11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Chewing on what he’d discovered, he was angry, so instead of going off on the lot of them, as was his first instinct, he took a walk in the city.
As he turned the corner onto a street that wasn’t heavily populated, he almost tripped over a man that was sitting with his legs sticking out, showing his dirt-crusted pants for the world to see.
He looked up, red eyes pleading, and his voice was nothing more than a raspy whimper. “Help out a guy?”
Liam finally had some money, and though he knew the man would likely drink anything Liam could give him, he crouched to the man and said, “How about I buy you a meal and rent you a motel room for the night, so you can take a shower and feel human again?”
As the man blinked quickly, the words settling into his booze-addled mind, Liam saw the smile that looked tired and ravaged. “I don’t know if I’d recognize that feeling.”
“I’ve been where you are, man. Sometimes a shower can remind you quicker than anything that you’re part of this…sometimes fucked up…human race.”
He got a nod and Liam stood, helping the man to his feet. Down the road was a motel with a fast-food hamburger joint next to it. After paying for the room, Liam let the man into the door, knowing if the manager saw the homeless man, he’d likely rescind the room and make the guy leave.
After running for a bag of burgers and a couple of tall fountain sodas, he found the guy was already in the shower, singing. From that raspy voice to one with much more strength, Liam knew he was remembering he wasn’t some animal looking for a hole to spend the night.
He left the food and the keycard, and a few dollars besides on the little table, then left and started back on his journey.
Heading in no particular direction, Liam again let it all swirl around his head. They were a crew. It made sense, after all, to bring in guys, give them a great front like the bar, let them do their moonlighting on nice fat paying jobs.
The thing was, he wasn’t against it. He’d done time for it, sure, but he guessed that the reason they were feeling him out first was to avoid guys like the one that got him busted.
Snitches.
There were a lot of them out in the world. Anything to get off their own beefs. When the heat started getting close, bam, they’d sell their own mothers out for a chance to stay out of jail.
That wasn’t him. No, he didn’t like being inside. In fact, he’d hated it, but he couldn’t live with himself if he’d have turned around and gave up the guys up the food chain.
Still…he was getting used to the idea of being a civilian, doing a civilian job that paid well and wouldn’t get him into trouble with the law.
Liam never thought about being a bad guy. He didn’t think he was. He knew bad and that was his dad. The man that had pushed a sick-minded woman into having a ton of kids, even though each one got her sicker. Then, after her and four of them were gone, he’d found another woman who was all religious and wanted what he did, to repopulate the fucking earth, or whatever the bible told them to do.
Liam had heard from an old friend that he had three new little sisters. He’d likely never meet them, and that was okay, too.
“Get him! He went behind that dumpster,” Liam heard someone say and he heard the scrambling of feet.
Fearing someone was being bullied, he rushed into the alley and saw three young teens pulling a dumpster away from the brick side wall of the bakery.
No human could fit behind there, so Liam figured it was a rat. He had little sympathy for those, but still, the fear it must feel…
Like his brothers and sisters, all feeling the poison tearing at their insides. Burning their throats, making their blood run cold…
As if Liam’s feet were working on their own, he hurried to the dumpster and placed his hand on it, keeping the thing from being pulled farther away from the wall. He glared hatefully at the boys, daring them to argue with him.
“What are you trying to get to?”
The older one, short dark hair and dark eyes, moved a step in front of his two blond friends. “It’s just a stupid stray cat. What do you care?”
A cat. Liam’s heart pounded in his chest so hard it hurt. He felt his throat filling with stones, his eyes swimming in hot, stinging tears. “And…and w-what do you plan to do to it?”
The two blond kids ran past him out of the alley, but the little fucker with the dark eyes continued to stare. “Kill it. What do you care?”
“You need to get the fuck out of this alley, or the beating you were going to give that cat is the one you’re going to get.”
Unsure, he took a step back…looking away, then he looked back at Liam and shouted, “Fuck you, boomer!”
Liam shook his head as he heard the boy’s shoes slapping on the bricks. He relaxed a little, but then he heard a forlorn meow from under the dumpster, so he kneeled on the dirty bricks to look, and the cat came out, instantly rubbing against his knees in a show of…gratitude?
“Hi,” Liam said through the stones in his throat.
It was a Siamese, young, maybe six months old. His little face turned up to Liam, and he meowed again.
The way Liam’s tears fell, the way he was smiling, it made no sense to him. The cat…he’d always wanted a cat. Or a dog. Any pet, but his parents constantly said no, that they had enough mouths to feed. It didn’t stop them from popping out kids, but a cat would have eaten them out of house and home.
“You…you don’t have a home either, do you? You don’t have a family either?”
The cat moved onto his lap and crawled up to rub his head against Liam’s chin.
Liam stood with the animal in his arms, and tears continued to fall. “I don’t even know if Murphy allows cats, but I have some leverage. Let’s go home.”
The cat was purring wildly, curled up in his arms like he’d been born there. Liam walked out of that alley, ready to take on the world, defend the cat with his life, if necessary. The cat…a damn cat, had suddenly made everything so clear.
