by Brian Hodge
He pointed at a curbside row of steel poles—parking meters, long since dismantled. Jason’s eyes followed the line nearer the boarded-over storefront. Couldn’t be…three meters still intact?
No. Not meters. Jason’s stomach lurched as he stared. Staring back were three pairs of dead, dull eyes set in withering gray skin. Lifeless mouths hung open slack, and limp hair lay plastered against their skulls. They no longer looked human; they appeared as an exhibit from a wax museum.
“Three of ’em came around here last week, looking for slave labor. We didn’t make the same mistake you did.” Mick grinned admiringly at the severed heads. His own handiwork? Jason didn’t want to know. “I wanna live my own way just as much as you. Maybe more. Now I’m not saying I like you, but there’s enough room for your people and mine. Them?” He pointed southwest. “Maybe not.”
Jason couldn’t take his eyes from the heads.
“If you wanna get into some heavy-duty trashing of those motherfuckers,” Mick said, “then I’m all for it.”
* *
Premeditated murder. That’s what we’ve planned.
Jason watched the ceiling. Enough moonlight trickled into his room that he could see more than blackness. And it was only recently that he could take sleeping on his back, scarred as it was.
Premeditated murder. There was a big difference between killing on the spur of the moment, in self-defense, and creeping up on someone to stick in a knife, or pressing the muzzle of a gun to his ear and pulling the trigger. A giant difference. Not in end results, but in the frame of mind it took to carry it that far.
Mick would talk it over with his people. Check back in two days, he’d said. They’d talk more then. Anybody else from Brannigan’s joining them, Mick had wondered. Jason told him he’d have the answer in two days.
Erika wouldn’t like this, not at all. Aside from the obvious dangers in taking on Travis and company again, her memories of Mick were bound to be less than fond. She’d say I can’t trust him. But it was a clear case of lesser and greater evils. You chose one or the other, then hoped for the best.
Or maybe she knows everything already. Maybe she picked it out of my head like a piece of fruit.
Earlier in the evening Erika had made good on a promise from last week. How was it she’d termed it? Sharing some of her dark corners. He’d been expecting something more earthbound. Prostitution. Crack addiction. Something he could’ve dealt with and put it behind them. But no.
Jason tried to imagine introducing Erika to his mother if she’d still been alive. Here she is, this is Erika, the one I’ve told you all about. The psychic? The one who can’t control the filters in her head? Right, this is the one.
Not exactly traits on most guys’ lists of what they looked for. At any rate, it explained a lot of the unhappiness of her past and her reluctance to talk about it.
But then, was it all bad? Weren’t there plusses, too, if you looked for them? Like the day she’d come quietly in after he’d first tangled with Lucas. Had she somehow known she was the only person he could’ve faced then? Of course she had. Maybe not consciously, but intuitively. No, it wasn’t all bad. And she was trying to get a harness on it, at least. And the rest?
If she can live with what’s inside me, the least I can do is live with what’s inside her.
He watched the ceiling until his eyes grew heavy, heavier. Until the door creaked open, was softly shut. And latched.
She stepped into the moonlight, so he could see her, and know.
“Did I wake you?” Erika said.
“No.”
“I could leave if you want.”
He gritted his teeth and winced as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. There’s no turning back if she stays. I really feel that. He shook his head. “No, don’t.”
Erika moved closer, a small mass of shifting shadows, until she stood by the bed. He grinned at the one-piece velour outfit she wore to sleep in, sort of like footy pajamas for grown-ups. She looked like an elf.
“I was just down the hall, and I was missing you like you were a million miles away.” She took his hand, kissed it. “I can stay?”
Jason drew his hand back, bringing hers with it. “As long as you want.”
“How’s your back?” Moonlight shone through the loose spill of her hair, igniting each individual strand with silvery-blue fire.
“Better every day.”
She nodded. Erika took her hand back for a moment, long enough to draw down the zipper running the full length of her velour suit. She shrugged her shoulders out of it, let it slide down the rest of the way with a whisper, then stepped out of it.
