Uneasy Reading: 4 Horror Shorts (4 page)

The following is an excerpt from the
novella
Wetwork
, a tale of vampires and a
hitman, betrayal and revenge. It will be available in late
May/early June of 2011. Enjoy the excerpt!

1.

Joey 'Nine' closed his eyes for a moment and
listened to the steady music of raindrops pounding on the roof of
his old Cadillac. He matched their beat on the steering wheel with
his nine fingers and waited.

Vincent had better hurry his ass up. Joey
didn’t like sitting out in the open like this even in the middle of
the night. Half the thugs in the city wouldn't mind seeing Joey in
the ground, and most of them knew what his patched up Caddy looked
like. He felt too exposed out on the street. But if the rain
continued falling, it might keep all the little rats with gats
inside tonight. At least that was a plus.

A sudden pounding on the passenger side door
made Joey's eyes snap open and his hand instinctively shot for the
S&W .40 tucked into the rig beneath his left arm – even though
none of the killers he knew bothered knocking.

It wasn't a hitman.

Vincent stood there smiling like an idiot,
skinny as a dried up French fry with sickly looking skin about the
same color. Rain plastered his greasy blonde hair to his head. He
knocked again before Joey leaned over and unlocked the door.
Vincent got in and shook himself like a dog.

"Rotten out there, man. Just fucking
rotten," Vincent said. "Even my dick's shriveled."

"Thanks for adding that to my mental files,"
Joey said. "What is so damned important that you had me come all
the way over to this crap neighborhood at one in the morning in the
middle of this goddamned downpour?"

"What do you think?"

"I imagine it's got something to do with
Giovanni," Joey said. Phantom pains surged down to his left hand
and he glanced to where his ring finger used to be. "But I don't
have time for guessing games, so tell me now or I'll dump your ass
back out into the rain."

"Alright. Let's just start the car and
drive. I don't like sitting here," Vincent said. "Maybe we can hit
Del Taco. They got an all night drive-thru. It's over on
Imperial."

Joey started the car and pulled out into the
empty street. The wiper blades didn't work as well as they used to.
Mostly they just smeared the grime and dirt that had caked onto his
windshield from weeks of neglect. It gave the world outside a
blurry and surreal look that he didn't like.

"Say, Joey, you got a couple of bucks to
spot me for a burrito?"

Nice to see it was the same old Vincent, as
ugly and broke as a Dane Cook joke. Joey was sure the skinny prick
was probably carrying at least a couple hundred in weed on him. The
guy stank of the stuff.

"Tell me what you got to tell me and I'll
think about it," Joey said.

"I was out walking the dog today and guess
who I see? I see Giovanni's little bitch Carlos, and he sees me.
Well, he comes up to me and he tells me his boss has an offer and
that he's been looking for me. He says I can get back into her good
graces if I do them a favor."

Joey had known Vincent long enough to know
that 'walking the dog' meant that he was out with his girlfriend,
the poor woman. Vincent was a classless human being through and
through. Vincent was also a liar, and one had to guess the truth
and lies whenever his mouth opened.

"That's great, but what does this have to do
with me?"

"She's offering you the same deal. You help
and she'll call off her goons."

"What kind of favor?" Rachelle Giovanni had
her hand in various criminal enterprises, everything from
prostitution to extortion and things a hell of a lot worse.
Whatever it was, he knew it probably wouldn't be very pleasant.

"Moving some merchandise."

"I don't like it. That woman doesn't forgive
easily," Joey said. "She might just want to get us both together so
she can torture and kill us personally."

"You got trust issues, man," Vincent
said.

"Gee, you think?" Joey had history with
Giovanni, good and bad. Her father used to run everything and Joey
worked as an enforcer, a hired killer when occasion warranted. Joey
and Rachelle had been involved in the most intimate sense of the
word. Her father died and she took over the business. She changed.
She got cold and distant and she cast Joey aside. He was still the
favored hitman for a while, but that all went to hell. Giovanni
wanted him to kill a kid because the dad had some outstanding
debt.

