I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (3 page)

“Make our lives more difficult,” Foley
ventured.

Gritz and Foley stood on the overlook, the
lot blocked off from interstate traffic, police tape and police at
the entrance, a mess of vehicles clogging the lot. The helicopter
buzzed overhead. Gritz remarked to the coroner, “There’s got to be
a way out of here.”

“Said the joker to the thief.” Like Gritz,
Foley was a classic rock guy. They had that, baseball, and their
love of booze in common. “See you at Jackie’s sometime,
detective.”

Gritz grunted by way of goodbye and stood
there with his coffee, looking out across the Hudson River to
Westchester County, to the south Bronx and northern Manhattan.
Focusing on the city south of here, he wondered at its secrets,
dark and terrible, a part of him feeling better off not
knowing.

But a guy like him, a guy like him couldn’t
let it go.

Yeah, Gritz was feeling more and more each
day like some badly written stereotype of a cop from a crime novel
or movie. And he could see where it was all going from here. Few
more years, he’d be Fish from
Barney
Miller
. The best
case scenario. The worse case, well, the worse case he didn’t
particularly want to consider.

He watched them transfer the sheeted body to
a gurney.

Whatever
.

He was what he was and he was here by his own
choice.

A second chopper had joined the first in the
sky.

The one thing Gritz liked to do and still
did, outside of drinking, was read. And lately he’d taken to
picking up Faust, thinking about it, looking for clues.

Guess
he
likes
Faust
Frank had said to him, referring to this Mephisto
freak. Said it to him at the porn girl’s murder. What was that,
over a month ago? The porn girl slaughtered with eight other human
beings, not much recognizable left about any of them. DNA and
dental evidence confirming their identities.

That
was Gritz’s case.

That
was what he should be working on,
instead of standing here in Jersey on a Tuesday morning.

The hell was Frank these days anyway.

But
Mephisto
, come on: Why would
someone call themself that?

Johnny Spasso with his sunglasses, a
Fu-Manchu covering his upper lip, in the passenger seat next to
Sully behind the wheel. Spasso usually packing a pistol under each
arm, but not today. Spasso was always cool. He didn’t care if the
cops were grilling him, if people were shooting at him. He would
maintain his poise. And it wasn’t an act.

This morning, this morning was hard
though.

The boss, Dickie Nicolie, sitting in the
back. Dickie given to tracks suits, even wearing one this morning,
today when he’d be trading in his freedom. The
capo
wore a
dark green zippered jacket and matching pants over spotless tennis
shoes. His Movado on his wrist and his gold crucifix on his
neck.

“This is really in the middle of nowhere,”
Dickie said as Sully’s Cadillac passed through the trees. They’d
left the throughway behind some time ago. “I escape,” Dickie was
grinning, “where the fuck am I gonna be?”

Johnny and Sully chose not to comment, only
Gooch saying anything, “You thinkin’ ‘bout escape already,
Dick?”

“I’m thinkin’, maybe Maryann bakes me a cake
with a file.” Dickie winked at Sully in the rearview mirror, Sully
with his toothpick in his mouth, the driver not thinking much of
the man in the backseat with Dickie. Sully the type to say
something, but Johnny had spoken to him beforehand and he
understood. He’d keep his mouth shut, not tell Gooch what he
thought of the man, what he suspected. What they all suspected.

Not today.

Not today of all days.

There’d be a time for that.

“They’d be stupid to bring Cassidy into
this.” Gooch volunteered, bringing back up a conversation from
earlier.

“That’d be upping the ante,” acknowledged
Dickie. “They bring Cassidy into this,” he reached forward from the
backseat and put his hand on the shoulder of Johnny’s raincoat,
“You’re all over him.”

Johnny nodded, knew what Dickie meant.

“Now,” Dickie sat back, settling into the
leather seats of Sully’s El Dorado, “they try and bring Eduardo in
on this—” the look on Gooch’s face as Dickie said it, even Johnny
perking up “—you just kill that Mexican, Johnny. The hell with the
consequences.” Dickie looked out the window to the trees. “Guy’s a
wild animal.”

The prison came into sight, the only thing
around, looking like something someone plunked down in the middle
of the trees.

