“Cops are dumb,” Wiz said. “They’ll think they killed each other, right?”
Jen didn’t hear anyone answer as Seth hustled both of them out the back door of the shop and into his car. Jen kept trying to breathe but it felt like nothing would suck into her lungs, like she was in some kind of vacuum. Seth cursed someone on the road as he peeled out of the parking lot. She tried to tell him that something was wrong but nothing came out of her mouth. She looked like a fish out of water, pursing her mouth over and over.
Jen blacked out.
Chapter Six
Bells rang in the distance as the sun sat on a horizon silhouetting a rolling countryside dotted trees and latticed with fences. Jen sat up and could barely see over the waving grass of the prairie she lay in. Facing her, below the horizon, was the open slope of a hill rising gently, but in a way Jen had never seen before. It was like the hill was a bubble that kept curving up and up to the point where you would think it would start to curve over but didn’t.
Somehow the prairie she lay on swept out and down gently for what looked like forever, almost creating another horizon far off in the distance. That was impossible, though. But as Jen stood up and looked around she realized she was in some kind of dream world. Strange lights played out across the clouds in the distance, the distance being a strange way to think of the honey combs of horizons that surrounded her.
Jen, can you hear me?
Seth’s voice came from all around her, reverberating up and through her. It was as if the sound was coming from inside her head and then emanating out into the rest of the dream world.
“Yes!” Jen shouted. “Yes, I can hear you!”
Standing on the prairie the grass came up to around her knees. She remembered the public land in southern Iowa her father and mother used to take her to, how she would chase butterflies and stare at wonder of all the beauty that surrounded her. When there was no reply from Seth, Jen picked a direction and started walking. After a few steps her feet wouldn’t come up from the ground. The sky went black and cracks shot through it.
“Jen! Jen!”
* * * *
Jen woke up on her back in her dojang. Seth had laid her on one of the mats and was cradling her head on his lap.
“She’s awake,” Seth said excitedly. He sounded borderline hysterical. “She’s back! She’s ok!”
“Well let’s not get ahead of ourselves Dr. Seth,” Nate’s sarcastic voice came from somewhere not too far away. “It’s good she is conscious again but that doesn’t mean that she’s all right.”
“She’s probably fine,” Mike’s voice came from next to Nate. “I mean, she didn’t catch a bullet or anything so in the grand scheme of things she is probably going to bounce back.”
Jen squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember what had happened before the dream, it was a blur, though. She vaguely remembered having lunch with someone from the mob, someone named Lars. Then she wondered if she was remembering correctly because it all seemed so surreal: Lars being killed with a camera on a stick by Earl, someone in a Nixon mask gunning Earl down in the shop, Wizard opening up with a double barreled shotgun and ending the guy in the Nixon mask’s life. She remembered make a run to Seth’s car and then that was it.
“What happened after we got in the car?” Jen asked in a weak voice.
“Fucking cops were everywhere,” Nate said. “I’ve never seen so many pigs in this sleepy little town before. You’d think there had been some kind of shoot out or something.”
Someone laughed; it was a voice Jen didn’t recognize.
“Who’s that?” she asked without opening her eyes or turning her head.
“Just the mother fucking Wizard!” Mike said as if he was introducing a superhero. “Did you see the way he took care of business back in the shop? That shit was some fucking righteous indignation for sure!”
There was chuckling and then Wiz answered in his quiet, unassuming voice.
“Had to do what I had to do,” he said. “You know what I mean? Some fucking crazy asshole in a Nixon masks kills Earl and expects to not get both barrels of the sawed off? Fuck no. That’s not how life works. I don’t even like Nixon.”
“Yeah, that mask was enough to rate both barrels,” Nate said. “Put some fucking lead in his body and see how it all shakes out.”
“Well, I don’t think it shook out in his favor,” Wiz said in a sly voice.
“No,” Mike said. “It didn’t.”
The chatter of the three men turned into a drone. Jen opened her eyes a little bit and saw Seth above her, staring down.
“Well hello,” Jen said. “What brings you to my dojang?”
Seth let out a small chuckle and shifted his weight.
“Well, as we left several truck loads of cops showed up. They looked pretty tactical, maybe some kind of SWAT team or quick reaction force with another name, we don’t really know,” Seth explained. “Somehow a fire had started in the Deli. I’m not really sure how or why, probably to do with the panic that stirred when Lars died, followed by the terror of automatic weapons fire making the cooks forget all about the food on the burners.”
Jen’s eyes grew wide as he explained.
“But anyway, we got away fairly clean,” Seth said.
“What about the camera,” Jen asked.
“What do you mean,” Seth replied.
The chatter of the three men nearby them went quiet as they listened.
“Earl was trying to record what was being said and get pictures with the camera,” Jen said. “I have no idea how well it worked, or if it even worked at all. But if it did then it is probably recoverable off the disk itself.”
“Maybe the cops won’t think to check it?” Mike offered.
“No,” Jen said. “Too many people in the deli saw the stupid thing being flailed around through a hole in the wall, and then looked on in shocked amazement as the camera flew down from the ceiling, on a stick, and hit Lars in the head. Lars was trying to jump up and grab it when it hit him!”
