He let go of me and fell off my back. I twisted around and saw him holding his face. I kicked him where his hand covered his nose. I was still crouched, my head swimming from lack of air, not much weight behind it, but it still knocked him backward.
I crawled to him and punched him. His head snapped and his eyes went blank and he dropped like a stone from the sky. I got on top of him and clutched a handful of his shirt and lifted him off the ground and punched him again. His jaw shifted out of place, and he coughed up blood.
I drew my fist back to hit him again.
“Enough.” Yakovna.
I looked back at her. She was smiling.
“You are stupid,” she said. “But you are tough. Perhaps you are Russian.”
I let Mickey Nevada drop and pushed my way to my feet.
Yakovna nodded at Rudolph. “Put away the gun.”
Rudolph looked unsure of the idea. Yakovna cleared her throat. It was the throat clearing mothers used. Rudolph lowered the pistol to his side and let his shoulder slump slightly in acknowledgment of defeat. He knew better than to argue with the woman.
She said to Wilhelm, “Take care of him. No guns.”
Wilhelm walked over to where Mickey Nevada lay. Mickey was in the middle of swimming back into consciousness, pushing himself back upright. Wilhelm came around him and wrapped his forearm around Mickey’s neck and reached around and grabbed the side of his head with his other hand.
Mickey’s eyes opened wide, and he flailed slightly. “What the fuck? Don’t! Don’t! I—”
Wilhelm gave a fast twist, and the crack of Mickey Nevada’s neck was like a gunshot fired in the distance. Mickey’s eyes emptied, and his head lolled to the side, hanging like a weight on a string.
My gut sank. Wilhelm let go of Mickey, and Mickey’s body remained where it was, sitting upright, slumped forward.
Yakovna stepped toward me. I was breathing hard. Partially still trying to get my breath from the fight, partially because no one gets used to watching someone’s neck get snapped like a chicken. If you do, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
She drew a deep hit from her cigarette and blew smoke in my face. “So, Mr. Tough Guy, you and your friend want to work for us?”
As is pretty fucking par for the course, none of this shit had turned out the way either of us expected it to turn out. I needed a new motto in my life: “Fuck but I didn’t expect that shit.” I could get it on a T-shirt.
“Sure,” I said, and pointed to Woody. “You wanna have him kick someone’s ass, too? Prove he’s a tough guy?”
Yakovna gave Woody a long, assessing gaze. I didn’t get the sense the look was only to evaluate his worthiness as a hired minion.
“He looks tough already,” she said. “I’m sure he can handle himself.”
Woody grinned a nanosecond.
“You have a name?” she said.
“Henry,” I said. “That’s Woody.”
“Okay, Henry and Woody. Congratulations, now you work for me. I find out you betray me, I’ll kill you. Otherwise, we should get along fine.”
“Perfect. Anything we need to sign? Nondisclosure agreement? Non-compete clause?”
“Henry, I find out you talk, Wilhelm will remove your tongue, so you don’t talk no more.”
Wilhelm stood next to Mickey Nevada’s body, staring down at the corpse, probably thinking thoughts best left unexplored and not contemplated.
“That how you handle squawkers?” I said. “Cut their tongues out?”
“Wilhelm doesn’t use a blade,” Yakovna said. “He pull it out by hand. But he won’t kill you first.” She flicked her cigarette away and looked around at the Saints. She did that whistle thing with two fingers in her mouth. “Bikers? Who is next in charge now?”
They exchanged looks with one another. This likely wasn’t the way anyone wanted to ascend to the heights of power. It made you aware of how tenuous your own reign might be.
Eddie moved through the gathered crowd of bikers, his hand lifted into the air. “Since none of these other pussies want it, I suppose it’ll be me.”
“Good,” Yakovna said. “This is what we need, is man unafraid to be in charge.” She pointed to the huddled group of Mexicans. I’m not sure how, but I’d almost forgotten about them in the sudden wave of fight club and neck snapping. They stared at everyone with that fear you only understand when your life no longer becomes your own. Children pulled themselves tight to adults, heads turned away. A hard series of sobs—several children, in separate rhythms and volumes—racked through the crowd.
