A promotional two-pack of Camels, shrink-wrapped with a lighter, was perched on the edge of the counter by the ice cream freezer, and as Bobby had paid for a Dr. Pepper, Dex swept the package into the pocket of his windbreaker. Bobby caught the crime out of the corner of his eye, but the middle-aged woman at the register, who had a slight mustache riding her dark, pursed lips, was focused on counting pennies.
“Let’s smoke ‘em at the Hole,” Dex had said, once they were out of sight of the store. Neither Bobby nor Vernon Ray had the guts to protest.
The Jangling Hole was half a mile’s hike up rocky and wooded Blue Ridge terrain. Bobby had been there before with his two pals—after all, who could resist the most notorious haunted spot in the county, especially during Halloween season?—but they usually just eased around it and went to the headwaters of the creek where you could hook rainbow trout all year round, because no wildlife officers ever hoofed it that far back into the hills. That was back before Budget Bill Willard, the famous local photographer and artist, had bought the property and posted “No Trespassing” signs all over it.
Dex had knocked down the first such sign he’d seen, unzipped his trousers, and urinated on it. Then he’d cajoled his reluctant merry band of pranksters to the Hole. After Dex had dared him to “th’ow” the rock, Bobby had no choice but to march up to the crevice, which was as wide as a pick-up truck. Nobody in his right mind would go near the cave that harbored the spirits of—
“Bobby?”
At first he thought the voice had come from the cave, in that same reverberating whisper that reached into his ears and tickled the bottom of his nasal cavity. But it was Dex, arms folded, chin out, squatting on the deadfall like a gargoyle clinging to the edge of some old French cathedral.
“You going to pretend it was them Civil War ghosts?” Dex said, letting one eyelid go lazy as if suggesting they could play a good one on Vernon Ray.
“I’m bored.” Bobby’s mouth was an ashtray, tongue dry as a spider web, nicotine ramping up his pulse. He’d wished he’d saved some of the Dr. Pepper, but Dex had knocked it from his hands as they’d crossed the creek.
“What you guys doing tonight?” Vernon Ray said.
“Your momma,” Dex snapped back.
“I claim sloppy seconds,” Bobby said, though his heart wasn’t in it.
“For real,” Vernon Ray said. “Think you can get out for a movie?”
“What’s playing?” Dex said, faking a yawn and showing his missing molar.
“Tarentino’s got a new one.”
“We can’t sneak into that, dumbass,” Dex said. “It’s rated ‘R’ for racks and red blood.”
Bobby was about to suggest a round of X-Box, anything to get away from the cave, when Vernon Ray held up his hand.
“Shhh,” the curly-haired boy said. “I hear something.”
Bobby couldn’t help sneaking a glance at the Hole, wondering if Vernon Ray had heard the whisper. Dex groaned. “Jesus, not you, too, V-Boy.”
“Serious.”
“That’s the roaring of your own fat skull.” Dex stood and looked down the slope into the woods, where the animal path widened. He blinked and flung his cigarette away as he turned and bolted.
“Over here!” came a shout. The rhododendrons shook along the edge of the clearing and a man in a brown uniform burst out, breaking into a run. Bobby caught the gleam of metal on the man’s belt.
Cop. Crap.
His heart jumped against his ribs and fluttered like a bird in a cat’s mouth. His dad would bust his ass good if he got in trouble with the law again. Dex headed for the back side of the mountain, where the steep slope bristled with brambles and scraggly locust trees, cover fit for a rabbit but little else.
The overweight cop was after him, wheezing, shouting at him to stop. Vernon Ray, who had fled down the path toward the creek trail, froze in his tracks at the command. While Bobby was still deciding which way to run, a second cop emerged, the brown-skinned store owner beside him.
“Is them,” the store owner said. The cop, a young guy whose cheeks were blued with stubble, put his hand on his holster, no doubt weighing the wisdom of drawing on a couple of kids.
