Well Fed - 05 (50 page)

“My boys here have been talking about you, Gussy. They say that you’re trouble. That I should probably kill you and leave you on the side of a highway. That the Gus I knew years ago isn’t the same person today. But mostly, they’re just pissed that you haven’t had to pop your cherry like all the other new recruits had to. So I’m gonna change that right now. Right here. You take this knife.”

Shovel held the weapon out by the blade, and Gus obediently took it and studied it intently, examining every groove and scratch in the dull steel.

“You show all these people that they’re wrong about you,” Shovel continued in a softer voice. “You cut this shitstain’s throat. Or stab him through the heart. But you kill him. Right now. Kill him, and we’ll drive on back home. Get on with business.”

Jimbo
—the name materialized and faded like smoke in Gus’s mind. The prisoner’s name was Jimbo. Or just Jim. Poor Jim appeared as if someone had dribbled his head across a basketball court. Collie had freed him from that motel gang. And now, Shovel wanted Gus to kill him.

A chill surged though Gus, dampening his cosmic mellowness.

“Kill him now,” Shovel ordered.

Gus regarded Jim’s swollen features. Poor brutalized Jim was kneeling in the towering shadows of two demons. A red sky raced overhead, streaming clouds with serrated edges.

Coming to his senses, Jim opened his puffy eyes, revealing blood-filled whites almost spilling over sepia-colored lids. Red water spilled from the corners.

“Stick that knife into him, Gus.”

Gus held the knife, clenching and unclenching the handle.

“Stab him through the fucking eyeball, and pop that cherry.”

“Jesus, Jerry.” That earned Gus a solid clap about the head, stunning him.

“My name’s Shovel, you little squirt of shit. Shovel. Now
execute
that fucker!”

Gus hesitantly reached out and held the left shoulder of Jim, whose face drooped in defeat at the contact. Jim grimaced in agony. Sick stepped in, grabbed a handful of hair and yanked Jim’s head back, exposing his unshaven throat. His Adam’s apple bobbled weakly.

Adam.
Where are you, buddy?
Gus’s thoughts churned.

“Stick him,” Shovel commanded.

Gus hesitated, and Jim grimaced again, revealing teeth that had been wrecked by a brick. Or a rock.

“The fuck you waiting for?
Do it
.”

A wind all the way from the arctic face whipped around them all, rustling clothing.

“Might as well,” Jim wheezed, releasing a trickle of blood from his mouth. “Beats hangin’ out… with these dickheads.”

Sick tightened his grip on the man’s forehead, whisking any more words away in a pained grunt.

Gus exhaled in stoned exasperation. Part of him bobbed on oily currents of despair. He knew he wasn’t going to execute
Jim
. The only reasonable idea coursing through his foggy brain was
how
he could perhaps get both of them out of the situation. Nothing came to mind, however, and the knife’s point caught a flicker of sunlight, flashing off the tip. Twisting serpentine shadows flashed across the ground, and Gus dared not look up for fear of seeing nightmarish creatures in the sky. His skin prickled right down to his numbed heels. His heart rate accelerated, redlining, threatening to burst.

Jim stared at him, nodding faintly, as if tired of it all.

“
Do it
!” Shovel barked.

Gus shivered from that blast before slowly lowering the knife. Jim’s breathing hitched to a stop, his bloody eyes leaking, questioning him with a tortured expression.

Gus rested the knife on his leg. “I’m too fucked up for this,” he stated. “Not murdering anyone today.”

Those words seemed to hang on the air for years. Whole trees took root and grew heavenward while the sky relaxed and reverted to a healthy blue.

“It’s the shit in him,” Sick might’ve said.

“He ain’t gonna do it,” Slick Pick remarked from kilometers away.

A floating embankment of raw, unchecked frustration swept over Gus then, as distasteful as septic gas, all emanating from his brother.

“You stab that bastard,” Shovel warned. “You stab him, or I’ll make your life fucking hell.”

Gus frowned a
fuck that
and dropped the knife.

“God…
damnit
,” Shovel exclaimed softly. “Sick.”

With bare fingers, Sick gripped Jim’s exposed throat and squeezed as if it was an overripe plum. Jim gasped, a horribly wet sound, before blood erupted between Sick’s fingers––a spray at first but quickly gushing.

Sick tightened his hold and pulled. All color fled Jim’s features. He bled out in a dying gargle.

