The Subtle Art of Brutality

Crunching ice, Bean stared at the Barefield PD detective across the table from him. They sat at an outdoor table and the air was redolent with the aroma of Johnny’s delectable barbeque sauce. It put a pleasant tang in their noses, the fat scent of Johnny’s cherry pie just behind it. The Judge’s fav joint; this was where he’d learned to eat barbeque and where he’d consummated most of his deals, legal and not.

Bean squirmed, pulling at the vest beneath his western shirt. “Damned thing.” He hated wearing a ballistic vest, but years ago Digger had insisted and Bean had long since learned to completely trust Digger’s instincts.

“I lost him,” the detective said.

“Pardon?”

“My son,” the detective said. “I lost him.”

The Judge nodded. I lost one, too.

The detective had been suspended from the PD behind some bullshit involving guns and money. And the line of questions he tossed at the Judge made it obvious he was working off the books in trying to gather his son back to him.

The Judge bit back a bitter laugh. Careful, Detective, working off the books in Barefield can put you in a ditch with a bullet behind your ear...metaphorically speaking.

“Or running tail between legs down the highway.”

“Excuse me?” the detective said.

Bean shook his head. “I’m sorry, Detective Kurston, you were saying?”

“I lost my son.”

Each time the detective said it, his face broke a little more. He was desperate to have some word of where his son was, and he believed the Judge—and the Judge’s extensive network of low-brow contacts—might have some information.

I lost one, too. I lost her mother. Then I lost her.

Because he’d been chasing the dime. Hell, a damned sight more than a dime. He’d been chasing the promise of dimes, tens of thousands, if not millions, of dimes. He’d been thirty miles away, enjoying cigars and Tequila Don Julio and making promises to powerful men whose wallets he needed to finance his campaign. He’d missed what should have been the most important night in his life and the resultant guilt, thick and heavy and all-consuming, kept his boots clacking down the highway every day and night since then.

Bean took a deep breath. “What makes you think I know?”

“Give me a fucking break. You know everybody.”

“In certain worlds. And from time to time, I hear things from those worlds.” Bean told the detective what he knew, then said, “You understand all this information adds up to quite the little favor.”

The detective nodded.

“And that favor is going deep in my pocket.”

“I get it, Judge, I get it. Something you’ll need if you and the law ever cross again.”

“If?”

The Judge flexed his calf, relieved at the feel of the .380 Sig in his boot. Another suggestion from Digger. Though Bean had never actually been convicted of anything, he knew it wasn’t particularly intelligent of him to roam the state armed. But while Barefield had once been home, now it was where he felt most naked. Thus the .380 and the bullet-proof vest and sometimes his Glock 26 subcompact at the small of his back.

Shouldn’t’a left the Glock at home...dumbass.

He’d told Digger the .380 was a just-in-case gun; a pistol just-in-case he need to blast someone to hell and back. That had been the truth, but not quite all of the truth.

The truth was that he was tired of being alone. That he was tired of a twenty-one-year death and a seven-year death and he was pretty sure it was just about time for him to cash everything in.

But also? He could feel it coming: the madness that had simmered in his blood since birth. It was beginning to boil. It was the same madness that had scalded his great-grandfather and his grandmother and his father. He’d known since childhood it would burn him just like it had them.

It’s coming. It’s in my bones and muscle, in my nerves and blood. It’s a cancer and no amount of chemo or radiation will fix it.

So before the madness left him babbling and pissing down his leg and unable to remember wife or daughter, he’d planned to snap back that hammer and lay that fucking .380’s trigger down.

“Judge? You okay?”