The Runaway and the Enforcer

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Breakfast is ready, what there is of it,” Beau said when Rick came into the kitchen the next morning.

“Bacon, for one thing,” Rick replied. “I could smell it when I woke up.” He went over to the stove. “Eggs and, I bet, toast. It all sounds great to me.”

Beau patted his shoulder. “Better than whatever you find in the trash by the fast-food places?”

“You have to ask? I can set the table, if you want.”

“The silverware’s in there—” Beau pointed to a drawer, “—cups are on the shelf above it. I’ll have our food on the plates by the time you’re done.”

Beau did, putting the plates on the table. He poured them coffee, and they sat down to eat. As with the previous night, all of Rick’s attention was on his food until his plate was empty. Then he sat back with a sigh. “That was good. Too good.”

Beau smiled. “Figured it would hit the spot. Now, I have a question for you. But before I ask it, I have another question.”

“O-o-kay.”

“First, why did you agree to stay here last night? I don’t mean the obvious, that it was better than crashing by that dumpster. Why did you trust me?”

Rick obviously gave that some serious thought before answering. “You didn’t try to do anything to me, after what I saw, for one thing. You could have. You could have threatened me, and hit me a few times, to make me keep my mouth shut. Or—” he looked straight at Beau, “—you could have killed me. It’s what you do, I think.”

Beau c****d his head briefly, not replying.

“The other thing is, I want to find out why that guy was after you, and why you think others are, too.” Rick’s lips quirked up. “I’m nosy that way. I like to know the whys.”

“That could get you in trouble.”

“It has. Like when I’d tell some kid I know that he should stop working with one of the local dealers and it gets back to the dealer that I had. Got the s**t pounded out of me a couple of times because I did, until I learned to keep my mouth shut.”

“I’m sure you did. They don’t like people trying to interfere in their business.”

“I was trying to help my…friends, I guess they were. There’s other ways to make money.”

“Very admirable of you. How do you make money?”

Rick shrugged. “Mainly begging, sometimes on my knees if people aren’t in a donating mood.”

“Giving blowjobs, like you thought I wanted, last night.”

“Yeah. Before you ask, I’m careful. The drop-in spot hands out free condoms and I won’t go down on a guy unless he puts one on, first.” Rick held up a finger before Beau could say anything. “That’s another reason I was willing to come here. You turned me down when I offered.”

“I could have been lying,” Beau pointed out.

“Yeah, maybe, but I didn’t get the feeling you were, and I’m not so bad at judging people. I have to be able to, given how I live.”

“How long have you been on the streets, and as far as that goes, how old are you.” Beau pointed a finger at him. “The truth.”

“Eighteen, going on nineteen, so I’m legal. I ran away over a year ago. I couldn’t take how I was being treated at home.”

“Because you’re gay?”

“No. I mean, I am, but it started long before my folks found out. I’m the runt of the litter and my dad and brother never let me forget it. I got teased, I got the s**t ass chores that would have gone to my sister, if I’d had one. That, plus bullying at school, got to be too much, so when Dad decided I had to be gay…” Rick grimaced. “Don’t ask why. I guess he figured, given my size and the fact I couldn’t have cared less about manly things, like sports and cars and guns, I had to be.”

“You’re what, five ten?”

“Five nine and a half,” Rick replied. “But Dad and my brother are well over six foot, and built like heavy-weights. Me? I weighed a whopping one thirty-five, before I left home. That’s another thing I didn’t like, watching boxing matches with them, or defending myself when someone pushed the bullying beyond words or shoves or what have you.”

“How the hell you’ve survived as long as you have…” Beau muttered.

“I run fast.”

Beau chuckled. “Okay, last question, and feel free to say no. Do you want to hang around here for a while?”

“Like live here?”

“Yeah, for the foreseeable future, perhaps. Not forever, because I don’t plan on being here forever.”

Rick lifted an eyebrow. “Would I be any safer here than I am living on the streets?”

“A good question. As long as certain people don’t find out this is where I’m at now, and so far they haven’t, then you probably would be. If they do, all bets are off.”

Resting his elbows on the table, Rick stared at Beau, asking, “Why are you in hiding, and from who?”

“Whom,” Beau replied with a trace of a smile, getting a raised finger from Rick in return.

“Well?” Rick said when Beau remained silent.

“I refused to do something my boss ordered me to. He took umbrage with that and decided I was a loose cannon who had to be eliminated.”

Rick nodded slowly. “Who did he want you to kill?”

