I tried to stop everything from spinning in my head.
“You sent Peter Pluto to me,” I said.
“I knew you’d bust your ass to find the kid,” he said, nodding. “I knew you would. I didn’t intend for you to get the shit kicked out of you, but what can you do?” He held up his hands apologetically.
My conversations with Famazio floated into my mind.
“You’re one of the backers,” I said. “The anonymous donors that back up this shit.”
“You call it shit,” he said, amused. “I call it straightening out the world.”
The anger was rising up in me like a tidal wave. “Racist assholes are capable of straightening out the world?”
Berk laughed and shook his head. “That is old-school thinking, Noah.”
“Old-school? The confederate flag and lynchings are out?”
“So to speak,” he said, leaning against the bar. “It’s a little more sophisticated now.”
“Oh, yeah. Your buddies in National Nation seem completely sophisticated.”
“Think what you want,” he said. “But what I’m doing is right.”
His arrogance was infuriating. Realizing that someone I considered a friend believed in all this shit was like a kick in the face.
“Linc is safe,” I said. “And you won’t get to him.”
“He has our money,” Berk said, pointing a finger at me. “And he lied to the organization. That’s a problem.”
“Your money? Are you like the fuckin’ Klan treasurer?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “This is for real, Noah. We are going to change the world.”
“Spare me. Drunken powwows at a campground won’t do it.”
“They’re everywhere,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Nigger athletes taking white people’s money, in the local government, and overrunning this state’s universities.” He grinned. “Even wetback cops.” He shook his head. “It’s gonna stop and National Nation is going to be the leader. I’m proud to fund the cause.”
“Let me ask you this, Berk,” I said, trying to keep control. “Were you always this fucked up?”
His eyes blazed. “I’ve awakened to the problems in this society, my friend. If you were smart, you’d do the same.” He shook his head in disgust. “Instead of defending that nigger-lovin’ kid and sleeping with that half-breed.”
I fired my beer bottle at his head. He ducked and it smashed into the wall behind him, showering him with glass and fluid.
Mike stood up and glanced at the wall. “I was afraid it was gonna go like this,” he said. “I knew you weren’t smart enough to see it my way. I am truly sorry for that, Noah. I really am.”
I heard footsteps in the hallway behind me. Felt the adrenaline begin its push into my system, ignited by my anger, and now, fear.
“I believe you are acquainted with my associates,” Mike said.
I turned around, knowing who was waiting for me.
Lonnie laughed and put his hands together, cracking his knuckles loudly. Mo stood there with the same blank expression I’d seen before.
“‘Associates’ is the wrong word, Mike,” I said. “I think you meant ‘assholes.’”
Lonnie’s smile disappeared and he took a step toward me.
Mo waited for someone to tell him what to do.
Mike said, “I’m sorry it’s come to this, bro. I really am.”
“Fuck you,” I said to him. I looked at Lonnie. “And fuck you, too.”
“You’re dead, cocksucker,” Lonnie said. “Dead.”
Up until then, I’d feared Lonnie. But standing in that room with him, knowing this was going to finally end between us, the fear subsided and I realized that I hated Lonnie like I’d never hated anyone else I’d ever met. For killing Malia, for killing Peter, and for nearly killing me. If I was going to die, he was going with me.
I fixed my eyes on him. “Come and get me, asshole.”
Fifty
Lonnie and Mo moved toward me.
I stood still.
They spread apart, sealing off the room.
Mike stood at the bar, smiling.
I didn’t budge.
They got to within five feet of me.
Small beads of sweat appeared above Lonnie’s eyebrows. “This is gonna be fun.”
I didn’t say anything. My gun was in the Jeep. Hadn’t figured on needing it in Mike’s house.
Mike came up next to me. “Sorry it’s gotta go like this, man. But some things are important.”
I took a step toward Mo, away from Mike. I felt Mike follow, probably thinking he could help by staying behind me.
Perfect.
I brought my left elbow up and stepped back, swinging my arm around as hard as I could. Mike’s throat collapsed beneath the force of the blow. A horrible gagging noise came from his mouth and he brought his hands up as he fell to the floor. An awful way to die, choking on your own windpipe.
I turned back just in time to see Mo wrap me in a bear hug.
His arms were like giant pythons. He had my arms pinned to my sides and he squeezed. We were nose to nose. His face was so impassive he could’ve been watching television.
Only he was crushing the life out of me.
“Make it hurt, Mo,” Lonnie said from behind him.
I tried to struggle free, but it was useless. The more I flailed, the more he tightened his grip. Mo was making it hurt.
I brought my forehead down on the bridge of his nose. He flinched and shuffled his feet, but didn’t release his grip.
I leaned back as far as I could and brought my head down again. This time I caught him flush. I felt bone and cartilage disintegrated against my skull and his arms weakened.
He let out a piercing howl and as I tried to wiggle free, he hurled me over the bar.
I slammed into the racks of booze on the wall. Glass sliced into my shirt and bit into my skin. I hit the floor with a thud, the alcohol and busted bottles raining down on me like a storm. The lacerations in my back immediately started to burn and sting, the pain of hitting the wall radiating down my spine.
“Get him,” Lonnie commanded.
Mo grunted and I felt the footsteps coming around the bar. I tried to push myself to my feet, slipping on the now-soaked floor, and went back down to my knees.
Then my hand hit something that I thought my help.
Mo came around the side of the bar. Frankenstein with a destroyed nose, blood splattered on his face like cake batter. A corner of his mouth was curled up. The most emotion I’d ever seen from him.
He reached down for me.
I pushed off the floor and lunged at his midsection. The paring knife in my hand pushed into his gut and he gasped.
I shoved as hard as I could and then brought the knife up awkwardly, feeling the flesh and whatever else was in there rip and tear. He gasped again and stepped back. I let go of the knife, now nearly all the way into his body.
Mo stumbled back, his hands shaking and searching for the knife, staring down at the now-very-visible hole in his stomach.
I charged at him, lowered my shoulder, and drove him back and off his feet. He sailed through Mike’s picture-perfect glass wall.
Amid the shattered glass and noise, Mo landed on his back on the pool deck, a huge shard of the window pushing its way up through his chest, as if I’d staked him to the concrete.
I was huffing and puffing, and the adrenaline and pain sending my system in overdrive.
A bansheelike scream came from behind me and I remembered Lonnie.
I pivoted and something sharp and metal flashed in the air. I caught Lonnie’s arm before the six-inch blade in his hand got to my neck.
Holding Lonnie’s arm and stepping in toward him, I pushed his hand and the knife up higher. I brought my knee up into his crotch with everything I had and he screamed. The strength in his arm dissipated and we toppled to the floor.
Now beneath me, Lonnie was still trying to bring the blade toward me. I had his wrist and drove it into the tiled floor. The bones below his hand gave and the knife clattered onto the floor.
I kept his hand pinned to the floor.
We stared into each other’s eyes. He started to relax. He’d lost and he knew it.