Airbag Scars

by Jim Heskett

  He shook his head, and his snarl turned into a grimace. “There’s nothing to say. This is the only way out.”

  In one fluid motion, Glen lifted the pistol to his face and jammed it in his mouth. His lips formed an O around the barrel, which reminded her of the face little kids make when blowing bubbles.

  Glen looked her in the eyes, and then his lids dropped shut.

  Hayden stabbed her finger at the red emergency button as she leaped to her feet, but before she could take one step from the desk, he squeezed the trigger.

  In the confines of Hayden’s tiny office, and without range-approved ear protection, the sound of the gunshot was like a lion’s roar. As the bullet passed through Glen’s head and out the back of his scalp, bits of brain and blood and bone ejected in a wet arc, muddying the print of the downtown Denver skyline. The frame rattled on her wall as streaks covered the picture.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  MICAH WAS holed up at the office in the morning, waiting for Frank to arrive. The mug of coffee danced in his grip. Micah didn’t need caffeine, but he always felt better when he had a drink he could hold in his hands. The urge to add something to his coffee nagged at him. Bourbon, vodka, maybe even mouthwash, if it came to it.

  In his other hand, he rolled Boba Fett’s head back and forth between his thumb and forefinger.

  The idea to call the cops and tell them everything still lingered. But he wouldn’t do that. Given his history, nothing good could come from it.

  “Micah? What are you doing here so early?”

  Micah didn’t turn to face Frank. He kept his eyes on the coffee mug, and bile entered his throat when he knew he had to speak. “I’m busted. They know I’m here.”

  Frank dropped his briefcase and sat in the chair opposite Micah’s desk. “Who knows?”

  Micah shuddered. “One of them came to me yesterday. I’d seen him at some meetings around town, but we’ve never spoken before. He was drunk, barely able to stand on his own feet. But he knew my real name, and he even used Velasquez’s nickname, El Lobo.”

  Frank sat back. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah, that was my response, too. I’m so hosed right now.”

  Frank rubbed a hand over his chin. “Did he try to grab at you, or attack you?”

  “No, that’s the thing. When he said El Lobo’s name, he caught himself and ran away, like he’d made a mistake. Like he’d revealed his hand too soon. The whole situation was really odd.”

  Frank drummed his hands on the desk for a few seconds, then drew in several deep breaths before responding. Micah waited in silence for Frank to say something that would settle his racing nerves.

  “I don’t think they know you’re here.”

  Micah left the kitchen to set down his coffee mug, which clattered on the desk and spilled a little. “How do you figure?”

  “With how bad these people want you, if they knew where you were, they’d send a truck full of guys to snatch you in the middle of the night. You’d have no idea it was coming. They wouldn’t send one drunk guy and have him reveal himself. It’s too sloppy.”

  Micah nodded slowly as realization settled over him. A few pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together, now that Micah knew he’d seen Donovan at meetings. He’d been too panicked about it to think straight before.

  “Actually, that makes a lot of sense. And it would explain the weirdest thing that happened a couple weeks ago.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone slid a note under my door about the car accident. Said he’d heard me talk about it at AA meetings. It led me to this boxing gym up in Five Points, and I went to get answers about the tennis shoe I found. Met some guy there who told me about the accident, but now I think that was all a setup.”

  “So this guy, the accident, and the shoe are all tied together somehow. He’s sending you on wild goose chases to keep you from figuring something out. Alright, then, what are your options? Can you call your old WitSec handler Gavin and have him move you somewhere else? Somewhere new and remote?”

  Micah shook his head. As much as he’d complained about the alienation of living in Denver, the idea of starting over somewhere else felt equally distasteful. “They’d only relocate me if I was still in the program. I dropped out, remember? I’m on my own here.”

  “Then maybe it’s time to go to the cops.”

  Micah thought this over, and he didn’t like this option either. “I don’t want to involve the police. Without the government’s protection, if cops find out who I really am, they may not be on my side. They might decide to put my name out there, and then it would be open season for anyone still in the cartel.”

  “I think you’re wrong about them being willing to expose you,” Frank said.

  “But if I’m not, things could get real bad real quick.”

  Frank walked into the kitchen and filled a mug of coffee, then rubbed his thumb back and forth over John Elway’s faded face. “This is a no-win situation.”

  “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

  “Okay,” Frank said after a long pause. “The way I see it, there’s only one choice left, if you need to stay anonymous, can’t get help from anyone, and have to get this guy off your back. I hate to advise this, but I don’t see that you have any options.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re going to have to kill him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  AFTER THE shooting, Hayden did everything she was supposed to do. She worked with her boss to file all the correct paperwork, she made her statement to the police, and she agreed to a mandatory vacation from work. Security collected her things from her office. They told her that the room had to be sealed for a couple days for photographing and cleaning.

  For ninety minutes after, her ears rang. Everything everyone said to her was a muffled warble.

