Side by Side Page 6

  “Angela?”

  “Alexa. It’s Alexa Keen.”

  “I’d like . . . I mean . . . I want to be your friend.”

  “I don’t need anybody feeling sorry for me, Massey. And I don’t need any sneaky-ass diary-reading friends.”

  “A diary is true,” he said. “It can’t be fictional if it’s true. Even if it’s based on—”

  “Screw you,” she snarled, stomping out. She slammed the screen door.

  “I do,” he called. “I need a friend like you, Alexa Keen.”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed. “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re special. Because you can write what you feel. I feel some of what you feel, but I could never write it like you do. When you write, I can feel it, see it, and taste it. I want to learn to express myself the way you do.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “My father was an alcoholic. One day a couple of years ago he ran off. He never told us where he went or why. But he was gone a long time before he left. He made me feel empty and worthless and helpless. He didn’t hit me, but what he did was worse than any beating.”

  Her eyes reflected deep suspicion. “What’s in it for you?”

  “I don’t have anybody I can talk to, tell my thoughts and feelings to. I need someone I can trust. I know you feel the same way. If I could trust you, you could trust me. I give you my word of honor.”

  She smirked and shook her head slowly. “Sex. You think because I’ve done some things, that I’ll—”

  “Never,” he blurted. “Alexa, that’s not why at all.”

  “Never, ever try it! You do, we’re all done. You do that and I’ll hate you.”

  “I swear that I will never betray you.”

  “Cross your heart? Swear to God?”

  “I swear it.”

  He had honored his word. But it hadn’t been easy. She grew more attractive as they grew closer, able to tell each other their deepest thoughts, their insecurities and secrets. Some things he couldn’t tell her, like how sorry he was that he couldn’t explore the deeply sexual feelings he had for her, that he often suspected she had for him. Naturally he had always wondered how things might have been if he hadn’t stuck to his pledge—a pledge that was the very foundation of their friendship.

  Winter had mixed feelings about working with Alexa. He also had no choice.

  12

  Buck Smoot showed his brothers, twins Burt and Curt, where he wanted them to dig, watched them get started on it, and then rode his four-wheeler off to the far end of the property, where he let himself out through a seldom-used gate. The trees beside the gate bristled with yellow No Trespassing signs, a formality that was wholly unnecessary. Buck didn’t snap the padlock back in place, but closed the gate and looped the heavy chain around the aging posts so it would be easy to get back in after he took care of his business three miles down the road.

  He stopped a quarter mile short of the house so the sound of his four-wheeler wouldn’t announce him. He took the three-foot-long section of lead pipe out of the rear utility cage. Tapping the piece of pipe against his leg as he went, Buck strode through the woods toward the Grissoms’ isolated wood-frame house, smiling to himself as he saw the man of the house leaning over the lawn mower with his narrow back to the trees.

  What kind of fool doesn’t get himself some kind of a dog to warn him if trouble’s coming? Buck wondered. He had killed the man’s dogs last time he dropped by, but a man living in the country is a fool not to get replacements right away.

  The man working on his mower straightened abruptly when he heard footsteps behind him, but the sudden movement threw Buck’s aim off only a little. The pipe came crashing down on the man’s shoulder instead of the back of his head, sending him to the ground in a fetal heap, howling in pain.

  Buck waited until Grissom looked up from the ground to speak. “Had to go to the sheriff, did you? What good did you think that’d do you, Grissom? You imagine my buddy was going to do something to me about your lie?”

  “Buck, I . . .”

  Buck tapped his big open palm with the end of the pipe, delighted that this bastard was trembling from fear and pain.

  “Shut up and listen,” Buck said. “Soon’s I finish with you, I’m going to go in your house and see how Miss Molly Grissom is doing. I intend to find out why she lied on me. I bet it was your idea.”

  “You . . . you . . .”

  “I what?” Buck snarled, raising the pipe over his head and shaking it menacingly.

  “Why’d you want to go and rape my Molly? She never harmed you. You hurt her bad, Buck. Wasn’t no call to do that to her.”

  “Rape? Is that what she said? How can you rape one that’s been sprawled out under every man in the whole damn county?” Buck said, bringing the pipe down on the man’s left knee with a sickening crack of bone and tissue.

