Out There Bad mm-2

by Josh Stallings

  The office door was open a crack, leaking a sliver of light into the dark hall. As I moved toward the door, I pulled the Beretta from my waistband.

  Uncle Manny looked up from behind his desk. His eyes widened only slightly, a mere flicker of panic crossed his face then was gone. “Keep your hands on the desk, Manny.”

  “The cash is in the bank bag,” he said, trying to stare me down.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “Yes, to rob me, you ungrateful son of a bitch.”

  I slapped the pistol down across his face, opening a small gash in his cheek.

  “Wrong answer,” Mikayla said, flipping the razor open.

  “You want to cut me? So what?” Manny looked at the blade like it meant no more to him than a toothpick.

  “Glendale Adventist,” I said to Mikayla, “Bed five fourteen. You’ll find an Arab there. Kill him.”

  “Ok,” Mikayla shrugged and headed out the door. She got all the way down the hall before Manny broke.

  “Wait, Moses, wait. Call her back.”

  “I’m way past fucking around here, Manny.”

  “Call her back, I’ll tell you what I know.” His shoulders slumped and he was suddenly a sad old man. I let her get ten more paces before I finally called out.

  Coming back into the office, she looked put out at not getting to kill anyone. She leaned against a credenza behind Manny, flicking the razor open and closed.

  “Tell me about the Israelis,” I ordered Manny.

  “Who?” He looked genuinely confused.

  “The motherfuckers you sent to waste me at the bus depot.”

  “No, I called Dimitri Petravich. Moses, you must believe I had no choice. They threatened to kill my family. You saw what they did to my nephew, I had no choice.” Sweat ran down his forehead.

  “You always have a choice. You chose to give me up.”

  “I care for you like a son, if I thought they could succeed in harming you, I never would have told them. I knew you could take care of yourself, but my family…”

  “You knew they had their girls whoring out of the club, didn’t you?” I had to change the conversation away from his sentimental crap before I started believing him. “How did they get their hooks into you?”

  “They threatened to have me sent down as a terrorist. They have friends working for Homeland Security. All they need is a suspicion and I would disappear. Guantanamo, Spain, wherever they were hiding combatants. I would be gone. Who would care for my family? What was the harm? A man wants to get his cock sucked, a girl is willing to suck it, what is the harm?”

  “The girls weren’t willing,” Mikayla said. Manny turned around to look at her. Slamming my fist on the desk, I caught his attention. I had to keep him from engaging Mikayla and getting his throat slit.

  “Bullshit, Manny. Some Russian gangster tells you he has government connections and you roll over? Nah, don’t buy it.”

  “A federal agent came to the club, he said it was a routine immigration check. But I knew it was a message from the Russian. He was proving his connections were real. I’m not proud of what I did, but it was what I had to do. Now if you are going to kill me, please make it look like robbery so my wife can collect the insurance.”

  “You fucked me hard and dry, Manny. Killing you won’t even this score, not by a mile. No, you stay in play with these bastards. You’re my inside man now.”

  I told him to keep his cell on, I’d be in touch. On the way out, I grabbed the bank bag. It was the price he’d pay for fucking a friend.

  Manny had been the only father I had ever known. He was a hard, street fighting bastard. I had trusted him. My mistake.

  We made it two blocks before the government car hit its siren and lights.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Where the fuck are the girls?” The fed’s belly hung over a rodeo belt.

  “At the mall?” It was stupid, but fuck it, I was tired. I had been cuffed and on my knees for the past twenty minutes. The same question over and over.

  Mikayla was gone. When he hit the siren, I jammed on the gas and let the beast roar. We hung a left so tight, I could feel the right tires lift off. He missed the turn but he wasn’t far behind. Left, right, I was running blind through Frogtown, a small area of convoluted streets, pinned between the 5 and the LA river. The last turn was a mistake. Two hundred feet down, it dead-ended into the river. Slamming on the brakes, I gave Mikayla the cash, the Beretta and the name of the motel. Then I jumped out and ran towards the black sedan. Mikayla slipped into the shadow.

