Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [29]
Archer cringed and tried to melt through the wall.
“Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. What are your plans for carrying out your end of the deal?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I just got out. . . .” Archer tried to calm himself. Tried to sound as if he wasn’t ready to pass out from fright.
“Well, then, let’s think about it now. You and me.” The man dragged Archer deeper into the shadows.
“Who are you?” Archer asked, hoping to buy himself time.
“You can call me Burt. And I’m the man who’s going to make sure that you don’t fuck up, little buddy.” His breath was hot and sour in Archer’s face. “I’m the man who is going to be watching every move you make until the job is done, understand?”
“No.”
“Think of me sorta like your conscience.” He chuckled, but to Archer it sounded more like a growl. “You know how your conscience tells you what to do? Keep your word, that sort of thing?”
Archer nodded slowly.
“Well, I’m gonna make sure you do what you said you’d do.”
“I was gonna do it,” Archer whispered. “Soon as I could, you know, get a plan together.”
“This is your lucky day, Archer. Because I am here to help you with that plan.” His grip on Archer never loosened. “Tell me the names. Convince me that you’re still in the game, that you know what you have to do. . . .”
Archer whispered the names.
“Very good, Archie. Very good. At least you know that much.”
“Hey, I know what I’m supposed to do, okay? Just haven’t gotten around to doing it. First I need to get a job, I need some money to get around, you know what I mean?”
Archer felt himself lowered so that his feet once again touched the ground.
The stranger backed off slightly, then stuffed something into Archer’s left jacket pocket.
“Now that’s one excuse you don’t have anymore. Tell me what your plan is, Archie. Walk me through it. . . .”
Jesus. Jesus.
Archer sat on the ground behind his mother’s trailer and shook all over. He’d run all the way back from the bar in the dark, all the way across the field, stumbling, his neck craning this way and that. Terrified that the stranger was following him, that he’d let him get halfway across the field and then he’d pop up and just break his neck or slash him to ribbons. Like one of those bad scary movies. Jason. Michael. Freddie.
Burt was scarier.
Archer was crying softly by the time he arrived home. Not soft enough to risk going inside, though. He’d wake up his mom, sure enough, and there was no way he wanted her to see him like this. Geez, he was crying like a girl.
I can’t help it. He was scary. Burt was the scariest person I’ve ever seen close-up.
Scarier still, knowing that he was going to be watching until this was over. Until he’d . . .
Archer started crying all over again.
I don’t want to kill anyone. I never did; I never want to.
He thought of the photographs of Vince’s victims, the ones the chief of police from Broeder had shown him while he was still in prison, when they wanted him to talk about Vince. A man with a single hole in the back of his head, a larger one in the front. A woman with her throat slashed, her chest a mess of stab wounds, blood everywhere. Her eyes had been open.
Jesus.
He stopped shaking for a minute. Miranda Cahill—he cringed at the irony—had been here just the day before yesterday. He could have told her. He could still tell her. He could get the FBI to help him. Protect him.
Yeah, Miz Cahill, you were right. It was just supposed to be a game, that’s all. Something to pass the time while we were in the courthouse waiting. I swear to you, it wasn’t supposed to happen. I never thought it was going to happen. But then, see, Channing got out, and he did Vince’s hits. Then Vince, he gets out, and he’s thinking, hey, Channing did it, I have to do it, too. That’s what I think happened, anyway. I think Vince didn’t want to feel like Channing was, you know, a tougher man than he was. So then, Vince is out, and he picks up the game, and he does . . . he does these people that I had said pissed me off. I didn’t really want them to die, you