The Storm Giants

by Pearce Hansen

  The driver made to climb out of the armpit deep grave, looking owlishly at Everett. The redneck girl looked at Everett as well, and he shrugged. She extended a work calloused hand and pulled the driver from the earth, easily as she would have plucked a long root from her vegetable garden.

  “Cheese it while you can,” Everett ordered the driver, waggling the shotgun. She didn’t have to be told twice.

  “How’d you happen to have quicklime around the house?” Everett asked the redneck girl.

  “Oh, some of us go through a lot of quicklime,” she said.

  Everett grabbed the shooter’s body by the shoulders and started dragging it over to the grave, but the corpse’s legs snagged on a cluster of roots. Everett bent to free the body from the obstruction.

  “Men,” the redneck girl said, but grabbed the legs to help.

  Together they dragged it sideways across the roots and tumbled it into the hole. The shooter’s corpse landed face down at the bottom, with one arm behind its back like a ghost had it in a hammerlock.

  Everett ripped open one end of the quicklime and upended it into the grave. The corpse being face down, no one had to watch the quicklime getting on its face. When the bag was empty, Everett tossed it into the grave and it spread across the shooter’s head and shoulders like an impromptu shroud.

  He began shoveling dirt into the grave. The redneck girl grabbed the e-tool and helped. Between the two they finished filling the grave quickly.

  Everett patted the top with the flat of the shovel. He started scattering the left over dirt around.

  The redneck girl cocked her head and walked around the grave, examining it from different angles. “You’re different from the men around here,” she said as she swept the grave’s surface with a branch and scattered leaves and twigs across it. “You strike me as the kind of man that’s never pointed a gun at anything with more than two legs in his life.”

  She faced Everett with only a couple of feet between them. A wind sighed through the trees, and Everett was very conscious that no one else was around but the Widow’s driver.

  “I know I’m ugly in the face,” the redneck girl said.

  “Wouldn’t go that far,” Everett replied.

  “You’re sure a romantical kind of guy,” she said with a snort.

  She unbuttoned her baggy work shirt and took it off. She wore nothing underneath but faded jeans and down at the heel work boots. Everett was washed over by a ripple of lust, it poured right through him by surprise. Her tanned body was that of a goddess.

  She wasn’t built like one of those anorexic ‘heroin chic’ models that supposedly represent the modern ideal of the American female gender. She had muscles without being masculine, with wide yet feminine shoulders sweeping down to tawny, firm breasts perched above a flat, tanned, six pack of a stomach. A peach fuzz of tiny sun bleached hairs started just below her navel and disappeared into the top of her low slung jeans, jeans filled by a heart shaped ass and perfect swelling hips attached to muscular legs. The hips and legs of a woman who tramped up and down the hills of Mendocino all day tending her crop.

  Everett’s pulse throbbed at the sight of her. Then he thought of Kerri waiting at home and wrenched his gaze away from that beautiful body. He snuck a sidelong look at the redneck girl’s work roughened hands and baboon face, reminded once again of fate’s cruelty.

  The redneck girl nodded at his absence of pity, and put her shirt back on. “I take good care of my man, when I can find a real one that is. If you get tired of that skinny little one you’re shacking up with, you look me up.”

  She reclaimed her shovel and grinned at Everett as much as her scowling face allowed. “Hell, you don’t even have to leave her. Come on by my place when she ain’t enough for you on her own.”

  Chapter 16 : The Dossier

  Everett sat at the kitchen table with the Widow’s dossier spread out. This was where he sat when he handled bills and domestic paperwork, or managed Kerri’s art gallery correspondence so she could focus on her work. It was good camouflage now with Raymond goggling in at him every few moments. Everett could pretend this was pedestrian household business being taken care of.

  The file was as thorough and informative as could be expected from a Teutonic fanatic like the Widow. The photos showed the house where the target lived. A ramshackle Victorian, three storied and sprawling on a multi acre expanse of overgrown yard behind a tall, spike topped wrought iron fence extending across the entire front of the lot.

