“I wasn’t planning on leaving her. Though she was a bit curious. You played ball with who?”
“I could ask the same about her being with you. You’re nothing to me,” Vinko said. “She’s even less for being with you.”
Ludmila was standing by the front of the car. “You are fucking idiot,” she said in an unmistakable Russian accent. Vinko had been right about that much.
Vinko felt the Ruger pressing against the small of his back, luring him with its swift promise. He didn’t resist. He drew and pointed it right at Bones.
“You’re trespassing. I shoot people for less. You drove right past those signs. That’s a dangerous thing to do.” He stepped closer to Bones, only an inch or two shorter than himself. The ex-tight end had played at a rock-solid 220 pounds, but he looked forty shy of that now. Shirt hanging off him like a tent.
Cocaine. Of course. Vinko would have bet the ranch on it. The guy had always partied hard. So now he’d gone to drugs. Bones sure wasn’t smiling anymore. All his cockiness had vanished. Ruger magic.
Biko started sniffing Bones’s pants leg. Vinko wished he’d taught his dog to pee on command. He gave him one he did know: “Biko, heel.”
“Biko? Did you really name him after Stephen Biko?” The black South African anti-apartheid activist had become famous after being killed in police custody. He’d also been known for coining the slogan “Black is beautiful.”
“Yeah, and I got a big fat barn cat called MLK. So what of it?” Vinko was enjoying himself immensely now. He’d resented every pass he’d ever thrown Bones, and he’d fired off hundreds in the two years they’d played together. Now he stood as close to him as he once had in the team huddle. Never next to him, though. Bad enough he had to touch the same ball.
“Fair is fair,” Bones said. “I got a hamster named Stinko. Fact is I got a whole string of them because I feed them to my boa. I always say, ‘Here comes Stinko,’ and that boa, he comes alive.”
“You don’t look so good, Bones. Been sucking on a crack pipe with your bros and hoes?”
“You are one sorry son-of-a-bitch,” Bones replied.
“So I guess the answer is yes. Guess what else? You’re about to be one dead n—”
Vinko froze at the sound of a semi-automatic racked inches from his head. Ludmila had the muzzle pointed right at his temple.
“Put it down,” she said.
Vinko realized he’d made a huge mistake by taking her for granted.
“See, she actually loves me, Stinko,” Bones said. “She’ll blow your fucking head off if you so much as blink, so why don’t you do like she says before your dog has to find a new home to go with his new name?”
Vinko glanced at her without moving his head or gun, hoping to see something that would give him the upper hand. But she’d gotten the drop on him and held a Browning with practiced ease, nice and steady. That was when he realized they would both be witnesses to his killing, should that come to pass. He also knew police would probably believe they’d shot in self-defense because Vinko had threatened Bones before millions of viewers after a bowl victory their senior year. When a post-game interview ended, a pack of photographers had wanted the quarterback and his receiver who’d caught the game-winning pass to hoist the big trophy over their heads. Not what Vinko had wanted, and as soon as the media mob had moved on, he’d turned to Bones and said quietly, “You ever touch anything I’m holding again, I’ll kill you, nigger.”
But his microphone had still been on, and his use of the n-word reached the ears of millions. It turned his name to mud. Not one team in the NFL dared to draft him. It made the gun trained on his head right now seem as predictable as death itself.
“I never forget,” Bones said, “and I’m guessing right about now you’re remembering the last time we were together, too.”
“I might as well shoot you,” Vinko replied. “I’m a dead man anyway. Isn’t that what you’re saying?”
“Nope, not what I’m saying. You’re the one who threatened to kill me. Ludmila just wanted me to have some closure with the worst man I’ve ever known. She thought it would be good to give you another chance. ‘People change,’ she said. And the truth is she couldn’t believe anybody could be as foul as you. So I said, ‘Sweetheart, you want to meet Stinko, you better bring your gun.’ Aren’t you glad, hon?”
She nodded. “Not waiting one second more,” she said evenly. “Put it down or I put bullet in your stupid brain.”
Vinko lowered his pistol.
“Better put that on the ground and step away,” Bones said.
Vinko complied. The late morning sun glinted off the stainless steel chamber.
Biko growled at Bones.
“Keep him by your side or get ready to bury him.”
“Quiet,” Vinko said. The dog stopped growling.
“Why do you hate me?” said Bones. “I just have to ask.” He’d picked up the Ruger and held it by his side. Ludmila, however, maintained her easy aim at Vinko’s head. “I never really got that. All I ever did was make you look good.”
“I never needed you for that.”
“Yeah, you did. You needed someone to catch the crap you threw, Stinko.”
“There were plenty of white guys who could’ve done that.”
“Not on that team, there wasn’t.”
“The team still would’ve been better without you.”
“And seventeen other blacks? Are you delusional?”
Bones stared at him. He looked like he was earnestly trying to figure Vinko out. He also looked exhausted, as if no amount of effort could ever make sense of Vinko’s hate. Or maybe Bones had just driven too far for too little.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said to Ludmila. Then he turned his attention back to Vinko. “I’d hoped you changed. I really did. We did a lot together. You were a loose end in my life. I thought maybe I could tie it up. It wasn’t really her. She didn’t care if she met you. She thought I was crazy to even come.”
That was when Vinko knew the real reason Bones had driven hours to see him: Bones must be dying. It’s what a man does when the end is near — if he’s weak and sentimental.
“What is it?” he asked his old teammate. “Cancer? What kind you got?” Vinko was smiling now. “How much time you got left? I’ll bet not much.”
Ludmila pressed the barrel against his face.
“Don’t,” Bones said to her. He locked eyes with Vinko. “I got time. I just don’t have any more for you. No regrets.”
He got back behind the wheel, but Ludmila didn’t move. Vinko wondered whether she’d actually shoot him. Two witnesses and a history of white pride that would be used against him. But the worst part would be dying at the hands of a race traitor.
“He’s a good man,” she said in his ear. “He just wanted to make peace with the one asshole in his life. You are scum.”
“And you sleep with filth,” Vinko dared. He shook his head in genuine disgust, pressing hard against the muzzle. Yes, daring her to shoot him, because now he knew she wouldn’t. She loved Bones too much to fuck up their last weeks or months together.
She backed away, relaxing her aim.
“Come back when he finally dries up and dies. I’ll show you some real fun.”
Ludmila fired right above his head. Vinko never flinched and, to his credit, neither did Biko, though the dog’s haunches began to shake.
Bones yelled for Ludmila to get in the car, and Vinko watched them drive away with his Ruger, kicking up dust that hung in the air like a bad odor.
He let out the goats and put Biko back to work. Then he walked back inside, trying to put aside the unpleasant encounter.
This was the greatest reward in life, he told himself: outliving the ones you loathed. Some died all on their own. Others had to be taken down.