I started walking more carefully, more gingerly. I gathered myself and then tried to tune all my senses to the air around me, to every sound, every breath of air, every single sight that might be out of place. Most of the people who were taking their boats out for the weekend were long gone by now. The parking lot had been largely empty, which is probably why I’d noticed the bike.
And when I turned down the dock, with my slip at the far end of it, I saw the Belle shifting back and forth. More than she would’ve with the river lapping at her.
I dropped into a crouch and started taking careful, quiet steps.
Once I got to the edge I could hear somebody moving around. On my boat. In my home. They were in my bunk. I heard a drawer open and shut.
“Well,” I breathed, “fuck everything about that.”
I took my shoes off. With exaggerated care, I slipped over the gunwale and padded softly onto the deck by the stern. I looked down the main passageway.
There was a stocky, not very tall fellow, rummaging through my possessions and generally making a mess of my galley. I heard the clink of a bottle.
I snuck down the passageway. He was so absorbed in his task, muttering to himself, that my clumsy stealth was every bit good enough. He was wearing jeans, a sleeveless black t-shirt, and a leather cut that said “Aesir MC” on a patch over a bird’s skull design in the middle.
He also had a knife lying along his right hip. This would be a tad tricky.
I could probably get the knife out of his sheath and smack him around with the pommel end. I could certainly have tied him up and bashed his face repeatedly against a flat surface. But I didn’t want blood on my deck, or on my hands.
I decided on a direct approach that, if I did it right, would take him out quickly and relatively painlessly. I slipped up behind him, threw my left arm around his neck, grabbed my left fist with my right hand, and squeezed.
His arm flailed for his knife, but I felt him go limp before he could do anything to grab it. Down he went.
I had no time to clean up the mess he’d made. I grabbed some rope from the chain locker — really just a small cooler I had tied in place along the stern rail, between the benches. I quickly bound his hands and feet. I took the knife — an odd thing, sharp along one side, with an angled blade and some kind of horn handle — and set it on my chopping block. I clambered up the ladder to the wheelhouse and started the engine. Then I went back to the railing and slipped the lines free.
I got back at the wheel and puttered slowly out into the river.
Chapter 31
By the time my guest awoke, we were well out of sight of the marina. I knew a little cove that was just out of the major boating channels and surrounded on three sides by what looked like thick forest. In reality, if he concentrated, he might be able to hear the rumble of passing trucks. We weren’t all that far away from civilization.
It just felt like we were.
I had dragged him out onto the deck behind the main cabin and tied his hands to the gunwale. Then I’d pulled out a folding chair and sat, legs crossed, waiting for him to join me. I studied his knife while I waited.
He didn’t wake up quickly, nor did he adjust well to his surroundings. He tried to sit upright, found he couldn’t, then started struggling against the ropes.
“The Boy Scouts taught me knots,” I muttered. “The Navy made damn sure I remembered them. So I’d give it a rest. It’s good rope. You’re not getting out of it.”
He opened his mouth and let out a wordless bellow. Birds startled into the air from the nearby banks. I sighed, stood up, set his knife down on the chair. With cupped hands, I boxed both his ears. Not as hard as I could. Not by a long way. Hard enough to get his attention, sure, but not to damage his hearing or burst an ear open.
He shut up, his eyes screwing up against the pain.
“You do that again,” I said, “and I’ll do it with my fists instead of my open hand. You got me?”
His face still contorted with the pain — nobody could really deal all that well with getting their ears boxed when they were helpless to do anything about it — he spat at me.
“You have no idea what you’re up against, you fucking amateur,” he growled.
“I think I have an idea,” I said, lifting the knife. “I think you’re some kind of biker cosplayer. Why you’re on my boat, though…that I don’t know. What were you doing?”
“I don’t have to tell you shit.”
“Whatever it was, I’m betting it wasn’t particularly legal. So I don’t think you’re going to call the cops.”
“Not telling you shit.”
“A variation on the theme.” I stood up and started rummaging through his pockets. My hands closed on a zip bag and I pulled it free. It was full of small white and beige pills. Not unlike what I’d seen at the house I’d just tossed. There was also a card with the address of the marina and Belle of Joppa written on it.
“You here to plant drugs?” I held up the bag and shook it at him. “This seems like a lot just for one little guy to get through the day. This is probably enough to get you charged with intent to distribute.”
He started pursing his lips as if he were going to spit at me. I raised a clenched fist and lurched toward him.
He quickly thought better of it. His spitting face turned into a defiant sneer.
“The use of narcotics is forbidden among the Aesir. We must keep our bodies as pure as our Nordic blood.”
“Sweet, merciful Christ,” I muttered. Bikers and racists. Real winners.
Then aloud I asked, “You a strong swimmer?”
“What?”
“Like, strong enough you think you could get to the bank with your hands and feet tied up? Because the fewer questions you answer, the less likely I am to cut any of your bonds before I kick you off my boat.” I was bluffing; I wasn’t about to chuck him overboard and let him drown. He didn’t know that.