  The dossier said the wrought iron barrier extended around the entire property, which came to several hundred yards of heirloom fencing. You could make a bundle on the scrap metal value; let alone what it would earn from a restoration hardware firm.

  Everett studied the target’s picture. The thief’s name was Phil, and the photo was an upper body shot. A good one given that it had been taken with a telephoto lens. The Widow’s people had their spy craft down.

  It may have only been a Kodachrome, but Everett studied it like it was Phil in the flesh. Phil was an unreconstructed old hippy: he had long indefinite colored hair falling straight to the shoulders of his corduroy jacket and tie dyed tee shirt, with a receding hairline. The bald spot in front exposed an impressive expanse of cranium.

  In the photo Phil was smiling. Everett looked into his eyes for a while, or at least this photo’s depiction of his ‘windows of the soul.’ They were kind, trustworthy eyes, almost hypnotic. Everett could see how Phil got under the Widow’s skin.

  That’s what Phil was. A con man, a cult leader, a Fagin running a commune of street people in a Central Valley town called Amicus. The dossier didn’t specify what scam Phil’s cult inflicted on the world, but there had to be some kind of money train to justify Phil’s ‘leadership.’ That Phil was proud possessor of the Widow’s gold showed he knew how to earn.

  Amicus: Everett wasn’t familiar with the name. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he’d known by heart for many years.

  Chapter 17 : Homeboy Intel

  Tobias grimaced in his sleep when the phone jangled in Larry’s office, as he was in the middle of a very pleasant dream. In it, he was a prince of the City. Everyone bowing and scraping as he entered the VIP room to have whatever fun he wanted to with naked women who performed lewd acts on themselves and each other on command, who screamed Tobias’s name in ecstasy.

  His eyes opened as someone picked up the phone, and he was back doing the daytime reality show he starred in once more.

  “Brick Oven Pizza,” Larry said in a jovial voice, enjoying his own tired joke, and then commenced a muttered discussion.

  Tobias was only semi-conscious. As he struggled toward full wakefulness, he realized the barrel of his Desert Eagle was stuck in his mouth. No biggie, that happened every once in a while. Well, more often than he cared to admit, but it was what it was. He wondered for the umpteenth time, though: how come his best buddy kept parking itself in his mouth while he was asleep?

  Tobias opened his jaw wide and pulled the muzzle from his mouth, careful not to chip any teeth. He laid the gleaming piece on a coffee table already crowded with drug paraphernalia, empty bottles and pizza boxes. The snarl he wore as armor against the world’s malevolence locked into place as he sat up. He glared around the storeroom he’d crashed at, sleeping at the Lost Boys clubhouse as he was at loose ends between gigs.

  “Another craptacular day,” he said.

  He wasn’t feeling the love right now. As he’d been busy last night cramming as many mood altering substances into his face as he could snag, his head hurt bad.

  “Shoot, bro,” Larry said to the other end of the line, suddenly gone all business.

  Tobias rubbed his temples and stared at the floor between his sneakers, but sensed motion in his peripheral field of vision and swiveled to aim his sneer out the door to the main Clubhouse party room.

  Larry urgently gestured for Tobias from the office, his phone glued to his ear. As Tobias approached, Larry pulled the celli
e away from his head and hit the speaker button.

  “What do you know about Amicus?” Everett’s voice asked from the cell phone, and Tobias’ mind snapped to crystal clarity as he devoted full attention to the conversation.

  Larry laughed, shooting Tobias a glance warning him to keep his yap shut. “What’s to tell, white boy? It’s a little podunk string town on the northern end of the Big Valley, my dumbass cousin earned out of there for a while.”

  “Shit haystack, for the longest time Amicus was one of the telemarketing and phone collections capitals. It’s a speed bump farm town smelling of cow butt, but for a while it was all fly by night boiler room operations full of commission fed phone scammers. It was a wide open boomtown: Lots of action, and money to be scavenged too. Those phone workers were major spenders when they weren’t hustling.

