Kim Oh 3: Real Dangerous People (The Kim Oh Thrillers)

by K. W. Jeter

  “Yeah, you do that.” Curt looked old and tired. “If you need me, I’ll be outside.”

  Soon as the front door closed behind Curt, I leaned out from my hiding place and watched as Foley and Elton headed upstairs.

  That’s the problem with guys who think they’re smart. When they think that they’re smarter than someone else, that person just disappears from their radar. That was what enabled me to go undetected as I slipped through the living room and halted at the foot of the stairs.

  I looked up and could see them heading toward Falcon’s bedroom. As quietly as possible, I made my way up the stairs.

  At the top of the landing, I saw them stop for a moment at the room’s door, then they went in. As I moved closer, I could hear the sound of running water; Falcon must have been in the attached bathroom, taking a shower. That wasn’t surprising; we all could’ve used one right about now.

  With the hall dark and the bedroom lights on, it was easy for me to slink to a spot where I could see Foley and Elton reflected in the full-length mirror at the bedroom’s other side.

  “Okay, let’s hurry up.” Elton looked over at the closed bathroom door. “I don’t want to be in here when Mr. Falcon comes out of there. What the hell is this all about?”

  Foley went over to the dresser and looked across the items arranged on top of it. He gestured to Elton. “Get over here.”

  “Now what?” Elton stood beside him.

  I could barely make out what Foley pointed to.

  “See that?”

  It was a scrap of paper that Foley prodded with his fingertip.

  “What of it?” Elton was unimpressed.

  “But you see it there, right?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Elton. “Yeah, I see it there.”

  “Good.” Foley picked up the scrap and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “Just remember that.”

  I made a quick retreat down the stairs as they turned and headed for the bedroom door.

  When I reached the foyer, I didn’t stop there. I opened the front door and slipped out. Curt was standing in the driveway, the white gravel around his feet littered with stubbed-out cigarette butts. He was watching a limo come through the gates in the distance.

  The sleek, black vehicle pulled up right in front of Curt. One of the tinted windows slid down.

  “Curt – my man.” Karsh leaned forward from the back seat, smiling out at Curt and me. The last time Curt had seen him had been right after the mess at the restaurant, when Heinz had gotten killed. “How you been?”

  I recognized Karsh from all the times his picture had shown up in the newspaper’s business section. I knew that he and Falcon had some kind of merger operation underway, but I hadn’t expected him to turn up at our boss’s home.

  “Doing fine, Mr. Karsh.” Curt gave a little nod. “About like usual.”

  “Really?” The other man frowned. “I heard you had some trouble today.”

  I could see Curt’s spine go rigid, his face tightening. He didn’t say anything.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” continued Karsh. “I’m sure it was nothing you and your team couldn’t handle. Um . . . where is your boss, by the way?”

  “I’m right here.”

  Curt and I turned and saw Falcon coming out of the mansion’s front doorway. His hair was still wet from his shower, and he was fussing with one of the cufflinks on his freshly laundered shirt.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Falcon?” Curt stepped aside for him.

  “I phoned Karsh here a little while ago and asked him to swing by with a couple of his men. So they could take me over to the Hilton.”

  “Pardon me? Is there a –”

  “My wife’s meeting me there,” said Falcon. “We’ll be checking in for a few days. Until . . .” He gave Curt a hard look. “Until things are sorted out.”

  One of Karsh’s hulking bodyguards had gotten out of the limo’s front seat. There was a smirk on his face as he held the rear passenger door open for Falcon.

  “Do you . . .” Curt’s face had gone ashen. “Do you want us to head over there now?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Falcon slid in next to Karsh. “These gentlemen can take care of security for the time being. The hotel will be sending a car over to pick up our luggage. If you could make sure they get everything, that would be . . .” He looked out from the limo’s side window. “Just about everything I need from you.”

  We watched the limo swing about in the drive and head toward the gates. Curt stood gazing after it for a long time, then turned to me. “Where’re the others?”

  “I think they’re still inside.”

  “Get them out here,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  I found the others, filled them in on what had just happened, then brought them out to the mansion’s broad front steps. We stood there, uncomfortably waiting for Curt to say something.

  “Okay, okay –” Elton finally broke the silence. “So we screwed up.”

  Curt angrily turned toward him. “And screwed up,” he said.“And screwed up again.”

  “The man’s not dead, is he? We saved his ass.”

  “Yeah, well, Kim’s the one who gets the credit for that. Not the rest of us.”

  The others glanced over at me. They weren’t exactly smiling in congratulations.

  “Wait a minute.” I spread my hands apart. “I never said –”

  “It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t say. It’s what Falcon thinks. You heard him say it.”

  “Okay, but –”

  “That’s why I want you to go over there,” said Curt. “To the hotel. You’re the only one of us he’ll let go near him now.”

  I knew Curt was probably right about that. But I still wasn’t looking forward to hanging around with Karsh’s bodyguards.

