Red Scare (The Postmodern Adventures of Kill Team One Book 3)

by Mike Leon

  “THEY’RE TAKING BRIANNA AWAY FROM ME!” she screams at Sid.

  “I think maybe I should just go now,” Sid says uneasily.

  “No! NO!” Vesper yells. “I need you! I want you! Be with me!” She bends over the filthy kitchen counter, propping her elbows in crumbled months-old Ramen noodles and bits of Rice-a-Roni. “You can still fuck me if you want, but I need to cry.”

  “I’m good, actually. I think I’m just gonna go.”

  “WHAT?! I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME!”

  “No.”

  “NO?! THAT’S ALL YOU CAN SAY AFTER EVERYTHING WE SHARED?!”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Sid says as he pushes his way through the front door.

  “WHERE YOU GOING, PUSSY?! PUSSY!” Vesper shouts after him. Sid slams the apartment door closed behind him, drowning out her screams. He walks down the hallway outside, with its yellowing walls and smoke stench. He passes a wide-open apartment door, beyond which a small child eats melting popsicle pieces from a dirty floor and he continues on up the stairwell to the blacktop lot outside.

  He is on his way through the parking lot when Vesper bursts through the building doors to scream at him some more.

  “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST GO LIKE THAT? WELL, LOOK WHAT I DID!”

  Sid glances back, only to make sure she isn’t pointing some kind of weapon at him, and sees her waving a translucent orange plastic bottle in the air between them.

  “I TOOK THIS WHOLE BOTTLE OF SLEEPING PILLS! NOW WHAT?”

  Sid stops and snatches the bottle from her hands. Vesper skips back, startled by his instantaneous reflexes. The label stickered to the side of the bottle shows Vesper’s name and address, and lists the contents as thirty Triazolam. Sid pitches the empty bottle aside and lashes out, snatching Vesper by her platinum white hair.

  “Open your mouth,” he says.

  “That won’t work,” she says. “No gag reflex.”

  Sid rams his hand into her gullet anyway. She bites down on his wrist with little effect as he smears his fingers around the inside of her throat. He yanks his hand from her mouth and looks on with perplexity as she coughs, but absolutely nothing comes up.

  “I feel kinda funny,” she says. “I think I need to sleep now.”

  “Aw fuck,” Sid curses.

  INT. HARRAH’S LAKE TAHOE - DAY

  The feeling he has is something more than boredom. It comes with a hopelessness that boredom does not describe. It is more than the thought that he had nothing of value to do. It is the thought that there will never be anything of value to do again.

  And yet Red presses the buttons. He presses and waits for the reels to stop, then he presses again. He often wonders why he continues to do this, or continues doing anything at all.

  He is old now, with more years spent fighting for the cause than most men see in total. He has been a foot soldier, a leader, a champion, a failure, a father, a grandfather, and a shadow. Now he is nothing. The cause is largely forgotten and he with it.

  He presses the buttons again. The reels spin. The colors flash. Somewhere in this place, the lines line up for him. Jackpot. He feels nothing for this. No. Nothing was what he felt when he first started. This is less than nothing. They come wearing fake smiles to hand him his prize. A particularly friendly one pats his back. They do not know him, but he knows them. He has seen them do this dance for him thousands of times by now. He takes the money and sends it to the usual account. Then he continues to push the buttons. He continues to contemplate death.

  It is not a foreign thing for him. He has experienced death many times, but always lacking in finality due to his condition. He could set himself on fire, shoot himself, or drown himself, but without him what of the cause? Always the cause.

  He goes to the bar and sits, even as he continues to push the buttons. The bartender is a heavyset man. Bearded and with the kind of eyes that belittle everything around him. His is a new face, but better than the fraudulent faces of the others.

  “A Cuba Libre,” Red says.

  “What’s in that?” the bartender asks dryly. The regular bartenders all know how to make that drink now, but sometimes the new ones have to be told.

  “Coca-Cola, rum, and a lime slice.”

  “Oh. It’s just a Rum and Coke with lime?”

  “It is those things, and yet it is so much more.”

