Rob Thurman - All Seeing Eye

If that took pushing, I was read to push my guts out.

I knew Hector agreed, because he followed right along. “We know there’s an industrial spy here. We know they killed Charlie. And Dr. Thackery…” He leaned forward until he was nose-to-nose with the smaller man and bared his teeth in what would pass as a smile if he were a crocodile. “We know you knew about the spy and didn’t tell a goddamn soul. That makes you responsible for my brother’s death in my eyes, if not the law’s. So I’d advise you get behind the team on this one while I decide just what I’m going to do about that.” He moved in even closer, causing Thackery to take a step back. “About you and Charlie. Start thinking hard about who the spy could be. Start now. I’ll be back soon to see what you’ve come up with. Jackson, come with me. I need to go to the armory to get another gun.”

Thackery didn’t move as we passed him. He had to be calculating whether the gun was for him. At least, I hoped he was, the prick. Hector was striding down the hall at an angry and fast speed, but running at the Y seemed to have helped, and I kept pace easily enough.

“You know you made a lifelong enemy there,” he said.

I shrugged philosophically. “An enemy is just a friend you were smart enough to stab in the back first before he got you. Besides, you were on his list before me. In fact, I imagine everyone he has ever met is on the Thackery shit list. We’re nothing special.”

“Special enough to be at the top.” He stopped. “The armory’s around the corner. This isn’t a military operation, Jackson. We have military support around if we need it, and we damn sure have needed it, but bottom line: Thackery and I are in charge here.” And whoever had sent the black car was in charge of them. “That means I can check out as many handguns as I can carry. We’re in trouble, me, you-so this time, let me get you a damn gun. I understand because of your stepfather why you don’t want one, and you might not have to use it. I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t have to use it. But we need to be armed if worse comes to worse.”

A gun.

Boyd, the lazy, rattlesnake-mean, abusive shit. Until I was fourteen, I had one mental picture of him, only the one: him sitting in the filthy, beat-up recliner and drinking beer until he was drooling drunk.

From fourteen on, that picture would be replaced by him lying in the small, cramped hall of the house. He filled it, actually, from wall to wall, the fat slob and his beer gut. Not that beer was what came out of it when I hit him with the first shotgun blast. Instead, handfuls of fat that looked like masses of yellow grapes. Loops of intestine like you’d see out of fresh roadkill, only bigger and more. It hadn’t stopped him, though. He’d kept staggering toward me until I’d pumped the shotgun a second time and put another load in his head. He’d been close enough to me then that they had to bury him without a face. There was no covering up that crater with a dab of mortician putty.

And the smell. I’d never forgotten the smell of cordite, blood, and leaking guts.

The bedroom where he kept the shotgun didn’t have a window. I had to climb over his body to get to the phone to call the police. I tried not to step in… him. But he was everywhere. Covering the entire floor and some of the walls. There was no way around it. I left a sneaker trail of blood and other things as I ran to the kitchen and the phone. Footprints of what used to be Boyd. Sometimes now, sixteen years later, when I put on my shoes, I checked the soles for Boyd-

“Jackson? Did you hear me?”

“No guns,” I answered, resolute.

“Damn it, it could save your life.” He ran a frustrated hand over his short hair, still neat and in place despite the explosion and the wreck. Not like Charlie’s hair. That boy could have walked out of a barber, and in two seconds people would think he’d been in a windstorm.

“It could,” I admitted.

“Then take one.”

“No guns,” I repeated, and for a moment, I thought he was going to smash his fist into the wall as he rolled up his fingers tightly.

“Taking one could save your life. Not taking one could cost you your life. That bastard out there could kill you. You could die, you asshole.”

Die because Hector had pulled me into this and now was dealing with the consequences, guilt being the biggest one right now.

“I could.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Yeah, I could die, and I will before I touch a gun again. Sorry, Allgood. That’s just the way it is. Next time you go after a psychic, you should check out their phobias first. Get me a baseball bat, and I’ll beat the son of a bitch’s head flat enough that you could serve it up as a pancake. But no guns.”

Hector swung his balled-up fist, but not at the wall. He swung it at me. I slithered to one side, did a leg sweep, and dumped him on his ass. I meant it. I’d been taught to take care of myself. Cane Lake for dangerous teens, a little Krav Maga at the Jewish Community Center for dangerous adults. Hector had to know some Krav Maga moves himself from Army training, but at the moment, he was feeling too pissed, too guilty, and too out of control to see them coming from a psychic he assumed sat on his butt all day telling people where Great-aunt Edna Mae’s lost will was.

“A sock stuffed with your mess hall’s mashed potatoes?” I suggested helpfully. “One hit with that, and I guarantee brain damage.”

He lay flat, unmoving, and closed his eyes. I let him gather the edges of his control and glue them back together in silence. Hector had had a difficult couple of months. His brother died, a brother he’d loved; I still felt from reading his keys how much Charlie had loved his younger brother. The hero worship he’d seen in Hector’s eyes when they were kids and the respect and affection when they were adults. Then had come the massacres, forcing Hector-who Charlie had known down to his bones was one of the most honest and honorable men around-to resort to something as dirty as blackmail. Now that blackmail was looking more and more likely to get its victim, me, killed. And Hector would hold himself as responsible as if he’d flipped the switch on the detonator with his own hand.

All in all, I figured Hector deserved some stress relief. If that meant letting him throw a punch, what the hell? I’d let him. It didn’t mean I’d take it, but he could swing all he wanted.

Finally, he opened his eyes and shifted them to where I leaned against the fungus-colored wall, arms folded, getting some rest of my own. It was barely past noon, and it had already been a long day. “Sorry,” he said, the traditional Hector Allgood calm back in his voice.

“Yeah, that was pretty sorry. There are five-year-old girls at the Jewish Center who would’ve broken your elbow and your knee, and then crushed your larynx with that kind of swing.” Dark eyebrows knit ominously, and I let him off the hook. “Fine. You’re forgiven. You were only trying to break my nose out of concern for my life. I get it. It’s a little fucked up, but I get it.” I held out a gloved hand.

He hesitated, then took it, and I helped heave him to his feet. “Why don’t you go? Leave? I told you the blackmail’s off. Someone’s trying to kill you. There’s no reason for you to stay and risk your life.”

“Would Charlie leave?” I asked. I wasn’t actually curious. I already knew the answer.

“No, but-” He clamped his mouth shut before the rest of the sentence could escape.

“But I’m not Charlie. I’m a selfish, money-hungry, antisocial asshole who doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone but myself? Is that what you were going to say?” I wasn’t angry. It was mostly true… or it had been true.