by Eric Beetner
“Sure.” She averted her eyes from the man she’d shot.
“Can we get the fuck out of here now?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
With a groan, Dale rolled himself onto his belly and pushed himself to standing. He bent over and picked up the second Glock, feeling the impact of the toilet lid on his ribs and soreness in nearly every other part of his body. His ears were still ringing from the shotgun. He did a proper scan of the hallway before going out, then put both Glocks in his belt and started for the stairwell door.
CHAPTER 7
Dahlia heard music. Muffled, like it was coming up through the sewer. The beats didn’t match the chugging guitars. Every instrument sounded like it was being played by gorillas with rubber mallets.
She wandered into the middle of the street and followed the sound. Across and up two houses, she saw the windows shaking on a garage. Those kids and their band. She remembered now. They opened the garage at the last Fourth of July party and attempted to play for the gathered neighbors and kids. Their covers of nineties’ heavy rock tunes didn’t go over well, especially when they had to stop their version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” three times to start over.
She sprinted over to the garage like a groupie with floor seats and pounded on the off-white vinyl. The cacophony inside stopped. At least it sounded like the singer’s voice had finally dropped.
Once the noise ended, Dahlia pounded again. It was the frantic banging of a horror movie victim when the man with the chainsaw is only steps behind. She turned over her shoulder but didn’t see T leaving Mrs. Joosten’s house yet.
The garage door motor started turning. The grinding of the rusty chain drive didn’t sound any worse than the band. Dahlia waited for the painfully slow ascent of the door as it folded in sections until it had rolled into the ceiling of the garage. She found four boys behind their instruments, all with sour faces that seemed to say, “Whatever, lady. We’re not turning it down.” There were two girls on a ratty found-on-the-curb sofa watching the band practice.
Dahlia forgot she still held the blood-caked knife in her hand.
“You gotta help me. Someone is trying to kidnap me.”
The teenage indignation on their faces changed to bewildered skepticism. Were they being pranked? Was someone going to jump out of the bushes with their iPhone and pronounce their scared reactions were totally going on YouTube?
The singer stood with a guitar draped over his shoulders. Dahlia recognized him as the kid who lived in the house. A spray-painted bed sheet hung behind the drum kit announcing the name of the band as Ten Times Fast.
“What?”
“Someone is after me. He killed Mrs. Joosten.”
The bass player flicked his neck to flip long hair out of his face which promptly fell back into place covering the left half of him. “You mean that dude?”
Dahlia turned and saw T half way across the street, approaching fast.
“Oh my God.”
Dahlia backed into the garage. The band started moving and chattering. The second guitar player noticed the knife in her hand. “Dude, what the fuck?”
The two girls on the couch tucked their legs up under their short skirts as if keeping their feet off the ground would help keep them safe.
Dahlia immediately felt regret coming here. She’d put Mrs. Joosten in harm’s way by entering her home, and now she’d endangered six teenagers.
The singer, Kipp she remembered was his name, stepped forward as owner of the garage. “Woah, woah, dude.”
T still brandished the fireplace poker, now dripping with blood. His eyes focused fury on Dahlia. He acted like the band wasn’t there. He moved quickly up the driveway and the girls on the couch let out small screams.
“Dude, back off, man.”
T swung the iron rod of the poker and caught Kipp across the bridge of his nose. He fell back and landed on the bass drum, punctuating T’s arrival with a slamming of cymbals as the neck of his guitar hit the ride and his arm hit the crash.
The other band members, in a show of solidarity, leapt into action. The bass player brought the strap up over his head, grabbed the neck of his Fender like a baseball bat and swung. The heavy four-string hit T’s shoulder and sent him off course toward the couch.
The two girls screamed and sprang up clutching each other. They sprinted out the open garage door and ran down the street.
Dahlia watched as the second guitar player held his Gibson SG by the body and ran over to where T was trying to regain his balance on the arm of the couch and slapped the tail end of the guitar into him.
