by Aric Davis
“Here’s where it gets really good. Terri still wants you to get something to her when you normally do, but we’ll have a ton more time to work out the kinks. If you get in by the middle of summer, you’d most likely be looking at a fall release next year. I think that should be totally doable, writer’s block or not, and it should give you a way to escape from reality for a bit.
“The other great part is that if the next book is as good as your first two, Terri will likely negotiate an advance with you. Now, don’t quote me on that part, but we all feel terrible about what happened, and none of us want it to affect your ability to produce new work, or need to take time away from doing what you love, for something that isn’t your fault.”
“I appreciate that, Jack. And the possibility of an advance—that’s awesome.”
“Will, we want you to do well. This is enough to go through, not to mention writing. That said, dude, you need to give us something we can work with. You need to produce something awesome, something that works within the genre that you found success in. We both know you can write, but you need to stay focused. I loved that last thing, but it was way off the reservation in terms of what people have come to expect from you.”
“I got that, Jack. Once this is a little more settled, I’ll get back to the keyboard.”
“Good, that makes me super happy. Get through this, and get to writing. You’ve done it before; you’ll do it again. Just because the last one was a no-go doesn’t mean we don’t want more from you or that some crazy Norse god took all your stories away. You’re a good writer, and writers write.”
“Thanks, Jack, for everything. I can’t say that enough. I’ll let you know when this is over.”
Will hung up the phone, trying to flush the tears from his eyes. Jack was 100 percent correct. It was time to get back to the keyboard and, instead of whining about writer’s block, to start telling stories. He’d picked writing as a way to get out of a dead end of a job—and dead end for a life—and to throw away everything he’d accomplished wasn’t only unreasonable, it was childish. The phone ringing a third time interrupted his thoughts and made him almost throw the thing to the floor.
Will didn’t recognize the number and almost ignored the call. Then he remembered what Jason had said about calling on a burner, a throwaway cell with a number he wouldn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Meet me tonight. Bring what you brought the other day.”
Jason hung up before Will could even attempt a response, and it wasn’t until the phone was back in his pocket that he realized Jason had meant for him to bring a gun.
“Isaac, I need to talk to Alison for a few minutes.”
Isaac stood. His brother had gone pale, and before he could disguise it, Alison saw him.
Turning to Will, he could tell that she had been waiting all along for the other shoe to drop. “Is it bad news?” she asked as Isaac fled to the basement. “I’m not sure I can take much more of that. I suppose you’ll tell me either way, though.”
“This is good news and bad news,” said Will. “Mostly good, but a little bad—at least you may think so. I talked to Jack. It looks like there will be a delay on my next book, once I get around to writing, editing, and submitting it, of course. It sounds like they want to avoid any negative publicity that Alex’s...situation could send my way.”
“That sounds OK. Right?”
“Except, I have no idea who or what I’ll be writing about.” Will considered telling her about the possible advance, finally deciding against it. It would be better not to play with her feelings over something that might not happen. “But none of that matters. They still want to see work from me and, if it’s up to snuff, promote and publish it. If anything, the delay is a good thing. It will give me time to write and really play with what I want my third book to be. I have to imagine that Bottles sold enough that there will be people out there actually expecting something from the next Will Daniels book, as weird as that is to actually come right out and say.”
“That all sounds great, Will. And of course people are waiting for your next one.”
“The other thing, though, it’s not as pleasant.”
The light that had risen in her eyes went out, just like that, and he wondered if anything that he might have to do in the following weeks, days, or even hours could be forgiven.
“Isaac and I went and met up with an old friend on that grocery trip during the blizzard the other day. He’s a friend from when I was still trouble—or at least thought I was trouble. This guy, though, he was the real deal then, and he still is now. I asked him if he could get me any information on who had hurt Alex, and he said he would call if he was able to. We already had a set time and place to meet, so all he had to do was call on the day he wanted to meet if he had any information.”
“And he called you.”
