Andrew Klavan - The Identity Man

"He look like he burn good," said a banger, laughing.

The little boy struggled and shouted. The thug holding him was surprised and angered by the child's strength. He cursed and lost his temper and hurled the boy face first into the wall. Teresa let out an anguished scream. The boy fell dazed to the floor. The thug kicked him.

"There!" he said.

And the other thugs spread gasoline on the boy, too. The boy coughed and curled up, gripping his stomach.

"Hold off a second," said Super-Pred.

He was in that zone of his now, that mental zone of unpredictable fury. He grabbed the front of Teresa's blouse with two hands and tore it open. That set the fire going inside him.

"Bring her in here," he said.

Gripping her arms and legs, they hauled and dragged and hustled Teresa through the door into the dining room. Grunting and crying out, she kicked and tried to tear free and tried to bite their hands, but she was helpless.

"Put her on the table," Super-Pred said, following them through the door.

They forced her, struggling, onto the table, while the Pred, with a great show of lordly calm, wandered around the room, studying it with mock appreciation.

He noticed the reredos on the mantel.

"Shut that bitch up," he said casually over his shoulder as he approached the wooden sculpture.

One of the bangers punched Teresa and the other groped and clutched between her legs. They tore at her clothes.

Super-Pred looked up at the three angels, confronted the central angel staring down at him from the mantelpiece. He liked it. It gave him a feeling, a feeling that he and the angel were actually communing in some way. He could see the depth of love and sorrow carved into the angel's expression. It made him laugh because he felt this was a joke that he alone in his uniqueness understood. Someone else might ooh and ah at such a face, but he was special and got the joke of it. With the sound of the bangers taunting Teresa behind him, the sound of their punches and her anguished gasps, the Pred reached up for the reredos almost with a sense of fellow feeling and affection. Inevitably, he lifted it from the mantelpiece and hurled it to the floor. The wing splintered with a cracking sound. The head snapped off and rolled free.

The force of the action bent the teenager forward slightly, just on the threshold of the kitchen doorway.

Shannon curled around that doorway and put the Beretta nine against the side of Super-Pred's head.

He had let himself in through the kitchen door. He had used the key old Applebee had given him, the small Medeco key with the green dot on the bow. He had come to the house without knowing what he would do, just wanting to make sure Teresa was safe, just following his instinct to watch over and protect her. He had lingered outside a long time, uncertain. Then he had seen the gangsters arrive and had slipped in the back way using the key.

Now, he stood with the gun pressed to the gangster's head. Super-Pred glanced at him, gauging his chances.

Shannon smiled. "You think I won't kill you?" he said. "Look in my eyes. I'll kill you. I want to kill you. Tell them to let the girl go."

Super-Pred looked into Shannon's eyes and even his usual pretense of courage deserted him; he knew he had never been so near the precipice of oblivion.

"Let her go," he said-but his voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and his boys were busy working the girl over. He had to shout it at them a second time: "Let her go!"

Then the bangers noticed the new situation. They stumbled back away from Teresa, clumsily reaching for the pistols in their belts.

By then, Shannon had the fifteen-year-old gangster king by the collar, was holding him in front of himself, holding the nine up under the punk's chin.

"Better tell them how it is, son," he said.

"No guns. Put the guns down," said Super-Pred quickly.

"Drop 'em," said Shannon.

Teresa had rolled off the table. She had fallen to her knees on the floor. She braced herself on the floor with one hand and clutched at herself with the other, clutched at the shreds of her clothing, trying to cover her nakedness. Blood and snot and tears were dripping from her. She was crying with a wild rage.

Shannon paid no attention to her. He was already filled with her and looking for a chance-hoping for an excuse-to kill every one of these little shits, every single one.

Super-Pred knew it and a note of hysteria entered his voice as he shouted, "Put the pieces down, motherfuckers!"

One thug dropped his gun, but the other hesitated and Shannon killed him. He shot him quick in the chest and by the time the kid went down dead, he had the pistol under Super-Pred's chin again. It felt good to kill the kid, and Shannon hoped some of the others would try something. Even if they riddled him with bullets, he would kill them all. Even if they shot him dead, he would come back from hell and kill them.

"Move through the door," Shannon said.

The banger who was still living had his hands in the air. His whole body was quaking. His eyes were wide because his friend was suddenly dead and he saw what Shannon was now, he saw what Super-Pred saw. He didn't need the gangster king to repeat Shannon's order. He nearly leapt to the dining room door.

"Tell them to drop 'em!" Super-Pred shouted after him, his voice cracking.

The other three bangers in there had heard the gunshot, but it didn't occur to them it wasn't one of theirs. They figured Pred had shot the bitch, that's all. One of them was even moving to the door to get an eyeful of the bloodshed. But just then, his pal came through, babbling, "Put the guns down, man, put all the pieces down!"

The gangsters saw Super-Pred hustled into the room, Shannon holding him and holding the nine-a to his chin.

"Put the pieces down!" Super-Pred was shouting, and the other thug kept babbling, "Put 'em down, man, he's serious!"

Two of the gangsters dropped their guns. The third one gave it a second's thought, but dropped his, too, before Shannon got the chance to kill him.

Shannon shot a quick glance over at the old man on the floor. The old man was crawling to the boy. Now the old man cradled the boy in his arms, blood dripping from his mouth onto the back of the boy's head. The whole place stank of gasoline. Antic cartoon music filtered in from the back room pathetically. Shannon wanted to kill every g he saw.

The gangsters could see the murder in his eyes, and one of them said stupidly, "Man, we didn't mean nothing."

Shannon shot him in the leg just for that. The punk went down howling.

"Shut up! All of you, shut up!" said Super-Pred, his voice cracking.

"Get out," Shannon ordered quietly. He saw they would do whatever he said now. He was half sorry about that, sorry to have no excuse to kill them. He shoved the gun up under Pred's chin hard. "Get out, I said. Drive away. Look back and I blow this fucker's head off. Then I come after the rest of you. Get out and drive away."

The bangers crowded to the door so fast, Shannon had to shout after them. "Take this one! Take this one with you!"

They came back for the one he'd shot in the leg. The wounded punk was blubbering like a child in pain as they draped his arms over their shoulders and hustled him to the door.

When they were gone, when it was just Shannon holding Super-Pred at gunpoint, he looked down at the old man. "Applebee," he said. "Can you stand up?"

The old man nodded painfully, holding the boy. "Yeah."

"The boy okay?"

"You're okay, aren't you, son?"

"I think so," said the boy.

"Go upstairs and get some clothes for your daughter," said Shannon.

"I'll get them." It was Teresa in the doorway. Clutching the shreds of her clothes to her, her bloodied face still, her cheeks tear-stained, her eyes luminous with fury.