A Dangerous Affair

by Jason Melby

  "Really?" Jamie said incredulously."

  "Thank you," said Jamie. "It means a lot to me." She pressed the phone against her ear to compensate for the weak signal. "You still there?"

  "I have to go," said Blanchart, tersely. "Make sure you set the alarm."

  "I will."

  "And don't forget to blow the candle out. Those things will burn the house down."

  Jamie covered her breasts with the washcloth and slid beneath the waterline. She stared at the ceiling and felt her bath grow cold.

  Chapter 21

  Leeland Marks drank Crystal at two in the morning, from a champagne flute in the back of a stretched limousine. Gold cuff links sparkled on the sleeves of his black Armani blazer. Grey whisker stubble outlined a budding goatee and mustache, adding chic with a pinch of sinister to the man who ruled a mounting empire.

  An entrepreneur with the right connections to the right people at the right time, he'd built a thriving drug business from the ground up. Everything from manufacturing to distribution and sales came under his purview. Expenses were down with revenues at triple digits and rising steadily from increased demand for his methamphetamine product. Drawing from raw talent and years of MBA experience, he acquired new properties and expanded his market base from a single West Coast operation to a network of high-volume kitchens established in low-rent, high-yield locations across the country.

  In less than three years, he'd emerged from the rubble of a Wall Street layoff to achieve unprecedented success. In three days, he'd negotiate the deal of the century and secure his position of power as the self-proclaimed CEO of a legitimate holding company laundering millions through private investment accounts.

  "Don't be such a downer," he told the three-hundred-pound gorilla seated across from him. Leeland filled a second glass and pushed it toward the heavy-set bodyguard with a bald head, a diamond stud earring, and a canvas of tribal tattoos circumnavigating his bulging biceps.

  "I don't drink," the bodyguard said in a grave voice. He carried a pair of Smith & Wesson SW99s in a leather shoulder rig decked out with magazines of hollow-point .45s.

  Leeland downed the second glass himself. "For five grand a week you should squawk like a fucking chicken if I tell you to. My success is our success. I wouldn't be here without your help." He powered down the tinted window and tossed the empty bottle on the street. Then he pressed the chauffer intercom and said, "Turn at the flashing light."

  The limousine scrubbed speed and hung a right at the three-way yellow, its tires crunching shrubs and fallen branches along the soggy road pummeled by an isolated thunderstorm. At the opposite end, the road opened to a pitch black clearing where an empty aircraft hangar sat near a private runway barely visible at night.

  The bodyguard cocked his head back and forth. Tendons cracked and popped inside his massive neck. "They're late."

  "They'll be here," said Leeland.

  The bodyguard checked his watch. "It's too quiet."

  "We're on private property in the middle of jumbuck nowhere. It's supposed to be quiet."

  The limousine parked inside the hangar and the lights were killed.

  Leeland dialed his cell phone and reached his wife's voicemail. "Hey, baby," he said. "Our flight's delayed. Give the kids a hug for me. I'll see you when I'm back." He popped the cork on another bottle of Crystal. Foam drizzled down the glass and onto his lap. He turned to his minion. "Get me a towel."

  The bodyguard tossed a hand cloth at his boss and opened the door to get out. "I need a smoke."

  Leeland dabbed the cloth on his lap. "Don't go far." He poured his glass and set the bottle in the chiller. The party was over, but the night was young. A victim of his own temptation, he maintained a separate life on the road, fed by his desire for constant female attention and the lavish accoutrements his empire afforded him.

  He opened a cocaine vial from his blazer pocket and snorted from the tip of his manicured pinky nail. The instant high jacked his energy level. Long on revelry and short on sleep, the bump kept him alert and on edge.

  Minutes passed.

  The plane's delay clouded his head with paranoia. His patience waned. Everything was taking too long. Way too long. He'd doled out a lot of cash to secure reliable transportation. Transportation that failed to arrive on time. No one in a cartel family would stand for this treatment, he thought. Why should I?

  He checked his watch.

  The what ifs began to freefall.

