by Adam Drake
“What? What is it?”
“Frikken Baldy,” Ethan said, nodding further ahead.
Approaching them down the sidewalk, pushing a cart full of cans, was another homeless man. Unlike Wyatt and Ethan, he didn't have a beard or any hair for that matter as he was completely bald. Other than being known for his naked scalp he was also infamous for being completely insane.
Baldy spotted them and waved, a wide grin on his dirty face.
“Crap, here he comes,” Ethan said.
“He's not all bad,” Wyatt said. He didn't mind Baldy as long as he kept his crazy talk down to a low simmer.
“Bad enough,” Ethan whispered as Baldy rattled up to them. “He Baldy! Top of the morning to you!”
“T-top of the m-morning to you, t-too!” Baldy said. His grin grew so comically wide it stretched from ear to ear.
“Morning, Baldy,” Wyatt said, nodding. He gave Baldy's cart a once over. It was jammed full of cans, even more than what Ethan and he had dredged up that morning. Crazy or not, Baldy always knew where the fattest dumpsters could be found.
“D-did you see the p-plane?” Baldy exclaimed, excited. He blinked frantically as if he couldn't believe the words he was saying.
“Huh?” said Ethan.
“Th-the p-plane that crashed!” Baldy said and pointed to the southeast.
All of them looked in that direction. High buildings and tall trees blocked their view of any crash.
“I don't see nuthin,” Ethan drawled. He didn't bother hiding his impatience.
Wyatt shrugged. “How do you know a plane crashed?”
“S-saw it coming d-down,” Baldy said. “Into the d-downtown area.”
“Uh-huh,” Ethan said, turning to Wyatt. “Let's get going. We still need to cash these in and go eat.”
Baldy looked confused, but didn't protest as both men steered their carts past him. “M-maybe we should h-help,” he called after them.
“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Ethan said.
Wyatt said, “Cops will take care of it, Baldy, don't you worry. Oh, and don't bother fishing the next alley up. We already cleaned it out.”
Baldy nodded enthusiastically, but didn't move. He watched them as they walked on.
“Why did you say that to him?” Ethan asked, scowling.
“I don't want him finding that body. Who knows how he'd react.”
Ethan scoffed. “Hell. How do we know he wasn't the one who put him there?”
“Baldy? He wouldn't hurt a fly.” Mentally, Baldy was like a little kid and Wyatt did his best to look out for him. He just couldn't be around him for too long. That stutter drove him up the wall.
Ethan shook his head. “You can't read people at all, then.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Cause Baldy has the crazy eyes. He's killed before. You can tell.”
Wyatt shook his head, but didn't want to argue with Ethan, the eternal cynic.
They pulled off the street and into the next alleyway, a part of their route. Fourteen dumpsters eagerly awaited to be pried open like virgins on their honeymoon.
“Hopefully there won't be any bodies in these,” Ethan said with a wry grin.
“Bodies?” someone said from behind them.
They turned.
Three scary looking young guys emerged from behind a fence where they'd been drinking beer.
“What bodies are you talking about?” said the taller of the three.
Icy fear washed over Wyatt. He didn't need to see the symbols tattooed on their hands to know who these guys were. He recognized each of them.
Feral Kids.
CHAPTER THREE
Nate
Approaching a getaway car always made Nate more nervous than it should. If someone wanted to ambush him, this was the perfect spot to do so.
Unger giving him this job, and assigning the idiot Morse to do the ground work, gave Nate pause. Maybe Nate was the job, or meant to be rolled up with it.
He tried to shrug away his doubts. Hitman jitters.
More shouts, this time from all around him.
“My God! That plane!” a man yelled from his yard, pointing. He'd been trying to start his lawnmower, but it wouldn't cooperate.
Nate kept his head low, concentrating on the sidewalk. Can't have people identifying him a block from a triple homicide. He needed to keep a low profile until he got some distance. Tough to do when you're over six feet and built like a Russian shot putter, but he did his best.
