Page 19 of Never Flinch

“—are currently occupied,” Dov finishes. “We’d ask you to share our current libation, too, but unfortunately funds are low and we must conserve.”

“That’s all right,” Trig says. And to Frank: “I haven’t been at the Shine at Noon for quite awhile. I guess those meetings weren’t for you.”

“Nope, I tried it, but do you know what? Sobriety sucks.”

“I find it useful.”

“Well,” Frank says, “it takes all kind to make a world, so they say. Have I seen you around before? Maybe at the Dollar Tree?”

“It’s possible.”

Trig looks around, confirms that they are unobserved, takes the Taurus out of his pocket, and shoots Dov in the center of the forehead. The snap of the revolver, not loud to begin with, is lost in the steady whoosh of the driers’ exhaust. Dov’s head rocks backward, hits the cinderblock wall between two of the metal exhaust ports, then drops onto his chest. Blood trickles down the bridge of his nose.

“Hey!” Frank says, looking up at Trig. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Alan Duffrey,” Trig says, and points the pistol at Frank. “Sit still and I’ll make it quick.”

Frank doesn’t sit still. He shoots to his feet, spilling his Fuzzy Navel all over his lap. Trig shoots him in the chest. Frank staggers back against the cinderblock, then comes forward with his hands outstretched like Frankenstein’s monster. Trig retreats a few steps and shoots three more times:snap-snap-snap. Frank goes to his knees, then—unbelievable!—gets up again, hands once more outstretched. They are groping for something, anything.

Trig takes time to aim and shoots Frank Mitborough, who once lived upstate and at one point had almost a year clean and sober, in the mouth. Frank sits down in his lawn chair, which collapses and spills him onto the ground. A tooth falls out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry, you guys,” Trig says. And he is, but only in an academic way. Killers in the movies say only the first one is hard, and although Trig guesses their lines were written by folks who have never killed anything bigger than a bug, it turns out to be true. Plus, these two were a drag on society, no good to anybody. He thinks,Dad, I could get to like this.

Trig looks around. No one. He takes the folder containing the slips of paper from his pocket and thumbs through the names. He puts PHILIP JACOBY in Dov’s hand. In Frank’s he puts TURNER KELLY.

Do the police know what he’s doing yet? If they don’t, they will soon. Will they offer protection to those remaining, once they figure it out? It will do them no good, because he’s not killing the guilty. He’s killing the innocent. Like these two.

He walks around the side of the Washee-Washee, peeks, sees no one except for a man going into Wallets to cash his check or get a loan. No sign of the lady who works in the laundromat. Once the Wallets guy is gone, Trig walks to his Toyota, which is parked in front of an empty storefront with soaped windows and a sign in the door saying FOR LEASE FROM CARL SIEDEL REAL ESTATE. He gets in and drives away.

Three down, eleven to go.

It seems like a mountain to climb.

When the atonement is complete and the amends are made, you can rest. So he tells himself.

He goes back to his job, little though it means to him.

4

Two hours later, Holly Gibney walks into a drinking establishment called Happy. It’s only two o’clock in the afternoon, but there are at least twenty customers, mostly men, sitting at the bar and imbibingtheir own drug of choice, which happens to be legal. Despite the establishment’s name, none of them seems particularly happy. There’s a baseball game on TV, but it’s got to be an oldie, because the team in the white home uniforms is the Indians instead of the Guardians.

John Ackerly is behind the stick, looking hunky in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show muscular forearms. He comes over to her with a smile.

“Holly! Long time no see. Your usual?”

“Thanks, John, yes.”

He brings her a Diet Coke with two cherries impaled on a swizzle and she pushes a twenty across the bar. “No change required.”

“Ah! Fine with me. Is the game afoot?”

“Yes and no. Are you still going to meetings?”

“Three times a week. Sometimes four. Dom Hogan lets me off if it’s an afternoon meeting.”

“He owns the bar?”

“Indeed he does.”

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