Kick (The Jenkins Cycle Book 1) (5 page)

I went back to the room where Stump’s body lay cooling. After fishing a set of keys from his pocket, it didn’t take long to find the oddly shaped handcuff key. I took it back to Z and his daughter, the latter shaking uncontrollably and staring at me in terror as I entered the room. The effect spread to her father, who started looking around for something to grab.

Loudly, I said, “Just calm down, ok? I’m not going to do anything. Here, I think this is the key.”

I tossed it on the bed and watched as Z unlocked the cuff closest to him. Rather than reach across his daughter to do the other side, he got up and circled the bed.

Before he got halfway around, I said, “Hold on a second.”

Almost like I’d tripped over his power cord, Z froze mid-stride.

“I need to make sure we’re clear on what just happened.”

“All right,” Z said. “Anything.”

“As you can see, I just double-crossed my buddy Stump in a big way.”

He nodded, just once.

“The way I see it, you’re a drug dealer and I’m a bad guy who likes to shoot people. But your daughter …”

“She’s innocent. She hasn’t done anything wrong!”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? So here’s what I’d like to see happen. I’m taking the guns, the drugs downstairs and my bike, and I’m getting the hell out of here. No cops, and don’t worry about the body. You’ll never see me again, but if you do it’ll go different, I promise you.”

He nodded again, more vigorously.

“You’re going to take your daughter home, and then I suggest you give up your business with the Howlers.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I will.”

“While you’re at it, you really ought to find another way to make money. I mean, was any of this worth it?”

Shaking his head, Z stole a shamefaced glance at his beat-up daughter. He went to unlock her other hand and she hugged him, burying her face in his shirt, sobbing.

“No,” he said. “No it wasn’t.”

I knew better than to hope he’d start down the straight and narrow, but right then he seemed sincere. Even if he wasn’t, it was his life—and it had nothing to do with me. I felt bad for Jill, though. But you can’t save adults from their parents.

While Z attended his daughter, I went downstairs, grabbed the gym bag, stuffed it with the bags of meth and left through the front door. I half-expected a line of police cars, with doors open and officers hiding behind them, ready to unload. But the neighborhood contained no more police than it did palm trees and that suited me just fine.

Before leaving, I couldn’t help wondering what Z had done to cause all that.

***

I parked outside a Dillard’s department store at a big mall. I didn’t want to risk someone stealing the drugs so I took my time finding a spot close to the entrance. On the way over, I transferred the drugs to the saddlebags and ditched the gym bag in a dumpster behind a shopping center.

Every time I’m inside a Dillard’s I can’t help comparing it to Macy’s. On the whole, Dillard’s strikes me a little like a JC Penny that knows somebody. But I wasn’t there for the décor or the grand piano playing all by itself near the escalators, or the sad-eyed woman trying desperately to get people to sign up for their personalized American Express card. Like most men, I hate shopping for clothes, but Mike’s stinky getup bothered me and I needed something normal and clean.

“Do it darling, and spare no expense,” I told John, the well-groomed, fashion-forward gentlemen working the floor in Men’s Apparel. “Make me fabulous!”

John rose to the challenge, and forty minutes and $1200 lighter found me whistling my way through the mall in my snazzy new Daniel Cremieux pleated pants and Polo Ralph Lauren sportshirt. I also wore a new $545 Emporio Armani watch to help me use time wisely, as well as Mike’s black biker boots. They were really quite comfortable. The most important purchase was a bag of enough underwear to last a month without laundry, along with a bunch of jeans, polos and dress shirts. I slung Mike’s old clothes over my shoulder in another bag. I’d need them later.

Getting fabulous really builds up an appetite, so after a quick look at the mall directory I wended my way to perhaps the best place in the world for a hungry man: an American food court. First, I got a sub from the Steak Escape. As a rule, I always like to get at least one slice of pizza with every trip to a food court, so I picked up a giant-sized pepperoni slice and a soda from a pizza place. Next, because I saved room, I got a large chocolate-dipped cone from the Dairy Queen.

Enjoying my treat from a bench, I watched a group of teenage boys pantomiming an older, overweight woman walking by.