“Kid, you’re too smart for your own good.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?” Rick leaned back, looking hard at Beau. “It’s what you do. You kill people.”

“If I said yes, would you pack up and leave?”

“I saw you kill that guy last night, and I came home with you.”

“That doesn’t answer the question. As far as you were concerned, you put it down to self-defense, which, to a certain extent, it was. Him or me, and I like living.”

Rick got up to pace the living room. He stopped to peer out the window for a moment. Then he turned to ask, “Good guys, or bad guys?”

“Competitors, mostly. Sometimes our people,” Beau responded, understanding what he meant.

“So people from another…gang? The Mob? Whatever you want to call it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Beau nodded. “It’s a job. It pays well. And I’m protected, or I was. There’s no way the cops could get to me, because I was always alibied.”

“If they did, you’d sit in jail until your boss’s high-powered lawyer got you out.”

“It’s been known to happen. Not to me, but to guys I work with.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, at least a little bit, that you’re hurting or killing people?”

“They’re our competition,” Beau replied.

“You don’t go after normal citizens, or cops?”

“First off, killing a cop would be stupid. They don’t stop looking for the killer when that happens, which makes things harder for everyone, us and the other guys doing what we do.”

“And civilians?”

“In my defense, for what it’s worth, I haven’t killed any, and I wouldn’t.”

“What if you were ordered to deal with, oh, I don’t know, the wife or kid of one of your competitors, to teach the guy a lesson?”

Beau tapped his fingers together. “That’s why I’m sitting in a rented, furnished apartment, instead of in the house I own halfway across the city.”

Rick smiled. “So you do have some morals.”

“Damned few.” Beau smiled briefly. “One of them, maybe the only one, is that I won’t kill a kid, or harm one, no matter what.”

“Nice to know,” Rick replied dryly, “since you seem to think I’m a kid.”

Beau shrugged. “You’re under twenty-one, so in my book, you qualify.”

Rick came back to sit at the table. “Why are you here, instead of on the other side of the country?”

“I’ve got something I need to do, first. And no, I’m not telling you what.”

“If this place is rented, can’t they track you that way?”

Beau snorted. “How stupid do you think I am? It’s not in my name, or any name I’ve ever used.”

“That’s good to know, I guess.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything,” Rick replied. “I see a man killed, I end up hanging with his killer, then find out you’re, I guess a mob enforcer?”

“That’s what my boss calls me.” Beau smiled sourly. “Among other things, now, I’m sure.”

“I can think of several things to call him, if he wanted you to kill a kid,” Rick said angrily. “Like a little kid?”

Beau shook his head. “Not kill. Beat up. And he was sixteen. His father wanted to go off on his own. My boss didn’t like the idea.”

“And you refused?”

“For what it’s worth, yeah. And that’s all I’m saying on the subject. The less you know, the better—for both of us.”

Rick frowned. “What if he sent someone else to do it, since you wouldn’t?”

“The kid’s safe, now. I dropped a hint that it might be a good idea if he vanished.”

“That must have pissed your boss off.”

“No shit.”

“So, you vanished, too. But not so well, since that guy found you last night.”

“Yeah.” Beau shook his head. “I was stupid. I needed to get out of here for a few before I started going bug f**k. I was taking a shortcut through the alley, heading, believe it or not, to the park.”

“I know the one you mean.” Rick eyed him. “It’s a pick up spot for johns.”

“That was not why I was going there. I like the river. It sort of reminds me of home.”

“Says you,” Rick replied with a knowing smile.

“Truth,” Beau replied, holding up his hand. “Is that why you were in the alley? You’d been there making some fast cash?”

Rick shrugged. “I told you I do that.”

“Yeah? Well it stops now.”

“You’re telling me how to run my life? Not happening, Beau.”

“Is if you want to stay here,” Beau shot back.

“I still haven’t decided.” Rick c****d his head in question. “Why do you even want me to stay?”

“Company, to be honest. I’m about to go out of my mind, hanging around here all day—and half the night, truth be told.”

“So do what I said. Leave. Go anywhere that’s not here in the city.”

“And I told you, I have unfinished business.”

“Like what?”

Beau chortled. “Damn, you’re persistent.”

“If I’m going to crash here, I have a right to know what’s going on so I can be careful, and help if someone finds you before you’re finished.”

“You? The kid who doesn’t like to fight?”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t. I’ve learned a few things since I hit the streets.” Rick gave him a long look. “You can teach me more, I bet.”

“Can and will are two different things, and I have a question for you. Why are you even considering taking me up on my offer?”

