“I bet you weren’t expecting to see me again, huh, McEvoy?” he says perching on the corner of the desk. And he’s right, I would have bet big money on long odds that this particular fly was out of my ointment.
“Yeah, I bet you thought that the Shea kid was sleeping with the fishes.”
I nod and it hurts my brain but it’s easier than talking.
Did he really just say “sleeping with the fishes”?
“You wanna know what went down after you set us up to kill each other?”
I don’t want to know. Why doesn’t this kid just go play with himself or go wait in line somewhere to buy Call of Duty?
Wait! I do want to know.
I can’t nod anymore, so I blink. Once for yes.
Shea starts talking without even registering my blink signal. Why would you ask a person if he wants to know something if you’re just going to go ahead and tell them regardless? Between that and the hummus I am running out of things to like about this kid.
“You did us a real favor, McEvoy,” says Shea. “We’ve been bitching and sniping between ourselves since Dad died. Ain’t that right, Benny T?”
Benny T? Who the hell is Benny T?
“That’s right, Shea-ster,” says Freckles, flushed with pride at hearing his new Mafia-type handle.
I don’t believe it, these dicks are celebrating their new partnership with buddy names.
Shea-ster and Benny T?
Just fecking kill me now.
“But now we been through shit together. That shit bonded us, McEvoy. You left us with two guns on the table, remember?”
I blink once.
“So the elevator closes and we all dive in scrabbling, but not Benny T, because he’s got a weapon on his ankle.”
Crap. I was so busy congratulating myself on setting up the big bloodbath that I forgot to check for concealed weapons.
“So Benny bends over and comes up loaded.”
“And I don’t know who to shoot,” says Ben Toole, laughing, a little rueful like he just discovered he was wearing odd socks.
“Yeah. He don’t know who to shoot. Cracks me up.”
“And I sure underestimated this guy,” says Benny T, punching Shea’s shoulder. “The guy you leg shot was hobbling to the door so it was just the movement really. I saw him go and shot him.”
“Right in the heart,” says Shea. “And from behind with a moving target, that’s a hell of a shot.”
I want to point out that the hell of a shot was like three and a half feet, and a chimp with one eye could’ve made it, but I don’t say any of this because it would cost too much and the comment ain’t funny enough to warrant more suffering.
“So then the other guy, Frank? Yeah, Frank. He goes for the table and I wing him. I’m just fucking shooting at this point. Ain’t got a strategy as such.”
Shea takes up the thread. “So he goes down, screaming so fucking much he’s gonna wake up the building. Freckles . . . I mean Benny T, goes around the table to finish him off.”
“I’m not even factoring in the kid,” says Ben. “Fuck the kid, is what I’m thinking. I got time to spare now. But he showed me. You got some stones on you, Shea-ster.”
Maybe making these two hold hands was a mistake.
“I go for a gun,” says Shea. “And when Benny gets around the far side of the desk, then he finds to his surprise that I’m covering him and he’s covering me.”
“This guy. This guy right here. Steady as a rock. He’s facing down Benny T, who ain’t got such a shabby rep, and not a fucking shake to be seen. You gotta respect that.”
Yeah, like I gotta respect musical theater.
Actually that’s not fair. I enjoyed the shit out of Rock of Ages.
“So we stay like that for a coupla minutes,” continues Shea. “And it occurs to me that I haven’t a fucking clue how to run the practical side of Dad’s company.”
Benny laughs his fond laugh again. “And it goes without saying that I ain’t no books person.”
I think using the phrase no books person pretty much guarantees that you aren’t one.
“So the kid walks around the desk and calm as you like puts two into the guy I clipped, finishes him off. Now we got stuff on each another, see?”
I figure Shea’s dad must have been an ungodly asshole and Ben never had any kids. It’s like they have a second chance at life. I bet they got autumn-hued plans for kite flying and shit.
“We got a bond now,” says Shea. “A blood bond. We are two sides of the same coin.”
