Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(40)
“Zabriskie?” That was the old Altar of Sacrifice manager before me. He’d also gone to Texas. I instantly knew this meant he’d been murdered too. I’d suspected as much, of course, but anyone whose name became a password, well, they had fallen bravely fighting for the liberties of their country. They had finished a life of exemplary piety. They had changed a fleeting world for an immortal rest, among other epitaphs I’d seen on gravestones near my mine. Was I the next to go? Chiles had said he’d deed me half the mine. Why would he have me “fall victim to an untimely disease”?
“Yes, your old mining mana—”
“I know the name.” I rose gingerly from the tub, water sluicing off my body. Carradine could plainly see the creek of bathwater where Mahalia had walked after getting out of the tub. He handed me a towel anyway. It felt like heaven drying off, clean for the first time in a week. “What’s your business? I need more morphine.”
“Yeah, well, your gunshot wound is the reason I’m here, Fortunati. I heard about the business that went down last week over in the book bindery. You can’t go to an urgent care doctor without someone knowing. Someone’s going to see the bloodstained bandages in the trash can.”
“Yeah.” I snorted, drying my legs. “Someone who’s always lurking around the back alleys of urgent care places, looking for bloody bandages.”
“That’s neither here nor there, although my abilities to wring information out of someone are legendary. Fortunati, I’m here to make a deal with you. I won’t tell anyone about the shootout last week—since then, no one has seen Mr. Breakiron anywhere around the premises, though he hasn’t checked out of his room—if you agree to help me with a sting operation.”
“Oh yeah? What are you gonna get Chiles for? Having more than his share of wives? Leave it alone, Carradine. These people are just doing the best they can with what they have. Last time the government tried to step in down here twenty years ago they took away everyone’s children and stuck them in foster homes. Now there was a bad PR situation for you guys. You came off looking like heartless monsters. Oh, right, you are heartless monsters.”
“Take your medication,” advised Carradine as I stepped into some clean skivvies and my jeans. I just wanted to move ahead with my life, not rehash crap with some goofy fed. “It’ll calm you down.”
“I don’t want to be calm. I work with these people, Carradine. Chiles has been generous enough to give me that mining job and I’m grateful. Why would I want to screw it up?”
Carradine folded his arms. “Yes. Why would he give you that mining job? Why were you sent here into the hinterlands of Utah, away from the Bullhead City bosom of your club?”
I actually was taking my medication. It was in pill form now—I was done with the IVs. “That’s not a big government secret, Carradine. I screwed up. I was making time with my Prez’s old lady, and I learned my lesson.”
“Yes.” Carradine practically wiggled his eyebrows, he was so in the know. “And you’re repeating the same mistake, making time with Chiles’ woman.”
I shot him a murderous glare. “Don’t you dare f*cking repeat that lie to anyone, hear? I may be injured but I’m not f*cking above silencing anyone who runs around telling lies about me. And Mahalia Warrior. She’s blameless in this whole thing.”
“Well, here’s the rub, partner. I won’t have to tell anyone about you and Ms. Warrior if you just help me out.”
Holding my T-shirt, I looked at myself in a mirror. The stitches were still swollen and painful even when air wafted over them. They said they’d had to cut out portions of my liver that had been mutilated by the bullet. “What sort of help did you have in mind?” I knew there was nothing I was going to help him with, even if I was capable. It had just been too ingrained in me ever since I was a juvenile delinquent kid living on the streets, letting smelly old men suck my wang for straight bank. You just did not cooperate with the law. Being in the Assassins pounded that into my skull even more violently.
“Help you out how?” I shot, and quickly put my T-shirt over my head, to get the painful lightning jabs over with fast. Why did I wear such damned tight T-shirts? I’d have to ask Dingo to bring me some of his K-Mart ones. He loved the ones with Star Wars logos. On second thought, I’d stick with my own even if they hurt.
“Well, you’re an insider. You could give me invaluable information about the location and types of his weapons stockpiles. Like, are we talking twelve AKs? Or hundreds, maybe thousands, of rifles and handguns? How much artillery does he have? Can you confirm it’s the book bindery where he’s storing it all? And, more important, what are his plans for it all?”
Sighing deeply, I turned to look at the guy. “Carradine, listen. I’m sure you’re a nice guy. You might even be the kind of guy the Assassins would do business with if you had something valuable we wanted. But you’ve got to understand. I can’t give you numbers or locations of anything. It’s a conflict of interest for me. For all I know, he might want weapons because he’s expecting the end of days.”
“One of those doomsday preppers, eh? It’s a conflict of interest for you because you’re the one selling him the armament.”
I breezed on past him, but I really had nowhere else to go. Mahalia forbade me from leaving the cottage. “I admit nothing, Carradine. If you’re planning on staging a raid, I want no part of it.”