He paled, a little. But there was still defiance in him. I tried a different tack.
“Why does your cut say ‘Thrall’ on it?”
“Because that is my role until I earn my way into the band.”
“The band?”
He looked a little sheepish. “The club.”
“Ah. So it’s what you call a prospect. Aesir, huh? Like Norse gods?”
“The old gods are the only gods that matter. All others are weak. All others pale before the might of Odin, and Thor and ow.”
I cut him off by cracking him atop his head with the butt of his knife. I didn’t have time for the Viking wannabe spiel that, added to being a one-percenter gang and racists, made them a real idiot trifecta.
“Answer my questions, or learn to swim like a goddamn eel. Who sent you?”
“My Jarl,” he sneered.
“You have played too much Skyrim.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I do. Thrall is a prospect. Jarl is, what, a club president? Some kind of officer.” I started tapping the knife against the flat of one hand. “Who told him to send you?”
“Thralls do not question. Thralls take orders.”
“But you were sent here to plant drugs? And then, probably, call the cops to tell them about the drugs. How’m I doing?”
Silence again, but with less starch in his expression than before.
“You know Doctor Thalheim?”
His eyes widened and he tried to sit up straighter.
I smiled. “You do. So he called you. I even saw a couple of your pals around his development today, didn’t I? What the hell do you chucklefucks have to do with a guy like Thalheim?”
“Once Aesir, always Aesir,” he muttered. “Oaths are for life. Not the whims of a man.”
“Doc used to be a biker, huh? Shit. I can almost respect that.” I tapped the knife a few more times, mostly
because I could see it agitated him.
“What’s the matter,” I said, making sure to get my fingerprints all over the blade. “Worried about tarnish and rust?”
“I cannot go back to the hall without my seax,” he admitted haltingly.
“That’s this, huh?” I set it on my lap. “What’s the arrangement? You supply Thalheim with drugs? He sell for you?”
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I know the Jarl speaks with him. I know he identifies…sales targets. That’s as much as I know.” He had broken now, looked like he was pleading. “I’ve only been in a few months.” Behind his patchy dark beard I could tell he couldn’t have been much more than eighteen. Maybe not more at all.
“If I let you go,” I said, “can you set up a meeting?”
He shook his head. “I’m just a thrall. I’m new. I’m nobody.”
“What’s your name?”
He hung his head. “Thralls don’t have names. Thralls obey orders.”
I needed to get this sad idiot off my boat before I started feeling sorry for him.
“Listen up. I’m going to cut you loose from the rail. I’m going to help you stand up. I’m going to cut the bonds on your hands and feet. Then I’m kicking you right off the boat. You try anything, I’ll turn your lights off again, and then I’ll shove you off the boat.”
“How’d you do that?” he suddenly asked. “Sleeper holds don’t work that fast.”
“Not a sleeper hold. A choke hold — blood choke, not air choke. Ischemic response.”
He looked at me like I’d just spoken Russian. “Ischemic response. Drop the blood pressure to the brain too far too fast, and the lights go out. Don’t make me do it again.”
He nodded reluctantly. I cut free the rope tying him to the rail, then helped him to his feet. He stood a little stooped.
“If I come back without my seax, they’ll punish me.”
“You’ll have to risk it.” I pushed him up against the stern railing and cut his feet loose. Then his hands, and I gave him no time to adjust. I did exactly as I told him. I literally kicked him off my boat.
He was too startled to do much more than splash around and yell. I let him flounder for a bit, then said, “Put your feet down. And walk the opposite way from this boat. I’d hate to see you get chewed up by the screw.”
“What about my seax?”
I held it up so he could see it. The early afternoon sunlight reflected off the blade.
Then I turned and hucked it over the central tower of the boat, as far into the river channel as I could manage. It hit with a loud plop, and instantly sank.
Then, ignoring his yells, I clambered back up to the wheel and started the engine again.
Chapter 32
I couldn’t see that there was any percentage in going back to my usual dock, so I set a course for a restaurant with a marina attached.
On the one hand, this MC knew my usual address. If I didn’t have business I could just stay out on the water but that wasn’t an option. As I made my way out into the Susquehanna and up toward Port Deposit, I thought of my plan of action.
I picked up my cell and dialed my boss.
“Jack, if you’re calling me at home on a Saturday it better be because you found the kid and a chest of fucking diamonds.”
“Look. I’m close on those. But something’s gone sideways.”
“You owe me dinner, then.”
I was taken aback. “I…what?”
“I told you this was a tricky case. You said it’d be open and shut. We bet dinner on it.”
“Fine. But right now, I need two folks to go over to the marina and pick up the car I left there.”
“Why two?”
“Because I still need the car.” I filled him in with most of the details. I elided the MC, just alluding to them as muscle that Thalheim apparently had access to.
“Wait. You’re sitting on a drug-dealing school psychiatrist, and an insurance fraud, and you haven’t called the cops in on this yet?”
