by Rick Jones
“Pick it up” whispered the voice.
“Who’s there?”
Silence.
“You have any idea who you’re messing with?” Jesse offered.
There was a beat.
Then: “Pick it up.”
“You want me to pick up the knife, man? Is that what you want me to do? No problem!” The moment Jesse took his eyes off the wall of darkness and bent over to pick up the knife, he knew it was a mistake. Something large exploded from the shadows with an unbelievable wingspan of outstretched arms. It was quick and fast, a black phantom with no face or contours or features. Just a malignant black mass that eclipsed him like a skillful predator.
Jesse’s eyes bulged behind the strength of his attacker, who had a choke hold on him from behind. His throat was locked within the crook of the man’s arm, with the attacker’s bicep and forearm pressing against the carotids to close off blood flow to the brain. Already the edges of his sight were beginning to turn black, the sides closing in. He never did pick up the knife, which remained a few feet away. But even that was beginning to fade from his sight.
Then his attacker eased up, which allowed enough of a blood flow to rekindle full vision.
“I need answers,” said the attacker. “And you’re going to give them to me.”
“What did you do to Billy?”
The attacker squeezed, causing Jesse to gag. “I don’t answer your questions. You answer mine.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t care.”
Jesse gagged. Then the attacker let up, but barely.
“Dennis Zeemer and Becki Laurent. Their names ring a bell to you?” the attacker asked.
“Piss . . . off,” Jesse managed. “You . . . are so . . . dead.”
The attacked reached out with his free hand, grabbed the fore and middle fingers of Jesse’s right hand, and snapped them like sticks of chalk, the audible double clicks loud. When Jesse tried to cry out, his attacker covered his mouth with a gloved hand.
“Now you listen to me,” his attacker whispered into Jesse’s ear. “We can do this the hard way or the simple way, your choice. Understand?”
Jesse offered a feeble nod.
“Now it’s my understanding that there are two hundred-and-six bones in the human body. Two of yours are broken, leaving two hundred-and-four to go. So trust me when I say this. I can sit here all night breaking the rest. Do you understand that?”
Another nod. This one more vigorous.
“Dennis Zeemer and Becki Laurent,” he started. “We all know what happened to Dennis. And I know they were in hock to Cooch because of the junk you sold them. My question is, where is Becki?”
Jesse, even beneath the large man’s grasp, shrugged. “Don’t know who you’re talking about, man.”
“Wrong answer.” The attacker reached down, grabbed Jesse’s hand, and this time snapped the ring and pinky fingers. “So many bones to break and the night is still young,” he added. Then he stifled another cry with a large hand over Jesse’s mouth. “Becki Laurent,” he demanded harshly. “Where is she?” He was careful not to ask ‘what happened to her,’ afraid that he might hear that she was no longer a part of the living, like Dennis. And banked on Jesse’s pain to serve as a motivator for him to speak the truth. If she was dead then he’d want to know where she was and bring her home for a proper burial, rather than to leave her in an unmarked grave. He hoped, however, for the former, that she was still alive. Then he reached for Jesse’s thumb, the only bone in his right hand left to break, and gripped it for a good wrenching and twist.
“All right, man, I’ll tell you!” Jesse’s eyes were beginning to tear up.
“Where?”
“I don’t know where she is, man! I swear to God! But I know what Cooch plans to do with her!”
“I’m listening.”
“She owes money. So Cooch plans to use her as a means to get that money.”
“You mean he’s going to force her to work the streets?”
“Yeah, man. Cooch is pushing his operations into the North End and Southie. That’s where he wants to put her after she’s cleaned up a bit.”
“But you don’t know where she is now?”
Jesse tried to nod. But his attacker’s grip around his throat was too strong. “There’s a house in Chelsea. Another in Everett. That’s where he houses his pros, man.”
“You don’t know which one?”
“No. It has to be one or the other.”
His attacker didn’t say anything. But his grip remained strong.
