The Storm Giants (15 page)

Chapter 37
: The Ultimate Wellspring

Phish
ermen crowded behind Phil in the doorway. Others goggled in at the window. The garage’s double doors squealed on their rails as they were opened.

Everett
leapt across the pit and palm struck Phil’s shoulder spinning him half round. Everett wrapped his arm around Phil’s head, the crook of his elbow holding Phil’s big forehead immobile.

Phil
leaned back unresisting within the embrace of Everett’s forearm. Phishermen started spilling around Phil.

“Ha!
” Everett cried, and whipped up the bread knife to hold it across Phil’s throat.

He
dragged Phil around the pit to the snack truck. Everett rested his shoulders against the truck to save energy rope-a-dope style.

Tobias scampered to the work bench
, snatched the cleaver, and returned to press his own shoulders against the truck next to Everett. Tobias waved the cleaver in front of him in excited figure eights.

Celeste and
the thirty odd phishermen trooped into the garage, enclosing the two in an arc a few yards away. The shallow pit in front of the two men would complicate any effort the Phishermen made to bum rush them. The obstacle prevented Everett having to decide before he had to.

“So
this is what you do Henry?” Phil asked, his beard tickling Everett’s knife hand as he spoke.

“Yes
Phil,” Everett said. “We need to talk.”

“Yes
,” Phil said. “You’ll have to be careful though grasshopper or you’ll get blood stains on your clothes. It might ruin your stylish outfit.”

“
Raincoats are cheap,” Everett said.

“There’s a way out of this
you know,” Phil said.

“Yes
,” Everett said. “One way or the other I’m leaving with this gold. Have to take it to the Widow.”

“The Widow?
Do you mean –“ and Phil said her name, the Germanic syllables flowing off his tongue with an affectionate sound (Everett refusing to allow her name to penetrate into his mind, refusing to allow her that humanity). “Where is she? Is she in town? Please call her here, I must talk to her.”

Everett
closed his eyes for a second, and then opened them. “You want to see her?

“Of course
,” Phil said. “I wasn’t letting you hang out for your scintillating personality. I held her gold because I needed to make her come to me.”

“Why?”
Everett asked.

“Because
, I love her you fool,” Phil said.

“Phil
, the Widow isn’t here. She sent me to get the gold. She also sent me to kill you.” He lifted the blade a hair so as not to nick Phil’s quivering throat.

Celeste gawked
at Phil with longing sympathy and hurt. For all his vaunted people reading skills, had Phil taken note of this girl’s feelings?

“You’re not
one of her people. You never were,” Phil said. “I finally realized that but I didn’t extrapolate.”

Everett
tightened his grip on the knife a measured iota.

“Why are you d
oing this for her, Henry?” Phil asked.

A thousand lies cropped up in
Everett’s head, but: “She’s a threat to my family. You were right, I have people and they’re hostage to her. Phil – one way or the other, I’m leaving with that gold.”

Phil said,
“It made me suspicious when you tried to hide behind your friend like he was ninja smoke. It backfired, and you stood out more. I knew right off she’d sent you and I waited for you to make your play. I couldn’t understand why you were taking so long; just staying here like you enjoyed my company. I figured it out when you refused to say her name.”

“You won’t kill me
, Henry,” Phil said in an odd, soothing voice. “Because she wants you to.”

He reached up and
plucked Everett’s unresisting arm from around his neck. He turned around within arm’s reach, still in range if Everett wanted to slice anything off with the bread knife. Tobias looked on incredulous.

“He killed Aaron,” Celeste said.

“Ah,” Phil said. “Henry had no choice. Aaron was going to hurt his friend Otis. It was self defense for them. Besides, I’d had my eye on Aaron for a while. He was going against the program. He was getting ready to betray us all. Look in the front seat.”

Celeste rummaged around,
emerging with a handful of CD-ROMs and thumb drives.

“PIN numbers
,” Phil said, rotating in place to favor all the Phishermen with the power of his declamation. He gestured toward the data Celeste held up like a courtroom exhibit. “SSNs, credit card numbers. Aaron was planning on leaving us, cutting us out and selling them all.”

“The gold
,” Aaron’s boy said from where he sat against the wall. Blood was puddled below the guy’s maimed wrist. He was pale from blood loss. Enough body hair poked out the neck hole of his shirt, if he had a girl friend, she’d have a full time job shaving his chest and back.

David
squatted next to him holding the tourniquet tight, trying to escape notice from the room full of people. He flushed and stared down at the floor as every eye lit on him and Aaron’s boy.

Aaron’s boy said,
“You were holding out on us, that’s why Aaron did what he did,” the guy said. “He said you were the traitor.”

