A Better Goodbye (37 page)

“I was thinking more like the motherfucker's briefcase and the little China girl, you feel me?” DuPree said. “But we can negotiate that when we together, being reasonable men and whatnot.”

DuPree nodded at what he heard next. “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” He flashed Scott a twisted smile. “Nah, man, I don't need your motherfuckin' address. I know where you live. See you in a couple.”

He tossed the cell to Scott and headed for his car. As Scott ran after him, a troubling thought made its way through the rush he was feeling. After all those years as a star, even a fading one, he was now a sidekick, and the thought of how far he had fallen touched off a yearning for what he used to be.

TV sounds drifted in from one of the other apartments, and music floated on the soft evening air. Nick strained to hear what the song was, but couldn't. He shook his head and tried to think of the last time he'd played something from his own collection. His CDs were stacked in the corner,
The Essential James Carr
on top. He was dead, James Carr, but his music lived after him, at least for those people who had carried it with them through the years.
A righteous memorial for any man,
Nick thought, and then there were footsteps coming up the walk that brought him back to the moment.

He knew it was them even though they moved quietly and the curtains were closed. He wondered if he should turn off the table lamp beside the sofa where he sat, the lamp with a hole in the shade that let out more light than he wanted when he watched TV. But no, he'd be damned if he'd hide in the dark.

The footsteps stopped outside his door. He imagined the door would get kicked in next. That was what always happened in movies, and movies provided the cues for almost every hard case he had known. The dangerous ones were those who made their own rules. When he heard the doorknob moving slowly, almost politely, he realized what he was up against and stood to face it.

The black guy stepped inside first.
DuPree,
Nick told himself. The white pit bull was at the end of the leash DuPree was holding. The dog held Nick's interest only until he heard Jenny's voice, tiny and frightened—“Nick”—and then there she was, as Scott muscled her inside.

DuPree picked up on Nick's surprise instantly. “That sorry-assed truck she was in broke down,” DuPree said. “Good thing me and Scottie came along or she would have missed the party.”

“You okay?” Nick asked her.

Jenny nodded.

He looked back at DuPree. “No deal as long as she's here.”

“In case you failed to notice,” DuPree said, “you ain't exactly operating from a position of strength.”

“I know where the briefcase is. You don't. What would you call that?”

“I call that a reason to let this goddamn dog chew your motherfuckin' balls off. Ain't that right, Blanco?”

The dog barked and strained to break free of the leash, its Mike Tyson chest and shoulders looking more powerful than ever. DuPree, strong as he was, struggled to keep the dog under control, but he made sure the effort wasn't obvious. With him it was all about style points.

“Or maybe I turn the dog loose on her,” he said. “Think that might get you talking, fighter man?”

Nick answered with a stare.

DuPree gave him a cold smile, then told Scott, “Take a look around, make sure they ain't hiding Barry in the fucking toilet.”

Scott did as ordered, dragging Jenny with him.

“It's up to you,” DuPree told Nick. “Yes or no.”

“I hope your dog isn't going to pee in here,” Nick said.

“Keep talking shit and that dog's gonna have your China girl for lunch.”

“She's Korean. Get it straight.”

Scott stepped out of the bathroom with Jenny, saying, “All clear,” the way a cop angling for a promotion would. “My man,” DuPree said, not bothering to hide the smile that cranked Scott up higher than he already was. “Don't fuck with us, goddammit,” Scott told Nick, and pulled his gun from beneath his wash-faded safari jacket.

“Be cool, man,” DuPree said.

“Fuck cool. This motherfucker's keeping us from a righteous score.”

The dog barked and resumed tugging angrily at its leash, but the amused expression remained on DuPree's face.

“You're just glad to be here, aren't you?” Nick said to Scott. “Like being on TV, only real.”

“Fuck you, acting like you don't give a shit about anything,” Scott said.

“I give a shit about her,” Nick said, nodding at Jenny. “As soon as she walks out that door, I'll tell you where to find what you came for.”

“I was thinking she should party with us first,” DuPree said. “First me and my man Scottie, then the dog.”

Nick's stomach tightened. “Not today.”

“Not ever,” Jenny said. “You assholes.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Scott said, and backhanded her across the face.

She went crashing into a wall and sank to the floor, dazed, maybe unconscious.

Nick came flying off the sofa at Scott, who whirled to pistol-whip him. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick could see the dog lunging at Scott too. “No!” DuPree yelled. “Goddammit!”

Everything after that, no matter how loud and angry, was muffled as Nick raised his right arm to block the pistol that Scott brought crashing down on him. Nick felt a bolt of pain shoot through his arm. He thought it was broken, and then the thought was wiped away by the sound of Scott screaming, “Get the fucking dog off me!”

Scott pitched forward, twisting in a vain attempt to wrest free of the dog's jaws. Nick saw the opening and threw a left hook that landed on the bridge of Scott's nose. It broke with a snap, blood spurting from both nostrils and Scott finding one more thing to scream about as he clamped his left hand to his face.

Nick shoved Scott out of the way and started toward Jenny, who still hadn't moved. But DuPree dropped the leash and punched him above the left eye. Nick fell to one knee, thinking DuPree's fist felt like a brick. He was cut now and blood blurred his vision, but his right eye was still good enough to see the gun in DuPree's right hand.
Another pistol-whipping motherfucker,
he thought.

And then he heard Scott scream, “DuPree!”

DuPree couldn't resist glancing at his partner and the dog that sounded like it was making a meal of him. The growling and chewing noises were punctuated only by thuds that must have come from Scott pounding the crazed Blanco, pounding, pounding.

