Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

entranceway and stepped out into a balmy Bahamian evening. The temperature was perfect, the sea breeze even more so. It would be a beautiful night. Lyla might even get that chill she always hoped for, enough to stoke a small fire and curl up in one of the armchairs.

Slater’s own fire was burning.

Then they spotted him.

A man across the street — caramel skin, dark hair, black eyes. Despite the warmth he wore a black leather jacket, dark jeans and boots.

Not Vince.

But he might as well have been.

Slater hadn’t asked whether Walcott’s mobsters had intimidated the Barrows at their home, but now he knew. The guy was mid-stride, making to cross the road. A beeline for Teddy and Lyla’s front door. A hostile beacon in a leafy neighbourhood. He stood out like a flashing light.

When he saw King and Slater, he stopped walking and cocked his head.

Slid a hand into one of the jacket’s deep pockets.

King and Slater saw him in unison.

‘We can’t be helping them,’ Slater whispered. ‘We can’t implicate them.’

King nodded.

They strode for the guy like they were jacked up with anger.

He stood his ground.

40

Slater walked right up to the guy — he was several inches taller and able to look down on him — and said, ‘Who are you?’

Like he was offended.

Like the mere presence of a rival was infuriating.

The guy’s hand stayed in his pocket. He wasn’t going to pull his piece with four hundred plus pounds of muscle looming over him. He might kill one of them before they got their hands on him, but not both. Then he’d get broken by two hundred pounds of rage, whichever way he went.

He fired back. ‘Who are you?’

Slater said, ‘You got no right asking us that.’

The guy was perplexed. ‘What?!’

‘We asked you a question,’ King said.

‘And I asked you one,’ the guy said. ‘You their friends? You think you’re doing the right thing by getting in the way of this?’

Then the guy got a cocky smirk on his face.

He thought he knew something they didn’t.

Slater said, ‘We look like their friends?’

‘Only explanation,’ the guy said. ‘You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to. Or who I represent.’

‘Dylan Walcott?’ Slater said. ‘The little bitch who has to send runts to do his dirty work? That’s who you represent?’

Now the guy wasn’t so sure.

He didn’t know how to retort.

King said, ‘That’s what we think of your boss. Now, ask yourself, what do we think of you?’

The guy flapped his lips.

Slater said, ‘You’re lower than scum, and now you’re standing on our turf.’

The guy mustered some semblance of courage, which was impressive considering he’d come here to make a few vague threats to an elderly couple, not verbally defend himself against a pair of towering pitbulls.

He said, ‘You got a rival operation going or something? That’s what this is? A challenge?’

King said, ‘That’s right.’

The guy said, ‘I’d like you both to think long and hard about what you’re starting. You get any money out of them?’

Slater smirked. ‘Those two geriatrics? You think we give a shit about them? They’ve got pennies to their name. They’re one stop on a long tour of the neighbourhood. We found some logbook, so we’re cleaning house.’

King said, ‘Send that message to your boss.’

‘Get out of here,’ the guy said. ‘Before you do something you regret.’

Slater said, ‘He doesn’t get it.’

King said, ‘He needs to get it.’

Slater said, ‘How can we help him understand?’

King knew the guy was clutching his gun for dear life inside that jacket pocket. Maybe even had a finger inside the trigger guard, but there was no chance the barrel was pointed at them behind the leather. There was no bulge, nothing hard poking against the material. So King stepped in and smacked him with a clean uppercut on the outside of the pocket. He knew he’d be hitting a gun with bare knuckles, but the leather was expensive and sturdy enough to act as makeshift padding. So King followed through with more force than he usually would in these circumstances.

Two snaps emanated from the pocket. A pair of fingers, crunched at an awkward angle, breaking like glass. But King hit like a truck, so that wasn’t all that happened. The whole amalgamation of broken fingers and metal drove into the guy’s ribcage. On the left side, where the liver was. It wasn’t a clean hit, but you don’t need a clean hit. You just need a ridiculous amount of power and a mean follow-through.

King had both.

His insides seizing, his hand screaming for relief, the mobster collapsed in the middle of the street. He made to take his hand out of his pocket, but Slater didn’t think it was prudent to risk that, because you can still shoot a gun with three fingers. So as soon as the guy hit the asphalt Slater kicked him in the same pocket. Full contact, holding nothing back. There was another snap.

The guy screamed and rolled away from them, curling into a ball, offering no retaliation.

A physical submission if they’d ever seen one.

King said, ‘We’re going to the next name on the list. Hopefully they have more than a few dollars. Tell your boss that.’

‘And make sure you include how terrified you were,’ Slater said. ‘How tough we were, how much you screamed, how little you want to see us again. How you’re considering booking the next flight out of the country just to scrub the thought of our faces out of your mind. Make sure all that gets in there.’

‘Make it entertaining,’ King said. ‘Spin a tale, would you?’

They left him there on the street.

He wouldn’t go into the Barrow homestead. He wouldn’t give them a second thought. Because they weren’t the priority anymore — that prize went to the two rampaging lunatics who somehow had access to a logbook. He didn’t need to know the logbook didn’t exist.

They became silhouettes down the road, and then did what they did best.

They vanished.

41

Violetta watched the sun go down with a lump in her throat.

She