by Lena Pierce
And then Chino is on me, charging down the hallway with two pistols. Even after months of setting this man’s buildings on fire, I have had no clue what he looks like until now. I’d always picture a suave businessman type, a suit-wearing man who could slip into a James Bond movie as the villain. What I’m met with instead is a man even taller than me, around six-foot-seven, wider than me, wearing baggy jeans and a baggy T-shirt, his pistols looking comically small in his hands. His jet-black hair whips behind him in a braid.
I duck behind the wall as he fires, his bullets tearing the bathroom to pieces, the sink exploding in a shower of enamel, the mirror shattering, the toilet bowl breaking open and water spreading over the floor. Then I hear the click-click telling me that Chino’s guns are empty. I leap out, willing myself to shoot him. I should be able to. He’s a slumlord, a criminal. He’s killed Skull Riders, and if Grimace is right, he’s done worse, selling drugs to kids, using kids. All sorts of nasty shit. And yet as I aim the gun at him, I find I can’t shoot. My finger just won’t pull the trigger. It’s like I’m paralyzed. I keep thinking of my kid, of Willa, of the type of man I want to be.
I jump forward and smack the man across the face. He lets out a yelp and leaps back, but then he’s on me, fists swinging, growling, baring his teeth. “Motherfucker!” he roars. He’s quicker than he looks, his fists catching me in the stomach, the chest, the face. But it’s not the first time I’ve been hit. I take them, ignoring the crushing pain, and dodge his next two punches.
I manage to fight him down the hallway, into the living room, whaling on him, hitting him twice in the face, three more times in the gut, but he doesn’t fall over like any man would. I’ve hit him hard enough to break most men. Somehow he manages to carry on. It’s damn strange hitting a man who’s bigger than me. I have to lean up slightly. In the midst of the violence, a detached part of me wonders if this is how I look to other people. I kick Chino in the chest, meaning to send him into the TV, but he catches my foot and wrenches it sideways. Too late, I realize what he’s doing. I’m on my back. I try and stand up. Chino slams his foot into the small of my back, crushing me into the carpet.
Then three men charge into the room, mercenary-looking types, each of them holding a semi-automatic weapon. “The police are getting backup vehicles,” Chino says. “They’ll be here in ten minutes, maybe less.”
“Fucking pigs,” Chino snarls. “Give me that gun, boy. I need to finish this Rider bastard.” Chino presses the gun to the back of my head, kneeling down beside me. I’ve been in situations like this before, but I’ve never felt the fear which paralyzes me now. Willa, Willa … I wish myself back in time, to the first time we ever met, and turn around when I leave the bar. I won’t burn down her building. I won’t burn down any building. I’ll go back to the bar and get to know this cool, funny woman.
“You have been a real pain in my side,” Chino says. “I do not like to be taunted, and you have taunted me. Who do you think you are? Do you think you can stand against me, boy? You are an insect. You are worse than an insect. You are a pathetic nothing. And now you will die.”
I close my eyes, powerless. All at once I’m back in the basement, strapped to the bed, Dad lashing me, spitting on me. All at once I’m that helpless little kid again.
The gunshot is loud against my ear.
I see Willa. I don’t feel the shot at first. All I know is Willa. Something heavy is pressing into my back. I should be dead. Why am I not dead? I see Willa and our baby, framed in sunlight, Willa holding our child up to the light. More gunshots sound.
Slowly, I open my eyes, look around the room. The weight on my back isn’t death. It’s Chino, bleeding all over me, making a gargling noise as blood spews from his mouth. I shove him off and stand up, looking around in disbelief. Grimace shoots the last man in the face, kicks him to the floor, and then grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me to my feet.
