by Alan Bard
A cowardly thought crossed my mind that it’d be great if Whiskey didn’t open the door. But the latch rattled and the lock clicked open. Dim light spilled over the pavement.
Meg took a step forward, bottle of vodka in her hand and a baseball cap pulled over her eyes. The other hand, with the rope wrapped around it, was hidden behind her back.
“Who the hell are you?” Whiskey asked, voice harsh. I couldn’t see him, but I was ready to rush to help.
Meg grinned and handed him the bottle. “This is for you.”
She went inside, followed by Big Head. There was a scuffling noise, followed by a thud, a groan, and a rattle. I ran to help, but when I burst in, Big Head had already straddled the guy and was tying his hands behind his back, while Meg was gagging him. Whiskey was twitching and sniffing; he didn’t want to give up, so I pulled the bandana over my face, squatted, and put a knife to his throat.
“You, shut your mouth, or I swear to God—”
He froze, eyes wide open in horror. Meg went outside and waved her hand. Soon, Archie and Shorty burst into the warehouse, bandanas on their faces and guns at the ready.
Young, beautiful, and bold—they looked like Bonnie and Clyde, moving as one, eyes on the potential enemy.
Suddenly, shots rang out from the open door leading to Whiskey’s room. Meg gasped, and all of us ducked. Archie aimed, but after a few moments, it became clear that those were just sounds from the TV. After a while, I came to my senses and had a look around the warehouse: everything was sealed and scattered around. A number of fridges and freezers were lined up against the wall.
“Meg, stay on the lookout!” Archie said, lowering his gun and stepping toward the open door.
Shorty stood still, gun at the ready.
“You bastard, they’ll catch you anyway!” the TV yelled.
Big Head closed the door and kicked Whiskey to the side.
“I’d live here! So much grub!” he whispered under his breath.
I was shaking with excitement, as I always did in moments like these. I felt that I could do great things. I felt ready to take on the world.
“So, Mr. Pink, will you open this lock?” Archie asked, his voice muffled. He pointed to the locked door. “The safe and the computers are inside.”
Mr. Pink, huh? I headed for the door, pulling out the lock-picking set. I was lost in thought, which was perhaps why I didn’t immediately notice the man who jumped out of Whiskey’s room, with a gun in his hand. I just heard rapid footsteps and heavy breathing in the hallway…
BAM! BAM! BAM! The sound of gunfire was like blows to the head with a hammer.
Archie darted behind a pile of boxes and fired back twice. The man screamed, but managed to jump back into the backroom and lock himself in.
Where did he come from?! asked a frightened voice in my head.
He was having a drink with Whiskey, I answered immediately.
But where did he get the gun? The voice in my head was cold.
It was somewhere in the room. This drunk probably didn’t even hide it, I guessed.
God, this is so stupid.
“Ha, I got the bastard!” Archie shouted. “Nicky, get the lock open before the cops get here!”
“We’re screwed!” I heard Big Head’s whisper behind me.
“We need to get out.” As I said this, Archie pointed the gun at me.
“Open the damn door, Nicky!”
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Archie wasn’t kidding. His eyes were filled with fire and excitement. One of his nostrils was flaring, the other was motionless. I struggled with the lock for twenty seconds and then Archie pushed me away and burst into the room. I didn’t really care about him anymore. My only goal was to get out of there.
“Help!” Shorty cried, voice barely audible.
I looked around but didn’t see her.
“Where are you?”
Swaying, she stood up from behind the boxes, pressing her hand to her stomach. It took me a moment to notice the blood running between her fingers.
“Blood... I’m injured!”
Big Head and I ran up to her, took her by the arms, and dragged her to the door. She was breathing heavily, gaze focused on the floor.
“Don’t pull,” she gasped. “You can’t help me, call an ambulance.”
I grabbed her phone and ran outside. Leaving them behind, I dialed 911 with numb fingers. On the run, I dictated the address and described the situation. Without slowing down, I wiped my fingerprints off the phone with my sleeve and threw it over the fence.