“Yes, he did.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to meet with him, and I’m hoping Isaac will come with me.”
“I know you’re going to meet with him—I’m not an idiot. It’s obvious you’re set to go do something. I mean, if he can get you info and show you who hurt Alex, then what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. I suppose I’d want to turn them into the police, but I’m not sure that would even be an option. I know that Wixom—the guy who’s helping us—would never have gotten involved if there were even a possibility of police involvement.”
“Will, do think the police are going to catch the men who killed our son?”
“No. Do you?”
“No, I don’t. That makes me feel very weak and also very scared, but I don’t think they will. I think that, even if they do, it will be an accident.”
They thought about that together, eyes locked, and then she said, “I guess what I mean is, I want you to be safe. And I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret every time you close your eyes. But”—she swallowed, and steel came into her eyes—“I want those men punished. If that means that you and your brother need to call every old hood that you know from some long-buried little black book, you do it. Those men killed my son.”
Will and Isaac sat at Founders. Will was drinking a glass of Breakfast Stout, and Isaac was too. Both brothers were nervous, but only Isaac had admitted to it on the car ride over to the brewery.
The Sig felt heavy in Will’s jacket, but not like it had when they’d gone to Jason’s tattoo shop. If anything, it felt like a keyboard to a writer or a hammer to a carpenter. It was a tool necessary for the right sort of job. Isaac was carrying as well, a small 9mm that Will had picked up as a summer carry piece, if he ever got around to taking a concealed carry class.
They were at a table near the rear of the brewery, figuring that Jason would be able to find them even if they tried to hide from him. The building itself was packed. Most of the tables, about twenty in all, were occupied, and the fifty-seat bar had nary a single empty stool. Conversations roared, and Will understood why Jason had picked this place, even if it seemed like the last sort of bar that he would ever hang out in on his own. It was perfect. With the varied tables of oddly mixed groups, they wouldn’t stand out in the least.
Jason appeared out of nowhere. He just sat at their table with a pint of a beer that was dark, though not as dark as their own.
“Dirty Bastard,” he said. “The beer, not you two fucks. Never had it, but it sounds about right, considering circumstances.” He took a long pull from the glass, draining half of it, and then placed it on the table. “How’re things, gents?”
“Lovely,” said Will. “What have you got for us?”
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Jason said, wearing a smile like he’d just met with two old friends. “I can’t fucking tell you right here. You see those two assholes over there?” Jason nodded at two hipsterish kids standing in a glassed-in box just outside of the bar. One of them had horn-rimmed glasses, a handlebar mustache, and a worn messenger bag with an Apple
patch sewn onto it. The other looked about the same, just different affectations, a fedora, vest, and neon-green scarf. Both men were texting on iPhones.
“I see them.”
“Well, when they finish their smokes, we’re going to saunter on over there into the smoke-box so my good buddies won’t let me get lonely while I puff on a butt. Sound good?”
Will and Isaac both nodded, and all three men drank from their glasses of beer. The beer was good and made Will’s head hum a little, but he didn’t feel the urge to consume vast sums of it, either. As if on cue, the hipsters left the smoking area, and Will, Isaac, and Jason left their beers on the table to walk to the room. Will held the door open for his brother and his old friend and then followed them in.
“OK, this is going to be short and sweet,” said Jason. “I got a name, this fuck who likes young pussy, guy named Mumbo. Fat Hispanic kid.”
“What kind of name is Mumbo?” Isaac asked. “That’s seriously weird.”
“It’s the kind of name that either a junkie whore mother gives you or one of your buddies give you. Does it fucking matter? Guy goes by Mumbo, and I know for a fucking fact that he was there.”
An electric hum had kicked up in Will, and Jason eyed him like he could see it. “Now, don’t get crazy thoughts going. I don’t know if he was the one that aced your boy, or if he even knew that was part of the plan when it happened. Maybe you both have forgotten, but things can change on a job.”
