One Blood (28 page)

Maybe it wasn’t to kill him, though. Maybe it had been a warning.

He came to warn me about Karen.

The driver maneuvered around the caravan and put them back on a crash course for the airport.

Randy was desperate for an update on Karen’s whereabouts, but his cell phone was in pieces on the floor of the Observation Deck and the car phone would not afford him with a secure line. Any imbecile could trace the call and that would be no good…no good at all.

And what to do about Snake?

If Snake was dumb enough to show up at the Lafitte mansion, he was a dead man. Randy pictured himself strangling Snake to death with a piece of chicken wire. Yes. Tonight his hands would get plenty bloody.

But first, Randy would take the relatively short helicopter flight back to Lake City so he could be there when they found Karen. He wanted to be the first face his daughter saw. He blocked any morbid thoughts of warnings from beyond the grave with a lucid vision of their reunion.

“
We’re here, sir.”

He blinked and his daughter’s face vanished, replaced by the dark leather interior of the vehicle. Randy looked around the car as if seeing it for the first time.

The driver stared at him in the rearview mirror.

Randy wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He shuddered as he recalled the way Kristopher had looked at him with those bloody eye sockets. Though the helicopter was waiting, he had no desire whatsoever to get out of the car.

What if he’s out there?

Instead of moving or giving the driver further direction, Randy sat and watched the helicopter blades rotate. He had flown by chopper hundreds, maybe thousands of times without a problem, but today each helicopter blade was a razor sharp guillotine waiting to chop his head off.

“
Sir?”

“
Yes, of course, Joel. I’m ready.”

Joel opened his door. Randy’s eyes watered as a whippet of wind slapped him in the face. He rocked on his feet.

Joel grabbed his arm to steady him and asked if he was okay. Each word seemed to come in slow motion, barely audible though Joel was yelling in his ear.

Randy blinked his heavy eyelids and continued watching the blades. The rotating motion was so…hypnotic. Just when he thought he was going to pass out, the scene before him shifted.

“
This is one election you can’t steal.”

The words echoed in his mind as he stared down at Juanita Simmons lying unconscious before him.

He was inside an official-looking space he knew very well—the Lake City Father’s Office. Randy shook his head to clear the fog and felt the weight of the telephone in his hand. He’d just knocked Juanita out with it. Her husband, Walter, struggled mightily in the closet, trying to free himself.

Randy didn’t have much time. He shut the closet, cutting off Walter Simmons’ protests, and dragged Juanita over to his desk. After handcuffing one of her arms to the desk, he inspected the rest of his handiwork.

Carla Bean, Walter’s secretary, stared up at him with unseeing eyes as blood darkened her green, silk blouse. Even dead, Carla was a very attractive woman—it was no wonder Walter had fallen for her. He positioned her in the chair and then picked up the twenty-two caliber pistol he’d used to kill her.

Wiping the weapon down with a rag, he placed it in Juanita’s outstretched palm. There was something exciting about being this close to a woman other than Coral. And a black woman at that. Had he ever been this close to one? He couldn’t recall.

Randy examined her face and body, so foreign, yet so familiar. He traced her handcuffed arm but she did not stir. He could understand how these full, sensual lips and round and supple bodies had seduced so many slave owners. Walter Simmons was a fool, he decided, unbuttoning his pants.

I should make him watch.

Randy opened the closet door and mounted Juanita as Walter’s rage-filled grunts filled the room. When he entered her, thorns tore into his naked shaft.

Randy screamed and jumped up to find he was in the Capitol Rose Garden with his pants down. Streaks of crimson were smeared all over his tie and dress shirt.

That’s going to stain.

Randy had to fight the urge to giggle.

I’m going crazy.

“
Don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” a voice said from behind him. “You going crazy would be as likely as the Beatles rapping.”

Randy turned to see Kristopher, the way he’d looked the last time he’d seen him.

“
Here, let me give you a hand.” Kristopher extended his right arm.

Randy reached out to touch his son’s face but Kristopher stepped back out of range.

“
You started this,” Kristopher said. “You brought this upon your own family. Why?”

Randy realized Kristopher’s lips weren’t moving. Still, he heard his words loud and clear.

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

“
Can’t bullshit me, Dad. I’m dead. Just like you are going to be if you don’t open up. Now open up!” Kristopher demanded.

Randy, having lost control of his mind and faculties, felt his jaws spreading open. The unmistakable aroma of thousands of roses singing their fragrant song filled his nose. Kristopher placed a rosebud in his mouth.

Randy gagged. The flower smelled just like a rose, but tasted like blood. Randy closed his eyes against a wave of tears.

“
You alright, sir?”

Randy forced his eyelids open and saw concern slinking its way across his driver’s face. Randy’s eyes were still watering from the wind swirling off the helicopter. He gladly accepted the handkerchief Joel offered.

“
Of course I’m fine, Joel, why wouldn’t I be?”

“
Well, sir, you kind of spaced out on me there for a sec…”

“
It happens from time to time,” Randy replied, looking at the rotary blades again.
What is happening to me?

Jhonnette Deveaux’s words came like a whisper.
“Only Panama X is strong enough to control the baka.”

Once inside the helicopter, Randy put on his headset and said to the pilot, “There’s been a change of plans.”

“
Where to, Sir?”

Randy had made a career of following his instincts and they’d never led him astray. He prayed the trend continued. “We need to make a stop at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.”