  “But I guess India invested billions to upgrade their fiber optics, and all the corporations outsourced their telemarketing. Good move for them, a real money saver. So, what’s going down in Amicus, white boy?”

  Tobias relaxed a trifle. His business agent smelled a major payoff.

  Everett asked, “Do you have an outlet for gold bullion?”

  Larry and Tobias locked gazes. Larry’s voice was nonchalant as he replied, “Hell yeah. There’s some Hong Kong ex-pats up Vancouver way, you know the type: Chinese sharks that bailed when the Commies took over. Those guys always want the yellow metal, they’re not into cash. How much gold we talking?”

  “Couple tons. Nazi stuff.”

  Larry closed his eyes and screwed his face up tight like he was in a private church listening to a sermon. Tobias stifled a giggle at how constipated Larry looked, like a commercial for some fast acting laxative.

  “Sure thing, no prob. How soon we talking?” Larry asked.

  “I’ll be in touch, but it’s happening soon,” Everett said. “Can’t have this stuff sitting around after. One more thing. You have any Israelis on tap? There’s issues might complicate the transaction.”

  “Well, I’ve had dealings with a guy in the Mossad. But I won’t promise he’ll talk to you, he’s pretty inaccessible. Give me your latest digits. I’ll try and convince him to give you a call.”

  Everett said, “Tell him there’s a German woman involved. The kind he doesn’t like.”

  Everett recited the temporary phone number he’d be using, and then the line went dead. Larry got that bound up look again, and Tobias pointed his malicious grin away, not wanting to distract Larry’s cogitations.

  When Larry came back from wherever he’d been communing, he turned to Tobias. “Looks like you’re going to Amicus, kid.”

  “Craptacular, what’s the plan?” Tobias asked. “Am I supposed to watch Everett’s back, or am I supposed to take him off?”

  “No, no, don’t go against him,” Larry said. “I just want to protect my investment. You wouldn’t stand a chance against him anyways.”

  Tobias fetched his Desert Eagle and caressed the high powered automatic before sticking it in its holster to dangle from the armpit of his emaciated frame. He was a little tired of how Larry kept throwing the legend of Everett up in his face, trying to keep him in his place through the unequal comparison. But everything Tobias had been able to uncover in his quest after Everett’s track record supported Larry’s trash talking.

  How could a guy like that have just walked away from all this? From the money, the willing women, the power over people? Everett had to be some kind of fool to leave all that behind. His game couldn’t be as tight as everybody said.

  Chapter 18 : Mister Mossad Makes his Case

  The throwaway cell phone started vibrating less than a minute after Everett had hung up on Larry.

  “I understand you are dealing with a woman of German extraction?” the foreign sounding voice on the far end of the line asked – as foreign as the Widow’s, though the accent was way different. The Israeli was calling from a public place. There were street noises on that end.

  “That’s the case,” Everett admitted. “A mutual friend believes it in your interest to share information.”

  He closed his eyes and clung to the background noises on the other end. A café, he decided. The Mossad man was probably sitting at a randomly chosen outdoor table to minimize the risk of being recorded. As a fringe benefit, he got to ogle the pretty women strutting by on the circumscribed courses of their existence.

  Was the Mossad man alone? Was his crew listening to this conversation with interest, all of them exchanging meaningful glances?

  The Mossad man said, “This associate you refer to, it is true we’ve had dealings to our mutual profit.” He sounded like the foppish type, very concerned about his dignity and appearance. “But what is that to you? What are you bringing to the table?”

  “Involves the widow of a German dentist named Dauffenbach. He may have worked in one of the Camps. You almost caught him but he got away.”

  “Only if you consider suicide an escape,” the Mossad man said. “You are calling about property she is trying to recover?”

  “Perhaps we are not wasting our time,” Everett said, mocking the Mossad man’s fussy tone.

