A Bone to Pick

by S A Ison

  “No, sir. Them old bitches just crumbled.” Mike’s hands were deep in the pockets of his baggy pants and he rocked back and forth on his scarred boots. Clearly, Mike was pleased with himself.

  “Good. See? Take care of it fast and hard and it shuts them down cold. Okay, onto new business. I want you to start building up a base of shills. Here is a list of pharmacies they’ll be visiting. Make sure they have their paperwork in order. If you want to move up in this organization, you’ve got to diversify. You’ll need to hop on over to see John Hoyd. He not only has a string of girls but handles the pharmacies and he’ll tell you what your shills will need. Make sure you keep them straight and in line,” Leon admonished sternly.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ellsworth!” Mike said enthusiastically.

  Leon waved him out of the room. Good, Mike listened to orders and took out that squeaky wheel. The rest of the citizens in the neighborhood should fall into line. If Mike could get a decent number of shills for his pharmacies, that would add to the bank and the bottom line. Shills were a funny lot. Weak. They wanted the oxy bad and they would do stupid things that made them vulnerable to exploitation. Combine that with having a few doctors in his pocket and, well, that just made things too easy. Leon had learned long ago how to exploit weaknesses and he knew how to read people too. He too understood the art of motivating people to do what he wanted.

  Dr. Kevin Winter was a prime example. The good doctor was a pedophile and once caught, was now under Leon’s control. Winter could be exploited on many levels. Leon hummed a pleasant tune at that thought. It was so easy. You just had to know the right buttons to push, the right people to threaten, and also the right people to carry out those threats. When someone saw you were willing to kill their kids or grandkids, well, they just fell right into line and did what you wanted.

  Maybe he could have Mike turn those old women into shills? Old people had aches and pains. Perhaps he’d have Mike start those old bitches to do his work.

  A nasty grin spread across Leon’s handsome features. They’d been a big enough pain in the ass. It was time to turn those tables and make them pay. He was sure after Mike had taken out the loudmouth, the others would fall into line very quickly. He snickered. So easy.

  §

  John Hoyd and Harlow Duncan sat in the Jeep, watching their women work the streets. They were the salt and pepper team of Leon’s enterprises. Both men had grown up in the same foster home; they’d been inseparable.

  “Mike came to see me this mornin.’ Mr. E gave him the go ahead to start collectin’ shills. I sent him to seven of my pharmacies to scope out new talent. Mike finally nutted up and killed that old bitch,” Hoyd said, pulling the toothpick from his lip, so it didn’t fall.

  “Yeah, I was wonderin’ when that boy was gonna grow a pair. Sheeiiittt. Lettin’ that bitch get away with shit, didn’t make him look good. That made Mr. E look bad.” Duncan pulled at his scraggly red beard.

  “It’s a new neighborhood and they’s always resistant to new talent. Knockin’ that old bitch out will take a lot of sand out of ’em.”

  “Since Mike got a bump up, you think we might?” Duncan asked, hope lacing his voice.

  “No tellin.’ Maybe. Mr. E is expandin.’ He keeps things on the downlow and ya never know what he’s plannin.’ I know he’s pushin’ some of the competition out. Maybe we can get our own pimp. Have him work for us and we go the executive route,” Hoyd said.

  He watched the sixteen-year-old girl as she walked toward a car. Good, she’d been resistant to working, but after he’d beaten the hell out of her she’d become more compliant. Hoyd had taken a strap to her, couldn’t muss up the face. He’d beat her until she’d bled across her back and ass. She hadn’t given him any more trouble after that.

  He sighed. Sometimes you just had to work ’em over ‘til they did what they was told. The young girl got into a blue car. It pulled away and disappeared around the corner. He had to stay on top of the girls. They’d all be paying Doc Winter a visit; Hoyd took his girls every other week. He had to make sure they were clean. The girls weren’t particularly fresh, but they were young and that was what men liked. He and Duncan ran twenty girls between them. It was hard work and they’d had to keep diligent, but a little oxy went a long way into keeping them under control. An occasional beating with the strap helped as well.