“The gold
,” Phil said, looking at the stacked bullion in the snack truck as if noticing its existence for the first time. He stared apology at all the Phishermen in turn, the errant leader mending fences with his disillusioned followers. “I was thoughtless my friends. You know I’ve done my best to serve you all, to serve our Family.

“B
ut then I went and fell in love. You should have seen her when I first met her, down in San Francisco years ago. We were young and she was beautiful. She was damaged, so damaged. Still, she would have been your queen if I’d had my way. She would have helped me to lead our Family. But my words never swayed her. I had to touch her with something she falsely believed important.

“
So I took the gold. Yes, and I hid it. I wasn’t holding out on the Family. I was guarding it in safe keeping until the glorious day she joined us. Now I realize that day will never come, so I am giving the gold to my friend here.” Phil looked at Everett with sad, dog like eyes that seemed to have no game in them at all.

“That gold is worth a lot of money
,” Celeste said. “Why are we just giving it up?”

“We don’t want this gold
, sister Celeste,” Phil said.

He stepped to
the truck, inspected one of the ingots and put it back. He lifted and returned brick after brick of the butter colored metal before finding what he was looking for. He held it out for everyone’s inspection. Everett and Tobias both stayed out of reach of the Phishermen, but they were still part of the circle leaning closer to share Phil’s discovery.

The gold shone
, highlighting the Nazi Eagle stamped on it, an inventory lot number centered beneath. That infamous Nazi efficiency: careful records had been kept; each of the bars melted down from dead Jews had been tallied. Everett had a flashback vision of a much younger Doctor D writing down the number to each bar in a notebook, not afraid to get his hands dirty in service to the Final Solution.

One
corner of the gold bar was more irregular than the rest of the ingot’s gleaming perfection. Its surface was rough and corrugated. The irregularities were molar shaped fillings and teeth fragments. Residue from the human byproducts sacrificed in the bullion’s smelting.

T
he Germans were getting sloppy at the end. They’d been running out of time with Gotterdammerung closing in, and they’d rushed things. Here was proof of the ultimate wellspring of the Widow’s gold. The flesh and bones of those exterminated in the Camps.

“Do you see?” Phil asked.
“We want no part of this.”

Celeste’s indrawn breath hissed
. Just like that, a quorum was reached and the debate about the gold was over.

Phi
l looked hard at David and Aaron’s boy. “And what are we to do with these two?” he asked.

Every eye in the room w
as on Aaron’s two surviving crew members. David looked even more waif like and resigned.

Aaron’s b
oy was pale and his expression verged on shock. He muttered, “Please don’t send me away. I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I know I was wrong now. Please Phil.”

“Who of us
is guiltless anyway?” Phil asked, looking around at the Phishermen as if demanding opposition. “Who of us has never shed blood? I’m inclined to forgive and forget this time, and allow them both to stay. Aaron is gone and we can’t change that, but these two will not betray us again.

“Will you?” Phil asked
David and Aaron’s boy, his scowl that of an enraged Biblical prophet. “We will find a way for you to atone to us. You will pay penance, like our friend Terry. You will stay with us until then in the bosom of our Family.”

Phil looked to
Celeste. “Get Brad to the ER. Tell them it was a kitchen accident. Tell them someone got careless with a meat cleaver.”

D
avid appeared ecstatic. And as for the wounded Brad? As a clot of phishermen hustled him out the garage, he looked surprisingly happy for a man that was probably about to get his right hand amputated.

Chapter 38
: ‘Cartoon People’

P
hil and Everett were walking together, away from everybody else.

The phishermen were scattered about the grounds in
whispering groups. They were too separated to pose an immediate threat but still an ongoing cause for concern.

Tobias
sat in the snack truck with the engine running, doing his rabid best to keep one eye on the surrounding phishermen and the other on Everett.

Phil
clasped his arms behind him like the folded wings of a bird, leaning forward a bit as they strolled. Everett walked next to him well within carving distance, though the bread knife was stuck in his belt. He was steeled not to listen to whatever hypnotic drivel bleated from Phil’s mouth if Everett had to do the dirty deed. Should he pour melted wax in his ears like Odysseus with the Sirens?

“You
not too upset about Aaron,” Everett said. “You planned it all along.”

“That’s a cynical sta
tement, grasshopper. I’m offended by your lack of faith.”

Everett
shrugged. His eye lit on David, who stood with some other phishermen. David stared at Everett, who looked away.

Phil said
,”Let’s suppose there’s anything to what you allege – which I deny categorically by the way. But let’s say you’re the leader of a hypothetical family a lot like this one. Now let’s suppose your second in command starts acting like a threat to everything you’ve worked for and believe in. Maybe you love him like a son, but he’s got to go, right?”

A
stone was on the ground. Phil stopped, studied the rock and kicked it so it skittered along the ground for several yards. They continued their perambulation.

