Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  One of the goons forced Jesse’s clenched palm open, while he struggled, kicked, and pleaded. “You knew what would happen. So shut up and take it like a man, and I’ll try not to miss.”

  Taking one of the nails, Webbie placed the pointed tip into the palm of Jesse’s hand and swung the hammer.

  31

  Shane’s hands ran along Charlie’s curves, caressing her, pulling her ever closer to him. Together, they were fire and oxygen, the caress of one spurred on the other.

  Maybe it was the scent of the hay around them, the love he felt rekindled or even just his need to be closer to her than ever before. Tugging his shirt off over his head, he watched her heated gaze run the length of him. She licked her lips in anticipation, her tongue darting out in unspoken desire.

  While she rubbed against him like he was a genie’s bottle, he silently wished and hoped that she wasn’t going to make the smoke come before the fire was completely ablaze. It had been too long since he’d enjoyed the true comfort of a woman, and he only sought to take his time and relish in what it meant to be together, in all ways.

  She kissed his chest, nipping along the way until he couldn’t take any more of her tantalizing touch. Turning her around, he appreciated the way her breasts fit perfectly into his palms and the sight of her round bottom.

  What are you doing? His conscience screamed. He knew he needed to stop, but her soft moans and panting made his grip on denial loosen while his hands around her waist tightened.

  Positioned with her back on his chest and her arm arched, she caressed his shoulder, and he entered her. Each bead of sweat, each coo, each thrust singed him as only her fire could, burning down the layers until all that remained was the pure delight of her.

  Deep within her, he felt nothing but pleasure, disregarding the nearing sounds of tire wheels spitting gravel and the crunching of approaching footsteps. He was close, too close to stop now.

  Hearing the sound of the opening barn door, he tried to block it out, his need too big to halt the pending explosion. But the cool air and clearing of a manly throat were like cold water being doused on him. Mid-thrust, he pulled out and yanked up his pants.

  Turning, with bright lights shining into the darkened barn, he saw the outline of the man he’d been trying to meet since the beginning of the operation: Blackwell.

  The well-dressed man’s statue commanded attention.

  32

  “Hate to break up this little fuck session,” Blackwell said, walking closer until the light showed his round face. “Sugar. I knew I’d find you here. But I need to take your boy here for a while. I’m sure you won’t have a problem playing the pussy for one of my other players, now will you?”

  Shane fumbled with his clothes and tried to shield Charlie’s nakedness from Blackwell and his men. “I can’t let that happen,” Shane said.

  Shane knew that he should be ingratiating himself to Blackwell, but from all of his research and intel, Blackwell hated weakness. It was a gamble, but the entire night had been one big game of poker face. Blackwell cared about people who cared about money and making money for him.

  “I understand that you are new, but my girls do what I tell them and it’s a good thing; I’m not asking. She’s been spread around to everyone anyway. Why do you think you’re any different?”

  Shane clenched his jaw, biting back the words he knew would come spilling out given half a chance.

  “She’s one of my girls, and that is what she’s here for—to pleasure me and my men. So are we going to have any problems with this before we get down to why I’m here when I could be fucking a woman of my own, instead of even contemplating taking your sloppy seconds?”

  With the heavy pause, Webbie stepped forward. “Don’t,” Blackwell said raising his hand. “Let’s see where this goes. Shane, put your clothes on and then you and I need to take a drive. Sugar here will surely be sweet to my men.” He smiled, awaiting a challenge.

  “Go, Shane,” Charlie whispered.

  “Can I buy her from you then?” Shane asked.

  Blackwell cracked a half-grin.

  “Buy? That would require that I had a wish to sell.”

  “Ten grand and me for her and I’ll work for you, and only you.”

  “Who do you think you’re working for?”

  “Jesse, sir. I report to him.”

  “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem now.” Blackwell nodded his head. “You have to have big balls to deal with the big dogs, and having seen yours, I think you’ll work nicely with the family. I take it that the two bodies recovered at the club were your handiwork? Jesse’s not strong enough to do anything like that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, because I have a feeling we are going to need to ramp up production.”

  “Production of what, sir?” Shane’s head swiveled, following Charlie’s movements. “I thought we were only gathering selective girls for the clubs.”

  “Oh, is that what Jesse told you? No, I don’t need more consorts. We need more bodies, preferably breathing until I make them dead.”

  Blackwell waved his men forward. Suddenly, Shane’s arms were forced behind him and a black hood was pulled over his face. Shane struggled against them, attempting to pull his arms forward again.

  “This is only as a precaution, Shane. I think it might be time for you to meet someone.”

  33

  August 13, 2003

  The shower’s steam fogged up the bathroom and cocooned him in his pensiveness. Shane was never one for pomp and circumstance, but he wasn’t given much choice in this. He’d been released into the hotel-style room and told to shower.

  The last few minutes, he had waited for something to happen, shifting his weight on his heels.

  Easing into the required plush white luxury robe, he tried to dismiss the thought of its quality and focus on his being locked in a room assigned to him, waiting for what he could only assume would be Blackwell’s beckoning.

