Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3)

by J. A. Konrath

  I followed the move by dropping to my knees and swinging my knife hand between his legs. The blade connected and stuck, pulling itself from my hands.

  He was wearing an athletic cup.

  Hugo swung at my head and I rolled to the right, getting back on my feet.

  “What are you protecting, Hugo? All those steroids, I bet you’re the size of a Tic Tac.”

  He no longer looked amused.

  “No witnesses, so I’ll need proof,” he said. “I think I’ll take your head.”

  The giant advanced.

  I stole a quick glance at the shotgun, lying on the floor in front of him. Hugo followed my gaze and walked over to the weapon, bending down to pick it up. The gun looked like a toy in his huge hands. Holding the grip and the barrel, he made like a circus strongman and bent the shotgun in half, discarding it. Then he tugged the knife out of his crotch, and the knife out of his thigh, and pointed both at me, like an ogre waiting for dinner.

  I spit out a glob of blood. My anger was still there, but it was no longer enough to keep me going. Reserves were dwindling. Focus becoming muddled. Despite the encroaching loss, I was calm. Defeat and I were old buddies.

  “Where is she?” I asked my brother.

  “I’m keeping her. She’s broken up pretty bad, but her mouth still works.”

  Hugo had put out the flames on his body, but the fire had spread from the desk, smoke rapidly filling the room now, flames licking up the walls.

  Hugo moved in, snake-quick, and slashed, barely scratching my neck as I pulled away. I punched up, knocking away the knife, and he brought the other one around and stabbed my shoulder.

  I took a few steps back, my legs rubbery, not knowing how bad my wound was, not really caring. The sirens in the distance seemed to get closer. Tom had told me to call him when I found Hugo, and I realized what good advice that had been.

  Earl had been right about the codeine. I’d taken too many. The adrenaline had worn off, and I felt heavy and slow.

  Your last stand was pathetic. He’s going to kill you.

  “He can take a number and get in line,” I mumbled to myself.

  Hugo advanced. I took another step back, my heel kicking something hard and metal.

  The 9mm.

  Clarity came like a jolt of electricity, and I dropped to a knee, picked up the gun, and raised it just as Hugo charged, falling backward as I jerked the trigger fast as I could pull.

  Three shots fired.

  One shot hit.

  Square in the chest.

  Hugo dropped to a knee, like he was going to propose marriage. He looked confused, eyes unfocused, and then a small grin split his face.

  “Look at that,” he said. “Your worthless ass finally did something right.”

  Then he reached into his pocket, threw something into the darkness, and then slumped to the floor.

  I was out of bullets, so I pried the knife from his meaty paw and brought it to the back of his neck.

  KILL HIM! Earl screeched.

  I raised the blade—

  —thought of Pasha.

  If Hugo died, I might never find her.

  Kill him, Phin. You might not get another chance.

  I ignored Earl, got to my feet, and immediately fell over. I chanced a look at my shoulder, and saw the blood was flowing fast. I fumbled with my belt, stripping it off, cinching it above the knife wound. Smoke had begun to collect on the ceiling, slowly making its way down, and I kept low and headed for Kenny’s car. I climbed over the hood, then staggered over to Hugo’s van.

  “Pasha!” I banged on the window, then tried the door.

  Locked.

  I stumbled to the rear, tugged at the tailgate. Also locked. Incredibly, I was still wearing the brass knuckles, and I punched my hand through the tinted back window and then peeked through the hole I’d made staring at—

  Nothing.

  The van was empty.

  A dozen things skipped across my mind at once, blurry from the drugs and the blood loss. Where was she? How could I make Hugo talk? What if he died? What should I do now?

  Sirens got closer, and I saw red and blue lights flashing up the street—

  —and pass us right up.

  Call the cop. Call Tom.

  I patted down my pockets, pulled his business card, squinted at the tiny numbers through a dark night flickering with fire. My thumb wasn’t working right, so I switched the cell phone to my left hand.

  I managed to dial, press send.

  “Mankowski.”

  “I found him. The foundry, in Humboldt Park. Need cops. Medics. Firemen.”

