The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3) (11 page)

Billy tells her, "Stay down. Don't let him see this."

"See what?"

"Don't even look." He steps over to Engesmoe, struggling to push himself up, slipping in his own blood. Engesmoe lifts his eyes.

"Shit, aw, shit, aw, fuck, Lafitte, please…"

Colder still. Lafitte lifts his foot—a red-stained canvas sneaker—and sets it on Engesmoe's shoulder, pushes him back to the floor. Engesmoe's pleas settle down to whines and
Okay, okay, okay, okay
.

Billy points one of the guns at the back of Engesmoe's head.

Mrs. Hoeck says, "He's helping us, Billy. For the love of Jesus, he's helping us!"

Billy sniffs. He's breathing hard. Those shots had to have been heard. Someone must be coming. Billy stands like he has all the time in the world. "He's not helping. They tried to kill me. They've been planning it for a long time. Haven't you, asshole?"

He presses his foot down on the guard's shoulder. Mrs. Hoeck hears a sharp breath. More
Okay, okay
.

"Tell her, you fuck."

Engesmoe says, "Just…not while they were here. Oh god. Oh god…" Every word muffled, blood and snot bubbles popping as he spoke. "No, not…I was going to help, really, I was going to get them out of here, I swear. I…uk, I don't know wha' gon' on here, please, Billy."

Mrs. Hoeck stands again. Ham clings to her. "Officer Engesmoe didn't try to kill you. He was helping us. He gets to live."

"You think they're going to let you out alive now? You know what they were up to? Make it look like a power outage in the blizzard. Then a riot. And then somehow I get killed attacking guards during the riot. But none of it would be on camera. That was it, right?"

Engesmoe is nodding, or maybe he's just shaking, going into shock. "Okay, okay."

Mrs. Hoeck eases up to Billy, places a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs, but she leaves it there.

"No praying."

"I promise." She calls Ham over. "Let's not do this in front of Ham again. Let the Officer alone, and you can help us leave. Right through that door."

Billy exhales. The fog clouds his face, freezes in his goatee. "Fine."

"But I won't help you escape. That's not what this is. You're on your own there, because Ham and I need to go home where it's safe."

Billy looks at her. "I never asked you for anything. Just take care of my boy."

"I'm trying." She pushes the curtain of hair out of her face—uncut since she was thirty-nine, and only then because of chemo—and twists it back into a tail and knots it off. "You know I am."

She watches her ex-son-in-law. Other than giving her two blessed grandkids, Billy Lafitte is perhaps
the
worst thing to ever happen to her family. But she knows he'll do the right thing. He kneels beside Engesmoe, says to him, "You going to live?"

Barely able to talk. "Depends. Next round of cons…you know."

Billy nods. Stands. "Play dead. Better get good at it."

He motions for Ham and Mrs. Hoeck to close in behind him. He points towards the door leading towards the entrance. "I've never been here before. That the right door?"

She nods and guides Ham along. "How did you find us, then? If you've never been this way?"

"It was a guess." Then he hands a gun to Mrs. Hoeck. "Stay back. I'll check it out first. Any more come through over there, don't even think about it. Just shoot."

Billy jogs down the hallway, disappears into the dark about halfway. Reminds Mrs. Hoeck of something. She tells Ham to go ask Engesmoe for his flashlight, but immediately hears running from the hall. Billy's silhouette, and then there he is, right outside the door, waving, seething, "Hurry! Shit, hurry!"

She grabs Ham's hand and rushes over. Billy is standing by a door in the hallway he must've come through earlier. One that leads back into the depths of the prison.

"In there?"

"Guards are coming. Whole bunch. They've got guns."

"Just, just…you go. Let them take us. They won't shoot us, Billy. You know they won't."

He glances back over his shoulder. "Now!"

She peeks around the open door. More silhouettes, this time with points of blinding light. Lights on their guns? Yes, yes, they are. Shining, out and ready.

