by Jack Parker
"I'm not trying to be a bore."
"So it's an effortless talent, then."
Kurt's jaw tightened. "Well at least I've got a man's sense and not a boy's."
Graham belched loudly and took another swig of his drink. "Oh, yeah. Daddy was all about sense, wasn't he? Don't be such a prick and live a little."
Kurt clacked his beer down and pushed his chair out. "Right. I'll leave you to your nonsense then."
Graham made some put upon noise behind him and got up, but Kurt had had it for the night. "Kurt," Graham called irritably. "Come on now, the only reason I'm so lean is all the running after you I do, hold on, wait up or I'll keel over."
"I don't want to drink. I don't want to nick a damned shop register. I want to go home and that's where I'm going."
"Are you really going to make me apologize?" Graham demanded. "If you weren't so sensitive…"
Kurt turned a threatening look on him and Graham held up his hands.
"Look mate, what are you gonna do if you go home? Read a blasted book?"
"Why should you care what I'm going to do? It'd just bore you, I'm sure." Kurt turned, but Graham gripped his shoulder and turned him back.
"Come on now, I was only pulling your leg. You're too easy. I can't help it."
"Yes, I know. Everything's serious until you've taken it a step too far, then it was all just a joke."
Graham frowned. "Maybe I wouldn't try so hard for a joke if you just bloody laughed once in a while."
Kurt looked away.
"Kurt," Graham reached up, setting a hand at his neck. "Come on. Don't go home. I'm sorry, alright?"
Kurt met his eyes and then sheepishly cast them to the ground. "It's just…this business. Your pickpocketing. The theft. The things you get up to…I don't like it. It's dangerous."
"It's put dinner on the table before, hasn't it? Don't be so noble—you act like I'm leading you down some deep dark path. You've done your share as well."
"Not for a pint."
Graham withdrew his hand and folded his arms. "Alright. Fine. We'll have it your way," he grumbled.
A long silence passed between them and Kurt felt awkward. He hated being called boring. Wasn't it adventurous enough that he'd agreed to leave the country with him? He could make excitement, but not without forethought. Graham simply didn't understand. He was a man of impulse. A free spirit. Someone who might grow tired of a pragmatic man like Kurt. Find someone more fun and leave him stranded…Kurt sighed silently and scuffed his shoe on the ground. "…Were you bluffing when you said you could pop the drawer in a minute flat, or could you really do it?"
Graham grinned at him cheerily and Kurt offered a reluctant smile in return. The things he did for love.
* * *
Kurt stood alone in the cold, sterile room around him, waiting for his host to make himself known. He wasn't kept long. A few minutes after Keller had deposited him here the door reopened and a familiar man entered. He didn't look as though he had aged, though Kurt had never been certain of that number to begin with. Thompson was frightfully tall, rail thin, with impossibly long limbs and a gaunt, skeletal face. He always carried himself straight and it made his height nearly cartoonish, however he was anything but comical, and cast a shadow that was more monstrous than strange. Thompson entered the room alone, shutting the door behind him and rounding on Kurt to look down on him carefully. His voice still had that faint Dutch lilt. "Hello Mr. Gabler."
Kurt's eyes met his with all the detachment of his former self. "Thompson."
"Thompson," he repeated with a thin-lipped smile. "It's been some time since I've used that moniker. Only a select few of you still know it."
"The Dutchman, then."
"Yes. Crude, I know, but it serves." Thompson folded his long hands behind his back and walked over to the room's window to look out at the city. "It's four years since we last spoke. You look well, Gabler. Still strong. Firm."
Kurt didn't respond.
Thompson turned back, looking him up and down again. "I hope my invitation was not too inconvenient for you, but I'm afraid you left me no choice. Finding you proved more difficult than I anticipated."
"Why was I called here?" Kurt demanded.
Thompson shrugged a boney shoulder. "I have a job that needs doing. One that requires intelligence. A bit of finesse. A bit of ferocity. I think with our history together it's only natural that I thought of you. Does this displease you?"
