All the Way Down

by Eric Beetner

  “Hey, Tat.”

  Dale caught his reflection in one of the many mirrors and he looked as nervous as he felt. He needed to relax. He’d turned down the wire, but he still came off looking like he wore a microphone under his shirt, hidden camera on his belt, and a backup team of officers stuffed up his ass.

  “You heard about this fuckin’ mayor?” Tat slapped a hand down on the black marble top of his desk. A thick gold ring clacked off the surface like a gunshot. “What’s he tryin’ to do to us, man?”

  “Y’know, Tat, that’s kinda why I’m here.” Cut to the chase. Get the job done, get out, and get on with things. Even the idea of hurry up and go to jail seemed more appealing than standing in this office building any longer.

  “You’re here ’cause I let you be here, man. You work for me, remember?”

  Dale felt properly put in his place. “Yes. True, but that’s not all.”

  “The girl, right?” Tat’s grin spread wide, exposing both golden canines again. “What the fuck, mayor can’t take a joke?”

  “Yeah, down at headquarters no one is laughing, Tat.”

  The gold teeth were covered as Tat’s mouth slid shut, a pinched glare taking over. He snapped his fingers twice and two of the henchmen slipped out of the room on a mission. Dale didn’t like the look of it.

  “She came in here snooping around, man. Looking for shit. A reporter, you know? Writing some shit about me. Hey, unless it’s some shit about how beautiful I am, you don’t do that without my permission, you dig? I got to get the facts, man. Did her daddy send her here? This new law, man, this shit is bullshit. They’re trying to shut me down.”

  Tat twisted his neck, trying to crack it. Nothing happened. Still pinned to his seat, his energy threatened to vibrate him right out onto his desk.

  “So the mayor’s is pissed I kept his little girl for a day or two? He ought to feel lucky I didn’t put a bullet in her. Or maybe some of this.” Tat reached down and grabbed a fistful of his crotch, pumped his hand a few times to emphasize its bulk, then laughed it off.

  In his two years of dealing with Tat, Dale felt he was always one minor slipup away from a bullet to the brain. From a gold-plated gun, of course. Tat had no respect for the badge Dale carried, but Dale knew by agreeing to the first meeting and taking the first stack of hundred-dollar bills, Dale had disrespected the badge himself. The relationship got off on the wrong foot.

  But Tat knew Dale as a man of action. A man who could get things done. One of Tat’s rivals needed to go away, Dale could have him behind bars by the stroke of midnight, and if that was impossible, he’d have someone underneath the pavement of a new parking lot just as fast. Dale had scumbag blood on his hands at Tat’s request. What Tat didn’t know is that it all came out of a deep fear of Tat and a detailed look at the reports of the other two cops on the take before him—including autopsy photos of them after the fact. Dale didn’t feel like being victim number three, and fear can make a man do some very stupid things.

  Standing in front of Tat, unarmed, Dale was a newborn puppy still slick with afterbirth. No threat to anyone. Still, he needed to maintain an aura of a man who could come in to Tat’s own building and make demands, or at least requests.

  The two henchmen returned escorting Lauren O’Brien between them. Dirty blonde, pretty, and looking younger than her twenty-four years, she seemed more annoyed than scared. A pissy sorority girl.

  “What the fuck is it now?” She acted like the two thugs had turned off her favorite TV show to bring her into the office. She looked up and noticed Dale. He thought he saw a hitch of hope in her eyes. She quickly covered it over with a thick layer of fake annoyance. “Who’s this?”

  Tat swiveled in his chair to face her. “His name is Luke Skywalker. He’s here to rescue you.”

  Dale didn’t feel like getting caught in any animosity they already had going against each other. “I’m just here to tell you, Tat, that things are starting to get ugly out there because of this little stunt. It would be smart of you to let me take her back to her father and you can sort this all out later.”

  “Is that what would be smart?”

  Dale backpedaled. “I’m just saying, if you got a problem with the mayor’s new plan, this isn’t exactly the way to get a debate going.”

  “He’s listening to me, isn’t he?”

  “It’s not a free ride anymore. For fuck’s sake, I got busted. I’m going down.”