“Get them all back in the truck,” she said.
Eddie waved toward the rest of the Saints. “Come on, guys, get ’em in there.”
The Saints weren’t pleasant with the people. They moved them like dogs herding sheep, nudging them with the barrels of their guns. Women in the crowd screamed and cried and pleaded in words either the Saints didn’t understand, or they and simply didn’t care.
They got everyone into the trailer, shoved the ramp back into place, and swung the huge doors shut, slamming the bolt into place. The trailer walls deadened the wailing and crying, but with a little work and effort, you could still hear it. If I lived through this, I’d always hear it.
Eddie came back around to Yakovna. She said, “Which one of you can drive this thing? We still have to get it to Chicago.”
The biker’s face drained of color. “Mickey was the one who got the truck here.”
Yakovna’s mouth formed a small O as the mortal remains of Mickey Nevada chose that precise moment to tumble forward and collapse, arms flying outward and his body spreading like he was posing. She looked at his corpse and lit a fresh cigarette.
“Perhaps I acted presumptively,” she said.
I said, “We can drive it. The truck with the Mexicans.”
Yakovna said, “You drive?”
I looked at Woody. “He can. He has a CDL.”
She looked at Woody. “Well?”
Woody nodded. “Yeah, I can drive it.”
Yakovna clapped her hands together. “Wonderful. You tough guys, you’ll drive the truck. Rudolph will ride with you.”
“Great,” I said.
To Eddie, she said, “You and the others, you follow us. There’s trouble, you take care of it.”
“That wasn’t in the agreement,” Eddie said. “Deal was us getting you the truck.”
“Agreements change. You ride with us, we pay you double. You good with that?”
Eddie nodded. “Sure thing.” He ordered the Saints to head to their bikes and get ready to haul ass.
I said, “What about the bodies?”
“What about them?” Yakovna said.
I looked at the assemblage of corpses we had racked up in a despairingly short amount of time. “You’re just leaving an orgy of evidence here for cops.”
“Vultures will take care of things.”
“How hungry do you think those vultures are? That’s a lot of dead people to roll the dice on birds devouring.”
“We could burn them then. You want that job?”
“Hell no.”
“Then shut up and drive truck. The bodies we deal with later.”
Yakovna headed back toward the pickup with Wilhelm and Rudolph, talking in hushed whispers, which I suppose all whispers are hushed, aren’t they?
Woody dug his hands into his pockets and sauntered toward me. He pulled his cigarettes out, offered me one, and took one for himself. We traded off lights from the end of his match and breathed in blessed clouds of carcinogens.
“The reason they don’t care about the corpses is because they’re planning on killing all of us once we get to Chicago,” he said.
“That was my thinking also. No other reason they’d take us on our word on being tough guys.”
“Kicking Mickey’s ass was impressive.”
“It was.” I tapped at the truck. “You know how to drive this fucking whale?”
“I am certified to f
ly aircraft up to and including a 747, as well as military helicopters. I’ve driven an armored personnel carrier through gunfire in the Middle East. What I’ve never done is drive a twenty-five-foot box truck full of human beings.”
“Then this’ll be fun, won’t it?”
“Oh yeah. Tons.”
A car pulled up to the gate, and the driver honked his horn. Two of the bikers jumped off their Harleys and ran to open the gate.
A Chandler County sheriff’s cruiser drove up onto the lot and pulled to a stop next to the Jaguar. Deputy Holland Oates stepped out of the car, an expression on his face like he had been served a shit pie on a silver plate.
“Ain’t that all convenient as fuck,” I said.
“I suppose it depends on your definition of convenient,” Woody said. “I do not get the sense he’s here to simplify things.”
“Holland Oates would do his best to complicate a circle jerk.”
