by David Levien
“Yeah?” Terry called out.
“Boss?” It was Raul, his shop foreman.
“Come on,” Terry yelled, standing up. The door opened. Raul was standing there, and beyond him was a flash of blond hair and skinny legs in tight faded jeans.
“You got a visitor,” Raul said, his tone and his expression blank.
That’s ’cause he’s smart, Terry thought. He knows better than to come smirking around my office. The foreman cleared and revealed Kathy, that little girl from the bar who went to high school with Kenny. She’d boned how many of his sons? He didn’t care, and neither did they. He’d brought her to the garage that night not long ago. He was usually pretty good with the discipline, but the blond hair, the little slip of a body, the jut of her chin that spoke of her tough attitude-it all put him in mind of Vicky when she was young. This Kathy, with the hundreds of little scars along her arms, like she was trying to erase herself but not all at once, was like a time machine. They’d shared a bottle he had in his desk after he’d shown her a GTO that was getting a full makeover. He’d stuck his dick in her mouth that night and she’d bounced her face on it like some kind of lobotomized mental patient. He’d been fairly sick about it for a week, and then he’d forgotten it. He didn’t expect her back, but here she was.
“Thanks, Raul,” Terry said. “I want you guys closing up early today. I’ve got something I’ve gotta do and I may need the space.”
“Sure, boss,” Raul said. The foreman and the rest of the guys all knew that they’d be paid in full despite the short hours. Raul turned to spread the good news to the others and left Terry with the girl.
“Kathy,” Terry smiled, “what can I help you with?”
“Hi, Mr… I mean, Terry,” she said, and smiled.
As he drove, Behr felt like a locomotive hurtling toward a tunnel.
I can’t stop.
It seemed clear enough.
I should stop, just pull over and turn off the car and wait for the police… I probably have enough to jam the Schlegels up all the way…
But something had tripped in him and it pushed him on. He couldn’t let it set. He’d been training his whole life, he realized, for some fight, hoping like hell he’d be strong enough and ready when it came. It wasn’t the one in the bar, or the one in Francovic’s place, or any other scrap he’d been in-that was clear to him now. He thought of Susan, of the baby she carried, and the fact that they-the Schlegels and their scumbag friends-knew who she was, and that she was in this thing, and suddenly he knew what he was fighting for.
He drove into the parking lot of the Rubber House, the body and tire shop that Schlegel owned, and saw that he had gotten there before the police. The place looked closed; only a Dodge Charger was parked around the side. His immediate concern, as he nosed into a spot right near the door, was that he was too late and had missed Schlegel and wouldn’t be able to find him. He crossed to the door of the building, looking and listening but not seeing any sign of activity. The front door was unlocked when he tried it, and he bit back on the saliva in his mouth and went in.
Inside, the waiting room was shadowy. Behr felt his pupils draw wide and pull for light as they adjusted to the half darkness. He continued past the counter into the first work area, where the repair bays were dimly lit and quiet. He was aware of the noise of his shoes and the heavy thud of his steps as he made his way across the cement floor. He stopped and tried to calm his breathing and thought he heard voices coming from the back. He moved toward them, hoping not to disturb the speakers and to hear what they were saying. Then the low grinding noise of a bay door rolling up somewhere deep in the building washed the voices away. He continued toward the noise, picking up his pace now, using the sound as cover for his movement. He rounded the corner toward a back loading dock where afternoon light spilled in through the gap and bathed the garage in yellow. There was a moment’s pause as the door finished its journey, and then a male figure emerged from an office and headed for the open door. Following a step behind was a teenage girl. She saw Behr first, and stopped.
“Ter,” she said, and the man stopped, too. Even in silhouette Behr recognized him from the Tip-Over Tap Room. Then the man turned and stepped away from the backlight toward him, and Behr saw those dark malevolent eyes, flat as flint. It was him.
“Schlegel,” Behr called out, part statement, part warning, part war cry.
A stainless and black automatic was clutched in Schlegel’s hand as it rose from his belt. Behr felt the air go out of him as he bent his knees and lunged forward and to the right and reached for the small of his back. He had an angle as his gun jumped into his hand. It wasn’t at all like the time he’d pulled it at Francovic’s gym, deliberate and slow. This was instinct, survival. The taste of metal came to the back of his throat. A familiar cold darkness squeezed his chest that he was unable to breathe through.
Schlegel pulled the trigger and his gun bucked while Behr was still raising his weapon. Behr felt an overwhelming impulse to fire back as fast as he could and for as long as he could until he’d gone empty. Giving in to it would mean his death. He saw Schlegel’s gun jerk again. More rounds were coming his way, and worse, he realized his eyes were locked on his opponent. With an effort as physical and demanding as any he’d ever put forth, Behr held fire as he leveled his weapon and hunched down over the sights and focused only on the front blade. It grew sharp in his vision-Schlegel’s body a mere blur ten yards away-and he fired twice. Behr raised his weapon to put a third round into his target’s head, to finish the Mozambique, but there was nothing in his sight picture-Schlegel was down.
