Tom Piccirilli - The Fever Kill

Crease reached into his pocket, handed Edwards back his gun, and said, "Why wait?"

He sat there within arm's reach thinking of how many ways he could kill the sheriff before the guy got a shot off.

Crease could use the knife he'd pulled off Jimmy, or the butterfly blade he'd taken from the foul-up Tucco hired. Or he could draw his own. 38. These podunks would never be able to match the bullet to him. Or he could just reach out with his hands and squeeze Edwards' neck until the man turned purple and blue and then black.

He waited, all these scenes of murder running through his mind. And he wasn't even mad at the guy anymore.

Edwards just sat there, his mouth open, napkins up his nose.

Eventually Crease got bored, stubbed the butt on the corner of the coffee table, stood and got out of there.

The Bentley with tinted windows started following him as he turned the corner onto Main Street. It wasn't exactly an undercover vehicle. A few cars were around, some foot traffic on the sidewalks, shopkeepers out front. It was as good a place as any to get the next bit of business out of the way. He pulled the 'Stang over, climbed out, and leaned against it while the Bentley drew up behind him and parked.

Cruez lumbered out of the driver's side. He went six-seven, a man-monster weighing maybe three-fifty, with a face like a lump of clay that a class of emotionally disturbed children had pounded the hell out of. He liked using a. 357 long-barrel Magnum. In his hand, it looked like a derringer.

Cruez had saved Crease's life twice and Crease had returned the favor a couple of times during bad double-cross deals over the years. Crease knew their shared history wouldn't stop the monolith for a second if Tucco gave the word. Cruez was an insanely loyal dog to his master. All the bosses had a guy like this. He was imposing enough to keep away the minor troublemakers, rough enough to do damage when he had to, and huge enough that he could block a few bullets while the big cheese ran for cover.

This was going to be a scene.

Tucco was already drawing it out, taking his time getting out of the Bentley. Showing Crease that nobody could ever get away, he'd follow you down any rabbit hole, even if it led to Vermont. Cruez stood at the back door of the Bentley, opened it, and waited.

The seconds ticked off. Crease didn't feel like watching. He very much wanted to see Morena and was afraid the weakness was showing in his face. He was out of cigarettes so he stepped up the curb to a nearby convenience store and asked for his brand. They were out. He asked for another. They'd never heard of them. Finally he just pointed to a pack and paid.

Cruez was in the same spot, the back door of the Bentley still open, Tucco still inside with Morena. Man, the drama. Where the hell would any of them be without the drama. All of this and nothing was going to happen today anyway. This was just the second push.

Finally Tucco slid free from the car. Today he was dressed like a Wall Street stockbroker in a four thousand dollar black suit, long leather coat tugged to the side so you could see the suit, nice shades. He and Cruez and the car looked as out of place in Hangtree as they might've in the Mississippi Delta.

Tucco stood 5'3", going about a hundred-thirty pounds of bone and wiry sinew. He had a slight Spanish accent that he consciously affected so he could sound like a Spanish Harlem tough. Otherwise he sounded as uptown as anybody in a white collar. Truth was, he'd been hand-fed by maids and grown up with a view of Museum Mile in Manhattan, the son of two highly successful stockbrokers who made their biggest hauls every time the economy took a downturn. They raked it in during the Reagan years. Tucco had built up his double-life from scratch, same as Crease had.

It wasn't an act anymore. When Tucco gave the dead gaze it would rattle almost anybody. The lifelessness there, the pure infinite blackness of it. Crease had never been able to figure out where it came from. Not poverty, not shame. Not even rage over real or imagined slights. Crease had talked to Tucco stoned, sated, and medicated in the hospital with his guts opened up to drain. Tucco had rambled and whispered and hissed and Crease still didn't know a thing about what really went on behind the guy's eyes.

You could push Tucco pretty hard. He liked it, going right to the edge. Crease had seen it several times while they worked together. How the traffickers would talk circles around him and rip him off right in front of his eyes, and Tucco wouldn't do anything about it. The other dealers, especially the Colombians and Haitians, they'd chop a guy to pieces with a machete if he spoke out of turn or stepped on someone's shoe.

But Tucco liked walking the rim of his own malevolence. Sometimes for weeks or months, until the day came when someone would go too far, and Tucco would finally have enough. He'd react fast as a serpent then, pulling the butterfly blade and going to work with it. Sometimes it would be over fast and sometimes he really took his time.

He'd make the gang watch. Guys with ten kills who were hard as iron would turn green and pass out. Tucco liked to turn and give a grin to Crease, and Crease would light another cigarette and grin back. He'd put it all down in his reports, every detail no matter how insane or unbelievable it sounded, and the squad would go and bust some other honcho. No matter what he did, nobody wanted Tucco badly enough to let Crease drag him in.

Tucco stepped up, took one look around Main Street, and said, "No wonder you got a taste for the life, coming from a hole like this."

"Yeah."

"How long were you here?"

"Until I was seventeen."

"That explains why you're crazy."

The life didn't just mean money and slick cars and strutting into a booked restaurant without a reservation and getting the best table. It was the darkness, the dirty belly, the fear in the other guy's eyes, the being bad, and the knowledge that you could take whatever you wanted so long as you could keep it.

Crease said, "Anybody can get a taste for the life. Look at you. You like to play that you come from Spanish Harlem, but your parents were top line shakers and you were born on Fifth Avenue. Not in the back of a cab either. When you were a baby, you had servants trading off diapering you. If you were lucky, your mother maybe changed you on Sundays."

"Nah, she'd just make me hold out until Monday, when the maid came back to work. It was all right."

"You like the ride up here?"

"Yeah. I like the trees. All the colors, this is the right time of the year to catch them. I'd heard about people doing that, caravans of cars coming up this way, mooks driving three hundred miles just to stare at the leaves. It always sounded really stupid to me. But I liked it. What else they got up here? Syrup?"

"Yeah," Crease said. "There's syrup. And military boarding schools. Bed and breakfasts. Dairy farms. Lots of them."

"That just about it?"

"And llamas."

Tucco drew his chin back, his shades reflecting Crease's face back at him. "What?"

"Yeah."

"C'mon. The hell for?"

"Special wool for bulky sweaters."

"Is that right?"

It was a dumb conversation, but you always had to have dumb conversations with the other guy when both of you were waiting for the other to jump first. A part of your head was anticipating the knife, thinking about how long it would take you to get out your own. Meanwhile, you talked about leaves and llamas.

Cruez was just standing there looking like one of Zapata's banditos. You could hack at his face with an ax and probably not notice the difference afterward. He didn't worry Crease, but he might get in the way just enough to trip him up.

Tucco took off the shades. He wanted to show off the death glare, try to really spook the shit out of Crease. It wasn't going to work but you had to go through these little games, it was just the way that they had to be.