Everything but the Squeal (30 page)

“Give her two more, Marco,” Mrs. Brussels' voice said calmly. Then the door swung closed behind us and the men turned their heads to look.

“Where do you want them?” Marco's voice said into the sudden silence. He was invisible, blocked from sight in the middle of the huddle.

“One minute.” Mrs. Brussels came around the outside of the circle and regarded us. “We have visitors.”

She looked cool and imperturbable. Except for the damp perspiration stains on her collar and beneath the arms of her jacket, she might have been behind her desk discussing some baby's future nightmares. “Mr. Ward,” she said, “or, rather, I guess, Mr. Grist. What a shame you weren't who you said you were.”

“One of the great themes,” I said, wiping new blood from my forehead, “the difference between appearance and reality.”

“Welcome to reality,” she said. “You seem to have cut your head. Who's the fat one?” She wasn't talking to me. The Mountain whimpered.

“A clown,” Bruner said behind me. “A walk-on, that's all.”

“What's a walk-on?” She knew less about Shakespeare than Bruner did.

“He walks on and then walks off,” Bruner said, “except he's not going to walk off.”

“Well, good, Max,” Mrs. Brussels said. “You were right. You said he'd show up,” she said, meaning me, “and he did. One for you. Where's Jewel, Mr. Grist?” In the center of the circle, something choked out hurt little sounds.

“Where you'll never find her,” I said.

“Don't bet on that,” she said. “If I really want her, I know where to find her. Bring our friends in, Max. Maybe they'd like to watch.”

“I'd like to watch you die,” the Mountain said shakily.

“Good thing you didn't buy a ticket,” Mrs. Brussels said. “I'd hate to give you a refund. This is a different kind of show. We've got a bad girl here, and she's learning what it means to be bad.” She made an airy gesture with her hand. “Boys?” she said. “Boys, let our guests get a look at what happens to bad little girls.”

The ring of steroid addicts parted reluctantly. One of them looked at me, and recognition struggled with stupidity for possession of his face. Stupid or not, he looked dangerous. It was good old hearty Marty from Cap'n Cluckbucket's.

“I know you,” he said, narrowing his eyes with the effort.

“That makes one thing you know,” I said, swallowing my own blood through the corner of my mouth. “Give you the rest of the year, you might make it into double digits.”

“I
know
him,” Marty insisted to Bruner.

“Great,” Bruner said. “Get out of the way.”

Marty stepped aside, and the circle broke open as though he'd been the cue they were waiting for. Crowded inside were eight wide-eyed children, six girls and two boys, wide-eyed in a way that suggested nothing but vacancy within. They were wearing bedsheets, insurance, I guessed, against their trying to make an escape.

Aimee Sorrell wasn't among them.

In the center of the circle was a little girl. She might have been fourteen. She was wearing nothing but underpants, and long slashes across her rib cage and her tiny breasts and her thighs wept long red streaks. One of the giants held her by the armpits. Her hands were tied behind her. Her hair and face were wet with tears. Her eyes were enormous and crazed. In front of her was Marco, switchblade in hand. He looked annoyed. He'd been interrupted in the middle of the only thing he truly enjoyed.

“This is Marie,” Mrs. Brussels announced in her third-grade teacher's voice. “What did Marie do, children?”

There was an agonizing pause. Children gathered their sheets around them and looked at the floor.

Mrs. Brussels clapped her hands twice. The children's heads jerked upward. Mrs. Brussels arched an eyebrow in the general direction of her hairline. “What did Marie do?” she demanded.

The children, as a group, emitted a confused sound.

“That's right,” Mrs. Brussels said. “She tried to run away. She talked to the police.” Behind me, the Mountain released a heavy, captive sigh.

“And what happens to children who talk to the police?” Mrs. Brussels said.

“They die,” said a little boy, bolder than the rest. Like the rest, he was wearing a sheet.

“Good, Jamie,” Mrs. Brussels said with horrible approval. “And is Marie dead yet?”

“No,” the children chorused. Other than Marie, the oldest couldn't have been more than twelve. They chorused their answer in a demonic imitation of group spelling exercises. Their eyes were hooded, their last defense against total madness.

“Marco,” Mrs. Brussels commanded, “finish it.”

Marco waved the bright knife in the air. The side of his mouth that was still mobile curved upward and he took a step toward Marie. Marie closed her eyes and let out a scream that would have broken the windows in the Pentagon.

Something hit me on the shoulder, pushing me into the overdeveloped triceps to my left. The Mountain broke through into the circle, scattering children and Mr. Universe contestants alike, and threw his hands around Marco's middle from behind. With an inhuman roar he snatched Marco from the floor and picked him up. Before either Bruner or Belson could do anything, the Mountain had snapped Marco right and left, a terrier with a dishrag. There was a sound like God's fingers being snapped, and Marco's spine broke.

