The Devil’s Share (7 page)

Holding the gun on him, Greggs reached up with his left hand, slapped his sides, his waistband.

“Sad to think we've come to this,” Hicks said.

“Whose fault is that?”

“What I'm here to talk about. But not while you're holding that.”

Greggs looked at him, then lowered the .45.

“Thanks. Why don't you decock that sumbitch while you're at it?”

Greggs pointed the gun at the floor, used both hands to lower the hammer. They heard the dog bark twice more, then go quiet.

“I'm gonna shoot that thing someday,” Greggs said. “I hate that dog.”

“You're not shooting anything. Can I sit?”

Greggs nodded at the breakfast nook. Hicks pushed aside dirty laundry, sat facing him. “Maid's on vacation, I see. How long you intend to live out here like this?”

Greggs didn't answer. He put the .45 beside him on the daybed, next to his cell phone.

“Sharon's worried about you,” Hicks said. “That's not very fair to her, is it?”

“She understands. Grab me those butts, will you?”

There was a hard pack of Marlboros beside the prosthetic leg. Hicks picked it up, tossed it into Greggs's lap. He thumbed the box open, took out a cigarette and a cheap plastic lighter.

“So, what?” he said. “I'm supposed to be happy to see you?”

“You should be. I imagine you will be when you hear what I have to say.”

“I'm listening.” He lit the cigarette, put the lighter back inside, closed the pack.

Hicks picked up the prosthetic leg. It weighed less than he expected. “You don't wear this? It cost Uncle enough.”

“It chafes. Itches like a motherfucker, too. Can't seem to get it to fit right.” He took an open beer can from the windowsill behind him, wedged it between his thighs.

“Can you walk with it?”

“A little. Not far.”

He set the leg back down. “What's the therapist say?”

Greggs blew out smoke, tapped ash in the beer can. “You bring me anything?”

Hicks waved away smoke. “Why I'm here.”

“About time.”

Hicks reached inside his jacket, and Greggs put his hand on the .45. Hicks drew out the rubber-banded envelope slowly, held it up, then tossed it onto the daybed. “Part of your share. More to come.”

“How much is in there?”

“Twenty K, brother. The reason I had to drive my ass all the way up here instead of flying. But like I said, it's only part.”

Greggs drew the envelope closer, slipped off the rubber bands. The cigarette bobbed in his lips, ashes falling in his lap. He opened the envelope, looked through the manicured bills.

“Nice and clean,” Hicks said.

“I can see that.” He riffled the bills with a thumb, closed the envelope again, set it beside the .45. “I've still got thirty coming.”

“I know it. He knows it, too.”

“You still working for that old bastard?”

“Sometimes. His money's good.”

“But he's slow on paying, isn't he? Everything we did for him over there, all that shit we helped bring back. We should've got a bigger cut from all of that. We're the ones took the risks.”

“It's never that easy,” Hicks said. “Things like that, you have to wait, find the right buyers. Let things cool down before you make a deal, see any money.”

“More bullshit.”

“But the way you've been going, threatening him, saying shit about talking to the FBI, well, that only makes matters worse.”

“I wanted him to know I was serious.”

“He knows. That's why he sent me up here with your money. And as soon as he has the other thirty together, I'll bring that up to you, too. Then we're square. But he needs to know you're still on the team, that your allegiances are intact.”

“I just want what's owed me, that's all.”

“I know. And you'll get it.”

Greggs nodded at the kitchenette. “There's beers in there.”

“Best thing you've said yet.” Hicks got up, bent over and opened the short-boy refrigerator. Inside were four loose Olympia cans, a bottle of peppermint schnapps, and a curling slice of pizza on a paper plate. He took out two cans, kneed the door shut. “I didn't know anybody drank that peppermint shit after high school.”

“It does the trick. Keeps me from having to go to bed sober.”

Hicks popped a can, foam oozing out. He handed it to Greggs, opened his own, sat back in the breakfast nook.

“Sorry about the smoke,” Greggs said. “You're still living healthy, I see, kind of shape you're in.”

“I try.”

