Child Of Fire Part 9

"Don't go all wacky on me, Bill," Sara said. She waved as though he was a puff of smoke she didn't want to smell. "Charlie Three is trying to put a foundation under this town. He could do it, too. We'd have decent incomes without having to worry about what happens when the trees are gone. Charlie Three is bringing us into the next century."

"I don't much like it."

"Well, you're pretty much the only one."

The old man laughed. "Ain't that the truth. Most of the people in this town won't even talk to me anymore. Criticizing Charlie Three around here is like badmouthing the pope in Vatican City, even though he ain't a patch on what came before."

"Don't talk to me about Senior and Junior," Sara said. "You know how hard they made things for Stan and his own father."

"I... I'm sorry, Sara." Bill swirled his drink around in his gla.s.s. "You know how much I liked Stan."

She patted his hand. "I know, Bill. You slow down on that stuff, okay?"

Bill lifted his gla.s.s and then set it down without drinking. "It's not that the older generations didn't have their quirks. Remember that Scottish thing? But it's this latest one that's... he gave up on the trees and started making toys. And he gave up the reins."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When you have a stagecoach," he said enthusiastically, as though he'd spent a good bit of time thinking about this a.n.a.logy, "when you have a stagecoach, you hold on to the reins, right? You have to control things. But what happens if you drop the reins, huh?"

"You stop moving," I offered.

"No. The coach tips over and everything spills out. It's ruined. Broken. The horses charge off in different directions, fight each other, eat each other. They tear each other apart, that's what happens. Someone has to have control."

Sara suppressed a smile. "Bill, I don't think horses eat other horses."

My beer gla.s.s was empty, and so was my water gla.s.s. I ordered refills and asked for a menu. Sara told me that they didn't serve food anymore. She was all alone. I was disappointed, but she offered to dial a local pizza joint. I ordered a medium pepperoni.

I turned to Bill. "I hope you like pepperoni. On me."

"Well!" he said, shuffling back to his stool beside me. "That's fine. Just fine."

"You're welcome to have a slice, too," I said to Sara.

"I'll pa.s.s. I don't eat cheese." She lifted a tray of dirty gla.s.ses and carried them into the back.

"She's a good woman," Bill told me, keeping his voice low. "There's lots of fellas in town who'd like to get next to her. Especially since she got herself this bar."

I tried to picture myself standing behind the bar pulling beers, or frying burgers in the back. It was a nice idea, but it wasn't going to happen. "Is that so?"

"Her husband was a good man, too. Older than her. He hired her to wait tables and then a year later gave her a ring and a half-owners.h.i.+p in the bar."

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Nothing she did," Bill said quickly. "He was killed by dogs."

"Did you say dogs?"

"A pack of dogs. And he ain't the only one. In the last six years or so, eight or ten local folks have been torn apart that way. Very mysterious."

"I don't get it. A pack of dogs? Are there feral dogs in the woods? Or does someone keep them?"

"There's no way to hide a pack of dogs in a small town like this one. Emmett Dubois tried to trap the dogs several times, but he never caught nothing. Me, I think they've had their vocal cords cut. That's why n.o.body ever heard them barking."

I remembered the wolf that had stood out in the middle of the street. "Are the cops in this town really all brothers?"

"Sure," Bill said. "And it was their own daddy who hired them for the job. It might seem strange to an out-of-towner, but being a cop is a family business in Hammer Bay. And it was never a problem while one of the Hammers was giving the orders."

"Does that mean it's a problem now?"

"Heh. Well..." Bill rubbed his face. I guessed he would rephrase that if he could.

"Let me put it another way: Are they good cops? Honest?"

Bill lowered his voice. "Emmett keeps a lid on things in this town. And on his brothers, too."

"So I should be careful, then?"

"Yes. Emmett is smart, and Sugar has always been a good kid. But don't be left alone with Wiley. Just be careful with him."