As the second cop hesitated, Vernon Ray cut to the right, through a shaded thicket of hardwoods and jack pine. He was soon out of sight, though his route was discernable by snapping branches and rattling leaves. The cop took three steps in pursuit, and then apparently realized Bobby would be easier prey.
Bobby took a backwards step. As a Little League All-Star, he could dash ninety feet between bases with no problem, and the safety of the woods was only half that distance. Dex would get away clean, he was as slick as a snake in a car wash, but the swarthy cop would probably net Vernon Ray if Bobby fled. And Vernon Ray was Honor Roll, the pride of the trailer park and Bobby’s best friend.
“Hold it right there, son,” the cop said, though he was barely a decade older than Bobby. The stem of his sunglasses was tucked in one pocket, the lenses like a second pair of accusing eyes. Sweat splotched the cop’s underarms, and the badge caught a stray bit of sunlight as if God had signaled a secret moral message.
Bobby wanted to tell the cop he was innocent, to sell Dex down the river and take a plea, to beg the hairy-eared store owner’s forgiveness. But no words came, his feet had grown roots like the trees around him, and his senses were as heightened as they’d been during the first rush of nicotine. Had there been so many birds before?
The cop smiled in condescension and triumph, and Bobby blushed with anger. Titusville was full of meth addicts, lock bumpers, and check kiters, and Bobby was pretty sure Louise Templeton was running a trailer-park whorehouse three doors down from his home, yet the local peace officers had nothing better to do than hassle kids.
Of course, his jacket already had three lines in it, and though as a juvenile he’d had it all written off because the courts called him an “at-risk youth,” bad habits had a way of coming back to bite you on the ass.
“Don’t worry,” the cop said, reading the anxiety in Bobby’s eyes. “We just want to talk.”
“I make charges,” the store owner said in his high-pitched, thickly accented voice. “I run fair trade.”
The cop waved him back. “I’ll handle this. It’s only a misdemeanor, not a hanging offense.”
It was the same smug crap the probation officer, the school counselor, and the principal all dished out. They’d poke around for some reason to explain the delinquent behavior, and though Bobby had only a passing knowledge of Freud, he’d picked up enough to feed the crap right back. Unhappy home, poverty, what they liked to call “an adjustment disorder,” and the likelihood of substance abuse became not reasons to whip his ass into shape, but excuses for screwing up. Not only was his troubled streak explainable, it was practically expected. And who was he to disappoint so many others who had such a deep interest in his future?
The cop was close enough that Bobby could smell his aftershave, Old Spice or some other five-dollar-a-pint pisswater they sold at Walmart. The store owner’s pudgy fists were clenched, his dark face flushed with the anger of small-change violation. Hell, Dex could have paid for the smokes, that was no prob, Dex not only had a generous allowance but he was the biggest weed dealer at Titusville Middle School. He always had some spare jack in his pocket. But what the Dot Heads and the cops and the do-gooders didn’t understand was that stealing was just more fun.
And Bobby had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than sit through a booking and a lecture and then Dad’s trip to bail his ass out of trouble again. Beat the hell out of X-box any day. And, he had to admit, an arrest would get him away from The Jangling Hole and the cold whispers and—
“Aieeeeeee.”
A scream ripped from the other side of the ridge, where the cop had chased Dex. It was followed almost immediately by a gunshot, the sharp report silencing the birds and riding up above the wind.
The young cop’s face erupted in what might have been shock,
but Bobby saw just a little pleasure in it. The cop was as bored as Bobby, and “Shots fired” was almost as good as “Officer down” when it came to law-enforcement hard-ons.
The cop grappled with his holster and had his mean-looking piece in his hand by the time he brushed past Bobby and headed around the Hole. Bobby and the store owner were left looking at each other, neither knowing what to do.
Bobby shrugged. “It was just some smokes, man.”
The store owner stamped his foot and started jabbering a mile a minute in some exotic language, but he shut up quick when the second shot rang out.
