The Storm Giants (17 page)

Chapter 42
: ‘An Interesting Man to Be Around’

A
muffled explosion happened behind Everett where the sniper was stationed. The laser dot stopped dazzling his eyes. The driver girl shifted her gaze past Everett’s shoulder, and started to aim her pistol in that direction.

Everett
was already blazing forward with the bread knife. He rapped the driver’s wrist with the hilt’s butt as he passed by her. Her pistol clattered to the cement as Everett stepped past to the Widow.

T
he edge of the bread knife hovered rock steady beneath the Widow’s chin, a few microns away from actual contact. Everett took professional satisfaction in not touching the skin. The Widow and he stood frozen in an intimate tableau, centered on the blade’s threat.

Someone opened
the rolling door behind Everett. Even over the rain, he heard the subdued mumbling of multiple silenced automatics outside in the alley. It sounded like someone trying to start a fleet of dead lawn mowers over and over.

T
hree men in black, all wearing night vision goggles, rappelled down through the hole in the ceiling. Two of them took a knee and aimed in on the Widow and her driver with silenced Uzis. The third started in Everett’s direction.

T
he man he assumed to be Mister Mossad stood before him with a valise in his hand and his night vision goggles up on his forehead. He didn’t look a thing like Everett had envisioned. The goggles looked pretty cool. Everett would pick up a pair, if he lived through tonight.

“Slice and dice her
, Everett,” Tobias giggled behind him. “Paint the floor with her blood.”

Everett
shook his head. “That would be too quick. Don’t want to touch her again anyways.”

He turned to Mister Mossa
d without pulling the bread knife away from the Widow’s smooth white throat. “You ready to accept delivery?”

Mister Mossad held out the valise
. Everett lowered his blade and took it.

A black clad man scuttled up and cuffed the Widow’s
slim elegant wrists behind her, ratcheting the bracelets tight. A van pulled into the garage as the man cuffed the girl in turn.

Everett
opened the valise and looked at all the wads of money inside.

“One million dollars
, as agreed,” Mister Mossad said.

Everett
looked at him.

“Oh
, yes,” Mister Mossad said in apologetic tones as he pulled his wallet out his pocket and handed Everett a single. “One million and one dollars.”

Everett
placed the dollar bill into the valise with the rest of the money and turned to the Widow. “You see,” he said. “Went with the highest bidder. Are you proud of me?”

H
er iceberg face writhed beneath the concealing mirror shades.

“Here is the evidence package
,” Mister Mossad said, handing over another valise. “She had these blood samples in a safety deposit box. We had to extract it.”

“How’d you manag
e that?” Everett asked.

“Have I asked as to your methods
, sir?” Mister Mossad asked. “Did it not occur to you that we might renege on our deal? Take the gold and let you swing slowly, slowly in the wind?”

“Wasn’t a chan
ce,” Everett said. “Would have been stereotypical, you would have been buying into her opinion of you.”

Mister Mossad winced melodramatically,
and then smiled. “My father was a Nazi hunter; he even worked with Simon Wiesenthal. I never hoped to see a day like today, to both remove a Nazi – even a false one – and to recover what was stolen from the victims of the Holocaust. This may be impertinent. I am curious as to why you agreed to deal with us. You could have gotten much more money elsewhere.”

“Was mainly abo
ut getting the DNA samples back. You had the assets to get the job done, and she couldn’t connect you to me.” Everett said, resisting the pointless impulse to be secretive as Mister Mossad. “There was one other thing.”

Everett
walked to the snack truck, next to the idling van. The gold was being transferred by three men in generic overalls. One man handed the bullion to another outside the truck who handed the ingot to another man inside the van, who stacked them reverently in a storage compartment built into the floor of the van.

Everett
watched the moving ingots for a few seconds, and then reached for one as it was passed along. The man passing it looked to Mister Mossad, who nodded.

T
he man handed over the ingot. Everett flipped the gold bar over to expose the underside, revealing a corrugated surface of molar shaped fillings and teeth fragments like the one Phil showed him.

“This is not new to us
, my friend,” Mister Mossad said. “Every Israeli lives with this from infancy. It is in our bones. Are you a jihadist, to deny the reality of the Holocaust?”

Everett
handed the bar back to the work crew and spoke to the Widow. “You said Doctor D was like the sperm donor who sired me. Sure, D taught me my best lessons about pain. But he’s not owed any Father’s Day cards.

“
And you. Trying to act like we’re long lost sweethearts? What you did was ten times worse than Doctor D – all he did was torture me. Trying to push that race drivel my way? Like I ever needed color as an excuse to hate you all. Oh yeah, meant to tell you: Phil’s still alive. After finding out what you wanted done to him, he says goodbye and good luck.”

