by K. L Randis
“You said a guy name Dennis with a little shit dog sold you this car? What’d he look like?”
“Oh please,” said Anthony, squinting his eyes and throwing his head back to the ceiling, “Um, okay, he was fat I remember. Maybe a little taller than you.”
“Young? Old?”
“No old, definitely older, maybe fifty or so.”
“The dog’s name,” said the man, panic rising in his face, “what was the dog’s name?”
“Something stupid I remember. Mr. Uh, oh! Mr. Jingles. The guy called him Mr. Jingles… I remember cause the dog had all these bells tied to him. I guess so the owner could find him easy since he was so small.”
“Fuck!” yelled the man. He turned away from Anthony, grabbing a chair and hurling it down a dark corridor toward the east side of the warehouse. There was a tattoo of some kind on his back, a lightening bolt of some kind.
“I swear I don’t do heroin, had too many people die from that green stuff I’d never touch it,” Anthony said, his words trembling, “I got my three year old son to think about man, I don’t have time for that shit I swear.”
A rage settled inside Jared’s chest. When he gave Anthony the blow to the back of his head after following him home that night he had all intentions of dragging him into the warehouse a few blocks away and killing him. He sought answers and now all he had were more questions. Could the guy who sold the purple Civic to Anthony really have been the same guy who was Jared’s one and only cellie in prison? He recalled Dennis’ story about killing his wife, the shit dog that gave him away and the endless questions about his life that he shared in the weeks and months following. Dennis was involved all along, but who the fuck was he?
“Do you love your son?” Jared asked, hovering over Anthony in the chair with his elbows flaring at the sides.
“Yes sir, oh I love him so much.”
Suddenly the barrel of a Glock was suctioned to the skin under Anthony’s chin. “I hope so, Anthony of Carlisle Street, because if you don’t then there is no reason for me not to kill you. If you so much as mutter a word about me or this place I will know it. I’ll make my way into your little boy’s room in the middle of the night when you least expect me and I will slit his fucking throat. You keep your mouth shut and everyone stays happy and alive, you understand me?”
Anthony was sobbing by the time Jared finished talking. Jared’s stomach lurched at the thought of hurting the guy’s kid but he needed to scare him enough that he would stay quiet. He wasn’t about to add murder to his rap sheet for nothing. He couldn’t kill someone without being fully convinced he had the right guy. Fear would hopefully smooth things over.
Jared unbound Anthony’s wrists, knowing that he had to get to Dex to tell him what he knew and to ask for reinforcements to figure out what was going on. Maybe he had Pillbillies on the inside, someone who was incarcerated with Dennis and could find out some information.
“Get out of here. You’re a mile from home. Start walking.”
“But the antifreeze? Am I going to die?” Anthony asked, gripping his stomach. “How much time do I have?”
Jared tried not to smirk as he grabbed the container next to the chair and held it up. “Sugar water. Now get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“We have a serious problem,” Dex said, pacing the room.
He was wearing a red polo shirt Jared noticed, an unusual change from his normal attire. The woodstove was barren even though the temperature threatened to dip below forty that night. There was no telling what kind of mood Jared would be walking into when he visited the farmhouse. He was hoping he would settle down enough to talk about what he found out at the warehouse with Anthony.
“What’s going on?” Jared asked.
“Every police officer and detective in the damn county swarmed Pleasant Hill High School today when some hormonal teenage bitch decided to overdose in the bathroom stall on our product.”
“Noooo,” Jared said, covering his face. He knew what that meant. There would need to be an immediate halt to production and distribution among counties until the smoke cleared. The kids they had pushing in the schools would need to be briefed and scaled back to selling only to established customers, no new ones.
Depending on what the police knew they would also need to scrap the idea of hiding pills behind the toilets and in the bellybuttons of girls who walked the hallways. If there were any pills remaining in the same bathroom the girl overdosed in they would know that they were dealing with a large scale operation based on the unique markings on the pills.
He didn’t need this.
Since he planned on parting ways with Dex once he moved in with Hailey a new system would need to be put in place before he left. Otherwise it would look like sabotage, somehow schemed up by Jared in an attempt to halt business for everyone involved once he settled the score with the drug dealer he was after.
“Yes, now half the town is up in arms about drug programs and education. ‘Call your mayor’ they’re saying. ‘We can change this’ they’re saying,” Dex ranted. His hands were shaking as he pulled three pills from his desk drawer. A leather bound book was used as a mallet and the Lace was smashed with one sweeping blow. He didn’t bother to assemble it in any type of line, instead he moved his face along the desk, inhaling and coughing like a pig eating from its trough.
“How many can you do at a time now?” Jared asked, staring in amazement.
“I’m over here talking about the police raining down on our heads and you want to ask about my tolerance?” Dex cried out. “Can we focus here?”
“Yeah sure,” Jared replied, “what do we know so far?”
It looked like he was going to need to bring up his meeting with Anthony some other time. Dex seemed to be on edge ever since his missed meeting with Flick and he didn’t want to be the cause of any more irritation. Now that there were complications, Jared needed to think strategically. He just had to hold it all together for a little while longer before he could make a clean escape with Hailey.
