Down on Your Knees by Lee Thomas

Author:Lee Thomas [Thomas, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Lethe Press
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

Sleep had taken a long time to visit the night before. Brendan had lain awake, thinking about Denny Doyle, picturing his face so close, his plastic disc eyes, and the gun the big man had held to his head. He replayed the argument, adjusting it and changing the lines so that he was the dominant voice in the conversation. Brendan imagined Denny crumbling before the gun, whimpering and begging for his life. He imagined him apologizing. He pictured them talking like two adults, exchanging ideas about how they would survive Lynch’s contract on their lives, and he came up with brilliant plans that Denny praised. When sleep finally caught Brendan, it hit hard and kept hold of him for nine hours. He woke bleary eyed.

The room was too cheap to have a coffee maker, and he couldn’t remember seeing anyplace within walking distance to replenish his caffeine levels. Brendan took a long shower, washing away the previous day’s grit and fear and full-on-pissed-off rage. His jaw still throbbed dully, but the sharper pains had subsided. After dressing in his dirty clothes, conscious of the sweat stink and the coffee stains that had taken over the shirt, he worked up the courage to return to Doyle's room.

He was hesitant and began to feel angry the closer he came to the Bull's door. Those emotions had to be bit down, chewed up. Whether he liked it or not, Doyle was his partner in this. He was Brendan's only choice, unless he wanted to hit the road with the cash in his pocket and no idea where to go. He listened at the door for a moment, more to postpone the face-to-face than anything else, and then he knocked. No answer. He knocked again.

Panic rose in him.

The Bull was gone. He’d decided Brendan wasn’t worth the headache, and he’d moved ahead on his own. Shit.

Leaning against the door, Brendan considered his options. Then he remembered he still had the card key to the Bull's room. He knocked again, loudly, and called through the door, so Doyle didn’t open fire if he happened to be aiming down on the entrance. Brendan slid the card, pushed the door open a fraction and again said the name: “Denny?”

As he eased the door open, he saw the destruction within.

The sheets and blankets were ripped from the beds. The mattress nearest the door had been upturned and lay like a ramp against the frame beneath. The top of the nightstand was smashed. The pizza box lay in the middle of the floor, stamped down like a battered welcome mat. Glass from the shattered whisky bottle littered the carpet. A hole the size of a softball had been punched through the television screen. The cheap painting above it wore a similar wound. The four duffle bags he'd hauled in the previous day were haphazardly tossed onto the carpet by Doyle's bed. The only part of the room that appeared to have survived the attack was the small table beside the window on the far side of the room.

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