Cashed Out

by Michael Rubin

  My arm was pounding with pain now that my attention was no longer distracted by listening to Rad’s speech. I didn’t think I could run. I was afraid that abrupt movements might cause the butterfly bandages to open.

  So, by moving cautiously, I was able to dodge my way through the crowd past the cordoned off roads where traffic had been halted because of the march. I covered the next two blocks, where the fringes of the rally thinned and evaporated. At that point, the path was clear.

  River Road was a hundred yards ahead, and beyond that, the levee.

  I paused as I neared the edge of the asphalt, watching for traffic before crossing it. The street was empty except for a black sedan coming from my right. I’d cross after it passed and then I’d reach the levee.

  But then the black sedan’s headlights picked me up.

  The car accelerated.

  It crossed over the center lane, and veered directly for me, trying to force me to retreat to the capitol.

  I started to turn back, but that way was no longer open. Fifty yards away, silhouetted against the capitol’s klieg lights, was Frankie, his ponytail bouncing as he jogged toward me.

  The sedan’s engine gunned as it barreled down my way.

  There was no other option.

  I took off at a dead run across the road, trying to ignore the agony in my left arm as I felt the wounds open up and the warmth of pulsating blood soak the bandages.

  The sedan driver hadn’t anticipated that I could run as fast as I did. The car swerved to counter my movement. It missed me by inches.

  I didn’t dare look back.

  I heard the squeal of tires as the car spun around.

  The rise of the levee was before me.

  I began running straight up its sloping bank. Small tufts of dirt leapt upward around my feet. I heard the popping sound of a handgun. Three shots. All had missed.

  I gained the crest of the levee and headed down the dark batture. I hadn’t realized that this portion of the levee was covered with rip rap – sharp-edged chunks of suitcase- sized limestone boulders dumped on the shoreline to stabilize it and keep it from being washed away. I felt the rip rap beneath my feet before I could see it, but it was too late.

  On the second step I caught the toe of my shoe where one boulder overlapped the

  other.

  Down I went, head first.

  I twisted to avoid landing on my face.

  My right shoulder caught the next limestone slab as my feet flew through the air.

  The momentum flipped me. I landed hard on my left arm. The pain was excruciating. The bandages shredded as I slid down the stone. The entire cut, from my elbow to my wrist, opened up.

  I couldn’t help it. I screamed in anguish.

  From above me, a flashlight shone down. “We got the bastard.”

  Chapter 75

  “Told you we’d find this little shit if we just looked hard enough.” Frankie kicked me in the gut with his steel-toed boot.

  I doubled over, trying to catch my breath.

  Frankie tapped my left arm with his foot. I closed my eyes and bit my lips, trying to avoid giving him the satisfaction of hearing me scream again. “That’s right, fucker! Don’t even think of yelling for help.”

  Frankie bent down next to my face and shone the flashlight on his open switchblade. “If you want to continue breathing, you’ll do as I say. Do you understand?” For emphasis, his knife traced a line up and down my nose.

  I nodded weakly.

  Ribeye pulled my cell phone off my belt and stomped on it. I could hear it shatter.

  They pulled me to my feet, led me to their car, wrapped my bleeding left arm in a filthy towel they had in the trunk, and shoved me in the front seat of the sedan. Ribeye took the wheel, with Frankie on the passenger side and me squashed between the two of them, perched precariously on the console.

  Frankie was so big his head scraped the inside of the roof, and I had to turn

  partially sideways to avoid having Ribeye hit my left arm every time he turned the wheel.

  Ribeye, feeling me move, slung his elbow up hard and caught me under the chin. My head snapped back from the force and I heard a cracking sound come from my jaw. From the torment that enveloped me, I couldn’t tell whether he had broken something. My mouth filled with blood. I felt a hard object in the liquid and spit it out. The blood dribbled down my chin and onto my shirt while my tongue gingerly probed the extent of the damage.

  Ribeye used his elbow on me again. He jabbed my left arm.

