The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,65
us again,” Nick said. “We need to be ready.”
“I don’t know.” Malone looked at me. “What can he do now? I mean, how many guys can he have? We put two of them on stretchers, and your local sheriff took care of two others. His little running boy Squid is under a rock somewhere in Augusta. Cline has got to be feeling threatened, at least for now.”
“He’ll have other guys,” Susan said. “He might have to reach out to other distributors to get them, but there are always soldiers who are willing to make a name for themselves by doing the dirty work for a boss as powerful as Cline. The guys we took out just leave open spaces for these men to prove themselves. If you ask me, the first order of business for Cline will be getting rid of those men who are holed up and injured.”
“He’s going to kill his guys just because they got hurt?” I looked at Susan. I remembered Cline’s words: So what does a guy do when all his men have proved to be useless to him?
“I think you can bet on that,” Susan said. “When your men fail you, you clean house.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
“DRUG LORDS DON’T offer health insurance,” Susan said. “While the injured men are out of action, they’ll need to be paid to keep quiet or they’ll be easy pickings for cops who want to question them, make offers.”
I gripped my head, squeezed my eyes shut. Cline was right. I hadn’t won; I’d just put more people in his firing line.
“You don’t know this for sure,” I said to Susan. “You’re just guessing.”
“Think about it.” She shrugged. “We’ve got Turner and Russ approaching the house in the middle of the night, armed and hostile. If we can’t prove attempted murder, we can at least go for weapons charges, assault, breaking and entering. With their records, which are likely to be extensive, they’ll do serious time. Then there are Bones and Simbo, who will be charged with kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder for what they did to Clay. Some or all of them will trade what they know about Cline for a better deal.”
“They could get a lot of time off for being helpful,” Malone mused. “They could argue that Cline intimidated them and coerced them into coming for us. They might get by with no jail time, or they could make a play for a minimum-security prison and witness protection after.”
“But surely Cline’s not going to come for them himself,” I said. “He’s a coward. He hasn’t stepped out from behind his thugs since we’ve known him.”
“He hasn’t had to,” Nick said. “But if we’re right, these guys are just liabilities now. They better have security on their hospital-room doors. And not the local cops either. We know they’re dirty.”
The table fell silent. A group of young women were crowded around the old jukebox nearby, laughing and play-fighting over the music choices. Their happiness stood in stark contrast to the mood of the people around me.
“There are going to be more deaths,” I said. I felt the truth of it in my bones. “Unless we stop Cline ourselves somehow, those four men are on the chopping block.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
NICK AND SUSAN ordered dinner, but I couldn’t eat. I stood on the deck outside the bar and looked at the lights of Gloucester and the soft slope of the hill toward the water where the blinking port lights guided men home from the sea. I thought about Doc’s words, his warnings about me suddenly removing the master of pain from the town and leaving the addicts who relied on him in the lurch. There would be men on the boats who used Cline’s products to get through the relentless hours and backbreaking work of lobster and crab fishing off the coast, the brutal life they led trying to feed their families on the shore. How many people would be left desperate and sick if I took Cline out of the equation? And how long would it be before someone else took his place, preying on the young, the hurting, the hungry of our town with his deadly cocktails? I was deep in my thoughts when Malone appeared beside me, his face a welcome light cutting through my brooding.
“I don’t know what you’re doing sulking out here,” he said. “I’d be in there with that lady if I were you.”
“Who? Susan?”
“‘Who? Susan?’” he repeated, imitating me. He laughed. “I’ve seen you looking at her,