“I’m telling you to shut the-”
“He’ll roll like a bowling ball on a ski slope, Leonard. Give you up like he’s buttering toast.”
Leonard picked up the gun, pointed it at me. “Shut up or I’ll do you myself. Right now.”
“Okay,” I said. “Just one thing, Leonard. Just-”
“Stop saying my name!” He lowered the gun, put his hands to his eyes again.
“-one more thing, and I’m not shitting around here. I got some ugly, ugly friends. I mean, pray the cops get to you first.”
He raised his head, pulled his hands from his eyes. “You think I’m scared of your friends?”
“I think you’re starting to be. And that’s smart, Leonard. You ever done time?”
He shook his head.
“Bullshit. My guess is you’ve even run with a crew or two. Strictly North Shore, I’m guessing.”
He said, “Fuck off. You think your shit talk can scare me? I got a black belt, motherfucker. I’m a seventh degree-”
“You could be the bastard love child of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, Leonard, and Bubba Rogowski and his crew will eat you up like rats on a bag of ground beef.”
Leonard picked up the gun again when he heard Bubba’s name. He didn’t point it. He just gripped it.
Upstairs, Cody’s footsteps hammered the floor as he ran back and forth in the bedroom.
Leonard blew air out his rubbery lips. “Bubba Rogowski,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “Nope. Never heard of him.”
“Sure, Leonard,” I said. “Sure.”
Leonard looked at the gun in his hand. Then looked into my face.
“Really, I-”
“’Member the Billyclub Morton hit, Leonard? Come on. He was a North Shore guy.”
Leonard nodded, and his left cheekbone developed a small tic.
I said, “You heard who did Billyclub, didn’t you? I mean, it’s one of his more notorious hits. I hear Billyclub’s skull looked like a tomato blown apart by dynamite. Heard they had to ID through dentals. Heard-”
Leonard said, “Okay, okay. Okay? Fuck.”
A drawer was wrenched off its runners upstairs, and Cody screamed, “ Eureka!”
I resisted the urge to toss a panicky look over my shoulder or up at the ceiling. I kept my voice calm and soft.
I said, “Leave, Leonard. Take the gun with you and walk away. Do it now and do it fast.”
“I-”
“Leonard,” I hissed. “Either the cops or Bubba Rogowski. Someone’s going to nail you on this. You know it. Cody’s strictly Toys ‘R’ Us in this department. No more fucking around, you piece of shit. You’re either in this to the wall or you’re walking now.”
Leonard said, “I don’t want to kill you, man. I just-”
“Then, go,” I said softly. “No more time. Now or never.”
Leonard stood. He placed a sweaty palm on the butcher block and took several deep breaths.
I straightened my back against the wall and pushed up, felt my head swim and a momentary numbness find my nose and mouth as I reached my full height.
“Take the gun,” I said. “Go.”
Leonard looked at me, his face a mask of stupidity and fear and confusion.
I nodded.
He ran a hand over his mouth.
I held his eyes.
And then Leonard nodded.
I resisted the urge to chuck a sigh of relief the size of a mountain out of my lungs.
He walked past me and let himself out the glass door that led to the back deck. He didn’t look back. Once he reached the deck, he picked up speed, lowered his head, and cut through the yard, let himself out the side gate.
One down, I thought, shaking my head and puffing air into my cheeks to try and clear my vision.
I heard Cody’s footsteps approach the staircase.
One to go.
11
I did several quick squats to return blood to my legs and sucked up as much of the oxygen in the room as I could.
Cody’s feet hit the top of the staircase and he started to descend.
I inched my way along the wall toward the corner of the kitchen.
When Cody came down the bottom of the stairs, he shouted, “ Eureka!” again. He bounded around the corner and tripped over my foot, and a sheaf of brightly colored paper flew from his hands as he toppled into a bar stool and slammed his right hip and shoulder hard off the floor.
I doubt I’ve ever kicked anything as hard as I kicked Cody. I kicked his ribs and his groin, his stomach, his spine, and his head. I stomped on the backs of his knees, his shoulders, and both ankles. One of the ankles made a hard cracking sound as it snapped, and Cody ground his face into the floor and screamed.
“Where do you keep your knives?” I said.
“My ankle! My fucking ankle, you-”
I drove my heel down along the side of his head, and he screamed again.
“Where, Cody? Or I do the ankle again.” I thought of that gun in my face, that look in his eyes when he decided to take my life, and I gave him another kick to the ribs.
“Top drawer. The butcher block.”
I went around the butcher block and turned my back to the drawer as I pulled it open. I cut my fingers on the first knife blade, worked my way up to the handle, and pulled it out.
Cody rose to his knees.
I came back around the butcher block and stood over him as I worked the knife up between my wrists.
“Stay down, Cody.”
Cody turned on his side and pulled his knee up to his chest. He reached down and touched his ankle, hissed through his teeth, and rolled over on his back.
I worked the blade up and down against the twine, felt it slice through, felt my wrists begin to spread apart. I kept slicing and watched Cody roll around at my feet.
The strands around my wrist suddenly separated and my wrists pulled free of one another.
I placed the knife on the counter and shook my hands in small circles for a full minute to get the circulation back.
I looked down at Cody on the floor as he held his ankle aloft, gripped his knee, and moaned, and I felt an exhaustion that had become all too common lately-a bitterness with what I did and what I’d become that had taken residence in my bone marrow like errant T cells.
I’d had hopes, it seemed, of becoming someone else at some point during my younger life. Hadn’t I? What kind of life was this-dealing with the Leonards and Cody Falks, breaking into homes and committing felonious assault, snapping the anklebones of human beings, however putrid those human beings might be?
Cody’s breath was coming in harsh sucking hisses as the shock wore off and the pain took hold.