The Big Finish (35 page)

X-88 was on him. Turning him and wrapping an arm around his throat, locking it hard. Then X let his body drop backward to the muddy ground, flopping, taking Sugarman down on top of him. One arm fastened across Sugarman’s throat, cutting off his air, X’s other arm behind his head, levering Sugarman’s head forward. Both men on their backs wallowing in the slop.

X-88 was outmuscling Sugar with ease, his burly arms, his thick chest, his heavy legs all coordinated. He’d managed to pin Sugarman even though Sugar lay atop him.

Sugarman got a breath, twisted hard to the left then to the left again, screwing both legs to the right to get traction in the slippery glop. But he couldn’t break the hold.

“You asked about the meat,” X said quietly in his ear. “Let me show you.”

Somehow X had managed to scoop up a handful of mud and was holding it out for Sugarman to see.

His legs were scissored tight around Sugarman’s legs, ankles locked together. Sugarman writhed, and tried to elbow his way free, taking shots, but the man hid his face behind Sugarman’s head and seemed perfectly content to let Sugarman thrash around as much as he desired.

After less than a minute he was out of breath.

“I only got a little left in the tank,” X whispered. “Don’t make me waste it flailing in the mud.”

“What do you want?”

“Let me show you how it works, is all. How it goes down. You happen to know the word ‘gavage’?”

Sugarman knew the word, oh yes, he knew it.

He grappled for X’s face, clawed, swiped. Got nowhere. He gripped the man’s forearm that was cutting off his air, used both hands trying to pry it loose. But the arm was as rigid and unyielding as an iron pipe cemented into place. Brute strength that far outmatched Sugar’s.

The hand cupped with mud was moving toward Sugar’s face.

He slapped at the hand, knocked it away, the mud went flying.

X-88 reached out and scooped up another lump.

He ratcheted his arm tighter against Sugar’s throat, then ratcheted it another notch. Something crucial popped deep in Sugarman’s neck, and he saw a blast of light in the back rooms of his brain. Cells dying, a candle flame sputtering.

“Here we go. Nice and easy.”

X’s body lurched, tightening the hold of his legs and wrenching his forearm harder against Sugarman’s throat.

Sugar gasped, and in the same instant the mud was filling his mouth.

Sugarman tried to spit it out but X’s hand was clamped hard over his lips. He sucked air through his nose, threw his body to the left, tried to spin, but was cinched tight by X’s legs.

The mud was leaking down his throat. Sugar gagged, heaved, but the mud had nowhere to go.

“You’re a tough nut,” X said. “It’ll just be another little bit, hold on.”

He tried to bite X’s hand, but his strength had faded so badly the act was feeble and meaningless.

The sky swam with stars, a convoy of clouds flew past, two words flashed bright against the heavens as if projected by a celestial laser.

Let go.

Let go.

All right. Sure, that was fine. Made perfect sense. Sugarman let go.

His body relaxed in the man’s hold, that death cradle. His finish line coming up fast.

Sugarman was sorry he’d missed what happened next. Sorry to have drifted off into that zone he’d heard about but never experienced, no longer in his body, but not yet crossing the threshold. Hovering in limbo land, beyond the inexorable pull of gravity, beyond the tangible world, hovering, hovering.

He was sorry he wasn’t around for Thorn’s arrival. Sorry to have to rely on Thorn’s taciturn recounting of the moment. He wished he’d seen it, wished he’d been there to enjoy the whole unfolding. Thorn hauling X-88 out of his crablike hold on Sugarman. Yanking him upright. Thorn pushing X-88 backward into the mud and hammering him in the skull with the butt of his shotgun, doing it one more time to crush the man’s nose.

Then Thorn dragged Sugarman out of the blast zone and went back to stand a few feet from X-88 and unloaded three explosive rounds into the man’s chest. Turning his body into some cut of meat, ground sirloin or chuck roast or pork tenderloin or however Thorn put it in his tight-lipped poetry.

THIRTY-SEVEN

THORN WAS ONCE AGAIN IN
the Key Largo library confounded by the balky search engine the library used. He had to call over a stout and handsome older lady named Betty to help him navigate the process. The picture postcard had arrived yesterday, the twenty-third of December. On its front side was a glossy image of the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, a brick dwelling with six white columns. Greek Revival style with a central portico meant to echo Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage.

