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

past the church. During the volatile months dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian’s devastation, Eric — like most who lived on Grand Bahama — had found it hard to appreciate the natural beauty of the flattened island. But the sun still rose on the rubble, every day without fail, and soon enough order was established and people had time to stop and appreciate why they lived here in the first place. But the economic impact lingered — nearly four billion dollars in total damages across the entire archipelago — and that’s when Eric’s morality had wavered. The business he worked in … it thrived on desperate times. It caught momentum when thousands upon thousands of residents who didn’t have insurance couldn’t turn to the banks, so they turned to the sharks. He’d thought about getting out, but once you’re in you can’t get out. So he had to either prey on a vulnerable population or kill himself.

He was weak, and he knew it, so he’d chosen the first option and masked his woes with the heroin. It never failed to blunt those receptors and take him downstream to fantasy land.

He stretched his arms over his head, shook out a few kinks in his neck, then took a final deep breath.

‘Okay,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Gun. Smack. Vince’s place.’

An easy to-do list, all things considered.

He turned to get back in the car.

Two tall men stood on the passenger side, looking over the roof, wide eyes boring into him. They wore tattered tees without sleeves, exposing long sinewy arms. Their faces were hollow, gaunt.

Eric knew them.

Zidane and LaQuan. Local Afro-Bahamian labourers. Rough men, independent contractors fighting to make a living each and every day through gruelling construction gigs, of which there were plenty these days. It was back-breaking work, though, so Eric didn’t blame them for earning a little on the side dealing to him.

He smiled. ‘Speak of the devil. You’re just the two I was looking for.’

They didn’t respond.

A chill crept up his spine.

He turned to the taller of the two and said, ‘Zidane?’

Zidane said, ‘Ya?’

‘Why you standing there like that?’

Zidane shook something off and smiled back. ‘Nothin’, Eric. Watchu want?’

‘Two hits if you’ve got it.’

Zidane said, ‘Yeah, I got that.’

He rounded the trunk to get to Eric’s side of the car, but none of it felt right. The way they’d appeared out of nowhere, their strange silence. They were sick criminals, for sure, but they’d always treated Eric well, never enlightened him as to what else they did on the side.

Eric said, ‘You got a gun, too?’

‘Watchu need a gun for?’ Zidane said.

He stepped right up to him, very close. He probably weighed less than Eric but his frame was larger, all long muscle, no fat.

Eric said, ‘Business.’

‘Well, yar, I gotsa gun,’ Zidane said. ‘You ain’t havin’ it though.’

‘It’s an emergency. I’ll pay good coin.’

Zidane pulled a knife. ‘Someone else paid us betta coin.’

Eric only managed, ‘No,’ before Zidane spun him round like he weighed nothing and cut his throat from left to right.

Arterial blood fountained and Eric watched it spray the pavement beneath him before he collapsed. He stayed lucid just long enough for the terror to strike him.

Oh, no, he thought. I’m dead.

Then he was.

Zidane shoved his corpse back into the car, where blood kept spraying, coating the interior. The labourer reached into the back pocket of Eric’s jeans and pulled out a logbook.

He held it up for LaQuan to see. ‘Jackpot, ey? We gon’ get paid.’

His friend grinned from ear to ear.

They manhandled Eric’s corpse across the rear seats. Zidane got behind the wheel and LaQuan took the passenger seat.

They ignored the blood and drove the hatchback out of the lot.

1

Las Vegas

Nevada

A good old-fashioned stakeout.

The perfect opportunity to discuss what their chaotic schedules hadn’t yet allowed them to.

Jason King had the passenger seat, and Will Slater had the driver’s. The vehicle itself — a tiny Toyota Yaris hatchback coated in fake rust and grime — was a chameleon in the wreckers’ yard, skewered into the base of a towering pile. Its vantage point allowed them to overlook the unincorporated community of Arden without anyone being the wiser. The bitumen a few dozen feet in front of them was riddled with squad cars belonging to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. More importantly, the property across the street sported yellow police tape around its perimeter, a cordon erected in the aftermath of a bloody shootout one week prior. All bodies had been removed, but investigators were still combing through the warehouse for forensic evidence.

It was an important crime scene.

After all, unknown assailants had gunned down the ex-Clark County Sheriff, Keith Ray.

The real question was what he’d been doing all the way out here, surrounded by the bodies of dishonourably discharged veterans with extensive rap sheets, in possession of laptops and files that implicated him in the facilitation of a sex trafficking empire.

And who had massacred them all?

None of the grimier details had hit the news cycle yet. King doubted they ever would — it would go unreported and unaddressed. The force didn’t have to be inherently evil to suppress implications of corruption. They might not have been involved, but it was their reputations on the line. That’s the whole reason deceit spreads like wildfire in the first place.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

King recalled an old quote he’d read somewhere. He’d never forget it. He’d never read anything truer.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

King said, ‘You think we left prints?’

Slater said, ‘I was gloved. You were gloved. We’re good.’

King chewed absent-mindedly on a stick of gum and sighed as he watched LVMPD officers mill out front. ‘I just wish we made it back here in time.’

‘Nothing we can do about it,’ Slater said. ‘They were lightning fast with the cordon. We were here at six a.m. the next morning, and the tape was already up.’

‘You think it’s normal they’ve had it on twenty-four hour guard