Matt Hilton - Dead_s men dust

Her mother wasn't so easily calmed. My hand on her shoulder was waved off with a gesture. Jenny took my coat and hat, abandoned them on the arm of a settee, then walked across the room. Perched on a chair next to a battle-scarred table, she had the look of a condemned prisoner.

"You can quit worrying. I guarantee you, Shank'll look somewhere else for his cash."

She plucked at a pack of cigarettes next to an ashtray over?owing with half-smoked butts. The ashtray was testament to prolonged worry.

"For now," she said. "But what about when you leave? What's to stop them coming back?"

"I'm only a phone call away."

Jennifer hacked out a cough. She stabbed the cigarette into her mouth.

"What about when I can't pay you, Joe? Are you still going to come running then?"

"You think I did this for money? I helped you because I wanted to. You needed help. All of you."

"But you don't work for free, Joe. Didn't you tell your brother John that? Why didn't you help John? If you had, then maybe he'd still be here…" I saw fresh tears on her lashes. "Why didn't you help us then, huh? I'll tell you why, should I? It was about the money."

I didn't answer.

She brought a light to her cigarette and went at it as if it were a lifeline. She glared at me. "You wouldn't help John when he needed it. I can't pay any more than he could."

I had to say something. First, I settled in opposite her. "Jenny, you don't really understand what happened between me and John. It had nothing to do with whether he could pay me."

She snorted, sucked on the cigarette.

"I don't know what he told you, but I guess it wasn't the truth," I said.

Her eyes pierced me.

"What are you saying, Joe?"

I sighed. "It's water under the bridge, Jenny. Forget it, okay?"

She shrugged,?icked an ash that missed the ashtray. "Suit yourself."

Silence hung in the air between us, mingling with her blue smoke exhalations.

Once, I watched a heron spearing trout from a stream. Jennifer's hand made similar stabbing motions to douse her cigarette. Then, like the greedy heron, she reached for another. I gently laid a hand on top of hers. She met my eyes. Hope?ickered beyond the dullness but only for a second. She pulled her hand away, drew the pack to her. She lit up and took a long gasp. Through a haze of smoke, she said, "I want you to?nd John." She reached out and twined her?ngers in mine. "I want you to?nd your brother and bring him home."

"That might not be as easy as it sounds. He's not in the country anymore."

"No, he isn't. He's in America," Jenny said.

"You've heard from him?"

Searching in her pocket, Jenny pulled out an envelope and held it to her breast. After a moment, she placed the envelope before me. I looked up at her, but she was looking over at the kids. "You two, go into your room while me and Uncle Joe are talking. You can watch TV in there." Before they could argue, she hurried over, took them by their elbows, and ushered them into their bedroom. Closing the door, she said, "I don't want them listening. After all's said and done, John's still their dad."

Nodding, I concentrated on the envelope. It was standard white and dated more than two weeks ago. It was stamped Little Rock, AK.

"Arkansas?" I asked.

"Where else?"

The tattered edge of the envelope produced two sheets of paper.

On?rst inspection, it looked like the kind of note you scrawl and leave in a prominent position when you have to leave in a hurry. Only longer. A Dear John letter. Or in this case a Dear Jenny? But it wasn't my brother's handwriting.

I sought Jenny's face. "Go ahead. Read it," she said. I did. It read:

Jenny, I probably have no right writing you like this. No doubt you hate me, but I hope you'll listen to what I have to say.

John has gone, and I don't know what to do. Don't get me wrong, he hasn't just left me as he did with you. When I say he's gone, I mean vanished.

Maybe you don't care, maybe you think I deserve everything I get, that John de?nitely deserves it, but I don't think you're that kind of person. John has got himself in some kind of trouble. He was jumpy for two or three days before he disappeared. He was frightened. I think something terrible has happened. And that's why I'm writing to you now.

I placed the?rst sheet of paper on the table and looked across at Jenny. She'd retreated to the opposite end of the room, staring vacantly into space. The letter was my problem now.

John said that he's got a half-brother over in England. Someone he called Hunter. I know they didn't get along that well, but John said once that if anything ever happened to him I had to send for Hunter because he would know what to do. So I'm asking, I'm begging, please do this for me. And if you won't do it for me, do it for John. Send for his brother.

Please. L.

"This woman," I asked, "who is she?"

Jenny returned to stub out her cigarette. Her words held more vehemence up close. "John's bitch."

"Is she American?"

"No. She's English."

"What's her name?"

"Louise Blake."

"How did John meet her?"

"She worked for the same company as him." She gave me a pointed stare. I just watched her, and Jennifer added, "By all accounts they were seeing each other for six months before he left me." She gave me the pointed look again. "Everyone knew but me."

"I didn't."

She wiped at her mouth with the back of a hand. "Well, you're about the only one who didn't." Her words became softer as she recalled the betrayal. "Louise stole my husband from me, Joe. Now she wants help to?nd him. What does she want me to do, hand him right back to her?"

"Have you ever met her?"

"Not formally. I saw her a couple times where John worked." Jenny laughed. "When I think about it, I suppose you'd say she's a younger version of me. Without the baggage around the waist from carrying two kids. Basically John traded me in for a younger model."

"But you still want me to?nd him?"

She sighed. Her gaze?ickered toward the bedroom. The kids were very quiet and I wondered if they had their ears to the door.

"He's still their dad, Joe. He should be doing more to support them."

Yes. A sad fact. But not something I was about to put into words.

Jenny said, "Probably Louise is right: John does deserve everything he gets. But my kids shouldn't be made to suffer, should they?"

She could look all she wanted but she wouldn't see any sign of disagreement from me. After a few seconds she asked, "So… what do you think? Is there anything you can do?"

"There is," I promised her. And I meant it.

When working, I don't use a vehicle that I care about. I use an old car I picked up at an auction. That way, when the disgruntled dig a key into the length of the paintwork, I don't get too upset. The car has many scars. The only concession I make to road-worthiness is to have the engine regularly overhauled and tires of the puncture-proof variety. Both have proved invaluable in the past. Before setting up the takedown on Shank, I had parked the old Ford a couple of streets away. Okay, I wasn't that protective of it, but neither was I going to make my wheels a sitting duck. I was approaching the car when the BMW swung into the street behind me. To be fair, I thought I'd seen the last of Peter Ramsey, yet here he was, back for more. Maybe I should've done a better number on him the?rst time. My fault, but as I said, I can be a compassionate guy. "This time… no messing about," I promised. In an effort at stealth, the music volume had been turned down. Still, the thud-thud rhythm sounded like the heartbeat of a predator coiling for the death lunge. Thick tires whistled on tarmac. The engine growled. Even without looking, I'd have known they were coming.

It was like patrolling in-country all over again. Only then I was an inexperienced rookie, immortal in my battle fatigues and holding a submachine gun. Unprepared for what happened, I hadn't even realized I'd been shot until I surfaced through a morphine haze the following day and blinked up at my nurse.