Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
Cars pulled up and parked and left again as Skip’s remained closed. Around three a black man pulled up in a Kia pick-up and went to the front door. He knocked at the door and waited. The door opened after a minute or so and he was let inside.
The afternoon bartender.
Two more hours and the cleaning crew came out the back. Two of them worked to wheel a drum back to the van. It was heavy now. It took all four of them to lever it up into the back of the van. The rear suspension sagged under the weight. They went back inside for the second drum, also fully loaded. They removed a box of heavy plastic contractor bags from the van. The buckets, mops and empty cleaning bottles went into these bags. Same with their coveralls, shoe covers and plastic gloves. The bags were sealed up tight and loaded into the van by the drums. They were in t-shirts and shorts now. Three got in the van and took off. The last one used Johnny’s key ring to get into the Audi and drive away.
The black man from the Kia appeared at the front door twenty minutes later. He flipped the sign in the window to OPEN. Like following a whistle only heard by the dogs, the cars pulled up and some of the same folks denied access earlier straggled into the bar.
It was getting on evening when the older man and the twins exited the bar. One of the twins trotted out to the Mercedes. He hit the remote as he moved. The car chirped. Running lights came on. The engine came to life.
Isaac shouldered his gear bag and made for the ladder off the roof. He was in the Avalanche and around to the front of the Winn-Dixie in time to see the Mercedes hooking a left out of the lot to head north. He kept the sedan in sight as he followed across the lot in the same direction. The northern exit off the lot put him out on a surface street. A right turn brought him to a traffic light. He pulled up behind a mini-van and watched the Mercedes cross the intersection ahead of him. The target was almost to the next light by the time Isaac was able to make a left to follow. He gunned and weaved and got within three cars of the Mercedes’ back bumper. He dropped his speed to match traffic and kept his eyes on the strip of tail lights.
The Mercedes took a highway north two exits and got off on a two-lane road lined either side with run-off ditches and cypress. It was full night now and even darker with the dense marsh woods hemming in all around. Isaac hung back and cut his lights. He followed into a subdivision. An elaborate wood-carved sign along the road read Suncoast Estates. The road wound back. Long driveways either side of the road. Houses sat well back on lots of five acres or more.
Through the boles of the trees Isaac saw the glimmer of the Mercedes’ headlights moving off the road where it curved around. Motion lights went on all around silhouetting a sprawling rancher.
He found a dry section of shoulder and pulled the Avalanche to a stop and cut the motor.
Isaac sat a while listening to the ticking of the cooling engine. The headlights vanished into a garage. Lamps went on in the house. The security lights died leaving only dimmer accent lights around the landscaping. He punched the dome light override and stepped out of the truck cab. The gear bag held a pair of well-used night vision scopes. He took them along with a long slide .45 pistol. He moved into the woods parallel to the house toward the rear of the property.
It was hockey night in the home of Wallace Collins.
Wolodymyr Kolisnyk, formally of Kiev and Lubyanka. Now a year-round resident of Hillsborough County, Florida.
The big screen in the den had the Bolts on. They were playing Chicago. Wally and his nephews would be down in his skybox but it was an away game. Besides, this was almost as good. The action was crystal clear and the sound system rocked the floor like they were right down there on the ice. And here Wolo had his favorite vodka. Nemiroff Lex. The bar at the Icehouse never had his vodka no matter how many times he told them to stock it for him.
He sipped and watched the game. His nephews bounced on the edge of a sectional, calling out to the players in a mix of Ukrainian and American as if the skaters could hear them. Danny and Van, Danya and Vanko, were twin sons of a man Wolo called brother though they weren’t related by blood. Wolo was part of something with stronger ties than any family.
These were bonds forged in the prisons and camps of the old Soviet Union. Parents and siblings and such were mere accidents of birth. That could not compare to the shared suffering offered within the cellblocks and gulag sheds. Wolo’s mother gave birth to his body but the punishment camps gave birth to the man. It was there he earned his place in a brotherhood that welcomed him for his toughness and rewarded him with protection and loyalty. All he had he owed to the men he met there. What did he owe his mother, a whore too stupid to keep a stranger from making her pregnant? She loved her drugs more than she’d ever loved him.
These boys, drinking his beer and spitting popcorn on his carpet in their excitement, were dearer to him than his own son. They were as loyal to him as to their own father.
A commercial came on. Some woman showing her tits and talking about pills to make a man’s dick hard. Wolo hit the mute.
“What do you think of what happened at Skip’s?” he said to the boys.
“A robbery,” Danya shrugged.
“Some niggers,” Vanko nodded.
“They left the shotgun. Why would a robber leave the shotgun?”
“Who knows, uncle? Some nigger high on whatever,” Danya said.
“And Johnny was not shot with the shotgun. Why is that?”
“They used another gun. There were two of them. There’s always two of them,” Vanko said.
“How did he get in? Fedir and Pavlo sitting on their asses. Dying like goats.”
“Maybe Johnny was with the robbers,” Danya said.
“Maybe Oscar too, huh?” Vanko said, brows wrinkled. Oscar was the Haitian afternoon barman at Skip’s. He sure fit neatly into Danya’s nigger theory.
“Could be. Could be. Johnny is not one of us.” Wolo sat back and rubbed the gray stubble on his chin.
“We will find them. It’s almost one hundred kay. Someone will talk. Someone will notice,” Danya said.
“All that cash? You know they will be spending it.” Vanko nodded more vigorously.
“Talk to Oscar.”
“Tonight, Uncle?” Danya said.
“Tomorrow,” Wolo said.
“Game’s back on,” Vanko said and snaked the remote from the older man’s side and snapped the volume back on.
Wolo was up off the cushions and delivered an open hand slap to Vanko’s face that sent the younger, larger man tumbling to the floor. Danya barked a laugh. Vanko sat up, a red welt rising angry on his face. A stream of blood running from his ear.
“We were talking! Business!” Wolo shouted. His hands were fisted.
Vanko lowered his eyes and fought back tears. He was humiliated by the man he called uncle. He was suffering shame at his own show of disrespect. Vanko was pissed at Danya who was sitting with a hand clapped over his mouth to stifle his amusement at the bitchslapping his brother just got in the way of.
Wolo sat back down.
“Talk to Oscar. See what he knows. Watch his eyes. You know how,” Wolo said. The final word. His eyes returned to the game.
Vanko was retaking his place on the sectional when the outside lights came on.
One of the bleached blonds stepped onto the screened-in lanai behind the house. He looked this way and that, shrugged and went back into the house through a sliding door.
Isaac watched him from well back in the wooded conservation area behind the house. The motion detectors were infrared and well placed. One step from the cover of the trees and ferns and the lights went on all around the house.
The LED spots died after twenty seconds. He raised the NODs scope to his eyes. The property was awash in a greenish glow visible through the lenses. All was in sharp contrast. He moved parallel to the rear of the house and crouched.
The older man and the twins were visible in a family room that opened onto the screened pool area. They were watching TV on a monster screen. They were in for the night. They weren’t going anywhere right now.
Isaac dropped back into the woods and circled around back toward the Avalanche. Somewhere out in the dark a coyote yipped into a high howl. They learned to run and hunt at night, away from the eyes of man. Even long-time residents in Florida lived their whole life and never saw one though whole packs lived within sight of ex-burb villas and mini-mansions all over the state.