by David Kazzie
With the gun in hand, he sank into the snow, using it as cover, and letting the cold numb the wound to his leg. A moment later, he peered over the top of the snowpack toward the back porch. What he saw amazed him. Jamal was leaning against the porch railing, his arm propped against the top of the old, splintered wood, his gun sweeping the area for a target. He was mortally wounded, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth. His face had paled to a dusky white, made all the starker given his naturally dark complexion. Dark red patches stained his clothes like he'd been busy making tomato sauce.
Flagg drew a bead on Jamal's head and slid his finger around to the trigger guard. As he did so, Jamal's gun rotated back toward Flagg's position. Flagg could tell that he didn't have much left in him, but he did have something.
They both opened fire at the same time.
Jamal's final bullet flew wide and pinged off the cinderblock wall, spraying debris across the alley. Hot chunks of concrete splashed into the snow, causing it to sizzle. Not nearly as weak as Jamal, Flagg fired three times. Each bullet pierced Jamal's chest and finished the job Flagg had started back in Jamal's living room.
* * *
Silently, Sam and Pasquale slipped through the courtyard, the sound of the last gunshot still ringing in Samantha's ears. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed a blanket of white behind them and nothing else. Ravenwood's denizens knew the drill, and so they would stay inside until the police cruisers surrounded the complex and they could walk and gossip among the safety of the blue uniforms.
The breezeway led them back out to Allen Avenue, where they turned north, across the expressway and back toward Samantha's Audi. It seemed to take an eternity, but when they clomped up alongside her car like a pair of Clydesdales, Sam noted that they'd only been gone for an hour. She leaned against the side of the car, exhaling slowly.
"Are you hurt?" Pasquale asked.
"No more than you," she answered.
"We need to get moving," Pasquale said, touching her back.
"Right," she said. "I have an idea."
After tucking the ticket into her jeans, she peeled off her coat and jammed it under the rear left tire of the car.
"Let's get out of here," she said.
Pasquale rocked his eyebrows upward. "You smart lady!"
They piled into the car, Samantha taking the wheel. She wrapped her fingers around the gearshift and gave it a little gas, praying that the tire would catch the coat. It spun briefly, sending her heart into her throat, before the radials latched onto the fabric and shot the car forward. The car rolled south one block to Grove Avenue, where Samantha turned west, away from the city.
"He's never going to leave us alone," she said as they puttered along, past the Victorian-style homes, Tudors, and Spanish-style haciendas that dotted the landscape. The further west they got, the fresher the snow was, the less disturbed. They were in the Fan, a neighborhood just west of downtown Richmond, so named because of its appearance on a map. A half-dozen streets threaded west through the neighborhood, fanning out from Belvidere near Virginia Commonwealth University.
Pasquale did not reply.
"We have to cash the ticket ourselves," she said. "After we cash it, he'll have no reason to chase us anymore."
"Except to kill us out of spite," Pasquale said.
She curled a bolt of her dark hair around her finger, silent.
"Yeah," she said. "I guess that's true."
"What are you going to do with the money?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll buy the Dodgers. Maybe I'll buy this block of the Fan. I'll buy you the next one. There's a good burger place on it."
"Seriously."
"I could spend time tracking down Julius' other heirs."
"I thought he told you he didn't have any," Pasquale said.
"That doesn't mean there aren't any."
"Samantha."
"What? It's possible."
"I know that it's possible. But you'll be taking saliva samples until the end of time."
"I could donate it to charity," she said.
"That's one way to go," he said.
"You have a better idea?"
"I think you should keep it."
"What?"
"Look what you've gone through for it," he said. "Think about what you could do with it. Why not you? Consider it your severance package from Willett & Hall. Start a foundation. Make it your life's work. Pay yourself a salary, and put the rest to good work. You'd do a better job managing the money than any two-bit charity where people already are skimming off the top. Don't die for this ticket."
The idea ran through her like a well-strummed guitar note. What else could she do? The only two people with a legitimate claim to the ticket were dead. She didn't even know where to begin looking for any of Julius' other heirs. And she was tired. She was so tired. It seemed like every time she had blinked for the last three days, someone had died in front of her.
Would she ever get the ticket to its rightful owner, whoever that happened to be at this moment? Would she get killed before she could ever get it there? Was Pasquale's idea really that ridiculous? She could do a lot of good work with that money. She didn't need to get rich, did she? Sure, maybe bail out the folks, set them up for life. Balance the cosmic scales after the damage that her idiot brother had done. Give herself a comfortable living. Do good work. Never practice law again. These were not bad things. She was not a bad person. These thoughts cycled through her mind like a hamster on a wheel as they continued west on Grove Avenue.
"I'm really sorry you got caught up in all this," she said. From the corner of her eye, she noticed him wince as he shifted in his seat. "How're the ribs?"
"To be honest, they could use a little more sauce."
* * *
As the rush of adrenaline dissipated, like a quickly dissolving thunderstorm, Flagg became acutely aware of the pain in his leg. He examined the wound and was pleased to discover that the bullet had flown clear through his leg, exiting just above the knee. The one in his shoulder was a bigger problem. It would require advanced attention and would take weeks to heal. Fortunately, the snow had largely stanched the bleeding from the wound, although that likely would start up again when he was back indoors. He needed to get first-aid supplies and some rest.
