by Paul Heatley
He goes behind the bar, gets himself a drink. “You’ve been awful quiet tonight, Peter,” says one of his buddies, leaning over to speak to him. “Ain’t like you. You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Peter says. “Just tired is all, I guess.”
His friend nods along. “I get that, man,” he says.
There are seven men still in the bar, not including Peter. Some are members of the Right Arm; some are merely affiliates. They’re all friends. They have beers in hand; they’re setting up a table in the middle of the room, getting out the cards. They’ll play poker for a few hours; then they’ll head home for the night. Tomorrow, they’ll do it all over again.
Peter takes a seat as the cards are being shuffled, dealt. He takes another long swig of his beer. It’s taking the edge off, but only a little. He can’t relax, not totally, as he usually would. He’s thinking about his brother, still. Hasn’t been able to concentrate on anything else lately.
He’s deliberated for a long time, but he knows what he has to do. Has to tell the rest of the council of his suspicions regarding his brother. That he believes Steve was the one to call Anthony, warn him that they were on the way. That he’s also sure Steve called the police, sent them out looking for a potential altercation.
It won’t be easy to come clean about this. If Steve had only told him the truth, Peter perhaps would have been able to help him. But he’s lied to him, right to his face, twice now. Like he thinks he’s an idiot. Like there’s anyone else could have helped Anthony. Like Steve truly is loyal to the cause.
Peter knows what they will do to Steve. They’ll get the truth. He won’t lie to them, not when they’re doing to him what they didn’t get to do to Anthony. When they’re setting upon him with blowtorches, when they’re prying off his kneecaps with a claw hammer, when they have his balls in a vice. Peter won’t take part in it, but he can’t deny what his brother has done any longer. Steve has betrayed them all. Peter is loyal to the Right Arm, loyal to the cause of white supremacy. To keep his suspicions to himself is just another form of betrayal.
“You gonna play,” the man to his left says, “or are you gonna daydream the night away?”
Peter forces a grin, looks at his cards for the first time. “Let’s play,” he says. “I hope y’all brought enough cash, boys, ’cause I’m feeling lucky tonight.”
Before he can play his first hand, the lights go off.
“God damn it,” someone says.
“The hell’s going on?” someone else says.
“You gonna go deal with that, Peter?” the man to Peter’s left says. “Could be the fuse box.”
Peter doesn’t think it’s the fuse box. He’s on high alert. He opens his mouth, about to bark orders, to get the others prepared, to let them know something is about to go down, when a window breaks. The sound of shattering glass fills the room. Something rolls across the ground. Peter jumps to his feet. He turns to it, sees it moving. Small and round. Like a grenade. He turns just as it goes off. It’s not a grenade, not exactly. It’s a flash-bang.
The others cry out, blinded. Their chairs scrape back as they either get to their feet or fall to the ground.
Peter is on the ground. He managed to close his eyes, avoid the worst of the flash, but not all of it. He’s perhaps not as badly blinded as the others, but he is momentarily sightless, the flash still going off behind his eyes. He can’t see anything.
But he can hear.
He hears just fine as the shooting starts.
31
Tom wears the night-vision goggles loaned from his father, is armed with the M4 Carbine. He enters through the back door, runs around after he throws in the grenade, kicks it down. There should be eight men inside, including Peter. He kept track of the men coming and going as he waited in his car. Is prepared to allow for one or two extras that may have slipped by. A quick glance of the room, he sees eight.
He starts firing. Headshots, takes them out. The men panic, scream, run blindly, trying to feel their way out and to avoid the gunfire. Tom picks them off, one by one. He sees their swastika tattoos. Their 88s. Their Norse gods and their crossed grenades, their eagles. He focuses on the ones who have guns, who reach for them. Puts them down before they can cause trouble.
One of them dives over the bar, takes cover behind it. He re-emerges with a shotgun in hand. He fires carelessly into the darkness. Tom kicks over the table the men were gathered around, scatters their cards and their cash, takes cover behind it.