  As an involuntary howl began to emerge, Frankie snapped a handkerchief over my bloodied mouth and held it tight, almost suffocating me. “Don’t you fucking spit in

  my car! I’m going to make you lick that up off my floor, you little shit.” Ribeye steered the car down River Road.

  “Come on, Frankie,” Ribeye complained, “it ain’t worth it. Let’s just do it now.”

  Frankie gave me the handkerchief along with a warning look that clearly meant to keep it in place. He pulled his switchblade from his pocket and started to clean his fingernails where my blood had seeped under them. “Nothing I’d like better, you know that, but Paolo gave instructions. Besides, now you owe me twenty plus a set of monogrammed handkerchiefs.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. But it doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

  Ribeye turned the wheel, and I groaned as his right elbow brushed against my left arm. I felt nauseous.

  “And you?” Ribeye continued, glancing over at me. I was still holding Frankie’s handkerchief clasped across my face, “You swallow your shit and don’t you let any more of that drip on Frankie’s car. You hear?”

  I nodded and forced myself to swallow the blood that continued to fill my mouth. I started to gag.

  “Don’t you fucking puke on me. Paolo or no Paolo, I’ll use my own knife and cut your fucking balls off.”

  “The hell you will,” said Frankie, glaring at Ribeye. “You gonna cross Paolo?”

  Ribeye gritted his teeth. “No, of course I ain’t.”

  “Good. Then let’s do what he told us to do if we found this shitty shyster here tonight.”

  “I still don’t see why Paolo wants us to do that.”

  “Ribeye, if you understood it all, you’d be in charge, not Paolo.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on not gagging as I felt the car round several more corners, slow down, and then stop.

  I opened my eyes. Ribeye had driven to the back of the capitol. We were near the marbled porte cochère, the private entrance that the Governor and other high-ranking state officials used to enter the building from their chauffeur-driven vehicles. This area was closed off with bollards, guard gates, and stanchions. How the car had gotten through the security, I didn’t know.

  Ribeye had pulled into one of the reserved parking spaces.

  Frankie dragged me out of the front seat. As I staggered to my feet, Frankie hit me again in the gut with his meaty fist. “That’s for messing up my car.” I fell to the ground and threw up on the brick walkway.

  “Don’t you fucking get that on my shoes!” Ribeye kicked me in the ribs and I rolled heavily on the bricks, ripping my shirt.

  “Get up!” Frankie commanded.

  The sound of a dog barking came from far behind us.

  “Come on!” Frankie said, hauling me to my feet by the back of my collar and holding me at arms’ length to avoid the blood and vomit.

  “In,” Frankie ordered, pointing to the heavy metal double doors ahead of us as I moved unsteadily forward.

  Frankie held a plastic card against an electronic sensor in the wall next to the door. When the light went green, he grabbed my right wrist and made me reach for the door handle and turn it. Ribeye held the door open for me with his shoulder.

  They followed me inside.

  Chapter 76

  We exited the elevator near the top floor and strode onto a plush red carpet and into a hall where thick molding traced the floors and ceiling. I could hear, fa
r below us, the muffled sound of the band still rocking away on the steps below.

  The hall opened to a red-carpeted waiting room crammed with overstuffed leather furniture. In the center was a highly polished bronze door. A brass nameplate proclaimed

  ‘Carter H. Herrington, IV, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Health.’ Frankie knocked once.

  Herrington was in his shirtsleeves, the white cuffs rolled up almost to his elbows. Under each of his arms were large perspiration stains from the heat of the night and the excitement of working up the crowd with his speech.

  He was sipping liquor from a Waterford crystal highball glass. The smell was on his breath and in the air. “Thank you gentlemen,” Herrington said to Frankie and Ribeye. “I really didn’t expect this would happen tonight, but I’m pleased to see that the stars have aligned.”

  “There really ain’t a lot of stars out tonight,” responded Ribeye. “It’s gettin’ cloudy you see.”

  “Shut up!” whispered Frankie to his partner.

  Herrington examined me from afar. “What have you two done to him?” “He just tripped,” said Frankie.