Kipp stood up with a fresh flow of blood running down from his nose. He’d never looked more rock ’n roll.
Dahlia stood back by the drum kit with her knife outstretched in front of her, wondering if the members of Ten Times Fast could really subdue T and save the day. The drummer had fallen off his stool when Kipp hit his kit. He struggled to right himself and as he stood, he gripped both his drum sticks in one fist, wielding them like a knife.
The bass player tossed a microphone stand at T and it caused a screaming feedback in their monitors. T hadn’t expected the retaliation and he’d been caught off guard. He swung the fire poker out at the objects coming his way. The band members added a steady stream of profanity to their attack.
“C’mon, motherfucker. Fuckin’ pussy. The fuck you think you are?”
With T a little bit on his heels, Dahlia was confronted with what the end game should be. To truly end the threat, she should kill him. But stab a man to death on the couch of a teenager’s rehearsal space? Maybe the boys could pin him down long enough for the police to arrive. But with T mentioning a connection to Dale, would the cops even be a smart move for her?
She didn’t get a chance to fully contemplate. T seemed to gather himself in an enough-of-this-shit determination. He pushed himself up to a full stand. He cracked the fire poker across the incoming bass as the kid tried for another hit. The fire poker shook from the impact and dropped from T’s hand. He reached for his belt and came back with a black knife he flipped open with this thumb. A six-inch blade appeared in matte black with a keen edge in silver down the side.
The bass player hadn’t seen it yet and went for another swing. T ducked to the side and shot his arm out with the knife. The blade bit skin and dragged along the bass player’s forearm as his eyes went wide watching the slice happen. He dropped his instrument and it fell to the concrete floor of the garage and immediately launched more screeching feedback from his amp.
“Russ!” Kipp held a hand up to his bloody nose as he watched his band mate sink to the floor.
Dahlia reached out and grabbed the hi hat cymbal next to her. She took it and the stand and hurled it at T. It didn’t fly far, but clipped him in the side with the hard brass edge of the twin cymbals. T wasn’t expecting the attack from the side. He bent at an awkward angle as he clutched his ribs where the sharp edges dug in.
Kipp took his chance and threw his Stratocaster across the garage at T. The guitar hit him at the base of the skull and T fell to the couch.
The drummer finally broke free from behind his kit. “Let’s go, man.” He leapt over his fallen drum stool and hit the driveway running. The second guitar player held his guitar in one hand and followed.
Russ leaned back against the bass drum next to Kipp and couldn’t take his eyes off his slashed arm.
Dahlia pushed herself out from the corner by the snare drum. “Do you have a car?”
Kipp pointed to where a rusted Volvo station wagon sat by the curb.
“Let’s go.”
Dahlia reached out to help the boys motivate to the car. Unthinking, she grabbed Russ by his cut arm. He howled from such a primal place he may have unseated Kipp as singer of the band. Dahlia let go quickly, her hand painted red. “Sorry. Shit.”
“Stop.” T spun his head to watch them leaving the garage. In desperation, Dahlia heaved the boning knife
at where he slumped on the couch. Her fist finally unfurled from holding the knife and it felt stiff. The knife wobbled through the air and fell harmlessly against the couch cushions.
She turned and ran for the car. Kipp and Russ followed close behind leaving a trail of blood in tiny drops. Dahlia knew both boys were injured severely. Russ looking at stitches in the thirty to forty range and Kipp undoubtedly with a broken nose. “I’ll drive.”
Kipp dug a set of keys from his front pocket and tossed them to her. Dahlia grabbed the keys out of the air and went for the driver’s side door. She looked back at the garage. T was up and coming for them, knife in hand.
The car looked like hell and smelled worse. Old bong hits, after-gig sweat from all four members, and a moldy undercurrent to everything. She prayed the engine wasn’t as filthy.
Dahlia cranked the engine as Kipp got in the passenger seat and Russ slid in the back seat. They both slammed doors. Kipp slapped a hand down on the golf-tee-sized door lock. “Lock it, lock it.”
