Tim Green: Exact Revenge

Allen got out too. Frank turned to tell him to stay, but the throb in the meat of his leg and the sharp stabbing pain in his hand made him think again. A car whooshed past on the parkway, its taillights a blur.

“Come on,” Frank said, and limped toward the darkness.

He stepped up onto the curb, kicking a pinecone and crushing some broken glass. The loose edge of a garbage bag snapped against its metal can. Frank sniffed again. No sign of Mickey. The cut in his neck began to burn. Then he heard his name being called and the smell of a cigarette floated up and swirled away.

The muted sound came again from the blackness beyond the outlook’s lip and was quickly swept away on the breeze. Frank steadied himself against a metal telescope and slid the Glock out from under his arm before creeping toward the edge. When he got to the rock barrier he eased down onto the rough cool stone and leaned over into the dark, looking and aiming at the same time.

The dim figure of a man with the ember of a cigarette glowing in his mouth waved his arms.

“Frank,” he said. “Down here.”

It was Mickey, his rat face lit by the sudden orange flare of the cigarette.

Frank sat down on the top of one of the big rocks and swung his legs over the side. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that a steep grassy bank descended about twelve feet to another outcropping of flat rock. Beyond that was a darkness deeper yet. Even from where he was, Frank could feel the void and it chilled his spine.

“Come on,” he said to Allen, and struggled down to the outcrop below, letting his bottom slide along, matting the grass for the last four feet.

Allen’s feet struck the rock and he bent over to help. Frank stood breathing hard, wincing from the pain. Mickey was grinning at them in the dim glow from the big city ten miles away. He stood on the very edge between two enormous duffel bags, the canvas kind used for carrying hockey equipment. In front of Mickey was a small suitcase.

Mickey pitched his butt over the edge, opened his arms, and said, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Frank. But this is a lot of money and it’ll take you a few minutes to get it back up that hill. Time for me to get my little Sioux City girl and get going. Nothing personal. Just the way you taught me.”

“Where’s the passports?” Frank asked, hobbling slowly toward the edge.

Mickey smiled and said, “You’ll get those when I get up on that ledge and you’re down here.”

“But you’ve got them?” Frank said, his voice rising to expose the panic he was beginning to feel.

“Sure I do,” Mickey said. He picked up the suitcase and started to circle away from the edge.

Frank raised the Glock and shot him in the knee.

Mickey dropped and writhed on the rock ledge, mewling. Frank closed the gap, reached into Mickey’s coat, and came up with a sleek new Smith amp; Wesson Model 66. He held it out to Allen.

“You might need this.”

Allen looked at him blankly.

“Take it!” Frank shouted.

“Dad, Jesus,” Allen said, shaking his head and grabbing a handful of his own hair.

Frank frowned at his son, the silence and the stupid expression on his face.

“Be a man, goddamn it,” Frank said. “You’re my son, now act like it.”

“I don’t want that,” he said, pushing away the gun, his eyes fixed on Mickey.

“You will if you need it,” Frank said, opening his hand and slapping it in there. “You think you just get a Platinum Card and a Land Cruiser on your sixteenth birthday? You gotta do things to get that stuff.”

Frank bent back down. He dug deeper into Mickey’s coat and came up with a thick brown envelope. Mickey continued to whimper.

“Shut up,” Frank snarled.

He tore open the envelope to examine the papers in the dim light. Passports with his and Lexis’s and Allen’s pictures in them along with phony birth certificates, credit cards, driver’s licenses, and Social Security cards. The whole package had cost him a hundred thousand dollars, but the names and the Social Security numbers were real, so they could get through any airport or customs agent in the world without raising an alarm. The ones for Lexis he slipped back into the envelope and tossed over the edge of the bluff.

By daybreak, Capozza’s men would be hunting for him with everything they had, but he and Allen would be long gone.

“What do you think about seventy million dollars?” he said, looking from the bags to his son. “You think we can get by on that? Huh?”

Allen looked at him blankly.

“Dad,” he said, “are you kidding?”

Frank pulled his collar away from his neck, exposing a thin red line of flesh.

“Is this a joke?” he said.

“Jesus, Dad,” Allen said, stepping away from him.

Frank stuck his Glock in Mickey’s face. The smaller man winced and started scrabbling away.

“Get over there,” Frank said, wagging his gun toward the bags, prodding Mickey with the barrel.

“Frank,” Mickey said in a whine, clutching his mangled knee, “what are you gonna do?”

Mickey was cowering there at the lip. Frank raised the gun as if to strike. When Mickey turned his face away, Frank put the bottom of his shoe against the accountant’s rump and shoved. Mickey screamed and flailed, his arms grasping air. He hung for a moment in the empty space, then disappeared into the darkness with a fading howl.

“Jesus,” Allen said, his voice breaking, his eyes leaking tears. He stood there, arms by his sides with the wind whipping at his dark hair. One fist was clenched. In the other hand, he held the Model 66 by the barrel. Frank felt his face grow hot.

“Take one of these,” he said. He put his Glock into its shoulder holster, hoisted one of the big heavy bags, and lifted the small suitcase of Mickey’s money with his hurt hand.

“Take it!” Frank yelled, limping toward the bank with his hands full.

Allen nodded, but didn’t move.

Frank sensed something coming at him from above, but he had no time to think and react. He heard a cry and felt the jolt. Everything went black and he fell backward, dropping the money and splitting the back of his scalp open on the stone.

THE SOUND OF FRANK’S raised voice makes my heart beat faster and my shoulders tense. I dart down behind one of the rocks with the.45 raised and listen.

I hear Frank shout again over the wind. The murmur of Allen’s response. A growl and the whining stops. I ease into the space between two of the rocks and look down.

Frank looking at papers. Allen with a gun. Frank tosses an envelope away, then prods the man he shot toward the edge. When he kicks him over, my gut twists, but I hold tight. He’s still got that gun and I’ll be an easy target if I show myself with the glow of the rest area lights behind me.

Allen is crying, and then Frank’s greed takes over. Instead of leaving one of the bags and keeping the gun in his hand, he holsters it, picks up one bag and the suitcase, and heads snarling toward the grassy slope.

I could kill him now, but that wouldn’t do. Not after all I’ve been through. Capozza’s men-the thing that really terrifies Frank-are on their way. He needs to suffer. I stick the.45 into the waist of my pants. When he’s close, I jump up onto the rock I’m hiding behind and launch myself down on top of him. In midair, I am illuminated by headlight beams that swing over the top of me from behind.

I strike him and roll to the side, rising to my feet and drawing my gun.

Frank crabs his fat frame backward toward the ledge, leaving the money behind. The lights from whatever car has just arrived stream over the top of us, broad blue beams that stab into the darkness above the pitchy river.

“Stop!” I yell.