A cold wave of adrenaline hit Behr like a six-foot breaker. He started to shake as noise and color rushed back in around him. He felt his chest heaving and became aware of a high-pitched screech and looked to the girl who was crouched down in a tiny ball not far from Schlegel. She was screaming. Behr took a step forward and extended his left hand toward her.
“Stay… stay right there,” he said, not hearing the words clearly, as his ears were ringing from firing in the enclosed space without ear protection. The girl broke off her scream and looked up at him. Then she rose and bolted for the open loading dock door. “Hey,” Behr said feebly, but he didn’t consider going after her. She stumbled and fell as she jumped the three feet from the dock to the parking lot, but got to her feet and darted away with the speed, if not the grace, of a cat.
Behr moved toward the fallen man, cautious, his gun raised ahead of him and saw that Schlegel was hit twice, about two inches apart, in the chest, just left of center mass. The slow, heavy rounds of the big-bore revolver had done their work. A coarse, bronchial grating noise accompanied Schlegel’s breaths, followed by the telltale bubbling of a sucking chest wound. Blood and urine pooled beneath his body. The silver automatic rested five feet from his hand, and it was clear he’d never touch it again.
Behr dropped to a knee right next to Schlegel. “Aurelio Santos. Was it you?” he asked.
After a moment, Schlegel issued a weak nod. “It was all of us…”
“You, your sons, and that partner?”
Another weak nod came from Schlegel. “And the Chicago guys,” he added.
“Who?” Behr demanded, a cold chill running through him.
“Bobby B… some guy Tino… a quiet one.”
“Pros?”
A third, almost imperceptible nod came from Schlegel. “Had to. Couldn’t handle the guy.”
“You wanted to know where he’d put the girl?” Behr asked, but Schlegel’s eyes got glassy. Behr slapped him a little, trying to bring him around.
“Who pulled the trigger? Was it you?” A feeble hand came up and waved at Behr. He couldn’t tell if it was Schlegel saying no or a pointless attempt to shoo him away. No more details came forth. Behr realized he was as close as he’d ever likely be to knowing exactly how it went down that night-and that he was headed to Chicago.
Then he asked the pointless question, the one cops, detectives, and investi
gators rarely profited from. The one for which he both already had the answer and also never would. Not a satisfactory one anyway. “Why?”
“We shouldn’t have never even been there,” Schlegel rasped. “The fucking skank. My son…” A wheeze was followed by a gurgle, and then all sound stopped.
Terry Schlegel had ceased being. Behr sat down on the cement floor next to the body to wait.
FORTY-TWO
Behr drove south on I-65 toward Seymour as he slowly came out of the haze in which he’d spent the last several hours. The cops had gotten there within moments. A pair of uniformed Speedway officers, then a second pair of Northwest District boys stormed the place before the brass arrived. Behr had his weapon holstered and sitting on the ground next to him and had his wallet held open so they could see his tin when they walked in. It was the last conscious thing he’d done before he was overcome by shock at what had happened, and why tiny hurtling bits of metal had stopped another man, but had passed him by and left him alive. Nobody did much talking until Pomeroy walked in. Behr was vaguely aware that they’d locked down the building and the surrounding block. Paramedics and medical examiners and crime-scene photographers dealt with Schlegel’s body. Numbered evidence cards were set up next to the shell casings he had fired. Investigators were locating the rounds in the wall high and to the right behind Behr, though they had only found three of the four so far. Four rounds. Schlegel had fired first and at twice the rate as Behr and for whatever reason he had missed. Behr knew the model of gun. It had a notoriously long trigger pull. Maybe it had caused Schlegel to yank his shots. That could happen without sufficient practice. And even with practice, it wasn’t easy. They handed Behr a bottle of water and helped him up.
Pomeroy oversaw his questioning, during which Behr gave a dry recitation of what had led him to the garage-leaving out his contact with Pomeroy and the Caro Group-and what had occurred in it. They told him he’d have to come down to the shop and run through it again soon and that he could bring counsel. When the cops recording him and taking notes were done and had drifted away, Pomeroy told him that they’d collected Flavia Inez and that she was giving a statement. They’d also picked up Victoria Schlegel, who was currently under suicide watch at Carter Hospital in an hysterical condition. Charles Schlegel had been discovered stabbed to death after a 911 call, in an apparently unrelated incident, though Behr didn’t believe much in “unrelated” anymore. Kenneth Schlegel and Knute Bohgen were currently unaccounted for and would be sought for questioning. It was going to take a while, but a slew of charges ranging from criminal conspiracy, to promoting gambling, to extortion, to murder would eventually be mounted against them.
“They’ve gone to ground,” Pomeroy said. “I wouldn’t worry about them right now.”
Behr nodded blankly.
“I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can,” Pomeroy said, raising a plastic bag that contained Behr’s gun and holster. Behr nodded once more.
“Some special family you turned up,” Pomeroy said, shaking his head.
The work continued around them, though it had slowed as it entered the wrap-up phase. Equipment was being packed. Silence had fallen between them when Behr asked, “Can I go?”
Pomeroy eyed him for a moment before agreeing.