Joey refused. Sure, he was a dirtbag and a
murderer. But he wouldn't kill a kid. Giovanni perceived his
refusal as disrespect. Carlos had taken the job instead; whacked
the poor kid and become the new blade in Giovanni's right hand.

The stump throbbed where Joey’s finger had
once been. "You can't trust her."

"Shit, they ain't gonna kill us," Vincent
said. "You really think they couldn’t have found you a long time
ago if they wanted to? I don’t imagine it would take much to find
your address. They just want us to move this new product since they
got heat on them. We ain't been seen with them in ages so they
figure we're good to go."

It would make life a hell of a lot easier if
he didn't have to keep looking over his shoulder, but trusting
Giovanni wasn't going to come easy; not after all she'd done. A job
that came out of nowhere like this was usually a setup. Hell, even
Vincent should be smart enough to know that. "Where are we supposed
to pick it up, and where do they want us to take it?"

"I'll tell you that after I get my burrito,"
Vincent said. He blew into his hands to keep them warm.

"Right," Joey said. If it was a setup, he
was going to shoot first.

"How about we turn on the radio and get some
tunes?"

"I only get the easy listening station when
it's raining."

Vincent reached over and turned the radio
on. 'Rocky Mountain High' began playing as they turned into the Del
Taco drive-thru. Joey shook his head and stifled a laugh. Syndicate
enforcers and runners always listen to John Denver before a job…
just because they're that badass.

2.

The storage facility parking lot was empty.
The late hour and the driving rain were to thank for that. They'd
driven down to the unit while Vincent slobbered on his burrito.
Joey could barely make out what the dope was saying between bites.
Apparently, the goods were supposed to be in a storage unit under
guard of the Haitian. At least that was good news.

Joey had been friends with him… although
friend might be too strong a word. He was as close as people in
their line of work could really ever be. If the Haitian was there,
Joey knew that at least it wasn't a setup. They'd both helped one
another out of jams before. He had even been the one to tip Joey
off that Giovanni wanted him dead.

He opened the automated gate with the code
Vincent provided and drove to Storage Locker 10B, located on the
far side of the complex. He drove slowly, watching and waiting for
signs of an ambush. He didn't see anyone – but that didn't mean the
place was empty.

He parked and grabbed his shotgun from the
trunk. His .40 was nice, but the scattergun could be a hell of a
deterrent if Carlos or one of Giovanni's other goons decided to
show. "Where's the Haitian?"

"He's probably inside," Vincent said.
"Doesn't make much sense to stand out in the rain, does it?"

"You'd better be carrying a piece," Joey
said as they made their way toward the unit.

"Jesus, man, I told you it ain't like that.
This'll square us both with Giovanni," Vincent said. "Besides, guns
make me nervous."

"You're a real shitty drug dealer, you know
that?"

"I've been told."

"Yeah, well what exactly was it that put you
on her bad side in the first place?"

"What do you think? I was sampling more of
the goods than I was selling. She didn't like that too much and
threatened to break my hands," Vincent said.

"Broken hands ain't that bad. At least
they'll heal."

"Shit, Giovanni knows how to hurt a person
the deepest. How could I roll my smoke with busted hands?"

"Good point. We wouldn't want you to get
clean and sober."

"Hell no," Vincent said. "Could you imagine
what that would be like?"

When they reached the unit, Joey saw the
rollup aluminum door. It was already partially open – about two
feet off the ground – and the lock was missing. He wondered if the
Haitian would even hear them approach over the sound of the driving
rain.

"Haitian," Joey called. He didn't know the
man's actual name and he'd never bothered to ask. He doubted anyone
did. After a moment, he called out again. When the Haitian didn't
respond, Joey pumped the shotgun.

"He's in there," Vincent said. "He's got to
be."

"Open the door and find out," Joey replied.
He stepped back to give Vincent room to lift the door.

"Great," Vincent said. He lifted the door
open.

"Go in and turn on the light," Joey said. He
held the shotgun to his shoulder, aiming at the dark maw of the
open unit, well aware that he was a perfect target.

"No, man, you can do it. You've got the
gun," Vincent said.

