They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Who’s g—”

  “Zak!” Guppy gasped. “Zak is nowhere to be found in the house.”

  “What is it with the fuckin’ Kleins, the gene for martyrdom dominant in your family or what?” Johnny’s face twisted with worry and what looked to be hints of pain.

  “Guppy, can you run through all those Isotope Web sites and chat rooms?”

  “I thought we were in a rush?”

  “We are,” Johnny said, “but do it anyway.”

  I knew the way MacClough thought. He was looking for something specific. And after only two minutes of scanning, Guppy found what MacClough had been hunting for.

  “Oh my god!” Guppy barely got the words out. “Look.”

  This is what he pointed to on the screen:

  Your nephew’s here for a visit. Love Valencia. He says there is no disc, but we cannot take that risk. Bring it inn and we’ll trade you for him. If not, he’ll fade away.

  Their mispelling of “inn” was not lost on us. One or all of us were about to jump into the lion’s mouth to pull Zak’s head out.

  Training Wheels

  When I came in, MacClough was standing behind Guppy, his yellowish hands enveloping the caramel skin of Guppy’s hand. Guppy’s hands were draped around the blueblack gun-metal of MacClough’s old .38. In unison, they repeated the steps of releasing the safety, pulling back the hammer, and firing. I winced as the hammer struck. There was nothing but a click. Johnny had emptied the cylinder.

  “You got it?” he asked his student.

  “Yes,” Guppy answered with no confidence.

  As MacClough reloaded the pistol, he told Guppy to go over the plan. Dutifully, Rajiv repeated his part in our hastily designed escape.

  “Everybody ready?” MacClough didn’t really want an answer.

  Guppy and I lied that we were.

  “Okay, Klein, into the broom closet.”

  “Good luck, guys.”

  “Go to hell.” MacClough winked and patted my cheek affectionately.

  “I’ll save you a seat.”

  “More likely I’ll be savin’ one for you.”

  He closed the door on me. As he did so, I caught a glimpse of Guppy’s face over John’s shoulder. He was scared.

  Dank and claustrophobic, the broom closet felt like a coffin with training wheels. An empty bottle of Soft Scrub was my only friend. It could have been worse; the kitchen sink might’ve been closer to the back door. I don’t even want to think about how I would have had to contort myself to get under there.

  As I listened to MacClough’s and Guppy’s steps fade away, I visualized how the scene might play itself out. At the threshold of the front door, John stares into Guppy’s eyes, promising him things will be all right. Guppy believes him. John has the gift of transferable confidence. He could almost will you to believe. I believed, somewhere. Guppy says he’s ready and John pats his shoulder. MacClough reminds Guppy of what he needs to do. Guppy, sage and brilliant, is annoyed at MacClough’s constant reminders. John likes the anger in Guppy’s black eyes. He likes the people he works with to have an edge to them.

  MacClough takes three deep breaths; not two, not four, three. They’re breaths so deep you’d swear he was going to the chair. Then, without a word, MacClough, hiding his face with a ski mask and hood, bursts out the door in to the front yard. He heads for Guppy’s car. The cops, startled and caught unprepared, draw their weapons, but not before MacClough’s in the driver’s seat. One cop, a rookie, takes a shot. The Subaru’s back windshield shatters. Angry shouts of “Cease fire!” can be heard in the next county. There’s a second shot. It misses completely.

  Guppy, pleading for help, stumbles out the front door, down the steps. He aims above the Subaru and squeezes off a shot. Bewildered, the cops charge across the street toward Guppy. MacClough burns rubber down the driveway and does a one-eighty in the street. The cops stop in their tracks. Some race back to their cars. Some race to Guppy. MacClough heads off into the night. The cops head off after him, squawking on their radios about Dylan Klein’s mad dash in a stolen Subaru.

