Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2)

by Jack Lively

  Lights were on in the house. The big window faced out to the smoke shack. The scope was excellent. I could see in there like a kid looking into a doll house. The television was showing a basketball game. I could see all of the details, some more relevant than others. Atlanta Hawks versus the Brooklyn Nets. I had no opinion on that. But I could also see the dark-haired thin guy on the couch, his name had been Jerry. He was lying on the sofa scratching himself idly. No sign of Deckart or Willets.

  The three-quarter angle provided me an additional perspective on the other side. I saw movement in the window of another room. A silhouette moving behind the screen of the roller shade. It was easy to see who that was, the bearded giant. A few moments after the silhouette moved through, the lights went out in that room.

  I swiveled back to Jerry stretched out on the sofa. I focused to the right of the television, into the kitchen. The lights were off, but residual light entered in through the doorway to reveal the sink counter, a mess of beer bottles and Chinese food containers. I could read the label on the box. Golden Lights Wok.

  Looked like they’d torn through that take-out and left no prisoners.

  Two guys verified, neither of them Deckart or Willets. Empty kitchen. Maybe others were home, reclining on beds. Maybe watching other screens. Which meant a measure of uncertainty, which meant I wasn’t going in through the front door just yet. Last time I had been here seemed like a long time ago. Before the killing had started.

  My assumption now was hostile intent. Even if Deckart and Willets had not pulled the trigger themselves, I was sure that they were involved in the arrangement.

  I considered clemency for a moment. The guy named Jerry might be innocent of any wrongdoing. He might just be a roommate. But I’m not a judge, and the law I lay down is different from that of the courts. One way to look at life is as a bunch of choices. Not everything is a choice, but every choice is important. And Jerry had made choices, now he was going to have to face up to the consequences.

  I climbed down. Made it to the yard and stayed behind another big spruce, about fifteen feet back in the woods. I hung the Remington by the strap from a branch on the forest side of the tree. I went into the smokehouse looking for supplies. I found what I needed.

  In Alaska, TV doesn’t come from cables buried underground by a guy with a shovel. It comes from satellite dishes attached to rooftops and linked into electricity from the main supply. I found the link box around the back of the house and pulled out the cable. I stepped back into a dark spot. Jerry would need a minute to track the issue to the outside, which would be moving out of his comfort zone on the couch. He’d probably rather stay in there. But I figured he’d come out, eventually.

  It had looked like a good game.

  Three minutes later the kitchen door opened with a squeak. The screen door bounced back on the spring and rattled against the frame. Soon after that, Jerry came around the corner with a flashlight. He had the beam scanning along where the aluminum siding meets the concrete foundation. Looked like he didn’t know where the box was, and there wasn’t any good reason why he should have.

  When he found the box, Jerry froze up, an understandable reaction. It isn’t as if a cable gets ripped out of a junction box by accident. Of course, by then it was too late. I had the point of my knife blade at the base of his skull. I spoke very quietly, but clearly, so he could understand the words and follow the instructions. My mouth was just behind his left ear. His shoulders hunched up tight.

  I took the flashlight out of Jerry’s hand and turned it off and stuck it in my pocket. Otherwise, he was unarmed. I said, “We are going to talk, Jerry. Quietly. It won’t be pleasant, but you will survive if you are honest.”

  Jerry’s head dropped down on his chest. His voice contained a quiver of fear. He knew that I was not going to be very nice with him. “I have nothing to do with this, with any of it.”

  “With what exactly, Jerry?”

  He didn’t answer. I walked Jerry over to the edge of the woods. “Where are you taking me, man?”

  I said nothing. I needed to know a couple of things, and I didn’t have the patience to say please.

  Thirty-Nine

  The wire spool I had taken from the smokehouse rested at the base of the tree. The gauge had been good enough for the job of hanging fish to cure. The wire was thin steel and strong, and I figured it would be enough for another kind of job, similar, but different. Jerry saw it there, and I could see his head rotating on his thin neck, moving so that his eyeballs could trace the wire up to where it was looped over a branch, and back down again to where I had fashioned a noose. The Remington was hung close by, and Jerry’s eyes settled on that for a moment.