T reached the car. He punched at the window and Kipp slid away, almost landing in Dahlia’s lap. She nudged him with her shoulder to clear enough space to move the gearshift into Drive and pushed her foot to the floor on the gas.
T got in one more punch to the window before the car peeled away from the curb.
CHAPTER 8
The lock pick snapped into place and the door eased open. Lewis pushed into the apartment past a uniformed cop. “Thanks, Mikey. Mayor’s office owes you one.”
The officer waved the offer away. “Aw, don’t worry about it, Mr. Workman. I just hope she comes back a-okay, y’know?”
“I do know. This will help. Thanks.” Lewis stood in the living room of Lauren’s apartment, not moving and hoping that the cop would get the hint that he was free to go.
Mikey got it and put two fingers up to his hat. “Any time at all, Mr. Workman.”
Lewis waited until the door closed before moving again. He stepped carefully around Lauren’s place as if it were a crime scene. He kept his hands deep in the pockets of his long coat, his wingtips moved silently over the carpet.
Small kitchen, unremarkable living room with a couch, flat-screen TV, and a short wine rack with a half dozen bottles of red. Lewis couldn’t understand why she didn’t choose to still live in the mayor’s mansion. Something about her rebellious streak hadn’t ended with her teen years like most girls. Lewis had been watching her cause trouble for eight years now since she got her driver’s license. During the first campaign, he’d thought she was a hot little piece of jailbait, but then Lewis himself was just out of college and thought anything with two tits and a crotch was good enough to at least take for a tryout.
It was a two-bedroom apartment. He went to her room first, pulled open drawers he knew would be filled with only clothes. He ran his hands over her underwear drawer, paused on a thin black teddy, a set of garter belts. Lewis smiled. Lauren was all grown up now.
In the bedside table was an unopened box of condoms and a modest-sized pink vibrator. He had a good guess which got used more.
In the other bedroom she’d made herself an office space. This is what he wanted. Her laptop sat closed on the tiny desk, a cork board hung above with colored notecards outlining stories she was working on. She saw Tautolu’s name, the address of the building. He saw a card with only the words new legislation? in black sharpie.
Lewis opened her laptop and booted it up. The Macbook hummed to life and he pulled off his coat and sat down at her desk. He started in the obvious places—the desktop, the documents folder, a folder marked accounts. He scanned the first few lines of documents before moving on. He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he already feared she knew more than she should.
He clicked open a folder of photos and lingered a little too long on a set of shots from Key West the past spring. Lauren in a red bikini with two girlfriends. In almost every shot they held fruity, colorful drinks.
Lewis studied her cleavage, contemplated whether he liked her hair better down and flowing or up in a sporty pony tail. He zoomed in on one of her walking away, studying the roundness of her backside and judging it for the extra folds where her leg was taking a long stride. The kind of thing they would Photoshop out of a magazine, or blow up to emphasize a celebrity’s cottage cheese thighs, even though they were completely normal thighs he’d like to have wrapped around his torso.
He got back to looking and found a folder called Projects, and inside that was what he hadn’t wanted to find. He clicked open pages of transcribed notes of hers, probably typed versions of some spiral notebook she kept somewhere.
She knew, and she appeared to know a lot, but nearly all her notes were followed by question marks. She’d made connections on payments but added notes like Proof? in the margin. She’d noted names and marked them with the question payroll? Worst of all, she seemed to have cracked the code on the way they were using the new drug law as a way to move out all competition for Tat.
If only the hot-headed and impatient Samoan hadn’t flown off the goddamn handle when she showed up. And Lauren, if only she’d waited until the announcement twenty-four hours later, then Tat would have gotten the call explaining why he had nothing to worry about and was, in fact, about to double his business. For a fee, of course.
