The Giveaway

by Tod Goldberg

  When it occurs naturally in the body, adrenaline dilates blood vessels and air passages, which increases muscle performance and mental acuity for short periods of time.

  As in, for instance, the brief period of time it took Fiona to beat the living crap out of Clete.

  When you don’t use your adrenaline in an appropriate amount of time—as in what was happening to the two Ghouls pinned to the wall inside the Grossman home—you might find yourself feeling nauseous, shaky and disoriented.

  You might even find yourself unable to answer simple questions, which was also the case with the two Ghouls.

  The men had calmed down slightly, now that they understood they were not being attacked by wolves or lions or angry domesticated house cats, and perhaps also now that they saw what they were up against. It wasn’t the first time either of them had had a gun pointed in their direction, that much I knew. Both of them were at least thirty- five, though they each had a particular look. One was tall, maybe six-three, and his forearms rippled with veins and muscles. I couldn’t really imagine him hitting the gym all that often, so my guess was a healthy steroid diet and a couple of months in County were his standard regimen.

  The other was shorter by a few inches but probably weighed sixty pounds more, all of it in his stomach. He had a long black goatee that hung down to the middle of his neck and his cheeks were pocked with acne scars. Surprisingly, he looked tattoo free, which probably meant that under his clothes he was painted head to toe.

  “I hope Clete isn’t having any problems walking,” Fiona said. “Did you notice him limping?”

  Still nothing.

  “Answer her,” I said.

  “I don’t know who you are,” the tall one said to me, “but you’re already dead.”

  “That must have sounded scary the last time you said it,” I said. I turned to Sam. “You scared?”

  “Petrified. I just hope I don’t lose control of my muscles and let go of the brake.”

  Both Ghouls tried to take a step back, but just ended up hitting their heads against the wall. I took a quick inventory of their bodies and determined that both the big one and the fat one had guns—the big one in his waistband, the fat one shoved uncomfortably into his right front pocket.

  If you want to accidentally shoot off your genitalia, the best place to put a gun is right where these two had theirs. If you want to hide your gun from plain sight, since I imagined neither of these gentlemen had permits, trying to stuff a nine into your belt makes it difficult to do things in public. Like, say, standing for any length of time.

  “You still haven’t answered her,” I said to the men.

  “You broke his back,” the fat one said. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “Yes,” Fiona said.

  “What kind of club lets a woman bust up one of their own?” I said.

  “Two,” Fiona said.

  “Two,” I said. “I stand corrected. Who knew the Ghouls were getting so soft?”

  There wasn’t much either of them could say to that. It was true. Even they knew it.

  They just didn’t know Fiona.

  “All right, boys,” I said, “my partner—” I looked at Sam and noticed that he had a kind of John Wayne thing going with his face, a sort of half-scowl/half-smirk thing, so I said, “Duke is gonna take both of your guns. You make any moves, my lady peels your caps back. No questions, just brains on the carpet. We clear?”

  Both Ghouls nodded.

  Sam dismounted his bike slowly, like maybe he thought he was John Wayne, too. And instead of a horse, he had a bike.

  “Hands up,” Sam said and I thought I detected a bit of a twang.

  The Ghouls raised their hands and Sam removed their guns, then patted them down and came out with two knives, a sap, a bag of meth, a needle, and two wallets bulging with cash. He handed me the wallets and tossed the rest of his haul out the screen door.

  I opened up the wallets and looked at their driver’s licenses. The tall one was named Clifford Gluck, the fat one Norman Gluck. Brothers, though presumably by different fathers since no Punnett square could produce these two reliably. The pictures on their licenses were both a good ten years old and neither Gluck looked particularly threatening. Clifford, who at thirty-seven was the older of the two, had short hair and was wearing a tie in the photo. He also wore a smile so wide you’d think maybe he just won the free dinner from Chili’s at the company picnic.

  Norman, who was thirty-five, was still pudgy and bearded, but he also wore a tie, though I had the sneaking suspicion his dress shirt was short-sleeved. The term “middle manager” was made for Norman.

