Posted 6:08 PM by Alfred

Dark part 3

Read the prelude and parts 1 and 2

About forty hours later-

The shit had gone down, and they were out of town, baby, out o town. Dark picked up the next rock in the little pile he'd made, and threw it in a spinning arc across the surface of the lake. The rock skipped across Flathead's surface four or five times and disappeared, lost in the depths. The sun had set about a half hour ago, and the moon was setting up shop, its reflection shimmering across the lake. He took a deep pull from his cigarette.

They were targets now, Tony and he. Something had gone wrong with the hit. The name the little man, Bryant, had given them had been good, a little too good. Robbie Chan. Tony was pretty sure the hit out on them was because they knew this name. All that Dark knew about the man was what Tony had told him (which could be total bullshit), that he'd heard he was a big underworld figure in San Francisco's China Town. Robbie Chan. Dark was still trying to figure, with what little information he had, why this man's death was coming back at him, now. Something, some part of what he knew, was so important they were hunting him like an animal, despite his connections, and despite the supposed loyalty of his "family". But what? What did he know, or what did they think he knew? He was slowly only beginning to process it, and decided to say fuck it for now.

He was relatively safe for the moment. Dark had established this safehouse years and years ago, before he ever met Scalari, or, in fact, any of the people he dealt with now. He'd cleaned his trail the way here, too, for the most part. The frustrating thing about being on the run in a technological society was you never knew what they were looking for you with. The kind of shit going around in stealth and spying circuits now was ridiculous, and he knew he'd only seen the surface.

But Dark knew how to disappear, and he'd done a damn good job. They would not find him for a while. The beautiful thing about Flathead Lake was it was in Montana, the last place (he hoped) they'd think to look for him. Montana was the state with the lowest population per square mile in the nation. Shit, look how long it had taken them to find Kaczynski? Even though, he could only afford to stay a month or two, at most. He could still feel the heat of that hit order on him.

Tony had gone who knows where. They had known better than to tell each other. Dark had verified the hit through other sources before splitting; he didn't trust Tony as far as he could throw him. One thing about Tony though. He could smell a hit a mile away. Good motherfucker to be around as long as he didn't turn on you.

All Dark's other sources had verified about the hit was that there was one. Dark and Tony were both being hunted, but his sources were not sure as to the hunters or their motivation. The fact that he knew about the hit meant that someone had leaked it. An unknown person had arranged for them to have some warning, a chance at survival. He hoped it was Scalari.

Who knew what the fuck was going on? They were after him, whoever they were. Someone wanted him dead, another someone wanted him alive. Were those two someones enemies to each other? There were so many angles this shit could have been coming from.

Fuck it. Dark was happy to still be alive. It was high time for a vacation anyway. He skipped one last stone into the lake, put out his cigarette under his boot, and headed back towards the lakefront cabin. Time for some TV and bourbon, always a good combo to ease the nerves.

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