* * * * *

Chapter Forty-Eight

Monday

Lake City, LA

Fat Pat watched the kid sprint down the corridor. The lanky bastard ran in a zig-zag pattern like it was going to stop him from catching a bullet.

Fat Pat tried to take another shot but the gun jammed. Cursing, Fat Pat took off down the hall. He had to get his hands on that kid. In his haste, Fat Pat tripped over some wires and belly-flopped on the linoleum floor. The weapon flew out of his hand and discharged when it hit the ground.

The sound was louder than a grenade going off in an aluminum trash can.

The kid stopped dead in his tracks when the gun went off. He patted his body to see if he’d been hit anywhere, then ran back to retrieve the gun, which had come to a rest midway between the two of them.

Fat Pat watched helplessly as the kid picked up the gun with a quivering arm and aimed it at his head.

“
Hey kid, put the gun down, man. You ain’t gonna shoot nobody. Come on, man, I’ll take you wherever you wanna go. We can get a doctor and I’ll get you back home…”

“
What about Shorty?”

“
What the hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

The tremor in the kid’s hand was gone. “Ya’ll think you can just kill whoever you want,” the kid said, tears streaming down his face. “Now I see how it works. You take a gun like this, point it at some defenseless person and you’ve got the power, right? Killing helpless little kids…that make you feel like a man?”

“
I ain’t kill nobody, man!”

“
Who’s the man now, huh?” The kid was less than ten paces away from Fat Pat.

“
Please,” Fat Pat pleaded. He wondered if he could outmaneuver a speeding bullet.

The kid’s arm relaxed slightly as he lowered his eyes from his target. For a second, Fat Pat thought he might avoid Trump and Salsa’s fate, but then those eyes came up blazing with resolve.

“
It’s funny, you know,” the kid said without a trace of humor in his voice. “All my life I’ve thought I was different than Lincoln. Now here I am with this gun and I think I know exactly what he was feeling that day.”

A nurse appeared in the hallway behind the kid. “Hey!” she yelled.

As the kid turned to look at the nurse, Fat Pat made his move. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and tried to wrestle it out of the kid’s hand. Fat Pat’s fingers flirted with the trigger as he inverted the gun toward the kid’s chest.

The nurse hit Fat Pat over the head with something hard and he lost his grip on the gun. As he fell backwards, he watched the barrel swing back toward his chest.

The kid stumbled backward as well, and when his back hit the wall, his finger squeezed the trigger.

The bullet sliced through Fat Pat’s sizeable gut, exiting out the other side. The pain was intense, like being stabbed with a molten hot fireplace poker. His heartbeat drummed in his head as he slid down the wall. Fat Pat coughed violently and pus-filled blood dribbled down his chin.

The nurse stared at him in horror; the kid’s expression was a blank mask of shock.

Fat Pat wondered if this was how Salsa and Trump had lived their last moments—thinking about how nothing they’d ever done in their entire lives had meant anything. He struggled to get up.

Several men burst through the Employees Only entrance.

Fat Pat watched them approach in slow motion, guns drawn. He waited for another bullet barrage that never came. These were the strangest looking cops he’d ever seen, with their slicked-back hair and dark suits.

Must be undercover.

The cops trained their weapons on the kid and commanded him to drop the gun. The kid stared back at them like they spoke a foreign language.

Fat Pat shut his eyes as a cold wave washed over him. When he opened them, the men were slapping handcuffs on the kid. The nurse lay on the floor beside him, in her own pool of blood.

Fat Pat stared at the unconscious girl in the hospital hallway as he slowly bled to death. He knew this was it, but still felt glad he wasn’t going wherever they were taking the kid. He’d spent enough time in the streets to know that whoever those guys were, they were very bad news.

* * * * *

Chapter Forty-Nine

Ten years earlier

1992

Lake City, LA

“
Wake up, kiddo, wake up.”

Karen rolled away and pulled the covers over her head. “Leave me alone, Kristopher.”

He shook her gently. “Come on, Smurfette. I need to tell you something.”

Karen groaned and turned back over. “I told you to stop calling me that! I’m gonna tell Mom.”

“
Okay, okay. I’m sorry. How are you doing?”

“
I’m sleepy. Whaddaya want?” She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. Kristopher’s face was all bruised up. He’d fallen off his bike a couple of days ago. Karen had just gotten the training wheels off hers.

“
I need you to listen to me very carefully, Karen. Can you do that?”

His tone was so serious Karen became afraid. She looked him over again. Though it was dark outside, he was fully dressed.

“
Where are you going, Kristopher?”

He looked away. “I need to do something, Karen. Something to keep you safe.”

“
Safe from what?”

Kristopher sighed. “You remember that story Abby told us?”

Karen remembered. She’d had nightmares for a week after. “What about it?”

“
I need to do something about the curse.”

Now Karen was really scared. “But Abby said the curse was dead.”

“
What if it isn’t? What if I don’t do anything and Dad drops dead, or Mom, or…you?”

“
What…what are you gonna do?”

“
I’m gonna go see Abby tonight and I need you to cover for me. Can you do that?”

Normally Karen would challenge him, but this was serious. She nodded.

“
Good girl. Don’t worry, kiddo. Everything’s gonna be alright. I’m sorry if I scared you.” Kristopher stood and walked toward the door. “Oh, one more thing. I got you something.”

“
What?”

“
Look on top of your TV.”

Karen squinted in the dark and saw Kristopher’s prized Sony discman resting atop her SuperNintendo. She was immediately suspicious—he never let her touch it. “What’s going on, Kristopher?”