Bad Citizen Corporation

by S. W. Lauden

  “Just a feeling. I know you guys have done business together. Is there any bad blood there? Anything that might have set him off?”

  Mikey tensed his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. It looked as though thinking caused him physical pain. Greg and Eddie exchanged impatient looks, giving him time to respond.

  “No. Nothing I can think of. What about your old drummer friend, Marco? He seems like trouble.”

  “He wouldn’t have any reason to harm Junior and Chris.”

  “How do you know?” Greg could see that Mikey was slowly coming out of his shock-induced stupor. “If I had to pick one person who was capable of something like this—”

  “Because he’s been staying with me. He’s at my apartment right now, detoxing.”

  “About time.” Eddie seemed more annoyed than supportive. “That kid’s a mess.”

  Greg stood up and wandered over to the front door.

  “Who else then?”

  The front yard was dark now that the police cars had left. He could see the misshapen outline of the El Camino where it was parked on the street.

  “I need to go make a few phone calls. Are either of you staying here tonight? In case they come back.”

  “I’ll stay. You and Mikey should go home and get some rest.” There was steel in Eddie’s voice “Whoever did this won’t be coming back for me. They got what they wanted.”

  Greg gave him a concerned look.

  “No. You’re probably right.”

  “I’ll call if there’s any news, and you do the same. Let’s meet at the bar tomorrow morning and regroup if they don’t turn up in the meantime.”

  Mikey stood up and helped Eddie double check that all of the doors and windows in the house were locked. The three men said their goodbyes. Greg triple checked that the front door was secure once Eddie closed it. Mikey was already down the steps and on the lawn, waiting.

  “I bet you’re a really good cop, Greg.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I just never got a chance to see you take charge like that. It’s pretty impressive.”

  “Thanks, Mikey. Listen. We’ll find them. Just go home and get some rest if you can. Tomorrow might be a long day and we’ll need everybody to be ready for absolutely anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  They split up at the sidewalk, but Mikey stopped.

  “What makes you think I’ve done business with Barrett?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Barrett. You mentioned inside that he and I had done business together. What makes you think that?”

  Greg knew that he had said too much, but hoped it had gone unnoticed.

  “I just assumed. He’s the biggest contractor in town and you’re the biggest developer.”

  “Huh. Makes sense. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He waited for Mikey to drive away and then pulled his phone out. He punched in a number and waited while it rang.

  “Hello? Chief? It’s Greg. I have a favor to ask.”

  ›

  Marco jumped to his feet the minute Greg walked through the door.

  “Everything cool?”

  “Junior and Chris are missing. Eddie went over to pick them up for dinner and the door was wide open. There was no sign of them.”

  “Sounds like you and I need to go find Barrett, like right fucking now.”

  “I don’t know. Mikey was there and he thought I was crazy for even suspecting Barrett.”

  “I don’t trust either of those dudes. Who else could it be?”

  “I know a few other people who are capable of something like this. I’m having that checked out right now. In the meantime...”

  Greg tossed his phone across the room. It landed on the bed with a soft thud. Marco picked it up and saw a thread of texts between Greg and Quincy. The last one was a telephone number.

  “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “Call that number and tell Barrett you have his documents. Tell him you want him to meet us at his job yard in thirty minutes.”

  “What if he doesn’t answer?”

  “Leave a message. My guess is he’ll call us back.”

  Marco gave Greg a searching look and then tapped the screen. He kept his eyes on his roommate as the phone rang on the other end. Marco raised his eyebrows when Barrett actually picked up.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Barrett. Sup, bro? It’s Marco.”

  “How’d you get this number you little shit?”

  “I have something of yours. Meet me at your office in half an hour. And come alone.”

  Greg could hear Barrett screaming as Marco lifted the phone and tapped ‘End Call’.

  “Come alone? Nice touch.”

  They climbed into the car and sped across town. He killed the lights a half block before Barrett’s yard and quietly rolled up outside the gates. They immediately heard two men yelling.

  “Sounds like it’s coming from inside his office.”

  “I recognize Barrett’s voice. Who’s he fighting with?”

  “I don’t know. He definitely didn’t come alone.”

  “Maybe they were already here when you called. Come on.”

  Greg slipped out of the car and shut the door quietly. Marco joined him out in the dark street. They trotted over to the fence that ran around the reservoir. Greg webbed his hands together to help Marco climb. Marco shunned Greg’s offer of help and scaled it on his own. He was noisier than Greg would have liked, but luckily the screaming had just flared back up. Greg was coming over the wobbly chain link just as his partner dropped down on the other side. The suburban lights were shimmering on the water as they moved up the path to the back of Barrett’s yard.

  “What exactly is the plan here?”

  “We go take a look around to see if there’s any sign of Junior and Chris. Then we figure out who Barrett’s yelling at in there.”

  Soon they were both skulking across the yard, hiding behind cement mixers and backhoes as they went. They were about fifty feet from Barrett’s office building. Greg told Marco to go around the side of the building to investigate. He waited for his partner to disappear into the shadows before heading for the yellow light that spilled from the office window.

