The Trashman Read online

  I don’t wear a lot of suits; it’s not my style. Some Shooters spend obscene amounts of money on clothes, liquor, and cars. Mad Mok routinely spent five figures on bottles of Scotch. But not me. My money just sat in my various investment accounts, boringly increasing my wealth. At least, it had before I met Dawn Delvin. Then I lost everything, except, apparently, one suit. Did they save it to bury me in, as a sign of respect for having been in the room? Maybe, but the more I thought about it, the less I believed it.

  The answer came to me as I knotted the tie. Whoever the mysterious somebody was who went through so much trouble just to see me wanted something big in return for saving my life. Nothing else checked all the boxes. I was being recruited, but for what?

  I feared that I knew. Rumors swirled around LEI, same as they did at any company with more than one employee, and one of the most persistent rumors described a mysterious group called the Trashmen. Nobody knew who they were or their purpose for existing. I always thought of it as an urban legend, nothing more than a myth, but what if I was wrong?

  Returning to my seat, I found Isra sitting across the aisle behind Carlos, with Nathan at her feet gobbling up bits of a hamburger she was hand feeding him. The smell of cooked meat made my mouth water, but I couldn’t look away from her curves, well-defined by the tight-fitting flight suit. Assassin or not, she was hot.

  “Hey numb nuts,” One Shot said as I started to fall backward into my seat, “you’re about to sit on your lunch.”

  It was true. A tray holding a cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato that oozed juices into a pile of fries was sitting on my seat. Aside from ruining my pants, it would have spoiled what turned out to be a damned fine burger. Only by grabbing the chair’s arms did I manage to avoid disaster. Once I settled into my seat, with the tray on a table under the window, I broke off a juicy piece of meat and leaned as far as I could toward Nathan. He was sitting up now and leaning against Isra’s leg, which admittedly is the same thing I would have done in his place, but instead of reaching out to take the proffered cheeseburger, he looked back up at her, panting with his tongue hanging out. She noticed that I noticed and smiled.

  “Men are the same regardless of species.”

  “If that dog shits in here, you’re cleaning it up,” One Shot said, pointing at me.

  Even two cups of coffee couldn’t keep me awake, not after the day’s multiple adrenaline rushes, a food coma worse than post-Thanksgiving gluttony, and the crushing look I’d seen in Dawn’s eyes back in that alley. That drained me emotionally more than you’d think possible for a hired assassin in the prime of life, which was so strange in itself that it exhausted me, wondering how it could happen. All of it combined to overwhelm my efforts to keep my eyes open.

  Nathan apparently felt the same way, though as my lids fluttered closed, I saw the traitor crashed at Isra’s feet, not mine. An hour later, when my brain sensed the plane descending, I woke up, and my dog—that’s how I’d started to think of him—was curled up in the recliner across the aisle where Isra had been sitting. His nostrils flared as he snored, and once again I really couldn’t blame him. The chair no doubt retained her scent.

  Somebody had whisked away the dishes. One Shot and Carlos both showed no signs of movement, and I assumed they’d also fallen asleep. Someone had turned down the lighting, and, with the windows still closed tight and plenty of leg room, it made for a restful environment. With my mind finally calmed, my sub-conscious had a chance to sort through the morning’s events, which is when the glaring anomaly struck me: Dawn saw three dead men, I assumed by this point that my brain had played a trick and they weren’t really lizards, and just walked away like it was an everyday sight. Sure, she knew I killed people for a living, but she’d also been flirting with Quantrill, and his death earned no reaction beyond “tsk-tsk?” Was she also involved in whatever was going on?

  Too many guesses competed with too little information. I didn’t like the idea of being groggy whenever I faced whoever I would be facing, so after stretching, I half-rose to go look for more coffee. At that exact moment, the plane accelerated into a sixty-degree left-hand bank.

