Cracked

by Barbra Leslie

  “Why did you dose us? Why did you kill Dom?” I said. I could hear Darren slowly getting out of his chair. “Did you kill Ginger too? Do you know where my nephews are?” Lowell put his hands up suddenly. Without looking back, I knew Darren had drawn down on him. Lowell looked pissed off, but not like he was going to do anything stupid just yet. He didn’t want a nervous-looking pretty boy getting all trigger-happy.

  “Dom’s dead?” Dave said. He looked at the woman. “Lola. What the fuck?”

  “Shut up, idiot,” she hissed at him.

  Then quickly and suddenly, Lola reached across the bar, obviously to grab a gun or weapon behind it. Before she could finish her reach, I grabbed the back of her head and slammed her face into the bar. Hard. As hard as I could, which was pretty hard. Three times. Blood poured out of her face. Her nose was broken. I hoped it hurt. A lot. I held onto her head. My blood was pounding.

  “Dave,” I said, not taking my eyes off Lola, “do not move. Do you hear me? You stay right the fuck where you are, or my brother will shoot you in your stupid head.” I glanced at the bartender, whose mouth hung open as he looked at Lola. “That goes double for you, meathead,” I said to him. “Sorry. I mean, Lowell.” I got the impression Lola was the alpha dog around here. He was used to taking orders from women.

  I twisted Lola’s arm behind her back, almost at breaking point. She grunted.

  “Are you behind all of this?” I asked her. I pushed her arm a little bit further. There was a rush of blood to my head, a pounding of rage and adrenaline.

  I had never felt better in my life.

  “Bitch, you’d better say something,” I said, “or I am going to break your arm, and then my brother is going to shoot off your kneecap. Then how will you blow the big bad dealers in the alley for your crack supply?”

  Lola spat blood into my face. I jerked her arm up further, and the sound of it breaking was like a branch snapping off a tree in a dry forest. She screamed. We were all silent for a minute. It wildly occurred to me that there might be someone in the kitchen, but I saw the sign on the bar that said “No Food To-Day.”

  “Danny?” Dave was speaking off to my left, very quietly. I glanced at him quickly. Both of his hands were gripping the bar, and his eyes were wet.

  “Yes, Dave,” I said calmly.

  “Is Dom really dead?”

  In a couple of sentences, I told Dave what had happened the night before. I believed that he didn’t know anything. He wasn’t smart enough to be that good an actor. And being in grief myself, I recognized the real thing in him.

  He nodded, crying. “You bitch. You bitch,” he was screaming at Lola, who I was still holding by her hair. She was moaning and trying to rock back and forth, but I held her head tight. I wanted to rip her hair out of her head.

  “Danny,” Darren said behind me. “I’m going to ask Lowell here a question.”

  “Shoot,” I said. I smiled at the bartender. “Whoops. Sorry, meathead. Didn’t mean that literally.”

  “You know why we’re here, don’t you,” Darren said. “Did you know my sister?”

  “Tall bitch? Looked a bit like that one?”

  I could hear Darren breathing. Even Lola was silent.

  “Yeah, I knew her,” he said slowly. “How could I forget her? That bitch gave me the best head I’ve ever had.” Before the last word was out of his mouth his hand had moved below the bar.

  “Darren, gun,” I yelled. In the same moment that Lowell managed to get the sawed-off shotgun from under the bar and point it, Darren fired.

  Lowell slammed back into the bottles behind him, the top of his head spraying onto the mirror.

  I looked at Darren. He was still holding the gun as though he expected more bartenders to pop up behind the bar like ducks at a fair.

  The big man disappeared behind the bar, which was now red and slick with his blood. I threw Lola to the ground, where she screamed as her broken arm made contact with the floor.

  “Darren. The back door. Quickly. You too, Dave,” I said, pulling Dave up by the back of his shirt. Darren grabbed him and handed me his gun.

  “I don’t need it,” I said, waving him off. I picked up my purse and pulled the knife from it. Lola tried to kick at me from the floor. I kicked her kneecap as hard as I could, and leaned down, the tip of the blade at her throat.

  She looked at me, knowing it was her last moment to live.

