Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales (15 page)

uck you,” said one of them.

“That’s one way to start,” I said. “But here’s another: I was hired by a very frightened, albeit somewhat belligerent, young lady named Camry to protect her.”

This got some nods, frowns, an inhalation or two. Steel Eye, still trapped in my stranglehold, didn’t move or make a sound.

“I happen to take my job seriously, as you can see. Some might say too seriously.”

This elicited a grunt or two. I heard some whisperings under some breaths. Those whisperings might have suggested that I was a dead man. I laugh in the face of such whisperings.

I went on, “I’m here for one reason and one reason only: Your abusive leader, Steel Something-or-other—”

“Steel Eye, asshole,” came a chorus of grunts, along with a “dipweed” and a “dumb ass” or two. What was a dipweed?

“Right, of course,” I said. “Steel Eye. How could I forget? Anyway, Steel Eye had every right to be upset. Hey, another man fucked with his girl. I get it. But I’m not here to talk about that man. I’m here to talk about Camry.”

They all stared at me, faces blank but alive in the firelight. A stiff wind made its way through the Pit. A dozen or so beards lifted and fell in unison. Two bikers were still wearing sunglasses, despite the fact the sun had set awhile ago. I admired their dedication.

I continued, “Camry has decided to end her relationship with Steel Eye. Apparently, she did so in grand fashion, by messing with another guy and then splitting in the night. A helluva way to make an exit, but that’s beside the point.”

“What the fuck is he talking about?” One of them said to another. Hard to say who spoke, since most of their lips were buried deep within wiry facial hair.

I powered on. “That’s where I come in. Somehow, someway, she ended up in my office, drinking my coffee, and looking for help. I happen to have a soft spot for damsels in distress… or anyone in distress, for that matter. Call it a weakness. Call it mildly heroic. Call it stupid.”

“We’ll call you a dead man soon,” said someone nearby.

I ignored the comment, although I did spot the speaker this time. I logged him away for future reference. He seemed the type to carry out the threat. Then again, most of them did.

“So, here is my proposition: Camry moves on with her life. In fact, I am going to help her move on, with a new name, a new identity, new everything. I doubt any of you will find her, but here’s the catch: If I so much as catch a whiff that one of you is looking for her, I will be back.”

“Yeah, fuck you.”

“I thought you might say that. But wait, there’s more. If I so much as see a biker sniffing around my place, my shop, my girl, within a hundred square feet of me, I will be back.”

This got some chuckles. These guys weren’t used to being threatened. They, perhaps, had never been threatened in all their lives. Being threatened was new to them. Hell, they were the ones used to doing the threatening.

“Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I won’t be back alone,” I said.

And with that, I raised my gun and fired into the air.

Nearly a dozen figures stepped out of the darkness, each holding weapons of their own, and each looking more amused than the other. Except for one, of course. Spinoza, I was certain, had forgotten how to crack a smile. Then again, knowing his past, I didn’t blame him.

“I will be coming back with them.”

here were ten of them.

I wouldn’t have expected anything less. Mixed with the ten were two cops who didn’t have to be here, two cops who were risking their careers and livelihoods—and lives—to be here with me now. As the men stepped into the firelight, weapons raised nonchalantly, I smiled and nodded at my good friends, Sanchez and Sherbet, homicide detectives with LAPD and Fullerton Police Departments, respectively. Sherbet was sweating a little. He was a bigger guy, and the evening was warm. He nodded at me and turned his attention back to the group of ruffians before him.

“Looks like you got the party started without us,” said an older guy who probably shouldn’t have been here, but had demanded to come anyway. His name was Aaron King, although he always reminded me of someone else. Someone I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Anyway, Aaron smiled at me and winked… and I almost had it… but lost it again. Who, dammit?

“It wasn’t much of a party,” I said. “Until Numi showed up.”

“Is that a black joke?” said the big Nigerian. “Or a gay joke?”

