As other pieces were auctioned off, Haskell felt some relief that they were selling well under their appraised values. Outside of the dozen cops in the room, there were maybe forty other people, all trying to buy the stuff on the cheap. Haskell smiled bitterly to himself as he thought of how Sifer would be fuming if he could see what his "nest egg" was going for. Pennies on the dollar - and the two of them were supposed to be the crooks.
When The Songbird went up for bid, Haskell opened up with two grand, thinking that would be the end of it. He was halfway standing up to pay for the painting when he heard a bid for twenty-five hundred coming from behind him. Turning, he caught a look at the bidder - a thin, tall man with a pencil-thin mustache and a goatee, which covered the tip of his chin. The man was dressed in a cheap suit and wore small oval sunglasses to hide his eyes. Haskell found himself immediately disliking the guy.
Clearing his throat, Haskell bid twenty-six hundred.
"Three thousand."
The man's voice sounded like a chirp that could've come from the canary he was bidding on. Haskell turned and glared at him. The one piece that some jerk-off had to be willing to overbid for.
"Forty-nine hundred," Haskell forced out, his voice a low rasp. He figured no more game playing. Knock the prick out of the bidding and get the damn thing over with. Besides, with all the cops in the room he just wanted to get the hell out of there.
There was a long silence. Relieved, Haskell got to his feet.
"Ten thousand dollars," chirped out behind him.
With a sinking feeling Haskell realized the goateed prick must've been tipped off about the key. There was no other reason the guy would've overbid for that piece of junk. Anyway, it was over. The auction was cash only, and Haskell would've been tapped out at five grand. He headed quickly towards the exit. If he couldn't get that damn canary on the up-and-up, he'd get it another way.
Once outside, Haskell started trotting towards the back parking lot. Too many pizzas and six-packs of beer had ballooned his body close to three bills. That weight, along with being only five-foot-seven and having flesh the consistency of hard compressed rubber, earned him the nickname "Bowling Ball". He hated that nickname. By the time he got to his car his shirt was soaked through and he was wheezing hard. His damn heart felt like it was going to explode out of his chest. After a while he got his breathing under control and slid into the driver's seat. Taking a forty-five-caliber pistol from his glove compartment, he snapped out the magazine, checked that it was loaded and snapped it back in place. Then he angled the car so he could watch the lot.
It didn't take long for the goateed man to enter the parking lot with his painting. Haskell watched which car he got into, then made sure to leave enough distance between the two cars so the guy wouldn't catch on that he was being followed. Haskell squinted against the sunlight as he drove, his lips pressed into a tight grimace. He didn't like the setup, especially that the guy would end up recognizing him, but there was no way around it. He had two choices, either get the money and bolt out of town fast, or shut the guy up for good. He had never gone as far as the second choice before, and was still deciding what to do when the other driver pulled into an apartment complex. He followed him in and pulled up next to him as the guy was getting out of his car. Haskell moved quickly, jumping out of his own car and shoving a forty-five into the man's back.
"You're going to let me take that canary and you're not going to turn around."
The man resisted but Haskell pulled the painting from him.
"Someone tipped you off, didn't they?" Haskell asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about -"
"Someone tipped you off about the key. No other way you'd bid ten grand for this piece of crap."
"No, that's a rare Zulovsky, actually the rarest from his caged bird period, and this would complete my collection -"
"Shut up," Haskell ordered. He hesitated for a moment before making up his mind. The pizza in Boston sucked anyways, more like phylo dough than anything else. He had no problem taking the money and running. "Lie down on the ground now and put your head flat against the pavement. You look up and you're a dead man."
The goateed man gingerly lowered himself onto the pavement and put his head flush against it.
Haskell jumped back into his car and drove fast out of there. He was sweating profusely, his hands shaking as he gripped the wheel. "Lying sonofabitch," he mumbled to himself, the adrenaline pumping through his body. "That prick knew about the money, no other way he pays ten grand for a lousy canary. I should've put a bullet in his head, but I'm just too nice a guy."
