The Mundane Work of Vengeance (Baer Creighton Book 2) by Clayton Lindemuth

Author:Clayton Lindemuth [Lindemuth, Clayton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardgrave Enterprises
Published: 2018-07-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

Whole world evil and corrupt. Nobody untouched. Selfish. Deceitful. Every man, woman, child’s a god-cussed snake ready to bite the hand that feed it. I declare rightful autonomy.

No man. No woman.

Nobody got a cussed right over me. None. If I’s the only honest man in all North Carolina, no one got the authority on me. All they got is corrupt power seized by corrupt means. I feel like God ten minute before the flood. The whole thing’s broke.

Mae? You kill my heart.

“Baer? Looks like we’re done.”

Leroy got a tire iron in hand. Parse his face. “You fittin’ club me with that?”

“Ah, shit.” He toss it to the trunk. “I just used it to fetch a coin from way in back under the rug.”

I step. Look. “You get down in around the tire?”

“We lifted it, see?”

Leroy shifts the tire aside.

“Good. Put them buckets in the back here, an’ we’ll be off.”

“We was wondering …. What you got in store for us?”

“If I don’t shoot you? Mebbe cut you loose somewhere in Tennessee, each with enough of that gold to start something new.”

Leroy smiles half-wit broad. “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”

“Maybe it’d be better, just leave us here with it. Save us carrying it back,” Josiah says.

“Better for you. But you’s in my employ. So you know what that means. Put the buckets in the back.”

They each lift one by the lip. ’Smazing what a plastic bucket’ll hold without the bottom falling out.

They get ’em in place and I see all them guns I left there partly under the back seat and I look at the boys, and they had no time to make a grab for ’em. And neither one give me so much as a spark anyhow.

“Hey, put these cuffs back on for the time bein’. Then you’s in the back seat with Ruth. And if she give you any lip, run an elbow through her guts.”

I keep an eye on the hostages while I move to Mae’s window, give her the twirly-finger. “Let’s go.”

Josiah cuffs Leroy behind the back then gets one hand cuffed and the other hangs free. He comes like a dutiful son, and I feel part bad.

“Know what? Here, put your hands up front. No need to have ’em at your back.”

“Shit, that’s considerate, Baer. It works on the wrists when you have to sit on your hands very long.”

I nod. Common courtesy, is all.

I unlock Leroy and cuff him in front, too.

“What about me?” Ruth says. “My hands are numb.”

“When they rot off you can have the nubs up front.”

The hostages climb in the back seat with her, one on each side. I grab the guns in the back of the Suburban and set ’em in Ruth’s trunk. Won’t be needing any more’n I got. But I still like the feel of that Smith compact nine, and accourse, got to keep my old Smith & Wesson. I stow both under the Suburban driver seat, and promise the self I’ll remember each time I get out.

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