Lonesome Lawmen

Seven-2

“Mornin’.” Meathook filled the doorway of his bedroom from frame to frame and then some. His eyes were still groggy, his body stripped down to a pair of hip-hugging leather pants that left his massive chest bare—though bare wasn’t the best description for something so furry. He was a walking, talking biker-with-a-heart-of-gold cliché—something Dani usually tried to avoid in her life and her fiction. He was also a nice guy, who had done two tours in Vietnam, lost a child to death, his wife to denial of that death and dealt with it all by writing nonsense rhymes for children. A stereotype with a twist, she thought. She needed him, his innate goodness, more than she needed her soda or M&Ms. Though she was happy that his house had both.

He roughed up his beard and stretched. “Thought you’d still be getting your Z’s.”

She hadn’t slept much, but it was easier to agree than explain she’d finished her chapters and cruised the Internet most of the night. “Been checking my email.”

And wishing she hadn’t done that part. She lay against his mama’s Naugahyde couch, her laptop with Dark Lord’s email still on the screen resting on her knees, her feet resting on the scarred, biker magazine-buried coffee table. On one side was a purple lava lamp, on the other a full size street sign from Las Vegas. In front of her, a fake fireplace mantel covered with an array of photos that started with a wrinkled newborn and stopped with a bright-eyed little boy of seven.

Meat rubbed his face vigorously, then crossed in front of her on an intercept course with the refrigerator. He held up a carton of orange juice. “You want some?”

“No thanks. I already had a soda.” She held up the can, but the caffeine in it hadn’t helped. She was tired right down to her soul. If she was about to break, she was too tired to know it.

Meat drank out of the carton, carried it with him to the mantel where he stopped by the last picture in the row, a photo of little boy in uniform kneeling by a soccer ball. He stroked the picture lightly, as if he were stroking his son’s head.

Dani had a feeling this was something he did every day. How well she understood the compulsion. Even after ten years, she would be somewhere and panic wondering where Meggie was. Or she’d see a toy she knew she’d like and be up to the checkout before she remembered.

“He’s beautiful,” Dani said, huskily. She hesitated, then asked, “How’s Opal?”

Meat hunched his shoulders, turning from his son’s picture to the window that overlooked the junk yard. “Piss poor. Can’t stop blaming herself. I don’t think she’s going to get over it.”

“Getting over it isn’t an option, is it?”

“No. It ain’t.” He looked at her. “But we ain’t sitting in a hospital staring at a blank wall.”

Dani smiled wryly, thinking about Meggie’s father who spent his days staring into a whisky bottle. “Maybe we should be.”

His laugh was surprised, edged with loss. “Yeah, maybe. How come we’re not?”

What made it possible for some people to absorb the body blow of loss, while it was a knock-out punch for others? Why was she trying so hard to keep going when it would be so much easier to quit? For answers to these and other questions, stay tuned, she thought wryly.

Aloud she said, “I don’t know. I know if I sit for too long, I have to pee. Once I’m up—“ She shrugged, “I just keep going. I guess I don’t know how to stop.”

Was going forward progress, she wondered suddenly, or just a different form of denial? She looked up and realized he was looking at her, his dark eyes uncomfortably penetrating.

“What?” she asked.

“You want to talk about what you don’t know how to stop?”

She had known before she met him that he wouldn’t be clueless, but thought she was putting on a good show. Apparently she thought wrong.

“It’s pretty deep, Meat. Deep and dangerous.”

He dropped down next to her, making a crater in the Naugahyde surface. She slid down it and thumped against his side. He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed. It was like being hugged by a tree trunk.

“Tell your uncle Meat all about it.”

Dani chuckled, even as tears pricked at her tired eyes. Telling was too hard, so Dani turned the laptop with Dark Lord’s letter front and center toward him. She didn’t have to read along with him. She had it memorized after the first read through.

Are you sleeping nights?

If she had been sleeping, which she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be now.

Meat inhaled sharply. “Why’s this bastard got it in for you?”

“For him, it’s a business transaction.” Amazing as it seemed, it wasn’t personal. He was a supplier, her death the demand. “You been following the Richard Hastings case?”

Meat frowned. “He’s that do-gooder that plugged some chick last year?” At Dani’s nod, he frowned. “What’s that got to do with you?”

“I saw him do it. I knew him. His bad luck. My bad luck, he doesn’t want to go to prison. This guy,” Dani nodded at the screen, “is gonna make me forget what I saw.”

“Bastards.” Meat’s forehead creased, finally, he asked, “What’s a do-gooder doing hiring a hit?”

Her laugh was sharp and unamused. “They tell me the FBI is wondering the same thing. As far as I know, they haven’t found out. I’ve known Richard since I was sixteen and I don’t get it.”

And what had all that knowing added up to? Nothing. Even now, with the picture of him killing burned in her brain so it could play and replay in her nightmares, some part of her couldn’t quite believe it. Was she that gullible or was he that clever? Would she live long enough to find out?

“Sucks, don’t it?”

“Dead toads,” she agreed.

Meat grinned, then grew serious. He tapped the screen lightly. “Isn’t this kind of weird? I admit I’m not up on hit men protocol, but this is pushing the envelope. I wonder—“

He stopped, obviously following a line of thought she couldn’t see. Dani waited a bit, but finally prompted, “Wonder what?”

“I bet this guy is a regular on the Net. See that crap at the top?”

“Yeah?”

“The right person could use it to trace him back to his dirty, little hidey hole.”

“I knew that. But Spook told me you can counterfeit that stuff.”

“Spook would know,” Meat conceded. “But you can’t hide your personal style. If he’s on the boards, Boomer Edison can find him.”

“Really?” It was an interesting concept. “Could I talk to him?”

“If you can throw a leg over a Harley, I can take you to him.”

Dani smiled. “I’ve always wanted to throw a leg over a Harley—as long as the leg was still attached to my body.”

Meat chuckled. “Can you wait for my lunch hour? Gotta get a Hog ready for 11:30.”

“No problem.” It would give her time to come up with a Harley-compatible persona suitable for public viewing.