Chase finished and collapsed on top of Rick.
Rick spat out blood and teeth as he shoved Chase off. He lumbered, staggered to his feet, and held onto Chase’s shoulder. He placed fingertips to his swollen shut eye and winced.
“I’ll always love you, Chase,” he said through mangled lips.
“And we’re even, as promised. But never call me your brother again. We’re done.”
Chase shuddered. A tear held onto his lid.
“But—”
Rick lurched away and held his face.
“I’m sorry, Chase. About everything. Even this,” Rick said and disappeared.
GOING HOME
I
Finally, the hospital was in sight, Bernie gunned the motor on Seventh Avenue. Nail salons, apothecaries and sidewalk stragglers blurred as the cruiser zipped past. Bernie leaned over the steering wheel as he weaved about potholes and insomniac squirrels.
“Out of the way, asshole. I’m not killing no chipmunks tonight.”
“Really? Chipmunk? You need to watch a little more Jack Hannah,” Perez snickered.
Bernie smiled. The end was in sight, the stress ebbed, and the bullshit was ending.
Was it?
Bernie fought the infinite possibilities if Chase lived, died, if the Commissioner made an example out of the Sixty-Eighth Precinct, if his wife would leave him or all the above.
No. The bullshit was just beginning. For his career, for his family, for his sanity.
He wished he told Michelle the truth. She knew Bernie on the deepest level, what made him happy, what made him sad, and what could break him before he was broken. And having to relive his events, his decisions in his explanation, the cracks within showed without. The prospect of retiring six-thousand miles away, sipping Mai-Tai’s and teaching the tourists how to surf on Waikiki Beach seemed like a fleeting dream upon arousal, details lost, emotions forgotten, and color and sound bleached.
“Come on, come on, people. Move it or lose it,” he muttered as he jammed on the brakes at Seventh Street and skidded away from the ramp.
“Where are you go—Never mind,” Perez said as the ambulance bounced past them and raced up the ambulance ramp. Bernie jacked the car into reverse and chirped his tires as they fell in behind the ambulance.
Bernie and Perez leaped out of the cruiser and stormed towards the rear of the ambulance. His dark complexion drained to ash as he flung the doors open.
II
“Holy shit, you look like shit! What the hell’s the matter with you? You look like you lost your best friend or something,” Bazzi chuckled.
Not quite the typical ha-ha-ha that normally ripped out from him, but a mocking snicker nonetheless.
“Yeah, something like that. What’re we doing here?” Chase said.
He overlooked the harbor from the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. The sparkle of skyscrapers that flickered on the tumultuous waters made him sick to his stomach. Or was it the drunk-free tolerance of an entire bottle of Jack Daniels? He didn’t care. Darkness consumed his spirit more than the spirits could consume his liver. The steady breeze from the bay cooled the late-summer humidity in sympathetic waves.
Chase stood near the edge of the roof and wished the eddy would sweep him from his feet and off the side of the three-story facility. More than enough height to deliver everlasting peace.
But the wind didn’t give a shit. It never did. The wind blew and blew with abandon and soulless disinterest.
“You see that building over there?” Bazzi said.
“What fucking building? New York or Brooklyn?” Chase snapped.
“Where I’m pointing, stupid. Look!”
Chase turned around and scanned the night horizon. He didn’t want to.
“There. The Indy City apartments. We have a job to do. You, me and a few others. The Big Ragu figured it was time you got a promotion,” Baz snorted.
Chase turned around. He noticed for the first time a discomfort in Bazzi’s countenance.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
Chase obliged and turned back to the building. He imagined her walking past the former factory windows in her sweatpants and white tank top, hair loosely tied up behind her as she sipped from a goblet.
“No,” Chase whispered.
“What? What was that? I don’t think I quite heard you. Did you just tell me no?”
“No.”
“No, what? No, you didn’t say no, or no-no?”
“No. I’m out. I’m not doing the job. Or any other,” Chase said.