Kurt chose his words carefully. "I've retired."
"Mm," Thompson nodded. "So I've learned. You've taken up residency in Quebec. I must say, I was surprised to hear this. I never thought you could be suited by anywhere so…French." He pushed away from the window. "But I suppose it's far enough away, isn't it? Far enough to forget England. Far enough that your new friend might never be found out by his stepfather."
Kurt knew he couldn't lie his way out of this one. He could not convince Thompson that Emery meant nothing to him, that he had some ulterior motive, that he wasn't the reason he'd left the country. Kurt knew from past experience that this man's primary skill was omniscience. All he could do was stare ahead without objection.
Thompson sighed lightly. "Many years ago, when first we met, I found you to be a very taciturn man, Gabler. I liked this about you. I asked you how such a young man could be so cold. Do you remember what you said to me?"
He did, of course, but he had no intention of repeating it.
"By having his priorities straight," Thompson reminded. "Isn't that right? That always stuck with me. It perfectly captured the mindset of a useful man, and you've always been very, very useful. But it seems that your priorities have changed recently, haven't they?" He put on a glum look. "Imagine my disappointment to learn that one of my most ruthless and obedient hired hands, the least likely candidate to practice imprudence, has allowed himself to be consumed by the petty distractions of love."
Kurt didn't avert his gaze from the wall.
"But that's no matter. I was hoping that I could appeal to your work ethic, as I've done in the past, but if I've got to appeal instead to your so-called heart, that can be arranged as well. I presume you can gather the consequences of refusal?"
Kurt nodded.
"Good. I think we'll have a fine partnership, then." Thompson rubbed his long hands together before lacing them at his front. "So, Mr. Gabler. I think when we've worked together in the past it's always been for something rather inane. Find this man, kill this man, steal this money…very run of the mill stuff. But over the past few years, I've begun to establish something more respectable than your average petty theft ring. I'm building an empire. An empire that will, one day soon, encompass all of London."
Thompson had never been the ambitious sort to the best of Kurt's knowledge. This turn of events was frankly surprising.
"I'm already halfway there. I've just about got the Russians in my grasp, with the exception of a few outliers. My biggest problem is that there seems to be no way to convince London's resident pack of dogs who work under Hennessey to fall in my favor. That's why I need you."
Kurt looked at him stolidly. "And why am I the best man for this job?"
"You're not." Thompson leaned forward. "The best man for this job is dead because of you."
Kurt said nothing, unsure of this meaning.
"You remember our old friend Casper. 'Casey', I think his people called him. An at times belligerent and easily manipulated man, but one whose gregarious nature in this city might have made him an advantageous mediator. Hennessey has always been fond of him. Without him, I'm afraid there will be no agreement between our organizations. Instead I'll be forced to wipe them out. Why you, you ask? Because as every leader of men knows, the next best thing to a negotiator is a mercenary."
So Casey Sheridan would reach from the grave to pull Kurt down into his mess once more. He supposed this a fitting retaliation.
"Now, I'm not rushing you into anything," Thompson assured, patting his shoulder once. "Obviously thi
s isn't an endeavor you can manage alone. I'm still pulling men to build this little army. I need accomplished killers, but ones like you are harder to find than you might think. In the meantime I've got some lighter work for you…a little warm up to break you back in. But I think that's enough for now. I'm sure you're in need of a rest after your flight. Keller will show you to your lodgings and you'll be briefed in the morning."
Kurt did as he was indicated and headed for the door, but stopped once there to look back at Thompson intently. "I'll do what you're asking. You'll have no complaint," he said austerely. "But if he is harmed…it will be the end of you."
Thompson gave him a terrible, stretched grin. "I may have to rethink my assessment, Mr. Gabler. Passion suits you."
Kurt tore his eyes away and left the room.
