The Storm Giants Read Free

fence behind the building. Rolls of razor wire topped the interposing barrier like they’d make any difference to a dedicated intruder.
    Was Rolly really inside there? Larry was the best snoop Everett knew – he liked to brag that he could find out many pimples there were on Osama bin Laden’s if anyone was willing to pay, and Everett had never been given reason to doubt that boast. Besides: Larry was a good criminal. He wasn’t about to blow smoke up Everett’s ass on something this important, without good reason.
    The front desk staff was inconsequential. Everett lied his way past them with ease. He walked down the hall to the open rear doorway, standing far enough back to be unobtrusive as he scoped out the action in the yard.
    It was a playground , but not like any he’d ever seen. The sandbox was a raised table; the swing was a boat shaped glider with a ramp leading up to its access gate. Two kids in wheel chairs were making it swing back and forth on high reaching arcs. The main play area was straight, smooth, level cement; no wood chips in sight.
    A mob of ki ds screamed and yelled and rolled around fast. Most were in wheelchairs; the ones that weren’t wore medieval looking leg braces, stumping around on crutches like they were at home on them.
    Most of the yelling came f rom a group of older boys bashing each other in a demolition derby of wheelchairs, wrestling over possession of a volleyball. A man in a big custom chair swooped into the fracas and plucked the volleyball from its owner, then spun his chair out and away with one whip of his free hand.
    “Yay Rolly ,” a little girl on crutches said with a laugh
    Rolly tossed the volleyball to the boys and scooped her onto his lap, crutches and all. He popped a wheelie on his chair and spun, his meaty hands flicking the wheels in opposite directions faster and faster as the girl squealed at this impromptu ride.
    Everett stepped out onto the wide access ramp leading down to the playground. Rolly stopped whirling and, as the chair’s front wheels touched down, they made eye contact.
    T he girl slid off Rolly’s lap to sprint away on her crutches. More and more kids saw Rolly’s expression, and the children looked from Everett to Rolly and back as the two men studied each other.
    Everett walked inside and out the front door, leaning against the wall of the building as he lit his latest cancer stick of the day. After a bit Rolly rolled out to sit next to him in his armored chair. Neither of them looked at each other, watched instead the traffic rumbling past on East 14 th .
    It was a little like the bad old days. A hunting pair with backs to wall so no one could creep up on them, each facing slightly away from the other so their combined visual ranges would spot danger quicker than either could’ve alone.
    “Thought you were dead , Rolly,” Everett said, flicking his cigarette in the general direction of the gutter and then putting both hands in his raincoat pockets. “Wouldn’t have stayed away if I’d thought different.”
    “I know that ,” Rolly said. “I was DOA at the scene – shit, the marks unloaded into me with a 12-gauge pump. Killed them all on my way down, but I got sloppy – it was dumb luck they unloaded birdshot.
    “T he Feds was the ones faked my death; they wanted me to give up my end. Thought they’d make me roll but I gave them squat.
    “There I was in the hospital with my guts trying to fall out past the stitches. And they’re saying they could save my legs at least. All I had to do was feed them somebody.”
    Everett aimed a sidelong glance at Rolly’s armored wheel chair. It looked post-apocalyptic with its disc shaped spoke protectors and cow catcher front bumper, like something out of the Road Warrior.
    “Rolly ,” Everett said. “You should have taken the deal; it would have been the right Line for you to take under that kind of heat. Would’ve understood you having to give it up to save your legs, there’s a limit