  “You’ll regret this,” she said. “They will get you.”

  I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be sure how involved she was. I wanted to kill her, I wanted to slice her throat, I wanted to punch her until every bone in her face was broken. But she could be a pawn. She could be just a low-life pawn. I couldn’t be sure.

  “They’ve already gotten me,” I said. “They killed my sister.”

  Instead of cutting her, I kicked her in the stomach. With my bad foot. Then I threw the knife back into my purse and hobbled after the boys.

  12

  I hopped, skipped and ran to the car. Darren had thoughtfully parked in the alley behind the bar. He was driving a vintage red Fiat Spider convertible. He’d shoved Dave into the miniscule backseat.

  “Get in!” Darren yelled.

  “Shut up,” I said. I hopped over the passenger door and slid into my seat as Darren pulled away.

  “Observe every fucking road rule, Darren,” I said.

  “No shit,” he said. He was shaking. “Light me a cigarette.”

  He didn’t smoke, but I didn’t comment. I lit two, difficult in a convertible, handing one to Darren and one to Dave, who was cowering in the backseat. If you can’t start smoking after killing somebody, when can you?

  “Unobtrusive car,” I commented. My ears were ringing, but my hands were surprisingly steady. Everything seemed too bright.

  “It’s Southern California,” he said. I could tell by his voice that Darren was feeling the exact same way. Shock.

  “Rental?” My voice sounded high and unnatural.

  “Nope.”

  “You bought it?”

  “Yup.”

  “With cash?”

  “Of course,” Darren said.

  “Wish I was a rock star,” I said. Everything seemed too vivid. I hoped I wouldn’t pass out. The wind would help. Darren laughed, too loudly.

  Dave, emboldened by the cigarette gesture, piped up from the back. “Where are we going?”

  We all pondered this. “Do we have a plan?” I asked Darren.

  “I was hoping you would,” he said. “I plan on getting drunk, myself.”

  I nodded. It was as good a plan as any, and I said so. We needed to regroup.

  “But we need to find somewhere to stay,” I said. “Probably not wise to go back to the house.”

  “No,” Darren said. He looked in the rear view. “Dave? You there?”

  Dave looked petrified of Darren. “Yes,” he said.

  “Feel like going to Palm Springs?”

  “Never been,” Dave said. “I’m supposed to be back to work.”

  “Sorry, pal,” Darren said. He threw his cigarette overboard. “I think you might be taking a sick day.”

  I pulled off my wig and stuffed it into my purse. And we cruised down to Palm Springs.

  * * *

  The scenery on the way from Orange County to the desert is breathtaking. Red rocks, mountains, acres of windmills. And traffic.

  “Rush hour,” Dave called from the backseat. He was probably getting bugs in his mouth. Convertibles are overrated, if you ask me. I kept turning around to see if anybody was following us, but with the amount of traffic, it was an impossible task. I’d never tried to see if anyone was tailing me before. Except maybe keeping an eye out for police when I was scoring, and even then, I was pretty foolhardy.

  Darren had been silent for most of the trip. He had his sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see his eyes. I wondered how he was feeling. It was his first time killing someone. At least, as far as I knew. He handled it well enough that I was star
ting to have my doubts. But me? I was feeling just fine, other than the obvious injuries, and for the fact that Ginger was really dead. But as for regret about what had happened at Lucky’s?

  None. Zero. Nada. And if that makes me a bad person, so the fuck be it.

  There was no doubt in my mind that Lowell the bartender had had some knowledge of, if not hand in, what had happened to Ginger or Dominic or the boys, or all of it. At the very least, by locking us in with him and his piece behind the bar, he was making a choice. And Lola? Whatever her role, she was in deep, and my only regret was that I didn’t have more time to get information from her. I was glad I hadn’t dragged her along with us, though. Would have been hard to conceal an unwilling passenger in a tiny convertible. Criminal mastermind, my brother was not.

  We got into Palm Springs proper and cruised the ten or twelve blocks of the strip. It was beautiful weather in the desert, and tourists were everywhere. I had been here before, with Ginger. It was one of her favorite places.

  We didn’t discuss where to stay. Darren pulled onto a street parallel with the strip, where some of the lesser-priced hotels were located. We pulled into a mid-price motel with lots of palm trees and a pool.