“Let go of me, man. I told you everything.”
“I need addresses.”
“Man--”
His attacker started to choke him out. “Addresses,” he demanded.
Jesse raised his good hand in surrender. “The one in Everett is on Broadway. Eight-O-five, I think. I don’t know the address to the one in Chelsea.”
Kimball knew the man was lying to him about where she was. He could easily see through the subterfuge of the man’s lies to throw him off balance. But he was certain that Becki was still alive, at least Jesse was being truthful about that since she had too much value, which is why she wasn’t tossed off the platform beneath the wheels of the train like Dennis, who had no value at all.
Then Kimball leaned closer to the man’s ear and whispered, “If anything happens to her, anything at all, I will hunt you down, I will find you, and I’ll toss you under the same set of wheels you or Cooch threw Dennis Zeemer under.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, man.”
“Yeah. You keep believing that.” Kimball raised his free arm high, and then brought the point of his elbow down against the crown of Jesse’s head, sending him into a state of unconsciousness.
Getting to his feet, Kimball noted the butterfly knife lying on the alley floor and picked it up. It felt good in his hands. For a long moment he toyed with it, trying to get it to open and close with the skill and ease as Billy-the-Blade. But his motions were awkward and uneven, the knife swinging about with ridiculous movements that were more comical than accomplished. But he would improve over time.
And in the near future, as Kimball continued to follow his Gray Path that divided the Light from the Darkness, he would become one of the best double-edged fighters on the planet.
Now, as he swung the knife about in attempts to better himself, he was nothing more than a sloppy novice.
After placing the knife in his pocket he surveyed the area. The night had grown quiet. And Jesse lay beneath a feeble cone of light cast from a single incandescent bulb that glowed weakly beneath a metal hood. In the shadows not too far from his position lay Billy-the-Blade, the man face down against the pavement, unconscious.
He had what he came for---to learn that Becki was alive and soon to be an asset in Cooch’s arsenal of pleasurable delights. All he had to do was to find her and bring her home. And then what? Was Cooch going to wash his hands and let it go?
Of course not.
He put a hand to his pocket and felt the outline of the knife. He was about to go to war. This he knew. What he didn’t understand was the horrible cost that war usually brought, such as incredible loss, even in victory.
Win or lose, there would always be some kind of terrible loss.
Always.
And Kimball was about to find this out.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When Cooch got word that Billy-the-Blade and Jesse had been taken down, he immediately thought it was a retaliatory strike from his opposition on the Boston Front for muscling in on their territory. That made sense to him. What didn’t make sense was the story that Jesse was pitching to him.
Jesse sat at his desk with his feet elevated to the desktop, listening. His well-dressed acolytes stood by as well, also listening. Sitting in a chair looking like hell was Billy-the-Blade, though he was without his knife. He was wearing a butterfly strip over the bridge of his nose to knit together the lips of a nasty gash, a
nd his eyes were blackened and bruised like the mask of a raccoon. Jesse was no better. He stood before Cooch’s desk with his hand wrapped in a towel. His fingers were twisted in unnatural positions and badly swollen. Once he informed Cooch what he needed to know, then he’d be off to the Emergency Room for splints.
“He was big,” said Cooch. “And fast. Ask Billy over there.”
Billy-the-Blade waved him off. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.
“This guy didn’t tell you to tell me to stay away from his turf? That you guys would be a warning of what’s to come if I didn’t?”
Jesse shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. This guy wasn’t a soldier. I’m telling you.”
“One guy?”
Jesse nodded. “We heard something and Billy checked. Only Billy never came back. Then this guy just came out of nowhere. And I mean he was big and fast like I’ve never seen before.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No. He was wearing a hoodie.”
“And this guy. He had no interest of taking your money or your product, had no intent to rob you, and he didn’t use the moment to warn me of my encroachment into Boston territories. Interesting.”
