by Haris Orkin
Sancho felt a little defensive as Flynn took all of this in. “Rents in L.A., right? With what I make at the hospital, I can barely even afford this shithole.” They parked in Sancho’s spot, right by a shopping cart and a pile of trash, the only belongings of a man named Arturo. The pile of newspapers moved and Arturo peered out from his “bed.” Unshaven, skinny, and hollow-eyed, he nodded to Sancho as he and Flynn climbed from the car. Sancho tossed Arturo a five and when Flynn raised an eyebrow, Sancho said, “Arturo keeps an eye on my wheels.”
Arturo scrutinized Flynn’s beat up face. “You don’t look too good, my friend.”
“Appearances can often be deceiving.”
“So, what are you saying—you usually look worse than this?”
“Arturo has a sense of humor.”
Sancho smirked. “Arturo loves to break balls.”
Arturo grinned and showed Flynn the last few yellow teeth left in his head. Sancho headed through a doorway and up a short staircase. Flynn followed, limping, grimacing. Every step clearly painful.
The courtyard of the apartment house had an empty pool full of trash and dried out palm fronds. A little boy on a Big Wheel rode precariously close to the edge of the pool.
Sancho smiled at the kid. “Hey, Julio, be careful, dude. Don’t go falling in the pool again.” The kid laughed and drove his Big Wheel over Flynn’s foot.
James followed Sancho up an exposed stairwell to a second-floor landing and watched as he unlocked three deadbolts to open the door. Sancho ushered James into a one room apartment decorated in early Salvation Army. The carpeting was stained and threadbare and the walls were off-white and decorated with a single movie poster.
“I still think you need to go to an emergency room.” Sancho closed the door and locked all three deadbolts. “Those assholes kicked the shit out of you.”
“I’ll be fine. I just need bandages and some antiseptic.” He licked his split lip and winced. Sancho shook his head and led Flynn into an impossibly tiny bathroom. There was just enough room for a sink, a toilet, and a small shower stall. The walls were decorated with faded floral wallpaper and the fixtures stained with rust. A scummy looking throw rug was scrunched up on the floor and the toilet seat cover was the same brownish-gray color. Sancho directed Flynn to sit on the toilet seat. He seemed hesitant at first, but finally lowered his bottom.
Sancho opened the medicine chest over the sink. He grabbed a box of Band-Aids, a bottle of iodine, and an ancient-looking can of Bactine. Sancho studied Flynn’s messed up face. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Flynn closed his eyes and started to say something just as Sancho sprayed his face with Bactine. Flynn gagged and sputtered.
“Why didn’t you close your mouth?”
“Because you told me to close my eyes.”
Sancho opened the iodine and daubed a cut on Flynn’s chin.
“Ow!”
“I thought you were impervious to pain, ese.”
He went to daub another cut and Flynn grabbed his wrist. “I think we’re done.”
“You let that get infected, you’ll get gangrene and they’ll have to cut off your whole damn head.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re all fucked up. That cut is huge. You probably need stitches.”
“I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about her.”
“Who?”
“Dulcie.”
“There’s nothing we can do for her right now.”
“What if they’re torturing her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a brave young woman who needs our help.”
“Dude…”
“As long as she keeps her mouth shut, they won’t kill her. But the second she gives them what they want—”
“You should be worrying about you. Not her.”
Flynn looked hard into Sancho’s eyes. “You were afraid back there, weren’t you?”
“Of course, I was afraid. Those bikers would have kicked my ass from here to Oxnard.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Who said I was ashamed?”
Flynn put his hand on Sancho’s arm. “I feel fear. Just as you do. The only difference is…I know how to use it. Fear keeps me sharp. It makes me dangerous…”
“Dangerous I would agree with.”
“Fear is your friend, Sancho. You must face it, embrace it, and use it. For if you don’t, it will destroy you.”
