by Alfred Wurr
“Yeah, sweet car,” Caleb said. “I like the sunroof.”
“It’s called a Hurst Hatch,” Wilhelm replied, sticking his right hand through the opening above. “Or a T-top.”
“It’s a Trans Am, right?” Caleb asked.
Wilhelm nodded. “The 1977 Special Edition. I went for the full package: custom gold decals, gold snowflake wheels—the works.”
“Forget about the car, Caleb,” Brad said, turning sideways in his seat to look at his brother. “What happened, Alan? Are you okay?”
Alan shook his head, flaring his nostrils. “They stole our money—not just what we won, but all of it. Everything I have for the trip. Said it was a fine for underage gambling.”
“They took all my cash too, and my stash,” Caleb said, glaring. “Some fuck-knuckle sucker punched Alan.”
“You’re kidding,” Wilhelm said, scowling at the rear-view mirror.
“Slugged me in the gut when I told them to go fuck themselves, after they robbed us,” Alan said, rubbing his stomach.
“How much?” Wilhelm asked.
“Nine hundred for me,” Alan said.
“Four hundred for me, not counting the five thousand for the slot machine,” Caleb said.
Wilhelm whistled softly. “That’s a lot of ducats.”
“They can’t do that,” Brad said. “That’s robbery and assault, pure and simple. We’ll call the cops.”
Caleb shook his head. “They got my stash. They said they’d have us arrested for possession.”
We drove in silence for a while after that, digesting the situation. Brad was the first to speak again. “There’s no proof it’s yours. We can deny it,” he said with a shrug. “We’ll say it’s theirs.”
“How many guards were involved?” Wilhelm said, turning right onto his street. “Did you get their names?”
“Two of them,” Alan said, looking thoughtful. “Randy—big, thick dude, taller than me, pasty white, red face, red hair. The other guy was called Shane. About Brad’s height, muscled, dark hair, blue eyes.”
“Nice description,” I said.
“I guess I’m getting good at describing assholes that rob me,” he said. “I wish I weren’t.”
“Where’d they take your money?” Wilhelm asked. “Were there any witnesses?”
“Nope,” Caleb replied. “They took us to a room in the back.”
“I was afraid of that. We can try, but I doubt calling the cops will get your money back,” Wilhelm said. “It sounds like these two probably split the cash. They’ll just deny they took it. It’s your word against theirs. That’s probably why you got punched in the stomach, not the face: less obvious bruises, no abrasions on their knuckles.”
Wilhelm parked the Trans Am in the garage and cut the engine, and we piled out. Bruised and battered, Alan and Caleb followed us inside as the garage door trundled closed behind us.
Once inside, the boys received sympathetic hugs and kisses as they repeated the story for the girls’ benefit. Struggling to keep their eyes open, the kids chose to go to sleep and figure out what to do in the morning. Still having work to do, Wilhelm went to his office, leaving me—too wired to sleep—to watch a movie and try to think about something else. But I couldn’t let it go.
I’d met these kids only a few days ago, but I liked them a lot already. Aside from Scott, Emmett and now Wilhelm and Olivia, they were my only friends, at least that I could remember. With my memory limited to about ten years, I’d effectively been lonely my entire life. Not the loneliness of just being alone but the loneliness that comes with a lack of history. Even someone stranded on a desert island can at least console themselves with the thought that people that they know, and that know them, exist somewhere, possibly thinking of them on occasion or remembering common experiences. There’s companionship in that shared history, and I’d lost that, if I’d ever had it, along with my memories, which made the few friends that I had more important to me than anything. And, for the second time in two days, they’d been terrorized by a couple of goons.
It wasn’t right. I wanted justice and their money back.
The problem was I wasn’t sure how to get it without grim consequences for me and possibly them. I couldn’t exactly launch an assault on the casino to take the money back by force. There’d be too many cameras and witnesses. I didn’t know how many guards there’d be or if I could take them all down and escape before the police arrived. Even if I did, the Bodhi Group would be alerted, and agents would be on my trail again. Halfway through Star Wars, I found myself staring at the Boba Fett helmet Olivia had left on the coffee table earlier that evening, and a plan started to coalesce in my mind. I leaped to my feet and flew down the hall to Wilhelm’s office.