  Was I followed? Who else knew about the destination? Did I pick the wrong hangar? Why did Dutch leave the limo for a smoke? And what the fuck's taking so long?

  He pulled out a converted TEC-9 from a gym bag and tapped the chauffer window with the muzzle. "Stay here."

  Dirt crunched under Leland's boots outside the limo. The smell of burned tobacco lingered in the humid air as he stepped over a pair of wheel chocks beside a grease stain embedded in the cracked concrete floor. An engine hoist stood inside a small workshop with a rolling tool chest and a pair of hundred gallon fuel drums. A chain and pulley hung from the rafters.

  Leeland checked the empty runway and doubled back toward the hangar's makeshift waiting room. He kicked the door open and charged inside, restraining his trigger finger from unleashing the TEC-9's fury. A big screen television, wet bar, and plush leather chairs occupied the otherwise empty space. A chain and padlock secured the emergency exit.

  The sound of footsteps brought him full circle to the workspace with the hundred gallon drums. He panned the submachine gun and signaled for the limo driver to stay put.

  A shadow moved on the corrugated steel wall behind him.

  A metallic clink made him jump.

  "Jesus Christ!" he shouted at his bodyguard. "You scared the shit out of me!"

  The bodyguard stowed his gold lighter and blew smoke. "Take it easy with that—"

  "I nearly blew your fucking head off," Leeland vented. He brushed a grease smear on his coat sleeve. "Let's get the hell out of here."

  The limo revved loudly and sped away in reverse, leaving a patch of burned rubber in its tracks.

  Greeted with the sound of police sirens, the bodyguard pulled the pair of .45s from his shoulder rig and fired at the flashing blue lights outside the hangar.

  A deputy sheriff rammed the runaway limo while a second patrol car screeched to a stop. Cops scurried for cover like roaches in an all-night diner. Flash-bang grenades bounced inside the hangar and exploded.

  Leeland fired a long burst from the thirty-six-round clip, stitching holes in the car blocking his exit.

  The bodyguard ran sideways and shot at anything that moved. Bullets ricocheted through plumes of caustic smoke drifting through the lethal mêlée. Empty brass clanged against the floor.

  Leeland fired wildly, hitting everything but the human targets in front of him. "Kill them all!" he shouted without any inclination of how badly the odds played out. He ran toward the back room and slammed the door behind him. He propped a chair to block the entrance and turned his attention to the emergency exit.

  He emptied the TEC-9 at the padlock and rammed his body at the exit door. He tossed the weapon and sprinted for the dense tree line a hundred yards from the hangar.

  Out of breath and out of immediate danger, he glanced over his shoulder to glimpse at the chaos he'd abandoned. He ventured deeper into the woods before a round from a silenced .22 pierced his thigh muscle and lodged inside his femur.

  Leeland dropped to the ground and pressed his hand on the burning wound. He crawled sideways on his good leg, pawing at the dirt with his free hand, his pants soaked in urine.

  "Your flight's been canceled," said Blanchart, who emerged from the darkness wearing night vision goggles and a backpack with a folding shovel.

  "Who are you?" Leeland asked.

  Blanchart removed the goggles and let his eyes adjust to the natural moonlight. He compared the photo from his pocket to the suspect on the ground. "You're a hard man to find."

  "I need a docto
r!" cried Leeland. His heart raced from the drugs and adrenaline in his system.

  "You need a lesson." Blanchart waited for the sound of gunfire to subside. He kept his radio on mute. "You've been stepping on my product," he said. He pressed his boot on Leland's leg. "Who do you work for?"

  "Nobody."

  "I need a name."

  "Fuck you!" Leeland hissed, the initial pain from the gunshot obscured by the mixture of alcohol and cocaine in his system. "You're a dead man. I'll kill your wife. I'll kill your children. I'll kill your fucking dog."

  Blanchart shot him in the kneecap.

  This time the pain dropped a bomb on Leeland Marks as if an ax split his leg in half.

  "I need a name," said Blanchart.

  Leeland cowered at the base of a tree, his leg on fire from the bullet lodged between his bone and tendons. "I want a lawyer!"