“Like getting sucked off by a sixteen-year-old?” Isaac said.
The little glass room took on a different hum then. They all took turns looking at each other. Will imagined blood splattering the glass. Buckets of it.
Isaac spoke first, his voice hoarse and quiet, like he couldn’t quite believe he’d blurted that out. “C’mon, Will,” he said, “let’s get out of here before we can’t.”
“That,” said Jason, smoke flowing from his nostrils, “is what they call ‘one.’ You just got your all-time fill of taking digs at me. You do it again, I will fucking beat you to death, right here in front of all of these nice people. I can’t see any of them stopping me or stopping me leaving when I’m done. I’ll be back in my shop with some pal in my chair in fifteen minutes, and if anybody asks, I’ll have been there all evening.”
“We’re fine, Jason,” said Will. “What’s the plan?”
Jason drew in another long, slow lungful of smoke, still looking at Isaac like he was cataloging the various abuses he would be visiting upon him. Then he exhaled and said, “I’m going to finish my smoke, then we’re going to go in, finish our beers, and Isaac is going to settle our tabs.” He turned a sweet smile on Isaac. “Don’t say shit, brother. Remember, you already got your one.” To both of them, he said, “After that, we’re going to go to Mumbo’s in whatever car you two took here, and we’re going to ask him some questions. His answers will tell us what to do next.”
“You mean, where to go?”
“No, to decide if he’s got anything to tell us first or if we just kill him right away.”
Isaac drove, Will sat next to him, and Jason was crammed into the backseat. Will had offered his seat up front to Jason, but he’d just smiled and declined. Now, with an almost certainly armed man with a black past sitting behind him, Will understood the decision. Not that he could imagine why Jason would have any reason to fear them. It was probably just habit, like how old west gunslingers never sat with their backs to a doorway.
They were silent in the car, with Jason giving occasional directions. He had them staying off the highway and moving into the southwest side of the city, far from the robbery, at least as far as Grand Rapids was concerned, but really only about a twenty-minute car ride.
Jason directed them onto a side street off of Ivanrest, which led them to the type of unidentifiable neighborhood that littered Kent County. Only the cars—half fancy, half rolling rust—were proof that it had been turned from a thriving suburb to a near ghetto of foreclosed-upon houses turned to rental properties.
“Stop here,” said Jason, and Isaac did. Jason handed the brothers leather gloves and put on a pair himself. Will exited the car first, with Jason after him. After a moment, Isaac followed. Jason walked to the back of the car, and Will watched him grab a handful of wet snow and smash it onto Isaac’s license plate. When he was finished, Jason walked from the car and nodded toward a house.
“That one,” he said; it was a nondescript house with white aluminum siding. The house could have used some work but wasn’t nearly as bad off as some of the other ones in the neighborhood. There was an old Ford truck parked in the driveway. Will had only a fleeting moment to wonder just how sure Jason was about this being the right house before he was following his friend across the street, with Isaac at his heels. Jason had a pistol in his gloved hand, not the revolver from the tattoo shop, some sort of smaller automatic that Will didn’t recognize.
The night was pitch-black, the only light coming from houses and the moon, and the snow picked up all of it, casting it in odd reflections. There were the sounds of their feet, automobiles streets away, and the call and response of suburbia, one dog barking, another howling, back and forth. Will noticed all of it and none of it, his world running black and red between fear and anger.
When Will’s feet hit the driveway, he took the Sig from its place in the holster but kept it close to his body. Jason walked to the door. Will was readying himself, waiting for him to knock or ring the buzzer, when Jason kicked the door in and barreled into the house, his pistol up. Fighting every instinct that he’d forced onto himself over the past twenty-odd years, Will followed him, his adrenaline like nothing he’d experienced since he was a teenager.
