Every Day Above Ground

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “Pick whichever you want for your gravestone,” I said.

  “How’d you know?” He sounded amused.

  “I thought you’d be somewhere close. Then I found your cut kit in the truck tonight.” The same orange tackle box he’d been carrying at the quarry.

  “Had a feeling about you,” he said. “That you’d be money, or trouble, or something. Would have known it was you in the mask at the geek convention, just by how you moved. Quick.”

  I hadn’t spotted him. But then Joe was very good at hiding.

  “Never forget it, once I see a guy fight,” he continued. “You ain’t small-time like O’Hasson. What are you?”

  “Last of the independents. Go.” I motioned back to the doorway from where he’d emerged.

  He turned his head to me and grinned. In the sickly light of the hallway his face was something out of an old-time Universal movie, green and white and monstrous.

  “Ain’t got shit,” he said.

  I kicked the back of his knee and he went down on it. Chuckling in his high voice all the way.

  “Where’s the girl? O’Hasson’s kid?” I said.

  “Ah, she’s right back there,” he said. “The little gash came looking for Daddy. Sweet, yeah?”

  I whipped him across the temple with the barrel of the Luger. “Call your brother out here,” I said.

  Joe was a big man and he’d been hit plenty in his life. The cut on his head from the blow bothered him about as much as an ant’s bite.

  “Leave now,” he said. “Live until tomorrow.”

  I pressed the Luger under his eye.

  “Won’t matter,” he said in that same bemused manner. “You can’t get to them in time. The Ekby bitch made her little playroom too tough. Gar will slice them up. You’ll fry anyway.”

  He meant it. Joe Slattery was the rarest of breeds, an animal unafraid of pain or death.

  I shoved him to the ground with a kick, and faded back to look through the doorway.

  Beyond a scorched reception area stood an intact wall with a closed steel door in the center of it. Wire mesh glass covered the span on either side of the door from waist height to ceiling. The clinic had weathered the blaze well. The wired glass was only partly cracked and melted, and the door looked solid enough to withstand a hydraulic battering ram.

  That was the murder room. Where was Cyndra?

  Joe had climbed halfway to his feet. I grabbed him.

  “Move or I put one through your spine,” I said. I hauled him stumbling into the reception area and slammed his face up against the green-tinted glass as I tried the handle on the steel door. Locked.

  Through the mesh window, I saw Gar Slattery jump behind a line of wide silver lockers, now greasy and seared. His hand whipped up to the top of the metal row to yank down a pistol-grip shotgun. Shit. I retreated back behind the metal door, pulling Joe in front of me. If Gar’s shells could pierce the door, his brother would be first in line.

  Two rounds in the Luger, against Gar’s twelve-gauge. Double shit.

  The chamber beyond the door had been some sort of lab once. Exposed pipe jutted out from the tiled walls, and the table was stainless steel, like O’Hasson had described. Ingrid Ekby lay partly over the table, shirtless, her bare legs off one side. Handcuffs held her wrist against one table leg. She seemed only half-conscious. I couldn’t see Cyndra anywhere.

  “Joe?” Gar yelled from his hiding place. It was the first time I’d had a glimpse of Gar. Prison had bleached his skin and thinned his mop of hair to strands, but he was still as tall as his brother, and fitter.

  “I’ve got Joe,” I called to Gar. “Let them go.”

  “Cut off her fuckin’ face,” Joe yelled. He was pushing against the door, fighting me. I rabbit-punched him on the back of his bull neck. His forehead smacked the metal, trailing a bloody smear as his knees buckled and he sank to the floor. I stuffed the Luger rag from my pocket into his slack mouth.

  “Gar,” I called. “You hurt them, I give it right back to Joe. Cops are coming. Time to make a deal.”

  “I’ll blow this whore’s head off,” Gar said.

  “Then Joe’s dead and you don’t get your money. You want to live under a rock like Joe? So shit-poor that nobody will find you?”

  Silence from inside. I didn’t like it. I risked a look through the glass.

  Gar had opened the locker nearest him. At my angle, I could make out Cyndra’s raven hair, where she lay propped up inside. Jesus, was she dead?

