Authors: Pearce Hansen
Chapter 33
: Conflicting Agendas
When
Everett returned to potato peeling, Tobias wasn’t around. Aaron, however, was. Everett sat on the upended barrel, picked up a spud, and recommenced peeling.
“
I’ve been trying to figure out what’s the deal with you,” Aaron said. “I don’t like mysteries, they make me nervous.” His voice was calm, but his nostrils were flared and white.
“
No mystery here,” Everett said, peeling away. “Not much to tell, pretty boring.”
“
We may have gotten off on the wrong track,” Aaron said.
“
Don’t know about that,” Everett said, tossing a peeled spud into the bucket and reaching for another.
Aaron
emitted a strangled snarl and stepped on the potato Everett was about to grab, planting his weight on it firmly. Aaron’s crotch was right at Everett’s eye level. Everett looked at Aaron’s foot with hand still outstretched, then sat back and squinted up against the sun at Aaron.
Aaron loomed
over so him close that Everett wouldn’t be able to stand. Everett envisioned the response if he playfully stabbed the paring knife into Aaron’s groin as deep as the little blade would go. Femoral artery was right there, quick and quiet.
“You have to
tell me, I’m dying here,” Aaron said. “What do you and Phil talk about, when you and him go off on your own?”
“You’d
have to ask Phil,” Everett said, putting no confrontation at all into his tone. “He’d be the one to tell you.”
Aaron
abruptly took his foot of the potato pile with what he probably intended as an apologetic look. He paced up and down, much as Tobias had when pretending to work. Everett picked up the potato Aaron had stepped on, and started peeling it.
“
Didn’t mean to fly off the handle,” Aaron said as he paced. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I’m not your enemy.”
“Course not
,” Everett said. He placed the peeled spud in the bucket and grabbed another.
Aaron
stopped prowling and faced Everett. “All right, no bullshit, ok? We get wolves like you all the time, trying to winkle their way in and take advantage. I send them packing, fast.”
“Taking advantage how?”
Everett asked. “Y’all are the ones who invited us to dinner. Y’all are the ones who asked us to stay over. Doing what you’ll let us do, we’re no shirkers. Seems to be enough for Phil so far.”
“Yes
,” Aaron said, attempting a meaningful glance Everett refused to meet. “So far it seems to be enough for him all right. I’ll share with you. I’m confused and perturbed about not getting the order to give you the bum’s rush.”
He
pointed a finger at Everett. “He isn’t your friend. Don’t pretend you think so. You should be asking yourself just what Phil does want from you. Even you can’t think it’s no more than KP duty. You think Phil’s so wonderful? There are things about him that would change everybody’s mind if they knew. He’s not a good person. He’s done things. He’s a twisted fuck when you get to know him.”
“Appreciate your input. G
lad you’re looking out for my interests,” Everett said. “Watch the step with Phil, got it.”
“
Fine,” Aaron said. “I get it. I extend the hand of friendship and you slap it aside. It won’t be offered again. You just might come to wish you’d taken it.”
“So we’ll cut to the chase
,” Aaron said. “Your little friendy-poo, that Otis fellow? He just might want to stop skulking around the grounds. There are old open wells here hidden by undergrowth. Easy to fall into never be found. There are other hazards around, too. It’s probably healthier if neither of you tries wandering off anymore.
Chapter 34
: An Unforgivable Crime
Everett and Tobias
were cooping in a room the size of a broom closet, two folding cots the sole furnishings. Everett awoke gasping in bed. It was the storm giants, hungry to be fed.
A rustling in the dimness, and
Tobias swiveled to sit up on the edge of his cot. “You make a lousy bunkie, Henry. So what’s the plan, boss? Time to spill it.”
“Don’t have one yet.
Still assessing.”
“Craptacular
,” Tobias said.
“We’re in good shape
, Otis,” Everett said. “We go to the bus terminal to scope out their recruiting methods; they invite us home for dinner. We eat with them to case the interior, they ask us to stay. We’re hawks among the pigeons. We’re in place for when a chance presents itself.”
“All right
, I’ll give you that,” Tobias said. “But now what? What’s the next – ‘line,’ is that what you call it?”
“
Waiting,” Everett said.
“This is taki
ng way too long.” Tobias’ tone brightened. “All right, your way’s worked up till now. All we got left is finding where the gold is and glomming it. You’re mainly known as an edged weapon guy. How’s about we creep up to Phil’s room, stick a knife up his asshole and tickle his insides for a while? He’ll cough up the gold right quick.”
Everett
opened his mouth to retort, and then shut it again. That was a possible move; it might come to that.
“You like him
,” Tobias said, accusing Everett of the unforgivable crime. “You make friends too easy, Henry.”
“No
, Otis,” Everett said with all the firmness musterable in self defense. “No, I don’t.”