With Betty’s help Thorn found a series of recent newspaper articles featuring the mansion. Once he had them in sight, Betty excused herself and left him alone. Like everyone in Key Largo, it seemed, she knew what Thorn was dealing with.

Sometime late on a Sunday night a week ago, a group had managed to assemble a ten-foot-tall replica of an oil derrick on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion. Then they’d poured some combination of oil and tar over the grass and slung more of it onto the white columns and the porch and the windows and the walls, then set it on fire. The fire was extinguished quickly, but not before so much smoke and water damage was done to the mansion the governor would have to find new quarters for at least the next few months.

How they’d come and gone without the governor’s security team discovering their presence was a mystery. They were protesting the governor’s plan to open Florida’s waters in the Gulf of Mexico to offshore drilling. In the press release they sent to the papers, ELF promised more oil would be spilled and more fires would be set at other government offices in the coming weeks. This was war. All-out war. No attempt to find compromise.

Adding to the mystery was the presence of a woman’s body on the governor’s lawn, lying just beside the oil derrick. She’d been killed by a single gunshot to the heart and her naked corpse was covered in the oily mix. The body had been identified as one Yolanda Madeline Obrero, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Miami field office was withholding comment on Obrero’s death pending further investigation.

But Thorn knew what had happened. If anybody had called him from the FBI or the press, he would gladly explain it in detail. Yolanda Madeline Obrero had finally tracked Cassandra down. And Cassandra, no known last name, had been waiting for Ms. Obrero, and she’d defended herself with lethal force as all citizens of Florida were legally entitled to do.

Thorn invited Flynn’s mother, April Moss, to come along today, but she told him no, she’d done enough weeping at Flynn’s funeral. This was something Thorn should take care of alone since it was Flynn’s request made specifically to his father.

He supposed those excuses were partially true. But he suspected April turned down the boat ride because she simply could no longer tolerate the sight of Thorn, whose own lawless behavior and devotion to the natural world had inspired Flynn to set off on the self-destructive path that caused his death.

So be it.

This was a trip best taken alone. Sugarman knew when and where Thorn was heading, but he’d known better than even to hint he wanted to accompany him. He’d cancelled his job interview with the county sheriff’s department and had begun working on a new case. He’d been writing letters to Emma Johansson, describing in some detail the nature of his investigation. Emma was thrilled.

Thorn had honored Flynn’s other request already. Standing naked beside her bed, Laurie Dobbins had revealed to Thorn where her brother and Burkhart disposed of Flynn’s comrades. The bodies of Caitlin Evans, Billy Jack Foster, and a young man known only as Jellyroll had been weighted by slabs of concrete and sunk in Manure Lagoon Number Four on Dobbins Farm. Found nearby in the same lagoon was the mutilated body of one Javier Ortiz, his wounds so extensive that it was clear to the medical examiner that he’d been tortured for several days. The ballistics evidence acquired from the bodies matched a Remington twelve-gauge shotgun and an AR-15 automatic weapon found in the defendants’ possession. With that and the detailed testimony of Laurie Dobbins, the case against Webb and Burkhart was overwhelming. Their trials in Raleigh each lasted less than five business days.

Thorn took the skiff out to the Atlantic, skimming across the white sandy flats, spooking stingrays and a school of bonefish, running out farther and farther until the deep blue seam of water appeared. He had not prepared any kind of speech. He had nothing left to say and no desire to say it. Fifteen miles offshore, the water was as smooth and sleek as icing. The sun was gathering itself behind a bank of dawn clouds that seemed rooted to the horizon.

He didn’t know what Flynn’s favorite time of day was, but this was his. All the promise still to come. All the hours to create something new. So much ahead. So much still to be discovered, sampled, and embraced.

He’d sprinkled ashes before and knew how it was done. Knew there was no grand finale, no resolution or anything magical that flashed into view when the gray dust was released. The ocean stretched in every blue direction, no interruption, no end.

He opened the paper carton, climbed up on the bow, and looked out at the morning sun working its way beyond the hold of the clouds. He shook out Flynn’s dust where his son had wanted it to end. Not the finish the young man was hoping for, not the grand sigh of triumph, but just this. A southerly breeze scattering his body across the flat calm sea.