The Price

by Joseph Garraty

  Donnelly shrugged. “I don’t know nothin’ about that. I’ll let you know what I hear, though.”

  He headed toward the door, giving me a nod and a leer on the way out. “Keep your nose clean, Jimmy,” he said. I’d thought he was looking for an excuse to bust me before, but now I didn’t know what to make of the creepy fucker.

  This just kept getting better. It looked like Kit wasn’t talking to Donnelly, or at least hadn’t yet, or he’d know about the guns. On the other hand, if she hadn’t got any cops on the gun situation, and Donnelly reported that back to the Slob, I’d have some funny questions to answer. The fun never stopped. I rubbed my fingers together, feeling traces of grit, invisible soot, on them.

  I wasn’t in the habit of drinking before dinner, but I went behind the bar and poured myself some scotch anyway. It wasn’t hard to see why Benedict hit the sauce so hard.

  I knocked back my drink while Benedict sat and conferred with the Slob. From the sound of things, last night’s attacks hadn’t gone all that spectacularly. A few outright successes, a few where we came out ahead but not by much, a handful of straight losses. A few casualties. Nobody dead, which was good, but I gathered that we hadn’t expected much in the way of resistance at all. It was supposed to be a surprise, you know?

  “Jesus, Bennie,” the Slob said. “Two guys at the bookie’s and one guy at the packing plant down from this shit. You gotta stop this asshole.”

  “How do you know it was him?”

  The Slob held his hands apart, fingers spread. “Gee, I dunno. Artie said blue fire came from the fuckin’ ceiling, but you tell me. Maybe they just needed their chimbley cleaned.”

  I could feel Benedict’s anger from across the room, but he didn’t direct it at the Slob. His voice was emotionless. “And at the packing plant? What there?”

  “Something chewed the fuck out of Pete’s legs and damn near bit his hand off.”

  “Something?”

  “It was dark. He said it was about yea big”—he held his hands a couple of feet apart— “covered in pointy shit, red eyes. Big teeth, stank like a sewer.”

  “That’s . . . not good.” Still no emotion in Benedict’s tone, but something about the way he said the words strongly suggested I ought to be pissing myself right about then.

  “You don’t say.” The Slob took a sip of water, spilling a third of it on his shirt. They didn’t call him the Slob for nothing. “Take care of it,” he said.

  I could see the muscles in Benedict’s jaw flex even from halfway across the room. “Yeah” was all he said.

  He got up from the table and came over to Lazzaro and me. “Frankie, you’re with me,” he said. “Jimmy, you wait here. Big George wants your help with something. He’ll come by and pick you up later.”

  “Sure,” I said. I tried not to let my disappointment at getting pawned off on Big George show. I hadn’t thought Benedict was still pissed at me for ignoring orders, but I was apparently wrong if he was ditching me like this.

  “If you see anything that looks like the work of our friend, you call me. Don’t wait, don’t investigate. Just call me.”

  “Yeah. All right.”

  He split, and I was left to hang with the half-dozen or so guys in the club. Joey and a couple of capos I barely knew played cards, and another couple of guys threw darts toward the back of the room, waiting like me for God knew what. I didn’t feel up to crashing either party, so I took a chair and waited.

  I think about seventy hands of gin rummy got played and a thousand darts were thrown before Big George finally showed up. He had a couple of his guys with him, scary Neanderthal-looking bastards that were nearly as big as Big George himself. With that kind of muscle, I didn’t have the foggiest notion what he needed me for. Lookout, maybe?

  The four of us went out to Big George’s car, which appeared to have been freshly stolen for the occasion. At any rate, I didn’t imagine Big George usually drove a pink Mary Kay Malibu. I opened my mouth to give him some shit about it, but then thought better of it. Big George had a reputation for being a stand-up guy, but like most of the made guys, he had zero tolerance for disrespect from his underlings. If I got off a good one at his expense in front of his guys, he’d pound me into the ground like a fence post. I got in back without a word.