Ch
apter 35: A Grasshopper’s Regard
Everett
awoke with a jolt when Tobias got out of bed.
“What
?” Everett asked.
“Just going to drain the lizard
,” Tobias said in a cheerful voice. “Unless you want to help me with that?”
“Pass
,” Everett said, inspecting Tobias’s tense form as best he could in the dimness of the darkened room.
Tobias
opened the door and started to step out into the hall. He just stood there, silhouetted by the light spilling in to dazzle Everett’s eyes. Tobias shut the door and slunk back to his bed.
“What?”
Everett asked again.
“They’re planted on u
s,” Tobias said. “We’re boxed.”
S
omeone knocked on the door. When Everett opened up, Phil stood in the hall looking unhappy.
Everett
made room for him to enter. As the big man walked past him into the tiny bedroom, Everett leaned out and looked down the hall. To the left, one of the Phishermen sat on a stool at the end of the hall, eye balling hard.
Aaron stood next to the Phisherman,
fuming in Everett’s direction but keeping his distance. Everett considered Aaron’s expression after looking away. It felt very important that he figure out what that look meant.
Everett
shut the door. “What’s with the guard, Phil? Lockdown?”
Phil looked uncomfortable
, from what Everett could see of him in the gloom. “This isn’t my doing, grasshopper. This is all Aaron. I’ve taken you into my house. I’ve broken bread with you. I’ve trusted you in the heart of my family, you’ll admit that?”
“Yes
,” Everett said. “I acknowledge your hospitality.”
Phil wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“I’m not in control of this, grasshopper. I can’t protect you from Aaron. He’s one step from taking my family away from me.”
Phil stepped close
so his face loomed from the dimness. He appeared afraid. “Do you have any regard for me at all, grasshopper?” Phil asked in a pleading voice, and then left.
“You
put us into this,” Tobias said from his bed. He rolled away to face the wall “They’ve got us by the balls.”
Chapter 36
: The Storm Giants Come Out To Play
Tobias thrashed around i
n his bed for a while. He finally stopped squirming and lay still for a good long while. Everett could tell from his breathing he was awake. Tobias arose from his bed, trying for stealth. Everett watched with his eyes slitted.
Tobias
stepped in Everett’s direction, hovering over him. Everett kept his breathing and heartbeat slow, still as stone.
Tobias
turned back toward his bed and Everett heard furtive rustling. Tobias crouched at the window, peeking out through a corner of the pane at various angles. The window creaked up on its wooden rails. Tobias eeled out into the night and was gone.
Everett
was on his feet the instant Tobias pulled the window shut. He glanced over at Tobias’ cot. The little man had humped up his bedding to maybe pass a quick inspection.
Everett
paused as he pulled on one of his boots, wondering if he wanted to back Tobias’ play. Didn’t matter, he decided. No one would believe Tobias was playing a lone hand.
Everett
sat on the edge of his bed with hands folded, brain idling as he waited see if this was the line. He heard movement in the hall and snapped out of his fugue. He stepped to the door and threw the bolt. Someone tried the knob only a second after he locked it.
There was w
hispered conversation out in the hall. Everett recognized David’s excited voice, even though the boy thought he was keeping it down. The floor boards creaked out there as several people moved down the hall, leaving silence again.
Everett
waited but the quiet on the other side of the door was unbroken. Looking around the room, he decided tearing out a bed spring would make too much noise. There was nothing else in sight to improvise a weapon from.
He unloc
ked the door and waited, deciding what was on the other side. Nothing came to him, not even vague impressions.
H
e pushed the door open and stepped out into the hall. David sat on the stool to the left staring at him. The mingled guilt and fear in his eyes told Everett everything he needed to know. David’s mouth dropped open; he was shocked and about to sound the alarm.
Everett
winked, and held a forefinger up across his lips in a conspiratorial S-s-s-s-h! He commenced long strides in the boy’s direction. David shuttled back and forth between trust and guilt. When Everett was within striking distance, a look of dawning realization filled David’s face.
Everett
reached out, grasped David’s right thumb, and curled it back against the boy’s palm in an iron grip. He squeezed David’s thumb within his fist. David cried out, dropping off the stool onto one knee.
“Where’s Otis
?” Everett asked. “Where’s Aaron?”
“In the garage
,” David said, his eyes screwed tight shut. “Both in the garage.”
Everett
led David by his thumb down the hall to the kitchen. He plucked up a meat cleaver embedded in the butcher block. He spun the cleaver on its axis. The blade hummed as it rotated, and he made it stop in proper cutting alignment. Whenever he picked up a new knife, he hoped it would make the same bell like tones that Silent’s blade had so long ago in Hayward. He’d yet to find the right knife however.
They went outside and
through the undergrowth toward the outbuilding garage. Everett glided along; David stumbled in his grip, impeding his progress.
