Everybody Dies - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 3)

by J. A. Konrath

  By the time we found the staircase my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I was seeing pretty well. The stairs were massive, wide, marble, with brass railings. I gave Little Elvis back to Harry and held my breath, straining to hear any signs of life.

  Wafting up the stairs like a light breeze came the unmistakable sound of giggling.

  I took the stairs slowly, reaching the bottom, then following the sound into a very large room, decorated like some kind of museum exhibit.

  Or shrine. A shrine to all things Nazi.

  Hanging from the ceiling were flags adorned with swastikas and Iron Crosses and lightning bolts. There were uniforms and antique weaponry behind glass cases on two walls. At the third wall was a large, open safe, and standing by the safe was an old man in a tailored blue suit sniffing what looked like a rag.

  I was on him in six steps, the gun pressed to his head before he could even turn fully around.

  “No sudden moves.”

  Rather than quake in fear or yell in surprise, the multi-millionaire gave me an indignant sneer.

  “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

  “Where’s the alarm control panel?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  I slapped him across the chops, hard. His upper dentures flew from his mouth and clattered against a display of jack boots.

  “The control panel, Milton.”

  “It’s in the foyer,” he squeaked, sounding less like a hotshot company president used to giving orders and more like the frightened victim I wanted him to be.

  “Show me.”

  Putting his arm behind him in a hammer lock, we walked out of the room and across the hall.

  “Ask him where the bathroom is,” said McGlade.

  I ignored him, letting him lead us through the room, into another hallway, and to the foyer, where a portrait of Milton, his upper body poking through the hatch of—no shit—a Panzer tank.

  “Behind the painting,” Milton said. “There’s an access panel.”

  The frame was on hinges, and I pulled it back to reveal a keypad and screen. “What’s the code?”

  “Nineteen forty-two.”

  He lisped his T’s, lacking an upper set of teeth. I raised a finger and stopped myself. A kernel of memory kicked itself loose in my mind. Years back, when I was hired by a man’s abusive wife to break into his office and plant some drugs there, I got a job at the security company that protected the building in order to learn its procedures. The ex-cop who trained me liked to talk, mostly about security systems, and I learned quite a bit. One of the things he’d told me about was a duress code.

  A duress code was a number that seemed to disarm the system, but still alerted the police. If someone broke into your house and put a gun to your head, you could give him this code and he’d believe he was home free, until the cops showed up five minutes later.

  A clever trick, but one that was standard in the industry. Also standard was the practice of making your duress code simply your normal code plus or minus one. That made it easy to remember in a panicky situation like being held at gunpoint.

  So instead of punching in 1942, I punched in 1941. Lo and behold, the entire system disarmed.

  “Nice try,” I told Milton.

  He seemed to shrink, but his eyes were still sharp, commanding.

  “I don’t keep much money here. Just a couple thousand. Take it and get out.”

  “I don’t want your money. You know what I want.”

  I stared hard, into his rheumy eyes. They widened slightly, a spark of recognition appearing.

  “You’re the brother.”

  “Tell me where she is,” I said, daring him not to.

  Bradford Milton, head of Milton Electronics, Führer of the CN, septuagenarian, career asshole, laughed in my face. “Nothing will stop my plans!” he declared.

  “Your plans?” asked Harry. “What is this, James Bond?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your plans,” I told the Nazi. “I want Pasha. Tell me where she is.”

  “And where the bathroom is,” McGlade added.

  He jutted out his saggy little chin. “I’ll die before I tell you anything.”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” I snarled at him. “I’m just going to break your knees.”

  “Bad ticker.” His breath smelled like sour cream. “I’ll have a heart attack if you start hurting me.”

  “Maybe I’ll take that chance.”

  I reared back to slap him again when Harry caught my hand.

  “Phin. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s hit him where it really hurts. Right in the fetish.”

  We marched him back to his trophy room, realization slowly dawning on the Nazi.

  “You’re can’t be serious,” he said.

  Harry walked up to Milton’s safe with a spring in his step. Wiggling his fingers in anticipation, he reached in and took out a sheaf of yellowed papers, carefully wrapped in plastic.

  “What’s this? Recipes?”

  “Put that down. It’s worthless to you.”

  “And now it’s worthless to you, too.”

  Harry ripped the papers up into tiny pieces, scattering them throughout the room. What little color Milton had left in his face drained out.

  “Let’s see what else is in here. Oh, lookee. A lock of hair.”

  “Don’t touch that,” blurted Milton, his composure quickly cracking.

  “Oh, you sentimental old fluff. What is it, an old flame’s? Let’s see if the old flame is still flammable.”

  Harry whipped out a Zippo and torched the baggie containing the hair. It went up and out in less than ten seconds.

  “Hair today, gone tomorrow,” McGlade said.

  “Stop it!”

  “Hey, what’s this?”

  Harry bent down and picked up the rag Milton had been holding when we first burst in. Except that it wasn’t a rag. It was a pair of very old underwear.

  “Please,” said Milton. His voice was cracking. “I can pay you. I have money.”

