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  “Deddy?” the boy said, and looked up at his father. Even in the presence of his older son, Gareth never lowered the gun.

  “Buckley, go over there and fetch your baby brother. Go put him back in the crib.”

  “No,” Annette pleaded. “Just let us go.”

  Gareth stepped in close enough to rub the cold steel barrel of the revolver across her cheek. “You hear that, Buck? Your bitch mama don’t care nothin’ about you or Halford. She just wants to take Clayton, and run away. Damn the rest of us. She don’t love us no more, son. Whatcha’ think about that?”

  Buckley didn’t answer. He just walked over to his mama and held out his arms to her like his deddy asked. It was pointless for her to refuse. Deddy said it, so the boy would do it. What she said, what she wanted, meant nothing. It never did. She kissed the infant’s forehead, and handed him over to his brother. The baby began to cry once he was in Buckley’s arms and the bony little boy struggled to right him. He was small but strong, and kept a firm hold until the baby settled, and then finally he spoke. He looked directly in his mother’s eyes.

  “Bye-bye, Bitch Mama.”

  Four words, barely loud enough to be heard by anyone, were thunder in Annette’s ears. She felt as old and hollow as the hickory stump out back that she and Gareth would sit by together and plan their life before they even built this house. None of that mattered anymore. Nothing mattered beyond this. Nothing. She prayed that Gareth would at least wait until her children got back inside before he did it. She dropped her chin to her chest. She had nothing left. Not a single emotion left to spend. Gareth pressed the barrel hard into the bush of her thick brown hair and he pulled the trigger.

  The hammer slammed against the pin with a muffled click. Annette flinched, and then slowly raised her eyes to Gareth. His eyes had dissolved into black slits, but they were different. They were wet. She’d never seen that before. She watched him lower the gun and pick up the fold of money from the grass. Annette held her breath as he tucked it down the front of her blouse. He was rough about it, and it hurt, but she didn’t care. He wasn’t going to kill her.

  “I loved you,” he said.

  Annette said nothing.

  “The best I knew how.” He wiped at his face with the back of his hand. “So just take that money you stole from me and get off my mountain. Don’t come back. If you ever come around here again, or if you ever come near my children again, then this?”—he held up the Colt—“This won’t be empty the next time.”

  She stayed on her knees, unsure of what to do.

  “You understand me?”

  She nodded her head, even though she didn’t understand. She felt a magnetic pull in her chest toward this man—toward this monster—but she didn’t move.

  “Then go on. Git.” He tucked the Colt into his waistband and turned his back to her. She watched as he walked up the steps to the house and peeled the tape from the latch on the screen door. She listened to the horrible clicking sound it made as it shut behind him. It sounded different to her from the outside.

  Buckley watched from the front-room window as his mother scrambled in the dark to pick up her shoes, and then watched her disappear like a shadow into the woods. He held a tiny hand to the glass and pressed it flat. He’d never see her again.

  Bye-bye, Bitch Mama.

  Gareth walked into the kitchen and picked up the baby from the cold stone-tile floor, where Buckley had left him, and held him until he stopped crying. He laid the boy back in his crib and sat down in the rocker by the window. He pulled a walkie-talkie from the pocket of his pants, adjusted the volume down low, and keyed the mic.

  “Val, you there?”

  “Yeah, boss. I’m right where you told me to be. She’s comin’ right at me.”

  Gareth held the walkie loose in his lap and stared at it.

  “Boss, you there? How you want me to handle this? She knows a lot.”

  “I don’t care about any of that.”

  There was a long silence. “She’s your wife, Gareth.”

  “I don’t care about that either.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He switched the two-way radio off and set it on the floor. He stayed awake for the next few hours hoping to hear that screen door open again. He was sure it would, but it never did.