The shotgun blasts are wild. He hears another of the Nazis cry out, wounded by his own friend. None of the shots come anywhere near Tom or the table. Tom turns, aims over the top of it. He shoots the shotgun-wielder through the mouth. He drops the gun, goes down.
It’s quiet now.
Tom looks around, through the goggles, counts up the bodies. Seven. One is missing.
Peter. There is no sign of Peter.
Tom turns in time to see him charge. Tom is tackled to the ground by the immense bulk of the man. Peter was more prepared than his friends. He got out of the way, took cover while Tom was shooting. Spotted him in the dark, waiting for the shots.
Tom uses his momentum against him. Rolls through with the attack. They hit the ground. Tom holds onto the front of Peter’s shirt, pulls him in close, is able to flip him over the top of his head. Peter rolls with it, is quick to his feet, attacks again as Tom reaches for the M4. He swings a punch, but Tom is able to block it. He hits hard and fast, tags Peter with a couple of shots to the ribs, another to the solar plexus to drive the wind from him, then raises a leg and kicks him away, creates some separation.
Peter spits out the side of his mouth, catches his breath. Tom can see him clearly through the goggles. He wonders what he looks like to Peter. Just a dark shadow, faster and stronger than expected.
“Who are you?” Peter says, keeping his eye on the shadow, circling.
Tom doesn’t answer. Peter attacks again. He manages to land a glancing blow to the side of Tom’s head, but Tom travels with it, is able to quickly shake it off. He lands an uppercut right under Peter’s jaw, shatters his teeth. He doesn’t go down, but he does stumble back, spitting blood and broken teeth.
“Fuck!”
Peter’s getting frustrated. He’s never had this happen to him before, especially not with someone smaller than him. He’s used to having his way, throwing his weight around. He’s never been in a fight he hasn’t won. This has made him careless, made him think he’s invincible. He cannot conceive of an opponent he may not be able to defeat.
He attacks once again, determined not to be undone. He’s careless now, though. He comes in swinging wildly, desperate to land a punch, sure that at least one heavy punch will put this interloper down, allow him to have his way.
Tom doesn’t give him the chance. He ducks, blocks, does not allow him to land his one desperate blow. Peter tires himself out. Tom strikes, kicks at his knee, blows it out. Peter cries, goes down onto the knee, the one Tom has just kicked out of joint. Peter cries harder; it turns into a scream.
Tom grabs an arm and twists it around his back, wrenches it up until it breaks. Keeps it held behind Peter’s back. He pulls his KA-BAR, presses the blade to his neck. He speaks into Peter’s ear. “You’re going to answer my questions,” he says, “or else I’m going to break all the other bones in your body.”
Peter is in pain, but he does his best to remain defiant. “Fuh-fuck you,” he says. Blood runs from his mouth. The bones in his arm grind together, his dislocated knee swims around inside his leg, pressed to the hard floor.
“I can make it hurt more,” Tom says, slicing the knife a little across his throat, drawing blood. “Who attacked Anthony Rollins?” he says. “Who’s responsible?”
Peter tries to turn his head, to see him, confused. It wouldn’t make a difference if he could, even without the night-vision goggles covering most of Tom’s face. “Who the hell are you?” he says.
“Answer the question.” Tom wrenches
his broken arm up a little higher, makes him scream again. Peter gasps for breath, but he doesn’t answer anything. “Who attacked Anthony Rollins? Who killed Alejandra?”
Something happens then. There is a change in Peter. It takes a moment for Tom to realize that he is laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
Peter continues to laugh, defiant until the end. “You wanna know who killed her, huh? I did. I killed that spic bitch. I put a bullet in her pregnant belly, and I put another right through her fucking face!”
Tom does not react. This is supposed to make him react, to make him sloppy. To get him to make a mistake.
Tom turns Peter around, then stands, kicks him onto his back. The broken arm is still twisted behind him; he lands on it. Peter isn’t laughing now. Tom stamps on his good hand, feels the knuckles and the fingers shatter beneath the force of his heel. He kneels down, onto Peter, pinning his body. The knife is still in Tom’s hand. He presses the tip to Peter’s chest, right at his heart. Peter tries to paw at him with his broken hand, to force him off, but he can’t get a grip, can’t make a fist.
