Walk (Gentry Boys) (24 page)

“Evie-” Stone began but I cut him off. 

“This is about Conway, isn’t it?”

The two of them exchanged another look. 

“Look, if you’re chasing after Conway I’m going with you.” 

Bash raised an eyebrow.  “That’s a bad idea.”

“Stay out of it, Bash,” I snapped.   

He held up a hand.  “Just saying, it’s a high stakes place with a lot of rough characters.” 

I stared him down.  “I’m coming.” 

Stone patted my knee and kept one eye on his roommate.  “What time do we need to leave?”

Bash checked the clock.  “Action’s not happening for a few hours so we’ve got some time.” 

“Okay.”  Stone draped an arm around me and casually took up the remote. He hadn’t argued with me when I announced I was coming along.  Even though I felt rather anxious about the possibility of running into scary Conway, I would have felt a whole lot worse if Stone went on some fool’s mission to confront his brother on his own. I figured if things went sour then it was much less likely to escalate into something truly ugly if I was there.  Maybe it was a naïve thought, especially given that Bash was still watching us with a strangely uneasy expression, like he knew something I didn’t.   

“When do you want to leave?” he asked Stone as he wandered back into the kitchen to pick over the remaining pizza. 

“Pretty soon,” Stone replied mildly as he started watching a baseball game. 

I kissed his shoulder.  “It’ll be okay,” I said.

Maybe it would be okay. Conway wasn’t Macon.  It was possible he would choose tonight to abandon his grudge and the Gentry brothers could finally make peace with one another. 

Stone slowly faced me and pushed a lock of hair behind my left ear.  He touched me gently beneath my chin and closed his eyes as he came in for the softest of kisses. 

“I love you,” he whispered the second before his lips met mine. 

“I love you too.”  I wrapped him in my arms and felt him sigh. 

Twenty minutes later Stone still wasn’t giving out any signals that he planned on leaving.  He sat forward on the couch, seemingly engrossed in the last inning of the game even though I’d never known him to be interested in baseball before.  I patted his thigh and headed for the bathroom, passing Bash, who was now sitting at the table with the half empty wine bottle as he stared into his phone. 

I didn’t take long in the bathroom.  Less than a minute.  But as I turned the sink off something seemed wrong.  The cheers of the baseball game echoed through the apartment. 

“No,” I whispered to the mirror. 

I flung open the bathroom door and bolted for the living room but it was too late.  As I passed the patio glass doors I saw Stone’s truck drive past.  Even if I summoned full speed and hopped into my own truck I’d have little chance of catching them.  After all, they had been careful not to tell me where they were going. 

I sank down to the couch, which was still warm from Stone’s body.  My phone buzzed.  I wasn’t surprised by what the new message said. 

“I’m sorry.  I love you.”   
 

STONE

“She mad?” Bash asked. 

The traffic light turned green so I switched the phone off and set it down on the console.  If Evie responded with a plea to come back I wasn’t sure I’d be able to refuse her. 

“I’m betting she’s not happy,” I said, trying not to think about what her face would have looked like when she realized I’d left her behind. 

A few hours, honey.  Just a few hours.  Then I’ll come back to you. 

If I’d told her that she wouldn’t have accepted it.  Evie would have stubbornly clung to me and insisted on coming along because somehow she believed she had the power to frighten away whatever threats might come. 

There were two things wrong with that idea.  The first was that there was still some ugly business to sort through between my brother and me.  It was ours alone.  There could be no other players. 

The other thing was that I believed Bash when he said there would be rough characters around tonight. A place like that sure as hell wasn’t good for the girl I loved. 

“Get on the freeway,” Bash said.  “It’s way out east.  I’ll tell you when to get off.” 

The hulking shapes of the Superstition Mountains were invisible in the dark.  I imagined them out there, silent sentinels bearing indifferent witness to a million human events. 

“So there’s a racetrack out there?”

“Not exactly.  Former automobile proving ground that was closed and abandoned about a decade back.  It’s got miles of asphalt surrounded by barbed wire and there’s nothing else there at the moment.  Developers own the land now and they’re supposedly going to build more suburban sprawl but who the fuck knows when that will happen.”   

“How’d you come by the tip that Con was going to be there?”

“Judd’s girl again.  Supposedly he’s racing some dirtbag from the west side.” 

I chewed on that as we hurtled east.  Eventually the cars thinned out, as did the nearly identical stucco housing subdivisions visible from the freeway.  We were pretty far out, about half the distance to Emblem. 

“Next exit,” Bash said.  “Roughly five miles south.  I know there’s a dirt road turnoff that leads to a hole in the fence so keep your eyes peeled once we’re closer.” 

