Righty noticed the placard on the wall, now that it was well-illumined, as he sprinted outside. He couldn’t help but spare a thought as to whether Sarah was now resting peacefully in a cemetery somewhere or obliviously at a late-night game of bridge while Lloyd had made his home a place of a very different kind of love.
Harold was sitting on top of the awkward load, his massive talons grasping the content, and while Righty’s mind may have been wandering his body was undeterred from its destination.
He leapt on top of Harold, who didn’t grouse about the awkward load one bit.
A minute later they were hundreds of feet in the air, and the roaring inferno below looked only like a piece of burning coal.
In spite of it seeming that a lifetime had passed, it was only 9:40 p.m.
“Let’s go to the cabin,” Righty said. “I’ll feel a lot calmer once I have these contents in a safe place. If I’m a minute or two late, Tats can wait. He owes me!”
Chapter 19
As Righty flew down into Tats’ backyard at around 11:00 p.m. he was in a mood to give orders and have them promptly, and unquestioningly, followed. He was relieved to see Tats waiting there all alone as requested.
“Evening,” Righty said, dismounting from Harold, who then promptly disappeared into the shadows of Tats’ spacious back yard.
“Evening, Mr. Brass,” Tats said, apprehension, but not despair, clearly evident in his voice.
“We’re in a real shit blizzard,” Righty said, attempting a smile.
“Please, have a seat,” Tats invited.
They both sat down next to a large table outside.
They shared a long, somewhat uncomfortable stare, each sizing the other up.
“I know you didn’t sell me out, Tats,” Righty said, crisply and emphatically.
Tats looked visibly relieved.
“And, I know the chief tried really hard to get you to.”
Tats gulped, wondering how Righty became aware of this information.
“I’m gonna need you to do a lot of things for me, Tats. And they’re not all going to be easy.” Righty studied Tats’ carefully, looking for any sign of dissent.
“Mr. Brass, a man couldn’t be more in another’s debt than I am in yours. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in a damp cell expecting to spend the rest of my life there. You say it; I do it.”
An unexpected excitement pulsed through Righty’s veins. A man’s loyalty can’t be measured until adversity arrives. And while Tats had stuck by him in some nasty fights, Righty’s brief time in jail had made him aware of the truly soul-crushing impact time spent in a dark cell could have on a man. Thus, he had feared he would be hearing responses of a far more equivocal nature.
Nonetheless, Righty’s eyes continued to probe every square inch of Tats’ visage, searching for any hint of insincerity.
“While I have no regrets for going to jail and getting you out today,” Righty began, “I want you to realize the immeasurable consequences that sole act had. My face was seen by dozens of witnesses while I was being arrested. My sketch is now inside the Sivingdel Police Station. I could be looking at charges for multiple SISA violations, attempted bribery of city law enforcement agents, attempted bribery of federal agents, and running a criminal enterprise.
“Yesterday, I was a man without an arrest record, Tats,” Righty said, and then paused, wanting the enormity of his sacrifice to sink in.
“And I knew these were potential consequences of showing up at that jail unannounced with my pockets full of cash and no better explanation than that I wanted to speak to the chief.”
Tats hung his head. He knew there was nothing he could say that would truly show he appreciated the gravity of what Mr. Brass had done today.
“There are going to be hard things I’ll ask of you, Tats,” Righty said, still probing the waters before jumping right in.
“Just name them!” Tats said zealously.
Another long stare. Righty was convinced.
“Before I do, I want you to know your boss isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty himself.”
The next thing Tats knew, the head of the man who had not long ago seemed to hold all the power in the world over his fate was now sitting on top of his table like a kind of macabre decoration.
Tats gulped and felt the hairs rise up all over his neck and back.
“Just name them,” Tats repeated, now feeling oddly rejuvenated by the grisly sight.
“You’re going to need help. Anyone who refuses—kill them.”
Chapter 20
It was 12:55 p.m. the next day. Righty and Harold were hovering at around two thousand feet. It was pretty chilly up here, but Righty didn’t want to risk Harold being seen at any costs. The blue clear skies were a double-edged sword, since they made Righty’s upcoming task much more feasible, yet also increased the risk of people below noticing the unusually large eagle hovering over their city.
He hadn’t gone home last night either. He could have, but there was something that just had to be done today, and he couldn’t risk the pangs of conscience that a comfortable night with his wife and baby might elicit.
He suspected a nasty storm was brewing at home, of an equally fierce temperament as his current troubles, albeit of a different nature. He would have to tend to that later.
“Am I going too far, Harold?” Righty asked, picking a dubious source if he was looking for words of caution.
“There’s no going back now,” Harold replied.
12:58 p.m.