  "That ship's sailed. I can't help you unless you let me."

  "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

  Blanchart aimed the silencer at Leland's good leg.

  "Who hired you?" Leeland asked in desperation. "Whatever they're paying you I'll double it. I'll triple it!"

  "I need a name."

  "There is no fucking name," Leeland cried. "I run the operation myself."

  Blanchart fired at Leland's other kneecap.

  Leeland moaned in agony, his body incapacitated from strategically-placed shots to his lower limbs. "He'll kill my family if I talk. I have a wife and kids. I'll give you everything I have. Twenty million dollars. Cash."

  Blanchart knelt down beside his victim and pressed the silenced muzzle to Leland's groin. "I need a name."

  "Uri Costa... He—he financed the operation. He has Columbian connections."

  "Where is he?"

  "He works out of LA. I never met him face to face. That's all I know. I swear..."

  Blanchart aimed the gun at Leland's head. "What else?"

  "That's it..."

  "Give me your right hand," said Blanchart.

  "What for?"

  Blanchart pressed the muzzle at Leland's temple. "Give me your hand."

  Leeland let go of his wounded knee and extended a shaky arm to Blanchart.

  Blanchart grabbed the arm and twisted sharply to lock the joints in a straight position. With control of the limb, he slid the gun in his holster and said, "Hold still." He retrieved a pair of pruning shears from his zipper pocket and pressed the scissor blades to the base of Leland's thumb. He squeezed hard to snip off the manicured digit in one chomp.

  Leeland screamed in agony.

  "Almost there," said Blanchart. He touched the blades to the base of the index finger and clamped down again, lopping the digit like a piece of dried kindling.

  Leeland screamed as he clutched his three-finger hand. "You said... You said you'd help me."

  Blanchart pressed the muzzle to Leland's forehead and pulled the trigger twice. "I just did."

  Chapter 22

  Josh rummaged through his mobile home closet filled with stacks of Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Popular Science magazines. He skimmed the cover of Playboy's Girls Next Door edition and tossed it in a separate pile. Issues of Rolling Stone found a home on the top shelf with his hidden DVD collection. Back issues of Popular Science found a home in the trash. "I've got more Playboy in this closet than Hugh Hefner," he said out loud.

  "That's not a bad thing," said Lloyd, hovering uncomfortably in the background with his pride on hold.

  "It is if Sheila finds them," said Josh. "She hates Playboy. She says the girls always make her look fat. I keep telling her it's not what you have or don't have, it's how you use what God gave you." He dug through an old box for a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee. "These might be long, but they'll probably fit you in the waist."

  "Thanks," said Lloyd with a mix of gratitude and humility. "I really appreciate it. If you have any old shirts I can wear, I'll take those too."

  Josh sniffed a wrinkled Metallic concert shirt. "This smells like rotten ass but it's still good. I thought I had more clothes in here, but Sheila must have donated them. The rest of this crap is hers." He poked around the back of the closet and tossed a pair of balled-up maternity panties at Lloyd. "Why don't you try these on for size?"

  Lloyd tossed the panties back. "Why don't I try them around your head?" He stuffed the jeans and shirt in an old backpack. "You and Sheila have a good thing going."

  "It works for us," said Josh. "I never thought I'd be a dad to someone else's kid."

  "I never thought I'd be digging in your closet for old clothes."

  Josh lit a cigarette and blew smoke. "Don't sweat it. Just help me clean this place up before Sheila gets back."

  "I'll run the vacuum," Lloyd offered.

  Josh pointed down the hall. "It's in the other closet, outside the bathroom."

  Lloyd found the Hoover upright sandwiched between a mop bucket and a set of golf clubs. He lifted the vacuum by a broken handle and bumped his arm against the shelf above his shoulder. The force knocked boxes of junk on the floor, spilling books, sneakers, card games, and a Chinese-made .38 special.

  Josh scooped the gun away.

  "Where did that come from?" asked Lloyd.

  "I bought it at a pawn shop."

  "What for?"

  "Protection," said Josh. "Someone broke into the trailer next to us. Probably the same pervert I caught peeping in our window."

