Wet Work - A Greg Kelton Short Story Read online

  Wet Work

  A Kelton Short Story

  By Brian Springer

  Copyright 2011 Brian Springer

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO BY BRIAN SPRINGER

  Featuring Greg Kelton

  Blood Money

  Black Days (forthcoming)

  Featuring Thomas Highway

  Broken Highway

  Highway to Vengeance

  The Serial Killer Journals

  Volume One: Stain of Mind

  Author’s note:

  This story takes place before the events of Blood Money. For those of you who have already read Blood Money, hopefully this story will fill in a few blanks. For those of you who haven’t, hopefully you’ll enjoy this story enough to check it out. But if not, that’s okay too. Either way I’d like to hear what you think about it. Feel free to drop me a line at www.brianspringer.com or come find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002203162372

  1

  Greg Kelton headed towards the front doors of the Hoover branch of the San Diego Public Library, stopping only to hang the clipboard on the wall of the walk-in supply closet before walking out into the cool San Diego night.

  After locking the doors behind him, Kelton closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. It was amazing how wonderful the salt-tinged air tasted after having spent the last six hours working exclusively with bleach and lemon-scent disinfectant.

  Not that he minded cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  The monotony and brainless nature of the work allowed his mind to wander freely without affecting his performance. In almost every way, being a janitor was the exact opposite of his other life, which is one of the main reasons why he had sought out the job in the first place. Well, that and the fringe benefits. Which mostly consisted of being around books all the time.

  Kelton lived two miles from the library, and he walked to and from work every day. His shift ended at midnight, and while that was prime party time in certain parts of downtown San Diego, in Kelton’s neighborhood, the streets were usually empty.

  Tonight was an exception.

  Kelton was scarcely out of the library when he spotted four young men huddled next to a ‘61 Ford Mustang parked at the curb directly in front of him.

  Unlike the street-wise predators that Kelton saw on a regular basis in this part of the city, these four young men lacked the animal instincts that could discern predator from prey. They were simply young men who believed in the strength of numbers and the invincibility of their youth.

  They had absolutely no clue what they were dealing with.

  One of the young men said, “Henry, here he comes,” in a harsh whisper and pointed at Kelton.

  The one in the center of the group—Henry, no doubt—looked up and began to saunter forward, smiling benignly, as though he recognized Kelton. He was two steps ahead of the other three, who had begun to fan out behind their fearless leader.

  “Hey man,” Henry called out into the warm, windless night. “You got a light?”

  Kelton didn’t answer. He didn’t even acknowledge Henry. He was too busy sizing up the young man. He didn’t bother worrying about the other three.

  Henry was four inches shorter than Kelton, but he weighed at least forty pounds more. He had a shaved head and a perfectly trimmed goatee. His shirt read LIMP BIZKIT and the cuffs of his jeans covered the tops of his Doc Martens.

  “You got a hearing problem, buddy?” Henry said, his smile growing wider with every word.

  Whispers and barely suppressed laughter escaped from the mouths of his three cronies.

  Kelton held his ground as Henry came to within two feet of where he stood.

  “Fuckin-A pal,” Henry said, smiling no more. “You better answer me or you’re gonna get hurt.”

  Kelton let his cold stare wander from Henry to the other three, pausing to lock onto each one’s eyes for just a second before returning to Henry. “You have no idea what hurt is, kid.”

  Henry returned the stare. “Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Kelton said. “It is.”

  Henry laughed and reached behind his back, but before he could bring his arm forward, Kelton stepped towards him, brought his right hand up and grasped Henry’s throat.

  Henry’s three friends took a collective step forward. Kelton shot them each a glance and very calmly said, “Back the fuck off.”

  One by one, each of them took a few steps back.

  Henry also tried to take a step back, forcing Kelton to squeeze his thumb and forefinger together, tightening his grip on Henry’s larynx. A soft gurgling sound came from the young man’s mouth.

  “Not a good idea,” Kelton said. “Now show me your hands. Slowly. And leave whatever you were grabbing for in your waistband behind your back.”

  Henry’s throat clicked as he attempted to swallow. He brought his empty hands to a position in front of his chest, palms out. He was breathing in ragged spurts and his face was a dark shade of crimson. His eyes held equal parts fear and hatred.

  Kelton relaxed the pressure slightly but didn’t release his grip. He reached around Henry’s waist with his free hand. With a quick tug, he pulled a six-inch SpyderCo knife with a serrated edge from the waist of Henry’s sagging jeans and tossed it on the roof of the library.

  Kelton was just about to release Henry without harming him further when he felt the young man’s body tense in anticipation of some sort of an attack.

  Shaking his head slightly, Kelton released Henry’s throat and kicked him in front of the knee with the tip of his heavy work boot. Henry’s upper body leaned forward just a bit, and Kelton hit him in the center of the chest with a closed fist.

