Hogdoggin' Page 4

  “Goddamn it, Dee! Sometimes…” Rome sucked breath and dripped on the stone tiles.

  “Sometimes what?” She stood and faced him, crossed her arms. “Sometimes you want to hit me again, right? You do, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t say that.” But yeah, he did. That was the fucking point of all this, right? He’d come home from Minnesota to a frigid wife who second-guessed his choices, rode him hard, figuratively if not in the bedroom. So she crossed the line one night and he wailed on her. Never had before. Bruised her cheek and arms. Raised a little knot on her back. And after, when she locked herself in the bathroom and called their lawyer—she knew it was pointless to call the cops on a big Fed—he wished he could take that hour back. He cried, said he needed help. She didn’t care.

  But Desiree didn’t leave, didn’t file. Demanded counseling, then treated it like a joke, telling the counselor everything she knew the woman wanted to hear. Never bothered to go through with any of the homework, or date nights, or “good fighting”. To humiliate him, that was the only reason she’d stayed. To humiliate, drain, and push Rome to another outburst so she could keep running a tab. Desiree was going to slow roast his rep, his manhood, and this marriage. But he kept trying. God knows he kept fucking trying.

  Rome wiped his hand across the wet spot, only succeeded in getting his palm as wet as his pants. He took her in, still barely a wrinkle at forty-six. Glowing skin, a smooth dark caramel, her hair styled expensively. Eyes narrowed. Lips wet when angry. When she realized he was checking her out, Desiree kicked her chair at him.

  “Think I can’t defend myself? Like I’m weak and need you to protect me? Is that it?”

  “I’m not going to hit you.”

  “You mean again.”

  “I mean ever.”

  Her purple dress hung above her knee. She wore sandals, nails painted rose. He remembered nights of foot massages, leg rubs, toesucking, pussy licking, hard fucking. Not lately. Only once in the last six months when she called him into the shower that morning, ravenous. Bit his lips when they kissed. She bent over and grabbed the sink while he took her from behind, water from the shower soaking the bathroom floor. They fucked all slippery until she came. Rome was so surprised he came right behind her. After a few moments of post-coital relaxation, rubbing his hands over her perfect hourglass curves, she pulled away, said, “I’ve got to clean up. You’ll be late to work.” Not a word about it later, when he called to see how she was doing. Tried to bring it up. Desiree said, “Don’t. I’m getting Chinese tonight. If you’re late, I’m not waiting for you.”

  He wanted her again right there in the kitchen, his cock growing hard despite the cold chill of wet khaki. Getting a good look at her eyes for the first time in weeks. Willing her, sending out a silent Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me and when she didn’t budge, he said, “I need you.”

  Her anger faded quickly, but her blinks and frown told him it wasn’t happening. It made him burn even more. Fuck this, just fuck her. Take her. She’s your wife, man.

  Desiree stepped over, retrieved her chair, and sat again. Lifted her empty glass and placed it on the coaster. “You’d better go change. Hurry up. We might miss a good deal.”

  Rome’s hard-on shrunk fast. He really needed to pee. He clipped his phone back onto his belt and retreated to the bedroom, imagining himself bound to the bed while next to him, Desiree stood wearing a large rubber strap-on, rubbing it across his face. Every few seconds, Dee would whip Rome across his chest with a frayed electric cord, cutting and stinging and she told him to watch and learn “what it takes, baby! This is what it takes!”

  Yeah, that’s what she was doing to him. Just a flitting thought, Rome told himself. Nobody ever got hurt from thinking. Besides, he was the one with the gun in this house.

  FIVE

  Billy Lafitte rolled back into Yellow Medicine County eighteen months after he’d left, a day after leaving Steel God. All it took was passing through a small town with yard gnomes surrounding the welcome sign to remind Lafitte of all he hated about this fucking state.

  At the Sheriff’s Department in Pale Falls, he sat in the lot on his hog a few extra minutes. Bad memories associated with this joint. He had been a deputy for two years before all hell broke loose thanks to a ghost from the past sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. Goddamn, you expect a little peace and quiet in the middle of rural-fucking-Minnesota.