  “She said she wanted me to pour it to her. We all know that’s on account you can’t keep her itches scratched. I didn’t hurt her. She likes it rough-and-tumble. She squealed with pleasure the whole time I was putting it to her.”

  “Please . . .” Grissom held up both of his hands to prevent a blow to his head. “I won’t say anything. I was mad is all. I’ll forget all about it. Ever bit of it was my fault.”

  “I’ll give you something to be mad at, Grissom.” Buck duplicated his blow to the first knee on the other one. Aiming his next few blows, he shattered both of Grissom’s outstretched hands, then broke both of his arms below the shoulders for good measure. “Who you gone run tell now?” he said. “Go call the sheriff now if you think you can dial a telephone.”

  Buck thought about crushing the man’s skull, but he held back. He didn’t want to kill him quickly.

  “Please, Buck . . . don’t hit me no more. I won’t tell nobody.”

  “I ain’t gonna hit you no more, Grissom. I’m gone help you feel better.”

  Buck set down the pipe and jerked the man up, tossed him over his massive shoulders, and carried him over to the old well, where he tore the old boards off the circular stone structure.

  “Please, Buck . . .”

  “I do what I want around here, Grissom,” Buck said as he dropped the skinny man into the hole.

  There was a muted splash twenty feet below followed by thrashing, which made Buck laugh.

  “You tell lies on a Smoot just one time!” he hollered down the well, warmed by the booming echo of his own voice. He couldn’t see as far down as the water, but it sounded like it was plenty deep. After a few seconds, Buck turned and went toward the house, slowing long enough to pick up the pipe as he passed by the broken-down lawn mower.

  He opened the kitchen door to the loud sounds of country music coming from a radio. A pot of greens simmering on the stove caught his attention. Changing the pipe to his left hand, Buck picked up a spoon and scooped out a bunch of steaming greens. After blowing on them, he ate them.

  “Damn, that gal can cook. Ass-kicking sure gives a fellow an appetite,” he mused.

  As he chewed, he heard water running into the bathtub. He figured he had plenty of time, so he stood over the stove to get his fill of the greens, wishing Molly had already baked corn bread.

  Buck didn’t see any point in interrupting a lady who was taking her last bath.

  13

  Rudy Spence showed the two men into Mr. Laughlin’s sleekly modern office, where Peanut had just finished going over the financial sheets Mr. Laughlin had given him to look at. After reading them over, Peanut had shredded them as he always did in order to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. According to the figures, Peanut Smoot was a legitimate, taxpaying multimillionaire because he was a full partner in several of Ross Laughlin’s business corporations.

  Mr. Laughlin invested money in art, which Peanut didn’t take part in. The lawyer had explained the art to Peanut, but Peanut liked art that you could see a picture in. Aside from the big Mark Rothko painting behind the des
k that looked to Peanut like finger painting, a small Klee that also looked like a little kid did it about spacemen, a Matisse that was just shapes of people cut out of colored paper, and a Calder miniature mobile that was painted steel wafers on wire rods that moved around when you touched it, there were thirty identically framed pictures of Ross Laughlin standing beside presidents, a dozen congressmen and senators, and some celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Burt Reynolds, Liz Taylor, and John Wayne. Those impressed Peanut a lot more than slopped paint.

  “Sarnov. Maxwell. Nice to see you fellows,” Peanut said, standing.

  “How you been, Peanut?” Max Randall asked him. “You know Serge Sarnov.”

  Peanut had met Sarnov once before and he knew that the Russian didn’t say anything unless he had some wise-ass remark to make. Sarnov shook hands like a woman and acted like he was too good to be in the same room as you.

  Max Randall was a different story. He’d been an Army Ranger parachuting into Afghanistan weeks before that invasion, along with Colonel Bryce and a few others. In Peanut’s book Bryce and Randall were real men. Both men were nice enough guys, but if push came to shove, both could cut out your heart and eat it like an apple. Bryce hadn’t thought twice about personally cutting the undercover agent’s throat for betraying him—exactly what Peanut would have done in his shoes. Randall had white-blond hair that was short and he had a face like an action-movie star. A strong and fast fellow, Randall didn’t say anything unless he had something that needed saying, and it was always something you’d want to hear.