  “Stuck your dick in a hornets’ nest this time, boy.” I could smell bourbon on his breath as he leaned into me. “I’m tossing you a life line, maybe you should think about taking it.”

  “Meet you halfway?”

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Only one problem, chief.”

  “What might that be?”

  “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” He hit pretty good for an old guy. I fell over on my side.

  “I’m sorry, damn my temper. Damn.” Lifting me back onto my knees, he started to dust me off. Something hard hit something soft. His body went rigid. His hands stopped moving. He hit the pavement with a thud.

  Mikayla stood over him, a bloody brick in her hand.

  Harry Clemmit, that was his name, or at least that was what his ID said. He was a Federal Marshal assigned to Homeland Security. He had eight hundred and forty-two dollars, a VIP card from Fantasia’s bikini club and not much else. He was handcuffed on the bed with a towel full of ice on his head. Mikayla sucked on a cigarette. I sucked on a Coke, wishing it was a scotch.

  I had chosen the Rose Motor Lodge in Eagle Rock. They took cash and didn’t ask any questions. It was a small court of pre-war single story bungalows. His wallet and half-drunk quart of Four Roses whiskey sat on the coffee table. His Remington 12 gauge and Kevlar vest rested by the door. His.44 Bulldog was in my belt.

  Harry’s lids slid open when we dumped an ice bucket full of cold water on him. Eyes darting, he tried to place himself. Navigating his way back from whatever dark place he had been, he locked on me.

  “You are one sad sack dumb fuck, convict. Kidnapping a cop?”

  “You look up my record?” I sipped the Coke.

  “Two time loser, yeah, I looked you up. I got a sack of hammers at home that are smarter than you.” He tried to sit up, pain swimming, he leaned back down.

  “This here is strike three, the big bitch. I have nothing to lose by killing you.” Another sip.

  “Kill a cop, ride the needle. Is that what you want, son?” He was fighting his ornery nature to try and sound warm and fatherly. “I figure maybe I can help straighten this out, if you give me the chance. Un-cuff me, put our heads together, see what we see.”

  “I don’t think so.” Setting down the Coke, I pulled the.44. He relaxed, it was as if he had seen this moment coming a long time back and he was almost relieved to finally have it here. Pushing the barrel against his head, I pulled the trigger.

  The hammer fell on an empty chamber with a hollow click.

  Harry was in the trunk as we drove across town. The empty gun trick had opened the floodgates of truth. He was on the pad to the Russians. He had convinced his bosses they could help him fight terrorists, that was all it took to give him free rein. Mention the T word and nothing else mattered. The Israelis worked for Mossad. The Russian mob funneled them cash. Cash used to fight terrorists. Again the big T. He told me the Israelis had Gregor and Anya held in a safehouse in Chatsworth. That’s where we were headed.

  Back in the motel, I had cleaned my shoulder. Whatever Adolpho’s woman had used had done the trick, the flesh was purple with bruising but no sign of infection. I turned the shower to scalding and let the water pound down on me. I hurt from head to toe and the water did little to ease it. What I needed was a week in bed. What I got was a head full of broken glass and rusty nails. Jason B. Manny. Piper. Faces flooded my mind. So many fr
iends lost. It had started with a simple lap dance, and a girl I fell for. That was a life ago. Now she and my last friend were both in the hands of killers and it was on me to get them back.

  “These men are very good at what they do, very good,” Mikayla said as we purred up the freeway.

  “Fuck them.” I didn’t look at her, we hadn’t spoken ten words since we left Piper’s.

  “Look, I’m…” She was stumbling and unsure. “I’m, I didn’t mean to… Your friend, the stripper…”

  “Her name’s Piper.”

  “Yes, Piper… Sometimes, I wish it was all different. Not sometimes. No, always I wish, but this is who I am.” She went silent, eyes on the hills sweeping past us. Whatever fantasy I had in the desert was gone. Mikayla wasn’t ever going on a date. She wasn’t the kind of girl you took walking on the beach at sunset. The place those possibilities lived had died in her miles back down her twisted road. Maybe they had died for me, too, only I was too thick to admit it.