  Henry stumbled backwards a few steps before slamming into the side of his car. He sat down heavily and held an arm to his chest. He had a pained look on his face that grew more intense every time he took a breath.

  Kelton waited to see what Henry’s cronies would do before making his next move. After a few seconds of silently glancing at one another, one of the three kids turned and walked over to Henry. The other two soon followed. Kelton relaxed his guard.

  Kelton held his ground as the three friends helped Henry into the car and sped off, shouting curses as they left. Only after they disappeared around the corner did he turn and start walking.

  2

  Kelton stopped at his regular haunt, a bar called The Garage, for a couple of drinks before heading back home. The place was nearly empty, as usual, with just a couple of locals minding their own business at the bar, drowning away their sorrows. Kelton ordered a pitcher of Guinness and headed for a table near the rear of the bar, right next to the emergency exit, giving him a clear view of the entire room. He didn’t expect any trouble but had long ago conditioned himself to not take any unnecessary chances.

  Kelton had just started on his first glass of beer when an unfamiliar man dressed in an expensive suit stepped into the bar and headed back towards Kelton without so much as a pause. He was smoking a cigarette and carrying himself as though he had a specific purpose in mind. His haggard, wrinkled face pegged him at around 65 years old but he carried himself like a much younger man. And his e
yes shone like those of a teenager, full of mischief, like you were the punchline of some joke only he knew.

  Kelton just sat there, instinctively knowing that the man was here to see him. He wasn’t concerned—there was no threatening vibes coming from the old man—but he was curious. He wasn’t a man that got approached often, and never without a legitimate reason.

  The old man took one final hit of his cigarette, dropped it on the floor, and stepped on it. He blew the smoke out and covered the final couple of steps to Kelton’s table.

  “Hello,” the old man said pleasantly. “How are you doing tonight?”

  “Better than you,” Kelton said, not missing a beat. It was his standard greeting whenever someone asked him that question. Normally it was someone he already knew. But he saw no need to change things up just because he was talking to a stranger.

  Walter looked glanced at the surroundings. “Oh, I beg to differ.”

  “Beg all you want,” Kelton said. “It won’t change anything.”

  The old man laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Kelton said.

  “You are, Mr. Kelton. I mean, I’d heard you were a bit of a callous man, but to be able to pull an exchange like that off so adroitly . . . I must say I’m impressed. And that doesn’t happen often, I assure you.”

  Kelton felt a tickle of concern that the old man knew his name but didn’t let it show. There was no reason to admit weakness. Ever. Better to feign strength. Or at least belligerence. “Who are you and what do you want from me?”

  “My name is Walter and I would like to inquire as to your availability to do a job. A specific type of job. One that you specialize in.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kelton said. “I’m just a janitor.”

  This comment drew another laugh from the old man. “A janitor, yes. I forgot. Over at the Hoover branch of the San Diego Public Library, right?”

  More specifics. The old man had done his research, that much was certain. Kelton wasn’t sure how that made him feel.

  “I’ll take your silence as assent,” Walter said. “And what about little thing you do on the side?”

  “What little thing is that?”

  “The one where you take money to do things that other people don’t want to do.”

  “You must have me confused with someone else,” Kelton said.

  Walter smiled. “I don’t think so. Not after how you handled those kids outside the library. No, I’m pretty sure I know exactly who you are.”

  Kelton eyed him carefully. “How’d you know about that?”

  “I watched the whole exchange. You handled it expertly. Nice and smooth, without using too much force. Just what I was hoping for.”

  “Are you saying that you put those punks onto me?”

  Walter smiled like a kid caught stealing cookies from the cupboard.

  “What the hell for?” Kelton said.

  “To see your skills in action,” Walter said. “I wanted to see for myself if you were the right man for the job.”

  Kelton scoffed. “A hell of a way to find out. What if things went wrong?”

  “From what I’d heard of you, I knew they wouldn’t.”

  “And if what you’d heard was wrong?”

  Walter shrugged. “Then you wouldn’t have been the right man for the job anyway.”

  Kelton drank from his beer and turned his attention to the old-school jukebox on the far side of the bar, where one of the regulars was typing in a number. A few seconds later the twangy, strangled sounds of what passed for modern country music started leaking out of the speakers, adding to Kelton’s frustration.

  He sighed and shifted his eyes back to Walter, who was just sitting there, waiting. There was no reason denying things any longer. The old man obviously knew all about him. And it was just as obvious that Walter wasn’t just going to go away on his own. Kelton was going to have to give him a nudge.

  “Look,” he said. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I don’t work with strangers, so you might as well just go find someone else to do what you want to do.”

  “So you’re not even going to listen to what I have to say?”

  “Nope. Don’t care.”

