Among Thieves (2 page)

The others hooted and jeered and stepped out into the street yelling at Beck about being a punk-ass coward, cursing him, shouting about how bad he was going to get his ass kicked. Beck ignored them, but Willie Reese listened to his crew and believed them. Beck just kept running, but not as fast now. He slowed down so Reese wouldn't give up. Or do something really stupid like pull out a gun and shoot at him.

But Reese surprised him and closed the gap more quickly than Beck expected.

Shit, Beck thought. He sprinted toward a beat-up Volvo station wagon parked to his right, managed to get a foot on the front bumper, and vaulted up onto the hood just as Reese came close enough to lunge at him, grabbing for his foot. Beck pulled his foot away and kept right on going, jumping onto the roof of the Volvo.

Reese splayed across the hood, having just missed catching the bottom of Beck's jeans. Beck kept going, jumped off the car, landed on the street, slipping a bit on the slick cobblestones.

By the time Reese picked himself off the hood, Beck had circled wide around him and was running back toward the bar, about five yards out in front of Reese, but this time at half-speed, conserving his wind, staying just far enough in front to taunt Reese into catching up to him.

Beck also slowed down because Reese's gang had come into the street to block his path. They figured they'd keep him trapped, so their man could get to him.

Reese saw it, too. Beck had nowhere to go. He slowed down, slipping a little on the uneven street, trying to get his footing and catch his breath. He'd been raging, burning energy, but now he had this guy. Time to get it together.

Behind Beck, Reese's gang hooted and yelled for blood. In front of him, the big man closed on him slowly.

And then, before any of them realized how it happened, everything changed.

Just as Reese was about to reach Beck, he stopped backpedalling and lunged forward, slapping aside Reese's huge outstretched arm with his left hand, and stabbing two stiff fingers into Reese's left eye. The pain and force of the hit stopped Reese so suddenly that his feet nearly went out from under him.

Back near the bar, Demarco Jones appeared out of nowhere. He stood behind the four gangbangers who were watching their man closing in on Beck. Demarco held a Benelli M3 shotgun firmly pressed into his shoulder, aimed right at the group of four standing near the beat-up van.

At the same time, Emmanuel Guzman, dressed in his usual dark-blue work clothes and stained apron, emerged from between two buildings north of the van aiming a second shotgun at the group. It was a beautiful old Winchester 12 gauge, its dark grain walnut stock gleaming in the bright winter sun.

At first, neither Demarco nor Manny said a word. The chilling
chu-chunks
of the shotguns being pumped stopped all the bravado and yelling. The shotguns were one thing. The men holding them were the main thing.

Demarco said, “Hands.”

All four of them, heads swiveling back and forth at the men in front and behind them, raised their hands.

Guzman continued to advance until he had the long barrel of his Winchester pressed into the forehead of the nearest gangbanger.

Manny Guzman was shorter, stockier than the young black man, but implacable. He just kept walking forward, pressing the muzzle of the Winchester into the soft skin of the young man's forehead, pushing him toward the van.

“Leave. Now. Or I kill you.”

All four of them tumbled and pushed their way into the battered van, three of them falling through the sliding side door and one jumping into the driver's seat. He started the engine and accelerated down the street, swerving and sliding on the slick cobblestones.

Now that the four behind him were taken care of, Beck circled to Reese's left, his blind side. Reese had his left hand clamped over his suddenly throbbing blind left eye, giving Beck an opening to slide forward and twist a fast, hard right into the left side of Reese's nose. The septum broke with a sharp crack.

One moment Reese was thinking about taking apart James Beck. The next he was half blind with a screamingly painful broken nose.

Beck stepped back, figuring that should do it. But he was wrong. Taking out an eye and breaking a nose weren't disabling blows, just horribly painful. And pain wasn't going to stop Willie Reese.

He lashed a roundhouse left at Beck, more to knock him away than to knock him out. Beck leaned back from the fist, but not far enough. The fist only grazed the right side of his head, but the power and speed behind the wild punch still were enough to make everything go black for a moment.