  He started to rattle with fear. When I wrapped the wire twice around his neck Jerry went inert, total paralysis. My foot went into the little noose at ground level, stabilizing the rig. I said, “Jerry, get up on your toes, like a ballerina.”

  He shivered. “What?”

  I said nothing. He had heard me. Since he wasn’t doing it, I did it for him. I grabbed him one-handed by the neck and lifted him about four inches. I looked down and saw his toes just about brushing the ground. I stepped down on the wire wrapped around my foot, like the gas pedal in a car. It had the effect of tightening the steel wire around Jerry’s neck. Now, he was forced onto his toes. I split the balance between Jerry’s neck and my foot. Forty percent Jerry, sixty percent foot. The wire went taut and his head jerked up.

  I said, “I stomp hard enough, your head might come off, no guarantees.” He couldn’t speak, so I released the bite a touch. He was swinging around a little too freely. I steadied Jerry’s body and turned him to face me. He flinched seeing me for the first time. I realized that I must have looked frightening to him, all big and malevolent.

  He was shivering. “So now tell me about you and your friends. Tell it like a story that I can easily understand.”

  “What did I do, man? I have nothing to do with them.”

  I said, “Treat me like a child and start from the beginning. I need to get a feeling for your basic existence, simple as that may be.”

  He looked at me wildly, not comprehending. He couldn’t move his head, so his eyeballs roamed freely in their sockets. I saw something like conscious thought going on in there. Then he tried to express himself. He said, “You mean like what we’re doing here, in this house, like who I am?”

  I said, “Good place to start, Jerry.”

  He said, “We’re waiting for the boat to leave. What do you think we’re doing?”

  “Slowly. Take me through it.”

  “The Emerald Allure. The cruise ship. We work security on the boat. Deckart’s the boss. Technically deputy boss, but he runs the show there. Ship’s leaving tomorrow.”

  “Just the boat, Jerry?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I said, “Tell me about the freelancing. What you and your friends are up to here.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not involved. Deckart and Willets are tight year round. I’m up here for the job is all.”

  “Hard to believe you’re uninvolved, Jerry.”

  “Just let me know what I need to do to prove it, man.”

  I said, “What about tonight? Who bought the food, who ate it? Where did they go?”

  Jerry gulped. The wire biting into his throat made it hard and slow to do that. He said, “Willets brought the Chinese. I bought the beer.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  I had stepped pretty far down on the wire noose, and Jerry was struggling to maintain his balance. He could barely speak, so I eased off a little. Redressed the balance in favor of the foot, seventy-thirty. Jerry managed to croak. “Deckart and Willets are out. They always go out together. I have no idea where. I’m alone in the house with the Viking.”

  I said, “The Viking.”

  “The new guy. We call him the Viking. I don’t even know his real name. He’s Icelandic or something.”

  “You know, Jerry, tha
t if I find out that any of what you are telling me is in any way invented, I will come back and I will kill you.”

  He said, “I don’t doubt you. I’m telling the truth.”

  “Deckart and Willets go out a lot?”

  “Yeah. They go out.”

  “What time do they usually come back?”

  He shrugged. “Man, they go out to the bars. Get back here, I’m already asleep. I guess they get back late, very late.”

  “And why not you?”

  “I’m married, with kids. I’m a family guy. We have a house down in Fresno, California. Lower forty-eight. I’m only up here for the work, man.”

  I said, “Tell me more about Deckart and Willets.”

  He tried to shrug. “Not much to tell that I know of. They were together in the army, served in the same unit.”

  “Which unit?”

  “Military police. Probably dirty cops, if you ask me.”

  I said, “That is a serious allegation. I’m asking you, Jerry. What makes you say that?”

