Unearthed

Unearthed

Southern Watch, Book 4

Copyright © 2015 Midian Press

All Rights Reserved.

1st Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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New York City

It was a tony as hell Central Park West building, a thief’s wet fucking dream. Anthony had gotten the tip on the place from his cousin, Jake, who worked as the night doorman. Jake had gone on vacation to Florida this week, just leaving those little details for Anthony, knowing he’d bite while Jake was gone. Anthony needed the job, so he’d worked it out without Jake’s help. And at eleven o’clock at night on a Wednesday, he’d popped through a back door that he’d held open with tape to keep the bolt from fastening when he made a bullshit floral delivery six hours earlier, his boys Mike and Early with him, and hiked up the staircase thirteen floors to the penthouse, which, according to Jake, was empty of people and full of fat fucking loot.

“The air even smells different in a place like this,” Early said. Early wasn’t his actual name, but it was all that Anthony had ever heard him called. He didn’t need to ask what it meant, because he’d heard the girls in the neighborhood snicker behind Early’s back.

It did smell different, Anthony thought. Richer, somehow. Didn’t stink like people were sneaking off a smoke in the stairwell, stale-ass nicotine addiction flavoring the walls and the wood. The banister here was like mahogany or some shit too, smooth and polished, like the maid slid down it with a rag attached to her ass every week. The paint on the walls was crisp, and it had paintings—paintings!—hanging on each floor. In Anthony’s building, those paintings would have been out on the corner getting sold for ten cents five minutes after getting hung.

“Smells like fuckin’ money up in here,” Mike said, wide grin on his dopey-ass face. Mike might as well have been Mikey, but he got pissy when people called him that. Still had a baby face, though, and a grin with too many teeth.

“Shut the fuck up,” Anthony hissed, freezing them both with his angry look. They knew to respect him, respect his temper. They’d all worked together a few times, and Anthony had made his rep by doing it right. No evidence, no witnesses. Most of the time he tried to avoid people altogether, but on the couple occasions where that hadn’t been possible,
boom
. Anthony took care of it. He was a trigger man, was born to be a trigger man, but he’d never gotten caught for it. His record was all petty beefs, and he’d kept himself more or less clean for five years now. He hadn’t lived clean, but he’d kept from getting caught. “The lady in the penthouse may be gone, but the whole building ain’t empty, shithead. Keep your voices down.”

“Sure thing,” Early said. He licked his lips nervously. They had ski masks on, even though Jake had said that the cameras in the stairwells were all fake. The masks were Anthony’s hedge to keep Jake out of trouble. He played it like they had no inside info, like they were just brute forcing their way into the place. “Hey, whatever you say, Big A.”

Big A was a mark of respect, Anthony knew. They respected him for what he’d done. Knew that if shit went down, he’d get the situation unfucked in a hurry. He didn’t run; he made shit disappear. Made problems disappear. Someday, he had aims to run the whole Bronx. Maybe the whole city—who knew?

Right now, though, he was about to get a whole lot richer.

They eased open the door at the top floor and crept down the hall. Anthony had a few ideas about how this was supposed to be done and keeping quiet was right at the top of the list. If the lady who owned this place was out of town, and the people below heard a lot of thundering footsteps, they’d probably call the cops. Or at least call the doorman, who would check it out. That’d end in gunshots for the poor bastard because Anthony wouldn’t leave the thing undone, and it’d also end this burglary in progress before he was done tapping its ass. So quiet was the way. Anthony turned in the hallway, looking at his boys creeping along behind him, and made the
Shh!
sound with his finger and lips, just in case it wasn’t obvious. This was gonna go by the numbers.

It was a short hallway, ten feet, straight to the door. It was for emergency exit purposes only, and to provide a buffer between this rich bitch and her neighbors. Anthony could almost taste his loathing for this cunt and he’d never even met her. He meant to take a long look out her windows, stare out over the park in a way he didn’t really get a chance to do very often. He was gonna piss right there, give it a chance to soak into the wood while she was out, give her a smell to remember his visit by. She’d probably make a profit on the insurance for this place, after all, and he didn’t want her to feel comfortable after this. She should know he owned her, that he could get to her anytime, that he could tax her ass at any time. It was his city. She just lived in it.

He rested the pry bar on her door. It wasn’t exactly ornate, the door. Nice panel thing, heavy, but not too fancy. It didn’t have angels carved in it or anything, like he’d expect it to. He had a whole vision of this cow, how she lived. Jake had told him a little. Enough to get his engine running, anyway.

He eased the sharp end of the pry bar into the gap between door and frame and pushed. He heard it strain, so he pushed harder. This time he heard a crack and knew he was getting somewhere. The trick on this was patience, making sure that he didn’t do it so quick and loud that he made a noise you could hear five floors away. That’d be sirens for sure. He glanced at Early; ending this prematurely was not an option. He snickered in his head at his private joke then gave another slow push. He applied the force in greater amounts, adding more weight to the bar. Then he nodded at Mike, who pushed against him with his own considerable bulk.

Anthony felt it start to give and backed off, pushing Mike off him. He gave them both a reassuring nod and then started his final push. There was a short, sharp crack and the strain of the lock against the frame was just too much. He stopped pushing, removed the pry bar, then eased his shoulder against the smooth, wood-paneled door. He gave it a little shove of his own, and the crack was complete. He reached out with a gloved hand and caught the metal piece in his hand as the door swung wide into another hallway.

