Throwdown Read online

  “Normally, yes,” Brent allowed.

  “But the poor girl is still in a coma.”

  Brent just nodded.

  “And at this point we don’t know when or if she’ll recover.”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure Wellner did this,” Cunningham said.

  “Yes.”

  Cunningham nodded, made a show of thinking carefully.

  Finally he looked up at Brent, said what Brent expected him to say.

  “Wellner’s dead, that poor boy is dead, we know what happened. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by dragging this out any longer. Let’s close this out, put it behind us.”

  Brent found himself nodding in agreement.

  30

  It took a few days for word to filter out that the police had officially decided to close the file on Jimmy Nesbitt’s death. The rumor was that that some people both on the force and off weren’t very happy about that, but they were in a distinct minority.

  Sherry was scarcely aware of that, but in the few days since Jimmy’s funeral she’d noticed a drastic change in Kenny. He’d gone from a paranoid, quivering mess to a manic overconfidence. He was volatile and unpredictable at the best of times, but Sherry had never seen him like this. It scared her. She’d even thought of asking Elway about it, but she doubted he’d say anything even if he knew the answer.

  The bar was busy tonight, and that helped. Even so she found herself watching the entrance for him.

  Then, suddenly, he was there. She hadn’t seen him come in, but now he was back near the pool tables with Elway. Even in that split second it occurred to her that Kenny still didn’t look right. Elway was right beside him, close, like he was guarding him or something. She’d already caught a couple of disapproving glances from Saunders but she let a couple of orders hang, went over to him. He didn’t even notice her until she was standing beside him.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” Kenny shrugged, his eyes still on the pool game.

  Then he turned to her, his eyes bright and intense.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said suddenly.

  He reached down slowly, guided her hand toward the crotch of his jeans. He was rock hard and she tried to pull her hand away but he was insistent, pressed her hand against his erection and held it there. She looked around but no one was paying attention.

  “Kenny, I’m working – I can’t.”

  She tried to pull her hand away again but he was too strong.

  “Take a break.”

  He moved in even closer. She felt a flash of anger, even a sliver of fear. He never did this, never tried to force or push her, but there was an element of something like desperation in the way he was pushing now. She could only go with it long enough for him to relax, let him think she was going to do what he wanted. As if. She stopped trying to push his hand away, stopped resisting, and he fell for it. She suddenly freed her hand, stepped back.

  “I can’t, Kenny, I told you. People are watching.”

  For a moment he just stared at her, the confusion on his face almost comical. She tried to soften her rejection.

  “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you later.”

  He didn’t say anything else and she turned away. She was furious with him for treating her like that, but she was frightened at the same time. He was always careful with her, even loving, but she’d never seen him like this, like he was someone else. It scared her but she tried to shrug it off. Maybe his paranoia had infected her. It wasn’t too long until closing time anyway – she could make it up to him, give him what he wanted the way he always got what he wanted. She went back to work but the bad feeling didn’t go away.

  Sherry caught another sour look from Saunders, threw herself into making up for lost time with the customers. When she finally glanced back toward the pool tables Elway was still there but Kenny was gone. She turned around, her eyes scanning the room, and when she saw him sitting at the bar she felt her stomach plummet.

  He wasn’t alone. That Janine bitch was draped all over him, and Sherry’s first impulse was to go over and smack her in the face. She was sure that if everything lined up just right Janine would fuck Kenny in a heartbeat. There was no way of telling how Kenny would react if she went over there and confronted them. It might just set off the very thing Sherry didn’t want to happen. All she could do was keep an eye on the whole pathetic little scene while she worked her tail off running beers and shooters back and forth between the bar and her section – which was too damn big and too busy for just one girl.

  Janine was sitting sideways, facing Kenny, making every cheesy fuck-me move in the book when she thought Sherry wasn’t watching. Normally Sherry didn’t consider Janine to be competition, not after the last time she’d paid Kenny a little too much attention. Sherry had read her the riot act and up until now she thought that had scared her off–but tonight Janine was a little drunk and apparently just didn’t give a damn. Maybe she’d sensed the same thing Sherry had, that something was different with Kenny tonight and that maybe he didn’t give a damn either.

  • • •

  “What are you thinking about, Kenny?” Janine asked.

  For one reckless moment he thought of telling her, just to see the look on her face. She’d probably get off on it, the way he wanted to get off right now. He could test her, see if she was as crazy as he’d always thought. He thought she was, maybe too crazy for the secrets he had now. Or maybe just crazy enough.

  Her eyes were searching his, maybe trying to get inside his head, but all he could think of right now was the way she’d been teasing him, leaning into him whenever she thought Sherry wasn’t looking. When she did he could feel the crush of her full breasts against his forearm, feel the warmth of her breath against his neck.

  “Don’t want to think,” he said finally.

  She looked at him for a long moment, then slowly and deliberately trailed two fingertips across his crotch, looked him straight in the eye while she did it.

  “I don’t want to think either,” she said, sliding down off the stool.

  “Where are you going?”

