Czechmate

by Seth Harwood

  “Palms?” Shaw asks, pointing at his Crown Vic parked about six cars ahead of them on the right. “You seriously worried about him?” He looks at Gannon as she drives, already starting to slow down and stop next to his driver’s side door. He clicks the button on his keychain, and the car makes a double squeak as the doors unlock. “Palms is lucky he caught just that one shot in the shoulder and that it was from you. Half the rest of last night, he could’ve been shot much worse, and by guys who’d put the slug in his head instead of his arm.”

  With the car stopped completely, Gannon shifts to park and turns her whole torso toward Shaw. Her eyes go cold and she’s serious when she says, “Tell me that makes it right.”

  “It don’t. But you really think Palms didn’t get his own ass into the spot where you had a gun on him?” He shrugs and, opening his door to get out, says, “Palms put his self there on his own. It’s just as much his fault as it was yours, and the truth is, he pushed his luck to get that far.”

  4

  Tough

  The next afternoon, the hospital’s doctors release Jack, tell him that he can go home. They let him go with a bandage on his shoulder and his arm in a sling, a prescription for a week’s supply of Vicodin. Vlade and Niki take him down in the elevator to the garage, and there Al waits for them in a big rental SUV—this time it’s black—but the same model, Escalade, American and much too big. Jack walks slowly; he’s not altogether steady.

  He wanted to let Gannon and Shaw know he was getting out, but instead, Vlade insisted they just move, get out of the hospital before any of the doctors changed their minds. And now, Jack’s not sure if that was the best idea.

  In the SUV, Jack and Vlade sit in the back, behind heavily tinted windows. As always, Niki drives.

  “What’d you guys do with your bikes?”

  “Parked at hotel,” Vlade says. “And you? Where is yours?” When Jack tells them it’s in his garage up in Sausalito, Vlade comes back with, “Where is Fastback?”

  Jack has to think about it before he remembers leaving the car out in Walnut Creek, near the police station. “So where you guys staying?” Jack asks.

  Vlade shrugs. “The Regis. Where else?”

  Jack shakes his head. “You don’t think Akakievich will be onto this?”

  “I am hoping he is. The sooner he comes to us, the sooner we can make him our bitch.”

  Jack does a double take and realizes what Vlade’s said, and when he does, he’s not about to question it. Outside the windows, the garage changes to city streets. Jack shakes his head. “This is big. Double A is not someone to fuck with.”

  Vlade says, “Tell me more of what you know.”

  And so Jack explains about Akakievich’s play for control of the mayor and the chief of police, the unknown client list and what happened to O’Malley, Hopkins, and Matsumoto. He tells the Czechs about the blackmail part of Akakievich’s operation, and how even now that part’s still mostly something they have yet to uncover, that this means they could get hit from any direction—cops, feds, politicians—and never see it coming.

  He explains about what was going on at Prescott Court and how he and Shaw bullied their way inside, came out with three girls. Then the last thing he tells them about is Akakievich’s last call, the fact that he told Jack specifically how he would kill him.

  Vlade cracks his knuckles. “That is good,” he says. “Then we will not have to wait long.”

  “That’s what you said. But I’m saying it might not be Alexi that hits us. It could be the cops. Even the feds.” And he tells them about the big gun, the Barrett .50, and how Tom had been involved and wrapped up with Alexi as well.

  Vlade nods. He makes a face like he’s a little sick to his stomach. “We should maybe call on your friends then,” he says. “Find out if they can tell us where the hit comes from.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. And they’re not after you. Don’t worry. Anything you’ve done, Shaw and Gannon already know about.”

  “Really?” Vlade says. “I very much doubt that.”

  “They know about the drug deal. They know all of that and—”

  “Then you are assuming that you know all we have done.”

  Jack looks into the front of the car, at Niki, and their eyes meet in the rearview mirror. “I don’t?”

  Niki shakes his head and turns his eyes back to the road, avoiding Jack’s.

  “No, Jack, you do not,” Vlade says.