  Alarms buzzed. The cabin went dark and emergency exit lines lit up the floor. There was no time to balance or grab anything to break my fall, and my shoulder slammed full force into the portside bulkhead. Storage compartments sprang open, sending bottles of water, cutlery, trash, and fruit tumbling through the cabin. Nathan yelped and hung sideways in midair, but the seatbelt kept him from getting hurt.

  Outside the plane I heard muffled explosions. Bright light flashed at the edges of the window shades. Then the plane righted itself and began a steep, powered descent. Carlos peered over the back of his seat with a smear of egg salad covering his right cheek. Isra’s voice came over the PA, clear and calm and showing no signs of stress.

  “Please return to your seats and buckle in, gentlemen. That was a MANPAD, possibly a Stinger. As you may have noticed we took evasion action and deployed counter-missile flares, but there could be more. We intend to make a full-power approach at a steeper incline than usual. Once on the ground, we should be out of danger. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  I threw myself across the aisle to ensure that Nathan’s restraints were secure, but on the way back slipped because of the sharply angled floor and rolled toward the cockpit bulkhead. One Shot grabbed my forearm as I fell past him and held on until I could grab the underside of his seat. With his help I stood up, leaned toward the tail, and nodded my thanks. When I didn’t move for a few seconds he shook his head.

  “Don’t even think about sitting in my lap.”

  With great effort I got back to my seat and strapped in seconds before the plane leveled off and cut power. We bounced twice on landing and Cevdet leaned on the brakes so hard I once again worried the landing gear would collapse. Once we’d finally bled off enough speed so the plane could roll more freely, I heard two hydraulic hums followed by electric whirrs from atop the fuselage.

  “Sarge?”

  “Retractable turrets,” he said, “Avengers front and back. Any hostiles on the ground who engage the aircraft are gonna regret it.”

  “Not for long,” I said with a whistle. The GAU-8 Avenger was a 30mm seven-barreled Gatling gun that put nearly 4,000 per rounds minute downrange. Depending on the ammo load, even a tank would disintegrate under such a torrent of fire.

  “No,” One Shot said, “not for long.” I thought I heard a slight laugh in his voice, which would have been a first.

  We took no incoming fire. Under normal circumstances I would have considered that a blessing, but this time it was a little disappointing. Who doesn’t enjoy watching bad guys get vaporized by heavy weapons?

  We taxied to a stop without incident and descended the fold-down stairs into air not much different than what we left in Jamaica, hot and wet. I went to carry Nathan down but Isra waggled her finger to stop me.

  “This boy is mine now,” she said.

  Judging by his happy, drooling face, Nathan didn’t hate the idea.

  “We’ll co-parent,” I said. “You take him first, and we can talk about permanent arrangements over dinner.”

  She didn’t say no, but she also didn’t say yes. All I got was a huff and a half-smile. It was enough.

  Waves of midday heat rose from the concrete. A bucket-headed guy wearing camo stood in front of an idling black van holding two rifles. Once down the ladder, One Shot and Carlos each grabbed one and deployed to either side while Buckethead motioned me into the van’s front passenger seat. Nobody took a shot at us, which, judging by how the day had gone so far, seemed odd. There was nobody else in the van. The back was filled with big, lumpy shapes hidden by a tarp.

  “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” I said as the car’s AC pumped cold air into my face. I’d guessed right and by now I was sure of it; I had some sort of leverage, but since I had no idea what game I was playing, there was no way of knowing when that might end. I could have paid close
attention to everything, ready to run or fight at need, but my sense of danger wasn’t warning me of anything, and, since it had saved my life hundreds of times, I trusted my instinct and decided that if I got whacked, at least I’d go out laughing.

  If a wood chipper had an expression, it would have been the one Buckethead gave me then. Using a chin that resembled the business end of a sledgehammer, he indicated a blindfold on the dashboard. I held it up by two fingers like it was a dirty diaper.

  “So if you wear this, how’re you gonna see where you’re going?” I said.

  This time his face didn’t change but the muscles in his forearms rippled and tightened. He outweighed me at least 50 pounds, and, judging by the location of all the lumps under his uniform, not one ounce was fat. Nor was he a ’roid monster like Carlos; his green had a distinctly red edge. Buckethead was dangerous.