  Weird. Both of them, in the recent past, looked like guys who worked all week in a mindless corporate job and then really cut loose on the weekends by playing paintball and watching horror movies. How you went from that life to being in a biker gang was a mystery to me.

  “Which one of you is Clifford?” I asked.

  “That’s funny,” Clifford said.

  “Hard to tell from these pictures,” I said. I handed the wallets back to Sam so he could have a look.

  “Nice ties,” he said.

  “Look,” Clifford said, “we weren’t here looking for you. Whatever your problem is, it’s not with us. You let us go, we forget the whole thing.”

  “You a lawyer?” Sam asked.

  “I look like a lawyer?” Clifford said.

  Sam flapped the wallet in Clifford’s face. “You do here,” he said.

  “What’s your story?” I said to Norman. “You only talk when he says so?”

  “I ain’t got nothing to say,” Norman said. “Either shoot us or fuck off.”

  “So he’s the lawyer,” Sam said to me.

  Clifford had a tattoo on his hand of a little girl’s face. It was a professional job, nicely shadowed, plenty of detail. It didn’t exactly make him look tough. And not even bikers think highly of pedophiles, so my suspicion was that it was probably his kid. That told me that somewhere inside Clifford, combined with the fact that he once wore a tie for his driver’s license photo, there lurked a human being who could be reasoned with.

  I decided to make our first move.

  I reached into one of the saddlebags on my bike and pulled out a handful of patches belonging to the Ghouls. Both Clifford and Norman visibly stiffened with anger. It was silly, really. They were just patches. But then, I guess if I was being tortured by bad guys in some foreign land and they showed me an American flag that they were desecrating, maybe I’d feel anger, too.

  “These belong to you,” I said, and stuffed them into a pocket in Clifford’s vest. “I got another three, four hundred more of them. I also got your constitution and every other piece of paper you morons created. You want ’em back?”

  Clifford looked at Norman. Norman looked at Clifford. It was actually kind of cute. Big bro and little bro trying to figure out the right answer.

  “Yeah,” Clifford said.

  “Five hundred large,” I said.

  “Check or money order?” Clifford spat back at me. “Or can I give a credit card?”

  “Maybe you haven’t figured it out,” I said, “but I’ve already done your dirty work. Bruce Grossman is dead. And now I’ve got all of this Ghoul crap. You want it, you gotta pay my cost or you let the Redeemers take over this territory. Simple as that.”

  “Bullshit,” Norman said.

  “He does speak,” Sam said.

  “Shut up,” Clifford said. “Let me think.”

  “Let’s see a body,” Norman said. “Otherwise it’s bullshit.”

  “Shut up, Norm,” Clifford said. “This isn’t your call.”

  “It’s not yours, either,” Norman said.

  From a sociological standpoint, it was fascinating watching Clifford and Norman. Here were two brothers, maybe with different mothers, maybe with different fathers, maybe they were born in test tubes in a lab in Geneva, but whatever, they were brothers somehow and they clearly were having a power struggle
. Having it in public with guns in their respective faces made it all the more interesting. At least when Nate and I had such issues in front of other people, we were usually the ones holding the guns.

  Clearly, however, neither Gluck was a shot caller. One might have more rank than the other, but it would be up to Lyle Connors no matter what happened here tonight. Perhaps he gave one of them more latitude than the other—say, perhaps one was allowed to execute Bruce, the other was in charge of the acid bath— but my sense with these two was that this was more of a kidnapping than a murder. They wanted their money, drugs and paraphernalia back . . . and then they’d kill Bruce.

  Clifford and Norman continued to argue over who could speak while the three of us just watched. It was moving to the level of performance art until Fiona made it stop.

  “Mommy must hate it when you two fight,” Fiona said. “Why don’t I shoot you both and the one that can still talk can be the official spokesman?”

  That quieted them down.

  “Listen to me, boys,” I said. “We’re all in the same boat here. The Banshees hired Grossman to hit us both. I got that much out of him. He was actually pretty forthcoming after Duke took off his ear.”