  1

  “THE CHUTE”

  SOMEWHERE OFF THE GRID IN THE WOODS OF NORTH GEORGIA

  PRESENT DAY

  The initial blast turned the front door of the infamous mountainside barn-turned-pool hall into an explosion of splinters and kindling, but the jam-packed, sweaty crowd inside didn’t seem to notice above the music. It was the second roar of buckshot that peppered the ceiling and shattered the disco ball that got their attention. The music scratched to a halt, and shards of mirrored glass, acoustic tiles, and plugs of pink cotton insulation rained down all over the dance floor. Gun smoke and drywall dust filled the bar with a dense blue fog, thick with the smell of cordite. Within seconds, the main lights popped on. A man decked out in black tactical clothing, with an over-stretched leg of tan pantyhose pulled over his face, racked the shotgun in his hands for a third time.

  “All y’all sons of bitches get yer peckers on the floor, or I swear to God somebody’s liable to get one blowed off.”

  A room full of statues gave him a collective blank stare, but the man appeared at ease, pleased to finally be the center of attention.

  “I’m not fuckin’ around here, people. The last one of you queer-baits left standing is gonna have a real bad day. Now stop staring at me all slack-jawed and drop.” The gunman made a sweeping motion with the barrel of his Mossberg toward the cement slab at his feet. The floor was slick with freshly spilled Jägermeister and stank of stale beer, but the patrons of the late-night hideaway began to understand what was happening, and as the smoke cleared, they started to drop, one by one, to their knees. The bar was a ramshackle building that used to be an old marijuana dry-house. It was built on a cement slab, a simple stick-frame made of two-by-fours, sheetrock and plaster, and it made its reputation in the Blue Ridge Foothills for its complete disregard for the moral majority. In this region of North Georgia, the joint was a rare breed. The place also made buckets of cash on a nightly basis. The clientele of Tuten’s Chute, or just The Chute, as the locals knew it, were mostly a mixed bag of vagrants, deviants, curious college students, and fetish chasers from other parts of the state. They were the kind of folks that didn’t fit in at the more traditional whiskey bars found around Helen and Rabun County. They were the kind of folks most people didn’t care to know. The man with the gun moved further into the club, as three more men with stocking-smeared faces, dressed in similar paramilitary clothing, filed into the bar behind him. All three of them moved in a practiced pattern as they flanked the crowd, and spread over the wide-open dance floor, taking inventory of the club’s layout and its occupants. The main gunman bounced his stare from one set of eyes to another, waiting for a pair that would hold his own, until he found some.

  “That one, right there,” the gunman said, pointing to a big hoss with an oversized shaved head. He was the only one who hadn’t dropped to his knees. Another gunman came up behind him and brought the butt of a rifle down hard between the man’s shoulder blades. The blow knocked the big boy to his knees. “The man said get down, ya fuckin’ retard.”

  The big man grunted like an animal as he fell, but quickly shook off the pain and began to get back up. A second hit from the man with the rifle stopped him, and this time he sprawled out across the floor on his belly. Everyone in the bar cringed in disbelief as the man with the large head began to get up a second time. The main gunman pressed the barrel of his Mossberg hard into the doughy flesh of the man’s neck and pushed his head back down flush to the floor.

  “Stay down, Corky, or you’re gonna lose that big-ass melon.”

  The man on the ground said something into the cement that no one could understand.

  “Stay down, Nails.” There was a new voi
ce in the room, and everyone’s heads turned toward the bar. Freddy Tuten, another tree-trunk of a man, had emerged from a small office behind the bar. “Just do what the man says.”

  “I’d listen to your girlfriend, Nails.”

  The man on the floor did listen. He stopped moving and lay face down on the cement. The man holding the shotgun lifted it from Nails’ neck, and gave his attention to the man he’d come to see. Freddy Tuten was every bit of sixty years old, but he was built like a heavyweight boxer. The gunman only knew Freddy by reputation, but the rumors were true. He’d always heard Freddy was rarely seen wearing anything other than a pink taffeta bathrobe with a cursive letter T embroidered on it. The man with the shotgun didn’t believe any grown man in these mountains would be able to get away with dressing like that until now, because tonight was no exception. Freddy was dressed as described right down to the letter on his lapel. He even wore a light-blue shade of eye shadow and bright bubblegum-pink lipstick. But as crazy as the old man might’ve looked, the gunman still knew he was a man not to be underestimated. The rumors also talked of Freddy’s weapon of choice—an aluminum baseball bat—and the things he’d been known to do to a man with it weren’t pretty. Freddy stood behind the bar holding that bat loosely with both hands. The three-foot tube of metal looked like it had seen just as many years as its owner, and by the dents and dings, they’d been hard years.

