King of Swords

'Which part of “go” did you miss, shitstick?'

'Motherfucker!' Carmine spat as he started up the car.

Max found a payphone on 5 th Street and called Striker Swan.

Striker was Billy Ray Swan's uncle. He'd done ten years for armed robbery. He'd been a serious badass before he'd gone away. He'd met his match behind bars and the experience had changed him from the inside out. He'd been rehabilitated of his worst excesses but he still wasn't doing straight time, making his living mostly running hot cars in and out of the state, yet the violence he'd been notorious for in his youth never re-entered the frame.

He'd loved his little nephew more than he'd loved anyone in his whole life — except, perhaps, for his sister-in-law Rachel on that one hot night when Billy Ray was conceived, or so people said. The two did look more than a little alike, even though that could just have been the Swan family genes.

Whatever the reality, Striker had been the most broken up by the kid's murder.

Swan answered the phone at the fifth ring. Max spoke to him through a handkerchief over the receiver and in the only accent he could make fly —Jimmy Canetjiouya.

'Striker?'

'Yeah,' Striker answered in a yawn. 'Who's this?'

'Never mind that. I got me a message to give you. Dean Waychek, guy that killed lil' Billy Ray? Wanna know where you can find him?'

Max didn't wait to hear the answer. He told him.

Max had met Swan once, very briefly, outside the police station, the day Waychek had been freed. Max had apologized to him. Striker — six feet two of white-trash muscle,

I tattoos and freckles - had given Max the briefest of nods and the faintest of smiles, as if to say, “You're a pig, so I hate you, but you're OK.'

Striker didn't say a word on the phone. He didn't even reply when Max asked him if he'd got the name of the motel.

But Max knew he'd got it all right.

Max hung up and got back in his car.

As he drove away he thought of Dean Waychek, remembered his smugness in the interrogation room, the way he'd been so sure he was going to get away with it.

'Adios, motherfucker,' Max said.

Carmine would never admit it to anyone, but he was scared of thunder. He didn't have a big quake-in-your-boots phobia, yet whenever the skies rumbled he'd get a sense of real and imminent danger, of something about to go very wrong in his life. He'd have to get out of the way, find a building to shelter in until it was over. He didn't like people seeing him afraid, especially not his Cards, current or prospective, and most of all he didn't like nobody knowing about the twitch he got in his upper left cheek, a spasm so strong and violent it jerked his face halfway up his skull, closing his eye and opening up the side of his mouth to show the world his teeth. He was getting it now, listening to the storm raging outside, through the walls of the bathroom, over the sound of the tap filling up the tub. He slapped himself hard to make it stop. As usual, it didn't.

He looked around the vast bathroom — spotless white tiles covered the floor and walls; the large basin, bidet, toilet, deep bathtub and separate shower area were all gleaming, while all the fixtures, down to the pipes, were gold plated.

There were white scales and a mirror by the door. But the highlight was the turquoise aquarium that ran almost the entire breadth and half the height of the wall opposite the tub. It was filled with a multitude of beautiful fish which glided, wriggled, hung or hovered across various tiers in the tank, some close enough to the surface to grab, others occupying the middle and showing off their colours, while a few avoided the limelight altogether and hid out in the rocks and vegetation below. They, Carmine decided, were the schemers and scavengers, the ones with the agendas, the

plotters, the ones he related to the most. Sometimes, when the bathroom was dark, and the light, shadow and current in the tank came together in the right way to create a gentle, billowing effect that ran from one end of the glass to the other and back again, the aquarium resembled a magical bejewelled tapestry floating in mid-air.

When he was growing up in Haiti, his father had told him that thunder was the sound of the gates of heaven opening up so the angels could come down and kill the world's sinners. All the flashes and bolts of lightning were their swords, cutting the heads off the evil ones, and the rain that came afterwards was to wash their bodies away into the sea.

If he was good, his dad had told him, he'd never have to be afraid of thunder, ever.