafitte #1)
Choke On Your Lies
The Drummer
Psychosomatic
Colder Than Hell (Dead Man #16)
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