He pulled himself up, using the wall for support, and began limping down Ravenwood's back alley. Above him, Jamal's lifeless body dangled over the railing, but Flagg never even looked up. He was too disgusted with himself. This gangbanger had nearly been the end of him. Really fantastic work, Charlie! Where's your head, man? Plus, he really had to address this fear of the dark. It was getting a little embarrassing. Really, Flagg? he thought to himself, laboring through the snow. The dark?
An hour later, he found a home along Grove Avenue that had been vacated for the holidays. Maybe he should just switch careers. Breaking into homes was such child's play, and they didn't get much easier than this. Four newspapers, rolled tightly, were scattered across the porch. The porch light was burning, and the driveway was knee-deep in snow, meaning no one had parked there in days. He found a spare key under a flowerpot, still sporting a long-since blackened husk of basil. The door swung open to reveal a pile of mail scattered haphazardly under the mail slot.
Once inside, he found a well-stocked bathroom just off the main hall. He gathered the necessary supplies, stripped down, got in the claw tub and went to work. First, he poured half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide on the entry wound and the rest on the exit wound, which was slightly larger as a result of the bullet expanding in flight. The wounds were clean, and he knew he was lucky. Guy like that might have been using cop-killers, which could have shredded his femoral artery. As it was, plenty of blood had spilled from the wound, coating the ceramic tub with a crimson sheen.
He cringed and groaned as the weak acid cleaned out the wound, but he knew that was nothing compared to the pain that lay ahead. Once that was done, he opened the bottle of rubbing alcohol. Without giving himself ti
me to think about it, he sluiced it through the hole. It was a bit like dipping his leg into a roaring campfire. Screams of agony were piling up in the back of his throat like airliners waiting on a runway, but he managed to hold them back. Shiny tears rolled down his face, and he kept repeating his mantra in his head.
Survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest.
When he was done disinfecting the leg wounds, he threaded a long piece of dental floss, which he soaked with rubbing alcohol, through a disinfected sewing needle and stitched them closed. Afterwards, he dressed them with two large bandages and white medical tape. Then he turned his attention to the bullet in his shoulder. It had sliced through his shoulder blade but had not blown out the other side. He could feel it pressing just above his collarbone. Although it was not bleeding nearly as profusely, this one would be a bit more complicated than the clean leg wound.
He toddled down to the kitchen and found a large kitchen knife, which he disinfected with the rubbing alcohol. Back in the tub, he carved a small cylinder of tissue out of his shoulder around the bullet, as if he were coring a tomato. With the tip of the knife, he popped out the spent bullet, which clattered into the tub and traced a bloody semi-circle against the ceramic. He repeated the disinfection treatment with the gaping wound and dressed it in the same way as the leg wound. The pain was nothing short of apocalyptic, somewhere beyond what was normally possible to endure without losing consciousness. But Charles Flagg was not normal. He knew that. He had evolved.
His battlefield medical treatment was complete. As an added bonus, he found a nearly full bottle of cephalexin tablets in the medicine cabinet. He swallowed one right away, hoping that the antibiotics would help prevent any infection from setting in. It looked like there was enough for about a two-week course of treatment. Examining his dressings, he decided that he couldn't have done better had he gone to the emergency room. Professor Darwin would have been proud.
The idea of taking medication didn't thrill him, but evolution meant adapting to the world around you. Humanity, through its constant desire to overmedicate, had made bacteria infinitely stronger than they had been just a decade ago. Bacteria that humanity once may have fought off on its own had spawned generation after generation of superbugs. It gave him the willies just thinking about it.
A badly wounded but still-courteous houseguest, Flagg rinsed his blood down the drain and pocketed the bullet. Really, it was the least he could do. He dressed quickly, but he felt listless, uneasy. Curiosity got the better of him, and he began exploring the various rooms of the house. In the dining room, he found a family portrait, professionally done, hanging on the wall. The patriarch was a heavyset suit type. The mother was not quite as rotund, but she looked like she could skip a meal or two. Her face was heavily made up, and she had a look of superiority on her face that Flagg wanted to slap away. The twin sons were tall and handsome.
Flagg didn't know quite what to make of this family. Darwinian success? Evolutionary kryptonite? The events of the last few days, starting with the disastrous telephone conversation with Olivia, weighed heavily on him. In this quest to find the ticket, he had encountered quite a range of humanity, as varied as any as he had ever faced in his career. His discoveries had surprised him.
Twice in the last three days, he had nearly died at the hands of people he had clearly underestimated. That business on the bridge – the kid had really shown some balls to try and save himself, or at least die on his own terms. He'd shown no hesitation at all. He knew that Flagg was going to kill him, and so he had done the only thing he could. And then this black kid, who could've just called 911 in an attempt to save himself, used his last dying breath to nearly turn Flagg into a historical footnote.
