by Tom Rich
“Big Boy here really is a softy,” continued Lil. “Yeah, that’s right. After they made him they broke the mold.” She poked his quivering gut with her parasol. “Jello mold, that is.”
Pig erupted with an earthshaking, “HAR!” then settled into a fit of schoolgirl tittering.
Diamond Lil looked around the room. “You should see your faces. Why, I haven’t seen such mugs since that board meeting back in Twenty-nine. You know the one I’m talking about. The one that had all the executives flying out the windows screaming they’d rather be dead than poor.”
A few laughed.
“Which brings me to my present piece of business.” Lil made one last scan of the room. She closed her parasol and planted the tip. She smiled her most knowing smile of the evening. “Everyone’s preference is to be the pleasure of the house. The entire evening.”
The crowd erupted.
Trish devoted an entire two seconds to looking startled, then grabbed glasses and bottles and opened and poured and covered the bar with drinks without waiting for anyone to say what they wanted. She knew everyone’s preference.
The Gomez brothers waited a few moments to let the frenzy thicken. Then Felix took Sylvie by the wrist, and Nomar took Aly by the wrist, and they pulled the girls into the crowd.
Aly wanted to scream. But the audacity of these two men dragging them away with so many people around suggested there was much more to the situation than she could see.
Sylvie put up no struggle. Aly assumed she was brainstorming for a way out.
Then, “Stop it, Felix. You’re hurting me,” said Sylvie in a little girl’s voice. She squirmed and shouted, “PIG! PIG!”
Pig zeroed in on the situation. His giggling stopped. He shoved people aside and grabbed the wrist of the hand that held Sylvie.
With lightening speed the much smaller man drew a long knife with his free hand and plunged it into Pig’s belly.
Pig looked startled. The vitality that masked his sixty-three years erupted from his wound. He dropped to his knees and appeared to enter his seventies. His eighties descended upon him. As he fell forward, pushing people aside in the process, he embraced all that lay beyond.
People nearest to Pig couldn’t decide if what they’d witnessed actually happened.
Only Diamond Lil reacted. She dropped the parasol and grabbed Felix by the wrist. She twisted the knife from his hand. Her other hand went to Nomar’s throat. She lifted the startled man off the floor. Then she seized up, let go of both men, and grabbed her chest.
Clove fell across Pig’s back.
Eliot ripped a page from his manuscript and threw it at the assailants.
Most of those near the fallen pushed their backs against people who pushed forward, craning to see what had happened. A few went to their knees to help Pig and Clove.
One of those aiding the fallen was middle-aged Ron Debord, known as Super Tool in Clove’s because he always had the right pocket gadget whenever a fixit situation arose. Ron put his hand over Felix’s knife and slid it between a crowd of feet. “These people need an ambulance!” he said. He looked up at Felix as if the knife wielder would want nothing other than to be helpful to make up for what he’d just done.
Nomar took a step forward. “You fail to understand the gravity of the situation you are in.”
“Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah,” said Ron. “Look, buddy, I don’t know who you think—”
Nomar drew a pistol from a shoulder holster and shot Ron through the forehead. Super Tool snapped backward and fell forward.
Gasps and cries filled the room, which quickly descended into a moment of mass hysteria. People tried to rush out the front door. Three men bearing automatic weapons came through and pushed them back in. One of the armed men fired a short burst into the ceiling. The room quieted except for scattered whimpering and crying.
Felix barked orders to the three armed men in a language that no one in the room other than Aly Roarke had ever heard. One soldier remained at the front door holding his weapon across his chest. The other two went behind the bar. One of them found the opening and passed through. His footsteps up the stairs behind the painting filled the room.
The soldier behind the bar found a landline phone and ripped it from the wall.
“I want everyone in this room to place their cell phones on the bar top,” demanded Felix. “There are to be no exceptions. I will point to you one at a time. Only the person I point to is to move forward. No one else is to move or say a thing until I tell you to move.” He pointed to Trish behind the bar. “You are the first. Put your cell phone on the bar. Now!”