  “Ginger and I stayed here one time,” Darren said. “With Fred and the boys. We swam in that pool. Few years ago. Before chauffeurs and butlers. Or bodyguards,” he corrected himself.

  It was my second time staying in a motel formerly frequented by my sister. I hoped it would be more successful than the last time.

  Darren and I discussed room arrangements. “One room,” he said. “You, me and Dave here. Two beds, and then Dave and I can get cozy. Right, Dave?” He grinned over the backseat at our passenger-slash-hostage.

  “Really? I have to stay with the boys?”

  Darren took his sunglasses off. “Danny. You think I’m going to let you stay in a motel room by yourself right now? Uh. No.”

  “How ’bout you, Dave? Ready for a slumber party?”

  Dave smiled. “This is a nice place,” he said. “Do you think they’d mind if I swam in that pool in my boxers?”

  Darren and I looked at each other and laughed. It felt good. “Dave. My man,” Darren said. He was laughing a little too long, a little too loud. “You and I are going to need to do some shopping.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “I bought this outfit at Macy’s today,” I said to them. “What do you guys think?”

  Darren stopped laughing. “You’ve got blood on you,” he said. “Good thing that shirt’s black.” I looked down at myself. I did have blood on me. On the way up, I had tried to clean the blood off my face in the car, with a little spit and a tissue. I hadn’t checked my shirt.

  Dave suddenly leaned out the side of the Fiat with his head down, looking like a puppy. “You guys crazy or something?” He seemed weirdly resigned. I figured he was probably in shock. He just found out his buddy had been killed, but at least he knew we didn’t do it.

  Darren and I looked at each other. “Maybe,” I said.

  Dave nodded, as if he understood.

  “Well,” Darren said, getting out of the car. “You kids stay in the car. I’m going to get us a room!” He tossed me the keys. “Danny. Move the car, maybe?” He indicated spaces further from the road.

  “Copy that,” I said. I slid behind the wheel of the Fiat. I hadn’t driven in a while, and forgot how much I loved it. Even just across a Days Inn parking lot.

  Twenty minutes later, all three of us were ensconced in a twin double room. It was decent if bare bones, but the pool, which we could still see out our window into the twilight, looked inviting. Darren ordered a pizza and wings, and two four-packs of soda.

  “I want a swim,” I said. I had an urge to scour myself with chlorine.

  “Not yet,” Darren said. “First, we need to talk to Dave here. How you doin’, Dave?”

  Dave was lying on one of the beds, a wet washcloth over his eyes. “I’m getting a migraine,” he said. His knock-off Nikes were hanging off his toes. He didn’t even have the energy to kick them off. He looked twelve years old, all of a sudden, and I felt a motherly pull towards him.

  “We’ll get you some pills later,” Darren said. He rooted around in the desk drawer and pulled out some Days Inn stationery and a pen.

  “Danny. We need to think now. Okay? You okay?” It was serious Darren again. I was starting to wonder about these mood swings I’d seen in him. That, or it could have been seeing him shoot someone’s head off today.

  Not that I’d behaved like a Girl Scout myself. I could still feel Lola’s hair in my hands. I was glad I had broken her nose. And her arm. But still, I was glad I hadn’t killed her when I had the chance. That was something I was pretty sure you couldn’t come back from. It was what I had wanted to shield Darren from. Obviously that plan hadn’t worked out very well.

  “Okay. I’m ready,” I said. I looked at Dave, who looked fast asleep now. Darren made a move as though to wake him, but I stopped him.

  “Let him sleep for now,” I said. “He just found out his best friend was killed last night.” Not to mention being kidnapped by the killer and his sister, who were, for all he knew, on some kind of Natural Born Killers spree. If he could sleep, good. Better than hysterical screaming and running for the door.

  “Since we were five,” Dave said from under the washcloth. So much for my powers of observation. “We grew up together. We were foster kids together.” He rolled over with his back to us. I looked at Darren and he looked back at me, and nodded. We left him alone.

