Floodgate

by Johnny Shaw

  “I’m out of quarters,” Andy said.

  “Joe Sullivan.”

  They both turned. Agnes had left the interrogation room. She was drying her hands with a dish towel. There was a speck of blood on her shirt collar.

  “His name is ‘Cemetery Joe’ Sullivan. Which is a funny name, because he’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 21

  People that think violence is bad have no understanding of what violence is. They live in a nonviolent world, no different than a child that hates the spinach he’s never tasted.

  —From Talbot Cantrell’s written statement. Cantrell, an aikido instructor, put four members of a college fraternity in the hospital after they jumped him outside the Auction City homosexual bar Salted Nuts. No charges were filed against the men. Cantrell served eight years in prison (1971).

  “Agnes, where’s your restraint?” Kate Girard shouted. “Killing him was the exact opposite of what we need.”

  “Does this happen a lot?” Andy asked. “Her killing people? You people killing people?”

  Agnes laughed. Or what Andy assumed was a laugh, a quick exhale out her nose and a hand covering her teeth. Her eyes were definitely laughing, and not in a not-insane way.

  “It’s not funny,” Kate said. “We’ve talked about this.”

  “I see what I said. Why you think . . .” Agnes said, still laughing. “The man is alive. In the room, he is living. But also he is dead.”

  “What is he? Schrödinger’s cat?” Andy said.

  Kate stared at her. “Is this one of your riddles?”

  “No, but I learned a new one. It was written in a bathroom for men,” Agnes said. “What’s the difference between a Peeping Tom and a pickpocket?”

  Kate blinked and took in a deep breath. “We’re on a schedule, Agnes. What do you mean by ‘but also he is dead’?”

  Agnes looked confused. “You don’t want to know the answer to the riddle?”

  “No,” Kate said. “This is considerably more important.”

  “It feels undone.” Agnes shrugged, looking disappointed. “Mr. Cemetery Joe was serving a life sentence for murder in the Sweetbriar State Penitentiary. Convicted of one murder, but he admitted to killing a dozen other people to me. A freelance gunman. Eight years into his sentence, he died in a prison fire.”

  “I remember that fire,” Andy said. “From a couple months ago. He used the fire to escape?”

  “In a way,” she said. “Before the fire, a deal had been struck. He would be released from the prison, evidence would be manufactured to suggest his death, and he would gain safe passage out of the country.”

  “In exchange, he kills me?” Andy said. “Seems like a lot of work to hire one assassin. Especially in this city.”

  “If you were the only target, it would be ridiculous,” Agnes said. “He was given a list. Each with individual bounties.”

  “People do like complicated plans,” Andy said. “‘Here’s some money, shoot a guy’ feels plain.”

  “Why not cut and run?” Kate said. “The man’s free.”

  “Greed and fear,” Agnes said. “Each name on the list had a monetary value for him. Retirement in Argentina costs money.”

  “Who hired him to kill me?” Andy asked.

  “Mr. Cemetery Joe didn’t know who orchestrated the escape or gave him the list,” Agnes said. “He might have lied about not knowing, but that’s not realistic in terms of the experience that we went through together just now.”

  “It’s Gray or Robinson,” Andy said.

  “However the arrangement was presented to him,” Agnes said, “he feared his employer enough to go through with the plan and trusted them enough to hold up their end of the deal.”

  “How do we find out who was on that list?” Kate asked.

  “The man is not bright,” she said. “His memory shaken. I struck him with a brick. It may be lost. He did remember my picture. And the archbishop’s.”

  “If he didn’t know who hired him,” Andy asked, “how did they communicate? Pass notes in home ec class?”

  “He made contact through two guards. I have their names.”

  “We need to talk to them,” Kate said.

  “Wait a minute,” Andy said. “He couldn’t have killed Hector Costales. He’s been here all day.”

  “Oh, hell.” Kate turned to Agnes.

  “I was getting to that,” Agnes said. “He was not the only convict that died in that fire.”

