Jack O'Connell - Box Nine

“Spit it out, Ike,” she screams.

Ike’s on all fours now, like he was someone’s father ready to play Bronco. He comes downward in the front, onto his elbows, his back slanting, shoulders practically touching the floor. His face is obscured. She can see only a thick line of saliva arcing from mouth to floor.

“Spit it,” again, screaming.

She pokes at Woo’s chest with the stunted barrel of the gun and says, “You’re a fucking dead man,” then without taking her eyes off him, she takes a step, brings a leg up until she’s straddled across Ike’s back, brings a free hand down and around to his face, and forces a long finger into the mouth and down toward the throat. There’s a fraction of a second of pause and then she feels the heaving start to build in the chest. In a single motion she pulls hand and arm free and dismounts. Ike begins to vomit onto the train floor.

Sounds start to become recognizable. First, there’s the halting whimpering from the girl, Donna, interlaced with small slapping noises from Rourke, trying to silence her.

“Hit her again, asshole,” Lenore says, and Rourke looks up, face all shock and fear, to see the Uzi swing toward him.

No one speaks for a second. Lenore lets the situation sink in, then says, without looking at him, “Here’s your big chance, Freddy. You’ve got people out there. A waiting car. Go ahead.”

Woo says nothing. He looks quickly to Cortez, who stays rigid, arms folded across his chest.

Lenore lets a hand fall down, sweeps Ike’s hair up off his forehead, wipes away sweat with her palm.

Woo’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. “There’s a tremendous amount of money …”

“Oh, Christ,” she says, almost rolling her eyes.

“More than you would think.”

“I can’t believe you can’t do better. Mr. Language. Jesus.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Wilson says.

“Help her out,” Lenore says to Rourke, looking at Woo. The girl starts to fall toward the floor, slowly, still in the grasp of Rourke’s awkward arms.

“Excuse,” Cortez says, clearing his throat and motioning toward the graveyard with a slight tilt of his head.

Lenore exhales, then nods back to him. Cortez lightly touches Jimmy Wyatt’s shoulder and the mute picks up the briefcase of money and jumps out of the boxcar.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Woo says, his head hung out past his shoulders, not ready to accept what he knows is about to happen.

Cortez starts to follow Jimmy, then stops for a moment next to Lenore.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Woo repeats, tight-lipped, a tick beginning in his left eye.

Lenore chucks him lightly under the chin with the Uzi barrel. “Learn some new words,” she says slowly, then turns to Cortez. “You get to that cave in the mountains down there, make sure it has two exits.”

Cortez nods, puts a hand on Mingo’s shoulder, and steers him toward the doors.

“Will the Aliens find you?”

Cortez shrugs.

“You want Wyatt to take care of anyone outside?”

She shakes her head no, stops, shakes her head yes.

He pauses as if he had something more to say, then takes an off-balance step and jumps down from the train car, followed by Mingo.

“Pathetic choice,” Woo says to her.

“There was no choice at all, Freddy. I cut no deal. I don’t take dime one out of this.”

He makes a face to indicate how ridiculous this sounds to him.

“Believe what you want. I didn’t know you were the producer — the Paraclete, right? — until five minutes ago.”

Woo holds up his hand in a stop sign and mutters, “Oh, please …”

Lenore cuts him off and says, “You whacked Peirce, you fuck.”

Woo breathes through his nose and holds up a second hand. “You’re making a terrible mistake, Lenore. There are so many things you just don’t know. Your sister detective made some pathetic character judgments. It was her associates who judged her expendable. When all this is over it will look like she was one more dirty cop who made one more stupid decision—”

“A couple things you should know, asshole. That diner you hit. That motorcycle chickenshit drive-by. You killed a friend of mine. And your visual aid here”—she strokes Ike’s forehead—“this is my brother.”

Woo goes still and silent. Across the car, Rourke says a weak, “Oh, shit.”

A small grin finally breaks on Woo’s face and he says, “So now you take me in.”

“Now who’s kidding who?”

“I’ve got people outside. You know that.”

“Great. The Duk-man here will have some company. You can all sit around, play Scrabble in hell. You’ll have a real edge, Freddy.”

“They’ll have heard the gunfire.”

“I’ve got a feeling they were told to expect some gunfire.”

“It doesn’t stop with me, Lenore. I have friends. There’s a great big family. People in position. You know the saying about City Hall.”

“Impress me some more, dickhead.”

Woo takes a breath. “All your talk about will. All your words. It comes down to this, Lenore.”

“You know, Freddy, there’s a reason the Families put the gun barrel in the enemy’s mouth. You know that, right, Freddy?”

“I’m unarmed. Defenseless. A prisoner. You can just execute me? You think so?”

She raises her free hand to his mouth, pinches in the sides like some cliché of an elderly woman admiring a child’s face. She turns his head from side to side.

“Courage of my convictions, Freddy.”

She hears the metal-click sound of a safety being snapped off. She steps back slowly and turns enough to see Rourke, on one knee, one arm extended forward, hand gripping a small revolver.

Woo begins to laugh and says, “Even the mailman carries a gun. I love this country.”

Lenore pivots very slowly as Rourke, caught somewhere between terrified and adrenaline-high, says, “Don’t, do not, just stop.”

“Okay, stupid, just listen. I’ve got a bead on you right now. I’ve got tension on the trigger. You might get a shot off. But I’ll be firing back. My body jerks back, the weapon fires, I swear to you, this will happen.”

Woo makes his move. It happens in seconds. He goes down and up into her, his shoulder coming under her, knocking the Uzi upward toward the ceiling. A small burst of gunfire sounds and stops. Lenore loses balance, falls backward, hugging the gun into her chest to maintain position. Woo is on top of her, one hand pushing the weapon down against her so she can’t get control, another struggling to pull something from the inside of his coat.

Then it’s out, an open razor. A long straight razor, a barber’s tool from a generation past. Woo manages to get a grip on her throat. He makes a sweep that passes near the end of her nose. The miss charges him up and he pushes harder on her neck, brings the razor up more slowly this time. And his intention becomes clear. The thought gels in Lenore’s brain: He wants to cut up my mouth, he wants to cut out my tongue.

Now he makes a jab motion instead of a sweep. The blade slides into Lenore’s upper lip and at once a rush of blood flows down over her mouth. There’s no pain, but the shock of the action gives Lenore enough of a jolt to throw him to the side. He pulls the blade across the back of her hand as he passes. Blood spurts and runs, and she tries to keep a hold on her weapon. Woo gains balance and begins to come at her again, backhand, a wide arc.

There’s a round of gunfire, a series of low-caliber pops. She turns to see Cortez, outside the train car, bent in a practiced shooter’s stance. The bullets enter Woo’s body chest-level. For an instant he makes the helpless, jerking, seizurelike spasms of a man in an electric chair. The body erupting in short, violent twitches. Then he pitches forward and his head lands facedown in Lenore’s abdomen.