by John Etzil
It worked. I grabbed him by his ponytail and kneed him in the jaw so hard that he became airborne and flew against the wall, smacking the back of his head with a sickening thud.
I reached down and felt the girl’s pulse. It was strong. I looked down at the hypodermic needle the guy had stuck in her arm and saw that it was more than half-full, which was a good sign.
“Ahem.”
Oh, crap. I knew Debbie’s “ahems” when she was upset, and man, was I in trouble. I turned to face her, an apologetic look on my face. “Sorry, honey.”
She stood in the doorway, Glock in one hand, Wonder Woman pose with the other. She shook her head side to side like a disapproving nun at a Catholic grammar school who’d just caught one of the boys peeking up a girl’s dress. “Jesus, Jack, what the hell have you done now? You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
“They were going to violate the little girl.”
“Can’t save the world, Jack. We’re here for my sister, remember?”
“Oh, come on, I can’t look the other way when it comes to a kid. What kind of man would I be if I did that?”
She pursed her lips and tightened her eyes. She knew I was right. “Fine, but when I get my hands on that Jimmy the Guinea fellow, he’s gonna wish he never met you.”
“Deal. I’ll even let you take the first swing at him. But for right now, let’s drag these bozos to the basement. Where’s Saber?”
“I sent him into the girl’s room to keep her company. I think she likes him. He climbed up on her bed to comfort her and licked her face. She stopped crying, made a stink about yucky doggy germs, and wrapped her arms around his neck in a bear hug.”
“Can you run downstairs and make sure the front door is locked? Last thing I need is some clown wandering in while we’re dragging these hammerheads down to the basement.”
“On it.” She tucked the Glock into her belt. “You have a key to the basement door?”
“Yeah, it’s the same as the front door.”
She left and I peeked down the hallway to verify the door to the little girl’s room was closed. It was, so I dragged Bullet Boy over to the door of the apartment, admiring my handiwork all the while. If you looked at him quick, you wouldn’t even know that he had been shot in the head with a 9mm. A pencil-thin entrance hole dotted the top of his forehead, and the bullet was lodged somewhere inside of him. The perfect shot. He didn’t even have any blood coming out of his mouth. I bet they’d study this perfection in coronary school.
I went back and grabbed the head slammer and pulled him across the floor to the front door. I let him fall next to his buddy and opened the door to peek out into the hallway. Debbie was running up the stairs, taking them two at a time in an impressive athletic form that made me smile. “Door’s locked,” she said. “Stop staring at my tits, we have work to do.”
Caught again. “Right. I’ll take Bullet Boy, you grab the other one.”
In a few minutes, we had both bodies next to the steel basement door, without any trace of blood on the stairs. I’m talking zero. This was going to work out perfect. No mess to clean, and by the time anyone stumbled across these bodies, we’d be long gone.
I broke out the front door key, inserted it into the doorknob, and turned it.
It didn’t move.
10
“Shit, the key doesn’t work.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. How hard could it be to get a key to work?”
“Maybe you just need to jiggle it.”
“Still no good. Why don’t you go upstairs and check on everyone?”
“Roger.” Debbie turned and ran up the stairs. I couldn’t help myself and took a break from my key jigging to watch her.
“Stop staring at my butt.”
“I wasn’t staring.” Right.
I jiggled the key some more, but the lock wouldn’t budge. I could break the door down or pry it open, but steel doors are tough as nails, and I hadn’t brought any tools for that job. I had my Glock, and I could unlock the door with a couple of well-placed shots, but then I wouldn’t be able to lock the door, which meant that the discovery of the decomposed thugs would happen that much sooner.
My thoughts were interrupted by flashing red lights, and my worst nightmare was about to happen. Debbie whisper-yelled down from the second floor. “Jack, the cops are here!”
She came running down the stairs, and we dragged both bodies under the stairwell and laid them one on top of the other so they couldn’t be seen from the front entrance. By coincidence, they wound up face-to-face in an intimate embrace. They looked so peaceful, like gay lovers cuddling after a long night of partying.
I pulled out my Glock and waited. This was not how I’d planned on doing things, and the last I wanted was to kill a good guy, but there was no way in hell I was going to get arrested.
During my research, I’d learned that all Newburgh cops wore bulletproof vests. I’d also learned that a 9mm bullet to the solar plexus would be the best way to knock the wind out of them. If that didn’t work, well, then, I only had one option left. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did…
I could hear the walkie-talkies of the cops as they came up the front steps. We stood on the two bodies and pressed our backs flat against the wall under the staircase to hide. I took out my police scanner. I turned it on, made sure that the volume was on low, and held it against my ear.
Wow, Newburgh was hopping. Dispatch was barking out orders to patrol cars a mile a minute, sounding like an overworked auctioneer. I heard the loud banging of a nightstick against the front door, followed by, “Newburgh Police, open up!”
There was a few-second pause, and when no responses came, the nightstick knocking resumed, this time louder. Fortunately, there was no one else around to open the door and let them in. I knew that the cops wouldn’t break the door down unless they heard a gunshot or a cry for help, so I was confident just waiting them out until they left.
