Friendly Fire

by John Gilstrap

  Officer Bailey left after that, handing Ethan off to a towering cop whose name tag read Taylor, and who his colleagues called Bob. “Promise me you’re not going to be a problem,” Officer Taylor said.

  Ethan didn’t answer because he didn’t think the cop needed one. He allowed himself to be led farther down the concrete hallway. Next came the mug shot—full-face and profile—followed by fingerprinting. Ethan was surprised that they did the printing behind his back while he was still cuffed, manipulating his fingers one at a time while instructing him which digits to extend. How big a risk did they think he was?

  “You’re doing fine, Ethan,” Taylor said. They turned left and were buzzed through another door. The room was small, maybe ten by ten feet, and it smelled wet. An industrial-looking Dutch door dominated the left wall, heavy metal, with a panel at the top that swung away from Ethan, exposing bank-teller bars that had a half-moon slot along its lower edge. Another cop stood on the other side. He looked unhappy.

  “Remember your promise not to be a problem,” Officer Taylor said. He moved behind Ethan and fumbled with the handcuffs. “Just hold still.”

  Ethan didn’t bother mentioning that he had never promised anything, though he had no intention of fighting anyone. As the handcuffs fell away, he brought his hands around to the front and rubbed his wrists. The bracelets had left red grooves in his skin.

  “Now we need you to take your clothes off.”

  Ethan’s guts stiffened. “Excuse me?”

  “Get naked,” said the guy behind the bars.

  “Why?”

  “Every new guest gets a shower,” Taylor said in a light tone. “And then you get your new wardrobe.”

  “It’ll prevent diaper rash,” added the cop in the window.

  Ethan felt his heart race. He wondered if color had drained from his face. He felt a rush of dizziness.

  Take your clothes off and be quick about it.

  I don’t want to.

  I don’t care. Don’t make me hurt you.

  That was before, he told himself. That was not now. The monster was not here. The monster was dead. He knew that because he’d witnessed the blood spray.

  “Look,” said the guy behind the cage. “There’s an easy way to do this, and there’s a hard way. You can shower and be clean, or you can shower and be bloody. Your choice.”

  Taylor seemed to sense something. He cocked his head. “You okay?”

  Ethan didn’t answer. He opened the three buttons at the top of his polo shirt, and pulled it over his head. He dangled it in the air, unsure what to do with it.

  The cop at the window tapped the top edge of the lower door. “Right here.”

  Ethan draped the shirt, and then kicked out of his shoes. Reeboks, the most expensive shoes he’d ever bought, purchased four months ago in celebration of his first real job. He picked those up and placed them on top of the shirt. They were still damp with his piss. He bent at the waist to pull up his pants legs and get at his socks.

  “You can sit on the bench if you want,” Taylor said.

  Sit on the bed if you want. I can help you.

  Ethan sat. He took his time, pulling each sock down below his ankle bones before scooping them off his feet one at a time.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, we don’t have all day,” Window-man said.

  Be quick about it.

  He unbuttoned his jeans. Unzipped them. Paused.

  “We’re not going to hurt you, Ethan,” Taylor said.

  I’ll go easy. It won’t hurt. I promise.

  He lifted his butt from the chair and pulled his legs out of the holes. He folded the pants vertically at the seam, wet leg over dry leg, and then folded them again, and then again, creating a nearly perfect square.

  Those tight little underpants, too.

  “What?” His head shot to Taylor.

  “What what? I didn’t say anything. But we need to get on with this.”

  Ethan hadn’t worn tight underwear in eleven years. Not since that day. He stepped out of his soaked boxer shorts, folded them, and placed them on the bench atop the rest of his clothes. He felt tears pressing behind his eyes, and he saw that his hands were shaking.

  “Over here.” Window-man beckoned Ethan with two fingers.

  Naked now, Ethan carried his clothes to the deputy and placed them next to his shirt and his shoes.

  “Try not to gain or lose too much weight over the next twenty years,” the window cop said with a chuckle. “These are your go-home clothes, too. And holy crap are they gonna stink by then.”

