by Martha Carr
“And you have a fucking boss! Give me a name!”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure. Brad.”
“Brad what?”
“Brad…D-Denton, man. What gives?”
He nodded toward the door at the back of the shop. “Does he live upstairs?”
“Yeah, man. It’s his store.”
The dwarf stormed through the rows of hand-blown glass pieces and smoking paraphernalia and his dogs trotted at his heels.
“Hey, you can’t go back there!”
He jerked so hard on the doorknob that the screws stripped and the knob came off in his hand. The door pounded against the wall and almost knocked over a whole shelf of hookahs, and he tossed the brass knob onto the floor. “Watch me.”
Lisa hurried through the shop after him.
“Hey, lady!” The clerk pointed at the stairwell behind the door where Johnny and the hounds had disappeared. “He can’t do that. Tell him he can’t—”
“FBI business.” She flashed him her badge without sparing him so much as a glance. “Stay where you are.”
“Shit.” He shrank away from the counter and stared at the ceiling. “I knew I should’ve called in sick today.”
Johnny’s boots clomped heavily up the dark stairwell to the second story and the hallway that stretched across the apartment level above the row of shops below. He glanced at the three doors at the top of the stairs, judged which one was directly above the smoke shop, and headed toward it.
“Johnny. Will you at least tell me what’s—”
“I said no questions.” The dwarf pounded furiously on the door. “Denton! Open up!”
A rustle of movement came from inside the apartment but no one answered.
“This is not the day to fuck with me, asshole. Open the door!”
Rex uttered a low growl. “Definitely someone in there, Johnny.”
“Someone scared,” Luther added.
“Fine. We’ll do this my way start to finish.” Johnny reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a handful of large black beads. He chose two, replaced the rest in his pocket, and crushed the tops of the two he’d retained to activate their timers. The sticky substance now coating the underside of each made them an easy addition to the doorknob of this asshole’s apartment. Johnny stepped back and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “You might wanna cover your ears.”
“What?” Lisa’s eyes widened and she stepped toward him. “Johnny, this is—”
“I have a license!”
The tiny, precise explosives he’d spent the last fifteen years perfecting to flush out fish and smaller critters in the Everglades detonated with a deafening crack, followed by the ping of broken metal and the thunk of the doorknob on the floor. She clamped both hands over her ears and doubled over with a grimace.
He stormed toward the door and thrust it open with one swift kick of his heavy boot. After a sharp whistle, he drew his knife from his belt to flick it open. Rex and Luther snarled and leapt through the cloud of dust and plaster beside him.
“What the fuck, man?” A guy wearing a red tracksuit jumped from the brown swiveling armchair with tattered upholstery and reached for a firearm on the table beside him.
Rex leapt at the man and caught him squarely in the chest with his front paws before he brought him down.
“Vinny!” A second man—this one with slicked-back hair and wearing nothing but a pair of black-and-white basketball shorts—managed to retrieve the automatic rifle beside him on the long folding banquet table and lifted it in an arc to aim it at Rex. “Fucking dogs—ah!”
Luther clamped his jaws around the second man’s ankle and jerked fiercely as he shook his head and snarled around a mouth full of asshole leg.
Johnny stormed toward the man who tried to kick the hound off his ankle, his knife raised in his hand.
“FBI! Don’t move!” Lisa stormed into the apartment with her service pistol leveled at the second man’s chest. She kicked the door shut behind her but without a doorknob, it slammed against the doorframe and bounced open again. With an aggravated sigh, she ignored it and moved farther into the apartment.
The dwarf whistled sharply and cut through the scuffling struggle of Vinny trying to remove himself from beneath Rex and the second man’s shouts of disbelief and pain as Luther played tug of war with his ankle. “Luther. Release.”
The hound obeyed immediately and backed away two steps to snarl at his target with his hackles raised. “I could’ve ripped it off, Johnny.”
“Drop your weapon,” Lisa ordered.
The man with the rifle widened his eyes at her, gauged the aim of her weapon against how quickly he could lift his own, and dropped the rifle onto the table.
