The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust Book 5)

by Craig Schaefer

  “No,” he said after he took a little while to think about it.

  “Good. I like talking face-to-face, so I’m going to come a little closer. I’m not dropping my knife, and I don’t expect you to drop yours. Let’s just maybe not kill each other until we’ve run out of better ideas, okay?”

  He fell silent.

  I edged closer. He leaned back against the inner wall of the third stall, one arm cradled protectively to his chest, the other clutching my knife’s twin. He eyed me like a rabid dog, but he didn’t bite.

  “I’m Daniel Faust,” I said, “but I’m figuring you knew that, since you were sent to kill me. You got a name?”

  “Kim,” he spat.

  “What’s your first name?”

  “Mister.”

  “Okay.” I held up my open hand, keeping my distance. “I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Kim, but I think this day’s been pretty shitty for both of us.”

  “What did you do to my partner?” The words sounded more like an accusation than a question.

  “Whatever I had to, to survive. I’d apologize, but let’s face it, you were both trying to carve me up like a turkey. Fleiss didn’t warn you about what I was capable of, did she?”

  One of his eyelids twitched.

  “That’s right,” I said. “I know who sent you. What I don’t know—and what I’m really interested in finding out—is why. Because last I checked, she and I were on amicable terms. That, and she had every chance to kill me a couple of days ago, but she didn’t even try. Why the change of heart?”

  “I,” he seethed, “will tell you nothing.”

  I glanced down at the knife in his hand and felt the weight of mine, the black steel cold against my palm.

  “You wanted to know,” I said, “about that thing I did to your partner. What is it, do you think? What could do that to a man, without leaving a mark on his skin? What could make him scream like that?”

  I looked him dead in the eye.

  “Because I can arrange a demonstration.”

  20.

  I try not to bluff with an unloaded gun, but you work with what you have. Kim and I stared at each other, neither of us blinking, neither standing down.

  He swallowed. The slightest hint of a nervous gulp.

  “I don’t ask for reasons,” he said. “Not my business.”

  “So you’ll murder anyone, as long as the money’s green?”

  Kim snorted. “How many men have you killed in the name of Nicky Agnelli’s bank account? Don’t act like you’re better than me.”

  “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “Don’t presume you know mine.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “So Fleiss didn’t say why she had it in for me?”

  “No. But she wanted the job done as soon as possible. I normally take at least two weeks to prepare for a hit. Studying the target, securing the killing ground, preparing evac routes…no. She wanted you done immediately. And the more it hurt, the better.” He frowned, as if jolted by a strange memory.

  “She said something you didn’t like. Something that threw you off-balance. What was it? C’mon, you can tell me. We’re both pros here.”

  He shook his head. “That was odd, now that you mention it. I’ve had special requests like that, where the client wants me to take my time, really make the target suffer. But two things always go along with that. First, they always whine about the target and all the reasons they deserve to die slow. Even when I say I don’t care, they’ve got to go on, and on, and on. Justifying themselves. She didn’t.”

  “So she didn’t act like she had a hate-on for me, but she still wanted me to suffer. What’s the other thing?”

  “They always want me to deliver some stupid speech. The target always has to know who sent me, and why they’re about to die, and—” He shook his head. “It’s ridiculous. And embarrassing.”

  “People have no respect for professionalism,” I said.

  “Exactly.” He waggled the tip of the knife at me, wincing as his fractured arm shifted an inch. “You get it. I’m trying to provide an efficient, skilled service, but no, they want me to stand there and talk the target to death, like I’m some kind of Saturday morning cartoon villain. Anyway, that was the other weird thing with Fleiss. No message.”

  “She didn’t want me to know she sent you?”

  “She didn’t care. I even asked her, since she’d requested a slow death, and she just looked at me like she didn’t understand the question. It was as if…you were important, but you weren’t important. Like ordering your death was something on a to-do list, right between laundry and shopping.”