Was it possible that both would have made Professor Darwin proud? That they both had evolved into something worthwhile? That he had misinterpreted the great man's work? What if evolution took many forms? What if the human race was at the top of the evolutionary ladder because it could adapt to so many different environments? He didn't like where these thought processes were leading him, as if he were headed down a road and had just passed a Bridge Out sign.
A wave of fatigue washed over him, exhaustion that he had never experienced before. In the den, he found a thick microfiber couch with deep pillows. Just a few minutes, he thought. Just a few minutes. He lay down gingerly, wincing as he did so, and fell asleep almost immediately.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Monday, December 24
6:00 p.m.
Christmas Eve dinner was supposed to be served at six, but predictably, things were running behind. Zaina didn't even have her makeup on at six, and makeup was a tremendously important piece of a Lebanese hostess' pre-game. What Zaina was doing at six was far more pedestrian: checking the kibbe, soaking the bulgur.
With Pasquale trailing behind, Samantha found her father in the den, drinking Arabic coffee and chatting with Hisham. He smiled broadly at her, and she felt heartbreakingly torn between her love for her father and her devotion to her mother.
"Hi, sweetheart," he said, putting down his paper. "What are you doing here?" Then he noticed Pasquale behind her.
"Pasquale! Marhaba, habibe!"
Omar leaned in after the traditional greeting and gave Pasquale a bear hug and kisses on both cheeks. Pasquale returned the favor.
"Keefak?" said Pasquale. How are you? Good heavens, her parents ate this stuff up.
"So good to see you, my boy!"
Samantha wished that her dad was a little more pissed off at the guy, given the emotional state his departure had left her in. There weren't many people, though, who dazzled like Pasquale Paoli.
"So, what are you all doing here?"
"I can't come for Christmas dinner?"
"No, it's not that," he said. "It just that we weren't expecting you tonight."
"Well," Samantha said, "it's Christmas. And Pasquale wanted to say hi."
She and Pasquale sat on the edge of the couch closest to the kitchen, opposite her father. As she looked around the room, the various mementos of her life staring back at her, she made a decision. She knew it was the right decision because she felt like she had become instantly realigned with her soul. It was the oddest sensation of her life.
"There's something I need to tell you," she said. "Mama should hear this, too.
"Zaina!" he barked out. "Bin-teek haun!" Your daughter is here.
Zaina rushed in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a threadbare hand towel. She squealed like a little girl when she saw Pasquale Paoli. She was just as big a fan as her husband.
"Pasquale!"
Samantha stood up and kissed her mother on each cheek.
"You stay to eat."
It was not a question.
"Sit down, Mama. I need to tell you guys something."
Zaina Khouri did not so much as sit down as she collapsed against the couch, her hand pressed against her heart.
"What is it?" she asked. "Are you sick? Omar, is she sick? You look sick. I knew something was wrong the other night."
It was safe to say that Zaina Khouri did not handle illness in her children well, and she tended to overreact to symptoms. When Samantha and her siblings were young, an unexplained bruise meant leukemia ("you shouldn't bruise so easily!"), a headache meant brain cancer ("you're too young for headaches!"), a sprained ankle meant ankle cancer ("your ankle should be strong!"). Samantha, naturally, had had her share of childhood illnesses, many of which she had concealed from her mother so as to spare her unnecessary worrying.
"No, Mama, I'm not sick! It's just a cold!" Sam left out her nagging concern that she might be dead by the New Year, but that, much to her mother's relief, would likely not be related to any disease.
"So here it is," she said. "After the holidays, I'm leaving my law firm. I'm not going to be a lawyer anymore."
"Are you getting married?" her father asked.
"No."
"Is it because you're sick?" her
mother asked.
"Mama!"
"You don't look too good."
"No! I just don't want to be a lawyer anymore."
She watched her parents' reactions carefully. Her mother cried, which Samantha attributed to the fact that she had been the one to break through and get the education, fulfill the dream that had fueled her parents' move to America all those decades ago. That Samantha still planned on doing something with her life did not seem to occur to Zaina Khouri at the moment. Samantha knew that her mother had decided that she'd failed as a mother. Omar Khouri continued to sip his coffee without a word. Hisham said nothing, wisely deferring to the man of the house.
"Hisham, can I talk to my parents for a few minutes alone?" Samantha asked.
"What, I'm not family?" Hisham barked, standing up in a huff. "I don't have anything to add?"
Samantha said nothing, because there was no point. He was offended in that macho Lebanese man way, and there was no undoing it now, even if she agreed to let him stay. He'd been eviscerated by a woman; he might never forgive her. That, she decided, she could live with. He stomped out of the room and made a beeline for the bar, where he'd pour a tall glass of arak, a potent Arabic liquor, and pout like a four-year-old.
"How bad is business, really?" Samantha asked when they were alone. "And tell me the truth."
Omar thoughtfully scraped a fingernail against his chin.
"It's fine, sweetheart," he said.
"Papa," she said, "come on."
"Don't worry about it," he said.
"Look, the reason I'm asking is that I want to buy the store from you," she said. "It's time for you guys to retire. Let me do this."
She sat quietly while her father processed this information, wondering where the hell she had come up with this idea.