The Storm Giants Read online

  THE STORM GIANTS

  © 2012 by Pearce Hansen

  Cover Photo © 2012 Charles P. McNally

  www.charlesmcnally.info

  This is dedicated to my parents to whom I owe everything. May they rest in peace.

  Many thanks to Pia for being willing to edit this beast.

  “The life of man upon earth is a warfare.” – Job 7:1

  “Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and someday, you will be a real boy.” – The Blue Fairy to Pinocchio

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Part One

  Chapter 1: One Lucky Baby

  Chapter 2: A Harsh Reunion

  Chapter 3: The Storm Giants

  Chapter 4: The Widow Shows Her Face

  Chapter 5: A Passing and a Bolt for Home

  Part Two

  Chapter 6: So as Not to Intrude

  Chapter 7: Constructive Purposes

  Chapter 8: The Mortal Risk of Display

  Chapter 9: A Night at the Sprints

  Chapter 10: Homecoming Interruptus

  Chapter 11: Cowboy Pimps

  Chapter 12: Blood & Media

  Chapter 13: The Line Points the Way

  Chapter 14: The Storm Giants in the Piney Woods

  Chapter 15: Fate’s Cruelty

  Chapter 16: The Dossier

  Chapter 17: Homeboy Intel

  Chapter 18: Mister Mossad Makes His Case

  Chapter 19: Playing it too Close to the Vest

  Chapter 20: Far, far Away

  Chapter 21: The Orbit of His Infection

  Part Three

  Chapter 22: An Uncomfortable Ride

  Chapter 23: Loafers & Averted Gazes

  Chapter 24: Crimies of Convenience

  Chapter 25: A Bus Terminal at Christmas

  Chapter 26: The Scope Out

  Chapter 27: Pack Predator’s Prayer

  Chapter 28: Making the Cut

  Chapter 29: Job Assignments

  Chapter 30: The Zen of Shininess

  Chapter 31: Citizenship & Donuts

  Chapter 32: Hearts & Minds

  Chapter 33: Conflicting Agendas

  Chapter 34: An Unforgiveable Crime

  Chapter 35: A Grasshopper’s Regard

  Chapter 36: The Storm Giants Come Out to Play

  Chapter 37: The Ultimate Wellspring

  Chapter 38: ‘Cartoon People’

  Chapter 39: Best Friends Re-United

  Chapter 40: On the Discovery Channel

  Chapter 41: High Noon with the Widow

  Chapter 42: ‘An Interesting Man to be Around’

  Chapter 43: 21st Century Bonnie & Clyde

  Chapter 44: Martian Tripods & the Living Dead

  Chapter 45: The End of his Usefulness?

  Part One

  Chapter 1 : One Lucky Baby

  The headlights of the car behind Everett veered to the left and off the road. Everett leaned on his brakes even as the car in the rear view shot over the shoulder and plunged down the slope out of sight.

  The car had been tailgating Everett for miles, constantly climbing up his ass as he drove at exactly the speed limit. This was a winding mountainous stretch of Highway 101, and there wasn't much to stop that car from jouncing all the way down to slam into the boulder strewn river a hundred feet below.

  He scuffed the Escort to a halt on the shoulder, but just sat with his hands on the wheel. A mutinous rumbling in the back of his head: the smart move was to be away from here.

  “Shut up,” Everett said, and the rumblings complied, though sulkily.

  Everett opened the door and got out, went around to the shoulder and peeped over the edge. The rear end of the ex-tailgater’s auto was about ten feet down. It had struck a rock outcropping and stood vertical on its crumpled nose, spared the full drop.

  The headlights illuminated the tree tops below, and the red taillights beamed up to dazzle. Everett could smell gas even from up where he stood.

  Tufts of grass and scrawny bushes provided adequate handholds as Everett slid down the steep slope, reached the car's rear end and scuttled down the passenger side to stand on the outcropping. He smelt blood’s sly copper, wavering under the stench of gasoline.

  He peered inside the shattered window, one hand shielding his eyes from the running lights’ glare. The child seat in back looked like some beast had mauled it. A baby hung suspended in the belts.

