“No secretary has ever seen this information and immediately gone on a killing spree. Why would they? Their paycheck-spigot might run dry if they did. So, here’s what I’m thinking. We do what’s never been done before: We take this information and go on a killing spree. We blame the Ugly and force the Coil to turn on them. The Ugly are already weakened, but the Coil are too much of a slow-moving bureaucracy to take advantage of their enemy’s weakness. We need to help them. We need to show them that fighting is the price of survival.”
His two friends sat in silence for a while, then Ullrich leaned back and blasted out an insane peal of laughter while Hunley calmly discussed his opinion on the plan; the two things happening at once were incredibly jarring to Wodan. “I can’t fire a gun at anyone,” said Hunley. “I would be pretty worthless for a plan like that – I just can’t take a human life. And it’s not because of some kind of moral high ground, man, I’m just too much of a pussy to do it. Then again, if you did manage to get those ding-bats Pete and Jens involved, I could at least drive you guys around. You’ll need someone around who has some goddamn sense.”
“That’s not bad at all!” said Wodan. “If there were any witnesses, they’d see a Smith car, and maybe we could get them involved, too. You have any friends involved in the Smiths?”
“Not a single one,” said Hunley. “As long as nobody kills the old man upstairs, I’ll be fine.”
Finally Ullrich’s laughter died down, then he said, “You’re definitely a foreigner, Wodi, my man. No citizen of Pontius would ever have the balls to pull off something like this. You wouldn’t think that if one guy punched you, kicking a third guy would be the solution to the problem, but this bullshit kind of makes sense. Count me in – but under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You make sure Jens and Pete are involved, too. They might be retards, but I don’t want those retards finding out about this stuff after the fact and then coming after me for jeopardizing their cushy employment.”
“You think those guys would… you know, try to kill you?”
“Not really,” said Ullrich, “but if they got pissy about it, I’d hate to embarrass them by whoopin’ their asses. Anne wouldn’t be able to flirt with Pete if he was a broken mess on the floor, now, would she?”
* * *
Fifteen Minutes Until Midnight
“Wodan, when the shit hits the fan, you just chill back,” said Jens. “There’s no need to try to catch up with my kill record.”
Hunley rolled by the house with his lights off and they examined the two-story brick structure. They could make out a few electric lights within. Wodan peered at the thing and tried to ignore Jens.
“Me and Pete,” said Jens, “we’ll hit the front and back doors and catch the two guards in the middle and blast ’em.”
“Won’t you shoot each other?” said Wodan, turning to Jens. “I thought we agreed to hit the same door, unless it looked like a good idea to post one person at the far door to catch someone if they try to run – but only if the place looked like it needed both doors covered.”
“Don’t puss out now, man,” said Jens. “God’s death, Wodan, I’ve never seen someone try to weasel out of something so hard!”
“Jens! Who do you think is gonna be the one who actually-”
“I’m just saying, if you want to cover the ‘back door’ or whatever, and just hang out in the alley while we do the work, that’s cool by me.”
Hunley eased to a stop.
“Ullrich?” said Wodan.
Ullrich took a sip from a flask, then nodded slowly.
“Pete?” said Wodan. “You ready to rock?”
* * *
“If we do this thing,” said Pete, rising from the weight bench, “then we’ve got to make sure it’s someone whose death isn’t going to make our work day shittier. I don’t want my promotion to Lieutenant to be dependent on me finding the people responsible for this shit. Because then I’d have to drag myself in and run the interrogation on myself, which would make absolutely no sense.”
“That’s fine,” said Wodan. “We’ll stay away from identity paradoxes and anyone that could bring consequences down on us. I don’t know what kind of different Captain files are in other offices, so if we do this several times, I’m the first person who’ll come under scrutiny. But, for instance, I noticed there’s one Captain in here that lives close to the turf that Jens’s crew works on, and that Captain’s had plenty of beef with a particular leader of the Left Leg. We’ll stay away from him, because we don’t want Jens to have to deal with a bunch of Ugly berserkers looking for easy meat once the retaliations go down.”