  Kate dug through one of the Floodgate file cabinets. Andy thumbed through his own. He wondered if their system was better than his. He doubted it. It was a strange thing to be competitive about, but Andy had to take his wins where he could get them.

  Agnes watched them both, humming softly to herself. It made Andy uncomfortable, but there wasn’t anything Agnes could do that wouldn’t make him nervous.

  “You never told us, Agnes,” Andy said. “What’s the difference between a pickpocket and a Peeping Tom?”

  Kate exhaled and shook her head.

  Agnes smiled broadly. “A pickpocket snatches watches. It’s funny, yes?”

  Andy chuckled. He’d heard the joke before, but he wanted to do everything he could to make friends with the scary lady.

  “Can you explain the joke to me? I do not understand it,” she said. “Is it why Rocco taking your watch was funny? Explain, please.”

  Andy gave Kate a desperate look. She shrugged.

  Luckily, Andy found the file and didn’t have to answer. “Here it is!” he shouted triumphantly, pulling out the newspaper report of the Sweetbriar prison fire. He spread the paper out on a table. Extensive coverage with photos.

  Andy read aloud, blah-blah-blahing through the details of the fire. They weren’t important. An entire cellblock had to be evacuated. Six men died in the fire. The six men’s names read like a psychopath’s Christmas card list. Pictures accompanied the short bios of the dead men. Mean faces and dumb mugs. Not one of them looked like someone you would want to meet in a dark anything.

  RONALD MARK HENRY, also known as the “Thief River Killer.” For three years, he terrorized the Castles and the surrounding area. Serving consecutive life sentences for the murders of seven women and three men. The subject of the movie Thief River, starring Harrison Monroe.

  NORMAN HOPEWELL, former marine. Received Purple Heart and Silver Star medals from the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Serving a life sentence for the for-hire murders of three union officials.

  IPO KAHULAMU, former army munitions expert. Radical member of the short-lived Hawaiian Secessionist Movement. Serving multiple life sentences for the Lourey Station bombing of 1972 that killed seven people and injured fifty-eight.

  JOSEPH SULLIVAN, also known as Cemetery Joe, a self-described freelance enforcer. Serving a life sentence for the murder of off-duty FBI agent Martin Gonzalez.

  LOUIS WELLS, career criminal and half of the team responsible for the six-day siege of the downtown branch of the Auction Savings & Loan in 1981. Serving thirty years for assault, attempted murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery.

  STUART WELLS, twin brother of Louis Wells. Serving thirty years for the same crimes as his brother. The siblings had been at separate prisons, but Louis had recently been transferred to Sweetbriar.

  “Other than the Hawaiian, I know these people,” Kate said. “They are bad men. Hopewell the marine ran mercenaries overseas for the CIA. Settled in Auction and pretty much ran a mini-army. He will be the leader. Considering the precision of the Hector Costales hit, Hopewell most likely ran that operation. Probably with Stu and Lou Wells as his second and third guns.”

  “Ronald Mark Henry doesn’t make sense,” Andy said. “He’s not a pro. He’s a serial killer.”

  “Unless the whole plan is to create chaos,” Kate said. “Who knows what Gray was doing?”

  “Great, I killed the Bond villain, but all his henchmen are running around doing his bidding,” Andy said. “So how do we find Oddjob, Nick Nack, Jaws, and the others?”

>   Andy peered into the small window of the holding cell. Cemetery Joe Sullivan faced the wall, standing an inch from it, his nose almost touching. His body shook as he wept. He didn’t look hurt. The trauma something deeper.

  Agnes walked behind Andy.

  “The man tried to kill you,” she said.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Kate calls it ‘the old-time religion.’”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s in no condition,” Agnes said.

  “I want to know why he went after me,” Andy said. “If he had a list of targets, why me?”

  “All the other ones had higher bounties,” Agnes said. “He figured he’d work from the bottom up.”

  “Trying to kill me is one thing,” Andy said. “That’s just insulting.”

  CHAPTER 22

  It ain’t about the law, Scooters. Or the police or the lawyers or the judges. It’s about that blind broad in front of the courthouse. All said and done, everyone gets theirs. Lady Justice, she’s the one we answer to. The wrong don’t got no rights.

