Highfire

by Eoin Colfer

  “I’m all the way up for shitcanning the old deal, if that’s about the same thing?” said Squib, keeping up the belligerence ’cause it seemed to be working for him.

  Vern grunted, which signaled the end of his tether might be approaching regarding Squib’s attitude. “Seeing as you saved me, I’m gonna upgrade your contract. One-time offer, mind, and no negotiations. You keep running for me while Wax is under, and I’ll pay you one fifty a week plus a performance bonus if I don’t have to pull you up over tardiness or the like. Wax looks after the cash, seeing as I got nothing but gold, so we settle up when he claws his way through the patch. You keep tally.”

  “And you won’t kill me?” asked Squib.

  “Not unless completely necessary is about as far as I can go with that.”

  Squib chewed on this. “And if it is completely necessary, then just me,” said the boy. “You’ll leave Momma out of it.”

  Vern reckoned he could do that, so they shook: dragon and boy.

  Well, holy shit, thought Squib, feeling the dragon’s tough, scaly fingers wrap around his so he couldn’t even see his own fist no more. Now here’s something I wasn’t expecting the summer to bring.

  Which was more or less what Vern was thinking.

  After a long contemplative moment, the dragon asked, “Say, boy, you surely know how to make a martini, you working in a bar and all?”

  Chapter 11

  SQUIB HOPPED TO HIS DUTIES A LITTLE SMARTER THE REST OF JULY now that there were wages at stake, and Vern, for his part, showed up most evenings for a chinwag, though on some occasions he still kept himself to himself. Squib relished these little talks with the dragon, as he reckoned he was the only human on God’s earth engaging in such conversations and looked forward to the day when he could share his secret with Charles Jr., or maybe even get himself on James Corden, who was one funny Downton Abbey cheeky servant-type guy.

  Squib pitched up at the shack one evening with an old calendar he’d picked up on eBay the previous week but had never found the right moment to pass over. He wasn’t even sure if this was the moment, but Vern spotted the curled edges poking out of the grocery crate. He plucked the calendar out, had a quick peruse, and was appalled.

  “What in the name of God’s balls is this, son?” he said, flicking through the summer months.

  “That? That is a genuine dragon-fetish calendar,” said Squib, squaring six bottles of Absolut away in the refrigerator. “You would not credit the amount of ladies perving on dragons. It’s like a fetish or some such. They call themselves Scalies, can you believe it? Goddamn Scalies. Look at them, getting all hot and bothered over some guy dressed up as a dragon.”

  Vern laughed. “You remember that time recently when I was gonna kill you, boy? I feel that time coming around again.”

  “Come on, Mister Vern. These are pretty ladies.”

  Vern settled into his easy chair. “Not to me, kid.”

  This raised a question for Squib. “How come if human ladies are so ugly you wear those Flashdance T-shirts with the picture on ’em?”

  Vern winked. “That there is a martini question, boy.”

  “Everything is a martini question with you, Mister Vern.”

  But Squib wanted the answer, so he mixed the dragon his cocktail in a peanut butter jar, olives and all, and waited while Vern took his first sip.

  “Not bad, kid.”

  “So, what is it about Flashdance? That movie was nothing special.”

  Vern growled, embers wafting from his nostrils. “You hush your mouth, boy. That was an inspirational movie. The woman goes after her dreams. She gets there in spite of everything.” His eyes lit up. “And her main job is welding. She works with fire, get it?” He purred and closed his eyes. “What a feeling.”

  Squib was skeptical. “That’s it? She works with fire? That’s your big connection?”

  “Well, not entirely,” the dragon admitted. “There is that moment when she’s on the chair. And the water comes down.”

  Squib knew that moment. It was still teenage boy top ten, even after all these years. “Yeah, but she’s a human—we’re ugly, right?”

  “That’s true, Squib, my boy, but when the sheets of water hit Jennifer Beals in silhouette, if a guy hits pause at the right moment and maybe squints a little, then it almost looks like she’s got wings, and maybe a tail. And goddamn if she don’t remind me of a Chinese lady dragon I spent some time with up on Mount Sagarmatha. We melted some snow on that peak. Cold as hell, but worth it on that occasion. I could tell you about it, but I better not on account of you being a minor.”