"No, no, they won't—"

But they do. Bright and loud and Mrs. Hoeck flinches, blinks, nearly crushes Ham's hand as he crushes hers. Billy pushes them through the door, which he uses as a shield, bullets clanging off it.

"
Run!
"

They do, to the next corner, where they crouch, and Mrs. Hoeck peeks out to see Billy holding on to the door for dear life. Waiting. Waiting. Must be three, four, five guards pulling from the other side. Then Billy lets go. The door wings fast and wide and he steps out, fires off. Mrs. Hoeck counts:
One, two, three…four, five.

Then nothing. She turns to Ham, hands him the pistol. "Stay here. If you see someone coming from the other way, come get me. Otherwise, don't move." He's never shot before. His grandfather isn't the hunting type. "Don't let them get close. Keep them scared."

She doesn't wait for an answer. Hands kneading each other, lips moving in prayer, she goes back. Slowly. Back towards the door. It's the way out. She has to go back. Billy must have killed all the guards with one lick, like they were flies. A clear path to the front door, right? Please, Jesus, a clear path. You are my safe harbor during the storms. You are the light in the darkness. That last one, she really understands how important it is. At home, she knows where everything is. The dark can sometimes be a comfort, when she's praying alone at church or sitting up late humming tunes, looking out the back window into the woods behind her house. But now, in the most dangerous place, in her time of need, she really wishes she had that light.

And then she sees them, criss-crossed beams out in the hall. One still moving around. A guard, then. She could lead him to Engesmoe, and they can all go out together. She imagines the guard standing over Billy's body. Eyes still open. He's a stubborn one. She will insist they remove the body before she brings Ham out. No compromise. In Jesus' name.

She steps through the doorway and gets a shot of bright in her face, shields her eyes, but it goes away. She readjusts. The criss-crossed beams are from dead guards, slumped this way and that, while Billy scuttles to each one like a scavenger, a crab, taking the guns and taking off the lights. He keeps a couple, puts them in the pocket of his guard's shirt, and tosses the rest. A quick look at Mrs. Hoeck. "Take a light or two for yourself."

She wants to chide him, shame him for killing again, but she can't. She's too…grateful. She takes one of the discarded lights, just one. Stands with her arms folded.

Billy keeps working, gathering pistol and rifle cartridges, key cards, keys, pepper spray, one of the radios and handsets, and says, "They've got a skeleton crew. There's a hit out on me, some decent pot of money. The other cons tried to collect, but they couldn't do it."

"You mean, tried to kill you?"

"Something like that."

"But…guards, Billy."

He shrugs. Moves to the next dead guard, slumped over. Billy takes his rifle, thinks about tossing it, then holds it out for Mrs. Hoeck.

"I don't know how—"

"Hold it for me."

She does. He stands up. He's got two pistols, one rifle, a lot of clips, plenty more. His pants are too big, but he uses a strap taken off a rifle to tighten them.

He says, "Listen, cops and cons, they talk. You've got to play nice to get by here. The guards do favors, cons do favors, tit for tat. Word gets around. One of these cops, one of the big shots, is helping out, trying to set it up so they can kill me."

"This is all for you? The guns? The lights going out? How can that be? There's a storm, that's all. The power is out because of the storm."

"There's a whole back-up system. The doors don't open because the power goes out. It's all computers now. They've got batteries. There are generators. Big ones."

Whatever hope Mrs. Hoeck has left evaporates. She will die here. Her grandson will die here. That's why the Lord sent her here. It's her time, Ham's time. It's so unfair. She's already praying in her mind
Take me not Ham, take me not Ham
.

Billy says, "Where's your coat?"

She looks at her arms, instinctually crossed low like she's still carrying the coat. But it's gone. Lost it in the waiting room. Now that the rush of excitement and heat has dissipated, she feels the cold through her sweater. All at once. Goosebumps and cold sweat. Hugs herself.

A shuffling noise, back towards the way out. Billy nods at his mother-in-law, then the open door, says, "That way. Let's go."

"That's not the way out."