  —From the comic strip character Hawk Shaw to his faithful boy sidekick, Scooters MacGregor, after defeating archvillain Bang Pow, the “Oriental Moriarty of Auction City.” Written by Carter Stanz. Art by Fisk (1947).

  One phone call to the Sweetbriar State Penitentiary for Men quickly revealed that Connor Beauchamp and Frank Whittle, the two prison guards Cemetery Joe had named as the men who’d carried out his escape, hadn’t shown up for their scheduled shifts that morning. The likelihood that they’d both caught the flu on the same day seemed remote.

  The two men lived a convenient three blocks from each other in Blackstreet Hollow, an upper-middle-class neighborhood slightly too upper and too middle for a prison guard. It suggested crooked money in the same way that Gallows Terrace suggested dump trucks full of crooked money. The commute to the prison was at least an hour each way, although plenty of people drove farther for a good school district and a larger-than-average backyard.

  Kate coordinated with Rocco. He would grab Ben and hit Beauchamp’s house, while Kate and Andy braced Whittle. The guards were only pawns in the whole scheme. Agnes’s presence would be overkill. She went to help Pilar tamp down the gangs’ response to the Costales hit and oversee their selection for a new leader of Consolidated.

  Frank Whittle lived in a one-story ranch house on a cul-de-sac. The kind of neighborhood with tire swings and kids riding their bikes in the summer. Wind chimes hung from the eave near the front door, tinkling in the breeze. A late-model Trans Am sat in the driveway, black with a gold eagle on the hood, a pine air freshener hanging from its rearview. It was the kind of a car a man loved and always described as “cherry” or “boss.”

  Andy and Kate sat in a town car across the street, watching the front door. It continued to do its job of being a front door. Quietly and solidly efficient in its doorlike qualities.

  “Are we going to go in there? Talk to him?” Andy said. “Or are we going to sit here?”

  “You’re anxious to get going?”

  “There’s a group of convicts on the loose in Auction. They got a list of targets that my name’s on. Not going to sleep too well knowing that,” Andy said. “I might’ve got brought in without asking, but I’m in it now.”

  Kate reached for the door handle.

  “I need a weapon,” Andy said. “I can’t go in there with nothing to defend myself.”

  Kate thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” Andy said, “but every time I don’t shoot someone, that’s on your conscience.”

  They kept it casual. No reason to go SWAT team on the situation. Up the walkway and to the front door, two normal people visiting a friend.

  With one hand on the butt of the pistol beneath her jacket, Kate gave the door three hard raps. A loud thud echoed from inside. A muffled voice. Glass breaking.

  Kate drew her weapon, shot the doorknob twice, and kicked in the door. Andy would have rushed in right behind her, but he was so impressed by the fluidity of her actions and the badassery of it all that he found himself staring in awe for a few extra seconds.

  In the living room, a heavyset man hung from a ceiling beam, an extension cord wrapped around his neck. The man clawed at the cord, his face dark red, fat tongue sticking out of his gasping mouth. His eyes bulged with fear and asphyxiation.

  “Help him,” Kate said, heading in the direction of the garage.

  Andy grabbed the man around the knees and lifted. He felt something pop in his back and an electric shock down his left leg that couldn’t have been good. He held on through the pain. Spit rained down on Andy as Frank Whittle frantically took in air.

  “Help me,” Whittle croaked. “Help.”

  “What the hell do you think I’m doing, you fat bastard?”

  Two gunshots echoed through the house, coming from the garage.

  Both men got quiet. Though he needed air, Andy felt Whittle hold his breath. They both had a clear view of the door to the garage. Whittle rested his butt on Andy’s shoulder, essentially sitting on him. The position didn’t hold the most dignity, but it made it easier for Andy to keep him aloft.

  “If anyone but the woman I came with walks through that door,” Andy said, “I’m going to let go of you and run like hell.”

  “No, no, no,” Whittle said.