“Because I’d be off the streets. Because, despite what you say you do, you don’t seem like a bad guy…as a person, if that makes sense.”

“Sort of, I guess.”

“And, you want to pay your boss back for sending you after that kid. I can get down with that.”

Beau pointed a finger at him. “Even if you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, it has nothing to do with you. Understand? Like I told you, I wouldn’t mind having some company. Someone to talk to, watch TV with, what have you, so I don’t pull a stupid stunt like I did last night.”

“You can’t hide out here forever,” Rick said. “How long have you been here?”

“Two damned weeks, while I tried to figure things out.”

“Like taking him down without dying in the process.”

Beau stood and began clearing the table. “Something like that.”

“Can you do it?” Rick asked as he helped.

“That, Rick, is something I have yet to figure out. So far, I’ve come up empty.”

“Like, you can’t walk into wherever he is, pull out your gun, and shoot the bastard.”

Beau shot him an amused look. “Not if I want to be alive, afterward. This isn’t a movie. The good guy doesn’t always win. Not that I am a good guy. I haven’t been since forever.” He turned the water on in the sink and began washing the dishes.

Rick took the lone towel from the rack to dry them, asking as he did, “How old are you, anyway?”

“Almost twice as old as you.”

“Making you, what, thirty-four, thirty-five? You, and don’t take this wrong, but you look older.”

“Stress can do that to a guy,” Beau replied with a rueful smile. “I’m thirty-five.”

“Okay.” Rick put the dishes away before asking, “If I do take you up on your offer, does it mean you expect me to be here twenty-four-seven?”

“Hell, no. You’ll be free to come and go as you want, as long as you’re careful. I doubt anyone I should be worried about saw us together last night, but there’s no sense taking chances.”

“That doesn’t make my day. Even if I sneak in and out, if they see me on the streets…” Rick sucked in a breath.

“Would they grab you? Probably not. They would follow you, hoping you’d lead them to me.”

“Well, I’m good at avoiding that. Lots of practice getting away from cops and punks who get off on hassling the homeless. I will be real careful, though.”

“That makes it sound like you intend to stay.”

Rick slowly nodded. “I’ve got nothing to lose, and I gain a decent bed and regular meals, which—” he looked up at Beau, “—I’ll help pay for.”

“On one condition. Any money you earn comes from begging, not selling yourself. I find out you’re still doing it and you’re out of here like that.” Beau snapped his fingers. “And yeah, I’m telling you how to run your life when it comes to this.”

Rick seemed relieved, Beau thought, when he replied, “No problem. I won’t. I promise.”

“Good.” Beau refilled his coffee cup, and Rick’s when he nodded, before they went back into the living room. “If you need clean clothes, there’s a laundry room in the basement,” he said. “A dollar each for the washer and dryer.”

“If?” Rick laughed. “The last time I was able to go to a laundromat was, hell, three weeks ago.”

“Then get your stuff and I’ll show you where it is.”

Setting his cup down on the table, Rick went into his room. He came back carrying what Beau presumed was all the clothes he owned, other than what he had on—and it wasn’t much from the size of the bundle.

Beau took him down, checking the hallway before they left the apartment, and the one in the basement leading to the laundry room. Rick had quarters to use so he waved off Beau’s offer to pay. Once his clothes were in the washer, they went back upstairs.

“Now what do we do, while I wait,” Rick asked.

“I’ve got some planning to do. Feel free to read if you want, or watch TV. It won’t bother me.”

“You have some ideas how to get to…the guy you’re after?”

“That’s what I need to figure out. So far every single thing I’ve come up with would leave me dead. Not the outcome I want.”

“No s**t,” Rick muttered. “Can you get someone to help you? Like the guy whose kid you didn’t beat up?”

“Doubtful. He’s got his own problems, obviously. And now my boss is watching him like a hawk. He doesn’t like the idea that one of his lieutenants is thinking he can branch out on his own.”

Rick c****d an eyebrow. “Then why didn’t he have you kill him, instead of going after his kid?”

“Politics. The lieutenant has backers who aren’t too happy with how things are going at the moment. Kill him and it could start an all-out internal war.”

“And beating up his kid wouldn’t?”

Beau shook his head. “It would be looked at as a lesson. Don’t f**k with me, or else something bad happens. Behave and no one you love gets hurt. They all have families, and Mercer knows that.”

“This Mercer is the man you work for? Damn, Beau.”

“Worked for,” Beau pointed out.

