The Innocents

by Nathan Senthil

“We’re in danger,” Joshua said. “We need to change the tires as soon as possible.”

  “D-danger?” The girl glanced back at her car and took an unconscious step back. “I-I don’t wanna get in trouble, Mister.”

  “We really need your help because we have two flats.”

  “But I don’t know how to change wheels. And I can’t give you my spare. It won’t fit your car.”

  “No, ma’am,” Peter said. “We have two spares, but only one Jack. Give us yours, and we’ll drop it at your workplace later.”

  “M-my workplace?” The girl was possibly regretting her choice to help strangers.

  “It’s too risky for you to be here right now.” Joshua showed her the caltrop. “People who dropped it will come any minute. I’ll pay for the Jack if you want.”

  The girl bit her upper lip. “It’s alright, you don’t have to pay me.” She hastened to her car; apparently the gravity of the situation had finally sunk in. Her little voice trembled as she spoke. “But my Jack’s a bit heavy.”

  “No problem.” Joshua waved Peter over. “We can both carry it.”

  Once they positioned themselves over the trunk, she clicked the remote and the lid popped open. From inside, two men pointed shotguns in their faces.

  Chapter 26

  April 12, 2019. 9:02 P.M.

  The sound of snoring brought some sense of normalcy whenever Joshua drifted into reality. He’d deduced they were held in Calabria’s back office. The smell of cheese betrayed the location, although his head was covered with burlap. The bag, a gift from the people who’d abducted them on the highway, had not been removed even once.

  It could be a few hours or a day or two since he was dragged to this place and fastened to a wooden chair. The zip ties were cinching his wrists, cutting off the blood flow. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore, except a tingling sensation of coldness. Not to say he wasn’t in pain. His lower back stung as if a shiv was jammed into his vertebrae, knees gnashed and throbbed at the slightest movements. The soreness on his ass had started burning, like the skin was abraded, making him scared of shifting even an inch. Being forced to sit for an extended period of time should be in the top ten torture methods, he’d guessed.

  The snoring abruptly stopped, worrying him.

  “P-petey?”

  “Oh, we’re still stuck.” Peter cleared his throat. “Thought it was a dream.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Peter said, his voice grainy, “If having your head wrapped in a cloth and limbs tied to a chair, potentially to be gunned down is okay, then yeah, I’m A-Okay.”

  Joshua said, “I’m really sorry, man. If it weren’t for—”

  “Spare me the crap,” Peter said. “You didn’t drag me into this. I wanted to come.”

  “But you have a remarkable service record. Good pension.”

  “So what? You think I’d rather spend my days watching the news and sitcoms?”

  Joshua nodded as if Peter could see. “Beats having a sack over your head.”

  “Someone taught me it’s better to die in the field than sitting around, broadening your ass.”

  While Joshua smiled, his eyes prickled. His best friend remembered something he had told him almost two decades ago. He felt blessed for having Peter by his side, at this moment of his life.

  “Thank—”

  Metallic grating paused Joshua. A key opening the door. That soundproof door. Alright. End of the road.

  Joshua wanted to get something out of his system quickly. He said, “You’re a good friend.”

  “I know,” Peter said. “Wish I could say the same, but honestly, you were a douchebag to me mostly.”

  Just as the snide comment began to hurt, Peter said jovially, “I’m kidding. You’re a great friend. And the most tenacious guy ever.”

  “You’re talking like it’s a good thing,” Joshua said. “Look where it’s got us.”

  Both burst out laughing.

  The door was opened, then shut. Two pairs of shoes approached them, and amidst strong footfalls, a less-than-capable leg was dragging a foot behind.

  “This is not funny, knuckleheads!” Roman said.

  “That’s because you haven’t heard the joke,” Peter said.

  When Roman first talked to them hours ago, he was surprised that they knew about the location. But after Joshua said it was the cheese stench that gave it away, Roman had acted embarrassed, mincing words and sounding insecure. Must be self-conscious of his weight.

  “Say, who’s the redhead?” Peter asked.

  “A high-ticket hooker,” Roman said. “We didn’t pay her though.”

