The Storm Giants

by Pearce Hansen

PEARCE HANSEN
Born in SF in the 50s into a train wreck of a family, the subject under discussion came up in Oakland in the 70s and then traveled widely, misspending his youth careening from one terror-in-retrospect abortive learning experience to the next. Cab driver, bouncer, kick boxer, Marine: all the stereotypical noir writer's breeding grounds apply here. Has seen most of the continents, and is not nearly as dysfunctional as his writing might seem to imply. His debut novel, Street Raised, will be published by PointBlank Press in 2006.
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"The life of man upon earth is a warfare . . ."
-- Job 7:1

So here and now it was the nighttime, a week before Christmas and Everett was on his way down to the Bay Area to see Larry – and maybe Rolly too if Larry wasn’t a liar. Even though Everett was deep in the piney woods between townships he’d been driving with one eye focused on the rear view mirror for a while: he apparently wasn’t driving fast enough and the car behind him kept climbing up his ass on every curve, tailgating him as if in too much of a hurry to care about something as unimportant as survival.

Sure enough, on one nasty hairpin, all of a sudden the headlights of the car behind veered to the left and off the road.

Everett was leaning on the brakes even as the car in his rear view shot across the shoulder and plunged down the slope out of sight. As this was a winding mountainous stretch of Highway 101, he knew there wasn't much to stop that car from jouncing all the way down to slam into the river a hundred feet below.

Everett scuffed the Escort to a halt on the shoulder, but just sat there for a second. Julie wasn’t with him, but she wouldn’t let him drive away, wouldn’t let him make the smart move and keep rolling.

Everett opened his door and got out, went around his car to the shoulder and looked over the edge. The rear end of the ex-tailgater’s auto was only about ten feet down. It had struck a rock outcropping nose first and now it stood almost vertically on its crumpled front end, spared the full drop. The headlights illuminated the tree tops below, and the red taillights beamed up to dazzle him a little. He could smell gas even from where he stood, up out of the equation.

Tufts of grass and scrawny bushes provided adequate handholds as Everett slid down the steep slope, reached the car's rear end, and moved down the side of the car to stand on the outcropping. He peered inside the broken passenger window, one hand shielding his eyes from the running light’s glare.

The child seat looked as if a giant beast had mauled it. There was a baby strapped into it hanging down suspended in the belts. Everett brushed chunks of safety glass away and stuck his head and shoulders through the opening, knocking crushed Christmas presents aside that had spilled over from the garish tinseled heap of them in the backseat. Everett’s hands 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 red smear. Everett’s own face went a little blanker than he usually kept it, it felt like congealing paste up there on the front of his skull as he held the baby to his chest and turned away from the car.

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

Everett had almost reached the shoulder when the car finally went up in a roaring fireball and he dove him through the air until he slammed against the ground. Everett made sure he turned onto his side as he hit to protect the baby, and then he scrambled the rest of the way over the top of the slope away from the rapidly increasing heat of the flames. The back of Everett’s coat was on fire and he swam the backstroke in the dirt until he decided the flames were extinguished.

He’d held onto the baby this whole time. Now, still lying on his back, Everett held it up above him to inspect it in the light of the burning car. Its eyes were closed and it was unresponsive, but there was no blood or obvious trauma. Everett held it up next to his ear and heard a tiny heartbeat, steady and strong.

An eighteen-wheeler was pulling up to a stop as Everett inserted into the Escort with the baby, but he was in even less of a mood than usual to talk right now. Everett knew there was a large town just up the road, and it was a given that this baby needed a hospital soonest, it wasn’t a hypothesis. A sullen funeral pyre rose from the wreck and backlit the Escort as it sped away into the night.

It was always disturbing to stand out, but now Everett ignored the speed limit as he squealed the Escort around the curves in the mountain road, the four-cylinder economy engine opening up to the point of abuse. Everett’s driving was lead foot tonight as he pushed it into the curves but there was no help for that.

"It's all right," Everett said, he assumed to the unconscious infant lying on the floorboards in front of the shotgun seat. "Everything will be all right."

Up ahead was a big lit-up sign pointing off-highway to the local hospital, and Everett barreled the Escort down the off-ramp, sparks scraping from the compact’s frame as it bottomed out of the exit. A volunteer fire truck warbled past the Escort, going the other way toward the highway with its trouble lights spilling out into the night as it ran. A police roller was on the fire truck’s butt, but the roller instantly peeled off and bootlegged around to tail Everett – the datum wasn’t really one Everett could respond to in the current situation.