“Bo-fucking-nanza,” Early said, drawing a look from both Anthony and Mike.

“Who fucking says that?” Mike asked.

“I say it,” Early said, a little indignant. “I like it.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Anthony said, down at a whisper again. “We’re in; argue over your signature catchphrases later.” He took the first step inside and heard the wood floor beneath his insulated boot give off just a subtle squeal as firm rubber met polished wood. He couldn’t see much, just dark wallpaper on both sides of the hall, leading off to a half dozen different doors.

Bedrooms, art rooms, loot rooms, offices … who cared, really? Anthony felt Early come up behind him, trying to surge past him in the narrow hall, and he held out a hand to stop him. “Hold your fucking horses, Bonanza.” This was his score. And besides, he needed to listen, make sure there really was no one at home.

Because if there was someone home, they needed to be dealt with first.

Silence followed for five seconds. Ten. Twenty. He could feel Early getting antsy next to him, then finally pulled his hand off the man’s sunken, skinny chest. “All right. We split up, check out these rooms.” He lifted his shirt and pulled out the heavy-duty garbage bags he’d wrapped around his waist before they’d started, giving him a little roll of fat that he was all too happy to be rid of. “Valuables. The smaller the better. We’ll deal with the big stuff last, but get the jewels, the cash, all of that first.” He looked back at the other two. “Got it?”

Nods and mumbles followed, and Anthony went first, because by God, it was his fucking right.

He took long, slow steps down the hall, listened to Early and Mike peel off into the first doors. Anthony meant to do this right, get the lay of the place first. He’d go all the way to the other side of the floor while these little shitheads with their tiny visions of baubles and twenties fished close to the pier—the exit.

He glanced in the rooms as he went past. Yep, bedroom. Office. Room with art hung on the walls. It even had a fainting couch, like some rich broad needed to lie down because she got the fucking vapors feeling all overwhelmed and in the grip of ecstasy looking at a painting. He passed another bedroom. The next door was closed. He jiggled the handle, found it locked, thought about using the pry bar and decided against it. He’d get it later. Maybe it was a panic room or had something really nice in it, but he didn’t have time to get all exercised about it yet. Plenty of time for that later.

He passed another couple of rooms without paying them much attention, just to notice they were there, and he took a right into the living room.

Hell fucking yes.

The view stretched all along his left, the curtains pulled wide and giving him a panorama of Central Park. It was dark as shit, of course, but he could see it all backlit by Fifth Avenue on the other side of the park. He wanted to see this view in day. He wanted to stare out, know it was his, that he could do this any time he wanted. He took a deep breath, a hard sniff in through the nose, forcing himself to relax.

He damned near gagged on the perfume this rich bitch had left in the air. “Aww, what the fuck,” he said under his breath, even though no one could hear him. It just hung there, sweet and heavy, like she’d set up one of those air freshener spritzers to douse the place every fifteen minutes. God, it was shit. You’d think she could have afforded something that smelled better.

He turned his attention to the right and started across the room. He heard a jubilant little laugh behind him—fucking Early, probably—overjoyed at getting his skinny little hands on something nice. Anthony ignored him, walked along the windows. The light from outside showed him hints of two other doors along the main wall. He felt a little wetness from his palm and fingertips on the pry bar. Nerves. Excitement.

He walked up to the closest door and pushed it open. He let out a little whistle, low and quiet, that warbled in the air. “Holy shit.”

He’d seen bedrooms on the other side of the house, but they were small. Not small like he lived in or anything, but damned small compared to this fucking palace room. A four-poster bed with hanging drapes loomed in the darkness, like a bunch of shadowy lighthouses with burned-out bulbs. Light glowed in from big-ass windows with a park view, just like the living room. He could see the hangings from the bed, and it was like nothing he’d ever come across except on maybe TV. He went closer to the bed, looked at it, saw the sheets were unmade.

He sat down on it immediately, pulled his boots right up on the bed. Maid hadn’t been in this morning, clearly. He rubbed his feet all over the sheets, covered himself up, and rolled around like a pig for a bit. Then he unzipped, took out his dick, and rubbed it all over the pillow, laughing to himself—but quietly. He remembered what he’d wanted to do to leave her a memento, and so he got up, hung his piece over the white sheets, and let out a few squirts. He gave it a quick douse in an X, giggling to himself all the while. Then he cut it off mid-stream, cursing that burning feeling, and hobbled out into the living room with his pants still around his ankles.

He pissed in a line across the baseboards, giggling madly. It felt so damned good, letting it all out, like a lifetime of feeling shitty about things came rushing out with the piss. He stood there breathing in the dark for a moment when he’d finished squeezing it all out, then grabbed the nearest curtain and rubbed his cock with it until it was dry. He thought about beating off and leaving it someplace special, or shitting somewhere, but he didn’t have the time. Getting one over on the fucking harlot that owned this place—she probably sucked rich dicks for a living, fucked every stock broker in town and took it up the ass for ten thousand bucks a shot—was one thing, but he was here to improve his lot in life, not just wipe his ass and resentment all over the place. Though that would be fun, too.

There was a faint noise, something dropping, from somewhere behind him close to the entry hallway, and Anthony damned near shit the turd he would have preferred to save for this Queen of the Park’s bedsheets. Fucking Early and Mike, being their dipshit selves.