The White Mountain (17 page)

When he paused to give her
time to finish writing down a particularly prophetic piece of his wisdom, she
took the opportunity to push a button.  “Do you mind if I ask you something on
a more personal level?  Completely off the record.”

“As long as it’s not about
Hans, shoot.”

“It’s about your father.”

Herb tensed.  “Tricky
subject.”

“I thought it might be. 
You’ve fought so hard and for so long about this really important cause that
you believe in, yet I couldn’t find a single instance of your father—this
billionaire
—I
couldn’t find anything about him helping you out with some sort of donation or
fundraiser.  Nothing like that.”  She didn’t know whether or not that was true,
and prayed the lie wouldn’t backfire.  “How do you feel about that?  I mean, is
it just another example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting
poorer?  Or is it something else?”

Herb got up from the table
and poured himself another cup of coffee, then leaned against the black,
marbled countertop.  He stared at the floor, blowing at the rising steam.  He
sighed.  “My father and I don’t see eye to eye on a number of things.  Hans,
primarily.  From the start, he didn’t approve, and you’d think that with time
and distance, he would’ve eventually gotten over it.  Never happened, though. 
Too set in his ways.  He’s ninety-one years old.  Holds onto his utter
condemnation decades later like I’d told him the news yesterday.  When I got
back from Vietnam, I was eventually supposed to take over the company, but he
found out about Hans and ripped that away from me like a parent yanking a toy
out of a child’s hands.  Wrote me out of his will, too.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I always joke with Hans that
my love for him is worth a couple billion dollars.  But, that’s all it is, a joke. 
He really is worth it.  We quarrel, like any couple, but I wouldn’t give him up
for every penny that Jackson Richmond has pinched between those talons.”

“So you’re saying everything
goes to your sister?  To the First Lady?”

“Not a penny.”

“None?  Why?”

“You have to understand one
thing—my father is a self-righteous, vindictive, petty jackass.  Jessica, she
doesn’t get a thing either.  Not one red cent.”

“Seriously?  Why?”

“She married a Democrat.”

“That’s it?  That’s a bit over
the top, huh?”

“It is, isn’t it?  Jackson
Richmond wouldn’t dare have his hard-earned money wasted on a fairy or a bunch
of liberal hippies.  His words.  No, he’d rather take it to the grave or blow
it on frivolous things.”

“Like what?” Mary asked,
thinking,
Here we go...

“Oh...cars, yachts, women. 
Viagra.  The press thinks he’s a recluse that hates being in the spotlight, but
really, that vulture is out enjoying himself with what little time he has left. 
And he’s hanging on longer than I’d like, honestly.”

She dug deeper.  “Completely
off the record, what if he was doing something...out of bounds?  Would you have
any interest in—you know, letting something get out?”

Herb lifted an eyebrow.  “I
have a feeling you’re not just here for a community interest story.”

Mary feigned embarrassment. 
She put a hand on her chest, let her jaw drop, then lied.  “No, sorry, I didn’t
mean to offend you.  It’s funny—your story reminds me a lot of my family.  My
brother is gay.”

“Is that right?”

“Growing up in my house,” she
said, deepening her voice, imitating her father, “down in the hills where you
chop wood and sling hay bales like a man, it was always such a taboo subject. 
But when my father—when he found out about my brother, he practically disowned
him.  Left a bad taste in my mouth and I never forgave him.  He died before I
had a chance to prove to him how wrong he was, so I figured that you might—I
just hate to see assholes get their way.  That’s all.  I promise I’m not
digging for a story.  It’s your choice.  I’m letting you know that,
if you
want
, you have an audience.  If he’s done anything wrong, or if he’s doing
anything wrong
now
...you have an outlet.”

Herb moved back to the table
and sat down.  Staring at Mary, examining her, as the wall clock ticked away,
each
click
of the second hand an explosion breaking the silence.

Mary waited.

Herb said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ve got something for you. 
Something that’ll bring my whole family down, whether they’re directly involved
in it or not.”

