The Storm Giants (11 page)

Ch
apter 24: Crimies of Convenience

S
omeone had been following him for a while. It was a feeling Everett was well acquainted with. That sense of unwanted and probably malevolent scrutiny aimed between your shoulder blades like a bull’s eye. He found himself glancing in reflective surfaces as he passed, to see what lay behind.

He
stopped and openly looked back along the route he’d taken. Did someone jump out of Everett’s field of vision into a doorway as he turned? Couldn’t be sure without doubling back, and it was always foolish to repeat a route already taken.

It might be the
losers from the liquor store. It could be one of the Widow’s people. Everett didn’t care which. He needed room to maneuver, and he couldn’t afford his rhythm to be broken.

H
e strolled around the corner into an alley. Squirming movement led his gaze to a stack of garbage bags teetering by an overflowing dumpster that hadn’t been emptied in a while, judging by the multi generational look of the rat civilization infesting it.

Everett
kicked a couple of times at the sacks, and several rats ran away squeaking protest. He tossed a few bags into a teetering stack and squatted behind the reeking tower of garbage. He breathed through his mouth against the gut wrenching stench, hoping none of the rats would punish his trespass by biting.

Several minutes went by
, and then someone was at the entrance to the alley. They were on the other side of the dumpster so Everett couldn’t see them but the certainty of their presence ran bone deep. The line pointed toward them like a quivering compass needle.

A
sly creaking as the lid of the dumpster lifted, and the moist sodden sounds of shifting garbage. Someone kicked hard at the heap of garbage bags Everett hid behind. The garbage toppled against him with a squelch, pressing him against the wall.

He
stayed still even as the plastic bags bulged against him like the uneven tongue of a huge and malodorous beast. He held a dripping sack with both hands to keep the garbage from toppling to the side and revealing him.

T
he kicker continued down the alley. Everett twitched a bag aside to see what kind of numbers needed dealing with. There was only one, a short little guy walking away with his back exposed.

The stack
of garbage bags shed off Everett as he stiff armed the stinking heap away and uncoiled to standing. A chord of memory was struck even as he side stepped toward the little man’s blind side with one fist clenched into a hammer up by his ear, focusing through the cervical column at the base of the neck.

He
reached striking distance and allowed the hand to start its killing blur. The little man began to turn, perhaps hearing the thrum of air resistance surrounding the progressing fist. The little man’s shoulders hunched in spastic, useless reflex. One hand rose in defense, the other shot to his arm pit. Everett saw Tobias’s feral glare, the bony malnourished profile.

Everett
’s fist came to a halt inches from Tobias’s neck, the blow coming to stillness in an instant.

“
Everett,” Tobias said, trying to pretend a fist wasn’t poised in his face.

Everett
lowered his hand. “Larry sent you.”

“I didn’t come on my own hook
, if that’s what you mean,” Tobias said, attempting to writhe his glare into an ingratiating smile. His hand still grasped the Desert Eagle parked useless in his shoulder holster. “You might need some backup, and I am at your disposal as it were.”

“
Larry’s no altruist,” Everett said. “You betting your life that’s why he sent you?”

Tobias snorted.
“You’re paranoid Everett. Larry’s got your back and so do I. You call him asking about Nazi gold and Amicus, ask to talk to Israelis, of course he’s gonna involve himself directly. He just wants things to run smooth and see you come straight home to papa after you score. Him being your ‘most favored trading partner’ as it were, Larry knows you want him to broker the gold sale and get his ten point cut.”

“What if I told you
, you might not be making any money here? I was hedging my bets checking in with Larry, just using his contacts to see where I stood,” Everett said. “What if I told you, I may be taking it elsewhere when obtained?”

Tobias roared
in levity. “Say you’re not that dumb. Larry could get millions easy. No discount, the death camp angle makes it a one of a kind piece of history; he could make an auction out of the whole thing. You don’t have to worry about him.”

“I’m not worried about Larry
,” Everett said. “He told you you’re in for a cut?”