  None of the others could say anything, either. When somebody’s been destroyed right in front of you, it doesn’t matter what you think of the guy, whether he’s your friend or your enemy, whether you’re on his side or scheming against him. There’s just that sick feeling in your gut, that renewed sense that maybe the universe isn’t such a nice place after all.

  You shouldn’t have to see things like that. If they’re going to happen, they should happen out of sight. Right now, I really hated the guy I was working for – as bad as I’d hated that other one McIntyre. And I’d killed him. If Falcon had needed to do something to Curt, it would’ve been better if he’d just taken the guy into a back room, put a gun to his head, and squeezed the trigger. Curt would’ve probably preferred it that way, as well.

  I knew all that, even before I started to turn away – and heard him say something more.

  Not to us, but to himself.

  “It’s strange,” said Curt. His voice went so soft and musing, that I might have been the only one who could make out his words. “You go your whole life – or all you remember of it – and you think you’ve got it figured out.” He was gazing toward the distance, obviously not seeing anything. As though the dark had leaked out from his thoughts and obscured everything before him. “The way things are . . .”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. I didn’t know whether I wanted to still be there or not, listening to him say all of this.

  “Somebody gives you a chance . . . somebody trusts you . . . somebody believes in you . . . and you think, well, this is it. This is what you are. This is what you’ll do.”

  Elton had heard him as well.

  “Hey . . . come on, Curt. Don’t –”

  Curt went on, as if he were completely alone.

  “And then all of a sudden, it’s completely different. It’s not the same as before. You’re just as loyal as before – you’ll do anything – but that’s not good enough. It’s just not good enough.”

  He recovered himself a little bit, as though remembering the rest of us were still there, standing around him.

  “It’s different for you guys,” he said. “At least . . . at least for now it is.”<
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  We all stayed silent. We were probably all thinking the same thing. Where he was, we might all be someday.

  “Why don’t you guys call it a day?” He looked around at us. “There’s nothing to take care of here. I can handle whatever Falcon was talking about, getting his stuff over to the hotel. The rest of you don’t need to hang around.”

  “Okay.” Elton nodded. “That’s cool. We’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

  “Sure.” Curt turned and went back into the mansion.

  TEN

  Earl took over the job of disposing of the car we’d stolen from the mall parking lot. He offered to drop me off at the Hilton, where Falcon and his wife had checked in. Instead, I asked him to take me back to my apartment, so I could look in on my brother Donnie. Then I could take my motorcycle over to the hotel.

  “What about the Lincoln?” I looked over at Earl as he pulled over to the curb in front of the apartment building. “I thought you guys liked that battleship. It might’ve gotten beat up and all, but still . . .”

  “Not a problem.” Earl put the stolen car in PARK. “I got some friends in the tow company that works the police account – that old Lincoln’s not gonna show up in the department’s evidence yard. It’s already on its way to the body shop outside town that’s worked on it before. They kinda specialize in patching bullet holes and stuff like that.”

  “How much work do you send them?”

  “Not a lot, lately. Been trying to keep the rolling stock out of the line of fire, if you know what I mean. Shame that the Lincoln got dinged like that.” Earl shook his head, as if that were what mattered to him most. “That Chevy Curt’s been driving around – cops can keep that one. Who cares?”

  “Nobody, I guess.” I got out and looked back in the side window at him. “Take care of yourself. You got whacked pretty hard by that flying door.”

  “Had worse.” He shrugged. “But yeah, that was a good one.”

  I watched him drive off, then turned and let myself into the apartment building.

  My little brother was waiting for me upstairs. He had an annoying sixth sense about when bad stuff was going on.

  “Kimmie –” From his wheelchair, Donnie regarded me with his dark, somber eyes. “I’m really worried about you.”

  I had barely managed to get the apartment door opened and myself dropped into one of the chairs at the little kitchenette table. Leaning my face on one of my hands, I looked over at him.

  “Really? What makes you say that?”

  “You look terrible –”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “I mean you look like you’re working too hard. Like this new job’s really taking it out of you.”

  “Well . . . crap.” I slumped back in the chair. “What am I supposed to do about that? Everybody’s working too hard. That’s just the way jobs are, nowadays.”

  “I know. But still . . .”

  “Seriously. You’re just glad if you have one.” This stupid world, I thought to myself. If it was living up to anyone’s expectation, it wasn’t mine. “You look at everybody who doesn’t, then you’re thankful just for the chance to get all beat to hell.”

  “I thought killing people was supposed to be easier. Than the accounting stuff you used to do.”

  Donnie didn’t have any illusions about what I did to pay the rent and put food on the table. It’s hard to keep stuff like that from your kid brother.

  “It has its plusses.” I shrugged. “And minuses.” I should’ve been out of the chair and fixing something to eat for both of us. But I was so tired, any excuse to sit for a while longer was a good one. “Just like any job.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” Given my background, I suppose I should have worked up a pros and cons chart long before now. “You get out more when you’re killing people – I like that. I was really feeling cooped up in that little office, when I was keeping the books for my old boss. And every once in a while, you get some pretty good cardiovascular exercise.” More than I would have preferred, actually. That business in the mall parking lot had pretty much maxed out my heart rate. I would’ve been better off joining a gym. “On the other hand, sometimes people shoot back at you.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Well . . . I think you have to look at it from their point of view.”