  Everett brushed chunks of safety glass away and stuck his big head and wide shoulders through the opening, knocking aside the garish tinseled heap of crushed Christmas presents. He unbuckled the glassy eyed infant with swift surgical economy.

  Everett glanced up at the car's driver as he pulled the baby out the window. The driver had no face left, just a brutal red hamburger smear dangling off what remained of her jaw.

  The smell of gas was stronger and, with a crackling whoosh, the engine caught fire. Holding the baby one handed like a football, Everett scrambled uphill with urgency.

  He’d almost reached the shoulder when the gas tank went up in a roaring fireball. Everett dove forward through the air until he slammed against the ground, turning onto his side as he hit to protect baby.

  He scrambled the rest of the way up the slope and over the shoulder to escape the increasing heat of the flames. His coat was on fire and he swam the backstroke in the dirt for a while until he decided the flames were probably extinguished.

  Still lying on his back, he held the infant up to inspect it utilizing the light from the burning car. The baby’s eyes were closed and it was unresponsive, but there was no blood or obvious trauma. Everett held it next to his ear and heard a tiny heartbeat, steady and strong for now.

  An eighteen wheeler moaned to a stop as Everett inserted into the Escort with the baby. A sullen funeral pyre rose from the wreck, backlighting the compact car as it sped away into the night.

  Everett ignored the speed limit and squealed the Escort around the mountain road’s curves. His driving was lead foot as he pushed the four cylinder economy engine to the point of abuse, but there was no help for that.

  "It's all right,” Everett said, more to himself than to the unconscious infant on the floorboards. “Everything’s going to be better than right.”

  Ahead was a lit up sign pointing off highway to the local township’s hospital. Everett barreled the Escort down the off ramp exit, sparks scraping from the compact’s frame as it bottomed out when he hit the lower level frontage road.

  A volunteer fire truck warbled across his path as Everett ran the stop sign, forcing him to swerve around. A police cruiser was on the fire truck’s butt, but the Man peeled off and bootlegged around to pursue the Escort.

  Everett didn't slacken speed even after entering the hospital parking lot. The black-and-white was right behind as he skidded to a stop by the ER loading ramp, grasped the baby in proper useful fashion and rounded the car. The automatic doors slid open to allow entrance.

  He’d been in enough hospitals and emergency rooms to know most people preferred not to be there. Pain and fear hung in the air like a cloud, almost overwhelming the reek of medicine. Illness was glued to the walls by the industrial paint, or hovering invisible in the air waiting for prey. There was often blood too, but that was no bother.

  "Hurt child here,” Everett announced. Medical personnel plucked the infant Everett’s grasp and wheeled it away on a gurney, surrounding the baby like court attendants.

  Everett’s eyes lit on the bedraggled Christmas tree in the corner of the waiting room. A radio behind the counter was playing ‘Higher Ground,’ the Chili Pepper cover.

  "You need to fill out some paper work,” the intake receptionist said, rummaging some forms into a pile. She looked up to see the charred, smoking back of Everett'
s raincoat as he walked out the exit.

  Outside, the police cruiser was parked at an angle in front of the Escort, blocking it in. The roller had ‘K9’ on the door, and its trouble lights were spinning. The police officer and his dog stood next to the Escort; the cop played his flashlight about the car’s interior looking for probable cause.

  PoPo swiveled to face Everett as he approached. The cop turned off the flash and transferred it to his left hand. His right moved to hover in the neighborhood of his holster snap.

  Everett wasn’t riding dirty, and the Escort’s registration was legit. For his own person, he had all the right papers faked up good enough to stand for a cursory database check.

  He looked PoPo in the eyes and smiled, radiating harmlessness. Everett pulled his hands from his coat pockets in politeness, spreading them empty at his sides and in full view.

  The K-9 began to growl, his lips rippling into a white toothed snarl.

  "Heel, Jake,” PoPo ordered. Jake stopped growling and licked his lips with a strangled whine.

  PoPo wore a plastic smile, fake as Everett’s. They knew each other on sight; volumes of information were exchanged between the two without a word being spoken, without them ever having met before. PoPo’s badge gleamed, and his hand continued to hang around his pistol butt.

