Page 14 of Too Many Beds

Killers Like Us

L Eveland

Jasper

“Quit looking out the window and fucking pay attention.” The plain white coffee mug dangled from Lee’s fingers in a way that made him seem lazy. Lazy Lee, they called him, on account of how effortless he made killing look.

It was an illusion. Lee was anything but lazy. It took a lot of strength to move a body, to haul cement blocks out and tie ‘em to the dead fucker’s ankles. And when they’ve got those cement shoes on, they’re even heavier.

Lee worked out a lot, and it showed. He was hot as hell. He had brains, too. I wasn’t smart, not as smart as Lee anyway, but even I knew we were fucked. Nobody—and I mean nobody—crossed the Fortiers and lived to tell about it.

He snapped his fingers at me, his forehead wrinkled like he was pissed.

“Sorry,” I murmured, letting the blinds fall back into place. “I can’t fuckin’ help it. I feel like we’re gonna get shot up any second.”

He stared at me. I wondered if he could see his reflection in my glasses. Did he know how irresistible he looked with his slicked back hair and his perfectly styled goatee? Avi—that’d be Big Boss Fortier’s oldest boy—used to laugh at his facial hair. Said it made him look like a cartoon devil and he ought to shave it off. Maybe it did, but I didn’t care. If Lee Ducaux was the devil, then I wanted to be his favorite sin.

Lee arched an eyebrow. “This is a Waffle House, Jasper.”

“So?”

“A Waffle House in the south.” He put his empty coffee cup down and scooted it to the edge of the table. “Only place more sacred is a goddamn church. The Fortiers aren’t going to gun us down over a plate of steak and greasy fucking eggs.”

The waitress came over and refilled his coffee. I smiled at her like nothing was wrong. Inside, I was shaking like a leaf. Lee’s assurances usually put me at ease, but not this time.

Once the waitress was gone, I leaned across the table and asked, “Are you sure, Lee?”

“Jasper, c’mon. Have I ever steered you wrong? Now eat your fucking biscuits and gravy so we can go.” He gestured to the plate in front of me.

I’d barely touched the food, and we’d been sitting there for an hour. The gravy had congealed into a wiggly white mass with strange black specks and the biscuits were hard and cold. I pushed the plate away and got out my wallet. “I ain’t hungry. Let’s just go.”

Lee’s hand shot across the table to grip my wrist and my heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t a touchy feely sort of guy, and bythat I mean he once shot a guy for bumping into him. He hated touching people and letting people touch him. I was the one exception. I guess once you pull a bullet out of a guy’s guts and spend the next couple of weeks keeping him alive, Lee makes special rules. I was allowed to touch him, and I didn’t mind him touching me. Actually, I wished he’d touch me a whole lot more, but I wasn’t going to say that. Not to Lazy Lee Ducaux.

“I got this one,” he said as he let me go. Lee dropped two twenties on the table—more than enough to cover our breakfasts, and we walked out of the diner.

Outside, it was as humid as the devil’s armpit and twice as hot. Heat came up off the asphalt, baking my ankles, while the sun roasted me top down. It was past the heat of the day and still too hot to live.

I reached up to loosen the tie around my neck and wished I’d worn something more sensible. Mr. Fortier said we were supposed to be respectable and had to dress the part. It was one of the perks of the job, getting an allowance for nice clothes and a new car.

But we didn’t work for Mr. Fortier anymore. I wondered if maybe that meant we could dress down again, but Lee hadn’t said anything about it. I didn’t know how he could stand it, but he didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable in his three-piece suit, even in the heat.

We left the Acura we’d driven up from Birmingham and Lee hot-wired a white Kia, swapping the plates with an Impala. It was his idea to stick to boring cars for our getaway and to switch rides at every state line, just in case. It’d make it a lot harder for the Fortiers to catch up to us, but I wasn’t sure it’d be enough.

We were on the road in just a few minutes, heading north on I-65. Lee said we could take that all the way to Indianapolis and then get on another highway that’d take us straight into Canada.I’d have to take his word for it. Before this, Baton Rouge was the furthest north I’d ever been.

I stared out the window and tried to settle in for the long drive, but I couldn’t sit still. “What’s it like in Canada, Lee?”

“I’ve only been as far as Toronto,” he said. “But it’s nice.”

“You ever have poutine while you were up there?”

“I wasn’t in Toronto for the food, Jasper.” He rolled his head toward me and gave me the look, the one that said we were talking about murder again.

I frowned and looked away. I didn’t like to think about killing people. Doing in Laurent Cohen was enough murder for me to last a lifetime. If I closed my eyes, I could still see him lying there on the pavement, his face frozen in a shocked expression, like he hadn’t expected me to shoot him. Why should he? I’d always been the good boy, the guy they could count on to get the work done. The talker. Jasper the Mouth, they called me, ‘cause I never shut up.

Well, I was quiet after I shot Laurent Cohen in that warehouse. Maybe it was because of the gunshot ringing in my ears, or maybe it was shock. I didn’t know. All I knew was that I’d still be standing there over his body if Lee hadn’t grabbed me and told me we had to run.

“I shouldn’t have shot Laurent,” I said, letting my head rest on the window.

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