  Ethan hated the man behind the bars. He was a shithead bully with a badge. An asshole who sensed weakness in others and preyed upon it. He was a predator.

  “This way,” Taylor said. He beckoned for the next door. This one was wooden and needed no buzzer to pass through. On the other side, a row of three shower heads protruded from the wall, dripping water onto iron-stained once-green tiles. Taylor gestured to them with an open hand. “There’s soap in the dispensers on the wall. I advise you to be thorough. After this, once we transfer you to the Adult Detention Center, you’ll be limited to two showers a week.”

  Ethan hesitated, his hands covering himself. “Are you going to watch?”

  “ ’Fraid I have to. Believe me, there are other things I’d much rather be doing.”

  Ethan moved hesitantly, haltingly. With his hands still cupping his genitals, he stepped over the two-inch curb that marked the edge of the shower and shivered as his feet hit the ages-old accumulation of water. The water spigots were a knurled wheel-and-spoke design that looked more appropriate to an outdoor hose bib. They were unmarked, but Ethan bet on the standard arrangement of hot on the left. Standing to the side, he cracked the knob, heard a rush of air, and then dodged a formless spray of frigid water that hit him even from his offset of ninety degrees. The chill took his breath away. Five seconds later, the temperature transitioned to scalding. After fifteen or twenty seconds of balancing with the knobs, the spray was tolerable.

  Eyes closed, Ethan took his time. He tried to recall the tricks the psychologists had taught him about focusing away from the demons and toward the positive. He needed to find that boat dock in the woods that he’d never actually visited, but that he’d conjured as his place to retreat mentally. If he could make it to the dock, the bad thoughts could be kept at bay.

  It had worked so well then. But back at that point, after he’d been rescued and returned, the reality of his life was indeed safe. Now, he was back in the hands of—

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Taylor said. “Rinse off and let’s get going.”

  Ethan leaned forward into the wall, into the spigots, and let the water flood for just a few more seconds over his face and hair. Down his back. Then he shut the water off.

  Keeping his back turned to the deputy, he said, “Where is my towel?”

  “That comes in another two minutes. Turn around and look at me, please.”

  Covering himself again, Ethan turned. Taylor had donned a pair of blue rubber gloves.

  It won’t hurt. Just imagine you’re at the doctor’s.

  Ethan’s heart rate doubled. “No,” he said.

  “It’s procedure,” Taylor said. “Nobody enjoys the cavity search, but—”

  It did hurt. Oh, my God, it hurt so bad. And the monster laughed as Ethan yelled.

  “No!” Ethan shouted it this time.

  Taylor seemed startled. “Come on, Ethan, don’t—”

  —make this any harder than it needs to be.

  The color in the room changed in Ethan’s head. Reality transformed into something unreal—unrooted. He knew it was impossible, but he was eleven years old again. But now he was big. Now he could defend himself.

  He launched himself at the cop. Not the shithead predator cop, but the nice one. The one named Taylor. Like Andy Taylor from Mayberry, the show that played without end on TV Land. The deputy was taller by a head, but Ethan knew a trick to make up the difference. As he lunged fo
rward, he tucked his chin just a little and then on contact, thrust his head up under the deputy’s jaw. He heard a snap, and he heard someone yell. It might have been Ethan’s own howling, but he couldn’t be sure.

  They were on the wet floor now, bare skin against leather and hardware. Ethan threw punches and he received them, but he didn’t feel anything. This was not going to happen to him again.

  The space around him reverberated with noise and he saw more shoes and he felt more hands. He swung at as many of them as he could. His guts exploded as someone landed a kick, and then he saw the stick coming.

  Darkness.

  Chapter Four

  “Where do you want me?” Boxers asked.

  Jonathan pointed ahead and to the right. “Take the red-black corner.” The right rear corner. “I don’t expect they’ll run away from a knock at the door, but we might as well be prepared.”

  “Just sidearms, I presume?”

  “And keep it concealed. Like I said, I don’t anticipate a panic response from a knock at the door.”

