Little Hitler stood up and swaggered down the steps. “And what if we don’t?” he demanded.
“Then I’ll put you out.” The tense man’s voice tightened even more.
“Now that I’d like to see,” Little Hitler said: “Hey, Marv, did you hear that? This shithead says he’s gonna put us out. You, me, Jimmy, Heintz, Jake-all of us. All by himself he’s gonna fuckin’ put us out.”
“Maybe he’d like to start right now,” Marvin said, also coming down the stairs. “Maybe he’d like to try to put you and me out.”
“I won’t be the one who’ll be moving you out,” the man on the walk told them. “That’s what the sheriff gets paid for.”
“Too chickenshit to do it yourself, huh?” Little Hitler sneered. “Gotta run to the fuckin’ pigs.”
“Friend, I’m too busy to be bothered with all this happy horseshit. You tell Mrs. Collins to get that money to me by tonight, or I’ll go to the sheriff tomorrow. That’s it.”
Flood ambled to the front of the porch and stood leaning against one of the pillars. “I don’t think you can do that without due process, sport,” he said pleasantly.
“Watch me, sport. I’ve been in this business for fifteen years, and I’ve bounced a hundred of you welfare bums out of one house or another. Believe me, I know exactly how it’s done-who to see and which papers to have signed. If I say you’re going to move, you might as well start packing, because you are going to move.”
“Who you callin’ a bum,” Little Hitler demanded hotly.
The man on the walk looked him up and down. “Are you working, boy?”
“None of your fuckin’ business.”
“That’s what I figured. I won’t apologize then. You just tell Mrs. Collins what I said.”
“And what if we don’t?”
“You’re making me tired, boy. You can tell her or not-it doesn’t make diddly-squat to me-but if I don’t get that money by tonight, I go to the sheriff tomorrow, and you’ll be in the street by the end of the week.” He turned and went back to his car.
“Chickenshit bastard,” Little Hitler called after him.
The man at the car looked at him for a moment, then got in and drove off.
“Why didn’t you take ‘im?” Marvin asked Little Hitler.
“Shit!” Little Hitler stomped back up onto the porch. “The fucker had a piece.”
“Oh?” Flood said. “I didn’t see it.”
“You can take my word for it. All them fuckers carry a piece when they come down here. You seen ‘im, didn’t you, Jake? I mean, he stood right up to us. There was three of us, an’ he didn’t back down an inch. Take my word for it, the fucker had a piece.”
Big Heintz roared up, his motorcycle popping and sputtering. “Where’s the girls?” he demanded. “I need some bread. This hog’s gotta go into the shop.”
“They’re out buyin’ groceries,” Marvin replied, “an’ we got a problem. Powell was just here, an’ he says we gotta pay ‘im the back rent or he’s gonna call the sheriff have us evicted.”
“Fuck ‘im. My bike’s gotta go in the shop.”
“He means it,” Little Hitler warned. “We ain’t gonna be able to put ‘im off no more.”
“Fuck ‘im. There was three of you. Why didn’t you take ‘im?”
“The fucker had a piece,” Little Hitler said without much conviction. “You can take my word for it, the fucker had a piece.”
Heintz grunted. “How much does he want?” He went up onto the porch.
“All of it, man,” Marvin replied. “Every fuckin’ nickel.”
“Bullshit! That’d flat wipe us out for the whole month, an’ my bike’s gotta go in the shop. The bastard’s gonna have to wait. We’ll give ‘im a few bucks and put ‘im off till next month.”
Flood looked at the big man. “I don’t think it’ll work, Heintzie. I think the man’s made up his mind. If you don’t settle up with him, he’ll call in the pigs and you’ll be picking deputy sheriffs out of your hair for a solid week.”
“Fuck ‘im,” Heintz burst out with a worried frown on his face. “My bike’s gotta go in the shop.”
“Christ, man,” Marvin said. “We sure as shit don’t want no cops pokin’ around in the house there. We got coke in there, man. We could lose our whole goddamn stash.”
Jimmy’s battered car came squealing around the corner, made a sharp right, and drove up onto the lawn. “I seen ’em,” he said breathlessly, getting out. “I seen the motherfuckers.”
