The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3) (20 page)

Feels them swinging. Hears them counting down from three.

They let go and he thinks he can scramble with his arms and legs, but they thought of that already and have got a guy there to punch him in the face as he goes by right into the fire.

Loses his momentum.

What's next, oh for the love of all the motherfuckers he's ever done wrong, does he wish he could take it all back and wake up and do good and love Jesus, because this right here, this is every bad thing you've ever felt times a million and every little nerve-ending telling you to run and get out and get away and FIRE FIRE FIRE and you can't. You too fat. Everything you touch trying to push yourself up burns your palms away and you can't see nothing because it already got your eyes, and all your breath is pain and fucking more pain and FIRE FIRE FIRE

And by the time you dead, you don't even get a chance to enjoy not feeling shit no more.

Ri'Chess just more fuel for the fire, that's all.

Not far to go. Colleen moves dead guards and cons out of the way so Mrs. Hoeck can steer her grandson past. His foot slips from the zip tie and drags on the ground, but they have to keep moving forward. Moving on, almost out of the darkness.

The woman has opened up to Colleen, more accepting of their situation. She still seems too much like one of Colleen's own junior high teachers—not at all like her grandmother or aunts, who weren't religious and tried to wear tight clothes and heavy make-up twenty years too late, sometimes less if you counted the cigarette damage. So Colleen can only think of her as Mrs. Hoeck instead of calling her by her first name. She deserves the formality, too. Still stoic after all that has happened to her.

The sounds that had been eerie and echoing before are now louder and more distinct—gunshots, more screams. Colleen hopes it means the SWAT invasion has begun and they'll be swept out into waiting ambulances with warm blankets and hot coffee. Something so she can feel her toes again.

"When we find them, I'm dropping my gun. You need to lift your hands above your head. Just say ‘I'm a woman' or something. Don't make it too loud."

"You're very nice, sweetie. And don't worry, I understand."

"Understand what?"

"I know, I've heard. You sound like the one who has been trying to kill my son-in-law. I understand, and I don't hold it against you."

"You don't, though. My fiancé. I mean, I watched him die because of, um, because…" It's what she has been telling herself for years. It was all Billy Lafitte's fault. And maybe she knows better, somewhere down in her chest, yeah, she knows better, but considering everything else he's done, the truth doesn't make it any better. It was probably Colleen's fault. She was driving. Really, wasn't it?

"I know, I know…" Mrs. Hoeck pets Colleen's arm. "If you never tell anyone, and I have to ask the Lord for forgiveness on this every day, I want to see him just as dead as you do."

"Ma'am?"

"I've always wanted it. Even when he was a policeman married to my Ginny. I kept hoping the call would come in one night. Officer down. And it would be him. He has always been bad news. He's hurt my family in so many more ways than he's hurt yours. You knew my son, didn't you? Graham?"

Of course she knows this. Why it hasn't connected in her brain while she's been here today, blame the fear, maybe, but of course if this is Lafitte's ex's mom, then she is also Graham's, the Sheriff who had taken Billy on thinking the fresh start would settle him down after his downfall over Katrina. Instead, Billy "pied-pipered" the Sheriff off to death in a motel in Detroit thanks to some homegrown wannabe terrorists.

"I knew him. Graham was kind to me. I'm so sorry."

"Billy killed my son. He has killed my daughter's soul and she's nearly killed herself over him. And now, my boy, my sweet boy." The woman brushes her hand through Ham's hair.

Colleen doesn't answer. She steps around a corner, cautious now, and hopes they hurry up. She can't listen to any more of this.

"You should have killed him when you had the chance back there."

The same voice that had been singing hymns, but colder. Smoother. Maybe she dressed the way Jesus wanted, but her heart is hiding plenty.

"They'll take care of him. We won't have to worry about it."

"But you should have. I could have seen it."

"He didn't kill Ham. He was trying to save him."

"If that's how you're thinking, you should keep your mouth shut. You don't have it in you."

