by air traffic controllers.
“Walk away,” Green said softly. “Your money will be doubled, and-since we’ve come to find each other so distasteful-we don’t ever have to have contact again.”
I raised a forefinger, gently, and nodded toward the names carved in granite. “One little thing-you’re going to need to revise that headstone.”
“Really?”
“That wasn’t Janet in that car.”
He took it like a slap. Time stuttered, and his mouth dropped open, his eyes flaring; but despite this obvious alarm, the millionaire went into immediate denial, saying, “Well, certainly it was Janet.”
“No. She’s alive and well and somewhere you can’t find her.”
“You are insane…”
“See, Jonah, your girls got a little tipsy, the night before,” I said, “and next morning Julie put on one of her sister’s coats…it was chilly…and went out to get the car, to bring it around to give her hungover sister a ride to work.”
His face turned white, like the dead skin a blister leaves.
I went on: “I liked Julie. You’re right-she did have fire. Particularly at the end, there.”
“No,” Green said, and he tried to smile, tried to shrug it off. “No, I don’t believe you…This is some sick-”
“Hey, what’s the difference, Dad? Trust fund money is trust fund money.”
That was when he lost it, and rushed me, reaching out with curled fingers to try to strangle me, I guess. And he was a big man, bigger than me, and powerful, despite the years he had on me. I could hear the security guys, not bothering with headsets now, flat-out yelling, on the run.
But then I had Jonah Green locked in an embrace, my arms pinning his, and I was close enough to kiss the bastard.
I grinned into his fucking face and said, “That’s not all you’ll need to revise on that headstone…”
Then I shifted, holding him by one arm, and I let him sense the nose of the nine millimeter in his gut, just so he could know it was coming, and I fired twice. The sounds were muffled by his clothing and his body, and were like coughs, not even loud enough to echo.
Stepping back, releasing him from my embrace, I watched with pleasure as he stumbled back, open- mouthed, awkward and-arms windmilling-tripped over the metal tubing of the lowering device and tumbled backward into his daughter’s grave, smacking the metal of the casket, hard.
Now that echoed.
The security guys had me surrounded and I wheeled, going from face to face, smiling easily, my gun in hand pointed skyward, my other hand up, too.
“No need, fellas!” I said. “You’re off the payroll. Time to hit the unemployment lines…”
They began trading glances, considering my words-after all, they had just seen the prick they worked for gut-shot, twice, and presumably they’d been told I was dangerous, I was in fact why they were fucking here, so I was clearly a guy with a gun who, if confronted, would take some of them down.
But Jonah Green was a tough old bird, and badly wounded though he was, bleeding from the mouth, front of his clothing splotched with blood, he was nonetheless alive, and trying to crawl, claw his way up and out of the ground.
When his head popped up in that grave, his men jumped a little; and maybe I did, too.
“Shoot him!” Green cried, gargling blood a little as he did. He was holding onto a metal tube of the lowering device. “Cut him down!”
When the guns started appearing in the hands of the security men, I moved out, ducking back behind the massive Green family gravestone, firing the nine millimeter at the only guy in sunglasses, headset and raincoat on that side of the world.
The guy took it in the head, and fell backward, like a narcoleptic suddenly asleep, but leaving blood mist behind.
With the headstone as cover, I took out the two closest ones, and each did an individualistic death dance, though with much in common-spurting blood, tumbling to the snowy grass-while the surviving trio went scrambling for cover, behind other gravestones.
I used the rest of the clip exchanging gunfire with them, bullets careening and whing ing off the granite headstones, carving nicks and holes. But they were spread out just enough to make my task difficult.
Concentrating on one at a time, I took the nearest to me when he slipped his head out to take aim, my shot sending him back, sprawling against another gravestone, staring in surprise with both eyes and the new hole between them.
We all stayed put while shadows chased each other under the cold cloud-shifting sky. Wind riffled branches and stubborn leaves whispered and some of us were breathing hard, but not me. I felt fine, and was thinking what a tempting goal the Caddy hearse on the hillock made.
The keys to it were in my pocket, but the remaining security boys were between me and the vehicle. I needed to get closer.
Plus, I had to get a better angle on the other shooters, so I quickly reloaded and took a chance, breaking cover to sprint for a better position. I heard three shots but none of them came close to catching me, and I flopped behind another headstone, alive and well.
“ Now,” I heard one of them say, and peeked out and saw them both running for new positions, in opposite directions.
I could only choose one. He had almost made it to cover when my shot caught him in the side of the head and he went tumbling on now useless legs.
The other guy had found a new spot, a good one, behind a massive affair with a granite angel perched on top. He and I both had good cover now, and we traded shots and chipped pieces off our respective headstones and didn’t get anywhere.
But I could hear him breathing-breathing hard-and, hell, I wasn’t even winded. I was older by fifteen years easy, but I was a swimmer, remember; this guy must have been a smoker, and that can kill your ass.
So I had that advantage, if nothing else. Listening carefully, I could hear him doing a speed-reload, and I was grinning as I popped up, blasting away at his headstone, specifically at the decorative angel, emptying the clip.
The cupid-like statue flew apart, into fragments, bursting into the guy’s face. He cried out as he reared back, and I took the opportunity to sprint for that hearse, shoving in a fresh clip as I did.
My opponent was too busy blinking away dust and chips, his face flecked with shards of granite, to get a good aim at my fleeing figure.
Still on the run, I took a look back and thought what the hell and aimed and fired.
He, too, took a bullet in the head and fell backward, haloed in blood, flung between stones, just as dead as anybody already underground.
I got into the hearse and started it up, then swung around onto the little gravel roadway, where the windshield gave me a view on a tableau that would have been memorable even without the scattered bodies of the security team…
…Jonah Green emerging from his daughter’s grave, crawling up over those metal lowering tubes, the front of him shot up, but definitely still alive, and then he was on his feet, albeit weaving like a damn drunk.
He teetered at the edge of the grave, his back to it-unsteady yes, but standing, and the square face set with almost crazed determination.
To do what? I wondered. Survive? Kill me?
So I floored the fucking thing, found a lane between gravestones, and went charging across the grass, and he must have heard the engine’s roar because he turned toward me, the determination shifting to terror, as the hearse bore down.
I clipped him good as I passed, garnering a truly satisfying crunch, and sent him toppling back into the grave, landing to make another metallic, echoing thud.
Slamming on the brakes, I hopped out, nine millimeter in my fist, and ran to the grave, where Green-down in there on top of his daughter’s copper coffin, arms in crucifixion position-looked up at me with the money-color eyes wide open and staring.
But he didn’t see me. He was very, very dead.