Beck didn't hesitate. He leaned right back in toward Reese and fired a fast right fist around the hand protecting Reese's left eye, landing a solid blow to Reese's left temple. Hitting Reese's big head with such force nearly broke two of Beck's knuckles. It was a knockout punch, but it only staggered Reese. Beck followed it with a left elbow to the face, a right to the side of the neck, and a left aimed at Reese's throat.

Reese somehow slap-blocked the last punch and lunged forward quickly enough to grab Beck's coat, rear back, and snap a vicious head butt at Beck's face.

Beck barely jerked out of the way in time. Reese's huge forehead banged into Beck's left collar bone. It felt like being hit with a bowling ball.

Reese tried to throw Beck to the ground, but Beck grabbed Reese's massive forearms, widened his stance, twisted back against Reese, and levered his own head butt directly into Reese's already broken nose.

This time the pain was too intense even for Willie Reese.

Beck heard him gasp and growl in agony. Reese couldn't move, but he held onto Beck's coat, so Beck pounded six hard fast lefts and rights into Reese's liver, floating ribs, and sternum, twisting, aiming, grunting with exertion as he landed each blow. Reese could do nothing but hang on to Beck, who couldn't believe that Reese was still standing.

Finally, Reese hurled Beck away from him. Beck's feet left the ground and he went down hard onto his back. Reese tried to step toward Beck so he could kick him or stomp him, but his legs wobbled under him as he staggered forward.

Beck rolled sideways and scrambled to his feet, quickly backing away from Reese, who managed to stay on his feet, blood streaming from his nose, left eye beginning to swell, huffing and puffing for air, two cracked ribs splinting pain with every breath.

They both knew it wasn't over. Beck would have to step in to finish Reese off. And if Reese managed to get his hands on Beck, he might find a way to grab Beck's throat so he could crush his windpipe. Or smash Beck's head into the ground. Or manage one hard blow that would knock Beck out.

Beck shook out his arms, staying back, breathing deeply. Getting ready.

He said to Reese, “You that hard up for my business?”

Reese spat out a mouthful of blood and turned his head sideways to look at Beck out of his good eye.

“Ain't about that anymore.”

“What's it about?” asked Beck.

“You and me,” said Reese.

“Yeah, well, I don't want to have anything to do with you, man. You're a fucking handful.”

Reese looked over at Demarco and Manny, watching, cradling the shotguns.

“Maybe you should have your boys shoot me. You don't want me comin' back for you.”

“Maybe. But there is an alternative.”

“What's that?”

“You working for me, like you said.”

“What?”

As soon as he heard that answer from Reese, Beck knew he wasn't a complete maniac. And that meant there might be a way out of this without one of them dying.

Beck continued to keep his distance and said, “Hey, like you said, I hired Shorty and his little gang to give me the heads-up on anything coming this way through the projects, but he didn't do it, did he? He didn't have the balls to tell me you were coming.”

“Nah, he didn't.”

“So what do you want more? A job or a chance to keep beating on me? Which I guarantee you isn't going to work anyway, 'cuz they will shoot you down if it gets out of hand.”

Reese looked at Demarco and Manny with their shotguns. He spit out more blood.

Beck said, “Fuck it. Your guys are gone. Tell them you beat a job out of me. I don't give a shit. Think it over. It's too damn cold to stand out here discussing it.”

Beck turned his back on Willie Reese and headed toward his bar. He told Demarco and Manny, “Don't shoot him if he wants to come in.”

 

2

Beck walked behind the bar, flipped open the lid on the ice maker, and shoved both hands into the pile of frozen cubes.

Manny headed for the bar kitchen. Demarco took a seat at the table farthest from the front door. He placed the Benelli on top of the table and sat facing the door.

About the time Beck could no longer feel his hands, the front door opened and Willie Reese leaned into the bar. Demarco didn't pick up his shotgun, so Reese stepped inside.

From behind the bar Beck said, “So?”

Reese stood near the front door looking at Beck. His left eye was killing him. His nose continued to bleed. His muscle T-shirt was more red than white. The bruises on his ribs and body thrummed with pain.

