The Long Fall

by Lynn Kostoff

  “Don’t forget the Furbys,” Don whispers.

  “What the fuck’s a Furby?” Jimmy asks.

  “It’s just what the name sounds like,” Don says, “and they’re about four inches tall. Pete said there’s been an unexpected run on them at the stores, and he can unload all we can get.”

  Jimmy hunts down the Furbys and finds a table of them in the center aisle of the store. Under the beam of the flashlight, they look like gigantic hairballs with eyes. They come one to a box, and it takes three more trash bags to get them all. There are four of them out of the boxes on display, and Jimmy tosses those in as well.

  It’s not long before Jimmy’s spooked. He’s hearing voices, but what he hears doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a bunch of shrill jabber, and he’s not even sure where it’s coming from at first.

  “What the hell does ‘Doo-moh may-may kah’ mean?” he asks when he gets to the ladder. “These things sound like chimps in heat.”

  Don grabs the first two bags, then the others, and pulls them through the hole in the ceiling.

  “I’ll be just a second,” Jimmy says. He takes a quick look around and figures what the hell, jumping down and making a quick run through the store, loading up a couple trash bags with model dinosaurs, a magic kit, microscope, rocket set, B-B gun, and two baseball gloves.

  “Man, what took you?” Don asks. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Picked up a few things for the other kids,” Jimmy says, handing up the bags.

  Jimmy drags the ladder back through the crawl space and angles it to the floor of the storeroom.

  Roberto’s waiting for them. He glances at the pile of plastic bags and then checks his watch, telling Don that it’s almost time for the servers to take their last break of the night.

  “A bunch of them like to step out back for a cigarette,” he says. “It would be a good idea for you to be loaded and gone before they do.”

  Jimmy carries the tools, and Don two-fists a bunch of the bags holding the Beanie Babies, and they head out the door. Despite the time factor, things are looking good. Don tells Jimmy that Pete Samoa’s waiting for them at the Pawn Emporium. Once they drop the stuff off, they can head over to the Chute and catch a few rounds and celebrate.

  They toss the stuff in the back of the Renzler’s Meats truck and hurry back for another load.

  This time Jimmy picks up the bags holding the Furbys. They’re still going at it, jabbering away, one voice overlapping the other. He shakes the bags, but that only seems to make it worse, so he speeds it up. Don’s a couple of steps ahead of him.

  One of the Furbys says, “Dah way-loh” just before the bag explodes.

  Don starts to turn and then yells like he’s had his hand slammed in a door.

  Jimmy’s barely had time to register the third shot when Don spins around and crashes into him, knocking Jimmy to the ground and falling on top of him.

  There are a couple of more shots. They seem to be coming from the far side of the lot. Jimmy keeps his head low.

  Don’s moaning, “Man, oh, man,” over and over again. Jimmy tells him they’ve got to get up and move. As in now.

  Don stops moaning and starts in babbling. He’s all over the map. He’s talking about Teresa’s chile rellenos, Gabriel and Gabriella’s first words, a dog named Chip Off the Block that had paid off at six to one, season tickets for the Suns, last month’s electric bill, the ceiling fans he still has to hang, and the way the incense at Sunday Mass always makes him sneeze.

  Jimmy’s plenty scared. He keeps interrupting Don, telling him to get up, but all of Don’s weight is on Jimmy, pinning him against the wall.

  The shots are coming from across the parking lot, the next north-south street over. Jimmy can hear people shouting.

  “Come on, Don,” he says.

  Jimmy starts pushing against him, trying to lever his way out.

  The Furbys are screaming.

  Jimmy pushes again.

  Don’s arm tears free and comes off at the shoulder.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was supposed to have been Jimmy Coates’s last night on earth. That’s what Aaron Limbe had intended. Somehow, though, everything had gotten away from him.