  He shook out a cigarette and offered the pack toward Duncan, who declined. He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag, holding the smoke in his lungs until it burned pleasantly. He tilted his head toward the open window and blew the smoke into the humid night air. He thought about Mike and a smirk twitched his lips. Mike was young and had worked on several of Leon’s crews. The white boy was an up and comer, but he’d stutter-stepped with the old woman. At least the kid listened to Leon. Leon ran a tight ship. He had to because his legit side was squeaky clean. All them white folks looked at Leon as though he was Denzel or somethin.’ Hoyd guessed you could get away with a lot of shit if you were good looking enough and rich enough. Mr. E was both.

  §

  It was just after one in the morning when Hellen pulled into Vivian’s driveway. She got out and walked to the garage door and lifted it up. It screeched a bit but not too badly. Although Vivian didn’t have a car, she kept the garage neat as a pin. Hellen pulled in, Widget complaining the whole way. She shut off the car and then closed the garage door. She found the light switch and turned it on.

  “Geez, we’re here. Can you stop your crying now? Honestly, Widget, I want to kill you and my werewolf wants to eat you. And I mean that in the most loving way.”

  Hellen lifted the cat carrier out of the car and unlocked the door that connected the garage to the kitchen. She reached in and hunted around the wall until she found the light switch. She set the cat carrier down and opened it. Widget shot out of the kennel and across the room.

  She would need to set the cat box up first thing, and find the garage door opener and put batteries in it.

  Walking into the kitchen, Hellen turned on another light. She could hear the cat calling from somewhere in the house.

  “I know, Widget, it sucks big time, but you’ve got the whole house to explore.”

  Hellen walked back out to the car and retrieved the empty cat box, along with a box of litter. She found a suitable place and filled the cat box, lest Widget found her own place to go potty. Satisfied that the cat had her proper pooping place set up, Hellen went back to the garage. She began to unload her car, first taking the vehicle’s camouflage off. She shook her head when she heard Widget meow from the kitchen door. She glanced over her shoulder at the cat, who was now scratching the doorjamb. Marking her territory, Hellen understood that.

  The drive from Atlanta was relatively uneventful. She had taken a slightly circuitous route, choosing secondary roads for part of her journey, so her vehicle would not be caught on cameras. Then she got onto the interstate and made good time for a while. She then took some of the rust decals off her vehicle and changed plates. She set her spare plates in the drawer of a worktable at the far end of the garage, along with the various decals. She would change those out along with the license plates when she went on her recons.

  Next, she pulled out her equipment and took those to the spare room, her old room she used when she visited. Hellen could smell the stringent cleaners the women used; it permeated the house. Her wolf shifted uneasily. The house was spotless, no sign of the vicious murder committed here. Her heart squeezed and she experienced that uncomfortable and unpleasant malady again. It was growing tiresome, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  She walked to Vivian’s bedroom and turned on the light. She swallowed hard, that shitty sadness trying to come up and suffocate her. Dammit, she hated it. It hurt, hurt to her soul, and she wasn’t used to that.

  The bed was made with clean linens and the walls were wiped down, though there was a pale streak, a barely visible stain. Blood was a tricky thing and hard to get rid of. It was sticky and the iron in it made i
t difficult to erase. She scented the air and picked up the telltale odor of blood. That was okay, it was there as a reminder of what she needed to do.

  She sighed and went back to the car where she retrieved her luggage and a bag of groceries. There were a few cold things in the ice chest and she fished those out and put them away. She found a can opener, opened a can of food for Widget, and placed her food bowl on the floor along with a water bowl.

  Hell took her suitcase to her new bedroom and fished out her pajamas. She’d unpack the rest in the morning. She was tired and slightly frustrated with her diminished stamina.

  It wasn’t as bad as it had been six months before. She could barely walk a mile back then. She thought perhaps it was the mental pressure of the situation that fatigued her. Even her wolf was quiet. She wasn’t used to all these emotions that were swimming through her.