  “You killed the girl?”

  “We don’t leave witnesses,” Roman said. “Neat trick, uh? Hiding in the trunk to ambush? We learned it from Lolly, and thanks to that, we finally caught you slimy assholes.”

  “Now that you did, what’s next?”

  “What do you think?” Roman said. “We’re gonna shoot you and kill you dead.”

  “Shoot you and kill you dead?” Peter mocked. “Get your bad-guy script right. It sucks balls. Not man balls. I mean huge swollen gonads of an elephant.”

  “Levi,” Roman said in a stern voice and someone pulled the slide of a gun, chambering a round. “Give it here.”

  Joshua heard Roman’s foot scuffing along the floor, moving closer, finally halting behind them. A few seconds later, he said, “Try being a clown now. I dare you.”

  “Anything for you, pumpkin,” Peter said. “So a fat Italian with a tiny pecker walks into a bar—”

  The explosion froze everything for a microsecond. The thunderous bang ruptured Joshua’s eardrums and vibrated through his sternum, stopping his heart momentarily. But he recovered from the shock and called Peter’s name out, his voice muffled, like he was underwater. No answer.

  It just couldn’t…

  His partner. His friend. Who followed him everywhere. Like a puppy. Warm tears cascaded down Joshua’s cheeks.

  It just…

  An eighteen-year bond was severed in half a second, by a piece of lead.

  His mouth parted in a disbelieving shock, drool escaping from one corner, as he gasped and sucked in air.

  It…

  Somewhere deep within, an animal screamed, “No!”

  As the world span out of control, gravity acted strangely. Joshua fell off a cliff, a precipitous drop, but he never hit anything. While he battled insufferable agony, his breathing became labored. He shook the chair, rattling it on the floor.

  The bag was yanked off, and the light hurt his eyes. Joshua smeared his wet face across his shoulder.

  To the right, he spotted Peter. His head slumped forward. It was covered with a burlap sack, just like Joshua’s.

  Except it had two holes in it.

  Blood dribbled from the front hole and poured between Peter’s thighs, making an eerie dripping sound as it hit the floor. And smoke coiled upwards from the one in the back.

  As vertigo returned, and the animal inside him howled again, the bag was pulled over his head.

  When wailing in agony, he realized something. Peter had remembered what Joshua had told him so many years ago and lived by it, hadn’t he? Then shouldn’t Joshua value what his late friend had advised him recently?

  Never let your enemy wreck your mind.

  Peter wouldn’t forgive Joshua if he cried before his enemies. They might take your body, but your mind always belongs to you, he’d said.

  Trembling, Joshua sat straight and took a few deep breaths. He calmed himself and made peace with the inevitable.

  He didn’t have a say in his birth, so why should he have one at his death?

  As he relinquished the want of control, a smile appeared on his lips, which transformed into a laughter.

  “What’s wrong with you two?” Roman asked in irritation. “You guys on drugs or something? Why aren’t you scared?”

  “We all gotta go sometime. And I’m ready to meet the maker.” Joshua tilted his head,
angling it towards where he supposed Roman stood. “The question is, are you?”

  Roman didn’t speak for a few seconds. Then he said, “Nothing personal, man. Our boss is old and desperate. He’s willing to do anything to get Lolly.”

  “Then why kill us? We were after him, too.”

  “No offence, but you’ve been searching for him over a quarter century with no results. Now that we know who you are, who your family is, we thought of a better way to use you.”

  Family? Didn’t Bugsy say the same thing? What were these assholes planning to do?

  Then Joshua put it all together. “You don’t mean…”

  From that loud bang, Joshua was willing to bet that Peter was killed by a Desert Eagle. And Roman would use the same gun on Joshua as well. Now he understood why the drive-by shooters employed a Desert Eagle—an unusual gun for their line of work—and why they hadn’t covered their faces fully, showing CCTVs their ethnicity.

  Bugsy wanted the world to think that it was Lolly who killed Joshua.

  No… not the world.