  He’d killed a cop. And at least two others. There’d been witnesses. He’d shot as many of them as he could, but there’d still be someone who would remember something that would eventually place him. It might take time, but it would happen. Limbe was sure of it. He’d been a cop, after all, for twelve years and knew how witnesses and memory worked. Someone would remember something.

  Aaron Limbe checks the rearview and then the speedometer. He’s right at the limit. There’s a large half-moon to the south, white as a thumbnail under pressure. Limbe is heading for the Mesa View Inn on the slim chance that Coates will double back and grab some of his belongings before he goes to ground.

  He checks the rearview again and then unwraps and slips a breath mint onto his tongue.

  Tonight was supposed to have been the night. He’d been ready. One clean shot, that’s all he needed.

  Limbe had staked out the Mesa View Inn shortly after dark and then had followed Coates and Ruger to a diner on Van Buren and later to a strip mall on Indian School Road.

  Limbe had taken the next street to the left and pulled into a convenience store lot and parked by a flat, hinged-top, green metal dumpster. Directly below him was a short grassy slope and then southwest, about fifty yards away, was the back of the strip mall. The white delivery truck was about ten yards from the back door to the Mex restaurant. At a diagonal to the truck was a small cluster of cars that Limbe figured to be employee parking. It was a small lot, and the rest of it was empty.

  Limbe moved his car a half block up the street and then took the Marlin semiautomatic rifle from his trunk and walked back to the convenience store lot and climbed up on the dumpster and set up shop.

  One clean shot.

  His eyes had eventually adjusted to the light. One of the halogens behind him, near the street, was on its way out, and it had flickered softly and slowly like a thin stream of clouds passing across the face of the moon.

  Limbe practiced sighting on the white delivery truck, then on the back door of the Mex restaurant.

  When the back door to the restaurant opened, Limbe had reached over and clicked off the safety on the Marlin. Don Ruger came out first with his hands full of black trash bags, then Coates, who carried an armload of tools.

  Aaron Limbe had been ready to pull the trigger when he’d been distracted by movement off to his left, a small flash of red and white that he registered on the periphery of his vision, and by the time he saw it was nothing more than a paper hat caught in a gust of wind, the clerk from the convenience store who’d lost it had spotted him on the dumpster and begun shouting, and Limbe had reflexively swung and fired and taken the kid out.

  That momentary loss of concentration hurt, because when Limbe resighted the Marlin, he rushed the shots. Coates and Ruger had been making a second trip to the truck. The first shot hit one of the black plastic bags, the second caught Don Ruger in the shoulder, and the third spun Ruger around and into Coates.

  The clerk started dragging himself across the pavement and yelling for help.

  A guy at the self-serve pump pointed and shouted something Limbe couldn’t catch.

  Then there’d been more voices and shouting as people spilled out of the store.

  Limbe had expected Coates to break for the restaurant door or the truck, but he’d surprised him by zigzagging across the lot and then rolling across the pavement, taking cover behind the cluster of cars in the employee parking slots.

  Limbe laid down a line of fire around and through the cars, keeping Coates pinned, and then ejected the clip and jammed in another.

  Everything was starting to get away from him.

  The clerk kept calling for help. Limbe shot him again so he wouldn’t have to listen to it.

  Then he emptied another clip into the cars, h
oping to flush Coates out.

  While he was reloading, a patrol car pulled into the convenience store lot.

  Limbe, at least, had the element of surprise on his side. The police had not been responding to a call. They were on break. They got out of the car and stood in the open while they tried to make sense of what the others were shouting about.

  When the guy at the pumps grabbed the first patrolman and pointed in Limbe’s direction, Aaron shot him in the stomach, then swung and fired and caught the patrolman in the chest.

  He got the second patrolman just as he’d been jumping back into the car.

  Limbe emptied the remainder of the clip on the five or six witnesses as they scrambled for the front doors of the convenience store.

  As if on cue, there’d been the long, low howl of sirens in the distance.

  Limbe reloaded.

  He knew Coates would hear those sirens, too.