  Jack stares out the window, suddenly feeling like he might rather be out there, on the street, on his own. “What the fuck are you talking about? Let’s get all the cards on the table.”

  “Tsk tsk, Jack,” Vlade says. “In time we will come to these questions, but this is not that time.”

  “Fuck that.” Jack sucks his teeth. “I’m ready. Look at me now. I’m shot and I’m ready to get out there again.” He tries to take his arm out of the sling, but the motion hurts too much for him to get it out. He takes a deep breath, holds it in, and then slips the arm out of its sling, takes the sling off over his head and drops it on the floor of the car. “You see this, Vlade. I’m ready to go.” Jack takes a deep breath, waiting for the pain to subside.

  Vlade picks up the sling and hands it to Jack. “Do not be foolish, Jack. You are hurt, yes. You take care of your arm so you do not end up like me, with less motion. We know you are still here. Still ready.”

  Jack takes the sling and holds it in his lap. His arm’s OK, but the shoulder still feels like a ball of fire. He holds it in place with his other arm. “What else can happen to me now? I’ve been shot. I’m ready.”

  Al turns around from the front seat and looks at Jack. He looks to Vlade and back to Jack again. “What can happen?” he asks. “Vlade will show.”

  As Jack turns to Vlade, the big Czech starts to unbutton his shirt. He opens the top three buttons and pushes the shirt open across his chest. There, on Vlade’s “good” shoulder, the one that didn’t get shot at The Coast, a scar runs down about six inches along his side and cuts across under his pec for another four or five.

  “This could happen,” he says. “Or worse.”

  “He has four scars like that,” Niki says from the front. “And I have three.” He shakes his head. “These you do not want.”

  “Or you think of Michal.” Vlade shakes his head. “That you do not want. You think of your Junius Ponds.”

  Jack shakes his head. The image he sees isn’t of Junius, but of Freeman instead: the sight of Freeman falling to the floor of Jack’s hotel room, holding his hand close to him, blood spurting out from around it, his face in agony after Jack’s just shot him in the hand.

  Then Jack considers Freeman in the hospital bed, the way that Shaw would’ve crushed his finger. He remembers the threats Akakievich made over their last phone call. He remembers it all.

  Jack starts to put the sling back around his neck. “OK,” he says. “You guys can lead. I’m here, but I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  Vlade nods, reaches over to help Jack get his arm back into the sling. “This is good, Jack. You will stay with us. You listen. And we will get this thing done.”

  5

  Medicate

  From the Czechs’ hotel, Jack calls Shaw on his cell to let the cop know he’s out. But he gets Shaw’s message, not the man. Jack leaves one, says where he is and that he’s ready for something to go down. Then he sits on the couch, watching the Czechs around him. Al and Vlade stare at the TV and the nightly world news. Niki sits close to Jack on the suite’s other couch. He nods.

  “You have done what you can, Jack. Now is time to rest.”

  Jack sighs. Around them is another suite, not as big or as palatial as the last one they had in San Francisco. This one’s much more modest, more like the rooms they had on the road. It has a room off of the main one with two beds in it for Vlade and Al, and another room that Jack will take with Niki.

  “It’s tough,” Jack say
s. “A part of me is so keyed up, I just want this whole thing to go down. I want to find these guys, get out there.”

  “And the other part?”

  Jack nods; he knows where this is going. “The other part of me is tired. Exhausted. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since I got back in town. And my shoulder hurts. I don’t know what drugs they had me on in the hospital, but I still feel fucked. That’s the other part.”

  Niki smiles. He nods. “The Vicodin, Jack. Take one more. Go to bed. Tomorrow, we will go. Akakievich and the things will begin.” He raises and lowers his shoulders. “And they may not. We wait. And there is nothing wrong. A part of life, this is. Sometimes we do not rush.”

  Next to Jack on the couch, an orange bottle holds a week’s worth of painkillers, pills that make Jack numb. If anything really happens, he’ll have to avoid these, put them away, and that’ll hurt. He knows this is what he’ll have to do. But Niki’s right: that’s not what he has to do right now. Waiting, drugged up, it doesn’t matter. Jack might need to rest.

