“What are you doing? You destroyed a TV. That’s like the Holy Grail to you. And you gut it to electrocute the maid?” Stefan demanded, the flat motel pillow folded under his head.
“It won’t kill. But it will make you extremely sorry you came knocking at our door.” I stood from my squatting position and said, “You might want to call Saul. If he steps in the water in the morning, his beard will bristle like a porcupine getting a prostate exam. Oh, and he’ll be thrown a few feet away, wet himself, and will probably scream himself hoarse when he can move again.” I grinned. “On the other hand, he’s probably already asleep. Let him rest.”
He snorted and reached for his cell phone resting beside his gun. “Running for the second time is a damn sight different from the first. Now you’re teaching me instead of the other way around.” He pressed the numbers. “And you have become somewhat of a shit, too, just like I said. And not so little either.”
I thought about that and the pipe bombs, the plane, hiring drug dealers, possibly electrocuting the maid, and more Stefan didn’t know. No, I didn’t mean he didn’t know—I meant, he didn’t know because he hadn’t asked me about them. Semantics can save your soul.
I’d become a shit, my brother thought. I grinned again—nothing theoretical about that.
I really rather had.
Chapter 7
I forgot the satisfaction of knowing my new self and becoming who I was meant to be—a manipulative, slightly amoral shit/genius—when at four a.m. a scream and sizzle/zap woke me up. Preparing for the worst was an excellent hobby. Getting the worst was not as enjoyable. Stefan was already at the door with his Steyr 9mm in hand. He didn’t have to tell me to pack. We’d learned last time. You pack before you go to bed for cases like this. “Watch out for the water,” I cautioned. “I can’t drag a crispy, fried brother to the car and our bags too.”
Avoiding the inch or two of water that had seeped under the door, but not unplugging the cord in case whoever was out there had a friend, he opened the door. Half in and half out of the puddle of water, a man twitched convulsively, eyes rolling back in his head. “Well, he’s not dead, but I’m not sure he’s quite alive either,” Stefan remarked.
I raced across the room and yanked the TV cord from the outlet. “Incompetent,” I muttered at myself. “Older buildings had a less safe wiring configuration and their electrical insulation isn’t always up to code if the owners don’t make the investment, which apparently they didn’t.”
“I’m not crying any tears over it.” Stefan lightly kicked the man’s shoe with his own bare foot. “See the gun? That is not a particularly friendly gun. It’s a Russian GSh-18 pistol, made to carry armor-penetrating rounds. It’s what we used to call a nye ostavtye ni odin jiveaum, a ‘take no prisoners’ gun or a Siberian Special.” Lingering long ago from the Stalin years (the History Channel cleansed my palate between movies), some older Russians considered Siberia equal to death . . . or Hell. Many had passed on that sentiment. Stefan’s grandfather had survived Siberia, but to hear Stefan retell the stories, none of his grandfather’s friends had.
“Call Saul. Get your shoes and rat while I check to see if there’s anyone else out there.” He was out the door, bare-chested and barefoot. He didn’t look any less dangerous for it. Five minutes later, the three of us were in the parking lot. The still-twitching guy wasn’t Mafiya despite the Russian gun, which was at least one less problem. He was one of Raynor’s men, loyal beyond his boss’s death—I’d checked his wallet. He had the same crappy fake government ID. He was alive but wasn’t exactly functional. The three of us went back to our rooms, dressed, hefted our bags, and ran back out to the parking lot.
Saul was equally unhappy. His ginger hair was standing on end, there was a sleep crease on his upper cheek, and he was in pajamas—in a way. He saw me wincing and huffed. “This is what you get. If I don’t have a half hour to do it right, I’m not doing it at all. He headed for his SUV, parked several cars from the one we had stolen. Our vehicle had its license plate switched twice over from the fast food place where we’d acquired the Mustang. It paid to take precautions. I started after Stefan when Godzilla jumped off my shoulder after spotting half a discarded Twinkie on the asphalt. I turned, dropped one bag, and caught him in midair to scold him. It was only half a minute, but that was enough time for Stefan to reach for the car door handle.
That was when I saw it.
The lights in the parking lot were dim and old, same as the motel, but I had excellent night vision and it was getting better the more I matured—as were other things. It was good enough now that I saw the oil on the side of the cover over the rear wheel. Fresh and gleaming, two fingerprints of wet amber—as fresh as if someone had just crawled out from under the car but a moment before. And who changed the oil on someone else’s car at four in the morning?
No one.