“I want to find the kid first,” I said. “He gets swept up in that, with drugs in him, who knows what happens to him.”
“If he gets arrested, you still get paid for the hours you’ve worked, and his whereabouts will no longer be in doubt.”
“Jason,” I said, “give me till Monday to find the kid and extricate him from this mess.”
“You sure you can do it that fast?”
“Yeah.” I was lying. It was okay to lie to the boss; everyone knows that.
“Fine. You pulling up to the Landing?”
“Yep.”
“All right. Someone’ll be along presently.”
I had a nice long think as I made my way to the restaurant. Jason was right; I needed to turn this over to the cops. But nothing good was going to come of Gabriel getting arrested. Or anyone else.
Once at the Landing I tied up and waved off the somewhat cautious approach of the waitstaff. I saw a manager that I knew and told him to bill the firm. Then I paced in the parking lot.
Chapter 33
About a half hour later, the company Nissan pulled in to the restaurant parking lot. Brock unfolded himself from the front seat of the Nissan and waved me in.
“Uh, shouldn’t there be another car here to drive you back to the office?”
Brock shook his granite-slab head. “Nope.”
“Brock, I don’t…”
“I know, but the boss says you roll with backup today. No ifs, ors, ands…” He paused as he stumbled over the cliché.
“Fine, but I’m driving.” I waved him away from the driver side and slid into the seat. He pulled in next to me.
“Boss had another rule, too.”
He handed me a locked black plastic case and then handed over the key.
“Goddammit.” I unlocked it. The foam held two holstered weapons. The larger was the yellow and blue Taser. The smaller was matte black.
“Goddammit,” I repeated. “Is this also not optional?”
“He says if you don’t carry it, I’m supposed to text him. And then he’ll call it all in.”
“Goddammit,” I said with increasing anger.
“Take it up with him, man.”
“Fine.” I closed the case and handed it back to him. “We’ve got a doctor to see.”
* * *
It was a quick drive and I didn’t fool around this time. Thalheim’s Porsche was still in the driveway, uncovered.
But there were also two bikes parked behind it, and one on the street.
“Shit. All right. Give me that case.”
I put the Taser on my right hip, nice and visible. The pistol was a Beretta Storm SubCompact.
“Christ,” I said, as he put it on the back of my belt and pulled my shirt down over it. “I hope I don’t have to shoot at anything. Won’t be able to get my finger inside the damn trigger guard.”
“Actually Beretta rounds the guards in order to…” Brock got a look at my face and shut up.
We started across the street. I wiped my palms on my thighs. I went straight for the front door rather than the office, and it opened in our faces.
Two bikers filed out and flanked the door. Both had the same kind of cut the idiot on my boat had had, only theirs read “Huscarl” on the left breast. They looked a little more together than the thrall I’d kicked into the river. They had the same kind of knives on their belts, and long beards — one red, one dark blond like mine — braided with silver decorations. Ravens, Thor’s Hammers, and wolf’s heads seemed to be the design motif of choice.
“Enter,” one of them said. “Speak with the Jarl.”
“Ooh,” I breathed. “Is he going to send me to hunt down a dragon? Clear out a nest of bandits? Will this count toward Becoming Thane of his Hold or…”
“Enough with
the jokes,” the redhead said, dropping his hand to his knife. “Now give up your weapons.”
“Nope. Not going in there unarmed,” I said.
A stronger, more confident voice came from inside the front room of the house. The lights were off and the sun outside was bright, so I couldn’t really see inside particularly well.
“Let them in. We have our blades. In close quarters, their firearms will do the cowards no good.”
I hear that a lot. All things considered, if it did come to a tussle, and I had to choose a gun or a knife, even at close quarters I’d take the gun. Most handguns have plenty of sharp and hard surfaces on it that work for striking. The pistol whip is a classic for a reason.
But you can’t shoot anyone with a knife.
We walked in. The door closed behind us, with the Huscarls clomping in after us on their engineer’s boots.
The front entrance faced a stairwell and led to a kind of fancy sitting or living room on the left, and a dining room with a long table on the right. We went to the right. Thalheim stood against the far wall, behind the table. In front of him, seated, was a man considerably taller than me or Brock, given the way his long frame loomed over the end of the table. He had black hair, a strand or two of gray in it, worn in a long lock, with the sides of his head shaved.
He didn’t seem to be built too big — not with my shoulders or Brock’s arms. But those tall bastards could fool you. If it came to a fight, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with his reach. And there was something unnerving about him.
It might have been the eye patch, thick dark leather embossed with the same bird’s skull motif as on the back of the cuts, that covered his left eye.
But he was also completely and utterly still. His hands lay spread on the table, silver raven and wolf and runic shield rings gleaming in the soft interior light. His one eye, bright blue, focused tightly on us, watching our movements.
“Should we sit?”
“Only if you want to.” His voice was as big as he was.
“Okay, then. I’ll stand.” I put my back on the wall and rested my hands on my hips. Brock took the hint and went to the opposite wall.
Body Broker Page 13