"Neither do you."

Mrs. Hoeck mumbles, "Praise God for that." Colleen hears it anyway.

Stomping and clanking up ahead, coming closer at the far end of the hallway, right by the entrance lobby.

"Quiet, and wait for me, okay? I'll be back." Colleen waves her hand low and eases ahead, her gun pointed at the ground. She doesn't want any misunderstandings. So close. So so close.

The troops round the corner and they have flashlights so Colleen can only blink and shield her eyes. "Help us, please, we're two women with a young boy who has been killed. We're visitors."

One of the men ahead says, "That her?"

She hears the voice of a familiar woman—the guard she'd ambushed in the lobby. "Yeah, that's the bitch."

Oh shit.

The shots come fast, two together, and knock Colleen on her ass. Fucking
sting
against the skin, pain radiating, but the vest keeps her alive. She's able to lift her own rifle and let it loose,
bam bam bam bam bam bam
. And again
bam bam bam bam bam
. She scuttles until she's on her feet again, so fucking
cold
and shouts at Mrs. Hoeck, "Back! Back! Back! Go!"

The guards scatter and retreat, giving Colleen time to trace back. Not sure why. Holing up in the bedroom is no longer an option. And what chance does she have in the cellblock? Got to think. They're way ahead of the guards, who aren't going to come charging in blindly. Block E. That's the thing. They've got to get into Block E and make it out. She's got to find an Indian willing to tell her. She's got to avoid Ri'Chess and Jean Robert and how's she going to feel about Lafitte if he's lost? Will he be dead? Tortured? How's this going to go?

Her chest hurts, both from the cold and from the punch of those two slugs. Any other time, she would've needed time to recover, lay there and grit her teeth. But the adrenaline is keeping her up and alert. She's nearly shoving Mrs. Hoeck down the hallways and around corners, through doors, until the final entryway into the cellblock. She can't quite believe it.

Lafitte, alive but looking like a slab of beef, stands next to the fire. Most of the men are standing there. Two large husks burning on top must be Ri'Chess and Jean Robert. Quiet, all of them. Lafitte sees Colleen and his mother-in-law come through the door, and he breaks from the group, limps to them. Colleen lifts her rifle.

"Stay back."

He takes a few more steps anyway. "You gave me a chance. You didn't have to."

"More than you gave—"

"Stop it. Whatever." He shakes his head, then points to Mrs. Hoeck and Ham. "You did good, finding them, but why'd you come back?"

"Guards are coming, whoever's left. They've got a posse ready to take us all out. Tell these guys to go back to their cells."

"They can handle the guards."

"I'll bet they've got grenades. Look, they already shot me." Slaps the dents on her vest. "They could've killed me. They would've. Same with Granny."

He shrugs. She tries to picture him in uniform again. He's shorter than she remembers, but maybe his ego made him look taller. The smirk is gone, but the lines so many years of smirking left on his face are there. It's almost built-in. He'll never lose whatever it is about him that makes you want to root for the guy in spite of how awful he is. Maybe in the end, he didn't kill Nate or Graham or Ham, but by knowing Lafitte, you feel death closer than it should be. You feel that every life he's taken, or every one that has been taken near him, should've been Lafitte instead. And yet he lives.

Once more, she needs him.

"Get us out. We need to get out now."

He nods. "I know. Give me a minute."

Lafitte calls over some bruisers, asks them if they'll go out into the halls, hold off the guards. Damned if they don't all say yes without blinking an eye. Five guys, all the race gangs now working together, take their orders and get to it. Then he heads over to a few senior Native Mob guys, starts talking.

Colleen feels the weight of the shots getting to her. The punishment now pulsing all over. She's glad she had it tough growing up. She knows how to take a punch, knows how to give one back. That's what she has that Mrs. Hoeck's Jesus doesn't. Self-reliance. In Granny's head, it's either a miracle or it wasn't meant to be. She probably thinks the Lord called Ham home early to keep him from suffering an even worse fate at the hands of these devils.

