Don't Leave Me

by James Scott Bell

  .

  “You’re not telling me you think there’s a reason for all this, do you?” Henrietta Hoover had mercifully kept her robe closed but was now sitting with her legs crossed. Showing a little too much leg.

  “Reason?” Chuck said.

  “You think there’s a deity who made us?”

  Sitting on a hard chair, and knowing he looked like hell’s own ambassador, Chuck did not continue the conversation.

  “What’s your line of work?” the woman asked.

  “School teacher.”

  “How long?”

  Chuck said nothing. He couldn’t imagine having to listen to this woman’s voice for an entire evening of theater.

  “I’m gonna keep asking until you answer,” she said.

  “Why not let me ask you questions?”

  That seemed to please her. Good. At least this way he’d control the conversation until Royce arrived.

  “Where were you born?” Chuck asked.

  “Pittsburgh,” she said. “A good place to be from.”

  “They have the Steelers.”

  “They have jack, Jack. You married?”

  Oh no. “I thought I was asking the questions.”

  She shook her head. “Not anymore. Divorced?”

  “I never talk about my personal life on the first date.”

  “Life sucks,” Henrietta Hoover said. “And then you die.”

  “That doesn’t leave much to look forward to.”

  “There is nothing.”

  How many conversations like this had he had in Afghanistan? With young soldiers who’d lost limbs or knew they would? Who fought the inner ferret of fear every day?

  In some strange way, those had prepared him for this moment.

  And then it struck him. She was as much a victim of the battle of life as the soldiers were of the war in Afghanistan. Whatever had happened to her, she was lashing out and looking for a reason to live. As much as he didn’t want to do it, his training kicked in and pushed the words out of his mouth.

  “You’re gambling with the universe,” he said, “and you have limited information. Why bet against hope and meaning and beauty? Why go all in on that bet?” He was talking to himself now, as much as he was to her.

  She was silent for the first time in a long time. Chuck couldn’t read her face, but he imagined the sound of rusty gears inside her head. “Where are you going?” she finally said. “I mean, when your friend picks you up?”

  “Anywhere that’s not here,” Chuck said.

  “Something bad really has happened to you, hasn’t it?”

  “Best you don’t know about it,” Chuck said.

  “Will you come back?” she said.

  “Back?”

  “Will you come back and visit me sometime? I haven’t had a good conversation like this in a long time.”

  She seemed to sink into the chair, like loose change between cushions. In the dimness of the light Chuck could see hard lines on her face.

  “Would you?” she said.

  “Henrietta, it would be a pleasure,” Chuck said.

  She smiled.

  “Maybe I will take that Fig Newton,” Chuck said.

  Ten minutes after the Newton, Chuck heard a car pull up in the drive. He peeked out the window and saw headlights, which were immediately shut off.

  “He’s here,” Chuck said to Henrietta. “Thanks for having me.”

  “Stay out of trash cans,” she said. “And don’t forget to come back.”

  “I won’t.”

  As he moved for the door she stopped him, and kissed him on the cheek.

  He gave her a quick nod before she did anything else, then back through the narrow pack-rat corridor and out the side door.

  Royce was out of the car.

  “What the heck is this place?” he said.

  Chuck said, “Did you see any other cars on the way in?”

  “No. There were a ton of cop cars out at the corner, though.”

  “Gotta go there. I have to tell them what happened, and start looking for Stan.”

  “Chuck what is––”

  “In the car.” Chuck hopped in the passenger seat. Royce got in and started up the car. As Royce backed out of the driveway, headlights on, Chuck saw Henrietta looking out the window at them, like they were a ship going to sea.

  “Tell me now what is going on,” Royce said, heading up the dark road.

  “You were right about the Serbs,” Chuck said. “I got the info from a guy who knows. It’s drugs, Royce. Heroin. It’s serious, because they’ve got Stan.”

  “No way.”

  “They came to the motel. The one I rear ended and another guy. They want something from me. He kept saying 'Where is it’?”