S
he aimed her shades-armored gaze at him. His own face was reflected in them. Irked, Everett removed her aviators.

Her eyes
were sky blue as he remembered, and would have been beautiful if the sun glasses’ habitual concealment hadn’t allowed her the luxury for years of not having to hide her emotions. Seen without the shelter of the mirror shades, her eyes crawled like the boneless vermin that scuttle for shelter when you lift a rock.

Gesturi
ng at the surrounding Israelis, Everett said “Figure it stings more for you, coming from Jews. But I hope you remember my part of it, in those moments when you’re feeling low.”

Everett
asked Mister Mossad, "Will she suffer?”

“We are not barbarians
,” the Israeli agent said. “But she will not be pleased with our treatment. No, she will not end well.”

Tobias appeared next to
Everett. He eye balled the Widow’s driver, who returned his gaze. He stepped up and whispered in her ear.

Sh
e was taller than Tobias and he had to stand on tiptoe to speak. With a look of surprise, she looked down at his expectant face and nodded. A smile blossomed tremulous on her lips.

Tobias put his arm around her waist.
“Uncuff her Everett. I seen what you got up in Mendocino and I want me a piece of that, too.”

Everett and Mister Mossad
stared.

“
Everett,” Tobias said. “You owe me. I’m already out of my end of what Larry would have gotten us. Comes to about . . .” He went blank as his lips moved in internal calculation, his thumbs ticking at the tips of his fingers as he counted.

Everett
said, “We’re taking the Widow’s money too. Subtracting Larry’s ten percent, my end, and what you’re receiving, you only lose between 12-and-a-half to 17 mil. You get the Washington, okay?”

“
That’s all Craptacular, Everett. But this girl is mine, and I’m taking her as part of my end.”

“May I speak to you aside
?” Mister Mossad said to Everett. They stepped off a little ways. “You cannot trust her. She will be a threat to you as long as she is alive.”

Everett
quirked his lips. “She’s seen what’ll happen if she gets dumb. And I do owe him. We’re no saints ourselves. Let her go.’”

Mister Mossad shrugged
, made a hand signal gesture, and one of his crew unlocked the girl’s bracelets. She rubbed her wrists, looking down at them as if disbelieving her freedom. She and Tobias held hands like schoolyard sweethearts.

“You seem
an interesting man to be around,” Mister Mossad said. “You know we have a detailed file on you, yes? I volunteered for this to see your work. To be frank, I had expected something more direct.”

“Retired now.”

“Ah. As you say, of course. If you should ever return to circulation, you need only contact one of our embassies.”

“Offer number four
,” Everett said.

“Beg pardon?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“
If there is nothing else. We are even? ‘Even Steven,’ as you Americans say?”

“Yes
,” Everett said. “Even up.”

“Good.
Then our business is through. You have the gratitude of the nation of Israel. So long as you never threaten our interests of course.”

Chapter 43
: A 21st Century Bonnie & Clyde

They got
in the truck and rolled. Tobias and the girl whispered together but they weren’t scheming, they were just typical honeymooners mind melding.

“B
y the by,” Tobias said. “Agnes has something to tell you.”

Tobias’s
sweetie looked uncomfortable, and didn’t meet Everett’s eyes as she spoke. “The Widow said your mother cooperated with us. That was a false statement. Your mother was in a coma when we drew the DNA samples from her. She did not betray you.”

“Oh.”
Everett said. “That’s nice to know. Where to now?”

“Larry’s
, I guess. I prefer to give him the bad news in person.”

Everett
pulled over down the block from Larry’s place. Lights shone through the spray painted windows. Loud music blasted away. Larry was throwing a party for the Lost Boys tonight.

“I dunno
, Everett. It’s almost like I didn’t even earn my end,” Tobias said. “You had to come rescue my sorry ass when I stepped in it.”

“Y
ou could give up your share,” Everett said.

“No
, no,” Tobias said. “I guess I did my bit after all. Um, you’re not going to tell Larry?”

Everett
held out the briefcase. “Anybody that rides with me gets paid, that’s policy. You maybe want a reference letter?”

Tobias shook his head
, embarrassment gone. “You said I get the million and one. I get top end of the cut.”

Everett
swapped him for the Israeli’s valise.

Tobias
said, “Next time, nothing diplomatic and no sneaky mind fucks. Next time we pick a score that’s more my style, deal?”

“As said
, retired.”

Tobias snorted.
“You’re not looking very retired lately.”

“
You don’t need to go in there,” Everett asked. “Larry’s not your boss, and being a Lost Boy’s not a job description. There’s no 401K at the end of the road with him.”

“So?
” Tobias said.