Two hours later, Flynn struggled to rest on Sancho’s ancient sofa. His legs hung over the threadbare armrest and a bag of frozen peas thawed on his forehead. The duffel bag of cash sat on the floor.
Sancho came out of the kitchen, eating a banana and wearing a new pair of pants. “Hey, James, you want a sandwich or something?”
Flynn’s eyes popped open all the way and, for a brief moment, panic set in. He had no idea where he was or who he was or who the guy with the banana was. And then Sancho took a big bite and everything came flooding back. The panic faded, but didn’t entirely disappear. It rested somewhere deep inside of him, lingering like a dull ache. “I got peanut butter, some bread and another banana and that’s about it,” Sancho said with a mouthful.
“A peanut butter and banana sandwich?”
“You want one?”
Flynn shook his head. He removed the bag of half-frozen peas and sat upright on the couch. He noticed some textbooks on the coffee table. College Algebra. Roman Civilization. Introduction to Psychology.
Flynn motioned to the books. “Are you a university student?”
“Junior college.”
“Interested in psychology?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You no longer want to work with Her Majesty’s Secret Service?”
Sancho smiled wistfully. “I guess that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“I wouldn’t give up so easily if I were you, Sancho. I truly believe that you have the potential to be a highly adept agent.”
Sancho nodded. “Maybe you should stay here while I go get some help.”
“There is no help. Not for men like us.” Flynn tried to stand, but his head swam. He started to reel.
Sancho grabbed his arm to steady him. “Ese, listen to me. You need to get some rest, okay?”
“You were skeptical before. I could tell. But now you see what we’re up against, don’t you?”
Sancho smiled and nodded and helped Flynn to sit back down. “We’ll take care of it, dude. I promise you. Just get some rest. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Where am I going? To…uh…get supplies.” Sancho unlocked all three deadbolts and opened the door.
“Weapons? Ammunition?”
“Everything we need, man.”
“You’re a good friend, Sancho.”
“I’ll be back before you know it, bro.” Sancho closed and locked the door. Flynn could hear the three deadbolts click.
Dr. Grossfarber hurried down an empty corridor with Nurse Durkin at his side.
“Nothing from the police?” Grossfarber asked.
“No, sir. Not a word.”
“If the public finds out, if the news media picks this up, the powers that be will be very unhappy—”
Sancho came running around the corner like a madman with his pants on fire. He collided with Nurse Durkin, bouncing off her prodigious chest. “Nurse Durkin! Dr. Grossfarber! I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Not right now, Perez!” Nurse Durkin pushed Sancho out of the way to clear a path for Grossfarber.
“It’s about Flynn!”
They both stopped dead in their tracks.
Five minutes later all three were in Grossfarber’s office. Grossfarber was on the phone as Sancho and Nurse Durkin looked on. “The address is…” Grossfarber looked to Sancho, raising an eyebrow.
“1455 Lull Street in Nort
h Hills,” Sancho said. “Apartment 210.”
“1455 Lull Street, Apartment 210. Yes…of course…thank you, Sergeant. We’ll see you there.”
Dr. Grossfarber hung up the phone and smiled at Sancho. Suddenly Sancho wasn’t so sure he’d done the right thing.
“They’re not gonna send like a SWAT team, are they?”
Grossfarber was already putting on a jacket. “Flynn’s delusional. He’s dangerous.”
“He’s not dangerous,” Sancho replied. “He’s just a little…whacked.”
“Is that your professional diagnosis?”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying and I know you mean well, but Flynn has already attacked five people on our staff. One of them was me.”
“I know, I just—I just don’t want to see him get hurt.”
“None of us do,” said Grossfarber.
The neighborhood’s relative quiet shattered with the arrival of five patrol cars, sirens screaming, cherries flashing, followed by an ambulance, two unmarked police cars, and a black SWAT van. Sancho stared at the front of his building—wide and blocky, typical of apartment houses built in the early sixties. It was painted a fading salmon pink, which was supposed to make the place look festive and tropical. Instead it just looked sad; like a large old lady wearing a threadbare muu muu. Other than the traffic and the occasional private jet coming in for a landing at Van Nuys Airport, the street was usually peaceful.
