Premonitions (25 page)

“So,” Nail said. “Eventually we’re gonna run out of peanut butter. What’s the plan?”

Karyn lifted her head, though she still didn’t open her eyes. “You didn’t eat that, did you? I think it’s been in there since I was four.” That got a couple dry chuckles from around the room, but it didn’t put Nail any more at ease. There was a phony note to it, one that had to be obvious to everybody.

“What about we skip town?” he offered. “Feels like we stick our heads up anywhere around here, we’re asking for a world of hurt to come raining down on us.”

Anna tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. “You serious?”

“Dead serious,” Nail said. “Enoch Sobell’s gunning for us, we know that, and those jackasses from the Brotherhood followed us with an army all the way here from Topanga Canyon. And if Anna’s right, Greaser’s got his own little thing goin’ now, and it’ll be a whole lot better for him if we’re dead. Ain’t nowhere in L.A. safe, except maybe right here. And like I said, we’re getting pretty goddamn low on peanut butter.”

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “Took me ten
years
to get in with some of the guys I’m in with. I don’t want to do that all over again.”

“Beats the hell out of picking your own guts out of your teeth. These guys are maniacs. They scare
me
, and you know I ain’t scared of much.”

“I don’t know if it matters anyway,” Genevieve said.

“How’s that?”

“You said it yourself—Enoch Sobell’s looking for us. You think a little thing like geography is going to make him forget all about us?”

“That all depends on how much geography we’re talking about.”

Genevieve shook her head. “There’s isn’t enough,” she said, and the despair in her voice surprised him. “They’ve been to Anna and Karyn’s place, so we’re fucked. All he needs is a few hairs off somebody’s hairbrush, and he can track them to the ends of the goddamn earth.”

“The Brotherhood isn’t gonna give up, either,” Drew added, drawing a stare from everybody in the room. “Like you said, they brought an army after you. You think they’re going to pack up and go home when they can’t find you in a few days?”

“
How
did you get here, again?” Anna asked. “I get it, you saved my ass, but what the fuck are you still doing here?”

He gave an irritated sigh. “I’ve been through this with—well, with everyone by now. I couldn’t just leave. Tina’s the only family I got, and the only people I know are here. So I changed my mind. Thought I’d keep my head down, stick it out. Then I ran into your friend here when she was, uh, having some kind of episode.”

Anna stood up and took a step toward him. He backed up, despite having five inches on her. “That so?”

“Yes, it is,” Karyn said. “He’s cool, really. I can tell.”

“Yeah. And Nail might have made that shot. Remember what I said, about not shutting our brains off?”

Drew still held his hands up at about shoulder height, and now he pushed them a little higher. “Damn it, I told these guys where to find you! You think we just showed up by magic?”

“Around here, you never know,” Nail muttered.

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “Seemed like everybody in the goddamn universe turned up there.”

“Told you,” said Genevieve. “All it takes is a hair.”

Anna balled her hands into fists and stared at Drew. “That’s great. Well, I’m saved. Karyn’s saved. You’ve done your job well, hero; now how about getting the fuck out of here?”

Drew didn’t move. Nobody did.

“Ah, fuck,” Nail said. He really didn’t want this to be their problem, but . . . “He can’t.”

“What was that?”

“I said he can’t. Think about it. If the Brotherhood saw him, they’ll think he’s with us. They’ll turn him inside out. Besides that, one of Sobell’s guys saw him, too. He’s
also
gonna think homeboy here is with us.”

Drew shrugged, gave an apologetic nod.

“That is not our problem.”

“Maybe not, but a little gratitude might be in order,” Drew said. A note of frustration had finally worked its way into his voice. “Besides, I know those assholes. I know who they are, how they work, what they want. I can help you.”

“It’s not like he’s coming on a job with us,” Genevieve said. “We’re all in the same boat, trying to get unfucked together.”

Anna held off on the retort Nail expected, closing her mouth tightly and crossing her arms. She stepped forward, almost touching Drew, and glared up at him. Then she turned her head toward Karyn. “He’s cool, huh?”