  “I can’t think of anything to complain about,” Peanut replied. “Wait, that sounded like a complaint!” He laughed at his joke.

  Peanut would have liked to slap the smirk off Sarnov’s face. First off, Peanut didn’t like foreigners. He especially didn’t like people from any place that had chickened their way out on Iraq, leaving George W. to do it all with just the help of the Brits and a few wormy-looking little whatnots from countries you wouldn’t go to unless your plane was hijacked there.

  “Gentlemen,” Laughlin said as he entered the office dressed like he was going out to play golf. The lawyer shook his guests’ hands with the enthusiasm of a politician greeting his prime benefactors.

  “May I offer you something to drink? Serge, may I offer you a glass of twenty-seven-year-old Macallan? It was a Christmas gift from the ambassador to Scotland.”

  The damned ambassador to Scotland gives Mr. Ross Laughlin liquor, Peanut thought. If there was ever a more impressive or intelligent man than Ross Laughlin, Peanut sure hadn’t met him. He was also the only man Peanut really trusted.

  The Russian frowned. “I never drink when I am talking business.”

  “He might rather have vodka,” Peanut said. “That’s potato juice and pure grain alcohol.”

  “Too early for me, sir,” Max Randall said, declining.

  Mr. Laughlin sat down in a sleek black leather chair across from Sarnov and Max. Peanut sat heavily on the leather ottoman with the elbows of his long arms on his knees.

  “So,” Sarnov said, placing a gold lighter and a package of fancy cigarettes carefully on the glass coffee table. “Let’s get to it, Ross.”

  Mr. Laughlin folded his hands on his leg. “I met with Hunter Bryce this morning. Monday evening we will conclude our outstanding business,” he said. “And Colonel Bryce is ready to go on to the next load as soon as the financials are ironed out. He assures me that he can provide whatever amount of merchandise you require on a reasonable schedule and at bargain-basement prices.”

  Sarnov looked at Max, who nodded once and said, “Colonel Bryce can certainly do that.”

  Sarnov said, “Nothing I know about this judge gives me the degree of confidence you have that he will give in to pressure.”

  “Max’s plan was a stroke of genius,” Laughlin said. “It will work.”

  “We have his little girl and her kid,” Peanut said. “And my daughter Dixie spoke to the judge personally about how to get them back safe and sound. He doesn’t know he’s going to be as dead as they are.”

  Ross Laughlin plucked a speck of lint off his pant leg. “Judge Fondren is a man who has lost his wife and son-in-law in a tragic accident. His grief is deep and he will not risk the sole remaining members of his immediate family over Bryce—someone whom he has no emotional investment in. The agent Bryce killed knew his risks, was killed in a war of sorts. Plus, I have introduced more than ample reasonable doubt to allow the judge to rule in Hunter Bryce’s favor without drawing too much criticism. The judge will go for it.”

  “You guarantee that?” Sarnov asked.

  “I guarantee it.”

  “My employers take guarantees as blood oaths. I sincerely hope you are correct,” Sarnov said. “By refusing to divulge the location of the shipment, for which my firm paid you three million up front upon my assurances, Colonel Bryce has in effect been extorting my employers for a year.”

  “The advance—a third of the purchase price your firm agreed to pay for the merchandise—went directly from me to the colonel and on to his suppliers to pay for the shipment,” Mr. Laughlin pointed out.

  “I understand business.” Sarnov shrugged. “But the fact remains that the firm’s funds have been in the hands of others, while our merchandise—which we never laid our eyes on—sits gathering dust, only Bryce knows where. We could not keep our word to the people we had promised to deliver to. It made us look like we have no control.”

  “You’re going to make out like bandits,” Peanut told the Russian. “You pay nine million and get stuff worth a minimum of three times that much.”

  “What you think,” Sarnov said to Peanut, “is of no importance or of any interest to me.” He turned back to Laughlin. “For all I know, the Feds have located the missing merchandise. Maybe what we have bought is long gone, or maybe they are waiting to catch us taking possession of it, or maybe they will track it and take down the people we sell it to. Perhaps the risks have risen exponentially with the passing time.”