“I’m telling you, Cooch, this guy wasn’t a foot soldier. This was something personal.”
“And you know this how?”
“He gave me the names of Dennis Zeemer and Becki Laurent. He wanted to know where Laurent was. Asked only about her and wanted to know where she was.”
“And?”
“I lied to him. Told him she was probably in one of two places. Either in a house in Chelsea or Everett.”
“And he believed you?”
“I think so. After that he knocked me out.”
“And the son of a bitch took my knife,” Billy-the-Blade commented from across the room. “And I want it back.”
Then from Cooch: “Why would he be interested in someone like Becki Laurent?” When he said this it was more to himself, as if he was deliberating out loud. Then he turned to Jesse. “You may be right about this being a personal hit. Where is she?”
Jesse looked at one of Cooch’s acolytes, a Well-Dressed Man who accepted Becki from Billy-the-Blade on the night Dennis Zeemer was killed. “We’re getting her cleaned up at a house on Ripley Street.” Ripley Street was close to the Oak Grove area and not too far from the train platform she had been taken from. “The chick was half dead on smack. It’s gonna be awhile before she’s respectable and can turn tricks.”
“Go there,” Cooch ordered. “Find out all you can from her. Friends. Relatives. Anyone who might give a damn about her or knows her situation.”
The Well-Dressed Man nodded. “Yeah, boss.” Then he was gone.
“And you,” he pointed to Jesse. “Get that hand looked at.”
Jesse winced and nodded. “I’ll need a ride to the hospital.”
Cooch snapped his fingers to another acolyte, the gesture an order to see this done.
When the room was empty with the exception of Billy-the-Blade, Cooch addressed him. “And your version?” he asked.
Billy-the-Blade shrugged. “Like Jesse said, this guy was fast. We heard a noise, I investigated, and then this guy, this huge guy, bum-rushed me from the shadows before I could get my knife up for a thrust and grabbed my wrist. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the shadows.”
Cooch pondered this for a moment. That was twice this week he had heard mention of a big guy, one being a kid, with preternatural speed. Of course stories were embellished to suit the needs of people like Jesse and Billy-the-Blade to cushion their egos, but big guys usually didn’t have that type of skill set: to be big and unnaturally fast. Guys like that were few and far between. So he wondered and thought about the kid at the cemetery. There weren’t too many who had the ability to bring his people to their knees. But then he dismissed the thought, thinking the kid was just that, a kid.
But Cooch was wrong.
Because Kimball Hayden was becoming so much more than that.
#
The house on Ripley Street was a three-tiered structure built in the late 1800’s. It had a poorly shingled roof, shingled siding, and a porch that tilted dangerously from aged wood that barely had the power to support the construction of the porch’s overhang.
The top three floors were the residential quarters---the bedrooms, living room, bathrooms, and kitchen---whereas the basement served a very different purpose. The floor was of compact dirt that was hard pressed. The walls were mortared pilings of field stone. And pipes banged noisily as they tracked along the basement’s low ceiling. In the back of the basement was a metal door made of welded plates of diamond-studded steel, a place where the house’s darkest secrets were kept.
Two men walked across the basement with their heads lowered so as not to hit their heads against the network of pipes. One was dressed casually, the other in a richly tailored suit. As they neared the door the Casually-Dressed Man removed a set of keys from his pocket, inserted a specific key in the lock, and opened the door. The smell of human waste and vomit hit them like a sharp slap to the face, the scent was that keen. When they stepped inside the room the Casually-Man dressed flipped on the light switch.
Lying on a soiled mattress about two-inches thick lay Becki Laurent. She looked horribly skeletal with her joints all coming to sharp points like her elbows, kneecaps and the tip of her chin. She was not wearing a shirt, exposing non-existent breasts and the distinct outline of her ribcage. Nor was she wearing underwear, displaying hip bones that were as detailed as the blades of a fan.
