1 Motor City Shakedown

by Jonathan Watkins

  “I need the keys.”

  She shrieked and leapt up, turning around. Her back pressing against the shelving of the closet, Issabella stared. A large black man was standing in the doorway. In the darkness of the unlit space, she couldn’t see him clearly. His head was shaven clean, and his shoulders were very wide. As he stared at her, the eyes inside his face seemed darker even than the shadows that clung to him.

  “Give me the keys to the black SUV,” he said. His voice was even and calm, as if he were engaged in a civil conversation on a sidewalk, and not standing amid the blood and bodies of the crematorium.

  “Help him,” she croaked, because it was the only thing she could focus on. “Please. Can you help him?”

  The stranger cocked his head, noted Darren’s prone body, and looked at her again.

  “He is going to die,” he said. “Give me the keys.”

  Issabella heard the words, and knew she should be terrified of this man. Everything about him was…off. His silent appearance at the doorway. His detached, mechanical demand. His eyes, like obsidian stones, regarding the bloody scene without a hint of alarm, or even curiosity. Everything about him screamed other.

  “Help him,” she repeated, marveling at the insistence in her voice. “Tie his tie around his shoulder. I can’t get it undone. Tie his shoulder and I’ll give you the keys. Please. Please help him.”

  He continued to stare at her, as still as stone. She expected him to lunge at her. He would seize her in his immense hands and demand the keys again. She was certain that was going to happen, but she didn’t look away from him or shrink to the floor. Even in the face of violence, she was going to demand his help.

  “Please,” she repeated.

  When he bent down over Darren, she stifled a groan of relief.

  His large hands worked nimbly, precisely. The tie came undone in quick, fluid loops. The stranger wrapped it around Darren’s shoulder, directly over the wound, and yanked it tight. A weak moan whispered out of Darren’s lips. The stranger yanked again and tied a knot.

  He straightened, staring at his work.

  “He has bled a great deal,” he said. “He will die soon. Give me the keys.”

  She pointed past him.

  “Out there. Patrick has them. It’s Patrick’s car.”

  He turned and walked away. Issabella watched him crouch down over Patrick Two Leaf’s corpse. She edged her way to the door and leaned heavily against the frame. She was exhausted. The adrenaline jolt of confronting Allen Phelps was dissipating, leaving her limp, worn out.

  Far away, she heard the wail of sirens.

  The stranger straightened. Patrick’s keys jangled in his fingers. He walked away toward the door that lead outside.

  “What are you going to do?” she said.

  He paused at the door.

  “I will finish what you began,” he said, and disappeared out into the light of day.

  As the sirens grew less faint, she heard the SUV’s engine come alive, followed by the crunch of gravel beneath its tires.

  Issabella slid down to the floor. She crawled up to Darren and laid her head down on his chest. His heartbeat was there. She closed her eyes and listened to it as the sirens drew closer.

  TWENTY

  Johnny Two Leaf emerged from county lock-up with a big yellow envelope in his hands that contained a key to his parents’ house, his wallet, two expired condoms, and the eleven assorted finger- and ear-rings they’d made him take off when he was processed.

  He blinked in the afternoon glare and looked around the jail parking lot nervously. The Ace of The Game’s grand scheme of dominating the Marquette drug trade had steadily evaporated during his night in jail. He’d spent his time huddled and shivering on his cot while the drugs that had animated him worked their way out of his system. Around midnight, Johnny became a sober and frightened twenty year-old, surrounded by urine-stained concrete and cold-eyed, staring inmates.

  That morning, they fed him a moldy bologna sandwich and a cup of yellow water. Sitting there, staring at the inedible meal while another inmate grunted and hunched over the open toilet in front of him, Johnny Two Leaf abandoned his grand scheme altogether.

  Now he was out, and he didn’t know why. The deputy who’d fetched him from his cell and walked him through the out-take process had only been willing to tell him that he’d been bailed out, but not by whom.