The first thing Will saw was Jason holding his pistol on a soft man on a couch with his hands high in the air. The man, who looked like he was still covered in baby fat, was wearing a headset hooked to an Xbox 360 controller; he had been playing some war game, a shooter. On the coffee table in front of him was a half-finished forty of Mickey’s malt liquor, a smoldering blue translucent bong, a soft pack of Camel Lights, an overflowing ashtray, a plate with half of a sandwich on it, a bottle of throat spray, Zicam, cough drops, and three thick stacks of banded fifty-dollar bills.
The man winced when Jason tore the headphones from his ears. Isaac heaving the door closed behind them was thunder in the room, the only other noise coming from the television.
“Are you Mumbo, you cunt?” Jason asked the man, and the fat man was nodding, Will realizing as he did so that one of his raised hands was still holding the 360 controller, the headphones dangling from it. “I asked you a question,” said Jason. “Yes or no. Are you Mumbo?”
The man tried to speak, but failed the first time. He tried again, this time managing a torn-sounding “Yes.”
“You have exactly no lies left,” said Jason, pushing his pistol into Mumbo’s face. “Is there anyone else here?”
“No.”
“Anyone coming soon?”
“No.”
“Perfect, we have some things to discuss.”
The television was turned up loud—still just Mumbo’s game, but roaring with war sounds now. Luckily, most of those sounds were gunshots and swearing.
Mumbo’s wrists were bound with strips from the shirt Jason had torn off him. His ankles were bound as well, those to a chair Jason had taken from the kitchen. Atop the chair’s seat, and under Mumbo’s fat ass, was a plastic bowl that Jason had also found in the kitchen. He had shoved three steak knives down through the bottom of it, then flipped the bowl upside down. The more Mumbo’s weight pushed down on the upside-down bowl, the more the bowl flattened, and the deeper the knives went into Mumbo.
Mumbo’s ass was bleeding, and the blood was pooling slowly under the chair. His mouth had been stuffed with what was left of his shirt, and the big man was crying.
Will felt sick over what was happening, but kept reminding himself that Alex was dead and this man had been a part of that death. He concentrated on his
job. Will held Mumbo’s Xbox controller, his finger on the right trigger button. Jason had told him that if Mumbo started yelling, he was to pull that trigger and make the TV loud.
Jason sat in a chair opposite Mumbo. Jason’s gun was resting on his knee, and Will stood behind him. Isaac was still waiting in the doorway.
At last, Jason gave a look to his watch and said, “All right, that’s ten minutes.” He stood and stepped to Mumbo, which made the big man begin to twitch with fear. But rather than further terrorizing the man, Jason had Will join him, and together, they eased Mumbo and his chair back onto the floor. The points of the blades still stuck to him, but the bowl was lifted from the seat of the chair, and Will watched Mumbo’s eyes loll as the pain began to dissipate.
“All right,” said Jason as he removed Mumbo’s gag, “I told you one rule already, so you know not to lie. Here’s rule number two. Do not fucking speak unless spoken to. Rule number three, if you get loud, you will die badly.” Jason stood, leaving Mumbo lying on the floor and stuck to the chair. “One last thing, all right, buddy? There is a bonus round, assuming you play nice in the opening ones. I’m not going to make any promises on that, though. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Mumbo in his wrecked voice.
“Nasty throat you’ve got there, buddy,” Wixom said. “Remember rule one, now. That’s not just a cold, is it?”
Mumbo just looked at him.
“Gasoline fire, I’m guessing,” Jason said. “Hurts like a fucker, doesn’t it? Makes the throat raw. Beyond raw, if you’re close when it goes up. Makes it feel like running a comb through hot pizza. It’s a fucking wreck. You been near a gas fire recently, Mumbo?”
The big man shook his head, and Jason shook his own head back. As Will watched, Jason kicked the upturned bottom of the chair as hard as he could, forcing the plastic bowl against the seat and the bowl with its attached knives into Mumbo. Will pulled the trigger, and what California had decided a .50-caliber gun fired in the desert sounded like roared through and over the scream.