David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

Give me a break. Is that my fault? I do my job. I dump the stuff. If the ocean works against me, I'm not to blame.

Yeah, he thought.

Sure.

So a few yuppies don't get to swim in the ocean for a couple of days while the junk's cleaned up.

So what?

Let the cleanup squad do its job while I do mine.

A buzzer sounded. Buster set down his beer and straightened. The buzzer was the signal that Big Joe and his brother had backed the truck toward the warehouse and were waiting for Buster to raise the door.

About time. Buster pressed a button. A rumble shook the rickety warehouse as its door rose. Big Joe's truck backed into the warehouse toward the barge containers. Its engine burping, the truck stopped.

Buster jabbed the button that lowered the rumbling door and stalked from his office. 'You're late,' he growled as the driver's door swung open.

But Big Joe didn't step down.

In his place, a man whom Buster had never met jumped lithely onto the concrete floor.

'Hi.' The man, in his thirties, in great shape, grinned.

'Who the hell are you?'

'I hate to say it, but Big Joe had an accident. Tragic. Terrible.'

' Accident ? What kind of…?'

'Horrible. A fire. His trailer. Died in his sleep.'

'My God.' Buster wheezed. 'But Big Joe's brother…! Where is he? Does he know?'

'In a way.'

That doesn't make sense! Either he does, or he doesn't!'

'Well, he did, that's for sure,' the handsome, robust stranger said. 'But he doesn't anymore. See, he's dead. Another fire. Awful. His house burned down last night.'

'What are you telling me?'

'You're next.'

With a bang, the truck's passenger door jolted open, two men leaping down.

Buster rubbed his eyes. The other men resembled the first man.

Trim.

Lithe.

Handsome.

Tawny skin.

Early thirties.

As they neared him, Buster realized that they resembled each other in a further way. It had to be a trick of the light. They all seemed to have gray eyes.

'So, Buster, we've got a problem,' the first man said.

'Oh, yeah?' Buster stepped backward and raised his famous right fist. ' What problem?'

'The needles. The bandages. The contaminated blood. You're poisoning the ocean.'

'Hey, all I'm doing is what Don Vincenzo tells me.'

'Sure. Well, you don't need to take his orders anymore. Don Vincenzo's dead.'

'What?

'Would you believe it? Amazing. Really. No kidding. Yet another fire.'

Buster stumbled farther backward. 'What the fuck? Hey, don't come any closer! I'm warning you!'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' With unbelievable agility, the first man ducked under Buster's jabbing fists, avoided the former contender's famous right hook, and slammed his nose so hard that Buster fell to the floor, seeing double, spewing blood.

'Listen carefully,' the man said. 'We're not going to burn you.'

Sickened by his pain and his doubled vision, Buster wheezed in relief. He had to admit that any of these three men were in better condition than any opponent he'd faced. If they were willing to bargain, maybe he had a chance.

'So you'll let me go?' Buster wished that he'd never met, had never surrendered to Don Vincenzo.

'Afraid not,' the man said. 'Actions have consequences. But flames aren't always the best deterrent. Sometimes the punishment has to fit the crime. A different example is often required. Just a moment before I show you.'

The three men put on surgical facemasks, gowns, and rubber gloves.

'Jesus!' Buster said.

'If that's your preference. My companions will now hold you down.'

'No!'

'Don't resist. Your death will be more painful.'

As Buster squirmed and struggled and screamed, while two men held him down, the other man shoved a handkerchief into Buster's mouth to silence him. Then the man adjusted his rubber gloves and proceeded to unscrew various red plastic containers on the truck, pull out numerous contaminated hypodermic needles, and plunge each of them into various portions of Buster's body.

His arms.

His legs.

His throat.

His groin.

His eyes.

Wherever.

When the three men were finished, after they left the warehouse and the body was finally discovered, the newspapers described the corpse as a pincushion.

Inaccurate. Buster 'Right Hook' Buchanan was really a needle-cushion , and if the thousands of points shoved into every portion of his body hadn't killed him, at least one of the diseases from those many infected needles would have eventually led to his death, that is if his lung cancer from his years of smoking cigars hadn't killed him first.

Lieutenant Craig's apartment was a one-room efficiency in the cramped basement of a converted townhouse on Bleecker Street in lower Manhattan. Once he'd owned a house in Queens, or at least the bank had, but four years ago, his former wife had gained title to the property during their divorce agreement.

Craig dearly wished he was back there. Not because of the house. He'd never liked mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, or doing any of the other chores that a house required, although the truth was that his work had kept him so busy he'd seldom been home to do those chores – or to pay enough attention to his wife and two children.

That's what he really missed, not the damned house but his family. Some nights, his heart ached so fiercely that he couldn't sleep and he lay on his back on his fold-out bed, staring at the ceiling. How he wished to God that he'd tried harder.

But Craig had discovered that marriage and police work seldom mixed. Because being a cop was like having a second marriage, and a cop's wife could get as jealous about his work as she could about another woman. So many other guys in his department were divorced as well. The only good thing was that at least Craig's former wife had been generous about his visitation privileges. He did his best to spend time with his son and daughter on weekends, probably more time than when he'd been married, but the trouble was that his children were in their teens now, and being with their father didn't excite them as it had when they were toddlers.

I sure made a mess of things, Craig thought as he entered his shower, closed the door, and turned on the faucets. Hot water stung him. So what am I thinking ! How come I want to get involved with a woman who's ten years younger than me? Am I nuts? The only reason Tess and I are connected is the trouble she's having. When that gets settled -

– you mean, if -

– no, when -

– hey, don't get pessimistic -

– she'll want nothing to do with me. She certainly didn't sound enthusiastic about the idea of a friendship, a close friendship, when I talked to her on the phone last night.

Craig increased the lancing pulse of hot water, rinsed shampoo from his hair, and shook his head. Hey, what do you expect? She's in mourning. Never mind that she met her friend, whoever Joseph Martin really was, only three times. There's a good chance somebody's following her. She's preoccupied, not to mention scared. Your timing was lousy.

He shut off the water, stepped from the narrow shower stall (there wasn't a bathtub), and toweled himself dry. With the meticulousness of a divorced man who'd come to realize the tremendous amount of maintenance that his former wife had done and he'd never noticed, he used a squeegee to wipe water off the shower stall so there wouldn't be lime stains. He'd already shaved. All he needed to do was comb his hair, slap on some aftershave, dab on a little deodorant (the maintenance never ended), get dressed, and make himself eat breakfast.