The New Hero: Volume 1

by ed. Robin D. Laws

  The Sunday Driver Bingo Hall is a few blocks from the harbor. Hundreds of years ago, at the height of the slave trade, the building was the point of entry and sale for thousands of souls, so of course it’s haunted. About ten years ago, a group of Rootswomen managed to guide most of the haints to resolution, but a few still lurk. It’s considered lucky if one acknowledges you. One of them blocks our way and points an incorporeal finger at me. He whispers in my head, ‘What’s in your pocket?’ I’d forgotten about Lieutenant Weed’s gold tooth. Frank looks at me puzzled. ‘He wished me luck,’ I say as the haint moves aside and lets us in.

  The living and dead fill every table in the place, except one, and more breathing folk pour in behind us. Our table, where we first played, is empty. As we walk through the hall, all attention turns to us. The Horsemen, even Death, Lieutenant Elijah Cross, stand at attention behind the obviously terrified dealer. Lieutenant Weed tips his hat at me. ‘I think Jeremiah has taken a liking to you, Ivy,’ Frank says grinning proudly as he draws back a chair for me. ‘You have way of attracting chaos, and he likes that.’

  I smile coyly at Lieutenant Weed and take a deep breath of confidence. ‘What are we playing today, Frank?’

  ‘I thought we’d play Blackjack.’

  My favorite game. ‘What are we playing for?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ Frank counters. He wants me to ante up my soul, but a strict metaphysical rule prohibits him from asking for it directly.

  ‘Well, I haven’t played cards in a couple of years. I’m sure you’re aware that I’m barred from entering the Bingo Hall. I’d like to prolong the time, and get in a few games before you push me to put my soul on the table.’ Frank leans in expectantly. What do I have that he wants? He wonders. I fish around in my pocket, squirming and struggling for dramatic effect before I pull out Lieutenant Weed’s gold tooth and slam it on the table. ‘A gold tooth. First Civil War Era. Now I’m no antiques expert, but I think it might fetch a good price.’

  Frank laughs. ‘Okay, Miss Ivy. I’ve got all night―’

  ‘That’s mine!’ Bellows Lieutenant Weed. ‘She can’t wager my tooth! It doesn’t belong to her.’

  I don’t look at Lieutenant Weed. I don’t need to look at him to read the same amusement I read from him last night.

  Frank turns slowly towards the Horseman, ‘Oh come on, Jeremiah.’

  ‘No! It’s my tooth! She can’t bet something that doesn’t belong to her.’

  ‘Well, how did she get it?’

  ‘I certainly didn’t steal it,’ I say, looking at Frank. ‘You don’t think I reached into his mouth and grabbed it, do you?’

  Frank smiles.

  Anger, amusement, and a twinge of affection well up in Jeremiah Weed. ‘She’s a tricky one. She’s got you wrapped around her pinkie finger.’ Certainly the Horseman of War would love to pick and join in a good, if not, pretty fight.

  ‘She does not,’ Frank protests.

  Lieutenant Cross, Death, speaks up in a shivery, wanting voice, spraying blood with each word. ‘Then why are we here, Frank? Let’s be honest. We’re here because she dumped you and you can’t let it go.’

  ‘I love her! She belongs with me!’ Frank rants. All eyes turn to The Devil. I look away, embarrassed, and feeling a little sorry for him. The Devil’s not supposed to love anyone or anything. In the years we were together we never exchanged those holy words, and as much as I wanted, I never expected to hear them. I can read him loud and clear. Absence has warmed his heart.

  ‘You’ve gone soft, Frank,’ Lieutenant Beam whispers.

  ‘I told you three hundred years ago, no more wars over women,’ Weed says. ‘We’re outta here, boys.’

  Lieutenant Beam throws Cross over his shoulder and walks out. Lieutenant Daniels shuffles behind them. I stand in front of Lieutenant Weed and offer him his tooth. ‘Keep it,’ he snaps, smiling. ‘You’ll just owe me.’ He tips his hat at me and touches my forehead. ‘I’m real sorry about that, Miss Greene. You know, you really are a sweetheart. You could do better. And, by the by, red becomes you.’ He nods at Frank, and follows the Horsemen out the door.

