First Drop

lip.

“So, what are you gonna do with us?” he asked.

“Well, if there’s one thing I can’t stomach, Jim,” Brown said reflectively, “it’s people I can’t trust.”

“We were just trying to get them both for you,” Whitmarsh said, hurried now.

“Didn’t happen to kinda mention that change of plan to me, now did you?” Haines put in.

“There wasn’t time. I—”

“Plenty of time to get Lonnie and his shotgun into position under Henry’s place, though, wasn’t there?” I asked, using a mild tone to disguise the wedge I was trying to hammer in between them. Divide and conquer.

Haines’s eyebrows went up then came straight down again as the import of that sank in. “So it was you wasted Chico?” he murmured, glancing at Lonnie. “And there was I thinking the chick had picked up some more armament. I shoulda known it couldn’t be her.”

He turned to Brown, waving a careless hand towards Whitmarsh and Lonnie. “You want I should get rid of these two when I do the others?”

It was like he was offering to empty a waste paper basket.

Brown shook his head, though frowning like he’d given it serious thought. “We still need to get a hold of the boy and I have plans for Mr Whitmarsh,” he said grimly. “After he’s handed over everything useful he got from Keith, he can be the one who gets to dump these three. Take all of them back to the resort and out into the swampland at the back of the place. Wait ‘til sundown and in a coupla days there won’t be much evidence left.”

“Livingston, for Chrissake, please!” Keith looked as if he were about to burst into tears. “You’re my friend. Don’t do this to me!” Not us, I noted. Me.

Brown regarded him stonily. “You ain’t delivered the goods,” he said. “You’ve kinda disappointed me, Keith.”

At the far end of the corridor I heard the quiet clank of the push-bar being operated to open another of the doors from the seating area.

I tensed automatically, hearing the guns of Brown’s men come up. If it was another security guard, or some stupid lost kids, there was going to be more bloodshed.

A single figure stepped through the opening and froze as he took in the scene of carnage in front of him, his hand still on the latch.

My first reaction was horror but anger wasn’t far behind.

“Trey, you dumb little bastard!” I yelled at him, furious. “Get out of here!”

I broke into a run towards him, like I could scare him off. Before I’d taken more than two strides Haines had swung round and caught me a stinger across the base of my skull with the butt of the Smith & Wesson.

The blow was hard enough to put me on the ground. I went sprawling onto my hands and knees, jarring both wrists in the fall. I stayed down, fighting against the pitted blackness that was enveloping my vision, waiting until the floor was steady enough for me to attempt to rise.

At the same moment Sean had ducked his head and charged the one of Brown’s men who was nearest to him, regardless of the weapon. He’d swept the man off his feet before the other reacted. By the time I looked round Sean was on the ground too, braced against the blows that had put him down and were continuing to keep him there. Well that explained why Brown had contracted in Haines and Whitmarsh to do his dirty work for him. His own guys had come close to being beaten by a man who, quite literally, had both hands tied behind his back.

Haines ignored that scuffle. He leaned over and put the barrel of his gun next to my left eye. The blued steel was cold against my skin.

“Give yourself up or watch her die,” he called to Trey.

The kid hesitated, then he edged further into the corridor, skinny shoulders rounded in defeat. He didn’t even move when Haines left me and went forwards to grab him by the arm, dragging him back to where Brown was waiting.

When the boy tugged against the punishing grip, Haines shook him like a rag, almost throwing him down rather than releasing him. Trey glowered and rubbed his arm where Haines’s fingers had left reddened marks.

My head had cleared enough for me to look up at him.

“You stupid little brat,” I said bitterly. “Don’t you ever listen?”

He scowled some more, defiant. “I couldn’t just, like, leave you here.”

Haines chuckled. “Well isn’t that cute?” he said. “Now you get to all die together.”

“No, no, we can work this out, surely?” Keith said. He hurried towards Brown, eager, keeping slightly ducked and submissive. “I didn’t know Trey was working on the neural net independent of me. I mean, he’s just a kid, y’know? I had no idea he’d made such progress with it.” He shoved his glasses back up his nose with a grubby finger and rushed on, his voice almost a gabble. “I need to check out his data, of course, but maybe I can knock it into some kinda shape. Maybe I can still give you what you want. Just give me another chance!”

“‘Me’?” Trey said, his voice quietly cutting. “‘I’?” He’d gone very still, watching his father with simmering resentment. “What d’you mean, ‘maybe you can knock it into shape’ huh? It’s my work, not yours!”

Keith gave a high-pitched nervous laugh, eyes darting from side to side. “Now now, Trey, don’t let’s argue about this now son, huh?” he said, in that strained way parents have of speaking out of the side of their mouths when their children are about to monumentally embarrass them in a public place.

“No,” Trey said, folding his arms across his chest so his fingers were tucked under his armpits, just leaving the thumbs out, like he was feeling the cold. He shifted his weight down onto one hip, confrontational. “Let’s talk about it right now, Dad.”

“What’s there to talk about, for Chrissake?” Keith snapped, the tension getting the better of him. His hands were a constant jitter. “I evaluate what you’ve done and, if it holds up, I incorporate it into the program. End of story.”

For a moment Trey didn’t respond, just stared fixedly at nothing, chewing his lower lip like he was struggling not to cry. “So you, like, actually admit I coulda done something you couldn’t, huh?”

Keith frowned. “What do you think?” he said, pained and edgy.

Trey nodded to himself, as though accepting that this was probably the nearest he was going to get to an admission of his own worth in the eyes of his father.

“So what do I get out of this?”

“Oh for crying out loud, Trey!” Now Keith looked as though he was the one about to burst into tears, or wet himself. Or both. “What d’you want, for Chrissake? A raise in your allowance?”

“I just want the truth,” he said, stubborn. “The truth about how you murdered my mother.”

“What?” Keith’s voice rose to an outraged squeal. “Of course I didn’t murder her. For Chrissake, Trey!” He brought his fists up to the sides of his head like he was about to tear his own hair out. Then he let them fall with a slap against his thighs. “She left us, OK? She walked out.”

“She would never have abandoned me like that,” Trey said tightly, body rigid to the point of quivering, two splotches of colour highlighted his otherwise pale face. “You murdered her. Admit it, or you can go fuck yourself before I’ll give you squat!”

“OK, OK!” Keith said, rolling his eyes, desperate now. “I did it, OK? Your mom didn’t move to Cleveland with the guy from the seven-eleven across the street. I killed her and buried her in the back yard. The front yard. Wherever. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yeah,” Trey said and I saw his shoulders come down a fraction, as though he was relaxing for the first time.

“So, I get your data on the neural net, yeah?” Keith demanded.

But to everyone’s surprise, Trey shook his head.

“Oh come on, Trey,” Keith managed to force out from between his clenched teeth, “you can’t fuck about with these people. If you’ve got something I can use then I need it, mister, and I need it right now or—”

Trey shrugged. “That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t, like, have anything. There is no data. There never was any data.” His voice broke then, the tears squeezing their way out however much he was willing them back. He scrubbed them away, furious with himself, and lurched on with his fiercely controlled tirade.

“This so-called miracle program you’ve been, like, telling everyone is almost finished? Well, I got news for