  “The type of business we do is filled with maybes,” Peanut said. “Bigger profits always come with bigger risks.”

  Sarnov continued, “My employers have decided that some changes in the terms are necessary.”

  Mr. Laughlin crossed his legs. “Alterations at this point on an agreement that is in place? Your employers and I have a mutually profitable history.”

  “The cigarettes my people get hold of we sell to you people at less than we get from a lot of others,” Peanut added.

  Mr. Laughlin sat back and placed the tips of his fingers together.

  The Russians bought hundreds upon hundreds of cases of hijacked cigarettes and, after affixing forged state tax stamps to the packs, sold them to store owners all over the world.

  Sarnov said, “But for the other business that we do, you and your helper here would be dead already. Keeping an advance without delivering on an agreed-upon schedule isn’t something we would normally allow.”

  “What?” Peanut said, bristling at the man’s threat. He wished he could whip out his stainless .44 special and blast the Russian’s heart out.

  “What sort of alteration do you have in mind?” Laughlin asked.

  “The up-front payment will become a rebate against the total we owe,” Serge said.

  “Bull dooky,” Peanut scoffed.

  “I could do this,” Mr. Laughlin said, cool as a cucumber. “I repay the three mil out of my own pocket and you walk away from this deal. It’s the long-term association that matters. I am quite certain I can line up new buyers for the Bryce merchandise.”

  Sarnov smiled. “In order to salvage our reputation with our buyers, we will expect to take delivery of that shipment and pass it along as planned. Naturally we will have to give the buyers a considerable discount for the inconvenience factor.”

  “You mean you’d like a thirty-three percent discount on the deal?” Mr. Laughlin asked, raising a brow.

  “Yes. It’s fair for the year you
’ve had our money,” the Russian said.

  “You must be on dope!” Peanut blurted out. “Of all the screwball crap I ever heard, that takes the cake!”

  Mr. Laughlin held up his hand to silence Peanut.

  Peanut was running figures in his head. He was getting a twenty percent cut of Mr. Laughlin’s ten points on Colonel Bryce’s deals. He was getting one hundred grand for the Dockery kidnapping and disposal of the bodies. Four of his kids would get five thousand each. If Sarnov got his asked-for cuts, Peanut would lose a lot of money.

  Sarnov lit a cigarette without asking permission, which bothered Peanut, but nobody else seemed to care. “We don’t have any business history with Colonel Bryce.”

  Laughlin said, “After this is over, your people can do deals with him for years to come.”

  Max nodded his agreement.

  Sarnov shrugged. He looked down at the ash on his cigarette, down the coffee table, and, seeing no ashtray, casually tapped ash into a cut-glass dish with peppermint candy in it.

  “If we don’t get the shipment, we expect you to pay us the profits we would have made if we had completed our end. A moment ago, Mr. Peanut set that figure at three hundred percent, which if my math is correct is twenty-seven million we would expect to receive.”

  “What?!” Laughlin said in disbelief.

  Peanut was sure he was hallucinating. Twenty-seven million dollars for something that never happened was insanity.

  Sarnov took a long pull from the cigarette and exhaled the smoke across the table. “In the interest of friendship and a valued business relationship, I’ll get my employers to take nine million if the deal doesn’t go through. If it works out, we pay a total of six for the shipment. After that, we do the deals like we initially agreed. A third down, two thirds upon delivery.”

  Peanut had watched the color drain from Mr. Laughlin’s face by degrees—his lips tightening. He had never seen Mr. Laughlin physically affected by anything.

  Peanut could keep quiet no longer. Mr. Laughlin didn’t know Russians as well as Peanut did, having watched the History Channel. “You commies have been pulling this bluff crap since World War II,” Peanut said, guffawing. He gestured with his hands in the air. “Ask for something crazy as hell, then threaten something insane like maybe a nuclear war, then y’all take the best deal going backwards you can get. You’re the world’s biggest bluffers.” He wagged his finger and smiled. “Ballsy sons of bitches. I’ll give you that. But it don’t play here in America. Not any longer.”