  The ex-con watched me as he hauled Cyndra to her feet. She stood, wavering, his broad hand gripping the back of her neck. She was dressed in the same clothes I’d last seen her in. She looked unharmed, at least physically. Her elfin face drooped in the uncomprehending daze of shock or drugs. On a shelf above her in the big locker, her father’s burglar kit from our break-in rested alongside bottles of antiseptic and stacks of gauze. Part of Ingrid’s preparations, maybe intended to keep Joe alive for as long as possible. I ducked back as Gar leveled the shotgun at me.

  “Joe, say somethin’,” Gar shouted.

  “Unlock the cuffs,” I said, “and I’ll step away from Joe.”

  He didn’t reply. Thinking it over, I hoped. If Gar could catch me even a few feet away from his brother, I’d be sunk. Even firing through the wired glass, he’d have a fine chance of rearranging my guts with buckshot. I fished in my pocket for my lockpicks.

  Gar must have decided it was a good gamble. I heard rattling as he grabbed Ingrid’s cuffs.

  And I began to pick the lock on the steel door with my free hand. Very quietly.

  “You put the women up to the glass,” I yelled to cover the slight ticking of the pins. “I’ll put Joe on this side.”

  I heard the cuffs fall to the floor with a clack. Then a hard slap, and Ingrid’s muffled cry. The simple spring lock was giving me trouble, one-handed. Joe was coming to. I gave up on the lock for a moment to kick him facedown on the floor and plant one foot on his back.

  “The girls come out, Joe goes in,” I said.

  “You fucker. Lemme see him,” said Gar. He had moved. Looking for an angle to shoot through the glass, maybe.

  Joe fumbled dazedly to take the rag out of his mouth. My narrow advantage was getting slimmer every second. I felt the last pin in the lock surrender as Joe tried to shove himself up to his hands and knees. I dropped the lockpicks and stepped back, wheeling Joe around for a shield as he rose to his feet. A shove from me put him in front of the window to my left.

  “The girls,” I said again.

  Gar was moving inside the chamber. If he stepped where I could see him through the window, or if he turned away to collect Ingrid or Cyndra again, that was my chance. Pull the unlocked door open and put the two rounds from the Luger through his heart and head before he could blink.

  Then it all went to hell.

  A loud thump sounded behind us. Joe and I both swung around.

  It was Boule, staggering like a walking corpse against the open doorway. He weakly tried to raise an automatic pistol. Joe rushed him. I knelt and fired, trying not to hit Boule, and the bullet tore a finger-width chunk out of Joe’s trapezius muscle as he slammed into the stricken Boule and the two of them disappeared into the shadows of the hallway.

  A blast from Gar’s shotgun exploded the glass above my head. Flying shards tore at my scalp. I fell behind the shelter of the closed door. Gar was at the window, trying to point the shotgun downward at me along the wall. I fired at him and more glass cracked as Gar shrieked and disappeared back into the chamber.

  Gunfire from the hallway. I pointed the Luger in that direction, knowing it was empty, just as Joe’s arm came around the edge and aimed Boule’s automatic right between my eyes.

  Forty

  Joe saw the locked slide on the Luger and his big dentured grin split his face in half.

  “Get up,” he said.

  I rose. He came into the room. Blood dribbled down his shirtfront from the light wound to his shoulder. He ignor
ed it. The back of my neck became warmly wet as the cuts on my head dripped.

  “Kept some’a these hidden in the Pearl trucks.” He chuckled, showing me the automatic. “Guess April told these assholes ’bout the guns before they dunked her. I got the last laugh on that, right?”

  Gar appeared warily at the broken mesh window.

  “Open the door,” Joe said. “We got this boy now.”

  The door opened. Gar pointed the shotgun at me. Behind him, Ingrid stood half-naked in the back corner, shielding Cyndra, who was sitting down on the floor, a small slack bundle against the tiled wall. Ingrid’s face and breasts were scratched. Sweat and fouler elements left from the fire matted her fine hair.

  “Go right on in,” Joe said. He and Gar both covered me as I entered the chamber.

  “Who is he?” Gar said to his brother.

  Joe chuckled. “A clever one. Coulda used him back in L.A. He’s the guy took our gold away.”

  “So kill him,” Gar said. His hands tightened on the shotgun. I felt a hollow spot, right at my beltline, where the first shell would rip me in half.