  “Phin?”

  I weaved my way back into the burning factory. The smoke had gotten to waist level, and I couldn’t find Hugo. I crouched down, swatting at the air, sucking in hot ash and coughing hard. Got on all fours, crawling, and saw that idiot gangbanger kid whose knee I’d blown out, dragging himself across the floor. I ran to him, grabbed his collar, and pulled him outside. Then I went back in, trying to remember where I’d left my brother, realizing I’d gone the wrong way, and finding him in the other direction, still slumped over.

  I felt for a pulse.

  None.

  The thought of doing CPR on this animal was disgusting.

  But the thought of losing Pasha was worse.

  I shoved him onto his back, pulled up on the back of his neck, elevating his chin, and stuck my finger in his wet, warm maw, pushing away his slimy tongue. Then I took a deep breath, filled his lungs, and began chest compressions, pushing down with all my weight, hoping I broke the bastard’s sternum as I made sure his heart circulated blood.

  The smoke got lower, and the heat had really kicked up. I thought I heard sirens, but the fire had become pretty loud, crackling and popping and hissing, and I began to think that reviving Hugo wouldn’t matter if we both burned alive. So I grabbed his wrist and began to pull him across the floor.

  It wasn’t like moving the teenager, who slid across the concrete with moderate effort. It was more like moving a pallet of bricks. I had to get on my ass, pull with my arms and feet, then scoot back and repeat the process.

  After a few minutes, the smoke was so thick I wasn’t even sure the direction I was heading. I had my shirt up over my face, which did nothing, and with every tug on Hugo’s dead weight I was growing more and more light-headed.

  I wasn’t going to make it.

  Let him burn. Save yourself.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. Either I got Hugo out of there, or I died with him.

  I suppose I was just fated to die in a horrible way.

  I pushed with my legs, straining until blood vessels threatened to pop in my head. He was too heavy, and I was too weak. The fire hadn’t reached us yet, but the heat was already excruciating. I felt like I was in an oven.

  I took a deep breath, smoke searing my lungs. The fire crackled louder than a woman’s screams.

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture Pasha’s face, hoping to take the image with me, wherever I was going.

  Life had been quite a trip. So much sadness and pain. So many disappointments and regrets.

  But there had been good times, too. Times when being alive was a gift rather than a burden. Times with Pasha, and with Annie, my former fiancée whom I dumped when I was diagnosed to spare her the pain of watching me die. Times with Jack, drinking beer and playing pool and acting almost like a normal human being. Happiness, like tragedy, stands out. What we remember most about life isn’t the day to day routine. It’s the things that happen outside of the routine. Falling in love. Laughing. Vacations. Friends. Lovers. Discoveries and triumphs, and the failures and disappointments as well.

  In a way I was kind of lucky. Because most of my life had been lousy, lousy had become my day to day existence and I didn’t remember too much of it. So the memories that stood out were mostly happy ones, and I had them with me now.

  I took another breath, gagging on its heat. A smile found its way to my lips and sat t
here. Earl was no doubt pissed off, his murder plans being snatched away by the approaching fire.

  I was finally cleansing my body of cancer, once and for all.

  And then the darkness overcame me.

  Someone was forcing steel wool down my throat when I came to. I tried coughing it up, and felt a hand on my shoulder, reassuring me.

  “It’s okay.” A male voice. Jack’s friend, Detective Tom Mankowski. Tough to focus on because my eyes were blurry. “You’re going to the hospital.”

  “Hugo?” I tried to ask, my voice sounding like an AM radio in my paramedic’s oxygen mask.

  “They’re still trying to resuscitate.”

  I turned to see the factory, now a four-alarmer and lighting up the night with a flickering, deadly beauty.

  “Who pulled us out?”

  “After you called, I called the fire department. They got here before I did.”

  I gripped his forearm and croaked out a thanks.

  “Don’t mention it. You going to tell me what went down here?”

  I nodded. “But don’t mention this to Jack. Let me do it.”

  If things progressed like I thought they could, I didn’t want her hanging around.