"Damn straight I have the gun," Joey said,
moving the barrel of the shotgun slightly so that it pointed at
Vincent's chest. "Go in and turn on the light."

"That's cold, man." He stepped inside and a
moment later light flooded the room. The sound of his retching came
almost instantly.

A crumpled body lay in the corner. It was a
large man with dark skin and gold rings adorning each finger of his
left hand. The Haitian.

He slipped inside to get a better look at
the carnage. The Haitian's eyes were open, staring up at the
ceiling. His mouth was slack and his throat ragged and torn, but
there wasn't much blood on the floor. The wounds on his neck looked
as though they came from teeth.

His body lay next to an opened metal crate
that was a few feet long and about a foot high. It reminded Joey of
a coffin, except for the digital padlock on the opened lid. He'd
seen locks like it before, but this one looked like it had some
type of timer attached to it.

"The fucking burrito," Vincent said. He spat
more vomit onto the floor. "I'm so screwed. I fucking killed myself
because I had the munchies."

Joey paid little attention to Vincent. He
was more concerned with the crate. He looked inside and saw crude
wadded up bedding as well as a pillow and a small brown envelope.
The box wasn't large enough to hold a full-grown adult even if they
tucked their knees to their chest, but someone had definitely been
in there. It was the right size for a child. He opened the envelope
and looked through the contents.

Inside were several pictures. One was of the
Haitian drinking a martini. The other was of Joey smoking a cigar
on the deck of Giovanni's yacht. A third picture was a family
portrait that looked like it had been taken at Sears or one of
those other cheesy studios suburbanites were so fond of using. The
fashions in the picture were outdated, and he figured it was an old
photo from sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. The
mother and father had stupid, placid grins on their faces. Above
the husband's lip was a mustache that would have made Mario, Luigi
and even Thomas Magnum envious. The child, a little girl of around
seven or eight with dark curls and a round face, looked utterly
bored in the photo.

"What was supposed to happen here?" Joey
asked. He pocketed the pictures and turned to face Vincent, who was
leaning against the wall and weeping quietly.

"I fucked up," he said. "I was supposed to
get you here on time but I was hungry."

"You aren't making a whole lot of sense
right now," Joey said.

"I knew you'd buy me something to eat.
You're a good guy, Joey. You remember that. You're a
good
guy."

"What happened to the Haitian?"

Vincent shrugged. "I really don't know. I
just know that I was supposed to get you here and I didn't make it
in time." He slid to the floor next to his own puke and placed his
head in his hands.

"What were you going to do when you got me
here?"

"You were supposed to go in there and help
the Haitian with the box. When you went in, I was supposed to lock
both of you inside."

"Then what was supposed to happen?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe they had a
bomb in there or something," Vincent said. "I didn’t know what it
was."

"You did this so you could clear your issues
up with Giovanni?"

"Yeah, I did. I couldn't keep hiding from
you and when she made the offer, I… I didn't know what to do. She
hates you and she was pissed at him," Vincent said, nodding at the
dead man. "She knew the two of you were tight and she thought he
was probably feeding you some info to keep you ahead of Carlos and
his hounds."

"Haitian wasn't that stupid," Joey said. He
pointed the barrel of the shotgun at Vincent's face. "What you did
was a real dick move."

"Don't shoot me," Vincent said.

Joey smiled. "I ain't gonna shoot you. You
said that Giovanni knows how to hurt people the deepest, right? I'm
going to leave you here for her. I assume you brought an extra
padlock or chain for the door?"

Vincent nodded and dug the padlock out of
his pocket. He slid it across the floor to Joey.

"I won't be seeing you around," Joey said.
He went back outside and started to roll the door closed.

"You're really just gonna leave me here?"
Vincent said.

"Don't worry; the Haitian can keep you
company."

3.

Joey wasn't going to stick around town to
see how pissed Giovanni got when she found Vincent sitting there in
a pile of his own puke. Vincent deserved whatever was coming his
way. He felt bad that things had gone the way they did with the
Haitian, but he wasn't about to stick around and try to make sense
out of any of it.
What
had been able to do that to him? The
Haitian was a big man, smart and always armed.