They Tell Me I'm The Bad Guy (4 page)

With effort, I made it over to the kitchen for a glass of water. Will was passed out on the sofa again, snoring. I filled up a used glass at the sink. When I put it to my lips I saw a giant centipede drowning at the bottom of it and dropped the glass in the steel sink with a single, "Fuck!"

I needed air; the centipede about made me need to throw up again, and my place smelled like a damn Russian halfway house. I plotted a course to the door and breathed deeply to keep my stomach where it was. With my head against the door, I tried to unlock the deadbolt with my eyes closed. At some point, I got it without realizing it and spent who knew how long trying to unlock an unlocked lock.

Outside, the cool air hit me, and I staggered out into the parking lot toward my truck. I had forgotten my cigarettes but there was no going back for them. Fuck, I had left the door to my apartment open. Fuck it, I just needed to
lie
down in my truck and then I would take care of it. I tried to convince some random guy to go close it for me, and he told me to fuck off, so I pulled my keys out, dropped them, picked them up, dropped them again, then finally got a good hold on them and si
ngled out the one for my truck.

The something heavy slammed into me from the side, caught me under the arms and the next thing I knew I was sixty feet in the air and heading upward fast.

Fallout

Before my brain could come up with some kind of reaction other than trying not to throw up again, I got dropped onto a grit-covered, flat rooftop. As soon as I hit, the second wave of vomit I had been
keeping locked down got loose.

A cell phone camera made a digital chirp and took a picture. Somebody sai
d, "Nasty, man. You all right?"

I raised my pounding head from the gravel and slop to look at the son of a bitch who said it.

A blonde, spike-haired young Asian punk in a black bodysuit put his phone back in his pocket. Everything he wore; hooded trench coat, Kevlar vest, military boots, fingerless knuckle-spiked gloves and thick round flight goggles over his eyes, was solid black like the bodysuit. He looked like he had watched
The Matrix
way too many times.

His feet hovered two feet off the rooftop. Fuck me, a fucking flier. I hated fliers.

"The fuck're you?" I asked him. "Japanese dick-sucking champ?"

He pulled wired buds from his ears that blasted techno or some shit and let them hang on either side of his neck. "What's up, man? What'd you say?"

"Dick-sucking?" my drunk ass came out with, trying to repeat the line he hadn't heard.

"What?"

"Fuck it, nev'mind," I mumbled out. I put my hand right in vomit.

"Man, you are ass out," the kid said with a sneer. "I like to get my swerve on, too, but Jesus. I don't do shit like that when I do."

I wiped my hand on my pants. "Shit like what?" I said, ready to burn him from the inside out at any second.

"Uhhh,
that
," he pointed.

I followed his finger and finally saw it. We were up on top of the twelve-storey Sudiak Building down by city hall. On the other side of town, bright as shit and at least a block wide, burned a huge fucking fire. Right around the Wilmont Avenue area.

"Holy fuck," I said. "Holy fuck, man, I did that?"

"Yeah, you did. I think it's a perfect opening act for the return of
Das Biest von Feure
. You feel me? It's time you got back to it."

I turned my throbbing head back to the kid. "The fuck did you just call me?"

"Guys like you can't hide forever," he said casually. "No need to be hostile, either. I come with tight-ass news for you. Four days, you go to the airport and get on the plane the ticket says." He winged a sealed manila envelope at my feet. "You're lucky, man, you almost got left out."

I let the envelope stay where it landed. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Name's Kamikaze. Know it and remember it because we're gonna be workin' together."

"The fuck I am," I laughed with the
taste
of bacon-flavored vomit in my mouth. "Man, I don't know who the--"

"How'd you like that bug in your drink, by the way?" he asked with a smug-ass look on h
is face. "Ugly lookin', right?"

Shit. Was he psychic, too? The flying could have been with telekinetics. Mind shit. I hated that more than fucking fliers.

He grinned at me. "Yeah, look at your face. Don't throw up thinking about it, now. Anyway, I don't like doing this,
but
the same person who did that's got no problem driving you and your people right out your fucking mind if you don't show up for this. You got a sister, right, and she's got a family? And your ex-con buddy?"

That shit honed what focus I had like a laser beam. No mind shit from him. Third party. He could probably only fly. Fuck, I shouldn't have drank so much.

The kid liked hearing himself talk. "Now, I don't want it to go down like that, but that's what's on the table. I hope you don't look at it that way, though, because that's not why I'm here at all. I'm really coming to you as the bearer of opportunity and an admirer, man. You and the Chaotische Sechs in Europe were epic. The jobs you guys pulled were balls-out crazy. An outstretched hand, that's what I'm offering you. Now, the threat is real, don't mistake that, but at the same time don't get hung up on it. If you play everything professional like I know you will, then we got no problems. We all part on good terms, and I throw as much work your way as I can.
I like watching shit burn too."

I let 'Kamikaze' feel what heat I could put in the moving air blowing up the side of the Sudiak and put a shitload of effort into not slurring when I told him, "Leave me the fuck alone. I don't know you."

The kid smiled. "Man, you are old school. Everybody I deal with is more like, 'how much money am I gonna get,' but you don't even care about that. You're cautious. You a gangsta, man. But, seriously, I'm tellin' you don't sweat the family thing. That's just to make sure everybody's paying attention, and it lets you know that this is a serious opportunity, not some trife shit unworthy of a man like you's time."

I spit out the taste of vomit onto the roof. "Or I could just melt that gay-ass suit to your skin and sear your fucking lips and ears off right here. Try flying away from that shit."

The kid's hands went into his coat and came out with two nine millimeter Berettas. Black, of course. He didn't aim them my way, just let me see them. "This isn't play time, Donnie. This is serious."