Tobias’s hand stayed on the butt of
his Desert Eagle as he kicked the ground like a sheepish little boy. “I’ve wanted to work with you a long time Everett. You think I can’t cut the mustard?”

“Larry knows talent
,” Everett said. “Him sending you after me says more than you know. Ask yourself, when did Larry ever do anyone a favor?”

“
Like you say he’s no altruist. But I am proposing a partnership,” Tobias said, his gaze gone merry. “Sixty fifty split, I’ll watch your back you watch mine, one hand washes the other. You know the drill.”

Like a Veg
as card dealer, Tobias let go his pistol and clapped his hands together, then spread them to display the palms as if to demonstrate nothing up his sleeves. He bowed and stayed in that position, eyes gone crafty above his grimace as he looked up at Everett awaiting his reply.

Tobias was up and back
pedaling fast, suddenly fearful. “Think of the hassle, Everett. Think how hard it’d be to stash a body and still do the job in a town as small as this.”

Offing Tobias
would prevent a lot of nuisance down the road. In the bad old days Everett would’ve excised him like the speed bump he was.

The little man might get lucky
if he was here to do Everett dirty. Everett had seen guys in his own league get chopped by persistent journeymen before. Still, multiple tons of bullion would be pretty awkward to wrestle around alone. There might be severe time constraints on the extraction.

Everett
nodded, and Tobias jerked like a marionette.

“Craptacular
,” Tobias said. He wrinkled his nose, then leaned toward Everett and sniffed. “Everett, you stink.”

Everett
looked down at his clothes, glistening with garbage drippings. “It’s all right. Adds to the ambience that needs projecting.”

“So
where to? What’s the plan?”

“The bus terminal
’s one block up,” Everett said. “It’s the happening spot.” He thought. “You’re getting rid of that Desert Eagle. You’ll understand when we get there.”

“Shit
,” Tobias said.

“These people would smell weapons a mile away. You’ll see.”

Tobias shrugged, took off his coat, unstrapped his shoulder holster and tossed the whole rig up onto the roof of the building they were next to. As Tobias’s gaze followed his pistol spinning out of sight to thunk on the roof, it looked as if the gun was abandoning him instead of the other way around.

Chapter 25
: A Bus Terminal at Christmas

The tiny bus terminal w
as busier than you’d expect. A dead end string town like Amicus shouldn’t have so much happening in the way of comings and goings. Instead, it was as packed with humanity as a miniature third world refugee camp, with several dozen people waiting as if for the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

A single mom
with three kids stood by the entrance. As Everett and Tobias rolled up on them the eldest of the mother’s spawn fished a dead cat out of the garbage can by its stiffened tail, and stuck his forefinger up his nose to the second digit. The mother looked at Everett as they passed. She got a whiff of Everett and wrinkled her nose in distaste, overcome with fastidiousness not normal for her.

The lines of long
time speed usage were carved into this unwed mother’s cheeks. Her missing teeth made her chin seek her nose like a crone’s, and the indented seam of her meth mouth aged her otherwise pretty face far beyond her twenty something years.

Besides, she was a fine one to be concerned about aroma: C
rank was made in dirty basements by sketchy personalities more intent on quick profit than quality manufacture. Either through ignorance or in an effort to save time, the ‘chemists’ often omitted or botched most of the steps, usually in the washes intended to remove the intermediate toxins arising in the course of creating crank from its base ingredients. A crankster’s body couldn’t assimilate the impurities. They were excreted through the pores and breath, creating the telltale ‘tweaker reek’ that Everett knew by heart. And the reek came off this particular tweaker mama in waves.

Everett and Tobias inserted themselves into the bus stop venue
, two rootless anonymous adult males trying their best not to make any ripples. They parked themselves next to the closed service counter.

A particularly trampy looking dude
stood guard at the entrance to the rest rooms. He’d made both male and female facilities off limits to everybody else, accosting anyone that approached him. Mad dogging on any males that tried to get past, making comments to the females that appeared unwelcome.

