Everybody Dies - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 3) Page 13

  One of the camo kids spoke up. “Hell, no. Army takes Jews, blacks, and even homer-sexuals. You see any of those sitting here?”

  Jack made an exaggerated point of studying everyone in the room.

  “Not a one,” she finally said. “So who are you guys?”

  “We are proud members of the…”

  “Can it, Lewis,” Hector interrupted, cutting the other Nazi off.

  “General Packer, these folks are our people.”

  So Hector was General Packer.

  Yeah, he was going to get the brunt of my attention.

  “These folks are strangers,” Packer said, “and we don’t tell strangers our business. No offense, Earl.”

  Jack put a hand on my shoulder, sensing I was about to jump the old man. “No offense taken. Our Klavern told us to come here. Heard about a big CN rally coming up.”

  “Really?” Packer said. “My wife told me about some lady coming by, asking questions. That was you?”

  Cell phones. Sometimes they really messed up your plans.

  Jack was silent for a moment, then ran with it. “That was us. We were told you were the man to talk to.”

  “My wife also said you looked like a cop.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I used to be a cop. Years ago. Springfield pays better.”

  “Springfield Arms makes a fine AR-15, and some decent semi-autos.” Hector pointed his chin at Jack’s blazer. “Doesn’t make revolvers, though. That’s your carry, isn’t it?”

  The camo crew was really paying attention now.

  “I like revolvers. Surely you know what it’s like to get attached to a weapon. What’s with the third degree, here? We got enough problems with all the mixed races. You want to be suspicious of one of your own?”

  “Every once and a while the Feds come snooping around,” Hector said. “Trying to get in our affairs. But they’re not so bold that they knock on the front door of my home.”

  “We’re not Feds,” Jack said. “We’re just here because we heard about the rally.”

  “You heard about it from your Klavern, did you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what Klavern do you go to in Geneseo?”

  I stood up, playing the white trash tough guy role. Or maybe I wasn’t actually playing. “I don’t like how you’re talking to my wife.”

  All the other guys stood up as well. None of them had open carry, but this was southern Illinois. Concealed weapons would be present, possibly in abundance.

  Jack played it cool. “Easy, Earl. This is just a misunderstanding.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said. “They’re onto us. You can stop calling me Earl. Call me by my real name.” I smiled, and it was mean. “Phineas Troutt.”

  Packer’s eyes went wide.

  “That’s right. You know who I am. Why don’t we talk someplace private, General?”

  The whiskey gurgled in my stomach and I was seriously considering throwing it up. Plus Earl, my Earl, seemed to be on fire and burning me apart inside. My ass to my armpit felt like one huge charley horse.

  “General, what’s going on?” asked one of the troops.

  “You know my brother.” I spoke to Packer, hoping Jack would deal with the others if anyone made a move. “You know I just kicked his ass, knocked out his teeth, broke his nose, set him on fire, and put him in jail. I can offer you the same deluxe package, with a few bonus add-ons. Like ripping out your racist tongue and shoving it so far up your ass you taste yesterday’s breakfast.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want. The girl.”

  He nodded.

  Then he turned and ran.

  Jack burst into a full sprint, but she wasn’t chasing him. Instead, she was heading full-tilt for the bar. I watched her clear the counter, tackling the bartender, who just picked up a nasty looking sawed-off shotgun. Jack hit the fat man head-high and they both went down.

  I had my own shit to deal with.

  The first Nazi that lunged at me got a stiff elbow to the jaw, which I unhinged for him. I followed that with a right roundhouse to the man coming behind him. I connected hard with his nose, and my fist proved the stronger of the two. The man’s feet went out from under him and he laid out nearly horizontal, his head smacking against the wooden floor.

  The third guy had picked up a flimsy plastic-and-wire-frame bar chair, and as he raised it up and charged I whipped a size ten cowboy boot around in a spin kick, knocking it away. Then I let momentum carry me in a 360 and extended my arm, catching him on the cheek with my knuckles, feeling the stitches tear in my shoulder.