  Sam tried to act nonchalant and menacing at the same time by squinting one eye and surveying Clifford and Norman’s ears.

  “The fat one,” Sam said, “he’ll take a saw. That’s a pretty thick membrane he’s got there between his ear and his head. Might need to get something electric involved.”

  “See what I mean?” I said. “Grossman didn’t have a thick membrane, so he gave up pretty quick. He got lucky one time robbing you, because you’re stupid enough not to have gone digital. What the hell were you people thinking, keeping a bunch of paper around?”

  “Institutional stupidity,” Sam said. “That’s my guess.”

  That would have to stand as the answer, as neither Clifford nor Norman was piping up. It didn’t matter, really, since they had no say. They were just messengers. Just adrenaline. But they would take the message back, that much I knew.

  “Grossman, he didn’t fare so well trying to hit our stash. I cleaned up my mess and now I’m happy to make a deal to get your mess taken care of, too, before you gotta deal with the Banshees.”

  “What about you and the Banshees?” Clifford said.

  “They don’t have territory we want,” I said. “They’re moving H and girls. That doesn’t interest us. Their disrespect does, but I’ll work through that. They’ll get theirs.”

  “Oh, indeed, pilgrim,” Sam said. “The Redeemers will be redeemed.” He was using that John Wayne voice again. It wasn’t really working. Maybe it was the use of “pilgrim” as a pejorative. I gave Sam’s chopper a light kick just to let him know that maybe he should remain quiet if he was going to be using that particular vocal disguise.

  The fact was, getting the Banshees and the Ghouls into a conflict served everyone’s purposes—everyone that was on the right side of the law, at least. People getting hustled by the Ghouls were usually in no position to go to the police, so business was conducted as usual. But when two gangs go to war, that’s something the police and the FBI have a real interest in. There’s a lot of illegal secondary activity involved with a gang war.

  “Boss will want to see a body,” Norman said. “Until then, fuck off.”

  “Norman, shut the hell up!” Clifford said.

  “The offer is five hundred K,” I said. “That’s cash.”

  “At least that much was taken from us,” Clifford said.

  His numbers were a little off—or Bruce’s were—but I decided not to note the difference publicly.

  “I got some of that, too,” I said. “But that money’s dirty. Probably the FBI has every other serial number written down. I want five hundred K fresh. I don’t care where you get it. Twenty-four hours from now, I want a response. Or I keep all the money, piss on your colors, and drop your paperwork off with the first Johnny Law I see.”

  Clifford shook his head. “No disrespect,” he said, and I actually felt like he meant it, “but you won’t see a dime and I’ll probably be killed for not killing you. Then you’ll have Ghouls on your ass until the end of time. Every Redeemer in the country will have a target. No one wins here.”

  “The Banshees do,” I said, because I hated to admit it, but it seemed like Clifford had a valid argument. “This is probably what they want. We kill each other over their job. They practically led us right to Bruce Grossman in the first place. How long did it take you? A day? Two? I’m gonna guess that house fire out in the Glades wasn’t an accident.”

  “We walk out of here, we never saw you,” Clifford said.

  “That what you told Nick Balsalmo?” I figured I’d play that card, particularly since it wasn’t like Nick Balsalmo was some undercover operative. He was a drug dealer, which meant that by definition, he knew people. “That guy wasn’t terrible. But I saw what you guys did to him. That didn’t look like a nice transaction.”

  “I got a kid,” Clifford said. He showed me his hand. I wondered if he was also showing me his hand metaphorically, if this was how he got out of every sticky situation. Who’s going to kill someone with a tattoo of their baby daughter on their hand?

  “Just let me shoot them,” Fiona said.

  Well, there was one person . . .

  “You’ll be looking for my girlfriend, anyway,” I said. “We’re already at war. You just didn’t know who you were fighting.”

  Clifford considered my response. It also made sense.

  “A body,” Norman said quietly. This time Clifford didn’t disagree.

