The pages of the book looked even older than the cover. Made of stiff thick parchment, faded and badly furrowed, they mostly sported what appeared to be very old drawings of demons. Hideous winged creatures with leering eyes, many with horns and cloven hooves, huddled in darkness. Others perched over the beds of unsuspecting sleeping victims or sat on blasphemous thrones of human bone. Others still were illustrated engulfed in flames or in mid-flight amidst the clouds, tangled in battle with angels. But for the cover and Milton quote, the text was written in Latin, in a calligraphy-like style, as if scribed by some mad medieval monk in the bowels of a candlelit monastery. Just touching the book made Rooster uncomfortable, so he quickly flipped through the remaining pages of lurid illustrations and indecipherable text then slammed it shut. Placing it facedown, he took another shot of whiskey.
When his nerves had settled a bit, he turned his attention to the manila folder. Six files were individually bound and stacked within, the front of each marked with a name:
Rather than immediately delve into his own file, he decided to begin with someone else's.
Rooster moved to the next page. All of Carbone’s stats were there: his full legal name, date of birth and social security number. Lower on the page it listed no living next-of-kin, the fact that he’d never graduated high school and had no formal education beyond the tenth grade, and that he was unmarried and had no children. The next page revealed a bullet list regarding his criminal record, which went back to his late teens and covered everything from petty theft to numerous sexual assaults and indecent exposures, to child pornography charges to assault and battery. The final entry, highlighted in yellow, documented his final arrest and conviction, the rape and stabbing death of a seven-year-old girl. He’d received two Life Sentences with no chance of parole, and according to the entry, had been serving them at the time this information had been originally compiled.
“That’s bullshit,” Rooster muttered. He hadn’t known Carbone that well, but Snow had, and he’d have never aligned himself with that kind of scum. Carbone was a criminal like the rest of them for sure, but he wasn’t a sexual deviant or a child killer. They were thieves, they didn’t rape and butcher children. And besides, even if Carbone
He went back to the photograph. It wasn’t an actual mug-shot, as he’d originally thought, it only looked like one. Instead it was simply a headshot of Carbone from the neck up, a black background behind him and his name stenciled along the bottom white border.
The last page of Carbone’s file contained a single word: DECEASED.
The file seemed thrown together and incomplete, as if someone had hastily transcribed a few important basic points, added a photograph then bound and stuffed the information into a folder. Rooster put it aside and moved to the next one.
Starker’s file contained a similar photograph and described him as a former Army Ranger that had received a dishonorable discharge and had served four years in a military prison for assaulting an officer. His personal stats were listed as well, including that he was single and had no children. His civilian criminal record began after his stint in the service, and consisted mostly of assaults and illegal weapons charges. It also listed him as a member of a radical political and paramilitary group the government had labeled as a terrorist organization responsible for the numerous bombings of several government buildings. His final conviction described him as one of a three-man team that had firebombed the campaign office of a political candidate their organization opposed. Four people had been killed in the bombing, including two women, one of them eight-months pregnant. Starker, along with his accomplices, had received Death.
This information was more believable—Starker had always been the most violent of the crew and the most unpredictable—but again, much of it made no sense. Starker wasn’t single, he was married—or at least had been, according to Snow he’d since murdered his wife—and although Rooster did know about Starker’s prior military service, he knew nothing about this radical political organization he’d supposedly been a member of, and certainly nothing of the firebombing of a campaign office. And again, if that were true, and he’d received a death sentence and had already begun to serve time on Death Row as the information suggested, how had he been with them the night of the armored car job?
“He couldn’t be.”
This time the final page contained the word TERMINATED.
Rooster reached for the bottle, poured another shot of whiskey.
Next came Nauls. The face in the photograph showed that same narrow face with the beady eyes he remembered. A closely-cropped beard and wild nest of curly hair coupled with his thin build gave him the look of a stoner or wannabe rock musician, and in reality, he’d been a little of both. In fact it was strange to see his eyes at all, as Nauls had almost always worn a pair of dark sunglasses, the lenses small, round and tight to his face. His file described a man who had been in and out of jail from the time he’d been a teenager, and who began serving prison time at only twenty. Predominantly a thief, he’d been arrested countless times for B&Es, purse- snatching, shoplifting, and drug possession. By all accounts Nauls had been a petty thief but not the least bit violent. In his mid-twenties he’d graduated to bank robbery and done time for it in federal prison. Like so many others, Nauls had come out of prison far worse than he’d gone in, as according to the paperwork, two months after his release he was arrested for another bank robbery, one that ended particularly violently.
The report claimed Nauls, cornered in the bank, had taken several tellers and the bank manager hostage. After a fourteen-hour standoff, Nauls had been refused the helicopter he’d demanded for his escape, and as a result had executed a female teller and then the bank manager. He was shot by a SWAT sniper moments later. Hit in the upper right chest, Nauls survived.
Ironically, he was sentenced to Death.
Rooster knew Nauls to be the most harmless member of the crew, and also the least violent. He spent most of his time smoking pot, chasing women, strumming an old guitar he loved and watching cartoons. He was a thief—and a good one—but not that bright and generally clueless. He was damaged, the kind of guy who had done hard time and wasn’t really cut out for it. Far as he knew, Nauls had an extensive criminal past but he wasn’t a killer, and the idea that he could’ve executed two people in cold blood seemed beyond belief.
The last page was the same as Starker’s. TERMINATED.
Landon too looked exactly how Rooster remembered him, as a man of average build with short dark hair receded to the middle of his scalp, hazel eyes, a permanent five o’clock shadow, an aquiline nose with flared nostrils and a mouth that seemed perpetually set in a wiseass smirk. His file depicted a man with a long criminal record, the majority of his arrests involving car theft or driving violations. Landon had always been a car nut, and was one of the best drivers Rooster had ever seen—certainly the best he’d ever worked with—and though he had a temper, complained endlessly and never backed down from a physical confrontation, he’d never been a particularly violent individual. He had the ability to be violent, and Rooster remembered more than one occasion when Landon had handled himself competently in physical skirmishes, but for the most part it was his mouth one had to look out for. Landon could cut someone to shreds verbally without even trying. He’d begun his criminal career stealing cars as a teenager, and by the time he was in his twenties he’d done time for auto theft and for two counts of aggravated assault. In and out of prison for most of his twenties, he was later arrested as the wheelman on a jewelry store heist. He and his accomplices had escaped but not before police were on them, and