  The sun hadn’t quite gone down yet, though shadows were long between the buildings. Big George took us to a section of town we’d disputed with the Russians—and lost—and we all piled out. The big guy took us to an unmarked door, painted black, jammed in between a porn shop and a discount jewelry store. I refrained from making any of the obvious jokes.

  Big George tried the door, but the handle wasn’t moving. I reached for my lockpicks—Benedict hadn’t had to tell me twice, and I’d learned some of the basics—but Big George didn’t have the patience for that. He lifted one giant foot and kicked the door in. I flinched and looked around, but there was only one person out walking the neighborhood, an old man who simply crossed to the other side of the street and kept walking.

  In we went. The space was basically a long, narrow office space, an alley with a roof that contained little more than a desk and a few dusty filing cabinets. A skinny Indian guy with thinning hair and an eye-splittingly ugly brown sport jacket looked up from the desk as we came in. I saw recognition on his face, then horror, and then he took off. His ledger slid off the desk and the chair rolled away, bouncing off the wall, and he ran straight for the back as fast as his scrawny legs could carry him.

  Nowhere near fast enough. The desk blocked most of the hall, but Big George just leaped right over it, and he caught up to the running man in three enormous strides. One big hand reached out and caught the collar of that hideous jacket, and the guy’s body came to a sudden halt, long before his legs got the message. His feet scrambled at air, and Big George let him drop. The thud of his body hitting the ground made the cheap walls rattle.

  Big George reached down and picked the guy up by the front of his jacket.

  “Chair,” he said. I hopped to, righting the desk chair and rolling it over. He pushed the guy into it. It rolled back, thudding into the wall.

  Big George cracked his knuckles.

  “I don’t know anything, I swear!” the guy yelled. “I don’t know anything!”

  I was struck by how stupid this whole thing was. The guy obviously knew whatever it was Big George wanted to know, or at least enough to get started, but he was actually gonna make Big George hurt him before he’d talk. Was there any doubt that he’d talk? Really?

  “Can I do this one?” I asked Big George.

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, but he nodded. “We ain’t got all night,” he said, “so don’t fuck around.” He stood back and crossed his arms.

  Great.

  I crouched in front of the trembling bookie, or whatever he was, getting right down to eye level. He turned his face away, trying to avoid looking at me, but he was afraid he wouldn’t see it coming, so his eyes kept stayed pointed in my direction. It was weird—I was talking to the side of his face, but he was looking right at me.

  “Hey, what’s your name?” I asked.

  “V-Vivek.”

  “Great. We’re buddies now.” His forehead wrinkled and eyes widened in an unmistakable are-you-out-of-your-mind look. “Look, Vivek, I think we all understand a few things here. One, you know what Big George here needs to hear. Two, if you don’t want to talk about it, he’s going to hurt you so bad it’s gonna be painful for me just to watch. Three, in the end, you’re gonna talk anyway.”

  He shook his head spastically, moving it from side to side so quickly I thought I could see his eyes rattle in their sockets. “I am not a rat.”

  “Everyone’s a rat after Big George twists their arms off. You could save yourself a shitload of hurt if we skip that part and go straight to the bit where you tell him what he wants to know.”

  Sweat glistened on his forehead. “They’ll kill me,” he said.

  “Maybe. But they’ll kil
l you tomorrow or the next day, or maybe even not at all. Big George is here right fucking now, my friend.”

  He wanted to tell me. I could read it in his eyes, in his trembling lips. And yet, he held back.

  “Do you really think Old Man Chebyshev is gonna do anything worse than Big George? You might still have time to skip town.”

  “Not the old man,” he said. He lowered his voice to a nearly inaudible whisper. “K-Kelsen. He’ll find me. Anywhere.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “He has my blood.”

  The old man’s wizard. Had to be. The blood was a dead giveaway, and besides, I couldn’t think of anybody else who could possibly be scarier than Old Man Chebyshev himself. Benedict would be so pleased. I held up a hand and uttered a short incantation. A small ball of glowing orange light appeared in my palm.

  “Don’t worry about him,” I said. “We’re looking for that fucker. He doesn’t have time to worry with you.”