  Tat eyed Dale, tilted his head a little like a dog. “But you’re my boy.”

  “Yeah. That’s kinda it. They know everything.” Dale hung his head low, mumbling to himself. “Christ, I hope not everything.”

  “So what are you doing here if you’re busted? Why’d they let you come?”

  “They’re giving me a chance. You too. We make this right again and we both might have a shot.”

  Tat waved his ring-heavy hand, pushed out a puff of air like a steam valve. “I got them by the balls, bro. Ain’t nobody can touch me. Alls I got to do is give ’em a twist.”

  Probably true, thought Dale. “Well, it might be my only chance.”

  Not the most likely strategy when dealing with Tat, appealing to his good nature, but it was all Dale had. He could feel Lauren’s eyes on him, reaching for news of the outside world. Wanting to know her rescue was coming soon and hoping to God this wasn’t it.

  Tat rocked in his chair, thinking. The gum chewing from a girl on the couch behind Dale filled the silence.

  “So you’re gonna come in here—” Tat started tapping the big gold ring on the middle finger of his right hand against the black marble, “ —and tell me to let my bargaining chip go? You’re gonna tell me I made a mistake? You’re gonna tell me to help you out because you got sloppy and got busted?”

  Uh-oh. Dale didn’t like the rising volume in Tat’s voice or the pulsing vein bumping the tribal tattoo on his biceps.

  “Tat, I just don’t want to see it turn ugly.”

  Tat sat forward quickly, both palms down on his desk. “And how’s it gonna get ugly? You know I’m the one who makes it ugly, right? Right?”

  Dale saw the three bodyguards tense up. He heard shuffling of clothes and the sharp click of spike heels on the floor as two of the girls moved off the couch and beyond the rug.

  “Sit the fuck down, you cunts.” Tat kept his eyes on Dale. The heels clicked slower on the tile floor until they hit the carpet and then padded like bullets from a silencer as the girls obeyed orders to return to their seats.

  “Look, all I know is, if I don’t walk out of here with the girl, I can’t guarantee what will happen next.”

  “If you walk out of here at all, you mean.”

  Dale felt his knees start to seize up. Trying so hard not to let them collapse ended up having the opposite effect. His legs were stiff and locked in place. He needed to pace, to move, but he didn’t dare make any motion or Tat might attack like a well-trained pit bull. A lifetime of being beaten with a rubber hose, prodded with a taser, burned with cigarettes. Tat’s hard upbringing left him without a single fuck to give to anyone in the world, least of all Dale or the mayor’s daughter.

  “Tat, you got no beef with me.” Dale tried to shuffle his feet to loosen them a bit but make the motion invisible. “I’ve been good to you. I’m coming here as a courtesy because I don’t want anything bad to happen.”

  “My hero.”

  “Tat, let me walk out of here with her. She’s not doing you any good. You have people on the inside you can do this through. You don’t need to piss off anybody else.”

  Tat thrust an angry finger toward Lauren. “You know what she told me? She said her fuckhead of a father promised that people like me would be gone from this city like ticks off a dog. Blood-sucking parasite, he called me.”

  “That’s between you and him.”

  “Then you come in here and try to take something of mine. You try to take from me?”

  “I’m trying
to help you.”

  “On his fucking knees.”

  On the command, the same two bodyguards who led Lauren in crossed to Dale and each put a hand up under an armpit and kicked out the back of a knee. Dale went down to the rug, his kneecaps cracking hard as he fell. The third bodyguard slid over and put a hand on Lauren, so she didn’t get any ideas.

  Tat picked up the phone. “You wanna take from me?”

  Dale did not like the sound of that but thought better of arguing anymore. More than anything else, he wanted to bring Schuster into the room and scream “I told you so” at him.

  Tat hit a single button and someone answered. Dale listened, fearing the conversation the way he’d fear a gun pressed to his temple. The chamber clicked on a full round. He heard his wife’s name. His address.

  “Pick her up. Bring her here.”

  Dale’s gut stung like a fish hook gouged him. Not Dahlia.

