Monsters

by Matt Rogers

  ‘So, the way I hear it, you’re the only one willing to sink that low.’

  ‘Gotta pay the cost to be the boss.’

  ‘James Brown. Nice.’ King clapped his hands together, like he was impatient. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  Slater said, ‘You sure we can’t participate?’

  Frankie side-eyed him, let loose a grin. ‘Someone’s getting ahead of themselves. Not tonight, I’m afraid. I have rules and I stick to them.’

  Slater said, ‘Who’s the guy?’

  ‘His name’s Choi. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Choi?’

  ‘Choi.’

  ‘What does Choi do?’

  ‘Need-to-know basis.’

  ‘Who’s he pissed off?’

  ‘Need-to-know.’

  King tapped Slater on the shoulder, once, briefly. ‘Don’t think you need to ask any more questions.’

  Frankie half-smirked at King, nodded his appreciation. ‘You guys got questions for me?’

  King shook his head. ‘No. I’m sure your boys will bring us up to speed en route to wherever we’re doing this. But one thing—’ He jerked his thumb at Danny. ‘He doesn’t come along.’

  Out of the corner of his eye King noticed Danny stiffen, mouth hanging slightly open.

  Frankie shook his head. ‘That’s non-negotiable. This is my operation. I choose my crew.’

  ‘He stays behind or we walk,’ King said. ‘Both of us.’

  Frankie looked at Slater. ‘You back this?’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s on about,’ Slater said. ‘But I’d walk with him. It’s the principle. Either both of us or neither.’

  Frankie turned back to King. ‘I need a reason.’

  King said, ‘I talked to the kid after practice this morning. We spoke about his anxiety. He’s a fucking boy, Frankie. He has no spine. If we’re going to be involved in this, it has to be airtight. I don’t want to babysit anyone, and I don’t want anyone blabbing the second they get caught, if it comes to that. He’s a nervous wreck. He stays behind.’

  He kept his gaze locked on Frankie.

  Tried not to pay attention to his peripheral vision, where Danny’s silhouette shimmered. Everything about it was ugly. Intimate secrets betrayed, trust shattered.

  Frankie couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. ‘Ruthless, hey? Guess that’s what you need.’ He wheeled to Danny. ‘Okay, kid. Get the fuck outta here. Not your night.’

  King faced forward.

  Didn’t shift his line of sight.

  He hated everything about this.

  There was that long moment of hesitation, then the sound of Danny’s footsteps pattering away. King didn’t watch him go, so he didn’t see the expression on the kid’s face. He waited until the footsteps had fully receded before he spoke. ‘Was tonight his first time?’

  Frankie stared. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  Yes it is, King thought. It means everything.

  Frankie said, ‘You happy with this crew? Or you gonna stir up more shit?’

  Slater interjected. ‘We’re happy.’

  ‘Good. Any more cowboy shit like that and we’re done. I’ll allow it this once.’

  King didn’t respond.

  Frankie wheeled in a whiteboard and spent the next fifteen minutes using a marker to conduct an old-school brief of the night’s plans. Location, timing, positioning, then details about Choi himself — his age and height and weight, but nothing about why he needed to be beaten to death.

  Slater voiced these concerns. ‘I need to know who he pissed off.’

  Frankie smacked his lips together, put the marker down, dropped his hands to his side. He turned dramatically to Slater. ‘No, you don’t.’ He gestured over his shoulder. ‘You know where the door is. Participation is voluntary, brother.’

  Slater glanced at King, who imperceptibly shook his head.

  Slater said, ‘I’m fine right here.’

  Frankie said, ‘Any more questions?’

  Slater shook his head.

  Frankie picked up the marker again. Made a big deal out of it. He used the end of it to tap the whiteboard a couple of times, studying its contents, then nodded to himself. ‘I think that’s it. Remember to get photos from a few different angles. I’ll pick the best one and send it through. Then it’s payday.’

  Carter and the two meatheads shuffled toward the back doors of the warehouse, and King and Slater followed. Frankie stayed behind.

  Of course he wouldn’t be getting his hands dirty. Why would he?

  He had kids to do that for him.

  43

  Carter and the meatheads didn’t seem to like the newcomers much.

  They deliberately hustled ahead toward the rear doors, leaving enough space to afford King and Slater some privacy.

  King sensed Slater step right up beside him, making sure he was out of earshot of Frankie before he muttered, ‘What was that shit with the kid?’

  King lowered his voice in turn. ‘Danny?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Got to hope this was his first job. Got to hope he’s salvable.’

  ‘And if he isn’t?’

  King shook his head. ‘That’s a future problem. Not a now problem.’

  ‘How do you want to approach—?’

  But Carter and the two meatheads had stopped to unlock the rear doors, so Slater clammed up. The doors led out to a smaller parking lot framed by barbed wire fencing. A cargo van sat dormant in the closest space to them. There was nothing remarkable about it, which was the point. Carter hurried straight for the sliding door and heaved it open. He gestured for King and Slater to get in the back.

  Slater looked at King and raised an eyebrow.

  King gave that same imperceptible head shake.

  Not here.