  Next came two guys at once, opposite directions, and I was blessed with my first ever Three Stooges moment, taking a quick step back, stretching out my hands, and knocking their heads together.

  There was no hollow sound like a coconut being thumped. But there was a lot of blood.

  Five down, two to go.

  The patrons had begun to clear out. I did a quick scan of the room, didn’t see any guns, and Jack was standing behind the bar, the shotgun in her hand. Rather than give me an assist, she broke the breach and dumped out the two shells.

  Movement, to my right. I whipped around, snarling, and the guy backpedaled and ran out with the other customers.

  The last man barreled into me, picking me up and driving my back into the bar. It would have hurt, but my nerves were dead there. He landed on top, driving the air from my lungs, his hands instantly coiling around my throat.

  I jabbed two fingers into his kidney hard enough to rupture it, causing him to stop his attack and roll off of me, holding his side and screaming. I got on him and reached for the scalpel in my boot.

  “That’s enough!”

  Jack was over the bar, pulling on my arm. I shrugged her off.

  “He’s Nazi trash, Jack.”

  “He’s a human being.”

  “So is Pasha.”

  I pulled the blade, and Jack grabbed my collar and yanked, forcing me to look at her.

  “You’re losing it, buddy,” she said. “Keep it together.”

  My whole body flushed. But it wasn’t with anger and rage. It was something worse.

  Shame.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I blew out a deep breath. “Okay.”

  I put the blade back, and then looked at the man I’d been ready to murder.

  “So… what’s with all the hate?” I asked, using a calm, steady voice that made me sound absolutely insane.

  He didn’t answer, so I gave him a friendly shake.

  “I don’t hate n-n-n-nobody,” he stuttered. “I just fight for white pride and white rights. Blacks and Hispanics are taking our jobs and our women. Jews got all the money. A-rabs are flying planes into our buildings. We gotta stick together as a race or we’re gonna be wiped out.”

  “How many jobs have you lost to people of color?”

  “Uh…”

  “Black guy ever taken your job?”

  “No, but…”

  “Mexican stole your girl?”

  “Ain’t got no girl.”

  “No shit. So how many Jews have taken your money?

  “Jew bank took my house,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Why’d they do that? You didn’t make your mortgage payments?”

  “I woulda paid them. Damn Jews only care about money. That was my home.”

  “Then maybe you should have gotten a second job, asshole, instead of running around in combat fatigues playing wannabe race warrior on the weekends. Wanna hear something funny?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer. I poked him and he nodded.

  “I’m dying of cancer,” I said. “Wanna hear something even funnier?”

  He nodded again, and I grinned wide.

  “I’m gonna outlive you.”

  I raised my fist and he blanched the color of typing paper. If I’d given him a mirror he would have been proud, because he’d never been whiter in his life.

  “What do you want?” h
e squeaked. “The girl?”

  I had my hands on his collar so fast he didn’t have time to yelp.

  “What do you know about the girl?” I demanded, flecking spittle onto his face. “Where is she?”

  “Underground,” he squeaked, “in the tunnels.”

  I tangoed with a compulsion to beat the pulp out of him, reason reminding me that unconscious men can’t talk. Reason won out, so I let my rage boil away before continuing.

  “Tunnels? At the stadium?” I asked, trying to keep steady.

  “A network, below ground. We store supplies there. There are some barracks, men sometimes sleep there during the summer when it’s hot.”

  “This girl you’ve got, describe her.”

  “She’s a dot head.” He noticed my distaste for the word and corrected himself, “Indian! She’s an Indian! American Indian! Wait, no… Indian American? I don’t know the right term!”

  He almost began to cry. I gave him a light slap to keep him focused.

  “Has anyone hurt her?”

  “No one’s allowed to touch her. We bring her food twice a day, changes of clothes. She’s Hugo’s woman. He’ll come for her when he gets out of prison.”

  “She’s my woman,” I said, “and after I get her back I’m going to burn down your camp and carve her name in the forehead of every last one of you assholes.”