Wilhelm smiled, listening to my plan. “This may take a while, Shivurr,” he said as his fingers flew across his keyboard.
“I’ll let you focus,” I said, making for the door. He murmured a reply. I grabbed a soda and a large glass of ice from the kitchen, threw myself back on the sofa, and hit play on the remote, resuming the movie.
About an hour later, Wilhelm strode into the room, smiling. He was holding a piece of tattered paper torn from a notepad.
“How’d it go?” I asked, muting the television.
“Jackpot,” he said, winking. “Let’s roll.”
“Where’s that leftover pizza?” I asked, following him down the hall.
Chapter 12
Pizza Guy
We sat in the Trans Am outside the home of Shane Parker. Wilhelm was dressed as Boba Fett, minus the helmet for the drive over. I wore a Stormtrooper helmet and body armour. In the dark night, the white armour blended perfectly with my snow-white complexion. It wasn’t the best disguise but would have to do. Anyone that saw me would hopefully figure I was some Star Wars fanboy or maybe a street performer heading home. Whatever they thought, it was a sure bet they wouldn’t think, “Hey, is that a living snowman?”
Wilhelm had pulled Parker’s address from the casino’s computer records. He’d set up their payroll and related systems a few years prior, and no one had thought to remove his remote access after the job was done. His access to employee records was restricted, but he’d used one of his automated password guessers to launch a brute force attack on the account of a human resources person and soon had the guards’ full names and addresses.
We’d been waiting for an hour when someone drove up in an old Dodge Charger, parked and entered the house. The dim streetlights failed to reveal the newcomer’s face, but the person’s silhouette suggested a man of the build and height described by Alan.
“Remember, whatever happens, stay in the car,” I said, my voice muffled by the helmet, as I got out of the sports car.
“I’ll keep the car running,” Wilhelm said with a nod. “Watch yourself, man.”
Holding an empty pizza box, I made my way to the steps leading up to the porch. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, briefly subsuming the sounds of cicadas and other insects. A moth bashed itself repeatedly into the dim porch light as I approached. I tried the doorbell but heard no buzz or ring coming from inside, so I knocked instead.
“Yeah, who is it?” said a gruff male voice from within.
“Pizza guy,” I said loudly to the door.
The door sprang open. “Wrong house. I didn’t order any,” said the man, icy blue eyes glaring at me. The man wore dark blue slacks and a button-up shirt open to the waist. He looked to be mid-twenties and a few inches shorter than me. “What’s with the getup?” he said, looking me up and down.
“It’s a work thing.” I said, holding up the pizza box. “Say, you’re Shane Parker, right?”
“Yeah, what of it?” he replied, ripping the box from my hands. “I didn’t order…hnnnh.” He doubled over as I buried my fist in his gut and followed it with a haymaker to his face, knocking him back. I pushed him inside, where he fell to the floorboards. Entering, I closed the door behind myself as Shane groaned, holding his stomach.
Wordlessly, I reached down and rifled through his pockets, finding nothing. “Where’s your wallet, Shane?” I asked, looking around the entryway.
The casino security guard wheezed in reply. I spotted his wallet and keys sitting on a nearby coffee table upon which sat a half bottle of beer next to a plate of food. I pulled a wad of bills from the well-worn black leather wallet, letting the driver’s license and other ID fall to the floor. I counted a few thousand dollars, mostly hundreds. Guess they switched the coins for bills. Good thing. I don’t have the pockets for that much change.
“Put it back,” Shane said, snarling. A loud crack exploded in my ears as a bat plowed into my helmet, shattering the plastic. “I didn’t order any damn pizza. I’m damn sure not paying a few grand for it.”
I stumbled forward, arms outstretched, seeing stars and grunting in pain, blinded by the helmet, which had been knocked over my eyes by the blow. I fell forward onto my stomach, reaching out to brace my fall a moment too late. The helmet bounced off the floor with my head still inside, lodging into the soft outer layers of my snowy face, fixing it in place.
I dropped the money, I thought through the fog of pain.
