Room 6 was first floor. No spy hole. Clint knocked softly on the door and tried to mimic the clerk. “Miss Logan? This is Rakvi? The manager. I have a letter for you from a man named Charlie Hood?”
Mary Kate slid the deadbolt and Clint barged inside and hit her with the sap, top and middle of her skull. The book she was holding fell to the floor and Mary Kate slumped but he caught her before she hit. He slung her over his shoulder. He found her cell phone on the desk by the TV and used his free hand to slide it the front pocket of his jeans. He walked back into the lobby, where he got her upright. She couldn’t stand on her own so Clint clutched her tight around the waist and half-danced, half-dragged her to the car. It wasn’t easy to swing open the door and get her in but he managed. A passerby said it was kind of early to be that wasted and Clint told him his wife was a diabetic so go to hell.
He left San Diego, navigating wide around the Greyhound station, which was only a few blocks away. She was out, her head lolling against the door and window. Her eye was still discolored. When he was away from the city, down south on Interstate 5, he pulled off and found an out-of-the-way place to park and taped up her hands and ankles. She didn’t open her eyes. He snuck a kiss when he was done. He didn’t make the tape too tight, didn’t want to hurt her. He kissed her again, fully starved for some home-cooked love but he couldn’t do that to a girl in this condition. I got standards, he thought. Clint’s no rapist.
She hardly moved as he drove the interstate south toward Imperial Beach. In National City, she started to wake up. Clint pulled off again and parked in a strip mall parking lot and rolled down a window. He listened to the radio. It was all about the bombing in Buenavista. But they couldn’t even figure out how many rockets had been fired. No wonder this country’s so messed up, Clint thought. A few minutes later Mary Kate raised her head and squinted at him through her mess of hair. “Ouch,” she whispered, raising both taped hands to her head. “You hit me, Clint?”
“Not with my fist. With a secret weapon.”
She lowered her hands to her lap. “And you got me all taped up?”
“Just don’t scream or say nothing to nobody. I don’t want to tape up your mouth so just stay quiet, will you?”
“Oh man.” Mary Kate was still whispering. “I got such a headache. . if I screamed my head would explode.”
“Then don’t and we’ll both be happy.”
“What are you doing?”
“I got it all figured. I know you been with Charlie Hood, Mary Kate. I seen him walkin’ you out of the ATF place and I seen the way you looked at him. I know he was telling you what to say to me on the phone. And I know you thought you were fooling me but you weren’t. You betrayed me after all that time I was secretly in love with you. I been mad enough to kill you, MK. I was gonna and I still might. But seeing you in person has beaten down the hardness in my heart. Mostly. Hood’s another story, though. Hood I’m gonna waste.”
Mary Kate closed her eyes and slowly let her head settle back against the door frame. “I wasn’t ever with him, Clint. He’s a nice enough guy but he didn’t have the time of day for me. I think he’s got a girl stashed somewhere.”
“Or a boy.”
“What did he do to you?”
Clint held up his left hand. “This is all consequential of what he did to my finger, Mary Kate.”
“That’s just a hurt finger, Clint.”
“It’s more than that. It’s the whole stupid thing about me being stupid.”
“Goddamn, you hit me hard. I can’t open my eyes without it hurting worse.”
Clint gave her a sweater for a pillow and got back on the freeway. The day was bright and cool and the shipyards rose high at the edge of the Pacific, cranes and booms fussing over the huge navy ships and tankers, mile after mile of them. A California Highway Patrol car passed him going close to ninety, didn’t so much as look at him, which pleased Clint. Probably headed for Buenavista. Nobody was looking for his little white Kia and that was just the way he liked it. He kept stealing peeks at Mary Kate Boyle, dazed or asleep with her head on his sweater, and he felt bad for hitting her so hard but he couldn’t have a scene getting her out the hotel and into his car, now, could he? She had a small upturned nose and pretty lips and he even liked her ears. He wondered what her scalp looked like where he’d walloped her. No blood, because a good sap wouldn’t cut if you hit flat with it. And his was a good one, made it himself out of bull hide and a hearty slug of lead he’d cut from an ingot using a coping saw. Sewn by his own hand. He’d tried it out on one of Carl Blevins’s young hogs out by Alley Spring back in Missouri, and that porker had collapsed like the rug had been pulled out from under it. Woke up about a minute later and ran around in circles, snorting.
He worked her phone out from his pocket and flipped it open and scrolled down the contacts.
44
Hood’s phone vibrated and he answered. “Hood, this is Clint. I got your number from our mutual friend, Miss Mary Kate Boyle. MK? Say hi to Twinkle Tooth. Then I’ll tell him how it’s gonna be.”
Her voice was faint and flat and almost choked up. “I’m so sorry. He was following me on foot yesterday when I called you. While I was looking for the damned blue SUV. I’m so sorry, I got fooled and conked and am now adding to all your troubles.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“He hit me awful hard.”
Hood heard static, then Wampler again. “How’d you like the explosion at ATF?”
“You killed a nice guy and hurt a bunch of innocent people.”
“I’m weepin’. Were you in the office when the rocket hit? What’d it sound like?”
“A rocket hitting, Clint. Where are you?”
“Hood, I’m going to take Mary Kate to the ocean for a picnic. We’ll be at the TJ River south of Imperial Beach. Waiting on you. I’ll be able to see in all directions on account of it’s a flat beach. Which means you come alone. Which means if I see another human being or car or even a damned helicopter I’ll kill her. You know I’m capable of this. Come alone, Hood. We’re gonna settle this like they used to, before the whole country turned queer like you. I’ll have my pistols in my pockets as is my style. You can pack anything any way you want-it ain’t gonna matter to me. You can call it a gunfight although it’ll be more of an execution. But it’ll be fair. Clint don’t cheat. The winner gets MK and the loser gets dead. All of this is subsequent of what you did to my finger. Where exactly are you at right now?”
“Five miles east of San Diego. You beat me to her.”
“When you get there, head south, amigo. Walk out on that beach alone. We’ll be there. You got exactly half an hour.”
“Clint, this is stupid, even for you. Let Mary Kate go. She’s a sweet girl and she never hurt you. Just drop her off and keep on driving. Go back to Russell County or wherever else you want to be.”
“Where I don’t want to be is on death row, for that fed I blew away in El Centro. I’m not too stupid to figure that out.”
“Blowing away another fed won’t help you.”
“Me and MK are already making plans for our future. Aren’t we, cupcake? You better show up alone, Glitter Gums. You’re down to twenty-nine minutes.”
• • •
Hood trudged through the rain-soaked sand, south along the Pacific. The sky was dark gray and stacked with great columns of pale gray clouds. The water heaved and chopped and the wind sent spindrifts off the crests. There were no surfers out and no one on the beach. Ahead of him was the river and beyond that the hills of Tijuana, faint in the distance. He zipped his jacket up against the biting wind and snugged its elastic hem between his holster and his hip, popped the strap and turned it down and out of the way.