“Lost me on that one,” said Pete, flexing his muscles in a cracked mirror, “but at least you get the general idea.”
Wodan put down their list of potential targets and sat on the lifting bench. Pete stood over him, ready to lift the weighted bar if it looked like Wodan’s chest was about to be crushed. Wodan was glad, and a little surprised, that Pete had decided to go along. In fact, he had needed no convincing at all.
As Wodan pushed against the weights, he realized that he’d forgotten to remove any, and was lifting Pete’s “warmup” set. He strained against the pressure in his head and forced the weights into the air several times before he gave up.
“What about this guy?” said Pete, looking over the list. “I was with a Captain the other day... a guy I wouldn’t mind sticking by for a while. I heard him talkin’ a lot of shit about this Captain here. He said his own operation would run a lot smoother without this guy getting in the way.”
Wodan looked at the name, then said, “He’s small-time, probably not many guards, if any. That would be good for us.” Wodan rifled through a pile of papers until he found some more with the man’s name on them.
“Oh, we can’t,” said Wodan. “This guy’s got a wife.”
“Who gives a shit?”
“Just imagine her crying and slipping around in all the blood.”
“True,” said Pete, flexing every muscle as he raised and lit a cigarette while studying his mirror image. “It could be a real downer. If anyone’s going to be crying and slipping in blood, it’ll be me.” After a moment, he said, “Put that one in the ‘B’ pile,” and Wodan laughed loudly.
“Hey Pete. You haven’t killed anyone, have you?”
“No. I don’t think I ever could.”
Wodan rifled through more papers. “Check this guy out,” said Wodan. “A money order went through Jerry’s office to get this guy’s bail money one time. He was charged with rape... at least two counts of torture… a-a-a-a-and charged with blowing away a civilian.”
“You got people’s criminal records in there?” Pete sidled up to the weights, cigarette still in his mouth.
“No, but the nature of the crime determines the amount of bail, so there’s notes about that in here. And, of course, he’s never done any time behind bars.”
“Then let’s do him,” said Pete, forcing a massive stack of weights into the air. “Sounds like this scumbag could use an intervention.”
* * *
Five to Midnight
Wodan followed Jens out and shut the car door quietly, then nodded to Ullrich and Pete as they jogged across the street and down the block, slipping into the narrow alleyway behind the house. The hum of Hunley’s car disappeared in the distance. They could hear nothing inside the house. A light went on inside and they crouched near some bushes that ran alongside a fence. The light went out.
“Ready?” whispered Wodan.
Dark masks nodded.
Wodan nodded to Ullrich and his shotgun, then pointed to the backdoor. Ullrich rose and crept forward, then Wodan joined him.
* * *
Detective Virgil elbowed the blasted door aside and entered the hallway, where he could hear the voices of other Lawmen from a nearby room. The first thing he saw was a dead man on the floor lying on his back in a pool of black blood. He knelt and saw the shirt torn open from num
erous tiny holes. Buckshot. He nudged about the body with the backs of his hands, but saw no weapon.
He entered the kitchen and saw Lieutenant Detective Rancis bent over the icebox. Several Lawmen lounged about, eating and talking. Another dead man was twisted about on the floor with a broken chair under his head. Buckshot, again. No footprints in the blood.
He glared at Rancis, who was stuffing his face with some kind of sandwich. He caught Rancis’s eye and glanced at the body.
“Detective!” said Rancis. “We’re just making sure that the victims weren’t poisoned.” Several of the Lawmen chuckled and Rancis’s obnoxious little mustache stretched as he smiled. Virgil thought of saying, Either grow the damn thing out or get rid of it, but thought better of it. Rancis was his superior.
