John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

His first job for Mr. Slater had been to deliver a message to a punk drug dealer who’d opened up shop on the wrong turf. It was the kind of message that couldn’t be written On paper. It was Pointer’s job to make sure that the young man would leave Washington forever. It was also important for other would-be intruders to know that gangs could have as much of the city as they wanted, so long as they never, ever set foot on Slater ground.

Pointer’s solution sent shock waves through the Washington underworld. Abducting the young man at gunpoint, Pointer handcuffed him to a Dumpster, beat him unconscious, and cut off his upper lip with a razor blade. When the dealer came to his senses, Pointer doused the teenager’s genitals with gasoline and struck a match. After letting the fire burn for half a minute, he extinguished it with a shovelful of dirt.

The notoriety that followed this job served Pointer well, and set a precedent for what was expected from him in the future. He was earning the kind of reputation he’d always sought. Proud of his ability to strike terror in some of the toughest people on earth, he was also acutely aware that with fear came jealousy. Each day was a new chance to prove himself, and each job was a new test of his resourcefulness. A single misstep could easily cost him everything he’d struggled so long to build. Including his life.

As appreciative as Mr. Slater was of a job well done, he wouldn’t tolerate a fuckup. Pointer often heard his boss say that every man deserved a second chance, but that no one deserved a third.

On this day, Pointer was grateful for the second chance. He needed it.

As he sped through the Virginia countryside en route to his meeting, Pointer could barely control his rage, which he expressed with a heavy foot on the Porsche’s throttle. Having driven out of civilization twenty miles ago, he was confident that no police would be around to annoy him. And even if they were, those heavy metal Chevys and Fords were no match for his own piece of German engineering. Despite the searing heat and drenching humidity, he drove with the top down, calves’-skin jacket and gloves in place. It was a look. And for this meeting, it was exactly the right look.

This whole business with Mark Bailey and his nephew was so fucking out of control that Pointer was ready to kill. He never should have listened to Bailey’s plan in the first place, let alone agree to it. But it was so simple! The elements were all there. An inside job, big man, little boy, small room. How the fuck could they screw it up? Well, he’d know in about fifteen minutes. By the clock on the dash, Bailey had already been waiting for a half-hour. Shitheads like Bailey were so much easier to communicate with after they’d been kept waiting for a while. Motherfucker had probably already wet his pants. If not, he would by the end of the meeting.

Only three hours before, Pointer had come perilously close to wetting his own trousers. He’d never seen Slater like that, his face beet red and trembling with rage. Humiliated was the word he used.

Pointer had humiliated Slater’s entire organization. You could live with the news that a hit on a politician or a dealer went sour. But Pointer had fucked up a hit on a boy in a cage! Once word leaked out, it would take years for the street punks to stop laughing. Laughter meant disrespect, and disrespect meant challenges to Slater’s turf. Challenges, in turn, meant violence, and violence was bad for business.

Since when, Pointer had wondered as he endured Slater’s wrath, did the old man hate violence? Then he realized that Slater had been listening to the cluckings of that old hen Sammy Bell, who no doubt talked the old man into turning pussy. Not that you could tell from the way he disciplined his employees.

It was only because of Pointer’s loyalty and history of good work that Mr. Slater had granted him his second chance.

“By the time this is over,” Mr. Slater had said with grave seriousness, “one of you will be dead, Lyle.” Mr. Slater was not a man given to hyperbole.

So Pointer took control of this thing personally, effective this morning. His meeting with Mark Bailey was to extract his pound of flesh and gallon of blood. The son of a bitch needed to learn not to make promises he couldn’t keep. The good news for Bailey was that he would live to see morning. The way the whole plan was put together required that much. Maybe he wasn’t such an idiot after all.

Thirty minutes earlier, Mark Bailey had carefully eased his Bronco into a remote parking space at the Hillbilly Tavern. His was the only car in the lot, though three hard-ridden Harleys were parked along the front of the place, like so many horses at the hitching post. At just after noon, he was still too hung over to be moving, let alone driving. What Mark really needed was a wheelbarrow for his head. One day he was going to go on the wagon and stay there.

He paused for a long time after slipping the truck into Park, certain that at any second his window and his head would be shattered by a rifle bullet. He carefully scanned the area with his eyes. If there was a sniper, he was well hidden.

Come on, Mark, he told himself, they can’t kill you. At least not yet. Without you, they’ve got nothing.

Ever since Pointer’s call this morning, he’d been repeating this sentence over and over again, sometimes aloud, sometimes in his head. On the trip out to this Godforsaken hole in the wall, he’d even come to believe it. Now, though, at the end of the road, the logic seemed tragically flawed.

For an instant, he considered throwing the Bronco into reverse and just getting the hell out of Virginia—out of the country if he had to. But he knew that wasn’t a solution. Pointer was not the kind of guy you said no to. With his connections, escape in the longer view was simply not possible. In his heart, Mark knew that he’d likely not survive this chapter in his life, but he took comfort in the hope that once the money was delivered and he’d kept his end of the bargain, Slater and his goons would make the end quick. He’d heard stories through the grapevine of horrendous tortures at the hands of Slater’s men. He’d even heard of them burning off a guy’s balls. Mark himself had never had the stones to ask who in the organization would do such a thing. He was pretty sure he knew, but there was solace to be found in shadows of doubt.

The Hillbilly Tavern was the kind of place that could only exist in the rural Virginia countryside. Home to thousands of unspeakable secrets and schemes, it was the kind of place where a person with the guts to enter could discuss anything with anyone, with the full knowledge that nothing said would ever be repeated. Unlike some of the more fashionable rat traps in the suburbs, this one was never frequented by passing sheriff’s deputies, or by lost motorists in search of a bathroom. Sane tourists would piss all over their leather interiors before they would willingly cross the threshold of the Hillbilly Tavern.

The place didn’t even have a telephone anymore. After it was busted up once in a brawl, the phone company sent a repair team out to fix the damage, but after they were relieved of their wallets and phone company equipment, no one ever tried to repair it again. One of the repairmen actually tried to put up a struggle, thus creating one of the longest and strangest workers’ compensation claims in the company’s history.

As he approached the door to the bar, Mark noticed the absence of windows. The panes had been boarded over and overlaid with a collage of neon signs, still burning in the bright sunshine. The wood siding bore countless coats of dark brown paint, which seemed to serve as the only support for the ancient structure. He was intrigued by a colorful bit of artwork painted on the stoop, but looked away when he saw it was a vomit splash, left uncleaned since God knew when.