Playtime (22 page)

So the big man opens the car door and steps out. He
glances over Blaine's way, but Blaine is still driving the bike straight down
the road, helmet and eyes facing forward. The big man's head turns back, he
clunks the door shut behind him and steps for the house. That is when Blaine
makes his move. He guns the bike. The big man is on the grass now, and he
accelerates right at him. Sketch hears the rising whine of the Shadow and jumps
to one side, but Blaine turns that way, too, and leans the bike to the left,
jamming on the brakes. Then his left foot actually helps keep the bike up as
they fall into a fade-away slide right at big man. He is very nimble, just
manages to avoid the bike by diving to his right, but when Blaine lays the
Shadow down on the lawn, he is still scrambling to his feet. He pulls the .22
and cocks it, big man up completely and staring at him now like a big, dangerous,
watchful predator. Blaine pulls the visor up with the other hand. 

 "So you got lucky and they let you out of county,
huh sport?" the big man says. 

 Blaine is watching him for any sudden moves
toward a weapon. "Where's Renee?" he says. 

 Sketch looks at him, shakes his head. "You
never learn, do you? You are headed right back to county jail, my friend, and
the state pen after that." 

 "Last chance," Blaine says, "And
I'm not your friend." 

 "What are you going to do, shoot me?"
Sketch says. "The cops are probably on the way now." 

 Blaine lowers the gun and shoots him in the leg.
He is damn good with the tiny pistol, can pretty much put them where he wants
them. He's aiming for the meaty part, the flesh up on the thigh, and the hole
is right where he aimed. The gun is much louder than you would think and Sketch
jumps a bit then looks down at the hole in his leg in disbelief.   

 "You shot me, you crazy fucker," he
says, grimacing as the pain begins to hit him. He reaches down for the leg.
Blaine's mouth is a thin, straight line. 

 "Where's Renee?" he says. "Or I
shoot the other leg." 

 A lot of pistol aficionados like to scoff at the
.22 but Blaine knows you can put a man down with it. He has the mag, and hit
men for years used the regular .22 shell because it didn't have enough power to
exit the skull, would rattle around in there doing extra damage. Hell, they
used to slaughter cattle with them. 

 Big man's teeth are gritted now, he is glaring at
Blaine. It's not like the movies. He looks like a rabid beast. 

 "The boat," he says.
"Playtime." He jerks his head over to the right, and Blaine looks
over and sees it, maybe a thirty-footer, docked along with a few others. Big
man takes that second of deflected attention to charge him. He's not as hurt as
he is trying to appear. He's on Blaine in an instant and they go down on the grass.
The .22 flies from his hand. Big man uses his greater weight and size to
straddle him, then begins some ground and pound action, but his blows are not
precise or that strong. Blaine uses head movement to avoid a couple, then a
couple more. He times it right, waiting for that second when the big man is
between shots, and throws a right at his chin as hard as any he has ever thrown
in his life.   

 Big man collapses like a sack of grain on top of
him, knocked clean out. He pushes the suddenly dead weight off, grabs the
Desert Eagle hanging from a back pocket: hurls it in the water. Sticks the .22
in his pocket. Scrambles up and heads for the boat. 

 Down to the dock, all the way to the end, and
Playtime is moving gently in the breeze, rocking somewhat. Thirty-footer at
least. He jumps on the deck and runs for the cabin. One quick look inside tells
him that it is empty. But there is a door at the far end.   

 He rattles it. Locked. Backs up a few steps and
runs at it with all his might, lifts one heavy motorcycle boot, and cracks it
right at door handle height. The handle stays shut but he has knocked a hole
into the thinner wood right next to it, and he reaches in and turns the knob.
And there on the floor, eyes wide open and a gag in her mouth, is his girl. The
fright in them dies somewhat after a second, then returns as she looks behind
him, and he whirls, suspecting what he'll see. 

 Big man is right in the doorway, and in his paw
is Blaine's .22. It must have fallen from his pocket out there on the grass. He
cocks it, says "If you can't beat them, join them," and fires. 

 The noise is startling in the small cabin. But
the big man has only put a hole in the wall. You would think a small gun would
be easier to shoot. But the exact opposite is true. Without much weight to
absorb it, the recoil is much greater. And a tiny gun like the .22, without
much handle to grab onto, wants to kick right up out of your hand. It was the
hardest gun to shoot Blaine had. He had spent hours and hours at the range
learning to fire it effectively. Much more difficult than the .357 under his
windbreaker, a gun the big man has never seen, and which he now whips up out of
the shoulder holster to put one right through Sketch's black, tiny, useless
heart. Then another. 