  Guppy, gasping for air, acts dazed, shocky. He mutters something about the hospital, an ambulance and how Klein had mentioned making a run for the border. There’s more squawking on the radio. An ambulance is called. Roadblocks are set up. Guppy passes out. Sirens dominate the night air. An ambulance pulls up. Guppy’s loaded onto a gurney, rolled into the ambulance, and shipped off to Riversborough General. As the ambulance pulls away, one detective asks another if he should search the interior of the premises. The more senior detective gives it a moment’s thought. He balks at the idea. There will be plenty of time to collect evidence after Klein is caught. He waves a uniform over and tells him to tape off the area and to stand guard when he finishes. By the time the uniform begins to cordon off the perimeter, I’ve already slipped out the back door.

  My visualizing comes to an abrupt end when the real gunfire begins. Three shots sound like a thousand when you’re alone in the dark. I don’t know how to pray anymore or to whom, but I fake my way through it. There is a lull in the gunplay and I can hear Guppy’s cries for help. I push open the broom closet door. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so bad in here. I get ready to run. The back door’s open. The cold, fresh air is sweet in my nostrils. I run. When I stop to breathe again, Guppy’s back fence is a memory. It worked. God damn it, John’s plan worked. But standing there in someone’s backyard, I have never felt more naked in my life.

  I could barely hear the sirens anymore by the time I got to the Old Watermill Inn. There was no police activity here that I could see. From a convenient shadow I watched people drift in and out of the hotel. Business as usual at the Old Watermill, murder or no murder. Even in little towns, memories are short. Life goes on. It felt unholy to me that it should. Maybe, I thought, that was what was wrong with the world. Trauma ran off our collective shoulders like so much rainwater. In an insane world, our drive for a sense of normalcy was inversely proportional to the tragedy heaped upon us. But I could have been wrong. Things might only have appeared normal from the distance the shadows afforded me. Knowing Riversborough, there might well have been a shiny new plaque affixed to the old inn during my brief absence: “The best little crime scene this side of the border.”

  Stepping around to the side entrance, I noticed several posters of my kisser tacked up on a utility pole like fliers for a weekend yard sale. Unfortunately, these were not reproductions of Sissy Randazzo’s revenge. This picture actually looked like me. I waited a bit before going in, but not too long. The time MacClough’s mad dash would buy me was not unlimited. He didn’t figure to outrun the cops in Guppy’s ancient Subaru forever. Now it was my turn to take the three deep breaths.

  The hallway ice machine didn’t seem at all surprised by my presence. I could only hope its blasé attitude about my being there would carry over to the warm-blooded members of the hotel’s staff. The first test of my anonymity was coming up the hall in the shape of a young couple. He was jingling the room keys in his hand. She was jingling something else. I cleared my throat to save them a bit of embarrassment. It also caused them to look away as they approached. They wished me good evening as they passed and giggled all the way to their room.

  I took the long way round to the ever-vacant guest lounge. It was dimly lit as usual and it gave me a good view of the front desk. He was there, the scum who had helped to murder Kira. Life went on for him, too, but not for very much longer. I hadn’t discussed my plans for him with Guppy or MacClough. I knew they would try to talk me out of it, but I meant to kill that cocksucker before the sun rose in the sky. And I meant to make it painful and bloody. I could barely stop myself from breaking a piece of glass and charging him. I would cut his throat with the jagged wedge of glass. Then, as he fought in vain to plug the red river flowing out of his jugular, I’d snap the glass in half and shove the pieces into his mouth. As I pounded his cheeks against the thick walnut front desk, the glass would shatter. He’d swallow s
ome of it, washed down with a chaser of his own blood. The big shards would shred his face from the inside out. And just before he lost consciousness, I would . . .

  “Excuse me,” a gentle, foreign voice called to me from a corner of the dark room, “but can you give me the correct time.”

  Turning to a leather wing chair, I could make out the figure of the man who needed the time, but not much else about him. He was short, svelte, and dressed in a suit. He seemed lost in the big chair. I apologized for not being able to help him. I did not say that I had murder on my mind.

  “I am sorry to have bothered you,” he bowed slightly.

  “No bother,” I lied, but I was intrigued by his voice. He was Asian, but clearly comfortable with American English.

  “I have made the trip across the Pacific many times, but have never learned to reset my watch.”

  “You’ll get it eventually,” I assured him, trying to turn back to the front desk.

  “No. I fear I shall never make this trip again. I have loved your country, but I can never return to it.”