  “One way to find out,” she said.

  • • •

  Sherry was tied up at a table, a bunch of beer league hockey players wrapping things up and trying to get their bar tab sorted out. When Sherry was finally done with them she turned away, eyes going automatically to the place at the bar where Kenny had been sitting.

  He wasn’t there, and neither was that Janine bitch. She forced herself to keep her face blank, walk slowly back to the bar where old man Saunders was still pumping out more drinks. The place seemed to be getting more crowded by the minute, people standing around between the tables, getting in her way, gathering in noisy clumps wherever there was a few extra feet of floor space. Somebody touched her on the arm, a drink order, and she just nodded at him as if she was paying attention, hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She turned away and kept going, saw a couple of trays of drinks already up on the bar waiting for her. Saunders was loading up another tray, sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up his forearms, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead in spite of the periodic blasts of frigid air gusting through the bar every time the front door opened.

  She ignored the waiting trays, paralleled the bar through a tangy fog of sweaty armpits and cheap scent, turned the bar’s corner and shoved a guy’s forearm away so she could lift the little pass-through drawbridge that separated the business side of the bar from the cattle. She let it slam down again, heard a yelp of protest behind her as she walked behind Saunders.

  “Where the hell are you going?” he growled.

  She ignored him, knowing he didn’t really expect an answer. She was the best he had and she worked hard, hard enough she didn’t have to explain taking a pee break when she needed one.

  Kenny and Janine knew the place as well as she did. There was a downstairs washroom at the end of a long hallway past the stor
eroom. There was another set of stairs at the far end that led down from the back of the bar. The washroom was unused most of the time, but both Janine and Kenny would know about it. Janine had filled in at the bar often enough.

  Sherry made a conscious effort to slow herself down as she came down the stairs. The wall was gray, dirty, a cheap black railing on one side. She leaned on it as she came downstairs, hoping she wasn’t going to find what she was sure she would. The stairs and the wall ended at the same place, the narrow hallway stretching in front of her. She passed the storeroom, looked inside, saw nothing. The door to the washroom was on the right at the far end of the hallway. It was partly ajar and when she came up on it she didn’t wait, just pushed it open.

  They were there but it wasn’t what she’d expected. They were just doing a toke but there was guilt in the way they looked back at her. Kenny didn’t miss a beat, just held the toke out.

  “Want some?” he asked.

  She just stared at it, then shook her head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” he asked.

  “Janine, get the hell out of here,” she said.

  “Janine isn’t going anywhere,” Kenny told her.

  “No? Why not?”

  “It’s her dope.”

  The hell it was. Her eyes met Janine’s, and Janine smirked, then slowly and deliberately ran her tongue over her lips. Everything turned bright red and Sherry was on them in only two strides, arms straight out in front of her, drove them both over the toilet and into the wall. She rebounded backwards, keeping her balance long enough to kick Kenny as hard as she could in the ass. There wasn’t much force to it so she supported herself against the doorframe and kicked him again, dead center in the balls. He jackknifed and collapsed, rolling sideways off Janine and into the wall. Sherry leaned forward, her left arm encircling Janine’s neck, and pulled her back up only long enough to turn her around. Then she punched her, hard, and Janine collapsed onto the floor, her head ending up in Kenny’s writhing lap.

  “I hope you two fucking assholes will be very happy together.”

  The red mist cleared only enough for Sherry to find her way upstairs. A couple of the slot players even looked around when she got to the top, but she didn’t see them. She just kept going, plowed through the crowd on her way back to the front of the bar. Saunders was saying something to her but she couldn’t make any of it out. She was almost at the door when she looked up, saw Elway leaning against the wall. He was watching her.

  “Get me the fuck out of here,” she said.

  31

  Langdon knew it was all gone, so far out of control he didn’t think he could ever put it back. Everything had disintegrated in seconds and spun him into a nightmare. He felt like he was watching the whole thing from somewhere else, watching himself carried along by impulse and stupidity and powerless to stop any of it. All for a quick blow job that Sherry would have done longer and better a couple of hours later on.

  She hadn’t caught them in the act, but it had been close and Janine hadn’t helped any. He figured he could talk his way out of it, but when he’d come upstairs Sherry was gone. He was careful not to put on a show of looking for her, even though when she’d exploded up the stairs she’d probably put on a show of her own. Kenny pulled himself together, ignored the looks that followed him as he walked past the bar. Saunders in particular was staring him down as if he’d just grown an asshole in the middle of his forehead. Fuck you, Kenny thought, looking around to see where Sherry was.

  She wasn’t there.

  It took a couple of minutes to make sure of that, all the while trying to look as if he didn’t give a shit, then another couple of minutes to casually slip out the door, see if she’d gone outside.

  She wasn’t there either, and his car was gone. Something was forming in his mind and he didn’t like it. He hadn’t seen Elway in the bar either, but all his attention had been focused on finding Sherry. The parking lot was busy, cars starting up, other cars arriving, drunken conversations slurring their way through the cold night air. Kenny just stood there in the center of it, everybody steering clear of an explosion waiting to happen.