She tried to act like a
reporter salivating for a career-making scoop, without showing it.  “Is it…is
it huge?  Like,
national news
huge?”

 “Huge?  Definitely.  As in,
are
you ready to see Hamm Walters crying
huge.”

“Really?  What is it?  I
mean, I’ll do my best to protect my source, but—”

“Don’t worry about that. 
This is my undoing.  I’ve been preparing for it.  We all should be.  We’ve let
it go on too long.  I’ll take the fall too, but somebody has to be the voice of
reason.  I can’t do this anymore, can’t keep hiding all the things I’ve done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Whether it’s your impeccable
timing or my guilty conscience, you’re in luck.”

“She certainly is.” 

Mary spun in her seat.  Chuck
stood in the kitchen doorway.

Chuck!  Shit, I completely
forgot I was supposed to call him in.

She turned back to Herb and
saw wide eyes.  And fear.

“Herb, this is my—”  Mary
stopped, remembering the lie she’d told about her father and quickly tried to
come up with a new story.

Herb said, “Billy?  What’re
you doing here?”

“Herb, no.  No this is, Chuck—he’s—he’s
my...”

Chuck’s smile vanished.  He
said, “I knew you’d crack,” and then shot Herb twice in the chest.

CHAPTER 16

Randall ducked and threw
himself backwards on instinct, landing in the heap of boxes behind him.

Pop, pop,
came the sounds of gunfire as the glass
half of the screen door shattered and sprinkled down on his face.  Randall
rolled to his left and spotted the dull, rusted tobacco hatchet next to his
shoulder, wrapped his hand around it and came up swinging as Mein Kampf rushed
through the doorway.

Mein Kampf threw his waist
back, the blade missing by inches.  He fired an errant shot into the brick
behind Randall and then swung a fist.

Randall blocked it, skipped
to his right, and delivered a blow to Mein Kampf’s ribs. 

The punch had no effect on
the larger, heavily muscled mastodon. 

Randall paused for a fraction
of a second, in disbelief.  He hadn’t been in that many fistfights, but
nevertheless, at six-three, two-thirty, he wasn’t used to being the smaller
man.  Mein Kampf was at least six-six and three hundred pounds.  Bigger. 
Stronger.  An Aryan beast that would’ve made Hitler proud.

Mein Kampf laughed as the
punch bounced off his side.  He crouched and circled, planning his next move.

Randall did the same, taking
a quick glance at the pistol in Mein Kampf’s hand. 

Walther PPK...is that the
.380?  How many rounds in the mag?  Six?  Three at Henry, two in the door, one
in the wall.  He’s out.

Does he know it?

They circled in slow,
cautious sidesteps.  Randall shook the hatchet as Mein Kampf snarled.

Two, massive men circling,
circling, in a room barely larger than an oversized closet, inches away from
each other.

Mein Kampf motioned with his
fingers, saying, “
Komm zu mir
.” 
Come at me.

Randall faked a lunge.

Mein Kampf stepped sideways,
flung his PPK up, pulled the trigger, and blinked when nothing happened.

Randall swung the hatchet and
buried the dull blade a half an inch deep into the man’s shoulder.

Mein Kampf glanced at it like
Randall had smacked him with a flyswatter. 

Randall yanked it free and
swung again as Mein Kampf howled and blocked it, surging ahead, tackling
Randall.

Both men hurtled backward and
burst through the kitchen door, knocking it free from its hinges.

The gun and the hatchet both
went skittering across the linoleum as they landed in a mass of punches, kicks,
and hands to faces, with Randall’s back to the floor.  Mein Kampf grabbed at
Randall’s throat, Randall squirming away and clawing at the German’s eyes.  He
missed and latched two fingers into the man’s cheek like a fishhook, yanking
sideways, shifting his weight.

It was just enough to catch
Mein Kampf off balance and send him to the floor.