  Lloyd peered nervously at the trailer's open screen-door.

  Josh dropped the gun in the box and buried it with the rest of the junk he'd collected over the years. "What's up?"

  "I could lose my parole just for breathing on a gun. If my PO shows up here—"

  "Chill out," said Josh. "The gun's mine."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "I bought it legal."

  "You don't get it," said Lloyd. "I can't be in the same room with a gun. They could send me back to prison."

  "I think you're paranoid."

  "I think you're foolish."

  Josh put the box away. "If someone breaks in our trailer, I'd rather be the fool with the gun than the fool without."

  Lloyd shook his head. "Does Sheila know about it?"

  "It was her idea. She wanted something for protection when I'm gone at meetings. She hates to be here by herself."

  "Buy her a dog instead."

  Josh blew smoke. "She's scared a dog would hurt the baby."

  Lloyd thought about his brother's twisted logic. "How long have you been going to meetings?"

  Josh took another drag. This time he held the smoke in his lungs for a second longer before he exhaled. "Since I got out of rehab. About a year before Dad died."

  Lloyd felt his stomach twist in knots like an over-wound rubber band in a balsa wood plane. Prison life taught him to keep his emotions in check from the wolves who could smell weakness, no matter how subtle or subdued. New punks coming into the joint stood the most to lose, followed by inmates who ran to the guards for help at the first sign of trouble. In prison, the normal rules of society were moot. For the uninitiated, any semblance of law and order quickly vanished with a lack of self worth and hope. Boys fought. Men killed. Invisible boundaries were set and never crossed. "If I hadn't been locked up—"

  "It wouldn't have changed anything," said Josh. "Dad had his demons like the rest of us. There's nothing you or me or Mom or anyone could have done to stop him."

  Josh shook his head. "After you left, he never spoke to me again. Not one word. Like I never existed. You were the one who went to prison."

  "And you were the one too busy getting high to care about anything but yourself."

  Josh stormed outside and let the screen-door slam behind him. "It's not my fault."

  Lloyd followed his brother. He slid his arms through the backpack straps and mounted the Triumph. "Dad was no saint. Half the time I didn't get him either. But he believed in us. He wanted a better life for us."

  Josh scratched above his eyebrow. "I can't take it back."
He kicked a rock beside the trailer and nudged his dentures with this thumb. "My problems weren't yours to solve."

  "I know," Lloyd acknowledged to his brother with empathy in his heart.

  "Then why did you take the rap for me?"

  Lloyd turned the ignition key and brought the kickstand up. "What do you want me to say? That I wish it was you who went to prison instead of me? I made the choice for both of us."

  "I never asked you to."

  "That's not the point," said Lloyd. He leaned on the handlebars and nodded at the run-down trailer home. "I tried to give you a second chance. To have a better life—than this. When I went to prison, I expected my world to fall apart. Not yours."

  "I'm happy with my life," said Josh. "I've moved on."

  "Since when? Dad's dead. Mom's trying to drink herself into an early grave. I feel like I'm the only one who cares about this family anymore."

  "What do you expect me to do?"

  "Try a little harder," said Lloyd. "Mom can barely function on her own. The house is falling apart around her. She and Dad did a lot for us. The least we can do is return the favor."

  Josh watched Sheila's Mustang turn into the community entrance. "I have my own family to take care of now. Sheila's taking classes at night to become a nurse. We're trying to scrape enough together for a nice apartment. Someplace big enough for her kid to have his own room." He puffed his cigarette. "I'm sorry for what happened to you. If I could take it back... I was never cut out for prison. You know that. I would have died in there."

  Lloyd pressed the Triumph's starter button. "Part of me already has." He cranked the throttle and took off before Sheila's car reached the mailbox.

  * * *

  Josh crushed out his cigarette and watched his brother ride away. "What took you so long?" he asked Sheila before she exited the red coupe and unfastened the infant car seat.

  Sheila hoisted the groggy baby on her shoulder. "Logan fell asleep in the car after I picked him up from daycare."

  Josh gathered grocery bags from the trunk. "My brother just left."