  He tried to talk himself down from where he was heading. He knew he wasn’t thinking right, hadn’t been thinking right, decided it was more likely she’d just gotten pissed off and gone home. He dug out his phone, tried calling her cell. Nothing. He couldn’t think of a message to leave that wouldn’t make things worse.

  Her apartment was only two or three blocks away, so close she usually didn’t bother taking her car. He was there in less than five minutes. Sherry’s place was in an old three-story frame house that had been cut up into around a thousand apartments, rented mostly by students from the university, and it sat on a street shrouded by huge trees. There was a small, ratty front yard and all the parking – most of the tenants didn’t have cars anyway – was in the back in what had once been a big yard but was now just a mudhole in winter and a gritty dustbowl in the summer.

  He headed to the side door that the students usually left ajar because they were always losing their keys. That took him along the driveway, so he went all the way to the back to check the parking lot. Her old Toyota was there but that didn’t mean anything.

  He turned around and found himself staring at two bulky shapes in the darkness, knew instantly who they were even before they moved up on him. He forced down the panic, kept his voice under control.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Hendricks spread his hands wide, flashed brilliant white teeth in an insolent grin.

  “Just a private conversation, that’s all. We’ve heard all about you, thought it was time we introduced ourselves.”

  “I know who you are.”

  Hendricks smiled again, casually brought a handgun out of his waistband. He didn’t point it, just held it loosely by his side. Nason moved in fast, his broad face expressionless. His eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. Kenny anticipated a blow, tensed up for it. Instead Nason frisked him expertly and fast, then stepped away. Kenny heard Hendricks laughing at him.

  “Why, Kenny,” the way Hendricks said his name it sounded like he was talking to an inferior, a little boy, “if I didn’t know better I’d say you were scared shitless.”

  Kenny’s face burned. He reached down inside, found something. He stared back at Hendricks.

  “Get it over with,” he said.

  Hendricks looked back at him, his face a mask of exaggerated surprise.

  “I think we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves here, Kenny,” he waved a negligent hand toward Nason, “we’re professionals, and we thought you were a professional too. We can’t go running around shooting people – I mean, we will if we have to, but you know as well as I do that kind of thing is bad for business. As a professional courtesy I thought we’d make you a one-time offer. You wrap up your little operation here, take whatever money you’ve got stashed away – consider it a parting gift – and get the hell out of Dodge. Or Strothwood, to be more specific. Wouldn’t want to confuse you.”

  This guy loves the sound of his own voice, Kenny thought,just keep him talking. He had one objective here – to get out of this parking lot in one piece. He made a show of cowed reluctance, let a glimmer of fear into his voice.

  “Okay,” he said, “I don’t like it, but it is what it is. I’ll do what you want.”

  He saw Hendricks incline his head fractionally toward Nason, didn’t even have time to brace for it. The man moved incredibly fast, hit him hard with a succession of body blows that came so quickly they blended into each other. He somehow caught Kenny before he collapsed, got behind him. Kenny felt the man’s big right hand engulf his chin, felt the opposing pressure of his left forearm. Just before Kenny’s neck snapped Nason let go, dumped him in a heap on the ground. Kenny could see only a cloudy darkness, was only partly aware of Hendricks as he squatted down beside him.

  “Just so you know,” Hendricks said, “that
we’re not all talk.”

  32

  Kenny wasn’t sure how long he laid there in the mud of the parking lot. It might have been two minutes or two hours. He drifted in and out of awareness, finally reeled in enough clarity to get to his feet, stagger to the side door of Sherry’s building.

  Her apartment was on the top floor, hotter than hell in summer and fucking arctic in winter. He and Sherry had always split their time between her place and his, and by force of habit he fumbled in his pocket for his key until he realized it was on the key ring for the Camaro.

  The old place was huge and even on the top floor there were three apartments shoehorned in by the landlord. Kenny and the other tenants knew each other by sight and he’d always gotten the feeling they were scared shitless of him, but even so he didn’t want to risk a lot of noise. He kept his knock on the door quiet, listened for movement inside. Mad as she was she probably wouldn’t let him in anyway. He knocked, waited again, called her name as softly as he could. Nothing, and now he was getting pissed off.

  He’d always told Sherry not to do it but he knew she’d have another key stashed somewhere in case she forgot hers. Finding it was stupidly easy. He felt up around the top of the door frame, got nothing, then went back down the hall to a sorry looking potted plant on a small table at the window. It wasn’t underneath the pot but he stuck his fingers in the dry, barren soil around the plant until his fingertips struck something metallic. He fished it out, went back and tried it in the lock.

  “It’s just me, babe,” he said, “I’m coming in.”

  He let the door swing all the way open. The place felt empty even before the door hit softly against the wall on the other side. A feeling of slow dread was beginning to churn in his stomach, the realization that finally he’d gone too far with her, that maybe there’d be no coming back from this. The regret in that surprised him, for a few moments pushed everything else from his mind.