Everett didn't slacken speed even when the hospital came in sight; the Escort fish-tailed its course into the parking lot, the little car doing its best impression of being a grownup NASCAR racer with the black-and-white right behind it.

Everett skidded to a stop by the ER loading ramp, grasped the baby in what he’d learned to be proper useful fashion and rounded the car. The automatic doors slid open to allow them entrance.

Everett had been in enough hospitals and emergency rooms to know most people found it preferable not to be there. Pain and fear seemed to hang in the air like a cloud, almost overwhelming the reek of medicine – Everett always imagined illness glued to the walls by the industrial paint, or hovering invisible in the air waiting for prey. There was usually blood too, but he hadn’t let that bother him much in a long time.

"Hurt child here," Everett said, and the ER staff exploded into action. The infant was plucked gently from Everett’s grasp and then wheeled away on a gurney, fast. Medical personnel surrounded the baby like court attendants as the gurney turned a corner and vanished from Everett's sight. Everett’s eyes lit on a bedraggled Christmas tree in the corner of the ER waiting room.

"You'll need to fill out some paper work," the nurse at the desk said, rummaging some forms into a pile. She looked up just in time to see the charred back of Everett's coat as Everett walked out the exit.

The patrol car outside had a big "K-9" printed on the side. Everett almost came to a halt upon exiting the doors: the cop and his police dog were standing right next to the Escort. The cop turned towards Everett as Everett approached.

"Heel, Jake," the cop ordered, and his four-legged partner obeyed. Now both law dogs were giving Everett their undivided attentions.

The cop was wearing mirror shade sunglasses even though it was nighttime, and Everett could see his own face reflected in them, said visage sallow from the sodium glare of the parking lot’s lights. Everett pretended the reflection belonged to someone else.

The Escort’s registration was legit. For his own person, Everett had all the right papers faked up good enough to stand for a cursory database check. He risked looking the cop directly in the face, radiating harmlessness, his empty hands politely at his sides and in full view.

But the police dog at least could obviously smell the stink of Outlaw on him – Jake began to growl, his lips rippling back into a white-toothed snarl.

The cop was playing it as fake as Everett was, but Everett could feel the Man’s tension in the way he stood. They knew each other on sight, there were volumes of information being exchanged between the two men without a word being spoken, without them ever having met before. The cop’s badge gleamed, and his hand was nonchalantly near his pistol butt.

"Heel," the cop ordered his partner again. Jake stopped growling and licked his lips with a strangled whine. "The driver's dead, sir. I just heard it on the radio in case you're interested."

The cop started back toward his patrol car, seeming to be exposing his back deliberately – a dangerous move, but boldly respectful, Everett thought appreciatively. Without turning, the cop called out "Good job on the kid, friend. Merry Christmas, eh?" The dog Jake favored Everett with an evil look over its shoulder as the two ambled away.

The cop waved dismissal from inside his roller and Jake glared at Everett from the passenger seat. Everett waved back at the two-legged cop, and made himself favor Jake with some playfully bared teeth of his own, as if they were all buddies here.

"Merry Christmas," Everett called out in a jovial voice to both law dogs, going for a boisterous, careless tone, acting like he bought into the idea of some kind of truce.

The cop had to be playing with him of course, that was a given. Everett did a careful walk-around inspection of the Escort, making sure the cop hadn’t knocked out a taillight to give himself PC to pull Everett over later, making sure the cop hadn’t peeled off the registration sticker. Everett wasn’t riding dirty, the car was clean – but this particular Man knew he was Wrong. It would be a hassle to wrangle with this cop alone in the piney woods, where Everett could ‘resist arrest’ away from any pesky witnesses.

As far as Everett could see the cop hadn’t messed with the car. Everett started the engine, and glanced in the rear view mirror as the Escort left the parking lot: the cop was still sitting there in his car, watching as Everett drove away. He wasn’t even running the plates on his radio – maybe that baby had actually bought Everett a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card with this guy.

If there’d been an alternate route, Everett would’ve jogged over onto it after drawing attention to himself like that. But 101 in Mendocino was a single corridor through this stretch of Northern California mountains. There was nowhere to go but north and south, and there was no way Everett would turn back towards home. No way would Everett ever lead potential trouble to his family.