  I felt Jack pull my shoulder.

  “Cops are probably on their way,” she said.

  A whine, from behind the bar. I saw Jasper, holding a bloody nose. “Did you kill my brother?”

  “Just gave him a thump,” Jack assured him. “His name Murray?”

  “No. It’s Dave.”

  “You guys the owners?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Then who’s Murray? Why’d you name the bar Murray’s?”

  “We named it after Mama,” Jasper moaned.

  I decided I’d had enough of southern Illinois.

  I got off the racist and followed Jack out the door, feeling light-headed and ready to vomit.

  Don’t puke in front of the cop. Women don’t dig pukers. Don’t—

  I bent over then threw up.

  Smooth, Phin. Real smooth.

  Jack began rubbing my back, which made it worse. The opposite of attraction wasn’t repulsion. It was pity. I much prefer hate or disgust over people feeling sorry for me.

  I shrugged her off, wiped my mouth, and went to my truck.

  “I know where the stadium is,” I told her when we got in. “Packer’s probably headed there right now. I’ve got people watching it, looking for Pasha. I need to call, tell them to watch for him.”

  “You’ve got people?”

  I nodded.

  Jack made a face. “Does one of these people have a robot hand and a natural ability to piss off everyone he meets?”

  My turn to make a face. “He’s my plan B.”

  “And why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Trust works both ways, Jack. You don’t trust me enough to lend me a gun.”

  “If you had a gun, you would have killed six people in that bar.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Probably.”

  Jack rubbed her eyes. “I just spent a few days with Harry. I’m still detoxing. I don’t know if I can handle him again so soon.”

  “Call him. Tell him to watch for Packer and that we’re headed over.”

  “Why do I have the feeling this isn’t going to end well?”

  I winked at her. “Stay positive, Brandy. At least our marriage is solid.”

  HARRY

  My name is Harry McGlade, and I’m—

  Wait, I don’t have any point of view scenes in this book?

  But I was in the last one! A third of that novel was in my POV! And I get to fight Nazis in this one, so the cool factor is way higher!

  So my scenes got a few bad reviews. Who cares? It’s impossible to please everyone. Readers are forgiving. Besides, a handful of one star ratings isn’t going to hurt sales.

  I promise I’ll be more tactful this time. No bathroom humor, unless absolutely necessary to the plot.

  Deal?

  As I was saying, my name is Harry McGlade, and—hey! Don’t cut away from—

  HUGO

  They took Hugo away in an ambulance to visit an oral surgeon. Two cops rode along with Hugo in the back. They carried pepper spray, batons, and sidearms, and gave him the standard lecture about how they’d bust his ass if he so much as looked at them funny.

  But that was the thing. The whole situation was funny.

  In fact, it was downright hysterical.

  Hugo was lying on a hospital gurney, and was still recovering from surgery, and on a morphine drip for his various injuries, they’d put him in full harness transport restraints, which consisted of leg cuffs, connected to a belly chain around his waist, connected to handcuffs.

  Handcuffs!

  Hugo began to laugh, low and deep, and it sounded like a guard dog growling. The movement ignited all the open nerves in his mouth, and even with the IV, it hurt.

  He used the hurt, letting it course through him, making every muscle tense up.

  “Shaddup,” one of the cops said.

  “Or what?” Hugo asked, smiling. “You’ll knock out my teeth?”

  The cops both smirked at that.

  “So you guys have a sense of humor. I got one for you. Either of you guys offended by racist jokes?”

  They exchanged a glance, but neither said anything. So Hugo went for it.

  “Okay, so there’s a guy in the bar, and he’s had too much to drink, and he starts ranting about wops. He says that all wops are worthless. All wops are stupid. All wops are corrupt. The only good wop is a dead wop, and that we should round up all the wops in the world and toss them all into the ocean with bricks tied around their necks. So an Italian guy who’d been listening to all of this finally had enough, and he tells the drunk, Hey, I’m from Sicily, and if you keep ranting on and on about wops, I’m going to bust you in the mouth. And the drunk guy looks at him and says, Wops? I was talking about cops!”

