Briggs grinned, shaking his head. He slid in beside her.
That was the moment Worth decided two things.
First: something wasn’t right about this.
Second: the wire stayed connected from now on.
He’d been trying to establish a pattern of malfunction, so that he could disconnect the wire when Briggs got here.
But no more games. Everything they’d been through these past days six days boiled down to these past six seconds. Briggs had taken control of the situation as simply as that.
All of a sudden, the guys down the street were the best advantage Worth had.
He sat down. “What happened to your face?”
“Hands on the table,” Briggs said. “Both of you.”
Worth put his hands in front of him. “Where’s Ray?”
“Ray? He’s on duty.” Briggs nodded to the beer mugs and shot glasses on the table. “She’s getting ahead of you there, brother.”
“I decided I wasn’t thirsty.”
“Yeah? So you don’t mind?”
Without waiting for an answer, Briggs reached out. He knocked back Worth’s whiskey. Then he picked up the beer and drank it down. When it was gone, he put the mug down and made the univeral sound of the slaked: Ahhh.
“Thanks,” he said. “I needed that.”
“The money’s in the truck,” Worth said. “How do you want to do this?”
“Right. Business. That’s good.” Briggs motioned with his hand. “I need your keys.”
“My keys? Why?”
“Because I said so.”
When Worth didn’t respond, Briggs put his hand in his coat pocket. He took out a small automatic pistol, put it in his left hand. He put his right elbow on the table, shielding the gun from view of the rest of the bar. He pressed the muzzle into Gwen’s ribs.
Gwen looked at Worth. Her eyes widened slightly; other than that, her expression didn’t change.
“Keys,” Briggs said.
Worth dug in his own pocket and put the keys to the truck on the table.
“Thanks.” Briggs picked them up and put them in his pocket. “Gotta go.”
“You’re taking my truck?”
“Yeah, okay. You’re right. That’s not fair.” Briggs tossed his own keys on the table. “Better?”
Under the pounding noise from the jukebox, Gwen said, “Take that fucking gun out of my armpit.”
Worth looked at her. She was looking at Briggs, but she was talking to him. To the wire. To the guys in the van.
Briggs just smiled. His swollen lips made something grotesque out of the expression.
But he took the gun away, put it back in his pocket, shook his head and said, “Baby, I like you.”
“Really? I hope you die.”
“You should come with me,” he said. “I’ll show you what you’re missing.”
She spat a laugh in his face.
“Hell, I’ll even share the money with you.”
“Not a chance.”
“Have it your way.” Briggs chuckled. “How ’bout a little kiss good-bye?”
Gwen looked right at him, gray eyes flaring. Nothing you say or do means a thing.
Tony Briggs dropped Worth a wink. “Take notes here, brother.”
He leaned over and kissed her, fat lips and all. One hand went behind her head, pulling her in. One hand went under the table. Gwen sucked in a short breath, eyes widening again.
Over by the bar, some drunk fell off his stool, hauling a tray full of empty beer mugs with him. The drunk hit the floor in a clatter of wood and the crash of shattering glass.
When Worth looked back, Tony Briggs was already out of the booth, head down, slipping away through the crowd.
33
“He’s on the way out,” Worth said to his shirt. “Taking my truck. Over.”
“Matthew?”
He lost Briggs in the clog of people standing around the end of the bar. “Coming to you right now.”
“Matthew?”
Gwen had an odd look on her face. Her eyes seemed frozen, vaguely perplexed. She opened her mouth and shut it again.
“Gwen, what’s the matter?”
She looked down at herself. He heard a noise over the music and realized it was Gwen, staring at her lap, sounding a high, strangled note of distress.
Worth leaned forward quickly. The moment he looked over the edge of the table, his guts turned cold.
Just below her breasts, Gwen’s T-shirt was soaked through with blood. The lap of her jeans looked slick.
“Oh, Jesus.” Worth vaulted out of his side of the booth.
Gwen began to grasp at the knife handle sticking out of her belly. He gently pulled her hands away.
“No, sweetie. Don’t grab it, okay?”
She made a high-pitched, awful sound.
It reminded him of the only animal he’d ever killed on purpose. The winter he’d turned twelve years old, on his best friend’s uncle’s farm: a cottontail rabbit with a .22 rifle.
“Medical,” he yelled into his shirt.
Nobody had ever told him about the death squeal a rabbit made. After hearing it once, Worth had never harmed an animal again.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “Look at me, sweetie. Here we go.”
From what he could see, it looked like a short, fixed-blade tactical knife. Rubberized handle, olive and black. Briggs had thrust the blade in at an upward angle, beneath her lower ribs. Then he’d twisted, winding the now-sopping fabric of Gwen’s shirt a half turn around the hilt.
“It hurts.” Gwen was panting now. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Worth said. “Don’t look at it, okay? Look at me.”
Almost everyone in the bar was looking at him by now. Everybody but Gwen. Worth could tell by her pupils and her breathing that shock had set in.
In the distance, he heard Tony Briggs, shouting: “What’s that guy doing?” Then: “He’s got a knife!”
Within moments, the whole place became a minor swarm. Through the moving bodies, Worth finally caught his last glimpse of Briggs, turning and stepping out the door.
Then he saw the beefy guy in the Seminoles T-shirt rushing toward him. The guy yelled something, grabbed Worth by the neck, and pulled him away from Gwen.
As she fell, Worth pivoted his weight and chopped the guy in the neck as hard as he could. Brachial stun, square on target. The guy shivered and folded up on himself.
Worth climbed over him, back toward Gwen. He felt weight piling up on his back, driving him down.
Through the tangle of feet and legs around him, he saw Gwen slump to the floor. He saw hands on her shoulders. He saw other hands on the handle of the knife.
“Don’t pull it out!” He screamed the words with all the air in his lungs.
But they were lost in the clamor. He bucked and thrashed, sunk a fist in a groin. He bit an arm, drove his heel into a knee.
He shouted, “Medical! Now!”
It was some young guy in flannel who pulled the knife out. Just trying to help. While Worth struggled, helpess, Gwen spasmed and arched her back.
The serrated blade dragged a smooth gray loop of intestine through the gash in her belly. Her sodden shirt began to glisten with new blood.
“Back off! I’m a cop!” Facedown, arms and legs pinned, Worth shouted until he was hoarse. “I’m the police!”
The guy in flannel made a yelping sound and stepped back. The knife clattered to the floor, bounced once, and landed a foot from Worth’s eyes. He saw five capital letters printed on the olive-drab handle in black marker: EDDIE. A random foot swept the knife out of view.
Gwen sat against the booth, hands limp on the floor beside her, looking down at her stomach with a fascinated expression.
“Gwen, look at me!”
Somebody kicked him in the face. More weight piled on, pressing him harder into the grimy floor.
Worth screamed into his shirt. “Get over here! Jesus Christ!”