Visit Scott Nicholson on the web at http://hauntedcomputerbooks.blogspot.com
_____________________________
PARALLAX
by Jon F. Merz
What happens when two professional assassins - one a Mafia hitman and the other a former German terrorist - kill at exactly the same moment in time? For Ernst Stahl and Frank Jolino the result is a psychic bond that slowly blossoms in each man's mind, enabling them to see into the other's world. Frank Jolino doesn't like what he sees, especially when he realizes that Stahl is headed to his home turf of Boston to kill a scientist who may hold the key to solving the world's deadliest diseases. But for Stahl, there's no other option. Virtually bankrupt and with his son in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, he's got little choice but to take the assignment. Jolino has other ideas. On the run from his crime syndicate for refusing to kill his ex-girlfriend-turned-government-informant, Jolino sets a plan in motion that will bring the two men face-to-face and gun-to-gun...with no guarantees either will survive.
CHAPTER ONE
Revere, Massachusetts – 6:55PM
The first thing Gia ever said to him was, “You’re Patrisi’s hitter.”
She’d already known. And Frank, still marveling at her blue eyes, brunette hair, and full lips, found himself struck dumb for the first time in his life.
Eventually, he’d found his voice. And things got better from there.
For a time.
The last thing Gia ever said to him was, “It was fun. Sort of.”
Then she was gone.
Movement to his left drew his attention back to the present. The kid sitting next to him had decided he needed a cigarette. Frank’s voice cut through the darkness.
“You don’t smoke when you’re getting ready to kill a man.”
Bobby froze. The cigarette floated in the space halfway to his mouth. “I heard you had to give ‘em up. You turned preacher now?”
Frank watched the red brick-faced bar through the January downpour and frowned. Nasty weather to kill in, he decided. “Health’s got nothing to do with it. A lit butt looks like a flare in the night.”
“So?”
Frank sighed. Don Patrisi asked him to do this favor. But babysitting the transplant from Philadelphia and his cavalier attitude grated on Frank’s nerves. “So, our boy sees a red cinder in a dark idling car across the street, who the hell’s he gonna suppose is out there waiting for him? Not the Publishers Clearinghouse people.”
The cigarette vanished. “You really the best, Frankie?”
“How old are you, kid?”
He could sense Bobby shift in his seat, drawing himself up. Frank never stopped watching the bar.
“I’m twenty-four.”
Barely out of diapers, thought Frank with a smirk. “First off, don’t ever call me Frankie. To you, my name is Frank. Or Mr. Jolino. Never Frankie. We clear on that?”
“Yeah.”
Frank let the silence hang for a few seconds. “Do yourself a favor, don’t ever go through life thinking you’re the best at anything. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because there’s always someone out there been doing it longer and better than you have. Start thinking you’re the best, someone’ll show up and prove you wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Do your business the best you know how. Learn from those you can learn from. Maybe pass on a bit of that knowledge to the next generation. Live humble, kid. The world’s already got enough prima donnas.”
Bobby’s head bounced like an eager puppy. “Yeah, but are you really the best?”
Frank glanced at him, sighed again, and then went back to watching the bar. Another spate of rain sloshed down on the windshield, turning the neon sign across the street into a melting swirl of pink and purple.
He pressed his spine into the seat cushion. Truth was, he wanted a cigarette, too. But he’d dropped them a year ago. Right after the quacks told him to either quit or die within six months from a series of massive heart attacks.
Frank hated kicking the butts to the curb. All his heroes smoked. Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Nick Ransom, all of them – they all smoked. Of course, in the pages of pulp fiction there weren’t such things as heart attacks and lung cancer. At least not for those guys.
But for Frank? Mr. Myocardial Infarction lived right around the corner. Lung Cancer hung out on the front stoop. And Emphysema had his phone number on speed-dial.
So Frank ditched the tobacco.
In the distance, bloated clouds hugged the Boston skyline pissing down raw January misery. Cold. But not cold enough for snow, thought Frank with a sigh. He liked snow. Its virgin white made him think some things in nature couldn’t be corrupted.