  Herrington took another sip and had them spin me around as he examined my face, my left arm covered with the filthy towel, and my ripped clothes. “That was careless of you, Attorney Schexnaydre.”

  Through my pain, I was startled to realize that Herrington knew who I was. Through my misery and dread, the questions kept coming. Why did Paolo Micelli tell Frankie and Ribeye to bring me here? Why were Frankie and Ribeye doing Paolo’s bidding rather than Tony Micelli’s? And what connection did Paolo have with Carter Herrington?

  “Put him over there, in the wooden chair, where he won’t leak onto the furnishings. They’re too expensive and a bitch to clean.”

  Ribeye and Frankie shoved me toward a corner of the room, steering me clear of the white leather sofa, armchairs and ottoman.

  They pushed me down into a polished wooden chair with the state seal embossed in silver on the back upright. I raised my head to see Herrington still holding his highball glass in one hand. But in the other, he held a pistol.

  “That will be all, gentlemen,” he said to Ribeye and Frankie. “I appreciate your delivery. You have done very well.”

  “Mr. Herrington, do you need us to . . .” Frankie began.

  Herrington interrupted him, smiling, but with a tone that showed no further response would be necessary. “Now, just go downstairs and I’ll let you know when this is over. Shut the door behind you, please.”

  Frankie and Ribeye departed. Herrington reached for a cask-shaped bottle of bourbon with a tiny silver statue of a racehorse and rider on the cap. He topped off his own glass and poured a small amount into a second Waterford tumbler.

  I could hear the elevator doors open and close.

  Herrington, still holding the gun, pushed aside a small credenza under the windowsill, causing a cordless phone to fall off its base onto the floor in an off position. Herrington kicked it out of the way and put the second tumbler on the windowsill. “Come,” said Herrington affably, “have a drink. Enjoy the view.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” said Herrington, pointing the gun at me, “I insist. Over here, if you please.”

  Nothing here pleased me. With Herrington holding a weapon, I could foresee no positive outcome.

  I played for time. I worked my way out of the chair, trying carefully not to move my useless left arm, which was knotted with excruciating spasms beneath the towel that was now damp from my blood.

  Herrington stood aside, pointing with his gun at the window.

  The wooden frames had been scraped and repainted numerous times. A latch separated the two large panes so the huge bottom section could be completely opened, a necessity because the capitol was built in the days before central air conditioning. Now, central air ran throughout the capitol, but the windows still worked.

  Herrington pushed and the bottom portion swung upward.

  I could feel the warm night air and could clearly see the foot-wide concrete ledge that ran around the rim of the building outside the window. It was thickly coated with a gooey paste of yellow, green, and brown bird droppings. Directly outside the window loomed the back of the head of one of the vast concrete pelicans whose busts marched around the top of the capitol. Its beak protruded outward at this level and the remainder of its body extended down another floor and a half below the ledge.

  Far below, past the guano-crowned concrete bird, were the capitol’s steps, the parking lot, and the illuminated memorial garden. The band and the remaining marchers, now dancing and swaying to the music, looked like figurines from this height.

  Herrington let the window stay open. The strong air conditioning formed a draft as it rushed past me to escape through the window and into the evening.

  “Wouldn’t this be a good time for you to take a drink?” Herrington urged.

  I didn’t move.

  “That,” he said, waving the gun again, “was only a rhetorical question. Drink it.” I picked up the glass. I was unsteady from the beating I taken.

  “Blanton’s Special Reserve Single Barrel Bourbon,” Herrington said. “Drink.”

  I leaned against the windowsill and slowly drained the ounce or so that was in the tumbler. The liquid burned my cut lips and I tried to keep it away from the tooth that Ribeye had cracked.

  “It’s very nice, don’t you think? That’s all you get of that, though. Let’s have you finish up on something less expensive.”

  Without taking his gun off me, Herrington went back to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of cheap bourbon. He filled my glass to the top.

  Stay calm, I told myself. Stay sober. Buy time. Be polite. Don’t anger the man with the gun. “Thanks, but I think I’ve had my fill.”