  “No. Tat. She’s got nothing—”

  Tat nodded and a fist hammered into Dale’s skull. A knuckle-breaking blow on any normal human, but the bodyguard to his right seemed to take it without an ounce of pain. Dale’s head swam in murky waters.

  Lauren spoke, defying Tat to order the same kind of blow to her head. “Now what? More kidnappings?”

  “He wants to take from me, I take from him. Maybe we swap.”

  Dale hung limp in the grip of the two men. “Please, not my wife.”

  “I made my point though, right?”

  “Please.”

  Dale felt the uneasiness in his gut tighten, the dread turned ice cold and rock hard. He’d been facing down losing everything, but now he really was. And to bring Dahlia into it, he couldn’t let that stand. He’d met men before who said their motivation for the awful things they did was that they had nothing to lose. He always scoffed at them, called bullshit on their excuses.

  On his knees, in that gaudy palace paid for with drug money and spilled blood, Dale found himself with nothing left to lose and the realization freed him. The fear faded away. He didn’t give a shit anymore what Schuster had planned. He didn’t care what came out in a trial.

  He looked up at the Samoan grinning gold teeth at him behind his desk and hated every inch of that motherfucker. Dale turned to his right, saw the butt of a gun jutting from the shoulder holster of the thick man holding him down. Promises of a broken nose from one end, a death sentence from the other.

  “Y’know what, Tat?” Dale caught his breath again. Felt the rock in his gut. “I came here to do a job. You don’t like it, that’s your problem. Call them off my wife.”

  “I thought we had an agreement, Dale.”

  “Call them off.”

  Tat leaned forward, peering over the edge of his monolithic desk to see Dale better in his supplicate position on the floor. “I pay you and you follow orders. Isn’t that how it works?”

  “Call them off.”

  “Isn’t that why I bought your badge?”

  Dale spun and snatched the gun from under the jacket of the man on his right. Hands under the armpits? Fucking amateurs.

  He swung the piece around and blew out the kneecap of the man to his left, felt hot blood tickle his lip. He brought the gun back and fired into the gut of the gun’s owner. Two shots burrowed past the thick muscle. No amount of sit-ups can stop a slug from a .45.

  The girls were up and screaming. Free to move, Dale dashed for the gaudy orange sofa when the bullets came. Tat’s gold pistol dug chunks in the rug behind Dale as he retreated. A girl in a red bikini and a sheer sarong ran left, then doubled back right, crossing the path of Tat’s wild shots. She caught one in each thigh and went down.

  Lauren uncoiled like a spring. She spun in place and flattened her hand like a blade as she chopped at the neck of the man holding her. He grabbed at his throat and lurched backward.

  Lauren pounced, seeing her only chance at escape. She straddled the man she’d karate chopped and reached under his coat for a gun. She wrapped two hands around it and gripped a little too tight. It went off in the holster. Startled, she let go of the gun, wondering if this guy had ever heard of a safety.

  Dale crouched low behind the arm of the sofa and ripped off two shots at Tat’s desk. Flecks of black marble spit into the air.

  A thin fist hammered the side of Dale’s head. A long red nail broke off and embedded in Dale’s skin just above his right ear. He turned to see a girl in short shorts, a tank top, and six-inch heels pounding at him while screaming high-pitched nonsense.

  Dale grabbed a wrist as it swung down at his head and yanked her, pulling her off balance. She tipped on her heels and fell onto the couch, bouncing on the plush cushions. Tat launched another volley of fire.

  The girl with the broken nail absorbed a bullet in her ribs, her hip, her wrist, and finally her neck. She spasmed like a cell phone on vibrate for a second while the shots were pelting her body, then fell still, sinking deeper into the cushions.

  Better her than me, thought Dale, but he immediately felt guilty about it. What had she done besides run with assholes and criminals? Dale was the asshole criminal.

  “I tried to help you, Tat.”

  “Fuck you.” More shots. Dale hadn’t been counting, but Tat was letting them fly freely.

  “Just let us go.”

  “Maybe I stuttered. I said fuck you.” Five shots came from behind the black desk. Wild, undisciplined shots by a man used to having people do this shit for him.