Phil said
, “Then suppose a man comes along – maybe someone a little like you, grasshopper. I see you as a way to communicate with ‘the Widow’ as you call her, and set our interaction in motion. Aaron sees the attentions I accord you and immediately categorizes you as a threat, as intended. He’s primed for a role he thinks I still expect of him. It’s a well worn groove of behavior that he follows by habit, even if he is thinking about leaving.”

Everett
grunted. “A man in that position would want everything to look normal right up until he beat feet.”

“Yes.
I was coming to that grasshopper. Please be courteous enough to let a man finish pontificating, you haven’t heard enough of my voice yet. Aaron couldn’t see that his attempts at deception distracted him from my deep game, and bought me all the time I needed.

“I
t was the path of least resistance to wait until one of you took the other out. A minimal investment of energy with no possible downside. If you overcame, Aaron would be gone and I could pretend amazement and innocent surprise along with everyone else. If Aaron won you’d no longer be a threat, the Widow would be foiled, and I’d be no worse off than before. A win-win.”

“Calling
us by name like that, it’s no longer hypothetical Phil,” Everett said. “By the way, nice improvisation acting like Aaron had you on the ropes.”

“Did you fall for it at all?”

Everett grunted. “Did you and the Widow really bump uglies? Did you ever even know her, other than to heist her gold?”

He glanced down and saw the stone Phil
had kicked. Everett started to boot it as hard as he could. Phil made a funny animal like yelp just as Everett threw his kick. Distracted, Everett scuffed his foot against the ground as it impacted the stone, which traveled not one inch further than when Phil kicked it.

Everett
said, “Aaron must have known where your bodies were buried. You still needed him to do the hacking?”

“Oh
, no. He was a vain man who made the fatal error of becoming redundant. He liked showing off and was too inattentive to realize he had trained his own replacements.”

Everett
risked a direct look at Phil. “If you needed Aaron dead, you could have just straight out offered the gold for the deed. Didn’t need to pussyfoot around.”

Everett
smiled at the big man’s reaction. “No. This way it’s more deniable, and whatever you use for a conscience stays clean. Aaron was the one who moved your PIN numbers for you. He was your connection to earn, that’s a big part of why you hesitated to show him the curb.”

“
We’re a legitimate business, son. We would never engage in any illegal activities.”

“Maybe we should run a magnet across those disks Aaron was running off with
, destroy the data. Wouldn’t want you be an accessory.”

“That won’t be necessary.”
Phil glanced over at the truck. “Your friend expects you to kill me, doesn’t he?”

Everett
answered, "It’d be prudent. You’re back trail, which makes you a quantifiable risk. You’re a formidable opponent so it’d be doubly stupid to leave you still breathing in and out.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered by that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Everett said.

Phil glanced at him from under bushy brows. “Again speaking
hypothetically, what if I never really intended for you to have the gold? I have you surrounded, outnumbered, and who knows? There may even be some guns concealed amongst the crowd. No one can dodge a bullet. I’d feel foolish if it turned out I’d caved to a mere bluff.”

“Guns
just make it easier,” Everett said. “This is what happens, Phil. They see you fall down. Unless they’re really trained up, they come forward in dribs and drabs. It’s wonderful when the armed ones take pot shots from middle distance. They miss, and have that much less ammo to be a distraction when they’re close enough to matter.

“Ordinarily
in dealing with numbers like this, you initiate the action. Pick out the weakest, close with them, cripple them non-fatally. They make distracting noises and commotions. The stronger pile up behind them in dismay. You dance around behind that screaming human linchpin, killing anyone unfortunate enough to get within reach of whatever weapon you’re wielding that day. When self preservation kicks in the wolf pack breaks and scatters in panic, you put the linchpin out of his misery and move on. Pursuing the survivors can get complicated, but not gonna lose any sleep about that.

Everett
said, “This one isn’t ordinary, though. This time, there’s two people here close to me in brute speed. One of them is on my side.

“
No, Celeste is agile and brave. However, she’ll be emotionally galvanized by what happens to you. She’ll be at the forefront to reach you. This time, my linchpin will be the strongest instead of the weakest.” Everett looked at Celeste, who looked back at them quizzically, far out of hearing.

Phil’s eyes were closed
, and he was gulping for breath. Everett continued, “Fringe benefit? If I botch your kill and can’t finish you before it comes down to melee, you’ll be too distracted by what’s happening to her to offer any effective leadership. Do you think I’m bluffing Phil?”

“No.
Is that what you intend to do now?” Phil’s face had crumpled in defeat.

“
You know what I need, right Phil? Need to know I’m doing the right thing not burning this place to the waterline. You’re right: thirty million dollars i
s
a big pile of ducats for you to be giving up without something up your sleeve.”