The sky vacuumed Gus up into its dizzying heights.

The motorized convoy arrived at Whitecap five hours later, and Shovel, for one, was glad. The episodes with Gus, from his failed escape to his refusal to kill a prisoner, had exasperated him to the point where he sat and stewed in his command trailer without a word to anyone. He brooded at his desk, gently jiggling with the movement of the rig. After Gus had passed out, a gutless reaction if ever Shovel had witnessed one, he had the unconscious man taken to the refrigeration unit along with the foodstuffs. Sick pumped him full of zed5 once again, enough to sedate the man for the remainder of the day—maybe even the week.

But Gus’s refusal to cross over to the other side bothered Shovel.

Anyone else, he’d have killed without a second thought. He knew it. The fact that Gus was family prevented him from pulling the trigger—and in front of his men, no less. That also bothered him. If Shovel wavered in front of them, one or two hotheads might suspect that he was soft somehow, that there was a flaw in that core of steel—that Shovel’s command might be challenged.

Perhaps even usurped.

The column of trucks and motor homes rolled through the secretive maze of forest and old dirt roads, past the barbed wire and concrete barriers, onto the white cement surface of Whitecap’s outer clearing. The transport drivers eased the rig into a designated parking area and parked it with a huff and squeal of air brakes, not far away from a trio of fuel tankers. The other trucks pulled in around it, taking their place in a chuck-wagon defensive pattern around the base of the mountain. Whitecap rose up from the cluster of vehicles, trailers, and buildings like a godlike behemoth ignoring its worshippers.

Shovel opened the trailer’s rear door and jumped to the ground. He gazed up at the mountain’s tall peak taking aim at the cloudy heavens.

Shovel hoped Giovanni had good news for him. He needed good news right then. He needed a shitload of it.

Shovel walked to the front of his ride and waited for Slick Pick to show up. He didn’t wait long.

“Pick! Take care of all this shit. I’ll be home if you need me.”

“What about your brother?” the man asked.

Shovel cringed at the thought. “Lock him in one of the empty trailers. Put a couple of guards on it.”

“An empty trailer, Shovel?”

Shovel glared at his henchman.

“All I’m saying is it gets cold at night in one of those things.”

“So give him a mattress and a blanket,” Shovel shot back. “And keep him shot up. But nothing else, Pick. Not one goddamn thing more.”

Pick waved his understanding and got moving.

Grumbling under his breath and feeling slightly poisoned, Shovel ignored the greetings from the people who had remained at Whitecap and made a line for his trailer. He unlocked the door and went inside. His chair beckoned, and he plopped down behind his desk, yanked open a drawer, and pulled out a bottle filled with some very fine scotch. A mug followed, and Shovel wasted little time filling it and taking a short but greedy pull.

The scotch helped, and he leaned back in the chair and propped up both feet. Whitecap’s girth, glowing in evening sunlight, overloaded the picture window at the end of the trailer. Shovel stared at it, pensive, cradling his drink.

A knock at the door distracted him. “Enter,” he called out.

Giovanni appeared, crusted with enough dust to make one think of Wild West deserts. He removed a baseball hat and combed his graying mesh of hair and beard with his fingers in a nonchalant effort to make himself respectable.

“Gonna take more than that.” Shovel smirked over the ceramic lip of his mug.

Giovanni tossed his head back, shook loose his ponytail, and sat down in the chair before Shovel’s desk. “How’d the trip go there, big chief?”

“So-so.”

“Only so-so?”

Shovel regarded his number two. “We got a little over forty new bodies to add to the ranks.”

“Pretty good draft.”

“Lost a few guys on the way back to a group that took offense to us.”

Giovanni frowned and let his breath out in a soft whistle.

“Got two trailers’ worth of winter provisions: dried meat, fish, bottled veggies, and jam. Plus some of them army meals.”

“Good stuff.”

“There was livestock, but we’ll go back for them in a day or two. Too many bodies and booty to bring back.”

By that time, Giovanni’s brown eyes had narrowed. His chair squeaked as he settled in for the big reveal. Shovel knew the look. His right-hand man sensed something was coming.

“And…” he let it hang for a moment, “we also found my brother.”

Giovanni’s face scrunched together in disbelief for all of a second before brightening. “But that’s great news… isn’t it?”