He got back to the pub and walked right through the front door. Murphy and Haze were behind the bar and there were only two patrons sitting on the stools in front of them.
Murphy’s eyes went right to the cat, and he opened his mouth to ask or state something, but Liam beat him to it. “He’s mine now. I’ll ask around about the owners, in case he’s lost, but he’s skinny and probably got dumped off somewhere, so I’m keeping him. We have some things to discuss, so would you and the others meet me in the basement in an hour? In the meeting room ,” he said and stared right into Murphy’s eyes.
Murphy didn’t blink, but his eyes widened as he heard Haze whisper, “Oh shit.”
Up to the third floor he went via the back stairs, and he put the cat into his room, then searched around the kitchen, finding a lone can of tuna in one cabinet.
He got a small bowl, filled it with water, opened the tuna and shook it out onto a plate and took it to his room where he sat them down near the dresser and called the cat over.
Like he hadn’t eaten in days, he chowed down on the food, purring the entire time so loudly, that Liam had to laugh.
“I guess you were hungry. And you either like tuna, or don’t care what you eat.”
There was extra bedding, including a pillow, on the closet's top shelf, so Liam got a sheet and folded it, placing it over the pillow. “There’s a bed until I get back up here. I’ll be back, okay? I promise not to leave you alone unless I have to.”
When Liam stood, he got the card and slid it into his pocket, then watched the cat cleaning his face after his meal. Liam gently picked him up and set him on the pillow, petting him until he fell to sleep, purring and yawning the entire time.
“You know,” he whispered, “around here we all get weird nicknames. I guess you’re gonna be called…” Thinking of all the drinks he’d recently been studying, he wanted everyone to know the cat belonged to him, to know that absolutely. Liam knew in that second, the cat would have a red collar, and he’d be named after a red drink.
He thought over all the drinks, their weird names, and then one of the simpler came to him. “Strawberry Daiquiri! How’s that? Daiq, for short.”
When he left his room, he steeled himself for the confrontation he was about to have. He was a lone man with a lot of others that could probably kill him and get rid of the body without breaking a sweat. Still, he had to do it. He was a scrapper; he’d been told all his life that his first instinct was to fight. Sometimes, however, fighting without using his fists might work better.
In the basement, no one was there yet, which is why he’d gone early. He went into the secret room and sat at the top of the long table, ready to watch them all walking into the room through the secret door.
It wasn’t long before the door swung open and he saw Murphy’s head poking through the opening. “Hey,” he said, dejectedly.
Once he was fully inside, the others filed in after him, like a mother duckling and her babies swimming behind her.
They were all there, including Eazy and Tally. Mick must be babysitting the kids, he thought.
They all stared at him, scared, but no one said a word. They were all seated, some with their hands on the table, others hiding them under it, but few were still. Almost all of them fidgeted and tried to look away from him.
“So, you found these rooms,” Murphy started. “I hope you know we had good reasons for hiding them.”
“Oh, sure. I saw the list. You all must make a ton of money, and not just from the pub.”
Eazy spoke next, in a smooth, diplomatic way, “Cosmo, we’re sorry if you’re hurt over this, but we don’t tell anyone right away, and I’m sure you can guess why.”
Liam held up both hands and said, “Listen, I’m not in here for some gotcha moment. I get it. I got busted by a snitch, so I get why you all would worry about that. In fact, here is my peace treaty.” Taking the card from his pocket, he slid it down to Murphy, who grabbed it off the table while everyone stared on anxiously. “What is it, Paps?” Mims asked.
“From that fucking fed,” he spat. “Damn him.”
“It made no sense to me until I found this place. He’s after you?”
Goldie answered, “He’s been after us a long time. He can’t figure out how we’re doing it. But he knows, and frankly, we don’t know how he does.”
“From Scorpion’s death,” Murphy whispered.
Liam stared at him as he asked, “One of you died?”
It was Eazy that answered, “He was a great guy. He was from Tennessee, beautiful, but a little reckless. He took too many chances one night, and a guard shot him. The police followed his timeline to discover he’d worked here since he’d gotten out of prison, and, well, they know he wasn’t acting alone. We’ve not done a job since.”
“There’s a list on that board of a bunch of them.”
Murphy said, “Yeah, that list has been there for almost a year. We’ve talked it over so many times. It’s insane, but none of us had the heart to start up again until recently.”
Mims spoke then, and his voice cracked with deep emotion. “He was the sweetest guy. It took the wind out of our sails, but it also scared us. None of us want to go back to prison, but Paps planned for that, too.”
“What plan?”
Murphy answered, “I met a guy who can do passports for us all, paperwork for our travels if we need to pick up and leave. It’s a last resort, but it’s needed.”
As he looked around the room, into each sad and sullen face, he said boldly, “Then have him make me one, too.”
A collective sigh could be heard loudly and Tally laughed a little. “Liam, honey, you had us nervous.”
“Good! But let me tell you all something. I’m not a snitch. Even if I get busted, I won’t say a word. But I have some things I need.”
Nodding, Eazy said, “You’re not the first to make a few demands.”