A
s Everett watched, Phil firmed like wax dripping in reverse. Resembling an empty balloon inflating, Phil grew visibly stronger from the inside out. He opened his eyes with a warm smile on his lips and Everett was in awe.

“To
o many ducats,” Phil said, his voice calm, friendly and banal. “Look at all the trouble it’s caused already. People will keep coming after it as long as it’s here. The next batch will be even scarier than you, and not so willing to conversate. And if not, now the knowledge of its existence will corrupt my family and make us cannibalize ourselves.

“
If I had sinister intent, it would be easy to abscond and retire to luxury in some welcoming third world country. But I don’t wish to abandon my life here and run with it, whatever you choose to believe. Ironically, the gold is a liability that I’m giving away for very selfish reasons. You’re doing us a favor by taking it away.

“You still suspect me
of ill will?” Phil looked him up and down. “I’ve gotten to know you a little; even through that bank vault you call a heart. Initially I thought you were what I call ‘cartoon people:’ someone who sits alone in the theater of their own mind watching the movies on the screen. No one else exists but them.

“
But once I saw your family standing behind you, I had to switch orientation to what should have been obvious. Here’s a question for you grasshopper: after you half way amputated Brad’s wrist, why’d you let David put a tourniquet on him?”

“He would have bled out
,” Everett said.

“No
,” Phil said, shaking his head. “Why did you even care?”

“I played it
soft on you from the beginning,” Everett said. “It was selfish of me, to let feelings affect my game.”

Phil’s peals of laughter were loud enough to turn every head within hearing
. “Selfish, grasshopper? I think you’re the most unselfish man I’ve ever met.”

“What’s it to you
?” Everett asked. “You keep spouting that self help revolution hooey. Just one more scam?”

“No
it is not,” Phil said, eyes gone hot, the seductive calmness leaving him. “It’s the truth, my intentions are sincere. Things need changing.”

Phil’s eyes went distant.
“I was a good earner. I was a good telemarketer and they threw me away like trash. Those were bad times. You don’t need to know where I went then.”

He
caught Everett’s look and chuckled. “All right, I didn’t mind the way of things while I thought I was on top. But I was humbled, schooled by what they did to me. I’ll never forgive them for that. I’ll never stop the fight.”

I
n short order, Phil had displayed terror for a loved one followed by bitter anger. If the big man was acting, he was so far out of Everett’s league that Everett might as well get on his knees and yield right now.

No.
He was close to seeing bedrock emotion here. This chink in Phil’s armor reassured Everett enough to finally feel safe about leaving him alive.

“People don’t care
, Phil,” Everett said.

“Yes
they do, grasshopper,” Phil said. “And if they don’t I’ll make them care. My people, I have to speak in a language they understand, but I’m about ready to extend my reach. The stuff you know about is just a means to an end. I have plans, son – big plans.”

As
Everett was inserting into the snack truck, Phil leaned in his window. “I’d like it if you’d come back some time so we can talk. I have some things to run by you, and some ways I could perhaps help you with your own personal issues.”

“Maybe yo
u’re for real, maybe you’re not,” Everett said, feeling Tobias’s scornful grin ripple open at his back. “We’d prefer not being dimed to the Man whilst we’re on the road. Might prove inconvenient to all concerned.”

“That’s not going to happen
, grasshopper. No phone calls, no tricks.” Phil touched his arm. “Henry, that’s dirty gold. You don’t want any part of it. Unload it quick as you can and walk away.”

“
We’re through with it, Phil,” Everett said. “You don’t need to game me anymore.”

Phil
smiled. “Some people, their personalities are the color of a chameleon on a mirror. What happens when a chameleon gets tired? What happens when he needs to let his guard down a little? You and I are two sides of the same coin. I get lonely, son – don’t you?”

Phil stepped away
and Everett revved the engine, hoping the extra weight of the gold hadn’t bogged the truck’s tires into the unpaved driveway.

Phil
said, “Tell her goodbye for me. I know it’s a waste of time to ask for more.”

The truck didn’t bog
, but Everett kept its progress to a creep, not wanting to tempt fate. As they idled down the driveway toward the gate, the phishermen converged around Phil. As Phil talked to his family, they responded with nods and cautious smiles demonstrating continued loyalty.

Celeste was
at Phil’s side, in the position Aaron once occupied. She reached out one hand and placed it on Phil’s shoulder. Phil didn’t look at her or shake it off.

H
er hand dropped and she put her arm around his waist. Phil stiffened, then swayed in Celeste’s direction and put his arm around her waist in turn. She didn’t object to his touch. He had her permission.

The phishermen thronged
around the entwined couple. The big old cult leader and the tough little street girl made a new royal pair.

“Phil is one scary dude
,” Everett said. His highest possible praise.

“I could take him
easy,” Tobias said, and snorted. His sneer grew defensive when Everett didn’t respond.