  Lafitte dismounted, his ass numb where it wasn’t aching. He kneaded some blood back into it before dusting off his chaps and jacket. Freed his skull from the helmet and got a better, non-bug splattered view of the small pale-red brick building that almost resembled a school, except for the extra cop squad cars out front. Looked like they’d been able to buy a couple more since he’d last been here. Dodge Chargers. Why the hell did they need that much horsepower?

  The light of day had gone dark blue as the sun set, and the fluorescents in the parking lot were buzzing, charging up. Lafitte first thought about giving it until morning, seeing as neither the Sheriff or Layla would probably still be around when they could be at home on the back deck in front of a smoking chimney. The simple things. Seemed quaint, funny. Lafitte had once wished for a life without so much drama, but even after everything that happened the previous year and a half, Lafitte realized he was more of a drama fag than he’d ever imagined, just with guns.

  It was worth it to check the station first anyway. That had been the plan they’d laid out a long time back when Lafitte had sneaked back into town days after beating the shit out of Agent Rome. Couldn’t seal the deal, couldn’t squeeze the trigger. After it looked like Lafitte had slipped the net, he circled around, found the Sheriff. The man was highly pissed, having let Lafitte go to save him from a life in solitary lockdown, mistakenly considered a terrorist by Rome. So what’s the first thing Lafitte did? Almost kill a Fed? Not smart. Not at all.

  Still, Sheriff Tordsen had believed Lafitte deserved a second chance. More like his fifth, sixth. Like he was some kind of prodigal son, although Lafitte couldn’t understand why anyone would feel that way about him. Tordsen had given him a cell phone, told him they should only be in touch in case of an emergency, or if something came up that would give Lafitte an above-ground life again.

  Too bad the former reason was what got the phone ringing.

  Lafitte took the steps to the front doors cautiously, trying not to burst in. His heart thumped double-time and he’d been spinning every possible emergency scenario in his head while on the road. Ginny dead, kids dead, Ham or Savannah, either, both, kids hurt, Ginny hurt, one of them needing a kidney, deep coma, jail, fire, bankruptcy, although her folks would help in those last few cases, so probably not those, which got him back on kids dead—accident? Murdered? Why would it be murder? Abduction? Some pedophile swiped them after school?

  Lafitte had picked up a four-pack of Rolaids and kept thumbing them down to hold back the acid threatening to flood his system, make him puke, break his heart. Two more as he reached for the door, opened, stepped inside.

  Much the same—wood paneling, a U of desks with Layla’s the bottom center, right outside the Sheriff’s office. Flat-screen monitors on every desk had replaced the dinosaur bricks. Filing cabinets, folding tables, a few well-tended potted plants. Lafitte avoided looking at the door leading to the interrogation room and holding cells. Only three deputies in the room, all of them turning to stare at him. He had forgotten that he looked like a biker. He was a biker.

  A woman on the phone, Lafitte remembered her, hired only a few moths before he’d left. Another man on his way to the back paused, then kept going. Must not have caught that it was Lafitte, but Lafitte clearly remembered the man as one of many who had stood outside this very building and spit and thrown beer cans at him, chanted Traitor.

  “Can I help you with something?” It was the other deputy, walking over to Lafitte, hands loose and at the ready. Yeah, scary biker. Gonna walk into a sheriff’s office and cause trouble. Sure. Shame, because he’
d sort of been friends with this guy. Name was Nate, and he’d been fishing with Lafitte, been out to the house for steaks and beer. He’d been a young one at the department, just a stringy farm kid, but he’d beefed up this past year. A near military buzzcut on his scalp. Lots of confidence, and suspicion, in his voice. Bad sign. He was turning into a stern one.

  Lafitte grinned, couldn’t help himself.

  “Excuse me, did you hear? Can I help you?” The closer Nate got, Lafitte could tell he was seeing though the hair and beard and muscle, figuring it out.

  Lafitte extended his hand. “Deputy.”

  “Holy shit.” Nate reached out without thinking. The handshake was quick, Nate pulling away when it really hit him. “Billy.”