  The bartender makes the drink and Red rests his elbows on the bar, propping his head on his wrists. His breaths are withering and long and he wishes he could hear them over the television behind the bar as the young man next to him flips through channels. American television is a strange parade of spectacles that are not spectacles at all. In other places, men shit in the streets for children to see and think nothing of it. Writhing naked prostitutes wiggle against their windows and call like sirens to any passing gaze. Pits that could swallow a passenger jet are found filled with rotting bodies and viewed with a shrug. America is sterile by comparison.

  “I’m Rick Harrison and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss, and in twenty three years I’ve learned one thing...”

  Flip. He has seen this. He has seen it all and it amounts to nothing.

  “...all the time we shared together was beautiful and amazing, but I have to give my rose to…”

  Flip. It is the clapping he finds most offensive—the awe of those watching. As if any of it matters.

  “...Nancy, my client was on a six month arctic core sampling expedition at the time of the murder!”

  “Then why can’t Verizon find any pings from his cell phone in Antarctica? I’ll tell you why! Because he was never there! We all know he did it! He’s a child sex molester and a murderer and here’s his picture. All of you watching, this is what a sex molester looks like! Somebody run him down with a Buick!”

  Flip. Sensationalism. This appeals to the impotent horde. They are not like the mobs of his day. They will do nothing—take no action. Instead of a stream of blood in the streets there will be a stream of tweets that do nothing.

  “...So who built the pyramids? Look, I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.”

  Away from the bar, he has won another jackpot. He waits at the machine for the smilers to come find him again. He receives his drink at the bar. He presses the buttons at the machines. He watches the television. He craps out at a table. He presses the buttons. He lights a cigarette somewhere. He puts it out. He doesn’t like cigarettes. The Cuba Libre tastes as bland as water. It might be very good rum, but everything tastes bland now.

  Maybe he should end it all tonight.

  “Kill Team One.”

  It did not come from the TV. It came from somewhere out there. Somewhere in this writhing sea of idiots. Red closes his eyes. He puts down the Cuba Libre. He stops pressing the buttons. He feels for the source of this. He finds it.

  A man next to him at the craps table has a flamboyant purple sports jersey and expensive pants with rivets and jewels. His features are distinctly Arabic—dark hair, tanned skin, a thick beard. He said it. He leaned over to the man next to him and he said “This is much better than having our guts cut out by Kill Team One.” It was not quite whispered, but it was probably not intended to be heard over the ambient chatter of other gamblers. Red heard it. Red is other gamblers.

  In intrusive ignorance of any potential social faux pas, Red leans over to the man and his tubby little companion. “What do you know about Kill Team One?” he says.

  “What?” responds the tall Arab. His face becomes flushed. His head swivels in the early stages of a panic. “Nothing. What is that? Is that new hip hop group?” He’s lying.

  “You said something about Kill Team One to him,” Red says, pointing accusatively at the companion, a shorter, fatter Arab, wearing crisp new clothes from Express. His black graphic tee still has the little sticker with the shirt size attached near the waistline. In fact, both of them look like they just bought all their clothes today and wore them out of the store. The ex
pensive white sneakers on both men are without a scuff or crease. It is peculiar for any pair of men, and glaringly suspicious for a pair of men who just mentioned some kind of dealings with the devil.

  “Kill Team One? No, no, no,” the fat one says. “He said ‘A Teen One.’ We talking about picking up strippers after this and—-”

  Red has no interest in friendliness where the kill team is concerned. “We can torture you for answers or we can compensate you for answers. Your choice.”

  The tall Arab leans between Red and his friend. “Compensate us how?” he says.

  “Whatever you like. We have resources.”

  The fat one slaps his friend in the arm. “We should stay out of this, Fareed. This is no good. No good.”

  “I’m down ten grand, man,” the tall one snaps back. “I need capital.”

  “Capital belongs in the hands of the working people, Fareed,” Red says. He smiles. “What do you know about Kill Team One?”

  “Everything. My boy Yusef spent weeks watching him with a spy satellite. We know where he eats, where he sleeps, where he works, who he talks to. We can hand you all of that.”

  “You have pictures?”