  “So she arranged for you to infiltrate the prison?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Please. My partner and I did that ourselves. You aren’t the first target we’ve killed in that shower. It’s always been gang-related before, though. Oh. That was the other weird thing. We actually had a better plan, but she said no.”

  “Yeah? What was it?”

  “Fake some transfer paperwork and make them move you,” Kim said. “Plan was to ambush the bus on the road back to Aberdeen. We’d perch on the roadside with a concealed machine gun, wait for the bus to roll by, and open fire on full auto. Maybe lay a spike strip along the road. With the wheels blown, you’d be a sitting duck in there. Quick, easy, and no need for us to risk infiltrating the prison.”

  I tried not to shudder, thinking about how I woke up on the bus to Eisenberg Correctional. Crammed in like sardines, wrists chained to waist-belts and prisoner chained to prisoner. A front-row seat for the meat grinder.

  “Workable plan,” I said, keeping my tone even. “She didn’t like it?”

  “She said it had to be done here.” Kim shifted his shoulder, leaning on the stall divider. “You had to die on the prison grounds, no matter what. That was crucial.”

  Mister Kim might have known more about murder than me, but I was pretty sure I knew more about magic than him—and this had all the hallmarks of a spell. Bloodshed was a common part of ritual; so was pain, harnessed to raise ecstatic levels of power. And it had to be done here. My blood had to soak the floors of Eisenberg Correctional, nowhere else.

  Kim hadn’t been hired to assassinate me. He’d been hired to sacrifice me.

  No chance this wasn’t connected to Buddy somehow. He and his sister insisted I’d swapped places with “the Thief,” whoever that was. The very fact that you’re here, Cassandra had said, standing in the Thief’s shoes, means the Enemy has already won. He’s changing the rules.

  The Enemy. The man with the Cheshire smile. I still didn’t know who he was—or what he was—but I knew how I’d landed on his radar. Fleiss must be the connection. I’d pulled that heist in Chicago for her “boss,” who turned out to be nothing but a puppet, a prisoner in his own mansion. If Fleiss was really working for the Enemy, that’d make me one hell of a convenient pawn.

  By the rules of whatever game these people are playing, the Thief has to die in this prison, I thought. But the smiling man doesn’t want the Thief dead. So they pulled a substitution play. I take the hit, and the real Thief goes on his merry way.

  I bit back a surge of anger. It’d be one thing if this were personal. If I’d done something to cross the smiling man, if this were payback, at least I could understand it. But it wasn’t even about me. I was just the unlucky bastard whose entire life got uprooted and rewritten, condemned to die behind bars so some other guy didn’t have to. I was nothing but a living get-out-of-jail-free card.

  It was an understatement to say this entire situation was out of my league. The kind of magic that changed reality was in play here. Mythical stuff, a ritual on a scope I couldn’t begin to wrap my brain around. I was just a street sorcerer with a few nasty tricks.

  Cassandra was right. I wasn’t “the chosen one.” I was only a man. A man who still had his wits, two good fists, and a burning desire to demonstrate what happened when people tried to play me. I’d start with ha
nding the Enemy a double defeat: I wasn’t going to die in here, and when I made my exit, Buddy was coming with me.

  Then, once I was breathing free air again, Fleiss and I were going to have a nice long chat.

  “So,” Kim said softly as he slumped back, his face beaded with sweat, “what now?”

  I had to think about that.

  “You came in undercover, as a prisoner,” I told him. “What’s your exfiltration strategy? I imagine you’re not going to serve out a full sentence.”

  He half smiled. “That’s exactly the plan. My forged jacket was backdated, saying I’ve been in here for three years. My ‘sentence’ is almost up. First thing tomorrow, I walk out of here a free man. Easiest escape ever. That is…assuming.”

  “Assuming,” I echoed. I looked down at his knife. I ran the pad of my thumb over the hilt of my own. “Assuming we can work this situation out. Don’t suppose you could just tell her you killed me?”

  Kim wrinkled his nose like he smelled something foul. “I never lie to a client. Besides, I take a job, I do the job.”