Deck had already clued me in that street racing was among Con’s occupations, if you wanted to call it that.  That bothered me a hell of a lot more than the other shit I’d heard he was into.  The worst psychologist could have explained why.  Squealing tires and reckless speed would always remind me of the final moment of Erin’s life.  It seemed downright chilling that Conway would so carelessly seek out cheap thrills that might send him to the same end.   

I kept scanning the roadside, looking for some hint of the dirt road  “You see it yet?”

Bash’s eyes must have been sharper in the dark than mine.  Suddenly he twisted around and squinted.  “Wait, we passed it.  Flip around.” 

The road was less a road than a path.  It was barely wide enough for my truck to fit, so I’d just have to stay alert and hope no one was coming from the other direction. 

As it turned out we didn’t get more than a few hundred yards before the headlights showed some pasty ghoul in a mall cop uniform.  He lounged against the frame of a Crown Victoria that had been parked sideways to block further access to the road. 

I set the brake and waited while he limped over. 

“This is private property, boys.”  He had a wavering, whiny voice.  He was probably being paid eight bucks an hour to sit out here and scare off anyone who didn’t belong. 

I leaned my head out the window. The sounds of speeding cars echoed in the distance, followed by some very human howling. 

The guard was glowering at us with suspicion so I decided to take a chance.

“Move your bucket of shit,” I snarled.  “We’ve got a race.” 

He raised his eyebrows, appraising my beat up truck.  “In that?”

“No, motherfucker.  My ride’s waiting for me at the starting line.” 

The guard narrowed his eyes.  “I know you.” 

I’d never seen him before in my life.  He was probably mistaking me for Conway.  We’d always looked similar and had the same build.  The darkness would help add to the confusion. 

“Yeah, you do,” I said tersely.  “Now get the fuck out of my way before I decide to make a thing out of it.” 

He mumbled something and shuffled away but a moment later he moved his car.

Bash chuckled when we were out of earshot.  “I guess you’re scarier than I gave you credit for, Gentry.” 

“Wasn’t me he was scared of,” I mumbled. 

We followed the lights, stopping to park fifty yards from a knot of about a hundred people who were milling around.  Flanking the area was a collection of cars that even my limited knowledge estimated as pricey.  There were mostly men here, the kind of men I’d gotten used to seeing in one place.  I would have bet a week’s pay that many of them had done time.  It wasn’t so much the way they looked, but the way they moved among another; alpha predators spoiling for a fight. The few women around were barely dressed and crawling all over their male companions. 

At any rate, I was damn glad I’d left Evie safe in my apartment.  She shouldn’t be out here in the chilly darkness with this motley crowd. 

Conway was nowhere in sight.  Someone had brought portable floodlights and a generator but beyond the immediate area it was dark.  Bash had already told me what little he knew about these underground races.   It was all high stakes and higher speed, like the movies only grittier.   Sometimes the venues were urban but more often they were these barren locales in the outer valley where it was easier to pay off private property owners and avoid notice from the real law enforcement.  Every now and then a fiery wreck ended the night early.  Fatalities weren’t unknown. 

In the distance I heard the sound of racing engines but the proving ground tracks were invisible in the darkness.  When I pointed this out to Bash he nodded and said that was the idea.  The racers would peel away from the starting line and hurtle through the black night with only their instincts and their headlights to show them the way.  If they veered off the track then they’d lose the race.  If they rolled or crashed they might lose their lives.

I tipped my head, listening to the engines. There was no telling how many miles of track were out there but the noise didn’t sound close. 

Bash stayed right by my side as we took a walk around, trying to appear casual, like we were just there for recreation.  We had a small stroke of luck when Bash’s buddy Judd appeared.  Some of the men who had been warily watching us relaxed and turned their attention elsewhere when it seemed like we had friends in the crowd. 

Judd was already shit-faced and his girlfriend kept licking his ear but Bash managed to pull him aside long enough to ask an important question.  Judd glanced at me and shook his head. 

“But stick around,” he slurred.  “He’ll be along.  Jade says he’s got a race at midnight.  A no show is the same as a loss and Gentry don’t like to lose.” 

The engines were growing louder and a buzz rippled through the crowd.  They started walking east as if they owned one body and gazed out expectantly at, well, nothing.   

“Any minute,” Bash muttered. 

The lights appeared only a few seconds before the cars came roaring in at full speed.  A thick white line had been painted over a wide stretch of track and a pair of floodlights were directly trained on it so the spectators could see the outcome. 

The blue car crossed the line about half a second before the red one.  There were some cheers, there were some curses and there was some laughter as the cars slowed to a stop several hundred yards away and then turned back. 

I held my breath as I waited for the drivers to exit.  The first one was dark skinned and probably no more than five foot five.  The other one was tall, wiry, with black horn-rimmed glasses.  He was the winner.  Someone shouted the word “Gunner!” and he lifted one finger in salute so I figured that must be his name. 