  Squib helped himself to a Pepsi from the cooler. “I reckon a guy would have to practice a lot with the pause button to get that effect.”

  “Years,” said Vern. “Decades.”

  HOOKE WAS NOT twiddling his thumbs while all this dragon-boy heart-melting stuff was going down. That was not the Regence Hooke way, especially with a potential murder charge hanging over his noggin like the sword of Damocles. Hooke knew all about the sword of Damocles because his pops liked to reference it whenever the pressure of running a failed storefront ministry was too much for even the bourbon to alleviate.

  One time he’d charged into Regence’s bedroom in the early hours, raving like a jonesing tweaker. “You ain’t got no idea,” he shouted at the bleary teen. “You ain’t got no idea the strain doing God’s work puts on a body. Even the Lord Jesus Hisself tried to wriggle out from under it. But there ain’t no escaping the sword of Damocles, boy. It hangs over me every second of every day. And the instant I weaken, down she comes.”

  Hooke checked out this famous sword and found that it wasn’t even mentioned in the Bible. Some Greek guy invented the whole thing to make a point.

  Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben said it better: With great power comes great responsibility.

  And more serious consequences too, I guess, the young Regence thought.

  Still it gave him a notion, and one night while his poppa had his drunk on, Regence suspended his hunting knife from the ceiling fan over the passed-out pastor’s bed, using a string of Plasti-Tak rolled real fine.

  The knife hung there glittering with each revolution, but it didn’t fall until Reverend Jerrold rose to take himself a piss. His pops never noticed a thing. He never heard the thunk. Never saw the boy sitting cross-legged in the rocking chair.

  Balls, thought teen Hooke, retrieving his knife. I guess Poppa lives to preach another day.

  Now Hooke felt that metaphorical sword over his own head. Maybe “sword” was too strong an image. Maybe “mosquito” was better. Squib was an irritant, nothing more. Something to be dealt with. Hooke was confident that if he stayed on his path, solutions would keep presenting themselves as they always had, until they didn’t. That was how life worked and there wasn’t no point fretting on it. A fella fixed his eyes on the prize and kept going until some greater power decided enough was enough and called a halt.

  So do you believe in God or not, Regence? Hooke often asked himself.

  And the answer to that question varied, depending on his mood. Often it boiled down to something along the lines of: I believe in God enough to hate Him.

  A conclusion which made Hooke smile.

  BUT SQUIB. SQUIB Moreau was behaving just like that one mosquito that proved impossible to catch. Most skeeters hovered around, legs dangling, just waiting for the rolled-up magazine that would flatten them. But there was the occasional insect that seemed possessed of more smarts than the rest of his species.

  What was the word for those guys?

  “Pesky.”

  Squib was proving pesky.

  Of course, Hooke could simply wait on the dock and lift Squib straight out of his precious pirogue any day he felt like it, but there was more in play now. Squib was working for Waxman. Maybe that deformed old coot knew more than he should. Maybe Squib Moreau had confided in him, or in his other boss, Bodi. Maybe Squib had whispered tales of crooked constables to his mother, or his pal Ch
arles Jr.

  Goddamn ripple effect, thought Hooke, and laid his plans.

  Which were as follows: take a few days’ personal time, just as his doctor had suggested, and dedicate himself to tailing Squib Moreau, military-style.

  Hooke was pissed off that he was being forced to exert himself to tie off a loose end, but better safe than sorry.

  Also, he was pissed that he was taking sick leave when he had planned to fake an illness later in the year to attend a dark web sniper camp in the Ozarks.

  Squib’s gonna lose a lot more than a finger this time around.