  She pulled the coverlet down and crawled into bed. She could tell the pillows were new and she frowned. She wiped angrily at a tear and pushed the emotions down. She needed rest and she needed to put her emotions on hold for now. Emotions would do her no good right now and would only serve to rouse the werewolf.

  Widget jumped up on the bed and Hellen turned and switched off the lamp on the nightstand.

  Widget purred loudly and Hellen listened to it as the cat moved about the bed looking for a place to settle. She reached her hand out and the cat’s head found its way into the palm of her hand. Hellen closed her eyes and concentrated on the cat’s purring and the feel of the fragile skull in her hand. When she got up in the morning, she would sort out her gear and things. She would have to get the women together and get the ball rolling on this operation.

  Hellen sighed and shifted onto her side. The feline settled in the back of her knees, and within a few minutes, both were asleep.

  The next morning, Hell sat at the small kitchen table that was next to the tiny kitchen island. One of her laptops was sitting in front of her as she sipped her coffee. She would get started with reconnaissance, then she would reconnoiter the neighborhood and find out where Mike lived. She wanted to keep violence out of this neighborhood. That would draw law enforcement like a magnet because her sister’s murder was fresh on their blotter. She’d find Mike and take care of him on his ground. Then she’d take care of them all. She lifted her cup and sipped. Her fingers flew over the laptop keys.

  Widget was under the couch and Hellen saw the cat’s large celadon eyes were dilated with mischief.

  “You might as well come out. This is your new home for the unforeseeable future. Sorry, we just have a lot of business to do here. Those fuckers are gonna pay though. Don’t you worry, Momma will end them.”

  The fat cat pulled her way out from under the low furniture.

  Hell closed her laptop and went out to the car. She pulled out her wigs; they were expensive and she was careful with them. Most were for her work and she had a few from when she’d lost her hair. She wasn’t wearing a wig now, but when she went out into public, she would be. She placed them in Vivian’s closet and glanced at her sister’s clothing. Hell nibbled on her bottom lip, her hand straying to touch the clothing.

  She’d have to do something with those, but it could wait. She saw the uniform bags and opened them up. Inside were dress blues. That niggling sadness was trying to work its way out again and she swallowed hard, wiping at her eyes. Hell was annoyed more than anything. She knew that she lacked the empathy and sympathy that most people had. She understood that it was because as an infant, she never received that important human touch. She knew this, but had never really understood it.

  Now, because of the pain that kept bubbling up, she was starting to get an inkling. This pain at the loss of the one and only person in the whole world who’d ever cared for her was cutting her. Besides her parents, who were now long dead, Viv was her only connection to the world of emotions. Her father had died some twenty odd years ago, and it had only been Vivian after that. Now Vivian was gone and Hellen was alone in the world. There was the twinge of hateful pain again. It was like a splinter in her heart and it was sore and it was painful. If it were up to her, she’d just rather not feel that. But she did, and so did her wolf.

  She went to the spare bedroom and retrieved some of her gear and took it back to Vivian’s room, hiding it within the uniform bags. She doubted the police would bother with her. When she’d called Detective Lure this morning, he had no leads. No surprise. He said they’d keep working it, but there was nothing left at the crime scene that would lead them one way or another. Good. She would make sure he never connected her actions with this crime. After all, drug dealers and scum died all the time, and quite violently too. Wasn’t that the thug life? Sure it was. And if a body was torn up by an animal, well, that had absolutely nothing to do with Vivian.

  Hell sighed happily at the thought and so did her wolf.

  Going back out to the car, she got her box she called her treasure box. It held small mementos from all her kills. A few teeth, a few pieces of jewelry, and some bones. She even had four dehydrated eyeballs. Those were special. Each bit and piece in the box had meaning to her. From the six in Seoul, she’d taken something very special. She’d cut the bellybuttons out of each, while they were alive.

