Envy the Night

33

__________

What Ezra thought, kneeling in the wet earth beside a fallen pine, was of another word with old tacked on the front of it, the sort that had been tormenting him. Old game. Unlike those phrases that had run through his mind earlier, this one wasn’t a negative, had no doubts chasing it. Instead, it was an old of familiarity, as in old friend.

Old game meant Ezra knew the game. Had played it well. Few were better at it, in fact, and this son of a bitch shouting into the trees wasn’t going to be one of them. There were no doubts now, because there were no decisions to make. Only one outcome would work.

“Seven minutes!” Another shout. “That’s how long you’ve got to cooperate!”

To cooperate? No, friend, you do not understand. The seven minutes may be accurate, and important, but the cooperation? Not a part of the game that I play. Those minutes mean something altogether different to me.

How long I have to kill your friend on the boat.

The shouting man and Frank were already twenty yards behind Ezra and Vaughn and pushing farther away, walking in a straight line and making so much noise that there was no way they could hear anyone around them. Ezra might have taken a shot if he’d had to, but the one thing this guy did that was smart was stay pressed against Frank, preventing a clean line of fire. That was all right, though. If the time limit was honest, then the guy who mattered most wasn’t in the woods anyhow. He was back in the boat with Nora, well out of handgun range.

A damn good thing, then, that this idiot had just ferried Ezra’s rifle back across the lake and left it behind in the boat.

He let them push on, still shouting, for another fifteen steps, and then turned back to Vaughn, who was stretched out on his face in the wet leaves and dirt. Ezra nudged him with the toe of his boot, and Vaughn lifted a mud-streaked face.

“I’m going to the boat. You’re staying here.”

Vaughn had a wild, unfocused look, the one he’d been wearing ever since Ezra had told him that he would not kill Devin, that he would not preserve these lies for Renee.

“Stay here,” Ezra repeated. “If he comes back, shoot him.”

“No, don’t—” But Ezra was already moving, taking advantage of another roll of thunder that offered some additional sound cover. He moved on his belly, using his knees and forearms, a quiet and fast crawl that had saved his life more than once. Saved his old life, saved old Ezra.

They walked deep into the woods with AJ shouting out a constant stream of threats and explanations, intimidation and coercion. None of it got a response. The rain was falling harder than ever, slapping through the trees beneath steady rolls of thunder. When the lake was out of sight, AJ grabbed a fistful of Frank’s shirt and shoved, pointing him so they were now walking north, parallel to the shore.

“You start talking now,” AJ said. “Make that old bastard hear you. Only a couple minutes left.”

AJ was right; there couldn’t be much time left at all—three minutes, maybe—and still Frank hadn’t made a move, just walked along and waited as if some great opportunity were going to present itself. That wasn’t going to happen.

“I said talk,” AJ hissed.

“Ezra!” Frank called, and his voice sounded wooden and too soft. He shouted louder. “Ezra, if you can hear us, answer, or people are going to die. Nora’s back there on that boat. Answer us!”

The answer Frank wanted Ezra to provide was a bullet right between AJ’s eyes, but neither it nor a verbal response was offered.

“Old man is going to let her die,” AJ said. “You believe that shit?”

Frank started to yell again, then stopped, his eyes going toward a spot fifty feet ahead. The ground seemed to give way there, dipped down a short, steep hill and then rose again on the other side, a sort of sinkhole. It was the best spot he’d have, and he shifted slightly to the left, walking toward it, AJ so distracted by searching the trees that he didn’t notice or, if he did, didn’t react. The hole would give Frank a chance. Make a move on AJ right now and his first instinct would be to fire. With the gun pressed against his spine, that wasn’t an instinct Frank wanted to encourage. Make a move that started a fall, though, and do it fast enough, and the shooting response might not be AJ’s first instinct. Catching himself, stopping the fall, would come first. Right?

Better be right. If it wasn’t, then Frank was dead.

“Keep talking,” AJ said. His voice was tense and he jerked his head around constantly, peering into every shadow, shaking rain out of his eyes, his confidence slipping. These dark woods were not home to him. His sort of killing was done in different places, under streetlights and in alleys and at construction sites. He didn’t like it out here, didn’t trust himself the same way in this environment. Good.

“Ezra, damn it, answer us!” Frank shouted, completely unaware of the words leaving his mouth, focused instead on a quick mental rehearsal, choreographing the move he was going to need to make.

AJ was behind him, holding the gun against Frank’s back. That was okay, though. He’d done it this way before, down in that basement in Chicago, his father coaching him through the steps. This was the normal position, the way you held a gun on somebody when you were sure he couldn’t take it away from you. Stand behind him and jam the gun into his back and you had the illusion of total power and control. No way the guy in front could move fast enough to take the gun from you, right? No way.

It could be done, though, had been done before.

Take the gun away from me, Frank. Come on, kid, too slow. You don’t have a chance. You know how many times you’d have died already, trying this? So slow, so slow. Come on, try again. Oh, shit, almost had it that time.

They’d practiced it over and over until Frank could pull it off every time, one of his father’s favorite routines because it showcased Frank’s speed, and Frank Temple II had loved his son’s speed. Today the circumstances were right, too. AJ was standing against Frank’s back, thinking that this was the proper approach because he was using Frank for protection, for a shield. It was also keeping him close, though, and close was where Frank needed him to be.

They were closing in on that dip in the earth, a simple, unimpressive slope that held Nora’s best chance at life. The drop-off was in full view now, and Frank saw it was maybe ten feet from top to bottom. It would be a simple step sideways and a sweep of his right arm and leg, have to do it damn fast, but if he pulled it off he could send AJ down the slope.

Your gun is on his back. Tucked in his belt on his back, and if you make a perfect grab, you might get it. Don’t even worry about the gun in his hand. Just get him in front of you and headed down the hill and then go for the gun in his belt.

The drop-off was just in front of them, almost there, but AJ was pulling him away from it now. Shit, he couldn’t let that happen, needed the hill. Frank stopped, bringing AJ up with him, and pointed into the trees.

“What?” AJ said.

“Somebody moving, I think. I don’t know . . .” Frank started walking again, toward the imaginary source of noise, and AJ followed. They were walking alongside the drop-off, and Frank’s pulse was drilling away but his breathing seemed frozen. Four more steps, now two, now one . . .

In the end, he didn’t go with the move he’d rehearsed in his mind, that sidestep and sweep. It had sounded good, sounded like the only thing to try, but in the second that he moved, instinct took over and some subconscious part of his brain told him it wasn’t going to work. Instead of sidestepping he simply spun, a full, fast pivot that took his back away from the gun as he lifted his left arm and held it out straight and kept on turning, caught AJ across the shoulder and drove him forward.

It turned out he’d been wrong; AJ’s first instinct still was to fire. The gun went off a half second after Frank had spun away from it, tore through the air inches from his flesh. Then his arm hit and knocked AJ toward the drop-off. They were a step too far away, and AJ might have been able to recover if Frank hadn’t gotten a foot against the back of his knee as well, ruining any chance of balance he’d had left. AJ stumbled and fell and there was the gun in his belt, right there, all Frank had to do was reach out and . . .

He got it. His fingers closed on the stock and then AJ was gone and tumbling through the wet leaves and broken branches to the bottom and the Smith & Wesson was out of Frank’s left hand and into his right and lifted and aimed.

For one fleeting second, he waited. Just long enough for AJ to land at the bottom of the drop-off and turn back to Frank and start to lift his own weapon. Frank let all of that happen, let him get that close, and then he squeezed the trigger once and killed him with a single round below his right eye socket.