Michael Koryta - Last Words

“Oh, sure,” Mark said, and then he stepped straight toward Ridley and threw the rope, making sure to hold his follow-through, because it had been a long time since he’d done this. Ridley was only ten feet away, though, and he was standing still. Mark had been able to rope a post at that distance when he was eight years old. The toss wasn’t as pretty as it should have been, but it was effective — the noose settled over Ridley’s head and around his shoulders, and Mark gave a quick, snapping tug and cinched it. His timing was a touch off — he’d wanted to catch Ridley around the chest but got him at the waist instead — but it still served the purpose, binding Ridley’s arms against his body. Ridley stumbled forward, caught himself, and then gave another smile, this one less certain.

“Not bad at all. Uncle Larry would be proud.”

“Hell, no, he wouldn’t. He’d have spit tobacco juice at my feet, shaken his head, and told me to do it again. He was a stickler for form.” Mark was pulling the rope forward hand over hand, and Ridley walked toward him rather than resist it, still smiling. “Nobody tips a trick-roper if it doesn’t look good.” Mark stopped drawing the rope in when Ridley was two feet from him, studying the smaller man and his false smile.

“You’re not fond of being caught in a noose, are you?”

“I thought that was a universal trait.”

Mark nodded. “Well, good old Uncle Larry, he was a character, I’ll tell you. And my uncle Ronny? He had some tricks too.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. His were a little different, though. Let me show you one of Uncle Ronny’s tricks.”

Before Ridley could say a word, Mark jerked hard on the rope and brought him stumbling forward, then dipped down and snapped his forehead off the bridge of Ridley’s nose.

“Wh-what the fuck... ” Ridley stammered, trying to reel away, the blood already spilling, but then he got caught in the rope and went down. Mark moved in above him, pulled up on the rope enough to get Ridley off the ground, then grabbed him by his belt, spun him, and drove him back until he slammed into the hood of the Ford. Ridley’s ribs connected with the metal, and his breath went out with a grunt. His hands were fumbling for something, had been the whole time, but Mark didn’t care much about his hands because his arms were pinned to his sides, useless. When he saw that Ridley had managed to get a knife out of his pocket and open the blade, he was almost impressed. Now that mistake with the rope, getting him at the waist instead of the torso, was actually working in Mark’s favor. Ridley couldn’t get the knife high enough to do anything with it from a distance, but if Mark hadn’t been paying attention, Ridley might have been able to stick him.

“Now, Ridley,” he said. “A knife at a rope fight? Do you think that is fair?” He shook his head like a displeased teacher and then banged Ridley’s wrist on the fender until the knife fell to the ground. Ridley stopped resisting and rested on the hood, gasping. The blood bubbled in his nose as he tried to get his breath back.

Mark leaned close.

“You understand that I’m going to require her name,” he said. “Not the one she gave me either, no more bullshit and lies. I’m going to need to find the real woman, Mr. Barnes. You understand that, don’t you?”

Ridley began with “I don’t know—” but whatever he was trying to say ended in a sharp gasp of pain as Mark hit him twice under the sternum with a flashing left hand.

“You can’t afford to go that way, Ridley. You really can’t.”

Ridley didn’t speak this time. Just leaned back on the car, submissive, breathing hard and bleeding hard. Mark gave him a minute. After those gut punches, it would take Ridley a while to get any words out. Mark loosened the noose and let the rope drop to Ridley’s feet, freeing him.

“How’d you get the hotel clerk to lie?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a hell of a good trick,” Mark said. “I’ll give you credit there. First the bit with the woman pretending to be Sarah’s mother? That was inspired, sure. But how you got the girl at the hotel in the mix, I don’t know.”

Ridley just stared at him. He had his sleeve pressed against his nose to soak up the blood. His gray hair fanned out in all directions. Mark cupped his hands and blew into them to warm them and said, “I’m going to need her name, Ridley.”

“I don’t kn—”

“Shut up. Do not speak to me unless you’re going to speak the truth. Understand?”

Ridley nodded, which shook some drops of blood loose.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Mark said. “She had to come from you. Because here’s the scenario: I got into town, and I spoke to two people. You and the sheriff. That’s it. The sheriff wasn’t going to roll out somebody pretending to be the victim’s mother, I just don’t see that being an option. Sheriff also never saw my car yesterday. He didn’t know what I was driving, wouldn’t have been able to find me that fast even if he’d wanted to. Nobody knew I was coming to this town, Ridley. So she came from one of two sources, you or the sheriff, and I don’t think it was the sheriff. You going to try and convince me that it was?”

Ridley Barnes didn’t say a word, but he reached down to pick his knife up out of the snow. Mark let him do it, watching and feeling the old pulse, the sight of the knife exciting him rather than scaring him, a near-pleasant sensation of Oh, so that’s the way this is going to go.

Ridley snapped the blade shut and slipped the knife back into his pocket.

“It won’t be hard,” Mark said. “Finding her? It won’t be hard at all. Because she came from you, and my guess, Ridley, is that you don’t have too many friends.”

When Ridley took his sleeve away from his nose, his face was masked with blood. He spit into the snow, then touched his nose gingerly with two fingers of his left hand.

“What did you think of the file?” he said. The words were muffled and distorted by the blood leaking into his sinuses.

Mark stared at him. “You are truly insane.”

“That’s what you took from the file?”

“No. That’s what I take from you. ”

Ridley breathed deep, blinked hard, and said, “I asked about the file. ”

Mark thought about smashing his fist into that blood mask of a face, finding the nose again, adding pain to pain. He kept his hands flat at his sides with an effort and breathed, four-count in, four-count out.

“I don’t know the point of your game,” he said. “Maybe you got bored once the cops stopped coming by, I don’t know. I also don’t know how or why you selected me for your continued entertainment. But it was a mistake, Ridley. Sending that woman to me, asking her to impersonate the girl’s mother? In a lifetime of bad choices, that might have been your worst.”

Ridley stood and listened, blood working out of his nose and down his face.

“What I’d like to do,” Mark said, “is bounce you off that car a few more times, long enough for me to get tired of the effort, and then drop your ass on the ground and drive away and be done with it. I can’t do that, though, do you see? You took that option from me when you sent her. Now I’m going to find her and deal with her, and maybe you’ll be a part of that, maybe you won’t. I don’t give a shit. Not when it comes to you, Ridley. But tell her that I’m on my way.”

Ridley Barnes said, “What about Sarah Martin?”

Mark felt his hands curl into fists again and knew from experience that things wouldn’t go well from here if he stayed. He couldn’t afford to stay. Instead, he shook his head in disgust and got in the car. Ridley kept talking.