* * *
Kurt felt the pain keenly as he was thrust headlong into the wall, catching himself quickly on his bad hand and wrenching the wrist in the process. His attacker grabbed him by the jacket and yanked him back, but he threw up his elbow and felt the sharp crack of it connecting with the man's nose before he could be thrown down. The man staggered back. Kurt burned through the throbbing of his arm. He whipped around and grappled the stumbling man by the shirt before head-butting him in the face and sending him sprawling.
Kurt bent down, again taking fistfuls of the man's shirt and yanking him up a bit. "Who else?"
The man coughed and spat blood. "Fuck you, you prick!"
Kurt bashed his fist into his victim's jaw without hesitation. His head rolled back and he dizzily grabbed at Kurt's arms. "Who else?" Kurt repeated evenly.
"You won't kill me," the man gasped, but it teetered between indignation and desperation. "You won't—he wouldn't let you!"
Kurt drew him up closer so that he could see right into the pit of fear shining in his eyes. Watch the blood drizzle from his lips. Feel the panicked breath grow short against his face. "Then what, pray tell, do you think it is he sent me here to do?"
The man's eyes widened.
Kurt stared back. "Who else?"
"P-Peters and Helmsley."
Kurt dropped him to the ground and stood, staving off a wince as he did so.
"Please, don't kill me. It wasn't my idea," the man babbled, trying to get to his knees. "I don't even take the stuff. Not like them."
Kurt scooped up the gun he'd lost hold of during the struggle and scanned the wet alleyway briefly.
"We didn't even sell any," he continued to pant. "We were just considering it. Please. It never even happened."
He'd have to go back across town for the other two. Probably have to do it tonight, too. Couldn't risk them being tipped off that their accomplice was found out. Nevertheless this had gone about as well as could be expected. Thompson's skimmed heroin supply had been located and there was no loss, save for the three men who'd lifted it.
"Don't kill me for this. It's one mistake. I've been loyal to him and he knows it. He'd give me a second chance."
Kurt looked down on him coldly.
"I'll explain it to him myself. I'll go to him straight away, and if he kills me there then that's his decision, but just give me the chance to make my case."
There were few things Kurt despised more than groveling, especially from someone who had just undertaken equal measures to try and kill him. Nevertheless he gave pause. It wasn't what the old Kurt would have done and he knew it, but he couldn't help it.
"I have a family," the man said.
Kurt hardened again. No. There would be no mercy. The only way he was going to survive this was to forget the man he'd become and reclaim the empty-chested beast he once was. He strode back to the downed man and held up his gun. "Family is simply what we call the innocents whom we willfully endanger. Am I supposed to feel sympathy?"
"I'm trying to support them."
"With heroin."
"I…I'd do anything else if I could, but I can't."
"Then you never tried."
"I tried!"
"Not bloody hard enough," Kurt snapped. "What do you do to keep your family safe? Hm? Hold them up as a shield when your life depends on it? Is that protecting them? Is that taking care of them?"
"No. That's not what I meant!"
"Does it matter what you meant?" Kurt growled. "You're well aware that what you do is dangerous. But you're selfish. You compromise their safety, their lives, just so that you can have some minute, petty comfort of normalcy from time to time in their presence. They're better off without you. You haven't the stones to admit it, but I'm about to do more for them with one bullet than you've ever done for them your pathetic life through."
The man held out a hand. "No, please, don't! I…Jesus, if I could go back, I'd never lay eyes on them again…I swear it…I'd stay away."
"Abandon them."
"Yes."
"Divorce them? Renounce them? Never think on them again?"
"Yes, yes. I swear it."
"Then you're lying. You haven't got family."
Kurt fired off the shot and didn't look to see the body hit the ground, eyes out on the street as he planned his route to the next defector.
* * *
Thompson was pleased with his work. All three turncoats were dead and the loss was a marginal one, prompting him to promote Kurt into the organization's typical routine of scare tactics and negotiations that had the city as a whole slowly slipping into his clutches. Over the course of the past few years Thompson had gone from a sly but aloof character in the outskirts of the grand scheme to the sole orchestrator of its plot. He now not only knew everything, but controlled it as well. He owned entire businesses. He funded mass debauchery. He had men in seemingly every corner. And now, as Kurt sat idle in one of those corners, he began to suspect that London had no chance of fending him off.