  They were shriveled up now, she’d dried them. She picked them up and looked at them. She rolled them in the palm of her hand. They didn’t look like much, but they’d been very important to her. She looked down at Widget, who was ramming her head into her leg. She put the hardened dried skin back into the box and set the box in Vivian’s closet, high on the shelf. She picked up the cat and kissed her head absently, petting her as well. A sneaky long black claw extended and scratched the cat’s head before retracting. She giggled. The werewolf was very close to the surface nowadays.

  She finished unloading the car and unpacked her suitcase. She placed her things beside Vivian’s clothes. She was suddenly tired and felt a heavy weight on her shoulders. She would shower and then perhaps take a quick nap. Going nonstop for the last few days and the drive, however uneventful, still taxed her energies. Hellen knew it was because she had become complacent over the last couple of years. She had gotten used to living stagnantly and she was okay with that. Things were different now and she would need to mentally and physically shake off the dust and cobwebs.

  Turning on the shower, Hellen stepped in and let the hot water course over her slender form. She placed her hands on the tile and looked at them. She saw minute scars that she’d collected over the years. Like her treasures in the box resting on the top shelf of Vivian’s closet, these scars were her trophies of surviving her assignments. A few close calls over the years. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Widget sitting on the closed toilet seat, taking her own cat bath, waiting for her.

  Stepping out of the shower, Hellen grabbed a towel and dried off, then looked in the steamy mirror. She hadn’t shaven her head yet and her hair was perhaps half an inch long. There were large areas of bare skin, where hair no longer grew. She turned away and exhaled heavily. She just wasn’t up for a shave. She crawled into bed and Widget jumped up to settle beside her. She could smell her sister’s perfume and the essence of Vivian. She detected the blood. Cleaning products couldn’t always erase that odor, leastways not to a werewolf.

  A savage smile curved on her face. There was going to be a lot of blood. It was gonna take a hell of a lot of cleaning products to clean up after her obliteration of the people responsible for all of this. Hell didn’t play the “what if” game. She was a pragmatist and wouldn’t torture herself with what if she’d come sooner and taken Mike out. It was a no-win scenario and it wasn’t within her to second guess herself and her decisions.

  It was, however, going to be an interesting stay here in Charlotte.

  THREE

  Hellen was jerked out of sleep by the doorbell. She groaned and sat up. Stumbling into the living room, barking her shin on the low coffee table, she cursed under her breath. Her exhausted mind was unused to the furni
ture arrangement. She looked out the peephole and saw Wanda and Nora, grinning like two fools. She sighed, then opened the door.

  Their grins faded when they took in her appearance and Hellen realized she didn’t have her wig on. She still hadn’t shaven her head, putting it off and so had a fine burr that stood straight up. Her head was a patchy black and gray with bald skin shining through here and there.

  “Why the early call, ladies?” she asked, turning and heading into the kitchen.

  She grabbed the pot of coffee, and it was hot. God bless programmable coffeemakers. She searched and found a coffee cup and poured it. She could hear the two women behind her and looked over her shoulder when they said something.

  “What? If you want coffee get it.”

  “We brought you some muffins and some fruit. You know, a welcome gift,” Wanda said nervously.

  Hellen tried to play nice, but she was tired. She understood social constructs and dynamics and could mimic most of them, yet she was too tired to try. She just wanted to drink her coffee and wake up properly. Hellen nodded and walked past the women, patting them on the shoulder awkwardly. She walked to the living room and sat down in a rocking lounger, setting her mug of black coffee down on the side table beside her. Hell waited for the two ladies to make their way to the living room.

  Nora handed Hellen a dish with a napkin and muffin. Hellen nodded to her with a slight smile of thanks. She was not a morning person after the cancer. It took her a bit of time to ease into the day. She never set a specific time to rise after retiring.

  She was out the night before, following Mike. Most of her legwork would be done at night and in the wee hours of the morning. Much of the drug activity was done under the cover of night. The dark hid a lot of sins. If she were to remain invisible, operating at night was imperative. She had gotten close enough to clone the dung beetle’s phone. It was a passive program, but would allow her to see his texts and calls. As long as his phone wasn’t encrypted, which it wasn’t, gathering intel wouldn’t be a problem.