  I sit down again. I stare at Frank, Frank stares at the table, chewing on his bottom lip, rubbing his left horn. Neither us knows what to say. What is there to say? Finally, I put my hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘Just stay out of Charleston, at least for a few years. Do that for me?’

  ‘Fine. I need to regroup anyway.’ He leaves, his tail swaying defiantly behind him.

  He has gone soft. I pick up the deck of cards and shuffle it. I don’t want to leave and lose a chance to play cards again. Someone here might have heard that I told the Devil to leave Charleston. Some of the folks here believe that.

  A young man opens the door and announces that the plat-eyes have retreated, led back to an old warship by a dapper man in a fine suit. The room lets out a collective sigh of relief, and they return to their business.

  I motion to invite a couple of the bystanders from the bar to join me. I may not get a chance to enter the Sunday Driver Bingo Hall for a long time, especially if Laverne Archer tells everyone that the plat-eye attack was my fault. I hand the cards back to the dealer. ‘What are we playing this afternoon?’ He asks.

  ‘H.O.R.S.E.’

  Better Off Not Knowing

  Jeff Tidball

  ‘I love these greasy spoons.’

  John Squad stood in the parking lot of a crappy little diner near the edge of town, taking the last drag off a cigarette and wincing at the voice.

  ‘And I’m starving.’

  There was no one else with him in the parking lot. The cab he’d come in was already pulling back out into the road. The voice was in his head.

  ‘You’re always starving,’ came another voice, a deeper one, ‘and you can’t eat any more than any of us, so why don’t you can it, Puppydog.’

  ‘Nobody’s eating anything,’ said Squad out loud, throwing his cigarette down and grinding it out.

  The voices knew that tone, and they shut up. Squad went inside.

  *

  No surprise it was a crappy little diner inside, too.

  The girl Squad was looking for, Becky, was sitting in the corner near the kitchen. She was maybe just legal to drink—maybe just. Small girl, with long hair, dishwater blonde, looking at a video on her phone.

  ‘Guy in the green looks like a greasebag, chief.’

  Squad looked left without moving his head while he crossed toward Becky. The guy was looking out the front window, maybe trying a little too hard not to be looking at Squad.

  ‘Could be,’ Squad thought back. He stepped up to Becky’s table.

  ‘Mr. Squad?’ she said.

  He nodded just once while he grabbed her backpack off the table. He inclined his head to say she should head into the kitchen.

  ‘I thought we were going to—’ she started to say, but Squad cut her off, shaking his head.

  Becky started to stand, grabbing her phone. Squad threw a glance back over his shoulder at the guy with the green jacket. He was still looking out the front window.

  ‘Uh-oh, chief.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s looking at us.’

  ‘He’s looking out the window,’ Squad objected.

  ‘He’s watching our reflection.’

  ‘We’re going out the back,’ Squad said to Becky, steering with a light hand on her arm.

  ‘But aren’t we—?’ she started to say, but Squad broke in:

  ‘We’ll talk somewhere else.’

  In the kitchen, the short order cook glanced up at them, bobbing his head in time with the music in his earbuds as they passed through.

  ‘Why?’ asked Becky.

  ‘People know where we are.’

  They came out the back door of the restaurant into the gravel parking lot. There was a dumpster next to the door. It stank of grease.

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Restaurant full of people for one. Rabbit for another.�
�

  ‘Isn’t Rabbit a friend of yours?’

  ‘He’s a guy I owe a favor.’

  ‘Am I going to owe you a favor, when this is over?’

  ‘Maybe. You have a car?’

  Becky pointed at a Crown Victoria, a retired taxi cab, parked near the edge of the lot.

  ‘A Crown Vic, sergeant!’ came a deep voice, enthusiastic. ‘I used to—’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Squad.

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ shot back Becky. She turned back toward the restaurant suddenly, saying, ‘I’ve gotta go back inside and drop a five on the table. They’re going to think I ran off.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Squad, stopping her from going back inside with a firm grip on her bicep while cocking his head to listen. ‘What’s that noise?’ he asked. Becky only saw him cock his head, squint his eyes, and concentrate.

  All was quiet, inside and out, for a long beat. Becky got bored, pulled her arm out of Squad’s grip, and started across the parking lot.

