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What the fuck! Gotta stop sayin' that. Jessica don't cuss. Did I cuss before? Hafta ask her. Not now though. Alex didn't even reach for his gun. He knew it wasn't there. It was probably the first time since Harry had warned them about the threat, that he'd even opened the door without being armed. Now there was a couple hundred feet between him and the house, and he was inside a building with only two exits. One was the big roll-up door, which was closed. The other was blocked by... Vinny and Frankie? Looks about right. It's a hit, like Harry said. They were inside now. Big guys with baseball bats. Aluminum baseball bats. Not taking any chances. Alex retreated, backing away through the narrow space between two large tables. Let them think I'm cornered, easy kill. Seein' as how I AM cornered. He took a quick look over his right shoulder. The left one was still stiff. A fire axe was lying on the workbench, its handle in just the right position. Too heavy. Not room to swing anyway. The hatchet though. A companion tool was there. A hatchet, with a spike on the back side of the blade, like the axe. He used them to dig out protruding roots around the poplar trees, and had brought them into the shop to clean and sharpen the blades. One of the goons was between the tables now, about to enter the open space. C'mon Vinny. Alex grasped the handle of the hatchet as Vinny came within range, prepared to swing the bat. Alex blocked the first blow, almost losing his grip on the hatchet. Wish this thing had one of those loops on the handle. He used the opportunity to move past Vinny before he could recover, to face Frankie. Not soon enough, Frankie's bat hit his left arm, numbing it. Dammit, hadn't healed good from the fall yet. Fuckers tryin' to kill me. Frankie was preparing to swing again. There was no time to look to see what Vinny was doing. Alex bent his knees, into a crouch to Frankie's left side. Swung the hatchet up, the spike toward Frankie's chin. It penetrated to its full depth, and as Alex pulled it back it brought Frankie's head down with it. Frankie fell face down, the bat rolling away just in time for Vinny to step on it. Some things just meant to be. Vinny managed to stay on one knee and hold on to his own bat, but as he tried to rise Alex brought the hatchet down on top of his head. The crunching sound as it split the skull was sickening. Or maybe it was just seeing and knowing what made the sound that made it so. Vinny joined his associate in a similar posture. Fuckin... dammit, gotta stop this or find some new words. And call Harry. "Damn! What'd you use on them?" Alex nodded towards the workbench, the bloody hatchet. "Left my gun in the house," Alex said. "I know, don't say it." Harry didn't waste time remonstrating. "Carlisle," he said. "He's the only one of them could call in muscle from the cartel." "I figured as much," Alex said. "Frankie and Vinny ain't locals." "Nah. Little Rock at least, or Memphis. More likely New Orleans or even St. Louis. You've rattled some cages high up." "Any suggestions on how to deal with these?" "Let's see if we can ID them," Harry said. He knelt by the one with the split skull, checking the pockets. He extracted a wallet from the inside pocket of the jacket. "Carlo Ruggiero. May or may not be a real name. What's the other one got?" Alex had found the other thug's wallet and was examining the contents. "Dwayne Carter. Missouri driver's license. Matches the credit cards, so probably real." "Well, this Carlo might be connected," Harry said. "Name doesn't ring a bell, Missouri could be St. Louis or Kansas City. Cosa Nostra has a presence in both places. Carter could be hired help." "Likely anyone was keeping tabs on them?" "Not closely, probably," Harry replied. "But you never know. Most likely, if they came out of KC or St. Louis, they were told to contact someone in Carlisle's operation. He's certainly on top of it, considering how serious it must be. But he may have Brewer handling it. He's his main bagman. But you can be sure he's waiting for a report. "How long before someone starts wondering what happened to them? "Depends. At least a few hours, but something like this could take a day or more, depending on how long it took them to find you, get you in a place to make the hit. Either way, we need to move fast. Let's get this cleaned up." "What do you have in mind?" "We're not going to the cops for sure," Harry replied. "Sure, you can make a case for self-defense, but the attention wouldn't be good. It's unlikely they knew the details, beyond where to find you. So they're not going to be looking here for a while at least. Let's get the blood cleaned up and the bodies gone. They're sure not gonna call the cops." "Got a plan for the bodies?" "Yeah, help me truss them up for transport. Got a couple of tarps, small ones?" Within an hour the bodies were wrapped in two small tarps, tied tightly with rope. Harry backed his truck up to the rollup door and they placed the bodies in the back. "We can clean up later," Harry told him. "Let's get these gone, and we'll come back and finish." Harry drove toward the draw behind the shops, following a dirt trail into the river bottom. "Good thing it's dry," he said. "Jesse Owens owns this place, he's been cleaning up this area. Burning brush piles every few days." Several large piles of trees, pushed over and piled, a Cat D8 that had apparently been used for the task was parked nearby. Harry stopped and backed the truck up to the edge of a small pile. "OK, let's get'em out." he said. Alex helped him drag the bodies out and laid them on the ground. "OK, move the truck over there a ways," Harry said. "Let me get this situated." Alex drove the truck over to the road and watched as Harry fired up the Cat and spent the next hour or so pushing fallen trees onto a pile over the bodies. Returning to the truck Harry took a roll of orange flagging tape and went back to the pile of trees, tying several pieces of the tape onto some of the projecting tree limbs. "We could probably leave them as is," he told Alex, "but I'll call Jesse tomorrow and tell him that pile needs burned ASAP. He'll know that to do. Once it's done, even if anyone knows where to look there's nothing to find. And no way to tie it to us. Once the fire's out, he'll have his guys take the dozer and scatter what's left all over the place. "In any case no one's gonna come looking. Carlisle will wonder what happened to them, may have some explaining to do with his bosses. But not our problem. But you can bet he'll try again. We need to get some action going that will give him bigger things to worry about."
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