The pizza arrived. I paid for it with Annalise's card and offered Bill the first slice. He took it gladly. The conversation turned religious after that. Bill was sure I was a good Christian, and that the dog attacks were the work of Satan.

It went on that way for a while. The three of us talked about all sorts of things, and Sara accepted a slice after all. It was very friendly. I pried here and there about their personal lives but didn't learn much. Bill had one daughter and one grandson, Paul, who was at a boarding school in Georgia. Sara said she and Stan had never been blessed with kids. Of course. Bill started in on Charles Three again, but Sara told him to lay off.

After a while, the topic turned to me. Bill asked again if I'd come to town to work at the toy plant. The scarecrow was standing at the bar, getting another pitcher. I decided it was time to try to drive that wedge between the town and the Hammers, so I told them why we had met with Able Katz that morning. "My boss wants Hammer Bay Toys to outsource some of its manufacturing to Africa. Sewing doll clothes, I think."

Sara looked as shocked as if I'd slapped her. "What? He'd never do that."

"It was only a first meeting," I said with a casual shrug. "So nothing was decided."

The scarecrow stared at me for a moment, then left the empty pitcher on the bar and went back to the booth.

"Sewing... Three of my aunts work in sewing. Aunt Casey needs that job to keep her house. We need those jobs here in town! Do you know how many of our older folks support themselves with a sewing machine now? What'll they do if the jobs go overseas?"

"People need jobs all over."

Sara collected my gla.s.s. "You know what, Ray? I don't want you in my place anymore."

The scarecrow and his two friends walked out the front door. They watched me silently as they pa.s.sed. I didn't like that look.

I stood. Bill protested. "Aw, don't be that way, Sara. It's not his fault."

"It's all right, Bill," I said. "It was time I was leaving anyway. Sara, do you have a back door?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "Why?"

"Because I expect those three guys are waiting for me outside."

Bill struggled off his stool. "I'll go have a look-see."

"You stay right there, Bill," Sara said. "I'll check the parking lot if Ray here is feeling nervous."

She walked to the front door and went out. Bill lifted the lid of the pizza box. It was empty.

"Well," Bill said, "thanks for the grub and the company."

"It was my pleasure."

"Is... is it really true about Africa?"

"Times are harder there than they are here, Bill."

Sara came back in and told me that the parking lot was empty. So was the street.

She stood by the door. I walked across the room, matched her scowl with a smile, and went outside.

I had only taken three steps when I saw them leaning against a pickup truck. They smiled. The short one was holding a knife, and the other two were carrying tire irons. Scarecrow held a snub-nosed.38 in his off hand.

Behind me, I heard Sara close the door and throw the bolt.

CHAPTER SIX.

"Hey, stranger," the knife holder said. "We're here to welcome you to Hammer Bay."

"Really?" I said. "Because I don't see a m.u.f.fin basket. You wouldn't be lying to me, would you?" The bar blocked one side of the lot, and a cinder-block wall of the business next door blocked the other. There were no stairs, windows, or gaps that I could use to get away. Behind me was a chain-link fence with struts blocking my view of the other side. A Plymouth Reliant was parked up against it. If I was going to run, that was the way, but there was still that gun.

The one who had spoken was average height and wore large tinted gla.s.ses. The other was well under six feet and built like a fireplug; he held a beer in his off hand. Both were thick with muscle that comes with hard physical labor and the flab that comes with fried food. The short one wore a construction worker's helmet, and all three wore steel-toed work boots.

Gla.s.ses took a small box from his inside pocket. He lifted out a couple of tiny bundles wrapped in tissue or toilet paper and handed them to the others. Each man wet the bundle on his tongue, popped it into his mouth, and pa.s.sed the beer back and forth to wash it down.

The short one nodded toward me. "Look at his tattoos. He's the one who set up Harlan for Emmett Dubois."

"Izzat right?" Gla.s.ses said, then threw the empty bottle at me. I ducked. It shattered against a fence pole behind me. "Well, well, well, now I'm double happy we waited for him."

