Heaven, INC: Chapter 27: FISTS OF DYNAMITE

APARTMENT 522
BUILDING 1,
11:14 A.M. PDT

JIMMY STOOD STARING BACK at the man in the chair, awaiting a response and saying nothing— hell, what would you say if someone’d just watched you pick their lock and walk right in?— so it was a couple seconds before he realized the man’s stillness was due not to coolness but to death. Before he could investigate further, Porkpie was strolling out of the other room with some kind of Nazi-officer’s style hat, saying something in Greek before realizing it wasn’t his partner. Just like that, Porkpie reached to his belt, like he was going for a gun that wasn’t there, and got this startled expression before — POW! — Jimmy hit him with the quick sucker punch he’d learned at La Presa Junior High, sharp and straight up through the chin, and down went Porkpie in an unconscious heap as his hat rolled into the kitchen and across the floor.

Without hesitating, Jimmy scooped up two hats and a hood and dumped them on the far side of the bed and out of sight long enough to risk a quick investigation.

The apartment? Cheesy, beer-poster decor and enough weightlifting equipment to make a penitentiary proud and enough Nikes boxes to stock a shoe store.

The dead guy? Mid-to-late-40s Hispanic male built like a body builder and clad in a shimmery black Adidas warm-up, new Nikes, and slicked black hair gone grey at the temples. Marks on his neck appeared to match a telephone cord over by the window, one of those old school Princess phones from the 80s. There were also cigarette butts and blood that littered the linoleum floor amid smashed remnants of a wooden chair and coiled loops of wire. The footprints stamped in the blood and ashes matched the dead guy’s sneakers Jimmy was willing to bet the bare feet prints would match Mij Poopikov’s; there were also the prints of at least one pair that might be one of the Greeks’. Finally, on a small table were a stout rubber truncheon and a pair of pliers, while across the floor were scattered a dozen various surgeons’ knives.

Jimmy checked his watch before heading back into the bedroom to find Porkpie still out.

In the closet, he found an open garment-bag containing a military uniform that matched the hat Pork Pie had been puzzled by. Rather than the Nazi Death’s Head, the hat and uniform lapels were marked with a diamond-pierced-by-sword design Jimmy didn’t recognize. Unfortunately, before he could investigate further, he heard the front door open. Without hesitation, Jimmy crossed the bedroom, entered the bathroom and stepped into the tub before drawing the shower-curtain quietly closed behind.

Someone calling out: “Dmitri?” A moment, later, in the bedroom, the voice called again, “Dmitri,” followed by something in Greek.

Jimmy’s hand went to his pocket as the bathroom-light was flipped. Just like with Porkpie Hat, there was no pistol —

Son of a bitch . . . The old drunk picked us both.

— and so when he heard the groan in the bedroom, Jimmy yanked the curtain open and hit the second Greek a shot that sent him down almost as hard as Pork Pie, which was good, given that Porkpie was sitting up and rubbing his hatless head on the far side of the bed. He glared at Jimmy and suddenly produced a nasty switchblade apparently missed in the pat-down.

It was time to vamoose.

Before Porkpie could regain his feet, Jimmy was at the front door which he now discovered to be locked by deadbolt, and he could hear Porkpie bellowing in the bedroom as he threw the bolt, so clearly it was a third and unknown Greek who struck from Jimmy behind, and scrambling to his feet, Jimmy discovered it was Spiro, the curious pool-sweeper, now armed with another wicked blade . . .

Did I miss the memo on nasty knife day?

. . . Spiro waving the knife with a little flourish— these Greeks were nothing if not flamboyant— and saying, “You are mine now, carpet cleaner . . . Is time to die, malakas-AHHHHHH!”

It was probably the sweetest thing Jimmy’d ever heard, the pump of a spray bottle before Spiro hit the floor to roll around screaming death threats in Greek.

Jimmy looked over and there was Owen, crouched in a classic shooting stance with a spray bottle held in two hands. Pivoting, he pumped the bottle again and it was Porkpie Hat’s turn to roll around on the floor clawing at his eyes.

Owen explaining, “A light DK solution I mixed for Pearl Necklace's carpet. Useless against the fleas, but for these guys it’s great.”

Spiro tried to rise and Owen gave the bottle another pump.

“Let’s get out of here. As much as Pearl Necklace complained, I ain’t got more than another pump.”