Karyn pressed her hands to her eyes. “Yeah. I mean, I think so. I haven’t got a bad vibe off him this whole time.”

Anna sighed, and it felt to Nail like half the room’s tension bled away in that breath. “All right, then,” she said. “What now?”

“What
are
you?”
Brown asked. Sobell regarded that as something of a miracle—the two of them were hustling down back alleys as fast as their tragically unfit flesh could carry them, and Brown wanted to get into philosophy for probably the first time in his life. Sobell ignored him and took the next left, huffing and puffing, and then another right. His shoe slipped in something greasy and unidentifiable, but he kept his footing. He cast a glance behind, saw nothing, and slowed to a walk.

“What are you?” Brown repeated as they emerged onto the sidewalk. The street was moderately busy, filled with passing cars, and a handful of pedestrians, orange in the streetlights, wandered by on their errands.

Sobell took a few deep breaths before replying. “I’m an old man, Mr. Brown, and I lost interest in that question a long time ago.” Another lungful of air, sweet despite its rank odor. “I lost interest in
discussing
it even before that, so I recommend you simply think of me as your employer, and leave it at that.”

“Back there—what did you do?”

“You already asked me that. Do you think you’ll get an answer more to your liking this time?”

Brown looked down at his bloody hand. “This whole thing is fucked up.”

“I could not agree with you more. Luis has been my driver for ten years. I’ve given him Christmas bonuses—sizable ones, I might add—presents for the kids,
reasonable working hours and conditions, and I’ve had nothing but good service from him. Yet I believe he just tried to shoot me dead. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

“I don’t know about Denmark, but it looks like everybody and his dog is out to waste you.”

Sobell nodded. “And more horrifying still, it appears we will have to take a common taxi back to the office. Would you mind?” He raised his eyebrows and gestured toward the road.

Brown gave him a brief, incredulous glance, then stepped wearily to the curb and flagged down a cab. He even opened the door for Sobell when the cab stopped, which Sobell regarded as a thoughtful touch.

Sobell pulled his coat around him and sat. The space was tight, but the cab didn’t smell nearly as bad as he would have guessed, and he’d certainly ridden in worse conveyances over the years. It wouldn’t do to be
seen
in this thing, but the ride was serviceable enough.

He paid little attention when Brown got in next to him and gave the cabbie the address of the office building. The car jerked forward with Sobell still staring, unseeing, out the window. Over the last couple hundred years, he’d worn a dozen faces, run a thousand scams. He’d been a con man in London, an enterprising snake oil salesman in the American West. Near the turn of the twentieth century, he’d done a brisk trade selling deals with the Devil, and never mind that he’d had to fill in for the part of Old Scratch himself. The trick was convincing the marks that the Devil had run down on his luck and preferred cash instead of souls, at least for the current run of business. Once you’d gotten them to that point, it was amazing how far you could stretch a few cheap tricks. He’d learned, though, that only the most hard done by would readily deal with the Devil, and the most hard done by rarely had the cash to foot a decent bill. He’d changed the horns in for a Bible. In the thirties, he ran a traveling tent revival—a satisfyingly ironic business effort, and a surprisingly lucrative one in a time that had been lucrative for very, very few.

All in all, it had been a life of ups with very few downs, if he didn’t count being run out of town on a rail every now and then. The last couple of decades, he’d tired of running scams and finally set to building himself an empire. With the collected wisdom gained from observing a couple hundred years of human nature, it had gone even more smoothly than he’d expected.

Now, though, he worried. It would never show on his face, he was certain of that, but in the still, small, untouchable center of himself that paid no attention to his will or his desires a speck of worry had formed and, like a creeping mold, it grew. Forget the bone. You win some, you lose some, and he’d lost that one, at least temporarily. But then Greaser had gotten, well, greased. And the Brotherhood had risen against him. Surprising, that—he’d read them as essentially spineless—but not the end of the world.

But Luis? And the men he’d had with him? And random, godforsaken street people? A snatch of Bible verse, held over from his tent revival days, ran through his mind.

“And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.”

“What’s that?” Brown asked.

