Jeff Shelby - Wicked Break

“Get him,” Lonnie commanded.

Mo grunted and I felt the footsteps coming around the bar. I tried to push myself to my feet, slipping on the now-soaked floor, and went back down to my knees.

Then my hand hit something that I thought my help.

Mo came around the side of the bar. Frankenstein with a destroyed nose, blood splattered on his face like cake batter. A corner of his mouth was curled up. The most emotion I’d ever seen from him.

He reached down for me.

I pushed off the floor and lunged at his midsection. The paring knife in my hand pushed into his gut and he gasped.

I shoved as hard as I could and then brought the knife up awkwardly, feeling the flesh and whatever else was in there rip and tear. He gasped again and stepped back. I let go of the knife, now nearly all the way into his body.

Mo stumbled back, his hands shaking and searching for the knife, staring down at the now-very-visible hole in his stomach.

I charged at him, lowered my shoulder, and drove him back and off his feet. He sailed through Mike’s picture-perfect glass wall.

Amid the shattered glass and noise, Mo landed on his back on the pool deck, a huge shard of the window pushing its way up through his chest, as if I’d staked him to the concrete.

I was huffing and puffing, and the adrenaline and pain sending my system in overdrive.

A bansheelike scream came from behind me and I remembered Lonnie.

I pivoted and something sharp and metal flashed in the air. I caught Lonnie’s arm before the six-inch blade in his hand got to my neck.

Holding Lonnie’s arm and stepping in toward him, I pushed his hand and the knife up higher. I brought my knee up into his crotch with everything I had and he screamed. The strength in his arm dissipated and we toppled to the floor.

Now beneath me, Lonnie was still trying to bring the blade toward me. I had his wrist and drove it into the tiled floor. The bones below his hand gave and the knife clattered onto the floor.

I kept his hand pinned to the floor.

We stared into each other’s eyes. He started to relax. He’d lost and he knew it.

And then he smiled.

“You think this is over?” he said, laughing derisively. “You think I haven’t done jail before? I’ll be out in less than three months and I’ll take you and that fuckin’ kid down.”

Again, Famazio’s words came back to me. Lonnie knew someone, somewhere in the legal system, would have the power to take care of him.

Lonnie grinned at me. “Just like I did that nigger bitch yesterday.”

I moved my free hand to his throat and pressed down. His eyes bulged as his pupils dilated, my leverage winning out as I compressed everything in his neck. He slapped at my hands.

Footsteps echoed in the room. They stopped just before reaching us.

“Noah?” Carter said. His voice sounded like it was in a tunnel.

I eased up on Lonnie’s throat, but didn’t look at Carter.

Lonnie started to smile again, maybe thinking that it was over now. Probably thinking about how stupid I was for sending him to jail so he’d have another chance at me and at Linc. Almost certainly thinking he would eventually win.

I pressed down again, harder than before, feeling Lonnie’s windpipe and larynx pulsate against the palm of my hand.

His eyes bulged more and he started to gag. He started kicking beneath me, slapping again. I guess he realized he wasn’t going back to jail, that even his powerful friends couldn’t help him out now, and that his chances at me and Linc were over.

Lonnie’s kicking stopped. The pulsating in his throat stopped. And finally, the hate in his eyes stopped.

Carter and I were standing in the driveway when Wellton walked out of Mike Berkley’s house.

Wellton looked at me. “You alright?”

I shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Tell it to me again,” Wellton said.

“I came up here because Berkley called me and said he had some things to tell me about Peter and Linc Pluto,” I said. “It was a setup. Carter got here at the very end.”

Wellton stared at me, his eyes frozen with intensity.

“I took Mike first,” I continued. “Mo was next. Lonnie and I were struggling with the knife he brought at me. He wouldn’t drop it. I had no choice.”

Wellton looked me up and down. “He cut you?”

“I’m cut everywhere. Probably.”

Two EMTs rolled a gurney out of the house, a sheet covering whoever’s body was underneath.

Wellton caught my eyes again. “So you held off the knife with one hand and choked him with the other?”

I held his gaze. “He wouldn’t drop the knife. I had no choice.” I motioned in Carter’s direction. “Carter will tell you the same thing.”

“I’ll bet he will,” he said.

“Famazio might be able to link Berkley and National Nation,” I said. “I don’t know.”

Wellton remained silent. He didn’t move. Just stared right through me.

I didn’t care.

“I could give a shit that they’re dead,” he finally said. “Just taking up my air while they were alive, as far as I’m concerned. So fuck ’em.” He paused, chewing on his lip for a moment. “And I’ll write it up just like you said. You had no choice. Because I got nothing else.”

“I had no choice,” I said.

Wellton shoved his hands in his pockets. “But maybe someday you can explain to me exactly what that means to you.”

He turned and walked back into the house.

Carter followed me back to my place. I got out of my car and walked over to his monstrosity of an automobile. He cut the engine, but didn’t get out.

“We good?” he asked.

“Think so,” I said. “There’ll probably be some follow-up. But we’re good.”

Carter nodded. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

He stared at me. “Sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“I thought about taking you off him,” he said.

“I figured.”

“Wasn’t sure I could, though. You looked different.”

“I could’ve taken myself off if I’d wanted,” I said.

“I know. You want my opinion?”

“Always.”

“You made the right choice,” he said.

I shrugged.

He turned the key in the ignition and the engine rumbled to life.

“I mean it, Noah,” he said, leaning across the passenger seat so I could hear him. “It was the right thing and it always will be. He doesn’t die today, he would’ve come after you and the kid again someday.”

I didn’t say or do anything. I didn’t know how to respond.

He held up a hand, dropped the gearshift, and sped away down the alley.

I walked into my place and didn’t bother to turn on a light. I went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. Popped the top on the bottle. Set the bottle on the counter. Turned to the sink and vomited.

After a few minutes, I picked up the beer and walked out to the patio. The white foam of the collapsing waves was bright against the black sky and dark water. The wind blew softly off the water and up the sand, whispering against my face.

I didn’t regret killing Lonnie, but that didn’t mean it would ever feel right. No matter what Carter said or how I justified it, I had taken a life. I would always feel his skin on my hands and see his eyes as they ran out of life. Lonnie hadn’t added anything to the world, but I had taken something from it and I wasn’t sure how to get back on the right side of the line I’d crossed.

I stood there, watching the ocean and thinking about those things, for a long time.

“You mind if we make a quick stop?” I asked.

It was Friday morning and Liz and I had just started north on I-5 for Santa Barbara. I’d tried to reach Linc after Wellton released him from custody, but he hadn’t returned my calls and if he’d gone back to his apartment, he hadn’t answered the door when I’d knocked.