“Wow,” Gooch the only one to speak. “Looks
like a fortress or somethin’.” Gooch the only one to speak because
Dickie had his thoughts and Johnny and Sully knew that silence was
the best form of respect in a situation like this.

“Not like Rikers…” Gooch mentioning Rikers
where he’d done a couple bits. Sully’s eyes nailed Gooch in the
rearview, Gooch oblivious to it. Gooch mentioning Rikers when
Dickie was staring Buck Rogers time in the face.

The Cadillac pulled to a stop outside the
prison, a sign stating the name of the correctional facility, a
high cyclone fence. Part of the fence rolled back, three men
stepping out onto the path. Two of them in correctional officers
uniforms, the third in a suit.

Dickie lowered the window, called out to
them, “Be with you gentlemen in a minute,” pressed another button,
the window humming back up into place. “Gooch, do me a favor, get
my bag out the back. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

When Gooch had left the car, Dickie turned to
Johnny.

“I want you to keep an eye on Gooch,” Dickie
unclasped his watch, removing it from his wrist. “Whatever
Heinlein’s into, Gooch’s in on it with him.”

“We’re on him,” Johnny assured.

“Found it kind of, I don’t know,” Sully
searched for the word, “
funny
, you bringing him along this
morning. Thought maybe…” Sully flicked his index finger against his
thumb.

“Not this time,” Dickie smiled at the driver.
“You know that saying about keeping your enemies closer? Doesn’t
hurt to keep the guy guessin’ either.” Dickie held his watch up,
looking at it dangling there. “Here Sully,” he proffered the time
piece, “I want you to have this.”

Sully was shocked, his mouth open, the
toothpick somehow fixed there, wasn’t going to fall out, Dickie
saying to him, “No, you wear it in good health” before the driver
could speak. “No way they’re going to let me keep it in there.”

“Thanks, Dickie.”

Their boss was going away and he wouldn’t be
coming back. Dickie had been slapped with a sentence heavy enough
to see him through the remainder of his natural lifetime and then
some.

The trio of prison officials waited outside
the fence, patient. They weren’t going anywhere. Gooch was next to
the Cadillac with Dickie’s overnight bag.

“Walk with me, Johnny.”

Johnny got out of the car, closing Dickie’s
door behind the man. Johnny took the bag from Gooch, Dickie
thanking the man. They started walking, Dickie leaving his freedom
behind him.

“This family is going to fall apart.” Dickie
admitted his fears to Johnny.

“No,” Johnny told him because it’s what he
needed to hear. “It’s not.”

Dickie stopped and Johnny stopped, Dickie
turning to face his man, placing a hand on his shoulder. Johnny
Dickie’s friend, employee. Hitman. Enforcer. Whatever the job
description, it wasn’t something you could file a 1040 for.

“Know what I always respected about you,
Johnny?” Johnny stayed silent, let Dickie say it when he was ready.
“I mean, aside from your inimitable style,” Dickie getting a smile
out of Johnny with that one, Johnny in his rain jacket and pony
tail, the Fu-Manchu and shades. “You ain’t old, but you’re like me.
Old school.”

Dickie took the bag from Johnny, put it on
the ground. He hugged Johnny, really hugged him, none of that
bullshit that went on at the social club, upper arms pressed to the
torso, arms bent at the elbow. He wrapped his arms around Johnny
Spasso and embraced him the way he would one of his sons.

Johnny hugged him back.

Dickie whispered something in Italian,
something only Johnny could hear.

Dickie stepped back and picked up his bag. He
patted Johnny on the shoulder, turned and walked away. Johnny
Spasso stood on the path in his raincoat and sunglasses, watching
him go.

“Gentlemen.” Dickie raised his arms away from
his body, greeting his warders.

DeAndre Watkins always seemed to have a book
under his arm.

Growing up in Queens, in the blighted Moses
houses, books were DeAndre’s escape. He could sit down in the
library or at home and lose himself in a world of wizards and
dragons, of beautiful princesses and fantastical magic, worlds
where the good guys were indubitably the good guys and the bad guys
bad. Books and worlds where good ultimately triumphed over
evil.

Where DeAndre came across words he didn’t
know, like
indubitably
, he looked them up. And once he’d
looked them up, he knew them. He owned them.

