Page 36 of Wall

“Who’s the civilian?” I mutter to Creech.

“Hell if I know. I was passed out in the commons, and I heard ‘Who wants to go fuck someone up?’ so I came along. You got a smoke?”

I shake my head. I don’t—I quit when Mona was expecting Peanut—but I’m hoping someone does. Anything would smell better than unwashed Creech after a hard night of what had to have been wrestling pigs in shit.

Creech turns to Grinder, and the old man spares him the cigarette he keeps tucked behind his ear. The van fills with smoke, and the civilian fails to stifle a cough.

I look to Forty. He’s ex-military, so he tends to run our operations. One thing I like about Steel Bones is everybody’s got a role. Steel and Smoke was a social club. Besides road captain, and the dude who handled dues, there wasn’t much in the way of organization. Steel Bones is a well-oiled machine.

Heavy’s the brains. The shot caller. Forty’s his right-hand. Nickel’s an enforcer, and he’s insane. Never seen a man fight with less provocation or concern for his bones and soft tissue. Charge is the pretty boy. The hillbilly charmer. He smooths things out when possible, and takes the rap when it’s not.

Pig Iron’s the treasurer, and Creech does ink and piercings. I’m muscle. We’re a motley crew, our only real connections the cut and the ink on our skin. But we’re family.

The dude in the collared shirt, though. I ain’t seen him around before.

I finally catch Forty’s eye and raise an eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah. That’s Mr. Smith,” Forty says.

Sounds like an alias. Of course, there are also thousands of Mr. Smiths in western PA.

“Mr. Smith lost his daughter last year to a fentanyl overdose. He and his wife are raising their granddaughter. How old is she?”

He clears his throat and swipes his palms on his thighs. “Four. Hailey is four. Almost five.”

I begin to connect the dots. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith.”

He nods. Dude’s face is white as a ghost. He’s freshly shaven with a businessman’s haircut. He’s wearing loafers, but I’ve seen that look in a man’s eyes before. I hope no one gave him a gun.

“We get the ring first, yes?” I ask Forty.

“Affirmative.”

The rest of the drive is silent except for Grinder hawking loogies and Creech babbling at some woman on his cell phone. When we pull up in front of a Victorian that’s seen much better days, Forty barks, “Cuts.”

We shrug them off and pass them up to the prospect for safekeeping. Then, Forty passes around the ski masks. I tie on a blue bandana. Ski masks make my face itch.

Mr. Smith eyeballs his mask like he don’t quite know what to do with it.

“Goes over your head,” Creech quips.

Mr. Smith smiles wryly and squares his shoulders.

“You ready for this?” Forty asks him. Mr. Smith nods. “All right, then. Charge and Creech, go right. Grinder and Pig Iron, go left. Wall, you got the door.”

“Yup.” I always get the door.

“On three. One—” Forty holds up his fist, every inch the ex-Army Ranger.

But we ain’t exactly disciplined, and we love to fuck with him.

A half dozen men bust out of the back of the van, Creech racing hellbent for leather with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, Nickel elbowing past me to the door and kicking it open in three wild kicks.

The living room is clear. Nickel races up the stairs, and there’s a ruckus at the back. The intel was good. Eckels has set himself up in business again. There’s CCTV, an alarm system, which might explain the action at the back. He had a few seconds head start.

“Get your hands off me, you asshole! Ethan!”

“I ain’t touching you!” Nickel’s urging a woman down the stairs, and he speaks the truth. He’s not laying a finger on her, just crowding her, but no one wants a man with eyes that crazy too close to their back.

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