  He looked around the parking lot, and his gaze came to rest on a single person among the rows of vehicles. She was leaning against an old and beaten sedan, her arms folded across her chest. As he watched her, she stared at him with a singular, dead-serious expression.

  ‘Maybe Dad got me a lawyer,’ he thought.

  That idea in his mind, Johnny descended down the little sidewalk that emptied out into the parking lot, and approached the woman. She was wearing a business-woman’s blazer and a long skirt. Johnny squinted, and thought her clothing looked rumpled and dirty. As he got closer, and came to stop in front of her, he realized with a jolt of apprehension that the woman’s blazer, shirt, and skirt were all stained with blood.

  That fact, coupled with the intensity of her gaze, leant Issabella Bright the appearance of a woman who had just undertaken the business of gruesomely murdering someone. Johnny swallowed with a dry click in his throat and wondered if this menacing apparition was some killer from Detroit. His young imagination ran away with notions of a deadly and beautiful female assassin, sent by her kingpin handlers to deal with him now that Vernon was dead and their heroin was unsecured. She’d have a name like ‘Bloody Mary’ or ‘The Widow’, and her seductive beauty would be surpassed only by her mercilessness.

  Johnny forced himself to focus and cleared his throat with a nervous, faltering sound.

  “Right, so what’s the rumpus…” he started in his feigned cockney, but stopped.

  That nonsense was behind him, he reminded himself. No more punk affectations. No more silliness that would land him back in a room with scary people who pooped in front of him.

  He started over.

  “Did you bail me out?”

  She continued to stare at him for a long moment, her unwavering gaze appraising him, judging him. She looked like a person at the absolute end of her rope.

  “I did,” she said. “I’m Issabella Bright. I’m your lawyer.”

  “Did my dad hire you?”

  He watched her stony expression soften, and for no reason that he could define the sudden softness in her eyes sent a terrible fear rustling through him.

  “Johnny, we have a lot to talk about,” she said. Inexplicably, she reached out and put a hand on his arm. Johnny felt horribly afraid. “Get in the car. You need to come with me and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Johnny did as she said.

  *

  There was an immeasurable time of darkness, in which he was formless and immaterial. When it passed, and a single spot of light appeared far away, Darren Fletcher swam up and out. His eyes opened and he was once again within the world.

  That world was uncertain. He blinked and stared at the hospital room, every object fuzzy and indistinct. A rush of fear threatened the drug-haze serenity, a sharp memory of darkness and pain. She wasn’t leaving. She was staying there, in the darkness with him, and the realization tore at him. He wanted to stand up and push her out the window, push her into light and life.

  “Izzy, go,” he heard himself croak.

  Someone appeared over him. A soft hand touched his cheek, and he was gone, back into a darkness that was no longer threatening.

  *

  Issabella was still leaning over Darren, brushing his cheek and listening to the metronome beep of the machines monitoring his condition, when Special Agent Isaac Schultz walked into the room on the third floor of the Marquette General Hospital.

  “Issabella Bright.”

  “Agent Schultz,” she said, a simple acknowledgment, and turned back to the man in the bed.

  Schultz walked around to the other side
of the bed and looked down at Darren Fletcher. The sleeping lawyer was pale and haggard, his jaw covered in three days’ worth of whiskers. His right shoulder and pectoral were heavily wrapped and bound, a large white compress bandage affixed over the ball of his shoulder.

  Schultz looked at Issabella standing watch; saw the depth of feeling in her face.

  Minutes passed in silence before she raised her head and offered him a steady gaze.

  “I need to eat,” she said. “We can talk in the cafeteria.”

  *

  She picked at her salad and glanced around at the handful of hospital employees and visiting family members situated throughout the hospital cafeteria. Agent Shultz sipped a can of Coke and produced his pocket notebook.

  “What do they say about Mr. Fletcher?”

