Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel

by Harry Connolly

  “Did you say dogs?”

  “A pack of dogs. And he ain’t the only one. In the last six years or so, eight or ten local folks have been torn apart that way. Very mysterious.”

  “I don’t get it. A pack of dogs? Are there feral dogs in the woods? Or does someone keep them?”

  “There’s no way to hide a pack of dogs in a small town like this one. Emmett Dubois tried to trap the dogs several times, but he never caught nothing. Me, I think they’ve had their vocal cords cut. That’s why nobody ever heard them barking.”

  I remembered the wolf that had stood out in the middle of the street. “Are the cops in this town really all brothers?”

  “Sure,” Bill said. “And it was their own daddy who hired them for the job. It might seem strange to an out-of-towner, but being a cop is a family business in Hammer Bay. And it was never a problem while one of the Hammers was giving the orders.”

  “Does that mean it’s a problem now?”

  “Heh. Well…” Bill rubbed his face. I guessed he would rephrase that if he could.

  “Let me put it another way: Are they good cops? Honest?”

  Bill lowered his voice. “Emmett keeps a lid on things in this town. And on his brothers, too.”

  “So I should be careful, then?”

  “Yes. Emmett is smart, and Sugar has always been a good kid. But don’t be left alone with Wiley. Just be careful with him.”

  The pizza arrived. I paid for it with Annalise’s card and offered Bill the first slice. He took it gladly. The conversation turned religious after that. Bill was sure I was a good Christian, and that the dog attacks were the work of Satan.

  It went on that way for a while. The three of us talked about all sorts of things, and Sara accepted a slice after all. It was very friendly. I pried here and there about their personal lives but didn’t learn much. Bill had one daughter and one grandson, Paul, who was at a boarding school in Georgia. Sara said she and Stan had never been blessed with kids. Of course. Bill started in on Charles Three again, but Sara told him to lay off.

  After a while, the topic turned to me. Bill asked again if I’d come to town to work at the toy plant. The scarecrow was standing at the bar, getting another pitcher. I decided it was time to try to drive that wedge between the town and the Hammers, so I told them why we had met with Able Katz that morning. “My boss wants Hammer Bay Toys to outsource some of its manufacturing to Africa. Sewing doll clothes, I think.”

  Sara looked as shocked as if I’d slapped her. “What? He’d never do that.”

  “It was only a first meeting,” I said with a casual shrug. “So nothing was decided.”

  The scarecrow stared at me for a moment, then left the empty pitcher on the bar and went back to the booth.

  “Sewing… Three of my aunts work in sewing. Aunt Casey needs that job to keep her house. We need those jobs here in town! Do you know how many of our older folks support themselves with a sewing machine now? What’ll they do if the jobs go overseas?”

  “People need jobs all over.”

  Sara collected my glass. “You know what, Ray? I don’t want you in my place anymore.”

  The scarecrow and his two friends walked out the front door. They watched me silently as they passed. I didn’t like that look.

  I stood. Bill protested. “Aw, don’t be that way, Sara. It’s not his fault.”

  “It’s all right, Bill,” I said. “It was time I was leaving anyway. Sara, do you have a back door?”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”

  “Because I expect those three guys are waiting for me outside.”

  Bill struggled off his stool. “I’ll go have a look-see.”

  “You stay right there, Bill,” Sara said. “I’ll check the parking lot if Ray here is feeling nervous.”

  She walked to the front door and went out. Bill lifted the lid of the pizza box. It was empty.

  “Well,” Bill said, “thanks for the grub and the company.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  “Is… is it really true about Africa?”

  “Times are harder there than they are here, Bill.”

  Sara came back in and told me that the parking lot was empty. So was the street.

  She stood by the door. I walked across the room, matched her scowl with a smile, and went outside.

  I had only taken three steps when I saw them leaning against a pickup truck. They smiled. The short one was holding a knife, and the other two were carrying tire irons. Scarecrow held a snub-nosed.38 in his off hand.

