The Guilty (Will Robie 4)

Robie figured they had been making this same exchange for the last thirty years, maybe longer. They were evidently practiced at it. He pointed to the gap.

“So it burned to the ground. When?”

“Oh, ’bout, what Eugenia, say ten years ago?”

“’Bout that, yes. Lightnin’, they say.” She let her voice sink. “But I always said it was mor’n that.”

“Insurance money,” added Monroe with a knowing look.

She jabbed him in the arm with her finger. “I was tellin’ the story.”

“And they didn’t rebuild it?” asked Robie.

The couple looked surprised by this. Monroe said, “Never saw the point, son. If they had mor’n two paying guests at any one time, they’d be considered full up and hang out the NO VACANCY sign.”

Eugenia eyed Robie’s duffel. “You lookin’ for a place to stay, hon?”

“I am.”

“Rooms overtop’a Danby’s Tavern on Muley Road, you know where that is?”

“I do.”

Monroe squinted at him. “You from ’round here, son?”

“Not anymore,” said Robie. He thanked them and headed to Muley Road.

He reached it five minutes later.

Eugenia Tussle had not been entirely accurate. There weren’t rooms above Danby’s Tavern; there was just one room. It was empty until Robie rented it, paying in cash so he did not have to reveal his name. However, he was sure that by now pretty much everyone in Cantrell knew who he was. The owner of Danby’s, a large man with a rough beard and thick, muscular hands, passed him the key.

“Stayin’ long?” he asked.

Robie shrugged. “Not sure.”

He took his duffel up to the room, unpacked his few items into a rickety bureau, sat on the bed, and gazed out the window onto the street below.

Part of Robie, perhaps most of him, wanted to drive to Jackson and climb on a plane and fly back to DC. His father didn’t want to see him. Robie didn’t see any reason to be here. Yet he wasn’t going to leave.

He checked his watch. Nearly five.

He washed up in the small bathroom, changed his clothes, and left his room, locking the door behind him. He hurried down the steps, and his shoes hit the planks of the first floor of Danby’s Tavern.

There were three customers in the tavern now. They were all young men. And they were all looking at him from behind reddened eyes as their thick hands clasped nearly empty beer bottles. Behind the counter, a young woman glanced once at the men and then over at Robie. Her look told him all he needed to know.

She was afraid. For him.

Danby’s owner was nowhere to be seen.

That figured.

When he headed to the door, the three men rose as one and blocked his way.

They were all Robie’s size or bigger. Youngish, in their early twenties. He would have been gone from Cantrell probably before they were born. They wore jeans and T-shirts and were broadly muscular, smelling of sweat and beer. And testosterone about to be unleashed.

Robie looked at the one in the middle. His arrogant features and his positioning slightly forward of his two companions told Robie he was the designated leader, like the head wolf in a pack.

“Can I help you?” he said.

The man replied, “Will Robie?”

Robie said nothing but he answered with a slight nod.

“Your daddy is a killah.”

“Not until the court says he is,” replied Robie.

He had already positioned himself so that his angled silhouette provided less of a target and his weight was forward on the balls of his feet but still balanced enough to ward off an attack. As his gaze took in all three of his opponents, his hands and arms relaxed but his quads and calves were tightened, like a spring about to be released. If it came to it, he knew exactly how he would do this. The plan had formed in his mind without his really having to think about it.

He could tell they were amateurs, with no time even in the military. Otherwise, they would not be lined up in front of him like tenpins.

“He killed my daddy!” said the leader.

“You’re Sherman Clancy’s son?” Robie replied in a calm, level tone. He never chose to fight, and if he could defuse the situation he would.

“Damn right I am.”

“I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

The man snorted. “That’s right good comin’ from family of the man who killed him.”

“I’ve been gone a long time. I knew nothing about this until recently. But we need to let the court decide what happens to my father. It’s just better all around. It’s how it has to be.”

The man pointed a finger in Robie’s face. “You bein’ here ain’t welcome.”

Robie felt his patience start to slip a bit. At this rate, he might be here all night.

“I go to lots of places I’m not welcome.” This was one of the most honest statements Robie had uttered since being in the bar.

This comment seemed to befuddle all three of them. And once the brain was taken aback, that left only one alternative for punks like these: They would try to accomplish with their fists what they couldn’t with their brains. And Robie had actually intended this, because he had an appointment to keep and just wanted to get this over with.

Clancy’s son broke off his beer bottle against a table edge and brandished it in front of Robie.

Only Robie was no longer there.

He had moved to his right, knelt, gripped the inside leg of the man next to Clancy’s son, ripped it off the floor, and then propelled him sideways into the other two. As they were all going down to the floor Robie reached over and snagged the hand holding the beer bottle. He bent it backward until Clancy’s son screamed and let go. He threw the bottle to the side, stepped back, and prepared for what was coming next.

Clancy’s son pushed off the floor and came at Robie. Another mistake. They should have regrouped and attacked him together from different flanks. But they were stupid and they couldn’t really fight.

Robie was now sure he would not be late for his meeting with Taggert.

One punch to the face, a shot drilled right into his nose with the base of Robie’s rigid palm torqued off a V-shaped arm for max power, followed by an elbow strike delivered directly to the right kidney sent the man to the floor. He did not get back up, because the blow to the face had knocked him out. The busted face and bruised kidney would be pains he would suffer later when he came to.

The second man bull-charged Robie and managed to get his thick arms around Robie’s waist. His plan, no doubt, was to lift his opponent off the floor and smash him against the wall. The flaw in his strategy was leaving Robie’s arms free. Robie slammed both palms against the man’s ears, which are quite sensitive appendages of the body. The man screamed, let Robie go, and dropped to all fours. Robie gripped the back of the man’s neck and jerked the head down at the same time he delivered a brutal knee strike upward to the chin, which cost his opponent two teeth, and knocked him flat on his ass and out for the count.

The third man did the smart thing—he ran for it. Robie could hear his boots clattering on the plank porch before they hit pavement and were gone.

Robie looked down at the two unconscious, bleeding men and then over at the girl behind the bar. She was staring at him openmouthed, the glass-rag and beer mug clutched in her hand, but neither touching the other.

He pointed to the leader. ?

??It that Pete Clancy?”

“Y-yes, s-sir,” she said in a trembling voice.

“If they press charges will you be able to tell the truth?”