He claps me on the arm and stares into my face, hard. “We’ve gotta go, boy,” he says. “The Riders are gonna head out of the state for a while, maybe go down to our Texas branch. We can’t hang around here with all this heat.” He reads my face. He knows I want to stay here, with Willa. His expression hardens, but I see the old respect in his eyes. “You’re no longer a member of the Riders. I’m banishing you. You’re not allowed to wear the leather ever again, and if you step foot in a Rider house, you’re a dead man.” He claps me on the shoulder again. “Now get out of here.”
I nod shortly, hoping he knows what I’m trying to say, but can’t with all the men around: “Thank you, Grimace. Thank you for finally letting me go.”
I stop at the door. “There’s a bleeding officer in the bathroom. He’s just a dumb kid from what I can tell. He doesn’t deserve to die.”
Grimace nods to one of the men. “Take the kit; patch him up as quick as you can. You’ve got two minutes.”
I jog out of the house to the sound of sirens, still far away, but getting closer. I pull my jacket up around my nose and take a T-shirt from the clothesline outside, wrapping it around my head so that only my eyes are visible. At the end of the street, the cameras watch, but they won’t see my face. And behind the cameras, I see her, the mother of my child, reaching out as though to touch me. I think about going to her, but it’s impossible.
I turn and sprint away.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Willa
“So,” Sofia Silva says, “you’re saying that this Chino character is the one who burned down his buildings?” She nods at the dossier I have laid on her desk, a dossier Diesel and I wrote up together. I promise myself I’ll never do anything like this again. But truth be told, I’d do it one thousand times over to save Diesel. “To claim the insurance money?”
“I can’t be one hundred percent sure, of course,” I say, making sure to stay vague. “But I’m fairly certain you will find the evidence quite compelling.”
“Quite compelling,” she says, stroking her chin. “Well, we’ll see. Give me a couple of hours to go over it. What leads are the police following?”
“The police have closed the case,” I say, grateful to be able to tell the truth. “They’ve concluded that it was Chino, too.”
Yes, I think but don’t say. They concluded it was Chino after a hefty bribe from the Skull Rider reserve fund.
“Okay.” She nods. “Return in precisely three hours.”
I return to my desk and sit there for half an hour, staring at the Word document, willing my fingers to type. Just because Diesel is back now, it doesn’t mean that the drama in my life is over. Peter walks across the office floor, cradling a coffee, shooting me a look full of hate. I haven’t forgotten about the way he grabbed my leg, or tried to kiss me, or all the horrible sexual things he’s said to me.
I check the time on the computer screen. It’s almost time for my meeting with Molly. She gestures to me from across the office, nodding at one of the conference rooms. I stand up, smooth down my clothes, and then follow her into the room. My heart shouldn’t be beating as fast as it is, but I can’t help it. Even knowing I’m right, I’m nervous.
“So,” Molly says, shutting the door behind me, “you have something you’d like to discuss.”
I swallow, wringing my hands. The moment is here. I have to do it. I can’t let him run around the office doing anything he likes anymore. Maybe I can handle it—and I’m not even sure than I can—but somebody else might not be able to. I have to act so that he doesn’t do his whole Nice Guy routine on somebody else. Plus, he’s drinking, taking drugs, missing important work.
“I need to talk about Peter—”
He barges into the room, swaying from side to side as he makes his way to the table.
“Excuse me, sir,” Molly says, no longer the starry-eyed woman she was when she discovered I was pregnant. Now she’s as tough as metal. “But this is a private meeting.”
“Private? Private?” Peter laughs maniacally. “How’s this for private?” He reaches down and grabs his pa
ckage, squeezing it for our benefit. “How does that suit you, huh? I bet that suits you fine. I bet that suits you fine and dandy.” He drops heavily into a chair. “Sorry, sorry.” He bows his head. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I’m going to have to please ask you to leave,” Molly says. “We can’t have you interrupting this meeting.”