It was dawn when he reached Richmond, and Everett stopped at a pay phone to call up the hospital where he’d taken the baby. When Everett confessed he was the guy who'd brought the baby in, they violated HIPAA privacy enough to say that the kid was okay, that she’d be just fine. Her name was Cindy.

Everett was smiling after the hang up – it made his cheeks creak, as it wasn’t an expression he wore often. Everett drove the rest of the way in to Hayward without incident.

His destination was off West ‘A’ Street, near the Hayward Air Terminal. The garage doors shut behind the Escort as soon as he drove through. That same old sign hung on the wall, giving the command to all who entered 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.

Some of Larry’s Lost Boys were lounging about as Everett exited the Escort; about a dozen young males of various races, playing cards or sitting around on benches like hotel bellhops awaiting the ding of the front desk service bell. A couple that he knew slightly gave him respectful nods which he returned. The newer ones just eyed him warily or avoided acknowledging him at all.

Larry was an O.G. who ran his cliqua of Lost Boys like a benevolent tyrant. He made a big deal of how well he took care of his Boys, but Everett had noted more than once just what a high turnover there was in the Lost Boys’ ranks; these were disposable guys, too anonymous and interchangeable for Everett even to focus on any of them specifically as individuals. The door was always open to new recruits, however; all they had to do was walk in and do whatever Larry told them. The Lost Boys were a barrel full of monkeys, on call to Larry’s pleasure, as obedient as any wage earning Citizens.

Everett walked into the office and sat down in front of Larry's bottle-crowded desk, doing his best to occupy as little space as possible in the seat, withdrawing into self. Larry’s scales collection was proudly displayed on a series of shelves on the wall behind the desk. Larry’s personal museum contained dozens of the weighing tools, ranging from antiques with brass weights, through 70s triple-beams, all the way up to the high-tech digital ones.

One of Larry's Lost Boys stood in the corner of the office, a wiry little hand-grenade of a dude with his teeth bared in a high-voltage snarl, but most of Everett's attention was on Larry: he admired Larry’s impeccable silk suit, all the bling he festooned himself with, his beaded corn rows dangling to his shoulders. O.G. Larry looked like some kind of GQ model/gangsta rapper hybrid.

Everett had no temptation to buy clothes like that for himself; his outfits had a habit of getting stained, ripped and generally destroyed, so he didn’t waste money pretending otherwise. He imagined there might be an interesting contrast between Larry’s immaculate tailoring and his own thrift store chic, though.

Larry put on a display of distraction, as if too busy to greet even though he was the one who’d arranged this meeting. He didn’t look up at Everett, instead concentrating on the broken open duct-tape-wrapped kilo of cocaine lying on the desk in front of him as he used a razor blade to chip out lines from it. The brick of coke looked a little eyeball-light to Everett, he estimated it was probably a California Key rather than a regulation 2.2 pounds.

Larry would have appeared almost respectable if not for his empty, wet unfocused eyes and his huge, black pink-palmed banana-fingered hands; the kind of hands that were a Klansman’s worst nightmare, and (of course) the secret fantasy of all racist white women.

Larry was a merchant, not a committed predator – he preferred to let others do the dirty work, preferred to inflict his will on the world through commerce. He could’ve been a CEO, a Fortune 500 exec if things had gone differently for him – but Larry didn’t seem to regret any of the choices he’d made, he was happy just as he was. O.G to the Lost Boys: the only title that Larry had ever seemed to need.

Everett had known the older Larry since he was a kid. They’d done enough business together that Everett almost trusted Larry (even if he’d never turn his back all the way on his greedy home boy). They might have even liked each other a little bit, at least as much as biz would allow.

Everett watched sidelong as Larry lined up pink-tinged rows of coke on the little antique gilt-framed mirror lying flat and horizontal on the table. With a raised eyebrow, Larry put down the razor blade and proffered a glass straw to Everett.

Everett shook his head. "Already wired from the road."

"Same old motor mouth Everett," Larry snorted as he shook his head right back. "No, haystack, I’m just inspecting the merchandise. I’d like your expert opinion."

Everett dabbed at one of the flaky rose-colored lines with his forefinger and tasted it. Very clean, no detectable cut. A minor blastoff happened in Everett’s mouth; a small, blooming high ensued even through the tissues of his mouth and gums. Everett decided that this was the good shit.