Sometimes other kids in his neighborhood saw
him reading and made comments about it, trying to make fun of him.
DeAndre ignored these kids and their taunts. They were going
nowhere fast. DeAndre was twelve years old and already thinking on
college.

This afternoon there were few folks outside.
The people had jobs were at them. At night these streets would teem
with people, mostly young men with little if any parental
supervision. Young men like DeAndre’s brother Terry and his
friends. That time of night, DeAndre would be sitting on his bed
with his back to the wall and a book in his lap the way he liked to
do, the sounds from the street barely registering in his room on
the ninth floor.

He passed a bag lady on the other side of the
street, the woman pushing a 2-wheeled folding grocery cart, the
cart full of recyclable cans in a clear lawn and leaf bag. The
woman looking the other way.

He walked by Old Toke on a bench, Old Toke a
friend of his momma’s from way back. DeAndre’s momma said she’d
known Toke before he was homeless, before the drugs ruined his
life. The few times DeAndre and his momma had run across Old Toke
together, momma had greeted Old Toke, said
Hello
Barry
.

DeAndre had christened him Old Toke in his
own mind because no way the guy looked like a Barry. Not that
DeAndre actually knew anyone named Barry. That and the man had a
pipe. Wasn’t no crack pipe neither; it was one of them wooden
numbers like DeAndre pictured an Oxford don having. Sure Old Toke
lived on the streets and was strung out or something, but DeAndre
had stood there enough, observing the man packing his pipe and
lighting it up, his actions deliberate and meticulous.

A certain elegance and grace to the whole
ritual.

Reminded DeAndre of a picture of J.R.R.
Tolkien on the back one of the books he had in his room, Tolkien
all affable looking and aging, holding a pipe. So DeAndre had taken
to calling his momma’s friend Barry Old Toke. Tolkien himself an
Oxford don.

He turned into the projects and the scene
immediately took a turn for the worse. The towers loomed on either
side of DeAndre, the windows on the lower floors barred, air
conditioners behind locked metal grates. Grafitti tagged all over
the walls, the benches, the curb itself, anything that could be
written on. The towers stood above all, augural but promising
nothing good, dire and lowering. Concrete sarcophagi, inhospitable
yes, but these were people’s homes.

This was the place where DeAndre lived.

The street itself was shit here, cracked and
pot holed from last winter. The curb was strewn with refuse, the
sidewalk little better. DeAndre watched his step, avoiding anything
that might puncture the sole of his shoe. The sidewalk a mess of
soda cans and malt liquor bottles, empty crack vials and glassine
envelopes, the occasional condom wrapper and parts of a newspaper.
Even the workfare people, with their brooms and city garbage cans,
didn’t like to come down here.

Neighborhood guys messed with them too
much.

Neighborhood guys like the three DeAndre was
walking towards now: Luke, Marquis, and Yuri, all of them bad news,
one worse than the other. DeAndre thought maybe he should turn
around, go a different way home.

But it was too late.

They’d seen him coming.

He turned and walked away now, they’d call
him soft.

No, he was going to have to walk up to them,
past them, ignore whatever kind of bullshit they tried to talk to
him. It was gonna happen. Accept the fact that it was going to
happen.

Indubitably
.

“S’up little nigga.” Luke greeting DeAndre
friendly-like, though nothing friendly about Luke. Luke wasn’t the
tallest of the three but DeAndre knew he was the ringleader. Luke
with his hair pulled back into some kind of bun, DeAndre noticing
he
wasn’t
rockin’ that square-link, the dollar-sign
medallion he always wore.

Luke had put his fist out, wanting DeAndre to
dap him up, DeAndre wishing to do no such thing. But DeAndre knew
if he didn’t it’d be just as bad as if he’d turned around and
walked away and they’d seen him before. Even worse.

He bumped fists with Luke.

“S’up, Luke.”

Marquis the tallest and oldest of the three,
wore his sunglasses on top of his head. Marquis’ face all bruised,
like someone had mashed him good. Had the biggest set of lips
DeAndre had ever seen outside of one of them white women on the
cover of those magazines you found on the checkout line at the
supermarket.