Chapter 29

“That’s him,” his driver said, directing Marks' attention to a skinny guy with Asian features. He was walking out of a dorm with a large backpack slung over his shoulder. It was heavy enough to make him walk nearly bent over.

Marks let out a disgusted sigh.

“He’s not who we’re after,” he replied. “But he will know the men who were using his car. Go pick him up.”

His driver got out and followed the Asian kid until there was no one around. Then the man wrapped a large arm around the kid’s neck and hauled him toward Marks' car. He threw him inside. Then he went back to the driver’s seat and started the car back up. They drove away, their passenger staring around in confusion. When he realized what was going on, he struggled and screamed.

Marks sat calmly as the kid struggled, a pleased smile on his lips.

“Mr. Carter?” he asked and the kid suddenly stopped shrieking. There was a quality to Marks’ voice that cut through all of Barry’s fear. “I believe you have some information I need.”

“W-who are you?” Barry said. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “W-what do you want?’

Marks calmly drew out his gun and pointed it at the kid. Barry shrank as far away as he could get. He pressed himself up against the door, trying in vain to open it and run.

“Calm down,” the drug lord commanded, his voice sharp.

Barry gulped nervously and did what he was told. He stopped trying to get away and peered at Marks through fear-stricken eyes.

“If you tell me what I want to know then you can go and start working on forgetting what happened here,” Marks said with a pleasant voice.

“W-what do you want to know?” Barry asked, hesitantly.

“You let someone borrow your car recently, correct?” Marks asked.

“Y-yes,” Barry replied, stuttering. “H-how di-did you know that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Marks answered. “Now, tell me the name of the men that were using your car?”

“O-okay! Just don’t hurt me. The guy’s name is Darius Clarke. Something happened to his car so he asked to borrow mine. That’s all I know, man. I swear.” Barry’s voice was high and thready and he started nervously wringing his hands.

Marks watched him, trying to assess whether or not the kid was lying. He was obviously scared shitless, which meant he was more than likely telling the truth. Fear was a great motivator to get the truth out of someone.

“What else can you tell me about him? Was there someone else with him when he would borrow your car?” Marks asked.

“I don’t know him that well. I just know he lives in my dorm and his roommate’s name is Alex Porter. That’s it.”

The roommate had to be the second perpetrator.

“What do these two look like?” Marks asked.

Barry gave him some basic descriptions that Marks made sure to commit every last detail to memory. When the kid was finished, he pointed his gun at Barry Carter and shot him several times in the chest.

The body was found several days later and miles away from Ashebrook University.

The day after he met with Barry Carter, Marks sat in his office. It was still thoroughly trashed, but he hardly noticed. He sat back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head and waited. So far, everything was coming together and it wouldn’t be much longer before his plan would be set in motion. Another cop he had on his payroll had been instructed to accidentally lose a couple of key pieces of evidence from the robbery and murders, including several copies of his security footage that he’d been forced to hand over. The case had officially gone cold, whatever leads the cops managed to scrounge up had all dried out.

Which was exactly what he wanted.

Now, he was free to deal with the ones who attacked him without worrying about the cops getting to them first.

He had other sources out there, gathering other useful information for him on Darius Clarke and Alex Porter. He had even managed to find out where one of them worked. He was waiting for one of those sources when he heard footsteps quietly approach. He glanced up and found a figure standing in his doorway. He was tall and gawky, his long, thin arms dangling at his sides. One of those stick-thin arms rose up to rub furiously at an elbow.

“Uh…sir?” The person was obviously nervous. His voice had cracked on the word “sir.”

“Come in,” Marks replied, smiling. He sounded almost pleasant. He gestured to a lone chair sitting in front of his desk and the figure hesitantly sat down in it. “Today is a lucky day for you, Mr. Fuller.”

“What d-do you mean?” Kevin Fuller replied. He tried not to look at all the wreckage around him but Marks didn’t miss the way his eyes strayed to it anyways.

“I know you’ve been skimming money from me.” The tone of his voice switched from pleasant to cold in an instant. “If you even think about trying to deny it, I will rip your lying tongue out.”

“I’m so sorry. I needed the money to pay for school and it was only a couple of times. I swe...”

“Shut up.” Marks' voice was deadly quiet.

Kevin snapped his mouth closed with an audible click.

“I’m not interested in your excuses and if I wanted you dead you’d already be in a morgue.”

“S-sorry,” Kevin quivered, barely able to say the word. Tears started falling down his pimple-ridden cheeks and his nose had runnels of snot hanging from both nostrils.