Baz sat down on the edge of the roof and folded his arms over his chest. His head tilted as he smirked.
“Okay, loser. We’re going through this again? Let’s go. What’s the fucking problem? Come on and tell your Uncle Baz while I’m still interested.”
Chase considered the city lights and felt the serenity of their ignorance within.
“I’m not a loser, you fat, fucking cock sucker.”
Baz shot to his feet and stomped over to Chase. He stepped back but maintained his ground and felt the rooftop wall against his heel.
“What the fuck did you just call me,” Bazzi roared and drew his Glock.
“I’m not a loser!” Chase yelled. “Hear me now, cock sucker? And you’re not going near that building!”
Bazzi stepped back and laughed.
“Either you have a serious death-wish or some set of fucking balls on you, kid. Why are you backing out? Your little girlfriend isn’t involved. It’s her neighbor, just to clarify.”
“I don’t care. She could get hurt,” Chase said.
“Could. Might. Probably. Just pray she ain’t home when we go. This is going to make the fucking ten-o’clock news, kid.”
Chase lunged at Bazzi. The rooftop gravel provided awful traction as Chase skittered about.
Baz stood up again. Slower, confident. He put out his tree-trunk of an arm and halted Chase in his tracks.
“Listen to me, you pathetic little prick. This is your time to fucking shine and you want to spit in my and Raguzzio’s faces. If you thought you were a loser before, just you fucking wait, kid.”
His face went numb and his body trembled without control. Fear did not consume him. His eyes went narrow and black.
“Fuck with me, loser. Fuck with me one more time and I’ll personally put a bullet through her pretty little head. After I finish skull-fucking her, that is!”
A growl snarled Chase’s lips as he bore his teeth. Drool rambled down his chin and his eyes flickered back and forth. Muscles threatened to rip from his flesh as his forearms tightened into twisted rods of steel. He lunged at Baz again and thrust his thumbs into his eyes.
Baz reeled back and swatted blindly at Chase.
Chase kicked Bazzi in the knee and relished the explosion of tendons as the mammoth-sized appendage bent the wrong way.
Tripping over his own feet, Chase skid across the gravel and tore up his palms.
He watched Baz who continued his fall in what looked like slow motion as his blasted knee collapsed his leg.
Trying to steady himself with his good leg, Chase dove headlong into Bazzi’s belly. The guttural belch roared above the howl of the wind as Baz lost his.
Chase fell to the rooftop and latched onto Bazzi’s calf. Bazzi’s face flushed into the no-color of cottage cheese as Chase twisted. The Glock soared off the roof as he whirled, and it discharged as it smashed on the concrete pad below.
Chase gasped as he watched the three-hundred-plus-pound behemoth topple over the edge.
Bazzi’s howl, baying, resounding, didn’t last long before the sickening pop of skull silenced him for good.
An eerie silence swallowed the stillness of the salty breeze and filled it with the stagnant odor of hopelessness and the wail of distant sirens.
Chase made his way towards the edge of the roof as he refused to look. He denied even further as he gazed upon Leonard Bazzi’s lifeless, headless body below as he lost the fight against hi
s churning gut.
A reticent lucidity filled his warped mind with singularity as he wiped the vomit from his lips.
There were no more alternatives. No more second chances. No more forgiveness.
But the coward within, steadfast in its refusal to allow him to soar head-first below and join his deceased partner, searched for other ways.
After what seemed like forever, the morning sun slit the night of his mind and dawned on him. He remembered the words whispered through the television so long ago.
III
The emptiness of Third Avenue echoed the plodding footfalls of construction boots upon concrete. Chin up and fists swinging at his sides, he allowed a lifetime of pain to force itself from his eyelids and out his nose. Eyes remained closed as he sniffed the familiar aromas of the neighborhood.