“Interrupting this meeting? What are you meeting about?” He points a shaky finger at me. “Are you meeting about how she moved in with me and led me on and skipped around the apartment with the shortest shorts on you’ve ever seen?” He burps, and then takes a miniature bottle of vodka from his pocket. I’m stunned into simply watching him. He necks the vodka. “Can I tell you a story?” Molly makes to interrupt, but he just talks louder. “When I was in college there was a girl named Fiona who said she loved me more than anything. They were her words. I remember because I made a point of remembering. She said she loved me more than anything and that she’d never hurt me. And then one night I came home and that whore had her ass in the air and my best friend was fucking her, fucking her right in our living room. We were sharing an apartment and my best friend was fucking her. How’s that, huh?”
Molly stands up. “You need to leave, sir, or I’m going to have to call security.”
“Call security?” He sounds genuinely confused as he looks up at her. For a moment he looks like a child. “Why would you do something like that? I’m not hurting anybody or anything. I’m just talking.”
“This is a private meeting,” Molly says, “and you are disturbing it. And you are drinking in the office.” She spreads her hands, imploring him. “Why don’t you go home today, sir, and return in the morning when you’re feeling better.”
The words seem to get through to him. He nods, stands up, and walks to the door, staring at the floor the whole time like a chastised teenager. But then he coughs out a laugh and turns to Molly, pointing at her face with a shaky finger. “Has anyone ever told you how ugly that mole is? And pathetic, too, because you’ve done such a shitty job at covering it up. It’s ugly, woman, almost as ugly as that cunt over there. See ya, ladies.”
He marches from the office, singing a tune under his breath. Molly just stands there, frozen. I go to her, standing close by her shoulder, no idea what to say or do. I’m still processing what just happened. It’s like I’m several minutes behind. Molly turns to me. Her eyes are watery, but when she speaks, her voice is firm. “I want every single detail concerning your complaint,” she says. “Don’t leave anything out. Whatever he said to you during work hours, or in a work capacity, which was out of place or inappropriate, I want to hear about it.”
“Okay,” I say, returning to my seat. “I can do that.”
We speak for the next hour, stopping only for Molly to make a run to the breakroom and return with two coffees. When we’re done, she’s filled five sides of A4 with my notes. She takes down almost every word I say. I can tell she’s hurt by Peter’s comments and I can’t blame her, but the more I speak, the more professionally angry she looks. “It’s completely unacceptable,” she says when we’re done. “I don’t know how this has gone on for so long. It’s just—I’m speechless, really. And you thought you couldn’t come forward because …”
“I’m just an intern,” I say. “I don’t have a contract or anything.”
Molly bites her lip. “Hmm, maybe we need to create a new policy. Let me compile these notes into a report. I have a feeling Peter’s not going to be with us much longer, however.”
We shake hands and I go back to my desk, staring at my copy. When the time comes for me to go and meet with Sofia Silva, my desk phone rings and her secretary informs me that the meeting is going to be delayed until the end of the day. So I spend the rest of the day typing out copy and trying not to worry about the dossier of twisted facts and half-truths Diesel and I put together. The dossier stands up, I think, because all of it is based on fact. Nothing is fabricated. But if she needs a little longer, that means she might be really going through it, triple-checking every detail. I tell myself we’re doing the right thing. Since his death, Chino has been in the news constantly. His list of crimes is gruesome, evil. The police solved five missing children’s cases just by raiding his apartment.
I’m in the breakroom making my fourth mug of coffee when Brittany walks in, pretending not to look at me as she pours a glass of water. She’s not doing a very good job. Out of the corner of my eye I can see her looking at me out of the corner of her eye. She makes a tutting noise when she drops her glass into the sink, although part of me suspects she did it on purpose.
I turn to her. “Is everything okay, Brittany?” I ask.
“I guess so,” she says quietly, looking at my waist instead of into my eyes. “It’s just … I guess I want to—you know …” She raises her eyes to mine, and then flits them back down. “You know,” she insists.