Rick plopped down on the sofa, looking up at him. “If you take him out, if that’s what you’re planning, then what? You go to work for whoever replaces him?”

“At this point, doubtful. They’d see me as untrustworthy. If I turned on him, would they be next? Even the excuse that I wouldn’t hurt a kid wouldn’t wash as far as they’re concerned.”

“You’re sort of in a bind.”

Beau chuckled. “You think?”

“So go to the cops, or the FBI, and tell them everything you know about your boss and his organization.”

“No can do. That would break the omertà, the code of silence. Yeah, that’s a Mafia thing, but it’s also something the people I work for believe in, including me. You don’t rat out your comrades.”

“f**k that.”

“Look at it this way, Rick. You said you tried to convince some of your friends not to work for dealers. Why didn’t you go to the cops and let them know what was happening, instead, and tell them who those dealers were?”

Rick shrugged. “I value my life?”

“Even after the dealers beat you up?”

“Yeah. Besides which, if I did that, it would have gotten my friends in trouble.”

“Exactly. I’m friends with some of the people I work with, like the guy I told you about. I turn informer, they end up in prison.”

“Where they belong,” Rick said tightly.

“That’s all a matter of perspective. I can’t really explain it to you because you’re looking at it from a different angle than me. The people I work for are family, is the best way I can put it. They have been since the day they took me in.”

“So you’d rather die than break this omertà thing.”

“Yeah, I would. But I’m not planning on it happening. I’ll do what I have to, and then I vanish.”

“You are straight up crazy,” Rick told him emphatically. Glancing at the clock, he said, “I’ll be back,” before leaving the apartment.

Beau started to go after him before realizing he was probably going to put his clothes in the dryer. That didn’t stop him from watching the numbers over the elevator go down to B, for basement. “Yeah, maybe I am crazy,” he said under his breath as he returned to the apartment. “But it’s something I have to do. Mercer is getting too power-hungry.”

He waited for Rick to come back, leaning against the doorframe so he could see the elevator.

“Thought I’d run out on you?” Rick asked a few moments later as he got off the elevator.

“The idea did cross my mind.”

“If I was going to do that, I’d tell you.”

Beau smiled briefly. “Good to know.”

They went inside, at which point Rick went over to the bookshelves. He looked at what was there, chose one, and curled up on the sofa to read. Beau took a seat in one of the armchairs, staring up at the ceiling while trying to come up with a workable plan to eliminate Mercer.

“It’s Mercer you’re going after, right?” Rick said, breaking into Beau’s thoughts several minutes later.

Beau nodded.

“Where does he hole up?”

Beau harrumphed. “I’m not sure hole up is the right description. He has a home, and a business that he runs out of a building on the east side.”

“That’s it?”

“What did you expect? A warehouse somewhere, to store…what needs storing?”

“Well, yeah.” Rick nodded. “That’s what they do in the movies.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, this isn’t the movies?”

Rick went back to his book, but only momentarily. “What kind of business?”

“A construction company.”

“How cliché. At least it isn’t a restaurant.”

Beau laughed. “There is that.”

“So he has to go out to construction sites.”

Beau shook his head. “He usually leaves that up to three of his lieutenants, who handle that end of the business, unless a real problem crops up.”

“Afraid someone might off him if he set foot in one of them?”

“If he is, he hasn’t said so, but then he wouldn’t. He pulls the strings on all of his various endeavors and says that requires him sitting behind a desk.”

“Does he have bodyguards?”

“Yes.”

“As well trained as you?”

Beau just rolled his eyes.

“Hey, that was a compliment.”

“Thanks.”

Rick tapped his chin thoughtfully. “There’s probably security up the wazoo on his house and business.”

“There is.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back. And I’m only going to get my laundry, so don’t panic.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Beau replied, getting up to make more coffee.

“You have to teach me how to defend myself,” Rick said, coming back into the apartment a couple of minutes later. He dumped his laundry on the sofa and began folding it.

“You said you knew how,” Beau pointed out.

“I said I learned a few things. Enough to give me a chance to get away. That’s it. If,” Rick chewed his lip. “If something happened and the people you’re hiding from did try to grab me, I’d like to be able to stop them.”

“Rick, there’s no way I could teach you how to do that today, or in the next few days.”

“What about some basic moves? Or, maybe how to use a knife?”

Beau took a drink of coffee while he thought about it. Finally he said. “Have you ever used a knife before, other than at meals?”

“No.”

“I figured as much. All right. After lunch I teach you the basics.”

“Yes!” Rick pumped a fist.