Marco yodeled his anguish, and the Mountain dropped him on the floor like so much garbage and turned to face Belson, who tried too late to stop himself in mid-charge. As Marco twitched on the floor, the Mountain roared again, bent double, and planted his shoulder into Belson's middle with the force of an Alpine landslide. Belson barked again, but this time it wasn't a laugh. He folded in half like a paper airplane, and the Mountain picked him up by the waist and, lifting him over his head, slammed Belson's head against the concrete floor. Belson's body went all loose and floppy, and something gray and puddinglike flowed out of his head. Marco was letting out little yippy moans. The top half of his body still worked. He writhed on the floor like a rattlesnake who'd been run over in mid-spine.

“Get him,” Mrs. Brussels screamed. At the same time, a muscular arm encircled my neck. It belonged to the bozo I'd bumped against. I felt his biceps tighten as he lifted me off my feet. I could hear Mrs. Brussels screaming, a kind of atonal counterpoint to the Mountain's roars and the whimpering of the children. My air was being cut off. As spots began to appear before my eyes, I saw the Mountain put his fist all the way through the face of another of the muscle cases, breaking his neck like a wishbone, and I finally worked the gun out of my pants. Then Mrs. Brussels screamed again, and I saw that the Mountain had lifted another bodybuilder in a sumo hold, lifted him so high that the man's head struck the light hanging beneath the cone and set it swinging wildly, and I finally had the gun and I angled my hand and wrist around so I could shoot the guy with his arm around my throat, and his hold on my neck loosened and I fell to the floor with him on top of me, among the small bare feet of the children, and someone out of somewhere pried the gun from my hand, and I saw Bruner step forward and aim the shiny little automatic with both hands and blow the Mountain's brains out.

29 - End of the World

B 
runer fired again reflexively even as the Mountain fell, and the second shot tore away most of the face of the man the Mountain had been about to kill. The two of them, the Mountain and the goon, toppled to the floor as the children scurried backward and Mrs. Brussels shrilled, as high and incoherent as a smoke alarm.

The light swayed and wobbled as it swung in a long, dizzy overhead arc, creating crazily elongated El Greco shadows that advanced and retreated, bringing alternate moments of brightness and relative dark. The children had bolted at the sound of the shot, and the goons were grabbing frantically at them. The instant the bulb swung past us and the light started to wane, I pushed the limp weight of the big man off me and scurried on my hands and knees away from the group, across the floor and toward the trucks. I'd managed to scramble under the first one before Mrs. Brussels saw me and called out, and Bruner snapped off a shot. The bullet pinged away from the concrete about two feet behind me and bounced upward before it slapped into the side of the truck.

Staying on my hands and knees, I crawled rapidly under the second truck and then under the third. Behind me I heard a confusion of voices: Bruner calling directions, children whining and keening, goons arguing. On the far side of the third truck was the large airplane door I'd seen from the street, and next to it was a gray metal light box containing six thick black switches. This was where they'd driven the trucks in and out when the place was a real warehouse, and this was where they'd turned on the lights before they brought the rigs in.

Heavy feet slapped the concrete, heading reluctantly my way. “Go, goddammit,” Bruner shouted. “Marty got his gun.”

Above me and to the left was a big transom window, a single pane of rippled glass. Below it were wooden crates— the kind they ship produce in—stacked almost six feet high. It was plausible. I measured the distance mentally, committed the picture to memory, closed my eyes for a head start, and snapped off the lights.

Shouts sounded out. I counted five and opened my eyes. The darkness was absolute, except for a rectangle of light high at the far end of the warehouse: the window of the foreman's room. On both sides of the warehouse, the footsteps came to a halt. The goon on the left shuffled indecisively. A voice I didn't recognize—possibly Marty?—called out a panicky question, and I slipped off my boot and threw it at where I thought the window would be. It hit the wall with a smacking sound and thumped down on top of one of the boxes. I'd missed. I had exactly one more chance.

“Over there,” someone said, reacting to the noise. Almost certainly Bruner. Someone else, someone closer to me, lit a match, a tiny point of light about thirty yards away. It was no help, either to him or to me. I pulled off my other boot and threw again, harder and higher this time. There was a resounding shiver of glass.

“The window,” Bruner shouted. “Marty, find those fucking lights. Pete. Get outside and see if you can catch him. Son of a
bitch
. Jackie, you go with Pete.”

Find the lights. Of course. There would be a light box at the other end too.

The nearest truck bulked up above me, only slightly darker than the room itself. I heard the door at the far end close behind Pete and Jackie as I felt my way around the side of the truck, moving quietly in my socks and keeping my hands pressed against the hard, chilly side of the truck. After what seemed like an eternity I came to the front end of the refrigerated section, which was shaped like a squashed tube, and found the cab that towed it. I stepped up onto the running board and fumbled around for the window. It was open.

