Last Call for the Living (20 page)

The lost time added up.

Might come a time I'd want it back. But by then it'd be too late.

Lang secured his sidearm and walked toward the big tree, backlit by the high beams of the pickup. The mountain road beyond slanted upward and narrowed, winding like a wormhole into impenetrable darkness. He ran a hand along the rough, shaggy bark of the hickory. It came away wet. Crud on his fingertips. He wiped his hand on a pant leg and walked back to the truck.

Not understanding what he was about to do.

Like walking in the woods with a flashlight. His hunch to follow the tattooed man from the gas station up into the mountains was foolish, sure. And there was no sign he had been up this way.
Man's long gone,
Lang told himself.
Or if he's still in Jube County he sure as hell ain't up here.

But that last bit of speculation didn't find traction in Lang's mind. The mountains were full of stands and cabins. Campsites long abandoned.

You'd need a hundred men to comb this mountain alone.

His fingers caressed the butt of the holstered Kimber.

What the fuck are you doin', Tommy?

He hustled a can of beer from the fridge pack. It opened with a hiss. He took a sip. Moths clamored around the headlights, beyond their reach another hairpin turn and then empty space. A sensation of being watched struck him, as if the woods were taking inventory, acknowledging his presence.
Let 'em watch.
He lit a cigarette and turned on the stereo.

The thought did occur to just leave. Drive down until he hit some familiar roads. Put the beers in a cooler he kept in the bed, cruise around for a while in the dark. Eventually go on home. He'd had about enough anyway, and the moments when he was thinking straight seemed few and far between. He could cook some chili. Play with the dog. Watch television. Go on a big drunk. Had enough money put away. Pension. The house paid for. He sure as hell wasn't planning to run for Sheriff again. They could see it in his eyes and he could see it in his own.

He flipped down the visor and looked into the compact mirror.

You got options. Go on a diet. Quit smoking. Sixty coming up awful fast. Get in real good shape. Maybe get one of those consulting-type jobs. Security. Redecorate the house. Put in a swimming pool. Get that satellite that records programs, what everyone talks about. Call up the ex and ask about the kids like any responsible man would. Maybe reunite with them. Bet they'd be shocked by what they saw. Yes, sir. That's the new Tommy Lang. He done had himself an awakening. Could even start going to church again. Put the bottle down once and for all. Get right with Jesus and all that stuff they talked about. Could drink vegetable juice and smoothies and do sit-ups and rub cream on my face. Dye the gray from my hair. Maybe get a new wardrobe. Go to the doctor and get a full checkup and really listen. Do a total inventory. Head down to the city for a day. Hell, a weekend. Buy some books. Go to a museum. Something. We got to do something, Tommy. It done got to start now. Just turn the truck around. Turn the truck around. Turn the truck around …

… who am I fucking kidding?

Lang reached for another beer, putting the empty in the cup holder. He propped his boots on the dash and sighed. Supposed one more beer. Then he'd turn around. “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers Band played on the radio. Lang drank the second beer quickly. Opened another. Figured he would just sit there a little longer.

Enjoy his beer and music in the quiet darkness.

Until his mind was made up.

*   *   *

Hicklin got lucky
and he knew it.

He'd intended to hide the Chevy, hike directly up to the cottage. It was a difficult climb but a straight shot through the woods. Stay long enough to leave Hummingbird enough cash to get by for a little while. Make plans with Charlie for an overnight escape. To where he didn't know, but he had some ideas.

He left the pickup hidden under the camouflage tarp, groceries and beer in the front seat. Halfway up the mountain a hunch told him to circle the safe house, take stock of who was inside.

Hicklin flanked the cottage at dusk, getting within earshot, the faint orange light of the safe house's interior coming into view. He knelt under the shade of a black gum tree, winded and sweating, watching as fireflies lighted in the gloaming. He heard laughter. A familiar voice followed by a short, muzzled scream.

Charlie.

There was a commotion occurring in the main room, thumps and banging and the deranged cackle of Hicklin's old friend Lipscomb.