  Niki points to the bottle with his chin; he knows Jack’s looking at it. “Do what you need, Jack. Nothing will happen for now.”

  Jack takes the bottle and opens it. Twisting the cap with his left hand doesn’t hurt, a good sign. With it off, Jack looks into the bottle, sees a number of white circular pills. “Yeah. I see what you’re saying.” His eyelids feel heavy already. He shakes a single pill out onto his tongue and swallows it down.

  A half hour later, Jack sits up from the pain of his shoulder. He’s alone in his room and the bottle of pills is right next to him on the table. Just next to the minibar.

  “Shit,” he says. He’s still got the sling around his neck, and he can’t tell if he fell asleep for that half hour or not. He’d taken a Vicodin and lain down, but that’s all he knows. He usually sleeps on his side or on his stomach, kind of quarter-side sleeping, with one leg bent, but now he can’t do either. If he goes onto his side, the shoulder hangs in a painful way. Turning onto the shoulder’s side—that’s not even an option. Lying on his back, he can’t get comfortable. The Vicodin doesn’t even seem to be working. Niki said it’d help him fall asleep, but he’s still awake.

  He reads the bottle again: Take one pill every four hours, not to exceed four pills in one day. It doesn’t say anything about not taking two pills at once, but he’d guess it’s not the best idea. There’s a sticker on the bottle that says not to mix with alcohol. So that means the minibar’s out. But Jack’s shoulder feels awful, and his bones have that ache inside them that comes from not sleeping, an ache he remembers from the months after Victoria left, the year he spent getting himself off junk. Back then he’d had a few different kinds of sleeping pills, prescription medications that he took to get through the long nights, but here, at the hotel, he’s got nothing but the Vicodin. That and cigarettes.

  He shakes one out of the pack, lights it, and takes a deep drag, sitting on the side of the bed. Each inhale reminds him of the pain coming from his shoulder, the breaths moving it just enough to let him know. And he also feels himself relax, warm to doing whatever he needs.

  “Fuck this,” he says, tapping a Vicodin out onto the nightstand. He takes another drag and gets up, the cigarette still hanging out of the corner of his mouth—a trick he was never all that good at—and, squinting his eyes, goes to the minibar.

  He breaks the paper seal on the door and opens the little refrigerator. Just like he’d hoped, there’s a neat little row of small bottles along the top shelf. He looks them over and takes out two of the little Jack Daniels.

  Fuck what the sticker says on the bottle, fuck taking one pill every four hours, fuck washing it down with water. Jack takes another drag off the cigarette and sets it in the ashtray. He opens one little JD with his teeth, spits out the cap and takes a pull. It’s good, burns just enough on the back of the cigarette. He puts the Vicodin on his tongue and knocks off the rest of the JD in a long slug that takes the pill with it. It goes down warm, hard.

  He smokes the rest of the cigarette, still sitting, knocking off the second JD as he does, then lies down again, on his back, to wait for the sleep that he hopes will come.

  6

  Jack Wakes Up

  Jack’s cell phone rings from the table beside his bed the next morning. At first, he incorporates the ringing into his dream. He even answers the phone in a dream where he’s sitting on a white chair by a pool, but as he starts to talk, there’s no one on the other end. The phone keeps ringing. Then a waiter in a tuxedo brings him another phone on a silver platter. He starts to reach for the new phone and it rings again.

  When he opens his eyes, he sees Niki sitting on the bed next to him. “You want for me to get that, Jack?”

  “Huh?” Jack blinks hard, a process he can almost hear happening in his head. He looks at Niki, trying to remember what he’s doing in this strange bed. He remembers the dream and the pool, then slowly the facts about where he is: at the hotel. The phone rings again, and he waits. The phone stays quiet.

  “I guess not.”

  “It will come again,” Niki says.

  Jack sits up, feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, a sting that shoots through him. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the fog that’s filled it. The phone starts ringing again.