She lay next to him on her side, tracing the outline of his face, softly pressing her lips to his, gently helping him out of the sweatshirt and drawstring sweatpants he wore, adding them to her pile on the floor. Jason ran his hands through her hair, caressed her thin shoulders, palmed her breasts and the taut flatness of her belly. After moments uncounted, with their breath coming quicker, she shifted again and was astride him, small hands spread lightly on his chest. Warmth flowed, ebbing from one to another and back again.
“We have to be quiet,” she whispered, a finger to her lips. “If it hurts your back, tell me. Please?” Erika tossed her hair back with a flip of her head, her breasts edged in moonlight.
He nodded. And knew that even if it reached the point of agony, he wouldn’t say a word. For her sake. She needs to believe in herself again. Jason watched her close her eyes, and she began to sway.
It would get better between them, given time; of this he was certain. But for now, it was still good enough, and it would have to do. There were no regrets.
And for Erika, it was like the first time all over again. Better, even. Because the words I love you finally meant something.
10
When Peter Solomon had places to go and someone to see, people had a habit of clearing out of his way. He had a lean, mean stride, and bent forward at the waist, as if straining to get wherever he was headed just that much sooner. More often than not, he wore a mirthful little smile, as if enjoying the punchline of some inside joke that only he could hear.
Today, though, he wasn’t smiling.
Today there was retribution to plan.
Today they had to nip some ill-considered plans in the bud.
The mysterious and unaccountable loss of three good men last week hadn’t set well with him. Nor with Travis. The trio had been up in north St. Louis on an informal census operation, never to return. Travis had instructed a group of scouts to let their usual duties slide so they could spend a few hours a day making a systematic search up there, see if anything turned up.
Today they’d hit paydirt.
Today the scouts had come back with tales of treachery, seen through their binoculars. A storefront, they’d reported, windows boarded over with graffiti-slicked panels of plywood. A dilapidated brick building squatting amid a forest of squalor. In the distance, the crumbling remnants of a church that had been torn down halfway and never finished, and bare trees clawing at the gray sky. Muscle cars parked out front, though. And three human heads jammed onto steel poles, decaying in silent testament to the fact that, yes, a state of war existed.
And live people, too. Most of them looked as if they belonged here, that they’d grown up in the filth and rubble with rats for pets. But with them had been another, an obvious alien to this blasted landscape. One that everyone at Union Station had already seen bleeding. What possible connection could Jason have with these ghetto rats? The possibilities were few and obvious.
At the same time, Solomon had to admire the young man’s resilience. Solomon remembered watching them string him up, defenseless and vulnerable, and his refusal to scream even once during the ordeal. A few grunts, that’s all they could pull from him. But every lash had kindled fires of rage, Solomon was convinced of
it. And there was the payoff.
Killing him outright would have been the smartest thing to do. He couldn’t deny that. But corruption was so much more of a challenge. So much more sporting.
Travis hadn’t been around to hear the scouts’ report, but Solomon had a good idea of where to find him. Travis was a carnal man, full of hungers, oozing with desires. Lately he’d been satiating them with a woman who lived on the second floor of the Omni. And as he stalked his way to her room, people parted for him much as traffic used to part for an ambulance with sirens going full blast.
When Solomon burst into the woman’s room, he found the air pungent with the odors of sweat and sex and alcohol. Gin, if his nose didn’t lie. Travis was positioned on the bed, behind the woman as she knelt with her face driven into the pillow, her pale back streaked with long red scratches. Solomon witnessed two loud, whapping thrusts before Travis turned to the door. His face clenched like a fist, filled with anger, and then it drained away just as quickly.
Resignation. And understanding.
Sometimes duty came at the most inopportune moments.
* *
The moon hid among clouds, afraid of showing its face. North St. Louis was dark as sin. Twenty of what Travis liked to call his storm-troopers were stationed across the street from the decaying storefront, watching its sporadic comings and goings. The shadows were so thick that Travis and his men might as well have been cloaked in black.
