Page 101 of Ransom
And for Pae Saco.
Rex's boots hit somewhere ahead. A door slammed.
I came to the corner with the pistol up. The hall was empty. Two doors stood on the left, and I cleared each one in two beats, and they were empty too.
The next corner opened onto the gift shop. I came through low and fast.
Rex was halfway across the carpet, going for the front doors and the parking lot. He had a hand on the back of his suit jacket where the bottom of his ribs would be, like he'd taken a hit somewhere in the run.
Where you off to in such a hurry, Rex?
I fired.
The round hit him right in the ass and red bloomed across the white pants. He cursed and crashed face-first into the postcard carousel. The carousel came off its base and rolled. He hit the carpet with a wheeze, postcards fluttering through the air around him.
I crossed the carpet to him and took my time about it.
He dragged himself toward the front doors, leaving a smear of blood behind him. His entire right side was soaked red from the hip down now, and he'd lost his white hat.
I paused to collect it on the way.
"Where you think you're goin', Rex?" I caught up to him and kicked him over so he was face up.
"Please. Son, please. Wait." His chin trembled. "Lanza, you ain't a killer. Look at me. I'm a man on the floor. You ain't gonna do this."
There it was. The croon back in his voice. The son. The performance.
"Naw," I said. "I ain't gonna kill you."
He lowered his hands slightly. "You ain't?"
"Naw." I lowered my gun a few more inches and fired.
His kneecap exploded. He screamed loud enough to make Winston blush, and the dark stain spread across the front of his suit pants.
"I got plans for you, Rex," I said and leaned down to disarm him.
"Now wait. Wait! Wait a goddamn minute! Listen. Water rights. You want 'em? Take 'em. Take the case, take the propertyline, take the goddamn aquifer. I'll close Bonney down by Friday and leave town by Sunday and you won't never hear from me again, Lanza. I swear it."
"Whatever happened to the show must go on?" I sneered.
His eyes widened.
"Now, Lanza, be reasonable. I can give you whatever you want."
I leaned in close. "What I want is you in a shallow grave." I pointed the pistol right between his eyes and pulled back the hammer.
The familiar sound of Winston's boots came around the corner. He stopped just inside the gift shop and took in the postcards drifting around Rex on the carpet.
"Christ on a cracker. Postcard rack do something to offend you, darlin'?"
"Don't try to stop me, Ranger. Rex needs to die, and I got to be the one who does it."
"Wouldn't dream of it." He crossed the room and put a hand on my arm, stepping into view on my right side. The hand was warm, and the grip was steady, and a man who'd been on a gallows half an hour ago had no business with a steady hand. "I'm not askin' you to spare him. Trust me when I say I'm all for putting Rattlesnake Rex Rawlins in the ground. But first, I've got a better idea."
The truck Coyote broughtaround was a 1978 Ford with a bench seat the color of a bruise. I'd asked him for the worst one they had, and he'd taken the question personally. He'd come back with this one wearing a grin, Nimue wrapped around his arm. "For what you got in mind, Ranger, this is the right truck."
We worked under the floodlights in the Bonney lot. Coyote uncoiled the same length of fresh rope the carpenters had cut for the noose, and I sat on the open tailgate watching him do it with my ribs going slow and shallow. Mateo had brought me a dishrag from the gift shop counter for my mouth. I held it there and tasted cotton, my own blood, the chemical smell of whatever they used to clean the postcard carousel.