Tats, dressed as an upscale, but not ostentatious, gentleman, approached the vicinity of the Sivingdel Police Station with fifteen similarly well-dressed underlings. These had been the survivors of a rather nasty culling. Tats and Crabs had rounded up large numbers of the gang last night at one of his mansions and asked for volunteers.
Per Righty’s instructions, no ill will was conveyed to those who declined participation in today’s activities until everyone in the group had been asked. Then, Tats and Crabs had mercilessly hacked to death everyone who had refused the invitation.
Tats had been privately a bit glad by some of the underlings’ decision to decline participation, as he suspected that if they had not been traitors yet it was only a matter of time before they hurt the gang, whether by treachery or stupidity. He didn’t hesitate a moment to run each and every one of them through with his sword, and he was glad he didn’t see Crabs flinch at the task either, although he was going to be keeping a close eye on Crabs today to see if he merited continued inclusion in the gang.
Tats also knew that, with the sudden escalation of everything, he was going to have to start training his subordinates rigorously in the arts of the knife, sword, and fist. In addition to this making them more useful subjects, it would also give him an enhanced opportunity to test their mettle.
Mr. Brass had been very specific about the task in question being completed at exactly 1 p.m., and after everything he had done for Tats yesterday, he wasn’t going to allow anything to get in the way of full compliance.
In other words, he was going to do most of the work himself.
He checked his pocket. Sure enough, the chain was still there.
He hoped he would be able to find the doors closed, but the exactness of Mr. Brass’s instructions on timing left little of that to Tats’ control. He glanced at his watch. It was 12:59 p.m.
He nudged Crabs and quickly began leading the gang from the side of the police headquarters, where they had been pretending to pass themselves off as gentlemen on lunch break, straight towards the doors.
“Get in there, ya young punk!” shouted an angry officer at a belligerent drunk in handcuffs, who—in imitation of the canine species when confronted with the prospect of a bath—was squatting down low towards the ground, attempting to forestall his entrance to a police station he had undoubtedly visited numerous times.
“Give this officer a hand, gentlemen!” Tats instructed his disgu
ised hooligans.
They yanked the foul-smelling man up in the air, pushed open the doors, and tossed him inside like a dirty bag of laundry.
“And they say you can’t count on your fellow man for anything!” the officer said, good-naturedly.
“They’re mostly right,” Tats responded, with some regret but no time to dwell on it.
The officer’s face turned from joy to confusion to anger as Tats and his gang shoved him inside the station and quickly leaned against the doors, making it impossible for the officer to open them back up, despite his most ardent efforts.
Tats quickly pulled the chain out, wrapped it tightly around the doors, slapped the padlock on the end of it—he had practiced this procedure endlessly last night—and said, “Let’s scram!”
“Stop those men!” shouted an officer. He had a couple fellow officers trotting up from behind, wanting to see what all the excitement was about.
Tats took off sprinting.
On the other side of the building, a wagon was rolling to a stop right in front of the doors where Righty and his fellow crooks had been let out the back yesterday. It was the same wagon Tats had been driving when the nightmare began. Its contents now were quite different, however. Large stones added to the natural weight of the wagon, making it an implacable doorstop.
A dozen men hopped out of the back, where they had been lying in wait with daggers ready in case the wagon had been subjected to a search or stop. They took off running like there was a snapping pit bull on their heels, and the two drivers did the same.
1:00 p.m.
Harold was now about five hundred feet above the police station. Righty would have loved to go lower, but this was as low as he dared go.
Feeling one last bit of self-doubt, Righty said, “When the history books are written, let them record that, while I may have struck hardest, I didn’t strike first.”
Then, attempting a bit of gallows humor to lighten the unfortunate scene, he said, reading from an imaginary envelope, “Delivery for Sivingdel Police Headquarters . . . oh, wait, special instructions: ‘Leave on rooftop.’”
Rancher Tim Sanders had been a busy beaver last night, and the fruits of his labor were dispersed between two large sacks, one abutting each side of Harold. Righty had told him he had to clear some really tough stumps and stubborn brush on a different ranch.
Righty reached into the bag on his left and extracted a lantern-like object with an exceptionally large oil compartment. He then struck a match on a piece of flint he had ready and then lit the lantern.
The only way is up, the rock climbing coach assured him.
“And I sure as heck can’t climb down,” Righty added.
He let the lantern fall, and its humble shattering sound belied the large puddle of fire that immediately spread around it.
Below, inside the station, a swarm of officers were kicking and pushing against the door. Their combined force reached a point at which—while the chain itself was in no danger of breaking—it was becoming a possibility that the handles might rip off. But before reaching that point, the ever-increasing number of pushing officers became counterproductive, causing them to smash and trample one another.
Righty lit another few lanterns and let them fall.