  “Where is what?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. He had a stun gun, a baton.”

  “This keeps getting better and better.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. Stan and I got away, they chased us, we got held in a sushi restaurant and . . . did you hear any reports about a killing at a sushi place?”

  “Killing!”

  “These guys shot up the place. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Chuck closed his eyes, rubbed them. His head was buzzing. When Royce didn’t say anything, but slowed, he looked up. “What?” he said.

  “Look.”

  Royce’s headlights illuminated a lightless SUV straight ahead of them. In the middle of the road.

  “It’s them,” Chuck said.

  “Hold on,” Royce said.

  He shoved his car into reverse.

  This was crazy. Also their only chance. But it could mean death to both of them and he’d brought Royce right into the middle of it.

  No time to think of that now.

  Royce spun the tires as he turned. Chuck looked back and saw the SUV hit its lights and come toward them.

  “I’m sorry,” Chuck said.

  “We’ve been through worse,” Royce said. He gunned the car forward toward the deeper darkness of the canyon.

  .

  Stan listened at the door and heard no voices. Maybe it was now or never. Time to make a play. Time to show what he could do.

  He could sneak! He got very good at sneaking as a kid. When dad was looking for him, or when bullies were around. He learned to sneak. He sneaked away from the Reilly brothers, one older and one younger, who were going to give him a super wedgie one day. He heard about it at school, and knew where they’d be waiting for him. He sneaked out by hiding in a bathroom stall with his feet up on the toilet so they couldn’t see. Then he went out low between the buildings at the corner of the campus and hopped the fence.

  He could sneak, and he would, and when they came back to try to find him he wouldn’t be there.

  Where he would be he didn’t know, but he was going to find his way to Chuck for sure.

  He closed his eyes and saw the duck getting shot with the ball from the cannon held by the snowman.

  Snowman was an 8.

  Cannon was a 6.

  Ball was a 0.

  Duck was a 2.

  8-6-0-2.

  He would show them.

  He pressed the numbers on the keypad.

  The door went click.

  Chapter 59

  In the small inner office of the ranger station, Sandy Epperson said, “Okay, what is this all about?”

  The woman placed an FBI credential on the table in front of Sandy. But the name was Erica DeSoto.

  “Lucy Bowers is a deep cover name,” DeSoto said. “There is more going on here than meets the eye, as they say.”

  “I’d like both my eyes to know what’s going on.”

  “Suppose you tell me why you’re here?”

  “I’m here as an LA cop. We’ve been looking at a man named Charles Samson.”

  “For what?”

  “Murder.”

  DeSoto smiled. It was one of those knowing, Fed smiles Sandy Epperson had seen before. She h
ated that look. It usually meant an investigation was being snatched away from her.

  “Charles Samson is no more a killer than Paris Hilton is a law professor.”

  Sandy felt a rush of energy, the kind that confirmed her hunch about Samson.

  “And you know this how?” Sandy said.

  “Listen,” DeSoto said.

  .

  Chuck thought Royce might fly right off the canyon road. Down into some ravine. It was not easy negotiating these turns at this speed.

  But what choice? Guys with guns and deadly intent behind them.

  If we hit a cul-de-sac, Chuck thought, we’re cooked.

  “Maybe we should ram them,” Royce said.

  “Head on?”

  “Why not? Give us the element of surprise.”

  This was what it had come to? This was the plan? It made a perverse sense, a head on crash. Because the whole bloody thing had started with a rear ender. That was LA for you, it all came down to cars.

  “We could stop and make a run for it,” Royce said. “In the dark, maybe we’d have a chance.”

  “Let’s ram the hell out of them,” Chuck said, surprising himself. But he was tired of running, tired of bad people having their way. Ram them and kill them, that was the only way. You can’t avoid it in this world, some people just have to die and it’s not going to be you or Royce or Stan, not if you have anything to say.

  And if you flame out and die yourself, so what? You went down with a fight.