  The sun was cresting the mountains as the new day broke over Chatsworth, redneck hell. Home of the peckerwood jury who kicked free the cops who beat Rodney King and set off the LA uprising.

  At a filling station, I called Manny. He was still at the club. “Call the Russians. Ask them what it will take to get Gregor back.”

  “It may take time, where are you?”

  “I’m at the Rose Motor Lodge, call me when you reach them.” I gave him the number and hung up. From the parked car, I could see the dirt road Harry had mapped for us. The convenience store coffee tasted bitter. We watched the road. We waited.

  Ten minutes later, a white van rolled down the mountain. We ducked down as they flew past us and onto the freeway. Manny had sold me out again. I knew he would. I was past caring. One day I might kill him, but not this day.

  “I need a drink,” Harry said when we opened the trunk. His face was a bit red, but other than that, he looked better than when we shoved him in there. “Goddamn, convict, I’m six feet down and waiting for the dirt. Give me a drink or shoot me.” His hands, cuffed behind his back, were starting shake with building tremors.

  Unhooking the cuffs, I handed him the Four Roses. He sat up in the trunk, back pressed against the inside of the fender, and took one long pull off the bottle.

  “You ever listen to Dolly Parton?” He hit the bottle again.

  “I hate country music.”

  “Your loss, convict, your loss.” His trembling stopped with the whisky. Climbing out he looked up the dirt road. “Sure you want to do this? These are some mean mother truckers.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “It’s your neck and your razor.” He led us around the bend. At the end of the dirt road, a Quonset hut sat surrounded by oaks and scrub. Mikayla circled around the back, through the trees. I gave her a few minutes before moving to the front door. Pinning myself against the wall, I leveled the 12 gauge at Harry’s chest. His fist pounding on the metal door echoed into the quiet morning. Heavy footsteps on concrete. The peephole darkened.

  “Open up, the Russkies sent me, we got trouble.” Sweat beads popped on Harry’s forehead. A steel bolt slid and the door started to open. Shoving Harry aside, I slammed into the door. It flew open, the man behind it was quick, instead of toppling, he used my force to propel himself into the shadows. I was stumbling into the room when he fired the first burst. Flame jumped out of the darkness. The doorway I had been in was filled with the buzz of lead. Falling to my belly, bullets ripped holes of light into the wall behind me. Aiming at the flame, I pulled the shotgun’s trigger. It slammed into my fucked up shoulder, sending shivers of pain with every shot. I pulled the trigger as quick as I could, the Remington’s smooth auto load kept the shots coming. I didn’t stop until the breach locked open. All went silent. Dust motes and gun smoke drifted in the shafts of light piercing in through the bullet holes. Setting the Remington down, I pulled my Beretta and crawled towards the shadowed form. Buckshot had taken the Israeli’s head off at the jaw line. Bloody pulp smeared the wall behind him. I swallowed and kept moving.

  Stepping into a back room that had been converted into a kitchen, I slipped on something wet and almost fell. The floor was slick with blood. A man lay on his side, his hands locked on his throat where he had unsuccessfully tried to stop his life from flowing out of a razor cut.

  Through a door on the left, I found Mikayla leaning over Gregor. In the small windowless room, he sat on the floor. She cut the plastic cuffs off his hands and feet. When she pulled off the hood covering his face, he blinked against the light, then looked up at me.

  “How’s it going, boss?”

  “Been better, you?”

  “Been worse.” Standing up, he almost fell over, grabbed the wall for support.

  “Sit.” In the corner, I found his clothes. I pulled on his jeans as gently as possible, he didn’t scream but I could tell he wanted to. Bruises, gashes and rips left no part of his body unharmed. I had to cut the top off his left boot to fit it on over his broken toes.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

  “Fuck it, boss, comes with the job.” When he smiled, I saw he was missing a tooth and two others were chipped. “You get Anya?”

  “No.” I couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Then what the hell are we waiting for. That white haired old fuck took her.” He was pulling on his shirt and hobbling for the door.