The bakery at Seventy-Second was easy, despite it being closed for the last several hours. That scent permeated the brick of the surrounding buildings after sixty-six years of business. The Indian restaurant on the other side of the street was never as pleasant, but explicit. A smile warped his lips as he negated the sting of sorrow in his eyes and the immense lump in his throat. Freedom smelled so fresh, so vivid.
Stepping past the front door of the apartment building, and through the alley between the Convenient-Mart corner deli and Flacco’s Spanish Cuisine, he looked up at his broken window one last time before he evaporated into the darkness beyond.
He removed his phone from his back pocket and dialed three numbers. “There’s someone in a leather jacket with a gun. He just walked into the alley by the deli and the Spic food place on Third and Bay Ridge Parkway.
“Yeah, hurry. I don’t think he’s going to be around much longer,” he said and tossed the phone into the dumpster.
It’s time.
IV
Red and blue lights danced across the damp brick walls as a gentle breeze blew discarded supermarket bags as a Chocodile wrapper flitted before Chase in the twisting eddy of the alley. A Siamese cat hissed from the fire escape and darted past the spectators held back by blue Do Not Cross—Police barrier at the mouth of the only means of exit. A journalist shoved her way through the crowd only to be met by a plain-clothes cop who really didn’t care what newspaper she was from. A mother yelled at her ten-year-old son to get the hell away from the fucking window because what was taking place, was none of his Goddamned business.
Chase sat atop a dumpster, the Peacemaker at his side. Fingers shook beyond his normal twitch and he chewed the gum that wasn’t in his mouth. His gaze flickered between the men before him, seeing all of them and none of them at the same time. Amazement dawned at how quickly they showed up, and he wondered if he called for a building fire or a rape in progress, would they have shown up at all? Maybe. Maybe not. But gun-control being the media’s spoon-fed terror of the month, response time plummeted from twenty minutes to two and a half.
“Please, son. Talk to me. We’re here to help. What’s going on?” the lead officer said.
“What’s going on,” Chase said. “What the fuck does it look like?”
“It doesn’t look like anything. Not yet. We’re here just to make sure it stays that way. You’re making the folks around here a little nervous with that firearm you have there. Why don’t you slowly step away from it and we can talk?” the cop said and took a step forward.
“Don’t,” Chase yelled. “Can’t you guys just leave me the fuck alone? Why bother a loser like me? Go eat a fucking donut or something!”
The cop eased back and wagged a finger at his brother officers.
“What do you need, son? Can you at least tell me that?”
Chase’s eyes darted across the cops and tried to figure out who was going to make the first move. Rationale slipped as the darkness flooded his thoughts in a deluge of hate.
“What I need is—”
You need to end this.
Shut up!
How do you expect to silence your desires, your torment, your destiny?
Shut up. Please, he sniveled.
So mote it be, my dear boy. I shall take my leave. Perhaps we shall commune again in another life.
The wail of an abandoned calliope churned out its rusted tune as the broken gears in Chase’s mind ground to a standstill. And Chase felt truly alone.
“Son? You still with us? What do you need?”
Eyes rolled as certainty reared its awful revelation.
Need? Fuck you. I don’t even know what I need anymore. Except maybe I need to know why. Why am I here? Why did everything turn to shit? Why do I exist? Why did Heather leave me?
Fucking Heather. Why did you do this to me? I need you.
“Fuck you, pig! I don’t need anything. What I need is to be left alone!”
Nice Cop. Shame.
“We want to leave you alone, son. But we want something from you first. Please, step away from the weapon so we can talk a little more, Okay? Like I said, twirling it around like that is making my friends here a little nervous. Can you do that? Step away from the gun?”
“I didn’t ask for you guys to come here!”
“Someone did. Someone who cares called us. They thought you might hurt somebody. But you know better than that. I can tell just by looking at you that you’re not here to hurt anybody. You’re afraid. What are you afraid—”
“I’m not afraid of anything!”
“Okay, Okay, you’re a brave young man. We get it. You know you don’t need a weapon to be brave.”
“Thank you,” Chase said.