  On a sheet of paper, Darren and I wrote:

  Dead People

  Giner

  Dominic Pastore

  Lowell the Bartender

  Injured People

  Danny

  Detective French

  Lola aka Drug Dealer

  Persons of Unknown Whereabouts

  Matthew and Luke

  Fred

  Fake Danny

  People Who Might Know Something

  Detective Miller

  Detective French

  Dave

  Lola

  Fat desk clerk at Sunny Jim Motel

  All of the Persons of Unknown Whereabouts

  “Huh,” I said, after we finished the list. “We’ve made progress.”

  “Who should we talk to first?” Darren said, leaning back on his elbows. He rubbed his eyes. His jacket was hanging over a chair, and he was wearing his jeans and a Nirvana t-shirt.

  “Darren. Where the fuck is the gun,” I said. Darren looked at himself, then at me, then grabbed the keys where I’d thrown them on the desk, and ran out to the car. Three minutes later he was back, holding his gun in his hand.

  “Are you insane?” I said. “Didn’t think to hide that maybe?”

  Darren shrugged. “Off season. No one around.” He put the gun carefully on the desk. I looked at him.

  “Darren. We might end up having to go to jail.”

  “We might, at that,” he said. “How you feel about that?”

  “That I would rather not,” I responded. “But I need to see this thing through.” I examined the bottom of my foot. I wished we had Advil for pain. Or something stronger. I sighed, suddenly feeling the crack urges come back to hit me again square in the chest.

  Funny thing, that. A little uber-violence had erased the urges for a while, more than anything else ever had. Now that I was calmer, I wanted my real drug.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Dave piped up from the other bed. Darren and I looked at him. He removed the washcloth from his face. “You guys don’t have to worry about me. That Lola…”

  “What about Lola, Dave? You two seemed pretty cozy when you walked into Lucky’s.”

  Dave sat up. “I’ve known Lola a while,” he said. “She’s been coming into the bar maybe a year? Maybe less. Everybody knows she runs a few things through there. But I didn’t think she was bad people.” Two fat tears appeared and ran down his cheeks.

  “Did she know my sister?�
�� I still wasn’t sure how much Dave knew.

  “Your sister is Danielle, right?” This again.

  “Was. Ginger, actually. Danielle is my name.”

  “Danny is your name,” Dave corrected me. He wasn’t going to be on Jeopardy any time soon. It took a while, but between us, Darren and I managed to make Dave understand that I was not my sister, and she was not me.

  “Did Lola know Ginger?” Darren asked him.

  “Ginger. Weird,” Dave said slowly.

  “Dave,” I said, flopping myself down on the bed. “Please.”

  “Yeah, yeah, they knew each other. Ginger started coming into the bar. We don’t get a lot of girls at the bar,” he said. “Ginger started coming in, and around that time I think is when Lola started hanging out there. They were pretty tight. At least I think they were. Ginger gave Lola’s sister a job, even,” Dave said. Darren and I looked at each other. “Taking care of her kids,” he continued. “Lola’s sister, she’s different than Lola, that’s what Ginger said. She wasn’t in the life. She didn’t do drugs or anything. She was going back to school or something or other. Literature?” He then went bright red, as though he had insulted me, or insulted my sister, by talking about our drug use. “Jeanette. That’s her name. I remember ’cause it was my first girlfriend’s name.”

  There was silence for a minute. The mystery nanny. The mystery nanny who took the kids. Jeanette.

  All of a sudden I remembered my dream. When I had turned into Ginger. Or she had turned into me. I remembered the voices in the room. I closed my eyes, and tried to remember if I had seen faces. Figures. Anything. But dreams fade.

  “What does Jeanette look like?” I said quietly.

  “I dunno. Not like Lola,” Dave said. “I think they weren’t really sisters. Maybe they were adopted? Or in a group home or something when they were kids, like Dom and me? Her sister is more white. Looks a bit like you,” he said, gesturing at me. “Tall like that. Not as pretty, though,” he said, smiling a winning smile. “I only ever saw her one time. She didn’t hang out at Lucky’s.”

  Someone knocked at the door. Darren checked through the peephole and I hoped there wasn’t a gun on the other side. Luckily, it was the pizza guy, and if he was packing heat, he didn’t let on.