Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [35]
That was then. Today they were back home, in different jobs, but with precisely the same mind-set. The trouble was, neither of them could leave behind their time in the Horn of Africa. Like a malarial fever, their exploits rose into their consciousness, regular as an ocean tide, dragging with it a swath of man-made sludge: cracked skulls, congealed blood, fractured bones, and bits of gray matter. It was not enough; nothing was enough. And so the two of them existed like creatures of the dark, bloodthirsty, vampiric, unwilling or unable to readjust to a civilization hamstrung by laws that entangled the forward thrust of their urgent missions.
He didn’t like being left out of whatever was happening back inside Slim’s crap-joint, but he recognized he only had himself to blame. Seeing these people lounging around with .45s in their belts infuriated him. If he had his way, he’d fire-bomb every one of them. Fuck civil rights. People like Slim didn’t deserve to hide behind the laws that were meant to put them in the slammer. He belonged facedown in the gutter. Not for the first time, McKinsey wished he were back in the Horn of Africa.
“I dream about that place,” he’d said to Willowicz as they’d sat in the gray late-model Ford. There was no need to be more specific, they spoke in the shorthand of war when they were together.
“Every night,” Willowicz said. “But sometimes I think it’s a place I made up.”
McKinsey stared out the window at the grayness. “What are we doing here?”
“Our jobs,” Willowicz said. “Like always.”
McKinsey nodded, but with the air of a person staring at something he could see with no real clarity.
“Everything was clear-cut over there,” Willowicz said, as if reading his friend’s mood. “Here, nothing makes sense.”
“We did what we wanted, what was needed. Now what? We put one foot in front of the other. Like old men whose lives are behind them.”
“We’re in a goddamn fog of unknowing.”
McKinsey let out a long breath. “McClure changed ME’s on us. The new one, Egon Schiltz, isn’t on our payroll.”
“Then we’ll put him on it.”
“Sadly, no.” McKinsey sounded disgusted. “Schiltz is a personal friend of McClure’s. He won’t bite and, what’s worse, he’s sure to inform his pal of the approach.”
Willowicz shifted in his seat. “Then I’ll kill the fucker.”
“Good idea. That for sure won’t alert McClure.”
Willowicz drew his neck in like a turtle. “Or we can do nothing. Like toothless old men.”
A short, poisonous silence ensued.
“Fuck it!” McKinsey kicked open the door and launched himself out.
Leaning over, Willowicz said, “Be careful of that dirtbag McClure.”
McKinsey made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and started down the ramp.
Now, with the rain in his face, he shook out a cigarette and lit up. Smoke drifted past his eyes, obscuring a world he despised, a world in which he did not belong.
* * *
GRASI POINTED out the grubby door of the toilet and started off toward the front of the shop.
“Hey,” Jack said, “what’s your real name?”
The teenager turned back. “Everyone calls me Grasi.”
“Even at home? Even your mother?”
“I have no mother.” Grasi said this matter-of-factly, without a hint of remorse or self-pity.
Jack came toward him. “‘Grasi’ is a Romanian word. It means fat. You aren’t fat.”
“It’s a fucking joke, man.”
“You Romanian, Grasi?”
The youth stuck out his jaw. “What the fuck of it?”
Jack shrugged, even as he lunged forward, grabbed hold of the bling around Grasi’s neck, and yanked it off.
“Little fuck-nuts!” With a soft snik! a switchblade appeared in Grasi’s fist.
As he advanced, Jack threw the bling back to him. All except one piece: a gold pendant in the shape of an octagon. Jack had noticed it when Grasi was supposedly studying the badge. When he spoke, Jack knew he was lying.
Jack held the pendant and the badge side by side. “They’re identical,” he said.
Grasi flicked the tip of the wicked-looking blade.
“You’re smarter than that,” Jack said. “I’m not your enemy.”
Grasi laughed. “Fuck