“I don’t,” I say honestly. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
She moves from foot to foot like someone standing on hot coals, and then takes a sudden step forward. “I wanted to say that I’m—” The phantom word “sorry” forms on her lips, but she can’t force herself to say it. I watch as she opens and closes her mouth. She throws her hands up. “Look at me, standing here like a puppet. I can say it. I’m not a child.” She stands straight, arms at her sides, and blurts out the words, “I’m sorry, okay? I never should’ve told everybody about you being pregnant. It wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have. It was wrong of me. Okay? Okay?”
Part of me wants to make her suffer, to tell her that it’s not okay, to tell her that I don’t forgive her. Part of me wants to just shake my head and walk out of the breakroom, leaving her to decide how I feel. But if I want any kind of future here, I need to learn to take an apology when it’s offered, especially since what she did wasn’t on the same level as Peter. It was bad, but it wasn’t that bad.
“Okay,” I say. “But don’t forget, Brittany, that we’re just work friends.”
I leave her before she can reply, and then I spot Molly motioning for me to come over. She tells me Ms. Silva wants to see me. Swallowing a dry lump and leaving my coffee forgotten on Molly’s desk, I go to the elevator.
“Well,” Sofia Silva says, smoothing down her dark blue business jacket. “This certainly makes for interesting reading.” She watches me steadily. She has small brown eyes, the kind of eyes which make me feel like she can see right through me. And then she smiles. “You’ve done good work here. To be honest, I was reading this document to ascertain your writing and reporting ability more than to ascertain the facts. The fact is this. Chino was an evil sonofabitch and I’m glad he’s dead. That stuff in his apartment … No, we can’t have that. I read your dossier on stringers, too, which interested me greatly. I’ve been called a hothead in the past, and maybe what I’m about to say will make people call me a hothead in the future.”
“Ms. Silva?” I ask, when she just stares at me silently.
“I have been speaking with Molly. I am confident that Peter’s position is going to be open soon, and it is my intent to offer it to you.”
“The head of the department?” My voice sounds very far away. “But why?”
“Because of the look on your face right now,” Sofia Silva says. “Because I know you’ll work twice as hard as anybody else just to prove yourself. And because every mother should be able to make their child proud. Go, have your baby. When you come back, you’ve got a job with us.”
I leave the office with a tentative smile on my face. I can’t quite believe that it’s real. But she’s wrong, I reflect. I won’t work twice as hard. I’ll work three times as hard to make up for the lies in Chino’s report. Four times as hard, even.
I ride the elevator back to my floor, giddy with budding excitement. I can’t wait to tell Diesel.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Diesel
It’s damn weird saying goodbye to a woman and then returning to my apartment with nothing to do. I
kiss Willa at the door, tell her I’m proud of her for getting her new job, and then I sit on the couch with no clue what to do. I have to figure out what’s next for me. There has to be something a man like me can do.
I lift weights for an hour or so, feeling the familiar tear in my muscles. I’m dangerously close to feeling useless so I leave the apartment and climb on my bike. Even with the patch of my leather jacket picked off, I can still ride. I ride around the city, enjoying the feeling of the engine beneath me, and then stop at a shopping mall. I walk around, idly looking in store windows, for the first time in my life without something pressing to do. Before I would always be running away from my dad, and then I’d be running for the club, and then I’d be surviving in the slammer, and finally I’d be burning for Grimace. But now I can just walk around, bored. It’s such a strange thing, to be allowed to be bored.
I feel the wad of cash in my pocket just to make sure it’s there. I really need to get a proper job, a pay-into-the-bank job. If I’m going to be with Willa, I need to reenter society. I don’t want to admit it, even to myself, but the thought scares the shit out of me. I’ve never done any of the stuff society expects you to do. I never finished school and the idea of college was a joke. I never had a mortgage, a bank account that I used more than once a month, anything. The fear that’s hounded me since Chino died and Grimace left returns to me now. What if Willa changes her mind? What if she decides she doesn’t want to be with me anymore?