  Coates, though, outwaited him, and Limbe finally had to slide off the dumpster and run the half block north to his car, where he put the rifle in the trunk and then got behind the wheel, counting slowly to ten before he started the car and pulled out in traffic, forcing himself to drive south past the convenience store and slow and gawk like everyone else at the chaos of lights and bodies, and then he made the intersection of Indian School Road and drove west, carefully maintaining the speed limit.

  Everything had gotten away from him. Coates was still alive. And Limbe had killed a cop.

  He’d seen the second one being helped out of the patrol car when he’d driven past the convenience store, but one dead cop was enough, more than enough, to complicate everything.

  Limbe can remember all too clearly the feeling among the rank and file when one of their own went down and the perp was still at large.

  He needed to get out of town, but he must do it right, not just run and hope he can stay hidden.

  He needs to disappear.

  And for that he needs money. Enough money to do it right.

  Limbe still has contacts in Nicaragua. They can connect him with people in various parts of Central and South America who have use for his services and talent.

  But for that, he needs a stake.

  By the time he’s made south Scottsdale, Limbe has figured out a way to get it. And the beauty behind the idea is that it will also give him another chance to finish Jimmy Coates.

  Limbe scouts out a pay phone and makes two calls, both to the same number.

  The first time he talks to Richard Coates and tells him that he’s the dispatcher for the Mesa Fire Department and that there’s been a fire at his dry-cleaning shop. He assures Coates that it’s under control, but adds that it might be a good idea for him to call his insurance company and then come out for a look.

  Limbe then walks over to his car and waits five minutes. Then he dials Richard Coates’s number again.

  Evelyn Coates picks it up on the second ring.

  “I’m a friend of Jimmy’s,” Limbe says, “and he asked me to call you.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Yes,” Limbe says, “considering what happened tonight.”

  “I was just on my way to meet him,” Evelyn says.

  “That’s why I’m calling. There’s been a change in plans.”

  “He doesn’t want to meet at the Plantation Coffee Shop?”

  “No,” Limbe says. “He’s at my place. He thought it would be a good idea to stay off the streets for a while.”

  “And he’s all right?”

  “At least for the time being, yes.”

  There’s a pause, then Evelyn says, “I just thought of something. You never told me your name.”

  “Like I said, I’m a friend of Jimmy’s. My name’s Aaron. We go back, Jimmy and me. I owe him.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “I’m on my car phone, Evelyn. Jimmy asked me to pick you up and take you back to the house. He decided against the coffee shop. Like I said, he figured it’d be better to stay off the streets.”

  “What’s the number at the house?”

  Limbe gives it to her. “Jimmy won’t pick up though. People have been shot, and he’s in trouble, Evelyn. The cops are out looking.”

  “I don’t know,” Evelyn says. “I’d feel better talking to him.”

  “Look,” Limbe says. “I’m doing him a favor. If you don’t want to see him, we can forget the whole thing. That’s okay by me.”

  “Of course I want to see him.”

  “Then sit tight, Evelyn.” Limbe glances at his watch, then over at his car. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jimmy watches Sammy Jr. of Teater Towing and Auto Service scratch his head and then look up at the office clock. Its hour and minute hands are two crescent wrenches, the numerals lug nuts. Sammy Jr. points out that it’s almost 2 A.M.

  “I thought the sign said twenty-four hours.”

  “For towing,” Sammy Jr. says. “You need a wrecker, you call and it’ll patch into my beeper. You need your car fixed, that’s regular hours.”

  “But you’re here now.”

  “That’s true,” Sammy Jr. says.

  Jimmy slowly lets out his breath and then asks Sammy if he could fix the brakes on the truck now instead of waiting until morning.

  “I might could,” he says, “if I had the parts. But that truck of yours is over twenty-five years old.”

  Jimmy had figured the tranny or radiator would go first, but he’d nursed the pickup through the long steady ascent of the Mogollon on 17 North and had managed to clear the rim. It was the descent that had done him in, the brakes softening and then finally letting go completely by the time he made Cordes Junction, and Jimmy had detoured onto Route 69 and into Mayer, coasting into the service apron of Teater’s Auto and then letting his head rest on the steering wheel, his nerves mutinying for the second time that night.