Virgil left the room and continued on. He found the third body on a sofa in the living room. A large man in a bathrobe, sitting up, top of his head blown off. He leaned over the body and saw a hole in the wall nearly clogged up with blood. Small arms fire. On the far wall, drawn in blood, was a scarred skull-and-crossbones. Small splatter marks of blood on the floor between the dead man and the painting... the killer must have dipped his hands into the victim’s head and walked back and forth to make the calling card. He examined the skull. Unfortunately, no smudges of fingertips... the edges were rounded. A gloved hand. The picture was well done.
A Lawman in denim wandered into the room and nodded to Virgil, then began taking notes.
“Rancis,” said Virgil, “what do you think happened here?”
Rancis called out from the kitchen, and Virgil could tell that his mouth was full of food. A pause as he swallowed, then, “The man was a Coil, a Captain. Believe it or not, I think some Ugly killed him. I’m not sure, though. I doubt two rival gangs would ever resort to outright murder.”
Virgil gritted his teeth and was almost sure that he heard muffled laughter from the kitchen. He wished DeSark had been able to come out with him; there was a man who took his job seriously.
“Any valuables in the house?” said Virgil.
A pause, then Rancis said, “They completely cleaned the place out.”
Virgil turned to the Lawman nearby, snapped his fingers, said, “Empty your pockets!”
Looking up from his notes, the low-ranking Lawman turned his pockets out, revealing only a few coins. Virgil stared at him. “I came in after the Lieutenant, sir,” the man said quietly.
“What’s up your ass today?” said Rancis, striding into the room.
“Sir,” said Virgil, “why hasn’t this place been trashed?”
“Why should it be?”
“The victim - there’s no signs of torture, no cigarette burns on him or cuts or anything.”
“The killers probably got spooked and ran.”
“Ugly would have at least cut the victim, if only a little,” said Virgil. “Even green ones would have mutilated the body somehow. Even if they thought the Law was right behind them they would have kicked the body over, or something.”
“Maybe they were shitty Ugly.”
“Substandard Ugly were sent to kill a Captain?” said Virgil, letting the words sink in.
Rancis stared into Virgil with open hostility. Virgil knew that it was not because he was calling him out on missing details, for Rancis was completely disinterested in detective work. Virgil knew that the only racket the lieutenant detective could run on this scene was on its refrigerator, and now he was done with that. No, he knew Rancis was pissed because Virgil was giving him a “hard time.”
“Detective,” said Rancis, “feel free to write up a goddamn twenty page report about how it was Smiths or some new gang that blasted these guys. Sniff around this hole all you want.” He turned away, then said, “This is gang shit and I don’t give a shit right now.”
But Detective Virgil did give a shit.
* * *
“It’s the dumbest idea ever,” said Jens. “He’s going to have guards and they’re going to blast us the minute they see us comin’.”
“He’s not going to have a lot of guards,” said Wodan. “He lives in an upscale neighborhood that isn’t associated with gang turf, so if he had a lot of guards, it would tip people off to the fact that he was a Coil and he’d end up being targeted by real Ugly. Remember, the Coil’s main defense is secrecy. At most, he might have a couple of mercenaries hanging around, but they won’t be the type who are used to violence. They’ll probably be dressed as servants and their main concern will be making the most amount of money with the least amount of work.”
Hunley was bent over a small refrigerator while Ullrich fed out coils of electric lines that were attached to a diesel generator on the roof, paid for by Jens and Pete and Wodan with their Coil money and acquired through the Smiths via confusing paperwork jumbled in with Hunley’s master’s name and signed out to a false address. Jens and Wodan cleared out rubble from the room they had dubbed the Party Kitchen. Anne splashed green and pink paint on the walls while she pretended to ignore Pete.
“You know how high the chances are of us getting caught?” said Jens. “As soon as anyone starts shooting, people are going to be at their windows, and since it’s in a wealthy neighborhood, some of those people might even have phones.”