The lamp in the living room cast a soft halo around the front door. Hicklin crept forward, using the dense trees for cover, the shotgun waist high and steadied on the cottage. He heard the sonorous hoots of a horned owl, a distant rumble of thunder. He fingered the safety back, the button located on top of the receiver tang of the Mossberg. Hicklin hadn't heard Hummingbird and intuition told him she was already dead. He could almost feel Charlie's jackhammer heartbeat from where he hid.

Hicklin knew why those two monsters were there. And he knew what they might do.

Charlie started to scream.

As if the forest had birthed him, Hicklin appeared some fifteen yards from the safe house, the muzzle swinging up to his shoulder as he took aim at the front door. A flame reached out and licked the open air. The front door exploded with buckshot. He saw Flock and Lipscomb dive out of harm's way, their curses loud and vicious. He racked the pump and chambered another round.

Alternating between buckshot and three-inch Magnum slugs, Hicklin fired again, one round ripping through the middle hinge of the front door, all but destroying it. He backpedaled, melting into darkness as a hornet's nest of return fire singed the air around his ears. He took cover behind the trunk of a white oak, feeling a hot prickling in his right shoulder as a scatter of buckshot from a 12-gauge ripped through tree limbs and peppered the ground around his feet. Just a flesh wound, but a reminder for Hicklin of the firepower his former partners were packing.

He could hear the twin
clacking
of the pumps from inside the cottage.

He retreated some thirty yards from the gaping hole that used to be the front door, knowing he had an advantage as darkness fell on the mountain. Lipscomb and Flock wouldn't be able to see three feet past the cottage, although they had smartly killed the lights inside. Hicklin leaned the shotgun against a nearby pine tree. Drew his pistol and took a deep breath.

Gunsmoke hung lazily across the threshold of the safe house. He crept to his right, his stealth impeded by size 14 steel-toes. But his lateral move went unnoticed, the silence broken only by Lipscomb and Flock's muffled bickering. Hicklin sprinted to another thick cluster of pine, swung around and leveled the SIG SAUER on the western wall of the cottage, locking the night sights on a low window that looked into the living room. He squeezed off two rounds, followed by a single trigger pull, exhausting more than half the magazine a moment later with one last double tap.

Hicklin heard glass break. A few inches of black barrel were offered through an open window. A double-aught olive branch.

He ducked and flattened his back against the largest tree trunk he could find as a chorus of gunfire erupted around him.

*   *   *

“I didn't hear
no ‘Police' or ‘Come out with your hands up,' so it must be our old friend Hicklin!” Lipscomb said.

“Old friend, my ass! He done shot me!” Flock objected.

“You hit?”

“Just a graze,” Flock said. “Tore my shirt is all.” He laughed nervously, fingering the rip in his twill shortsleeve, tender and bloodied skin beneath. Lipscomb responded with a raspy laugh of his own. Leaning against the wall, he pushed the couch toward the south wall of the cottage, taking cover behind it.

“Hey, boy,” Lipscomb said, whispering.

“What?”

“Get from that wall. Slugs go right through the clapboard.”

Flock shuffled past Charlie, kicking him out of frustration. His nerve seemed to be going, judging by the expression on his face. Lipscomb turned and peeked around an edge of the couch. The trees beyond as dark as a dead television. Rain began to fall.

“We just want to talk, Hick,” Lipscomb shouted. “'Bout the score. Maybe a miscommunication on your part. Done got your days of the week mixed up. You hear me, Hicklin?”

Wind rustled through the treetops. Raindrops clunked against the roof. Lipscomb surveyed the room. Charlie was on his side, curled up like a baby. He had his hands clasped behind his head, protecting it like some trench-bound soldier. Lipscomb counted six magazines. Seven rounds per clip.

What's one or two less?

Dissatisfied by the silence that answered him, he raised the handgun and pumped two rounds at Charlie, missing him by inches. Charlie screamed, covering his head.

“Hear that, Hicklin? We're having a little fun with your bank teller!”

He let Charlie's sobbing sink in for effect, suspecting that Hicklin was tuned in to the hostage or Hummingbird or both.
Otherwise, why would he have come back?

“First let me say I'm sorry about Hummingbird,” Lipscomb said. “But she's moved on to tweeker heaven. Now I'm keen to put one in bank teller's gut next!”

