Gone 'Til November

TWENTY-SEVEN

When she stepped through the doorway, she heard Billy come in behind her, the rusted creak of the hinges, a bolt being thrown. He touched her on the back, prodded her forward.

“Go ahead,” he said. They were in almost total darkness.

Noises to her right. She turned to see him lighting a Coleman lantern with a match. He set the lamp atop an overturned crate, adjusted the wick until the flame grew brighter. He still held the Python. Her Glock was tucked into his belt.

They were in a big, high-ceilinged room, the concrete floor stained and chipped, the remnants of some type of machinery in one corner. On the front wall, massive sliding doors, closed now, a smaller door beside them. Grids and gaps in the concrete where other equipment had once been, empty crates. An iron staircase led up to a second-floor catwalk. There were gaping holes in the ceiling, and she could see the first stars against the blackness.

“What am I going to do with you, Sara? You always complicate things.”

He eased the Python’s hammer down, pointed to her waistpack. “Your cell in there?”

She shook her head.

“You sure?”

“It’s back in the Blazer.”

Something fluttered near the ceiling. She looked up.

“Pigeons,” he said. “Bats in here, too. Didn’t get more than an hour’s sleep all night.”

Her eyes were adjusting. There was trash scattered on the floor, broken bottles, graffiti on the walls. A sooty blotch against one wall, as if from a fire.

“Nice place, isn’t it?” he said. “Go on up those stairs there.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, Sara. We don’t have a lot of time.”

The stairs were spotted with pigeon droppings, rust. She went up slowly, heard him behind her. He’d left the lamp where it was, but its glow was bright enough that she could see where she was going. Sweat crept down the nape of her neck.

“Up there on the left,” he said.

She reached the catwalk, saw the open door there.

“Go on,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

She went in, heard the scratching of another match. He lit a thick candle, set it on the floor.

It was a long empty room, stripped of machinery, a tangle of pipes protruding from one wall. The ceiling was pressed tin. There was a single big front window, half the panes missing.

On the concrete floor near the window was a wooden pallet, a sleeping bag stretched out on it. Atop the sleeping bag was a Bushmaster AR-15 and an olive drab duffel bag. There was a small camping stove in the corner, a cardboard box of groceries.

“Over there,” he said. “Stay away from the window. Go ahead, sit down.”

She lowered herself to the floor, her back to the wall, watching him. To her left was a black nylon gearbag, zippered shut.

He went to the window, looked out.

“I saw you,” he said. “From up here. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. You never did give up easy.”

He set the Python on the windowsill, picked up the rifle. He looked out again and then used the butt to bump out the remaining panes of glass.

“I’ve got the high ground,” he said. “That’s something, I guess.”

He sat on the sleeping bag, his back against the wall, facing her, the window above him, the rifle in his lap.

“I used to come here as a kid,” he said. “I ever tell you that?”

“No.”

“My father was assistant foreman, until his accident. My mother and I would come here sometimes, bring his lunch. I couldn’t wait to get out of here, away from the noise, the dust. Those rollers would be going nonstop, twenty-four seven. You could almost feel that shit in your lungs.”

He pulled the candle close to him, ejected the rifle’s magazine. She looked at him, at the Python on the sill above him.

“All I could think about was how I never wanted to end up in a place like this.”

From the duffel, he took another magazine, a roll of duct tape. A draft came through the window, set the candle flame flickering.

As she watched, he ripped strips from the roll, taped the magazines together, open ends in opposite directions.

“Who are you expecting?” she said.

“Someone. Soon.”

He fit the magazine back into the receiver, slapped it into place.

Easy. Calm. Don’t let him know you’re scared.

“Billy, this has all gone too far.”

“I guess it has.”

“Lee-Anne-”

“I know. He told me.”

“Who?”

“One of the men who did it, maybe. I don’t know.” He worked the bolt, laid the rifle across his lap, rubbed his right sleeve across his forehead. “Christ, it’s hot in here.”

“This doesn’t have to go any further,” she said.

“Too late for that. How much you tell Hammond?”

“All of it.”

“Too bad.”

Moonlight was beginning to filter through the window. He looked at his watch.

“We agreed on an hour from now,” he said, “but I imagine he’ll be along a good bit before that. Maybe bring some people with him, too.”

“What people?”

“Ones that money belonged to, I expect. Or them that want it now. Doesn’t matter either way. Didn’t know how long I’d need to hide out here. It was almost a relief, getting that call.”

She thought about Danny at JoBeth’s, eating dinner now maybe, or watching TV, wondering where she was.

You have to think clearly. You have to get out of this.

“They’re coming here?” she said.

“One of them is, at least. He said he wanted to cut a deal. I told him yes.”

