“Well, look what we have here,” Gideon rolled down his window and spit. “Somebody’s done went and shot themselves a couple of wanna-be cops.” He shook his head and sighed in fake exasperation. “I dunno what this world’s comin’ to! Do you, Ollie?”
Ollie just shook his head. More bodies. More dead bodies. He wondered if you got used to seeing dead bodies. These men seemed no more concerned about it than if they were looking at a dead possum lying on the side of the byway.
Josie and Worm had gotten out and walked up to the side of Gideon’s truck. “Looks like we’re on the right trail.”
Gideon smiled a big yellow-toothed grin, cocking his ear toward the sound of the gun battle. “Yep! Sounds like it!”
“Sounds like they’re gonna be a bit preoccupied, too!” Worm interjected. “We do it right; they’ll never know what hit ‘em!”
About that time, Rivers stirred in agony, moaning out loudly.
“My God!” Ollie said, before realizing it. “He’s still alive!”
“Damn sure is!” Gideon agreed. A hideous catlike smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Poor soul. Be a shame to let him suffer. Why don’t you mosey on over there and put him outta his misery?”
Ollie felt his stomach twist in knots. It was one thing to want to kill a man in anger, a man he’d hated for years. Or send a wife who’d tormented and ridiculed him for years off to Mars to languish in some back-alley brothel. But to kill a wounded man like this? This wasn’t the sixteenth century. He probably just needed proper medical attention.
“Hell, ya wouldn’t be gettin’ soft on me now, would ya?” Gideon taunted him. “I thought you had some sand in yore gizzard, boy. Or was yore wife right about ya? You just some rich li’l pussy playing at bein’ bad?”
Ollie felt four sets of eyes on him, heavy like bricks in a sack. On the other side of Gideon, Josie stood on the pickup’s running board, leaning down to peer inside the window, his forearm braced against the top of the cab to steady him. Both he and his brother had cruel, shit-eating grins plastered across their ugly mugs, enjoying his discomfort. Standing a few feet back of Josie, the gunman, Worm, watched him coldly with dark, dead eyes, appraising him.
Ollie could almost read his thoughts. He ain’t got what it takes! He’s out of his league.
But when he glanced over at Junior, he saw something else in the young man’s eyes. Was it sympathy? Encouragement? Anger? Ollie wondered if the kid had suffered through the same ridiculing he was now enduring. He had the sneaking suspicion that the boy most likely had … many, many times over. He felt a sudden kinship with the young man.
Looking at Junior, it was apparent he’d taken after his mother. He wasn’t a bad looking lad, with long brown hair, nicely groomed and devoid of artificial color. His face bore little of his father’s pinched and hateful scowling. The brown eyes weren’t cruel and sadistic. There was still some softness, some humanity in them. There was also the perpetual sadness of someone resigned to a fate of misery. It was easy to see he took no pleasure in tormenting the man sitting next to him.
Ollie Oglethorpe was many things and few were redeeming, but it could never be said he was a coward. Now, as he sat there, looking at those grinning, ignorant bumpkins, he felt his temper begin to simmer. He wasn’t Junior Tuttle. He wouldn’t be beaten down like a dog, cowering every time his master raised his voice.
Fuck these redneck sisterfuckers!
“That man ain’t done a damned thing to me,” he raised his jaw in defiance. The old hood saw steel in the man’s gaze as their eyes met, and sparks flew. “If you want him dead so badly, you go kill him!”
Ollie’s rebuttal caught the men off-guard, and Gideon was taken aback by the audacity of it. For a moment, he just sat there, jaw hanging slightly agape. He sure hadn’t seen that one coming. After a few seconds, he turned to Josie, and the two men exchanged blank glances. When he turned back to Ollie, the eyes were still just as cold.
“Well,” he said in a begrudging tone, “looks like you gotta pair with some hair after all, don’t ye?”
“I got enough.” Ollie tried to keep his voice even, as the two men locked eyes. He felt as if the old redneck vice lord was trying to drill a hole through his brain with laser vision. It was all he could do not to waver.
Don’t look away! Don’t blink! If you do, he’ll never let you forget it! Fuck, look at those crazy eyes! This fucker’s insane! Scary! What the fuck am I doing? What was I thinking??
He was just about to waver when suddenly Gideon’s faced cracked, and he broke in a wild cackle.
“I had you goin’, didn’t I, boy?” He turned to Josie, who joined in on the guffawing. “Hell, look at him … all serious and shit!” The old man shook his head and snorted one last throaty chuckle. He then looked back at Ollie, those crazy eyes wild and dangerous once again. “Hell, boy! You think we’d show mercy to some law dawg? Let that sorry bastard suffer! He’s got it comin’ to him!”
Ollie’s body relaxed, and it felt like a tent falling in around him. He hadn’t realized just how tense he had been. But he’d stood his ground. He’d stood up to killer crazy. It felt good. It felt like a significant accomplishment.
So why did he want to puke right now?
Gideon reached over the steering wheel and grabbed a Lunarol injector off the dash. Tearing the package like a kid ripping open
