me. My getaway insurance. It might be the last money I ever earn, if the key in my pocket is worthless.
Shitfire, Elroy. What the hell do you do now?
Heavy boots clock hard outside on the porch, and I hear the screen door squeak again. A big thick fella with a hard, sculpted face stands in front of me now, brown and mean-looking like an Italian, out of breath. He’s decked head to toe in military olive, like a drill sergeant with no decorations. Looks like a crazy man.
He points at me. “Is this the guy?”
He’s a good old boy, every syllable dripping with redneck fury.
Franklin stands up from the couch next to me as my father confirms my identity. The good old boy shakes his head at me.
“Mister, you’ve got a lotta explaining to do.”
4
00000-4
FULL DISCLOSURE
W e leave the farmhouse—me, my father and the guy who looks like a drill sergeant—and cross the open compound to one of the other buildings, near the concrete slab. It looks like a barn. On the inside, too. Even has horses in the stalls and smells like rotten hay. It strikes me as a little odd that I grew up in Texas and I’ve never been in a barn once or even seen a farm animal this close up. I once saw a movie where Sean Penn played a guy on death row in New Orleans, and for his last meal he had shrimp, and when they brought it to him, he told Susan Sarandon he’d never eaten shrimp before. You never stop to smell the roses when you live the lives we live. But I was never on death row. And I never killed anyone.
Sure as hell tried today, though.
The gun felt cold and unforgiving in my hand when I aimed it—like the revenge I’ve lusted after for years.
But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
The man would have shot me dead.
And I just stood there.
A wooden stairwell in a dark corner that smells raw and unfinished drops below the floor, taking us into a short basement corridor with miners’ lights strung along the ceiling and another guy with a Ruger on the next door. He salutes the good old boy in olive green, turns a key in the lock, punches in a code. The securityis a joke, I can tell just by glancing. The digital keypad has a SERIO-SYSTEMS trademark on the outer plastic. You blow past those things easy, just by pressing in a row of sixes and holding down the pound key for six seconds.
Through the door, a conference room with a long table and a flat-screen monitor taking up one entire wall. Two flunkies in the room wearing guns in shoulder holsters. Three men and two women sitting at the table, most of them in army green.
At the head of the table, the concerned citizen.
Just some rich lady who spent a million bucks to get me out of jail.
• • •
S he doesn’t look happy, doesn’t look upset, doesn’t look like anything. She’s dressed in black, with a dark jacket and matching blouse. I notice for the first time that she’s very thin, her face suspended in mystery by those deep green eyes. She’s got a laptop open next to a stack of papers and photos, a pen in her hand. The army guys stand and salute our guide when we walk in.
“As you were,” he tells them, and they sit down again. Getting a better look at them, they seem like mercenaries. I’ve seen their type before, seen a few get killed.
One of them is a young woman, probably twenty.
She’s pretty but not gorgeous, has freckles and long red hair in a ponytail. Not muscular, like the others. Her uniform is dark olive, no camouflage patterns, eyes full of smarts, decorations on her shoulder. Gotta be an air force hacker.
She sizes me up, and I see her eyes shift from mode to mode.
Our guide plants his feet on the ground right next to me, and I notice for the first time that he has a mean serrated army knife clipped to his waist—it’s long enough to be a sword, the kind you see in movies starring Sylvester Stallone. Wasn’t sure those things really existed.
The lady in the dark suit motions to the empty chairs across from her. “Have a seat, gentlemen.
Shitfire, Elroy. What the hell do you do now?
Heavy boots clock hard outside on the porch, and I hear the screen door squeak again. A big thick fella with a hard, sculpted face stands in front of me now, brown and mean-looking like an Italian, out of breath. He’s decked head to toe in military olive, like a drill sergeant with no decorations. Looks like a crazy man.
He points at me. “Is this the guy?”
He’s a good old boy, every syllable dripping with redneck fury.
Franklin stands up from the couch next to me as my father confirms my identity. The good old boy shakes his head at me.
“Mister, you’ve got a lotta explaining to do.”
4
00000-4
FULL DISCLOSURE
W e leave the farmhouse—me, my father and the guy who looks like a drill sergeant—and cross the open compound to one of the other buildings, near the concrete slab. It looks like a barn. On the inside, too. Even has horses in the stalls and smells like rotten hay. It strikes me as a little odd that I grew up in Texas and I’ve never been in a barn once or even seen a farm animal this close up. I once saw a movie where Sean Penn played a guy on death row in New Orleans, and for his last meal he had shrimp, and when they brought it to him, he told Susan Sarandon he’d never eaten shrimp before. You never stop to smell the roses when you live the lives we live. But I was never on death row. And I never killed anyone.
Sure as hell tried today, though.
The gun felt cold and unforgiving in my hand when I aimed it—like the revenge I’ve lusted after for years.
But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
The man would have shot me dead.
And I just stood there.
A wooden stairwell in a dark corner that smells raw and unfinished drops below the floor, taking us into a short basement corridor with miners’ lights strung along the ceiling and another guy with a Ruger on the next door. He salutes the good old boy in olive green, turns a key in the lock, punches in a code. The securityis a joke, I can tell just by glancing. The digital keypad has a SERIO-SYSTEMS trademark on the outer plastic. You blow past those things easy, just by pressing in a row of sixes and holding down the pound key for six seconds.
Through the door, a conference room with a long table and a flat-screen monitor taking up one entire wall. Two flunkies in the room wearing guns in shoulder holsters. Three men and two women sitting at the table, most of them in army green.
At the head of the table, the concerned citizen.
Just some rich lady who spent a million bucks to get me out of jail.
• • •
S he doesn’t look happy, doesn’t look upset, doesn’t look like anything. She’s dressed in black, with a dark jacket and matching blouse. I notice for the first time that she’s very thin, her face suspended in mystery by those deep green eyes. She’s got a laptop open next to a stack of papers and photos, a pen in her hand. The army guys stand and salute our guide when we walk in.
“As you were,” he tells them, and they sit down again. Getting a better look at them, they seem like mercenaries. I’ve seen their type before, seen a few get killed.
One of them is a young woman, probably twenty.
She’s pretty but not gorgeous, has freckles and long red hair in a ponytail. Not muscular, like the others. Her uniform is dark olive, no camouflage patterns, eyes full of smarts, decorations on her shoulder. Gotta be an air force hacker.
She sizes me up, and I see her eyes shift from mode to mode.
Our guide plants his feet on the ground right next to me, and I notice for the first time that he has a mean serrated army knife clipped to his waist—it’s long enough to be a sword, the kind you see in movies starring Sylvester Stallone. Wasn’t sure those things really existed.
The lady in the dark suit motions to the empty chairs across from her. “Have a seat, gentlemen.
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