  “You weren’t expecting me?”

  A step back. “I’d heard, maybe. You don’t look the same at all.”

  Lafitte wanted to rub his hand through Nate’s buzz and tease him, but the kid’s eyes, there was something off there. Could be this wasn’t all on the up and up.

  “Sheriff’s not in?”

  Kid shrugged at him. “Little late for that. You missed him by an hour.”

  “You in charge?”

  That got a grin out of Nate. “A little. Heading up nights while we’re short staffed. We even hired Colleen, remember her? From Marshall?”

  “Hey, hey.” She had been a new officer on a nearby larger town’s force, and Lafitte had pushed Nate in her direction, talked the boy into hooking up with her. “You two still, you know, all right?”

  Nate pulled in his bottom lip while nodding. He said, “Going good, really good.”

  The kid was still fidgety, fists on his hips, then off, then on, trying to look like he didn’t want to grab his pistol, but there it was.

  Lafitte held his wrists out. “What? Are you going to arrest me?”

  “Hey, man, don’t.”

  “You’re a bit jumpy.”

  “Well,” Nate crossed his arms. Biceps tightened. Lafitte was impressed. Look at the little guy, all grown up. And I could still rip him in two. Nate shrugged. “What did you expect? Okay, you’re not a traitor, but shit, all the shit you actually did.”

  Lafitte cleared his throat, glanced away. New girl sneaked glances at him, flushed a little when he caught her. Like that would ever happen. He wasn’t there to make friends or mend fences.

  Nate said, “So…you’re into bikes now?”

  “Layla’s out too, I guess.”

  “Yeah. You want to call her? Feel free to use the phone.”

  Nate stepped over to a desk, picked up a receiver. Lafitte’s stomach fluttered, like the deputy seemed a little too eager to help. “That’s fine. I’m up against the clock here. Do you know what’s going on? Everyone okay?”

  “Far as I know. Like I said, I had an idea you might be headed back, but I don’t have any details.”

  Lafitte’s needle jumped and he knew the kid’s heartbeat would be racing if he checked his pulse. He’d need several more years of practice and a teacher like Lafitte to serve the bullshit smooth as butter.

  “I’ve got to go. Sheriff’s probably expecting me.”

  “You want a ride? I can come with.”

  Lafitte lifted his helmet. “I prefer not. But if you don’t mind straddling the hog and holding my chest—”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  Lafitte winked. He made for the exit, snugging on his helmet as he shouldered the door open and stepped into the night.

  *

  The son of a bitch wasn’t out the door three minutes before Deputy Nate had Agent McKeown on the line.

  “He’s here, and he’s changed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s ripped, like a bodybuilder or something. Like a bouncer. Long rock band hair. He’s on a motorcycle.”

  It sounded like McKeown was writing all this down. “Did you see the bike?”

  “I took a peek as he was pulling away. Looked like a custom job, like those on TV. And it was weird colored, like turquoise.”

  More scribbling noise. “What about logos? Was he wearing a jacket?”

  “Yeah, leather jacket. You mean what brand was it? I don’t know.”

  “No, no, I mean art. On the back of it.”

  Nate remembered. He thought it looked pretty fucking cool. “A sledgehammer, with wicked spiky demon wings on the shaft.”

  “Good, that’s good.”

  More scribbling, then some tapping. What, was McKeown on to something? Looking up the sledgehammer on the web? A good thirty seconds or so passed quietly except for tapping.

  Nate said, “So what do I do?”

  “Huh?”

  “Now that he’s here, what’s next? I can follow him out to the Sheriff’s house and wait for your people. He’s alone and looks pretty tired.”

  McKeown sighed. The rumble tickled Nate’s ear. “I thought I told you.”

  “Pretty sure you didn’t.”

  “Don’t do anything. We’re on the case. Everything’s going according to plan.”

  “I don’t get it. He’s here. We’ve got him. I can do this.”

  “Hey, wait, slow down.” Kind of laughed through that. “We know you’re eager, all that. Believe me, you’ve done enough to convince us. Sit tight now, and we’ll work out the details for getting you on board here.”