  "The driver's dead, sir,” the cop said, his right hand lowering to his side. “I just heard it on the radio in case you're interested. Good job on the kid, mister. Merry Christmas, eh?”

  He started toward his roller, unconcerned at exposing his back. The dog Jake favored Everett with an evil look over its shoulder as the two got into the cruiser.

  The trouble lights shut off, the roller backed up to allow the Escort room to leave, and PoPo waved dismissal. Jake glared at Everett from the passenger seat. Everett waved back at the two legged cop, and favored Jake with some bared teeth his own self.

  “Merry Christmas,” Everett called out in a jovial, careless voice to both law dogs – just like he bought into the idea of any holiday truce.

  PoPo had to be playing with him of course. Everett did a careful walk around of the Escort making sure the cop hadn’t peeled off the registration sticker, or knocked out a taillight to give himself probable cause to pull Everett over.

  As far as Everett could see the car hadn’t been messed with. PoPo sat in his roller as Everett left the parking lot, not even running the plates on his radio – maybe that baby had bought Everett some kind of ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card with this guy.

  If there’d been an alternate route, Everett would’ve jogged over onto it. But this was the Emerald Triangle, a landscape resembling a sheet of moldy green aluminum foil that had been balled up tight and then only somewhat flattened out. The crumpled terrain’s constraints made Highway 101 the only real north-south corridor through this stretch of Northern California mountains, so there was nothing else to do but continue toward the Bay Area. He wasn’t about to lead potential trouble towards Mendocino and home.

  It was dawn when he reached Richmond, and he stopped at a pay phone off MacDonald long enough to call the hospital. When he confessed he was the person who brought the baby in, they violated HIPAA privacy enough to tell him the kid was okay. She’d be just fine, and her name was Cindy.

  He drove the rest of the way past Hayward to Russell City without incident.

  The garage doors shut behind the Escort as soon as he drove into the building, an auto body shop in a previous life. That same old sign hung on the wall, giving the command to all entering Larry’s domain: ‘Animalistic Behavior Only,’ in big placata style cholo lettering.

  Hundreds of plastic keg caps were nailed to the wall surrounding the sign, souvenirs of the many many kegs that had been tapped here. The Dolby sound system blasted hypnotic, monotonous industrial techno.

  Some of the Lost Boys were lounging about as Everett headed to Larry’s office, about a dozen young males of various races playing cards or sitting around on benches watching TV.

  The newer ones eyed him in wariness, while the old hands avoided acknowledging Everett’s unobtrusive gaze at all. Everett didn’t recognize many of them though: this was a high turnover outfit.

  He walked into the office and sat down in front of Larry's bottle crowded desk, occupying as little space as possible in the seat and folding his hands in his lap as he withdrew into self. Larry had his 12-gauge pump leaning against the wall behind him. One of his Lost Boys stood sentry in the far corner of the office, a wiry little hand grenade of a dude with teeth bared in a high voltage snarl.

  Most of Everett's attention was on Larry however: Larry’s impeccable silk suit; all the bling he festooned himself with; and his beaded corn rows dangling to his hulking shoulders. OG Larry looked like some kind of model/gangsta rapper hybrid. An interesting disparity, between Larry’s immaculate tailoring and his own thrift store chic and burnt raincoat.

  Larry would have appeared almost respectable if not for his empty, wet unfocused eyes and his huge, black pink-palmed banana fingered hands. Larry didn’t look up at Everett, instead concentrating on the opened kilo of cocaine atop an antique gilt framed mirror, lying next to an Ohaus triple beam scale.

  He used a razor blade to chip off shiny fish scale shaped chunks from the rocky brick. The kilo looked a little light; Everett estimated it as a California Key rather than a regulation 2.2 pounds.

  Larry chopped the pink pebbles of coke into fluffiness and put down the razor blade. With one eyebrow raised Spock style, he proffered a glass straw to Everett.

  Everett shook his head. “Wired from the road.”

  “Always the chatterbox,” Larry said. He shook his head in turn, making the beaded corn rows slither across his shoulders. “No, haystack, I’m just inspecting the merchandise. I’d like your expert opinion.”

  Everett shrugged, dabbed at the rosy pile with a forefinger and tasted it. Very clean; no detectable cut.

