Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance Read online

  She nodded. “That’s the master, yeah.”

  “That’s the master’s? Okay.”

  “No, I said—”

  “Anyway, I’m up there thinking you could hold NFL combines in that room. It’s fucking huge. It ain’t intimate, that’s for sure. And homes, to me, always feel intimate. Houses, on the other hand—they can feel like anything.”

  He pulled a handful of coins out of his pocket for some reason, shook them in his palm.

  She glanced at the clock. “Lana’s expecting me.”

  He nodded. “So you don’t have a job.”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t produce anything.”

  “No.”

  “You consume.”

  “Huh?”

  “You consume,” he repeated. “Air, food, energy”—he looked up at the ceiling and over at the walls—“space.”

  She followed his gaze and when she looked back at him, the gun was out on his lap. It was black and smaller than she would have imagined and it had a very long suppressor attached to the muzzle, the kind hit men always used in movies like Grosse Pointe Blank or The Professional, the kind that went pffft when fired.

  “I’m meeting Lana,” she said again.

  “I know.” He shook the change in his hand once more and she looked closer, realized they weren’t coins at all. Some kind of small metal things that reminded her of snowflakes.

  “Lana knows who you are.”

  “She thinks she does, but she actually knew of another guy, the real Kineavy. See, they never met. Her father met him, but her father died—what—three years ago, after the stroke.”

  Her therapist had taught her breathing exercises for tense situations. She tried one now. She took long slow breaths and tried to visualize their colors, but the only color that came up was red.

  He plucked one of the metal snowflakes from his palm and held it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. “So, Kineavy, I knew him well. He died too. About two years ago. Natural causes. And faux Kineavy—that’s me—sees no point in meeting most clients a second time, which suits them fine. What do you do, Mrs. Walford? What do you do?”

  She could feel her lower lip start to bubble and she sucked it into her mouth for a moment. “I do nothing.”

  “You do nothing,” he agreed. “So why should I let you live?”

  “Because—”

  He flicked his wrist and the metal snowflake entered her throat. She could see it in the mirror. About a third of it—three metal points out of eight—stuck out of her flesh. The other five points were on the other side, in her throat. A floss-thin line of blood trickled out of the new seam in her body, but otherwise, she didn’t look like someone who was dying. She looked okay.

  He stood over her. “You knew what your husband was doing, right?”

  “Yes.” The word sounded funny, like a whistle, like a baby noise.

  “But you didn’t stop him.”

  I tried. That’s why I hired you.

  “You didn’t stop him.”

  “No.”

  “You spent the money.”

  “Yes.”

  “You feel bad about it?”

  And she had, she’d felt so terribly bad about it. Tears spilled from her eyes and dripped from the edges of her jaw. “Yes.”

  “You felt bad? You felt sad?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Who gives a shit?”

  And she watched in the mirror as he fired the bullet into her head.

  Afterward, he walked around the house for a little bit. He checked out the cars in the garage, the lawn out back so endless you would have thought it was part of the Serengeti. There was a gym and a pool house and a guesthouse. A guesthouse for a seven-bedroom main house. He shook his head as he went back inside and passed through the dining room and the living room into the family room, where she sat in the chair and he lay on the stairs. All this space, and they’d never had kids. You would have thought they would’ve had kids.

  To kill the silence, if for no other reason.

  MOONSHINER’S LAMENT

  BY RICK MCMAHAN

  Chapter 1

  Goat McKnight’s hands ached for a gun.

  Walking up the mountain path, he yearned for one. The moonlight, where it penetrated the canopy of trees, bleached the open spaces in pools of white and created twisted shadows in the lee of crooked branches. Goat never feared the dark of night. Darkness held no sway over him. Not even while he trudged through the blackest jungles did fear of the dark edge into his heart.

  Goat had never feared the law either, not even after he was caught with a load of moonshine. The judge had given him a choice. Prison or the army. Sometimes late at night, freezing on a jungle trail or facedown in a rice paddy under a hot sun as Charlie zinged rounds at him, Goat had thought he’d made the wrong choice. When he got back home, Goat had two options—go down in the mines or go back to hauling whiskey. The thought of the law catching him running untaxed whiskey didn’t scare him, nor did it make him yearn for a gun.