Woody raised a finger and looked as if he was about to say something when I said, “I don’t know what the hell it means, either. I just wanted to be witty.”
Woody nodded. “Good effort.”
“Thanks. Better than your bullshit about billy goats and blowtorches.”
34
Oates took his deputy’s hat from his car and set it on his head, adjusting it until the brim was even with the horizon, and scanned the area. He saw us and narrowed his eyes and walked in our direction, moving his right hand to his gun.
Woody tensed next to me, and my hands coiled into fists. Oates broke into a dash, then Yakovna yelled, “Deputy!”
Oates squealed to a stop, stirring dust and digging his heels into the ground. He had worked up a hard breath, and he wore his anger like a cheap suit.
“Deputy!” Yakovna said again, this time sharper, with a weighted sternness.
Oates turned toward the Russians. “What the fuck are these assholes doing here?”
“They are new employees,” Yakovna said. “We are always looking to expand, hire new talent, right?”
Oates’s gaze bounced between us and the Russians. “Have you lost your goddamn mind? These two motherfuckers are nothing but instigators. They’ve been on our asses since that fight at the Dew Drop.” Something seemed to snap into place in Oates’s mind, and he did a slow spin, looking around the interior of the impound lot. “Holy hell, woman. Why in the ever-living fuck is half of Chandler County dead and piled up here?” He looked at her. “Is there anyone you didn’t kill?”
Yakovna waved her hand at Rudolph. He handed her a cigarette and lit it. She smoked with slow, cool intention. “You, Deputy Oates. You, I have not killed, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
The words hung there, and Oates seemed to consider their impact, and found them sufficient to shut the fuck up.
Yakovna smoked more. “What do you want, Deputy? Can you not see we are very busy right now?”
“The stacks of dead bodies are a goddamn good indicator you’ve been working hard. I came to tell you how you’ve got trouble coming on you faster than greased shit sliding out of a goose’s ass.”
“You are so colorful, Deputy,” Yakovna said. “Perhaps you’ve read Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. You share their love of language.”
“I haven’t got time for you to be condescending, Yakovna.” He jerked a thumb toward the Saints. “These dumb fuckers killed the trucker and left him headless alongside an overturned 18-wheeler, and the state police just found the dead biker at the tow yard. They’ll put two and two together and be on the lookout for the Saints and anything near them, so I hope your plans don’t include the Saints taking that truck to Chicago.”
I pulled a drag from my cigarette. “Goddamn shame living in your old man’s shadow, ain’t it, Deputy? Or did you want to prove you had a set of balls all your own?”
Oates threw me a passing glance that meant I wasn’t worth his time or effort at the moment.
“Asshole, that you’re still breathing means something,” he said. “It means I’ve got enough respect for the law not to bury you alive the way you deserve.”
I stared at him. I worked to hold back a snicker, or a laugh. “Well now, aren’t you the man-eater?”
The way Oates’s temper rose, you saw it all over his face. His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed and he tugged at his ear and shifted his body toward me.
Yakovna caught the signals also, and said, “Deputy, you will stop right now.”
Oates shot a look toward the Russians. He could come at me like a bull out of a gate, but Rudolph might shoot him before he got very far, and then Wilhelm could dry-hump his bleeding corpse where it lay. I was more than okay with shooting Oates, but even he didn’t deserve Wilhelm turning him into a love puppet.
Oates took a deep breath and stepped back.
“Not sure how you think you’ll get this truck where it needs to be,” he said. “The cops will be all over you.”
Yakovna and Rudolph exchanged looks. Wilhelm dug at something inside his ear canal, then sniffed the end of his finger. Gave it a lick, went back to digging.
Whatever Yakovna and Rudolph agreed upon, it didn’t require words. Instead, he opened the trunk on the Jaguar and pulled out three automatic weapons. Submachine guns. He threw one to Wilhelm and handed one to Oates.
Oates stared at the thing like he expected it to transform into a snake at any moment. “What the hell do you want me to do with this?”