  Behind me, I heard Sara close the door and throw the bolt.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Hey, stranger,” the knife holder said. “We’re here to welcome you to Hammer Bay.”

  “Really?” I said. “Because I don’t see a muffin basket. You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?” The bar blocked one side of the lot, and a cinder-block wall of the business next door blocked the other. There were no stairs, windows, or gaps that I could use to get away. Behind me was a chain-link fence with struts blocking my view of the other side. A Plymouth Reliant was parked up against it. If I was going to run, that was the way, but there was still that gun.

  The one who had spoken was average height and wore large tinted glasses. The other was well under six feet and built like a fireplug; he held a beer in his off hand. Both were thick with muscle that comes with hard physical labor and the flab that comes with fried food. The short one wore a construction worker’s helmet, and all three wore steel-toed work boots.

  Glasses took a small box from his inside pocket. He lifted out a couple of tiny bundles wrapped in tissue or toilet paper and handed them to the others. Each man wet the bundle on his tongue, popped it into his mouth, and passed the beer back and forth to wash it down.

  The short one nodded toward me. “Look at his tattoos. He’s the one who set up Harlan for Emmett Dubois.”

  “Izzat right?” Glasses said, then threw the empty bottle at me. I ducked. It shattered against a fence pole behind me. “Well, well, well, now I’m double happy we waited for him.”

  The tall one bared his teeth and came toward me. He kept the barrel of the gun pointed at my stomach while he raised the tire iron. What was it with tire irons in this town?

  “Don’t you run from me,” he said with all the practiced bullying of a wife beater. “Don’t you run!”

  I wished Annalise had let me keep my ghost knife.

  He lifted the tire iron and swung for my head. I raised my left arm and caught the blow on my tattooed wrist.

  It didn’t hurt, but I did my damnedest not to show that. I cursed and clutched at my wrist as though he’d broken it.

  The other two laughed. The tall guy wasn’t in a mood to be entertained. “Harlan is my friend, and he’s in the hospital because of you.”

  He swung the tire iron again. This time I caught the blow on my right arm. I made a small, strangled noise and cradled both arms against my chest.

  The scarecrow sneered at me and dropped the revolver into his pocket.

  Perfect. He stepped toward me and raised his tire iron again.

  I laid a quick, right uppercut on the point of his jaw. He went limp and my left hand was in his jacket pocket before he hit the ground. I yanked the revolver free and fumbled it into the proper position. The scarecrow’s tire iron clattered to the ground.

  Glasses and the fireplug stepped back.

  I pointed the gun at them. They froze in place.

  “All right, kids. This doesn’t have to get interesting. Let’s make a deal. You never come near me again, and I won’t kill you.”

  “Forget it,” the tall guy said, struggling to his feet. “The gun’s not loaded.”

  Glasses turned on him. “What do you mean, it’s not loaded?” I wanted to know the same thing. “I told you what we needed to do.”

  The tall guy shrugged. “You’re my friend, Wyatt, but… I left the bullets at home.”

  While they hashed that out, the
fireplug grinned. He hefted his tire iron and stepped toward me.

  I threw the gun onto the roof of the bar and jumped onto the trunk of the Reliant. Then I stepped onto the roof and leaped for the top of the fence. I hit it at waist level and rolled over the top. There was a Dumpster below me. I twisted and landed on it. I heard cloth tearing. I jumped to the ground and ran for the street, wondering if Annalise would spring for more clothes.

  When I reached the street, I sprinted toward the left, away from the business district into a residential neighborhood.

  I heard them shout behind me and kept running. I was confident I could take any one of them, especially with the protections Annalise had given me. But three was too many. Too easy for one of them to knife me in the armpit or smash in my skull while I was dealing with another.

  So I ran. I passed one block, then another. As I started on the third, I looked back. All three were chasing me, and the tall one seemed to be gaining. That was fine. Wyatt and the fireplug were falling back, puffing and straining to keep up.