  A simple smell made Goat’s hands ache for a gun. The thick and earthy scent rose up from the loamy creek Goat and Ralphie had waded across at the base of the hill. The primal smell brought back a rush of memories from the not-so-distant past spent hunting Vietcong. As the aroma filled his lungs, Goat found himself scanning the ground, his eyes searching for trip wires leading to bouncing Betties or scuffed earth that signaled an ambush. Oblivious, pulling the wagon, Ralphie babbled on the whole time.

  When they were halfway up the path, a movement on the opposite hillside drew Goat’s attention. As a figure slipped through a clear spot of moonlight, Goat saw the glint of a belt buckle and a shoulder and arm covered in a tan uniform just before the NVA soldier slipped back into the shadows.

  Goat stopped.

  He knew it was his imagination projecting the picture like a Friday-night drive-in movie. There were no NVA soldiers stalking the hills of eastern Kentucky. Still, he held his breath as he scanned the woods. He waited a whole minute, not taking a breath until his chest was tight, but the soldier never reappeared.

  “Goat?” Ralphie called from up ahead in a low whisper. “Goat.” This time louder.

  Pushing the phantom soldier from his mind, Goat jogged up the trail. He nodded to his young cousin to keep moving. With the wagon wheels once again creaking, Ralphie continued his one-sided conversation. Goat wasn’t sure what made more noise, the banging of the empty wagon or Ralphie.

  “Groovy, I’m telling you,” Ralphie was saying. Even though Goat had zoned out for a bit, he was sure Ralphie was still talking about what all teenage boys talked about. Girls. Ralphie had a crush on his new English teacher. Ralphie thought she was a hippie, even though Ralphie wouldn’t know a hippie if one bit him in the ass. “She drives one of those little German buses painted up like a rainbow with a peace sign. I’m telling you, Miss Love’s a hippie.”

  Goat glanced over his shoulder, searching the trail for the NVA soldier.

  “And you know what they say about those hippies,” Ralphie intoned. Goat wasn’t sure what they said about hippies, but he was sure Ralphie was going to tell him.

  “What do they say about them hippies?” a voice called down.

  Goat grinned. From up ahead, a yellow glow leaked out around the edges of a tarp hung across the trail. Leave it to Luther to pull Ralphie’s chain.

  “Come on, Ralphie,” Luther called, pushing aside the tarp so the glow from the lanterns and fire pit lit up the trail all the way to Goat and his cousin. “Tell me about them hippie gals like Carrie Love.” From farther back in the stand of trees came low laughter.

  Ralphie and the Radio Flyer were quiet.

  Sliding past his cousin, Goat glanced at the younger man’s face. Even in the dim glow of the lantern light, he saw that the kid was the same shade of red as the wagon.

  Goat called, “Luther, at least the boy’s got the good sense to have a crush on a young teacher. He’s no
t prattling on about Old Mrs. Napier.”

  “No-Neck Napier.” Ralphie gasped. “She has a mustache.” There was more cackling from underneath the lean-to, and Luther told someone to shut up.

  Luther held the tarp open so Ralphie could pull the Radio Flyer underneath and park it next to the other two. These weren’t your kid’s Radio Flyer wagons. No, sir. The original wheels had been replaced with thicker, bigger tires to handle more weight, and the wagon sides had been cut out and several-foot-high metal slats welded in so that boxes of full mason jars and plastic jugs could be stacked up. It made it a little easier getting the bootleg whiskey down the hill.

  Once the wagon was in, Luther dropped the tarp. The tarp was meant to hide the lanterns’ and fire’s light. Not that anyone would venture up the mountain, but Luther’s daddy was careful.

  “No-Neck Napier,” Luther said, punching Goat in the arm. “Like I’d ever.” Luther was solidly built although shorter than Goat, which Goat thought served the man well down in the mines. Even in the lanterns’ flickering light, the black coal flecks ingrained in his skin were visible. Just as the men stripping coal out of the dark holes they’d dug left an imprint in the mountain, the coal left its mark on the men. The coal dust permeated the clothes and soaked into the skin. And if it soaked in deep, it took a man’s life.