“Oh,” Mike said. “See, we don’t know what happened in the deli.”
“Not exactly what happened,” Nate said. “But I have a good idea. I was busy tattooing so I didn’t really notice what Earl was doing. I guess I was aware of him cutting that hole earlier in the day but I thought was for some kind of fan, or electrical work or something.”
Jen sat up, rubbed her head, and looked over at Nate.
“So Earl starts talking about being a secret agent,” Nate continues. “Going on and on about he’s been thinking about how putting a camera on a telescoping pole is the greatest idea he’s ever had.”
“What?” Mike said. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not joking you at all,” Nate replied. “So he digs around his station for a minute and finds this old camera, he must have bought it right when digital cameras first hit the market, and proceeds to tape it to the end of the pole. It must have taken him ten minutes to get the ladder set up right, and then to get up there and slowly feed each section of the thing out into the restaurant.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mike said.
“No shit, right?” Nate said. “So I’m sitting there, working, being like ‘He mother fucker, you aren’t really a secret agent, you are just some fucking jerk off who tattoos.’ But he didn’t listen. He knew everything, just like he always does.”
Silence fell over the room for a moment.
“Did,” Wiz said.
“Huh?” Mike said.
“Did, not does,” Wiz said. “He’s gone now. Ain’t around to do it anymore.”
“Yeah,” Nate said. “Earl was a crazy fuck but I guess I probably will miss his ass in some weird way.”
“He took out that Lars guy before he went,” Seth said. “I mean, sure it was the wrong thing to do and he probably didn’t even mean to do it but at the same time at least there is that.”
“Speaking of which,” Nate said, his eyes narrowing on Jen. “What exactly did
he say to you before getting taken out by a camera on a stick? And how the hell did that even happen?”
“Lars, and everyone saw the camera and Lars climbed up on the table and was trying to get jump up and grab the camera,” Jen said.
Nate paused for a moment to glance and Mike and Wiz before speaking again.
“I think we may not be dealing with the mob here,” Nate said. “Maybe we are, but think about it. So this Lars guy comes out of nowhere to talk to you, right? Did he speak in vagaries to you like I expect he did?”
Jen sat on the mat and thought for a moment before answering.
“He just talked about how he wasn’t exactly in charge but he did have some power and... yes, you’re right. Nothing was really concrete. As far as I know he wasn’t even the guy I was supposed to talk to,” Jen said.
“Not to minimize how cool it is that you took out that one guy that appeared in your laundry place,” Mike said. “But if you had killed someone in the mob don’t you think there would be some kind of retaliation?”
Jen looked down at the mat she was sitting on for awhile before answering, tracing one of its logos with a finger tip.
“I’d wondered about that actually,” Jen said quietly.
“Well, what do you think is going on?” Seth asked. “Some guy in a Nixon mask just tore Earl in half with a machine gun, so there’s that.”
“Why in the fuck did that happen?” Nate asked. “Doesn’t that seem weird to you? Someone in the mob wouldn’t just walk into the shop and kill the first person they saw. That is some straight up amateur hour shit.”
“I’d not thought of that,” Jen said. “Maybe you guys are on to something here. Despite me not having any real notion of what the mob is, I imagine that there are at least a few of them, not just one or two. Also it would seem like they should have more resources than what they are capable of using. Sure, it is a little scary to leave me notes written in bloody letters on my wall but at the same time could that be any more low-brow?”
“So far we’ve only seen four guys,” Nate asked. “Correct?”
“Two, no three, of which are now deceased,” Wiz said.
“Well, the one that just talk to Jen at her work could have been the guy in the Nixon mask,” Seth said.
“Hmmmmm,” Mike said. “An interesting thing to think about. If not some kind of criminal ‘mob’ type thing than what?”
“It could be anyone, or anything,” Seth said. “Maybe it’s just a small group of friends trying to make a buck on the sly. If this had all gone smoothly from the start they would have made a pretty penny with little or no effort at all.”
“That’s true,” Nate said. “They could have pulled out a loan to cover the cost of purchasing the property and then turned around and flipped it before interest even had time to accrue if the sale was locked on ahead of time.”
“They couldn’t afford to buy the business, though,” Jen said. “That was one of the things Lars and I were going to talk about before Earl’s contraption got everyone’s attention. Not that it matters so much now, considering that Lars is dead and that the Nixon mask-wearing guy is also dead, but even though the property isn’t worth that much I wouldn’t sell the building without the business going with it. It’s just too much of a burden on me to relocate. If I sold the building I would want enough money that I felt compensated for my business because I most likely would move away to a bigger city and start over again.”
“Move away and start over,” Seth said, sitting Indian style on the mat across from her. “Man, does that sound great.”
“All in time, my little apprentice,” Mike said with a wink. “All in time. First we have to take care of this shit before we get our heads in the clouds about anything else.”
Jen stopped listening and started stretching out. She was in yoga pants and a sweatshirt so her jeans weren’t restricting her movement. Jen could tell Seth had started stretching out as well by the way the weight on the floor shifted as he leaned over one of his extended legs and gingerly tried to touch his toes.
