I didn’t see any drugs. I also didn’t see anyone doing drugs. Knowing Dunk (or, at the very least, knowing the kid I once knew as Dunk) he was smart enough not to keep that kind of thing anywhere near where he worked. Most likely, he played some kind of shell game with that stuff, moving it around the city faster than the cops could track it. I honestly didn’t really care. My only concern was keeping Stella safe.
Eyes followed us everywhere, averting when I caught them looking. Whispering to each other.
Adella led us into the former office building for Carrie Furnace—dozens of offices, most abandoned. Dunk was in the largest, the last door on the left. When Adella ushered us inside, he stood in the far back corner with a cell phone pressed to his ear, most of his weight balanced on a cane, looking out a grimy window at the mill grounds. He glanced back over his shoulder.
Relying heavily on the cane, he turned and started toward us, mumbling into the phone. When he finished the call, he disconnected and held the phone out to me. “Hold this for a second? Being a cripple, I sometimes find I don’t have enough hands to multitask.”
I took it from him.
Dunk brought up his cane and slammed the silver head into Preacher’s gut. He doubled over, and Dunk’s right fist shot up and slammed into his nose. I heard the crunch of bone as Preacher stumbled backward. “You broke my nose in ’92, you arrogant fuck. You’ve had that coming for six years,” Dunk said.
Two of Dunk’s men came in from the hallways and grabbed Preacher’s arms before he could retaliate. They stood on either side of him as Dunk took a white handkerchief from his pocket and held it up to Preacher. “We’re square now, shitknocker.”
Preacher nodded, shrugged off both men, grabbed the handkerchief, and pressed it to his nose. “Square,” he muttered, tilting his head back.
I shook my head. We didn’t have time for macho bullshit. “They’ll be here soon. Are you ready?”
Dunk used the cane to take several steps back toward the window. “Get with the program, Thatch. They’re already here, and yes, we’re ready.”
“What?” Preacher said, going to the window.
Dunk pointed out toward the west. “Look past the trees. Two white vans out there parked off Whitaker. The first one got here about ten minutes after you did. The other one pulled up a few minutes ago.”
“There’s no way they followed us. Did you tell anyone we were coming?”
Dunk shook his head. “Only Reid, Truck, and Adella, and they don’t talk to nobody but me. Word is probably spreading now, though. Not much we can do about that.”
“Somebody tipped them off,” Preacher said.
I thought about the phone call from Fogel back at my father’s house in Whidbey.
Two men paused at Dunk’s door. When I turned, they continued down the hallway. “Why does everyone keep staring at me?”
“Gossip,” Dunk said. “They all heard about the crazy show you put on with Reid the last time you were here. Guess they’re hoping for an encore.”
Preacher frowned. “What happened with Reid?”
Dunk smacked me on the back. “My boy here came out on the right side of a crazy game of Russian Roulette. He didn’t tell you?”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed. “No, he didn’t tell me.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t fuck with him,” Dunk said. “The guy deflects bad mojo like Superman and bullets.”
Pinching his nose with the handkerchief, Preacher changed the subject. “How defendable is this place?”
Dunk went back to the window. “I’ve got a hundred and six people here, all armed. Lookouts in town, too. If someone tries to pedal up on a white bicycle, they’ll have a dozen weapons trained on them. One road in, one road out, with the Monongahela River at our backs and open fields all around us. See that tree line way out there? I’ve got people in blinds watching every inch. There are two sets of railroad tracks, with a deep gully between the trees and the furnace grounds. No way they get vehicles through there, and if by some miracle they make it on foot, it would be slow-moving. We’d pick them off before they even got close to any of the buildings. Between all the hills and the scraps of machinery scattered around, the property is covered with places to hide, and I have people stationed at all of them. We’ve got a solid perimeter. They’d have to airdrop into here to get any kind of jump on us. If by some crazy miracle they get past the outer defenses, we fall back on the mill. This place is a fucking metal maze, and my people have trained here for years. They know every inch. We’d slaughter them.”
“We start shooting, how long before the cops show up?” Preacher said.
Dunk laughed. “Who do you think I have running lookout in town? Our finest in blue, that’s who. Don’t need to worry about them. We’re too isolated, anyway. We set up a shooting range out back almost two years ago, and not a single person has ever reported gunfire out here. The sound doesn’t carry far enough. If this goes all out World War III, ain’t nobody coming to help us, and nobody coming to stop us. We’re on our own.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said softly.
The look in Dunk’s eyes told me he kinda hoped it did. He crossed the room and went to a wooden crate in the corner. “I’ve got a Plan ‘B,’ too, for that David character you mentioned.”
Dunk opened the lid and handed me a pair of over-the-ear headphones. “I picked up a truckload of these babies back in January. They were heading to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas from the factory in Massachusetts. They won’t hit the market for at least another year, so I’ve been sitting on them.”
“Bose Quiet Comfort?” I said, reading the box.