  THERE WASN’T NO need to go full military, not really, but truth be told, Hooke enjoyed tinkering with the tools of his trade, and he didn’t get too much opportunity in Petit Bateau. Occasionally he would stake out a moonshine operation or a pot farm, but that was state police business, and Hooke didn’t want to draw any attention by playing hero local cop, so he generally just kept watch to see if there was anything in it for him. The previous year he had been so bored that he started blowing up meth labs. The plague was creeping into Petit Bateau and drawing in the sheriff’s office, which was hampering his own operations, and so Hooke decided the best thing would be to help those crystal chefs carbonize themselves. Simplest thing in the world to put an incendiary round into a gas tank and let the phosphorus do the rest. Hooke retired three industrious swamp factories in half a year, and then called it a day before some eagle-eyed deputy smelled something off. Turned out he’d done enough and the crystal meth addiction flowed back downriver to New Orleans like a saltwater tide.

  When Hooke thought about that campaign, it was so unlikely that he sometimes wondered if he’d dreamed it.

  Fun dream.

  So truth be told, Hooke was content enough to take his kit from behind a panel in the boat shed and let loose his soldier sense. And if the opportunity arose to feed Squib to the gators, so be it, just so long as nothing could be traced back to him. It would be a cosmic joke to get out from under one murder rap just to land right under another one.

  Softly softly catchy monkey.

  You said it, Colonel.

  The first night was strictly remote recon, but what he observed was enough to convince Constable Hooke that he was definitely on the right track. He set himself up nice and comfy on the flat roof of his boat shed and trained his night-vision monocular on the Moreau dock.

  Let’s go, Squib, he thought. Ain’t you got a job to go to?

  And Squib did.

  Soon as his momma set out for the bus stop, Squib was pottering around on the decking, loading cargo into his boat. Looked like regular groceries. Hooke could see the little bastard clear as day through his scope.

  Look at that eager beaver, he thought, all happy in his labors.

  Hooke felt a millisecond of jealousy. What must it be like to be happy for a few minutes every day?

  Nah, he thought, fuck that. Happiness ain’t no kind of motivator.

  But Squib did look happy, dancing around to some tune in his head. And Hooke was offended by this and contemplated shooting the kid there and then, but the revenant of Faraiji stayed his hand.

  Patience, Sergeant. We must gather intelligence, not destroy it.

  And so Hooke left his rifle in its bag and kept watching, chewing a Cuban and looking forward to sparking her up. But not yet.

  Down on the Pearl, Squib cast off and started his engine right there in the cut-back. Nice watercraft, Hooke had to admit, and it occurred to him that should Squib prove sufficiently bent, he would be an ideal replacement for Willard Carnahan, being a swamp guy through and through. But Hooke quickly dismissed the notion. He was done with swamp guys. They were unpredictable and slaves to their appetites, not to be trusted. Hooke was aware enough to realize that he himself was inherently untrustworthy, but he preferred his own subordinates to be loyal.

  If that ain’t irony, it’ll do until something better comes along.

  Hooke bit a chunk from the end of his cigar and sucked on it like chewing tobacco. He was warm, and that didn’t feel right to him.

  Seems like if a soldier is on night surveillance, then the desert chill oughta be keeping that soldier frosty.

  Except this wasn’t Iraq and he wasn’t a soldier no more.

  Below him on the water, Squib did not navigate cross-river, as expected; instead he stuck close to the Pearl’s fringe of reeds and set his course downriver.

  Downriver, thought Hooke. Toward Honey Island. Where that grenade somehow reversed its own trajectory. Where someone bore witness to me gutting Carnahan.

  This was an interesting development, and a positive one. Could it be coincidence, or could it be that Hooke had struck gold on the first try?

  Is Squib my guy?

  It sure would be good to plug that leak.

  And there might be a most welcome side effect. In Hooke’s experience, grieving parents dropped their defenses way on down. A heartbroken mother might do just about anything for some strong arms to comfort her.

  Hell, I could even pin Squib’s murder on some fall guy and present myself as a white knight.

  Regence had enough self-awareness to realize that offing a kid and dating that kid’s mother was about as coldhearted as a guy could get, but it didn’t bother him none. In point of fact, he was kinda proud that he hadn’t yet arrived at the limit of his callousness.

  I guess the colonel was right and I’m one of them sociopaths, thought Hooke. Like Spock.

  He had taken an online magazine test once, to find out just how sociopathic he was, and was delighted to score in the top five percent, right up there with the big-business boys.