  Farther back in the grove sat the liquor still—all copper tubing and barrels holding the mash being heated by a fire tended by Luther’s dad. Nearby, a pair of men sat on wooden milking stools. They were seventy if they were a day, and over time they’d become almost mirror images of each other, both white-headed, grizzled, and skinny in overalls and white dress shirts. One filled the mason jars from the still. The second screwed on the lids, wiped off the jars, and slid them into waiting cases. The sour smell of fermenting mash hung heavy in the air.

  “Luther, what’re you doing up here with us outlaws?” Goat asked.

  “Just helping out.” Nearby stacked knee-high were full cases of mason jars ready to go. Ralphie started hoisting the liquor up onto the red Radio Flyer, the glass jars rattling.

  “You don’t need to be up here. You have an honest job,” Goat replied.

  “Foolishness,” Luther’s dad said, stalking toward them, waving a piece of firewood. “Plumb foolishness.”

  “I took a stand,” Luther replied.

  “Ah.” Luther’s dad waved a hand. “Striking from a good job. Unions and such. Causing trouble, and a man won’t be able to go back to that job.”

  “Me? I’m not stepping on Cassidy’s toes.”

  Cassidy Lane was the closest thing Bell County had to organized crime. Though he owned gas stations all the way to Knoxville, everyone knew Cassidy’s real money came from the bootlegging, gambling, and whoring he provided up on Kayjay Mountain. When preachers railed about a Sodom and Gomorrah in their midst, they were talking about Kayjay and Cassidy Lane.

  “Ah, Cassidy just likes talking big,” Luther’s dad said, turning away from his son. In the glint of the light, Goat saw the smooth brown grip of a pistol poking out of the old man’s back pocket.

  Luther opened his mouth and closed it. Shaking his head, he turned away to help load the wagon. Goat figured the two had gone round and round as much about the father’s making white lightning as they did about Luther’s striking.

  Deciding to stay out of the fight, Goat told Luther’s daddy, “I’ll have your money in two days, as soon as I run this load down to Jellico.”

  “Mama’s wanting you to come to supper,” Luther’s daddy said.

  Goat smiled. “I’ll pay you then.”

  “You’re ready,” Luther said. Moving to the front of the wagon, Goat took over. Just like in the Pontiac parked below, when there was whiskey onboard, Goat drove.

  “See you boys,” Goat said. Putting his back into it, he swung the wagon in a tight circle with Ralphie pushing. As they headed down the trail, Goat glanced back in time to see Luther’s silhouette raise a hand just before the tarp dropped, blacking out the lanterns’ glow. With the wagon loaded, going downhill was a lot quieter. The wheels squeaked less, and the heavy load made Ralphie concentrate more on steadying the wagon and less on talking.

  Halfway down the mountain, Ralphie finally spoke in a whisper. “I don’t want to cross Cassidy Lane.”

  “We aren’t,” Goat answered. “And there won’t be any trouble.”

  The words were still in the air when a distant gunshot cracked the night. Goat’s first thought was that a pocket of sap in a log had popped in the flames at the still, but even as he thought this, the whole mountaintop erupted in a flurry of gunfire. The first gun was joined by the deep booming of shotguns and the long burps of a tommy gun on rock and roll, something straight from Nam. A mad minute. Dumping all of your ammo into a kill zone. Pure insanity firing until the wood stocks smoked and the barrels sizzled.

  Goat turned the wagon and ran it off the path. Ralphie stood unmoving on the trail. Goat grabbed the teenager’s shirt and yanked Ralphie over and down to the ground with him.

  “A raid?” Ralphie gasped. Their faces were so close that Goat smelled the sweat beading on the young man’s upper lip.

  Goat shook his head. Neither the police nor the Revenuers did a raid like this. Sure they’d shoot you, but they wouldn’t gun you down. The gunfire rose to a crescendo; then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped, leaving only the echoes bouncing back and forth in the hills.

