David J. Schow - Internecine

INTERNECINE

Also by David J. Schow

NOVELS

The Kill Riff
The Shaft
Rock Breaks Scissors Cut
Bullets of Rain
Gun Work
Upgunned (forthcoming 2011)

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Seeing Red
Lost Angels
Black Leather Required
Crypt Orchids
Eye
Zombie Jam
Havoc Swims Jaded

NONFICTION

The Outer Limits Companion
Wild Hairs (columns and essays)
The Art of Drew Struzan

AS EDITOR

Silver Scream
The Lost Bloch Volume One: The Devil With You
The lost Bloch Volume Two: Hell on Earth
The Lost Bloch Volume Three: Crimes & Punishments
Elvisland (collection by John Farris)

DAVID J. SCHOW

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS ST. MARTINS PRESS NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martins Press.

INTERNECINE. Copyright 2010 by David J. Schow. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Jonathan Bennett

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schow, David J.

Internecine / David J. Schow.1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-57136-8

I. Title.

PS3569.C5284I67 2010

813'.54dc22

2010013059

First Edition: July 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

INTERNECINE

The briefcase was a stainless-steel Halliburton, attach size, exactly the sort you see used in countless movies with drug deal scenes, only this one was matte black, and I knew for a fact it cost at least eight hundred dollars, new.

Heres what I found inside:

Two matched S IGARMS semiauto pistols, model 229. A hundred rounds of boxed ammunition in .357 caliber and four clean 12-round clips. Two glasspack silencers, threaded to muzzle size. Each silencer was nearly a foot long.

One five-shot .44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog revolver with rubber grips and fifty rounds of ammunition. The barrel was a hair over two inches long. This type of gun is what Ive heard called a snubbie.

One dispenser containing ten pairs of disposable, left-or right-hand surgical gloves, unpowdered, size large.

One Telemetrix cellphone with a booster antenna.

One laminated, letter-perfect FBI ID featuring a mans face thats not mine. A stranger to me. It smelled fake.

In the sleeve pocket of the case lid were two more items: An envelope containing two 8 by 10 photos of a woman I also didnt know, but whose name was Alicia Brandenberg. I learned this from her fairly detailed itinerary. There was another envelope containingto near-bursting$25,000, in used, nonsequential tens and twenties.

No serial numbers on the guns, the phone, anywhere. No lot numbers on the ammo boxes. No product plate on the briefcase. The slugs were heavy-grain cartridges packing maximum muzzle velocity, intended to do a great deal of damage to whatever got in their way.

Not a single fingerprint on anything. It was as though the contents had been boxed by a machine, factory-fresh, untouched by human hands.

There were three numbers programmed into the cellphone, no names or designations attached. I didnt want to use it to call anyone; I think I was slightly afraid of it.

The briefcase wasnt mine. I came across it by accident.

Perhaps I should back up a little bit.

My name is Conrad Maddox. For the past twelve years Ive worked as Vice President in charge of development for Kroeger Concepts, Ltd., an advertising firm in Los Angeles on the Valley side of the hill. My boss is the fellow who founded the firm, Burt Kroegera superior who has nonetheless managed to remain a friend, or at least an ally. Im one floor below him and we see each other for drinks; that kind of friend. Burt headhunted me, for which I remain grateful. Ive always tried to merit his absolute trust in business.

My job earns me a fair amount of frequent flyer travel miles, thanks to several hops a year to Chicago, New York, Seattle, Houston, Mexico City and, occasionally, Beijing or London. Berlin three times; Paris twice so far. I can afford a couple of weeks per year in St. John or Bimini to get away and, you know, unwind.

Im divorced. Dont ask about the ex Mrs. Maddox because: (1) she never took my name, and (2) we dont stay in touch. Ive had maybe ninety liaisons, affairs, trysts, and relationships in the eddy-rings surrounding my marriage, which lasted three years and then evaporated. It was the only time in my life Ive been completely faithful to one woman.

I try to resist involvements with co-workers, but as you can guess theres always an exception. Its human nature. In fact, Im breaking my own protocol in my mind right now.

I drive a fairly decent car, a Benz CL600 with blackout tinting everywhere, except on the windshield, which would be illegal. I have a variety of what could be called friends and acquaintances (I differentiate between the two), but more often than not, I veg out after work and pop in some DVD, just like you do when you need a break. I see my girlfriends frequently enough to maintain the delusion that I have a healthy outlook.

I was coming in late from Pittsburgh on American flight #183, non-stop with dinner service. The first-class dinners were better than those in coach; I had steak au poivre and three glasses of a middling Cab. You could still get the heated nuts, the hot towels and such; company credit cards never feel the turbulence. My Benz was in the shop in Manhattan Beach for a leaky coolant hose, so I had Danielle, at the office, hunt me up a decent rental.

She booked me into a midnight-blue Pontiac Sebring convertible, a car with a nice, solid suspension. I dumped my junk in the minimal trunk and when I settled down to orient, I noticed there was something in the passenger seat next to me.

A locker key.

(Since 9/11, storage lockers had vanished from LAX as too tempting, but guess whattheyre still there if you know where to look and dont mind being eyeballed by security. The coin-lockers used to be beyond the scanning points and X-ray pass-through. Now theyre inside the terminal near the check-in counters, far ahead of where your individual freedoms evaporate. But theyre still there.)

So I sat there for a moment, inventing assorted scenarios to explain the wayward locker key, subdivided across two general categoriesaccidental versus intentional. Assuming the first, it might have been left by: (1) the previous rental customer; (2) one of the guys working at the car agency; or (3) it might have fallen inside... somehow, which would have been a complete caprice of chance.

Assuming the second, I wondered, was the key left (4) on purpose for me, or (5) for someone else? Big joke potential, there. What a riot on old Conrad. Lets see what he does.

At the time it never occurred to me that there might be a (6).

I could have stuck the key in the glove compartment and forgotten it. Or turned it in at the Hertz lost and found. But guess what: Im not so dead inside (yet) that Im not curious. I like that evil thrill you reap from a privileged peek into stuff thats none of your business. You do, too. At the same time, Im also cautious enough to know that maybe the whole temptation is a setup. Maybe the locker, if it is to be found in the airport at all, is staked out by two dozen undercover cops, waiting for some Colombian coke lord, and wouldnt