The Border: The Complete Series (48 page)

“Shut up!” Luke hissed, stepping toward him and grabbing Bob's shoulder, spinning him around and then forcing him face-first down against the ground. “I've had enough of your whining already. Jesus, I can't imagine what it must be like to be married to a man like you. There's just something about you that's pathetic and worm-like, it's as if you radiate inadequacy from every pore in your body.”

“Please,” Bob sobbed, his face pressed against the dirty ground, “let me go. We can make a deal if you'll just tell me why you're doing this!”

“Why I'm doing this?” Luke paused, before placing his heel against Bob's cheek and pushing harder against his face. “I'm doing this because the wheels of the universe, the hidden gears that regulate right and wrong, have finally turned and are ready to punish you. I'm here because you ruin lives. You don't do it in big, grand ways, but you do it by a thousand cuts. I'm here to get rid of a stain, and that stain's name is Mr. Bob Hague.” He paused, once again aiming the gun at Bob's head. “We live in a world in which weak, stupid men are kept alive by a system designed by other weak and stupid men to support their own kind. I'm stepping in to assist natural selection, Mr. Hague. You are going to die now. If you have any last words, speak them quickly.”

“Please let me go,” Bob whimpered. “I'll do anything.”

Smiling, Luke adjusted his grip on the gun and prepared to fire.

“Stop!” a voice shouted in the distance.

Luke turned and saw two figures racing across the dirt, hurrying from a car parked over by the road. “Oh hell,” he muttered, as he realized that he recognized the closest of the figures. “No, this is not part of -”

“Stop!” Beth shouted again, reaching them quickly and dropping to her knees, pushing the gun away from Bob's head. “Don't shoot him! Please don't shoot him!”

“Mrs. Hague, I told you -”

“Don't shoot him,” she said again, with tears in her eyes as she reached out and put a hand on Luke's right hand, forcing the gun toward the dirt. “It's off! I'm calling it off! This has all been a terrible mistake!”

“You can't just turn up like this when I'm in the zone,” Luke replied, turning as Ben edged closer. Raising the gun, he aimed straight at Ben's face. “Who the hell are -”

Before he could finish, Ben grabbed his hand and twisted it away. The gun fired once as it dropped to the ground, but Ben quickly yanked Luke back and slammed him to the ground. Taking a step back, he watched as Luke tried to get up, and then he stepped forward again and kicked him in the face, sending him crashing down again.

“Well this is a hell of a mess,” Ben muttered, reaching down and taking the gun.

“That's mine!” Luke shouted, struggling to his feet as blood poured from his mouth.

Ben took a step back and aimed the weapon at his face. “Is it?” he asked with a smile. “Is it really? Well, then I guess you'll just have to try to take it off me, won't you? Come on, buddy, take a crack. I am
so
in the mood right now!”

“Oh God,” Bob whimpered, starting to crawl away. “Oh dear God, somebody save me.”

“We already saved you,” Beth told him, before spotting Candy's collapsed form nearby. “Who the hell is that?”

“I think we have a problem here,” Ben said, still aiming the gun at Luke. “Fortunately, I'm a great believer in the power of talking to defuse difficult situations. Words are so much better than bullets, don't you think? You should be glad about that, 'cause I'm in a really foul mood this morning.”

“I have a job to do,” Luke replied, watching the gun and waiting for a moment to strike.

“Not anymore,” Ben continued. “You get to keep the money, but you also get to walk away from here without having to actually kill your target, is that understood? No-one here will ever tell anyone what happened, I'll make sure of that, but in return you need to get the hell out of town and stay away. Do we have a deal, or is this going to have to get more complicated?”

“Crazy, unprofessional idiots,” Luke muttered.

“Do we have a deal?” Ben shouted, stepping closer with the gun still raised. “My brother died last night and I'm not in the mood to see more death, but if anyone here has to take a hit, my friend, it's gonna be you.”

“You don't have the balls,” Luke replied.

“Don't I?” Ben paused. “You think I couldn't blow your head off and then dig a grave out here? I don't mean a shallow grave, the kind that might get discovered some day, I mean a full-on six-footer that no-one's ever gonna find. Look into my eyes and try to work out what kind of man I am, because I can assure you, dealing with your bloodied corpse would be, at best, a minor inconvenience. On a day like this, it might even be a welcome distraction. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I fancy the idea.”

Luke opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out.

“You're a killer,” Ben added. “Men like us, we recognize one another.”

Luke paused, before finally nodding. “Okay,” he said, his tone having become a little more reserved, “I'll go.” He turned to Beth. “But I'm keeping the money!”

“Just leave,” she stammered. “Please, get out of here and never come back.”

Getting to his feet, Luke began to dust himself down. “This is what you get,” he muttered, “when you work for cheap. I knew I shouldn't have trusted anyone from this place. I swear to God, if I hadn't been trying to get myself established, I'd have turned the job down cold. I knew you were a dumb bitch the moment I met you.” He held his hand out toward Ben. “My gun.”

Ben shook his head.

“It's
my
gun,” Luke pointed out.

“I'm sure you have others.”

Sighing, Luke looked down at Bob. “You're lucky, my friend. Another five seconds, and you would have been dead. Your brains would have been sprayed across the ground.”

Trembling with fear, Bob turned to Beth.

“Get out of here,” Ben said, gesturing toward Luke's car. “There's nothing left for you to do in Bowley, and I'd strongly suggest that you keep away for good. You're going to drive off, and I'm going to drive with you until the next town, just to make sure that you're gone, and then you'll drop me off at a bus stop and I'll let you go once I'm sure you won't show up again. I'm sure you understand that I need to keep my family safe. Plus, after everything that's happened over the past twenty-four hours, I could really use a chance to let off some steam.”