I spread my hands flat on the top of the cab for friction and managed to get my right foot high enough to put it on top of the rolled-down window. Then I heaved myself up and scrabbled across the roof of the cab to the refrigerated section. Mrs. Brussels was saying things that no lady should think, much less say aloud, as I flopped on my stomach on top of the truck.

The bulbs snapped on. They created a lot more light than I wanted.

I hugged the truck, wishing myself thinner than I was. I would have liked to be as thin as a coat of paint. “Marty, keep the kids together,” Bruner said. “Hurt anybody who moves.” His voice echoed in the empty warehouse. “The asshole could still be inside.”

“He went through the window,” Mrs. Brussels said in a voice that was elevated by adrenaline. “You heard him.”

“I heard a window break,” said Bruner, ever the cop. “You take the right. Marty, watch the kids.”

“Me?” she said ungrammatically. “Me take the right?”

“Who do you think you are, Snow White? If you see him, shoot him in the stomach.” So she was armed too.

There had been five of the muscle boys originally, plus Bruner, Marco, and Belson. The Mountain had killed Belson and another one, and put Marco out of commission, and Bruner had shot one of the muscle boys by mistake. I'd taken care of another, although I wasn't sure he was dead. That left Bruner, Jackie, Pete, and Marty. Jackie and Pete were outside looking for me.

“Look under the fucking trucks,” Bruner shouted. I could hear the two of them working their way slowly through the warehouse in my direction. Bruner was being careful. More careful than he'd advised the expendable strong-arms to be.

He and Mrs. Brussels met up directly below me, between the truck and the airplane door. “That's the window,” Mrs. Brussels said, looking up. The shoe had taken out almost all of the glass. “He’s gone.”

“Not if Jackie and Pete get him,” Bruner said. “Marty?” he yelled. “Got the kids?”

“All except the one upstairs,” Marty shouted back.

Upstairs had to be the foreman's office.

I debated dropping down on Bruner and Mrs. Brussels and smashing their heads together before either of them could shoot me. It didn't seem promising. Besides, Marty had the kids.

The two of them moved back toward the other end of the warehouse. Bruner put a reassuring arm around her waist. They were talking in low voices.

”. . . have to move them after all,” I heard Bruner saying.

“You're so fucking smart,” Mrs. Brussels said bitterly, knocking away the reassuring arm. ” ‘We'll get him,’ you said. ‘No problem,’ you said. Now, look: he's gone and we haven't even been to the bank.” She reached up and tucked in a flyaway wisp of hair.

“There are still Pete and Jackie,” Bruner said. “And there's cash upstairs.”

Since they were both walking and talking, I guessed they wouldn't be listening too. Without any idea why I was doing what I was doing, I climbed down from the truck and stood on the running board. The springs of the truck groaned. I was still reluctant to put my feet on the floor, where someone might see them beneath the trucks.

As the babble of voices receded, I found myself looking into the cab of the truck. It was about what you'd expect: two cracked and worn leather seats, an oversize steering wheel, and a stick shift half the size of the pole used for an Olympic pole vault with a big transparent plastic knob on top. Something bright caught my eye. Lodged between the seats was a yellow plastic bucket with the word butts stenciled on it.

Whoever usually drove the truck wasn't a smoker, but he caught a lot of colds. The bucket was full of used tissues. I reached in, picked it up, and upended it, scattering wadded Kleenex across the driver's seat. What I had was too crude to be called an idea. All I knew was that they were going to move the children, and I couldn't let it happen.

In my urgency, I knocked the bottom of the bucket against the steering wheel with a hollow-sounding
whuump
. I held my breath, but the noise had been covered by the opening and closing of the door at the other end of the warehouse. “He got away,” either Pete or Jackie said.

“Fucking hell,” Bruner fumed. “What are you fruitcakes good for, anyway?”

“He had a head start,” either Pete or Jackie said plaintively.

“He had a head is what he had,” Bruner said. “You assholes haven't had a new idea since you learned to jerk off.”

“The children,” Mrs. Brussels said. For an insane moment I thought she was reprimanding him for swearing in front of them, but then she added, “We've got to get them out of here.”

“Keep your pants on,” Bruner snapped. “We'll be gone in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes. Clutching my newly empty bucket, I stepped lightly onto the floor and slid on my back underneath the truck. The concrete floor was cold.

“Marty,” Bruner said, “get your ass outside and circle the block. Maybe these cretins missed him.” The cretins murmured dissent in injured tones. “Look for a low-rider's Chevy,” Bruner continued. “If you see it, slash the tires.”

“I haven't got a knife,” Marty said as I stared up at the underside of the truck. It hadn't been maintained, and rust was rampant. Also, there was blood in my eyes from the cuts on my forehead. I wiped it away with my sleeve.