“Ah, look at you two,” Wiz said. “Being all cute and shit. Maybe we should all stretch out?”
Jen couldn’t help but blush a little bit as she kept stretching with Seth beside her trying his best to limber up. He obviously didn’t spend a whole lot of time trying to loosen up his muscles judging from the sounds he was making as he reached for his toes.
“I’m going to head back to the shop,” Mike said. “Now that I’m the sole owner of it I should probably go have a look and see what the cops did to clean it up, or if they stole anything. I’ll probably have to go down to the station and tell them we have no idea what is going on.”
“Do you think it will be that easy to deny?” Seth said.
“Hell if I know,” Mike said. “I’m not the cops and that’s what I plan on telling them. It isn’t my fault that evidently this town has some extremely dangerous and corrupt mother fuckers running amok and the police have no idea what’s going on. Maybe they should spend less time busting drunks and harassing dope smokers so they can focus a little bit more on violent crimes. You know? Maybe the victimless crimes are the ones that can be pushed back when it comes to the order of investigation. But what do I know. I’m just some guy that owns a shop and tattoos. Obviously I have no sense at all.”
“What about the gun in Earl’s hand?” Jen asked. “I mean, how are you going to explain why we all left?”
“My client is going to keep his mouth shut,” Nate said. “And besides that we are just going to say that we were out for lunch. Remember how Wiz, Mike and Seth were all out for lunch? I’ll just say I was with them.”
Mike picked up for Nate.
“Earl was in the shop alone,” Mike said. “Who knows what he was doing with that camera on a stick, but I’m sure it was just him being goofy. Earl was a good humored guy. Well, some shit happens in the deli and then some Nixon character bursts in? I guess Earl was ready for him. The commotion from the deli must have tipped him off that something was up and he ran and got the sawed off from under the counter.”
“Aren’t sawed off shotguns illegal though?” Jen asked.
“Hey, it was Earl’s,” Nate said. “Talk to him about it.”
The group of three men headed out the door, careful to wait for Seth to lock it behind them before leaving.
“They moved the stuff from the safe into your office, by the way,” Seth said. “Mostly money and a few guns. Nothing crazy.”
“Uh, OK I guess,” Jen said.
“I’m just telling you so it isn’t a surprise when you walk in your office is all,” Seth said.
They were alone now in the area matted for students to be comfortable stretching out on, the door to her office on one side of the room. A heavy bag swung from the ceiling; behind it, work out machines lined the wall. The set up looked like too much space when there was no one there using it but Jen knew better. There really wasn’t enough, and students ended up crowding into the back room, especially the adults.
“I should probably cancel classes today,” Jen said.
“You might be able to work them in,” Seth said. “How involved are they?”
“I could have someone else run the classes for me but I’m not sure I want to, considering how someone just busted into your shop and shot the first person they saw to death,” Jen said.
“That’s a good point,” Seth said. “But to be fair Earl did just kill someone with a camera on a stick and when that guy threw the door open and barged in there Earl stood, with a telescoping stick in his hands that had a camera taped onto the end.”
Jen couldn’t help but smirk, then start laughing.
“I’m sorry,” Jen said, trying to hold her laughter in with her hand. “I know I shouldn’t laugh. Maybe it’s just my nerves but I can’t stop.”
A smile slid easily across Seth’s face.
“It is pretty funny,” he said. “I mean, only Earl kills a man with a camera contraption and then dies i
mmediately after with the stupid thing still in his hands.”
“Was it still in his hands?” Jen asked.
“I’m not positive, but it might as well have been,” Seth said.
Jen stood to make her way over to some of the machines. She liked to use the pull up machine to stretch out and was excited so she hopped up instead of getting up slowly, not realizing how out of it she still was. Jen let out a gasp as she started to grey out and her legs felt wobbly.
“Help me Seth!” Jen said. “I think I’m going to faint!”
Seth had to jump and wrap his arms around her to keep her from free falling back to the mat.
“Are you all right?” Seth asked. “You don’t look so well.”
Seth helped her to lie down on the mat, resting her head in his lap.
“Can you massage my head?” Jen asked in a sweet voice. “I remember your hands being really soft the other night.”
Seth made a strange face for a second before he started to massage Jen’s temple and scalp.
“Why did you make that face?” Jen asked. “Are you still upset at how I acted after? I was just scared, OK? I mean, I kind of li—”
“No need to say sorry anymore,” Seth interrupted. “I get that sometimes people get a little freaked out.”
Jen reached up and stroked the side of Seth’s face.
“I just want you to know how sorry I am that I did that,” Jen said. “It wasn’t fair to you at all and I wasn’t even thinking. I was just in blind panic mode, looking for some way to not process my feelings and there was one. I would just hurt you and hopefully you would go away, you’d be so hurt that you’d leave me alone and never be nice to me again.”
“I understand,” Seth said quietly.
“I hope so,” Jen said. “I really do. I wish I could go back and change everything. I wish I could go back and be sweet to you after, give you a massage or something like that.”
Seth smiled at her, making the corners of his eyes wrinkle in the cutest way.
Knights Templar (Sean) Page 8