Johnny pointed his blade tip at the second man. “If you reach for that again, Luther won’t hold back on the other leg.”
“Fuck.” The man glanced at his ankle and the thin trickle of blood that trailed toward his bare foot.
“Get this fucking dog off me, man. I fucking hate—”
Rex snapped in Vinny’s face, and the man fell silent.
“Good work, Rex.” The dwarf emitted another sharp whistle in a lower tone. “Step down.”
“I had him, Johnny.” Rex responded with a low growl and finally removed all fifty-five pounds of coonhound from Vinny’s chest.
As soon as the dog released him, the man sat quickly and reached for the automatic pistol on the table.
Johnny threw his knife and buried it in the chipped wooden floor between Vinny’s legs, less than an inch from his crotch. “Don’t fucking move.”
“Jesus.” The man raised both his hands and stared at the knife. “What the hell do you want, asshole?”
“Answers.” He strode toward Vinny, caught a fistful of his red tracksuit, and jerked his blade out of the floor with the other hand. With no apparent strain, he hauled the guy to his feet and shoved him into the chair. The knifepoint pressed into the prisoner’s ribcage as Johnny leered at him. “Is that other piece of shit with a new hole in his leg Brad?”
“What?” The man in basketball shorts looked from the enraged dwarf to the federal agent with her weapon leveled at his chest. “No, man. Brad ain’t here—”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Jay—”
“You shut yours.” Johnny pressed his knife harder against Vinny’s side and gave the front of the man’s tracksuit a quick shake. “I’m looking for Brad Denton and you morons are gonna tell me where he is. Now.”
“He’s not—ah! Hey, back up with that knife, will ya?” Vinny glanced at the dwarf’s knife-hand. “Do you know how hard it is to think with something like that stickin’ in your ribs?”
“Yeah, actually. I do.” He shoved his face closer to the man’s until their noses almost touched. “If you move in any way I don’t like, my hound will be on top of you again, this time with his teeth around your throat.”
“Fuck, man. I get it.” The prisoner nodded. “Fine.”
Johnny shoved the man against the swiveling armchair, released him, and stepped back. “Someone had better start talking. Brad Denton.”
“Man, he ain’t been here for months,” Jay said, his hands still raised as he watched Lisa and her gun warily.
“This is his apartment and his smoke shop downstairs,” Johnny countered. “Where is he?”
“Shit, man.” Vinny tried to calm his breathing and rubbed the sore place where his ribs had almost been skewered. “He moved, all right? He still owns the business but he don’t live here no more.”
“Then where does he live?”
“Fuck if I know, man.”
Johnny glared at the man, then pointed his knife at Jay. “Are you as stupid as your friend?”
“Hey, I only work here.” The two men exchanged a quick look and the dwarf didn’t miss their gazes flickering to the long banquet table between them.
“If they so much as twitch, boys, rip ʼem apart.”
Rex and Luther responded with twin growls and each o
f them focused intently on the closest idiot.
“Oh, come on, man.” Vinny raised his hands and grimaced at Rex. “Why you gotta bring dogs into it?”
“They’re smarter than you, for one.” Johnny stepped toward the table to scan the piles of square, two-inch Ziplock baggies. Two piles of them held a yellow-white powder. The other three were filled with a muddy brown powder. He didn’t particularly care about the illegal drugs stashed inside to soon be distributed across Manhattan and maybe beyond. The only thing he could focus on was the red stamp in the shape of a boar across each and every little baggie.
Fuck. It’s like I’m living that nightmare all over again.
“Who’s stamp is this?” he asked. “Who’s the fucking guy putting this stamp on all his shit?”
When neither of the thugs answered, he whirled away from the table.
“I asked you a goddamn question!”
“We ain’t sayin’ shit!” Vinny spat on the floor and scowled. “Fuck you.”
“Do you think whoever you’re working for can hurt you more than I can?” He turned to the table and pressed the tip of his knife against one of the baggies to slice through the mark of the boar he hadn’t seen in fifteen years. He’d been so sure the mark would lead to his daughter’s murderer, but that lead had gone cold within the first six months. Now I’m right fucking back where I started. “Whoever you answer to isn’t here, dipshits. I am. Start talking.”