  Boxers backed into a parking space across the lot from room 124, threw the transmission into Park, and sat, his massive hands poised at ten and two on the steering wheel. “This doesn’t feel right, Boss.”

  Jonathan pulled on the door handle. “Let’s see what happens.”

  Playing drunk was a tricky thing. The staggering, slurring caricature drunk wouldn’t fool anyone. In fact, the average drunk tried very hard not to look drunk when he was at his drunkest, which was a doubly difficult act to pull off when the person trying to look sober was in fact sober, trying to look sober while drunk. It was about understatement, and the stink of booze should go a long way toward selling the bluff. If room 124 was indeed the right place, then alcohol would be against the occupants’ religion, triggering an even greater level of disgust.

  Jonathan’s plan was simple. He would knock on the door, and when someone answered, he’d eyeball them to see if they matched the description of the kidnappers. He’d apologize for the interruption, and then evaluate the options to rescue the little girl. Boxers monitored the action from the shadows of the building’s right rear corner, where he could simultaneously see if anyone bolted out the back, while keeping an eye on Jonathan.

  “Is everybody on the channel?” Jonathan asked softly as he approached the door.

  “Big Guy’s here,” Boxers said.

  “And Mother Hen.” Venice monitored most of their ops when they went hot. Sometimes, Jonathan wore a body cam to give her a more complete view, but there was no place to hide it on this disguise.

  “Here we go,” Jonathan said. He settled his shoulders and sagged his knees a little. He let his eyelids droop just a bit, and then rapped on the door with the knuckle of his left middle finger.

  He heard motion on the other side. Multiple voices. It took nearly ten seconds for one voice to say what is normally said immediately. “Who is it?”

  Jonathan said nothing. Noting the motion of the curtains as someone peeked out, he knocked again.

  More motion, more voices. They sounded angsty.

  Jonathan whispered, “I think you might be getting some business after all, Big Guy.”

  “You’re making my nipples hard,” Boxers replied.

  Jonathan smiled and kept knocking. Not hard—not a search-warrant pound—just a steady, annoying-as-hell thump with his knuckle. The whole point was to get them to open the damn door.

  “Go away!” a voice said. It carried an accent, but these days, in this neighborhood, unaccented English was more the exception than the rule.

  He heard a little yip—maybe squeak was a better term. Was it a little girl being hurt?

  Jonathan kept knocking.

  Finally, he heard the chain move on the back of the door, and the knob turned. The door cracked a few inches, enough to reveal a man’s left eye. It looked like a pissed-off left eye. “I said go away!”

  “Dude!” Jonathan said. He wedged his body closer to the door. “Whatcha doin’ in there? This is the party room, right?” He pushed on the door, opening it just enough to see the shadow of a second man wedged behind the door panel. He was hiding. In the mirror on the wall over the dresser, Jonathan saw a seam of light around the closed bathroom door. That made at least three targets. And the one he could see looked Middle Eastern. Check, check, and check.

  “There is no party here,” the man at the door insisted. “You need to leave.”

  When Jonathan saw what appeared to be blood on the floor, he decided it was time to call an audible. “Dude, look, I’m sorry, man. Can I just use your pisser?” He pressed in tighter.

  The doorman pressed his hand to Jonathan’s chest. “No, you may not. You are drunk. You do not belong—”

  “Hey, Mindy, are you there?” Jonathan shouted.

  The doorman’s eyes flashed fear as commotion rose behind the closed bathroom door. The doorman’s hand whipped around to the back of his trousers. It was all the confession Jonathan needed.

  Jonathan shouldered the door hard and drove the heel of his left hand into the other man’s nose. Knocked off balance, the guy staggered back three steps. Jonathan hammered the door again, harder this time, to unbalance the guy in the shadow. In one smooth, practiced move, he lifted his T-shirt with his left hand, pulled his 1911 from its holster, and thumbed the safety off.

