by K. W. Jeter
“So I heard.”
“Yeah?” Curt glanced over at him. “Who from?”
“Earl. He phoned me a while ago, told me all about it.”
“That’s good. You need to be up to speed about the situation. Because I’m really counting on you guys to pull it together. I don’t want Falcon on my ass anymore about this.”
“Don’t worry.” Elton nodded. “Do what we can for ya.”
“Make the extra effort, okay?” Curt was still simmering from getting chewed out the night before. “Like Kim.”
Elton looked over at him. “What about her?”
“She must already be over there at Falcon’s place. I went by to pick her up, and she was already gone.”
“Yeah . . .” Elton nodded appreciatively. “Well, she’s kind of a go-getter, ain’t she? I’ve noticed that about her.” He turned to the side window, watching the gray buildings slide by. “She’s a real ball of fire, all right.”
The only problem was that when they got to Falcon’s place, I wasn’t there.
Earl and Foley were still there, looking a little rumpled and unshaven from keeping their shift, when Curt and Elton came into the living room.
“Where’s Kim?” Curt looked around.
Foley shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”
Right about that time, I was coming up the long, curving driveway on my motorcycle. Hurrying – I knew I was late.
Falcon came down from upstairs. All showered and shaved, another one of his expensive suits, looking like a successful businessman.
“Are we ready to go?” His impatience was evident. “This is a very important meeting I’ve got lined up –”
“Not quite,” said Curt. “We don’t have the whole crew here –”
“Why not? What’s going on?”
“Sorry I’m late –” I was just about running as I came into the mansion’s living room. “I had some business to take care of –”
That was true. I’d had to go down to the Child Protective Services office, all the way downtown. Just to fill out some stupid paperwork about Donnie’s disability benefits. I’d been stalling them for weeks, then they finally said I had to get in there or else. Which would’ve meant a pretty heavy hit to our household budget if they’d cut us off.
Falcon glared at me, then jabbed his forefinger into his own chest.
“I’m your business. Understand?”
He stormed past me and out the front door. After a moment, the others followed him. When Foley walked past him, he gave me a smirk and a shake of the head.
“Don’t do that again.” Curt had stayed behind with me. “We’ve got enough on our hands without the boss hitting the roof. He can be hard to deal with when he’s pissed .”
He headed for the door, with me trailing behind.
Outside, Foley and the rest of the crew had already piled into the Lincoln, with Earl behind the wheel. I got into the Chevy with Curt, and we followed the other car out the gates.
It took us about a half hour to reach the suburbs out on the west side of town. Our destination was one of those mega-malls that were all the rage back when the economy was roaring and the only problem people had wasn’t scraping by with no job, but buying a house with a three- or four-car garage big enough for all the crap they bought. Kind of shopping place with not just an anchor store at either end, but some big chain operation at all four corners of a building the size of some third world country’s capital city. Must’ve been really something back when it opened, but now there were whole quadrants of it that were empty, nothing but shop windows still plastered with Going Out of Business signs, the only sound the slow, steady walk of one of the mall cops checking the locked doors.
There was still enough activity going on at the surviving stores to fill up the parking lot stretching out from the main entrance, with the tattered flags and the shut-off water fountains. The real estate developer who owned the mall – or at least that part of it that hadn’t been snapped up by some hedge fund headquartered in Qatar – was partners with Falcon on about a dozen other marginally legit developments scattered through the state. Some of them I’d known about from back when I had been keeping the books for McIntyre. When Cole and I had offed our old boss, Falcon and his partners had been able to cherry-pick the operations for a bargain price. It really is an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good, or at a least profit, to some people. As long as those people aren’t too fussy about getting their hands dirty.
None of Falcon’s people ever were.