“Take Marco's,” Bruner said acidly. “I don't think he'll need it.”

“You should kill him,” Mrs. Brussels said. “Poor baby.”

Somebody, and it had to be Marco, let out a gabble of pain and protest. It was cut short by the spanging sound of Bruner's gun, echoing between the warehouse's bare walls. End of Marco. “Now,” Bruner said, “now will you get the fucking knife and get out of here?”

The door closed behind Marty. I stared up at an expanse of rust.

“Children,” Mrs. Brussels said. She clapped her hands. “We're not going to hurt Marie if you behave. You all like Marie, don't you?” There was something that might have been assent. “For right now, you stay close to Pete and Jackie. They're going to take care of you. Marie, you're group captain. I've saved your life, and I'm depending on you to make sure that everybody's good.”

I'd worked my belt partway off, arching my back so I could tug it through the loops in my pants. The tongue of the belt was sharp between my fingers, but not sharp enough.

“We're all going for a nice drive,” Mrs. Brussels continued in the same implacably insane voice. “If we're all good, no one will get cut. If we're not good, Marie will get cut first, and then we'll cut whoever was bad.” Now I had the belt all the way off. I sharpened the cheap metal tongue on the concrete floor.

“I'm going upstairs,” Bruner announced.

“Not by yourself, you're not,” Mrs. Brussels said curtly. “You just wait. Pete, Jackie, keep them together.” Feet shuffled as Pete and Jackie pushed the children into a tight group. At the far end of the warehouse I could see fat black shoes and small bare feet. “What do you say, Marie?” Mrs. Brussels asked, Miss Manners gone berserk.

“Thank you,” said a tiny voice.

“And what else?”

“We'll be good.”

“I only hear one voice,” Mrs. Brussels said threateningly.

“We'll be good,” the children chorused raggedly.

“Let's go, Max,” Mrs. Brussels said. A moment later I heard the two of them climbing the circular iron stairway to the foreman's office.

That left Pete and Jackie, and they had their hands full with the kids. They mumbled resentfully at each other and herded the children toward a corner, and I found what I was looking for.

It had to be right. Nothing else could be that big. Trucks the size of this one took lots and lots of whatever the hell they ran on.

After I'd rubbed the tongue of the belt against the concrete a few more times, I tested the point. It was sharp enough to puncture my left index finger, which it promptly did. I sucked on the finger, swallowed yet more blood, and shoved the new point at the end of the tongue against the bottom of the fuel tank. This was my week for petroleum products. I was sweating and bleeding at the same time, and my eyes kept clouding over.

Rust or no rust, it wasn't easy. While I was working the spike back and forth, trying to make a hole, the door swung open and closed. Marty had come back in.

“I found the car,” he announced proudly. “It was right in front.” Then he paused. “Where are they?” he asked.

“Upstairs,” either Pete or Jackie said. “Scamming the loot, probably.”

“We'll see about that,” Marty said quietly. “Anyway, I slashed his tires. He's not going noplace.”

“I thought he was already gone,” either Pete or Jackie said.

“Ummm,” said Marty, sounding less certain, and at that point I punctured the bottom of the tank, and diesel fuel poured out onto my face.

“You saw the car?” Bruner boomed at Marty from the top of the stairs.

“Right where he left it,” Marty said. “But it's totaled.”

“Then he's still around,” Bruner said. “Jackie, you dipshit, get out there and find him.” I heard Bruner's shoes click as he came down the circular stairway.

I positioned the yellow plastic bucket beneath the stream. The gasoline hitting the bottom of the bucket made a sound I hadn't anticipated, a rattling noise like someone pissing on a tin roof.

“What's that?” Mrs. Brussels asked.

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Bruner replied. “Stop imagining things. We'll need the truck at the end.” That was the truck I was under.

“No, listen,” Mrs. Brussels said insistently.

I hoisted the bucket until it touched the bottom of the tank. Now it sounded like someone pissing into a pond. The bucket was getting heavier, and the smell of petroleum made me choke.

“He's here,” Bruner said wildly. He'd given up on poise. “Son of a bitch, he's here. Get Jackie back. No, skip it. Go get him. Kill the motherfucker.”

The bucket was full. I hoisted it away from the hole in the tank and shoved the tongue of the belt into the hole as hard as I could. The stream stopped and the belt dangled down from the tank like a rattler anesthetized in mid-strike.

They were so busy looking around the other end that I could climb back on top of the truck without being heard. It was harder than it had been the first time because I had the bucket in my hand. I gave up and heard the children crying, and then I didn't give up. Back on top, bucket in hand, I waited.

Marty was the first one I saw. From the far end I heard the children being organized again. It had to be Pete. My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and I put one hand over my mouth to silence myself.