“So
let’s go in and say hello to Larry then.”

When they got out,
Everett stuck the bread knife down the front of his belt. A blurry head peered at them out one windowpane where the paint had been scraped away: a lookout, scoping on them.

“D
rink will flow and drugs be done,” Tobias said as they headed toward the open door. “Larry may have even trucked in a few working girls to entertain the troops.”

“If so
that fact will be irrelevant to you,” Agnes said.

“What? Oh yeah
,” Tobias said. “That’s right.”

T
hey walked into the Clubhouse.

‘You Know What You
Are’ by Ministry blasted from the speakers. There were no females in evidence. Rather, the Clubhouse was a sausage fest tonight.

Larry
sat at his desk glaring balefully at them from his office. Tobias was puzzled but wary as he keyed in on Larry’s mood, the ominous postures of the twenty odd Lost Boys surrounding them. Agnes shared his apprehension. She wasn’t armed and so could do no more than evidence wary uncertainty.

Someone shut the rolling door
behind them. The three stopped in the middle of the room and both men set down their grips.

Everett
rummaged in his briefcase, pulled out a double handful of bundled bills and held it up for display. “This is by eyeball, but should be about a ten percent tithe. Would’ve given it up to keep the peace. Would’ve persuaded Tobias to give up ten points too. 200 large for sitting on your ass without breaking a sweat? You’d’ve been happy after you calmed down, Larry.”

A hissing intake of air
from Tobias. “What the fuck you talking about, Everett?”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet? You’re not supposed to
be here. Larry never intended for you to come back. You think you were the first? It’s a game we played long before I moved to Mendo. Every so often Larry’d send somebody, usually whichever of his Lost Boys he was most tired of looking at. But he’s been known to send others in a pinch when he’s especially mad at me.”

“
Everett,” Larry said.

“Shut up
,” Everett said. “You don’t have the floor. Larry would get them riled up. ‘Everett is a king badass, you’ll never hold a candle to him.’ ‘Everett was a dark lord of the gutter when he was working, you wouldn’t stand a chance against him.’”

Everett
glanced at Tobias, who stood trembling and sweating. “Ring any bells kid? He didn’t actually sic you, did he? No, he likes it deniable.”

He looked around
at the surrounding eyes. “Larry could always aim us at the prey unerringly. He’s a fine snoop and a decent business manager. However, he always gloated too much. Presumptuous, doesn’t change the fact that he was nothing more than a human bird dog.”

Everett
took a step toward Larry. Larry sprang up, a puppet yanked erect. Larry’s eyes rolled to the side. He refused to turn his back on Everett long enough to lay eyes on the shotgun.

Everett
smiled. “Told you before it’s too far away to keep your weapon. You reach for the pump and it’s over. We’re still talking. You own a few heartbeats more.”

Everett
scanned the Lost Boys, cataloging their relative positions for the possible targeting frenzy.

“
You know who I am,” Everett told those staring faces. “This is for succession of leadership. If none of you interfere, only he dies.”

“I’m your friend
, Everett,” Larry said. “There’s something wrong with you in the head if you think different.”

Everett
nodded. “We were friends despite all, Larry. Leastways, until you fed my family to the Widow.”

“You. A
re. Crazy.”

“Not
,” Everett said. “Process of elimination. She’d have scooped me up as a malleable kid if she’d known where I was, and done her best to fuck me into slavery. Hence, she didn’t know until relatively recent.

“So who reaches out to coax me into her a
mbush? How’s about the guy who had to call about Bambi and Rolly as bait to reel me in? There’s a reason I never gave you my forwarding address.

“Pretending to find
Rolly was laying it on a bit thick, but you wanted to make sure so you took the risk of heavy handedness. You probably knew where Rolly was shortly after you set him up. It is your speciality after all: betrayal.”

“One last time
,” Everett said to the Lost Boys. “Don’t help him. Don’t help me. Stay alive.”

He
pulled the bread knife from his belt, stepped off to close the gap.

Afterwards
, whenever Tobias thought about those next few moments he saw again Everett propelling toward Larry quick as a watermelon seed squeezed from between thumb and forefinger. That, or a mouse trap snapping shut, a flea leaping into invisibility.

Larry swiveled in place as
Everett approached, scooped up the shot gun from against the wall, and racked it one handed as he spun forward to aim in.

Nobody’
s fast enough to dodge a bullet. Everett had met people as quick as himself exactly twice, and had outlived them both. What he had that those others didn’t, was the line. The intuitive sense of what the mark would do next, and which direction events were likely to tumble.

No one can dodge a bullet. But i
f you’re nimble enough, you can make sure not to be where they’re aiming.

