Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  “Jesus, Terry, what the hell is going on? Are you in trouble? Hey, man, I’m here. I’m here, you understand? So talk to me!”

  He never calls me by my first name. It gives me a modicum of comfort. “I gotta go, partner. See ya.”

  “Wait, Terry. Hey—!”

  I disconnect and block him from calling back. The L train grinds above me and I let go of my arms. The jitters wrack my body, and I vibrate to the rolling of steel wheels over the tracks. I’m a ball of bottled-up venom, every sedentary moment poisoning my blood a little more. I need to release it. I need to release all of it.

  And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  ***

  It’s a fifteen-minute drive to my destination. With each passing streetlight, the pressure builds. I want to uncork the pressure, to let it burst. But I have to hang on a little longer.

  I park in the heart of Astoria, Queens, a twenty-four-hour nonstop mini-Manhattan of low-rise apartment buildings and single-story businesses. Spanish, Greek, Arabian and Brazilian clubs and cafes are hopping, showing off the neighborhood’s multicultural personality.

  The one I’m interested in is a club called El Toro Loco. My rooftop informant said the Candyman fronts as a legit businessman, using the nightclub scene to traffic product. He claimed he didn’t know which club, but I followed the rabbit hole to its very depths. It’s amazing what you can learn through the Mindnet when your neurons are ablaze.

  Reggie was right about the “crazy” part. El Toro Loco translates to “The Mad Bull,” or literally, “The Crazy Bull.” I don’t know if it was his rabid ranting, or he was trying to tell me the answer.

  Latin dance music echoes out onto Broadway. Young twenty-somethings are clustered in line, waiting to get into the club while 3-D glyphs advertise drink specials that change in price as demand shifts during the night.

  The bouncer at the door is big, like an NFL offensive tackle, close-shaved afro indicative of prior military experience. He’s three hundred pounds easy, with very little body fat. My brain has already calculated six ways to take him down using nothing more than my God-given hands. I’m not dressed for the club, and he makes it a point to tell me to remove my hat and get to the back of the line. I do neither. The young crowd makes no attempt to hide their disgust for my older presence. I don’t care about them. I want in.

  There are nineteen people in line at El Toro Loco. A video camera above the door confirms that we’re being watched. The old me would have flashed a police glyph, and the bouncer would have moved aside.

  There’s no room for the old me.

  I step toward the bouncer.

  “Sir, I’m going to ask you again. Please move to the back—”

  Faster than he can react, I sock him in the windpipe. He claws his throat, bug-eyed. I follow it up with a knuckled fist to the kidney. His body flexes involuntarily, and he hits the ground, all three-hundred-plus-pounds of solid manpower, down for the count. I step over his mountainous carcass, leaving an astonished crowd behind.

  The club is packed. Lasers, stereographs and booming bass thrills my senses. I see two men with the word Security across the front of their black t-shirts quickly pushing through the throng toward me. I’ve been made.

  I shove sideways across the dancefloor, toward the restrooms and staircase leading up to the catwalk and second bar. People are hanging out everywhere, laughing, talking, drinking and dancing. I don’t want to alarm them. I just want to get to my prize.

  I’m rough, pushing people aside, swimming upstream, trying to beat my pursuers. I hit the stairs a couple of paces ahead of them. I punch up the steps, zigzagging precisely between bodies. I’m four strides ahead by the time I catch the top step. It’s less crowded up here, and I bolt toward the back area, past the VIP roped-off access and velour-cushioned lounge chairs, along the black walls toward the solitary door in the very rear. The door opens six paces before I get there. The suited, short Asian man that exits fires a stun gun at me. A pair of electrodes shoot out. Time slows again. I see the dart-like projectiles and conductive wires propel through the air. I bend sideways, eluding their trajectory. It forces me off balance, but my brain won’t let me fall. It tells me to throw my weight into my right foot and push off into a leap. Airborne, I rain down, driving my forearm into the bridge of my assailant’s nose, breaking it and knocking him to the ground with my momentum.