Big Head kept running, and I followed him.
“Oh, we’re so, so screwed,” he muttered as he ran. “Archie’s a bastard! The son of a bitch used us!”
We turned into a quiet alleyway between houses and ran out onto the street. A bright light hit our eyes, blinding us. I covered my head with my hands, and got ready to continue running.
“Lie on the ground with your hands behind your head,” said a voice over the loudspeaker.
“Let’s go!” I yelled and threw myself to the side.
As we ran back into the alleyway, I heard gunshots.
What the hell?!
There was nowhere to run. I rolled over, jumped to my feet, and ran out onto a narrow, parallel street. The bright light caught up with me, as did the police sirens. I could see their silhouettes—they were armed and their guns were pointed at me. I knew that they’d open fire if I moved.
“Put your hands behind your head!”
I groaned in despair. I was shaking with fear. So this is it, I thought with an awkward smile. I raised my hands and knelt down.
“Hey, stop! Stop or I’ll shoot!”
But I had already given up. I fell face down a second before the cops opened fire. I turned my head in the direction Big Head had been running, and as if in slow motion, saw him throw his arms up and fall flat on the pavement.
Chapter 3
KILLER
The detective, a man named Jim, was sitting across me. He was in his early forties and looked like a fat hog. Resting his hands on the table, he was looking at me with his beady, red eyes, like a mouse. Either he cared about the outcome of my case and hadn’t slept all night, or he was angry that he hadn’t managed to break me yet.
“Why did you shoot the security guard?” he asked.
I felt myself blush to the tips of my ears. Blood rushed to my cheeks; my heart was pounding like crazy. My wrists hurt. They had tightened the handcuffs a bit too hard.
Well, that’s new! What an obvious bluff. Who’s he talking about? Whiskey?! Or his drinking buddy? said a calm, confident voice in my mind. For some reason, I envisioned it belonging to a dark figure, sitting in an armchair having a smoke, with a vacant stare in its red-rimmed eyes.
He’s trying to pin this whole thing on us, I answered.
“Shot who? We just tied up and gagged him…”
On the other hand, it was possible that Meg and Big Head had beaten Whiskey to death. But no one had shot him. There had been no need for that. Perhaps he had miraculously freed himself and tried to stop Archie.
Either way, I was going to stick to my story. “I didn’t shoot anyone,” I continued in a dry voice. “I’ve already admitted that we were planning to rob the warehouse. What more do you want from me?”
I could’ve imagined it, but Jim’s eyes seemed to become even more bloodshot.
“The facts prove otherwise.”
This bastard is just like the rest of them. Just another cog in the machine, hissed another voice. Its owner grinned at me mischievously. Disbelief, cruelty, lies, cunning... They have nothing else, so they exalt themselves, saying that the end justifies the means. Whatever it takes to keep society safe, right?
I guess things are going to be very shitty from here on, I whispered to the other “me.”
I had no other choice but to repeat my story. “There were three of us: Big Head, Shorty, and me. As I’ve already said, I don’t know their real names. Big Head knew th
e guard, so it looked like he just came over to visit his friend. We tied up the guy, but it turned out there was another one. They were probably drinking together. He shot at us and Big Head fired back. And then we tried to escape.”
Big Head was dead, so I had no issue with pinning this on him. Shorty was in intensive care, and it was unclear if she’d recover, so it was okay to mention her as well. I still had no clue whether Archie and Meg had managed to escape. I was wondering if the police had new evidence that I didn’t know about.
Jim banged his fist on the table.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Nick Wright! Or should I call you... Mr. Ravkov?”
“Ravkov is my grandfather’s last name.”
“I know, boy,” he snarled.
“Do you not like Russians? Are you a racist?”
Jim didn’t answer. The room probably had a video camera somewhere in it. He folded his hands and started talking.
