Last Man Standing (70 page)

“And you’re using East Winds as your base and our trailers to move your product.”

“Well, we’ve been distributing the drugs, mostly in pickup trucks, prearranged drop spots and even through the mail. Then
I got the idea to use the horse trailers. We move horses across state lines all the time. And if the cops stop us for permits
and papers on the trailers or the horses, the smell’s gonna keep them away from where the stuff is, and I don’t know of many
dogs trained to sniff out prescription drugs. I’ve been shuffling men and trailers around so you and Billy wouldn’t notice.
The run we made to Kentucky was our biggest yet.”

He raised his beer in salute, apparently to himself.

Gwen eyed his wound. “But not a complete success.”

“Well, you do something illegal, you got to be prepared to face some risk.”

“Did this risk come from your demand chain or maybe the cops?” “Come on, now, honey, what does it matter?”

“You’re right. I guess either way it means you’ve put us at risk. You were supposed to be working for us, Nemo, full-time.”

“Well, a person’s got to look out for himself. And it was too good a deal to pass up. And I ain’t breaking my back on horse
farms the rest of my life, okay?”

“I hired you for a specific purpose, because of your unique qualities and experience.”

“Right, the fact that I got a damn good head on my shoulders, know folks who don’t mind killing people and I can put together
some pretty slick explosives. Well, I done that, baby.” He ticked the points off his fingers. “A federal judge, a U.S. attorney,
a defense counsel.”

“Leadbetter, Watkins and Wingo. A judge with no backbone, a prosecutor with no guts and a defense counsel who would gladly
defend his own mother’s killer if the guy had enough money. I consider that we did society a service by ending their pathetic
lives.”

“Right, and we took out HRT and then suckered them into wiping out the damn Frees. Man, we tricked a veteran undercover into
thinking that he’d come upon the drug operation to end all drug operations. We set that place up like something straight out
of the movie
The Sting.
” He looked at her and his features grew grim. “So I delivered for you, lady. So what I do on my time is
my
business. I ain’t your damn slave, Gwen.”

She kept the pistol pointed at him. “Web London is still standing.” “Well, hell, you said to keep him that way. Make him look
like a coward. We got lucky when I found out the shrink he was seeing was an old acquaintance of mine from Vietnam. So everybody
thinks Web’s rotten to the core. This whole thing took a lot of planning, had a lot of risk, and let me tell you we executed
it to damn near perfection, and you got it for pennies on the dollar ’cause I think what happened to your son stinks.” He
looked at her with a hurt expression. “And I don’t even remember you saying thank you.”

Her tone was businesslike, her expression unreadable. “Thank you. How much money have you made off the drugs?”

Surprised, he lowered his drink. “Why?”

“After what I’ve paid you and what we’ve sunk into this place, Billy and I are in the hole. They’ll be coming to take his
antique car collection pretty soon because we borrowed against that too. We could use some free cash flow, because we’re going
to be selling out and moving on too, especially since however you got that injury tells me that one day somebody’s going to
come knocking on our door with questions I don’t have answers for. And frankly, I’ve had enough of Virginia hunt country.
I’m thinking our next stop is a small island where it never gets cold and there are no damn phones.”

“You want me to give you a share of
my
drug money?” he asked incredulously.

“Actually, demand would be more accurate.”

Nemo spread his hands. “Well, I wasn’t kidding, darlin’, we got some good prices for those fine yearlings,” he said in a very
sincere tone.

She laughed at him. “This place never made any money before we bought it and it’s not going to make any money now. Fine year-lings
or not.”

“Well, what do you want from me?”

“It’s very simple. I want you to tell me how much you have made from the drugs.”

He hesitated for a moment before answering. “Not that much, actually.”

She raised the pistol and pointed it in his direction. “How much?”

“Okay, ’bout a million. There, you satisfied?”

She gripped the pistol with both hands and took very careful aim at his head. “Last chance. How
much,
Nemo?”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your panties all twisted.” He let out a deep breath. “Tens of millions.”

“Then I want twenty percent. And then we go our separate ways.” “Twenty damn percent!”

“Wired to an offshore account. I’m assuming that a great businessman like yourself has set up some secret accounts somewhere
to hide your millions. Excuse me,
tens
of millions.”

“But look, I got expenses.”

“Right, you probably paid your help off in pills, since most of them are too stupid to know better. And since running prescription
drugs means low cost, lower risk, I imagine your profit margins are pretty nice, and I don’t think you’ve been paying taxes
on the income. And on top of that, you use our equipment that we paid for to move your product and also the manpower we’re
paying to work the farm to do it for you. So there was very little capital out of your pocket, and that makes for an even
greater return on investment. And so, yes, I want my share. We’ll call it rental fees for equipment and labor. And you’re
lucky it’s only twenty percent.” She slid a hand enticingly down her front. “In fact, you’re fortunate that I’m in a generous
mood right now.”

Strait just shook his head. “What, was your dad a damn MBA too?”

“Billy and I have gotten the wrong end of the deal for long enough. At least we’re still alive. My son only had ten years.
Does that sound fair to you?”

“And if I say no?”

“I’ll shoot you.”

“In cold blood. A religious woman like yourself?”

“I pray for my son every day, but I can’t say that my faith in God is absolute anymore. And I can always call the cops.”

Nemo smiled and shook his head. “And tell them what? I’m dealing drugs? And oh, yeah, I killed a bunch of people for you?
What’s your leverage?”

“My leverage, Nemo, is that I don’t give a damn anymore what happens to me. That’s the best leverage of all. I have nothing
more to lose because I’ve already lost everything.”

