Chapter 45
Aaron leaned on Willy as they made their way to the cannery's main-floor store room. Rain drummed the metal roof high overhead, and multiple streams of water poured through gaps in the sheeting and splashed on the floor below.
Aaron winced as a stab of pain cut through the morphine. 'I'm sorry I was an asshole earlier,' he said. 'I don't know what happened to me.'
Willy had to agree with him. 'You really were being a shit, you know.'
Aaron smiled and leaned on Willy a bit more.
The store room was full of loaded duffel bags. Aaron ran his hand over one of them and then sat down on it to rest.
'Check the other bags,' he said. 'We're looking for the one with guns in it.'
'Guns?'
'We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.'
One by one, Willy opened the bags. The first contained white painter's jumpsuits, others miscellaneous gear.
He found a bag full of cash and held the lantern high above it, using his free hand to wipe his glasses on his shirt. 'Check it out,' he said, excited.
'Guns, Willy,' Aaron said. 'We're looking for guns.'
Willy reluctantly closed the money bag and continued searching.
He located the armory bag, reached in, and pulled out a shiny, black assault rifle. 'Bloody hell, Aaron,' he said, turning the weapon over in his hands. 'You'd probably blow your damn willy off with one of these.'
'Yeah — or yours,' Aaron said. 'Here, I'll take it… the ammo should be in the same bag.'
Willy handed him the gun then found a loaded magazine.
'Now, pay attention,' Aaron said, and Willy watched in amazement as his friend demonstrated proper loading technique.
– '… then insert the magazine into the slot below the trigger, here,' Aaron continued, 'and push it up from the bottom till it clicks. Give it a good smack to make sure it stays in, then yank on it to be sure.' He showed Willy how to set the safety, then like a hardened soldier preparing for battle, slung the loaded rifle over his good shoulder.
'Okay… now do yours,' he said.
Willy pulled another rifle from the sack and did as he had been instructed. Aaron showed him how to hold the gun and release the safety.
'Okay, there's one more thing we need to do,' Aaron said.
Willy held Aaron's arm over his shoulders, and they made their way outside to the boiler house.
– 'I remember this place,' Willy said, adjusting the lantern's twin mantles for maximum light. 'It's creepy in here. And it smells funny.'
Aaron wrinkled his nose. 'You're right, it does.'
'Bring the light over here,' Aaron said. 'I helped Tom repair one of these once.'
Willy held the lantern high. 'So, what are we doing?'
Aaron located the boiler's valve cluster. 'We're going to blow this place to hell.'
Willy thought about that for a moment and decided it made sense.
Aaron reached in and turned the pressure regulator adjustment knob all the way up. Then he disabled the pressure relief valve with a wrap of wire. The needle on the steam-pressure gauge started to rise.
'That should do it,' he said. 'Let's get the heck out of here.'
Chapter 46
Needles had taken the white van and gone to get burgers for himself and Beeks; he sat alone at a red light drinking a cup of coffee. His cell phone rang and he set the cup in a holder and answered the call.
'Needles,' a woman's voice said, 'this is Brandy.'
Needles was quite surprised. 'Well, hello, Brandy,' he said politely.
'I'll get right to the point,' she said. 'You know about Johnny's meeting with that woman tonight, right?'
'At Sally's… yes.' He glanced at his watch. 6:02 p.m. 'In just under half-an-hour.'
'Well, I had lunch with him today, and he got drunk on his ass, and told me a lot more about that meeting than I wanted to hear.'
'I'm listening,' Needles said.
'You've heard how he and I first met, right?'
'At church, right? He was your Pastor.'
'Well, that's not really how it happened.'
Needles smiled. He wasn't surprised. The whole affair had been shadowy from the get-go, and he'd learned to take Souther's stories with a grain of salt.
'My real name is Barbara Fischer,' Brandy explained. 'Two weeks after my sixteenth birthday my parents and I had this huge fight, and I had seen this ad online for a modeling job at a new agency downtown and decided to check it out — you know, to get back at them.'
Needles had no idea where this was going — and the smell of the food was making him hungry.
'So, anyway, the people were really nice, and they took a gazillion pictures of me. And, well, apparently they liked what they saw, because they sent me straight upstairs to the owner's office. And you won't believe who it was?'
The light turned green, and Needles plucked a few French fries from the bag and proceeded through the intersection.
'It was Johnny Souther,' she said. 'That's how we met.'
Needles sat up in his seat.
'I was totally star struck,' she went on, 'and Mr. Souther knew he'd hooked me. So he came right out and told me that Black Eagle Studios was in reality a front for his prostitution ring, and that during my first shoot the photographer would be taking more than just pictures.'
'You've got to be kidding me,' Needles said.
'Yes… and by then I couldn't back out, of course — I knew too much. Besides, I knew the money would be good, and I had zero desire to go back to my parent's house anyway. So he got me a place to stay and renamed me Brandy Fine, and I spent the next two days trying to psych myself up for my big debut.'
Needles was speechless. Johnny Souther, a pimp? How could I not have known about this?
'… But then, at the last minute, Mr. Souther canceled everything and took me out for dinner and drinks — just the two of us — and we've been together ever since.'
'So, what does this have to do with Ashley Quinn?' Needles asked. But no sooner had he said it did it dawn on him.
'Can't you see?' Brandy said. 'Johnny wouldn't go to all this trouble if all he wanted to do was kill Ashley.'
'He'd have done that by now,' Needles said. 'And he's not thinking prostitution here… he wants her all to himself.'
'Right. And don't think for a moment that her son is out of the woods,' Brandy said. 'That exchange he
