Page 54 of Gonzo's Grudge
“And new you?”
“Doesn’t exist,” I stated. “There’s just this me trying to do better.”
He was quiet long enough for me to hear him deciding not to say something he knew I’d hear wrong. “We got you,” he replied instead.
“I know.”
I hung up and stared at the letter with her name on it until the ink blurred again.
Night rides make me a person who felt alive. I took my bike out on county roads that know me better than some men do. The wind scraped thoughts out of my muddled head. Trees pulled their shadows across the asphalt like curtains cloaking me in the safety of darkness. Headlight turned deer eyes into coins and then out again.
At a crossroads I stopped and cut the engine and let the kind of quiet you only get in the middle of nowhere lay over me. Somewhere far, a dog barked. Closer, something small moved in leaves like it didn’t know men ruin everything they touch.
“I’m not going to ruin you,” I stated to the dark, and if that makes me a crazy old bastard talking to night like it’s a confessional, then put it on my list. I was already halfway to insanity anyway. I got myself twisted and tied up in a woman more than half my age playing a game with her mind, body, and spirit that I never should have started.
I cranked the bike and headed toward her parents’ subdivision without letting myself decide not to. I rode past their house slow knowing the code to get in. Shanks sat two doors down in a Jeep that used to be neon green and now was black and set up stock just to remain anonymous. He tipped two fingers off the wheel. I didn’t stop. I wanted to. Men who want to do right sometimes do worse because of it. I kept going.
On the way back through town I rolled past city hall and looked at it like you look at a man who thinks his money can turn law into leash. A late light burned in Stanley’s office. He wasn’t there; his assistant was. The building had a new security company sign out front—a dog with its teeth out on a blue shield.
“Cute,” I told it, and kept rolling.
At the cabin, the lock turned clean. New bolt set with long screws. The way you make a door less easy to kick. I set the envelope on the table where I couldn’t miss it in the morning and shook two pills into my palm I don’t like admitting I take. They’re not for pain. Not the kind you can mark on a chart. They slow a heart that thinks it’s a hammer.
I slept two hours. Woke up to nothing. Slept one more. Woke to a text.
Not from her.
From Waverly:
Visitor logs in hand. Campus is rattled. They know they messed up. Got a loop in on a Fed for the funds situation.
Another ping came through.
From Burn:
Bank VP’s wife—Darlene—just bought a plane ticket to Miami. Leaving Friday.
Interesting. Before I could reply, another ping. Followed by another. Somehow my phone had become Grand Central Station.
From Lead:
Your boy moved yards. He’s good. Lifers got him. He eats first today notes from Grip.
From Shanks:
House quiet. Dad left early. Mom cried in the kitchen. Girl hasn’t come downstairs.
From a number I didn’t recognize:
Stop.
No name. No context. Just stop.
Stanley loves that kind of message: two letters pretending to be a sentence. I smiled where no one could see and typed nothing back. Silence is a weapon if you know how to hold it.
After coffee, I lifted the envelope again, weighed it, then set it down. Not yet. Not until I’ve put something under the words. A man with my sins doesn’t get to go in easy on anything.
So I put on my cut. Swung my leg over my bike and started the day the way I start wars when I mean to win them: patient.