The developer had his offices up on the mall’s top floor, overlooking its central plaza. Story was that he liked to look out his inside window and watch his grandkids on the old historic Dentzel carousel that he’d installed in the middle of the food court. The carved wooden horses had stopped prancing around and around a couple of years ago, after some liability lawsuit had racked up attorney bills that caused even the developer to turn pale when he looked at them. That might have been why he was looking to unload the whole mall – which was the reason for Falcon coming out here to talk to him and see what the buyout price was.
Earl brought the Lincoln up close to the mall entrance. The Chevy with Curt and me in it pulled up right behind.
Curt slid out from behind the steering wheel and scanned the area for anything suspicious. After the incident at the restaurant, just before I’d been recruited to take Heinz’s place on the crew, everybody was on full alert.
Finally satisfied, Curt signaled to Falcon and the others in the Lincoln. I got out of the Chevy at the same time, so that three of us – Foley, Elton, and me – could form a tight circle around Falcon. With all of us looking around, our hands on the grips of ours guns inside our jackets, we watched as Curt and Earl moved cautiously to the Staff Only door at the side of the mall entrance’s big glass doors. They’d check it out before the rest of the crew, with our boss at the center, would catch up with them.
Earl reached for the handle of the door –
“Watch it!”
That was my voice, suddenly calling out from the back of the group. I dived the others and grabbed Falcon, yanking him back toward the car. I had spotted a tiny, barely discernible copper wire taped between the door’s top edge and the surrounding metal frame –
I was too late. Earl had already pulled the door open, breaking the wire’s electrical connection. A churning explosion burst through the doorway, toppling us from our feet. Ripped from its hinges, the door struck Earl hard, slamming him to the pavement.
Curt scrambled to his feet and grabbed Falcon’s arm, pulling him upright. “Come on!”
Foley and Elton were up as well, guns drawn, scanning in all directions as they moved up close behind Curt and Falcon. With the Lincoln’s rear door yanked open, Curt pushed the dazed Falcon toward it. But before he could shove our boss inside, a shotgun blast went off from close by.
The Lincoln’s side window shattered, raining glass pellets across Curt’s back as he shielded Falcon.
Another shotgun blast hit the car’s hood, ripping through the metal and into the engine. A burst of steam hissed upward from the punctured radiator.
“Up there!” Foley pointed with his gun. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of the shotgun held by the figure crouching behind the edge of the mall roof. Foley got off a shot, driving the figure back, but not before another shotgun blast had shattered the windshield of the Chevy.
Blood was streaming down Earl’s face as I got my shoulder under his arm and lifted him to his feet.
“Can’t . . .” His teeth gritted together when he put his weight on his right leg. “You go . . .”
I got him leaning back against the building wall and left him there. I pulled the .357 from my jacket, crouching down as I ran over toward the rest of the crew. Forming a human shield around Falcon, they retreated with him behind the other cars in the parking lot – trying to get their boss into the mall entrance would have exposed Falcon to a direct shot from the attacker on the roof.
A bullet ping
ed off a car fender close to Curt as he and the others pushed Falcon behind it. Head lowered, Curt gestured to Foley and Elton.
“You two split up,” he said. “Try to get around behind this sonuvabitch.”
The two men nodded, then hunched over and sprinted in different directions down the lanes of vehicles.
A gunshot hit the asphalt right behind my heel, as I sprinted toward the car shielding the crew. I ducked and rolled behind the nearest one, about five yards from where I had been trying to get to. Kneeling down, with the palm of one hand bloodied from where I had scraped it across the pavement, I cautiously raised my head above the car’s fender, trying to locate the attacker.
More shots, from ground level. I looked over and saw Foley and Elton at separate points amid the lanes, scanning around themselves. Elton seemed to spot something – I followed his line of sight and saw someone else running farther away. Shots from Elton’s gun pinged off fenders and hoods as he fired at the figure. A couple of quick shots came back in his direction, driving him behind the nearest car.
Gun in hand, Foley sprinted down the lane he had reached; he had caught sight of the attacker as well. I watched as he took a running, shoulder-first dive across an open space between the vehicles, twisting about in the air and firing as he went. He landed heavily on the pavement and scrambled behind a panel van for a shield.
