Steven Womack - Way Past Dead

Faye Morgan had a pistol of her own now, what looked to me like one of those small, lightweight “ladies’ guns” that are getting so popular with the paranoid cowgirl set.

“What the hell are you doing, Faye?” Ford said, like he’d just caught her driving with the parking brake on again.

“Put the gun down, Mac. It’s over.”

“The hell it is. You put the gun down.”

“I’m doing this to protect you from yourself, honey. I love you. I won’t watch you throw your whole life away.”

“Don’t you see? I’m doing this for us. I’m closing the agency down. The two mil will get us off somewhere safe forever. We can retire, blow this shit off.”

“It won’t work. It’s too late for that.”

My eyes flicked back and forth between them like a tennis match. I decided that for once, I’d keep my mouth shut.

“Faye, you’re starting to piss me off real bad.” Then he turned to me. “Don’t pay any attention to her,” he instructed. “Get your ass down to that parking lot right now.”

I stared at him without speaking, and, more importantly, without moving.

“Damn you,” he growled. “Move. This is the last time I’m gonna tell you.”

I set my jaw, wondering what it would feel like. Would I be able to stand it? Would it be over quick? I only hoped it wouldn’t hurt too bad, then I thought of Marsha and the impending Enochian Apocalypse. I figured what the hell, maybe we’re going to see each other sooner than I expected.

Mac Ford’s eyes lit up. “Damn you!” He raised the pistol. I closed my eyes.

It was only a pop , really, not like the explosion I’d always imagined.

Behind me, Alvy Barnes screamed, then started a continuous wailing. My gut clenched for a split second. My brain sent runners all over my body, collecting damage reports.

Nothing.

Then there was a clatter. I opened my eyes. Mac Ford had dropped the pistol and was staring down at his right hand in amazement, like he’d just seen dawn coming up at the exact peak of a cocaine rush. At the end of his shirtsleeve, a sloppy blob of red grew ever wider.

He looked up at me, then over at Faye. I looked at Faye. Her mouth hung open; her hand shook. There were tears in her eyes.

“Ow,” Mac Ford said weakly over the high-pitched siren coming from Alvy’s throat. He brought his left hand up to cradle his right wrist. “That hurt.”

I jumped straight at him.

“So as it turned out,” I said, “Faye Morgan was the only decent human being involved.”

“Present company excepted,” Lonnie said from inside the kitchen.

I put my feet up on his coffee table and stretched out. “I’m not too proud of myself on this one,” I said. “I blackmailed somebody into helping me, and then was stupid enough to trust her. I’ve lied, cheated, blackmailed not only Alvy Barnes, but basically blackmailed the insurance company into paying me the money they owed me. My kharmic portfolio has taken a big hit this week.”

“My, oh my,” he said, settling into the chair across from me and parking a couple of tall glasses of Coke on the table. “Aren’t we into self-flagellation today?”

I raised my head. “What, no beer?”

He pointed to the glass of Coke. “Sun’s not over the yardarm.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “It’s after eight o’clock. I’ve just spent the better part of five hours giving statements to a not-too-cordial group of police officers. The sun is definitely over my yardarm. I want a beer.”

“Well, hold off for a while. I want to hear how the rest of this played out.”

I sat up and took a long sip of the iced-down Coke. I had to admit it was probably better than a beer, given that a beer would have put me to sleep within five minutes.

“Faye Morgan knew that Mac had beaten Rebecca Gibson to death, but she genuinely believed that Rebecca had pushed him over the edge. She told me she never thought he intended to kill Rebecca. It was only when she saw that he was going to kill me and Alvy Barnes that she knew how far gone he was. She had to stop him. The whole thing was eating away at Faye so badly, I think she ultimately would have talked him into confessing anyway. Especially if she saw that somebody else was about to do hard time for it.”

“You think the district attorney’ll let him plead down?”

I ran my hand around the condensation on the glass, the icy coldness of it soothing and pleasant.

“If he’s willing to cop a plea, my guess is they will. Who knows, maybe they would have offered Slim a deal as well.…”

“Speaking of Slim,” Lonnie said.

I let loose with a weary, lazy yawn that bent my jaws to the limit. I set the glass down on the coffee table and stretched.

“I phoned Ray from the police station, and he called Herman Reid, the attorney,” I said. “Reid contacted E. D. Fouch at the Homicide Squad and verified that Mac Ford was going to be charged with Rebecca Gibson’s murder. So they’ll start the process to get Slim released.”

“Can they do that on a Saturday night?”

“Yeah. The next step will be to go before the night-court magistrate and get a release order. It’ll probably take a few hours, but Slim should sleep in his own bed tonight.”

Lonnie cradled his hands behind his head and stretched. “What about the tootsie?” he said, yawning himself.

“Alvy Barnes?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s no tootsie,” I said. “She’s a pretty damn smart lady. The only mistake she made was trying to blackmail Ford without sufficiently covering her ass.”

“She’ll know better next time,” Lonnie said.

“And you know what?” I added. “I don’t doubt there’ll be a next time. This day would’ve scared some ethics into a normal person, but I don’t think Alvy’s normal.”

“She going to be charged with anything?”

“I doubt it. As long as she cooperates with the DA and testifies for the state, she’ll probably walk.”

“So it’s over,” he said.

“Yeah, I just wish it was the last crisis in my life I had to deal with.”

Lonnie grinned. “Oh, yeah. That.”

“Oh yeah,” I mimicked. “That.”

“You know something, Harry. You’re gettin’ awful damn touchy these days.”

I stood up. “I’m tired, Lon-man. I’m going home, try once again to call Marsha, then I’m going to sleep for about twenty hours.”

“Sit down,” he said.

“I don’t want to sit down. I’m tired. I want to go home.”

“Sit down anyway.” Something in his voice made me do it. “Listen, how long have we known each other?”

“A long time, I guess,” I said, caution in my voice. Where was this going?

“We’ve always been straight with each other, right?”

“Yes, we’ve always been straight with each other. Why do I get the feeling this is going to be a difficult conversation?”

He ignored my question. “I’ve been listening to you bitch and moan for the past week about missing your main squeeze. Truth is, buddy, it’s getting tiresome.”

Anger filled the inside of my chest to the point of bursting. I hammered it down, though, to keep from going off on him. “Maybe you just don’t understand,” I said through gritted teeth, “what it’s like to miss somebody that much.”

“Oh, I do understand, Harry. I do. More than you know. Twenty years ago, my first wife was missing for four days before they found her.”

“Found her?”

“Yeah. On the backside of a dump. Raped. Strangled. Buried in garbage. She was nineteen years old.” His voice remained steady, a numb monotone. I sat there for a few seconds, unable to speak.

“Well,” I said, staring down at the floor, “don’t I feel like a genuine asshole.…”