I scrabbled along the floor, trying to avoid the next blow, but it didn’t come. Instead, running steps creaked across the floor as I shook my head to clear the stars from my eyes. The bat hit the hardwood with a dull clunk, followed by the distinct click-click-clack of a shotgun being loaded a few moments later.
“Get up,” Shane ordered, “or I’ll blow a hole through you where you lie.” I pushed myself to my feet, facing the wall, the casino security guard behind me. I was still blinded by the helmet and reached up to adjust it. “Freeze, or I shoot. Turn around, fucker. Slowly.”
I lowered my hands and did just that. He held the shotgun at his waist. His eyes were wide, frantic, and excited; he was clearly enjoying the situation, having the drop on me. Like other security guards I had known, this guy was a bully that longed for power over others, full of insecurities and doubts about himself, or just born with a mean streak.
“Take it off, slowly,” Shane snarled as I aligned it, able to see clearly once again. The room was dimly lit by a lamp on an end table next to the sofa, and light coming from the hallway before me. “I want to see your face.”
I hesitated, still hoping to get through this with my identity intact. “Do it,” Shane said, brandishing his weapon at me. “Or I blow it off.”
I raised my hands in apparent compliance, then my right hand flashed with a halo of energy as I ripped frost from thin air and hurled it at the guard’s chest. Milliseconds later, the shotgun exploded, launching a cloud of deadly pellets at me from short range, just as my fastball reached its mark.
Shane instinctively ducked and took my projectile in the neck instead. He fell for the second time since I arrived, hitting the floor with a thump like a dropped toilet seat. He wheezed horribly, discarded the shotgun, and grabbed his throat. His face and neck were icy and moist from the impact, flash-cooled.
I wasn’t doing much better. The shotgun blast had opened a hole in my guts, spraying my lifeblood out my back in a cloud of snow, leaving a void in its place. I slumped down, wincing, as Wilhelm, wearing the Boba Fett helmet, appeared from the still-open door, peering around the edge.
“Get out of here, dude,” I said, breathing through a cloud of pain, worried he might be seen.
Ignoring that, he stepped over Parker’s prone form and came to my side, staring at the hole in my abdomen. “Oh, man,” he said, worry in his voice. “Are you okay?”
“Uh, I’m not sure.” I looked down to check the damage and fingered the edges of the gaping hole, trying not to pass out. I could feel harder areas of ice mixed in among the snow. My bones, I guessed. “Get the water bottle from the car, would you?”
While Wilhelm ran off to do so, I continued to assess my wound. As the initial shock faded, I decided it wasn’t going to be fatal. I could see it healing already, shrinking in size as my body redistributed snow and ice to fill the void. I felt dizzy and weak, but everything vital still worked, it seemed. Having decided I would live, I scrambled for the shotgun, which lay nearby. Shane still struggled to breathe where he lay, though he seemed to be improving.
Wilhelm hurried back into the room with a green water bottle in hand and tossed it to me. I pulled the white cap to the open position and sprayed water into my mouth, restoring the liquid that I’d lost as the wound continued to close, then disappeared altogether.
“Better?” Wilhelm asked.
“I’d like to go a week without being shot by some asshole,” I said, closing my eyes and nodding.
“Is he okay?” Wilhelm asked. “Should we call an ambulance?”
Shane seemed to be breathing easier. “Stay down, Shane,” I said as he started to sit up. I held the shotgun in my left hand but kept it pointed at the floor to my side.
Parker eyed it cautiously from where he lay. “What’d you hit me with?” he said, wheezing. He eyed the gun. “That ain’t loaded anymore.”
My right hand glowed as a fresh frost ball appeared within my grasp. Tendrils of steam swirled slowly as the frost ball fluoresced in my clenched fist. Shane’s gaze shifted to it and his eyes widened. He swallowed nervously. “You some kind of magician?”
“Quiet. Lie face down,” I said, raising my throwing arm. He rolled over onto his stomach, taking his sweet time. “Hands behind your back.” I dispelled the frost in my hand and placed the shotgun on the coffee table, then looked at Wilhelm and held a finger to my lips; I didn’t want Shane to know his voice. “Can you find something to blindfold him? Tie him up?”
The Boba Fett helmet bobbed affirmatively in reply. Wilhelm began to look around the house.
