Page 10 of Bram

“No point,” I said. “We’re done here in five.”

Sniper was already at the kitchen, opening the pantry with surgical fingers. He pointed: crates, stacked two by two, markings all fresh, like they’d been delivered yesterday.

I moved to the table. The air smelled like gunpowder, but under that was the sharper tang of raw solvent. I set my SIG down, flexed my right hand, and reached for the nearest crate. The lid came off with a splinter and inside, lined up neat, were AR rifles, still in factory plastic, all black and hungry. Next to the crate was a duffel, blue canvas, zipper split. I unzipped it the rest of the way. Cash, packed tight in rubber bands. At least fifty grand, maybe more.

On the kitchen table, there was something else. Four bricks, each the size of a paperback, wrapped and double-wrapped in plastic and duct tape. I didn’t have to open them to know. I picked one up, heavy and cold, turned it over in my palm. The surface was hard, the tape smooth except for the spot where someone had pressed a thumbprint deep into the glue. I set it back down.

Trace came up behind me. “You want me to move it?”

I shook my head. “Leave it.”

He stared, waiting for the order, but I just looked at the bricks. The others watched me, each in their way. Rusty’s face was stone, but he tapped the butt of his shotgun against his boot, soft, like he needed the pulse. Kodiak stood with arms crossed, already making a plan for how to carry the hardware out. Sniper cleaned his blade, eyes never leaving the door.

I said, “Take the guns. Take the money. Leave the rest.”

Trace looked at me like I was crazy. “That’s four bricks, boss.”

“Leave it,” I said. “It goes with the rest of the garbage.”

Nobody argued. I had the rank, and they knew the rule. Millie’s ghost was in the room, the same way it was every time a shipment like this turned up. Not a single man at that table was going to cross me, not on this.

We packed the guns in silence, moving fast and efficiently. Rusty took the lead, dragging the duffel out to the back. Kodiak loaded the crates into the bed of the nearest truck, hotwiring the engine with fingers that never slipped. Trace and Sniper watched the approach, ready for the next round.

I walked outside and felt the morning hit me like a slap. There was no wind, just the slow climb of sun over the ridge, painting everything in the orange of spent gunpowder. I went to the side of the house, found the propane tank. The gauge read half full. Good enough.

I twisted the valve, let the gas hiss. The smell was sharp, oily, and familiar. I went back in, grabbed the kitchen rag, stuffed it into the top of the first brick, then did the same to the others. I found a lighter in the dead man’s pocket.

Trace watched me, not blinking. “You really going to burn it?”

“We don’t deal drugs, son. We’re outlaws. Not dealers.”

I went outside, let the air fill with the stink of gas. Then I walked back in, flicked the lighter, and touched the flame to the rags. The fire caught slow at first, then faster. The plastic buckled, smoke curling and then pouring out, white and ugly.

We stood back, at the edge of the yard, as the house went up. The windows blew in less than a minute, the pop loud in the open. The black smoke climbed straight up, a column that turned the sky the color of bruised flesh. None of us said a word. We just watched, the way you watched a man get buried, or a marriage end.

When the roof sagged, I turned to the bikes. The others followed. We rolled Trace’s bike up a plank and into the truck’s bed. We rolled out, engines hot, the sound of the fire chasing us down the road. I didn’t look back. The past never changed, no matter how much you burned.

The drive back into Barstow was slower and louder for reasons that had nothing to do with engines or wind. I left the others at the compound, splitting off at the turn for Main Street, and took the county road alone. My hands were steady on the throttle, but my mind kept trying to re-run the last hour in different orders, as if one of them would end with Millie alive or the house not burning or the world put right. It never did. Men were meant to burn with the world around them.

The Slaughterhouse was a low, ugly box built out of cinder block and smoke memory, tucked off the highway where nobody who cared would see what happened in the lot. Neon Coors sign in the one window, yellowed to the color of old teeth. Gravel lot, half a dozen trucks with farm tags, two Harleys with no colors. I parked nose out and left the helmet on the seat.

Inside, the smell was chemical, pine cleaner and stale beer, but under that was the sharp, high stink of sweat and old fights. The bar ran the length of the room, pitted wood, lined with a row of stools in various stages of collapse. There were no booths, just battered tables, and in the back a single alcove with a bench and a view of both doors. I took the seat with my back to the wall, ordered Stillwater bourbon neat from a bartender who didn’t look at my face, and waited.

All around the room, shattered and broken men talked with big-boobed women who had more ink than the men they were shooting the shit with. In a bar, nobody gave a damn how fucked up your life was. We were all the same, hurting in one way or another. Come here to wallow in a drink and maybe leave with a piece of pussy, or dick for the women, and wake up in the morning with said person gone. That night it would be wash, rinse, repeat.

Ten minutes later, Julie Sparta walked in. Maybe the universe wasn’t such an asshole after all. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. The universe went back to being an asshole.

She didn’t look like herself. Her hair was down, not in the usual bun, and she wore jeans with a black blazer over a tee, the kind of outfit that was supposed to say I’m off the clock but never really meant it. She walked straight to the bar, head up, every step measured and deliberate. The bartender nodded, poured her a vodka soda without asking. She sipped, face turned to the mirror behind the bottles, not seeing me or not wanting to.

Five minutes after that, the Desert Scorpions arrived.

There were three: tall, thin, and broad. The tall one had a face full of cartilage and a nose like someone had hammered it flat at birth. The thin one wore his cut over a stained dress shirt and had hands that never stopped moving. The broad one was two necks and a bald scalp that reflected the light like a beacon. They walked in as a unit, boots scuffing the tile, eyes lazy but never unseeing.

The tall one spotted Julie first. His smile was pure instinct. He led the others to the bar, took a stool three down from her, and let his body turn just enough to pin her in the angle of his gaze. The bartender clocked the move, poured their whiskeys, and retreated.

The first comment was low. “Thought only lawyers drank that shit.” The second, louder: “Or maybe you’re not a lawyer tonight, sweetheart.”

Julie didn’t move, didn’t blink. She stared at the mirror. The thin one watched her drink, his tongue working his teeth.