  “I’ll do the thinking. Now, Attorney Schexnaydre . . . may I call you Hypolite? Or do you prefer ‘Schex’? Taylor always said everyone calls you that.”

  “You’ve got the gun,” I said as softly as I could, trying not to irritate him. What else had Taylor told him about me? How often had they been together? Why had she . . .? No time for that. I cordoned off those thoughts. Could not afford to do anything but concentrate on Herrington. “You can call me anything you please.”

  “Speak up! Drink up!” He backed up, holding the gun steadily at my head. “No need to stand on formalities, is there Schex?”

  I picked up the tumbler, searching for a non-confrontational way to extend the conversation. “If there are no formalities, then why not offer me the good bourbon? After all, pouring the less expensive stuff is not very hospitable to someone you’ve ‘invited’ up to your office, escorted by Paolo’s thugs.” Get him talking about Paolo. That might buy some time.

  “Come now, Schex, you didn’t receive an invitation. You came alone. Sneaked in. That’s what you did. Barged right through my door all by your lonesome. Imagine my astonishment at finding you here. Can’t imagine how someone could have been so careless as to have left a door open downstairs. Some guard will be fired over this. In fact, they’ll probably be able to figure out which door it was that you used.” He chuckled. “Undoubtedly, the one with your fingerprints on the handle. The one that was opened with a stolen passcard.”

  So that was why Frankie and Ribeye had made me turn the knob downstairs.

  Herrington had already finished his second drink and had poured himself a third.

  “Sorry, Schex,” he said, taking a sip, “the good stuff is what I get. You know, I can’t imagine why it was that you wanted to see me so badly. I was completely taken aback. You come in and surprised me as I was . . . as I am . . .” he took another big sip from his glass, “. . . as I am working as hard as I can for the people of this great state, toiling long hours into the night. Doing my job to protect my constituents. Thank you, Jesus, they’ll say. And they’ll remember that at election time, ‘cause I’ll remind them.

  Thanks be that Carter-Herrington-the-Fourth had the pres
ence of mind to act as he did. I’m here late on a Monday night, and you burst in and demanded things. The audacity! I offered you a drink. You accepted. Your DNA is in the liquid. Your fingerprints are on the tumbler. But would you see reason? No. You got violent. You got upset. You were involved with that monstrous Camellia Industries, poisoning our state. You were involved with the treacherous Taylor Cameron, a woman who fucks first and kills later.”

  So now he hated Taylor too? No! Can’t afford to speculate about anything. Not now. Keep focused on one thing at a time. For as much time as I had left.

  “What else was I to do, Schex, when you started to assault me? No sir. There’ll be no love lost for you. And there’ll only be accolades for me. I can see the headlines now. Secretary Herrington fends off killer! Taylor fries. Spider Louiviere’s murderer, a fallen lawyer, is stopped. It all ends so neatly, and after that, who could successfully challenge me for governor? No one. No one at all.”

  That’s why Frankie and Ribeye had brought me here? For Herrington to kill me?

  I wasn’t going to wait to be slaughtered. Despite the pain, despite my physical exhaustion, I forced myself to stand up straight and put down the glass.

  I searched for a mode of escape, for a weapon, for some way to create a delay.

  As if I could, with only one good hand.

  Herrington, holding his gun, was across the room, and he stood between me and the door. He tsk’d his disapproval at my movements. “You really don’t want to stray from that spot.”

  I slumped back and rested my rear on the sill. Conserve my strength, I told

  myself.

  “Hey! Don’t drip blood on my floor or on the windowsill!”

  I looked down at the towel wrapped around my left arm. It was now crimson. That was good. My blood would leave a mark.

  Herrington leveled his gun at me. “Hell, another goddamn mess to clean up. Take another drink. NOW!”

  I didn’t pick up the glass.

  “I’m not kidding. Do it! This is a Walther P99QA Double action. Semi-automatic. Light pull. You have no idea what I am capable of.” There was no time left.