Human nature, though, that was something else entirely.
“Turn the heater on.”
Bobby flipped the switch. As a rule, Frank didn’t keep the engine going. Idling cars ranked just above lit cigarettes on the Stupid Moves Scale. But he made an exception tonight. If they didn’t keep the engine hot, they’d be stepping out every ten minutes to relieve their cold-constricted bladders.
A rush of heat poured from the vents. Frank directed them down at the floor and cracked his window to defog the windshield.
He glanced at the dash clock. Just after seven. Next to him, Bobby tried stretching his legs.
“Stay loose, kid. He won’t be much longer.”
Bobby nodded once. Curt. Sullen.
Kid hates my guts, thought Frank. He grinned. So what? He wasn’t here to make friends. Fear and hatred were the foundation you built respect on – at least in the Family.
Frank waited. Plugging Vito Vespucio wasn’t what he’d wanted to do on a freezing drizzly night like this. Curling up with the old Raymond Chandler first edition he’d bought from an antiques dealer on Beacon Hill sounded a lot better.
But a job was a job.
And to Frank, the job was everything.
Almost.
***
Munich, Germany – The Same Time – 1:55AM
“It’s leukemia.”
Stahl felt the office lurch; its walls billowed like sails and then shrank in toward him, a fist crushing his world. Cancer? Impossible. But he seemed so healthy. He looked so healthy, even.
“What are the options?”
“Treatment, of course. A bone marrow transplant is the best method we have available. But it’s costly. You do have insurance?”
Stahl glanced up, biting back the surge of emotion. “You’re callous enough to ask about money at a time like this?”
“No, no.” The doctor leaned back, hands coming up. “It’s just that if you aren’t able to afford it, there are certain alternatives we could discuss. I wasn’t implying-“
Was it that visible? Could everyone see just how broke Stahl truly was? That his bank account had a grand total of seventy euros in it? That he had electricity and gas bills months overdue? He’d stretched what he had as best he could, but it wasn’t enough. The stress of trying to keep his head above water, of providing a life for his son, it was breaking him.
No.
He didn’t have insurance.
He didn’t have much of anything. Except a broken past. And a handsome son who’d taught him more about love than any woman ever had.
Now this.
Leukemia.
Stahl felt dizzy. He closed his eyes and opened the
m again, settling his gaze on the doctor. “Schedule the transplant. No matter what it costs.”
“Are you sure?”
Stahl took a breath, steadier now. “My son gets the very best care. He’s all that I have left.”
“Herr Stahl!”
The doctor’s office vanished; its white walls replaced by a frigid darkness that enveloped him.
“What?”
Next to him, a thin rickety man shivered behind the steering wheel. “Herr Stahl…p-p-please, could we turn the heater on?”
Stahl checked the slide on his Beretta. Again. In the darkness, the gun looked longer thanks to the homemade suppressor he’d fashioned earlier. Good for six shots. Plenty more than he’d need.
“No. You don’t want our prize seeing us out here, do you? You don’t want him to get away again, do you?”
“Of course, not. I only thought-“
“I know. It’s cold. It’s freezing, in fact. We might even see some snow.” He nodded outside. “But this man has not eluded capture by being stupid. He will hear us. Maybe he will even smell the car engine. And then he will know. He will know we wait for him.”
“Forgive me, this is…unusual for me.”
Stahl smiled. “Not used to dealing with criminals, are you?”
“Certainly not. Nor am I used to dealing with men like you, Herr Stahl.” He coughed once. “I don’t even know if that is your real name.”
“Does it matter?”
The answer came quick. “No, no. I’d rather not know.”
“Let your anger be your warmth,” said Stahl. He peered at the red brick tenements bordering the alley, towering over the car they sat in. At this time of night, darkness bled from all the windows.
The thin man’s teeth chattered. “This man must not be allowed to live another day.”
“How many?” asked Stahl.
The man frowned. “According to what the Polizei told me, twenty. Most of them between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two.”
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