  The man he’d driven back into the room recovered enough to draw a pistol, and had nearly brought it to bear when Jonathan fired two one-handed shots into the gunman’s chest. The guy was still collapsing when Jonathan pivoted left to encounter the hider behind the door. He never saw the man’s face, but he saw the gun in the man’s hand. A pistol-grip pump shotgun with a shortened barrel. Jonathan fired three times into the shadow’s center of mass, and both the weapon and its owner fell like bricks.

  When Jonathan turned back to the first guy, he saw that he still sat upright, bleeding from his chest, his face a mask of confusion. Jonathan shot the mask through the eye.

  “Mindy, are you in the bathroom?” As he spoke, he pulled a fresh mag for the Colt out of its pouch on the left side of his belt, and brought it up the pistol’s grip.

  “Help! I—” The young voice was silenced by a slap.

  He dropped the partially spent mag into the space between the middle and ring fingers of his left hand and jammed the new one home. The whole maneuver took less than two seconds. He dropped the mostly empty mag into his pocket. Never enter a new gunfight with old ammo.

  Jonathan fired a kick that landed square on the bathroom door’s flimsy brass-colored knob.

  The panel exploded inward, launching a shower of splintered mirror.

  Mindy screamed. Her kidnapper held her by her flaming red hair, lifting her off her feet as he cowered behind, trying to get a bead on Jonathan. Black zip ties bound Mindy’s hands in front of her. Motel bathrooms were not big spaces, and old shitty ones were even smaller. At a range of maybe three feet, the worst marksmen in the world would have a hard time missing.

  Jonathan went for the gun. It was a Glock—either a 19 or a 23. He grabbed the weapon at the slide, behind the front sight, and he twisted it inward and up. If it fired, it wouldn’t hit anyone. As the kidnapper’s finger snapped inside the trigger guard, the guy lost his concentration on Mindy’s hair. As she moved, she opened a space that revealed the bad guy’s face. Jonathan thrust his Colt through the opening till he felt hard contact with the guy’s forehead, and he pulled the trigger, opening a star-shaped hole in flesh and bone. The kidnapper left a crimson arc on the shattered green tile wall as he slid sideways into the bathtub, pulling the shower curtain and rod with him.

  “We’re clear,” Jonathan said, holstering his Colt. “Three sleeping. PC is secure.”

  “Holy shit, Scorpion, what did you just do?” Boxers nearly shouted. The cadence of his words told Jonathan that Big Guy was running.

  Without saying a word, Jonathan grabbed Mindy around the middle and lifted her off her feet. She struggled. “
Leave me alone!” she yelled. “Let me go!” She swung her bound fists as a single unit, as if chopping wood.

  Jonathan used a second arm to pinion her hands to her side. “Don’t look at the bodies,” he said, as he maneuvered her out of the bathroom. “I’m here to take you back to your parents.”

  “Put me down!”

  She’d been through a lot. Jonathan didn’t expect her to understand what was going on, and this was no time to go into detail. He just gripped her tighter and hustled across the parking lot toward the Ford. He carried her sideways to avoid getting kicked by her pedaling feet, and was a little ashamed at how quickly his grip had begun to slip. Apparently, kids are born with a wriggle instinct, and young Mindy was particularly gifted. He picked up his pace.

  Boxers was already in the cab and cranking the engine when Jonathan was still twenty feet away. Reading the situation for what it was, Big Guy swung back out of the vehicle and opened the back door on the driver’s side. Jonathan ducked his head, stepped high, and sort of leaped onto the back bench seat, while at the same time turning to keep from landing atop the squirming little girl. Knowing that a door slam was coming, he tucked his knees up to prevent losing his feet at the ankles.

  Five seconds later, they were on their way.

  “Leave me alone! Let go of me!”

  Boxers shouted, “Hey! Mindy, shut up! We just saved your life! Show some respect!” When Big Guy wanted to be loud, he could be seismic. They were harsh words, but they worked. Mindy fell silent, and even Jonathan felt a little stunned.

  He unwrapped his arms from around the PC and helped her sit up straight. “Are you hurt?”

  “They hit me,” she said. Some of the wind had left her sails, but she was still spun tight. Clotted blood mixed with her red hair.

  “Well, they can’t hit you anymore,” Jonathan said.