  She sighed and answered. “His shoulder is destroyed. He was shot by the leader of the TAC Team. We met him at the hospital in Vernon’s room. Allen Phelps. The local police found a sniper rifle outside Vernon’s crematorium up here. He shot Darren with a high velocity bullet that just…destroyed the enter shoulder joint.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged and nodded. She pushed the uneaten salad away from her.

  “They can’t replace the joint here,” she said. “It’s just a regional hospital. Tomorrow they’re going to fly him down to U of M in Ann Arbor. The doctor I talked to said they can replace the entire joint. I guess he has, like, Donald Trump-level insurance.”

  “That’s all good news.”

  “I know. I know… it’s just a lot to take in. I’m still trying to get it all arranged and ordered in my head.”

  They were quiet for a little while, until he decided to just wade into what he needed to discuss.

  “Johnny Two Leaf,” he said.

  She regarded him with a flat and level expression.

  “That would be my client,” she said.

  “I need him,” he said. “From what we’ve found at the crematorium, and after going through all of Vernon’s tax records, it looks like your client is mixed up in the drug-running business with the TAC Team and Vernon.”

  “Really.”

  “Issabella, he’s in serious trouble.”

  “So charge him.”

  “I want to talk to him,” he said, careful to keep his voice conversational. “Allen Phelps is still on the run and unaccounted for. One of his TAC buddies was burned to death in a Detroit landfill. Johnny Two Leaf might be the only person who can tell me how extensive the police conspiracy was. He needs to come in, and he needs to come in now.”

  Issabella uncapped the bottle of water she’d bought and took a long swallow.

  “Transactional immunity,” she said. “He gets a free pass. He’s a very mixed-up kid whose father just got murdered because Johnny was unlucky enough to get swept up with Vernon and his crummy little schemes. He’s got more guilt right now than anyone should have to suffer. If you can sign off on that kind of immunity, I can produce a Johnny who will absolutely sing for you about the Detroit Police Department. Vernon liked to talk. A lot.”

  Agent Schultz finished his Coke, thought for a moment, then nodded his head.

  “That’s not impossible,” he said. “I’ll make the deal, if I can.”

  “Good,” she said, and got up. She put her tray away and walked out of the cafeteria without a backward glance.

  *

  In the darkness, the little green-eyed girl held Darren’s hand in hers. He didn’t know how long she’d been there, standing stock-still at the side of his bed, a diminutive and silent sentinel.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry nobody ever found you. I think…I think maybe it’s too late now.”

  The green eyes of the child shifted in the darkness, sliding over to rest on his.

  “You’ll have to wake up,” she sing-songed and he felt her grip tighten, stronger than he would have imagined. “You’ll have to wake up, wake up, wake up…”

  “Shoshanna, I’m so sorry.”

  She smiled. A wide, unabashed child’s smile. Darren stared into the dark voids where her teeth were missing. Tears welled up in his eyes and he screwed them shut against the grinning specter.

  “I…” he started, but couldn’t get the words out. He swallowed hard against the sadness and regret. He took a deep breath and started again. He told Shoshanna the one true thing he knew, the only true thing he’d discovered since his life had fallen apart around her disappearance.

  *

  Issabella’s head snapped up. She leaned forward, still cupping his hand in hers. His eyes were still closed, but he had squeezed her hand. He’d squeezed it tightly and begun to speak for the first time in the several hours she’d sat there.

  “I have to try,” he whispered, a hoarse and weak sound that only barely reached her ears. “With her. I have to try again.”

  “Darren?”

  He gave her hand another squeeze and she watched a hint of a grin touch his lips.

  “Okay,” he softly agreed. “Okay. You go outside and play, sweetheart.”

  *

  Time passed.

  Late on a Wednesday, Darren woke in his bed and found Judge Chelsea Hodgens sitting silently near the window.

  When he stirred, she looked at him and smiled.

  “This all took a rather odd turn, didn’t it?” she said.

  “Is Izzy here?”