“This asshole is probably wondering how we found him,” says Freckles.
To be honest, the asshole is past caring. They found me and knowing how they did it won’t make me any less found. Actually if they hadn’t found me, I’d be dead by now.
“My car has GPS, moron,” says Freckles, knuckling my head like I’m stupid. “I called the monitoring company and they told me where it was parked. We was staking out the hotel garage when the two cops came out and rolled you into the back of their cruiser. I oughta thank them really. Taking bodies out of hotels is a bitch.” He winks at Shea. “As we know only too well, right Shea-ster?”
“You got it. Benny T. I’m gonna feel it in my quads tomorrow.”
“These fucking kids,” says Bent Tool. “Fucking quads and shit. I gotta whole new lingo to learn.”
“That’s so wack,” I grunt, giving him his first lesson.
Shea pats himself down until he finds an energy bar and I think, No, don’t start eating.
But he does, right up in my face. Making a gooey paste of the bar, smacking his beard-rimmed fleshy lips, which from this angle, God forgive me for even thinking it, look a bit like a pussy.
I think about head-butting Shea, but then I might get some of his crud on my face, so I hang my head low and wait for this to be over. He’s still chewing, I can hear it.
“I went through your pockets, McEvoy,” says Freckles. “Took back what was mine. Checked your calls. Seems the only text you sent to Mike was a confirmation that the kid was dead. Is that all Mikey knows?
“Everyone knows,” I manage to splutter. “I got a friend in the cops.”
“Nah,” says Freckles. “Bullshit. You were trying to buy a little time. If I know Mike, he’s out in—what the fuck is it? Cloisters? Celebrating. Tying one on. For the next coupla days Irish Mike Madden, the double-crossing asshole, is wide open. And let me tell you, I’m gonna drive a spike straight up that open asshole.”
Normally I would not be too broken up at the idea of someone lethal paying Mike a visit, but then it occurs to me that I will be extremely dead before that happens and plus Zeb could be at Mike’s too. Though if Zeb suffered a flesh wound or lost half a testicle I wouldn’t be all that upset.
“I
swear,” I say. “I put the word out. You guys are fugitives.”
Shea buys it. “We’re fugitives, Benny.”
Freckles, the pro, ain’t in the market for bullshit. “My guy tells me there’s nothing on the scanners, or Web site. Not a dickie. But just to be sure, we hang on to this guy for a few hours in case we need a hostage. I reckon if we ain’t heard anything by morning, then we’re in the clear.”
“So all we gotta do is wait until the cab is ready and have a few of the boys to take you for a little drive.”
Freckles is an old hand at the body disposal racket. He won’t shoot me here ’cause of me being a hefty sonuva bitch and it would take six of them to carry the dead weight. So they got a tricked-out death cab. I’ve seen these hearses in the Lebanon. I remember we seized a standard-looking Renault one time to find the trunk all wired up with a freezer box for body parts. Freckles’s boys will transport me in the taxi then, make me climb down into a dug grave and shoot me on-site. Makes sense. That’s what I’d do to if I was a cold-blooded killer, maybe roll Krieger and Fortz in there for good measure and a couple of animal parts just to screw with the crime lab. And if I had a spare minute I’d scrawl a few verses of Klingon poetry on Shea’s forehead with a Sharpie. I could tie up Homeland for months.
“Come on, Benny T,” says Shea then and I swear his voice doesn’t sound like it’s broken yet, maybe it’s the excitement. “Let’s do it. Me and you.”
This is a step too far.
Oh, wait. Maybe I’ve misunderstood.
“Let’s finish the job, T. We can kill this fucking mook. Me and you.”
Thank Christ. The kid just wants to kill me personally.
“I don’t know,” says Freckles. “This guy is a handful and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Come on, Benny,” the kid is pleading now, like he wants to break Santa’s rules and open a present on Christmas Eve. “Tomorrow I’m back to the corporate life, but tonight I wanna be a gangster, like you.”