Dead Men's Harvest by Matt Hilton

they would want to hurt me. I was pleased in a way that they were using their fists, because if one of them thought to use a gun I might never see daylight again. Another thing that pleased me: while they were punching the shit out of me, they’d forgotten about continuing a more thorough search than the one that had already turned up my weapons. To motivate them to further fury, I spat a gob of saliva at them. My spit hit one of the men flush in his face, and he paused only to wipe it away before slamming his saliva-smeared palm down into my forehead. I suffered a double whammy. His palm rammed my head down on one of the ribbed spars of the floor. I almost blacked out. It didn’t stop them hitting me again.
    Finally the beating subsided, though it wasn’t because my captors were any less furious or tired of hitting me. The driver was shouting at them through an open hatch. My blood was pounding in my ears, and there was too much bumping and banging as they shifted about to hear clearly, but I got the gist. The man in the front was shouting that the boss wanted me unharmed. Thank God for small mercies.
    ‘Think this is your lucky day, asshole? Well, guess again. We aren’t going to kill you. Not yet, but I don’t fancy your chances once the boss is finished with you.’
    I squinted up at the voice to find the man I’d headbutted leaning over me. He was a guy in his mid-thirties, fit and strong-looking. Nothing distinctive about him apart from the raised welt I’d put on his forehead.
    ‘You can’t kill me,’ I said, trying to sound confident. ‘There were witnesses. They saw you snatch me off the street. The cops will be looking for me. What do you think will happen to you if I turn up dead?’
    The men all laughed at my naivety. My tormentor pressed a knuckle into my breastbone, digging at a nerve bundle. ‘The cops will turn a blind eye. Mr Petoskey owns the cops here . . . didn’t you know that?’
    One of them lifted a gun and I recognised it as the one I’d come armed with. He pointed it at my face. My tormentor said, ‘See, this is the way things will happen. Once the boss is finished with you, you’ll be gut shot and left lying in the road. We’ve plenty witnesses here who’ll swear we were delivering you to the police when you made a break for it, snatched one of our guns, and we had to shoot you in self-defence. We can do anything we want to you.’
    ‘No one would believe that . . .’
    ‘They would if they were told to.’ The man held out his hand and his friend slapped the SIG into his palm. The man carefully slipped the safety on. Then off again. It was all for show. He checked there was a round in the chamber. Then he jammed the gun under my chin. ‘In fact, there are enough of us here now, that if we told the boss that you got your hands on a gun and we had to kill you, well, he’d believe us too.’
    I screwed my eyes shut, made a whimpering sound.
    The man laughed and the others joined in like the pack of hyenas they resembled.
    ‘I thought you were supposed to be some sort of tough guy?’
    ‘You don’t know me,’ I said.
    ‘Oh, but I do.’ He tapped the gun on my forehead. ‘We heard that you might make a try on the boss. How’d you think we were ready for you coming? Did you think we just happened to have a van sitting around on the slightest off-chance that some random lunatic had a go at the boss? My problem is this . . . I don’t know what anyone was fucking worrying about. You’re a goddamn pussy who can’t even shoot straight.’
    Again a round of laughter.
    ‘Joe Hunter. We’ve heard all about you. Fuckin’ Brit coming over here, thinking he’s the hardest fuck in town. Well, I got news for you . . . you ain’t fuckin’ nothin’. You just made the biggest mistake of your life, buddy. You just came up against someone who isn’t afraid of your type.’
    ‘Jesus,’ I sighed.
    ‘You a praying man, Hunter? Well, get praying, ’cause you’re gonna need all the