Tyrell laughed. “Oh, dear, Mr. Michaels, you’re not a good judge of character. I bet you didn’t see this one coming. You’re always putting your trust in the wrong person.”
Josh ignored him. “Just do it, Bob, if you’re going to.”
“Josh, you don’t understand,” Bob pleaded.
“I don’t care why you did it. I just hope you were well paid,” Josh said, defeated.
“Don’t worry, Josh, Bob will be well looked after.
He knows when there’s a good offer on the table. I think that’s part of your problem. You don’t know a good opportunity when you see it. If you’d done the right thing and drowned in your car, just think of all the destruction that you would have saved your family and friends. A lot of people wouldn’t be dead, if you’d thought this through.”
“Just order it done, Tyrell. I don’t need to listen to your crap.”
“Oh, good God, no. You don’t think we’re going to kill you here, in my office? What do you take me for, an idiot? We’ll take you somewhere,” he said.
“I ” think you’re an idiot, Mr. Tyrell,” Bob said, the gun still aimed in the direction of the other two men in the office.
Bob’s remark knocked the smile off Tyrell’s face.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry, Josh. I had to do it this way. He offered me a deal and I took it. It was the only way to get this close to the man. I was meant to come here to make a deal after you were killed, but I couldn’t let him do it.
Once I found you and you told me Kelso was dead, I made a change of plans. I told him I was bringing you here to get rid of you.”
Josh felt as confused as Tyrell. Bob’s rambling was going straight over his head.
“Kate and Abby aren’t dead,” Bob added. They’re alive? Josh heard the revelation, but it was too much for him. He buckled at the knees and slumped against Tyrell’s desk to catch his fall.
“What are you doing, Bob?” Fear and caution were
evident in Tyrell’s question.
Bob produced a small tape recorder from his pocket.
The spools were revolving and the record button was depressed. “It was the only way I could see us trapping him,” he said to Josh.
“You’re making a terrible mistake, Bob. Give me
that tape and we’ll forget all about this,” Tyrell commanded.
His hand edged toward the phone.
“Shut the fuck up before I shoot you.” Bob’s hand shook. If the gun went off, the bullet could go anywhere.
Like a gunslinger in a shootout, Tyrell reached for the telephone on his desk. Reacting to the draw, Bob instinctively aimed and fired. The bullet went wild. The vice president grabbed the handset. Bob fired again.
Tyrell screamed as the second bullet pierced his hand, splitting the handset in two. The receiver exploded and electrical sparks sizzled amongst the keys as they scattered like broken teeth. Tyrell clutched his bleeding
hand to his chest.
“Don’t make another fucking move.” Bob looked as
shaken as Tyrell did.
Tyrell whimpered and clutched his injured hand. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and bound it around his palm. Bob wasn’t taking any chances and kept the gun trained on Tyrell.
“Kate and Abby are alive?” Josh asked.
Bob’s eyes flicked from Tyrell to Josh and back to Tyrell. “Yeah. I made the deal with this son of a bitch and he told me Kelso was planning to blow up the
house. I got there before Kelso did and I got them out.
I know I should have told you when I caught up with you, but I needed you to help make a convincing story.
I’m sorry.”
Josh didn’t care about Bob not telling him. He
could be angry with his friend later. He wanted out of this place, as far as possible from Tyrell and his filthy company. He wanted to go home to his family and fix everything, put everything back the way it used to be. But then he remembered that life could never be the same, not now that Bell had told him about her disease.
“You
two won’t get away with this,” Tyrell said.
Sweat clinging to his forehead, Dexter Tyrell’s face was a mask of pain, but he didn’t feel the pain Josh felt.
Josh lunged for Tyrell in his chair. The vice president flinched, anticipating a beating. He turned his head away and raised his hands up to his face. His body collapsed into a fetal position. Josh held a fist above the executive’s head, ready to strike, but hesitated when he saw the picture on Tyrell’s desk.
Josh snatched up the framed photograph. It wasn’t a picture of his wife or a loved one, but the cover of some business magazine featuring Tyrell. Josh smashed the picture frame down on the corner of the desk. The frame shattered and pieces of glass and broken wood fell from Josh’s grasp. Josh dropped what was left of the frame. He picked up the largest of the pieces of broken glass and held it like a knife.
“Give me your arm,” Josh snarled.
“What?”
“Give me your fucking arm!” Josh barked.
Tyrell remained curled in a ball. He yelped like a wounded dog when Josh grabbed the man’s unwounded arm. He banged Tyrell’s left arm onto the
desk blotter.
Bob rushed forward. “What the hell are you doing, Josh? We have him. He’s finished.”
“Don’t come any closer, Bob.”
Bob did as he was told and looked on in fear.
Raising the shard of glass, Josh slashed it across Dexter Tyrell’s wrist. He yelped again. Blood filled the laceration and crimson poured down the sides of his arm onto the blotter.
“Don’t fucking move!” Josh bellowed at Tyrell.
Josh jammed his foot into the pit of the vice president’s stomach. He put his right arm on his right knee
and drew the makeshift knife across his own wrist.
“Josh,” Bob said.
Dropping the glass fragment, Josh took his foot out of Tyrell’s gut. He interlaced his fingers with Tyrell’s fingers so both cut wrists touched. The two men’s blood mixed. Josh pressed down on their wrists with his other hand, ensuring their blood mingled.
Tyrell looked on in disbelief. He fixed his gaze on Josh, then at the bizarre ritual being performed upon him. Slack-jawed, he said nothing.
“Good. We’re blood brothers, Tyrell.” Josh applied more pressure to their joined wounds. Blood oozed out from between their arms like jam squeezed from an overfilled sandwich. “I’m infected, Mr. Tyrell, and if luck is on my side, so are you.”
“Oh, my God.” Bob fell into one of Tyrell’s club
chairs.
“What have you done?” Tyrell demanded.
Josh enjoyed seeing the fear in Tyrell’s eyes.
“My blackmailer, my ex-mistress, murdered by your boy, told me one important fact before she died. She was diagnosed HIV positive.” Josh relished the moment.
The words HIV positive struck terror into all those who had contracted the virus and it was no different for Dexter Tyrell. Josh smiled at the fear in Tyrell’s eyes.
Tyrell fought Josh to wrench his arm free. Josh gripped tighter onto the vice president’s hand. He pressed down even harder onto Tyrell’s arm and head butted him, ending his struggle.
.; Tyrell yelped, and the blood drained from his face.
His resistance dissipated and Josh relinquished his grip on the vice president’s arm.
“Regardless of what happens to you or me, I have
the satisfaction of knowing your life is as uncertain as mine,” Josh said to Tyrell.
Dexter Tyrell stared at his wounded arm, then at
Josh. His panicked expression said it all. He was trying to comprehend what had happened to him and was
coming up short. Things like this happened to other people, not him.
Bob stared at the executive then, at his friend. “Oh, Josh.” “Call the police. Let’s finish this,” Josh said.