  Greg reached the wall and pressed his back against the cool bricks. He was a few feet from the window and could see a little movement inside. He inched along the wall until he was under the sill. The screaming had stopped and it smelled like somebody was smoking a cigarette. He popped his head up to take a quick peek inside and saw the back of Barrett’s leather chair. A pair of sneakers was propped up on the desk and a thin line of white smoke drifted up into the air. A second man was sitting on the other side of the desk typing on his phone, his face obscured by the back of Barrett’s chair.

  Greg slid under the window and tried to get a better view through the dusty screen. Somebody slid a hand around his mouth and he went stiff. He turned and drove his forearm into his attacker’s throat only to discover Marco smiling back at him. One of the men inside the office slid the window open. Greg and Marco ducked to avoid being seen, but listened carefully to the conversation overhead.

  “I don’t know how you can still smoke. Quitting was the best thing I ever did.”

  The first voice was familiar, but the man was still seated on the far side of the desk. Greg found it hard to place.

  “I only smoke when I’m stressed out. Where the hell is he?”

  “He called the meeting. My guess is he’ll be here any minute.”

  “I hope so. This has gone on long enough.”

  “Keep your cool, Jeff. You got yourself into this situation in the first place.”

  “He knows way too much!”

  “Calm down. We have no idea what he knows. He’s half brain-dead anyway.
”

  “What if he gets his boyfriend involved?”

  “Who, Greg? We’ll cross that particular bridge when we come to it.”

  They didn’t know Greg was there. So far, so good. Greg found the thought reassuring as he inched up the wall to get a better look. He leaned to the right and took a peek inside of the room. Barrett was still in the same position, but now the other man was in plain view. It was Officer Bob. His gun was on the desk in front of him, right next to his badge.

  Greg leaned back against the wall and tried to collect his thoughts. The pieces still weren’t coming together when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Barrett heard it too, and rushed to the window.

  “Did you hear that?”

  There was a shuffling of feet inside the office. Greg pushed the mute button on his phone from the outside of his pants. He could see a face pressed up against the screen from inside the office. The featureless profile looked like something from a horror movie. Greg and Marco both held their breath and tried to fade into the bricks.

  Officer Bob’s voice was clear as a bell.

  “You’re getting paranoid.”

  “Go to hell.”

  The bulge in the screen eventually receded. Greg put his arm across Marco’s chest to hold him in place. He wanted to be sure that they weren’t walking into a trap. A minute passed before the conversation in the office started up again. Greg gave Marco a little shove toward the far end of the building. He followed close on his heels.

  “Who’s in there?”

  Marco was whispering so quietly that Greg had to lean in to hear him.

  “Officer Bob.”

  “No way. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes sense to me. I’ve never trusted that guy.”

  “Do you still want me to go in there?”

  “I think that would be a suicide mission. I saw a gun on the desk.”

  “I always thought I’d get offed by a cop, but not like this.”

  Greg ignored the dramatic bravado.

  “I don’t think Barrett has Junior and Chris. At least not in his office. We should just get out of here.”

  “Back home?”

  “Back to Ricky’s rehearsal space.”

  ›

  The phone rang several times on the drive over. Greg ignored the buzzing and beeping, wondering why he thought it was a good idea to have Marco call Barrett from his phone. He was thankful that his outgoing message was just an impersonal robot voice that recited his phone number. He grabbed the rehearsal space key that Ricky’s mom had given him from the glove compartment and handed it to Marco.

  “Go unlock the door. I need to text somebody.”

  Marco got out without saying a word. Greg knew the lack of sleep was catching up with his partner. He grabbed the phone from the dashboard and tapped out a response to one of Barrett’s many messages.

  Change of plans. Meet me at Eddie’s tomorrow at 11. He was about to hit send, but decided to add another line. He really needed a laugh. Come alone.

  The parking lot and building were mostly empty. Muffled thumps and distorted strumming were coming from a couple of the other studios upstairs. Greg could hear the metal door creaking and grinding as Marco pushed it up. Ricky’s boxes were stacked up inside of the room on both sides, just as Marco had left them. The rest of the rehearsal space was pitch black beyond that. Marco stepped into the void with his hand groping blindly along the wall in search of a light switch.

  “What’s the problem? We were just here.”

  “It was still daytime, dude. I never had to turn the lights on.”

  “It’s probably an overhead bulb. Look for a chain dangling in the middle of the room.”

  Marco exhaled a stream of expletives as he banged his shin into the edge of an amplifier. The low watt bulb came on a few seconds later, casting a pale orange glow across the clutter. The room looked just like every other low rent rehearsal space the world over. Thick layers of mismatched carpet were tacked to the walls and the ceiling, leaving the room devoid of both echoes and breathable air. A basic drum set was tucked tight into the back corner, directly opposite a coffin-sized bass amplifier. Smaller guitar amps of varying sizes lined the interior walls on both sides. Guitars stood at attention nearby. Microphone stands tilted at angles through the center of the room on top of a stained and tattered Indian rug. Greg spotted a small desk and headed for it.

  “I haven’t been in a rehearsal room for a really long time. It smells even worse than the motel did.”