Tom is cool. He’s calm. He’s never been calmer.
He doesn’t need Peter for the answers to his other questions. He can get them elsewhere. Right now, Peter has given him the only answer that really matters.
Tom slides the KA-BAR between Peter’s ribs, into his heart.
He does it slow.
32
Tom isn’t done yet.
He’s left the bar. Set it on fire. As he drives away, he passes the fire engine heading toward it. In the rearview mirror, he can see how the burning bar lights up the night sky behind him, the way the smoke arcs upward, obscuring the stars.
Tom goes to Steve Reid’s house. He parks down the block, goes to the back, to the window where he sees lights flickering. Tom is armed with his Beretta and his KA-BAR. He’s covered in Peter Reid’s blood.
Inside the house, Steve sits at his computer. He rests his face in one hand, taps idly at the keyboard with the other. Looks bored.
Tom goes around the side, to an empty room. He breaks in. Slides his knife under the window frame, breaks the lock. Gets inside in relative silence. He listens to the house. Apart from the room where Steve is, where the only sound is the tapping of the keys, the house is silent. Tom goes to the room, stepping lightly, one foot in front of the other, knife in hand, raised.
Steve does not hear him coming. His ears don’t twitch; he doesn’t turn. Just goes on staring at the screen. Tom doesn’t bother to check whatever it is he’s looking at. From behind, he puts the knife to Steve’s throat. His other hand is at the top of his head. Steve freezes. Tom turns him around in the chair. Steve gulps; his Adam’s apple bobs against the blade. He raises his hands in surrender. He looks up at Tom. His eyes narrow, studying the face. His body goes limp. “You look just like him,” he says.
“Who?” Tom says.
“Anthony.”
“Then you know why I’m here.” Tom keeps the knife at his throat.
Steve nods, just a little, careful not to cut himself. He seems resigned to what is about to happen.
His reaction surprises Tom. He notices how Steve is looking at the blood upon him. “It’s your brother’s,” he says.
Steve acknowledges this with another small nod, but again, he doesn’t seem as upset or angered as Tom would have expected. “How’s Anthony?” he says.
Tom blinks.
“Is he all right? Everyone has assumed he’s survived, but no one knows it for certain. I’m guessing, by your being here, that he did.”
Tom’s eyes narrow. “He’s alive,” he says.
“When I messaged him, I had to send it from a number he didn’t have, in case … y’know … they got him. In case they checked his phone and saw that I’d warned him.”
This part of the story is news to Tom. Anthony did not share any of the details with him. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him to run,” Steve says. “That they knew, and they were coming for him. If they had managed to keep hold of him, if they’d checked his phone, they probably would have worked out that the message was sent by me.”
“What would they have done?”
“Killed me.”
“Even your brother?”
Steve snorts. “The Right Arm are his real brothers. I’m just a nuisance he can’t shake.”
“What happened next?” Tom says.
“When?”
“After you messaged him.”
“I called the cops,” Steve says. “I called them anonymously, told them I’d seen a couple of cars drive too fast around town, looked like they were heading out of it. I thought they were either racing, or one of them was chasing the other. It was a backup, in case they caught up to Anthony.”
“They did catch up to him.”
Steve grits his teeth. “I know.”
“But so did the cops.”
“I’m sorry about the girl,” Steve says. His eyes glisten. “I didn’t know about her. Anthony never told me about her. I didn’t know she was … that they were going to …” He looks like he might be sick.
Tom keeps the knife to his throat, but he’s thinking. “Did you know Anthony was undercover?”
“No, but I wasn’t surprised. We had to spend a lot of time together. He was put with me, dealing. I could tell he wasn’t like the others. He was more like … well, like me. Except, unlike me, he didn’t have an older brother forcing him into this life. I couldn’t understand why he was doing it.”