“Look,” he said softly, “I still say if Hart’s involved in this, we should take him out too, once and for all. If he’s too fucking stupid to learn from one lesson, that’s it. Take him out.”
“And you think that’s the best answer this time?” Solomon said.
“Well, hell, you’re the one that first started pointing fingers and saying ‘sic ’em.’” Travis stroked the ten-gauge riot gun cradled in his arms.
Solomon sighed, looking at Travis as a parent might regard a stubborn child. “If you kill him, you’ll probably have to kill a lot more. And they’re all people you can use someday. According to Billy Strickland, they’re cattle. Easily led.”
Of course Travis made valid points, as would any leader of men concerned about keeping his growing empire running smoothly. But the man simply had no sense of gamesmanship. The vermin across the street were expendable, ducks in a shooting gallery, good for a night’s diversion. People like Jason, they took a while longer. Such was the sporting way.
And it was time. D-Day had arrived.
Travis signaled the rest of the men and they began to advance. A handful double-timed in a sweep around back to cover any attempted escapes from the rear. As they approached the building, they were watched by the three grisly trophies atop the steel poles.
Travis gingerly tried the door, wooden and heavy, and found it locked. His riot gun took care of that, and sent a thunderstorm of splinters spraying inward. He was first through the shattered door, then Solomon, and then the rest in a quick-stepping stream. They found themselves in a large room heavy with the reek of pot smoke and cigarettes, sweat and cooked meat. The store’s shelving had been gutted out, replaced with numerous gritty-looking mattresses lining the floor, some occupied. In a corner, a fat boy still slumbered like a bear beside a stack of porno magazines.
Surprise first, then the fear. Almost. One rose from the floor with the mysterious clittering of metal. He stepped forward, short, cocky, eyes ready for a fight regardless of its inevitable outcome. He was closely followed by an Asian kid wearing camouflage pants and a T-shirt showing a skull with a knifeblade angled through the eye sockets. KILL ’EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT ’EM OUT, it said. Who could argue with that?
“Thanks,” the short one said with a curt nod to Travis. “You just saved us a trip.”
He moved with the stealth of a panther. Beside his leg trailed a heavy chain, which he whipped toward Travis’s head in a gray blur.
Solomon stopped it, his arm shooting out and catching Mick’s wrist. The chain wrapped tightly around Solomon’s forearm like a snake, but he didn’t so much as flinch.
He shook his head with regret, a light smile touching his lips, his eyes. “You really need to work on your speed.”
Then he twisted Mick’s arm, savagely wrenching it straight as a plank with the elbow toward the floor. His other hand came arcing up from below, and the heel of his palm connected square with Mick’s elbow with a thick wet snap, and in an instant Mick’s arm was bent at a painful angle nature had never intended. He yelped and released the chain, and his struggles turned his simple fracture into a compound. Bone grated, lanced through the flesh of his inner elbow. It started to drip.
Solomon released the kid’s wrist, then his arm shot upward and his hand clamped onto Mick’s throat. With his good arm, Mick lashed and clawed ineffectually at Solomon—he just didn’t have the reach—and an unhealthy red bloomed in his face as it began to bloat from the pressure.
And Solomon was lifting, lifting, and Mick’s toes were barely tapping the floor, and his legs began to jitter…
And then Solomon reached into one of his many, many pockets, producing a canister the diameter of a flashlight, but only half as long. With his teeth, Solomon pulled a grenade-like pin at the closed end, and the grip began to heat up in his fist…
And just as Mick’s face began to deepen in color, going to a grotesque maroon, Solomon held the canister up before the kid’s head and the contents of the tube splurted out and all at once Mick’s face, his entire face, was one squirming mass of fire.
Another toy from the Colonel Clairmont House of Pain. A single-shot, close-combat weapon discharging a derivative of napalm.