  Hooke had lost points because unlike most sociopaths, he did actually have a very focused life plan and he learned from experience.

  I’m a sociopath who thinks ahead, thought Hooke, smugly. King of the crazies.

  When Squib’s canoe meandered around a bend in the river, Hooke lit his cigar and enjoyed a quiet smoke, thinking how pleasant it was being up here, watching the world, visualizing his focused life plan rolling out.

  Squib. Ivory. Metal pipeline.

  It occurred to Hooke that the most valuable blocks in Conti’s infrastructure were the pet law enforcement officers.

  Shit, we don’t need nobody but ourselves. All those gangster types are more trouble than they’re worth.

  What he needed to do was lay waste to Ivory’s hub of operations and then reach out to the police on his payroll.

  Those cops will already be hooked on blood money. Shouldn’t be none too hard to tempt them over to Team Regence.

  HOOKE WAS ON his third cigar and was feeling the raspy effects in his throat when the monocular picked up Squib, maybe ninety minutes later, tacking cross-river toward Waxman’s place.

  I love this night vision shit, thought the constable. There ain’t no place to hide.

  Even at a distance of maybe a thousand yards, Hooke was able to count the fingers on Squib’s left hand, which was wrapped around the tiller.

  Four digits. All present and correct.

  And the constable smiled to himself remembering the night of Squib’s misfortune.

  Dynamiting catfish. That boy sure has his dumb spells.

  The pirogue was riding a little higher in the water, so Hooke reckoned whatever cargo he’d ferried downriver had been delivered. There was a small sealed drum in the prow which hadn’t been there before, so the boy had obviously picked it up wherever he’d stopped over.

  What’s in there? Radioactive waste?

  Probably nothing much. Bait or salt. Probably Squib was just checking his traps and dropping off a few groceries for some swamp bachelor. Probably.

  Still, probably wasn’t definitely, so best to keep a lookout.

  Could Squib be running some kind of operation? Was Waxman dealing in contraband, if anybody even used that word anymore? These were all questions that needed to be answered.

  This is my water, Hooke thought. I am Regence, king of the Pearl River, and no
one runs shit through here without my say-so.

  Even thinking like this made Hooke grin. He had options now. He could take out Carnahan’s inflatable and motor across to Waxman’s boathouse, have a little word with them both.

  Or.

  Or he could follow some more, increase his stock of information. After all, it was a lot easier to surveil a subject if a person had an educated idea as to where that subject was going.

  HOOKE SET UP farther downriver for the second stakeout. This time he went full bush and spent the day weaving some cover into his old sniper veil.

  Shit, he thought, all nostalgic. How long has it been?

  Truth be told, the veil probably wasn’t necessary, but Hooke enjoyed the feel of the netting in his hands, and if he was honest with himself, the camo cloak made him feel powerful, gave him a little edge. It had always pleased him to deliver death remotely because he imagined his targets’ last thought to be, What the fuck?

  If all the guff his pops had spouted was true, then the victim’s soul would be levitating toward the heavens still looking around for who the hell had shot him, and Hooke would be there all invisible in the brush. Sometimes, if the op zone was completely clear, then Hooke would flip the bird skywards just to add insult to mortal injury.

  Hooke wasn’t actually a scout sniper by trade or rank, but he’d taken it up for some freelance work in-country, mostly for Faraiji. He wasn’t the worst from five hundred feet, but after that his vision let him down some. Slight presbyopia, the eye doctor told him. Apparently he had trouble bringing things into focus.

  Like the future, thought Hooke. But I’m working on it.

  Hooke took one of Bodi Irwin’s rental skiffs out on the river. The craft was built with a draft so shallow it could float in a bathtub, and an aluminum hull so light any idiot tourist could drag it off a sandbar. He left the boatyard late afternoon, looking for all the world like a recuperating cop taking advantage of a mild day to dip a line in the Pearl.

  I got all the trappings, don’t I? thought Hooke, one hand on his tackle box, which was filled not with lures and spinners but with batteries, bullets, and grenades from Carnahan’s stash.