“There were five of you; you’ve been working together for almost a year now. Everyone who was a part of this armed raid has been detained, and one of them has already testified against you.”
My heart started beating even faster. This meant that no one had gotten away and that it was pointless to try to protect Meg and Archie—I was just extending my sentence. Or was this a lie to get me to confess?
Jim continued, “The gun found at the crime scene has your fingerprints on it. This very same gun was used six months ago, on the 23rd of December, on Christmas Eve... By the way, where were you on the 23rd of December last year?”
Words could hurt, and his every word was like a bullet to the heart. I had tried to protect myself by building a wall of lies and half-truths. I wished that I could stare back at him with confidence and eyes free of doubt and fear. I wanted the cold, drawling voice inside my head to give me advice and help me get out of here. But it was no use. I was just burying myself deeper.
You didn’t even have a gun.
Is he just bluffing?
I’d seen this sort of approach in detective shows before: “Your friends have turned you in. Why are you protecting them, you fool? You might get a bit of prison time reduced if you tell us what happened. A full and frank confession is your only way out.” The partner is told the same thing, and the criminals almost always end up turning each other in. It wasn’t a fact that Archie and Meg got caught, not a fact at all.
My head became filled with doubts. What if Jim wasn’t lying and the guys had turned me in? While I struggled with confusion and fear, Jim pointed a finger at me.
“You think you’re so damn clever, don’t you? You thought that we’d never catch you?” He glared at me. “So what were you doing on December 23, 2028?”
There was genuine hatred in his eyes, as if there was something personal in this case for him.
“Stop trying to pin this on me!” I shouted. “I don’t remember what I was doing that day! Hell, I don’t remember what I was doing last week, let alone a year ago!”
Jim took a couple of photos from a drawer and threw them on the table. He was showing them to me one by one: a white-haired man with a wide smile, a curly-haired, plump woman in her forties, two young girls, a blonde and a ginger, hugging each other.
“Do you know these people?”
“Never seen them in my life.”
Hatred.
“What about now, huh?”
He pushed toward me a couple of other photos, turned upside down so that I wouldn’t see what was on them. Watching me intently, he waited for a bit and then turned them over one by one. On the first photo was a body of a man, lying in a pool of blood on the floor. His face was a bloody mess, and his abdomen and chest riddled with bullet holes. On the second was the curly-haired woman. Her yellow silk nightgown was drenched with scarlet.
I didn’t want to see the other photos, but I couldn’t do anything. The blonde had a bullet hole in her as well, but the ginger... I suddenly found it hard to swallow. I closed my eyes and turned away.
“What did they do to you?!” Jim’s eyes were burning with rage and hatred.
I was shaking with anger as well. This was bad. I had no idea what any of this was about, but one thing was crystal clear: this might be the end of the road for me.
“I don’t know these people. I don’t know what happened on December 23. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand!”
Jim’s twisted grin was all but an act. He truly hated me. He was being unprofessional and I was almost certain that this case was very personal to him.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to speak in a calmer manner. “Let me jog your memory then, Mr. Wright. You got into the house of these people, and, like the late security guard, they opened their doors to you. You found John Crowley’s gun and shot his entire family. Then you took out what you could carry, faking a robbery.”
I jumped up, making the handcuffs clank loudly, and in horrified indignation, I exclaimed, “You’re pinning someone else’s crimes on me! This is the first time I’ve seen these people! This was my first serious robbery! I’m just a petty thief!”
Jim looked at me, head cocked to the side. He took a cellophane-wrapped package from a drawer and laid it on the table. I could see the outline of a gun under the film.
“Do you want me to tell you how it really happened? Your friend shared it with me, and he was very indignant when he found out where you got the gun.”
What the hell is he talking about?
Don’t you get it? asked a curious voice.
I didn’t have time to give it a second thought because Jim continued. “You wanted to date Alice Crowley, but she said that she wanted to be just friends. You suffered, crushed by the humiliation of her refusal. Unable to cope with it, you went to visit her family. And that’s where you found the gun… You’re a thief, aren’t you?”