  It isn’t easy to shrug with a wire noose around your neck. But Jerry managed to do it, with his eyebrows. He said, “Just a feeling. I’ve only been working boats with them for three years. You ask me, they’d do anything for money.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. Like shaking people down, intimidation. That kind of stuff. But they didn’t get me involved.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think they trust me.”

  I said, “Which bar do I find them in?”

  He didn’t respond quickly enough, so I jerked the wire. Jerry spluttered and I loosened it to allow him enough wind to speak. “The Rendezvous maybe.”

  “What do I find, if I pay a visit to the Rendezvous?”

  “Pool table. Juke box. Live music sometimes. Like one or two girls, and one and a half out of two are hookers. Deckart and Willets getting into a fight maybe. Sometimes you can find crazy shit up there. Depends. Who the fuck knows what happens out there?”

  I said, “Your friends like to fight?”

  “They’re both psychos. And they aren’t my friends. I just work with them. A lot of guys work up here with psychos, doesn’t make us like them.”

  I said, “Where’s the Rendezvous?”

  “Up past the airport, out of town. You know that road?” I nodded. “You keep going until you get to the end of it.”

  I said, “Then what?”

  “Then you’re there. But you should watch out.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Cause you won’t be in America anymore.”

  I wondered why that was supposed to make me scared.

  I took Jerry back to the house. Holding him like a dog, bent over with the wire noose tight around his neck. He didn’t struggle. I let him go first into the kitchen. In the living room, I hog-tied him on the couch. I pulled a wallet from his jeans. Two hundred and forty dollars in twenty-dollar bills. California driver’s license. Jeremiah Delano Murphy. thirty-two years old. The word ‘Veteran’ was printed in capital letters with a red stripe above, and a blue stripe below.

  I said, “Veteran of what?”

  He said, “Marine Corps.”

  There was loud hearty laugh from one of the back rooms. He looked up at me. I tossed his walled on to the couch, put my hand on the Glock and slipped it out of my pocket. Jerry cowered into the cushions. He said, “Come on, man.”

  I said, “Marines. Always got to go the hard way.” One step to the couch and I nailed him in the side of the head with the gun. Jerry went out like a light.

  I made sure a round was chambered and started back. Another laugh, same guy. Loud and innocent, but deep and rough. A large male, amused. The Viking. There was a hallway off the living room. Bathroom on the left, which was dark and smelled like mold. Straight ahead was an open door to a bedroom. Also dark. To the right was a closed door. Crack under the door was dark, but then I heard another amused snort.

  I toed the door open and flicked the light switch.

  The room was small. Barely space for a single bed and a dresser. The dresser had a mirror on it. The bed had the bearded giant on it. It couldn’t contain him, and the giant spilled out on three sides, and was leaned up against the fourth side, the wall. His massive head was propped against several pillows. He wore a pair of improbably nerdy glasses, round and perched on his nose. Fancy headphones were wrapped around the giant’s ears. Hair was loose. Falling over his shoulders and bare chest. He was startled. A laptop computer balanced on his hard belly. Open like a clam shell.

  He slowly raised his hands where I could see them, which was the right thing to do. I said, “You hear me?”

  He saw my mouth moving and moved one finger to touch the headphones.

  He nodded. “Easy. I hear you now.”

  I said, “Let the computer fall off.” He shrugged the laptop off and let it tip to the floor. I saw the screen, in motion. A crowd of Vikings were running across a glacier.

  “Weapon?” He nodded. I said, “Where?”

  He said, “I’m sitting on it.”

  I said, “Sit up slowly on the bed and let me see.”

  The giant swung his legs over to the side of the bed. He was wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else. The gun was lying there on the sheet. It was a Smith & Wesson special .357 magnum with a fancy blue grip. I kept the Glock on him and reached for the S&W. His eyes were dull, locked on mine. I stood back and put the weapon in my jacket pocket, right in there with the Remington rounds. The big guy made a sound, like kissing teeth. He said, “My uncle gave me that gun.”