Trish held up her hands. “Hey, man, I don’t own a cell.”
“It is not my wish to harm a woman,” said Felix.
“I’m telling you, I hate those fucking things.”
Felix nodded to his man behind the bar. The soldier cracked Trish hard against the jaw with his rifle butt. As she slumped onto the bar he hit her twice in the back. He shouldered her fully onto the bar then tore at her clothes until satisfied she had no phone.
“Do not mistake this person as an example,” said Felix. “Anyone to disobey will not be so lucky.” He pointed to Wayne Johnson. “You. Your cell phone on the bar. Quickly. No, not your wallet. We are not here to rob you. Only your phone.”
Everyone had to step around those fallen to pile their phones next to an unconscious Trish. When Felix pointed to Eliot, Eliot stripped to his underwear and turned his clothes inside out. This became procedure for those few who didn’t have cells.
The gunman who had gone up the stairs returned alone. He found an empty garbage bag behind the bar and collected the phones.
Dooley Bishop managed to slide the small table from in front of the rear emergency exit without anyone noticing. But no one followed him through. His exit was met by a gunshot from outside. A second shot quieted the blaring squawk box and the door was kicked shut. Most of Clove’s patrons now stared at the floor.
Once satisfied that communication with the outside world was no longer possible, Felix addressed his captives. “I think you now understand what we are capable of doing. The explosives wired to all the exits will now be armed. My suggestion to you is that you lock the doors and windows and turn out the lights so that any friends who may wish to join you on this evening will turn away and not kill you all.”
No one moved or made a sound as Aly and Sylvie were led out the front door.
Felix hesitated before exiting. He turned. “The explosives are set to disarm themselves in exactly two hours. Of this you may be certain. Our timing capabilities are extremely precise.”
He left.
42: “Ain’t Comin’ Back This Time”
One of the gunmen pushed Sylvie’s head down and shoved her into a black Jaguar S Type Coupe parked across the street from Clove’s.
Another soldier pulled Aly by the wrist toward an identical Jaguar idling behind the first.
Aly faked a stumble in order to bump against her escort. The contact caused him to sidestep two feet to the left in order to right himself. Now there was a light pole directly between them and their destination. Aly stumbled forward, quickening their pace, so that when they reached the pole, the soldier thought nothing of letting go of her as it came between them.
The soldier and Aly froze staring at each other, the soldier startled by the simplicity of her plan, Aly by the fact it had worked.
Aly darted around the side of Clove’s building. She planted her hands on the top of a fence and swung over into the yard of the house next door. She dashed around the rear of the house and went over the fence on the other side.
Now on an open street she could run full speed.
She knew they would come after her.
Aly’s advantage was that she knew the neighborhood.
She turned off the street and darted into the shadows between two houses. She jumped two more fences and ran down another street.
Their advantage would be their numbers.
; How many?
There were Fishhook and Hernandez. The three soldiers inside Clove’s. At least one more around back that fired the two shots. Were there drivers ready and waiting inside those two Jags?
Had anybody in the neighborhood heard the shots fired?
Did anyone call the police?
Aly considered the possibility of stray bullets going through windows and hitting innocent people.
Of course, if bullets weren’t strays, it would be because they’d hit her.
She needed a plan.
There was a White Castle at the bottom of the Ludlow Viaduct. Always a cop car or two in the drive-thru getting coffee. She’d notice a cop car there nearly every time she walked by.
But that meant going onto Hamilton Avenue. Which would be lit up like Christmas. So would the White Castle. That place was so bright it could be seen from the dark side of the moon.
Aly stopped running, flattened against the side of a house.
There were probably six of them fanned out coming through the yards. At least four if two of the six she knew of were now driving the cars.
Or six fanning, if drivers had already been waiting in the cars.