Bullshit. If that's the way God calls home a ten-year old, then fuck God.

She reaches inside the vest as best she can, tries to rub the edges of one impact zone. She knows what she'll find when she takes it off—broken skin and a dark spider web radiating out from a purple bruise. Worse, she thinks about the visit to the doctor, the HIV and pregnancy tests after her time with Ri'Chess. Can't even forget him after he's gone. Asshole.

Lafitte comes back, passes her by and goes right to his boy. He kneels beside the office chair and bows his head. Can't be praying. That can't be it. Then Mrs. Hoeck, the crazy bitch, lays one hand on Ham's head, the other on his father's, and begins praying out loud.

Who does that? I mean, not even five minutes ago she was telling Colleen...don't even. Don't analyze.

When she gets too loud, Lafitte pulls away from her grasp and removes her hand from Ham's head. He pushes her back, and it's okay. She quits speaking in tongues and holds her hands behind her back. Lafitte grabs his boy behind his neck, holds his forehead to Ham's, and stays like that for what feels like too long.

Colleen looks around. A lot of eyes watching. She's surprised no one's up on her. All it would take is a handful to get the gun from her, hold her down, start a train. All these guys, look at them. They're cowed. Almost relieved to be standing around, talking to each other in small groups, trying to keep warm around the fire. All of them, Ri'Chess' old crew and the Mob and the Aryans, getting all "Small World" in here. Guess the main thing any of them want in prison is to feel safe. That's all.

She loses herself in shivering, hugging herself tighter and tighter but getting worse, it seems until a hand touches her shoulder and she yips and loses her breath. But it's Lafitte saying, "Time to go."

She pulls it together. He doesn't even look at her funny. The dude is dead to fear. Dead to hate. Might as well just be dead, period. Is this a fate worse than being dead? She thinks she'll call Rome once they are free and clear, tell him she's out of the bounty. It's not worth it to her anymore. Maybe to Rome, since Lafitte did shoot his wife intentionally. Self-defense, since she shot first, so he says. The security tape couldn't tell for sure from that angle. But today has given Colleen what she needed to lay it down.

She falls in behind Mrs. Hoeck, Lafitte, and two Indians.

*

A fake wall. Someone in here is a fantastic artist, because Colleen would've sworn it was real—the texture, the perspective, the dirt. From outside the cell, no way to tell. But don't the guards get suspicious? Have they ever been in here? Don't they have cameras? Another case of someone getting paid off, and Colleen wonders what the point of prison is if the guards are
helping
.

One of the Indians, an older man named Theodore, pulls it back. He tells Colleen, "We would usually need to put up the other one first." He points to some sheets of paper under the bunks, all taped together. "It's the bars. Good enough for the cameras."

"How long, you know, like, to get through?"

He shakes his head. "We're pretty sure someone on the construction side did it after we had the picture in place. One of ours."

Native Mob on the construction team. Guards bribed. Maybe Ri'Chess was getting played by these guys the whole time. As long as he thought he was in charge, he would keep his mouth shut. Almost as if these guys aren't prisoners at all. More like they got "transferred" to a new job location on the inside.

Colleen asks, "Do you think you can keep it going after all this? Because someone's going to find it after today, that's for sure."

The other Indian, Sam Fox, younger and tougher, says, "That's built in. We always have a Plan B. Give us a week, we'll be back up to the usual numbers."

She peeks through the opening into a cell with no bars, facing a row of cells with no bars. No power in there, either. Plastic tarps, dust, the smells of a hardware store. She sniffles. There's the echo of howling wind.

"And we just…walk out?"

A nod to Lafitte. "He'll figure it out. Very easy. You've got to remember, for every man thinking about how to secure cons, we think about how to get out even more."

Then explain why there hasn't been a line here patiently taking their turns going through the wall? Right? Or is it too cold?