Jeff asked Cody why they’d brought me here.
“Dalton said to. Said he talked to his friend and he wanted you scared off.”
“The friend did, you mean.” Jeff gestured to the bat, the steel knuckle dusters and the dying flames. “Your idea of scaring off?”
“Dalton’s friend said this guy doesn’t scare easy.”
“No,” Jeff said, looking at me. “He really doesn’t.”
At gunpoint Cody’s manner became deferential. He explained how Tabitha had come to him with the deal. Seven hundred thousand clean and untraceable dollars, loaned out for six months. Her return was twenty-two percent.
She’d told them if it worked out they’d be able to do it again, maybe perpetually. Lending them cash, then laundering their returns. This would be a trial.
“What did you use the money for?” I asked. My breath had returned and I’d wiped off my chin as best I could.
“Buy product,” Cody said. “The fuck you think?”
When he saw we weren’t impressed, he added, “Chemicals. Fucking government makes them tough to get, got to pay our ephedrine guy in advance. Once we off-loaded, the money went back to Tab.”
“But you don’t know where she went.”
“That’s why Dalton wanted you to find her. No one knows where she is.”
“Who owns this place?” I asked.
“Dalton’s friend. Lets us use it sometimes. Guy’s a biker.”
“His name.”
“Terry Rhodes,” Cody said. Even at gunpoint, he half-smiled at the reaction the name brought from us.
“Tabitha was never out here?” I asked. “Never had dealings with Rhodes?”
“Fuck no. She only dealt with me and Dalton. We were hoping—” he caught himself.
“Hoping what?” Jeff asked.
“That this would be our deal,” Cody said.
I said to Jeff, “He means Tabitha’s operation would be strictly League of Nations. They weren’t going to kick up to the bikers.”
“We weren’t,” Cody said. “Have to now.”
It had been too good to be true: a financial operation all their own. Maybe Tabitha had sold a long-term plan to the Hayes brothers, knowing she could only perform the scheme once. The possibility of repeating it would ensure her safety through the first transaction.
The driver was still facedown in the mud. The gasoline fire had long gone out. I could close my hand without too much pain.
“I’m parked close to the gate,” Jeff said. “Followed you out here and cut my lights. You ready to leave?”
“Almost,” I said.
I stripped off my jacket, now ruined by mud. Walked over to Cody.
“Is this going to end here?” I asked him. “Stay between us?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes. I promise.”
“And we never see each other again. Your word.”
He nodded vigorously. “Swear to god. Swear on my moms.”
“Good. Then Jeff won’t have to shoot you. You feel like it, by all means, defend yourself.”
I hit him below the cheek and dropped him. Cody looked up with a child’s what-was-that-for innocence. Behind me Jeff said something, but I was concentrating on getting hold of Cody’s shirt front and hitting him again, splitting open his mouth.
Cody scooted backwards, away from me, across the mud. I lunged forward and struck his left eye socket. I sat on his chest and hammered at his face. Slowly. Considering each blow. Swatting away his hands when they tried to ward them off.
“Enough,” Jeff said.
But it wasn’t. I hit him again. I hit him until I was sure I’d broken his jaw. Until I was panting and a fresh round of nausea was poised to erupt out of me. Until Cody Hayes had been reduced to a whimpering, quivering thing.
He was sobbing. Snot mixed with black blood. I stood up and wiped my knuckles.
“I’m good now,” I said.