“Leviticus. Chapter twenty-six, verse seventeen. Not the most uplifting book of the Bible, Leviticus, but quite memorable for the quality and thoroughness of its threats. Nobody beats old Jehovah on spite—that’s certain.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ah. Brown had collected enough of his wits to return to soldier automaton. Too bad.

“How’s your hand?”

Brown looked at him with poorly veiled suspicion. “Hurts like hell. Why?”

“Just checking. I’d wrap it if I were you—don’t want to leave it open. Might get infected.”

Brown grunted and turned to the window. Sobell did likewise.

I will set my face against you.

Sobell searched the faces as they passed, looking for recognition, hatred, or some sign he could interpret for an explanation. Nothing, or nearly so. Once in a while, he’d catch a narrow-eyed stare from a punk in a doorway or a woman on a street corner, but on second glance, it was always gone, just a figment of his sudden paranoia.

I will set my face against you.

Maybe they would—maybe He would—but this empire wasn’t falling without a bloody fight.

He watched as the low, crumbling buildings gave way to tall structures of gleaming glass and stone, watched the figures moving in pools of light, nearly disappearing between streetlights as though they stopped existing in the darkness. Fewer people walked here at this hour, most of the denizens of the business district having fled to the suburbs at the close of day. Sobell found consolation in the increasing emptiness—it seemed a sign that, here at least, things were as they should be.

His office building loomed ahead, an oasis of brilliant white security lights amid the dingy glow of streetlamps. Usually the illumination gave him a sense of invulnerability, a feeling that he’d see any approaching threat long before it became a real danger, but tonight he felt exposed. Walking through those lights would be like stepping under the shining eye of God and inviting an awful scrutiny he wouldn’t be able to withstand.

I will set my face against you,
he thought again, and the image of Luis’s face, twisted with rage, swam in his mind.

“Go around back,” he said while they were still a block off. “To the loading dock.”

The cabbie drove past the building, and Sobell watched for any sign that something had gone amiss. Nobody stood in the bright lights out front, and the usual security guard was visible through the glass doors, seated at the desk and watching the monitors. Nothing irregular at all. If it hadn’t been for Luis, Sobell would have stopped here and walked right in, just like any other night.

The cab turned to go around the building, and Sobell
had the driver pull over at the corner and let them out there. He tossed the guy a fifty and waved him away without a word, so preoccupied he was with watching the building.

“Everything OK, sir?” Brown asked.

“Everything? Of course not.” He took a few steps and looked around the side of the building, back to the dock. Plenty of light here, too, and one guard as always.

“Looks like Sammy’s on duty,” Brown said. “We should be good to go—I trust Sammy.”

Sobell scowled at him. “I don’t.”

“He’s worked here since—”

“So had Luis, and yet he recently decided I’d look good with a few extra orifices in my person.”

“You want me to check it out?”

Sobell nodded slowly. “I think that would be an excellent idea. Are you still armed?”

“Yeah.”

Brown started down the ramp, and Sobell ducked back around the side of the building, peeking around to watch. The guard saw Brown coming and waved. Brown walked all the way to the bottom, then up the short stairs to the dock. The two men exchanged words, totally inaudible from this distance. Sammy grinned and said something. Brown shook his head. Sammy nodded and inclined his head toward the door.

Sobell leaned around to get a better view—this was moving from conversation to altercation quickly, and he wanted to see everything.

Brown shook his head again and took a step back.

Sammy lunged for him. Startled, Brown fell back. One foot went off the back of the concrete, and one hand shot out and secured itself in Sammy’s jacket. Both men pitched off the dock, a shoulder-high concrete platform, and fell to the hard ground below.

Brown hit so hard Sobell heard the air blast out of his lungs, and the man arched his back and writhed like a fish. Sammy recovered faster and got to his feet, though he’d injured something badly—it looked like his right leg wouldn’t take any weight.

He stood over Brown and pulled out a gun.

Sobell started running—oddly enough, in Brown’s direction.
Should be going the other way,
he thought as his shoes clicked on the cement. It was true that Brown deserved better than to be abandoned and shot down like a dog, but Sobell had left better men to worse fates.
Stressful night, addled my brains,
he thought, but he kept running.