  As she prepared to leave the building, her coworkers stood in the doorways of their own offices, safe and protected. The women–usually so chatty and able to spit affirmations to their own clients in times of need–remained mute and bewildered as Hayden passed them and exited the front door of the office.

  As she left, she had a feeling that she would never come back to this building again. How could she even look at that spot on the wall where her favorite framed picture had been covered with his blood and brains? They could replace it with something and clean the wall, but she would still know.

  She spent the first day of her forced vacation on the couch in her pajamas and bathrobe, watching episodes of Big Bang Theory that she’d already seen many times before. She also played with a small silver object, something that used to be her release valve.

  In the morning, she checked the newspaper, and there was an article about Glen. It mentioned the name of her clinic, but did not specifically identify her. That was good. She didn’t want any questions about the incident beyond what she’d already told her boss and the police. Didn’t want anyone asking her why, as his case worker, she hadn’t seen this coming.

  In the old days, she would have come home to William and unleashed all of her grief and trauma on him, and he would have rubbed her back and said nothing.

  She left the house to procure a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s from the store on the corner, not caring about the looks she gathered from people who apparently thought it odd that a woman would do her grocery shopping in a bathrobe and furry pink slippers.

  Every time a car horn honked or door slammed, she jumped. She knew the signs of PTSD and refused to believe she would fall victim to it.

  After coming home, she walked down the hall and almost knocked on Sherry’s door, but something stopped her. As much as she needed connection, she didn’t know if she’d be able to get past what Sherry had done. Then she considered calling Micah, but he’d been so distant and strange, she didn’t want to reach out to him either.

  On the second day, she got off the couch and organized her closet. Collected a garbage bag full of clothes to donate. In the morning
, she’d wanted silence, but in the afternoon, she grew tired of the quiet and turned on some music for distraction while she cleaned the kitchen. By the time she got into bed that night, while reading a David Sedaris book, she surprised herself by smiling a couple times.

  On the afternoon of her third day of forced vacation, Hayden tired of the pajamas, so she slipped on a pair of pants, and the sun through the window caught her eye. Enough moping. She wanted to go out into nature and do something.

  But she didn’t leave until she put the silver object into her pocket, the same one she’d been playing with for the last couple days but hadn’t used yet. The one that so often gave her comfort before she moved to Denver, and hadn’t needed for the last five years.

  In Boulder, she headed for Chautauqua park and started up a trail to a specific spot that overlooked the city, with a view of Denver’s meager skyscrapers off in the distance. On the trail, out in the cold, crisp air, she didn’t feel any better. Actually, it started to grow worse, because the trail made her think of life and love and how much she used to like this city. Still, she was grateful for the change of venue.

  She huffed and puffed along the trail, grunting over rocks and slogging through patches muddied from the last snowfall. The exercise provided a bit of distraction, at least. She’d let running fall away since going to the gun range had become her primary hobby. Her legs burned with the uphill effort.

  As she neared that spot, back through a collection of boulders off to the side of the trail, her phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Hayden,” Micah said.

  “Oh, hey.”

  He paused a second. “Haven’t seen you at the gun range.”

  She shifted the phone to between her ear and shoulder, sat on the rock overlooking the city, and dug a hand into her pocket. She took out the shiny silver object, a small razor blade. “No, I haven’t been.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Not really.”

  He paused again. “Um. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She held up the blade to her finger and dug it deep enough into her flesh to make a bead of blood form at the tip of her finger. “Not really.”

  “Oh, okay. No problem.”

  There was something in his voice, like a hoarse kind of meekness. “What about you?” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he said. “Something happened, but I can’t talk about it. It’s better for everyone if I don’t. I know that sounds all weird and cryptic, but it’s the best I can do. I wanted to tell you that you probably won’t see me at the range anymore.”

  “Oh. Whatever it is, I’m sorry, Micah. I liked shooting with you.”

  “Me too.”

  An awkward silence followed, but she didn’t know what to say. Finally, she spoke up. “You should give me a call sometime.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said, but the tone of his voice suggested the opposite. Hayden knew that tone.

  “Okay, then,” she said.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  She let the phone fall into her free hand, and then tumble out of her grip until it landed on the rock in front of her. The screen cracked, but she didn’t care. She twisted the razor blade until it caught the light, sending a blinding whiteness into her eyes.

  Chapter Thirty

  SOMEHOW, DONOVAN found the time to dispose of Sherry’s body. He wrapped her in a blanket, dragged her into the hall, and dropped her down the trash chute. He then sneaked into the basement garbage room and loaded her into his car, drove it out to the industrial area of Denver, the ratty and smelly suburb known as Commerce City. He found a warehouse that looked abandoned, and he dropped Sherry’s body there.

  While he was wandering around this big empty space, the inspiration for what to do next struck. Revealing his intentions to Micah had been a stupid drunken mistake, but he could still make it right. The pieces were in place to get everything he wanted. He’d have to hurry, though.