Just a little while longer.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There was a quaint cemetery a mile down Dorshimer Road that housed Lacey’s tombstone. Jared’s parents spent thousands etching prayers into the smooth surface and constructing one of the most impressive monuments for remembrance. He was sure they had spent a good chunk of Lacey’s college fund on the funeral costs.
The tombstones overlooked miles of fields in either direction with a handful of trees strategically placed to mark the outskirts of the property line. It was the oldest of three cemeteries in the area; it still had a dirt road leading up to the main path that would eventually open up to an area of plots the size of a football field.
Hailey held Jared’s hand as they walked to Lacey’s grave, sauntering over in a way that was both hesitant and willing. When the cemetery was quiet and there were no other grieving families around to hear your cries Jared thought that there would be a connection, a welcoming of tears that would let your loved one know that you were there, you were hurting, and you missed them.
Jared had no tears. He had anger, resentment and guilt. He knelt to the side of her monument on one knee, balancing himself by placing his right hand on the cool marble surface and eventually tracing his finger over the inscription of her name.
“I make sure I come during the week so I won’t run into my parents. I wouldn’t want them to see me. I don’t know if they’d want me here,” Jared explained to Hailey.
She nodded, silently squeezing his shoulder.
“You know that her death was my fault right?” He stared at the date she died, etched into the foundation of the stone. “If I hadn’t been high she’d still be here. I could have waited until she went to bed, after I tucked her in with her giraffe and made sure she was sleeping and safe. I didn’t do that. I wanted to get high.”
Jared stood up, brushing off his jeans, upset that Hailey was crying for him. “Don’t do that, don’t cry. I did this to
myself, to her. She didn’t deserve this. Why would you want to be with someone like me Hailey? Do you realize what kind of person I am?”
“What kind of person you were,” Hailey said. She blotted her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “You did the right thing by going to rehab, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live with something like this over your head.” She gazed at Lacey’s gravestone. “There’s no excuse for what you did, you know that. You made a horrible choice, one you’ll have to live with your entire life, but you can’t go back in time. She’s gone. The only thing you can do from this point on is live better. Make better choices. Not just for her but for yourself. You’ve been clean since she died, that’s a start. You also need to forgive yourself because if you don’t it will always threaten to bring you back to that ugly place.”
“I could have used so many times since I left rehab. I wanted to,” Jared confessed. “It’s so hard when it’s all over the place, everyone does it now. It’s like you can’t escape it.”
“You can’t,” Hailey said, her tone more stern, “you’re exactly right. You’re kidding yourself if you ever think that it’s as simple as a stint in rehab and an address change. The urge is real and it’s overwhelming I’m sure. It will never be something I can understand because I’ve never done it. I know what love is like though, and I know you’re capable of that. You’re also kind and brilliant and there’s something real and overwhelming about those things too. There’s no escape from relapse, only progress. You have to want better for yourself Jared, no one else can want that for you. You will have to fight everyday to make sure you are taking steps towards a clean life because you know all too well what happens in the dirty one.”
“Yeah,” Jared said, wiping his own face and pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “You lose everything.”
He pulled out a picture from between two twenties and flattened it against his chest. Hailey rested her head on his arm as they both stared at it. “That your mom and dad?” she asked, pointing to the man and woman beside Lacey in the photo.
“Yeah, that’s them.”
“They changed a bit. Your dad has a beard?” she asked, her voice rising as she tried not to giggle.
“Something like that I guess, macho-man Dad,” he said.
“Lacey looked sweet.”
“She was. You would have loved her. She would have loved you too.” He smiled at the thought of Hailey and Lacey playing at the park together or playing scary monsters, chasing each other around the living room in his parent’s house. Those memories were a lifetime ago it seemed.
“You know I’m going to need something from you if this is really going to work between us,” Hailey said. She stroked the side of Jared’s face, tracing the stubble from the previous day to the outside corner of his emerald eyes. His gaze was different than what she remembered from so many years ago. There was an ache that muddled their brilliance, a dulling that only the agony over such an innocent loss could accomplish.
“Anything,” Jared replied. He meant it. His journey down the rabbit hole started with losing Hailey, compounded by losing Troy. There were feelings surrounding those losses that he didn’t care to experience and wanted to escape from. There was no excuse for why he started; there was plenty of opportunity though. It was in the hallways of high school, friends’ parties, even his boss during a summer of landscaping work offered him Percs. It seemed like the easiest escape, a means to an end. Now he just wanted that part of his life to end.
“I need you to be honest with me. Always. Even if you think I would be mad, I would never judge you. I won’t tolerate lies though. I’d rather you tell me what’s going on than keep me in the dark,” she said.
His lips pressed into her forehead. She deserved honesty. She also deserved a beautiful home, some romantic vacations every now and then and a boyfriend with no lingering restitutions for his crimes. He didn’t care about an abundance of wealth anymore; he just wanted the meter back at zero, not in the red. Hailey deserved that much.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, “I’ll promise honesty from the time we get a place of our own together.” He didn’t like the look of her eyebrows pushed together when he pulled away to look at her.
