Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(45)
Along the rooftops of the cinder block–style apartment buildings I saw a Grendel racing along, our pale shadow. I wondered if it was curious. I wondered for the thousandth time why they watched. And I thought, with the denial of all that is wrong in the world, that it might be better not knowing.
I looked away and back at the street. “Now finish cracking your teeth on what used to be food and let me concentrate.” Then because I felt bad about letting Cal lie to Mrs. Spoonmaker, I muttered under my breath, “I think I’ll get her car washed too.”
Cal knew the signs of my guilt. In knowing me there wasn’t much Cal didn’t pick up on instantly. “Isn’t lying to borrow her car better than letting a murderer kill somebody?”
He wasn’t wrong. Cal had grasped the gray shades of morality before he grasped potty training. I was different. But I was learning. Too late and too slow, but I’d get there.
“Look! He stopped.” Cal bounced in the seat as if we were two rogue cops about to make a bust. I was throwing out the TV when we got home. In the trash. I rolled, yes, rolled down the window for a better look. The car’s windows were permanently cloudy from age. Cal followed my action because when it came to things not involving work that’s what Cal and most little brothers did. “He’s picking up a whore.”
I reached over and flicked his ear lightly. “Not a good word.” But I was also watching Junior talking out the window to a woman selling it for what looked like a harsh drug habit. Even in the night and where only one out of three streetlights worked, that was easy to see. She had a long black Goth wig, short leather dress with fishnet hose and skin yellow with hepatitis.
“Ow. Hooker?”
I flicked again.
“Prostitute?”
“Better. Not too great for her, but better vocabulary wise.”
I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and a gun was in my face as a snarling twist of a mouth and mad dog eyes demanded my money. Beside me Cal sounded as if he were choking on his Ho Ho. “This,” I told him, “is not funny.”
The man, boy, whatever he was—that far into the downward slide into drugs it was hard to tell—shoved the gun closer. He hadn’t even bothered to get a pellet gun and paint the orange tip. He’d gone for painting a water gun. I was embarrassed for him. But not so embarrassed that I didn’t break his wrist and shove the gun in his mouth, grip first. Less room and more of a lesson learned that way.
There was another one coming from the opposite side . . . toward Cal. From the way he moved, belligerent but uncertain, he was unarmed. Good practice then. “Cal, time for school.” He accepted the knife I handed him. It wasn’t his kitchen knife, which I’m sure was on him somewhere. This was a K-BAR combat knife with a happy smile of serrated edges. I’d be passing it down to Cal when he was big enough to carry it and it not be instantly obvious under his clothes.
“Finally. Some fun homework.” Cal already had the knife in the practiced grip I’d taught him, parallel to his body with the edge toward the throat that presented itself.
“You little shit. Tell the bastard driving to hand over his money or I’ll tear you . . .” It took the kid, about sixteen and skinnier than the first, that long to realize he could feel the faint trickle of blood down his throat and metal resting against his skin.
“I’m hungry and Ho Hos aren’t enough,” Cal said cheerfully. “How about you give me all your money so I can get a Big Mac and I won’t cut your throat?”
“Cal,” I said reprovingly, but the kid was already gone, his partner with him and unfortunately Junior’s truck as well as we’d sat at the curb looking like easy prey. “We don’t mug or steal and we don’t hurt people unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I know.” He bounced again. “But his face.” He laughed and handed the knife back to me, not pretending he didn’t covet it. “People can be so stupid. I betcha when he tells his friends how it happened I’ll be seven feet tall and so full of muscles I almost couldn’t fit in the car.”
“Rambo in the most cunning disguise.” I started back down the street searching for Junior’s truck. I didn’t spot it again until we were at home. There it sat in his driveway. I groaned. “Hookers . . . I mean, prostitutes disappear every day for different reasons. I’ll check the papers for the next few days, but even then, we won’t know.”
“You won’t know.” A hand patted my arm as we crossed the street. “You’re smart, Nik, but sometimes I don’t think you’d know the house was on fire ’cause you were waiting for the oven timer to beep. You think too hard about the little things and not about the big things.”
Cal smiled happily and it wasn’t a good kind of happy, not for me. I’d seen this particular brand before. I tensed myself for what was coming. It would be painful and it would make my brain hurt, but there was no getting around it. Cal’s mouth could not be stopped.
“Hey, you know what? We could burn down his house.”
9
Cal
Present Day
I liked fire.
Not in a sick arsonist burning down a nunnery full of kittens way. But if something had to be burned down or up or sideways, I didn’t mind being involved. It was better than fireworks and no annoying noise . . . or not until the fire trucks arrived.