Sammy turned at the sound of Sobell’s footsteps, and Brown lashed out with one foot, hitting Sammy’s good leg. The leg buckled and Sammy dropped.

Brown went for the gun just as Sammy brought it around. It went off, the sound like a cannon in the concrete echo chamber of the loading dock, and Brown’s head jerked to the side. Four hands wrestled for control of the gun now, and the two men rolled and struggled on the ground.

Brown was wounded and tired, though, and Sammy slowly forced the gun back toward him.

Sobell took St. George’s sword from his jacket and pulled it clear of the sheath just as he reached the rolling knot of limbs that was Brown and Sammy. The gun went off again, sending a fine gray dust into the air and setting a bell to ringing in Sobell’s head. A shout, and a cry, and the two men rolled over yet again.

For a brief moment, Sammy’s back was to Sobell.

Sobell reached down and plunged the broken shaft of St. George’s sword into the nape of Sammy’s neck. There was no resistance whatsoever—he could have been swinging it in air—but the man’s head fell forward, and his body went limp.

“Shit!” Brown shouted, pushing away from the dead man. That Sammy was dead was beyond dispute—Sobell’s broken sword had left a deep, smooth-edged gash that went halfway through his neck. Blood spread in a widening pool.

“Quickly,” Sobell said. He pointed at the thin, transparent coil that spun down from Sammy’s ear. “Others will be coming.” With exaggerated care, he slipped the sword fragment back into its sheath—as far as he knew,
nothing else would hold it. He offered a hand and pulled Brown to his feet.

“Thanks,” Brown said, still gasping.

“Let’s go.”

“One . . . minute.”

“We don’t have a minute.” Sobell turned and began walking rapidly up the ramp.

Moments later, Brown followed. The commotion started behind them just as they rounded the corner. By then, Brown had found his breath, and the two men sped up. They jaywalked across the empty street, jogged rather tiredly down a couple of blocks, and finally Brown grabbed Sobell’s elbow.

“Stop, I gotta stop.”

Sobell glanced behind them—nothing. “All right,” he said, wiping his forehead and dabbing his handkerchief on his cheeks. “I confess I’m thoroughly sick of running myself. Let’s get off the street, though.”

They stepped into a darkened tavern, the particularly bilious variety known as a sports bar, but this one time Sobell was inclined to put up with it. Televisions squawked and blared eye-splitting color from every direction, and not a single person in the place was looking at anything else.

Without waiting for anybody to greet them, Sobell went to the booth farthest from the front window and sat. Brown scanned the room and then did likewise.

Brown hunched forward. “Sammy wanted to know if I’d seen you yet.”

“Lots of people seem to be looking for me right now. What did you tell him?”

“I said no.”

“Good.”

“Not really,” Brown said. “It got real weird after that. He told me I had to come up and see you immediately.”

Sobell raised his eyebrows. “Now that,” he said, “is quite interesting.”

“I told him I’d pass, maybe take care of it in the morning, and then—”

“I saw. He became rather insistent.”

The two men stopped talking as a perky waitress showed up at the table to take drink orders. In his current frame of mind, Sobell would rather chew ground glass than interact with the kind of cheerful person who asked questions like “How are we doing tonight?” but he wanted to attract attention even less. Placing an order was the easiest way to get her to go away with no fuss, so he did.

“It appears I have a doppelgänger,” Sobell said, once the waitress had gone.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means somebody is pretending to be me, effectively enough to control essentially all of my employees and usurp my very throne, so to speak.”

Brown’s face took on a skeptical expression. “Who could do that?”

“Only one person I can think of. Your predecessor.”

“Mr. Gresser? He’s dead.”

“Oh, I very much doubt that anymore,” Sobell said, mouth set in a grim line. It all made too much sense now, and he saw how much trust—how much
power—
he’d put in his former lieutenant over the last few years. Gresser had the hearts of the troops, he knew all the secret places and codes, and most of the shady side of the business. If anybody had a hope of picking it up, it would be him. But this wasn’t Rome—most people wouldn’t just accept that Sobell had been deposed by military coup. Not unless . . . “It also means one other thing.”