“And you don’t think they’ll try to hunt you down and kill you after you’ve stolen their hard-earned fortune?”
“They were no longer required and a hindrance. I saw no reason to share the ten million with them after they bungled their own mission and called upon me to fix it. My purpose here is manifold. One is to control the drug trade. Another is to squelch the racist movement that seems to be veering out of control in Finland. These upset the order of things. My mission for my employers is, succinctly put, to restore order when situations require it. The heroin you watched me give to my former comrades had some parts of it, near the bottom of the bag, poisoned, in order to confuse matters and hide the poisoning for a time. Notice that the heroin I gave you was pure, not cut. And so they sold strychnine-laced heroin to racist elements, who in turn sold it to dealers who primarily deal with blacks in the name of, as they put it, ‘nigger sedation.’ Unfortunately, this will lead to some deaths, but the trail will lead back to the white supremacists. It will, however, result in the incarceration of these racist drug dealers, while at the same time rousing sympathy for their immigrant victims. My comrades became liabilities. If you live through today, you’ll discover that I’ve made it easy for you to solve your cases and, once again, shine as a hero. Albeit, a crippled one. It might make you feel better to know that, after all the unnecessary pain they caused—mostly out of enjoyment, I might add—they died badly indeed.”
Kate says, “Milo is in agony. Would you let me give him some heroin and put his ear in the shade so maybe it can be saved? It’s cooking on that rock.”
“For you,” he says, “anything.”
He hands her a bindle and she walks to the other side of the clearing to tend to Milo. Kate picks his ear up and moves it to the shade, to keep it cooler and slow decomposition.
Moreau strides over to Sweetness. He’s sitting cross-legged on the ground. His flask is in his hand. He sucks at it.
“Wise move,” Moreau says. “Breaking you, big man, requires forethought. How to torture an elephant? I have a feeling you can endure a great deal, but you are a romantic and feel much affection for the others. That’s why I hurt them first.”
His back is to Kate. Milo wears his leather jacket with the specially made holster to make his sawed-off invisible. Apparently, Milo never showed it off to Moreau. Kate sets Anu on the ground, slides out the shotgun and points it at Moreau. It looks huge in her hands. It’s hard for her, but she puts a thumb on each hammer, pulls with all her might, and slowly they ease back and click into place.
Moreau doesn’t have to look, doesn’t even turn to face her. He knows the sound.
“And after all the nice things I just said about you.”
She says, “Don’t move.”
He doesn’t.
She keeps the barrels straight although she’s shaking hard and the gun is heavy. When she gets to within about four feet of him, she pulls both triggers. The gun roars, flames and smoke leap out of the barrels. Milo was supposed to have the gun loaded with rock salt. Instead, the ammo was razor-sharp fléchettes. The blast cuts Moreau near in half, along his midsection. Not much holds the two pieces of him together. His blood and guts, bone chips, gore, spray out and onto Sweetness. Moreau falls, yet he still lives. I see him blink. His jacket is on fire. The flames spread.
The gun kicked up and back and lacerated the side of Kate’s head. Blood runs down her cheek. She wipes at it and smears it. It drips onto her shoulder. She drops the gun and slumps to the ground. I speak to her but she’s withdrawn inside herself, in shock. She doesn’t move or speak. Her mouth hangs open and spittle dribbles down her chin.