Bad Radio

by Michael Langlois

  We were standing in a small break room. The floor was cheap linoleum, the single table was topped with plastic, and the place smelled like stale coffee. There was a refrigerator in one corner next to a chipped counter with a tiny stainless steel sink in it.

  I looked into a couple of cabinets, finding only stained coffee cups and plastic cutlery. “I guess crime doesn’t pay as well as the movies would have you believe.”

  “Or we just broke into an actual office.”

  “No, this is the right place.”

  “Because criminals don’t lie when you’re about to throw them off of a building?”

  I fought down a surge of irritation. “I said I was sorry.”

  “No, you said that it was necessary. You never once said you regretted murdering two people. I saw the mess outside when we left the hospital. I suppose I should be grateful that I didn’t look into the stairwell.”

  I peered down the dim hallway outside the break room. It was an empty stretch of thin gray carpet lined with doors on each side. “Fine. Now I’m saying I’m sorry.”

  I stepped out into the hallway and slowly opened the door to my right. The office was tiny, filled nearly wall to wall with a cheap desk and one two-drawer metal filing cabinet. A square beige monitor sat on the corner of the desk with a grimy keyboard the same color in front of it.

  A picture in a plastic frame sat alone on the stark white walls, an eagle snatching a fish out of a stream. All the colors were oversaturated and there was some motivational text about teamwork underneath. I’m guessing the fish wasn’t a valued member of Team Eagle.

  Anne glanced inside past my shoulder, then turned to face me. “Henry was right, you know.”

  “About?”

  “Yesterday at the hospital. You were high from the fight, like you were about to burst out laughing at any second. There was blood running out of your stomach and two people were dead, and you were cracking jokes like it was a party.”

  “Christ, how many times do you want me to apologize for that?” She narrowed her eyes at my tone and crossed her arms.

  I lowered my voice and tried to regain my composure. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to defend it, but at least let me try to explain it.” It took me a few moments to find the words. Talking about this with someone else made me feel vulnerable, but I realized that it was important to me for her to understand.

  “People think that they make decisions with some kind of mental arithmetic, where they weigh their options and make the right choice, but they don’t. Most of the time, people decide with their gut. They only use their brains to justify what their gut has already decided.

  “You want a particular car, so you start talking about how it’ll save you money on gas if it gets good mileage, or you talk about needing the space if it doesn’t. You like a politician, so you downplay his ugly side and focus on the good stuff, or how bad the other guy is. Most people don’t even realize that they’re doing it.

  “Whatever happened to me is at the gut level. I don’t control that, and it makes it hard to tell if I’ve actually decided to do something, or if I’m just justifying it afterwards. I believe that killing those men at the hospital was necessary to save Henry’s and Leon’s lives. I’m just not sure if I became certain after I did it, or if there had been another way that I never looked for.”

  Anne pushed her hair back from her face and sighed, obviously frustrated. “It’s not so much the killing. I understand that. For what it’s worth, if I had been armed and any of those men had come into the hospital room, I’d have dropped them right there in the doorway. That’s not the part that has everyone worried.”

  And there it was. “I know. You’re worried that I’m looking for chances to kill people that will seem justified after the fact, so that nobody knows I’m doing it on purpose. For all you know, those guys had surrendered, or were bluffing about killing everyone. You don’t even know if they were really armed.”

  She didn’t say anything. She just gave me a half-shrug and looked into my eyes.

  “There’s this constant pressure inside of me to lash out, and anything to do with this whole Piotr situation makes it worse. It started after I was changed, back in Poland, but it seemed like it had gotten better for a long time. I felt like living on the farm all those years had let me get a handle on it. But now … It’s never been this bad before. And every time I give in, there’s this exultant feeling that comes with it. Like a reward. But even so, I swear to you that I’m not looking for opportunities to murder people. I still have that much control. I will not step over that line.”

  Anne put a hand on my arm. “I guess I trust you enough to believe that. Don’t let me down.”

  Releasing my secrets into Anne’s care was a liberating feeling. This was the first time I’d admitted to anyone that there was a pressure inside of me to kill, much less that I felt pleasure in it afterwards. She didn’t turn away from me and condemn me as a monster, but instead gave me a chance to prove that I could be trusted. I swore to myself that she wouldn’t regret it.

  23

  The rest of the offices in the hallway were the same as the first. A quick perusal of the paperwork on the desks and in the cabinets proved that actual work was being done here. Somebody really was selling commercial office space out of this suite. I had a hard time picturing any of the people from the hospital in blazers and nametags, though. Maybe Anne was right that this was just a regular office.

  Pink light fell in strips across the receptionist’s desk as dawn entered through the blinds covering the glass entry door in the lobby. A candy dish and an oversized phone sat next to yet another beige computer and a dog-eared office directory.

  I flipped through the directory, but I didn’t recognize any of the names. The lobby had three doors. One leading outside, one for the hallway we just came out of, and one more on the other side leading back into the other half of the office. That door was locked, and there was a black plastic square on the wall next to the handle. There was no keyhole in the door.