  I could not help but be drawn to him. “Why not, the INS giving you a rough time?

  He laughed sadly. “Nothing like that, no. Do you know what I like most about Americans? They can enjoy themselves without self-consciousness, without artifice, without approval of the group. You enjoy to drink, but don’t need to drink. You go to a club and enjoy karoake, but would be fine without it. You can be individuals. In Japan, we have achieved many great things against great odds, but we are not comfortable with ourselves as individuals. Do you know what we do to those who wear their individualism on their sleeves?”

  “You beat them down like a nail that sticks out of a board.” I recalled what Kira had said.

  “Exactly so,” he bowed again. “You know Japan?”

  “No,” I said, “I had a teacher who knew both countries and was wise in spirit.”

  He said nothing immediately. There was a stifled gasp somewhere in the darkness. There is nothing particularly sad about hearing a man cry. But to hear him struggle to hold tears back, that is the essence of sadness.

  “Are you okay?” I tried to distract him.

  “Yes, yes. It is just that my daughter was such a woman as your teacher; torn between two countries and wise in spirit. Now I come to take her home to Japan, but it was never a home to her. I don’t know whether she can ever truly rest there.”

  I needed the wall to hold me upright. And just as in my dream, the world fell out from beneath my feet. The world was doing that a lot, lately. This was Kira’s father. It was as if we were standing at opposite ends of a black void, connected but apart. If a pin were to prick the vacuum, we would be drawn together, colliding at the speed of light.

  “She will rest,” I assured him. “She will rest.”

  “Thank you. Maybe we can speak again.”

  “I would like that,” I said. “We have things to share.”

  He stood. Bowed at where I was standing and moved quietly out of the room.

  When I turned back to the front desk, the clerk was gone. A new face was on duty. So much for shards of glass. The world back under my feet, I walked out of the lounge the way I’d come in. Just through the doorjamb, a shape stepped out in front of me. By the time I recognized it, a gun barrel was buried in my ribs.

  “Come on, Mr. Klein, we don’t want to be late for your appointment.”

  Piece of Skirt

  We walked for a little bit—me, the desk clerk, and the ski dude—down into the basement of the Old Watermill. It was musty as hell and made me pine for Guppy’s broom closet. The three of us had little to say. There was no need. The ski dude’s gun barrel communicated to me speed and direction. I did ask if it was possible for the ski dude not to press his pistol completely through my ribs. He responded by pressing harder. I would remember never to beg him for mercy.

  We stopped by a door marked “Storage Room” and I wondered aloud if this was where the desk clerk changed into Superman. That earned me a smack in the back of my head with the gun butt. That was one way to get the damn thing out of my ribs. When I reached up to feel the lump on my head, they pushed me through the door. I landed chin first. That pissed me off and I spat in the desk clerk’s face when he bent over me. Now the square face of the 9 mm Glock was pressed against my teeth. Suddenly, I thought, my ribs weren’t such a bad place for the barrel of a gun after all.

  The ski dude just stood above me smiling down. He enjoyed his work just a bit too much for my comfort. In the meantime, the desk clerk frisked me, patting down every spot on my body, turning all my pockets out.

  “He doesn’t have it on him,” he said to the ski dude.

  “Of course I don’t have the disc on me, you fucking moron.” I got the words out pretty well considering there was a gun in my mouth. “When I get my nephew, you’ll get your disc.”

  Ski dude pulled the gun away and yanked me up like I was filled with helium. I didn’t miss the gun. And it was nice to breathe again. The desk clerk gave a nod to his accomplice. Ski dude smiled. I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy this. A fist buried itself in my gut so hard that my liver French-kissed my right kidney. Some foul-tasting liquid flew out of my mouth. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was the type of fluid that was supposed to stay inside the human body. I didn’t have a chance to dwell on my body fluids very long. Unconsciousness has a way of distracting me.

  To wake up running through an inventory of the parts of your body that ache is usually a bad omen of things to come. My mouth still tasted of the mystery fluid and the slice on my chin was still bleeding, so I guessed I hadn’t been out that long. My liver was back in place, but I felt bruised from the inside out.