  I almost laughed. I’d said pretty much those exact same words to Caitlin when I agreed to pull the heist for Fleiss. I guess I had more in common with Kim than I thought.

  “But you can’t do this job,” I said, “not without a very good chance of leaving in a body bag. You don’t want this fight any more than I do. So…could you tell her you tried but never got the chance to seal the deal?”

  He thought it over. “I’d…have to return her advance. And it would be bad for my reputation. I’m not known for failure.”

  “I’d call that the least-worst choice out of a handful of bad options.”

  “Maybe so.” He sighed. “Maybe so. But don’t imagine we have a truce. Once my arm heals, if she sends me after you again—”

  “I’ll expect you to try harder,” I said. That put a tired smile on his face. “And I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Fleiss needs me to die behind bars. By the time you’re ready for a rematch, I won’t be behind bars.”

  “We’ll see,” he told me. “So how do you want to do this?”

  I left first. Backing away, slowly, slipping out of reach before a wounded viper could bite. I didn’t turn my back until my shoulders bumped the bathroom door. I hid my knife in my waistband, then stepped outside.

  Brisco, still leaning against the wall, gave me a questioning look.

  “He’s gonna come out in a few minutes,” I said. “Let him go. Situation’s defused. He won’t be a problem for anybody.”

  He blinked, from me to the door and back again.

  “And how about you and me?”

  “Listen,” I told him. “I respect what you’re trying to do. You don’t want your people getting hurt in a war that’s got nothing to do with you. I get that. Just like you need to get that coming after me again, even in a roundabout way, would be a very, very bad play. We on the same page here?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, a little too quick. “Sure.”

  “I can’t tell you what I’m planning, but I can give you my word: in two days, the Cinco Calles won’t be after me anymore. No friction between the whites and the Latinos, nothing for the guards to use against you. Can you be cool for two days?”

  He glanced to one side, thinking. Then he stuck out his hand. We shook on it.

  * * *

  A warning klaxon sounded five minutes before lights-out. Back in my cell, I kept my eyes on the door until the second klaxon sounded and it slowly rattled shut. I felt safer sleeping behind a locked and barred door, at least until Mister Kim left the prison tomorrow morning. I was pretty sure he’d keep his word and back off, but better safe than sorry. Or dead.

  “Gonna miss this place,” Paul said softly as the lights along the tier flickered out one by one.

  “Really?”

  “Hell no.” He lay back on his cot. “You really think we can pull this off?”

  “I like our chances. Besides, whatever happens, it beats the alternative.”

  Guards walked the shadowed tiers with penlights and clipboards, running cell checks and making sure all the good little convicts were tucked in for the night. I got as comfortable as I could and shut my eyes, trying to relax. We had a lot of hard work ahead of us.

  I wasn’t sure what time it was when my eyes snapped open in the darkness. Something had roused me, a sound different from the distant clamor and clanking and snoring that filled the prison hive. My muscles tensed as my body jolted into high alert.

  I caught motion in the corner of my eye. Paul, waving a frantic hand. He made eye contact, then pantomimed being asleep. I followed his lead, lying on my back, watching the cell door through eyes narrowed to slits.

  Figures crept into view on the other side of the bars. Four men in black riot gear, two hefting Plexiglas shields. The strobe of a penlight gleamed across the cell. I shut my eyes completely and I did my best impression of a corpse as the white light washed over my face.

  The CRT, Jake and Westie had called them. Cell Reclamation Team. The ones who came in the night, picking out prisoners to send to Hive B.

  21.

  “Cell two thirty-two,” the guard with the penlight murmured. I heard paper rustle. “They’re both on the list. Which one first?”

  I tensed. The knife was under my cot. Could I get to it in time? They’d bum-rush us with the riot shields. Press in and force us down. Even if I could slip around, find an angle of attack, their armor looked bulky. Ceramic plates, I guessed. Good chance of turning a blade, unless I got lucky and found a weak spot.