Another block, and more people began to emerge from their houses and apartment buildings, adding to his nerves. Some looked in the direction of the huge plume of smoke which now spiraled upwards from downtown. Others gaped like fish in confusion.
You'd think everyone would be tired of planes crashing into buildings after New York, he mused. Yet, this was also a good thing for him. Now their focus, and memory, would be of the plane crash, not of the large hitman who tromped past their home.
He approached a T-intersection where a bunch of cars and trucks had suddenly decided to park in the middle of the street. But as he got closer, he noticed that nearly all of them were mashed up against one another, side panels and bumpers dented, headlights shattered.
Drivers and passengers yelled at each other. Small crowds formed at the street corners, ogling the mayhem.
Nate kept walking. Why hadn't he parked closer? He shook his head. No, that would have been stupid. The rule was golden. For a stealth job, always keep your escape vehicle at least two blocks distance.
As he marched past the fender-bender carnage, a thought struck him. Why weren't there any sirens? No emergency vehicles racing to the scene. In fact, he didn't recall hearing any earlier after all those crashes.
He glanced southward. The thick pillar of smoke had grown larger stretching up into the sky. Maybe everyone was down there?
A half-block later he had to walk around a minivan that had jumped the curb and was perched over the sidewalk. A man sat in the driver's seat, his door open. He was cursing as he tried turning the key in the ignition over and over, but the engine appeared dead.
Nate noticed several vehicles similarly parked – up on sidewalks, in the middle of lawns, facing the wrong way in the oncoming lane. People cursed or looked confused, or both.
A skinny guy with a beard stood outside another minivan which sat on the low concrete meridian in the middle of the street. Two brats cried inside. He frowned at his smartphone, pressing at it angrily.
Mr. Beard spotted Nate walking by. “Hey! Can I use your phone?”
No, but I got two bullets that'll solve that crying problem of yours, Nate wanted to say. Instead, he shrugged, non-committal, and kept going. Mr. Beard turned to yell at his brats.
Normally, he would have been annoyed, even alarmed Mr. Beard had made eye-contact with him, noticed him. But with all the strange chaos he doubted he was the most interesting thing people would remember that day.
Consider this a gift.
He imagined a prosecutor questioning Mr. Beard and pointing in Nate's direction. “Do you remember seeing this man on the morning of the fourteenth?”
Mr. Beard gave it some thought. “The fourteenth? The day that plane fell out of the sky? Wasn't that just terrible? And I couldn't get my phone to work!”
Nate chuckled at his own humor.
He spotted his car parked up ahead in the shade of some trees. Children played in a park nearby, a man threw a frisbee for a dog to chase.
No one else was around. Not anyone that might pop him one, anyway.
As he walked up to the driver's side, he glanced around one more time. Then he quickly unlocked the door and got in. After closing the door, he placed both hands on the steering wheel and took a deep breath.
Why was he so nervous? This certainly wasn't his first rodeo, he understood nearly every job made him a little apprehensive. But this one felt different. Was it Morse's sloppy scouting job, or the fact he got himself stuck working for Unger the idiot?
> No. Something else.
He peered through the windshield. On the opposite side of the street a couple were standing on their lawn alternating their gaze from the black pillar of smoke to the phones in their hands.
Something was wrong. An amorphous thing he could not explain. And not just with the cars...
Curious, he stuck the key into the ignition and turned it.
Nothing.
He tried again. Same result.
“Ah, come on!” he said. After several more attempts it dawned on him that the seatbelt warning light hadn't blinked on. In fact, nothing on the dash lit up, as if the battery was dead.
Great, he thought. Now what? He was a couple of blocks from three people murdered by his own hand, with no way of making a quick escape.
He started to get angry and turning the key over and over again didn't help.
Giving up, he fished the phone out of his pocket. It was a disposable dumbphone, not a smartphone like all the idiots used. Can't get a GPS on a dumbphone.
He thumbed a button, but the screen didn't turn on. He tried again. Nothing. He tried different buttons. The phone was dead. Yet, it had worked earlier.
Now he got really angry. Whatever effected everyone else had killed his car and made his dumbphone even dumber.