The police and paramilitary SWAT guys leaped out with weapons locked and loaded. The doors on an unmarked car opened and out piled two plainclothes policemen, followed by Dr. Grossfarber, Nurse Durkin, and Sancho.
A black uniformed SWAT officer strode up to Sancho without any preamble, invading his space. “Apartment number?”
Sancho took a step back. “What?”
“I need a confirmation of your apartment number!” The man’s normal tone of voice appeared to be an angry shout.
“What are you guys going to—”
“Apartment number!”
“210,” Grossfarber said.
The SWAT officer moved towards his men and Sancho grabbed him by the arm. “Hold on a second.” The officer glowered at Sancho and Sancho promptly removed his hand. “Officer, just let me go in first and tell him what’s—”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to get back in the car!”
“But you don’t need all these guys. The dude isn’t dangerous. He’s just—”
“Please, sir! Get in the car!”
A plainclothes cop grabbed Sancho by the arm and pulled him towards the unmarked police car. Sancho watched helplessly as the SWAT officer shouted orders, dispatching flak-jacketed men armed with assault rifles. Sancho glanced at Dr. Grossfarber and Nurse Durkin. Both looked positively gleeful.
The plainclothes cop opened the unmarked car. “Get in the vehicle, sir.”
“I just don’t want the poor guy to get hurt.”
“If he doesn’t resist, he won’t.”
“But what if they see his gun? They’ll think—”
“He has a gun?”
“Yeah, but it’s not loaded, it’s—”
The plainclothes cop yelled to another cop. “Suspect has a gun!”
“No, no, no, it ain’t loaded!”
The word spread from cop to cop, all the way to the commander of the SWAT team. “Suspect has a gun! Suspect is armed!”
Now it was being bellowed from a bullhorn. “Suspect is armed and dangerous!”
“It ain’t fuckin’ loaded!” yelled Sancho, but no one was paying any attention to him. Sancho pushed past the plainclothes cop and sprinted towards his building.
The cop chased after him, pulling his piece. “Halt!”
Sancho yelled up to the SWAT team on the second-floor landing, “Don’t shoot! Don’t fuckin’ shoot!”
He raced up a staircase and reached the second floor just as the SWAT Team kicked down his front door. Someone threw a flash-bang grenade inside the apartment. A muffled boom resonated followed by a weird high-pitched whine. SWAT barreled inside his apartment, screaming, “LAPD! LAPD!”
Sancho was almost to his apartment when the plainclothes cop tackled him. He heard his neighbor’s door creak open and caught sight of a shadowy silhouette holding a large gun. The cop saw this too and raised his pistol. Sancho tried to get up, hitting the cop’s chin with his head, bumping the revolver with his elbow. The gun went off, blowing a hole in the partly opened door. The SWAT team immediately started firing their M-4 assault rifles; sure that someone was trying to take them out. They fired wildly in a panicked frenzy. Bullets shattered glass, ripped through plasterboard, shredded furniture and punched holes in closet doors.
Sancho watched, petrified, as his neighbor’s door opened wider. He could finally see the face of the silhouetted figure with the gun. It was his terrified ten-year-old neighbor, Jerome, wielding a big yellow Super Soaker squirt gun. Sancho pounced, tackling Jerome as bullets sliced through the air, peppering wood and plasterboard. The kid tried to get away, but Sancho held on tight, covering him with his body. Both were scared witless as bullets whizzed by and wood splintered and dust rose. Finally, the SWAT Team leader in Sancho’s apartment screamed, “Cease fire! Cease fire!”
Eventually they did and in the eerie silence that followed, Sancho let the boy go and slowly rose to his feet. The cop standing on the landing trembled and stared at little Jerome, whose crotch was wet with urine. Sancho carefully poked his head into his apartment to see six assault rifles aimed at his head. He froze and took in what was left of his place. The SWAT officers were shrouded in dust and smoke and wired with adrenaline.