I fucking laughed at him. "So now I explode the bullets in those clips and blow your goddamn hands off. How fucking stupid are you?"

He floated back up into the black night, guns still drawn. "Get on the plane," he said. "Don't make the mistake of discounting this and make everybody sorry. Read what's in that envelope and you'll see this isn't amateur night."

"Fuck you," I replied,
dizzy as shit watching him go.

He shook his head and put one gun away so he could put his ear buds back in. "Sober up before you come, man. Lay low. Don't get caught for tha
t shit downtown."

"Fuck you," I told him again, knowing he c
ouldn't hear me over the music.

"See you this weekend." He took off flying with a rush of air like a jet airplane.

I watched the fire burning from the rooftop. Sirens echoed through the dark. Fuck me, man. I hoped nobody died. The last thing I needed was to be put on trial because some passed-out tweakers or crack heads burned to d
eath in one of those buildings.

"Fucking
shit
," I cursed at myself. The column of smoke hung above the town, glowing amber from the street light.

I propped my head up on the concrete lip of the Sudiak so I could just lay there and watch while I scaled the fire back gradually, letting it shrink at a pace that could probably pass for the firefighters just doing their job. It took a long-ass time and made my headache five times worse. I also threw up over the edge of the Sudiak and got to see what vomit looked lik
e dropping from a hundred feet.

When it looked like firefighters didn't need my help anymore, I opened up the envelope Kamikaze had given me. It had a ticket for an American Airlines flight out of Cincinnati/Kentucky International. First Class. A yellow sticky note attached to a fake Ohio driver's license with my picture and the name Clive Kimball said a car would be waiting to pick me up when I arrived. He ha
d also included a typed letter.

Mr. Donald Guillory,

We would like to bring you into the loop on a pre-plan for a unique opportunity in an action-oriented team environment. Only those who can truly leverage what they bring to the table will succeed, and your expertise will be invaluable. You will be compensated for your time, and accommodations will be provided for the three days you attend. We look forward to your participation in this and future endeavors.

'
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, b
ut excels in winning with ease.' -
Sun Tzu,
The Art of War

Jesus fucking Christ.

My head swirling with vertigo, I wondered how the fuck this kid knew who I was? I used aliases a lot back in the day. And on top of that, he knew I was running around with Jurgen Chaotischer in Europe? What the fuck? Who was this kid?

I stared at the dying fire on Wilmont for a while, just in disbelief at how fucking stupid I had been to flare one up while drunk, then rolled away from the ledge onto my back to settle my stomach. Fuck, man, I hated this shit. A bullshit letter and a plane ticket; what the fuck? I would burn so
mebody's ass for digging me up.

As soon as I figured out how to get down off the damn roof.

And where I'd dropped my fucking keys.

Questions and Lies

Twenty-nine hours after Kamikaze left my ass on the roof, I sat in the office of my boss's boss, Chuck Ruiz, in an ironed shirt, tie and everything to interview for head machine operator at the factory. It had been twenty-two hours since I had sworn I would never drink again and eighteen since I had found out the pulled five bodies out of the burnt wreckage on Wilmont Avenue. That was about halfway to Psycho Silvy's number in Chicago.

Chuck had a ketchup stain on his shirt pocket as if he had tried to cram a hotdog in there.

"Why do you want this position, Don?" he asked me.

I wanted more money, why the hell else? "I'm looking to take on a bigger role in the company," is what came out of my mouth. I had heard it on TV.

"Is that all?"

"Well, I don't mind the extra pay, either." Idiot.

When Will had finally shown up to unlock the roof door on the Sudiak from the inside, he swore up and down that he had never told anybody what I could do or who I had been in Europe. I pushed him until he nearly threw me out of his car, but his story didn't change. So more than likely he was telling the truth, which put
me in a whole new mess of shit.

"What are some of your short-term goals?" Chuck asked. The air conditioning vent overhead kicked on and started gently blowing at his noticeably thinning hair.

"I'd like to get out of an apartment and buy a house," I answered, thinking about one of the limp body bags paramedics had carried out of the Liberty Bell Motel on the news. "I'd like to take part in the Leadership Program the home office offers for managers, and maybe go back to school and get a degree."

Chuck nodded. "Always good to hear. What degree would you pursue?"

Jesus, I felt like I was going to come out of my skin. "A business degree. Like business management."

Chuck's large head went down. He scrawled notes with his free company pen.

After Will told me he would smear my ass on the pavement if I kept accusing him of shit, I had used my phone to get online and hit up the Post-Human Database website. Turned out 'Kamikaze' had an entry and was wanted for a couple of armed robberies in Washington State. No fatalities; he had shoved a gun in a guy's face but never pulled the trigger. And all he could do according to the information people had put on the page was fly. The kid was a piss-ant nobody who had no fucking business employing a psychic for that centipede trick
and threatening a guy like me.

"And where in the company would you see yourself using that degree, Don?"
"In management. In shipping management."

"We don't have many openings there. Just to let you know, those positions typically only come open when someone retires." Chuck sounded like he really didn't give a shit.

"Okay," I nodded.

The Database had come up with forty-nine confirmed and ninety-seven possible/rumored matches for 'telepath.' Just in the United States. That was a lot of people who could fuck with my mind with that whole bug thing. The ones I checked didn't seem to have any connection with Kamikaze, either. They were all women, too, which was pretty typical. Psychic stuff and being able to do stuff with the mind turned up mostly in women; guys mostly got the physical powers, strength and all that. I caught a lot of shit back in the day for having what was pretty much a mind power.