  “Let me guess,” said Harry. “These were Hitler’s jockey shorts.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  McGlade made a face.

  “It looks like your Führer didn’t know how to wipe his ass. Look, Phin. Sixty-year-old skid marks.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” pleaded Bradford Milton. He’d begun sweating.

  “How do we contact Packer?”

  “I can’t. He’s on a mission. He’s off the grid, maintaining radio silence.”

  “Hey,” said Harry, “a loose thread.”

  “Please…”

  “What mission?” I asked.

  McGlade pulled, and the underwear began to unravel before Milton’s eyes.

  “What mission?” I repeated.

  “The mission. Five years… planning… full house, so many on the right… all of those tickets… thousands of tickets… sacrifices must be…” His eyes bugged out, and he wheezed, “I… regret… nothing…”

  Then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, Milton keeled over.

  His head hit the ground with a serious THUMP. His eyes rolled up into his head, thin lips knotting like a pair of mating earthworms. His body went suddenly rigid, and then lax.

  None of these were good signs. I knelt down and checked for a pulse.

  “He’s dead,” I told McGlade.

  “You Nazi bastard!” Harry screamed. “Where’s the bathroom?!”

  I sat down on the floor, swearing at no one in particular. Harry gave the body a swift kick, for reasons only known to Harry.

  “Just making sure he’s not faking.”

  “I guess we have to search the place,” I lamented, knowing that a thorough search of this mansion could take days.

  “I’m searching for the shitter.”

  He jogged off. I began to go through the safe. Lots of German documents that looked old. A deed to the house. Several car
titles. A few thousand dollars in cash. Some gold jewelry that looked antique. And a thumb drive.

  The thumb drive seemed incongruous among all the old papers and items. I immediately began to search for a computer.

  The museum area didn’t have any, and I did a brisk tour of the dining room, living room, library, kitchen, pool table room, hunting trophy room, and a bunch of other first floor rooms. As I was heading for the staircase to search the second floor, I came upon McGlade, looking relieved.

  “I couldn’t find the bathroom, so I took a dump in a vase,” he told me.

  “Classy.”

  I walked past him. He followed.

  “It’s a joke. You could at least pretend to be amused. This kind of crude humor doesn’t just happen. It takes effort.”

  “Help me find a computer. I already checked downstairs.”

  “Yessir. Little Elvis and I are on the case.”

  The upstairs had a laundry room and several guest bedrooms, and then McGlade yelled, “I found it!” from the other end of the house. I went to him, and saw he was in the master bedroom, lavishly decorated with—who would have guessed—WWII memorabilia.

  McGlade was sitting on the enormous bed, staring at a laptop computer.

  “Password protected.”

  “Can you crack it?”

  “Not here. Back at my office I’ve got some software I could try. I also know a few hackers if my blunt force approach doesn’t work.”

  “You’ve got a laptop in your bug out bag,” I said, holding up the pen drive. “Let’s see if we can read this.”

  “Sure. What do you want to do about the dogs?”

  “The German Shepherds?”

  “Their owner is dead. And if we let them run wild in the woods, they might eat some small children.”

  “Why are small children running around unsupervised in the woods?”

  McGlade folded his arms across his chest. “Stop being a douche.”

  “You want to drive five hours to Chicago with two trained killing machines in the back seat?”

  “We just need to get them inside the house. Then I can anonymously call Animal Control and they can find them a good home.”

  “We need to find Pasha.”

  “And I’m helping you find Pasha. But first you need to help me for two minutes to get the dogs inside.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out half a bottle of B‘Estrus. “It worked once. It should work again.”

  HUGO

  The Man With Seven Tears stared silently at the ceiling while peeling off the thumbnail on his left hand. First he split them down the middle with Göth, then pulled off the individual halves as if shelling a pistachio nut. It was slippery work, and a great deal of blood was dripping onto the giant’s lap. He scarcely noticed it, forcing his focus on the exquisite pain. Forcing himself to embrace it, then ignore it.

  He didn’t have his weights with him, and had already done hundreds of push-ups. Hugo normally didn’t mind waiting. Life was all about killing time, in one way or another. But as the zero hour approached, he found himself growing antsy.

  One more day, he thought, staring intently at the crack. One more day, then he would be responsible for thousands of deaths. The largest terrorist act ever, anywhere.

  And after, he would deal with Phineas. That had been an itch he’d been waiting to scratch for a very long time.

  “Waaa maaa mmaa waaamam waaaa.”

  Annoyed at the interruption, Hugo stared up at General Packer, who was trying to talk with a gas mask on.

  “I can’t understand you with that thing on your head.”

  “Waaa aaaa waaaa maaa aaaaa.”

  Hugo had an urge to grab the mask and yank, then snap it against Packer’s face like a giant rubber band. This whole thing irritated him. It was so pre-planned that all of the challenge, all of the fun, had been taken out of it.

  “Are you deaf, old man? I can’t hear you.”

  Packer pushed the mask off his face. “I said that’s how you adjust the straps to make sure it’s snug. You got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s taken a helluva long time to get to this moment. All of this shit,” Packer gestured with his hands, “including the canisters, is years old. You don’t want to take a chance with leaks. That’s why the gas mask and hazmat suit.”