  I waste no time getting my bearings. I grab the butt of his stun gun and wheel about, clipping the first bodyguard across the forehead with the carbon fiber grip. He knocks mouth-first into the wall, and pitches heavily to the side. The second guard tries to put me in a bear hug. I smack him upside the chin with the butt of the stun gun, snapping his head back. He’s down a moment later, lights out.

  I take an adrenalized pause to absorb my audience, frozen with their drinks in their hands. Their expressions vary from shock to sheer terror. They’re seeing the venom released, the poison of what I’ve become. It triggers momentary remorse. A second later, and I’m ready to engage my prize, any notion of guilt extinguished and forgotten. I told Mullins I was going to finish this, and I am.

  I toss the stun gun on the floor and enter the lion’s den.

  ***

  He’s sitting comfortably behind the solitary wood desk in the small office, stained glass peacock lamp illuminating his face in a wash of yellow light. He’s not some prizefighter, or Olympian, or martial artist or bodybuilder. He’s ordinary, my age, Hispanic mixed with Caucasian, with a medium build hidden beneath a tailored suit. Behind the calm eyes is a storm I recognize, a tidal wave waiting to crash ashore. I wasn’t expecting an amped welcome, but I’m not frightened by it either.

  I lock the door behind me. There are no windows, no secondary exit, just the four walls of our cage. He could have chosen any place to wait for my arrival. But he chose here instead. One way in, one survivor.

  He loosens his red silk necktie. I’m drawn to the crimson hue as it shimmers against the bright, recessed lights above, but more so by the y-shaped scar on his tanned knuckle. Air conditioning is piping in, blowing down on us. I can’t feel the cool though.

  “So, you’re the Candyman.”

  “And you’re Detective Sergeant Terrance Parker.” He has an American accent.

  I don’t care that he knows who I am. Facial recognition technology in networked video cameras can easily pick up a name. They use it in casinos; why not a nightclub?

  “I’m not here to arrest you.”

  His eyes are set on me, hungry, seething. “I know.”

  “Good. I just wanted to get that out of the way.”

  He pulls his tie off, folds it in thirds, and sets it parallel to the edge of his table, same as what I would have done in his place. His jacket comes off next as he remains seated. I’m surprised as he tosses it over his shoulder, letting it land sloppily atop the wastebasket in the corner. I notice the clothing hooks embedded in the cinderblock wall behind him. “Yes,” he says, catching my gaze. “You would have hung it there.”

  He unbuttons his left cuff and rolls up his sleeve. My mind is parsing his comment, analyzing its meaning: why he tossed the coat; why he told me that I was expecting it; why he seems so relaxed while I’m nearly quaking from anticipation.

  I launch an active pingback. It comes up empty in my retinal overlay. I check the signal strength of my Mindnet connection. It’s at ninety-seven percent, almost perfect. Why can’t I get a read on him?

  “You won’t find me that way,” he says, starting on the other sleeve. His movement is steady, but I can tell his blood is boiling. “My name is Jean Le Vau. All you had to do was look up the owner of this club, and you would have found me. Easy.”

  I’m surprised that I missed that. Is the Switch finally wearing off? I had left the other dispensers behind on the rooftop of Reggie’s building. I’ve got no backup. It’s just me and the chemical substance in my bloodstream.

  Someone bangs on the door. “It’s all right,” Le Vau says l
oudly. The banging ceases. “Sorry about that.”

  “You look Honduran,” I say. “I wouldn’t have guessed French.”

  “My mother was Nicaraguan, my father French. But you didn’t come all this way to figure me out, did you?”

  “No, I came to kill you.” I’m surprised to hear myself say it. It sounds like a line from an old James Bond film. Maybe I’m not crashing after all. I can feel the surge of excitement, the tingle in my face, the need to put this man to his end. I quickly remind myself that I’m a police officer. I’m not going to kill this man. Am I?

  Le Vau takes off his watch and places it next to the tie. Everything he removes lightens the load, allows him to be more nimble in a fight. I should be considering my own outerwear, but I’m already stripped down to a t-shirt and jeans. I remove my baseball cap.