  The Brotherhood was known under the Code of Virginia as being a gang, but the more he found out, the more he learned that this was indeed no normal thuggery. All of the information he thought he knew had been wrong. If Jesse was the equivalent of a captain, that could only mean that Blackwell was the underboss. Then Lang must be the big fish who he needed to meet. From all of his prior intelligence, Lang had yet to be cornered. Always elusive, and no known Confidential Informants’ reports contained any pictures or information about him. It would mean that Shane would need Jesse’s help to corroborate the entire hierarchy.

  Shane tied the robe around his waist and waited for the door to open. Naked underneath, he wasn’t sure what sort of ritual was about to take place, but all he could think about were the stories from his college roommate who’d been branded in college with a wire hanger. Of course, pain was something he mentally tried to block out, but if this was truly the meeting for him to join the ranks, he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

  After a loud knock on the door, Shane opened it to see Otto, decked out in a finely tailored dark suit and his unruly hair slicked back as if he were a greaser from the 1950s.

  “Seems like it’s time you really became one of us,” Otto said.

  To Shane, that didn’t quite make sense since Jesse should have been the one present, ushering him in. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to. You will.”

  Walking on bare feet through the large almost empty apartment, Shane saw only a couple of floor lamps illuminating the area until he reached a set of colonial-style double wooden doors.

  Entering the room, he saw that it stood in complete contrast to the rest of the apartment he’d just been through. Designer furniture adorned the room, the rich lush carpeting under his feet was a welcome from the painted cold concrete he’d just left behind. Inside the room, Shane saw two men he recognized from earlier: Blackwell and Webbie.

  But seated behind the massive desk sat a man Shane couldn’t identify. His salt and pepper hair was
spiked; his olive skin weathered.

  On top of the desk rested a gun.

  Shane heard the door click closed behind him.

  “From the way you’re looking at me, you don’t seem to know who I am, and that is good.” The mystery man rose.

  “No, sir,” Shane said.

  “Well, let me tell you something, but first, I need you to remove your robe.”

  Shane paused and then shrugged out of it.

  “Don’t believe in tattoos, huh?” Blackwell said from across the room.

  “He will tonight,” Webbie muttered.

  “I’ve learned that you’ve been our runner for a while. Is that correct?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And tonight you exhibited great courage in taking up for one of the strippers?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You seem to honor the things that we honor: hard work, taking care of and protecting those that need it, and still remaining loyal to the idea of us.”

  “Us?” He stared at an old wood-carven panel hanging on the wall behind the mysterious man, trying to get his head on straight.

  “Yes, us. We are a brotherhood, the Bruderschaft. We’re the ones that keep order and make sure that things stay aligned. Do you like history, Shane?”

  For a moment, Shane had no idea what the man meant, until he saw a woman, bound and gagged, being led forward toward him.

  It was Marie, the officer who’d assisted him by allocating a body to fulfill Jesse’s request, still dressed as a streetwalker.

  Instead of allowing any emotion to play across his face, he went on lockdown, burying all hints of recognition.

  “We’ve been here since the beginning of the Commonwealth in 1608, when we arrived in Jamestown. From then onward, we’ve moved westward and watched over what is our own given kingdom.

  “The body you gave us was of great interest and use, but it was not fresh. However it was still clever of you to retrieve something so soon. How did you do it? I suspect that you had help.”

  “I’m not a killer. I’ve worked more with jewelry heists and larceny.”

  “Well, tonight, this gun will go off. It is up to you who will use it and how.”

  Shane watched Marie’s brown eyes well up. Before he could think, he reached for the gun, cocked it, pointed it in her direction, and shot.

  Missing.

  “Good choice. You see, we don’t kill people just because we can. We do so only when the harm is inescapable. I said the gun had to be shot, but I never said you had to shoot her. So you also pay attention. I like that.”

  He watched the old man rise and extend a book in his direction; the title of the aged book appeared to be in Kurrent, an old German handwriting.

  “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

  Shane raised his right hand and placed his left hand on the tome.

  “I honorably swear fealty, according to the laws of my own conscience and those of the Brotherhood, to always honor the Brotherhood, to never rat out the Brotherhood, to be loyal to it at the price of my own blood and life of my kin; this I solemnly swear or so be my death.”

  Shane tried not to gulp upon hearing the words repeated in his voice. He knew that this was something Shane was promising, not Lazarus.

  But would an oath be an oath?

  The old man removed a knife from the desk drawer and quickly pricked Shane’s finger. “An oath said and blood drawn makes you now one of us. Welcome to the Brotherhood.”

  “What should I call you, sir?”

  “Sir has a nice ring to it, shows respect.” Shaking Shane’s hand, he then moved back behind his desk. “Now there is only one more thing that needs to be taken care of.” Picking up the gun again, he pointed it at Marie and pulled the trigger.

  “The only good witness is a dead one.”

  34

  Otto tugged on plastic gloves and sprayed Shane’s pectoral with an antibiotic, which chilled his skin.