Some deep, narcissistic part of Lewis felt proud to see his project written out like this. The way it all dovetailed in so nicely to a fat payout for him and the others as well as a good chance of reelection and four more years of those fat payouts.
But these were notes on an article, an exposé. Between this and Tat’s overreaction, Lewis’ brilliant plan was being derailed before it ever worked up a head of steam.
Lewis, however, never made a plan A without a plan B. And Tat’s little stunt could be the downfall of the whole scheme, or the best thing to happen to it. That greasy Samoan fucker could be replaced. Any of a half dozen would-be kingpins could be handed the keys to the city, and most would play along with less noise and maybe even a higher percentage.
Yes, this was bad news. But Lewis excelled at spinning bad news into good.
11TH FLOOR
Dale’s father wasn’t one to dispense advice, so when he did, it stuck. The one Dale remembered most was when his dad, while driving their VW wagon to a day at the lake, told his son: be the kind of man who wouldn’t be ashamed to be alone in a room with his own shadow.
It took years to decipher the meaning behind his dad’s statement, but he knew it now. Don’t be the kind of asshole you wouldn’t associate with.
Good thing Dale’s father wasn’t alive to see him now.
In the grey concrete stairwell, Dale thought back over the slow slide downward he’d taken. Little offenses easily justified, leading to larger indiscretions and more elaborate coverups. Past the tipping point from public servant to average game player to crooked cop.
This shot at redemption wasn’t working out the way he’d envisioned. Better than some scenarios his mind concocted on the way over to the abandoned office park; like the one where Tat shot him full of holes the minute he stepped in the door.
His head was a tangle of motivations driving him down the steps. One: Free the girl. Two: Save his wife. Three: Look good for the chief.
One and two were necessities. Three was a bonus. None of them looked likely.
At least he hadn’t dragged Lauren into this. Not like Dahlia. Best-case scenario, she was sitting at home cursing his name and not taking his phone calls because he’d been such a shit lately and left her with the cryptic promise to talk things over later. The kind of thing you say when you’re about to admit you’re having an affair, but just need to stop off one more time and bonk the mistress in question. When Dale came clean with her, she’d probably wish it was something as simple as an affair. A mistress can’t put you in prison.
Lauren, though, had invited herself to this party. Dale had to consider that by helping her escape, he was
also opening himself up to becoming a subject of her research. He imagined the glee when she realized the man who’d gotten her out of Tat’s fortress was also on the take and she had the exclusive one-on-one account of this two-faced criminal slash one-man SWAT team. He hoped she’d at least thank him in her Pulitzer acceptance speech.
Dale reached the landing and passed by the stencil on the wall reading 11th Floor when he realized Lauren wasn’t behind him. He stopped and turned to see her standing still on the fifth step up from the landing, her head down and crying.
Lauren had been trying to hold it in, trying to keep her emotions in check until they left the building. The silence of the stairwell did her in.
She’d killed people. Bad people, yes, but dead was dead. The first man she shot upstairs would survive…most likely. At least she didn’t have to watch him die. And Tat would live to see the inside of a courtroom and then a jail cell, the hole in his hand a reminder that he fucked with the wrong girl.
But her lucky shot was way more badass than she was. Squaring off against Tat’s girlfriend was the first fight she’d ever been in outside a gym class with padded floors. She was grateful she could turn off her mind in the moment and do what needed to be done, otherwise she and Dale would both be dead for sure. But now that the adrenalin stopped pumping, she wept.
Dale came back up a few steps to be closer to her.
“What’s wrong? You hurt?”
Lauren sniffed, worked hard to compose herself. “No. I’m fine.”
“Clearly not.”
She wiped the back of her hand across her nose, rubbed the heel of her hand into her eyes to dry them. “I’m okay. Really. Just needed a moment there.”
Dale watched her. “The shooting, huh?” He understood. “My first, I threw up, so you’re doing better than me.”
“Don’t give me any ideas.”
“It’s fucked up, I know. We had to, though. These aren’t the kind of people you talk it out with.”