  Nice gun. Five round capacity. Air-weight revolver with punch.

  I said, “Sorry pal, I’m concerned about your welfare. If you got tempted to use this on me, I might have to take you down. Wouldn’t that be a shame?”

  He said, “I had nothing to do with Deckart and Willets yesterday. Those aren’t my people.”

  “Why the gun?”

  “Because I’m living with psychopaths is why.”

  I said, “Who’s the psychopath?”

  He said, “Alaska. People like you. You know how it is up here. Constitutional carry state. No registration or permit required, and no background check. Everyone can open carry and nobody gives a shit. Which makes me feel like it’d be a good idea to carry a gun. Okay?”

  I said, “The girl the other night. What were you doing to her?”

  The giant had long eyelashes, lined up in a horizontal half moon behind the reading glasses. Good-looking guy. He said, “What about the girl?”

  I said, “What were you planning on doing to her, before I put you to sleep?”

  I expected him to blink, to be surprised that it was me who had put him down. But he was not surprised, didn’t blink. He said, “Shit. That was you? I wasn’t doing anything. It was a warning was all. I was bluffing her, trying to get her scared.”

  “I guess that wouldn’t be too difficult for you.”

  He shook his head again. “Not my fault I was born like this.”

  I said, “Tonight. What happened?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been watching movies all night. Half naked in bed. Before you came in and started ripping and robbing that is.”

  “Chinese food?”

  “I don’t eat that shit.”

  I said, “Healthy living?”

  He said, “I’m a pescatarian.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I only eat vegetables and fish.”

  I said, “Watch the game?”

  The giant shook his head. “That’s Jerry, I don’t like sports.”

  I said, “If you don’t like sports, what do you like?”

  He said, “I was watching Norwegian TV just now. Before you came in. There’s a series about Vikings. You wouldn’t understand, it’s in Norwegian.”

  “You’re Norwegian.”

  “That’s right.”

  I found his wallet on the dresser. California driver licens
e. Not a veteran. Name of Jakob Hagen. I studied the picture. No glasses. He looked frightening. But speaking to him was different. I tried it out. “Jakob Hagen.” Hagen looked at me. He nodded. I said, “You don’t look like a Jakob.”

  He said, “You’d get used to it.”

  I said, “Where are the others?”

  “Out getting drunk, like a bunch of idiots.”

  “Tell me about your crew.”

  He said, “Hardly a crew. We’re stuck here for the last week waiting for the damn boat to leave.”

  I said, “Security work.”

  “Cruise ship gigs pay good.”

  “Who asked you to scare the girl?”

  “Deckart.” He looked down at his knees. “I didn’t know she’d get so offended.”

  “What did Deckart tell you?”

  “He said the girl pissed him off. Wanted her to shit her pants. Whatever, I guess I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not what Deckart said. He said he didn’t know anything about that.”

  The big guy shrugged.

  I looked at him carefully. He was hiding something. It wasn’t quite so straight forward. All that overt confidence was masking something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I looked again at his driver license. I put it back in the wallet. Then I put the wallet back on the dresser. On my way out of the room I said, “I’m keeping the gun.”

  Hagen made no response. He looked like he wanted to say something.

  I stepped back in. “What is it?”

  He shook his head and blinked. “Nothing.”

  I took another look at him. Top to bottom. Big and muscular guy with almost no clothes on. Something was bothering me, and then I realized what it was. No tattoos. In every other way Hagen looked like a guy who would have tattoos, but he didn’t. I looked at him for a long moment, before figuring that a lack of tattoos was not exactly a capital offense.

  Back in the living room, the couch didn’t contain a hog-tied ex-marine. It contained nothing but the wire, unraveled and untwisted. The kitchen door was wide open. I figured Jerry had managed to get loose and was gone. Maybe back to Fresno. That would be the right call, as far as Jerry’s health and well being was concerned.