  The paramedics loaded me into an ambulance. I killed time during the ride to the hospital by passing out again. Upon arrival a doctor with a bad hairpiece checked me over and proclaimed I was suffering from smoke inhalation. I coughed up something black and phlegmy to confirm his diagnosis. Then I got a shot of something and it put me out as they began stitching up my shoulder.

  Morning woke me, peeking in through the split in the curtains and bouncing off every white surface in the room.

  A nurse brought water, and it burned like acid going down my ruined throat.

  Tom came back, asking questions. I answered the best that I could, making sure I didn’t confess to any crimes. I also asked about Hugo.

  “Intensive care. They took out over a hundred pieces of birdshot and a 9mm slug pressing against his left ventricle. He’s also got some burns. He died three times on the operating table.”

  As I’d suspected. The asshole was unkillable.

  “Is he awake?”

  “Induced coma.”

  “I’d like to see him. He has something of mine that I’d like to get back.”

  “What’s that?”

  I didn’t answer. Tom shrugged. “I can arrange a meeting when he wakes up. He has guards on him. We have him for murder in the first. Prints all over the crime scene at your room. If I can get you to see him, do you intend to do him harm?”

  I didn’t lie. Instead I went another direction. “He’s my brother. I was the one giving him CPR, keeping him alive.”

  “I assume you’re also the one who shot him.”

  Tom seemed like a solid guy, but you never admitted anything to cops. “Did you tell Jack?”

  “I didn’t. And I don’t like hiding things from my boss, so you’ll need to fill her in.”

  “I will.”

  He left. But I didn’t call anyone. I passed out.

  It was night time when I woke up. I assumed an entire day had passed. Maybe I needed the rest. Maybe the hospital sedatives didn’t play well with all the codeine I’d taken.

  I checked the clock. A little after 7pm. I found my cell phone in the bedside drawer, in my pants pocket, in a plastic bag. I didn’t have a charger with me, but there was enough juice to make a call.

  I didn’t call Jack. I called someone else.

  “That you, Gina? I knew you wouldn’t stand me up.”

  “It’s Phin, Harry.”

  “Again? Dude, I’m on a date.”

  “I’m in the hospital.”

  “Yeah, that cancer thing is a real downer. Look, I gotta keep the line open in case my date calls.” He lowered his voice. “She’s into butt stuff, Phin. Really into it. This lady can actually tie a knot in a rope using nothing but her rectum. I’ve seen it. I even kept the rope. Want to see the rope?”

  I didn’t want to see the rope. “Look, Harry, I need a big favor.”

  “No problem. I’ll hook you up with her after I tap that. Bring some rope on the date. It’s something to behold.”

  Conversations with Harry were always a tightrope walk between excruciating tolerance and vowing to never talk to him again.

  “A gun, McGlade. I need a gun.”

  “I can give you a name. Guy works out of his grocery store. He’s expensive, but his stuff is good.”

  “I need it delivered. Right now.”

  “I don’t think he delivers. His mother just fell down the stairs, broke her ass. Can you imagine breaking your ass? It that actually a bone? The ass bone? I should ask Gina. I bet she’d know. She knows everything ass-related. She’s like some kind of ninja ass genius.”

  “Harry, Pasha got kidnapped.”

  He shut up for a moment. Harry knew Pasha, and liked Pasha. He’d even saved her life once.

  “Shit, Phin. What can I do to help?”

  I gave him the quickie explanation, and Harry told me he’d stop by later that night.

  “You tell Jack?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t. She’ll get all pissy, and move your brother into protective custody. If Tom hasn’t done that already. He gets pissy, too. It’s like they took an oath to uphold the law or something.”

  “Bye, Harry.”

  I hung up, feeling some tension drain out of me. McGlade was a man of few morals, little virtue, and absolutely no tact. But his word was good, and he’d get me the gun. I tried to convince him that having it delivered in some food or a floral arrangement would be the best way to go, but Harry insisted on bringing it in person.

  You win some, you lose some. I suppose even bad company was better than no company at all.

  It turns out I was wrong about the bad company thing, which was proven to me a few hours later when Harry showed up.

