“What about the Beardsleys, Rick?” I asked. “Were they the right kind of people? What about all the Citizens you’ve killed?”
“Oh, them. The Beardsleys weren’t real Stagger Bay; they’d only lived here ten years. They were newcomers, like you – like your brother,” Hoffman said, his gaze gloating as he studied my face. “And as for the others? We had permission – they deserved to play with me and the Chief.”
“Who gave you permission?” I asked.
“Get out your vehicle.”
Sam and I did so, leaving Elaine and Little Moe in the car. We rounded the Lincoln, fanning out from each other as we rolled up on Hoffman from opposite sides. Sam had Jansen’s Glock in his right hand, held down along his leg and out of Rick’s sight.
“Ah-ah,” Hoffman said. “Close enough.” He didn’t point the riot gun at either of us; instead he aimed it dead between us at Elaine and Little Moe.
Sam and I both stopped cold. I was still just outside of striking distance, and Sam was smart enough not to display the Glock till it was time to use it. I was ever so grateful then, that Karl had schooled my son after all instead of just letting him raise himself.
Hoffman took one hand off the shotgun and reached over to open the back door of his roller. He tossed a couple pairs of handcuffs on the asphalt in front of us. “You two put these on first.”
“So what happens up at the house?” I asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough, Markus.”
Desperate, I lunged in as quick as my gimp leg would allow, hands outstretched. But he was just leaned forward with the riot gun’s butt shouldered. The shotgun’s barrel jabbed against my forehead and I stopped, still out of reach.
I stood for a moment with my hands out-stretched uselessly, the riot gun firmly planted against my skull. Hoffman laughed softly as I lowered my arms to my sides.
I leaned forward against the barrel, pushing with my legs. He tried to back off but I didn’t let him; I moved forward, following him and keeping the riot gun barrel firmly against my forehead. He couldn’t pull it away without taking the butt from his shoulder, without having to stop aiming the shotgun at us for a fatal second.
I heard Elaine and Little Moe exit the car and run into the underbrush.
“Go ahead,” I told Reese. “I’ll bet in the time it takes you to blow my head off, my son will stick that scatter gun up your ass sideways. Go ahead motherfucker – I even know what it’ll feel like.”
“Don’t do it, Dad,” Sam said. “Not like this. I still need you.”
“You called me Dad.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
I pulled away from the riot gun and Hoffman scampered back out of reach. “I’m the one with the shotgun,” he shouted, eyes crazed. “I’m the one in charge.”
“You might want to shut the fuck up,” I said. “Me and my boy are having a moment here.” I turned back to him, though. “You’re fooling yourself if you really think you could ever be the Driver. You really want to reassess here, it’s not too late. You could never fill those shoes – you need someone over you to shield you; you’re not strong enough to go it alone.”
He scowled as if considering whether to feel insulted or not. But then he stopped trying to pretend he even thought we really existed. “It’s time for that drive, Markus.”
I heard a car engine coming up the incline and Mr. Tubbs’ Bronco chugged into view. They took their time getting to us, like they were in no hurry at all. They pulled up about fifty feet away; Tubbs got out and stood next to his jacked up ride.
“Rick,” Tubbs said. “How’s about you mosey your sorry ass on over here?”
His two Brahma-bull mesh-back bodyguards climbed out to flank him, looking as unexcited as ever. Each Meshback had a scoped Weatherby hunting rifle nestled in the crook of his arm.
Hoffman shuddered. For a second a wild blaze of defiance seemed like it was about to blossom from him into a Tombstone shootout. Then he wilted and choked, and his riot gun lowered to point at the ground as he slumped. Without looking to the right or to the left, he marched toward where Mr. Tubbs stood waiting.
After Rick reached him, Tubbs subjected Hoffman to a quiet harangue I was too far away to understand the words of. The old man snapped his fingers with a pop! and pointed his index finger right up in Hoffman’s face, inches from his nose.
“I’ll buy you some time,” I whispered to Sam.
“I can take them all,” Sam whispered back, twitching the Glock from behind his leg before re-concealing it.
I looked at him incredulously. “You really want them pumping rounds in Moe and Elaine’s direction? Backstop is the beaten zone, boy, never forget it.”
I headed toward Tubbs, not dreading the approach as much as I might have under other circumstances: both because of what it might buy for Sam, Elaine, and Little Moe; and because, truth to tell, I wanted to talk to Tubbs my own self.
Meshback One immediately aimed in on me with his Weatherby while Meshback Two ‘assisted’ Hoffman into the back seat. Tubbs signaled Meshback One to hold off, but the big bodyguard still aimed in on me as I approached, awaiting the release signal.
Jansen had been pest extermination, Reese had been assisted suicide, and Hoffman was no more than a Bozo minus the clown suit. But rolling up on Tubbs, I knew I was coming to the true knife edge of the evening.
“Seeing you here and upright, I don’t have to ask about Reese,” Tubbs said. He stood with one hand in his pocket, the other holding Hoffman’s riot gun by the barrel with the butt on the ground.
“You sent him?” I asked casually.
Tubbs shook his head. “You should be more focusing on me pulling your feet out the fire here.”
“Don’t make too much of it,” I said. “Hoffman was a putz. I probably would have had to make a sacrifice bunt, but Sam would have taken him easily enough then.”
“Sam? Is that who I saw skulking into the bushes back up there?” Tubbs shrugged. “I want you to know that it was never about color for me, Markus. Maybe for some of my people, but not for me.”
“Sure,” I said, aping agreement. “Your favorite color is green anyways. People disappearing on a regular basis? That’s fine as long as it’s not racially motivated. Rogue cops, neighborhoods being declared blighted in the interests of new development? Good business is where you make it, right?
"You knew you were framing me from the start, you knew I didn’t kill the Beardsleys – but you protected Jansen all these years for some ungodly reason. Why, was he family or something?”
“Don’t push it, boy. I’ve got your number now, and I don’t owe you any explanations. But I do owe you for my girl,” Tubbs said, honest anger twisting his face. “I hate owing you. I won’t be in anyone’s debt.”
His face cleared and he gave me an enigmatic stare, his raptor eyes glowing. “You’re a lot like she was. She always gave me hell too.
“I’m not admitting to nothing, wasn’t there, didn’t do it. Reese was a good man, I’ll miss him. But Rick here, maybe he was overstepping his bounds. Maybe he was going way beyond a certain agenda I’m not gonna explain, and maybe he was getting inexcusably sloppy.”
“And the car nut who just mysteriously died up at the house?” I asked.
“Some people are hard to kill. Maybe you want to take them out, but they’re like cockroaches, they keep finding their way through, they keep coming out of the shit storm smelling like a rose.” Tubbs chuckled nastily, his eyes gleaming. “Then you just have to live with them for a while no matter how much of a pain in the ass they are. Try to find some use for them.”
“Some use,” I said, trying to keep the contempt from showing in my eyes. With Jansen, Tubbs thought he’d harnessed Grendel to the plowshare. But in the end he’d as much as traded his only child for his own tacky definition of the good life.