“That’s bullshit! I’m not capable of murder! Ask anyone!”
“What about your stepfather, who you recently beat up?” Jim moved the gun closer to me. “Do you recognize this gun?”
I shook my head.
“Come on, try harder, Mr. Wright. Why are your fingerprints are all over the Glock, then?”
And that’s when I came to a profound realization that made my fingertips go numb. It was as if I had been tossed head first into something slimy. I must’ve looked like an idiot. It must’ve been written all over my face. It was impossible to keep my cool.
“Nick, you probably don’t know how to handle a gun, huh?” Archie’s crooked smile was mocking me.
He made me pick up the gun on purpose! Everyone else was wearing gloves. I’m an idiot! A complete idiot!
“Did you remember where you got the gun?”
I was lost and speechless.
“I don’t know these people. I don’t know.”
“Then how did your prints get on the gun?”
That’s why Archie had been hiding from everyone. He killed the Crowley family, and now he was pinning the murder on me.
“There was another gun,” I said. “A Smith & Wesson. Archie, our boss, brought it. He’s probably the one you’ve talked to. Unfortunately, I don’t know his real name. We wanted to check which of us could fire a gun, so I took the Glock and fired a few rounds.”
I raised my head and looked at Jim, but couldn’t read anything from his face.
He chewed his lips and glared at me. “That’s all?” he asked in a dry voice. “You do realize how that sounds, don’t you? I don’t know his real name—not a smart move, boy. Only a solid alibi can save you. Tell me where you were on December 23.”
Where was I?
In the Burrow, you idiot, answered an angry voice.
“That day I was with Archie and Shorty... When we first met, she introduced herself as Kate. According to you, she’s in intensive care now. How is she? She can confirm that we were together that night.”
“She’s still in a coma. The doctor said that there’s little hope that she’ll ever wake up. They’ll probably have to
take her off life support.”
Do I look like a maniac who can dismember a girl? I suddenly asked the voices, but they were silent.
There was no more fear, no more despair—it was as if I was watching a movie about a naïve sucker with myself in the lead role. No, no... All of this is happening to someone else. I’m just a spectator... The movie will end soon and I’ll go home... Yeah, that’s right...
“You’re right about the guns; two guns were stolen from the Crowley family home,” Jim said. “Tell me the motive for the murder and you won’t be given a life sentence, but twenty years. I was in charge of that case; I saw their corpses. You—” He suddenly fell silent.
So that’s why he hates us so much.
“You’re a monster, Wright, a psychopath and a sadist.”
Archie’s a psychopath and a sadist! I wanted to yell. But instead of doing that, I swallowed my anger. “I didn’t know John Crowley and his family. I didn’t have a reason to kill them.”
Jim shook his head slowly, and then looked at me with an attentive gaze.
“I’m sorry for you if that’s the case, because it’s unlikely that you’ll ever get out of here. You’re in deep shit, kid.”
“Isn’t it your job to find criminals and put them in prison? I was set up. If you’ve caught Archie, question him. Do something! I’m not guilty!”
“If you only knew how often I see people like you, framed and innocent, you wouldn’t be wasting your breath. I’m sure that you’re aware of Weiner’s law, Mr. Wright.”
“Yes, it turned your job into a piece of cake,” I mumbled.
Weiner’s law had expanded teenagers’ criminal liability and led to a wave of sentences, police brutality of the nastiest kind, and the rise of for-profit prisons. Places where people like me worked for corporations and dropped like flies because they were used as cheap labor in all sorts of chemical factories. As Mario had explained it to me, corporations had spent a lot of money to promote this law in the Senate.
“I have to go,” Jim said. “Your mother has come to visit you. Don’t take too long.”
The last thing I wanted to do was see my mother; our meeting would bring neither comfort nor help to either of us. Mario was right when he said that I’d meet a bad end.