  “Hey man, you ready?” Royce said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m gonna turn around.”

  “Do it.”

  There was another curve and another little offshoot road. Royce turned into the road, stopped, backed up.

  As he did, the headlights from the oncoming car hit them from the side.

  The sound of popping. Only hard and metallic.

  Gunfire.

  Before Royce could make the turn, his SUV slumped left. Chuck registered this as tires being shot out. Royce tried to regain control but it wasn’t happening.

  More pops. Hitting the side of the car.

  “Get out and run!” Royce said. He reached over and popped the glove compartment, took out a gun. “Now!”

  “No!”

  Royce said, “Do it for Stan. Go!”

  No time, no time, Chuck pushed out the passenger door and started to run.

  But his feet said No way, it was over, no more for them. Four steps, maybe five and Chuck fell to his knees.

  The sound of feet, healthy feet in strong shoes, came closer, like swooping birds.

  Two of them, strong armed, pulling him up. His feet on fire as they walked him back. Headlights

  illuminating the road.

  Royce face down on the road, not moving, another of the slime standing over him with a handgun pointed at his head.

  “No!”

  Chuck heard the shot as they shoved him into the back seat.

  Guys got in on either side of him.

  Dear God, forgive me.

  Tears burned his eyes.

  Royce, Dear God, forgive me.

  Chapter 60

  “What happened here tonight is about a network of former Serbian soldiers,” Agent DeSoto told Sandy Epperson. “There was also a wipe out at a sushi restaurant in Woodland Hills earlier tonight. We think that’s their work, too.”

  Holy mother of pearl, Sandy thought. “But why?”

  “They’re running heroin here in the Southland. We think the leader is a man named Svetozar Zivkcovic. Ever heard that name?”

  Sandy shook her head.

  “You’ve heard of Radovan Karadzic then? He was in charge of the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia in the mid-1990s. He was caught in 2008.”

  “I think I do remember that.”

  “Zivkcovic was Karadzic’s right-hand man, his chief assassin, his terror. He was reportedly in Afghanistan in 1999, in league with a local warlord.”

  “How did he end up in Afghanistan?”

  “It goes all the way back to the Soviet occupation. I’m telling you, nobody learns the lessons of history, do they? This area of the world has been the graveyard of every empire that tried to occupy it. The Soviets thought they were the exceptions. We did, too. No matter what force is there, an opportunity comes around for people to exploit weaknesses by force.

  “The old khans, who controlled the Helmand Province, were targeted by the Communists in the early years of the Soviet war. Most of them were wiped out or fled the country. But that just created a power vacuum for new warlords to step in, hardened by the occupation and merciless. And smart. They trafficked in guns and cash and the most important thing of all, the poppy.”

  “Their chief export,” Sandy said.

  DeSoto nodded. “Their new axiom of power was, Who controls the poppy, controls the province. And the Serbs took notice. So Zivkcovic was dispatched to work with Abdul Asad Sajadi, a respected Mujahideen commander in Kandahar during the Soviet occupation. He provided training and weapons and strategy that helped bring down the Communist occupation. The Soviets called this war The Bear Trap. From 1989 to 2002, Zivkcovic and Abdul were a force in the region. They even got the CIA to buy back a cache of stinger missiles it had provided during the war. But they were solidifying their trade in opium. Abdul was assassinated in 2003, we think by the CIA.”

  “You think?” Sandy said.

  “They never talk to us,” DeSoto said. “But it’s obvious. Anyway, he’s got trade partners there. And his network is active here in Southern California. Maybe he’s here, too. He would have come in before 2001 and the Patriot Act. He would be deeply invested, would have as tight a false identity as big money can buy. Then he probably goes to Europe as a businessman, legit, and slips untraced into Afghanistan. That, at least, is our theory.”

  “Okay,” Sandy said. “But what about my guy, Samson?”