  “Well, well, well,” the gunman said. “You must be the famous Freddy Tuten.”

  “That’s right, and you must be the dumbest shit-bird this side of Bear Creek.”

  Despite the flattened nose and the distorted swirl that the pantyhose made of the gunman’s face, it was clear to see he was smiling. Shotgun versus baseball bat inspired confidence. Rumors be damned. He lifted the Mossberg and pointed it square at Freddy. Tuten took one hand off the bat and pushed his shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair back behind one ear. “I’d lower that scattergun if I was you, son.”

  “That’s some big talk from a fella in a pink bathrobe. What if I just pull the trigger instead? You reckon that bat is gonna stop a load of buckshot?”

  Tuten shook his head. “No, I suppose it won’t.” He tossed the bat onto the bar and it rolled off the outer edge, landing on the floor with an unremarkable thin tink. “I don’t think anything could save me, if that’s what you decide to do, but I can promise you this, pulling that trigger is the only option you got if you plan on leaving here alive.”

  The man with the gun laughed, but it sounded forced and hollow. He was done talking to this old buzzard. They came there for a reason and he needed to get to it. He knew better than to waste time talking. That’s what the old man wanted. The gunman turned, raised his voice and addressed his men. “Curtis, you and Hutch zip-tie everyone on the floor like I told you. JoJo, you stand over there and watch this old fairy while he opens the safe. If he does anything other than what I tell him to do, blow his fucking head off.”

  “Hell, yeah, I will,” JoJo said and trained his rifle on Tuten from the end of the bar. The man in charge reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick fold of black plastic. A few of the people being hogtied on the floor flinched when he shook open the trash bag and laid it on the bar in front of Tuten. The old man looked more like a disappointed grandfather, than an aging drag queen being robbed at gunpoint. He picked up the trash bag and shook his head again. “Stupid,” he said softly, and turned toward the back counter.

  “How’s that, old man? What’d you say?”

  “I said you’re stupid, boy. Stupid. I mean, you do realize that you just told everyone in here the names of all your buddies—Hutch, JoJo, Curtis. I mean, damn, son. How hard do you think I’m gonna have to work to hunt you fellas down now after all this nonsense is over?”

  “Well, maybe that tells you how fuckin’ concerned we are about you and that pink robe of yours knowing who we are.” The gunman tried to sound hard, but Tuten knew he’d just put a little fear in him. He could smell it on him. His voice was shaky around the edges.

  “It ain’t my robe you need to be concerned about, dip-shit. It’s who the money in that safe belongs to you need to worry about. Who do you think you’re robbin’ here, anyway?”

  “It looks like I’m robbing the tooth fairy.”

  Tuten shook his head a third time, and walked over to the safe. “You keep it up with the gay jokes, son. Keep thinking this little smash-and-grab you and your boys cooked up is gonna pay off for you. I can promise you it ain’t.”

  “Just give me the money, bitch.”

  Tuten’s temper was being tested now. There was only so much of that shit-talk he could take, but he kept himself in check and did as he was told. He moved aside a few bottles of Valentine’s famous pecan whiskey, and then picked up a framed eight-by-ten photo that he used to obscure the front of the combination safe built into the wall. He paused for moment and stared at the picture. It was a photo of himself and another man dressed in army fatigues that had been taken over forty years ago. The sepia-tinged photo didn’t even look real. It looked more like a prop from a World War II movie, or a fabricated piece of nostalgia that you’d see hanging in a Cracker Barrel restaurant.

  “Chop, chop, fucker.” The gunman tapped the barrel of his shotgun on the bar. Tuten set the picture down carefully in front of a row of plastic liquor bottles and went to work on the lock.

  “You know,” he said as he twisted the dial. “I guess it’s better that you’re stupid. I mean, I’d hate to find out you’re really smart, with a job, and a family—kids maybe—you know, with people back home depending on you.”

  “Just shut up and keep spinning that thing.”

