Monsters - Matt Rogers (icecream ebook reader TXT) 📗

end. If we just kill him, then all his fighters — the people he’s brainwashed — are in the wind. We still need to infiltrate, find out who’s beyond salvation, who needs wiping out. So we stick to the plan. We show up tonight. We integrate ourselves with his crew. We go from there.’

King nodded, and that was that.

Game plan set.

There was a long pause, then Mary said, ‘Who are you people?’

Slater couldn’t help himself.

He smirked.

King said, ‘Can you believe we do this for free?’

Part II

40

If Slater thought Hunters Point was barren during the day…

At night, it was a black hole. Closer to the coastline, floodlights illuminated the naval shipyard, but they only served to cast an ethereal glow on the horizon. Along the stretch of road that housed Frankie’s gym, the darkness was all-encompassing. The warehouse’s front doors were still open, and faint light bled out from within, but the surrounding blackness quickly swallowed it.

King pulled into the lot and killed the engine. There were three other cars parked. All old, all having seen better days. A Ford sedan and two Subarus. Slater thought back to Jace’s ride, wondered if all the coaches had bought Subarus together as a group deal.

Hot ocean wind whistled over asphalt as they climbed out.

Before they’d even made it through the doors, Frankie materialised at the front of the reception area.

Blocking the entrance.

They walked right up to him. He didn’t look armed. If he tried to pull a gun on them, it was his own mistake.

The bulbs glowing above and behind him silhouetted his profile. From the front, Slater couldn’t make out his features.

Cloaked in the shadow of the lot, Frankie said, ‘Before you come in, we need to have a talk.’

Slater said, ‘Is that so?’

Frankie turned to King, his shadowy face revealing nothing. ‘I didn’t get the chance to speak with you earlier.’

King said, ‘No, you didn’t.’

‘Your friend mentioned something about a lack of interest in the bright lights.’

King said, ‘We’re happy here. We don’t want attention.’

‘And why’s that?’

King said, ‘Shit that happened in the past.’ Then he added, ‘Allegedly.’

Frankie smiled. ‘Allegedly. One of my favourite words.’

Slater’s stomach turned.

Frankie said, ‘That’s music to my ears, boys. You have your pasts. I’ve got mine. Let’s think of it as…mutually assured destruction.’

Slater took a moment to hold down the anger that wanted to burst its way free. King took advantage. He had the better emotional control. With a face like a brick wall he said, ‘I like that. But it’s got to actually be mutually assured. You tell us your sins, we’ll tell you ours. That way we’ve got dirt on each other forever.’

Frankie’s silhouette hovered, statuesque. ‘You don’t hold the leverage here.’

‘No. But you obviously need our help with something unsavoury, or you never would’ve asked us here.’

A moment of bristling on Frankie’s end. Then, ‘You first.’

Slater had pulled himself together by then. He’d erected mental barriers, whole towers of potential depravity, so he had no qualms jumping in. ‘I’ve been convicted of rape. My friend here has done much worse, but he’s only been caught for aggravated assault and burglary. What about you?’

A glint of teeth as Frankie smiled in the night. ‘Thank you for sharing.’

‘What about you?’ Slater repeated.

‘You’ll find out shortly. But now that I know what kind of men you are…’

Slater tensed up, anticipating some reversal of morality. Frankie Booth, defender of the righteous, sticking up for the victims of sexual assault. Maybe he’d changed his ways after fleeing Boston, and this was all some giant misunderstanding, the name change a genuine attempt to start a new life, turn a new leaf.

Instead Frankie finished with, ‘…I know we’re gonna make a whole lot of money together.’

King said, ‘I like the sound of that.’

‘Come on in.’

He led them into the warehouse. Lightbulbs shone far above the wrestling mats, the space an empty cathedral of old sweat and blood. The fluids were cleaned and the surfaces disinfected, of course, but there’s that unmistakable leftover smell, faint but ever-present. The mats were unpopulated, likely because meeting in such an open area contrasted with the nature of the conversations that were about to take place. Instead, Frankie’s crew milled in the shadows around the suspended bags in the striking zone. The mezzanine floor overshadowed their features, but as King and Slater followed Frankie across the mats they made out the distinct shape of four men.

Two of them they’d never seen before.

The third was Carter Coombs.

The fourth was Danny.

41

King exchanged a silent look with Danny.

It was like the ground had opened up beneath King’s feet. He’d genuinely hoped to guide the kid toward the light. Maybe not from a single conversation’s worth of advice, but if they hung around California for a few days he’d thought about meeting up with the young man, trying to get his head straight. He should’ve realised that there’s certain conditioning that’s nearly impossible to break. Your dad’s a violent brute, you usually end up a violent brute.

So why should it be a surprise that Danny was here, doing this?

Danny sported a similar expression. It said something along the lines of, Don’t meet your idols.

He must’ve thought King, with all his worldly and poignant advice, was above a situation like this.

Evidently not.

So they shared their mutual disappointment as Carter Coombs regarded the new arrivals with a knowing smirk. The other two guys were in their late thirties. They hadn’t been at the morning wrestling practice, which meant they weren’t full-timers. King knew exactly the kind of men they were with a single glance. They both had skin so red it looked permanently sunburned, and maps of bulging veins across their forearms. Their shoulders were swollen, their deltoid muscles disproportionately bigger than the rest of their bodies. The fact they were in their late thirties gave it away, too.

They were over-the-hill fighters.

Tough guys who’d overdone the steroids through their late twenties and early thirties trying to chase the bright lights that, ever so steadily, slipped away from them