  “I will,” Andy said. “I thought you should know, so it wasn’t a surprise.”

  “Please don’t.”

  They stared at the door and waited. Nothing else to do. Andy scanned the room for a weapon. He would try for the front door, but in a pinch the fireplace poker would have to do. Maybe he could knock the bullets out of the air.

  Both men exhaled audibly when Kate walked through the door.

  “What happened? Are you okay?” Andy asked, his words stumbling into each other.

  She nodded, but the hand with her pistol in it shook. “He drew on me.”

  “Dead?”

  She shook her head. “Slipped under the garage door. I winged him.”

  “You need to help me here,” Andy said. “This guy is made out of whatever happens when you mix doughnuts and Burgie.”

  “Hey,” Whittle said. “I have a slow metabolism.”

  Kate grabbed a chair from the dining room. She worked on the cord around Whittle’s neck. Two cracked fingernails later, she got it off. Without the cord doing the work, Andy’s balance got thrown off. Whittle fell off his shoulder, landing on the coffee table and collapsing it like a cartoon, the table’s legs splayed to the side.

  Whittle sat up, one hand rubbing his bruised throat, the other holding his lower back.

  “Frank Whittle,” Kate said. “You’re not safe here.”

  “No kidding, lady,” Whittle said. “What is this about?”

  “The Sweetbriar Prison fire,” Kate said. “The hangman was a police officer. More will be coming. To finish what they started.”

  “You recognize the cop?”

  “Hamish Thornton,” she said. “Confirms Gray or Robinson as the mastermind behind this. The Thorntons are loyalists.”

  “Of course it was a Thornton,” Andy said.

  “Connor,” Whittle said to himself, scrambling to his feet but falling back down. “If this is about Sweetbriar, they’ll come after Connor, too.”

  It was less than a minute’s drive to Connor Beauchamp’s split-level. They could hear sirens in the distance. No doubt responding to the gunfire at Whittle’s house.

  The ice cream truck that Andy had seen at the candy factory was parked out front. Two ten-year-old girls knocked on the window and tried to peer inside.

  Whittle was out of the car first, surprisingly fast for a fat man.

  “Damn it,” Kate said. “Grab him.”

  The front door opened before they got to him. Kate reached for her gun. Rocco walked out, holding the doorknob and shaking his head. Whittle stopped in his tracks.

  �
�You don’t want to go in there,” Rocco said.

  “Who are you?” Whittle asked, trying to look past him.

  “I’m the guy who didn’t get here in time.”

  Whittle fell to his knees. He turned to Andy and Kate as if he didn’t understand, but he understood all too well. His eyes filled with tears, a low moan bubbling in the back of his throat.

  Rocco walked to Whittle and helped him up by one elbow. He put an arm around his shoulder. The fat man dug his face into Rocco’s chest. Rocco let him.

  “I need to see him,” Whittle said, but there was no fight left in him. He made no effort to move closer to the house.

  “No,” Rocco said. “No, you don’t. No good would come of that.”

  Rocco walked the lost man past Andy and Kate to the ice cream truck. He opened the back and helped the big man inside. Andy and Kate moved closer but kept their distance. The two girls watched with interest but said nothing.

  “Connor,” Whittle said. “He was a gentle man. Not what people thought. Gentle.”

  “I’m sure he was,” Rocco said.

  “Was,” the man said, rolling the past tense over his tongue.

  “We’re going to take care of you,” Rocco said. “You’re safe.”

  “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “You need to tell us where the prisoners from the Sweetbriar fire are. What you know.”

  “The fire. Connor tried to talk me out of it. Should have listened. It’s my fault,” Whittle said.

  “We want to get the men who did this.”

  “He said that it was one of those things that’s too big to stay secret. That it would blow up in our face. No such thing as easy money. I got Connor killed.”

  “Hey, mister,” one of the girls yelled.

  Rocco ignored her. “Do you know who hired you?”

  “We got messages and money. Third-party threats and cash. I left the convicts at a warehouse down past Cedarville. That’s where our part ended. Don’t know where they went. Figured the less I knew, the better.”