  Nate sat down, spun back and forth in the office chair. Felt like a hall monitor instead of a cop. “Listen to me, though. Billy’s no idiot. Once the sheriff gives him the lay of the land, he’ll be in the wind.”

  “I appreciate your insight, Deputy,” McKeown emphasizing Dep-u-Tie like that, like nails on a chalkboard to Nate. “In the future, we’ll make use of your skills. Right now, just trust that we’ve got it under control, okay?”

  A few more Okays and Alrights and the conversation was over. Nate slouching back into the office chair, back and forth, arms limp in his lap.

  Sure, fine, the Feds had a plan. Of course they did. The whole point of Nate wanting to join up was seeing how those guys had it all together the last time they came after Lafitte. It wasn’t a job where you had to wait and see what trouble the locals could stumble across or which dumbasses were setting up meth labs and blowing themselves up. The Feds knew who they were after and they had a plan to scoop him up.

  Maybe last time they missed the mark, okay, but at least they had tried. To think the new sheriff and Layla had given Lafitte some help after he’d gotten so many people killed, including the old sheriff, a man Nate had respected like a father almost, it made his stomach turn. Stoked his anger. Then he saw what Lafitte had done to Agent Rome. Broke into the man’s house and beat him bloody. Welped-up face, swollen ear, couple of broken bones in his hand. No way. Rome didn’t deserve that for doing his job.

  He would never admit it to anyone but Colleen, but it was pretty awesome to see a man face real danger like that and survive. Forget sitting around the station, sitting around in squads, never really feeing the adrenaline rush that he had expected from the job anyway. If he had to, Nate would take a punch, but not without dishing out some serious hurt on the bad guys along the way.

  He told himself, Get real. Them telling you to stay put? That’s another test. And wasn’t there a subtext? McKeown couldn’t come out and say it—I can’t give you orders while you’re on duty for the Sheriff. Yeah, maybe we’re not too clear on the laws about that, but it sounds right. You can take off a few hours early, get Jorgenson to cover for you. Plus, Colleen’s off tonight.

  He rolled the chair forward, grabbed the phone, and dialed Colleen’s cell.

  She answered, “Hello there, baby.”

  “Sweetie, you want to have some fun?”

  SIX

  “He’s there, and I think he’ll be on his way towards us within a couple of hours.”

  Rome took in a deep breath as McKeown told him. He was ready. “You think he’ll take the interstate?”

  “Yes, and we have someone ready to pull in behind him at
Watertown and then again at Sioux Falls. But if he tries the backroads, we’ve got an eye on him in town, too.”

  “They need to keep their distance.”

  “Absolutely, I understand. It won’t be hard to keep up with him, though. He’s on a turquoise motorcycle.”

  “What?”

  “Turns out it’s someone we’ve had an eye on but didn’t know about the connection. He’s joined a motorcycle gang, a little cult run by a real badass named Steel God. Looks like Lafitte’s this new enforcer we’ve been hearing about.”

  With that, Rome couldn’t help but let the grin wrinkle up his face. “Well, how about that? You know, if there’s a way to frame this so it’s kind of, you know, a coincidence…”

  “We were after Steel God and it just so happened…”

  “Good work, Agent McKeown. Very promising. Anything else?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Killed the grin. “Explain.”

  “Seems our eager beaver deputy, the one who wants to join up? I just got some vibes off him like he might get in our way trying to impress us.”

  Goddamn it. Rome regretted making those promises. At the time, though, this kid coming to him and wanting to help, perfect timing. All Rome did was set out the best encouragement, promising Nate a fast track, and he bit hard.

  Rome said, “Look, you know, he’s fine. Keep him safe, don’t let Lafitte get hold of him. We don’t want him bleeding everything he knows.”

  He hung up, went back into the living room where he’d been watching a news report on something called “Hogdogging”, a new backwoods sport in which Pit Bulls or Rotts were put into a pen with a mostly helpless hog. The dog would rip into the pig, and all the people had themselves a grand time watching the carnage. He stood behind his recliner as the shaky video on the screen blurred out the faces of the spectators and the action, but he had a good idea.