“So you mean until we find out own place you don’t want to be honest with me?”
“Can’t. You really don’t want to know the thoughts that run through my head thinking about another man being with my woman in the place we’re in now. Did Matt really pick out all the furniture?”
She laughed, “Every piece.”
“Right, so after we move in together?”
“After it is,” she said, kissing him.
“I need to head back to my old place to pick up a box. Tina found it in the garage and called me yesterday to come get it after she got off work, probably some tools and stuff. Want to come?”
Hailey gritted her teeth. “Ehh I really don’t think I’m ready to make an appearance around her yet. That okay? I was thinking I’d just head back to the apartment, maybe start packing some things up.”
“Sure. We can grab something to eat later.”
He was relieved.
Jared suspected that maybe Tina was realizing that Jared was serious when he said he wanted to break up, and was making an excuse to see him. Gearing up for a drama-filled visit, he knocked softly on the apartment door when he arrived. He didn’t want to hurt her but he needed to be as clear as possible. They were over and there was nothing she could say—
“Come in Jared, so nice to see you,” Dex said, interrupting Jared’s thoughts as he answered the door. He was dressed in jeans and a long sleeved cotton shirt. The usual stiff tone of his voice was all but absent. “Tina and I were expecting you, have you come to gather the remainder of your things? I asked her to call you, thought maybe you’d appreciate having them back.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jared asked. He could feel the pulse in his neck as he searched the room for Tina. “Where is she?”
“Oh Tina? She’ll be out any minute, she was showering.” He winked.
Before he could say anything Tina walked through the bedroom door and when she saw Jared, started giggling uncontrollably.
“How high is she? What did you give her?” Jared yelled.
“She’s fine, Jared.”
“Yeah, I am totally, perfectly A-O.K,” Tina called across the room. “This is my boyfriend Darren,” she said, pointing a lame finger in Dex’s direction. “He lives here now sometimes.”
“You what? Your name isn’t Darren.”
“Relax Jared, we’re all good friends here, no?” Dex asked. He perched on a stool next to the island in the kitchen, resting one leg on the other with a telling smile forming over his lips. “Aren’t we all friends here Tina?” he asked without looking at her.
“Oh yeah, we’re all friends all right.”
“Get out,” Jared said.
“Gladly, but first don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
“I know why you’re here,” Tina replied, blowing a halfhearted kiss.
“I don’t care. Get out. Now.”
“I found the maker of that green tinted heroin you are so keen on seeking. I even went as far as finding out who the dealer was for you, dear Jared, since you have been so vital to my success it was the least I could do,” Dex started.
“What’s green heroin?” Tina mumbled, confused.
“What are you talking about?” Jared asked, “I thought you told me everything you knew. I thought—” Jared paused, opening his mouth in silence as he stared at Dex. “Who told you the heroin I was after was green?”
He never had a chance to tell him about the meeting in the warehouse with Anthony or the meeting he had at The 12 Bar when he found out about the fentanyl laced heroin. He never told anyone, not Tina and certainly not Hailey.
“Jared, Jared, Jared. Such potential. I wanted to rid this area of heroin, pushing Lace out to the far corners of our county and beyond. There w
as money to be made, a serious amount of cold hard cash that I wanted to wrap my hands around. How could I with all those heroin addicts out there? Someone had to get rid of them. You were the King of pill pushers before you were sent away, so I knew I could recruit you to my side, I knew you had a passion for it.” Dex clenched his fists, eyes burning into Jared’s.
“So I tracked you down, which wasn’t easy, not easy at all. Oh the man power I put into that! So what did I find when I finally found you? You were talking to the head of heroin, the Kingpin for the other side. Our enemies,” Dex seethed, “you had no right crossing sides when you had so much going for you in pills. I couldn’t have it. So I used my lab to conjure up some fentanyl laced heroin. Popular stuff in the South by the way, very deadly. I used one of my main men, a Pillbillie, to handle distribution. Does the name Craig mean anything to you? I knew that if I could just get rid of heroin users I would run a monopoly in this entire territory.”
Jared couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The entire time Dex knew all about him, even before their first meeting. He was also the one responsible for the laced heroin. He planned to gain customers by default, when all the heroin users were dead and all that remained were pill heads and Pillbillies to supply them.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Jared said, fishing for the switchblade in his side pocket. He regretted leaving the Glock in the car.
“I am a genius, unlike you. Stop grabbing for your knife Jared, it will do you no good here,” Dex said, pulling his own Glock from his side and resting it on the counter.
Tina gasped and covered her mouth. “Woah, what’s going on here?” she asked.
“What’s going on here, lovely Tina, is that I no longer need the services of Sir Jared. I can handle my own business ventures from this point on, especially since Flick is laying in a pool of his own blood in my living room. So after I finish him off with this,” Dex said gripping the handle of the gun, “you, my sweet Tina, are going to accidentally overdose and it will look like a murder-suicide.”