“Nothin’ you can do is worse than what happens to snitches,” Jay said. “You’re shit outta luck.”
“Speak for yourself.” Johnny swung his knife behind him toward Lisa, then pointed at the baggies again. “Are you getting’ all this?”
“Oh, yeah.” She nodded and stared at Jay, her weapon still raised. “I’m making tons of mental notes too.”
“This can be as easy as opening your fucking mouths,” the dwarf said, “or it can be the worst thing you’ve ever—”
The floor creaked in the hallway down the right-hand side of the apartment. He scanned the room and found the one thing he’d failed to see when he’d stormed in there fueled by fury and his reemerging need for vengeance. A cigarette on an ashtray on the far side of the room still filtered smoke into the air and a bag of Cheetos lay spilled on the floor.
He pointed his knife at each of the thugs in turn. “Do either of you smoke?”
Chapter Thirteen
Vinny and Jay glanced at each other seconds before an electric-green ball of energy burst from the hallway on the right side of the apartment.
Johnny ducked the attack and whirled to face the wizard who stormed down the corridor and summoned another attack spell between his hands. “Shit.”
The two thugs sprang into action at the same time, leapt toward the banquet table, and scrabbled for their weapons. Rex and Luther jumped after them and snapped at their heels. Vinny’s pistol thumped against Rex’s chest and knocked him back. Luther closed his jaws around Jay’s other ankle and bit viciously. The man screamed and tried to kick the dog off before he attempted to aim the rifle.
Johnny threw his knife at him and it struck home in the center of Jay’s palm.
“My fucking hand!” The rifle clattered to the floor and the wizard in the hallway released another burst of crackling green magic at Lisa this time.
She turned to dodge the spell and it cracked against her outstretched hands instead of her chest as she swung her pistol toward the wizard. Her service weapon flew from her hand and skidded across the kitchen floor on the left side of the apartment. Shouting in surprise and pain, she launched a fireball at her attacker. Her spell grazed his cheek as he dodged sideways and seared the side of his face. He screamed and summoned a blazing ball of white light that flashed brighter and brighter between his hands.
Johnny shielded his eyes from the glare that blinded everyone in the apartment but the wizard. He yanked his sunglasses out and slid them on quickly. The magical light was dampened instantly, and he spun toward Lisa and lunged at her. He dragged her to the floor before the wizard’s spell erupted and launched a stream of searing white energy toward where she’d stood seconds before.
The spell impacted against the far wall of the apartment and left a huge, smoldering hole.
He looked at the agent and nodded. “Are you good?”
She grimaced. “Sure.”
The wizard staggered against the far wall. His one-off spell had drained him for at least the next thirty seconds before he could summon anything else.
The dwarf rolled off Lisa, crouched, and retrieved another explosive black disk from his belt. He lobbed it at the wall between Vinnie and Jay. The disk exploded and pelted both men with a brief electrical charge as the wall behind them crumbled. The thugs sagged. He didn’t miss a beat and darted around the table toward the gun held loosely in Vinnie’s hand as the man tried to collect his wits.
“Catch!” He tossed the pistol toward Lisa and she snatched it from the air with perfect timing before she aimed it at the still-recovering wizard. Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at Vinnie. Rex charged again and latched onto the man’s arm as his master slid under the buffet table. The whole thing tilted sideways when he stood again over Jay, spilling semi-organized piles of drugs all over the floor.
He kicked the man in the ribs before he could pick himself up after the explosion and snatched the automatic rifle.
Luther clamped his jaws around a mouthful of Jay’s basketball shorts and boxer briefs and shook his head vigorously. The man screamed and tried to crawl away with the blade still lodged in his hand.
Rex yelped when Vinnie began to punch him over and over in an effort to free himself.