“And they’re going to report people in black masks running to a Smith car, and when the Law finally does get there, they’re going to see signs that it was Ugly punks who did it. The details are going to be confusing, and the only thing the Law is going to make out is that it was gang related. The Law will drop the case immediately, and in the end, the Coil are going to retaliate against the Ugly. Not only will we be able to steal some stuff from the house, but you’re going to end up making even more money when your team starts targeting Ugly punks and stealing anything of value they have. Weren’t you complaining just the other day about being bored on your team?”
“I complain all the time, Wodi - you need to just tune that out, man.” Jens spun around several times and tossed rubble toward an open window, then sent up a cloud of dust as it smashed into the windowsill.
Pete strolled in smoking and said loudly, “Jens, let’s cut the shit and talk some truth!” Anne immediately glanced in his direction, smiling at the prospect of Pete playing the alpha male card. “I’ve seen those blockheads on your Coil crew. You’re afraid that if you get found out, those slope-headed, knuckle-dragging simpletons are going to be disappointed in you.”
“I don’t give a shit about those guys!” Jens shouted.
“ ‘We thought you was one of us, dude!’,” said Pete, imitating one of Jens’s crewmates.
“That’s not fair,” said Jens. “You do way more brown-nosing than me.”
“Yeah, but I do it to Lieutenants and Captains, not lackeys. Besides, haven’t you ever heard of Coil grifting other Coil?”
Jens turned away, muttering to himself.
“That shit goes on all the time,” Pete continued. “The Coil have so much money that a lot of their Captains even send their crews out to steal from one another.”
“What does that have to do with anything, Pete?!”
“I’m arguing that it’s not about disloyalty. The Coil are built on dishonesty and mistrust. If we do get found out, we’ll probably just get promoted. And doesn’t thinking of all the coin our target has lying around just make you want to pony up and ride this thing out?”
“Yeah, that’s great and all, really, man, and I’m sure our gang is going to actually reward us for killing one of their leaders. That makes total sense.” Jens sulked in silence, then left the room.
That night, Wodan sat alone in the darkened Party Room. He’d gotten Pete easily, but if he couldn’t get Jens, then Ullrich and Hunley were out as well. Even if Wodan chose to do it alone, Pete wouldn’t risk loaning out his gun for fear of Wodan being caught and implicating Pete. Wodan watched the stars as he smoked, turning the thing around and around in his head, but he could come up with no solution. The fact that his plan to clean up Pontius hi
nged on the actions of one completely unpredictable young man, who could not see the benefit of a world without gangs, bothered him greatly.
He turned and looked across the hallway, and could see that the light was still on in Jens’s room. Was there any argument that could work? Should he just go out one night, armed only with his knife, with no mode of transportation beside his own two feet, and try to kill a man who might have a couple of armed guards? It wouldn’t be impossible, but Wodan hated the idea that he might be spotted and have his own friends sent to hunt him down.
Wodan heard giggling from Pete’s room. A woman’s light laughter. He leaned forward to listen, then he remembered that he’d never seen Anne leave when Hunley and Ullrich had driven away. He listened and heard her and Pete talking quietly, then laughing.
Jens leaped from his bed as if a land mine had been set underneath him. He stalked down the hall, then Wodan watched him as he glared at Pete’s door. He was enraged, his face boiling red with blood. Suddenly he realized that Wodan was watching, and turned to him slowly.
“I’ve made up my mind,” said Jens.
Wodan swallowed hard, then said, “You have?”
“I’m not going.”
* * *
Midnight
“I never should have come,” said Jens. He stared down at the man on the kitchen floor, lying still in a growing pool of blood. Ullrich sat nearby, balancing his shotgun against his knees as his hands shook terribly.
Wodan stared down at the couch while Pete paced slowly behind him. Pete’s mask was lifted just enough so that he could smoke. Wodan was surprised that Pete’s hands did not shake. The Captain on the couch, a fat, balding man with humongous buck teeth that made him look like a rat, threw his eyes from Wodan to Pete and back again. He licked his lips and rubbed his knees, like an animal grooming itself.
[Demonworld 3] The Floyd Street Massacre Page 12