Mick’s legs went electric with motion, and a moment later his hair scorched away like a field struck by lightning. Solomon began to punch him then, free hand now a tight fist and pounding again and again into his stomach, ribs, like a workout on a boxer’s heavy bag. Mick’s face continued to deepen in color, turning a splotchy black. His shrieking hit a fever pitch when the flesh of his cheeks split into red cracks, then began to peel away to expose slivers of bone underneath. Foamy bile surged from his throat in a greenish geyser, splashing over Solomon’s rigid arm, the chain still dangling from it like a vine. His eyelids sagged inward as a viscous fluid spilled from beneath. Mick’s body gave one last tremendous shudder, then hung limp.
It was true, Solomon did dislike needless violence. But it was important to keep one’s self in shape.
For a moment, the only sound was a soft dripping, and even Travis seemed at a loss for anything beyond standing and staring wide-eyed. Solomon heaved the body and its smoking skull against a wall, where it struck with a wet thud and slid to the floor, leaving a wide smear to glisten in the firelight. Solomon unraveled the chain from his arm and let it clatter to the floor.
He turned around, nodding to Travis, hitching a thumb back at the rest of Mick’s people. “Your turn,” he said.
11
Nobody at Brannigan’s had any illusions about Santa Claus making it by that year, but they decided that they could make do well enough on their own.
Pam Patton had spearheaded a raiding party on the store’s own storage areas, as well as nearby shops and vacant homes, turning up Christmas decorations stashed away since last winter. The result was a riotous clash of old-fashioned, modern, and ethnic decor. But no complaints. The fifth floor at Brannigan’s looked brighter and warmer than it had during the entire time they’d called it home.
On Wednesday the twenty-third, Colleen declared a ten-day vacation for the kids from their lesson plans. It did wonders to help weave in a little continuity between this year and the Christmas of last year that would’ve been so vastly different for them. They all made chocolate chip cookies on propane stoves, enough for everybody, an undertaking that lasted all day.
As luck would have it, Julie took sick that same night, slowed down by a wet-sounding cough.
Colleen spirited the six-year-old to her bed and took the heater from her own room, doubling up to ensure that Julie would stay warm enough.
“Little stinker,” Colleen said to Caleb as they met in the hallway. “She went playing out in the parking garage yesterday or the day before, and I’ll bet you anything she didn’t wear her coat.”
“Let me take that for you,” he said, reaching for the heater. “That thing’s half as big as you are.”
“Thanks.” She leaned against the wall a moment and massaged a muscle. Then she led Caleb on to Julie’s room, its walls decorated with pictures of kittens and ponies and Paddington Bear.
“Hey now, this is no way for a little girl to spend her Christmas vacation,” Caleb said to Julie after he’d set the heater on the floor. She looked up at him and grinned from beneath tons of blankets. Could she even move under there? He bent forward to touch her cheek, then brushed his hand across her forehead. A little fever there. He’d have to whip up some remedy for her.
“I’ll be better tomorrow, you wait and see.” She yawned and suddenly hacked hard enough to wet her own chin. Colleen moved forward, but Caleb beat her to it. He plucked a tissue from the box on her bedside table and wiped the mucous away.
“You better be. You don’t wanna be puny for old Santy Claus when he drops by.” Caleb turned and winked at Colleen. “Tell you what, maybe tomorrow you can come Christmas caroling by my room and sing me a song. How ’bout that?”
Julie gave it some serious deliberation. “I know ‘Jingle Bells.’ And ‘Frosty.’”
“How ’bout ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s too long.”
Caleb chuckled. “Okay, you can skip that one. Until then, how ’bout I sing one for you now? Would you like that?”
Julie wrinkled her nose in surprise, but warmed to the idea.
“I bet I wasn’t any bigger than you when my momma used to sing this to me at Christmastime. Here goes.” Caleb took a breath and began to sing “The Holly and the Ivy,” his voice an unexpectedly strong and pleasant baritone.
