Hell for Leather by Alan Lee

Author:Alan Lee [Lee, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

21

Gaskins

Captain Billy Young charged through the protests of the startled receptionist and shoved open the tall double doors leading into the Office of the Mayor. The receptionist grabbed Billy by the arm and was dragged from her desk. The guard on duty, technically a deputy with the sheriff’s office on loan to the short-staffed Atlanta PD, watched helplessly. His duty was to prevent this very thing, unauthorized entry, but Billy Young, a notorious captain you didn’t test, outranked him.

Campbell was standing at his map, gazing at the site of his project, the big prison, and the updated photos, and he jumped at the intrusion. He’d been jumping a lot recently, his own shadow a menace.

He breathed a sigh of relief. It was only one man.

Even if that man was mythic.

“Take him off the list,” said Billy.

“I didn’t put him on.”

“Campbell.” Billy yanked his arm loose from the receptionist. “Don’t screw with me on this.”

“Sir, I tried,” cried the receptionist, and Campbell told her she could go. She apologized and Campbell said it was alright, she should return to her desk. And close the doors.

She did, quickly, the guard watching and wondering if he’d lost his job.

“Take him off the list,” Billy repeated.

“I assure you, I didn’t put him on.”

“Bullshit. I know you and Rhodes orchestrated this.”

The Office of the Mayor looked less like an office and more like a studio apartment these days. Clothes were stacked in the corner. A towel hung over the chair. A pillow on the couch. The trashcan overflowed with wrappers.

“The Sheriff of Gwinnett County put your brother on the bounty list,” said Campbell. “I’ve never met the man. Nor have we communicated.”

“You told Rhodes—”

“You suspect collusion?” Campbell smiled, condescending. “How quickly you find yourself on the outside.”

Although Campbell was nearly the same height as Billy, Billy outweighed him. Campbell stood like a politician, Billy like a man of war. Billy wrestled with criminals for a living while Campbell fought paperwork. “I agreed to help with your bounty arrests because we have common enemies, Campbell. But if you betrayed me, if you don’t take Johnny off the list—”

“Surely you understand arrest warrants enough to know that’s not how they work. I can’t simply pick up the phone and make a call.”

Billy closed the distance between them. “There is no arrest warrant. I looked. I can’t find the official charges. Neither could my assistant. Johnny just magically appeared on the list. How about that, Campbell? How’d he magically appear?”

Campbell and Billy spent a long minute regarding the other, sixty seconds an infinity, inspecting the eyes of the man across for weakness, for cowardice, iron wills colliding in a shower of hot sparks. Campbell steeled himself not to speak first, to wait it out, no matter how long, but he felt Billy like a boulder, an enormous weight accumulating.

Campbell had an ace to play, an ace he’d rather leave in reserve, but he caved. “I know who you are, Billy.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“I heard the suspicions so I looked into it.

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