  “Yeah,” Jack says. “I hear that.”

  Niki grabs the phone off the table and hands it to Jack.

  “OK. I’ll get it.” Jack hits talk and holds the phone to his ear. “Yeah.”

  Jane Gannon says, “You see the news?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Fuck, Jack. You with me?”

  “Huh?”

  “Did you see the news yet this morning?”

  Niki nods. Jack’s not sure why, but he gathers that maybe Niki can hear Gannon’s voice over the phone.

  “What?”

  “Clarence held a press conference this morning. Showed your picture on TV and said you’re responsible for killing the girls over the weekend.”

  Suddenly Jack remembers a whole series of things: from the house on Prescott, to the Barrett .50, to the girl in the back of O’Malley’s car. Then he remembers that the woman he’s talking to on the phone is the one who shot him—the whole reason that his shoulder hurts.

  “You shot me. It still fucking hurts, Jane.”

  “Jack, I’m talking about the chief of police making you a public enemy here. I’m sorry, again, about the shooting. But this is—”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Clarence told the whole story about you and Shaw breaking into Prescott and kidnapping some employees at a massage parlor. Said you two barely escaped capture by the police and that now you’re fugitives on the run.”

  “Bullshit.” He sits up straight, awake now, aware enough to know the pain in his shoulder, to recognize that it’s now matched by a ringing in his head. He remembers taking that second Vicodin, mixing it with the whiskey, and wishes he’d had the sense not to do that.

  “I wish, Jack. No. You wish.”

  “Where’s Shaw?”

  “He got a tip from someone on the force before Clarence went live, called me this morning and said he’s going underground. We’ll hear from him, I’m sure.”

  Jack looks at Niki, sees the Czech is still stone-faced. He swings his legs out of the bed and his feet onto the floor. “What the fuck do we do now?”

  “Anyone know where you are?”

  Jack raises his eyebrows at Niki, who shakes his head. “You hearing all this?” Jack asks him.

  Niki nods.

  “No,” Jack says into the phone. “We’re holed up. I think. Why can’t you do something from the FBI side to clear us? Take Clarence down from the top. Tell them he’s been buying underage Russian sex slaves.”

  Gannon lets out a sigh. “I wish, Jack. That’s how it’s supposed to go, right? But the fucking red tape in my department is ridiculous. Politics, procedure, all that bullshit. I’
m working on it, trying everything I can, but nothing’s happened. Now this shit’s gone down with Tom, I’m not exactly top priority around here. They don’t know if they should trust me.”

  Jack shakes his head, still trying to clear it. Today’s already one of those days where he knows he won’t to be able to think right. He remembers Tom Gannon shooting a sniper rifle at the BMW he was driving, then later, Tom pleading to his wife not to turn him in. These things come back slowly, this fogginess the reason he quit drinking. Time to start on another wagon.

  He does his best to think it through: his face on TV, people looking for him all around the city, the police trying to find him. All that and the man named Alexi Akakievich who, as far as Jack knows, still wants to kill him.

  “Fuck,” Jack says. “What do you suggest I do?”

  “Yeah. I’m working on that part.”

  “But you have the three girls with you still, right? They can’t be saying I killed them if they’re still alive.”

  “They’re safe. But the story is you’re holding the other three hostage. You don’t want to know what they say you’re doing to them.”

  “Oh, man.” Jack bends over. Now the shoulder feels like nothing; now something drops in his chest and around his stomach and it feels like a big part of his world, the life that he knows, is falling away. He hasn’t felt this bad since Victoria had him arrested, since he found out that Shake It Up was permanently on hold. And still, as he thinks back to those times, he sees the comparison and looks around the room, a nice hotel suite, a big Czech across from him that he knows he can trust, and he thinks about all he went through to get those girls out of the house. He straightens up. He knows he was doing the right thing. He thinks back to all the work he did in the gym, all the mornings of the routine, the good jogs, every day that he fought the good fight to bring himself back from drug addiction and depression.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Let them talk.”