  “Four sweaty guys and no air conditioning. Recipe for disaster.”

  Greg slid the chair out from under the desk and took a seat. A small mixing board occupied most of the flat surface on top, cables springing from the back. He pulled drawers open to inspect what was inside, quickly discovering Ricky’s simple system—band paperwork on the left, contractor paperwork on the right.

  He thumbed through several file folders and got a glimpse of how hard Ricky’s job had been. There were twelve thick folders labeled “Bids,” and only one thin folder labeled “Invoices.” The band drawers had even less to offer. Just a couple of half empty tour diaries and rubber-banded receipt bundles.

  Greg was reaching to pull open the top drawer when Marco laid into a cacophonous drum roll. It sounded like pots and pans clattering down a concrete stairwell. The sudden shock sent Greg out of his chair and under the desk. He brought his hands up to cover his ears just as Marco ended with a series of staccato cymbal crashes. The tip of a broken drumstick nicked Greg’s neck as it spun through the air like a bullet.

  “Dude! What the fuck?”

  “Sorry. It’s been a few years. I didn’t realize how much I missed playing.”

  Greg shook his head dismissively and turned his attention back to the desk, a pronounced ringing in his ears. The penholder at the lip of the drawer was filled with guitar picks of various shapes and sizes. Deeper inside he discovered a couple of skateboarding magazines and a legal pad covered with handwritten song lyrics. He lifted the yellow pad up and flipped through some of the pages. It was difficult to read his friend’s half finished thoughts.

  Greg saw the folded sheets of white paper when he put the lyrics back down. He opened the one on top and immediately recognized the ridiculous layout and Sex Pistols font. It wasn’t long ago that he discovered a note like this on his own windshield.

  Hope you had fun last night. I got the whole thing on video.

  xoxo,

  Your Biggest Fan

  There were nine notes in all, each one of them a little more aggressive than the last.

  Have a great show with Freddie D. tomorrow night. It’s gonna be your last one ever.

  xoxo,

  Your Biggest Fan

  Marco came up behind him and started reading over his shoulder.

  “Dude, are you all right?”

  “Ricky knew he was going to die.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Monday mornings weren’t normally busy at Eddie’s L Bar. They might get a couple of regulars looking for a quiet place to watch the news, but not much more than that. Eddie would use the downtime to do inventory and place orders for the rest of the week. He only really kept the doors open so that he might have some company.

  But this Monday was different. All the stools at the bar were occupied when Greg and Marco walked in. The scene reminded Greg of his Monday morning “all hands” meetings at VHPD. They recognized a few of the regulars, including Roger and Bill, but they were permanent fixtures. Several of the other people in the crowd had taken off of work to offer their help in searching for Junior and Chris. Marco stopped to speak with one of the small groups that were huddled along the bar hatching plans for their search parties. Another team was creating missing persons fliers on their laptop computers and devising a distribution plan. Greg could see from the look on
Eddie’s face that he was deeply moved by the show of support.

  “Quite a turnout, Eddie. Any word?”

  They had already spoken several times that morning, so Greg thought he knew the answer. Eddie just shook his head in response. Greg gave him a pat on the back and they made their way through the crowd together.

  “I’m hoping to get an update from Officer Bob in the next few minutes.”

  Greg decided to bite his tongue. He wasn’t sure that Officer Bob was involved in the kidnapping, so Eddie didn’t need to hear his half-baked theories. Not yet. Greg needed to hear from the Police Chief in Virgil Heights first before he could plan his next move.

  “What has he had to report so far?”

  “Just the usual bureaucratic double talk. ‘I have my best men on it,’ ‘Most missing persons cases end up just being a misunderstanding,’ blah blah blah.”

  They reached the end of the bar just as Mikey walked in the side door. It looked like he hadn’t slept much the night before either. Greg was surprised to find Marco at his side when Mikey greeted them.

  “Wow. I wasn’t expecting this.”

  “Word got out pretty quick. I started getting calls with offers of help first thing this morning. Of course, offering free drinks didn’t hurt. You thirsty?”

  “Maybe a Bloody Mary.”

  Eddie ducked behind the bar as Mikey climbed onto the last remaining stool. Greg and Marco took an elbow on either side of him. They had to stand close in order to hear each other over the noise in the bar that morning. Mikey kept giving nervous glances around the room, drumming an uneven rhythm on the bar as he waited for his drink.

  “Any word from Barrett?”

  “I think you have the wrong impression about Jeff and me. We’ve done a little work together, but we aren’t close.”

  Marco was standing behind Mikey. He gave Greg a nod and pulled a face. Greg kept his eyes on Mikey.

  “I just thought that maybe—”

  “Whatever you’re thinking about me and Barrett, it’s wrong. The truth is I don’t really trust the guy.”

  Eddie dropped a pint glass full of ice down in front of Mikey and emptied the contents of his shaker into it. The red liquid poured out thick, little black flecks of pepper clinging to the inside of the glass. He topped it off with an olive and wedge of lime impaled on a small plastic sword. Greg could see Marco eyeballing the tempting concoction and coughed to get his attention.