He said, “You asked me do I want the job.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Well, you fucking failed the first part of the interview.” Beck motioned with his head toward a table near the door, one of three set up against the wall opposite the bar. “Have a seat, and let's see how you do on the second part. I'll be back in a minute.”

Reese sat two tables away from Demarco, whose right hand now rested on the Benelli's trigger guard. Demarco stared back at Reese without expression. Beck dug out his cell phone and made a call as he headed back toward the bar kitchen.

*   *   *

Beck found Manny at his two-chair wooden table in the old first-floor kitchen where Manny spent much of his time. The shotgun was back in its rack, but Manny's white kitchen apron didn't cover the bulge of the Charter Arms Bulldog revolver that he always carried in his right front pants pocket. It was a small inexpensive gun, but at .44 caliber it had tremendous stopping power. With only a four-inch barrel it was the kind of gun that had to be used up close, which was fine with Guzman.

Manny sat with a cup of the same coffee Beck had been drinking, except Manny brewed his version with twice as many grounds. This morning, however, Manny also sipped from a shot of dark, one-hundred-proof rum. Manny took a sip of the sweet liquor, followed by the coffee. He sat motionless, the air around him pulsing with murderous rage.

“Not a good way to start the day,” said Beck as he took the seat opposite Manny.

Manny made a face. “I was ready to kill somebody even before those
coños
showed up. That punk don't know how close he came to losing the top of his head.”

“Actually, I have a feeling he does know.”

“Yeah, well, I can see not shooting 'em, but they come up on us like that and don't even get a beating? I don't know.”

“One of 'em did. The others … maybe their time will come.”

“I don't like that they thought they could do that. Like they don't know who we are.”

Beck answered, “They do now.”

Manny replied with a half grunt.

They both sat quietly for a few more moments. Manny took another sip of his rum and chased it with the strong coffee. Then a deep breath. And a long exhale.

Beck waited for more of the tension to ebb out of Manny. He shifted in the hard wooden chair. He asked, “Those guys have anything to do with your…?”

“No. I don't know what the fuck any of that was about.”

“About being stupid, I guess.”

Manny moved his head a fraction, not saying anything. And then, “Stupid is a good way to get killed.”

Beck nodded. “Yeah. Well, I'll look into it. So what about the thing D told me? What should I know about it?” Beck leaned forward. “Is it something to do with us?”

“No. It's my thing. It's family. My family.”

This surprised Beck. After so many years in the gangs and in prison, as far as he knew, Manny Guzman's family had either died or abandoned him long ago. He wondered if there was an ex-wife or a child. Beck knew a great deal about Manny, but he hadn't heard much about any of his family members.

“I see,” said Beck.

Manny swallowed, not coffee or rum, just moving his mouth and swallowing as a way to relieve tension. Beck waited for the rest, not pushing it. Manny sat shrouded in stoic silence.

It reminded Beck of when he'd first met him at Dannemora Prison in upstate New York. Manny's reputation had preceded him, but even if Beck had never heard anything about him, one look at Manny Guzman sitting in the yard at Dannemora, surrounded by his clique, was all Beck needed to know that this was a dangerous man. The kind of man they'd built Dannemora to house.

Located just south of the Canadian border, Dannemora was a cold, desolate place so isolated and remote that even if someone managed to escape, it wouldn't do them much good. There was literally no place to go outside the walls of the prison. The main street of Clinton ran right alongside the prison's main wall, but didn't lead anywhere. Either side of the wall, you were still hundreds of cold, bitter miles from anywhere.

Even though Dannemora had been designed to isolate and demoralize hard men, Beck knew that for some men, men like Manny Guzman, the place actually made doing time easier.

For them, the best way to do time was to never think about the outside. If you thought about the outside, it could drive you into despair. You did your time on the inside. In the here and now. Moment to moment, according to a routine. Inside. The outside couldn't exist in the mind of a long-term convict. And Dannemora was perfect for that. Inside that prison, you were nowhere but prison. Which made Beck even more surprised to hear about this family member Manny had stayed connected to.