  Anne walked to the reception desk. “Wait a second.” She pushed something and the door next to me clicked. “Okay, pull it.”

  It swung open easily and she came around the desk. “Electronic lock. Usually the receptionist has a release at her desk so she can let visitors in without having to get up.”

  “So you have a remotely controlled lock, but I still have to pull the door open myself?”

  “Welcome to the future, Abe. There are no flying cars, either. Get used to it.”

  The hallway on the other side of the door was completely different. Where the rest of the office was done in early commercial tacky, this area felt more like a private club. The hallway was elegant, but short.

  Twenty feet in, it ended in another door. This one was locked the old-fashioned way, so I opened it the old-fashioned way, too. With my foot. The dark wooden frame split under the assault, raw white wood showing between the shattered pieces.

  The room beyond was a very large lounge. There were leather seats and sofas scattered artfully around coffee tables, a wet bar on one wall, and a vast flat screen TV hanging on the other. Four doors led out of the room.

  “See, this is what a secret criminal hideout should look like.”

  Anne reached behind a chair and came up with a pair of red thong underwear pinched between the tips of her fingers like a dead rat. “Like a strip club?”

  “That’s gentlemen’s club to you. Let’s find Dominic’s office.” She tossed the panties and headed towards the only door on the right wall. I went for the one opposite.

  “Bathroom,” Anne called out.

  I opened my chosen door and found an office with beautiful furniture and neatly organized work on the desk. I went through the papers and decided that this must be the bookie’s office. Lots of fight and race schedules.

  The next office was similar, so I stepped out and went to the last door. Anne was already inside.

  This one must have been Dominic’s.
It was easily twice the size of the first two and sported a massive oak desk with a throne-sized chair behind it. Anne tugged on the drawers. “The desk is locked, and the computer is password protected.”

  “Can you get around the password?”

  “What? Not unless he’s written it down somewhere in here. I’m not exactly a hacker, you know.”

  “What’s a hacker?”

  “Just help me look for a password, okay? We need to get into the desk.”

  “No problem.” I raised my baton over my head and aimed at the keyhole next to the drawers.

  “Please don’t damage the desk. It’s an antique.” Dominic stood in the doorway with two armed men behind him.

  I wanted to honor my promise to Anne and show some restraint, but I never had a chance to try. The sound of his voice startled me, and I looked up to see Dominic standing there in the doorway with his thugs, his hands in his pockets and smug all over his face. I’m not sure I registered anything more than “enemy” and “guns” before I was over the desk and across the room.

  I hit Dominic hard with both hands in the chest. Shock broke out across his face in an almost comical expression as he slammed into the men behind him, bowling them over. It was the look of a zookeeper realizing that he was on the wrong side of the door, and that his whole understanding of his place in the cage hierarchy was fatally flawed.

  Goon Number One started getting up, so I collapsed his ribcage with a vicious backhand from my baton. Blood sprayed from his lips and he went down.

  Number Two had gotten up on one knee and was swinging his gun forward. I shattered his arm with a contemptuous flick of my wrist. The gun tumbled away. Then I shoved him to the ground with one foot, and out of pure malice, cracked his pelvis with a quick downward stab of my baton. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was ashamed of that, but right now it just felt good. I spat out a sound that could have been laughter.

  Dominic was on the floor, leaning against one of those nice leather couches. He seemed to be having trouble catching his breath. I squatted over him and grabbed his left shoulder in my right hand. I was trying to pin him in place, but I must have grabbed him too hard. Something in his shoulder popped and shifted under my hand. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse wheezing. I drew back my other hand in a fist. I could see myself reflected in his wide eyes, looming over him like fate.

  “Stop!” I felt a small hand covering my fist. “Abraham. Stop.” Anne’s presence pushed its way into my awareness.

  I regained enough control to feel how contorted my face was, to feel my lips skinned back from my teeth in a rictus, and I knew that right then I looked like my portrait in Georgia’s house. That I was unknowingly wearing my secret face. The uncomfortable shame helped me back to myself. My anger turned back into something human, something that I could control.

  Dominic glanced away from me to look at Anne. “Thank you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I did it for him, not you. If I had my gun, you’d have died in your office thirty seconds ago and to hell with what you know.” Her voice was icy. Frightening.

  I let go of Dominic and dropped my fist, but I continued to stand over him as he knelt on the floor. “Tell me where you delivered the pieces.”

  He put a hand up, fingers outspread. “Give me a moment.”

  “We are not negotiating. You don’t get requests. If I have to ask you again, I will remove your left arm at the shoulder.” I don’t think I would have. I hope not, but I always try to be honest with myself. It was hard to forget that this man had tried to murder the only people in the whole world that I had left to care about.

  “Wyoming. Belmont. It’s a little town not far from the Colorado border.”

  “Where in town?”

  “I don’t know. He met me at a gas station on the border last night. Him and about twenty of his … men.” His eyes went opaque for a moment as he remembered. I knew that look; Dominic had encountered the real world last night. “You have to understand, it was too late for me to back out. I wanted to when I got there. It was like I had driven into hell. They’re not men.”