“What about Billy?”

“He knows nothing about this. And now it’s twenty-five percent.”

“Well, hell.”

Keeping the gun trained on him, she stood, unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor, then stepped out of it completely
naked.

“And here’s the sweetener,” she said. “Going once, going twice . . .” “Deal!” said Nemo Strait as he held his arms out for
her.

T
he sex was hard and left them both breathless. Strait collapsed on his back nursing his aching arm, while Gwen let her legs
down and stretched them out. Strait had almost driven her right through the box springs and twisted her legs back into positions
they were never meant to go. She would be hurting for a couple days, but it was a wonderful pain, something her husband had
withheld from her for so long. And not just the sex, but also the love, which was far worse. In public he made a pretense
of affection; in private he bothered not at all. He had never been abusive to her—on the contrary it was extreme diffidence
coupled with irreversible melancholy; being ignored had never been so painful.

Gwen sat back against the headboard, lit a cigarette and blew fat rings to the ceiling. She lay there for about an hour and
then reached over and put a hand on Strait’s hairy chest, slowly rousing him.

“That was wonderful, Nemo.”

“Uh-huh,” he grunted back.

“Think you can do it again before sunrise?”

He opened one eye. “Damn it, woman, I ain’t nineteen, and I got a bad wing. You get me some of that Viagra crap, maybe I can.”

“In your line of work I’d think you’d be tired of pills.”

He raised his head slightly and looked at her. “Hey, you wouldn’t entertain the notion of moving to Greece with me, would
you? It’d be a hell of a lot of fun. Guaranteed.”

“I have no doubt, but my place is with my husband whether he knows it or not.”

He slumped back down. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”

“And you’re really just looking to cut me out of my twenty-five percent.”

“Okay, I give up.”

“Nemo?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think happened to Ernest B. Free?”

He sat up, used her cigarette to light his, then sat back next to her and put an arm around her.

“Hell if I know. That one’s really got me stumped. I thought he’d be at the compound HRT hit, but he wasn’t. Unless the Feds
are lying, but why would they? They bag him, they’d be screaming that to the world. And the guy I used to set up the Frees
also planted the drugs and other stuff down there, including some made-up files on the judge and two lawyers. He actually
knows old Ernie, so he would’ve seen and recognized him if he was down there. Even if they had him real well hidden.”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “Web and Romano are leaving soon.”

“Yeah, I know. Good riddance. They’re cramping my style, although it was pretty sweet driving fifty thousand stolen pills
right out under the Feds’ noses. But to tell you the truth, I kind of like those guys. If they found out what we’ve done,
they’d try and put us on death row, but except for that, I wouldn’t mind popping back a few brews with them from time to time.”

Strait glanced over at Gwen, and the look on her face startled him. “I loathe Web London,” she said.

“Look, Gwen, I know what happened with your son and all—” She exploded and beat the mattress with her fists. “It makes me
sick to see his face. They’re worse than the Frees. They come rushing in to save the world and innocent people start dying.
Those people swore to me that once HRT was called in, no one else would die. And then they paraded around Web London as this
big hero while my son lies dead in his grave. I’d love to shoot them all down myself.”

Strait swallowed nervously at her wild tone and words as she knelt there on the bed, her hair in her face. Her lean, naked
body, every muscle tensed, made her look like a panther about to spring. He eyed the gun where she’d put it on the nightstand
and was ready to make a lunge for it, but she was quicker. She pointed the gun all around the room as Strait looked on nervously.
Finally the barrel ended up pointed at Gwen herself. She looked down at it, as though she wasn’t sure what it was. Her finger
eased closer to the trigger.

“Then why don’t you do it yourself?” he said, eyeing the gun. “Kill Web, I mean. Like you said, accidents happen. Especially
on horse farms.”

Gwen thought about this and finally dropped her angry look and smiled at him, putting down the gun.

“Maybe I will.”

“Just don’t blow it, though, ’cause we’re in the home stretch.” She got under the covers, snuggled against him, kissed his
cheek and put her hand under the sheet, rubbed him down there. “Just one more time,” she said in a low, throaty voice, her
gaze holding his. She slid the sheet off them both and looked down and smiled.

“My goodness, who needs Viagra, Nemo?”

“Woman, you are playing me like Charlie Daniels plays the fiddle.”

Even without the potency drug, Strait managed to satisfy her one more time though it about killed him.

Later, as Gwen dressed, he watched her.

“Damn, you are a hellcat.”

She zipped up her dress and held her shoes in one hand. Strait got up and started gingerly pulling his shirt over his bad
arm. She looked at him. “Early morning plans?”

“Aw, you know how the life on a horse farm is, there’s always something to do.”

She turned to leave.

“You know, nothing personal or anything, Gwen, but it ain’t good for a person to carry that much hate around. You just got
to let it go at some point or else it’ll ruin you. I was like that when my ex took the kids. At some point you just got to
let it go.”

She slowly turned and looked at him. “When you’ve seen your only child lying dead right in front of you with a bloody hole
in his chest, Nemo, and then you lose the only other person you love because of it; when you’ve reached the lowest point of
despair a person can reach and then watch yourself drop even lower—
then
you can come and talk to me about letting go of the hate.”

C
laire jerked up from a deep sleep that she had fallen into from exhaustion and despite her terror. She felt the fingers against
her skin and she was about to strike out at her attacker when the voice made her stop.

“It’s just me, Claire,” said Kevin as he lifted off her blindfold.

There was no light, so Claire had to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She looked down at Kevin, who was sitting next to
her, his hands around the cuffs that held her to the wall.