  “You need a hospital, kid.”

  “Fuck that, boss. What I need is to kill some Russians.” Stepping past the bloody mess in the kitchen, he spat on the dead body. A tarot card lay on the guy’s chest.

  Mikayla met us on the way out with a filled army blanket slung over her shoulder like some dark version of Santa Claus. Gregor grunted and nodded his head at her.

  “She’s with us,” I told him, and that was all he needed. I was stepping out the door when Mikayla grabbed my arm.

  “What?”

  She pointed down. A foot off the floor, a piece of fishing wire was drawn taut. It ran through an eyehook and to the pin of a hand grenade that she had strapped to a five gallon gas tank.

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “Had to do something while you two were playing dress up.”

  “I like her, boss, she’s got balls.”

  “Yes, she does.” Careful not to blow us up, I stepped out the door, the daylight blinding me for a moment. I almost tripped over Harry. He was curled onto his side. Bullets had stitched a line across his gut. His eyes stared up dully. Whatever he had deserved, I doubted it was to die in the hills of Chatsworth.

  I helped Mikayla lift him into the Quonset hut. I tucked the near empty Four Roses bottle under his arm. Where he was going, I figured he’d need a drink.

  CHAPTER 19

  Gregor was stretched out in the back seat, head lolling, eyes closed. Mikayla sat beside me, her bundle on her lap. A thin electronic version of Queen’s We Will Rock You drifted into the car.

  “Your blanket’s calling.”

  “If I answer, they’ll know something is wrong.”

  “Then don’t answer it.” We were treated to two more bars of Queen done badly before it clicked over to voice mail. Mikayla dropped the cell phone back into her pile of booty. At a quick glance, I could see wallets, a laptop, several manila folders, a watch and who knew what else. The woman was a scavenger, a vulture who survived off carrion. But who was I to judge. After loading Gregor into the car, I had gone back and collected all the guns and ammunition I could find. Her skill with a razor had blinded her to the fact that for where we were going, we would need firepower.

  “Jesus H Christ, what happened to you?” Helen stood in the door of her Silver Lake hillside home.

  “Ran into some folks who didn’t like the cut of our jib.”

  “Goddamn it, Moses, don’t. This is way past funny, Ok? I write about vampires and gangsters for the WB, I don’t know how to… shit, Moses, shit.”

  “Can we come in?”

 
“Yes, damn you, yes.”

  Gregor stumbled under his own steam over to the sofa and dropped down. Helen looked him over, shaking her head. “He needs a doctor.”

  “No he doesn’t,” Gregor said.

  “The girls?” I asked.

  “Downstairs, poor little things.” I nodded to Mikayla, who set down her bundle and headed for the stairs.

  “No you don’t, not before you wash the blood off your hands and face. Those girls have seen enough horror shows for this lifetime.” She got Mikayla a towel and showed her to the bathroom. Coming back, she looked worried.

  “Nice company you’re running with.”

  “Where’s Peter?”

  “Locked up in my office, typing, calling. I haven’t seen him take a bite or a crap since they got here.” Dark circles ringed her eyes. I wished I could make it all go away. I wished I had something to say, but I was all out of sorrys.

  Peter’s head snapped up when I entered. His eyes were black pin points surrounded by red. The shades were drawn and the only light was from the computer screen. In a machine gun rant, he told me of the article he was writing. His editor was holding a front page slot for him. This was going to blow the fucking top off those slave dealing bastards. He was sure once the story broke, the state department would have to give the girls asylum. He had reached out to a woman from the Angel Coalition, and another from Stop The Slavery. They would help the girls get a fresh start.

  When I gave him the laptop and files, told him about the Israeli connection, he leaned back, rubbing his eyes.

  “This is big times ten, damn… Are you sure, Mossad? Rogue or not, doesn’t matter, right? They’re here on US soil. Big. Let me see, um, yeah.” He flipped open the laptop and hit a few keys. Then slammed it shut. “Fuck, encrypted, fuck. No worry, I know a guy knows a guy. Yeah, alright.” I left him poring over the manila folders.