Johnny turned with the rifle and fired a shot over the table that struck Vinnie in the chest and knocked him away from the hound. He stepped closer to Jay and turned the rifle on the wizard who had once again begun to fire magical attacks at Lisa. “Now’s your chance to—”
A firm hand wound around the dwarf’s ankle and pulled him down. With a grunt, he kicked Jay’s grip off his leg and swung the rifle like a bat into the man’s head. The weapon was already so slick with blood that it flew from his hand and crashed against the wall. The thug’s head thumped onto the floor and he didn’t make a sound when Luther got a better grip on his backside, this time including flesh.
The dwarf yanked his knife out of Jay’s palm and pushed to his feet. He barreled across the apartment toward the hallway and ducked his head and shoulders in a charge as Lisa squeezed off a non-lethal shot that struck the wizard in the thigh. Her adversary screamed and would have fallen if Johnny hadn’t collided with him first. Both wizard and dwarf careened down the hall.
After a brief scuffle, he got behind the man, wrapped his legs around his torso to pin his arms at his sides, and squeezed. One muscular, forearm pulled against the wizard’s throat, and the knife in Johnny’s other hand pressed against his adversary’s ribs.
“I know you wasted that heavy-hitter spell, asshole,” he jeered in the wizard’s ear. “And now you’re outta moves so don’t even think about it.”
Lisa stepped into the hallway with Vinnie’s pistol held steady in both hands. All three of them were breathing heavily. Johnny hooked his ankles around the wizard’s torso and increased the pressure to make his point.
The man wheezed and finally stopped fighting to simply stare down the barrel of the gun in Lisa’s hands.
“You seem to be the smartest one of the group,” the dwarf snapped. “You managed to hide before those two morons even knew I was here. And now you’re the most alive fucker out of all three of you. So you’re gonna answer me, ya hear?”
The wizard grunted.
“Where’s Brad Denton?”
“I don’t…know,” the wizard croaked.
“Is he still heading this fucked-up operation you’re running out of the apartment he owns?”
“No.”
“Then who’s his boss?”
The wizard tried to chuckle and couldn’t q
uite manage it with a dwarven forearm crushing his throat. “Do you think low-level scum like us know every single mobster calling the shots from above?”
Johnny pressed the knife harder against the wizard’s ribs, and the man sucked in a hissed breath. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know, okay?”
“What do you know about Lemonhead?” Lisa asked.
He looked sharply at her and she shrugged. “Answers, wizard.”
“I heard he’s scared,” the man snapped.
The dwarf frowned. “Of what?”
“New…monster in town. Tearing things apart and even threatening Lemonhead, whoever he is.”
“So who’s the new monster?” Lisa asked.
“No…clue…”
Johnny pulled back on his arm around the man’s throat and the wizard choked. “Wanna try again?”
For as much as he couldn’t move, the man managed an impressive nod. When the dwarf eased his hold, his captive gasped and coughed. “It’s merely a rumor, okay? But people are talking about this new guy heading to the Monsters Ball tonight. Every major player on the east coast will be there. They’re puttin’ up an auction—”
“Yeah, I don’t wanna hear shit I already know.” Johnny lightened the pressure of his knife against the wizard’s ribs slightly. “Tell me about the mark of the boar.”
“It’s on the fucking baggies, man—” He croaked again when Johnny gave his throat another warning squeeze.
“Who does it belong to?”
“I don’t…I don’t know. I swear.”
With a grunt, he rolled them both over until he straddled the wizard’s back. The thug wheezed under his weight and he grasped a fistful of the guy’s hair to shove his cheek against the carpeted hallway. “Do you have anything else you wanna say to me?”
“Uh…sorry?”
Johnny froze in confusion for a moment, then shrugged. “Good enough.”
He pushed to his feet and pointed at the magical with his knife. His adversary gasped for breath and rubbed his throat as he struggled somewhat shakily to sit. “Now get the fuck outta here.”
The wizard sat and glanced at Lisa with wide eyes before he tried to stand. His injured leg gave out twice before he finally managed to control it and hobbled down the hall. She stepped aside and Vinnie’s pistol followed the man across the destroyed living room until he threw the front door open and stumbled into the hall.