  Ralphie said, “We have to go back. We gotta help.”

  Goat shook his head. He knew the reality of killing. Up on the hill, armed men were doing the business of murder.

  “We got…” The words died. Ralphie’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  “They’re dead,” Goat said harshly. “They’re all dead and we can’t help a bit. What we gotta do is get off this mountain.” Pulling Ralphie in his wake, Goat slipped back onto the trail.

  In the heavy summer air, gun smoke drifted down the hill like a mist, the smell bringing an adrenaline dump and a rush of memories. Thumping helicopter blades beating the air as they dropped into an LZ. Orange muzzle flashes and the steady climb of an M16 on full auto during a firefight.

  With Ralphie in tow, Goat moved quickly down the path, his eyes scanning for the irregular shape of a human. His ears strained to hear the snap of twigs or the racking of a gun. At the bottom of the hill, they paused to catch their breath.

  The night was silent. Even the running water in the creek was holding its breath. No animals hooted or scurried.

  Without speaking a word, Goat and Ralphie shared the same knowledge.

  The four men they had just left were dead.

  Chapter 2

  Goat drove alone, the moonlight ticking through the trees, blackness and a milky slash alternating across the GTO’s hood. White. Black. White. Black.

  Goat and Ralphie had slipped down the hill to where the GTO was hidden. With the headlights off, they made their getaway by creeping down the winding road until they hit the main road, where Goat snapped on the lights and sped away. After making Ralphie promise not to tell a soul what had happened, Goat dropped his cousin off at the mouth of his holler.

  Leaning down into the car, Ralphie asked, “Was it like that… over there?”

  Goat knew what he meant. Vietnam. “Some. And sometimes worse.”

  Without a word, Ralphie closed the GTO’s door and trudged into the darkness.

  And Goat drove the night away. The slash of the moon’s bone light and the ink of dark night played out across his windshield.

  Black.

  White.

  The windshield awash in light.

  Awash in darkness.

  As the GTO’s tires rolled along eating up the miles, the wheels in Goat’s head ate up time. He thought of Luther, not as the man he’d seen just a few hours ago, but as the boy he’d met in a schoolyard wearing hand-me-down clothes and a serious look in his eyes. Goat thought of how Luther’s daddy had helped him out, schooling him on making sh
ine and teaching him how to handle a car with a full load. Goat’s own father had died in the mine when a slate of coal broke free and crushed him, so Luther’s dad helped fill a gap that Goat needed filled as a boy. Then there were the memories of the recent past in Southeast Asia; Goat knew the country had taken part of his soul. Driving, Goat let his mind ramble and bounce about as night gave way to morning.

  At daybreak, he pulled into a filling station on a mountain road. As he pumped gas, the road rumbled like a freight train, and he shielded his eyes as a line of big coal trucks thundered down the road in convoy. The trucks were placarded for the Blue Diamond Mine. Luther’s employer. Each truck had a driver and a passenger, and the passengers all had rifles poking out the truck windows. Bell County was one incident away from a full-blown coal war. Goat watched the trucks roll past, but his mind was elsewhere, had latched onto a memory. During the Tet offensive, Goat had found himself fighting alongside a unit of MPs. During one of the lulls, he had talked to the lieutenant, a Yankee from Boston named Cuddy, who said he was going to be an investigator. Goat didn’t understand much about investigating, and John Cuddy had simplified it for him—you ask questions to find answers, but mainly you kick stuff around, hoping to stir things up.

  Goat planned on stirring things up.

  Chapter 3

  Goat didn’t want to go back. He had enough visions of dead men in his head, and he didn’t want any more. Steeling himself, he went up the hill. The Radio Flyer was still half on the trail, half off in the weeds, just as he’d left it. Pausing, Goat put a hand on the cases of whiskey and used the tail of his shirt to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Looking up the hill, he saw the green tarp hanging from a tree and flapping in the breeze. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted. Taking a deep breath, he left the Radio Flyer and slowly walked up the trail, keeping his eye on the edge of the swaying tarp.