  Donovan wanted a drink to celebrate. He normally liked dive bars with subdued music and few people, but he chose a loud and energetic dance club. He was looking for the kind of company he knew he’d find in a place like this.

  Across the crowded room, he noticed a petite blonde woman. While not usually one to go for women significantly shorter than him, he could tell from the tightness of her clothing that she had a nice body. Spinners, his buddies used to call the short ones. He admired her V-shaped back and long neck from afar for a half hour as she danced under the lasers and blinking lights, then he finally made his way across the room to talk with her.

  He had no interest in dancing, but he brought her a drink, and she grinned up at him to accept it. He nodded over to a free table next to the dance floor.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. I watched you dance for a little bit. I was hoping I’d get the chance to say hi.”

  “What’s your name?” she said, leaning forward to hear his response over the booming music.

  “Micah,” he said, and the thought of hearing his nemesis’ fake name on her lips both angered and excited him. She repeated it back to him, and that spurred an irresistible urge to hear her scream it later tonight.

  Later in the evening, she invited him to her apartment, and she was drunk enough that he didn’t have to sell her on the idea of going back into her bedroom. She wanted it, and he made her say Micah’s name more than once, which made his blood boil.

  But even with all the passion and energy, Donovan couldn’t climax. He struggled and worked until he was too tired to go on, then he jumped up and went into her bathroom to take a shower.

  Terribly embarrassed.

  After she’d passed out, he got up and collected his various pieces of clothing from around the apartment. Once dressed, he sat in a makeup chair across from her bed and watched her sleep. He contemplated snapping her neck, since anyone who could identify him might put him in jeopardy. Then, he realized he was kidding himself, and that he wanted to snap her neck because she’d seen him at his worst. Pumping, working, unable to have an orgasm. He’d made a fool of himself.

  So instead, he pulled back the bed sheet and held his phone out to snap a picture of her tight, naked body. She hardly stirred.

  Donovan went through each dresser drawer until he found a suitable prize. He shoved it into his back pocket. When he got home, he’d stuff her panties in their own envelope, with her name scrawled on the front.

  But the night wasn’t done. He couldn’t sleep until he’d gotten what he wanted, and jerking off wasn’t going to satisfy him. That left one option: Hayden.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Micah sat in his beat up Honda beneath a bridge as cars relentlessly raced by above. The bridge rumbled and thundered each time a big rig rolled over the concrete and steel monstrosity.

  His head pounded. So much didn’t make sense. He’d been in some kind of car accident, and somehow, this guy Donovan was involved. There was some sort of connection to the mysterious shoe that had appeared in the bumper of his car. But the glue he needed to tie it all together eluded him.

  He couldn’t get answers, and now here he was, waiting to buy a gun from some gangster named Anthony he’d met at the gun range. Micah had known this sketchy guy was exactly the type of person who could get him things from the moment he’d laid eyes on him a couple weeks ago. He used to run with guys like this all the time back in El Lobo’s crew.

  The urge to drink pulled at him, clouded his head. He opened his palm, the tiny severed head of a plastic Boba Fett action figure staring back at him.

  “Okay Boba, if you can think of a good reason for me not to leave and find a liquor store, now’s the time to let me know. Tell me why I shouldn’t drink all this bullshit away. Tell me why I should stay here instead and meet this guy.”

  A half hour elapsed and he was still alone under the rumbling bridge. Then, as a light snow began to fall, Micah heard a car pull up behind him.
Big thing, some giant truck like he used to see all the time back in Oklahoma, but didn’t encounter so often in Colorado. Then he saw the plates and it made sense. Texas. The headlights flooded his vision and he held up a hand to block the glare.

  Two men stepped out, which Micah didn’t like. There was only supposed to be one guy. He got out of his car and nodded at the man he didn’t know. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Anthony said. He reached back into the truck and pulled out a garment bag folded into thirds. He set it on the hood of Micah’s car, then lifted the edge of the garment bag to unroll it, but the strange man cleared his throat.

  “Wait a second,” he said.

  “Is there a problem?” Micah said. “I don’t understand why you’re even here.” He knew he shouldn’t be aggressive with these guys, but his nerves were shot, he wanted a drink, and he was too upset to care.

  “It’s cool, man,” Anthony said. “He ain’t a cop.”

  “Are you?” said the strange man.

  “Do I look like a cop?”

  “Actually,” the strange man said, “you kinda do. But you should know that cop or not, I’ll put a bullet in you if you do anything I don’t like.”

  Micah’s mouth felt terribly dry. “Whatever. Are we going to do this, or not?”

  Anthony flicked his wrist at the man, who returned to their truck and slammed the door. “What are you looking for?”

  “Something simple,” Micah said. “Reliable.”

  The man in the truck trained a gun on Micah, but he tried not to give away that he’d seen it.

  “Like a revolver?” Anthony said.