  I rounded a corner and was suddenly sprinting right beside a police car. The fat officer sat behind the wheel drinking Mountain Dew from a two-liter bottle. The engine was off. He watched me run past but didn’t reach for his keys or the radio. Great.

  In the next block, I nearly stepped on a thick black streak on the sidewalk. I jolted to the side at the last minute, running into the street to go around it.

  The beer and pizza began to weigh on me. I stopped beneath a streetlight and waited for the scarecrow.

  He didn’t keep me waiting long. And he wasn’t stupid, either. He ran straight at me, then dodged to the side as he passed, swinging that tire iron.

  I feinted a lunge at him, then stepped away from the swing. It missed.

  The guy slapped his feet on the sidewalk as he tried to stop himself. I charged him. He turned and tried to leap back. With a weapon and a longer reach, I’m sure he was hoping to avoid a clinch.

  He feinted a swing for my head, then went for my ribs. I barely managed to get my elbow in the path of the iron. It glanced off my arm without any harm but thumped into my hip. That one hurt.

  I grabbed the tire iron as he tried to pull it away. My grip was stronger, and I ripped it from his hand and tossed it into the street. The scarecrow backed away into the streetlight, right where I wanted him.

  I spared a glance at Wyatt and the fireplug. They were still half a block away, puffing toward us.

  The scarecrow threw a solid left jab followed by a long, hard, circling right. Both were respectable efforts, although neither connected. I ducked under his right and landed a hard left against his floating ribs. I felt something crack.

  He woofed and bent sideways. I threw a right into his midsection and slid a left hook over his shoulder against his jaw. He dropped.

  I turned toward Wyatt and his remaining friend. We’d been standing in the light, and they had seen the whole show. They stopped running. After a second of indecision, they started walking away. I watched them go for a second or two, then went back to the man I’d just beaten.

  I’d known guys who thought winning a fight was cause for celebration. They’d laugh and cheer and spread around high fives. I didn’t feel like cheering.

  I took the guy’s wallet while he was coming around. His driver’s license said he was Floyd O’Marra. I also found thirty dollars inside. Good. Eventually, Annalise was going to want her plastic back. I decided to charge Floyd for the important life lessons I was teaching him. I pocketed the money.

  “Damn,” Floyd said, rousing himself. “Where am I?”

  “Look around,” I told him. “Tell me if you see anything familiar.”

  He looked up at me. “Oh, hell.”

  “How’s Harlan doing, by the way?”

  Floyd didn’t quite know how to take that question. “He’ll probably live.” No thanks to you hung at the end of that sentence, unspoken but clear.

  He started to sit up, but I shoved him back down. “Where do you work, Floyd?”

  “Henstrick Construction.”

  “What kind of construction do you do? What do you build?”

  “Whore houses,” he said, sneering a little.

  “Is that so? Where can I find me a girl? All this exercise made me a little anxious.”

  “Outside of town,” he said. “A couple hundred yards behind the bowling alley. The Curl Club. Ask for me and I’ll get you a real warm welcome.”

  He tried to move away from me. I pushed him onto his back. “Do you want to help your buddy Wyatt?”

  “He’s my buddy, ain’t he?”

  “Do him a favor. Tell him to keep away from me. In fact, you and him should hop in your truck and take a little vacation. Vegas or something. Go have some fun. Because if I see any of you again, I’m going to spoil your whole fucking day.”

  Floyd had come around enough to start getting angry again. He tried to roll away from me but winced at the pain in his ribs. He swore. “Next time I’m going to load that damn gun.”

  I couldn’t take that lightly. I slugged him once on the nose. Not so hard that I’d break bones, but enough to make him taste blood. I held up his license. “Floyd O’Marra. 223 Cedar Lane. That sounds like a nice little neighborhood. Am I going to have to come to your house, Floyd? Am I going to have to burn it down? While you’re sleeping there?”

  He swore at me again. He was still feeling defiant.

  Damn. Floyd just wasn’t getting with the program. I couldn’t let this guy go after he’d promised to kill me. I knew very well how easy it was to get shot.