  I put on the blindfold. We drove for something like 20 minutes. I paid attention for clues about our destination, but got nothing useful. I could have tried overpowering him and maybe succeeded, but what then? If LEI wanted me dead, I’d be dead, simple as that. They could have done it the past month, and didn’t. If for some reason they wanted it done quietly, they could have killed me on the plane and tossed out my body over the Caribbean, and didn’t.

  No, for reason or reasons unknown, somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to not only keep me alive, but also to bring me back to the States, which I felt confident was my location. Nor had they done it to face the justice I’d fled to avoid, otherwise the FBI could have simply met me at the plane, as I’d half expected, with reporters live-streaming my arrest. So, rather than worry any more about where we were going, I leaned back and tried to catch a fast nap.

  The van stopped with a slight jolt, waking me. Somebody opened the passenger door and took me by the elbow. The heated air lasted seventeen paces until I climbed two steps into a wonderfully cool place with a hardwood floor. From there, a rough hand directed me through a series of steps and turns that ended in a place smelling of lemon wood polish. The same somebody who’d steered me took off my blindfold, and I saw that the somebody should have been plural, somebodies.

  They wore dark suits like me, and I was startled to realize theirs cost every bit as much as mine had, if not more. But despite the world-class tailoring and esoteric fabrics, they were both pig-eyed mounds of granite with slabs for hands and crooked noses. The kind of offensive lineman types that made excellent bodyguards because they were loyal, hard to kill, too stupid to do anything else, and just smart enough to know it. I’d seen a million like them in strip clubs across the world, men whose deep-lined faces reflected too many cigarettes and bad decisions.

  We stood in a hallway straight out of an Edgar Allan Poe story. The wood paneling was old and dark and stretched into shadows 25 feet overhead. Assorted statuary stood at regular intervals along the walls.

  “Go in, he wants to see you now,” said the smaller of the two giants.

  “What if I don’t want to see him?”

  Reaching into their coat pockets, both men slipped brass knuckles in place, the kind with spikes.

  “Who gives a shit what you want?”

  It was a longer answer than I expected; goons aren’t usually what you’d call erudite. It was also a bluff, and I knew it, but if this meeting didn’t go well, I’d likely be dealing with those two anyway, so discretion seemed the better part of not getting my face shredded.

  “I bow to your wishes,” I said.

  I weighed about one-eighty, but he shoved me through the open office door with only a slight push from one hand. It reinforced my choice not to pick a fight unless I came down with a sudden urge for suicide. Carlos was a ’roided-out gym rat who would run out of gas 30 seconds into a hand-to-hand fight, but I knew at first glance these guys had earned their scars in half a hundred fights in the dark places where even angels carried heavy. If I had to take them out, I could, I just didn’t wanna have to.

  Then I noticed my surroundings, and they didn’t matter anymore.

  Chapter 10

  The office looked like a leftover set from an English murder mystery, with brown books shoved into brown wooden shelves trimmed in darker brown. Crimson rugs, carved oak tables, and leather chairs filled the floor space, with a sprawling Spanish-style desk at the far end. A man sat behind the desk and faced the far wall so I couldn’t see his face. I say it was a man because of the bald pate ringed by iron gray hair, although I guessed it could have been a woman with bad genes. The medium tenor voice didn’t mean anything; I’d heard women with deeper. I couldn’t place his accent, it was European for sure, but Americanized.

  “Welcome to my home Mr. Steed. My name is Keel. I understand that you’ve had an interesting day so far.”

  “I might use a different word than ‘interesting.’”

  “Nevertheless, thank you for coming.”

  “It didn’t seem optional.”

  “Of course, it was. You could have refused.”

  “And wound up in a Jamaican jail for something I didn’t do.”

  “That doesn’t alter the fact that it was a choice, as was entering this room.”

  I pointed over my shoulder with my thumb, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “Not according to your gargoyles out there. They told me if I didn’t come in to see you, they’d break my leg.”