“Hey, no need for that,” Shane said, raising his head from the floor. “Take what you want. I won’t say nothing. Just go.”
We couldn’t risk him calling the cops, or seeing our car, until we were long gone. The lack of sirens so far gave me hope that the lone gunshot in the middle of the night had gone unnoticed or unidentified by Shane’s sleeping neighbours.
I closed the front door, keeping an eye on Shane as I slipped by him. He stayed still. I walked back into the living room and collected the money from the floor. My hat was in the back seat of Wilhelm’s Trans Am, so I just clutched the bills in my hand until Wilhelm returned, holding handcuffs and a white pillowcase.
“These should work. Found them next to the bed,” he said, forgetting my sign to keep quiet. “Dude likes it a bit kinky, I guess.”
“They’re for work,” our prone captive protested as the cuffs clicked into place, keeping his hands behind his back. “Ouch! Not so tight.”
“Now you know how it feels,” Wilhelm said, his voice muffled by the helmet. He pulled the pillowcase over Shane’s head, cinching it by tying the corners together so it wouldn’t fall off. Finishing, he looked at me. “What now?”
Headlights lit the curtains as a car pulled into the driveway. Loud rock music was audible before the engine died moments later. We looked at each other, holding still, listening.
“Who’s that?” I said, looking at Shane. He shrugged, or tried to, from his prone position. Either he didn’t know or he wasn’t going to help. I suppose I couldn’t blame him.
The sound of a car door opening and closing followed as I moved like a ghost to the front door and threw the deadbolt into the locked position. Making a shush sign, dollar bills sticking out of the bottom of my hand, I grabbed Shane by an arm, motioning Wilhelm to grab the other, and we heaved the guard upright and shuffled him off to the bedroom.
“Stay quiet, Shane,” I ordered. “Who’s coming?”
Before he could answer, the door handle rattled. “Shane, what’d you lock the door for?” asked a loud voice through the wood. The door shook with a thunderous knock a few seconds later.
I handed the cash to Wilhelm, who stuffed it into his jeans. With my now-free hand, I conjured fresh frost and held it near Shane’s ea
r so that he could hear it crackling through the pillowcase. I repeated the question quietly.
“Friend from work,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Randy?” I asked. Shane’s sharp intake of air told me that I’d guessed right before the pillowcase fluttered as he nodded. Well, I thought, that saves us a trip.
“One sec,” I yelled in what I hoped was a passable imitation of the hooded hoodlum next to me as another knock shook the door. Moving like a cartoon burglar, I left the bedroom, closed the door to it, and slipped down the short hallway to the front door. Standing behind it, I unlocked the door.
Randy burst through immediately, a twelve-pack of beer in hand. He was tall and thick, a few inches over six feet, with a pale complexion, balding with thin wisps of ginger hair encircling his head.
Holy shit,” he said, saying shit as a two-syllable word. “It’s cold as a witch’s tit in here,” he continued as I snuck up behind him. “Something wrong with your AC?”
“Run, Randy,” Shane shouted from the bedroom, followed by a crash and sounds of a struggle and flashes of green light from beneath the closed door. Randy dropped the beer with a crash and reached for the knife he carried on his belt.
“Don’t,” I said softly.
The bearlike man spun around, pulling the blade as he did so. He lunged at me, stabbing with the knife, which glanced off my fake Stormtrooper armour. I grabbed his knife-hand wrist and channelled cold into him. He pulled away as if burned, dropping the weapon with a gasp of pain.
He rubbed his wrist, looking at me with confusion, then charged me like a linebacker, pushing me out the open door onto the rocky ground of the front yard.
I fell back off the edge of the steps, with Randy following me down to the ground. I felt myself compress under the impact and grunted. With me as a crash mat, Randy seemed largely unbothered by the fall, judging by the body blows he rained down on my torso as we struggled.
Reaching up, I locked my arms around him in a fierce embrace and pulled hard on the Underfrost. The air was dry, and I had to reach out wide to pull moisture from a larger area to accomplish what I had in mind. No sooner had I done so, then snowflakes began to fall from the air all around us as ice crystals welled up from the warm, sandy earth below.
