The Devil's Right Hand - J. D. Rhoades [93]
Antonio was sitting up, awakened by the sudden volume. His mouth was hanging open as he stared at the conflagration before him. He looked at Raymond.
“You lie to us!” he shouted. “It was supposed to be ours now! You betray us!” he reached for the machine gun. Raymond’s big revolver, however, was already in his hand. It barked twice and Antonio was flung back against the couch by the impact of the heavy-caliber bullets. Angela screamed in terror. Jesus came charging out of the bedroom, shoeless, but holding his own machine gun at the ready. Raymond fired once and knocked him backwards. Jesus’ gun chattered, the muzzle flash blinding in the darkened room, but the impact of Raymond’s shot had knocked him backwards. The bullets went into the ceiling. Bits of plaster fell like snow in the cold blue light of the TV. Raymond stepped over to Jesus who was thrashing on the floor. Raymond’s first bullet had severed his spine. Raymond fired again. This bullet took off most of the top of Jesus’ skull.
Raymond turned back to Angela. She had stopped screaming and was staring at him, her eyes wide. “Looks like I won’t be the only one in Hell today,” he said. He left the room. A few minutes later he came back. He held a metal can in either hand. He put them down and unscrewed the caps. She moaned in fear as the raw stench of gasoline filled the air. Raymond began slopping the gas out of the cans onto the carpet and furniture.
Keller stopped at the treeline as Raymond had told him to do. He could see the house at the end of the long driveway. His shotgun was nestled in its rack and his pistol was lying on the passenger seat. His cell phone rang. He picked it up.
“Okay, you bastard,” he said. “I’m here.”
“You alone in the car?” Raymond’s voice rasped.
“Just like you said,” Keller answered.
“Prove it.”
“You going to come down here and see?”
“Not hardly. Put the car sideways in the road and open the doors. So I can see you don’t have nobody hiding in the back seat.” Keller complied, getting out of the car to open the back doors, like a magician displaying a piece of apparatus.
“Okay,” Raymond said. “Come up the driveway. Slow. No weapons.”
It was possible that Raymond intended to shoot him down at edge of the property, but Keller thought it more likely that Raymond wanted to look him in the eye as he killed him. It was more his style. The first rays of the sun were drawing streaks in the sky. Keller took a deep breath of the thick, humid air. He put his hands in the air and began walking up the driveway.
Raymond stood in the window and watched Keller advance. The fumes from the gasoline and the fever from his own infection made feel woozy and lightheaded. But he was in the homestretch now. Soon it would all be over. He hadn’t been able to kill the other man responsible for his father’s death and he felt bad about it. But a man did what he could. He wondered if the angels wouldlet him talk to his Daddy one time before they fed him to the flames. He wanted the old man to know he’d tried.
Keller was approaching the front door. Raymond went to open it.
Even from ten feet away, the stench that rolled out of the door when Raymond pulled it open was sickening, a miasma of gasoline, gunpowder, and a sharp coppery smell that could only be fresh blood. Keller felt his fists clenching. “We had a deal, you bastard,” he called. “You said--.”
“I didn’t say nothin’,” Raymond called back. “But your girlfriend’s still alive.” He coughed. “So is Sanchez, but he’s a little worse for wear.”
Raymond held the door open and backed up, inviting Keller into the darkness beyond. As he passed through the doorway, Keller could detect another smell, a sickly-sweet odor of decay that seemed to hang around Raymond. He stopped