“I know y
ou wouldn’t hurt me,” David said.
“Silence
,” Everett said.
Aaron and another Phisherman loomed out of the
shrubbery ahead. Metal glinted in their hands.
“That’
s close enough,” Aaron said to Everett, and turned to the man at his side. “We’re far enough away from the house.”
“You’re right
,” Everett said, and flung David off to the side.
David bounced off a
tree trunk and flailed to the ground. Everett finally deciphered the enigmatic look Aaron gave him when Phil visited the room earlier. Aaron was the one afraid. Phil was full of shit, playing vulnerable as a ploy.
Aaron needed to be
made dead and Everett was the one to do it. All the lines pointed to Aaron and through him. The lightning bolt was a bright arc of knowledge.
Time
now slowed to a molasses crawl, as it always did. No fear, no rage, only necessity.
As Aaron
raised the pistol Everett whirled to the outside, closing the gap with all the time in the world. Everett daintily hacked the meat cleaver into Aaron’s carotid with surgical precision, just hard enough to sever the artery, yet not hard enough to embed the blade any deeper in the throat than necessary. A fan of arterial blood sprayed out to Aaron’s left. The slow motion time flow made the blood seem to hang in the air forever. Everett spun away to make a more elusive target, and avoid getting Aaron’s DNA all over him.
Aaron’s partner was trying
to throw down with his own pistol. Everett slithered toward him like a piece of silk fluttering in the void, hacking the wrist of the guy’s gun hand hard enough to chop through the ulna. The guy yodeled a few meaningless chords. His piece tumbled from his hand as his half severed wrist dangled like a mitten on a string.
Everett
continued his whirling dervish death dance through one more spin around. His midbrain told him there were no more targets and the timer snapped back into normal duration flow. But Everett was still in the middle of process and this was not the completion of the line.
He stood in the midst of his
victims, panting and trembling in hated reaction. Aaron was busy bleeding out at his feet. Aaron’s boy had sunk to his knees holding his ruined wrist.
David
was frozen half way to his feet, staring at the bloody meat cleaver in Everett’s hand. David’s trembling ghost face let Everett know the storm giants were glowing from his eyes.
Da
vid moaned and tried scrambling away into the shrubbery. He yelped when Everett caught him by the heel, dragged him to his feet and re imposed the thumb hold.
Everett
kicked the wounded Phisherman in the side, hard enough to penetrate the shock of the wound. “Up,” Everett said, and herded the two the rest of the way to the garage.
T
he side door was open. The wounded man collapsed to huddle next to it. Everett shot putted David through the doorway, hard enough he flew in an arc to sprawl onto his face. David started to get up, and stared at someone out of sight to the left of the doorway.
Everett
glanced back at the house. The lights and Christmas decorations were on; however no one was visible in any of the windows. Everett dove through the doorway over David and somersaulted in a tight ball, bounced up to face left with the cleaver by his ear, his other hand extended to his front, ready to bounce flea-like in whichever direction necessary to embed the cleaver in flesh in s kaleidoscope of violence.
I
t was Tobias in front of him with hands tied around a pipe running vertical up the garage wall. Tobias’s shirt was ripped off to expose his back, his face was bruised and swollen, and a sock was stuffed in his mouth.
“You came
,” Tobias said when Everett pulled out the gag. “You didn’t bail.”
Next to
Tobias on a work bench was a blow torch, a pair of pliers and a serrated bread knife – the good kind you could cut off big hunks with. Cowards like Aaron were the cruelest torturers, and Tobias had been in for a rough ride if Everett hadn’t come.
David
stood next to the wounded Phisherman, holding the guy up as his half severed wrist spurted blood onto the garage floor.
“I swear I didn’t know
,” David said, looking at the interrogation instruments. “I had no idea they’d do this.”
“Get a tourniquet around his wrist before he bleeds out
,” Everett said.
He
sawed through Tobias’s bonds with the bread knife. David squatted next to Aaron’s boy, trying to be inconspicuous even as he tied his belt around the guy’s wrist tight enough to make the spurting stop.
“They caught me prowling around
,” Tobias said.
“Figured that
,” Everett said as he picked up the pretty bread knife and gave it that whirring spin in his hand.
The snack truck was parked
to one side. The steel plate was off the floor leaning against the wall. An empty pit was revealed in the cement floor. The doors of the truck were wide open and several dozen gold ingots were stacked in there.
Here was the Holy Grail
Everett had been clawing towards. A silent tune crowed in Everett’s head, all heavenly trumpets in gloating triumph.
“Beautiful
, ain’t it?” Tobias asked. “It was especially hard, sitting tied up and staring right at it.”
S
omeone cleared their throat at the door.
“So you
got tired of lying low, eh grasshopper?” Phil asked. “I was wondering when you were going to make your move.”