  He wanted just one person to think that. Because that specific person was practically the best detective in the US. Joshua had to agree with his captors there. If anyone could catch Lolly, it was them. By murdering Joshua, they were setting the smartest of good against the coldest of evil.

  “Gabriel,” Joshua muttered. “My boy.”

  “Thanks for saving me the time of having to explain. I hate basic villain’s monologuing,” Roman said. “Is it true that Gabriel caught a serial killer in under a week?”

  “Uh-huh.” Joshua nodded. “And uncovered the identity of another, also under a week.”

  “So he’s the better hunter? The smarter Chase?”

  Joshua smiled proudly. “Yup, that I can’t deny.”

  “Our boss’s plan is perfect then,” Roman said. “I’m calling your son from your phone right now.”

  Roman put it on speaker. The automated voice said that the person they were trying to reach was speaking to someone else and asked to either wait or call again later.

  “Alright,” Roman said. Then Joshua heard something pelted at the wall. Probably his cell phone. “He’ll call you back, but you’ll never be reachable ever again.” Roman giggled at his own tasteless pun. “When he learns you’re dead, he’ll come running to Detroit with one thought in mind: find Lolly.”

  Joshua chuckled and shook his head. “But like any basic villain, you missed a teeny-tiny detail in your convoluted scheme.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Gabe is one vindictive bastard,” Joshua said. “You, Bugsy, Lolly, and his two friends, none of you are going to escape this alive if you pull my boy into this.”

  “Oh…” Roman mocked and put what Joshua assumed was the muzzle under his eye. “I’m so scared.”

  “You should be because he will come to Detroit.” Joshua smirked. “And you can bet your sweet ass that when he does, he will bring holy hell down upon you evil motherfuckers.”

  Then Joshua heard an explosion, which stretched into an echo disappearing into the distant void. Suddenly it was all cozy and bright.

  Just before everything stopped being relevant, he thought he smelled his wife’s angelic whiff. Rosewater with a hint of sandalwood. Right then, he knew he was heading to a better place. A smile found its way to the last thread of his consciousness.

  Peace… at last.

  Part III: Gabriel

  Chapter 27

  May 10, 2019. 06:15 A.M.

  The Camaro’s headlights raced over the blacktop, its steering wheel rumbling under Gabriel’s grip. A sign board overhead read Welcome to Detroit. Clenching his teeth, he floored the accelerator, and the beast’s engine roared, propelling the muscled machine forward.

  The red orb rose in the rearview mirror, and the freeway slowly turned into glistening gold. The sunlight stretched along the road and illuminated the distant city before him, removing darkness from every nook and cranny.

  William Lamb, Peter Lamb’s son, was lying on the backseat while his crutch rode shotgun. His hackneyed curiosity and energy were absent. Neither felt like talking, the murders of their dads still fresh in their minds.

  Gabriel had been worried ever since Joshua drunk dialed him because he sounded paranoid. He called again on April 12, but Gabriel was talking to someone at that time. From that point onwards, any call made to Joshua’s number went straight to voicemail.

  Thankfully his FBI friend, Conor Lyons, offered to help. He detected the source of Joshua’s call, and also found that Peter’s cell phone was last active around Lake Erie. Using this location as a reference, Conor searched the NamUs—the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System—with Peter’s and Joshua’s descriptions.

  He found them in the database and their case files.

  An anonymous call made to the DPD reported that two men with burlap bags over their heads were dumped at the bank of Lake Erie. The cops were unable to find IDs or phones near the crime scene. Lowlifes stealing stuff from dead bodies wasn’t new. Due to these scavengers, the investigation was delayed.

  It had been six days since the news shattered Gabriel. Taking care of the funeral and other related services took only two days. The remaining four were spent with the FBI.

  Conor was promoted as Special Agent in Charge of a new department under the FBI’s NCAVC. It was named Bureau’s International Serial Killer Investigation Treaty, BISKIT for short. The exclusive role and responsibility of this department was to hunt serial killers internationally, if the respective country asked for the FBI’s help.