The Well-Dressed Man waved the air beneath his nose as if it would clear the area of the stench. It didn’t. “Geez, man.” He continued to wave. “Is that stink coming off her?”
The Casually-Dressed Man, a guy in his fifties with gray hair that had receded to the top of his pate, said, “She’s lucky to be alive.”
But Becki looked anything but as she laid there staring at the ceiling with eyes that had frozen to the size of ping-pong balls. Her mouth was slightly ajar as drool seeped from the edges of her mouth. And her skin was so pallid she looked more like a wax figure than a living being. He also noticed that Becki had been restrained by thick leather cuffs that were lined with sheepskin, to keep her from chaffing her wrists and ankles during moments of struggle.
The Well-Dressed Man gave a quick appraisal. “Are you sure she’s alive?”
“She is.” The Casually-Dressed Man pointed to her chest region which rose and fell in slow, even rhythms. “Her system’s in shock. Not enough smack in her veins for her mind to register or handle the sudden change. I’ve been weaning her off the stuff ever since she got here.”
“She looks like she’s awake. What the hell is she staring at?”
“Nothing in particular,” he responded. “I can’t tell if she knows we’re here or not.”
“You’re kidding’.” The Well-Dressed Man went over and waved his hand over her face. Her eyes did not follow the movement at all, but seemed to stare right through it. “She in a coma or something?”
“No. Once in a while she comes to life when the pain’s too great and starts screaming. Two hours ago she was talking about apples made of gold and pink leprechauns. Sometimes she’s lucid and knows what’s happening to her. Other times she’s like this.” He pointed to her as she lay in what appeared to be a quasi-catatonic state.
“I need to ask her some questions?”
The Casually-Dressed Man looked at him as if the man was an idiot. “You what?”
“Cooch wants me to ask her something.”
“Look at her. She’s in transition coming down from a system so jacked up with heroin that she should have died weeks ago. You won’t be getting anything out of her for a few days yet.”
“I need to ask her something now. A couple of our guys got hit over in Bellrock and Cooch thinks she knows who, since the guy specifically asked about her.”
“Couple of guys? Anyone I know and love?”
“Yeah. Jesse and Billy-the-Blade.”
The Casually-Dressed Man gave him a look of astonishment. “One guy took out Jesse and Billy-the-Blade?”
The Well-Dressed Man nodded. “Cooch thinks it might be a retaliation strike from the North End or Southie, who’re sending Cooch a message about his encroachment into their territory. But Jesse thinks it was personal. He thinks it’s someone looking for this girl.”
The Casually-Dressed Man concurred. “If the people of the North End and Southie wanted to send a message, Jesse and Billy-the-Blade would have been wearing Colombian neckties. That’s the message they would send.”
“Yeah. I agree. If there’s someone else out there who’s a threat to Cooch’s organization, then we gotta handle it. I mean, taking out Jesse and Billy-the-Blade ain’t no easy thing.”
“That’s why I was surprised to hear that. Those two are heavy hitters.”
“Yeah, well, someone just happened to hit harder.” The Well-Dressed Man moved closer to Becki for further examination. And this time her eyes followed him and registered his presence.
Then she started screaming and struggled against the cuffs and tethers, crying about the pain and for God to help her. All she needed was a small taste of smack. Just a little.
The Well-Dressed Man was so startled by her sudden shift of mental state, he quickly fell back calling out the Lord’s name in vain and exited the room.
When the Casually-Dressed Man closed and locked the door behind them, they could barely hear the cries of Becki Laurent.
“That normal?’ The Well-Dressed Man asked.
“Not typically. Sometimes the brain shuts down when the pain’s too much to bear. Right now she’s in constant agony. It happens when you wean people off of junk. Happens all the time. It’s never a pretty sight.”
“And if I ask her questions?”
“You won’t get what you’re looking for,” he answered. “At least not now. Right now she’s craving and borderline madness. But that ship eventually right’s itself once her system’s clean.”
“How long will that take?”