“Who?” Heintz demanded.
“The fuckin’ Dragons. They’re camped out down in People’s Park. Must be thirty or forty of the bastards down there. Bikes all over the fuckin’ place.”
“I knew the bastards hadn’t left,” Heintz exulted.
“What are we gonna do?” Marvin asked, his voice also excited.
“We’re gonna pass the word. Get hold of Leon. All the guys stop by that gas station of his, an’ he can get the word out. Tell ’em we’ll all get together tomorrow night in that big field out toward Newport where we had the party last month. We’ll put this thing together, and then we’ll fuckin’ move, man. We’ll waste them fuckin’ Dragons once and for all, man-I mean once and for fuckin’ all.”
“You want just our guys, Heintz?” Jimmy demanded breathlessly.
“Yeah. No, wait a minute. Have ‘im. pass the word to Occult, too. Them guys got a hard-on for the Dragons same as us. With us and Occult, we oughta be able to raise sixty, seventy guys. We’ll flat waste them fuckin’ Dragons. They won’t never come back to fuckin’ Spokane after we get done with ’em.”
“What about Powell?” Marvin asked him.
“Fuck Powell! We ain’t got no time to mess with that shithead now. We got a fuckin’ war on our hands. Crank up your ass, Jimmy. Get to Leon an’ pass the word.”
“Yeah!” Jimmy dived back into his car.
Like some general marshaling his troops, Big Heintz began barking orders. Marvin and Little Hitler scurried away on errands, and Heintz stood spread-legged on the porch, his chest expanded and his beefy arms crossed. “War, Jake,” he said, savoring the word. “It’s gonna be a fuckin’ war. We’re gonna cream them fuckin’ Dragons once and for fuckin’ all.”
” `Seek out the enemy and destroy him,’ ” Flood quoted.
“What?”
“Von Clausewitz on war,” Flood explained. “That’s what it’s all about.”
“Yeah,” Big Heintz growled enthusiastically. “Seek and destroy. Seek and fuckin’ destroy. I like that kinda shit, don’t you?”
“It’s got a nice ring to it.” Flood grinned tightly.
“You comin’ tomorrow night?”
“I might tag along. I think the Dragons still owe me for a few broken ribs, and I always collect what people owe me.”
“That’s the stuff.” Heintz slapped Flood’s shoulder.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” Flood walked down onto the street in the bright glare of noon. His shoulders were, braced, and there was a slight swagger to his walk.
A couple of minutes later he came up onto Raphael’s rooftop.
“Well, well,” Raphael said dryly, “if it isn’t the newest recruit in Big Heintzie’s limp-brained little army.”
“You were listening,” Flood accused.
“Obviously. You’re not seriously going to participate in this shindig, are you?”
“Only as an observer, Angel.” Flood laughed. “You’re the physical one in this little group. I do anticipate a certain satisfaction out of watching the punks who kicked in my ribs get theirs, however.”
“That’s stupid. Either you’re going to get yourself arrested, or you’re going to get the crap stomped out of you again.”
Flood leaned over the rail to look down at the street. “Not this time, Angel,” he said in a quiet voice.
Raphael looked at him sharply. Almost casually Flood raised the back of his jacket to let his friend see the polished black butt of an automatic pistol protruding from his waistband at the back.
“Have you completely lost your mind? If you get picked up with that thing, they’ll put you away forever.”
“I’m not going to get picked up with it, Raphael. I’ve been carrying it for several weeks now, and nobody even notices that it’s there.”
“You wouldn’t actually use it.”
“Oh?” Flood replied in that same calm voice. “It holds fifteen, Raphael. That gives me plenty of time to make up my mind, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re starting to sound just like those morons up the block. Get rid of that goddamn thing.”
“I don’t think so.” Flood’s eyes were flat.
Raphael stared at him and suddenly realized that he had not really been looking at Flood lately, but rather at some remembered image. Certain subtle changes had taken place sometime in the last month or so-a tightening around the lips, a kind of agate-hard compulsion to violence in the eyes, an expression that seemed to imply that Flood had somehow been pushed into a corner and would explode at the next nudge-no matter what the consequences. It was, Raphael realized, the look of the loser.