Elton called out to Foley. “You get him?”
“Don’t think so,” Foley shouted back.
Closer to me, Curt used one hand to keep Falcon pressed against the door of the car they were using for a shield. Crouching down with his gun poised in his other hand, he listened tensely to the sounds and voices coming from farther away in the parking lot.
The sudden action had rattled Falcon. His voice was a ragged whisper: “He knows where we’re at!”
“Yeah –” Curt nodded. “And he wants us to move, so he can get a shot at us.”
I crept from behind the car shielding me, inching across to the next one down the lane. I couldn’t see any sign of the attacker.
Elton spotted me, sighting past the cars between us. He signaled for me to head farther down my lane, then moved away from me.
Falcon whispered again to Curt. “Maybe he’s gone –”
Curt shook his head. “He’s out there.”
He was farther away from me, but I was able to see Foley as his gaze snapped around, locking onto a figure running past the cars a couple of lanes over. He fired, but didn’t hit him.
The figure ran past the other side of the car I was hidden behind. Gun in hand, I chased after.
From the roof of the mall, another shotgun blast sounded. Glass fragments burst across Falcon’s and Curt’s heads as the car windows above them shattered. Gasoline began leaking out upon the asphalt beneath the car.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Falcon panic, shoving his way past Curt’s restraining hand. Curt tried to grab him, but Falcon tore his way free and ran from the shield of the car.
Another shot struck the ground, igniting the pool of gasoline spreading over the pavement. When the flames reached the broken gas tank, the explosion threw Curt forward onto his hands and knees. Black smoke billowed from the wreckage of the car behind him.
From opposite sides of the parking lot, Foley and Elton raced through the maze of vehicles, back toward where the shots had come from.
I scrambled up onto the hood of the panel van next to me, then up to its roof. From there, I could see Falcon, still running. I could also see at last the attacker, gun raised, sprinting to intercept Falcon.
From the top of the panel van, I leapt to the next car over, landing on its trunk lid. I quickly scrabbled up to its roof, trying to keep both Falcon and the attacker in sight. The billowing smoke from the burning car rendered that impossible.
Curt had already left the spot, chasing after Falcon. I dove headfirst through the column of smoke, landing and rolling onto my shoulder on the pavement beyond. I climbed up onto the roof of the next car –
That gave a clear line of sight to what has happening around me.
Out of breath, Falcon stumbled and fell to his hands and knees. He looked up and saw the attacker at the end of the lane, just a few yards away, raising a gun and aiming straight toward his face.
Before the attacker could fire, a loud thud drew his gaze up and away from his target. I’d just landed on the roof of the car Falcon was cowering against. From where I knelt, I gripped my .357 in both hands and pumped shot after shot into the attacker’s chest. Arms splayed wide, the figure staggered backward, then finally collapsed.
Curt came running down the lane of parked cars, grabbing one of their outside mirrors to yank himself to a sudden halt when he spotted Falcon and the attacker’s corpse farther away. As I climbed down from the car’s roof, Curt pulled our boss to his feet and checked him out. We were far enough away, shielded by enough cars, that we didn’t need to worry about any more shotgun blasts from the mall roof – if the other gunman hadn’t fled yet.
“You okay?” Curt held Falcon upright. Falcon nodded.
Foley and Elton appeared at opposite end of the lane. Tucking his gun inside his jacket, Foley knelt down in the pool of blood seeping from the dead figure.
“Hey –” Foley recognized the man. “This is Johnny Dodd –”
I didn’t recognize the guy. Muscular, hard-looking, with a white-sidewalls, Marine Corps buzz-cut. A lot of people in this line of work get their start in the military. If they weren’t into it already, they get their first taste of firing stuff off, then they go looking to do more of that kind of thing when they get out.
Curt glanced over his shoulder. “See what you can find on him.”