  I’d have to get lucky four times in a handful of heartbeats. In the dark, outnumbered and outgunned by men who did takedowns like this for a living. That was lottery-winner luck. No matter how I played it, I couldn’t see a fight going my way.

  I tensed up and got ready for one anyway. My hand crept under the blanket, snail slow, toward the edge of the cot.

  “I want two thirty-four,” growled another guard. “Bastard kicked me when we broke up that fight two days ago. My knee still hurts.”

  “Fine,” the first said. I heard the penlight click. “These two’ll keep until next time.”

  They crept away. I opened my eyes and looked over at Paul. He stared back from the shadows, petrified.

  “Don’t worry,” I mouthed.

  He pulled his blanket up over his shoulders and clutched it like a little kid afraid of the dark.

  Not like we needed more motivation to escape, I thought, but there it is.

  Everything happened at once. I heard the electric hum and rattling of a barred door two cells down. Then the quick, hard stampede of boots on concrete and a confused, sleepy shout of surprise cut short by the crack of a truncheon. Even with a black sack over his head, I recognized the bulky prisoner they dragged, shackled and squirming, past our cell door: Simms, who’d tried shaking me down on my first day. He shouted but his voice was muffled, like he had a gag in his mouth. One of the guards jabbed a stun gun into his kidney. He crashed to his knees, grunting; they hauled him back to his feet and kept moving.

  Paul and I waited until they were long gone, and another ten minutes after that for good measure, before either of us said a word.

  “You heard that, right?” he whispered.

  “Day after tomorrow,” I breathed. “Eyes on the prize, Paul. By the time they come for us, we’ll be long gone.”

  That was the plan, anyway.

  * * *

  I drowsed more than slept, drifting in and out of anxious nightmares until the morning klaxon shrilled and our cell door rattled open. Brisco’s boys covered me while I showered, and this time, they didn’t vanish. Breakfast was another lump of cold, watery eggs and a charred, rock-hard wedge of something that might have been hash browns. I would have killed for a cup of espresso.

  I met up with my makeshift crew out on the yard. Paul, Westie, Jake, and I walked in a ragged line along the jogging track, and they passed a cigarette back and forth while we talked.
/>   “Knife’s taken care of,” Westie said. “Give it to me tomorrow morning. By the time we’re ready to move, it’ll be stashed safe halfway to the visitation center.”

  I nodded. “Good. I’m getting in touch with my people today, making sure we have ‘visitors’ lined up for each of us.”

  “Not sure about the route.” Paul took a drag from the cigarette, clutching it in trembling fingers. He nearly dropped it passing it over to Jake. “I spent the morning in the library, pulling together whatever I could, but any maps I could scrounge up were either too vague to be helpful or ten years outdated.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “We’ll just have to play that part by ear. As long as we can make it to a good-sized town, ditch the buggies, and steal fresh rides and some civilian clothes, we’ll be fine.”

  Jake put the cigarette to his lips, glancing over his shoulder as he exhaled a plume of gray smoke.

  “Think I’ve got a diversion planned out. On my shift this afternoon, I’ll move all the pieces into place.” He handed Westie the cigarette. “Holy shit, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

  Westie grinned. “First men to ever escape the Iceberg. Hell, I bet they’ll make a movie about us. George Clooney might play me.”

  “You don’t look anything like George Clooney,” Jake said.

  “Said might, not would. Don’t piss on a man’s dreams.”

  “Shit,” Paul hissed. “We gotta split up. Don’t look, but Jablonski’s up on the guard tower behind us. He’s watching.”

  Jake arched an eyebrow. “So? Fuck Jablonski. Let him watch.”

  “You’re not the one who got him angry,” Paul said. “We don’t need attention, not from him, not right now. I’ll see you guys later.”

  “Paul, c’mon—” Westie said, but Paul waved him off and stomped toward the picnic benches.

  “He’s tense,” I said. “He’s got reason to be. You heard they grabbed Simms last night?”