 Sketch wilts like a dying flower and slumps into the
corner. The gun slides from his fingers. He twitches for a bit, looks up at
Blaine with fierce anger and surprise, then his eyes glaze over, and he goes still
and dead. Blaine checks to make sure that is true, picks up the little gun then
he turns back to his girl and takes that gag off as gently as he can. Takes his
little pocket knife out and removes the plastic ties from her hands and feet.
Massages them. His ears are still ringing from the sound of the .357. People
who don't shoot think the noise is like that in the movies, loud but
manageable. But in real life, in a cabin like this, a shot will deafen you for
a bit. He looks at Renee's eyes, can tell she is still stunned. Keeps massaging
different places on her. The sounds of the world start coming back to him. 

 "You all right?" he asks. 

 She looks at him, sets that firm, straight mouth.
"All right now," she says. 

 "Did he hurt you?" 

 "Not really," she whispers hoarsely.
"He was saving me, like you save a special treat. The killing part is what
he likes. There are other girls buried out here, up by the house, I think. From
before he bought the boat." 

 Blaine nods, holds her, brushes his lips against
hers. "He won't be doing that anymore," he says. He rocks her back
and forth in his arms. They hear the sounds of sirens far off in the distance,
piercing the air with that keening wail. 

Good times on the beach and folks having fun have
been the reasons for being in Galveston for years and years. But just like
other places, occasionally bad things happen to good people. In the end,
however, the good folks usually gather their forces together and prevail. It
doesn't happen as often as we would like, and evil always remains, waiting.
Life, after all, doesn't come with guarantees. But it does happen. 

 The beach house was one place that Sketch had
used to stash the bodies. Seven of them were later found in there, all female,
buried below the concrete ground floor. The longest buried dated from the
mid-nineties, so he had been at it for a good long time. The cops suspect him
for a few of those unsolved murders on I-45 and are working on tying him to
them. They believe he has more bodies stashed in other places. Blaine is
remembered for coming back to life from a motorcycle accident and shooting a
killer, but for him, the real miracle that summer was getting his girl back. 

 All charges against him were eventually dropped
and his guns and license returned. And Nielson? It's hard to tell with Nielson.
He acted pissed about not getting the chance to bring Sketch to trial, and
Blaine taking matters into his own hands again, but Blaine never has been
exactly sure how to read Nielson, and he suspects that deep inside, he is happy
as a clam the way things worked out. Mandy found a good job at a lawyer's
office; her sniffles appear gone, and he never sees Doug down there anymore. Heartbreaking
shame. Without mentioning any names or being too specific, he had mentioned to
Nielson that Dandylions might be a good spot for somebody to look into. Though
he is sure that Nielson already knows that. 

 Blaine could have happily lived his entire life
without hurting anyone, and he wishes that it had worked out that way, but when
he thinks about Renee, and the way things might have gone, he has no real
regrets. In his dreams, occasionally, he relives the shooting, and sometimes he
cannot pull the big gun before Sketch shoots again, and he wakes up sweating
and afraid. But he looks over and sees his girl sleeping beside him, and
eventually the fear leaves him. 

 Renee is pregnant now, and most times happy,
though he catches her sitting quieter than he would like sometimes. She doesn't
work the bars or anywhere else. Blaine got on steady at a plant and is hard at
work finishing his new novel, too. It is the story of a stone killer and how he
was brought to justice. Strictly fiction, of course. He and his girl made their
vows public and legal, but the important ones were already engraved in their
hearts. Todd visits them often, and when he smiles that smile now, Blaine doesn't
believe that he is thinking about that time on the mountain, but about the day
he busted through a door at Sketch's house and kept his brother from dying.
They don't talk about it much, but they don't need to. 

 Sometimes, Blaine is leafing through the paper
and the obituaries and sees the face of one of the young who has been taken,
and he thinks of two who were spared, for reasons he cannot fathom.
Occasionally, he guns the Shadow through the quiet streets, parks it at the
shady edge of the cemetery, and strides in to stand for a few moments looking
down in silence at a fresh-placed marker for one of these departed. Gone,
maybe, he thinks, in a physical sense, but not forgotten. Not in this lifetime. 

Bart Hopkins Jr. is an ex-surfer, mountain hiker
and occasional rock climber, chess enthusiast, motorcyclist, and student of
language and mind and brain topics. He is the proud father of two grown
children, Krystal and Bart, and lives with his wife Kat in Texas.   

Also by Bart Hopkins Jr. 

Chasing Sunlight 

 
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