  The Mossad man chuckled, the sound a dry rustling over the phone. “We are very interested in her, and the property she lost. Technically, it belongs to the people of Israel.”

  “Possession is nine points of the law,” Everett said.

  “Yes. We have sought it for some time since we exposed the Nazi she was married to. But she is cautious. She moves it around too often for us to have a realistic chance at recovering it.”

  “No fixed home base? How much about her are you willing to part with?”

  “May I inquire as to your interest?”

  Everett opened his eyes and tuned into the backdrop on his end of the phone line. Kerri was puttering around in the next room, pretending she wasn’t eavesdropping. Outside the window, Raymond sang to himself while doing whatever little boys did when unobserved.

  “She’s got something over me,” Everett said. “Not your problem. But she wants me to recover her gold.”

  “And just where is it, if I may ask?”

  Everett brayed laughter into the phone, tears coming to his eyes before the unexpected paroxysms stopped. It was harder laughter than had exited him in years. It was startling.

  “I see,” the Israeli said, amusement – or a simulation thereof – coloring his own voice. “In what way may I serve you?”

  “How much of a threat is she? What’s her reach?”

  The Mossad man said,” If you’ve had any dealings with her, you know she is vicious and ruthless. She is capable of destroying you and yours.”

  “Is she connected? She has packages that must be destroyed. No negotiations on that clause.”

  “She has no connections,” the Israeli said, in the pained tones of a habitual liar deciding that truth was the best course for once.

  “She is not even a real Nazi,” he continued with a gloating chuckle. “She has no communication with the Middle Eastern Jew haters, for instance. Even your Aryans see her for what she is: a delusional dreamer of no real consequence, holding on to dead memories. An irrelevant fossil from the days of the Master Race. She has tried to combine forces with various American groups. The Posse Committatus and some of your other more virulent militias.

  “The very, very amusing thing is, while all of them enjoyed seeing the evidence of so many Jews’ murders, the various groups she has reached out to have stolen a large portion of the bullion from her over the years. She is a laughing stock among them for letting her wealth slip through her clutching fingers.

  “Her only power was her viciousness and the paltry remnants of her gold. Without her hoard she is a shark no longer able to swim forward, and will sink into the depths. She is desperate.

  “Still, she has a small core of followers left. Some of them anachronistic dreamers as deluded as herself, some of them mercenaries who pretended to believe in return for the money she spent lik
e water. That is how she financed her delusions. By selling small portions of the bullion. It was once a much larger hoard; she had perhaps half what she inherited from her husband even before it was stolen.”

  Everett thought about it. “So if her immediate crew is taken care of, no one else will take exception?”

  The Israeli sighed, realizing his admission made him less indispensable but deciding not to start bullshitting in mid stream. “You said she had an evidence package on you. She will have it cached in a safe place, and you will need outside assistance to recover it.”

  Chapter 19 : Playing it too Close to the Vest

  Kerri watched Everett make his preparations. He was dressed even bummier than usual, as if intending some kind of urban survivalism.

  He told her the location of his buried caches of cash – as if she hadn’t known where each one was as soon as he dug it.

  He explained one more time how he had to leave for a bit to take care of business. He tried to imply that it was no big deal, but she wasn’t deceived.

  Rick was here of course, and Norm would be coming as soon as the ER released him. She took cold comfort in that.

  Her brothers had protected Kerri from schoolyard bullies, and before she’d met Everett they’d always grilled her prospective dates. Any guy that failed their inspection disappeared and never bothered her again.

  Now Rick was frankly terrified. His eyes glittered whenever he thought no one was looking.

  Like the growers, her brothers considered themselves top dogs. People treated them like royalty, there was a bottomless supply of new hard bodied gold diggers filtering through on a regular basis, and they never had to face any real opposition. The worst Norm and Rick had encountered before this were human cockroaches scuttling around the back woods looking to rob a patch or three.

  The brothers had no experience with hit squads out for blood, or organized teams trained in trade craft. They were in over their heads and they knew it.