37
Tommy slowed the truck and peered cautiously through a silky haze of dust and low-beam headlights. The south entrance had been abandoned, the deck chair sitting empty.
“Something’s wrong,” he told Javier.
“He probably just went for a piss,” Javier suggested. “Nobody’s sneaking up on Vern.”
Tommy just stared straight ahead as he pondered the possibilities. “Nobody loves my brother more than I do, and nobody else understands his limitations as much, neither.” He shut off the engine. “Come on… grab your stuff. We’ll walk it from here, see if we can’t get a quiet look, figure out what’s what.”
They hiked up the slight slope. Near the top, Tommy slowed his pace. The lights were on in the house. But he remembered shutting them off when they’d left.
“Car’s missing,” Javier said.
Tommy drew his Walther PDP 9mm and released the safety. “Something happened to Terry. He wouldn’t run off on Vern. Don’t have the guts.”
They approached the house. Tommy pushed open the side door but stayed clear, anticipating a possible ambush. He poked his head inside. “Terry! Vern! You there?”
The kitchen looked normal, nothing amiss.
He closed the door as he ducked back outside. “Nobody there.”
Javier nodded towards the barn. “Maybe…?”
Tommy nodded to the left. “You go around that side. If anyone got the drop on Vern, maybe we can surprise ‘em.”
The two men circled the barn slowly.
Bob had considered an ambush, waiting behind the barn until Tommy and his associate returned, getting the drop on them.
But the whole point was to take them out without killing them, if possible. He had no doubt they’d be far less charitable if the tables were turned.
So instead, he’d taken advantage of Vern’s incapacitation.
The two men rounded each end of the barn, Tommy coming into view a few seconds before his friend. Bob sat on the old wooden chair with Terry’s pistol in his right hand, just inside the building.
Tommy stopped walking, his eyes widening in alarm.
His brother was three feet to Bob’s left. The rope and hangman’s noose had been slung over the old winch and around Vern’s neck, the other end tied taut to the wall. The rope was supporting most of his weight, Vern’s tiptoes perched atop the other wooden chair, barely touching its surface, offering just enough relief from his own weight to keep him from strangling. He was fighting to maintain his balance, the chair wobbling precariously.
“Dang,” Tommy muttered.
His associate rounded the left side of the building. He saw Bob and Vern, and his pistol rose in an instant.
“Don’t!” Tommy hissed. “Just… be cool, Javier.”
Bob waved the pistol theatrically at his brother’s helper. “Yeah, Javier, be cool. I’ve got cracked ribs and they hurt like hell. No telling how light the trigger pull on this is. I’m liable to have a spasm, start shooting the lights out or something.”
“I can take him,” Javier muttered to his friend.
“No,” Tommy said, shaking his head vigorously, waving a palm in a downward motion at his friend. “Just… be cool.”
“The reason Tommy’s so nervous is because he’s the smart one, if you can believe that,” Bob said coolly. “That, or he’s noticed the loop of string around the toe of my left boot.”
Javier’s eyes tracked downwards to the piece of string. As advertised, it was looped around the last two inches of Bob’s boot then extended sideways to the other chair, where the string had been wrapped several times around one of the legs.
“Coño,” Javier hissed loudly. “Is that—”
“It is,” Bob said before Tommy could utter a word. “You shoot me, I go over sideways and, if my math is correct, Vern’s neck snaps before he hits the ground. If I’m wrong, you’ll have about a minute to get him down before there’s a chance of brain damage—although having talked to him, that might be an improvement. And consider that if you don’t kill me with the first shot, which we all know is likely, you still have me to deal with before you can rescue him.”
“You dirty sum’bitch,” Tommy muttered. Then he frowned, the expression bordering on worry. “Is he bleeding?”
Bob nodded. “Uh huh. Long story short, he was briefly incapacitated by poison. Since I knew that wouldn’t last, and that he’d eventually be up and around, I figured I could either just kill him, or I could reintroduce him to the concept of staying put. So… I put a bullet into each of his thigh muscles and another through each of his kneecaps.”
From the chair, Vern tried to say something, but it came out as a strangled gurgle.
“I think he’s trying to tell you both how much pain he’s in. Don’t worry, I was real careful not to rupture the femoral artery, so he’s not going to bleed out on you or such. He’s just not walking anywhere for a good few months.”
“Gonna kill you,” Tommy muttered. “Gonna kill you so god-dang dead…”
“Maybe,” Bob said. “But I doubt it. And certainly not today. See, you guys are just an annoyance to me. After you put Mr. Feeney in hospital, I was half tempted to yank that string and let him dangle, take you two on the old-fashioned way. End you both, and all the problems you cause people in this community.”
Tommy raised his chin defiantly. “But?”
“But Feeney’s going to be fine. And the thing about twins—or so a little reading leads me to believe—is that you’re real attuned to each other. As long as you know he’s not dead, I figure you’d be willing to compromise. And when push comes to shove… You people ain’t the problem. The problem is the guy you work for. You’re just… an irritation.”
Even from twenty feet away, Bob could see Tommy was grinding his teeth.
His friend strode forward boldly. Bob raised his pistol after two steps.