Larry had a perfectly respectable amount of
speed. However, he was desperate and stiff. As Everett closed in, while still out of range he stuck his hand out toward Larry’s face. Larry’s eyes crossed at the feint, and he jerked the shotgun’s barrel toward the point in space he believed Everett would occupy in the next second.

Everett
veered off and away in a tangent, commencing a cartwheel just outside the barrel’s aiming point. Larry tried to correct, yanked prematurely on the trigger, and a spread of 12-gauge double-ought whipped past close enough for Everett to feel the wind. Behind him, a caterwauling chorus of screams commenced.

Larry
tried smacking Everett with the shotgun as he cart wheeled past. Everett grabbed the proffered barrel with his free hand as he bounced into the air with the knife crossed over by his opposite ear. As he sailed past, he used the shotgun as a handhold and hacked the knife so it chopped into Larry’s neck far enough to embed in the cervical vertebrae.

Hacking a blade into someone typically prod
uces an awful enough wound. With a bread knife, like with Japanese blades, the most horrific damage is inflicted on the pull. Then the meat gapes like a carved ham, though of course living flesh resists more vehemently than roast pork.

Everett
tugged in a ripping stroke, the serrations shuddering bumpily across Larry’s neck bones with the feel of an opening zipper. Everett intended full follow through on the cut. To tumble the head off Larry’s shoulders while he was still in the air, then spin away in a twinkle toes killing dance when he landed if necessary.

T
hings went south when the knife’s edge bound up in the gristle and bone. Everett had to stop the drag or risk snapping the thin, flexible blade.

Everett
plopped flatfooted and graceless to the ground. He yanked Larry around as a shield between himself and the rest of the room, his face an incandescent mask of shame.

Larry
was slicing his hands to the bone, tendons severing and palms becoming ribbons as he fumbled at the blade embedded in his neck. Neither jugular nor carotid had been nicked, so there was a lot less blood than you’d expect. Yet.

Less than
three seconds had passed since Larry’s murder began. Tobias stood in the middle of the room, Desert Eagle in hand, rotating in place and giggling. Agnes rotated with him, unarmed but watching his blind side.

Two of the Lost Boys w
ere down in a welter of gore, the ones who were in the way when Larry pulled the trigger. The rest of the Lost Boys were too frozen in shock and awe to have responded. A couple had advanced a step or two in his direction. They leaned forward immobilized in mid stride tableau like kids playing Statues, staring at whatever was happening on Larry’s face.

Everett
held Larry’s corn rows, his grip savage with embarrassment as he sawed the rest of the way through the neck. Larry slumped to the floor as the decapitation progressed. Everett dropped to one knee and tugged up hard on the hair for the last couple strokes. This was an unforgivably sloppy kill.

H
e was on his feet holding the head aloft in his outstretched hand. Once more he saw the terror in their eyes; the usual emotion expressed when people realized they were in the storm giants’ playroom. It was like a surfer sitting his board beyond the surf line, when a yard high dorsal fin cuts the water next to him close enough to touch. People had literally shit themselves when Everett kicked into turbo. They would again tonight if he wanted to toy with them.

The Storm Giants still wanted to bubble up.
No, he told them – not this time. He owned this room. He didn’t have to kill everyone in it.

Everett
strolled in a circle around Tobias and Agnes, panning the head to the right and left, making sure they all got a good gander. Blood dripped in spatters like incense from a swaying censer.

He came up on the guys t
hat had been blown up by the shotgun. Two disjointed puppets, squirming around on pure end-of-the-line instinct. As if the meat could regain its intact form if it contorted into the right position.

There wa
s nothing to be done for either. No one here was calling 911.

Everett
looked at them and he thought: Raymond will never have to see such sights as this. Raymond will never have to stand in a room full of homicidal strangers and dominate them. Such a feeling of peaceful joy enfolded him that he lowered Larry’s head and sighed. He was filled with a sense of beatitude as he tamped the Storm Giants down to a safe level.

“
Did I ever say you were past your prime?” Tobias asked with a jack o lantern smile.

Everett jerked h
is chin at these dying Lost Boys.

Tobias pulled his Desert Eagl
e and held it out to Agnes without breaking eye contact with Everett. She took it, stepped close enough to be sure, and gave them grace with two shots in quick succession. Both hunks of meat stopped pretending to be alive. Their exposed innards glistened as they settled into morbidity.

Tobias continued to look
Everett in the eyes this whole time. He held his hand out to Agnes expectantly. She replaced the pistol in his hand, he re holstered it, and the little man exuded obnoxious smugness. Everett realized that he was witnessing the birth of a 21
st
Century Bonnie and Clyde. They’d play it loud and messy; they’d be famous on TV soon enough. More than that, they were a breeding pair in the making . . .