• • •
What the hell does he know of family? Behr wondered. Other than that he’s just helped destroy one. He was headed south toward the remaining vestige of his own. Behr had passed Seymour and had reached the small town of Vallonia, where his ex-wife Linda, remarried and a stepmother, had lived for the last six years or so. He didn’t need directions to get to her place. He knew the way. He’d be embarrassed to admit how many times he’d made the southbound drive, how many times he’d parked down the road from her house and watched her comings and goings. He’d managed enough restraint not to talk to her but seemed unable to stop looking. The visits had ended over a year ago, though. A case had consumed him back then, and of course he’d met Susan. She filled a place in him he didn’t think could be filled, and the need to drive south had vanished. Which is what made it all the more strange for him to be rolling down the smooth gravel drive past the mailbox that read “Vogel,” Linda’s last name now, and parking right in front of the house. He seemed unable, or unwilling at least, to stop himself as he walked to the door and knocked.
After a moment, Linda’s face, still beautiful to him, appeared in the door’s glass pane. She still looked young-younger even than the last time they’d spoken several years ago. Her black hair was only betrayed by a very few gray strands. Upon seeing him, her eyes lit in an initial smile that quickly went out as she became guarded.
“Frankie,” she said, cracking the door, “what’re you doing here?”
“Hi, Lin,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
They stood there for an awkward moment before she opened the door to him, and he stepped inside.
It was a nice home, not lavish, but comfortable. There was evidence of early teenage children’s artwork and sporting goods equipment and the like. The place had a familiar smell.
“Beef stew,” he remarked, mostly to himself, as Linda led him into the kitchen.
“Todd likes it,” she said, “so do Gina and Jared.”
“Why not? It’s the best.” It wasn’t enough to put the smile back on her face.
“I just put up a pot of coffee. You want some?” she offered. Behr nodded. Some things didn’t change. Linda drank coffee all afternoon long. She always had. It never stopped her from sleeping either. Until their bad time together, after Tim died. Then she swore off coffee altogether and endured the terrible headaches that going cold turkey brought on, but to no avail. Nothing she tried would allow her to sleep back then. They’d both lie awake all night, helpless in their grief. Maybe this resumption of her habit signaled a return to some kind of normal. He sat down at the kitchen table while she poured and delivered his cup.
“Are you in some kind of trouble, Frankie?” she asked. She was looking at his forearm, which the EMTs at Rubber House had wrapped and taped in a white bandage. He didn’t answer for a moment. “Because you’re pale as a sheet. And you’re here, so it must be for a reason.”
“I was, I suppose, for a minute there,” he allowed. “I’m not anymore.”
“That’s good.” She stood uncomfortably across the kitchen from him.
“So you like it down here?” Behr asked. She nodded.
“It’s nice. Quiet. People down here don’t know what happened. If they do, they don’t let on. I can be how I want.”
“And things with Todd?” Behr asked.
“It’s good. He’ll be home soon with the kids. You can meet them.” She paused and grew shy, and then: “They call me ‘Mom.’”
He expected to feel like he’d been stabbed. But he didn’t. A pleasant sensation washed over him with the words.
“So you’re happy?” he asked.
“I’ve come to be,” she said.
“That’s good,” Behr said, meaning it.
“And you?”
Behr didn’t move and couldn’t answer. The traitorous feelings he’d had before, that day after the lake, made their way back into his chest, but she cut them off.
“You’ve got to,” she said. Got to what? he wondered, but Linda went on. “You’ve got to do it-whatever you want. Whatever you have to do. To get out of the tunnel… Back into life, Frank. There’s a lot of ways to say it, I guess. Do you get it?”
Behr nodded and he recognized he had come there for absolution of some kind, and that her simple words had granted it. He sat there for another minute and knew he was looking on Linda for perhaps the last time. Finally, he got up to go. That’s when he saw a stuffed monkey, a wooden fire truck, and a few dinosaur figurines along her windowsill above the kitchen sink. He recognized them well-they were some of Tim’s old favorites. There they were just beneath the window she looked out of as she washed dishes. He realized she lived with it every day, even as she’d m
oved on, and that it was okay. He crossed the kitchen and picked up the truck and handled it. He saw there was a rescue hero action man in the driver seat. He looked to Linda.
“Sure,” she said, “you go ahead.”
Behr drove north toward Indy, going slow, his eyes locked on the road, the little fire truck riding on the seat next to his leg.
FORTY-THREE
The shit had truly hit the fan. The Schlegels had been blown up and burned the fuck down. Terry done, Dean done, Vicky locked down, and Kenny and Charlie apparently lit out for the territories. Knute Bohgen had just lost all the friends he currently had, along with the only thing in his life that passed for a semblance of family. He no longer had an income stream, or any real ideas on how to open a new one.
He had sat in his car down the street from Rubber House watching the police activity and calling guys he knew who worked there. Rumors were flying thick and furious already. SWAT had taken the place down. Terry had wasted a handful of them before they got him. An ex-cop had shot him. They’d surrounded the place, and after they lobbed in gas, Terry ate his gun.
Knute didn’t know the truth, and he didn’t much care to at this point. There was really only one thing on his mind, and that was getting a piece of payback for all of them.