Slow Burn (Jerod's Fourth Tale - Part 5)

There was a car horn. I looked out the window to see Ted in his car, he waved to me and motioned that I should get in. I cautiously opened the door, walked past the wreckage of my easel and climbed into the car.

“Got a call from someone wanting to join the company. I was thinking that you might need some distraction.” He grinned at me. “And I’ve found Kane.” His eyes flickered to what was left of my easel and painting but he didn’t mention the obvious.

“You’re right about needing a distraction. Fucking oath, a few days of this and they won’t have to do anything more. I’ll be stark raving mad.” I settled into the seat. “So, you found Kane already? You are a freaking wizard, how did you find him that fast?”

“I have my ways.”

We sat in silence until Ted pulled into a long driveway. “This is the place that Jade chick lives. She was the one who gave us the clue where to look for you.”

“Jade just married. It’s her new husband that we are here to see. Jade isn’t home but he should be.” Ted told me as we climbed out of the car.

Ted walked up to the door and rang the bell. I was a few paces behind when the door opened. I realised who the fucking hell it was about the time he noticed me.

“You?” we both said at the same time. It was Travis “Dread” Kane standing right there. Fucking shit, how long as he been living in town?

Kane looked at me then at Ted and sighed. “Look, could you do this some place other than Jade’s house. She doesn’t need to find the body when she gets home.”

“Body?” Ted asked.

His gaze went from Ted back to me. “I assume you are here to kill me.”

“I am here to assess you as a potential employee of The Company. Jerod is here to ask you a few questions. You’d have to have some really bad answers to end up dead.” He paused until Kane nodded. “Now, why are you here looking for a job?”

“Well,” he said. “I failed my last assignment. I ended up in prison and my partner disappeared. The Family bribed a few prison guards to get me out, then paid my tickets back. I was given no new work at all, they ignore me for weeks. Then finally they contacted me to tell me to leave Family territory within the next two weeks. Well, I vaguely remembered that Sophie was targeting supplies that were meant to ship here. That meant it was a Company town.”

“So you moved here?” asked Ted.

“Yeah, and then I met Jade. We dated a couple of times, then I asked her to marry me. So now I have a lovely wife and no income. That’s how I came to find you, this is the only job I really know. I’m usually damn good at it too.”

Ted nodded and took a step back. He’d probably already looked into Kane’s records enough to know how good he was at the job. I stepped forward.

“Before you say anything, dude, that stuff with the pyramid? That wasn’t my idea and it was strictly business,” Kane told me. I nodded. That would have been Pesce’s idea and Kane just did the heavy lifting.

“Right, and the extra strong drink served by a 15 year old who happens to look 19 was also just business,” I replied. “Though you stepped into that trap on your own.”

“You set that up?” I nodded. “Yeah, I wasn’t nearly cautious enough. I thought we were home free,” he grimaced. We stared at each other for a minute. He broke first. “You had a question?”

“Has anyone asked you about Sophie Pesce recently? Someone who isn’t in the business?”

He frowned in thought. “Yeah, two people did. Guy and girl came by my old place while I was packing up. Asked a bunch of questions about that trip and when I last saw Sophie.”

“Did my name come up? Did you ask their names?”

“Yeah I told them your name, but I didn’t tell them you were alive. Fucking hell, I didn’t even think you might be alive. I thought you’d bought it in the pyramid. Don’t know their names, they didn’t say.”

So, Kane knows two people who were asking about Pesce. No names and he didn’t tell them I survived but a trip to Egypt with enough cash and they’d find out. They asked the right people in that tiny town, I was seen on the day she died taking someone back to camp. So who gave a damn about that bitch?

“Is that it for your questions?” I nodded. “So Shrimp, if you were still boss of this outfit, would you give him a job?” Ted looked at me. “You have better instincts about people.”

I looked at Kane and thought about that Egypt trip. How he behaved even when being provoked by Pesce. “No booze, no women when you are working, right?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I learnt that one. Definitely no booze when on the job, that’s for when I’m off work. As for other women? Don’t need that now.”

I had been watching his face, his body language and he was coming across as sincere. “Yeah, Ginger, I’d hire him. Good muscle can be hard to come by.”

“Right, so your first assignment in The Company is to be his body guard,” Ted told Kane pointing at me.

“Ginger, you have got to fucking be kidding!” I shouted. I wasn’t ready to trust him that far.

“Shrimp, you are going to need someone to watch your back. Most of my crew are on a heist a few towns over. Marta would but she’s sure that Crooks knocked her up and she’s not well. I have a ton of things I have to do, including watching Marta’s little girl. And you just said you would hire him.”

Ted had a point. If there were two of them, they just could wait me out. Eventually I was going to drop my guard, I couldn’t stay alert 24/7. I looked at Kane who was very calmly watching me. “You’ll back me up, whatever I ask for?”

“You want a clever plan, don’t look at me. You want someone to make it happen, tell me what to do,” he said. “I know I’m the muscle, that’s what I’m good at.”

I sighed. Not an ideal backup but if that’s all Ginger has to offer, then I really had no choice. “All right. He’s right, I need someone to watch my back. Don’t fail me.”

“If he fails, I’ll tie him up and leave him as a present for your bitch. We’ll send the bigger pieces back to Jade for burial,” said Ted with a wicked smile.

That was an interesting idea. I wonder what Tania would do if faced with that? Certainly not carve Kane into pieces, I don’t think she’d ever walk that far on the dark side. “You better leave a message for Jade. Until this is over, you’ll have to stick with me.”

Kane nodded and sat down with a bit of paper. He scribbled a few words, crossed them out, wrote down more words, then scrunched up the paper. He grabbed a new piece of paper and tried again. That one suffered the fate of the first and finally on his third piece of paper, he must have found something to write that he liked. “I said I’ll call later tonight. That is okay, right?”

“Sure, that will be fine.” Not like someone was after them, he could call as much as he liked. I really hate that I have to keep away from my family.

“Where to now?” asked Ted. “Company headquarters, your place, somewhere else?”

“Electronics store then my place. I have to replace my cameras, they’ve been destroyed. I’d really like to catch this pair on camera, see who I’m dealing with.”

“I know what they look like,” Kane pointed out.

True enough, he’s seen them. “Let me know if you spot them, Kane. So if we are going to be working together, what do you prefer to be called?”

“Sophie loved calling me shit-for-brains, though sometimes it was idiot, moron or imbecile. Even ‘oy, you’ would be a nice change. So whatever, boss.”

“Right, for the moment, Kane it is. Let’s get moving.”

Ted led the way to the car. I was about to get in when Kane made a stay hand gesture. I stopped. He opened the back door, double checked the inside of the car then held it open for me. When we arrived at the shop, he got out first, looked around then opened my door. He led the way to the shop, then blocked me from coming in until he’d had a chance to look.

Conclusions, he was taking it seriously and he knew what he was doing. Both of those things were reassuring.