Tod Goldberg - The Giveaway

The other was shorter by a few inches but probably weighed sixty pounds more, all of it in his stomach. He had a long black goatee that hung down to the middle of his neck and his cheeks were pocked with acne scars. Surprisingly, he looked tattoo free, which probably meant that under his clothes he was painted head to toe.

“I hope Clete isn’t having any problems walking,” Fiona said. “Did you notice him limping?”

Still nothing.

“Answer her,” I said.

“I don’t know who you are,” the tall one said to me, “but you’re already dead.”

“That must have sounded scary the last time you said it,” I said. I turned to Sam. “You scared?”

“Petrified. I just hope I don’t lose control of my muscles and let go of the brake.”

Both Ghouls tried to take a step back, but just ended up hitting their heads against the wall. I took a quick inventory of their bodies and determined that both the big one and the fat one had guns-the big one in his waistband, the fat one shoved uncomfortably into his right front pocket.

If you want to accidentally shoot off your genitalia, the best place to put a gun is right where these two had theirs. If you want to hide your gun from plain sight, since I imagined neither of these gentlemen had permits, trying to stuff a nine into your belt makes it difficult to do things in public. Like, say, standing for any length of time.

“You still haven’t answered her,” I said to the men.

“You broke his back,” the fat one said. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes,” Fiona said.

“What kind of club lets a woman bust up one of their own?” I said.

“Two,” Fiona said.

“Two,” I said. “I stand corrected. Who knew the Ghouls were getting so soft?”

There wasn’t much either of them could say to that. It was true. Even they knew it.

They just didn’t know Fiona.

“All right, boys,” I said, “my partner-” I looked at Sam and noticed that he had a kind of John Wayne thing going with his face, a sort of half-scowl/half-smirk thing, so I said, “Duke is gonna take both of your guns. You make any moves, my lady peels your caps back. No questions, just brains on the carpet. We clear?”

Both Ghouls nodded.

Sam dismounted his bike slowly, like maybe he thought he was John Wayne, too. And instead of a horse, he had a bike.

“Hands up,” Sam said and I thought I detected a bit of a twang.

The Ghouls raised their hands and Sam removed their guns, then patted them down and came out with two knives, a sap, a bag of meth, a needle, and two wallets bulging with cash. He handed me the wallets and tossed the rest of his haul out the screen door.

I opened up the wallets and looked at their driver’s licenses. The tall one was named Clifford Gluck, the fat one Norman Gluck. Brothers, though presumably by different fathers since no Punnett square could produce these two reliably. The pictures on their licenses were both a good ten years old and neither Gluck looked particularly threatening. Clifford, who at thirty-seven was the older of the two, had short hair and was wearing a tie in the photo. He also wore a smile so wide you’d think maybe he just won the free dinner from Chili’s at the company picnic.

Norman, who was thirty-five, was still pudgy and bearded, but he also wore a tie, though I had the sneaking suspicion his dress shirt was short-sleeved. The term “middle manager” was made for Norman.

Weird. Both of them, in the recent past, looked like guys who worked all week in a mindless corporate job and then really cut loose on the weekends by playing paintball and watching horror movies. How you went from that life to being in a biker gang was a mystery to me.

“Which one of you is Clifford?” I asked.

“That’s funny,” Clifford said.

“Hard to tell from these pictures,” I said. I handed the wallets back to Sam so he could have a look.

“Nice ties,” he said.

“Look,” Clifford said, “we weren’t here looking for you. Whatever your problem is, it’s not with us. You let us go, we forget the whole thing.”

“You a lawyer?” Sam asked.

“I look like a lawyer?” Clifford said.

Sam flapped the wallet in Clifford’s face. “You do here,” he said.

“What’s your story?” I said to Norman. “You only talk when he says so?”

“I ain’t got nothing to say,” Norman said. “Either shoot us or fuck off.”

“So he’s the lawyer,” Sam said to me.

Clifford had a tattoo on his hand of a little girl’s face. It was a professional job, nicely shadowed, plenty of detail. It didn’t exactly make him look tough. And not even bikers think highly of pedophiles, so my suspicion was that it was probably his kid. That told me that somewhere inside Clifford, combined with the fact that he once wore a tie for his driver’s license photo, there lurked a human being who could be reasoned with.

I decided to make our first move.

I reached into one of the saddlebags on my bike and pulled out a handful of patches belonging to the Ghouls. Both Clifford and Norman visibly stiffened with anger. It was silly, really. They were just patches. But then, I guess if I was being tortured by bad guys in some foreign land and they showed me an American flag that they were desecrating, maybe I’d feel anger, too.

“These belong to you,” I said, and stuffed them into a pocket in Clifford’s vest. “I got another three, four hundred more of them. I also got your constitution and every other piece of paper you morons created. You want ’em back?”

Clifford looked at Norman. Norman looked at Clifford. It was actually kind of cute. Big bro and little bro trying to figure out the right answer.

“Yeah,” Clifford said.

“Five hundred large,” I said.

“Check or money order?” Clifford spat back at me. “Or can I give a credit card?”

“Maybe you haven’t figured it out,” I said, “but I’ve already done your dirty work. Bruce Grossman is dead. And now I’ve got all of this Ghoul crap. You want it, you gotta pay my cost or you let the Redeemers take over this territory. Simple as that.”

“Bullshit,” Norman said.

“He does speak,” Sam said.

“Shut up,” Clifford said. “Let me think.”

“Let’s see a body,” Norman said. “Otherwise it’s bullshit.”

“Shut up, Norm,” Clifford said. “This isn’t your call.”

“It’s not yours, either,” Norman said.

From a sociological standpoint, it was fascinating watching Clifford and Norman. Here were two brothers, maybe with different mothers, maybe with different fathers, maybe they were born in test tubes in a lab in Geneva, but whatever, they were brothers somehow and they clearly were having a power struggle. Having it in public with guns in their respective faces made it all the more interesting. At least when Nate and I had such issues in front of other people, we were usually the ones holding the guns.

Clearly, however, neither Gluck was a shot caller. One might have more rank than the other, but it would be up to Lyle Connors no matter what happened here tonight. Perhaps he gave one of them more latitude than the other-say, perhaps one was allowed to execute Bruce, the other was in charge of the acid bath- but my sense with these two was that this was more of a kidnapping than a murder. They wanted their money, drugs and paraphernalia back… and then they’d kill Bruce.

Clifford and Norman continued to argue over who could speak while the three of us just watched. It was moving to the level of performance art until Fiona made it stop.

“Mommy must hate it when you two fight,” Fiona said. “Why don’t I shoot you both and the one that can still talk can be the official spokesman?”