  “Proof of death,” Clifford said. “You give us Grossman’s body, maybe the boss will listen, work something out, save us all a lot of problems. You bring us his head, we can do business.”

  “His head is gone,” I said. “He’s not in a lot of big identifiable pieces.”

  Both men nodded with an odd sort of personal reflection. This was shop talk. We could have been talking about the best oil to use in our choppers for all the emotion any of us displayed.

  “We heard he was missing a finger,” Norman said. “That’s how we’d know who he was, make sure we didn’t grab the wrong son of a bitch. You think you could get that hand?”

  I looked at Sam. This was going to be something he’d need to be in on, for sure. “Duke, you leave one of his hands intact?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, but he didn’t sound filled with confidence. “Yeah. One of them.”

  “All right,” I said. “You two go back to your boss and tell him we’ll drop the hand off at Purgatory tomorrow. Any shit goes down, I blow the building up.”

  “Anything else?” Clifford said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Tell your boss that if he doesn’t like my terms, or crosses me up, or tries anything shady, I got a guy who is pretty handy with a pair of bolt cutters sitting outside Cindy Connors’ house right now and wherever she goes, he goes. Forever.”

  “You got a name?” Norman said. Suddenly he was Chatty Cathy.

  “No,” I said. “I’m just a Redeemer.”

  I rolled my chopper back about a foot and so did Sam. The Brothers Gluck now had enough room to move, but nothing to make moves with.

  “She gonna shoot us if we take a step?” Clifford said.

  “No,” I said. “But watch your kneecaps. And when you get outside? Try to be quiet. I don’t want one of my guys to get jumpy and accidentally cap you both.”

  I watched Clifford and Norman walk back down the hall. When they got near to Fiona, she smiled at both of them. “Tell Clete he should have let me use the bathroom,” she said. “And that it’s not polite to call women names.”

  Neither said anything, which was wise.

  Once outside, they climbed into their Camaro and drove off slowly. No shouts. No curses. No shots.

  “That was fun,” Fiona said. Her face was flushed and a little sweaty. I’d seen that look on her face before, but not from this angle.

&n
bsp; “Yeah,” I said.

  Fiona brushed past me, essentially rubbing most of her torso against my right arm in the process, and made her way to the wet bar in the living room. “I’m dying of thirst,” she said.

  Once she was out of direct earshot, I turned to Sam. “You know where we can get a human hand?”

  Sam exhaled through his mouth. His eyes bulged a bit, but apart from that he didn’t seem unduly bothered by the question. “I got a buddy I can call,” he said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Might be hard to find one with a missing finger.”

  “We can work around that,” I said.

  “We?” Sam said.

  “Fiona can,” I said.

  I heard rustling behind me and turned to see Fiona in the middle of the living room with a bottle of rum in her hand. “Cocktails, anyone?” she asked.

  14

  As a rule, Sam Axe didn’t really care for the sight of dead bodies. Spend enough time in the military, particularly if you happen to be one of those people who gets called to do the jobs no one else wants to do, and the chances are you’re going to see a few bodies. There’s no good way to depersonalize the experience. A human being is a pretty unique animal and even if you don’t see a part of yourself in every person that passes you on the street, subconsciously you make that connection. It’s what keeps most people from killing: simple human empathy.

  And of course Sam had killed people in the course of doing his job. He hadn’t enjoyed it. He didn’t actively seek out the experience. But he had orders and he had to trust in the chain of command. If he was to kill someone it was because someone deserved to die. That’s what makes a good soldier.

  Still, being around dead bodies creeped Sam out. Yet there he was at eight thirty in the morning, just a few hours after dispensing with the Ghouls, in the parking lot in front of the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office. It was a bizarre place to be at any time of the day, but even more so in the morning, since from his car Sam could see the traffic along Northwest 10th Avenue streaming by, no one even really bothering to look frightened. Didn’t they know they were driving by a slew of dead bodies? True, they were driving through an area that was densely populated with medical buildings—Jackson Memorial, Highland Park and Cedars were all over there—but still. Just a few yards away, people were toying with dead bodies!