  “Not even for a hundred thousand?” the old man said. “Half now. Half after the job is done.”

  The mention of money didn’t phase Kelton in the least. “It doesn’t matter how much,” he said. “Money isn’t a big concern of mine. If you really know as much as you claim to you would have known that too.”

  “Actually, I did,” Walter said. “It’s one of the main reasons I chose you, actually. Precisely because it isn’t only about the money with you.”

  “Then why mention it?”

  “To see if it was actually true.”

  “Well, now you know,” Kelton said. “So if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish my beer in peace and then go get some sleep.”

  “What if I told you it was for a good purpose?” Walter said. “That the man you would be taking care of has it coming to him? That he deserves it?”

  Now this gave Kelton pause. One of the biggest factors in whether or not he took a job was the circumstances behind it. But that alone wasn’t enough to sway him. Not in this situation. There were still way too many unanswered questions for him to even consider working for Walter. Kelton didn’t get himself into situations unless he knew the specifics inside and out. And right now he was running blind.

  “I’d still tell you to go find someone else,” Kelton said.

  “Don’t you think that if I had someone else that could do this job for me I’d have gone to him and not wasted my time with someone that I knew would be a pain in the ass?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” Kelton said. “But I do know that you’d better get up out of that seat before you really start to piss me off.”

  “Oh, enough with the tough guy shtick,” Walter said. “Earl Paladin speaks highly of you and I need something done that you’ll agree with doing, so let’s just cut the bullshit.”

  Now this got Kelton’s attention. “How do you know Earl?”

  “He’s done some work for me in the past,” Walter said.

  Kelton nodded to stall for time and thought about this last point. Earl was his mentor and one of the only men on this earth he truly trusted. If Walter really had spoken to Earl about him, that changed everything. But it still wasn’t enough. Not yet.

  “I suppose Earl told you about my conditions for accepting a job?”

  “He did,” Walter said. “And I assure you, this situation fits comfortably into your parameters.”

  “Yeah, well I’ll decide that if you don’t mind.”

  “So you’ll listen to my offer?”

  “I’ll listen,” Kelton said. “But I can’t promise you anything.”

  “Nor would I expect you to,” Walter said.

  “Then the floor is all yours, old man.”

  3

  Hell was the perfect name for the nightclub Kelton found himself in just after midnight. The place was dark, smelled of shit and sulfur, and was as hot as its namesake.

  In order to get to the far side of the club, Kelton had to pass through hundreds of misguided youth moshing to the ear-shattering sounds of the four-piece death metal band pounding away on stage. The aggression of the crowd was palpable but controlled, with the mosh pits primarily contained within the two separate fifteen-foot circles of bodies in the middle of the floor.

  Kelton made his way along the fringes of the building, squeezing through the narrow gaps of the crowd, watching the spectacle with a little smile on his face as memories of his college days bubbled up to the surface. Alcohol and music and friends and Melissa—

  The mere thought of his ex-wife’s name brought toxic memories to the surface:

  The acrid, coppery smell permeating the whole house. I’M SORRY scrawled in red Johner on the door. The bodies sprawled out on the bed, eyes closed, looking so peaceful. On his knees, puking
all over the floor. Policemen and lab techs swarming the house. Sitting on the toilet with the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth, big toe poised on the trigger.

  Kelton shook his head violently to purge the visions from his mind.

  All he had to do was think her name and the good feelings were immediately flushed from his system. His smile faded and he forced the memories back into the basement of his mind then closed and locked the door. There was no reason to go there. Not ever again. He was a different man then, with a different name and a different set of circumstances. He was no longer James Howlett. He’d been reborn. And Greg Kelton had no past.

  A fight broke out in the ranks of the pit, but was quickly broken up, and seconds later, the two combatants were arm-in-arm, going against the grain and wearing blows from their fellow moshers. Kelton shook his head and yawned to release a bit of adrenalin. Although he strived to stay as even-keeled as possible, even he was not completely impervious to the intoxicating combination of testosterone and controlled violence that permeated the inside of the club.

  He glanced towards the stage, where the singer stood front and center with a bass guitar in hand. He was flanked on each side by head-banging guitarists while the drummer sat on his stool behind the other three members, pounding away on his skins with his back facing the crowd. On the back of the drummer’s sweat-drenched shirt were two words in large, black letters.

  FUCK YOU!

  Ah, the youth of today. No different than the youth of yesterday. Or the day before that for that matter.

  There was a flurry of heavy riffs combined with furious drum pounding, then silence. The crowd cheered madly and screamed for more. The band took a moment’s breather then started up again with another riff just as Kelton arrived at the far side of the club.

  The double-doors leading the bowels of the club were watched over at all times. But the security guard knew Kelton by sight and let him in without a hassle. Kelton nodded his thanks and the guard nodded back without letting his attention wander from the crowd.