  I stomped on his hands, one after the other.

  He howled. Lights started turning on in the houses around the block. I didn’t care anymore. He swore at me some more, and each word was a half sob.

  It wasn’t a pretty thing. It wasn’t a nice thing. But I couldn’t have some guy running around after he’d threatened to shoot me. I’m not that brave.

  I knelt beside him and lifted him off the ground. I knew it made his ribs hurt. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to get his thirty bucks’ worth.

  “Shut your mouth,” I snarled at him. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re one word away from being a corpse, because the next thing I’ll stomp on is your neck. Get it? Keep away from me. Next time I won’t be such a sweetheart.”

  This time Floyd understood. He nodded frantically, his eyes closed. I dropped him onto the sidewalk and collected his tire iron.

  I walked toward the bar. The police car was still parked in its spot, but I circled around the block to avoid passing it again. My hip felt tender where Floyd had hit me with the iron.

  On the way back, I saw another black streak from across the street. Damn. The town was full of them.

  I pushed open the door to the bar and strolled in like an old friend. Sara’s mouth fell open. She backed toward the cash register, probably wishing she’d kept the door bolted. I dropped the tire iron on the bar. Loudly.

  Bill was still sitting there. “Damn,” he said. “Not a mark on him.”

  Sara lunged under the counter and pulled out a shotgun. The barrel was several inches too short to be legal. “Get out,” she said.

  “I don’t care about you, Sara,” I said. “I don’t care what you’ve done. But I’ve come to Hammer Bay to do a job.”

  “What ever,” she said. “Get out.”

  She was scared, but not of me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Does Wyatt buy meth or does he make it himself?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Please. You can’t tell me you don’t know what’s going on.”

  Bill chuckled. “Sure she can. She’s a tough girl, but she’s a little naпve.”

  I turned to Bill. “Which is it, then?”

  “Wyatt buys it somewhere south of here, then sells it in the lot at his night job.”

  “Are the cops clueless or paid off?” I asked.

  “Paid off, I bet,” Bill sa
id. “Considering.”

  “What night job?”

  Bill laughed. “The Curl Club. He keeps it low-key, though. I don’t think Henstrick has worked it all out yet.”

  “Wyatt isn’t a customer there, is he?”

  “No, he’s a bouncer, like Floyd and Georgie. Most of her boys work the club when they’re not working on job sites. Especially when times are hard.”

  “Who is this ‘her’ you mentioned?”

  “Henstrick.”

  “Ah.” I felt embarrassed to have to be told.

  Sara was getting impatient and I was done. I backed toward the door. “Thanks, Bill.”

  He said he was glad to help. Sara asked me if what I’d said about Africa was true.

  “Be sure to lock the door behind me.” I left.

  If I had played my hand right, Sara would begin asking around, spreading the rumor. Annalise was going to have to go after Charles Hammer again, and Hammer would know we were coming. I wondered how much it would take to truly isolate him.

  A police car was parked across the street. Inside I saw the silhouette of the same fat officer I’d seen earlier.

  I heard a clatter nearby. I turned toward the sound.

  Something low and gray moved out from the side of the Dumpster. At first I thought it was a dog. Then I saw the tinge of red fur. It was the wolf from the night before.

  It stared at me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

  The door to the bar opened. I whirled around and saw Bill limping toward me. He wore an eager, fevered expression.

  “You’re here for something, aren’t you?” he asked.

  I glanced back at the mouth of the parking lot. The wolf was gone. “Yeah. A couple beers and dinner.”

  “Sure, sure. I understand. Listen, have you talked to Pete Lemly yet?”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Our local newspaper guy. He knows a lot of the local chess pieces, and how they like to move.”

  The police car across the street started up and pulled away. Bill glanced over at it, noticing it for the first time. His expression grew fearful. “Oh, Lord. I gotta get.” He hustled back into the bar.

  Apparently, I was not a person to be seen with.