Randall pushed himself up and
pounced, but caught a boot to the chest that sent him stumbling and flailing
into the counter.  Pain seared through his lower back.  He grabbed the empty
coffee pot to his left and flung it at Mein Kampf.  The glass shattered and cut
the German’s cinderblock forehead.

Mein Kampf laughed and wiped
the blood away, then charged Randall, a bull after a matador.

Randall skipped to the side,
out of the way, and jumped, delivering a roundhouse kick to the back that
propelled Mein Kampf forward even faster, head smashing into the weak cabinet
door.  It cracked and as the big German stumbled away, a swath of blood
remained on the wood.  It looked like an open wound.

Mein Kampf straightened up,
growled, and caught Randall by the arm as he stepped and swung, using Randall’s
momentum to launch him, without effort, over the bar and into the open area
dining room.

Randall landed, bounced, and
rolled into the dining table with such force that it flew into the adjacent
wall, knocking loose a family portrait.  In the briefest of glimpses, Randall
looked at the fractured glass and broken frame—behind it, he, Alice, and Jesse
sat smiling and happy.  It was an effective reminder, a symbol of what would
happen to his family if he didn’t get out of this alive.  He spun onto his
back, lifted both legs, put his hands up to either side of his head, and sprang
up to his feet.

Mein Kampf barreled ahead,
arms reaching.

Randall lowered a shoulder,
buried it into a rock solid stomach, and drove upward.  It took every bit of
strength in his legs—the beneficial hours of squats and leg presses helping—as
he lifted and launched Mein Kampf over, flying through the air, landing on his
back.

The floor shook underneath
Randall’s feet.

He spun, kicked, and met a
set of ready hands that grabbed his foot, twisting, sending him to the floor. 
Mein Kampf lunged and drove an elbow into Randall’s chest, knocking the air
from his lungs.

Randall wheezed in a high
pitch as he tried to fill his chest, gasping, coughing.  His head snapped
sideways from a brutal punch, dazing him.

Mein Kampf scrambled to his
feet, then grabbed a table leg and broke it free, snapping it in two over his
knee, with ease, like a thin piece of kindling for the fireplace.  He wrapped
both hands around it and drove the jagged end downward.

Randall dodged. 

Splinters danced about under
the force of Mein Kampf’s missed attempt as the stake’s tip gouged into the
hardwood floor.  He yelled, “
Scheiss
,” and swung the table leg like a
hammer, missing again as Randall squirmed out of the way and up to his feet. 
Shit!

Back to square, they circled
each other again, bleeding, aching, and out of breath.

The blood had dyed Mein
Kampf’s blonde hair a slick, wet red.  The crevice in his shoulder was dark
with drying blood.  “Give up,” he said, the thick, rumbling German accent laced
with frustration and desperation.  “You can’t win.”

“The hell I can’t,
fräulein.
 
Is that all you got, you big bastard?  I’ve wrestled steers that put up more
fight than you.”

Mein Kampf howled and stabbed
at Randall with the table leg.

Randall sidestepped, grabbed
him by the wrist and drove an elbow down, disarming him, and then used the same
elbow to smash Mein Kampf’s nose, who tripped and fell to the floor.  He
landed, swung his body up and over, and hopped back to his feet in a nimble
roll.  “Luck,” he said, blood dripping from his nose, into his mouth, staining
his teeth as he scowled.

Randall huffed, frustrated. 
Damn,
what’s it gonna take?

Mein Kampf used one monstrous
hand to grab a flowerpot on the bar—Alice’s favorite Christmas cactus—and slung
it at Randall.

Randall ducked as it hissed
through the air, passed his head, and smashed through the window.  He tried to
sidestep, to attack from a low angle, but rolled an ankle and went down.

Mein Kampf, sensing an
opening, took one quick step forward and dove with a battering ram fist.

Randall felt the table leg
under his left arm.  He grabbed it, braced it against the floor, and as Mein
Kampf landed, the spike drove into his abdomen.  Gravity and falling mass took
care of the rest as it slid unhindered through skin and organs, penetrating
through to the other side.