"I'll get you out." He puts his hand on her back and tries to guide her towards the door.

"That's the prison. I can't take Ham into the prison."

Billy leans closer, whispers, "There's no choice. We've got to go. I'll get you out."

A big push. Mrs. Hoeck can't resist, fast-steps into the corridor to keep from falling. She turns. Billy pulls the door closed gently. She's never seen him do much of anything gently. When he's happy with it, he runs towards her, tells her to move. She starts jogging, and Billy passes her, grabs her hand, nearly dragging her along. At the turn, they stop short because there's Ham in the middle of the path, breathing hard, pistol aimed right for his father's chest.

Billy grins. He reaches down, about to take the gun away, but then stops. Starts walking down the hall again. "Good job, son."

Mrs. Hoeck follows behind them, hugging her freezing arms and humming,
And He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own…

Colleen makes it to the reception desk before the stormtroopers show up. A pack of wild guards, some with AR-15s, saying there has been gunshots and an
Officers Down
call from visiting. She slips beneath the desk while they're still around the corner. Eyes haven't adjusted, so it's all shadows, reflections, grays.

Cocking the guns. Slides, snaps, she can't hear the exact conversation over sharp echoes. Every place her skin is exposed is cold—hands, face, the little bulge right above her waistline, almost like a burn on the tile floor. But she flexes her fingers and keeps her mouth tight and waits.

One of the guards says they need a few to stay put at the entryway while the rest go and deal with the problem. That's how he says it—the problem. She thinks of what could've gone wrong. Aren't there safeguards when the power goes out? Why are there officers down? Not because of anything she did, right?

The holy roller and the boy. No, they're fine. No, neither one could take down a guard here. They
have
to be out. Have to be. So now it's Colleen's turn to follow.

She waits until the others have gone, leaving her with the worst guards, has to be. They wouldn't leave the brave ones behind, so maybe she'll catch a break.

She scoots out from under the desk and makes her voice as girly as possible. "Help, please, can you help me?"

Couple of scared breaths out there. Then flashlights. Shit. Blinding her.

"Hands up!"

She does, blinks a lot. "What's going on? I was here to visit my brother—"

"Save it." A bitchy voice. Aw, goddamn it, one of the guards is that woman who tried to talk her out of…should've listened to her. "Just stay where you are for a few minutes, and I'll take you back to the office."

"Listen, really, I'm an investigator with the Minnesota Bureau, okay? I was undercover. Let me have my cell phone and I can get help here—"

The woman walks over, loud clomps, flashlight getting larger and brighter. "Don't you get it? We all know why you came and what you did and how it's going down. No one calls, no one leaves until we get paid."

"I don't know what Garner offered you, but this is crazy."

"I've seen a lot worse."

Then the down the hall, around the corner, gunshots and flashes. A glut of them. Hurting Colleen's ears. She shrinks into herself, every part of her too sensitive now. Her damp hair is full of ice. Her nose is numb.

The other two guards run towards the shots while the woman shouts after them, "No! Stay put! That's an order, for fuck's sake!"

But they are already gone. Their beams disappear and then there are more shots. The flashlight swings away from Colleen and that's all she needs. She launches, wraps her arm around the woman's neck, holds it for a tight sleeper. Shit, she's wearing a SWAT helmet. Makes it difficult, but not impossible. The guard thrashes, thumping that helmet hard against Colleen's cheek, bruising it then splitting it. Colleen holds on, sweeps the guard's leg and takes her down face first. She holds on to the sleeper while saddling her back. The guard's AR-15 was beneath her, the barrel right near Colleen's left foot. When it goes off she feels the fire, but the slug misses her toes. Colleen thinks
Fuck this
and squeezes more and more and more and the woman starts gagging, choking, more, more, more, until she's twitching and finally Colleen lets go. Pushes the guard aside and grabs the rifle. The guard is not even paying attention. Colleen shines the light on the woman, on her knees throwing up bile and breathing like a crushed harmonica.