“Who told the Right Arm about Anthony? Who told them he was undercover?”
“I don’t know,” Steve says, and Tom believes him. “They don’t tell me anything. Nothing important. They just leave me here, and for the most part they leave me alone.”
“Then how’d you know they’d found Anthony out?”
“Peter was here when he got the news. Sometimes he’d come by after work, he did that sometimes, just checking in. Not often, but it happened. That was just one of those nights. He was with me when he got the call. That hadn’t been the case, I wouldn’t have known. And … and I guess Anthony would be dead.”
“So you don’t know where the news came from? Not the slightest idea?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“What about the attack being planned? You know anything about that?”
“Attack? What are you talking about?”
“A domestic attack being planned by white supremacists. Target unclear, reasons unknown, but right now all arrows are pointing toward the Right Arm.”
Steve’s eyes go wide. “Jesus, what … what?”
“But you don’t know anything about that.”
“Like I said, they don’t tell me much. But it sounds way outside the ballpark of the Right Arm, they wouldn’t … I mean, I don’t think … it’s not something they would do.”
“They murdered a pregnant woman.”
Steve lowers his eyes at this. “I guess I thought it’s not something they would do.”
“If it’s not them, what about another cell, someone they know?”
“I mean, I guess, could be. They just leave me here, out of the way. They don’t involve me in anything higher up.”
Tom looks at him. He’s not much to see. Just a skinny boy, looks like he could still pass for a teenager, dragged along in a lifestyle he doesn’t want, all on his brother’s say-so. “Why did you warn Anthony? Why didn’t you just let your brother and the others take him out?”
Steve considers this, chews on his lip. No one knows what he did, so it’s clear no one’s asked him this already. He hasn’t had to think about it. “Because he was my friend,” Steve says. “And a part of me was relieved to know that it was like I suspected, that he wasn’t like the others. To know that I was right about him. I think that’s what I liked about him, why we got along. He could probably see the same in me. And, to be honest, selfishly, I wanted him to get away because that meant maybe the feds would co
me in, force the disbandment of the Right Arm, and that would be the end of it for me, at least for a while. Hopefully a long while.”
Tom needs to decide what to do with Steve. He has two options. Either kill him, or let him live.
Tom looks down at him, the knife still at his throat. His brother’s blood is on Tom’s hands. Some of it has gotten onto Steve’s face. Yet, he doesn’t seem too torn up about any of this.
His phone rings. It’s on the table next to his computer. It buzzes loudly.
“Answer it,” Tom says. “Put it on loudspeaker.” He takes the knife away, leans over, checks who is calling. It’s Ronald.
Steve picks up the phone.
“Be casual,” Tom says.
Steve nods. He answers, puts it on loudspeaker as Tom instructed. “Hey, Ron.”
Tom has to commend him, he sounds calm, like he hasn’t just had a knife at his neck, a threat upon his life.
“Steve, where are you?” Ronald does not sound calm. He sounds loud, worked up, frantic.
“I’m at home. I was about to get to bed.”
“Shit, man, shit …” It sounds like Ronald is doing something else, like he’s distracted, maybe driving.
“Ronnie, what’s up? Are you all right?” Steve looks up at Tom. He already knows the answer. He already knows what this call is about. The tone in Ronald’s voice makes it very clear.
“Shit, Steve, I’m so sorry – it’s your brother …”
Steve raises his voice a little. “What about him? Is he all right?”
“Oh, goddamn, shit, Steve … there’s been a fire at the bar. He’s … he’s dead, man. They’re all dead, all of them inside … Harry says they’re pulling out bodies, but he saw Peter. He could tell it was him …” Ronald sounds like he’s crying.
Steve puts a crack into his voice. “What? Ronnie, what are you saying? What’s happened? A fire?”
“A fire, yeah, but Harry’s been talking to one of our buddies on the force. He’s there; he says something else has happened. Says it looks like the other guys were shot before they caught fire, and it looks like Peter was stabbed. Something else has gone on here, man. There’s been an attack or somethin’. Something went down before the fire happened.”