  Vivek’s eyes had gotten enormous when I’d conjured up the light, and now he swallowed and squared his narrow shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “The money’s in the bottom desk drawer.”

  One of the guys went to go check, and I glanced at Big George. “That it?” I asked.

  He rotated his enormous head. “Where does he take the money?”

  I looked at Vivek. “Well?”

  “Please,” he said. “You have the money, and that’s already enough to get me killed. Horribly.”

  “I’m not responsible for who you choose to do business with. Now, we’re running out of patience here.” A pointed glance at Big George, who was glowering down at Vivek, hands on hips. “Where do you take the money?”

  Vivek didn’t have any fight left in him, if he ever had any to begin with. “A man named Nikolai. Mr. Chebyshev’s nephew. He works out of a private club on Hampshire.”

  “Money’s all here,” Big George’s guy said, thumping a heavy envelope into his palm.

  “Great,” Vivek said. “May I go now? I’m going to need all the head start I can get.”

  “I know the club,” Big George’s guy said. “Never get in without you know somebody.”

  All heads swiveled to focus on Vivek. He closed his eyes. “Oh no.”

  * * *

  The steps down were wet with salty water, and icicles overhung the door to the club. It was a windowless basement club, no sign or anything, only a heavy steel door, painted blue, with a slot in it at eye level. I still hadn’t got a normal piece—I was carrying the AK under my overcoat, which was about as inconspicuous as tattooing “I HAVE A GUN” on my forehead in glowing fluorescent ink. At least it was full dark now.

  “I need a violin case or something,” I said. Big George rolled his eyes.

  Vivek banged on the door—three knocks, one knock, then three more. I hoped for his sake that was the normal thing and not some kind of alarm knock. George had warned him on the way over that, in the event of any foolishness, he’d shoot Vivek first. In the guts.

  We waited, but nothing happened. Vivek shot me a sickly grin, an expression that looked less like a smile and more like somebody’d just grabbed his testicles and squeezed.

  I pressed my body against the wall to the side of the door. Whether it was some magic sense or just good old-fashioned healthy paranoia, this was giving me a bad feeling. Anything could be going on behind that door. There could be a small army of crazed mobsters readying an arsenal, or half a dozen drunk bastards passed out on the floor, though with my luck I figured the situation leaned toward the former.

  It occurred to me that I could just ask the door what was on the other side. I shifted my idiotic assault weapon to my left hand and pressed my right to the door, silently thankful that I’d graduated from improvised nursery rhymes to regular incantations. Big George busting out with his big laugh would surely have given us away, not to mention humiliating me to my very core.

  “What are you—” Vivek began, but Big George shut him up with a hiss.

  “He’s watching you,” the door said in an eerie, slithery whisper. That it was audible to everybody there was obvious from the looks on all four of their faces. For one moment, Big George and Vivek wore the same worried, creeped-out expression. My face probably didn’t look much different from theirs—things tended to use more-or-less normal voices with me, usually, and the strange tone only reinforced my sense that something was off here. “And the big guy’s coming.”

  Before I could ask what the hell that meant, I heard the little metal door in the slot slide open. Who rang that bell? I thought, but I managed to keep my yap shut.

  “What?” an irate voice asked.

  “I must talk with Nikolai,” Vivek said.

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s, ah, it’s about his money.” Those were magic words that worked on every mobster, and they didn’t even require any practice.

  I heard the sound of the door unlocking. I shifted the gun back to my sweating right hand. For one second, I thought I smelled something burning, and I rubbed my fingers together, feeling that familiar gritty sensation.

  Then the door was swinging inward.

  One of Big George’s guys threw Vivek to one side and sprang forward, plowing a shoulder into the door.

  Like a pack of morons, we followed him in.

  The first guy in made it three steps over the threshold before lightning arced from the door to his body, causing him to jump and jitter. I knew this one, having been on the receiving end myself, and I quickly disarmed it while the other guys rushed past me. Gunshots cracked in the air, setting up a fearsome whine in my ears.

