Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

cruise ship. We work security on the boat. Deckart’s the boss. Technically deputy boss, but he runs the show there. Ship’s leaving tomorrow.”

“Just the boat, Jerry?”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “Tell me about the freelancing. What you and your friends are up to here.”

He shook his head. “I’m not involved. Deckart and Willets are tight year round. I’m up here for the job is all.”

“Hard to believe you’re uninvolved, Jerry.”

“Just let me know what I need to do to prove it, man.”

I said, “What about tonight? Who bought the food, who ate it? Where did they go?”

Jerry gulped. The wire biting into his throat made it hard and slow to do that. He said, “Willets brought the Chinese. I bought the beer.”

“Where is everyone?”

I had stepped pretty far down on the wire noose, and Jerry was struggling to maintain his balance. He could barely speak, so I eased off a little. Redressed the balance in favor of the foot, seventy-thirty. Jerry managed to croak. “Deckart and Willets are out. They always go out together. I have no idea where. I’m alone in the house with the Viking.”

I said, “The Viking.”

“The new guy. We call him the Viking. I don’t even know his real name. He’s Icelandic or something.”

“You know, Jerry, that if I find out that any of what you are telling me is in any way invented, I will come back and I will kill you.”

He said, “I don’t doubt you. I’m telling the truth.”

“Deckart and Willets go out a lot?”

“Yeah. They go out.”

“What time do they usually come back?”

He shrugged. “Man, they go out to the bars. Get back here, I’m already asleep. I guess they get back late, very late.”

“And why not you?”

“I’m married, with kids. I’m a family guy. We have a house down in Fresno, California. Lower forty-eight. I’m only up here for the work, man.”

I said, “Tell me more about Deckart and Willets.”

He tried to shrug. “Not much to tell that I know of. They were together in the army, served in the same unit.”

“Which unit?”

“Military police. Probably dirty cops, if you ask me.”

I said, “That is a serious allegation. I’m asking you, Jerry. What makes you say that?”

It isn’t easy to shrug with a wire noose around your neck. But Jerry managed to do it, with his eyebrows. He said, “Just a feeling. I’ve only been working boats with them for three years. You ask me, they’d do anything for money.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Like shaking people down, intimidation. That kind of stuff. But they didn’t get me involved.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think they trust me.”

I said, “Which bar do I find them in?”

He didn’t respond quickly enough, so I jerked the wire. Jerry spluttered and I loosened it to allow him enough wind to speak. “The Rendezvous maybe.”

“What do I find, if I pay a visit to the Rendezvous?”

“Pool table. Juke box. Live music sometimes. Like one or two girls, and one and a half out of two are hookers. Deckart and Willets getting into a fight maybe. Sometimes you can find crazy shit up there. Depends. Who the fuck knows what happens out there?”

I said, “Your friends like to fight?”

“They’re both psychos. And they aren’t my friends. I just work with them. A lot of guys work up here with psychos, doesn’t make us like them.”

I said, “Where’s the Rendezvous?”

“Up past the airport, out of town. You know that road?” I nodded. “You keep going until you get to the end of it.”

I said, “Then what?”

“Then you’re there. But you should watch out.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cause you won’t be in America anymore.”

I wondered why that was supposed to make me scared.

I took Jerry back to the house. Holding him like a dog, bent over with the wire noose tight around his neck. He didn’t struggle. I let him go first into the kitchen. In the living room, I hog-tied him on the couch. I pulled a wallet from his jeans. Two hundred and forty dollars in twenty-dollar bills. California driver’s license. Jeremiah Delano Murphy. thirty-two years old. The word ‘Veteran’ was printed in capital letters with a red stripe above, and a blue stripe below.

I said, “Veteran of what?”

He said, “Marine Corps.”

There was loud hearty laugh from one of the back rooms. He looked up at me. I tossed his walled on to the couch, put my hand on the Glock and slipped it out of my pocket. Jerry cowered into the cushions. He said, “Come on, man.”

I said, “Marines. Always got to go the hard way.” One step to the couch and I nailed him in the side of the head with the gun. Jerry went out like a light.

I made sure a round was chambered and started back. Another laugh, same guy. Loud and innocent, but deep and rough. A large male, amused. The Viking. There was a hallway off the living room. Bathroom on the left, which was dark and smelled like mold. Straight ahead was an open door to a bedroom. Also dark. To the right was a closed door. Crack under the door was dark, but then I heard another amused snort.

I toed the door open and flicked the light switch.

The room was small. Barely space for a single bed and a dresser. The dresser had a mirror on it. The bed had the bearded giant on it. It couldn’t contain him, and the giant spilled out on three sides, and was leaned up against the fourth side, the wall. His massive head was propped against several pillows. He wore a pair of improbably nerdy glasses, round and perched on his nose. Fancy headphones were wrapped around the giant’s ears. Hair was loose. Falling over his shoulders and bare chest. He was startled. A laptop computer balanced on his hard belly. Open like a clam shell.

He slowly raised his hands where I could see them, which was the right thing to do. I said, “You hear me?”

He saw my mouth moving and moved one finger to touch the headphones.

He