  “I got it.”

  “Okay. Let’s run through it.”

  “We ran through it.”

  “Well let’s run through it again. We only got one shot at this. Jesus, what happened to your hand?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s bleeding.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Packer tried, and failed, to hide his look of disgust. “Okay. You see the stage monitor?”

  Was Packer becoming senile? “Of course I see it.”

  There were only four monitors on the wall. One showing the alley entrance, one showing the outside door to the control room, one showing the front of the theater, and one showing the stage. Currently there were lots of people, running around, doing shit.

  “According to rehearsals, the egg scene will begin tomorrow at 1:48. But that’s approximate. If the show is running fast or slow, it may be a few minutes off. The cue is…”

  “When the smoke machines go off.” This was boring. “We’ve been over this.”

  “And we’ll go over it again. And again. You can’t screw this up.”

  Hugo stood up, scowling at Packer. “Are you saying I screw things up?”

  Packer took a step back and raised his hands. “No, of course not, I’m just trying to convey the importance of the matter, here. We have to get everything right.”

  “We? You’re going to be at your house in Decatur. I’m the one here, exposing myself to that shit.”

  Hugo wasn’t actually complaining. He wanted to be there. When would he ever get another chance to kill over six thousand people?

  Too bad this was the lamest way to commit mass murder in the history of ever.

  “I know it’s on you, Hugo. It’s all on you. And the Supreme Caucasian appreciates it. The whole Caucasian Nation appreciates it. You’re going to be a hero.”

  Hugo didn’t care about being a hero. He didn’t care about any of this. He’d joined the CN as a way of subsidizing his criminal behavior. Robbing and fighting and killing. Not sitting in a room, watching a clock and pressing buttons. That was for assholes like Packer.

  But Packer was too chickenshit.

  “So when you see the smoke machines…” Packer prodded.

  “I open the valves on the canisters.” Hugo pointed with his chin to the large, metal tanks in the corner of the control room.

  “Remember, you need to open both. This isn’t like the stuff The Chemist used on that politician.”

  “I thought it was sarin.”

  “It is sarin. But sarin degrades over time, becomes ineffective. So the Chemist separated the chemicals into two precursors to give it a longer shelf life. The precursors only create sarin when they’re combined. Do you have the Mark 1 kit, in case you get any on you?”

  Hugo checked his pockets, found it in the rear. He nodded.

  “If you’re exposed, inject the atropine—the smaller one—first. Take off the cap and jab it into your thigh and hold it there for a few seconds. It’s an autoinjector. Then do the same thing with the pralidoxime, the bigger one. What do you do after you open the valves?”

  “I check the monitor to make sure it’s working.”

  “What will you see?”

  “Panic. Seizures. Vomiting. Screaming.” He smiled. “Death.”

  “Then what?”

  “I take the access tunnel to street-level, ditch the biohazard suit, get in the car, and mail the letters.”

  “That part is important. Just as important as releasing the gas. Everyone needs to know who did this, and a lot of groups will try to take credit. The SC and I don’t trust that
email nonsense. Computers can be traced. You have to mail them at the mailbox on Columbus, and it has to be that night.”

  Hugo considered breaking Packer’s neck. But General Packer was the only link to the SC, and Hugo really did want to meet the SC, if only to satisfy his curiosity about the tear tattoos. If the Supreme Caucasian really had eight tears, Hugo would continue to support the cause. If it was bullshit, Hugo was going to rip off the man’s legs and shove them up his ass.

  “I got it,” Hugo said. “What about the girl?”

  “You know what needs to be done with the girl. You’d attract suspicion if you try to get away with a tied-up woman on your shoulder.”

  “If I kill her, how do I lure my brother close?”

  “He loves her. He’ll believe anything you tell him.”

  Hugo wasn’t sure about that.

  But killing Pasha would alleviate the boredom for a little while.

  PHIN

  “This is stupid,” I said.

  After looking around the mansion for something to substitute for the plush stuffed dog, McGlade choose a dusty taxidermy Red fox from Milton’s trophy room. It was missing an eye, and the tail was bent in half at a right angle.

  “It’s fine.” Harry shook the rest of the scent on the dead animal’s fur. “The dogs will love it.”

  I’d had a lot of moments in the past few months where I morosely reflected on my life and all the decisions I’d made to get me to where I was. It all led up to me watching Harry pose a taxidermy fox, ass-first, in the doorway of a dead neo-Nazi’s mansion, in hopes of luring his killer guard dogs close to us. It was so stupid, so outrageous, so unbelievable, and I’d reached a point where I accepted it as normal.

  Maybe that was the key to happiness. Accepting all the craziness, rather than trying to fight it, or worry about it, or understand it.

  It only took you how many decades to figure that out?

  Earlier, Harry had risked going out into the dark to retrieve the canvas strap and boat winch. He hadn’t been devoured.

  “When I call them, you pull the rope. Ready?”

  “Sure. Why the hell not.”