His knee hurt. It ached. He walked with a limp that he resented. At first he had gritted his teeth against it and refused to hobble despite the pain. Long ago he had learned that pain was just an intense form of communication from nerves to brain. Pain could be tied down or smothered if you had will enough to do it. He had never lacked will.
But this was more than pain. If he took a normal step, the knee became indecisive about which way it was meant to bend. That invited more pain and a whole other resentment - his body working against him. He had been stubborn - the less attractive cousin of a strong will - and refused to limp. But the knee had sent him into walls and hopping against the possibility of a fall. So he limped.
He was too old for this. Long ago, when he was still in the life, he passed off this kind of thing to a younger generation of strong willed men. He had been in his prime, still a power of a man who could inflict damage and pain if it was called for. He had also been old enough to know when a stern word or even a smile would work better. And he had given it over to younger men. He was too old for this.
But there was no one else for it. No one else would go after her. She had killed the only one who would have. She had killed her son. He shook his head at thought. He had known she was a hard woman. He had been her instrument too many times to doubt her will. But to kill her own...
The boy had been like her in so many ways - smart and devious and savvy and charming. He could put you in a good mood just by smiling at you. He could talk. He got that from his father - the politician. But her mind and that smile and those words - the kid would have taken her out at some point - if that had ever been his aim. But he just wanted to be away from her.
He didn't want what was hers and never had. As just a boy he had seen through the manners and the politeness and the reserve and the poise that she wore. He had seen the violence and rage and vulnerability and the vindictiveness and the utter incapacity for kindness. He saw her plans. He understood her calculations and manipulations and wanted no part of it.
The only thing he had not seen was her confusion, her blind spot. No one who played her game as well as she did could ever be anything other than a threat. He had wanted to walk away and be done with her. Her need for control would never let him walk away. He knew he would need a fortune to live a life free of her. And she saw him amassing wealth - power - and came to the only conclusion she could have ever reached.
And the boy had never known the exact stakes they had played for. And Ginger had never thought it would come to this either. But the boy was dead. His brother had been the weapon, but she had called the shot. And now Ginger did the only thing a stubborn old man could do. He hurt her as best he could.
The money was still earned and counted and stored and transferred in so many of the old ways that he himself had designed. He waited at the weakest points and he killed and stole as much as he could. He tipped the cops to the ones not vulnerable to a vengeful old man. The limp had come when should have called the cops but pride and will had demanded he handle it himself.
The first two, the only two he had expected, had crumpled just as the lead found them. Ginger took the time to take the silencer from his gun. He tossed them both into his duffle bag and raked thick stacks of bills in after it. And then the third man, the unexpected man, the bastard who shouldn't have been there, had come out of the pisser. They had stared at each other for what had seemed like minutes.
Then the man had reacted. He was a young man, at least forty years younger than Ginger. And he was fast. His leg had swept out and found Ginger's right knee. The nerves in the knee had shouted - loudly. Ginger had ignored the noise and as he fell he threw his right hand up into the man's groin and could almost hear that shouting as well. As Ginger had hit the floor, the other man had doubled over while trying to remember how to breathe.
Ginger sat up and clapped his hands around the man's head and his thumbs found his eyes. The screaming was out loud now. Ginger slid his hands down and tried to make a fist with the man's throat between his fingers. Ginger slung the corpse down and then frantically clawed over it until he found the other man's gun. He was hyperventilating in great gulps of air as he scrambled across the floor to get his back to the wall and wait for the next unexpected thing.
Nothing else waited for him. He got up. The knee shouted. Ginger gritted his teeth. The pain wilted.
