Chapter Fifty-Six

Killing Everybody

“Did you double-cross us, Jimmie?” Hillary asked in the darkness.

“How could I double-cross you? We were never on the same page to begin with.”

Something landed on the floor outside the stalls with a metallic clang and started hissing like a snake. The room quickly filled with smoke. Jimmie covered his mouth with his T-shirt and crept up onto the toilet seat, where he crouched like Spider-Man.

A red laser cut through the darkness and danced above the stall door. The tiny shaft of light would have only been a red dot if not for the smoke clouding the air. Perched like he was on the toilet, Jimmie Bernwood was a shitting duck.

The red shaft of light passed under the stalls, bouncing off the shoes of his stallmates. He closed his eyes as it passed over the bare tile in front of his toilet. The gunshots outside indicated to him that somebody had taken out the Socialist Justice Warriors standing guard . . . but that didn’t necessarily mean whoever was doing the shooting was after Hillary and Jeb! More likely, they were after the same thing everyone else seemed to be interested in: the Dorset recordings. And Jimmie didn’t need to be alive to hand them over.

He opened his eyes just as gunfire erupted outside of the stalls. In such close quarters, it was loud enough to take what was left of Jimmie’s hearing and leave a ringing in its place. After the first few rapid-fire shots, he stopped hearing them. The shooting was still going on, though, because the flashes of the muzzles were lighting up the restroom. It was as if somebody were throwing a Fourth of July fireworks show just for his private amusement. Some real asshole.

Jimmie braced for the bullets to enter his body and deliver him to the Lord. Although he’d always been an atheist, he prayed to God that the assassins left enough of him for at least a partially open casket. Those closed-casket affairs were just depressing as all shit—you always wondered just how mangled the corpse was beneath the pine lid.

Finally, the light show stopped.

Jimmie ran a hand over his chest and stomach, checking for wounds. Not a bullet hole to be found. He thanked God for saving him and went back to being an atheist.

The ringing in his ears slowly wound down, and he could make out a couple of voices arguing on the other side of the stall door. The lights flickered back on. Jimmie glanced down to see how his stallmates had fared, then quickly looked away. The floor was a mess of busted ceramic from the toilet seats, plaster chunks from the walls . . . and blood. So much blood. One of Jeb!’s loafers had somehow found its way back into Jimmie’s stall. Part of a foot was still stuck in it, but it had come undone from the rest of Jeb!’s body.

There were footsteps across the broken tile outside Jimmie’s stall. Then a pause. He could sense somebody standing there, contemplating his fate. An assassin. Jimmie decided to go down swinging.

“You’ll never take me alive,” he said, gripping the only weapon he had—the recorder—with both hands. His voice was trembling and weak.

The words had sounded so much better in his head.