  The smiling cops stopped smiling, and when they exchanged another glance, Hugo yanked his wrists apart, the steel handcuff chain straining—

  —and snapping.

  Hugo had been practicing that for ten years, using dozens of pairs of handcuffs, different makes and models, all in preparation for that very moment.

  Then he hit the first cop in the face so hard the whiplash broke the dumb pig’s neck, and grabbed the other by the throat with one hand, pinning his wrist so he couldn’t draw his sidearm. It only took a few seconds to crush the man’s windpipe, no more difficult than a regular sized-person strangling a child. Hugo held him while he suffocated.

  The paramedics in the front seat figured out what was happening, and the driver hit the brakes while his buddy called for help on the CB.

  Big mistake. They should have ran.

  Hugo pulled the second cop’s firearm, a Glock, and barked, “Hold still!”

  Both of the men froze. Typical. Some were born to rule. Some existed simply to follow orders.

  He aimed carefully, wanting to conserve bullets because every one might count, and shot the guy on the radio in the face.

  The driver gasped, his hands in the air.

  “Put it in park,” he ordered the man, who was anxious to comply.

  “Where are we?” Hugo couldn’t really see outside through the two small windows in the rear door.

  “Eighteenth Street. Eighteenth and Halsted.”

  “Is there a clothing store nearby?”

  “Yeah! Just ahead, there’s an Urban Outfitters.”

  “Where?”

  “Right in front of us. On the right.”

  “Then I don’t need you,” Hugo said, and shot the man in the neck.

  It took Hugo thirty seconds to pat down one of the cops and find the handcuff keys, and he unlocked his ankle restraints and doubled up the chain around his waist, in cas
e he needed the cuffs for later. Then he grabbed the other gun, also a Glock 21, and quickly checked the magazines on both weapons. They were both .45 ACP, thirteen rounds. Hugo had used two, which gave him…

  Math. He hated math.

  But he was pretty sure he had over twenty bullets left.

  He hopped out of the back of the ambulance and onto the street.

  Downtown Chicago, traffic everywhere. Hugo got his bearings, saw the clothing store up the street, and strolled to it like a 6’5” dude in a hospital gown with his ass hanging out and a Glock in each hand was the most normal thing in the world.

  He approached the clerk, a black guy in a pink serape who was engrossed in filing his nails as the store patrons ran for the exit. When he looked up at Hugo his eyes got wide. “Oh my god you’re enormous,” he said; flamboyantly flaming queer. “And you have guns. Are you robbing me?”

  “I need clothes. Fast.”

  “How fast?”

  “You have a minute to dress me, or I’m killing you.”

  “A minute? Snap. I love a challenge. Follow me.”

  The guy wiggled out from behind the counter and made a beeline to a rack of denim shirts. “Size 2X?” He glanced at Hugo. “Let’s go 3X.” He whipped a shirt off of a hanger and led Hugo to a cubby wall stacked with pants. “Jeans? No. Too much blue. Khakis. What’s your pants size, dear? I can’t tell in that hideous hospital gown.”

  “Thirty six waist and inseam.”

  “Perfect. That’s just the high end of what we have in stock. Now underwear, I’m thinking briefs. Extra-large will be a bit tight, but no one is going to complain.”

  They swung by an underwear display and the clerk snatched up a package, along with socks. “Now shoes. I’m guessing 14?”

  Hugo nodded.

  “Colorado boots will slay with this ensemb. We have to go in back for those, dear. You want to wait for me here?”

  “I’ll follow.”

  “C’mon. Time’s a’wasting.”

  Hugo trailed behind as the gay man hurried through a side door, down shelves stacked with boxes. He checked one column, then another, and then pulled a large, blue box.

  “Voilà! Dressed, and fabulous, in under a minute.”

  Hugo stared at the man. The man stared back, placing his hands on his hips.

  “Thank me or kill me, honey, I’ve got shit to do.”