Page 26 of Fish in a Barrel
“Eating beef jerky and doing fine. Jackson, I don’t know if I’ve got enough gas to get to Redding. What say I pass the buses and stop off for some, then get back on the road? Tell me if you pull off, or when you pass my exit. Sound good?”
“Few more miles,” Jackson said softly. “Just to make sure that’s where we’re headed. Then go for it.”
“If you pass the airport, there’s nowhere else the buses can go for a while. They’re not a good bet for the roads to the coast, particularly not in this rain.”
“Roger that. Talk to me when you need to.”
“Understood.”
“Backup?” Cody asked, sounding more lucid than he had since Jackson found him.
“Yeah,” Jackson said, eyes flickering to the front of the bus. Freddy McMurphy was playing on his phone. Jackson and Cody weren’t the only ones still awake enough to talk, but nobody was shouting, and nobody was jonesing, and everybody was compliant. Well, the buseswerewarm, and theyweredry, and the people had been fed, even if it was with drugs. Very fucking convenient, Jackson thought, tempted to go beat the shit out of Freddy McMurphy right there and then.
“Jackson, I’m gonna tell Ellery where we’re going,” Henry said. “It means I’m going to disconnect for five minutes, but I’ll be back on ASAP. Don’t panic.”
“I’m fine. Tell him hi for me.”
“Hi?” Henry taunted. “That’s weak shit, Rivers. You know it.”
“He knows the important stuff,” Jackson said, smiling a little. “You can tell him that.”
Henry laughed softly and then clicked off, and Jackson let out a sigh of relief.
“It’s good to have a partner,” Cody said softly. “I miss that in undercover.”
“They keep you from going off the rails,” Jackson agreed.
“You promised me a story.” Cody took another deep breath. “I’m going to need it. I’ve been under a long time. The burger might stretch out between here and Redding, but I’m going to need to fix again when it’s gone. I’m… I’m going to need real rehab, with the sedation and everything, or withdrawal will kill me.” Another shudder. “Looking forward to it. Fun fucking times.”
“Better than the alternative,” Jackson said firmly. “And before you ask, yes, I’ve seen the alternative on the coroner’s slab. I know what I’m talking about.”
Cody grunted. “Always comes down to that. Story, pretty boy. I need something to keep my mind off the chemical mixer in my body.”
“Okay,” Jackson said, deciding it was time to put his guesses to the test. “This is the story about a good boy who was told to play pretend. He was a hero who was fighting the people on the street who provided poison to the good little girls and boys, but he was left on the streets too long, and he started to taste the poison, just a little, to help him recover from all the dragons breathing down his neck.” Jackson paused and checked on Cody’s breathing. “How’m I doing?”
“It’s a shitty story,” Cody muttered. “But you tell it so well. Keep going.”
Fair enough.
“So some of the people this good boy trusted told him that they knew he’d tasted the poison. They were going to tell on him to the king of the good boys, and he would lose his job and not be a good boy anymore. He was desperate. Helovedbeing a good boy. He loved protecting people. And the excitement of doing that—it was in his blood. He didn’t want to lose that. He was afraid.”
“Oh yeah.” Cody’s voice broke a little. “I do know this story. It’s like it was my own.”
Jackson’s earbud clicked, and he pushed the button on the side without hesitation.
“Listening,” Henry said softly, and Jackson continued.
“So these trusted people told our good boy that if he wanted to stay with the good boys, he had to do a bad thing. He had to cause a ruckus in a… a beggar’s castle!” Jackson was proud of that one, because his knowledge of fairy tales was slim. “He had to lay waste to it—scream and shout and threaten people. And if he did this, they would let him still be a good boy.”
“Goddammit.” Cody tilted his head back, and through the grime tracking on his face, Jackson could see two tears coursing. Apparently thiswasa true story, but that didn’t make Jackson feel any better.
“But he started to do it,” Jackson said, “and he saw that he was hurting people. Innocent people. And by the time he realized that the men who told him to lay waste to the castle were bad, all the innocent people were in danger from the men who were supposed to protect them. And our good boy didn’t want that. So he cut a very sweet woman who was just at the park for a walk and left her to bleed, knowing that the bad boys would have no choice but to check on her, and he took off.”
“Yeah.” Cody took a deep breath, and with a shaking hand ripped off a tiny bit of hamburger and popped it in his mouth. Well, they didn’t have whiskey, and Jackson figured he was due.
“But that’s not the end of the story,” Jackson told him. Cody was startled enough to turn to look at him.
“What happened next?” he asked, and through the drugs and the hunger, the high and the despair, Jackson could hear the bright mind of what had probably been a very good officer at one time. Goddamn these people. Goddamn the Goslars and the McMurphys and the Freethys and the Browns who could come along and take a pure heart like this one and curb stomp it until there was nothing left.
