The Inn(13)

“I have a few problems with what you’re saying,” I said. “First, Susan doesn’t want to help us. She avoids anything that has to do with the Bureau.”

“I can’t work that woman out,” Nick said. “What’s she doing at the house? Why tell us she used to be Bureau if she’s not willing to tell us everything—what she did there, why she left. She’s too young to have retired. Maybe she got herself kicked out and she’s blacklisted.”

I shifted in my seat. Nick was wandering into territory that was dangerously familiar to me.

“Maybe she’s undercover, working on something,” Nick mused. “But then why tell us she used to be a fed at all? Maybe it’s all lies. Maybe she was supposed to marry a guy with Mob ties but left him at the altar.”

“You’re very creative,” I noted. “But whatever it is, I’m sure it’s none of our business. In any case, we have to decide what we’re going to do with this big-ass gun. Maybe we should take it to Clay.”

“What do you need a handgun that size in Gloucester for?” Nick said. “You know, I came to Gloucester to get away from guns, sirens, and crackheads. The fact that these creeps are handing out samples means they’re new in town, trying to lock in some long-term clientele. We stomp on them now and we won’t have ourselves another Baltimore.”

Nick was a Baltimore native, but he’d told me when he moved in here that he had returned to his city to find it worse than some of the war-torn villages he’d rolled through in Iraq. A drug epidemic had ravaged Baltimore, and its overcrowded rehab clinics, overwhelmed cops, and warring gangs had given it a dangerous reputation. Nick left for Gloucester after an elderly woman was beaten to death in the hallway of his apartment building for her handbag. He’d found her lying there stone-cold dead, the other residents too scared to dial 911 for fear of being called on as witnesses.

“Nothing like Baltimore is going to happen,” I said. “Not here.”

“You’re damn right it’s not,” he said. “So give me your plan.”

“My plan for right now is to try to stop this train before it leaves the station,” I said, watching Dr. Mayburn. Nick followed my glance. I was surprised he hadn’t caught on to the danger already, but once he did, he sat bolt upright. Dr. Mayburn had risen out of his seat and seemed on the edge of making a bad decision about the loud, annoying group at the end of the bar. He took a steak knife from a place setting on the counter and held it by his side, moving the blade up and down.

“I wouldn’t do it, friend,” Nick said, sipping his drink. Dr. Mayburn was shaking with rage as he turned to us.

“Do what?” he snapped.

“It’s not worth it,” Nick said. “They’re just loud losers. Ignore them.”

Mayburn was walking toward them even before Nick finished speaking. Nick and I rounded the bar to intervene just as Dr. Mayburn thrust himself into the group, brandishing the knife at the small, lean man, whose expression was a mixture of surprise and delight.

“I’ve had enough,” Mayburn said, sneering. “I’ve had enough of you and your filth. You remorseless … cowardly … ” His rage was making it impossible for him to find the right words. “Having another baby, are you? You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Nick and I went in to pull Mayburn back but we were stopped by the thick arm of one of the men in the group; it came down in front of us like a tollbooth barrier. Someone shoved Mayburn in the back, almost toppling him, but he got his balance and flailed around with the knife, inches from bewildered faces.

“What you gonna do, you old prick?”

“Go for it, bitch. Let’s see what you’ve got!”

The men had the knife out of Mayburn’s withered grip before he even realized it. They started pushing him around like a child. Nick glanced at me, and I could almost feel his body engage, harden, go into fight mode. A switch flipped, and the machine was unleashed.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN





NICK GRABBED THE arm blocking him and yanked it down, then used the momentum to drag the big guy to the floor and sink a knee into his ribs as he went. I heard bones crunch. I thought about the gun in my pocket but grabbed the wrist of the guy with the knife instead and palmed him in the face with my other hand; the shock of the blow caused him to drop the knife. I slid it to the side with my foot, pushed Mayburn out of harm’s way, grabbed one of the losers by his flannel shirt, and threw him into the bar, knocking stools over. Nick and I backed the remaining trio into the corner by the men’s room.

“He came at us, the asshole!” The shrimpy guy gestured at Mayburn while keeping an eye on Nick, who stepped over the big guy he’d winded like he was a deer shot down in the woods. “We’re just trying to have a party here!”

“The party’s moving on.” I pointed to the doors to the parking lot. “Better catch the bus before it leaves.”

The little guy had a chest full of swirly tattoos peeking through his sweat-stained shirt. There were rosy red sores around his throat from a cheap razor. His friends seemed happy to leave, edging toward the door, but it was the shrimp’s party and he wasn’t giving up without a tantrum. He grabbed a glass from the table behind him and threw it at me.