  Too many unknowns, too many variables.

  Slater said, ‘Okay,’ and got in the back of the van. King followed suit, wordless. Neither of them looked at Carter or acknowledged the subtle power games bristling below the surface. They’d made their decision.

  The meatheads followed them in. Carter sported a confused expression as he slid the door shut. He’d obviously been anticipating confrontation, or at least protest, but King and Slater let nothing show on their faces as they sat side-by-side on one of the metal benches. The meatheads sat opposite. An interior light above the four of them cast a soft yellow glow down on the windowless space.

  No one spoke, so they were able to hear Carter get behind the wheel and fire the van to life. He drove out of the lot, taking turns sharper than he needed to. King assumed it was another test. Neither he nor Slater budged. They skewered their feet into the ground to stop them sliding around on the benches. The meatheads didn’t have the same core strength, and they looked uncomfortable as they swayed in place, resisting the urge to reach down and grip the edges of the bench for stability. It’d seem like weakness. Everything was a performance in this world of unspoken hierarchies.

  King stared across at the meatheads. He looked them in the eyes until they couldn’t take it anymore. He kept watching them even when they looked at the floor, at each other, at the space between him and Slater. Basically anywhere but into his eyes.

  Eventually one of them cracked. The sunburned skin around his eyes softened as he let go of the tension in his face. ‘If you guys wanna talk about this after...we could grab a beer. It, uh…it sure ain’t pretty. We done it a few times. But the pay…’

  He trailed off like that was a valid reason for pummelling people to death.

  ‘A beer with you?’ King said, then looked the meathead up and down. He paused like he was considering it, just to up the humiliation. ‘No.’

  The other guy sat forward and flared his nostrils. It would’ve scared the shit out of a regular civilian. It was a shame he’d picked the wrong arena for intimidation.

  Slater said, ‘We’re not here to hold anyone’s hand. You want a buddy, go find one in a bar. We’re here to work.’

&n
bsp; The second guy, trying to save face, said, ‘We don’t want to be your fucking buddies.’

  Slater shrugged. ‘Your friend was the one who opened his mouth. Not us.’

  That put the meatheads in a precarious spot. The guy who’d extended an olive branch now felt like a fool, and opted to clam up and stare furiously at his feet. The second guy was angry to be associated with someone who’d made himself look stupid, but he didn’t seem happy about sitting there and stewing, so he decided to mean-mug them for the duration of the trip. King didn’t mind that, and it appeared Slater didn’t either. Anything that wasn’t conversation was fine. They faced forward, pretended he didn’t exist, and neither of them experienced an ounce of discomfort.

  There’d be hell to pay soon enough anyway.

  They knew their destination thanks to Frankie’s briefing — the lee of an underpass near El Camino in South San Francisco — but they had no idea how long Carter would take to get there, or when specifically the meet was scheduled for. They knew Choi, whoever he was, was expecting to meet with Carter alone, that the rest of the van’s occupants would come as an unwelcome surprise. There’d been no hint at what cover story Carter was using, who he was posing as, which might give them a clue as to what this was about.

  Turned out Carter didn’t waste time.

  The van stopped twenty minutes after it set off from Hunters Point. The engine died. King finally met the gaze of the second meathead, sensed the quiet fury burning behind his eyes. A beat of total quiet, then…

  King’s vision disappeared.

  All black.

  His heart skipped a beat, but he quickly realised Carter had killed the interior light using a button in the front compartment. Probably so as not to arouse suspicion from anyone who might be watching the van. Tension rippled in the darkness. At any moment King anticipated the feeling of a knife blade flashing through the dark, slitting his guts open end-to-end. Letting his imagination run wild was useless, though, and anxiety served no purpose, so he sat there in the blackness and controlled his thoughts. He was sure Slater was doing the same.

  Sure enough, it only took a few seconds to hear the meatheads’ laboured breathing.

  They too were expecting assault.

  The windowless box was a den of fear, but neither King nor Slater allowed themselves to feel it. The nervousness bristled in the air but they didn’t let it in. It allowed them to be silent, and that scared the meatheads even more.

  Outside the van they all heard muffled conversation, then King made out Carter saying, ‘Let me get it for you.’

  The panel door slid open.

  44

  Even though it was the dead of night, the dark of the underpass was brilliant in comparison to the van’s interior.

  Faint and distant streetlight spilled in, allowing them to see Carter in the doorway and, past him, a skinny and unthreatening silhouette hunched over on the sidewalk.

  There was no one else in sight.

  No witnesses.

  The meatheads clambered out of the van. King and Slater followed them. Carter turned around and the five of them stood up to their fullest heights, dwarfing Choi.

  Choi matched the description Frankie had provided. He was Korean, short and thin, with straight black hair parted in the centre of his forehead. When he saw people emerging from the van he stammered, ‘What’s this?’

  Carter said, ‘We need to have a talk with you, Choi. If you try to run it won’t go well for you, so play nice.’

  Choi started to tremble.

  The meatheads were already skirting around him, maintaining a wide berth. When they got behind him they closed in, tightening the circle, forcing Choi to take a step toward Carter, King, and Slater.