  The chill spread through him until it reached his core. Shane only wished to cease the blaring noise in his skull and dim the remembrance of watching Marie fall to the floor, dead.

  “It’ll be over by the time you recite the German National Anthem three times,” Otto chuckled. Shane gritted his teeth in preparation as the machine began to hum.

  With the first needle’s prick, he gritted his teeth and watched blood droplets form, and Otto then wiped them away with a sterile, white cloth.

  “Can you tell me what this all about now and what we transport?”

  “Sure. We fulfill the demand for body parts. Think of it like the modern-day body snatchers, and it’s legal.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Families donate the remains of their loved ones, and we then assist in making sure the necessary parts land where they are needed, after a suitable amount is paid to cover the fees.”

  Eyeing the needle and the artist’s steady hand, Shane watched a sizeable black falcon take shape.

  “Body brokering, you mean?” he asked.

  “Yes, organ harvesting has particular rules and regulations, but that of the extremities, that is limitless. A human body as a whole doesn’t bring half as much money in as when it’s chopped up.” Otto’s eyes gleamed as he provided the accounting details. He’d rationalized it, and made the human being into a thing and not a person.

  Parts moving across a map to make money.

  Pieces used for a greater good besides a blessed and final rest.

  “A falcon?”

  “Yeah, it symbolizes power, and we are powerful. In the Teutoburg Forest Battle, our forefathers defeated Roman legions. In our veins runs the blood of warriors, heroes, and mighty men. And there is a responsibility we have to carry with that, and that responsibility’s overhead isn’t cheap.”

  Had Otto been brainwashed to believe it all, read too much of Tacitus?

  “What you have to know, being of German blood, we are more than what American history wants you to believe and are not defined by the actions of a dead dictator who ruled the Fatherland with an iron fist. I make no excuses for his actions, or his atrocities, but I am proud to be German, and so should you.”

  Shane wasn’t sure how to respond. He knew about the simple comparisons people made in their understanding of history. For years, military history focused on the horrors of the Second World War, whitewashing it, stripping it of its historical context, leaving only a perplexing pretext.

  He’d always tried to hide the fact that his grandparents immigrated to the United States. Still, he remembered his grandfather’s words, “People disappeared, and living out on the land, you were never sure who was going to be next. You couldn’t trust your neighbors, or even your own family, for fear they’d say something to get the Gestapo to pay you a visit. Fear weakens a man, and looking back, maybe we all could have said something, but isolated and alone, all we wanted was to be able to take care of our families, and put bread on the table, and we allowed politics to continue in the cities.”

  “If you don’t remember anything else about this conversation, Shane, remember this,” Otto began. “You can still love your country and other countries too. When you start to appreciate who you are, then you can truly understand the mighty power of the falcon.”

  Looking down at the winged bird of prey on his chest, Shane realized he now had all rights and privileges of being family, including calling Charlie his own.

  35

  September 19, 2003

  Shane stared at his reflection, but what he saw wasn’t the man he was. Each minute seemed to take him deeper into a world he never knew existed. With Charlie beside him, she brought something closer to the surface, something he’d long ago buried with all of his other penuries—hardships the case was bringing up.

  He walked a precarious line between the job he needed to do and the family he needed to protect. Yet, in the eye of the storm, she made him feel like a bigger man, a man capable of stomping out all of her fears, fulfilling her desires and ke
eping her safe from harm’s way. But his good judgment was starting to wane.

  In the game he was playing, his daily deception was becoming what he was, and the reality was lessening.

  It was never a good idea to simply go through the motions, to forget the lines he’d figured out in his head, or to lose sight of the goal that the police department had in sending him behind enemy lines. He’d done so much to get that far, like he was a Frankenstein who’d been pieced together, parts of him and others mixed together to create the man he now was starting to believe he was.

  With padded footsteps, he headed from the grimy bathroom to the small bedroom, and the sound of Charlie’s voice seemed to soothe him, although her words were incomprehensible. The men he was supposed to arrest were becoming his friends, the woman he was supposed to bring in for further questioning was lying in his bed, and the stickler of it all was that when she looked at him and really saw him, behind the personality he was trying to depict, he felt the same connection like before.

  He eased back into the bed, pulling her warm body close to his. Finally, with Charlie cuddled in his arms, he stroked her shoulders. She could ask him anything now, and he just might tell the truth, and he’d willingly convey his mission.

  When her fingers traced the ridges and inked lines on his body, he reveled in it. Her kisses singed him.

  “What’s this all about tonight?” she whispered.

  In the darkened room, he couldn’t see her eyes; he could only feel the wisp of her hot breath on his skin.

  “I’m so sorry,” he began, “I never thought that this would happen, that you’d suffer. I left not because I wanted to, but because I had to.”

  He waited, but she remained quiet.

  “I finally figured it out, Shane, and all I now want to do is find our son and leave this behind me.”

  “I can’t get out though. I’m just getting here. I mean, I’m sure this is our serendipitous moment, a time when we were supposed to reconnect, but I have so much to do here.”