  “Because that would be a shame. Being stupid makes being dead a whole lot easier on everybody.”

  “Hurry the fuck up.”

  “Oh, and JoJo, Hutch, and Curtis over there? Man, I really hope they’re stupid, too.” Tuten looked back over his shoulder. “Aw, hell. I reckon they’d have to be since they followed you in here.” All three men stared at Tuten and he flashed them a wide, toothy smile.

  “Relax, boys. He’s just flapping his gums. Trying to throw us off our game. It’s like I told you before. Everyone knows this place ain’t got no juice behind it anymore. JoJo was right. There’s no big bad wolf waiting in these woods anymore. It’s just this old bitch now, raking in cash from these other bitches.” He turned to Tuten. “So you can cut the act. We all know there ain’t another living soul on this mountain that gives a shit if you live or die. So shut your mouth, open the safe and fill the damn bag. I’m done telling you.” The gunman used the barrel of the shotgun to slide the trash bag across the bar closer to Tuten, and looked around. “I’m getting sick just standing in here. This place smells like a water-treatment plant. I don’t know how you pillow-biters can stand it.”

  Tuten didn’t say anything else. He was tired of the banter as well. He stared at the picture on the counter as he worked the lock. It was his brother, Jacob, in the picture with him. That photo had been taken three days before a Korean soldier shot him in the face. It was the only thing in the entire bar he cared about, and he was sick of listening to this homophobic piece of shit talking the way he was—disrespecting it. Tuten spun the combination lock without taking his eyes off the photo—left, right, and left again. The gunman didn’t notice the picture at all, but he did notice the old man’s gnarled-up knuckles. Lumps of scar tissue crisscrossed all of them. The gunman wondered what the old bastard had done in his life to earn those scars. He must’ve been a brawler, but that was a long time ago. Now he was just an old man wearing lipstick and eye shadow. The gunman tapped the bar again.

  “Five seconds, old man.”

  When the safe clicked, everyone in the room could feel the tension ease. Tuten pulled the steel door open and made sure he reached inside slow enough to not get anyone too excited.

  “That’s it. Now let’s go. Fill the bag.”

  “You want the dope, too?”

  “Hell, yeah, w
e want the dope, too,” JoJo yelled across the bar as if he was the one being asked.

  Tuten filled the trash bag with fist-sized rolls of cash, and two Ziploc sandwich bags packed with muddy-yellow bathtub crank. The man with the shotgun was beginning to get jittery at the sight of the money. They’d already taken too long. He looked back and surveyed the room. His boys had zip-tied the hands of everyone bellied down on the floor with little to no resistance, but Curtis was still having trouble with the same bald guy who didn’t want to stay down a few minutes ago.

  “What’s the problem, Curtis? Tie that asshole up.”

  “I’m trying, Clyde, but goddamn. Look at this one’s hand.” Curtis pulled up on Nails’ left arm. The man’s hand was twice the size of a normal man’s hand, and swollen into an oval shape. The stubby fingers spread out across it were barely one knuckle long and were mostly overgrown by thick, yellowed fingernails that curved over and hid his fingertips. The man’s hand looked like a rubber glove that had been blown up and tied at the wrist—but with claws.

  “What the fuck?” Clyde said. “Just tie it up, for Christ’s sake.”

  Curtis struggled with the thin strip of clear plastic. “I can’t get the damn zip around it.”

  “Fuck it, then. We’re done here anyway. Just shoot him.”

  Curtis let go of Nails’ arm and stood up straight. He started to pull a small-caliber handgun from his belt. “Hold, up,” Clyde said. “That peashooter ain’t gonna do it. Move. Let me do it.”

  “Just wait a minute.” Tuten tossed the bag of cash and dope on the bar. “Why don’t you just take what you came for—Clyde. Just take it, and leave that man be. He ain’t gonna cause you no trouble. You got my word.”

  Clyde cocked his head and stared at Tuten. “Oh, shit. What’s up with the sudden change of tune, Tuten? You got a soft spot for the retard, here?”

  Tuten just pushed the bag of money closer to Clyde.

  “No way.” Clyde laughed. “Is this water-head motherfucker your boyfriend?”