And where would those cars be? Prowling through the neighborhood with their lights out?
Or checking the main road?
One doing each?
Aly felt them coming.
The White Castle plan had to be it.
It was about a hundred yards away. Less. Its lights radiated above the buildings in between.
Aly could stay in the dark for only a small part of that distance before having to expose herself.
She crept past two more houses, regaining her breath for the final sprint through the light.
She closed her eyes and imagined herself sprinting down Hamilton. She whispered, “One…two…three!”
She opened her eyes and found herself still poised to go. “Shit.”
Fishhook and Hernandez would never give up. Whatever they wanted her for, they would never give up.
“Okayokay, this time. One…two…three!”
The soles of Aly’s hiking boots slapped on the pavement as she ran full tilt up Hamilton Avenue.
The White castle came into sight. Not far at all.
Aly saw no black Jaguars.
And no Guacamolian Death Squad.
Now she could see the line of cars in the drive-thru.
And not one of them was a cop car!
“Okayokay, what? Go in?”
They’d fired shots in Clove’s. They wouldn’t hesitate to shoot up the White Castle.
She stopped to catch her breath.
“Cops use the drive-thru because the cop station is right at the top of the viaduct. Yeah, good ol’ District Five. Maybe a hundred yards. No, more. But not a quarter mile. Less than that. I can do that. But…uphill?” The ascent never looked so steep.
No other choice.
She ran until Hamilton Avenue became Ludlow and she was on the viaduct. The bottom part of the viaduct was the steepest. Her thighs burned and her adrenaline rush was nearly spent.
A car coming down the viaduct. A cop car?
Aly waved her arms as she ran.
The car’s speed increased.
It looked official enough.
Too official. Too much like—“Shit!”
A third black Jaguar?
Aly jumped onto the green chain link rising from the guardrail. She was all the way up to where the top bent back over the walkway before she knew she was climbing. She didn’t have the strength to swing her dangling feet over the top.
Aly looked over her shoulder. Three black Jaguars, two pointing up the viaduct, one pointing down, idled at angles behind her.
Men got out of the cars.
“You don’t think that looks odd?” Aly said over her shoulder. “You don’t think someone won’t call the cops when they see you stopped like that?” She turned her head and looked at the Millcreek. “Nah. Anything is acceptable if the cars are impressive enough.”
The music in her head stopped. She realized Blue’s signature, “Ain’t Comin’ Back This Time,” had been going through her mind during the entire escape attempt.
The soundtrack of her life?
What she really needed was a locomotive going beneath the viaduct to make the sound of her world turning.
Hands grabbed each of her ankles.
43: Convoy
When the convoy from Cincinnati reached Franz World Headquarters, there were only two cars in the visitors’ parking lot: Jones Pelfry’s Mustang and Lydell Wade’s Cadillac. The only person in the lot was Antony Phillips.
No one had come to relieve Antony. Roving Parking Lot Security Specialist was a job created just for him by Pistol Pete, at the request of Kurtwood Franz. Antony’s shift had ended two hours earlier. Lydell Wade, Antony’s ride, was nowhere to be seen. Antony had grown bored with the reading material Mr. Franz had given him, and left the small guardhouse Pistol Pete had built the day he was hired. He was wandering around the lot, kicking a pebble, when he stopped to watch a line of nine black Jaguar S Type Coupes curve along the entrance drive, then head straight for him.
Antony’s repertory for cool suggested no mode of reaction: he merely froze. The convoy formed a half circle around him and came to a stop. Two men got out of the second car in line and approached Antony. Without a word they grabbed him by the arms and dragged him to the fifth car in line. They slammed him face forward against the passenger side rear door and punched him four times in the kidneys. Antony was pulled off the car and thrown into the back seat. His head landed in Sylvie Averling’s lap. He pushed himself upright to find the barrel of a pistol shoved in his face.
Antony looked back and forth between Sylvie and the gun held by the man in the front seat.