  “We got a lead about him from one of our agents on the Afghan Task Force. We check all returning vets, routine stuff. But something clicked on Samson and it had to do with his wife. She was a journalist and was getting deep into a story about heroin in SoCal. So we rented a house in his neighborhood. We needed a home base and cover in the area anyway, and this was a good a place as any.”

  “Then you knew him. As a neighbor.”

  “As someone to say Hi to, yes.”

  “You know about his house on fire then. Who started that?”

  “We think it was one of Zivkcovic’s people. We think they made me, and I got out of there. Before this all happened.”

  “Surely you don’t think Samson was into trafficking,” Sandy said.

  “No. But he works at a school that has a connection.”

  “The Hunt Academy?”

  DeSoto nodded. “You ever heard of the Westies?”

  “Oh yes,” Sandy said.

  “And James Stone?”

  “Jimmy Stone, sure.”

  “How about Ryan Malik?”

  Sandy nodded. “He’s one of them, too.”

  “Dead. Got it from one of the Serbs. And that put the fear of Zivkcovic into young Jimmy. He came to us.”

  “Did you bring him in?”

  “We’re leaving him out. But if he cooperates, and keeps alive . . .”

  “That’s cold,” Sandy said.

  “It’s a cold world, Detective. We have names. Two names Jimmy gave us. One was Dog and the other was Vaso. That’s it. That’s as far as we were, until tonight.”

  .

  When they took the hood off his head, Chuck saw he’d been walked into a palatial room with a huge skylight. The sound of a fountain running brought his attention to a small grotto of ferns and rock next to floor-to-ceiling windows. Two marble pillars supported an arch over the windows. One entire wall was built-in bookshelves but with a huge flat screen TV in the middle. The floor was dark burgundy tile. Chuck was no design maven, but thought it looked like his favorite Mexican restaurant back in Chatsworth.

  Which was whe
re he wanted to be right now, with Stan and a pitcher of margaritas.

  The view through the windows was a postcard blown up to life size proportions—full moon, shining down on the ocean, seen through a clutch of palm trees.

  It might have been the most mellow, most beautiful, most relaxing place in Southern California, if not for the two guys with weapons flanking him.

  A man walked into the room as smoothly as a motivational speaker coming onstage. He was maybe fifty and in solid shape. His tight cotton shirt revealed a bull-like build. He had calm, intelligent eyes. He was not just an occupier of space. He was the kind who owned every room he entered.

  This was the guy. The one behind it all. Chuck knew that as sure as he knew his own name.

  The man waved his two gunmen out of the room. They obeyed quickly, like soldiers.

  That’s what they were. Serb soldiers. Right here in Southern Freaking California.

  “How do you like Alan Ladd?” the man said. Accent, but from one who was fighting hard not to have it.

  Chuck fought the fuzziness in his brain, which wanted to shut down for the night. What did the guy just say?

  The man walked over to the window, looked out. “It’s beautiful tonight,” he said.

  “What do you want with me?” Chuck said. “Why all this? Where’s my brother?”

  “When I was a boy,” the man said, “I was sometimes able to go to the cinema. Your American movies were a godsend. Old movies, not like the atrocious offerings being made today. John Wayne I liked, but most of all I loved Shane. Alan Ladd. Do you know the movie?”

  Chuck wondered if he’d fallen into the Mad Hatter tea party, only the Dormouse was a crazy Serbian criminal.

  “Shane is God come down from the sky,” the man said. “He rides into a valley and brings order against the evil ranchers. He does his job then returns. He fights. There is a wonderful fight scene.”

  “Where is my brother?” Chuck said.

  The man raised a finger. “Jack Palance plays the gunfighter who comes to kill for the evil rancher. Shane works for the good homesteader. But you see the point, don’t you?”

  Chuck said nothing. What do you say to someone who is talking about movies at a time like this?

  “It is because the fate of people is very often not in their own hands,” the man said. “They are at the mercy of the forces that are stronger than they. That’s when you need a Shane on your side. I will be your Shane.”