  “Not exactly. We barely made it out of that business alive. He killed everybody we worked with. He’ll probably kill you if you find him.”

  “We can handle him. We’ve done it before.”

  “Are you CIA? Mossad?” Fareed looks around the table, then checks over his shoulder. “Google?”

  “Why would he be with Google?” Yusef says.

  “Are you joking?” Fareed sneers back at his friend. “They’re taking over the world, man. They’re more powerful than anybody.”

  “Where do we find the kill team?” Red says.

  EXT. MORSTON GENERAL HOSPITAL - DAY

  Tires scream as Sid drifts through the left turn lane into the hospital driveway. Vesper’s rust-speckled Pontiac Grand Prix just barely clears an oncoming school bus as it makes the driveway and Sid accelerates past the sign that declares EMERGENCY. In the seat beside him, Vesper moans nonsense.

  “Have you ever had a mackerel tabby?” Vesper says. “I like calico cats, or Siamese—” Her head sinks to her shoulder and she begins to snore. Sid slaps his fingers across her nose.

  “Wake up!” he barks. She jostles halfway to alertness at the sound of his voice.

  “Ow!” she says. “I’m gonna tell them you hit me. You hit me all the time. I never fell down the stairs.” She slurs into incoherence again before Sid halts the car in the red-striped pavement under the huge brick outcropping that covers the ER entrance. He kicks the driver door open and circles the car to yank Vesper from her seat. He hustles through the ER doors with the incognizant woman slung over his shoulder.

  “Hey!” he shouts once inside. Dozens of people in surgical scrubs walk up and down the hallways, only a few of them even turn to look at him. A woman wearing a pink flowery smock approaches from a large circular desk at the center of the ER. A doctor in blue surgical scrubs comes from an open doorway nearby.

  “What happened?” the doctor demands in brief.

  “She took these,” Sid says, holding up the orange pill bottle for the doctor to read as he lays Vesper down on the tile floor. The doctor yells down the hallway for somebody to bring something stat, and another thing also stat. He pulls the arm guards from her forearms and rubs her wrists between his fingers.

  “He hit me,” Vesper groans just before she lapses into unconsciousness again. The doctor kneeling over her, a fuzzy bearded and doughy man, looks at Vesper’s bruised form and then studies Sid with a prolonged gaze.

  Another man arrives with a gurney which the hospital workers use to transport the pasty platinum bitch away. As they take Vesper out of Sid’s sight, a man wearing a blue police uniform comes around a corner and meets up with the woman in the flower smock, exchanges a few brief words, then comes over to Sid.

  “Are you her husband?” the police officer says.

  “No. I just met her.” Sid shakes his head. “Is she gonna be okay?”

  “I can’t answer that question. But let’s talk about your relationship with miss...” he pauses for Sid to fill in a last name, but Sid doesn’t know it. He shrugs.

  “Vesper?” Sid says.

  “Let’s talk about your relationship with Miss Vesper.”

  INT. YMS MARKETING SOLUTIONS - DAY

  Dmitry’s official place of business is a three story building in West L.A. designated YMS Marketing Solutions by a box light sign mounted high above the street. Inside, hundreds of young men and a few women chatter into hardline telephones with loud enthusiasm bordering on rage.

  Beyond them is Dmitry’s office, a small partitioned enclosure with a desk, a few chairs, a conspicuous absence of file cabinets or actual work materials, and a flat panel TV with an Xbox. A man in a dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a layer of sweat along his hairline runs through the details of next week’s work. His name is John.

  “We dumped the recycling thing this morning and we’re doing XGX Pharmaceuticals now,” John says. “It’s a real hot startup. Absolutely juicy. They’re doing work that’s going to revolutionize the entire drug industry from an unoccupied studio apartment in Valencia.”

  Dmitry nods absently. He is far more interested in the hot new video game he and Vlad are playing, Call of Honor 6: Whatever 2: You Cows Will Buy It Anyway Edition.

  “What kind of drugs do they make?” Vlad asks, not looking away from the split-screen multiplayer action. The distraction makes little difference. Dmitry is up by twelve kills anyway.

