Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

“Well, I can get you close…”

They drove on, slowing for small towns, stopping for diesel once. Vince got a cup of coffee from the little convenience store at the gas station and heard people discussing the terror attack in Washington. It was big national news, and his name was out there, now. He wondered if he should turn himself in — if he survived his visit to Wersted. When the other shoppers glanced at him, he turned away, not sure if his picture was on the news yet.

He climbed back up into the Kenworth tractor-cab beside Dutch, and they headed out. Two hours more and they stopped for lunch in a West Virginia mountain town — Vince never did catch the name of it.

They ate lunch, Vince insisting on paying — he had more than enough cash on him — and they exchanged stories about service in Iraq.

Afterwards Vince went to a convenience store and bought a burner phone. Dutch was using the restaurant bathroom, so Vince went to the tractor-cab and sat on the mounting step under the door on the passenger side, thinking about Deirdre and the people Gustafson’s followers had managed to kill. Would he get to Gustafson in time?

And what about Rose Destry and Bobby? Were they safe? Maybe it was time to call them. He set up the burner phone, used it to call Rose Destry.

“Vincent!” she said. “I almost didn’t answer because it gave no number!”

“It’s a burner phone, Rose. Where are you?”

“We’re up in Connecticut. I’ve got some family up here.”

“Did Bobby find the motorcycle where I left it? Still there?”

“Yes, this time of year people don’t go up to Sullivan Rock. He found it and put it in the truck, brought it to the cabin. But it’s yours, Vince. We want you to have it.”

“Someday I’ll take you up on that. Can I talk to him?”

“Sure. Listen, Vince — thank you for bringing my boy home.”

“My pleasure, Rose.”

Bobby came on the line. “Vince! Hey, man! I got a call from Shaun!”

“He’s okay?”

“Yeah — he’s testifying. They put him up in a nice hotel. He’s turning evidence against the Brethren. They’re gonna have to hide him somewhere afterwards…”

Vince heard Dutch coming back to the truck, going around to the other side. “Listen — I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch sometime.”

“Vince — you keeping your head down?”

“Always. Take care of your mom for me.”

He hung up, put the phone in his coat — and then sat listening to the voices coming from the other side of the truck.

“I saw how much money you had in that wallet when you bought them snacks, man.” A reedy male voice. Maybe a guy in his twenties. “You give me the money and you drive away and no one needs to get hurt. This gun’s got hollow-point bullets. They’ll fuck you up.”

“Fuck you and your junkie friend,” Dutch said.

Vince had left his pack locked in the truck. With his gun and knife in it. He shrugged and got up, walked around the front of the Kenworth.

He found two young men bracing Dutch who stood with his back to the tractor-cab. One of them was acned with long, greasy blond hair; the other, his face gaunt and pitted, had his head shorn. Both were skinny, dressed in baggy pants and t-shirts and open plaid shirts. Their eyes were sunken and the urgency in their body language said opiate addicts. Probably oxy heads; hillbilly heroin. The one with the greasy blond hair had a 9mm pistol in his hand.

The junky with the lank blond hair was saying, “You know what, ‘Red’, I can shoot you, and take your wallet, and drive off with your fucking truck and maybe sell whatever’s in it, how’d that be?”

Striding toward them Vince said sharply, “Hey — point that at me!”

Startled, the gunman turned to Vince who was already stepping in, left hand gripping the gun barrel, pointing it up at the sky; his right pistoning out to rabbit-punch the junkie in the jaw. He felt bones break.

Vince jerked the gun from the junkie’s hand and cracked him over the head with it, at the same time turning sideways to evade a slash from a buck knife wielded by the bald one. The first junky was folding over, out cold as Vince sank his fist in the second junkie’s brisket. The bald guy doubled over and Vince cracked him over the head with the gun. He fell beside his friend.

Then, he and Dutch stood there a minute, contemplating the two men sprawled on the asphalt. “Well you sure didn’t give me much to do, dammit, Vince,” Dutch said, shaking his head.

Vince opened the pistol. There were three bullets in it. “Down to their last three bullets. But he could’ve killed you with them. The mystery is, how’d a couple of junkies not sell their gun to get their shit?”

“That would’ve happened sooner or later, if they lived long enough. I guess we should call the police?”

“You know what, let’s not bother. Staties or the sheriff might keep us here for a week dealing with it.”

“You got that right.”

“We’ll dump their weapons in the first river we see. Meanwhile…” He looked around, seeing that no one was watching. The semitruck blocked them from the view of the restaurant and store. “Let’s drag these knuckleheads over there and drop them in that dumpster. They can figure out their lives from there…”

That’s what they did. The two men were waking up, groaning when they were dumped in the big trash dumpster.

Without looking back, Vince and Dutch returned to the truck and got under way. They’d just slowed on a bridge over a river so Vince could toss the junkies’ weapons over the railing, when Dutch said,