As I stared at them, one looked over at me, letting the act slip when he saw my expression. Then he turned to the others, angling his back toward me. As one, they grew quieter, more serious, sensing the very real danger sitting on a bench not fifteen feet away. No longer eating, I became acutely aware of the weapons hidden in my bag of old clothes. I wouldn’t have harmed any of the little brats but I could give them a real scare if they provoked me. Antics like theirs were but a step away from sadism. Years from now, I could see myself swaddled in their skin, stark witness to the price of ignoring this seemingly harmless behavior. After all, it had only been four years since Jake McDowell was a teenager.

Folding my arms to control my suddenly shaking hands, I watched as they moved on.

What the hell’s wrong with me?

Then I recognized it: a delayed reaction to my experience at the house. To that poor girl and her stupid father and that dumb hick Stump. What a mess.

Calm again, I thought about how I’d shot Stump. Religious people will tell a child that Chucky the hamster has gone to Heaven. Unlike them, I knew what happened when you died. Even if my experience was tailored just for me, I lived with a certainty rich men would give their last cent to possess. I couldn’t be sure if Stump would get the Great Wherever for his crimes, but he’d get something. He struck me as a pretty bad dude. Rapist. Killer. Someone who got off on tormenting others. Shooting him wasn’t a crime in my book. Knowing his ultimate destination and shooting him anyway? Well, I could almost dwell on that if I were the dwelling type.

Growing up, I was the champion of spiders and moths in my house, catching and releasing them for my mother at great personal risk. Back then, the thought of killing another human would have been unthinkable. But now? After learning firsthand the myth of real death? For the new Dan, killing a scumbag like Stump or Jake rated less trouble than a four-pound tug on a plastic trigger. What’s more, it appeared I had some divine, James Bond-like license to kill. Otherwise, wouldn’t the Great Whomever keep me in my prison where I couldn’t hurt anyone? And why send me at all? If he wanted someone dead, couldn’t he just blast them with a lightning bolt or asteroid or something?

I’m not without theories. One of them is that God or whatever you call him has decided not to interfere in the world unless it’s through an emissary for Good—you know, priests, nuns, Dairy Queen employees. My only problem with that is I don’t think I’m all that good. Too often, I simply take the easy way out. If I were serious about wanting to be some champion of the Light, then instead of killing Stump I could have drawn down on him—maybe disarmed him and called 911. But then I’d have to spend three weeks in jail, and prison food sucks.

In a sudden fit of defiance—whether against the Great Whomever or my own twisted priorities—I resolved not to kill Mike. Sure, he’d been in on the plan to murder Z and probably would have hurt Jill just like Stump had. But neither “probably” nor “would have” were good enough today.

If the Great Whomever wanted him dead, I decided, he could do it himself.

Chapter 7

The price for keeping Mike alive was a solid murder charge, and for that I needed as much evidence to give the police as possible.

I could bury Stump or leave him to rot. Burying him seemed like too much work, but I refused to leave Stump rotting there in plain sight—for reasons that had nothing to do with neighbors or police and everything to do with who I am.

With my mind made up, I stopped off at the hotel to change back into my Road Warrior outfit. It’d be a shame to mess up my funky new threads after only just getting them.

No longer fabulous, I returned to the house on Calypso Lane.

Everything looked the same as I’d left it, minus Jill and her loser father. No sisters or friends showed up for a surprise visit. No nosy neighbors came knocking with questions about the strange Sig Sauer-like sound they’d heard not two hours ago. Best of all, no detectives lay waiting for the villain to foolishly return to the scene of the crime.

I found the keys to Stump’s van on the kitchen table. Rather than sneak his body out and find a place to hide it, I did the next best thing and went to Home Depot.

“How about this one?” I said to the guy working in Appliances.

“It’s a good one,” he said, nodding.

“Lots of cc’s and all that?” I said.

“Oh yeah.”

“Not eco-friendly, is it?”

Snorting, he shook his head and said, “Not even a little bit.”

Someone at the store helped me get it into the van. Chest freezers aren’t all that heavy, just awkward. When I got back, I tipped it end over end to the front door. From there, I ripped away the box, tipped one end over the threshold and then slipped the freezer into the foyer.