  Lauren reached into the jacket again of the man she shot. His chest was warm and sticky with blood as she lifted the gun out of the holster. He shrank into a ball, clutching at his side. She thought of shooting him in the head but knew she couldn’t. He was unarmed, no longer a threat, and curled up like a little baby.

  Behind her was the door she came through, an anteroom used to keep her prisoner but probably intended for Tat to bang any of the skinny, generic pieces of ass he kept around him like tchotchkes on the shelf. She could dive back through and shut herself in, but then what? Whoever this guy they sent in was, he sure had some balls on him. Probably going to get both of them killed, but she had to hand it to him for his tenacity.

  She stood to the side of Tat’s desk where she could see him crouching behind, slapping a new clip into his golden gun. He moved up to one knee and brought the barrel over the top of the desk aimed toward her rescuer. Without thinking, she raised the gun in her hand and fired.

  The first shot ricocheted off the marble desktop. The second cracked through the computer screen on the desk. The third punctured Tat’s shooting hand.

  It was the loudest single profanity Dale had ever heard. Tat’s up-from-the-depths scream made Dale look. He had to. He’d been curious to peek out from his hiding spot when he heard the other shots, but he was happy enough when none of them landed in him.

  Dale saw Tat holding his own hand, a fresh flow of red coating both hands. The gun was gone, out of sight somewhere behind the desk. The mayor’s daughter held her own gun now, aiming at Tat, not at Dale. A good enough time as any to move.

  Dale charged forward, his gun in a two-handed, academy trained grip. He sidestepped to move behind Tat’s desk, gave the golden gun a swift kick with the toe of his shoe, and aimed his pistol at Tat’s head.

  Tat greeted him with another high volume, “Fuck!”

  “Call them off my wife.” Tat ignored him. “Call them off, Tat.” Dale looked at the desk, the phone Tat had used to call was in pieces. Plastic casing shattered by one of Lauren’s wild shots.

  As if she knew he was admiring her work, Lauren spoke up. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “Not until he cancels the guys going after my wife.” Dale pointed the gun at Tat’s head but was ignored.

  “We’re gonna have company soon.” Lauren waved the gun in front of her to indicate the noise of the shootout to Dale. She also gave him a “duh” look.

  Dale wasn’t about to leave Tat behind, but he had no way to
restrain him. One hand injury wouldn’t keep a man like Tat docile for long. Dale remembered a technique he’d heard about some really fucked up Mexican cartels using. Figured it might be his only shot.

  Dale stuffed the gun into his waistband. “Sorry, man. I gotta do this.”

  He stepped up and put a foot on Tat’s ribcage, took up his non-injured arm in both hands. Dale pulled up and twisted, dislocating the shoulder with a pop and a gravelly crunch he thought didn’t sound good at all.

  Tat hollered a record-level swear word again. Dale reached down and took the wrist of Tat’s blood-soaked arm in his two hands. He gripped tight to keep it from slipping out on the lube of thick red blood. The hole in his palm was open on both ends, shreds of flesh pushing out.

  Dale tugged and twisted, Tat’s shoulder popped and crunched. Two shoulders dislocated. The poor man’s handcuffs.

  Dale put a hand under Tat’s armpit and lifted. “Let’s go.”

  Lauren fell in behind them. “Is this it? Any backup?”

  “This is it. They wanted to do it quietly. No gunfire and no casualties.”

  Lauren stepped over the splayed legs of one of the three dead girls in the room. She listened to the moaning of the man she’d shot get quieter as they moved across the wide room toward the elevators.

  Mirrors reflected their long walk as Dale pushed Tat out in front, the big man hunched over and whimpering from his injuries, his arms slack at his side and his gunshot hand dripping blood freely over the thick pile rugs and then the tile floor.

  At the doorway out to the former lobby, now entry into Tat’s inner sanctum, Dale turned to Lauren.

  “You’ll tell your dad about this, right? Maybe with a little less blood.”

  “If we get out of here, he’ll be giving you the key to the city, if that’s what your worried about.”

  “What do you mean, if?”

  “This is a huge building with a lot of people in it. I have a feeling getting out isn’t going to be as easy as an elevator ride.”