Burn Scars, Eddie Generous [read full novel txt] 📗

“You told him before he hit you?” Cary said, again facing Linda. Nothing beaten out of her, the information was the cause of the beating. To Cary the plan was foggy, but clearing, maybe. “You wanted him to come here and see Rusty?”

“Of course.” Linda had a trace of a smirk playing on her swollen lips.

“She wanted me to be a body, or maybe just get beaten by Dwayne and what then?” Rusty said.

“Come—” Cary started, but Linda had the floor.

“Cary would’ve taken care of Dwayne if he did something to you. Maybe he would’ve if I’d asked, but I couldn’t be sure. I knew he’d lose his damned mind if Dwayne killed you,” Linda said, stepping closer as she spoke. “Wouldn’t even have to ask.”

“Ho-now. Wait,” Cary said.

“So what’s the deal with the truck? Who would’ve loaded it?” Rusty said, the adrenaline filling his veins once again.

“Plan A was Dwayne killed you and Cary killed Dwayne. Craig and Danny load the truck and take it south, tonight. Plan B was that Dwayne dies, somehow, you still take the truck south to get the money.” Linda took two more steps. “Plan A would’ve been nicer, but this’ll have to do, for now.”

“Linda, no. No.” Cary spoke with tears behind his words.

“Plan A, I’d pay Craig and Danny, but let a paper trail follow them home and I’d reap the benefits of my dear husband’s life insurance…which isn’t much, fat sonofabitch, cost two hundred a month for a hundred grand of term. You know about term insurance? You pay and pay, but if the insured doesn’t die in a specific window, you’re out of luck. Sorry for your loss. But you also can’t make it obvious. There’s a waiting period, wildly irritating thing. I was on year four of a five-year term, paid for four fucking years straight. Almost ten grand.”

“Rusty, get in the truck,” Cary said, his words almost as shaky as Rusty’s legs.

“It’s the problem with insurance companies, they have investigators and ideas. Trick is to pay the big fees for a couple years, more if you can handle climbing on top of a disgusting slob of a man while simultaneously fucking one of his dough-headed laborers.” Linda brought out her left hand, reaching and open with her palm up and her fingers folding and unfolding. “Cary, give me the bag.”

Cary sneered. “Like heck—”

Linda brought her other hand from the coat, whipping a handgun from her pocket, the steel glinted a gentle flash from the truck’s headlights before touching light from way out at the road in two distinctly different tones. At three feet away, Cary didn’t stand a chance. The top of his head split and a great mist of blood rode the air while bits of skull and grey matter rained down. Rusty eyed a pink meat nugget resting in a contoured dip on the hood of Cary’s still-running truck, his heart pausing before pattering in triple time. A second shot left the gun, whizzing by Rusty’s head—close enough that he felt the atmospheric shift. He dropped to his ass a blink before a third shot shattered glass.

Linda grunted, “Let go,” peeling Cary’s dead hand from the bag. She grunted again, likely at the unexpected weight.

Rusty should’ve bolted away, but instead watched her feet. She took a wide circle, her steps careful in black flats with brown rubber soles. He lost them then for a dozen terrifying heartbeats and weighed the options apparent in a scatterbrained panic. He grabbed a chunk of asphalt about the size of a hardball and then looked beneath the rumbling truck again. It wasn’t a big truck, but if he made some skinny thoughts, could be it was possible that he could squeeze.

But then what?

“Rusty, I’m going to kill you. Stand up and take it like a man.”

The answer was under. The answer was facing her.

“Rusty?” She held longer on the E sound. Taunting.

He didn’t respond, eyes hard on the corner he expected her to round and maybe charge, but also maybe play shooting gallery. The gravel beneath him seemed to come alive, vibrating, bumping him along to the end of his life as her steps brought her closer. He leaned away from the truck and still felt it. It was a different side to a pre-death moment, before, with Dwayne, it was physical. This was mental. It hit him then, was that really so bad? He was on borrowed time when the job wasn’t finished back in ‘82. His life was going nowhere. What was the point of carrying on without that money, without Christine or Cary?

Shit.

Those feet appeared around the nose of the truck as Linda stepped sideways. She had the bag in her left hand and the gun in her right, she leaned like a little teapot—tip me over and let’s shoot it out.

Linda waved the gun gently. “This was mighty handy. A gun just sitting there by the bay door. I’d fully expected to have to poison Cary later on down the road. This the gun that killed Dwayne?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“So it’s a cop gun? That’s so damned perfect.”

Rusty watched the barrel. The eye of death. The blackest void in the universe.

One thing, Christine would never have to know the truth. Another thing, he’d never have to go back to the high school. Third thing, he’d never have to interview for a new job… Fight! a voice cried inside, Fight! He reeled back and threw the chunk of asphalt harder and straighter than he’d thrown anything in his life. The world slowed and he watched that rocket of a pitch—move over Roger Clemons. The way it left his hand, that perfect feel, it was the toss of countless tomorrows to come, it was his redemption.

Until it sailed six inches over Linda’s head.

She’d ducked, a little too