Gun dangling in his hand, Elton stood on the other side of the corpse and watched as Foley went through the trouser and jacket pockets.
“We better get going –” Elton glanced over his shoulder as he heard the sound of approaching police sirens. He looked back down as Foley took the wallet, a set of keys and some other bits and pieces from the corpse’s pockets. There was a folded sheet of paper, with one corner torn off, in the inside jacket pocket; Foley examined it for a second, then quickly tucked it inside his own jacket.
Curt had found that one of the cars closest to us had been left unlocked. With his head under the dashboard, he yanked out the ignition wires and twisted the bare ends together. The engine roared to life.
We all scrambled into the car, with Falcon between me and Elton in the back seat. Tires squealing, Curt drove to the front of the mall. Foley jumped out and grabbed Earl from where I had left him propped against the building’s wall. With the car loaded up, Curt headed toward the exit on the other side as the sirens came closer.
The car, whatever make it might have been, was a lot smaller inside than the gunboat-like Lincoln. Curt looked over at Earl squeezed in next to him. “How you doing?”
Holding a red-soaked handkerchief to his brow, Earl nodded. “I’ll be all right.”
Curt glanced at Foley in the rearview mirror. “What’d you find?”
“Guy was Dodd, all right.” Foley held up the wallet he’d found; there was a driver’s license behind a little plastic window, showing the dead man’s face. “Plus, whoever he was working for –” He dug out a sheaf of large-denomination bills. “They were paying him pretty good.”
“Anything else?”
I looked across Falcon sitting between us, as Foley hesitated for just a fraction of a second, then shook his head.
“Nope.” He folded up the wallet. “That was all I had time for.”
“Too bad you killed him right off.” In the mirror, Curt’s gaze shifted over to me. “Otherwise, we might have been able to find out who sent him.”
I started to say something, but Falcon cut me off.
“I’d like to remind you gentlemen of something.” He had regained his usual cold poise. “If it hadn’t been for Kim, I’d be dead right now.”
Curt didn’t reply, but just turned his
attention back to his driving.
* * *
We left the car we’d swiped out in front of the mansion. Eventually, one of the crew would have to take it out and dump it somewhere. Right now, though, we were just pulling ourselves together after what had gone down at the mall.
Standing in the foyer, the rest of us could hear Falcon reaming Curt, back in the living room.
“I don’t care anymore what you think is going to happen. I want all the security arrangements tightened up right now. Understand?”
“That’s all set, Mr. Falcon.” Curt’s voice was a lot lower.
“It better be.”
We could hear Falcon’s footsteps clumping heavily up the stairs.
I found it kind of embarrassing to be around anybody else, while the leader of the crew was getting dressed down. I headed back to the kitchen to get a drink of water – after all that running around in the mall’s parking lot, I was sweaty outside and parched inside.
I didn’t make it to the kitchen. When I heard Elton in the foyer, confronting Foley about something, I stopped in my tracks. Pressing close to the wall, I sidled back, staying out of their sight so I could listen to them.
“What’re you trying to pull?” Elton jabbed a finger in Foley’s chest.
Foley knocked his hand away. “What’re you talking about?”
“Don’t give me that shit.” Elton was more pissed than I’d ever seen him before. “Curt asked if you found anything on that Dodd guy.”
“Yeah? So?” Foley’s voice went defensive. “What, you wanted the money?”
“I’m not talking about some damn money. What was that paper you took off the guy? Why didn’t you show that to Curt?”
“You don’t even know what it was –”
“I mean to find out,” growled Elton.
“You want to know? That’s what you want? Okay, pal –”
Foley’s words broke off when Curt came out of the living room.
“Mr. Falcon wants things tightened up.” Curt looked at the two guys. “I expect you heard him say as much.”
“That’s cool.” Foley had turned off his own heated emotions, like flicking a light switch. “We can do that. Matter of fact, there’s a couple things upstairs that I spotted the other day. Weak spots. Elton and I should go check ’em out.”