The Saints were noticing the action, mumbling among themselves, eyes darting around. They pulled pistols from inside their cuts, keeping themselves tense and ready.
Yakovna walked over to Oates and leaned in close. “You will kill the bikers, then go in the truck, kill the Mexicans,” she said. She looked at Woody and me. “You can kill them, too, if you wish. If not, we take them back, put them to work.”
Oates shook his head. “Fuck you. I never signed up to murder anyone. I sure as hell won’t slaughter defenseless people.”
“You think the Saints are defenseless?” she said. “They have guns. Perhaps they shoot you before you get them all.”
“Is that your idea of making the situation sound better?” Oates said. He pushed words out through gritted teeth. “When the Saints wanted help with the trucks, I never had a problem with that. I didn’t like what they did with Jimmy, but I understand it’s business. But this isn’t okay. I’m not a part of this.”
Yakovna shrugged. “Business isn’t static, Deputy. Rudolph can kill you also, you don’t like things.”
Rudolph looked at Oates with the same expression a doll considers the future, staring out with vacant eyes, like glass orbs shoved into his skull.
I said to Woody, “You think they’ve forgotten about us?”
He smiled. “You wanna make a run for it?”
Rudolph spun in our direction and unleashed a wave of gunfire just in front of us. It kicked up dirt and showered us with rocks.
Woody and I did a jump-step backward, throwing our bodies against the side of the truck. A cacophony of voices screamed from the back of the truck. I checked to make sure my feet were where they should be, and in one piece. They were. Success.
“Stay the fuck where you are,” Rudolph said.
My heart tried to hammer its way out of my chest. “Sure thing, Vlad,” I said with shortened breaths. “We’ll be hanging out right here.”
The gunfire stirred the Saints to attention. They brought their weapons out into the open. Getting ready for whatever might happen next.
Eddie came off his ride and approached Yakovna. “What the fuck is happening here?” he said. “You people got my guys nervous, you all shooting off guns and whatever else is going on.” He eyed me and looked back at Yakovna. “You got any plans on us hitting the highway?”
Yakovna knocked an inch of ash off her cigarette. “Don’t you worry your pretty face, biker boy. Soon we will be on our way. I’ll make sure you’re paid for your time.”
Eddie looked at Oates. “Deputy? You okay over there?” A be
at. “Holland?”
Oates turned away from him. Wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t, I guessed. A town like Raineyville, they were probably two men who had known one another for years. There was no way they couldn’t have crossed paths a thousand times even before their lives took on their own courses.
Oates lifted his head and let his gaze meet Eddie’s. “I’m fine, Ed. Thanks.”
Eddie smiled a guileless smile. “You still wanting to ride this weekend?”
Oates responded with a smile of his own, this pained, aching expression. “Sure thing. Sounds great.”
Eddie nodded and mounted his motorcycle.
Yakovna shook her head. “Always with this weakness, you people have. Soft for friendships that matter nothing.” Her eyes shifted toward Rudolph. “Do this. Now.”
Rudolph stepped around them and brought his weapon into a firing position.
35
The rock was next to my foot. Fist-sized, awkward, and not aerodynamic in the least. But it was what I had.
I bent down and grabbed it from the ground, drew my arm back, and chucked it with all I had.
The thud as it struck Rudolph upside the head sounded solid, like hitting a thick-trunked tree. It happened as his finger squeezed the trigger, and his body tumbled to the side, sending the volley of gunfire into the air.
Rudolph stumbled like a drunken ostrich, his finger still on the trigger, the gun still firing. It was an awkward dance number, the albino tumbling backward as gunfire spat around us.
The Saints got the hint and took off toward the gate.
Wilhelm spun around and opened fire on them. Bodies dropped off motorcycles as bullets cut through them. Eddie got hit. The motorcycle raced out from underneath him, and there was a split second where he seemed suspended in the air as his body trembled and shook, then dropped straight down and hit hard.
Friend of the Devil Page 19