The tall one bared his teeth and came toward me. He kept the barrel of the gun pointed at my stomach while he raised the tire iron. What was it with tire irons in this town?

"Don't you run from me," he said with all the practiced bullying of a wife beater. "Don't you run!"

I wished Annalise had let me keep my ghost knife.

He lifted the tire iron and swung for my head. I raised my left arm and caught the blow on my tattooed wrist.

It didn't hurt, but I did my d.a.m.nedest not to show that. I cursed and clutched at my wrist as though he'd broken it.

The other two laughed. The tall guy wasn't in a mood to be entertained. "Harlan is my friend, and he's in the hospital because of you."

He swung the tire iron again. This time I caught the blow on my right arm. I made a small, strangled noise and cradled both arms against my chest.

The scarecrow sneered at me and dropped the revolver into his pocket.

Perfect. He stepped toward me and raised his tire iron again.

I laid a quick, right uppercut on the point of his jaw. He went limp and my left hand was in his jacket pocket before he hit the ground. I yanked the revolver free and fumbled it into the proper position. The scarecrow's tire iron clattered to the ground.

Gla.s.ses and the fireplug stepped back.

I pointed the gun at them. They froze in place.

"All right, kids. This doesn't have to get interesting. Let's make a deal. You never come near me again, and I won't kill you."

"Forget it," the tall guy said, struggling to his feet. "The gun's not loaded."

Gla.s.ses turned on him. "What do you mean, it's not loaded?" I wanted to know the same thing. "I told you what we needed to do."

The tall guy shrugged. "You're my friend, Wyatt, but... I left the bullets at home."

While they hashed that out, the fireplug grinned. He hefted his tire iron and stepped toward me.

I threw the gun onto the roof of the bar and jumped onto the trunk of the Reliant. Then I stepped onto the roof and leaped for the top of the fence. I hit it at waist level and rolled over the top. There was a Dumpster below me. I twisted and landed on it. I heard cloth tearing. I jumped to the ground and ran for the street, wondering if Annalise would spring for more clothes.

When I reached the street, I sprinted toward the left, away from the business district into a residential neighborhood.

I heard them shout behind me and kept running. I was confident I could take any one of them, especially with the protections Annalise had given me. But three was too many. Too easy for one of them to knife me in the armpit or smash in my skull while I was dealing with another.

So I ran. I pa.s.sed one block, then another. As I started on the third, I looked back. All three were chasing me, and the tall one seemed to be gaining. That was fine. Wyatt and the fireplug were falling back, puffing and straining to keep up.

I rounded a corner and was suddenly sprinting right beside a police car. The fat officer sat behind the wheel drinking Mountain Dew from a two-liter bottle. The engine was off. He watched me run past but didn't reach for his keys or the radio. Great.

In the next block, I nearly stepped on a thick black streak on the sidewalk. I jolted to the side at the last minute, running into the street to go around it.

The beer and pizza began to weigh on me. I stopped beneath a streetlight and waited for the scarecrow.

He didn't keep me waiting long. And he wasn't stupid, either. He ran straight at me, then dodged to the side as he pa.s.sed, swinging that tire iron.

I feinted a lunge at him, then stepped away from the swing. It missed.

The guy slapped his feet on the sidewalk as he tried to stop himself. I charged him. He turned and tried to leap back. With a weapon and a longer reach, I'm sure he was hoping to avoid a clinch.

He feinted a swing for my head, then went for my ribs. I barely managed to get my elbow in the path of the iron. It glanced off my arm without any harm but thumped into my hip. That one hurt.

I grabbed the tire iron as he tried to pull it away. My grip was stronger, and I ripped it from his hand and tossed it into the street. The scarecrow backed away into the streetlight, right where I wanted him.

I spared a glance at Wyatt and the fireplug. They were still half a block away, puffing toward us.