  “Yes, well, they may have tried and perhaps succeeded, but once again you had a choice.”

  “Between coming along peaceably and getting my leg snapped?”

  “Come now, Mr. Steed, give me credit for knowing who I invite into my own home.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Let us be candid, shall we Mr. Steed? I am well aware of your particular skill set—all of your skills—so if circumstances demanded it, I have no doubt you could kill both of my sons. They would die hard, yes, but they would die, nonetheless. That lethality is why I’ve brought you here.”

  “Those are your kids standing guard outside the door?”

  “They are, and while I admit they didn’t pursue the professions I’d hoped they would, you may understand that I’ve grown rather fond of them.”

  “Let’s get to the point then; why am I here?”

  “Sit, if you please.”

  “Will I be here that long?”

  The man facing away from me hadn’t moved at all, not even a muscle twitch, which I found odd. Nor had the air conditioning blown a strand of his hair, even though he sat beneath a vent.

  “Stand, then, it makes no difference to me.”

  “When you put it that way…”

  Two oversized leather chairs that probably cost more than a month with a high-class hooker, each faced his desk. I sat in the one on the right, sinking into the cool, supple animal hide as if into a lover’s embrace. It was a damned comfortable chair and I said so.

  “Thank you, they are hand crafted in Barcelona.”

  “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Of course, I mind,” he snapped. “What a filthy and disgusting habit. But I’d been told you quit.”

  “I did.”

  “Then why are you asking?”

  “Because there’s a fresh pack of my brand sitting on your desk, with my engraved Zippo lying beside it. My personal Zippo, from my condo.”

  “So, there is. Feel free to take them when you leave.”

  “So, I get to leave?”

  “Of course.”

  “Alive?”

  “Let’s hope so. And the answer is still no, you may not smoke in my office. It’s bad enough that I would then smell it on your clothes, but it would also risk burning a hole in that chair you like so much.”

  “Then I’ll step outside, so it doesn’t bother you,” I said, half standing.

  “Sit down,” he said, leaving me to wonder how he knew I’d gotten up. His words weren’t commanding, though, they had a note of conciliation, so I sat back down. “Thank you. I understand the craving for nicotine, Mister Steed, although after a month of abs
tinence I would think the cravings had abated. Moreover, your record indicates you can suppress the urges for many hours when the need arises. But I believe you’ll wish to hear my proposition. You see, I wish you to enter my employ.”

  Keel said nothing more, so after a few seconds I spoke up. The smokes called out to me, and I really wanted a cigarette.

  “Which means what?”

  “My proposition?”

  “If that’s the reason I’m here.”

  “It is, Mister Steed, it is. But I don’t understand your reticence, with the alternative promising a rather bleak future.”

  “I’m supposed to say ‘yes’ without knowing what you want me to do? What if you want to make snuff videos and I have to supply the talent?”

  “Fair enough, so first let me ask you an important question: would you like your license back?”

  No reaction crossed my face. I’d half expected something like this, only I couldn’t figure out the angle. If LEI wanted me back, the question was “Why?” Because corporations in general weren’t terribly forgiving of those who break their rules, and LEI less than most. Which meant that whether I could see it or not, the Sword of Damocles hung in the rafters overhead.

  My brain worked fast, though, and I had a pretty good idea where this was leading. Top-notch Shooters like me brought in a continuous stream of revenue, but I had a further ace in the hole most didn’t: I was in the room when we killed Osama bin Laden. I didn’t know for sure why Keel had orchestrated this farce, maybe he wanted to show off his book collection or maybe he needed a butler and got some bad information. Either way, I didn’t like being shoved around. If One Shot had asked nice in the first place I probably would have agreed, or if his sons hadn’t been assholes about shoving me into the office, because I would have given my left nut to have my old life back, but I didn’t like being strong-armed, and especially not by the company I had belonged to before there was a company. So out of spite I wasn’t gonna make this easier for him. You fuck with me; I fuck with you.