  I was lying face-down on a concrete slab and when I tried to push myself up, the back of my head nearly exploded. It didn’t do wonders for the contents of my stomach, either. I opted for rolling over onto my back. I managed that without too much discomfort. There was a string of bare bulbs dangling above my head. They swayed as if blown by a breeze I could not feel. There were space heaters placed along the base of the unpainted concrete walls. The walls themselves were not flat, but concave. The place had the feel of a construction sight.

  After several minutes on my back, I inched over to a wall and used its gentle slope to ease myself into a sitting position. My head voted against the upright posture, but came around to my way of thinking after punishing me with thirty seconds of extreme nausea and pain. When the wave passed, I felt I recognized my prison. The tunnels beneath the college were of the same dimensions. I was unnerved by the deathly silence of the place. Having grown up in a bedroom above a boiler, around the corner from one of Brooklyn’s busiest thoroughfares and one block away from Coney Island Hospital’s emergency room, I had always been uncomfortable with silence. Okay, when I was writing, I wanted silence. When I was bleeding, I wanted some noise.

  I stood up and walked the tunnel, up and back. I was in a section about sixty paces long closed at both ends by ply-wood walls. One wall had a locked, spring-loaded door in it. I did some requisite banging and screaming after which I did some requisite puking. At least now there was some stink to go along with the silence. I got horizontal once again and willed myself to pass out, but even that yielded mixed results. I dreamed I was in pain.

  Someone was slapping my cheeks the next time I opened my eyes. Just what a man with a cracked head and a slicedup face needs. I thrust my left arm out at where I thought the slapper’s throat might be and latched onto the first bit of flesh I could find. Hearing choking and feeling hands grab my left wrist, I congratulated myself for good aim.

  “Uncle Dylan! Uncle Dylan!” were words I thought I heard through the choking and gasps for air.

  I let go, but, in all honesty, not without some regret. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I continued to be furious with Zak for his manipulations. I was never very good at math, but no matter how I turned the equation around, Zak’s pulling at the puppet strings still resu
lted in Kira’s murder. I suppose that as a younger, more narcissistic man, I might have seen things differently. I might have thought my few days with Kira were somehow worth it. I wasn’t that good a liar anymore. My joy, no matter how expansive, would never be worth someone else’s life.

  “Are we in the tunnels beneath the school?” I asked, sitting up.

  “Yeah,” Zak said, rubbing his throat. “But these tunnels are unused. They are extensions to buildings that were never built. Everybody knows they exist, but none of the students know how to get access.”

  “Now you do, but I don’t think it’s worth it.”

  “I guess not,” he agreed.

  “How did—” My question was cut short by an opening door.

  “I put him here, Mr. Klein,” a vaguely familiar voice answered my unfinished question. Dean Dallenbach stepped through the open door. He was flanked on either side by the desk clerk and the ski dude. “Now why don’t you make the inevitable easy on everyone and hand over the disc.”

  “If it existed, asshole,” I didn’t hesitate, “I might be inclined to make it easy.”

  “You are going to be tiresome, aren’t you?” Dallenbach’s hand gestures were very affected, exaggerated.

  “I guess so.”

  “But we’ve already been through this with your nephew, Mr. Klein. Do you actually believe me such a fool?”

  I smiled. “You really want an answer to that?”

  “George!” Dallenbach barked.

  The ski dude hopped to and proceeded to slap me so hard across the face that the force tore a gash in my cheek.

  “Nice shot, George, but you’re pissing me off. I get very stubborn when I get pissed off.”

  “Jerry!” the Dean was barking again. “Hold Mr. Klein steady for George this time. I don’t think our guest quite appreciates the seriousness of the position he and his nephew are in.”

  As the desk clerk stepped toward me, I thought I saw him lick his lips. But he was a phony motherfucker. With him it was all show for the boss’ sake. And I knew Jerry would be a little more careless than his partner. While he moved by me to take hold of me, I head-butted Jerry in a part of his anatomy that was particularly sensitive to strong blows with a blunt object. He folded like a pup tent in a tornado. And as he was busily getting in touch with his new vocal range, I sprang on top of him, sinking my teeth into his neck. But just as I was clamping through the thick sheath around his jugular, I heard Zak scream.