  “She was. I told her to go home and get some sleep. Your surgeon told me she hasn’t left your side since they flew you down here to Ann Arbor. I think maybe you’ve got yourself a companion.”

  Darren nodded, glad to hear that someone had managed to convince Issabella to tend to herself. Theresa had tried on both occasions she’d visited him before his surgery, but Issabella hadn’t budged. She’d stayed with him in the crematorium’s closet, and all throughout the ordeal of his recovery. Apparently, it had taken a judge’s order to force her to tend to herself for a little while.

  “She’s amazing,” he said, more to himself than for Chelsea’s benefit.

  “I wasn’t sure,” she admitted. “When I met her in my chambers, she seemed a bit…uncertain. Nervous. I suspected you might run roughshod all over her.”

  Darren remembered standing beside Issabella in the parking garage, while she explained to him the realities of her personal storm of anxieties.

  “She faced her fears,” he said. “When I was shot. She…I don’t know. I think she probably knows her worth now.”

  Chelsea got to her feet and walked over to him. She put a hand lightly on his mop of curls, a motherly gesture.

  “I’m glad she was there with you,” she said. “I’m glad you’re still in the world, Darren.”

  “I’m a little relieved, myself.”

  “I convinced Judge Sharpe to dismiss the contempt charge. It took some doing, but he’s been secretly in love with me for a while. We’re having dinner, apparently.”

  “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “You didn’t need to serve a judge with a bogus lawsuit in open court.”

  “Admittedly. Yes.”

  “You better keep her close, Darren. You’re lousy on your own.”

  Judge Hodgens retrieved her purse from beside the chair and gave him a final smile. He watched her walk out, saw her pause at the doorway. When she looked at him, her expression was flat and stoic.

  “Shoshanna Green is dead, Darren. If you don’t know that, then it isn’t she who is haunting you. You’re haunting her. You know that, don’t you? You can only help the living.”

  She turned and walked out the door before he could answer.

  TWENTY ONE

  Summer gave way to the withering months of autumn, and the streets of Thunder Bay, Ontario were transformed into slick, ice-packed trenches between sidewalks heaped with plowed snow. The prime fishing season was coming to a close and the days were drawing into themselves, stunted and pale under the distant sun. Beards thickened, tires were strapped and bound in chain, and
the idle boatmen hustled through the evening hours from tavern to home, calling out their farewells to one another in the sharp chill.

  One man stalked briskly across the downtown sidewalks, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his big, overstuffed coat. A black knit cap was pulled down to his eyebrows, and a rough beard of brown curls afforded him the look of any other local laborer. He kept himself hunched, head down against the snapping breath of Lake Superior’s northern edge.

  Allen Phelps coughed haggardly into his fist, huffing plumes of frost into the air. He shuddered and came to an abrupt, shaky halt long enough to tamp down the dizziness that swam up and through him. He’d been sick for three days now, and he was certain he was in the worst of it now. His joints felt like they were stuffed full of sawdust, and he was consumed with an exhausting fever.

  He started off again once the wave of nausea subsided, and made it the two blocks to the public pay phone mounted on the wall outside the Blue Moose Pub. Allen lifted the receiver out of its cradle and stuck the end up under the lip of his cap, against his ear.

  He fed a stream of coins into the slot while he looked from left to right, keeping his eyes moving and searching through the gloom of evening.

  Two intersections away, the light flashed green and a blurry, rumbling mass started toward him. Allen stared at the indistinct vehicle and his face settled into a resentful and ugly mask. He held his free hand over his right eye and the edges of the pick-up truck sharpened, pulling into focus. Its blinker signaled and the truck turned away.

  Allen had spent weeks treating his eyes with over-the-counter wash kits. But after enough time with no improvement, he had accepted reality. His sniper’s vision was never going to be restored. The rotten bitch had half-blinded his right eye, and his left was still less than perfect.

  “Yo.”

  Allen pushed the resentment away and focused on the mission at hand.