  ‘That’s the mains hum, sergeant,’ came the deep-voiced verdict. ‘The sound’s too low, though,’ he added. ‘That’s probably why we can hear it. Band-stop filter isn’t damping it down all the way.’

  ‘Whenever you’re done staring at the sky,’ said Becky, halfway across the lot, ‘you can let me know where we’re headed.’ Squad looked over at her.

  ‘Hey, is that a dead squirrel on the back of her car?’

  Sure enough, a squirrel, stone dead, on the trunk of the Crown Vic.

  ‘Don’t touch the car!’ Squad shouted as Becky reached for the handle. She jerked her hand back as Squad charged for her.

  Squad grabbed Becky by the arm, yanked her back toward the kitchen door at an all-out run. She shrieked, a sound that overlapped a gunshot and the explosion of the car’s driver-side window.

  Becky screamed. Squad nearly lifted her into the air as he dragged her back to the dumpster. He tossed her behind it, taking cover himself, already holding the worn black M1911A1 he’d carried for damn near twenty years.

  ‘Wh—?’ Becky began, but a bullet punched into the dumpster and zanged into the wall of the restaurant. The query ended in another scream.

  ‘Did anybody see the shooter?’ Squad asked, peeking his head around the dumpster to try to get a clear view.

  ‘You didn’t exactly keep the headlights pointed at the road.’

  Squad jerked his head back as another round kerranged off the dumpster.

  ‘Muzzle flash on top of the school across the road.’

  ‘Good work, kid,’ thought Squad. Squad stuck his head back around again and saw, sure enough, somebody lying up there with a rifle.

  ‘Let’s take him out,’ came the kid’s voice again.

  ‘You gotta be kidding me, Puppydog. That’s fifty yards from here.’ Squad.

  ‘I could hit him.’ The kid.

  ‘Well you don’t run the arms anymore, do you?’ Commentary from the peanut gallery.

  ‘Shut up,’ muttered Squad.

  ‘Why do you keep saying that?!’ shrieked Becky. ‘I’m not saying anything!’

  Squad took a deep breath. ‘You seem to be in some pretty deep business, Becky,’ he said. He glanced over at her. She was terrified, shaking, but even so, keeping it together remarkably well considering who she was—a small-city kid all of 21, give or take a year.

  ‘You’re gonna help me, right?’ Becky asked.

  Squad didn’t answer right away. She started to panic, then, on top of being scared.

  ‘Of course we are, chief.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Squad said, barely audible, a little annoyed.

  Out of nowhere Becky screamed again. John jerked around and followed her eyes to the green jacket coming out the kitchen door with a 9mm in his hand. As the guy extended the gun John dropped him, two in the chest and one in the head, the Mozambique Drill. The guy fell in the doorway, propping the screen door.

  ‘You think there’s a third one, chief? Or can we make a run for the tree line in the vacant lot and keep the restaurant between us and our friend on the roof until we’re out of here?

  Squad thought about that. He turned to Becky. ‘You pretty quick?’

  ‘Pretty motivated,’ she said, breathing hard.

  ‘You see those trees?’ Squad pointed. She nodded. The empty lot was about twenty yards off. ‘Then I’m gonna count to three and then you’re gonna run for that tree line as fast as you can. Ready?’

  She nodded, getting her feet underneath her.

  Squad got ready to throw some bullets in the other direction while she fixed her eyes on the tree line.

  ‘One… two…’

  *

  Twenty years ago, John Squad enlisted in the United States Army.

  Eight years ago, Sergeant Squad’s unit was sent on a top-secret mission that went worse than bad, further than south, more crooked than sideways. The extraction force never came and Squad’s men were gunned down to the last, on the run through a Central American jungle. All except Squad.

  When Squad came to, the voices of his men lived on, inside his head.

  ‘Never leave a man behind,’ they say.

  That’s a mixed bag of advice.

  *

  Five minutes later, John and Becky were on a city bus headed in the direction it was going when they saw it. Using the restaurant as cover had done the trick, gotten them out of harm’s way. Out of its immediate way, anyway.

  They were sitting in the back, a seat between them.

  ‘So who’d want to electrocute your car, Becky? And failing at that, gun you down in a parking lot?’ Squad spoke low, which made his voice sound like gravel rolling downhill in a mason jar.