At least he didn't have to put up with Unger texting him with moronic questions.
Yes, the job is done, you twit. And no thanks to your flunky, Morse!
He pictured Morse's fat face as he bashed it in with his fist, over and over. Breaking the nose, knocking out teeth, causing his eyes to swell over and bruise. “There were people in the house!” he wanted to scream at him.
The thought made him feel a little better, soothing him.
With a sigh, he looked around. Okay, now what?
The couple across the street went back inside their house. The children kept playing, oblivious to the craziness of the day.
Feeling warm he opened the door wide and propped his booted feet up on the concrete curb. He tried his dumbphone again to no avail.
Maybe he could steal a different car? This one wasn't even his, so why not grab another? But what if its battery was dead, too? How many cars would he go through until he found one that worked?
Could this get any worse?
The back of his neck prickled, and he scratched at it.
A shadow passed over him.
“Everything okay?” a female voice said.
Nate looked up, squinting.
Blue uniform, badge, and a holstered pistol.
Ah, crap, Nate thought.
A cop.
CHAPTER FOUR
Wyatt
“Did I stutter or something?” the Feral Kid asked. “When I ask a question, you answer.”
Wyatt and Ethan gaped at the three thugs. Their sudden appearance in the alley caught the older men off guard. They'd never run into the Feral Kids on their rounds before. Usually, this particular kind of scum avoided residential back alleys.
Ethan froze up, his mouth working, but without any words spilling out.
Recovering from his surprise, Wyatt tried to look unimpressed. He knew the Kid who spoke. Went by the name Casket, of all things. He wasn't the big boss of the Feral Kids, more like a Captain. But assigning ranks to these kind of wild animals was giving them too much credit.
“Your name is Casket, right?” Wyatt asked.
Casket looked at Wyatt and sneered. “Yeah, that's my name, old man. What's yours? Dopey?”
His two friends chuckled. One had a scar across his chin and the other was missing all his upper teeth.
Casket grinned. “I mean, really, look at you two. You're like oversized dwarves or something with those beards, pushing your carts to go do some mining.”
More chuckling from his friends. Wyatt noticed a large knife handle sticking out of Casket's waistband. Probably a Bowie-Knife judging from its size.
Wyatt very much wanted to get up in this punk's face. Take him down a peg or two. But he didn't think Ethan was up to the task of a fight. So he kept any insults to himself.
“Look,” Ethan said, holding up his hands. “We don't want any trouble. We're just doing our rounds. We'll get out of your way.”
Ethan started to push his cart, but Scarface blocked him.
Casket said, “What was this shit you were talking about? Bodies?”
Maybe these guys did it, Wyatt thought. Made sense. Here they were a block away from where one of their own was stuffed in a dumpster. Or maybe they were out looking for him?
Either way, it spelled bad news for him and Ethan. These guys were looking for a fight, now that they had prey in their sights.
“We were talking about the plane crash,” Wyatt said. He hitched a thumb southward. “The one that hit downtown. Lots of bodies. Understand, now?”
Casket blinked at Wyatt's explanation and shook his head. “What plane crash? There's no crash. You're just babbling shit so we don't stomp your ass.”
Okay, Wyatt thought. So this is on. The icy fear faded away, replaced by anger. These guys expected an easy target. Well, with him, at least, they were in for a surprise. He tensed up.
Ethan's mouth sputtered to life. “Hey, we were just talking shit, you know. Heard about a crash. Maybe there is, maybe there ain't. Bodies, no bodies. We don't give a shit, we just want to go on our way.”
Casket glared at Ethan and pursed his lips, acting like he was considering what Ethan said. “You know what, Sneezy, you're right. But if you want to pass, you got to pay a toll.”
“Yeah?” Ethan said, skeptical, but relieved. “No problem. We got, uh, bottles and cans. Take what you want.”
Casket nodded. “An interesting offer. But I'm not interested in your crappy shit, or your carts.” He took a step closer to Ethan. “How much money you got?”
Oh, damn, Wyatt thought. Here we go.