  Joe shook his head. Not saying no. Just mocking exasperation.

  “He’s fucking dangerous,” Gar insisted. “Don’t play around.”

  “Let the child go,” Ingrid said to Joe, her voice stretched taut. “She can’t hurt you.”

  Joe’s grin didn’t change, but his eyes became something less human.

  “Say please,” he said. “Make it nice.”

  Ingrid shuddered, almost imperceptibly.

  “Get over there,” said Gar, waving the barrel of the shotgun. I put the steel table between us. If he pulled the trigger, maybe it would buy me an extra tenth of a second.

  “You don’t need the kid,” I said.

  “I do,” Joe said. “I deserve it. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting? A fuckin’ lifetime.” He stepped toward Ingrid and she shrank back against the open locker. “Now I unnerstand why.”

  “No time,” I said. “Ingrid’s man gave you up to the cops. You can’t go back to being Orville.”

  “Orville’s a loser,” he said lazily, his eyes roaming over Ingrid’s body. “The old busted pug. I live real good most of the time. Sun and fun. Orville just lets me visit the West Coast. Get close to where it all started.”

  “The cops know Gar is with you.”

  Joe shook his head again, disdainful. He reached out with the pistol and traced Ingrid’s jawline. She met his gaze. Her eyes leaked tears, but she wouldn’t look away.

  “Had you so young,” he said to her. “Wonder if you’re just as honey-dripping now?”

  Gar banged the open door with the grip of the shotgun. “For fuck’s sake. Let’s get out of here.”

  “If you want your gold, you need us alive,” I said. Joe didn’t react. Gar paid more attention. “I stuck fifty of those kilobars into deposit boxes yesterday. I know where Ingrid has more.”

  “Where?” said Gar.

  “He’s shitting you,” said Joe, close enough to Ingrid for his fetid breath to ruffle the hairs hanging in front of her face. “Shoot him if you want. Just keep the mess off my table.”

  From behind Ingrid, Cyndra made a small cry, like someone emerging from a dream.

  “I’ll trade the money,” Ingrid said, “for the girl’s life.”

  “Now we’re talking,” said Gar.

  Ingrid looked at me. I understood, somehow, what she wanted me to do.

  “Come here, kid,” I said, and rounded the table to lift Cyndra from the floor. She weighed nothing. I carried her back across the chamber to Gar’s side.

  Joe nodded. “That’s right. Give us a little privacy. Plenty of time for the fresh little thing later.”

  I put Cyndra down. Under the steel table.

  “Joe,” I said. Gar looked back and forth between us, uncertain. Joe finally tore his eyes from Ingrid and turned to me.

  “It ought to be you,” I said. “You earned it.”

  He chuckled again. “Yeah.”

  The gun he’d taken from Boule lifted to point at my heart.

  I will never know if Ingrid Ekby fully understood what she was doing. Perhaps she was just grabbing frantically at the nearest thing within reach. She snatched O’Hasson’s open burglary kit from the locker shelf and spun full around to swing it at her tormentor’s head with a scream of rage. Joe raised a contemptuous arm to block the bag. Shattering O’Hasson’s collection of homemade firesticks.

  The bag exploded, dousing both of them in liquid flames. Joe shrieked and shot Ingrid in the chest before the terror sent him into flailing, infernal spasms.

  Gar fired a blast at the falling Ingrid, too late to make a difference, too late to recover as I sprang at him. I caught the shotgun in two hands and slammed it into his face like a man heaving a barbell. Gar crashed into the table. I wrenched the gun from him and reached to yank Cyndra from the floor.

  Joe Slattery’s entire body was ablaze. He lurched toward us. Seeking a final hellish embrace.

  I ran out the door with Cyndra limp in my arms. Slammed it shut behind us and put my back against it. The left side of the chamber was engulfed. Fire lapped greedily out the broken window. Gar banged the handle and threw himself at the door on the other side, every desperate blow vibrating through my entire body. I pressed back, harder. The steel grew hot so fast, it was like the element on a stove. Gar had enough breath left to scream. Joe had already stopped.