The best place for it would be the laundry room, just ahead through the foyer door and to the right, so that’s where I put it. What a pain. Who knew there were so many pieces of house a freezer could bump into? I plugged it in and waited a few minutes until I noticed it working, then I went upstairs to get the body. Though he wasn’t that big, dragging Stump down the stairs and into the laundry left me sweating.

Before going any further, I removed Stump’s double shoulder rig and adjusted it to fit before shrugging into it. Wearing a gun down my pants was a good way to get my name changed permanently to Stump.

“Here we go,” I said.

It was all I could do to get him halfway over the lip of the mini-morgue and send the rest following. Humans have too many angles to make packing them in even large, roomy freezers an easy task. To get the lid sealed tight, I had to abandon the remains of my moral character as I tugged and pulled him into position. The whole thing almost made me swear off killing rapist murderers forever.

I went upstairs and wiped the wall with a wet bath towel, then packed both the towel and the drop cloth into the freezer with him. For the most part, all I’d done was smear the blood and brains around more thinly. Anyone with something like a curious mind would see the dried blood for what it was, but I only needed the body to stay undiscovered for a few weeks.

Tired from all the work, I washed up in the kitchen and then relaxed in my old seat with a glass of ice water. The display on the microwave read four o’clock.

When I went downstairs and opened the door to leave, four more Howlers had arrived. Like me, they wore badass biker outfits and rode badass biker bikes. As I watched, one of them leaned against the van and dialed a number into his cell. Seconds later, I nearly had an accident when I heard a ringtone from upstairs—Stump’s phone, on the table next to Stump’s keys and wallet.

The guy saw me. I flashed him a signal—
gimme a second
—then ducked back upstairs to the kitchen, grabbed the phone and waited for it to stop ringing. When it did, I held the power button until the display darkened. Pocketing it, I took Stump’s keys and wallet and shoved them after. Desperately, I looked around for anything else I needed to hide.

Banging from downstairs.

“This is it, Daniel,” I said, softly, using the name my mother gave me. After a quick check that my guns were readily available beneath my vest, I went downstairs to greet Mike’s friends.

The man at the door was buzz-cut bald. He had a well-trimmed beard and hard eyes that softened a fraction when he saw me.

“Hey man, how’s it hanging?” I said.

“Mike, how are you? What’s it been, ten years?” he said, his voice relaxed and even. He had an aura of authority about him, added to only slightly by a patch that neither Mike nor Stump had, reading, “PRESIDENT.”

“Just keeping my powder dry,” I said, trying for something sufficiently grizzled. Also, I’d always wanted to say that.

I watched him carefully, looking for clues I’d slipped out of character, but his reaction didn’t change. I mean, it wasn’t like we were talking about motorcycles or something I knew nothing about.

“You mind taking a look at my bike?” he said. “Seems a little sluggish right around seventy.”

Lovely.

“Sluggish, huh? Just like you to blame the bike and not all that crap you eat.”

“Christ, you sound just like my ol’ lady,” he said. “Probably better in bed too. Fuck it. Look at it later. What’s Stump doing?”

“Last I saw he was trying to count to ten.”

A pause, then a short laugh as he stepped inside.

“What’s got into you?” he said. “She must have been some lay. What was her name again… Jill?”

I thought about that as the rest filed in.

“Boys, take a load off,” President So-and-So said, already climbing the stairs.

Pausing halfway, he looked back at me.

“He is here, right?”

I couldn’t be sure if he was talking about Stump or Z. Before I could answer, he climbed the rest of the way and then pushed through into the execution room.

“Christ, look at this,” he said. “You couldn’t clean it up any better? Where’s Stump? And where are the bodies?”

“Stump took them with him, in Z’s car,” I said.

“In the car? He didn’t take the van? That’s what the fuck it’s for, man.”

Not waiting for an answer, he tried calling Stump again, then gave up and threw me a hard look.

“You just let him do it?”

Holding my hands wide, I said, “Hey I didn’t have much choice. You know how he gets.”

“I take it he has the money. What about the package?”

I nodded.

“Shit.”

Still looking at me hard, he let the moment carry, probably hoping I’d get uncomfortable and say something revealing. Little did he know, I was nigh impervious to hard stares.