The drug industry had never been Kurt's favored job choice, but he was familiar enough with it. What he wasn't used to was the high end heroin trade. He'd seen plenty of twitching, filthy, desperate addicts in his time, but this felt far too much like some sort of proper business venture for Kurt's liking. Poison peddling under the guise of aristocratic recreation. Heroin was a drug he particularly detested. It was pure self-indulgence, something that rich, pampered, self-important fools were shooting into themselves to take the edge off of their version of a stressful day. But he had no say in the matter. His job was to follow Keller's lead.
Keller was a sadistic sort. He covered it with an amicable demeanor and polite phrasing, but he was among the most sociopathic men under Thompson's employment. Kurt loathed the idea of them being paired together based on some perceived similarity, but he couldn't show it. He would do whatever it took to keep his end of this bargain. He sat silently in the car as Keller finished a cigarette in the dark of the night, staring up ahead at a very nice home in Kensington.
"I've been in the business twelve years now and I've never seen one like this," Keller said, blowing out a cloud of smoke against the windshield before him. "I mean they all like to think they're noble, don't they? Sure. They all like to pretend. Not like him, though. This one here," Keller pointed the two fingers his fag was clipped between up at the manor, "likes to play games."
Kurt remained staring ahead without comment. All he knew was that in the home before them was Robert Bergen, a fifty-two year old Crown prosecutor causing Thompson's organization some trouble. That was the only information of any merit here. He had no desire to encourage Keller's self-aggrandizing pontification on the matter.
"He used to buy off of us," Keller went on. "When this business first started up. He had an errand boy do the deed, but we know where our product is going. I guess he had a change of heart somewhere along the line though, because he's been endeavoring to put or boys away ever since." He took another long drag before snuffing his cigarette and shaking his head. "I don't like hypocrites."
Still Kurt said nothing.
Keller looked at him with his long smirk and rubbed his gloved hands on his pant legs to bru
sh away the ash. "Thompson was adamant about flying all the way out to bloody Canada to bring you in, but you've yet to impress me. The way he talked you up I feel like I've been gypped. Seems you've gone awfully limp in your time away, eh?"
Kurt's eyes drifted over to him.
Keller grinned and motioned to the building ahead. "Prove me wrong, why don't you? Show me the old Kurt Gabler. The machine. The brute. You know, the one with a bit of use."
Kurt promptly exited the vehicle. He could hear Keller following after him, hurrying up to his side with a few long strides.
"That's the spirit—right-o, let's go."
Keller stepped forward and gave a lively knock on the door before sticking his hands into his coat pockets, quietly whistling a tune as they waited.
This, Kurt was used to. Two years ago this would have been his typical routine and he was very good at it. People generally stopped behaving as nuisances after having a talk with him, however bold they claimed to be. It wouldn't be hard to fall back into step. When the door opened it was Bergen himself, a small man with tousled gray curls and a pair of spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose. He gazed at them curiously as he stood in his partially opened doorway.
"Can I help you?"
Tactless as ever, Keller reached forward and snatched Bergen's shirt, thrusting him inside and following in step. "Hello, Bob!" he greeted brightly.
Kurt looked behind them to ensure no one had witness their entrance before following in and shutting the front door.
"Hold on, what's the meaning of this?" Bergen demanded, stumbling. "I'm every bit sure I didn't invite you in!"
"No?" said Keller. He didn't release his grip, still shoving Bergen away from the door. "Well I'm afraid we've come in anyway. Care to have a chat?"
Bergen put on a front, but was clearly quite nervous. "I'll have a chat with the police more like if you don't leave."
Keller tsked. "You're more than welcome to call them after we're through. If you're still able, that is."
Bergen's eyes flipped between them. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"That's not obvious?" Keller scoffed.