“Not if he’s a chickenshit.”

That left Giovanni speechless.

“Yeah, you heard me.” Shovel gave an expletive-rich report to his old friend, who sat and listened in rapt attention, nodding in agreement when prompted. When Shovel finished, Giovanni reached for the scotch and took a swig straight from the bottle.

“Yeah.” Shovel chuckled darkly. “Reason to drink, ain’t it?”

“Hate to think there’s another one of you, but shit, ain’t it a shame he’s not like you. If he was, we’d get things done at twice the speed.”

Shovel had to nod at that assessment and fished out another mug for his lieutenant. They poured fresh drinks, sampled them, and shared a silence.

“Wouldn’t kill the guy, huh?” Giovanni finally said.

“Nope.”

“Right in front of the girls and boys too, eh?”

“Yep.”

“That shit’s gotta burn.”

Shovel didn’t bother commenting and took another clarifying shot of scotch.

“What’re you gonna do?” Giovanni finally asked.

“Fuck if I know.” Shovel stared out the window. “But I’m gonna have to do it fast.”

“You want me to shoot him?”

“Nah.”

“You sure?”

Shovel shook that question off with a rattle of his head.

“Want advice, then?”

“Sure.”

“You can’t keep the guy locked up forever. Can’t keep him as a pet. And you’re certain he’s not gonna come over to the dark side. So, I don’t see any choice. You keep him around, and you’re only inviting disaster. Sooner or later, he’s gonna try and break for it. This life, it changes folks. We’ve both seen it, both lived through some pretty dark times. I’d say, if it’s all the same to you, put this episode behind you and leave your brother, both of your brothers, in the past. As fond memories.”

Shovel stared at the man sitting across from him. “And the guy I brought in today?”

“Let Sick take care of him,” Giovanni suggested in a low growl. “Let him whip up one of his cocktails of highly addictive substances, something painless but guaranteed to do the job. I don’t think overdosing’s a cruel way to go. Not in the least.”

Overdose.

Shovel stopped drinking and tossed the idea around.

“Yeah, you chew on that,” Giovanni said. “No rush. But in the meantime, don’t think of him. Now listen. I got some good news for you, concerning the tunnel.”

“You broke through?”

“Not that good. But we’re close. Other good news. A tease of what’s to come.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Yesterday, we uncovered an armored truck, full with ammunition and a crate full of what appears to be German-made assault rifles—complete with scopes and grenade launchers. Grade-A ball breakers, if I do say so myself.”

Shovel sat up, his attention captured. Spirits raised. “How much ammo?”

“A magazine holds fifty rounds. Crate holds about two hundred magazines. We hauled nine crates outta the ass of that truck.”

“Jesus, that’s––”

“Ninety thousand rounds. Not bad, I’d say. We’re dangerous again.”

“
Hooah
,” Shovel whispered.

“And I reckon we’re not that far from the holy land. We’re digging around the truck now. Widening it just a little, even hit a bubble in there. Can’t be much farther to the finish line. We’re in there pretty deep.”

“Yeah?”

“If I was to guesstimate, I’d say we’ll be inside in another two or three days. By the end of the week at the latest.”

Shovel raised his mug in salute.

Fine news, indeed.

The doors opened and bathed the interior of the trailer in light. Gus, reduced to a tight, shivering ball sitting against a wall of stacked coolers, peeked guardedly at his visitors: four figures, a woman and a guy and two more wearing those black masks. They climbed into the rear, their shadows long and reaching. Behind them, more torsos milled about the lip of the trailer door.

Slick Pick snapped his fingers, making Gus flinch. “You dead yet?” he asked before studying the food stuffed into the trailer.

Gus didn’t answer. He trembled instead.

“Looks frozen,” the woman observed.

“He should be,” Slick Pick said. “Been on ice here for the last five or six hours. Sure as hell would freeze my asshole to the floor. Only hope to God he didn’t piss himself while in here.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Yet so cute,” Slick Pick said with a greasy smile.

“You are that.”

Slick Pick regarded Rachel. She was his height, brunette, and solid looking. Most of the crew were lean and hard, but the women were something else. Nothing like the end of the world to make everyone drop their excess fat, and he imagined Rachel in T-shirts and cutoffs in the summertime. He’d especially taken a shine to her as she’d demonstrated, without a doubt, she belonged to an outfit like Shovel’s.