"Could step on it quite a bit and still make the end users happy," Everett surmised, obliging Larry’s request for feedback. "Unless you bake it up into slabs of 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, bro – I’m a wholesaler," he said, grimacing as he felt the drug’s acrid power in his turn. "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 the coke from his numbed mouth – he resented the alcohol, but it was the only potable fluid available to make use of. Larry took the bottle from Everett’s hand and swilled his own swig, not objecting to the alcohol at all.

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 and Larry as if listening to an important, educational conversation. The little goon was bony faced, wearing baggin saggin pants over name-brand strip-mall sneakers, with a baggy Derby jacket that hung on his emaciated frame like a tent. He had a tousled mop of dirty blonde hair that looked like it could use either a trim or a brushing – he was staring at Everett intently as if trying to solve an urgent puzzle, wearing his snarl like he thought it impressive.

Everett looked back away from the little goon’s gaze as if in submission. This little man seemed to feel there was some kind of pissing contest going on. The same old rituals, the same attempts at intimidation – there was a tension trying to happen here, but Everett wouldn’t let it in. Everett was only here for information – no need to overcome anything or anyone.

Catching the byplay between the two men, Larry’s eyes twinkled. "You two haven’t met. Allow me to introduce: Everett, Tobias. Tobias, Everett."

Tobias and Everett exchanged minimal nods, and Everett escaped Tobias’s grimacing attempt at a staring contest one more time.

"Tobias does the kind of work you and Rolly used to do, Everett – he’s a real earner. He’s committed to the Lost Boys too, not some fickle independent like you two were. Yeah, I got to admit I’m making out swell, Tobias’s hard working and good at what he does," Larry said, then flicked a sly glance Everett’s way. "Not as good as you were, though. Sure I can’t talk you into coming out of retirement? Mendocino has to be boring as fuck."

Everett shook his head, deciding it was time to cut to the chase anyway. "On the phone you said Rolly was still alive. If it were anyone saying it but you . . ."

Everett wanted to believe this one, had been acting under the assumption that it was truth – still, it was certainly a hard story to swallow.

Rolly and Everett had been crime partners and best friends since back in the day, the only man Everett had ever trusted all the way. But then Everett had retired and moved to Mendocino to play Green Acres with his woman Julie and their son Raymond. Rolly had stayed on in the Life trying to work single-o as a one-stick, doing the dirty deeds alone. On Rolly’s last job, one of his house full of marks had unloaded into him with a twelve-gauge pump and the Man had pronounced Rolly DOA at the scene.

The knowledge that Rolly had killed everyone in the house on the way down was a pleasant datum. With Julie and Raymond to look out for, the vanity of a vengeance spree would have cost Everett dearly. He would have done it though. Oh yes, he would have gone off heavily if any of the bastards had survived Rolly’s visit. People would have regretted his attentions – they would have met the Storm Giants.

But now Larry was beaming at Everett, and Everett got a good gander at Larry’s perfect pearly whites, a jarring contrast to his ebony face. "I seen him with my own eyes, bro. Rolly is alive."

Larry was enjoying Everett’s expression; he’d known Everett long enough to be able to read Everett’s face pretty good no matter how blank Everett tried to play it – not automatically a good thing for someone like Larry to know you that well, Everett reflected.

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

"Everett," Larry called out, and held up some money his way. "Happy Holidays, bro. Buy yourself a new coat, huh? That one's shot."

After a moment Everett took the green, accepted Larry’s Christmas present. 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’s door was open and Everett 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 awaiting this golden opportunity. "Larry’s told me all about you, you’re like a legend in the East Bay."

"Larry likes to talk," Everett said quietly, but the little killer didn’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 at the prospect of people being afraid.

Everett studied the little man more closely, meeting his avid stare fully for the first time, taking the time to look inside him a little. Tobias wasn’t trying to intimidate, Everett decided. He was a fan, he thought he liked Everett. Everett had met such before.

"As said, retired now," Everett said, polite but final.

After he’d driven the Escort out of the garage Everett looked up at the clear blue morning sky, and all around at the Christmas decorations inflicting the street lights and road signs.

Somehow his thoughts went back to that little baby on the highway last night. Would the Christmas season have the same meaning to baby Cindy it seemed to have for other people when she got older?

Everett kept driving: things to see, people to do.

###

Copyright © 2006 Pearce Hansen

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