  “Uh, vapor medicine, so to speak.” John chuckles, resting his elbow on the corner of Dmitry’s desk between a pile of junk mail brought in by Vlad earlier and a jar full of pens.

  “Like for e-cigarette?” Vlad launches some video game missiles at the position where he thinks Dmitry is hiding. He is way off. This is especially embarrassing because Vlad can see Dmitry’s screen.

  “Uh, no. Like vaporware. You don’t know that word, do you?”

  Vlad shakes his head. Dmitry frags him again.

  “You play like little girl!” Dmitry laughs.

  Out in the office, one of the brokers shouts. “Juicey juice!” They can hear him even with the office door closed, which it always is. It would be bad for morale if the sales people knew they were playing video games in here for most of every day.

  “Juicey juice!” echoes back from a chorus of co-workers around the room. It’s what they yell when they make a sale over six figures.

  “There’s another one,” John says smugly, looking out at the sales people through the slatted blinds. “Robbie is really killing it this week.”

  Dmitry has never been entirely comfortable with what goes on here. It is the closest thing they do to actually hurting people. Even so, it really isn’t. The stock market is just gambling. So in that sense, this is a game of chance. It’s blackjack or slots. If he were running a casino and the slot machines were collecting all of this money, it would be the exact same thing, and he wouldn’t have to feel bad about that. Would he?

  “Who’s the guy in the expensive suit?”

  “What guy?”

  “Coming out of the elevator,” John says. “Right there.”

  Dmitry looks away from Call of Honor for just a second to glance through the window toward the elevator. The man in the expensive suit walking past the phone banks and heading toward his office is Igor Volchenko.

  “Oh shit! It’s Volchenko!” Dmitry curses as he mashes the glowing power button on the Xbox and stuffs his controller into a desk drawer. “Gimme that!” He grabs Vlad’s controller by the cable and stuffs it into the drawer as well, before sitting down at the desk. “Everybody be cool.”

  Volchenko knocks politely before opening the office door himself and quietly sauntering into the room.

  “Mr. Volchenko!” Dmitry squawks in surprise. He stands from his chair and politely offers his hand to the syndicate he
ad.

  “Please,” Volchenko says, waving him off. “Formalities. This is your office.”

  “I have some news from the whore,” Dmitry observes two suited men in his doorway now, the same men from Volchenko’s study this morning. The same men who strangled Istvan in front of him.

  “Will she be quiet, eh, permanently?” Volchenko’s attempt at subtlety is still quite conspicuous.

  “Yes. But nothing she said was helpful.”

  “It is no longer your concern.” Volchenko waves off any further explanation. “I have already dealt with the issue.”

  “You did? How?”

  “I have other channels, Dmitry. Many other channels. Surely you know this. Vengeance is being served as we speak.”

  “Oh… Do you mean?” Dmitry pauses, then puts three fingers together to make the sign of the cross over his body. “The Koschei?”

  “The Koschei…” Volchenko also crosses himself. Others in the room follow suit and cross themselves.

  “Have you called him?”

  “No. It is not that serious yet.”

  Dmitry breathes a sigh of relief. “That is good.”

  “No, I have some… other business I need to discuss with you…” Volchenko pauses and glances over to the broker and Vlad. “Privately.”

  “Gentlemen,” Dmitry calls attention to his people. They get the idea without him having to say anything else. The men proceed out of the office, closing the door behind them. Then it’s just Dmitry and Volchenko alone.

  “Is it about the grow house?” Dmitry says, trying to hold his nerve. He has no idea what Volchenko might want from him on such short notice, but the boss’s presence here is in no way a comfort. “It is coming nicely.”

  “No. You should check your mail. I believe you get postcard today.”

  Dmitry glances at the mail piled on his desk, then back at Volchenko with a curious smile as he reaches for the colored and coated papers that mostly end up in the trash after sorting each day. Flipping through the insurance pitches disguised as serious warnings and folded newspaper sheets covered in grocery coupons, he finds a weathered postcard featuring a photograph of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Dmitry turns over the card to find only a string of characters scrawled on the white opposite face in grey pencil: GMBU3574564. It could be anything to anyone.