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.
“It’s an abandoned bridge. Yeah, they were going to fix it up but of course they haven’t gotten around to it.” I waved a hand at the Google Earth pictures Niko had printed off . . . never mind, we all knew what High Bridge over the Harlem River looked like already. “It’s stone and metal. Can’t burn that. But we can get a garbage truck, soak the garbage in diesel fuel for more smoke and a longer burning time, push our way through the concrete barriers off Amsterdam Avenue with the truck, drive onto the bridge, dump the garbage, light her up with my flamethrower, and torch the fucker. Or at least half of it. We need the other half to fight on. If Jack Sprat doesn’t notice that then we’ll get him a Seeing Eye dog and forget worrying about his homicidal and blind ass.”
This was perfect and going right at the top of my resume.
“You cannot have come up with that on the spur of the moment,” Niko protested with what sounded a good deal like suspicion and hope mixed into one. I tried to get a fix on whether he was proud or appalled. I was hoping for both. I did love to mess with Nik.