  ‘These…’ she looked for the word in Squad’s eyes ‘…criminals, I guess. These mobsters.’

  ‘Assume I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Because we don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.’ Dutch Harms. In life, a machine-gunner, ordnance expert, demolitions guy. Also, a wiseass and a womanizer.

  She started again, cheeky this time: ‘Hi, I’m Becky. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Squad.’

  ‘Cute.’

  She told the story straight, though: ‘I live with my mom and my baby son. I’m taking journalism at the community college. I did an interview—a practice thing for class, you know?—with this guy at the prosecutor’s office and I see a file open on his desk while he was in the john. I read some of it. Why not? The next week these… these goons came around the house, asking what did I think I was doing, did I think I was pretty smart, you know? They said their boss sent them over to make sure I knew I’d better keep what I saw to myself. I was scared they were going to come back and hurt Jakey. Rabbit said he knew someone he thought might be able to help. I—’ Becky suddenly choked on a sob— ‘They weren’t trying to kill me… before today.’

  Squad grunted, to indicate he’d heard all of that. He looked out the window.

  ‘Ask her what she read in the file.’ The quiet voice of Jeremy ‘Fax’ Steinmeyer, the tight-lipped guy from Intelligence who hardly ever said anything, before he died or since.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Thom O’Brien. Squad’s corporal, to whom John owed his life a dozen times. The philosophical one, Squad’s conscience. It wasn’t a challenge; O’Brien honestly wanted to know whether it mattered.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know,’ said Squad, ‘unless one of you guys is volunteering to get out and make some room up there.’

  Silence.

  Squad turned back away from the window. As far as Becky knew, he hadn’t done anything more than look outside for a minute.

  ‘You’re going to have to get out of town,’ he said.

  ‘What, go on the run? I have a baby.’

  ‘Where’s he?’

  ‘With my mom.’

  ‘And she’s how you know Rabbit?’

  ‘He’s my mom’s boyfriend.’

  ‘I’m with the sergeant,’ said Jim Cragg, a dee
p-voiced technical guy—apparently a Crown Vic enthusiast—who had called John’s Humvee a Warthog until the day he died. ‘It’s time for her and the family to pack it up.’

  ‘It hardly seems fair,’ said Harms, ‘for the pretty girl to leave town because of some greasebag mobster’s bad behavior.’

  ‘If she’s going to stay, what about the leverage angle?’ said Thom.

  ‘We’re going to need some leverage,’ said Squad to Becky. ‘You have some paper?’

  Becky produced a pad from her backpack.

  ‘Write down whatever it is that you know that got you in this trouble. Whatever it is you read in the file.’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘Depends on how long you want to ride this bus.’

  *

  ‘Can we get a smoke in here?’

  Squad absently lit one as he walked down a trash-strewn downtown street, stinking steam rising from the sewer grates. He stopped and looked up at the brick building to his left, squinting.

  It hadn’t taken him long to track down Jerzy Polowski, although he’d been annoyed to have to go through the exercise. On the other hand, his vast cynicism was built from a thousand other older little bricks that were each some inconvenience or annoyance, the functional equivalent of Becky knowing enough to put her on a hit list but not knowing enough to give him an address for the local boss who apparently wanted her dead.

  Squad stepped over to the building, peered through the dusty windows of an apparently deserted warehouse.

  ‘Phones, mister,’ said a junkie, approaching Squad with a massive starter jacket wrapped around his skeleton.

  ‘Get out of my face,’ Squad growled.

  The junkie recoiled and retreated.

  ‘When are you gonna get a cell phone?’ Cragg demanded. ‘Pay phones are for throwbacks.’

  ‘Throwback,’ said Squad. ‘I like the sound of that.’

  Squad reached up to grab the bottom rung of a dangling fire escape ladder.

  ‘Doesn’t bother you, does it, Jim? Me being a throwback?’

  Cragg groaned.

  ‘Later on I’m gonna step on a computer and set an answering machine on fire. What’s that other word you like, Jim?

  ‘Luddite,’ Puppydog said helpfully.

  ‘Yeah, Luddite,’ said Squad. ‘I’m a Luddite throwback. And the next time I see a one of those smug punk kids with a smartphone, I’m gonna…’