I felt the ground shift under my feet and realized that Head Banger was coming around. We stepped off him. He moaned a few times, and his eyes opened. That’s all I needed. If he made a ruckus, the cops would break the door down. Debbie jammed her silenced Glock against his forehead. She held a finger to her lips to silence the evildoer. Unfortunately, he either didn’t understand, or couldn’t contain his glee at the sight of such a hot woman hovering so close over him, because he opened his mouth to speak.
Debbie pulled the trigger, caught the ejected shell in her hand, and stuck her Glock in her belt. She volleyballed the shell between her hands a few times until it cooled off, then pocketed it and took out her Glock. God, she’s amazing.
After a few more tense minutes and some harried exchanges with the police dispatcher, the officers decided to move on to a live shooter on Grand Street. They hustled back to their squad car and pulled away.
“Whew, that was close,” Debbie said. “Did you get the door open?”
“No, freaking key isn’t working.”
“What’s your plan? Can’t just leave them here.”
I pressed the Glock against where the tongue of the doorknob goes into the door frame. “No other choice.” I looked away to protect my face from flying metal, gestured for Debbie to do the same, and squeezed the trigger.
The tongue of the doorknob shattered on impact, and the door creaked slowly open towards me. Debbie bent over and picked up the shell casing. I reached in and found a light switch. A single dim bulb hung from the center of the room and provided just enough light for me to drag the two dead men into the far corner of the damp and moldy basement without tripping over anything.
I sat them up, wrapped their arms around each other’s necks, and pressed their lips together.
Debbie giggled. “Jesus, Jack, you’re like a freakin’ twelve-year-old.”
I smiled and started my search for a way to secure the door. Aside from garbage, empty liquor bottles, dirty syringes, and used condoms strewn all ove
r the concrete floor, the only thing in the basement was an old furnace that took up almost half of the room, and a washer and dryer that were so old that they looked like they were models for the original patent application in 1858. I came up empty.
Then it hit me.
“I have to get something. Why don’t you go upstairs and keep the young girl company?”
“Okay, but she fell asleep with her arms around Saber’s neck. That dog is so freakin’ smart. When I opened the door to check on her, he just eyeballed me without moving. It’s like he knew that he would wake her up if he raised his head.”
“How’s the mom?”
“Her pulse is strong and her breathing is good. Hopefully she’ll be fine. Do you think we should call an ambulance, just to be on the safe side?”
“Ha, there’s a long wait for one of them.” I held up the scanner so she understood how I knew. “By the time they get here, she’ll either be dead or fine. So no, let’s just watch her for a while. If her pulse weakens or she’s struggling, we can drop her off at the emergency room. I’m sure that a city like Newburgh has a no-questions-asked policy when you drop off an overdose victim.”
I ran upstairs and retrieved my spool of paracord. This stuff was amazing. Only a quarter inch in diameter, and it could hold twelve hundred pounds.
I double-knotted one end over the doorknob on the basement side of the door, and draped it over a large furnace pipe on the basement ceiling about ten feet away. I fed it back under the basement door, pulling on the paracord to take up the slack as I slowly closed it. Once the door was shut tight, I slid the paracord along the bottom of the door and over to the hinged side. I slid it up the side until I encountered the door hinge closest to the floor. I pulled it tight against the bottom of the hinge, knotted it, and cut off the excess. I took out my lighter and melted the knot. I grabbed the doorknob and pulled with all my strength. The door moved less than a quarter of an inch. Nice.
I stepped back and admired my handiwork. Unless you were on your hands and knees and looking right at it, the knot under the bottom door hinge was invisible.
Debbie returned and watched me secure the door without saying a word. When I finished, she let the compliments fly. “That’s impressive. There might still be hope for you.”
She kissed me on the cheek and gave me a quick hug, then reported on the mom’s condition. “I untied Mother and she started coming around. She’s groggy and doesn’t remember anything.”
“Good, less explaining for us. Just tell her that we heard a noise and came over and she was asleep on the bed.”
“Already did that.”
“She buy it?”
“I think so. No reason for us to lie, right? I rescued Saber too. Managed to get him out without waking the girl.”
Footsteps came down the stairs and I pushed Debbie under the staircase and out of sight. People might or might not remember my face, but nobody was going to forget hers. Or her body.
The mother appeared on the first-floor landing. Her hair was a mess and she looked a little shaky. Probably still high from the heroin. She looked down the basement steps and made eye contact with me. Her eyes lit up and her mouth opened.
“Hey, it’s you?”
“Sorry, ma’am?”
“I saw you, right before I passed out. I thought it was a dream, but it’s all coming back to me. You were with those two men.” She paused and looked down at the floor. “They used to be my husband’s friends, before he died. He was killed in a drive-by four years ago. On the corner of Grant.” She looked heavenwards and did the sign of the cross. “Thank you for chasing them away. They stop over every once in a while, uninvited.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. It was nothing. They ran out as soon as they saw me.”
She looked at me and smiled. Her teeth were yellowish brown and had wide gaps between them. “Hey, was that your dog in Yolanda’s room?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, he wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I know he wouldn’t. Yolanda looked so peaceful sleeping next to him. Hey, can I keep him?”