“Where the hell is he?” demanded the SWAT team leader as he poked Sancho in the chest with his finger. “You said he was here.”
“He was.”
Chapter Ten
The white, fluffy guts of Sancho’s beige micro-suede sofa covered the floor. His thirty-two-inch flat screen TV lay shattered in countless pieces. His book shelves were ripped apart and his battered coffee table was cracked in half. Every wall was peppered with bullet holes. His crushed and smoking HP desktop lay upside down on the floor.
Sancho sat on his devastated sofa sipping from a can of beer and staring at a framed movie poster that, amazingly, still hung on the wall. The glass was shattered and the poster torn, but the frame still clung stubbornly to the nail Sancho had pounded into the plasterboard two years ago.
Sancho first saw Shrek when he was eleven years old. It was the only movie his father ever took him to. Sancho’s dad bought him popcorn and a cherry Slurpee and Sancho laughed like crazy. He thought he’d never seen anything funnier. His dad laughed as well. He laughed so hard, he had to gasp for air. That laughter had filled Sancho with such joy. It surrounded him like a warm blanket. Like one of his mother’s hugs.
His dad was a truck driver who usually left before the sun came up, to go to work. He was exhausted when he came home; too tired to talk to Sancho or even deal with him. Many nights he didn’t come home until very late. One night he didn’t come home at all. He never came home again. His mother never mentioned him and his absence made Sancho feel empty inside.
He and his mother moved in with his mother’s parents. His grandfather was a proud man; the patriarch of his family. He didn’t say much, but Sancho knew that he was loved. Often, he would work for his grandfather, mowing lawns, trimming hedges and translating for him. Sancho gave most of the money he made to his mother. But one day there was a garage sale across the street from the lawn they were cutting. Sancho saw the “Shrek” poster for sale and bought it for seventy-five cents. His grandfather thought he was crazy. Sancho took it home and hung it on the wall of the bedroom he shared with his two cousins. When he moved out Sancho brought it with him. Other than his clothes, it was the only thing he took. He didn’t really understand why he was so attached to it. He just knew it made him smile.
Sancho finished his beer, crushed the can, and dro
pped it on the floor. He leaned on what was left of the sofa’s armrest and pushed himself to his feet. As he crossed his tiny apartment, the broken glass crunched under his sneakers. Sancho reached up to the poster and straightened it. He took a few steps back to make sure it was even.
“My goodness,” Flynn said. “Are you all right?”
Sancho turned to see Flynn standing in the doorway to his apartment. He carried Mike’s duffel bag of cash in one hand and a garment bag in the other. He was sporting a dark gray suit that fit him perfectly. The door itself was off its hinges, splintered and broken on the floor. Sancho watched as Flynn walked in, coolly surveying the damage.
“They were here, weren’t they?”
“No, dude, I had a party and things got a little crazy.”
“How’d they find us?”
Sancho blushed and started to stutter. “H-How the hell do I know?”
“They were probably watching your apartment.”
“Yeah,” Sancho nodded a little too enthusiastically. “They probably were.”
“They still are.”
“No shit?”
“There’s an unmarked police car parked out front.”
Sancho’s voice went up an octave. “Did they see you?”
“Of course not.” Flynn looked around the ruined apartment. “I’m surprised they didn’t take you into custody.” Flynn raised a curious eyebrow. “Why didn’t they?”
“I don’t know. How do I know?”
“Maybe they think you’re still on their side.”
“Maybe.”
“Are they correct in that assumption?”
“No.”
“Was Grossfarber here?”
“Yeah, he was here with Nurse Durkin and the police and SWAT and—Is that a new suit?”
“Armani.”
“Armani? Are you kidding me?”
“When did they leave?”
“About an hour ago.”
“So, they think I kidnapped you?”