The door
to the men’s room creaked open, pushed from inside. Another even grimier guy stuck his head out the door. “Your turn,” he said.

Tobias
strolled toward them, his posture intent. After a moment Everett followed. It was stupid to attract eyes like this.

As Tobias approached
he stripped off his Derby jacket, held it by the sleeves, and spun his wrists until the jacket was a length of twisted fabric dangling between his hands. As he reached the first tramp, Tobias flipped the jacket noose over the man’s head and across his throat.

Tobias ducked under his
own gripping hands, spun toward the rear and bent over at the waist in one fluid motion, the move looking polished and practiced. Tobias pulled downward on the sleeves, which were crisscrossed so that the jacket garrote was inescapable.

Tobias and the tramp
were back to back; it was as if banty rooster Tobias was giving him a variant piggyback ride as he hoisted the heavier tramp off the ground by his throat. The tramp thrashed and scrabbled. His legs kicked like he was riding an invisible bicycle, and his hands clawed at the jacket without being able to find any purchase in the taut fabric.

The grimier guy
started to push the restroom door the rest of the way open. Everett kicked the door and it thudded against the grimier guy’s head. He sagged to the linoleum as the door bounced back open.

Th
e grimier guy lay on the restroom floor with eyes open, staring in bemusement at the ceiling. Judging by the already swelling knot on his forehead, he could be crossed off the threat list.

Tobias maneuver
ed his feet every time the tramp threatened to slide off the killing platform Tobias’s bent over back had become. Tobias thrust up and down with his legs to quicken things, letting the tramp’s own body weight slam his throat harder and harder within the jacket garrote.

“Enough
,” Everett said. “Drawn too much attention already.”

Tobias was in a
killing trance, giggling to himself as he stared at the ground attuned to the tramp’s paroxysms. Everett kicked Tobias behind the knee, and Tobias slammed to the ground with the tramp on top of him.

Tobias
scrambled from under his victim and scuttled toward Everett, ablaze at being cheated of his finish. Everett round housed the back of his knee again, and Tobias fell hard once more.

This time he didn’t try to get up
. He just lay there next to the tramp. If he’d needed finishing, Everett would’ve done a knee drop on his neck or fractured his skull with whatever was available to grab. Instead Everett stood relaxed until the little man’s slackening expression signaled that the heat of the moment had passed.

The tramp still
wore Tobias’s jacket noose as an ascot. He was out of it, and his breath rattled and moaned through his bruised trachea. But his gasps were strong and his life wasn’t in imminent danger. They would’ve been smelling shit real quick if Tobias hadn’t relented. The voiding of the bowels was always a good sign the dirty deed had been completed.

“Sometimes their
eyes bug out, sometimes they just look asleep,” Tobias said. “Just like when their mama tucked them in at night.”

Everett
stepped over the tramp and through the door, Tobias following in close support.

The bathroom smelled of blood
, sex and fear. A kid was in there; tall for his age, skinny, and too handsome for his own damn good. He fumbled up his pants and buttoned them as he sidled away from the two men.

Kee
ping his back to the wall, the kid side stepped toward the door. His eyes never left Everett or Tobias even as they both stepped further into the bathroom to give him courtesy room to make his escape.

When
the kid reached the exit he stopped just out of reach of the grimier guy and stared down at his prone form. The kid hauled off and kicked him in the head hard enough to bounce it off the wall.

A
mewling laugh bleated out of the kid. A little trickle of blood and other fluids dripped down his ankle, and the seat of his pants had a red spot in the center.

The kid watched Tobias untang
le his jacket from around the tramp’s neck.

“What’s y
our name?” the kid asked.

“I’m Otis
, this is Henry,” Tobias said.

“
I’m David,” the kid said. “You here for a free meal too?”

“Heard something about that
,” Everett said. “Houseful of Good Samaritans, right? They come through here feeding people sometimes?”

David nodded
, and looked past Everett toward the bus stop entrance. A guy and girl stood there, eye balling the venue hard.