Lipscomb was scanning the empty shadows of the surrounding woods when a round ripped through the window just above his head. Two more followed as Lipscomb ducked out of sight, peeking around the doorjamb, trying to zero in on the muzzle flashes. There was a reprieve that lasted a few dozen heartbeats, interrupted by a blast of buckshot with a Magnum slug chaser. Lipscomb and Flock flattened themselves against the baseboards as the cottage came apart around them.

Flock answered first, rolling to his right and firing out the front door with his sidearm. Double taps at twelve o'clock and two o'clock. He caught Hicklin's muzzle flash and popped a few more rounds in its direction. Too dark to get a position on him, though, Hicklin just another shadow within the depths of that thick, unforgiving timber.
Might as well have thrown the bullets out the door.

A burst of gunfire crackled, a chaotic call-and-response. Both parties pausing for a moment as if to enjoy the noisy echo that followed. If the birds and crickets and frogs could have called 911 they probably would have.

“What the hell is he doing?” Flock said, flustered by their predicament. He righted himself using his elbows, squatting on his heels.

“Saying hello, apparently,” Lipscomb mused.

“He's got a funny goddamn way of sayin' it.”

Lipscomb smiled and leaned back against the couch. Realizing his weapon was empty, he dropped free the exhausted magazine and reached for another from a pouch on his belt, popped it into the HK USP's frame and thumbed the release slide.

Meanwhile his partner sucked air, the look on his face one of pure impatience. It was as though Flock could no longer contain the frenzy within him. He rocked on his heels and rose, keeping to the one wall of the cottage that wasn't decorated with bullet holes.

“To hell with this,” he said.

Lipscomb watched his partner curiously, realizing a second too late what he was about to do.

“Flock, you dumb asshole! Get your ass back in here!”

But he wouldn't listen. Flock stepped outside into a hard rain to face the darkness. He dropped his .45 and raised his arms as if to show he had no other pistols on his person. Next he produced a hunting knife, clutching it like some ancient warrior, and hollered as if he were addressing thousands of enemies at once.

“Come on out, Hicklin, you motherfucker! Let's quit this Mickey Mouse bullshit once and for all!”

*   *   *

Hicklin hustled just
behind the tree line, finding cover by lying flat within a patch of wild shrubs. He eyed what was left of the ghostly-looking front door. Noticed the generator was failing. A shadeless lamp in one of the interior bedrooms dimmed considerably. There had been no movement for a few minutes. No sound. Soothing cool rainwater trickled down his spine. Not keen to talk yet, he couldn't help but think of his own betrayal.

Lipscomb.

A man he'd robbed with. Done almost ten years' time with him. Many moments of friendship and brotherhood, but a camaraderie that was ephemeral by nature when money or drugs or guns were involved. Preacher had become like a father to Hicklin in prison. But what did that word mean anymore?

He mulled over his options, sensing the world had become opaque.

The windows painted black.

Hicklin watched the silent cottage, a multitude of considerations running through his mind.

Charlie.

Maybe if he could save Charlie it would all be worth it. Best bet was to wait Lipscomb and Flock out a little longer. Pretty soon Hicklin knew Lipscomb would grow impatient and wander out with a gun to Charlie's head, ultimatums in tow.

Things would either happen
to
him or
for
him.

To Hicklin's surprise he heard Lipscomb's voice, raised in objection as Flock appeared, moonlit and hulking before the shattered front door. A driving rain began to fall, a percussive swell filling the forest around them. Flock produced a knife and Hicklin heard him announce a challenge. A raving sociopath on display. Going for that extra gear.

Hard for Hicklin not to admire the balls on the kid.

But there was no time to get cute.

Hicklin rose undetected, stepping laterally into a thicket of mountain laurel that bordered the western edge of the clearing. A moment later a black muzzle appeared among the shrub's poisonous flowers.

Flock had taken a few more steps away from the cottage, nervously scanning the woods ahead but not once bothering to check his nine or three o'clock. Hicklin was twenty-five feet away, cloaked in darkness. He dared not show himself, not mistaking Lipscomb's silence for strategy. No doubt the convict was watching—Flock a piece of peckerwood bait for Hicklin to pounce on.