  Conor implored Gabriel to join BISKIT, and he accepted under one condition. He should be allowed to go after Joshua’s killer and the most wanted bank robber in the US: Lolly. Cleaning another’s house while your own stank was unreasonable.

  Gabriel aced the exams and physicals. His experience in catching two serial killers and working as a homicide detective for more than a decade were highlighted in his resume. Commendation letters from the commissioner of the NYPD, New York City’s District Attorney and Mayor, did wonders in boosting Gabriel up as a distinguished candidate.

  And only yesterday, they knighted him. It was unusually fast because Conor coerced the Assistant Director of the FBI, saying they needed to get Lolly while the trail was still hot.

  “Take a left, Detect— um… Agent Chase,” Bill said.

  Gabriel hadn’t stopped paying attention to the dashboard GPS, but he understood Bill’s need to chip in.

  Glancing at the side mirror, Gabriel pushed the turn signal and twisted the wheel. The car swerved, its tail almost swiping a lamp post.

  Their destination was a hundred meters ahead, which he covered in under five seconds, skidding Bill’s car to a halt.

  Gabriel stared at the building across. It had an unlit neon sign on top reading ‘Calabria’. It was closed.

  Gabriel stepped down with the crutch, before carefully helping his friend climb out. Bill’s femur, cracked by a cannibalistic psychopath they caught last month, hadn’t had enough time to heal. But Bill wouldn’t stay home.

  They had selected a hotel opposite Calabria for their stay, and Gabriel had picked his room carefully on their website.

  While inside, he nodded at the receptionist. “Reservations for Chase and Lamb.”

  Consulting her PC, she said, “That’d be 203 and 204.” From the board hanging on the back wall, she unhooked two keys and handed them over.

  As they waited for the elevator, Gabriel’s mind jumped to the case.

  Joshua had been shot with a Desert Eagle, the type of gun Lolly used. But to be one hundred percent sure, additional tests were needed. The FBI had made a request to the DPD, and the recovered slugs were now on their way to Quantico. But it would take time. Time that Gabriel’s burgeoning desire for vengeance couldn’t afford.

  The bell chimed, derailing his train of thought; they got in and rode the elevator. When it stopped at the second floor, Gabriel and Bill went
to their respective rooms in silence.

  Chapter 28

  May 10, 2019. 07:11 A.M.

  Cold water from the shower caressed Gabriel’s body. One particular horrible image repeatedly flashed behind his eyelids: Joshua on a gurney with a grisly hole in his face.

  Rage that had been simmering inside since he saw that photo seeped out. As his fingers curled into fists, tears of wrath flowed down his neck, their warmth a stark distinction from the cold water. Gabriel tried to stop crying, cupping his mouth with both hands. It was extremely difficult to tame the agony pulsating at the threshold of his throat.

  Gabriel never had anyone except Joshua. He had not been just a dad, but also a role-model, a mentor. More than all, a mom. Gabriel couldn’t believe that Joshua was not here anymore.

  It was unfair. To have lived a life of community service, dedicating his time to people who were wronged and in need of justice, only to be gunned down and discarded like garbage, left to the mercy of fish and flies.

  Thinking this, picturing this, another fit of rage exploded within.

  This time, Gabriel’s strong hands couldn’t contain the misery.

  He squatted and plunged his head inside a bucket. The raw pain shot from the pit of his stomach and ousted into cold water.

  Half a minute had gone by before he stopped bawling and resurfaced. But he quickly drew air in and dived again, not caring about his voice box bursting or some vein in his brain rupturing.

  When he eventually ran out of air, he opened his eyes and looked through the water. As the tears made their presence known by warmly touching his skin, he pledged, again, that no one involved in his dad’s death would live. Lolly’s gang for pulling the trigger, the Detroit Alliance for enabling them years ago.

  Gabriel tied a fluffy towel around his waist. Turning the doorknob, he half expected to see hotel staff or Bill waiting for him, probably rattled by the animalistic screeches.

  But the room was empty.

  His improvised muffler of a bucket of water had apparently worked. He sat on the bed’s edge and went over his plan, letting the draft of air from the ceiling fan dry his skin.