“Uhh, no, I’m rather attached to him.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind, I’ll take him.” She paused and cocked her head to one side. “Hey, you my new neighbor? This building’s lonely by myself. I can use a man around.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Debbie shake her head and smack her forehead. It took all my willpower to hold in my smile. “No, I’m just staying for a day or two, sort of a test run to see if I like living here.”
“Oh, okay. Well, if you decide to stay here, I’d be happy to have you. This building’s good. Except I’ve been after the landlord to fix the laundry in the basement for months now. He keeps promising that he’ll come over and fix it. But he hasn’t done it yet. I told him no more sex until he does. But I’m not good at keeping promises.”
“Oh, uhm, okay, thanks for that.”
“Hey, could you fix it? I have a key to the basement. Want me to get it? Then I can have sex with you instead of the landlord. He’s old.”
“No, I’m not very handy. At all.”
“That’s a surprise. Big hunky man like you.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes at me.
Debbie drew her Glock, pointed it at the stairs with both hands in a kneeling position, and pretended to empty it into my new best friend.
I stifled a smile. “Oh, I’ve never been very handy.”
I wanted to go up the stairs but didn’t want her to think that my closing the distance between us was any kind of invite or show of affection. But I couldn’t just stand there all night, so I took a few steps up. I stopped three steps from her and held out my hand. “Well, I’ll be going now. Nice chatting with you.”
“You too.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed hard, holding on for way too long, and took a half step closer to me. “Wow, you have a strong grip. My name’s Mariana. Everyone in our family has a name that ends in A. Hey, you can come by anytime, even if you don’t move here.” She winked at me, held my gaze, and went up the stairs.
Debbie stepped out from behind the stairs and closed her eyes so tight that she looked like she’d eaten ice cream too fast and gotten hammered with a bad case of brain freeze. “That Jimmy the Guinea is freakin’ toast.”
“Let’s just hope that the landlord doesn’t come here anytime soon to fix the laundry in the basement. Otherwise we’ll be leaving in a hurry.”
“Hey. Don’t worry.” She smirked at her Mariana imitation. “Your little Mariana will keep screwing him, so he has no incentive to do any work. C’mon, Patrick, we have work to do.”
I’d had enough of her childish insults and decided to take a stand. “Ya know, you better be nice to me. I bet Mariana would never call me a Patrick. And, I know for a fact that I could fix her washing machine.”
She elbowed me in the gut. “Move it, Patrick.”
11
By the time we got back to the apartment, it was after midnight. I still had some time to kill, and I took Saber out in the backyard and let him sniff around the garbage for a while before going back upstairs. Mariana had music playing, some kind of Spanish dance stuff, and I smelled marijuana when I got to the top of the stairs. I felt sorry for Yolanda, having to grow up in that environment, but there was nothing more I could do for her.
I let myself into our apartment and saw Debbie sitting in the dark by the slightly opened front window, loading the Remington. She had two boxes of shells by her side, along with Saber’s bed, two bottles of water, a protein bar, and a pair of night vision binoculars.
She looked at me and nodded. “I’m all set.”
“Good. How busy is it?” I asked, in reference to the heroin house that sat across the street and six houses down from us.
“Not too busy. They have a couple of kids sitting on the front stoop with a pit bull, acting as lookouts and steering the customers around the side to the entrance. Looks like all the action is taking place on the third floor. How are you going in?”
“I’ll approach from the rear and blast my way in.”
“Subtle.”
“Can you think of something better?”
“No, but can’t you come up with some fancy ninja quiet James Bond stuff and take ’em out one by one with a karate chop to the neck?”
“Ha, no. But I can shoot them in the head.”
“Show-off. What if Catherine’s not there? How are you going to find out where she is if they’re all dead?”
“This heroin house is run by a guy named Jorge. I memorized his photo. I’ll find him and keep him alive until I find her. If she’s not there, then I’ll cuff him and bring him here to waterboard him. I’ll get him to talk, don’t worry.”
I looked at my watch and saw I still had another thirty minutes before my departure time. I sat down next to her and kissed her on the cheek. “You gonna miss me?”
“Not as long as Saber’s by my side.” She reached down and stroked his head. “What’s your estimated time inside that dump?”
“I’m not sure how long it will take me to gain access, but once I’m inside, it can’t be more than five or ten minutes. It’s not like I’ll be running into any old friends that I haven’t seen in years and we wind up chatting over a spoonful of heroin as we catch up on each other’s lives.”
“I’ll be checking you for needle marks when you get back. I better not find any.”
“You won’t, I promise. I prefer to smoke it. What should I do if I see Mariana there? What if I have to take one for the team to buy her silence?”
“I don’t care what you do with her, but no way in hell is she getting Saber.”
I looked out the window and down the street, which was dark. The night sky was partly cloudy, and the half moon added a little light to the street when it wasn’t obstructed by a passing cloud. Wasn’t much, but enough to make my way without a flashlight.
Every single streetlight was out, and none of the homes had any outdoor lighting. “Sure is a pretty dark street. I bet the gangs shoot out any exterior lights that folks put on their houses,” I said.