Fingers gently wrapped the grip of the Peacemaker. It was heavier, colder. It had a purpose. Chase considered the police officers as two of the seven took aim. The eddy died, and the eyewitnesses hushed somewhere in the distance and emptiness filled the space between the stillness of the alley.
FIVE.
The negotiator’s face flushed as he raised his hands.
“Let’s talk this through, son. What’s going on in your mind? This isn’t going to end well. No one needs to get hurt.”
FOUR.
“Captain, he’s saying something. Can you hear him? Kid, we can’t—”
THREE.
“We can’t hear you, son. Please. Let’s talk this out.”
TWO.
The corners of Chase’s lips curled upward, his tongue slithered out and moistened his dry lips. Blood from his maimed tongue slashed across his mouth. He knew he looked as evil outside as he felt inside.
“Son, it doesn’t have to be this way! We can get you all the help you need!”
“One!”
TO BE CONTINUED IN
THE CONDEMNED
BONUS READING
Are you curious as to what happened to Heather at the end of CHAPTER 10?
Turn the page and find out…
THE KILLING
I
Heather knew that she would be the one to kill him.
The exposed brick of the Industry City apartment shimmered behind the deluge of remorse that tore at her throat in uncontrolled screams. His blood that did not ramble down her delicate, trembling hands, rushed flittered streamers in absolute finality. Through her fingers, she eyed the blade that didn’t skitter across the hardwood floors as it succeeded in its purpose. She fell to her knees and slapped her hands over her mouth and failed to silence the thick wail that scorched in acidic exhalation. The wet and warmth about her quivering fingers seemed as real as the undeniable truth; death is the beginning of immortality.
Her smile, her laughter, her faith, died long ago. Nothing more than a distant memory, the misery and the heartache had become her dearest friends. A small voice within screamed for mercy, for light, for life. But she allowed his destruction to envelop all that she was. And it imbued her with contempt. It should have been him. If only he would die, she could live. But the cruel, cold blade thirsted for her soul. It cut deep and spilled more than it swallowed. There was no other choice than to yank the blade from her heart and thrust it into his back.
> She ambled towards the window of the six-floor loft and scanned the street. Her forehead rested against the cold glass as she peered down and watched the motorcycle falter as it sped away under the Gowanus Expressway. She vowed to love that son of a bitch and held onto that love through the sorrow, the deceit, and the decision to kill him. If only he would die.
II
The monitor hummed as she stepped away from the desk. Finishing the remaining sip from her glass as she waited for her three-year-old Gateway to warm up, her thirst was as voracious as the swirling tempest within. The rumble of a motorcycle froze her in her tracks. She listened as the mechanized roar diminished as fast as it began.
Enchanted by the weave of the crimson liquid as it poured from the mouth of the dark emerald bottle, her pulse quickened and quivered her hand. Another glass should quell the shakes.
Maybe. Considering the Chianti and Rosé stuck behind the less than half a bottle Spiced Rum and almost empty Vodka, she convinced herself that a bottle of Merlot was enough to help her sleep. For now.
Hips swirled in rhythm with the wine as she meandered back towards the desk. Whether it was the Merlot or the fortitude of her erupting resolve, she didn’t know nor care. Heather needed to see it once more, read it, justify it. Then, maybe, he might die.
Would he?
How long would the torment linger, she wondered. It was only hours earlier, hours that seemed to stretch into days, when she slammed the door in his face after she plunged the knife into his back.
And he walked away. That goddamned, son of a bitch walked away. He didn’t return to the door, knock, swear reform, nor plead for her forgiveness.
Was he suspicious? Angry?
Enraged. That was it. Enraged for what she did. Furious, because their time together was a lie. Insane because he had no one left in his life.
Did she really intend on killing him?
No.
Maybe.
Was she to expect a changed man through only a few words in a letter? Perhaps the man she kissed at Sammie’s a handful of years ago? Or maybe the sixteen-year-old boy she wasn’t introduced to, return?
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