Currency of Souls

intends to die, to join Queenie on the other side. There are no parasites in the afterlife. All that’s left to do is to reload the rifle and set it up so he can end his own miserable existence.

Cadaver looks at him. “Damn shame that,” he says.

Hendricks swallows, backs up a step, collides with the jamb, sidesteps and moves out into the hall. “She was sick. It was eating her brain. I had to do it.”

“You’re a bit confused, friend,” Cadaver says, and follows him step for step. “Weren’t nothin’ wrong with her.”

“She was dying. She wasn’t right.”

“The cancer’s in your head, Doc,” Cadaver tells him. “Care to come downstairs so I can show you all the envelopes you’ve been hidin’ from her? All the test results and hospital correspondence that testifies to what’s gone crooked in your brain?”

“Get out of here,” Hendricks says, heat flushing across his cheeks. This is preposterous. He has never had much business with this man, and certainly hasn’t treated him. Why now he should break into his house and make such cruel and preposterous claims while his poor wife lies dead a few feet away is beyond him. He knows what those letters he keeps locked in the bureau say. He knows who the patient is and what the diagnosis was. Therefore, he knows Cadaver is lying. Thankfully, he has the means to do something about that right here in his hands. “Get out of my house and leave us alone.”

“I will. In a moment,” Cadaver says, his voice an inhuman whisper. “Despite what you might be thinkin’ right now, I didn’t come here just to enlighten you.”

“You have five seconds to leave.” To emphasize the threat, he raises the rifle.

“You haven’t reloaded.”

He’s right of course, but Hendricks stands his ground, does not lower the weapon. If it comes to it, there’s nothing to stop him from swinging the Winchester and crushing the old man’s skull. “What do you want?”

“You’re a murderer now, Doc. And as such you’ve opened yourself up to certain obligations.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cadaver glances over his shoulder, takes in the mess on the bed, clucks his tongue, then looks back to the doctor. “Call it an act of contrition.”

“I want you out of here right now.”

Cadaver reaches into the pocket of his coat and produces a set of keys. Hendricks recognizes them as the keys to his house and his Buick.

“What are you doing with those?”

“Nothin’,” Cadaver says and smiles. “You’re goin’ to drive.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The old man’s shoulders drop a little and his expression changes to one of regret. “I don’t enjoy this in the least, you know—”

“Then leave.”

“—But if I don’t do it, then the consequences for us all would be catastrophic.”

“Get out of my fucking house.” Spittle flies from Hendricks’ lips. Terror worms its way through him. He has rehearsed this scenario a thousand times and not one of them had a mad old man standing in his way.

Cadaver raises the keys between them. “Here’s how it goes. You drive, you kill a man, and you get to go back to what you were plannin’ to do before I rudely interrupted this very intimate execution.”

“Kill a man? No.”

“What difference will it make? You’ve killed once already today, and if you really do have the stones to kill yourself, no one’ll be able to make you answer for it.”

Hendricks shakes his head. “Not in this life, maybe. But afterwards…”

Cadaver reaches out a hand, pats him on the shoulder, ignoring the fact that the muzzle of the rifle is a half-inch from his chin. The doctor feels the cold hard cylinder of the old man’s microphone digging into his flesh. Then Cadaver withdraws his hand, presses the mike to his throat again. “I don’t offer many assurances, Doc, but one I can give you is that where you’re headed, you won’t have to answer for a damned thing.”

“You can’t know that. No one could know that.” He swallows. “Who are you?” The rifle is slipping from his sweaty grip.

Cadaver’s still holding the keys in his other hand. Now he gives them a little jingle, nods as if everything has been settled. “Time to…”

* * *

“Hit the road, Jack.” Brody’s got the knife to my throat, but he’s looking at Wintry, who isn’t moving. “C’mon, beat it. And I don’t think I need to tell you what I’ll do to your friend here if you try something, right?”

Wintry still doesn’t move. I’m overcome by a peculiar sense of deja vu, then recall the standoff back at Eddie’s, how Brody kept barking commands at Wintry, which Wintry disregarded in his attempts to help the girl. I’m hoping to hell he doesn’t try that trick again. Chances are it’ll only get me killed first before the kid turns the knife to him, and though he looked fired up and capable of anything back in that field, Wintry doesn’t look like he could bat away a fly right now.

“Just…take it easy.” I raise my hands so Brody can see I’m not about to try anything. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Well, I appreciate the advice, Sheriff. Really. But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’m probably the most qualified of the three of us to decide what I need, don’t you think?” He looks back to Wintry. “The fire cook your fucking eardrums too? I said get the hell out.”

“He’s hurt bad, kid. We need to get him some help.”

“My heart bleeds.”

“He’s also the reason you’re not dead.”

“Which is the only reason I’m letting him out here. Now for the last time, big guy, move!”

Only Wintry’s eyes obey. He looks at me. Apology and regret swim like rockfish through the pools of his pain, and with excruciating slowness, he reaches for the door release.

“It’s all right,” I mutter. “It’s going to be fine.”

“That’s right,” Brody adds. “Everything’s going to be peachy if we all do as I say.”

“Hey,” I call after Wintry as he eases himself out of the truck, his legs wobbling as he looks back at me. I lick my lips. “Name that tune.”

He nods, gives me a flicker of a smile. “Good luck with that.”

“The hell does that mean?” Brody asks, annoyed, and the blade digs a little deeper into the flesh at my throat.

“An old joke. Can you ease off a bit with the knife, kid? I’m not going anywhere, trust me.”

“Trust you? Trust the guy that psycho priest said was supposed to kill me? The guy who left me with The Man with the Flaming Hands and buried my girl in a shallow grave behind a dive bar? Yeah, shit, Sheriff, we’re the next best thing to pals, you and me. Let’s not even start in on the whole you being a cop thing.”

“Just listen.”

“Go right ahead.”

“I have no interest in turning you in.”

He scoffs. “That so? Jeez, the handcuffs might not have been the best way to show that.”

“I did, sure. But not anymore. All I care about now is getting to my son in time to help him. He’s in trouble.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Guy likes to ventilate skulls that much is bound to get his ass handed to him sooner or later. Hell, I know what that’s like. I’ll be lucky to live to see the Mexican border, and I’m all right with that. But what I can tell you right now is that I’m sure as shit not going to be run down in a backwater hole like this. So I’m taking your truck, Sheriff, and whether or not I leave you as a corpse in the dust all depends on what you do in the next five minutes.”

“You can go. I won’t stop you. I give you my word on that.”

“Good.”

“But you’re not taking the truck.”

“Say again?”