“What kind of deal?”

“I keep a little, give him the rest. That’s what he told me. Can’t imagine that’s their plan, though. Anyway, I’m ready for them.”

“Billy, this is crazy. We need to get out of here.”

“I’ve already killed one man. What difference does it make I kill a couple more?”

“We can walk out of here right now.”

“I can’t go to prison, Sara. You know that.”

“We can talk to the sheriff.”

“You think that’s going to do any good? This isn’t about any throwdown, Sara. I shot that boy. I told him to walk down into that swamp and turn and face me. And when he did-so scared he was almost pissing himself-I looked him right in the eye and I shot him in the chest. Then I shot him twice more. To be sure.”

She said nothing.

“He didn’t understand what was going on, even after I shot him the first time. He never knew.”

“You’re not going to be able to get away, Billy. The only way out of this is to give yourself up.”

“You’re right about one thing. The people that want that money, they’ll keep coming. Even if I did get away, they’d keep chasing me. That’s why it’s got to end here, tonight, one way or another. It’s the only chance I’ve got.”

“This is wrong. This isn’t the way to do it.”

“I’m sorry you had to be here for this, Sara, but I’m out of options. If they want that money, they’re going to have to take it from me.”

The patch of moonlight grew on the floor.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “We can walk out to the Blazer, be gone before they get here. We can call the sheriff. He’ll listen to your side of it.”

“Always looking out for me, aren’t you? Trying to get me to do the right thing, keep me from fucking up. And I never cut you a break, did I? I fought you all the way.”

He pointed at the gearbag.

“Go ahead, open it,” he said. “See what all the fuss was.”

“I don’t want to.”

“No, you should. Go ahead. That’s what this is all about, right?”

She tugged the bag closer, still watching him.

“Go on.”

She worked the zipper slowly, as if the bag were full of snakes. As the edges parted she saw bricks of money inside, wrapped in clear plastic. The top brick was hundreds.

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” he said. “They make that in a couple days up there. Selling poison to kids.”

“That give you the right to take it?”

“It belongs to whoever has it. When I first saw that money, all wrapped up like that, you know what I thought? That’s my ticket out. Enough money to start over somewhere else, away from here, get something going. I guess I should have known better.”

“It was Lee-Anne, wasn’t it? It was her idea.”

“Doesn’t matter now.”

“It’ll make a difference to a jury.”

“Drop it, Sara.” He took a pair of stainless steel handcuffs from the duffel.

“I’m not putting those on,” she said.

He tossed them clattering at her feet. “Don’t make this harder than it is,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

“Go ahead and shoot me now. I’m not doing it.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Try me.”

He set the Bushmaster on the floor, took the Glock from his belt, and put it beside the rifle. In a flash he was on her. She kicked out, but he batted her foot away, dropped his weight onto her. She got the heel of her hand under his jaw, pushed up, her nails scoring his skin, but his left hand locked around her throat, pinned her down, all his weight on it.

Her knees pumped, trying for his groin, thumping into his legs as he changed position. She got her right hand free, made a fist, and swung hard into his temple.

His face was mottled red above her, the veins and muscles standing out in his neck, lips pulled back over his teeth. She could smell him, woodsmoke and sweat and something else beneath it all, sour and vile. Spots were beginning to flash in her peripheral vision. I’m going to black out.

“Stop it, Sara. Goddammit… stop fighting me.”

She hit him again, a short sharp jab to his face, and then his own hand raised up, and she saw the fist coming down, tried to turn away from it.

Her head snapped back and hit the floor, and for a moment waves seemed to pass in front of her, as if she were standing too close to a fire. She let her hands drop, Billy’s face swimming before her eyes. Then she felt his weight leave her, something hard cinch across her right wrist and ratchet closed. He dragged her across the floor, her arm stretched from the socket. Then a second ratchet and he was away from her, breathing heavy, retreating to his spot near the wall.

She looked at the ceiling, gulped air. Her face felt swollen and thick.

“Goddammit, Sara.”

The room steadied around her. She touched her face. No blood, but she could already feel the swelling there. She looked to her right, saw he’d locked the loose cuff around an L-shaped bend of copper pipe that came from the wall, ran down into the floor. She pulled at it. It didn’t move.

She tried to sit up. He was touching the nail marks on his chin, looking at the blood on his fingertips. He picked up the Glock.

“Easiest thing for me to do is kill you right now,” he said. “Smart thing, too. One less loose end. You know that, right? It won’t matter much in the long run. At least not to me.”

She tasted blood in her mouth, turned her head and spat.

He rose, looked out the window again, silhouetted against the moonlight, brighter now.

“You shouldn’t have come alone, Sara,” he said without turning. “You shouldn’t have come at all.”