  Sammy Jr.'s watching him. Even though he changed before bolting Phoenix, Jimmy reflexively checks his clothes and shoes for blood.

  Sammy Jr. palms a can of Dr Pepper and cracks the tab. “I might could put in a call to the original Sammy and see if he could scare you up some brake works.” He pauses and sips the soda. “The original Sammy don’t sleep any better than me most nights. The family line’s full of insomnias.”

  “I’d really appreciate it.” Jimmy wants movement. That’s what he needs right now, movement, simple movement, to get his truck back on 17 North to Flagstaff, where he can pick up 40 East and keep going. You can lose yourself in movement, at least for a while. It’s stopping or standing still that’s unbearable. It feels then as if he’s a constant target.

  “Insomnia or not,” Sammy Jr. says, “it’ll cost you extra.”

  “I figured that,” Jimmy says. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

  “Well, I got to put in the call to my pop, the original Sammy. He lives over at Prescott Valley. Got a salvage yard there. I’ll tell him get his flashlight and hunt some brake works. Then I got to drive up there and get them.”

  Sammy Jr. tells him there’s a new Denny’s open twenty-four hours across from the Motel 6 about a quarter mile up the road and that Jimmy can wait at either one until the job’s done.

  “I’d recommend the Six,” he says. “You look like you lost a few night’s sleep yourself.”

  Jimmy leaves the service station and sticks to the berm, taking his time. It’s a clear night, and the air’s thin and chilly. There’s a bright half-moon over the old smelter mills in the hills to his left.

  All night long he’s been alternating between an acid panic and a bone-deep numbness. Nothing at the toy store made any sense, and he still doesn’t have all the details, because the radio in the pickup quit working last year and it’s too early for the newspapers.

  He’d run. He hadn’t known what else to do. Don had died, and when the shooting stopped and the ambulances and police cruisers started pouring into the lot of the convenience store, Jimmy had sprinted to the m
eat truck and quickly driven away. He’d abandoned the truck three blocks from Pete Samoa’s Pawn Emporium. He’d been halfway there when he remembered the bags of Beanie Babies and doubled back for them.

  Pete, characteristically, claimed the shootings had cut into the market value of the Beanies, making it harder for him to unload them safely, and then had reluctantly agreed afterward to drive Jimmy back to the Mesa View Inn. Jimmy had taken a chance and called Evelyn, lucking out when she answered instead of Richard, and told her he needed to get out of town right away. She agreed to meet him at the Plantation Coffee Shop.

  But she hadn’t shown up.

  Jimmy had waited, sticking around an extra half hour, and then the panics had kicked in again, so he’d left, picking up 17 and heading north.

  Jimmy checks into the Motel 6. He’s thinking he can call Evelyn in the morning after Richard goes to work and she can drive up and meet him here in Mayer. By that time, too, maybe there will be more news on the shootings.

  There’s no chance of sleep. Jimmy doesn’t want to visit the sideshow his subconscious will work up if he closes his eyes.

  So it’s the motel room, Jimmy, and the clock. A rerun from his days and nights at Perryville Correctional.

  Jimmy waits it out.

  The next morning, when he places the call, Jimmy is so used to Richard being Richard and leaving for work with the regularity of someone marching in formation, that he doesn’t realize at first that he’s just said hello to his brother.

  That’s the first surprise. The second is that Richard doesn’t hang up on him. The third is the panic overriding the customary irritation and impatience in his brother’s voice.

  “Where in the hell are you, Jimmy? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all night.”

  “Uh, I’m in Mayer.” Jimmy takes it slow and careful, but his brother doesn’t even bother to ask why.

  “Listen,” Richard says. “Get back here right away. Come straight to the house. No detours, Jimmy. Do you understand?”