Not that it mattered to me what his name was.  He wasn’t Conway so I didn’t care. 

I turned away from the spectacle and started walking. I needed to do something with all this nervous energy while I waited for Conway to maybe, probably, perhaps show up.  I needed to figure out what I was going to say to him when he did. 

There was a scuffle going on inside the backseat of an orange and black striped Charger but when a woman started moaning, “Yes, yes, fuck, harder!” I turned on my heel and headed the opposite way. 

Evie had mentioned that Conway was driving a silver Mustang when she saw him.  Of course there was no way to know if that was even really his car, but just the same I scanned the collection of vehicles for something similar.  I didn’t find it.  Instead I found something else.  

He didn’t say hello or betray any sign that he recognized me.  He just sat on the tailgate of a Ford pickup and drank out of a bottle while he watched the crowd with hooded eyes.  We’d been in the same unit of the prison for about a year so I knew his name. Even though there’d never been a reason for us to exchange two words I recalled him so vividly because he used to give me the fucking creeps.  He was one of the biggest guys in the yard, always prowling around every corner and sitting apart from everyone with the same watchful glare he wore now.  He’d disappeared one day about six months before I got out.  Word had it he was paroled early. 

Our mutual affection for Central State Penitentiary wasn’t what interested me about him right now though.  What interested me was the fact that he’d been sitting at a table with my brother the night Bash and I went looking for Con at the strip club.  

I stopped in front of him.  “Jackson.” 

His focused on me, looking bored. “You want something?”

I took a cautious step in his direction.  “I’m looking for somebody.” 

Jackson seemed annoyed.  “I know who you’re fucking looking for.” 

“Where is he?”

He didn’t blink.  “If he wanted you to know that then you would know it.” 

Jackson frowned and stiffened as I got closer.  I held up a hand to show that I didn’t mean any trouble. 

“Look,” I said.  “Is there any way you could get a message to him?”

“I’m not the butler, you jackass.” 

“Fine.”  I took a breath, trying not to lose my cool.  I figured I could try to appeal to Jackson’s sensitive side, in case he had one.  “He’s my brother.” 

Jackson frowned.  “I got a brother.  He shanked me in the thigh with an ice pick when I was ten.” 

“Oh. Sorry to hear that.” 

He shrugged.  “Don’t matter no more.  The fucker’s dead now.” 

“Look,” I said earnestly.  “I really need to find Conway.”

“You found him.” 

I spun around at the sound of his voice. 

He’d cleaned up.  A little.  At least he wasn’t sporting the drunken pimp look today.  He’d shaved and was dressed in jeans and a clean white t-shirt.  He looked like Con again, the old Con.  Only the cold suspicion in his eyes told me that nothing was as it used to be. 

He stared at me a moment, then shook his head and spat out a curse as he squinted toward the crowd.  “What the hell are you doing here, Stone?”

“You had to know I’d show up sooner or later, Con. I didn’t mean to blindside you but you don’t really give me a whole lot of options.”

“You should go,” he said softly.  “Sometimes the cops get tipped off.  They’re on high alert right now because some little rich prick flipped his dad’s Jaguar at last week’s race and now he’s in the hospital, breathing through a tube.”  He focused on me sharply.  “So get the fuck out of here before you wind up getting picked up and hauled in.” 

“Come with me.” 

A short laugh.  “No.” 

“Because you’re racing tonight?  You’re really willing to risk your life again for this bullshit?”

He narrowed his eyes.  “Maybe.” 

“Why?”

His lips formed an ugly smile.  “Why not?”

I swallowed.  “Because time is precious, Conway.  If there was one thing I learned in lockup then that was it.  Each day we get to walk the earth is irreplaceable.” 

Conway looked at me for a second and then cracked up like I’d just told the world’s best joke.  It almost made me want to smile back in return.  Almost. Except I knew Con’s laughter and this wasn’t it.  This was a bitter sound. 

His laughter finally tapered off to a sigh.  “Get out of here, Stone.” 

When he started to walk away I grabbed his arm.  He recoiled like I’d touched him with a hot poker. 

I crossed my arms.  “I’m not going anywhere until you fucking deal with me.” 

He rolled his eyes and exhaled in a hiss.  It was the kind of thing an irritated mother might do if her child was throwing a tantrum. 

“Jackson,” he bellowed.  “Do me a favor and get a couple of the boys to escort my brother back to the land of law abiding citizens, would ya?”

“Hell with that,” Jackson growled and hopped off the truck.  He pointed at Con with his half empty bottle of Jack Daniels.  “First you hound me to keep an eye out for his idiot ass in lock up and now you want me to babysit him out here?”  He walked away, shaking his head.  “You can go be your own brother’s keeper, asshole.  I’m gonna go hunt up some snatch.”