  I pushed away from the door, looking for cover, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. The place was a big open space. Low light, lots of expensive furniture in black leather, bar running the length of the back wall. The guy who’d been knocked down by the door was still down, right next to Big George’s buddy, the one who’d gotten zapped. Another guy was behind the bar blazing away with the standard behind-the-bar shotgun, and a third man advanced, pistol in hand, on Big George’s position behind the couch. Slugs ripped into the fabric, and the shotgun tore away big swaths of the upholstery.

  I was in an ideal position to lift the AK and wipe the two guys out—but then I saw the last man, and I froze.

  He looked normal enough—middle height, average build. He wore jeans and a maroon Harvard hoodie with the hood pulled up over a Red Sox cap, for all the world like the kind of guy you might expect to see stick up a convenience store. A stray strand of dirty blond hair curled out from the hoodie.

  Normal enough, but the words of an incantation flowed from his mouth, and blood dripped from his squeezed fists onto the floor.

  Kelsen. He caught my eye and threw a sardonic grin my way, and I finally convinced myself to move. I brought the gun up just as he finished the spell.

  There was a flash of reddish light and smoke, and the stink of sulfur and shit filled the room. Something black and writhing appeared at the center of the smoke. I pulled the trigger, but I was already aiming too high, and the recoil pushed the gun up, spraying bullets into the wall and ceiling.

  Kelsen ran toward the back, but it was too late to follow. The thing he’d called up charged me. Crazily, I remembered Joey the Slob holding his hands apart. Yea big, my ass! I thought. This thing was the size of a Saint fucking Bernard, hairless, covered in hooked spines and rippling muscle.

  And it had two friggin’ heads. Each one seemed to be supplied with enough teeth to outfit an entire pack of wolves.

  I managed to yank my gun back in line, and I unleashed a spray of bullets into the thing, which slowed it down not one iota. I couldn’t tell if the bullets were bouncing off it or going straight through it or simply getting absorbed into it somehow, but hot lead didn’t bother it any more than a cool breeze, and it closed the distance before I could blink twice.

  It leaped, and by an act of God—ha-ha—I dodged. A forest of teeth whipped past me, and I ran.

  Terrified, I ran without t
hinking, straight at the guy with the pistol. He turned, registered my charge with shock, and squeezed off a round. In the day’s second miracle, he missed.

  A second later, I was on him, and I’m not ashamed to say that I took the coward’s way out—I grabbed his outstretched pistol arm and slung him back at the thing that was chasing me.

  Turned out the thing wasn’t too picky. The screams started a heartbeat later.

  I couldn’t help it. I glanced back. The creature was tearing into the guy’s abdomen with both heads, tearing great gobs of red stuff loose, and that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was the guy’s face—eyes open wide in abject terror, mouth contorted and screaming. He didn’t look like an evil, inhuman Russian gangster. He looked like the poorest poor bastard I’d ever seen, a guy who’d rolled snake eyes one time too many and ended up somewhere he didn’t really deserve. Sweat and tears poured down his face as he beat at the thing to no effect.

  Suddenly this whole war thing seemed like an even worse idea than it had before.

  I looked away. The guy behind the bar had also seen all he cared to, and he bolted toward the back, where Kelsen had gone. That seemed like a great idea. I didn’t know how long it would take Hell’s Saint Bernard to finish with the dying gunman, but if bullets wouldn’t stop it, it was going to go through the rest of us in short order. “Come on, get out!” I shouted. I followed the erstwhile bartender, and I heard Big George and company pounding right behind me. The screams followed.

  We burst through a door in back and ran up a short flight of stairs to the alley.

  “Shut the door!” the bartender shouted. Big George slammed the door.

  “What about Eddie?” Big George’s guy asked. Eddie was the guy who’d gotten zapped by the front door.

  “Are you insane?” Big George shot back. “Eddie’s dog food. Get something to block this door, and hurry the fuck up.”

  The whole lot of us cringed, staring with wide eyes at each other while we waited for the sounds of snarling and claws scratching at the door. They didn’t come. Big George’s surviving guy dragged a trash can down and wedged it in the space between the door and the wall of the stairwell, and we all walked slowly away.