  “Feel free to toss it,” he says. He points at his jacket.

  I want to throw the cap, but I need to place it neatly somewhere. I center it on the cushion of the chair facing him. He smiles politely, hateful beast masked by a level of control I can’t comprehend. How does he do it?

  Le Vau offers me a seat. “You can always put your hat over there.” Again, he points at his jacket.

  “I’ll stand.”

  I’m evaluating his physicality, considering all the ways I can take him down. He will have his own brand of tricks, enhanced by heightened senses. Dig deep, I tell myself. Reggie’s advice.

  “How long have you been using?” he asks, removing his gold wedding band, which I had failed to notice. I expect him to toss it on the jacket, but he surprises me again and sticks it in the drawer. I would have put it next to the tie.

  “Two years. And you?”

  “Five.”

  I had no idea Switch has been around for half a decade. Hardly anyone knew what it was when I stumbled upon it. Even the wiki didn’t date its origin back that far.

  Le Vau responds as if reading my mind. “Yes, it’s been that long. The first generation product was terrible. Liquid drops. It caused violent mood swings. We replaced it with clear tablets, but the stomach acid destroyed a lot of the positive effects, so we went to coated tablets, and even those didn’t do the job quite right.” He unbuttons the top of his blue dress shirt. Curly chest hair spills out. “Your generation has been around three years. It’s very good, but it also has its limitations, as you well know.”

  My generation? He makes it sound like there’s something else. I’ve encountered plenty of variations in the form, quality and efficacy of the product. Is Le Vau alluding to that?

  “My condolences, by the way,” he says. “I heard about the shooting at the gas station.”

  His comment makes me mad. If we’re going to fight, what is the point of being polite? I examine the desktop for anything I can turn into a weapon. A pen to the eye, a letter opener between vertebrae, a paperweight to the philtrum, that area between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose. There are plenty of choices with these ordinary objects. Again, I’m thinking of killing, not wounding him. I amend my thoughts and consider a blow with the stapler to jostle the cerebral cortex. That might do the trick.

  “My generation, however, has none of the side effects of yours,” he continues. “We’re experimenting with the dosage. If all goes well, we should start FDA trials next spring and get our approval fast-tracked. We’ve got some good people working on it. A much better business venture than the street has to offer.”

  My mind tells me not to believe him, that he’s trying to placate me into thinking he’s working for the greater good. I’m not going to fall for his guile. Yet I’m stuck on the “we” reference. Who’s “we”?

  He lifts the stapler. “Of course, I’m not all about the legal dosage for recreational use. If you’re going to save the best champagne for the best occasion, why waste your time on the cheap stuff, right? You go for the gusto!”

  He switches the stapler to his left hand. His dominant hand.

  “The good news about your generation of product is that it will be off the market once ours hits the pharmacies. No more psychotic episodes, no more cop killings, no more psychological addiction. You get a prescription for that attention deficit disorder you’ve been complaining about, and you’re good to go.”

  He’s feeding me a line, but I’m keen on his game. I think his silver ballpoint pen is the best weapon to use. I come up with eleven methods to paralyze him without even thinking about it.

  “You know, that’s a pretty good story,” I say. “I’m sure someone will buy it, but not me. So how about we cut the bullshit?” I step toward him. “Why did you deal to Kurt Rodriguez? Was he an experiment to you?”

  Le Vau rolls back in his chair, leaving the stapler on the desk at a strange angle. The compulsiveness in me wants to nudge it just a little so it’s even with his tie. Again, he appears in control of his emotions. Not a blink at the mention of Rodriguez’s name. “That boy had potential. I was just curious to see how far he would take it. I had no idea he’d go all the way.”

  “So he was an experiment. And you, what, coached him?”

  Le Vau is smug in his response. “He had that spark. I simply opened his eyes.”