  A rolling blastoff happened in Everett’s mouth; the blooming high ensued even through the tissues of his mouth and gums. This was the good shit.

  “Could step on it quite a bit and still make end users happy,” Everett said. “Unless you bake it up into hubba in the microwave?”

  Larry dabbed his own finger full of powder, and rubbed it across his upper and lower gums with two swipes. “You know me, haystack. I’m a wholesaler,” he said, grimacing at the drug’s acrid power. “They want to go to any trouble between themselves and street level, that’s their lookout.”

  Everett grasped a convenient jug of wine off the desk and took a small swallow to rinse the alkaline taste of coke from his numbed mouth. Larry took the bottle from Everett and swilled his own swig. Everett felt hot eyes on him, and aimed a gaze one time only at Larry’s scowling little Lost Boy, still standing in the corner focusing on him.

  The goon was a bony faced banty rooster, wearing baggin’ saggin’ pants over strip mall sneakers. An oversized Derby jacket hung on his emaciated frame like a tent. His tousled mop of dirty blond hair needed either a buzz cut or a brushing.

  He stared at Everett as at an urgent puzzle. Everett looked down and away from the little goon’s gaze. This guy felt some kind of pissing contest was going on.

  The same old rituals, the same decrepit attempts at intimidation. A tension was trying to happen but Everett was here for information. No need to dominate anything or anyone.

  Catching the byplay between the two, Larry grinned. “You guys haven’t met. Allow me to introduce: Everett, Tobias. Tobias, Everett.”

  Minimal nods were exchanged, and Everett escaped Tobias’s grimacing attempt at a staring contest one more time as he returned to studying the hands folded idle in his lap.

  Larry’s eyes twinkled, and he winked at his runty gunsel. “Tobias does the kind of heavy lifting you and Rolly used to, Everett. He’s a real earner. He’s committed to the Lost Boys too, not fence sitters like you douche bags. Yeah, I got to admit I’m making out swell, Tobias is hard working and good at what he does.
”

  Larry flicked a glance Everett’s way. “Not as good as you and Rolly were though. Sure I cain’t talk you into coming out of retirement? Mendo has to be boring as fuck.”

  Everett shook his head. “On the phone you said Rolly wasn’t dead. If it was anyone saying it but you . . .”

  Larry beamed, and Everett got a good gander at his perfect pearly whites, a jarring contrast to that ebony face. “I seen him with my own eyes, bro. Rolly is alive.”

  Larry told him what he needed to know to find Rolly. Everett got up to leave.

  "Wait a sec, haystack,” Larry said, and held up some folding cash. "Happy Holidays. Buy yourself a new raincoat for old time’s sake, huh? That one's shot."

  Everett took the green, accepting Larry’s Christmas present. He gestured toward Larry’s shotgun with his hand full of cash. “Told you before, if it’s not within arm’s reach it’s too far away.”

  Larry was laughing as Everett left. Perhaps he was showing off for his new goon?

  Tobias followed Everett to the Escort, but Everett pretended he didn’t know the little man was behind him until the driver door was open and he was preparing to insert.

  In answer to Everett’s interrogative look Tobias spoke in a rush, as if his words had been pent up inside him. “Larry’s told me all about you; you’re like a legend in the East Bay.”

  “Larry likes to talk.” But the little killer wouldn’t take the hint.

  “There’s people all around the Bay Area, all I gotta do is say your name and they get scared,” Tobias said, his ever present snarl widening even further.

  Up close, the little man smelt of ozone. Everett met his avid stare, knowing now what Larry was grooming him for.

  Tobias wasn’t trying to intimidate per se. He was a fan, he thought he liked Everett. Everett had met such before.

  “As said, retired,” Everett said.

  Chapter 2 : A Harsh Reunion

  Everett picked up a new raincoat at a Hindu run second hand store and chucked the charred one.

  The curb in front of his destination was solid blue, with ‘Handicapped’ signs at both ends of the painted stretch. Wheelchair access ramps led to every door. Not wanting to get towed, Everett found a spot down the block – it was stupid to park right in front anyway, you never knew when commotions might complicate your egress.