Nick seized the moment and drove a right hand into DuPree's belly. More pain shot through Nick's arm. He wondered if he'd puke, and if DuPree would too, folded up the way he was, arms in tight to his ribs as he gasped for air that wouldn't come.

Nick pushed himself to his feet with his left hand and tried to clear his head. DuPree, still doubled over, bull-rushed him, driving a shoulder into his chest and sending the two of them into the sofa. It skidded backward and its cushions came off, revealing where Nick had hidden Barry's briefcase. Nick would have sworn DuPree smiled before he made a desperate grab for it.

But all DuPree got for his trouble was the cheek that Nick carved open with a left hook before they tumbled to the floor. And still DuPree wound up on top of him when they rolled into the displaced sofa and came to an abrupt stop.
Jesus, he's big,
Nick thought. The only way to unhorse him was to club him on the ear, and fuck the pain in Nick's ruined right hand. It was better to rupture the son of a bitch's eardrum, better to hear him howl and make him forget the punch he'd been about to throw.

As Nick shoved him over onto his back, there was a crash and the room went dark, save for the light through the open bathroom door. The lamp beside the sofa must have been a casualty of the fight it sounded like Scott was still losing to the dog. His screams were coated with liquid now, and the dog kept chewing, the only living creature in the apartment convinced of victory.

Nick pounded away at DuPree's face, his fists growing slick with blood. He threw punch after punch, his right hand throbbing too much to inflict serious damage, until DuPree reached up to fishhook Nick, tearing at the corners of his mouth. Then DuPree was on top again, raining punches down on him, merciless punches, heavy punches, heavier than any Nick had thrown. Many more and he would be out. More than that and he would be dead.

His left arm snaked upward and he dug a thumb into DuPree's eye, soft and moist and sensitive enough to arouse a shriek that DuPree had likely not known he was capable of emitting. Nick dug his thumb in a little deeper and hoped the fucking eyeball would be on the end of it when DuPree fell away from him.

There was a gunshot behind them and the dog howled, short and sharp. Then another gunshot, and another. Then nothing but wet noises.

Nick struggled to his feet and wiped the blood from his left eye. He looked for Jenny first and saw her stirring. Then for Scott, and saw him bathed in gore, pinned beneath the dog's lifeless body and moaning in agony. Then for DuPree, and saw him getting up two steps away, driven by meanness or maybe just by the confidence that came from the gun that was back in his hand. Before he could do anything with it, Nick closed the distance between them and threw the right hand that pain told him not to and that instinct told him was his only prayer. He hit DuPree right on the chin—
Oh, Christ that hurt, oh, sweet mother of Jesus!
—and DuPree toppled backward, hit the wall and went as still as a pillar of salt.

Nick bent at the waist, his hands on his knees. He could hear the sounds of his own breathing and the blood from his split eyebrow dripping on the floor. He turned on the overhead light and saw DuPree lying at the base of the wall. His head was twisted at such an impossible angle that Nick didn't need a doctor to tell him it was a broken neck. And don't blame it on the goddamned wall. He had killed another man with his fists.

“Nick?”

Jenny was doing her best to stand, one hand braced against the wall, the other feeling her bruised face. “Everything's okay,” he said, and started toward her.

He was stepping over a toppled chair when he saw Scott struggling to raise the bloody pistol he'd used to kill the dog. He was pointing it in Jenny's direction, his face a picture of hatred. “Bitch,” he said in a death-rattle voice, using the last of his strength to squeeze the trigger.

The gun went off an instant after Nick threw himself at Scott. The slug hit Nick high in the chest, left side, like a sledgehammer, but it was his back that felt suddenly wet and warm as he landed on the floor. He barely heard himself grunt over the sound of Jenny's scream.

Everything around him was a blur now, like someone was fucking with the picture. But he knew she was beside him, leaning close, saying his name, telling him she was sorry. He tried to form an answer out of his scrambled thoughts and gave up when his mouth filled with the copper taste of blood. Then her voice began to fade. Now someone was fucking with the volume, and he couldn't do anything about it. No picture, no sound. He knew what came next.

She rose from the kiss she'd given Nick wondering if he'd lived long enough to feel it. Only then did she realize she was standing in a pool of blood that had painted her bare feet red. Nick's blood. She screamed louder than ever and began stumbling toward the door before the wail of sirens in the distance stopped her.
What,
she wondered,
am I going to tell the cops?
She looked around the slaughterhouse that Nick's apartment had become. Looked at DuPree and Scott in hideous repose and at the dog, its ferocity made grotesque by the bullets that had torn it apart. Looked at Nick one last time and realized that she was on her own now.

And then Jenny ran, just as she had from the rape-scarred trick pad that once seemed to have propelled her out of this secret life. Ran because what she faced now surpassed her darkest imaginings. Ran without giving a damn about her suspended license or the lawyer who would be even scarier when he was pissed off at her than he was when he was on her side. Ran because the fragile foundation of her life had been shattered and there was nothing and no one to cling to.

She hid in shadows when a police car raced past her, its siren howling and more sirens behind it. She stubbed her toes on broken sidewalks, splashed through puddles left by lawn sprinklers, dodged traffic that treated her more like a target than a pedestrian. The sight of her apartment building offered her a sense of security until she raced inside, found her front door kicked in, and was hit by another avalanche of terror.

A note from the building manager said he would have someone repair the door in the morning. In the meantime, he had put strips of blue painter's tape across the space where her door had been, as if that would pacify Jenny or keep intruders out. She ripped away the tape, but when she stepped into her apartment her anger vanished, replaced by the jackhammer pounding of her heart and skittering nerves that had her ready to bolt. She turned on the lights and found books and magazines strewn around the living room. Her teakettle lay dented on the kitchen floor. But that was it for signs that two killers had been there. They hadn't even touched her laptop.