Numi was new to the private investigator business. Mostly, he had taken over another friend of mine’s business. A friend who had now passed. A friend who had had the uncanny knack of finding the missing. I wasn’t entirely sure Numi had gotten over our mutual friend’s death.

Rest in peace, Booker
.

“Neither,” I said. Numi was one of the few men on planet earth who would make me pause before a fight. “It was in reference to your lighthearted and jovial nature.”

Numi shook his head and continued scanning the Pit.

“What the fuck is going on?” said one of the bikers. That someone might have been about fifty-five, with a full gray beard stained with tobacco and God knows what else.

“It’s called friendly banter, asshole,” said Nick Caine, another friend of mine who’d swung by a day earlier. Synchronicity at its best. Standing in the shadows behind him was his manservant or friend—I was never sure which—named Ishi. Notably, Ishi was brandishing what appeared to be a machete.

Sweet mama.

Nick, an old-school relic hunter in the Indiana Jones tradition, was sporting a sawed-off shotgun and a revolver. He was, of course, freshly returned from God knows where, uncovering God knows what, and running from God knows who. Nick and I go way back. I think we had met in a bar. I think he had pissed me off. I think he then bought me a drink. I think buying me a drink is always the best way to soothe the savage beast… and to win my undying friendship.

Nick had shown up at my office doorstep with a friend of his, a private eye named Max Long. Max hailed from a town called Mystic Falls, and he was my kind of guy: tough, fast talking, and good with a gun. I had asked if he was working on anything interesting in Mystic Falls, and he said something to the effect of: “You have no idea.”

Anyway, Nick, Ishi, and Max were here now, and that’s all that mattered. Ishi didn’t say much. Then again, I wasn’t entirely sure he spoke English, and I sure as hell didn’t speak Tawakankan, which may or may not be a made-up language.

“What do you say, Monty?” I asked my private investigator friend, Marty Drew, who now ran around looking for ghosts with his wife and medium, Ellen, a sweet lady who kind of freaked me out. “You see any spirits here?”

“There’s spirits everywhere, Jim,” said Monty. “At least, that’s what my wife tells me.”

Monty, I knew, was a skeptic at heart. But apparently, he’d seen some shit that he doesn’t want to talk about. Maybe it’s best he doesn’t want to talk about it. I like my little world just the way it is, free of ghosts and things that go bump in the night.

Standing next to Monty was another good friend of mine, private investigator Roan Quigley. Yes, a fancy name for a thug. In a way, we were all thugs. We just practiced our thuggery mostly on the right side of the law. And, yes, private investigators often stay in touch, especially when we need a little help. Like now, although I wasn’t entirely convinced that I needed help tonight, but, hey, a little backup never hurts.

Roan had been doing a pretty good job of disappearing of late. He still wouldn’t tell me where he disappeared to, but I would wear him down eventually and get to the bottom of it.

Rounding out the ten was another good friend of mine from Los Angeles, park ranger Jack Carter, who might have the coolest job of all of us. He had a cute daughter who may or may not be smarter than all of us.

“All of you are dead,” said a big guy in the front row. The big guy might have been drunk.

“Who said that?” asked Numi.

“I did, motherfucker.” The guy stood and faced the Nigerian. “Big man with your gun.”

I watched Numi step around the fire, slip his gun behind him in his waistband and hit the big guy even harder than I might have hit Steel Eye. We all watched the guy tumble head over ass—and very nearly into the fire. When he was done tumbling, he didn’t move. He might have been dead. No one seemed to care.

“Now.” I grinned at this motley gang, both mine and the Devil’s Triangle, as I released Steel Eye, who spun around and faced me. “Do we have an agreement?”

The man with the washed-out eye studied me closely, then looked at my rag-tag gang, each wielding their preferred weapon, and each looking ready to use it. Finally, he nodded. “We do, and you can go fuck yourself.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said.