  Forty-One

  The moment we were out of sight of the devastation, I pulled the truck over to check Cyndra. Her pupils were slightly dilated, and her pulse on the slow side of acceptable. When I dropped her wrist, it settled back into her lap, not fully limp, not conscious of motion. It wasn’t shock keeping her numb, or at least not only that. She’d been doped.

  I guessed that Boule and the hunters had stuck to their weapon of choice and brought tranquilizers with them to subdue Joe. Slattery had seized the opportunity and dosed Cyndra with some brand of opiate. To keep her compliant, while the madman had his sick fun with Ingrid.

  Cyndra stirred. Her eyes closed completely and her breathing deepened. She looked very much like she must have years ago, before her father went to prison.

  Maybe Cyndra had been so drugged she wouldn’t remember the night’s horrors. I’d never prayed. But if I had, sparing the girl those memories would have been worth every word.

  Addy was awake, sitting in the front room. I carried Cyndra inside and ignored Addy’s exclamations and questions until we had the girl tucked under the red-and-white checkerboard quilt in the spare bed. I checked her pulse and eyes one more time. Stanley vacillated in the hall, toenails tapping nervously on the hardwood. He chose to stay with Cyndra as we retreated.

  I went to the kitchen and took down the rum left from last winter. Addy had placed the bottle out of her way on the cereal shelf after I’d moved out. I took a glass from the dish rack and filled it. Drank a mouthful. It poured pepper-hot down my raw throat to settle into my belly. The second drink was less of a gulp.

  Addy was talking. I tried to focus.

  “—she hurt?”

  I shook my head.

  “Thank the Lord. Her father’s in Virginia Mason. He collapsed while he was downtown, without any ID. The hospital called me after he regained consciousness.”

  “Will he make it?”

  “Yes. He’s very weak. They’re keeping him for a day or two, while he gets back on medication. What happened to you and Cyndra?”

  Addy followed me out to the backyard. It was so far into the night that even the insects were quiet. I stood and inhaled rotting bark and far-off car exhaust and the rose bush that had somehow survived Stanley’s rampages.

  “Can you talk about it?” Addy said.

  Once I started, I could do nothing but. I told her about the gold. About EverCon. The rabid dogs from Sledge City. The dead men in the back room of Pacific Pearl. I spared nothing. If Addy had any positive opinions left about my character, I tore
them right down to the ground. Theft, coercion, assault, or murder. Everything was copy.

  My throat dried and it never occurred to me to drink. Gar Slattery. Ingrid Ekby. Cyndra, in the hands of monsters. And Joe, whose scarred and grinning face seemed to beam horribly from my last blinding, blazing sight of him. Consumed.

  Addy listened to it all, until the stars had faded in the eastern sky. When my words ran out she quietly asked about Corcoran and his family. More about Cyndra, and what she may have endured.

  I answered her questions. Then Addy got up to walk to the kitchen and brought back a ceramic mixing bowl filled with rags and water. Instead of setting the bowl down, she cradled it with both arms.

  “You’ve done a lot of wrong. It’s inexcusable.” Addy took a deep breath and shivered. “But without you, Cyndra might still have followed her father here to Seattle. Without you, she would certainly have died tonight. And right now I don’t have enough in me to give a good goddamn about anything or anyone else but that little girl. So clean yourself up, and then leave her to me.”

  She went inside.

  I washed the crusted filth from my arms and face and neck. My body felt like I’d spent the night in a threshing machine. The next time I sat down I would not be getting up for a long while. I wrung the last rag out over my head, over and over, letting the drips sluice through my hair and sting the lacerations on my scalp.

  The sun cut its first flaxen slice out of the horizon. Every room in Addy’s home had gone dark and quiet. I walked around the side yard to the street, and on up the block.

  High above, the empty framework of Dono’s house stretched toward a cloudless heaven. Dew hung expectantly from the beams. Sunlight finally touched the upper rafters and seeped rapidly down to the lower floors, stilling the nascent drops as it touched them.

  Before ten minutes had passed, the wooden skeleton of the house was blanched dry and rigid. The day would be a hot one.

  Age Twelve, Christmas Day

  Hours later, after Granddad had sent Hollis home, we sat together in the front room. Granddad in his usual wingback leather chair, and me on the short sofa. I’d fallen asleep there, not meaning to, while Granddad had been out. Setting things right, as he called it.