  Le Vau makes it sound as if he was a benefactor. As if he were helping Rodriguez. Rodriguez wasn’t some kind of loner or misfit or abandoned child. He was well-liked by his friends, and loved by his family. All he wanted was a way to distinguish himself from the ordinary. It’s funny how you find what you want if you really seek it. Le Vau happened to own the candy store, evangelizing the merits of his product. One strip, and studying becomes easier. A second, and you can run faster. Up the dose again, and maybe you’ll make history. Keep going, and you’ll become God.

  Le Vau is nothing more than a preacher, spreading his infected gospel while hiding behind a club to pursue his true proclivity.

  “You could have stopped him.”

  Le Vau stands and pushes in his chair, bringing it flush with the edge of the desk. “I could have done a lot of things. How about you? Who did you stop?”

  He wants to make me out to be a hypocrite, and maybe I am. My selfishness hasn’t made me a better husband or father. It hasn’t made me a better partner to Mullins. And it hasn’t helped kids like Rodriguez stop themselves before it was too late. Right now, my nerves are frayed to the point where I’m not sure of what I am. But I know this: our encounter is going to end with one man standing.

  Le Vau walks calmly around to the front of the desk and perches himself on it. It’s a disadvantageous position. He’d have to go on the defense to fend off my attack. Why would he do that?

  He pulls a clear plastic sheet from his pant pocket. He lifts it up, exposing a two-by-five set of gel-like buttons, also clear. He pops one square off the perforated sheet. There’s a single button in the middle of the square. He pockets the rest of the sheet. “One of these is better than thirty of your strips. Except you don’t pop it in your mouth. You apply it to the skin, like this.” He places the square flat against his wrist and pushes the button. It pops inward, squeezing out a gel that reminds me of hand sanitizer. He tosses the empty square on the table and rubs the gel into his wrist. “See? It absorbs almost instantaneously. The rest evaporates, with no residue. It’s pharmaceutical grade quality. The good news is that it hits twice the neuroreceptors as the old product. That means you’re firing on all cylinders.”

  I’m painfully aware that I just let him dose up in front of me. I think my senses are dulling. Are the strips finally wearing off?

  He answers my next question before I even ask it. “It’s my second application today.” He folds his hands, scarred knuckle on top. “Normally, I do one but, you know, special company and all.”

  He’s blocking the pen by sitting on the desk. And all the other implements I was considering using. He’s outmaneuvered me before I realized it. Even though I don’t feel afraid, I’m starting to get this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Well, there you have it,” he s
ays with a smile.

  I can’t resist asking, “So, what happens now?”

  Le Vau slides off the desk. He shrugs, still smiling. “Now, I kill you.”

  He comes at me before I have the chance to duck out of the way. His knee connects with my stomach, propelling me backward. I stumble three steps before righting myself, the wind nearly knocked out of me.

  Instant nausea rises up my throat. I suppress my gag reflex. It costs me an elbow to the face. I barely deflect it, taking the brunt of the blow with my shoulder, the rest with my cheek.

  I collide with the wood casing adjacent to the door. It’s a hard knock to my scapula, pain surging up my back.

  Le Vau throws a kick. Somehow, I manage to sidestep it. His foot demolishes the sheetrock to my right instead of my sternum.

  When he removes his shoe from the hole he created, I’m already to his left, near the desk. Pieces of drywall chip off and cascade to the floor. He stamps the dust from his foot. The whole bottom part of his pant leg is coated with sheetrock debris. It seems to infuriate him, but only for a moment.

  “You’re good,” he says, shifting the weight to his left heel. “Nice to see you actually remember your combat training as a police officer.”

  There are equations firing in my brain. Some are telling me that my odds are greatly improved using one of the desktop implements available to me. The others are telling me that I have a one in five chance of surviving, period, based on the amount and quality of product in my system. I need something better to even the fight.

  “It’s right here.” He pats his left pocket, again reading my mind.

  One gel would do it. But I’d never last long enough to get one.

  I lunge for the pen, snap it up, and roll across his desk, knocking over his expensive lamp. It crashes to the floor. The glass and bulb shatter, but I’m on my feet, desk between me and my foe, my only safety net.

  He steps around to his right as I circle back. I expect him to grab the stapler, but he’s going to use his bare hands.