“I don't need a chaperone,” Luke sneered.

“Just let him leave,” Beth said. “Ben, please...”

“I know guys like this,” Ben continued. “There's a spark of indignation in him, some kind of misplaced sense of honor, and I don't want him thinking he can come back and punish us for humiliating him. We're doing this my way. Beth, take Bob back to town, take his lady friend too and make sure she'll keep her mouth shut at the hospital. I don't care how you do it, but she's the weak link and she needs shutting up. Make her lie.”

“She will,” Bob stammered, “I swear, I'll -”

“Shut up!” Ben shouted, turning to him with the gun raised. “Bob, I'm telling you, you're the most annoying son-of-a-bitch I've ever met in my life. If I had to randomly shoot one person here right now, it would most definitely be you.”

“It'd be
him
, surely,” Bob replied, pointing toward Luke. “Wouldn't it?”

Ben shook his head.

“Jesus,” Bob muttered, looking down at the ground. “I thought we were family, Ben.”

“Get in your car,” Ben continued, aiming the gun back at Luke. “Like I said, we're going one town over before I let you head off on your way.”

“This is humiliating,” Luke muttered, making his way to his car. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“No,” Ben replied, “and I don't care. Just get in the car and drive.”

“What did you do?” Bob asked, turning to Beth. “What the hell is all of this?”

“I...” She paused, before turning and heading over to Candy. Crouching next to her, she took a look at the girl's bloodied ankle before rolling her onto her back. “Can you hear me?” she asked after a moment. “I'm a nurse, we're going to get you to the hospital and make sure you're just fine.” She smiled as she saw a flicker of movement from Candy's eyes. “It's gonna hurt when we move you,” she explained, “but there's really nothing I can do about that right now, I'm sorry.” Reaching under her, she adjusted her grip and then finally began to lift Candy up.

“Am I...” Candy whispered. “Am I dying?”

“Definitely not. You're going to have a decent scar, though.”

“That's cool, I -” She winced with pain. “I don't mind a scar if it's got a fun story behind it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bob said, hurrying over to them as Beth began to carry Candy to the car, “what the hell are we going to do?”

“We're going to get her to the hospital,” Beth replied. “You're going to drive.”

“But what do we tell them?” Bob asked. “She's been shot, for God's sake!”

“We'll make something up. It's called lying.”

Bob stopped and watched for a moment as his wife carried Candy toward the car. “Did you really hire a hit-man to kill me?” he called after her.

“Not now, Bob. I need you to drive the car!”

“But...” He paused, before turning and watching as the other car drove away, with Ben and Luke inside. Finally, sighing, he ran after Beth.

***

“So how far are we going?” Luke asked, keeping his eyes on the road as they made their way far from Bowley. “How far's the next town?”

“Not far,” Ben replied, looking straight ahead with the gun resting on his lap.

“But when do we -”

“Don't ask stupid questions.”

Luke paused, before glancing briefly at the gun.

“And don't do that,” Ben added.

“Don't do what?”

“Don't look at the gun. It makes me nervous.”

“That stupid bitch hired me to -”

“That stupid bitch is my sister,” Ben said firmly, interrupting her. “You might want to think about your language in this situation.”

“I could get her in a lot of trouble, you know,” Luke continued. “She tried to have her husband murdered, she could get a lot of jail time for that.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Of course it's not. I won't
actually
tell anyone, but I
could
!” He paused for a moment, as they passed another car headed in the opposite direction. “I think the best thing for all of us will be to put this behind us,” he continued. “I have a business to build up, and I need to find myself some clients who aren't completely...” He tried to think of the right word. “Lunatics.”

“Careful,” Ben said after a moment.

“You've got to admit, your sister's kind of flaky.”

“You might be right about that.”

“How did you find us, anyway?”

“I figured you'd take him not too far out of town, and there's a main road running to the north so I thought you'd head south, to get as far away from civilization as possible. Then we just started driving and relied on pure luck.”

“Jesus,” Luke replied. “You sound like someone who's done this sort of thing before.”

“Not quite,” Ben muttered.

“So when you -”

“Stop for a moment,” Ben added. “I need to pee.”

“Seriously?”

“I need to pee,” he said again, aiming the gun at Luke. “Stop the goddamn car.”

Sighing, Ben pulled over at the side of the empty road. There were no buildings in sight for miles around, and even the town of Bowley had disappeared far behind them.

“Give me the keys,” Ben said, opening the door on his side.

“Why?”

“Because I'm not getting out for a pee and leaving you sitting here with the goddamn keys. Do you think I'm
that
stupid?”

“Fine.” Luke switched off the engine and handed the keys to him. “I can look after the gun for you, though,” he added with a faint smile.

“You're hilarious,” Ben replied, stepping out and leaving the door open as he took a few steps away from the car. Pausing, he looked around as a light breeze blew across the plain. “When I was a kid,” he continued after a moment, “I used to come out here all the time, just to get away from the rest of the world. My brother, he was this really annoying, holier-than-thou little...” He paused, and for a moment he caught himself remembering the old days with Jack. “I spent hours and hours trying to avoid him, day after day, and now all I want is thirty seconds to tell him what I really thought about him. Not some fake, over-the-top garbage about truly loving him as a brother... I mean, I
did
love him, I still do, but there was also a lot about him that annoyed me. And when he died, he most likely still thought that I was the one holding the knife. I don't like that.”

He looked down at the gun.

“Do you have a brother, Luke?” he asked after a moment.

He waited.

No reply.

Turning, he saw that Luke was simply watching him from the driver's seat.

“You know what?” Ben continued after a moment. “I was about to tell you all about Jack, but there's no point. It'd just be a load of self-serving garbage.”