“Money?” Ethan said glancing at Wyatt.
“Yeah,” Casket said, glaring. “Cold hard cash.”
Wyatt's temper grew red hot. “We work hard for what little we make. Besides, if you're going to extort us for pennies, do it after we've cashed in at the recycler, genius.”
Casket's eyes widened and flexed his hands into fists.
“Not a problem,” Ethan said, desperate to diffuse the situation. “Lemme just see what I got-.” He didn't get to finish.
Casket's arm shot out and struck Ethan in the face.
Toothless was closest to Wyatt and made a move toward him, but Wyatt was already in motion.
From his pocket, Wyatt produced a pair of brass knuckles, having slipped them on while he was talking. He connected with Toothless' forehead as the young man tried to dodge away.
With an audible thunk, the Feral Kid dropped to the ground, out cold.
Ethan, for his part, was doing a valiant job of stopping Casket's fist with his face. Casket was raining blows on him over and over, driving Ethan backwards.
Scarface charged at Wyatt and tried to tackle him. Wyatt pushed a cart in his way and Scarface rammed into it, losing his balance.
As the Feral Kid tried to avoid falling, Wyatt cracked him in the nose with the brass knuckles. Cartilage crunched and Scarface's head snapped back. He dropped to the ground squealing in pain and holding his face.
Wyatt turned to Casket.
Casket had Ethan up against a fence, but turned to face Wyatt, once he realized his two friends were down.
As Wyatt closed in on Casket, the Feral Kid whipped out the knife from his waistband. So it was a Bowie-knife.
Casket held it out daring Wyatt to get closer. “God damned Ninja-Hobo, huh?” he said, sneering.
Scarface and Toothless had recovered enough to stand, and they hobbled over to hover behind their leader. Neither looked as if they wanted to keep fighting.
Casket glanced at them and then to the determined look on Wyatt's face. He came to a wise conclusion.
“This isn't over, shitheads,” Casket said, then slashed at Ethan's side. T
he razor-sharp blade easily cut through Ethan's shirt and made a deep gash. Blood gushed from the wound.
Ethan shrieked and peeled away from Casket to fall to the ground.
Wyatt saw red and took a step closer to Casket, but the knife kept him at bay.
“We'll finish this later, Dopey.” Casket said, then the three of them turned and fled down the alley, vanishing around a corner.
Wyatt knelt beside Ethan. “Are you all right?”
Ethan's face was cinched up in pain. “No, I'm not all right! That bastard cut me!”
Wyatt looked at the wound. “He got you good, it looks deep.”
“Feels pretty deep to me!” Ethan howled.
“Just a sec,” Wyatt said, and went to his cart. He fished around for a few moments then came up with a small first-aid kit.
He returned to Ethan and opened the kit. Inside was a roll of gauze and some cue-tips.
Ethan managed a laugh. “Great. You can clean my ears as I bleed out.”
“You are not going to bleed out,” Wyatt said. He rolled up the gauze and gently pressed it against the wound. “Hold this here a second.”
Ethan sputtered some curses as he held the gauze to his side.
Wyatt grabbed a long thin scarf from his cart. “Sit up, will ya?”
“Sheesh,” Ethan said, leaning forward. “You're gonna have me moving cinder blocks, next.”
Wyatt wrapped the scarf around Ethan's stomach. “Okay, exhale.”
Ethan blew out an exaggerated breath then grimaced in agony as Wyatt tied the scarf over the gauze, holding it in place.
“Oh, sweet Jesus that hurts,” Ethan said, sweating profusely. “Where did you learn to do this? Were you a combat medic in a former life?”
“Everything I know I learned from t.v.,” Wyatt said, avoiding the other man's gaze. Everyone had secrets. He leaned back and looked Ethan over. “That should do for now.”
Ethan wiped at his face, smearing blood over it. “Okay, now what, Ninja-Hobo?”
“I'll go get you some help,” Wyatt said. “Find a phone and call for an ambulance.” He turned to go.
“No, don't leave me here!” Ethan said, wincing in pain. “What if those idiots come back?”