  “Jesus, Phin. You look like a fat guy swallowed you up and shit you out.”

  “You should put that on a greeting card.”

  “Yeah, I should. You smell nasty, too.”

  “Says the guy who wears enough body spray to be flammable.”

  “I like people to know I’m coming. My scent announces my presence. Your particular odor brings to mind filthy hobos. You sitting on the bedpan under there?” Harry lifted up my sheet and took a peek. “Ouch. I hate catheters. It’s a cool look, though.”

  “Much as your juvenile antics fill me with mirth, please just give me the gun and leave.”

  Harry dropped the sheet and pouted like a scolded puppy. He was in the standard Harry outfit; baggy pants, stained white shirt, a silk tie, and the trademark black leather trench coat. His chubby face was covered in several days growth of beard, and his brown eyes glinted like a cherub’s, or like a demon’s, depending on the day.

  “Fine. I suppose you have a right to be Mr. Crabby Pants, being so close to death and all. I don’t do funerals, by the way. I’ll send flowers.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Okay, total candor: I won’t send flowers. But you’ll be dead so you won’t know any better.”

  “The gun?”

  He reached into the shopping bag he’d brought and extracted a blue, smiling teddy bear.

  “Oh look!” he said in a falsetto. “It’s Poopsie Bear! Poopsie Bear wants a kiss! Give Poopsie Bear a big kiss, Phineas!”

  Poopsie Bear bounced against my cheek while Harry made kissy sounds with his lips. Then the kissing became humping my mouth.

  “He likes you,” Harry said.

  I pulled Poopsie bear away from Harry and weighed it in my hands, feeling the heavy lump in his rear.

  “I had to stick the gun up Poopsie Bear’s ass. He didn’t like it. Speaking of, I got no play at all on my date earlier. She shows up an hour late, I drop a twenty on one of those blooming fried onion appetizers—why the hell should a lousy onion cost that much?—and she takes off right after we start discuss
ing safe words.” Harry waggled his eyebrows. “Mine is rutabaga.”

  “How much?”

  “Three hundred. You can pay me later. But sometime before you die would be good. Actually, how about sooner rather than later, based on how you look.”

  “Does it fire?”

  “I checked it. Fakir only had four rounds left, so aim carefully.”

  “I won’t miss.”

  Harry noticed my intensity. “You going to kill him? Make sure you’re thorough. We’re in a hospital. They fix stuff like that.”

  “I need him to talk. To tell me where she is.”

  “And then you’ll kill him.”

  I nodded.

  “And he wants to kill you. You guys are really taking sibling rivalry to the next level.”

  “He needs to kill me to advance in his little neo-Nazi group.”

  “Nazis? They’re still a thing? Didn’t we kick the shit out of them a few wars ago?”

  I frowned. “Hate has always been a thing.”

  “Well, you’re in one of your moods, and I hate spending time in hospitals, so I’m out of here. You know, you can call me sometime when you don’t need a favor. We can grab a beer. Check out a strip club. We should go to Bathing Beauties again. I did the owner, Kahdem, a solid, and he lets me dance on stage. Yesterday I made six bucks in tips grinding to Ice Ice Baby. That’s my jam.”

  “Later, Harry.”

  He made it to the door, then turned and said, “Hey, I got Aliens: The Musical preview tickets for Friday. It’s at the Roscoe, downtown. Matinee. I’m not inviting you for sure, because I asked four other people first, but none of them have gotten back to me yet. So, if you’re free, I can call you like an hour beforehand in case they all bail on me.”

  “Your generosity is overwhelming.”

  “I know, right? You know who plays Ripley? Suzanne Somers. Chrissy from Three’s Company. The lady has a set of lungs on her, but you probably knew that. Her love ballad duet with Hicks, That’s The Grenade Launcher, was a huge hit in Europe. Got to #11 on the Belgian charts. Hicks is being played by Stallone. Not Sly, his brother, Frank. They’re previewing in Chicago before it goes off-off-Broadway. Sucker was practically sold out. So I’ll call you. Still got that cell phone?”