A Hard Death

A Hard Death

The airboat was nearing the edges of the Glades, wending its way through a series of small sloughs. The dry season had been unusually harsh, and parts of the swamp where Tony could normally fly over the sawgrass at full speed were shallow mazes of protruding sedge and parched marl.

The airboat, bought used from a local tour operator and beefed up with a Chevy big block engine, had a flat hull that could glide through the shallowest marsh. Tony was perched high up on the stick, in front of the safety cage around the roaring six-foot propeller.

The going was slow. The airboat was always tricky—the stick controlled the two vertical rudders, but there was no way to slow down, no reverse, and the slower you moved, the harder it was to steer.

With six passengers, the boat was near capacity. Smith was boss for the day, Bentas second in command, and Tony on the rudder. And Brodie had sent Tarver—that boil on the ass of humanity—along for the ride. And then there was their cargo, the two Mexican prisoners, the whole reason for the trip.

Squinting into the setting sun, Smith shifted the shotgun into his left hand, scowled, and turned to make a cutting gesture to his pilot. Tony throttled down, abruptly tapping the stick forward to send the airboat scudding left to miss a rotting tree limb.

The Mexicans sat in the front row, each hooded with a white plastic bag that read delfine piglet feed in red; the heavier one’s shirt was soaked in blood—Tony’s handiwork. A coarse yellow nylon rope hung slack between their necks, tying them together for their last precious moments of life. Their wrists were lashed behind them; Smith hadn’t bothered shackling them to the seats—where were they going to go? They knew he’d shoot them if they went into the water, shoot to wound, let the gators finish them off.

He wondered what he’d do in their place. They knew what was going to happen: when men finally made it into the inner circle, while still high on all the money they’d be making, Brodie showed them his special videotape. And once they’d seen the video, the men knew they were in, that there was no turning back.

The fat one wouldn’t quit blubbering, the sound so loud even the noise of the prop couldn’t drown it out. Smith was sick of that shit, but if he just gave in and blew Gordo’s head off and dumped the body, there’d be nothing to show the other workers, no way to teach them that the Rule was the Rule, and the Rule must be obeyed.

Smith leaned over, tapped Bentas on the arm to get his attention. He yelled, “Shut him up!” jabbing his finger toward Gordo.

Bentas bent forward, smacked Gordo’s hood hard with the butt of his rifle, and yelled, “Oye, puto! Sigue asì y vas a echar las entrañas. Y si vomitas ahì, te vas a ahogar!”

Gordo’s head jerked forward and stayed there, craning away from the unseen club. Smith couldn’t hear the blubbering anymore.

A HARD DEATH. Copyright © 2011 by Jonathan Hayes. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.