Meanwhile, Tats’ pursuers were closing in on him, and one of his gang had already been nabbed.
“FIIIIRE!!!” someone shouted out from below.
Righty figured that if the fire was now visible to the people on the ground he could dispense with lighting the individual lanterns. He took out his compressed sword and severed the entire bagful.
By this time, the top brass were beginning to wonder what all the commotion was about down in the lobby, and so they left behind their windowed rooms, from which they might have jumped had they known there were around twenty seconds left within which it would have served any purpose to do so.
Even from this height, Righty felt a rush of heat as a fireball leapt up into the sky after the bag of lanterns made contact with the roof. Knowing this was going to turn onlookers’ eyes upward, he realized it was time to wrap this up.
He cut off the other sack, which was full of sticks of dynamite.
Righty didn’t need to say anything to Harold. No sooner had the sack left Harold’s side than Harold began pumping his wings and heading straight towards the sun, hoping to thereby reduce the likelihood of anyone seeing him below while he simultaneously increased his and his passenger’s chances of survival.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
It was a majestic, thunderous sound, reverberating quickly and rapidly, deafening anyone within a hundred feet.
Tats’ pursuers stopped to look, but, while Tats certainly felt curiosity, his desire for freedom was far stronger. He kept sprinting, and only when he was convinced that he had successfully blended in with the panicked multitude and left his pursuer far behind did he dare turn and look at the black smoke cloud enveloping the entire sky.
Mr. Brass had not said much about what the purpose was behind chaining the doors shut, but he was emphatic that after Tats did so he spend a well-deserved three-week vacation in Sodorf City, to begin immediately. That now sounded like rather good advice.
Chapter 21
As Righty emerged from the woods behind Ringsetter—as close to the town as he dared tread—he knew he was really pushing his luck by not heading straight to the Simmers’ home, where Janie’s mood no doubt currently shared a great deal with her married surname. But when a man’s got a list of chores, he has no choice but to keep marching through them.
He walked into his store, which he had neglected for weeks if not months—he had too much on his mind to stop and calculate—and was glad to see faithful Robert there attending to customers and managing everything splendidly.
Righty waited respectfully for him to finish and then flipped the “Please Come In!” sign to “Please Come Back Soon!”
With a motion of his head, he beckoned Robert towards the back room.
“Everything running smoothly?”
“Yes, sir,” Robert said, confidently, and then handed Righty a list of certificates of deposit that he had made at Righty’s bank account over the last several weeks.
“Impressive!” Righty said sincerely. “And costs?”
“We’re definitely in the black,” Robert said, handing him a series of weekly reports.
Righty looked over them and whistled approvingly.
“You’ve got a golden thumb, young man.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Are you interested in more responsibility and more pay?”
“Absolutely,” Robert replied, not pausing a second.
Righty put a stack of money on the table.
“Here’s $500,000. Ten thousand will be yours as a bonus just for all the extra hassle. I’ve been meaning to set up a similar store in Sivingdel, but things just keep coming up. I don’t want this store to bear my name, because crime is getting rather nasty these days, and so I don’t necessarily want to be easily linked to this store or any future ones we might open.
“I’m satisfied with one eponymous store,” Righty said chuckling, referring to Rich’s Groceries & Hardware. “I’m thinking this one should just be called Groceries & Hardware. You can use the same connection for inventory—Mr. Hoffmeyer—but don’t tell him I’m the owner. If he asks who the owner is, just say, ‘He prefers to remain anonymous.’”
Righty was beginning to have a deep distrust of Mr. Hoffmeyer, now that he thought back on his brazen offers to perform money laundering services.
“In fact,” Righty said, “Find a different inventory supplier for the new store.”
“Yes, sir,” Robert asked.
“Okay, here’s how pay and responsibilities are going to work. I am making you head manager of both stores. You can hire and fire. You can set pay and people’s hours. You know how to run a store profitably, and that’s what matters. Your pay is hereby increased to $80,000 an
nually to be paid monthly. Get receipts for all hotel costs while you’re staying in Sivingdel, and find some place nice.
“If you make this new store run like the old one, you can expect more stores and more pay. Any questions?”
“Mr. Simmers . . . THANK YOU!” Robert said.
“You’re worth every falon. Just don’t let me down,” Righty said.
“You’ll have another profitable store soon. I promise.”
“Well, I suppose I better reopen for business,” Righty said. “Thanks again.”
He extended his hand, and Robert shook it.
Why can’t I find more people like Robert in my other organization? Righty asked himself, as he walked briskly out of the store, cringing at the thought of what kind of tempest he might find at home.
Robert was having a bit of trouble standing on two feet. His head felt light, and the room seemed to be spinning. He shook it off and went back to work.
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