The sight of him disgusted Marks, but he bit down his revulsion. He needed answers and he meant to get them.

“You answer my questions, you go free,” Marks explained. He saw the way Kevin’s eyes lit up with cautious hope. “That’s all you have to do.”

“What kinds of questions?” he asked, his voice still carrying a warbling quality. “I’m not so good with like math and stuff. I do better at other stuf...”

“You’re not here for a pop quiz, you moron,” Marks snapped, causing Kevin to jump almost completely off his chair. “Your boss at work is a man named Alex Porter, is it not?”

He, of course, already knew the answer to that question, but he waited to hear from Kevin regardless.

“Uhh...yeah,” Kevin replied.

Marks watched him relax a little. Hearing that the focus of their conversation wasn’t going to be about him stealing money helped with that.

“Yeah. At the Grill,” Kevin went on.

“I want you to tell me everything you can about him,” Marks commanded. “And do not leave anything out.”

“Why do you wanna know about him?” He was genuinely confused.

Instead of an answer, Marks pointed the gun at Kevin’s face.

“O-okay man. I’m sorry.” Kevin held up his hands.

Marks was a big fan of using a gun’s power as leverage, but now he kept it with him all the time and not to make himself feel more powerful, it was because he was scared and that fear was consuming him. He hated it. He hated the way it gnawed at him incessantly. But despite that, he still loved inspiring fear in others. Like now. He loved the way Kevin’s face drained of color and the way his eyes went huge and round. He loved the way the kid’s hands shot up over his head and how he was scrunched up into a little ball in the hopes of making himself a smaller target.

Seeing Kevin react that way made him feel like he was in control again, if only for a moment. Once it was over, that crushing weight of fear would crumble on top of him again.

“Tell me about him,” Marks said again. “Or I shoot you in very painful places before I put one through your left eye.”

He pointed the gun at Kevin’s head to get his point across.

“I don’t know much, man,” he whined. “He doesn’t even like me.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Marks replied, dryly. He made a show of slowly pulling the trigger.

That made Kevin squeal in fright.

“Uh...I don’t know man. I don’t know!” Kevin was literally melting down in front of his eyes. “Umm...there was this dude named Darius….uhh...shit!....Clarke! Like Superman! That’s his name. Darius Clarke. He would stop by a lot. They’re really good friends I think. That Darius guy would come in with his girlfriend sometimes. She was really hot too. Her name was Anna. I think her last name was Cook or something. I’m not sure about that but I think it’s right.”

That name sounded faintly familiar, ringing distant bells in his head, but whatever memory was trying to climb out wouldn’t come to him. It stayed buried and he let it go. The more he fought to dig it up the harder it would be to make it surface.

All things in good time, he thought to himself.

“What else?” Marks pressed, getting eager now.

“Oh, right.” Kevin snapped his fingers as he remembered something else. “There was another chick too. She was into Alex and she was hot too. Man she had a set of...”

“Get on with it,” Marks told him, voice sharp. “Who is she?”

“I don’t really know her and I get the feeling the two just met. I got her name though,” Kevin told him, leaning casually back in his seat. His fears were starting to dissipate as he started feeling more at ease and got more comfortable. “It’s Cassie. I don’t know her last name. The guy was a total nutcase when she showed up. Practically drooling. I watched him try and grill his own hand when she was there. Yeah, I know how that sounds. I thought I was goin’ nuts. But I swear to you, Mr. Marks, his hand was on the grill and it was on full blast. And…and he didn’t so much as flinch. He tried to tell me I was crazy but I know what I saw.”

Marks ignored the rest of the kid’s ramblings. His eye went back to his gun and when he picked it up, he reveled in the familiarity of it. Its grip. Its weight. All its deadly force. He aimed it at Kevin’s head, who was too busy talking to notice. Marks fired, blasting his brains out the back of his head. The body slumped backward in the chair, sliding little by little until it plopped onto the floor. About a second later, one of his men came in and cleaned up the mess, taking the body to be dumped somewhere nice and secluded.

Marks sat back in his chair, thinking about the information he just got. He was sure his information was correct. Barry Carter and Kevin Fuller had both been too scared of him to lie. What Kevin described about the incident with the grill even fit with his facts. Alex Porter and Darius Clarke had walked through a hail of bullets without even slowing down, shrugging them off like they’d been nothing. He knew they weren’t wearing any body armor or other forms of protection. He’d been able to see that for himself even before one of them had said as much. It stood to reason that a hot grill would have no effect on them either.

They were strong, fast, and as far as he knew, unkillable. However, thanks to the information he just got from Kevin, he now knew where he could hurt them.