“I have a cat. He stays, unless he’s got an owner looking for him.”
“Done,” Tally said. “What else?”
He didn’t know how to phrase it, exactly, but he asked a simple question and saw the truth immediately. “Do you know about my family?”
Every eye in the room found other things to stare at besides looking in his direction. The only one with balls enough to answer was funnily enough the only woman in the group. “Yes, Liam, dear. We know. Again, we had to know, in case…”
“Yeah. I get it. You all are close and I’m the odd man out, so you had to know if I’d be close to you, too. I’ll be honest. I don’t know if I have that in me. So far, I like all of you, but for now, you are coworkers and maybe, someday, friends. That’s all I can promise. If that’s a deal breaker, then send me somewhere else and I’ll go and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
More sighs of relief, and Abs jumped out of his chair after pushing it back and they all grimaced at the horrible sound of the metal legs scooting across concrete.
Abs went to him, hugging him around the neck. “We’ll be friends. I know we will!”
Liam took the hug and smiled a little. “Thanks, Abs.” He told Abs and the others, “I have something else. One more thing I’ll insist on.”
Abs backed away from him, but asked, “What’s that?”
He swallowed and looked around at the waiting faces, all tense with the anticipation of what he could ask. He didn’t make them wait long. “Now and then, we do something good for people. I’m guessing, if you haven’t done a job in a year, you all were pretty well off enough not to be desperate. Maybe we can help around the neighborhood, or…whatever.”
“My god,” Goldie said, laughing. “He wants us to be a mafia.”
“Excuse me?” Liam said, half with humor and half with horror.
Murphy explained, “That’s how the mafia started, Liam. They didn’t get police to help them in their neighborhoods, so they did it, and they…collected favors. They also did it so the people of the neighborhood would keep their secrets.”
“Not just mafia,” Hippy pointed out. “Other kinds of criminals, like Frank and Jesse James.”
“Lord, Hippy, I knew that movie was a bad idea,” Haze groaned.
“Well! It’s true!”
Liam laughed with them but watched Murphy for an answer. Murphy gave it with no hesitation. “That’s a good idea, Cosmo. The neighborhood, though, is mostly gentrified now, but down the street, there are plenty of people who could use some help.”
Liam didn’t tell them, but he’d met one that very day.
“We don’t just have to throw money around,” Mims stated. “We could help with gangs, with other thieves that steal from the people that have little to steal. We know some of them, and they already hate us.”
Murphy excitedly clapped his hands together. “Good! Well, with that out of the way, how about we take advantage of this time and have a meeting?”
“I thought we were doing that,” Hippy said. “Like, aren’t we in the meeting room, like…meeting?”
“Shut up, Hippy,” Tally said, laughing. “I’ll go and I’ll take Eazy with me. My father will have fed the kids a pound of sugar each.”
“God, you’re right,” Eazy said, and they both hurried out of the secret room.
Haze started by saying, “The job we can do first is the Maxfield Parrish Job. It took me a while, but I got his paint strokes down and I am pretty sure my Daybreak is beyond reproach.”
Murphy slapped the table with one hand and said, “Good. Well, we have a goal, gentlemen. What more do we need to do to achieve it?”
“I’ll get on the security system, if Goldie can find out what it is.”
“No problem, and I’ll start staking it out.”
Liam did not know who all did what, so he asked. “With all of you, I guess you have roles?”
Goldie answered for them. “I’m the details man. I watch, take a million notes, find out everything there is to know about the place we’re hitting, with some help from the computer guy, Mims. He knows computers so well he can break into just about any system.” He smiled at Abs and said, “That skinny fucker is the security guy, and he does the hands-on work of safe cracking, fucking up security boxes. Shit like that. Haze is our artist, and he can recreate art, so when we take off with a piece, we leave one, so we’re not found out for a long time, if ever. Hippy is our weapons guy.”
“We don’t use weapons often,” Hippy disclaimed. “But we have to always have them.”
“And you need to steal the cars we use in robberies, and, well, other cars.”
“Like the Bentley,” he said as he smiled at Murphy.
“Like the Bentley. Yeah. We have one of those beauties in this very city, and we have a guy that will buy the thing. He’s patient, thankfully, but if you don’t mind, we’ll do the art, then the car.”
“Fine by me. What kind of cars do you all like to escape the scenes of crimes?”
“Mid-sized sedans, big enough for five. You have it waiting for us, and you’ll park a few blocks away, on a street without a lot of cameras. We meet you there and you will take us to a van.”
“So, I get two vehicles. Smart. Okay, then. Nice to be aboard. The most important question, of course, is what is my cut?”
Murphy groaned and said, “Well, it depends. Art, Haze gets a quarter, I get one, and you all split the other half.”
Murphy waited for him to respond, and he considered bitching about it, but a payday of at least four hundred grand wasn’t anything to sneeze at. “And the Bentley?”
“You’ll get a full quarter.”
Over a quarter million, four hundred grand…he could see why the group was so tight and loyal. Well, despite the fact they genuinely seemed to like one another. “Okay. I’m in.”