Greggs looked at his cigarette. “I never used to smoke. At least not before I went over there. Now I'm doing like three packs a day. Calms my nerves.”

“Must get expensive. The VA rep still come by?” He drank beer. It was thin and lukewarm.

Greggs snorted out smoke. “They're done with me, I think. I did the counseling at first, listened to their bullshit. They wanted me to move back into the house. Sharon did, too. They didn't understand I was just fine out here.”

“Maybe you should try to get out more. Be healthier for you. Get some fresh air. Interact with people.”

“Fuck people.”

“How the neighbors feel about you living in your driveway?”

“Fuck the neighbors, too.”

Hicks laughed. “You haven't changed, sure as shit.” He sipped beer, nodded at the .45. “Nice weapon—1911? Can I take a look?”

“It's fine where it is. You've seen one before.”

“You getting paranoid in middle age, Arlen?”

“Just careful. So where's Durell?”

“Kabul, last I heard.”

“You stay in touch?”

“Now and then.”

“And Sandoval?”

“Not so much. Sandy's stateside now. We were a good team while it lasted, all of us.”

“Until it went to shit,” Greggs said, and drank beer.

“We had a good run.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not doing much running these days.”

“You know what I meant. So what's your plan? Sit around, drink yourself to death?”

“It's a thought.”

“You used to be one squared-away motherfucker. What happened?”

“What do you think happened? That good run we had cost some of us more than others, didn't it?”

Hicks ran a thumb around the rim of the can. “You ever tell Sharon anything about all that? Kind of thing we were doing over there?”

Greggs shook his head, tapped ash. “That what you came all the way here to find out? If so, you wasted your time. She doesn't know shit about any of that.”

“Just asking,” Hicks said. He drank beer, swirled what was left in the can, set it on the table.

“So you came here to pay me, and now you did,” Greggs said. “Are we going to sit around now, bullshit about old times?”

“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“And find out if you could still trust me?”

“That, too.”

“You think I can't keep my mouth shut? That if I got pissed off enough about the money, I'd put us all in the shit?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You thought it, though.”

Hicks stood, put his palms in the small of his back, stretched. “Where's the head in this thing? I've got a long drive back.”

Greggs pointed at a narrow door past the kitchenette. Hicks went inside, closed the door, pulled the string to turn on the light. It was no cleaner in there. His shoulders brushed the walls.

He unzipped, urinated loudly into the toilet, knowing Greggs would hear it through the thin door. Then he zipped back up, put his right boot on the toilet seat, pulled up his jeans leg. He drew out the wood-handled ice pick from his boot, took the cork off the tip. Then he flushed, turned the light off, and went back out, the ice pick hidden in his cupped right hand.

Greggs was counting the money, the envelope in his lap. Hicks closed the distance. Greggs looked up at the last moment, reached for the .45. Hicks slapped his left hand over Greggs's mouth, slammed his head back into the wall, and sank the ice pick into the left side of his chest, angling upward to slip between the ribs.

Greggs bucked, his eyes wide. Hicks held him there, leaning all his weight into him, drew out the ice pick and drove it home again.

He felt Greggs's teeth scrape against his palm, trying to bite. He straddled him, used a knee to knock the .45 to the floor. “Easy, Arlen. Easy. Don't fight me.”

The ice pick came out and went in again, all the way to the handle this time. Hicks twisted it, felt the wet warmth on his hand.

Greggs groaned into his palm, bucked again, bills falling to the floor, his T-shirt darkening with blood. Hicks got in closer. “It's okay,” he said into his ear. “Don't fight it, brother. Don't fight it. Go easy.”

Greggs shut his eyes tight, then snapped them open again. Hicks drew out the ice pick, drove it home in a different spot.

Greggs's struggles weakened. His right leg spasmed, the heel tapping the floor. Hicks imagined what was going on inside him, the lungs filling with blood, the heart slowing, sluggish. He drew out the ice pick, took his hand away, stepped back.

Greggs was gasping, dragging in air, blood on his lips. Red bubbles rose through the holes in his T-shirt. Hicks put a hand on his right shoulder, gently pushed him back against the wall again. “Easy, brother.”

