Page 137 of American Hellhound
“Not what I meant.”
Ghost dropped his towel on the bar and approached him slowly. “Reese?”
He didn’t react, staring ahead into the middle distance.
Roman stepped up beside him with a squish of soggy boots. “Reese? Hey, man, it’s me. Roman. You alright? These guys didn’t rough you up, did they?”
Reese stared, mute.
“Uh…” Mercy rubbed the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable in a way he never did. “I kinda threatened to beat his head in…and now he only listens to me.”
“Attack dog,” Boomer said, seriously. He was sitting in a recliner – inGhost’sfavorite recliner, the little bastard.
Ghost hadn’t had anything to drink yet, and therefore couldn’t process the weirdness of that statement – but if it was true, he was glad the one holding the “attack dog” leash was one of his boys and not Roman’s. He rubbed his forehead, a headache coming on.
“Drink?” Tango asked.
“Please.”
“Reese,” Mercy said, and the kid went tense in an active, listening sort of way – a dog prepared for the hunting horn. Eerie. “This is Ghost.” He caught his eye and pointed at Ghost. “He’s the president. What he says goes. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.” But his gaze touched Ghost only briefly, snapping back to Mercy.
“Oh fuck me,” Mercy sighed. “This isn’t good.”
“What the hell did you do to him?” Ghost asked, turning to Roman.
Roman looked, to Ghost’s surprise, sad. “Nothing. I tried to help, but.” He shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
~*~
Ghost took a shower, checked on Maggie, put back a drink, fixed himself another, and only then was he ready for a long story.
Lightning strobed, occasional bursts on the other side of the office window blinds. Ghost sat behind the desk and wondered if this was strange for Roman, seeing as how he’d once had eyes on this very chair. He didn’t ask, though – he was an ass, but he wasn’t cruel…most of the time.
“Badger didn’t make Reese,” Roman started, sipping spiked coffee. “But he made him a little crazier, I think, maybe.”
“Why does he think my son-in-law is his new slave master or whatever the fuck?”
“That’s how it’s always worked with him. I think he respects force – shit, I know he does.
“I don’t know everything for sure, just what Kris has told me. She was eight and Reese was about six when their parents died. Were killed, I should say. Their dad got in deep debt with these people in New York.”
“Mob?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Not one I’ve ever heard of. I talked to some Russians a while back and they didn’t want shit to do with Reese – they knew who he was, though.
“No,” he continued, “this was some new kinda freak. I think he used to be military. Kris always got the idea he deserted or something. Dunno. Anyway, people always owed him money, and they were always trying to skip town on him. He had thugs – kneebreakers – but he thought it’d be fun to come up with a new kinda hitman. Something nobody’d ever dealt with before. Someone who’d never question him, who’d do whatever he asked, who he could train…like a dog.”
“Howmuchlike a dog are we talking?”
“Pretty close.” Roman made a face. “They kept Kris apart from him. At first, when he was little and crying, and just – shit. They threatened him with her. Said they’d cut off her fingers and toes unless he did exactly what they told him. He was just a little thing, didn’t understand. Apparently, at one point, they did cut off somebody’s finger and show it to him. He’d wet himself, I think, and they beat him, told him he was bad.”
Ghost had seen– hell, haddone– enough bad shit that he didn’t have physical reactions to these kinds of stories anymore, not unless they involved someone he cared about. Even so, he felt a tightening in his stomach.
“I guess eventually he got with the program, ‘cause the guy’s pretty much a robot. Unless you fuck with his sister where he can see it.”
“How’d Badger get him?”