  Choi said, ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Carter said. ‘I guess you know what this is.’

  Choi dropped to his knees. He couldn’t breathe properly, could only suck tiny inhalations down his rattling and constricting throat. The panic attack seized him, made him raise his hands with his palms out as if that would protect him from what was to come. He seemed to know exactly what was about to happen. Perhaps word of the fatal beatings was spreading through the underground rumour mills, in which case someone was getting desperate, ordering too many hits, trying to send too many messages at once.

  King could take one guess who the culprit was.

  Carter nodded to the meatheads and one of them geared up for a roundhouse kick to the side of Choi’s skull, which was made possible by the fact that Choi was on his knees. At least the first strike would knock him out cold, and the blows that killed him wouldn’t be consciously felt.

  That was a small mercy.

  Slater stepped forward and cocked his elbow and twisted at the hips. He tensed his glutes as he spun, turning his whole body into the strike. The point of his elbow whipped through the air faster than the eye could see.

  It detonated off the side of Carter’s head.

  Carter crumpled where he stood, knees collapsing inward, and he fell forward onto his face on the concrete with no one to catch him. There were several bone-chilling cracks all at once as Carter’s face broke. He spread out in a starfish pattern on his stomach, limbs splayed, and he didn’t get up.

  Choi stared, mouth open, no doubt convinced he was dreaming.

  Even the meatheads froze at the sudden violence.

  Not even breathing heavy, Slater said, ‘Choi, stand up and get behind us.’

  Choi didn’t move.

  He started hyperventilating. The panting breaths formed an uneasy rhythm, interspersed with the traffic noise from the overpass. King could see one of the meatheads — the one who’d tried to make peace with them in the van — considering making a lunge for Choi. The second guy had his focus fixed on King and Slater, which was the right move. He’d correctly identified them as a serious threat.

  Slater said, ‘Choi.’

  A little more demanding.

  It spurred the small man into action. He stood up shakily and hurried forward, darting between their shoulders. Slater unconsciously moved to the left as Choi passed, and King mirrored his action by stepping to the right. They sealed the gates, putting Choi behind them, out of reach.

  The second meathead jabbed a finger. ‘Give him to us and walk away. Know what’s good for you.’

  Slater said, ‘Can you cut the dramatic bullshit short and come do what you need to do?’

  The first meathead said, ‘We’re armed.’

  ‘Pull your gun, then.’

  Hesitation.

  Quiet.

  King said, ‘We sized you up when we met you. Those jeans are real tight. You’re not hiding a piece in them.’

  Slater said, ‘Carter was armed.’

  They all looked down at the man. His mop of blond hair was stained crimson, a puddle of blood around his head increasing with each passing second. The holster resting against the small of his back was visible below the hem of his shirt, which had ridden up his torso when he fell. A Glock pistol sat in the holster, fearsome and tantalising.

  Slater looked up at the first meathead, who was more insecure than his counterpart and therefore vulnerable to persuasion. ‘Go for it.’

  He did.

  He ignored the trickery, the reverse psychology, and simply did what Slater had requested. It was the right move, and he almost made it. He threw himself down to one knee and lunged for Carter’s motionless body. Carter had fallen face-first toward the meatheads so the guy had to scramble over his upper back to get to the holster. He dropped his other knee onto the back of Carter’s skull in his haste, and on the slim chance Carter was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long.

  He reached the holster. Got his sweaty palm on the hilt of the Glock. His red skin flushed brighter, veins pumping.

  Slater timed the lunge to perfection, and right when the meathead scrambled into range he stepped forward and kicked him in the face.

  It snapped his neck back, severe whiplash jarring the neck muscles, and th
e kick itself broke his nose and jaw in the same action. He fell back away from Carter, and Slater stepped over the blond man and stomped down on the meathead’s ribs, rendering him immobile.

  The last man standing instinctively assumed a fighting stance.

  Lead leg light so it couldn’t be kicked into immobility, hands up, chin down.

  All the right things.

  Slater noted the man’s preparedness and simply stepped aside. When he moved, he revealed King, who’d reached down and taken the Glock from the holster.

  The second meathead’s face fell.

  King shot him through the forehead.

  Lowered his aim and put a bullet in the other meathead’s skull, then another through the back of Carter’s.

  Just to be sure.

  45

  King put the gun in the back of his own waistband and he and Slater fell automatically into clean-up mode.

  They each hauled one of the meatheads’ corpses into the van’s cargo bed, then worked together to peel Carter off the sidewalk and throw him in too. Blood covered their hands by the time they had finished, all three bodies out of sight. Choi stood there shaking, unable to take his eyes off the macabre sight. It was clear that watching made him sick, but he couldn’t look away.

  Dark red stains still coated the sidewalk in the absence of the bodies, but neither King nor Slater had any intention of hanging around at the crime scene to pressure-wash the evidence away. Instead they slid the door closed and made for the front compartment. When Slater looked through the driver’s window, he saw only two seats. He grimaced. Turned back to regard Choi. The slight man still shook uncontrollably, jackhammering despite the evening’s warmth.

  Slater only needed one look at him.