“Hey, Antony,” said Sylvie. She smiled weakly. “Told you I’d be back.”
Antony backed his head from the pistol. The gunman pushed his weapon further over the seat.
“I-I give you the money back,” Antony said to the man with the long, curving scar on his face. “I don’t got it on me. That’s no lie.”
“Silence!” Felix brushed Antony’s nose with the barrel of his pistol. “You have access to the building.”
Antony didn’t realize he’d been asked a question. He was only aware of the pistol. And the scar on the face of the man who held it.
“He’s not fooling around, Antony,” said Sylvie. She touched his shoulder lightly. “He just wants to know what parts of the building you can get him into.”
Antony pulled his shoulder from Sylvie so she couldn’t feel him shaking. “I only got the one key,” he said. “The side door. Down to the garage.”
“Antony, tell me now,” said Sylvie. “Do you know anything about an elevator down there that goes only to the penthouse and one other floor?”
Antony shook his head. “There’s an elevator. But I don’t got no key.”
Felix pushed his pistol forward to press it against Antony’s forehead.
“FELIX! NO!” screamed Sylvie. “Wait. Just one minute. He can get us down there, can’t you, Antony? Once we’re down there you can figure a way up in the elevator. From things you’ve heard. Right, Antony?”
Felix drew back his pistol. “I will shoot the pretty girl in her face. She will fall across you. When you prove what a coward you are for not protecting her, I will shoot you in your testicles, and that is how you will both go through life. Show me this door.”
Sylvie put a hand on Antony’s shoulder. “Antony, all you have to do is tell him. Then we’ll be all right. He doesn’t really want to shoot us.”
Antony lifted a shaking hand, pointed to the building. “Ain’t no secret. Just over there.”
Felix nodded to his driver. The car broke out of formation and eased toward the building. The other cars followed. They stopped. Felix motioned for Sylvie and Antony to get out. Three men bearing automatic weapons got out of each of the other cars. Several of the sol
diers fanned around the building. The rest followed Felix and his party to the door.
Nomar brought Aly, clutching her arm with his good hand. She didn’t struggle. She’d recognized Jones Pelfry’s Mustang when the convoy entered the property. No doubt he would bring in the entire Indianapolis Police Department once he realized the situation.
“Open it,” said Felix.
Antony’s shaking hand needed several tries to get the card into the slot. He worked the keypad. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing.
“Concentrate, Antony,” said Sylvie. She silently prayed the code hadn’t been changed without Antony being informed. “Take a deep breath.”
Antony took a moment, then reached into his jacket. Several automatic weapons rose to point at his head. Very slowly, and without uttering a sound, Antony drew out a slip of paper with the code. He punched in the numbers. The door popped open.
“Antony knows other things that can help. Don’t you, Antony?” said Sylvie.
Antony nodded.
“Like other codes,” said Sylvie. “You know other codes, don’t you? Antony? Antony! Look at me. And where other security guards might be. Right?”
Antony looked at Sylvie. “They don’t gotta take me down there. I…I...”
Felix nodded. A soldier pushed Antony through the doorway. Two soldiers remained posted outside while everyone else filed in.
Lydell Wade opened the door just as the party reached the bottom landing. A crisscross of light beams took his sight. Two soldiers stepped forward and slammed his back against the wall.
“Hey! What?” protested Lydell. He caught a glimpse of rifles slung over his assailants’ shoulders before the glare reclaimed his eyes.
Felix pulled Antony through the door to face Lydell. “You know this man.”
Antony raised his head. “Ye-es…yes, I do know this man.”
Lydell twisted to get his eyes out of the light. He recognized Antony’s voice, but could only see shapes clustering and dispersing.
“He, uh…” Antony tried desperately to find his center. “See, uh…this is the guy with the special code for the elevator. It’s like…it’s like that submarine movie with Denzel. Each of us know a part of the code the other one don’t. We got to do it together.”