  This was one of those conversations between the two of us, that I was glad nobody else could overhear – especially the social workers who still officially had Donnie on their caseloads. I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t know that talking like this made me sound like a psychopath. Normal people didn’t talk this way.

  Then again, normal people didn’t have my job. If I had a different one, I probably wouldn’t have talked like this. It came with the territory, I supposed.

  “What else?” Donnie rolled his wheelchair closer to me. “About what you’re doing.”

  “You know,” I said, “you need to stop watching daytime TV. I mean those shows where people talk about their feelings. Just watch the NASCAR stuff instead.”

  “That’s not on all the time.” One of his particular grievances against the universe.

  Actually, I was concerned about how much it would be on at all. The premium cable package, the one that included the Speed Channel, was one of those line items on our household budget that I sweated every month. But he loved it so much – what was I going to do?

  He could read my mind. The little jerk.

  “Maybe,” said Donnie, “I could make some money. So things wouldn’t be so tough on you.”

  “Yeah? Doing what?”

  “Online gambling. I’ve been looking into it. I think I’d be pretty good at it.”

  “Forget that. Right now.” I dropped the hammer on him, swelling up to as big and threatening as my hundred-whatever pounds could go. “You even think about logging into one of those sites, I will take that laptop and Frisbee it out the window. I mean it. That stuff’s illegal.”

  “You should talk.”

  “Do not get on my case, pal. Just – don’t.” I shoved my chair back, got up from the table, and started slamming around the empty saucepans on top of the stove, not accomplishing anything except making a racket. “You’re not exactly telling me stuff I don’t know.”

  “So if it’s okay for you,” said Donnie, “why not me?”

  With my hands leaning hard against the edge of the stove, I lowered my head. It was pounding, with little red flashes up by my temples. I should’ve just gone straight to the hotel. That’s where my job was.

  “I’m sorry, Kimmie.” Donnie had rolled himself behind me, close enough that he could lean forward in the wheelchair and wrap his arms around my waist, pressing the side of his head against my back. “Really.”

  I could see my tears on the stove’s white enamel. Now I really felt like an idiot. I had always felt that way when I cried, even before I’d started killing people for a living. In my head, I could see Cole looking at me and shaking his head. If he were still alive, he would’ve told me that I need to toughen up. A lot.

  Then again, maybe I had already.

  When we had been gearing up to go out and take care of our old boss McIntyre, Cole had asked me something. That back then, I’d had a little trouble answering. He’d asked me if it mattered to me or not, whether I came back from that job. If I was going to get killed while I was in the process of killing McIntyre, would it have made a difference to me? It hadn’t, to him. That’d been one of the differences between the two of us.

  Since then, I think I’d made a little progress on that issue. At least inside my own head. It probably didn’t matter to me anymore, whether or not I made it. Survived, I mean. Just more of what came with the territory, I supposed.

  The only problem I still had was with my brother Donnie. It’s pretty chickenshit of me, I know, but if I just got killed while I was doing my job, then I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. I wouldn’t be around to do any worrying. But
what if I got caught? The whole police thing, then going to prison. For a long time. Then what? I might never see Donnie again. I didn’t know if I could take that.

  I could see a little reflection of my face in one of the tear drops on the stove’s white enamel. I should quit this job – I knew that. There had to be some other way.

  But there was another problem. Which I didn’t want to think about right now. I just wanted to put it in a little box and think about it some time later. Or maybe never.

  But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, right now.

  When I’d been running around today, in that mall parking lot with a gun all up in my hand and ready to go – dodging the other guy’s bullets and jumping from the top of one car to another –

  I’d been digging on it.

  My heart hadn’t been racing from the exertion, the running and jumping and all that. It’d been kicked into overdrive from the sheer adrenaline rush.

  I didn’t hate my job. I loved my job.

  Crap, I thought. I really was screwed up.

  Maybe that was why I’d started crying. Because I knew that there wasn’t that much difference between Cole and me. I’d changed.

  Which wasn’t a problem. Unless I changed some more. There were still some things that I cared about now. What if I got to some place where I didn’t care about them? Then what was going to happen to Donnie and me?

  I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.

  I pushed myself back from the stove. I took Donnie’s wrists in my hands and peeled his hug away from me, then went over to the fridge.

  “I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much in there. I should have gone over to the corner store when Earl had dropped me off. “Would scrambled eggs be okay?”

  “That’d be fine,” he said. “That’s just what I want.”

  “Okay.” I took out the half-empty carton of eggs and carried them over to the counter. This much at least, I could do on autopilot.

  * * *

  While I’d been getting my heart rebroken and then Scotch-taped back together again, Foley and Elton had been having their own little conference. Not at that White Hawk dump, but over at the marginally more pleasant Diamondhead Lounge.