  “I know. Worms under their skin, right?”

  “Bursting out of their skin! Hanging out of their mouths and eyes and falling onto the ground. Some of them, I don’t know how they’re still alive. But Peter was the worst. No worms. He looked normal on the outside. But whatever is inside of him is worse. When he walked up to me to take delivery, I would have given anything if it would have been one of those monsters instead. Even they seemed to be afraid of him.”

  Anne frowned. “And he just let you go?”

  “He said that he needed men like me, and that he would be in touch. But I’m not going to be here. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

  24

  Dominic stood up gingerly, his left arm dangling grotesquely from his dislocated shoulder. “There really was no need for all of this. When the silent alarm went off, I came here to offer to help you, maybe atone a little for helping Peter. Anything he wants, I don’t want, you know?”

  “How did you know it was me? Maybe it was a regular burglar.”

  He grinned tightly. “Son, I can promise you no burglar is going to set foot anywhere near here unless it’s to ask me for work. No, I knew it was you because of something Peter said. He said that you couldn’t help but be drawn to him, like you didn’t have a choice. Since I’m the only person you know that has Peter’s location, and you’re the only person I know that’s dumb enough to actually break into my office, it wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure it out.” He shifted his weight and sucked in a breath as his arm moved. “Do you mind?”

  I leaned in and grabbed his arm and his good shoulder. He clenched his teeth and looked away. When I shoved his shoulder back into the socket, bits and pieces of a scream escaped his control, but he recovered his composure surprisingly quickly.

  “Son of a bitch, that hurts.” He sat down on the couch and wiped away the sweat that had beaded across his forehead and upper lip. “You had me pretty worried when you attacked me. I could see in your face that you have some of the same crazy in you that Peter has. It’s pretty obvious that the two of you are connected by more than just circumstance.”

  “That’s not really your business, is it?”

  He gestured to his office, and the injured men on the floor. “I do seem to be involved.”

  I had to smile a little at that. I learned in the war that the ability of someone to earn your respect had very little to do with whether they were your enemy or not. “Let’s just say that something happened to me the first and only time we ever met, and I’m still figuring out the extent of it.”

  I suddenly had a sense of what this conversation must look like to an outsider. Here I was, having a pleasant chat with the guy who had paid men to kill me and my friends, while his henchmen writhed in pain on the floor not ten feet away. I guess I’d been away from life for so long, I’d forgotten how relentlessly strange it was.

  Dominic continued, “So Peter was right, then. You have no choice but to find him.”

  “There are two options, kill him or keep him away from those altar pieces. I didn’t do so well on B, so I guess I’d better start working on A. If I don’t, it’ll be bad. For everyone.”

  “You believe that?”

  I shrugged. “Feels right.”

  “Alright, I’ll give you directions, but it’s a drive of several hours to get there. You moving out tonight?”

  “We need to sleep for a few hours first, but yeah.”

  “I’m leaving town myself. Tell you what. You and your lady friend come back to my place, get rested up, and then we’ll both leave and go our separate ways.”

  He broke eye contact with me and looked around his wrecked office.

  “I’ve never felt like the things I’ve done in my life were wrong, you know? You don’t want your knees broken, you pay what you owe. You want a night with a good looking girl, and you can pay for it, w
ho am I to judge, right? But doing work for that crazy son of a bitch in Belmont? It makes me feel dirty. First time for everything, huh? Come back to my place, let me fix you up, and I’ll feel like I’ve made up for it. What do you say?”

  And that’s how we ended up staying at Dominic Tesso’s place like we were old friends.

  Dominic called someone over to help his injured men, and then we followed his gleaming black Range Rover with our rental across the city.

  His house had all the earmarks of purchased respectability: swanky part of town, wealthy neighbors, enormous manicured lawn with a circular drive and columns bracketing a fifteen-foot-tall set of artfully carved wood and glass doors.

  Or, as I noticed when we passed through, steel doors painted to look like wood, inset with bulletproof glass. I guess there’s a fine line between fitting in with the society crowd and sleeping well at night.

  The entryway opened into a vast living room, airy and bright, in which the entire back wall could be opened to the patio. With a touch, Dominic caused a sliding cascade of glass partitions to sweep aside, opening the house to the great Colorado outdoors. I tried not to look impressed, but I don’t think I did a very good job of it.

  Dominic ushered us outside to sit in the sunning chairs which were artfully arranged on the wide patio and urged us to enjoy the spectacular view of the lake that graced his back acreage, its surface mirror-flat and serene. He went back inside to fetch us something to drink.

  Anne grabbed my arm and whispered at me. “So, what, you pull the guy’s arm out of its socket and now he’s your best friend? You know he’s going to come back out here with a gun and just shoot us, right?”

  “I’m supposed to be the jaded cynical one, remember?”

  “Not cynical enough. Why are we trusting him?”

  “We’re not, we’re trusting human nature.”

  “For the record, just because you’re a million years old doesn’t make you wise. It just makes you old.”