Hicks traced the red tip of the ice pick across Greggs's chest, to his best guess at where the heart was. He held it there, no pressure yet. Their eyes locked. Greggs's lips were moving.

“Sha…,” he breathed. “Shar…”

“I'm sorry, man,” Hicks said. “I really am.” He leaned forward, used his weight to push the ice pick all the way home. Greggs's eyelids fluttered, and then he was still.

Hicks stood back, breathing hard. He drew out the ice pick, looked down at the blood on his hand. He'd been careful, so there was none on his pants, and only a few drops on his jacket sleeve. Nothing anyone would notice at night.

In the kitchenette, he ran water in the small sink, washed the ice pick clean, then his hand. Blood swirled pink in the drain.

He shut off the water, left the ice pick in the sink, dried his hands with a paper towel. Then he went back to the daybed, picked up all the bills, replaced them in the envelope, snapped the rubber bands around it. The envelope went back into his pocket.

He had to move Greggs's body to the side to get the cell phone. It would have his number in it. Even though he'd called from a burner, he didn't want to leave any connection behind. He put the phone with the money.

He used a dirty T-shirt from the breakfast nook to wipe down everything he'd touched. Then he went into the kitchenette, opened the cabinet beneath the stove, and found what he was looking for, the two propane lines coming in from the outside tanks.

Using the T-shirt, he opened drawers, found a pair of pliers in the second one, mixed in with silverware, pens, and small tools. He started to shut the drawer again, saw the edge of the black box stuck in the back. He drew it out, knowing already what it was. He lifted the lid, and inside on a bed of cotton was Greggs's Silver Star, on a red, white, and blue ribbon.

He looked at the medal, then back at Greggs, set the box on the counter.

There was no time to search the camper, see if he'd left notes, a journal. It was time to finish this.

He left two windows partially open for oxygen, closed the rest, then knelt in front of the stove. With the T-shirt covering the pliers' teeth to prevent sparks, he unscrewed the propane lines. Gas began to hiss into the kitchenette, the smell of the odorant making his eyes water.

There was a small toaster oven on the counter. He unplugged it and carried it into the bedroom at the far end of the camper, holding his breath against the gas. Just a mattress on the floor here, tangled sheets, scattered clothes. He set the oven on the floor, then ripped the T-shirt in half and shoved part of it inside, pushing it up against the coils. He plugged the cord into a wall socket, turned the dial to its highest setting, wiped down what he'd touched. The oven began to hum.

He closed the bedroom door to give himself more time, got the ice pick from the sink, and left the camper. Shutting the door tightly behind him, he wiped the outside latch clean, then went down the steps.

There was a single light still on in the house. Sharon waiting up to hear from him. He hadn't wanted it like this, but there was no other way. And he'd have to be quick, before the camper went up.

He held the ice pick down at his side, shoved the torn T-shirt into his jacket pocket. He would need it. As he started up the driveway, the dog began to bark.

 

SEVEN

Crissa steered the rental car to the side of the road, looked off into the empty desert, heat haze rising, and thought, This is the place.

She got out of the car, taking the binoculars with her. Only forty-five minutes from Las Vegas, the city already out of sight behind the hills. In the distance, snowcapped mountains, but here, only an endless stretch of parched red earth, strewn with boulders.

She'd driven another twenty miles south, still scouting, but hadn't found a better place, so she'd turned around, come back. The land here was mostly flat, but on the other side of the road was an arroyo that ran parallel to the highway. No guardrail, and ten feet deep at least.

On this side was a scattering of rocks, the largest about twelve feet high and twenty feet wide. High-tension lines in the far distance, and about two hundred yards past the rocks a single cell tower, maybe a hundred and fifty feet high, bristling with antennae at different levels. There was a cluster of equipment cabinets in an enclosure at its base, surrounded by a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

She wore a black pullover, jeans, and boots, and the heat was a shock after the air-conditioning in the car. From Texas, she'd flown directly to Vegas, picked up the rental. Standing out here now, in the middle of this emptiness, she felt for the first time that it was all real, that it might work.