Haskell made a sharp turn and headed towards where they'd rented the locker, all the while mumbling to himself about what a nice guy he was. "Sifer must've made a deal with that jerk-off," Haskell continued, becoming more and more incensed as he thought it over. "No doubt that sonofabitch was going to cut me out. We do the job together and he tries to screw me. No goddamned way he ever sees a dime of that money."
He pulled into a parking spot a block from the EZ Rental building. Using a pocket-knife, he cut open the back of the canvas. Instead of seeing the key like he expected to, he saw two small electronic objects. The first he recognized instantly as a bug. The second he would later find out was a GPS tracking device. As he sat staring at the back of the canvas trying to comprehend why those devices were there, he heard the sirens, then tires screeching to a halt, and finally car doors opening and slamming. As it dawned on him what had happened, he knew without looking up that the cops had surrounded him. He moved his hands higher on the steering wheel so they'd be in plain sight.
"Get out of the car now!"
Haskell looked up and saw a tall thin man in a cheap suit, arms stretched out as he pointed a service revolver at him. The sunglasses, mustache and goatee were gone, his voice octaves deeper than the chirp Haskell had heard before, but it was still the same man who had bid on the painting. Behind him were a dozen other cops, all with guns drawn. Haskell felt lightheaded as he obeyed the command and got out of his car. He was pushed to the ground, his arms pulled behind him as he was handcuffed.
"Sifer ratted me, didn't he?" Haskell asked as was pulled to his feet and directed into the backseat of a cruiser.
The detective in the cheap suit shook his head. "Nope. We found the locker key with a metal detector. Sifer was a clam. Couldn't get a word out of him. You, on the other hand, gave us everything we needed."
Haskell started laughing. The gurgling noise probably sounded more to the detective like he was having a heart attack. Haskell could see the alarm in the man's eyes. Screw him, though, and anyway, he couldn't help himself; it was all pretty damn hysterical if you thought about it. The more he thought about the painting of that canary and how he ended up singing on himself, the harder he laughed. Laughed himself right into a heart attack.
The original members of Top Suspense Group dashed out this round-robin short story late in 2010. Each member wrote 250 words and sent it on to the next until it had gone around twice. No planning, re-writing or polishing allowed. It was anyone's guess whether The Chase would flow to a satisfying ending, and you can decide whether we succeeded.
THE CHASE
A TOP SUSPENSE GROUP STORY
Lauren Blaine didn't know who was in the car behind her, and she didn't know when they'd picked up her trail. She looked over at the man in the passenger seat. He looked back, his face a blank. He had nothing to say. He seldom did.
"I don't think I can lose them," Lauren said.
The man's head moved a fraction of an inch in what might have been considered a nod.
"I'm going to try, though."
Another slight movement, which Lauren took for assent. She pressed down on the accelerator and the Cadillac CTS-V surged forward. They were on a little-used farm-to-market road, a curvy, hilly two-lane blacktop that Lauren had turned onto from the Interstate. She'd planned to cut over to the state highway to the west and follow that to their destination. Now sh
e wished she hadn't taken the shortcut.
The car behind her was gaining, which seemed impossible. The Caddy was the fastest production sedan made in the U. S. But maybe the car behind had been made elsewhere.
Lauren risked another glance at the man beside her. He unfastened his seatbelt, reached inside his jacket, and pulled a Kimber 1911 .45 from a shoulder holster. Lauren didn't think a gun was going to be any help, but seeing it did make her feel a little better. The man refastened his seatbelt.
Lauren didn't feel better for long. As the Cadillac crested a hill, she saw a slow-moving farm combine not a hundred yards ahead. It was so wide that it took up most of the road.
"Uh-oh," the man said.
Lauren's heart was in her throat, her pulse pounded, steadily increasing as they raced closer to the combine. It went from a metal insect on the ribbon of road to a behemoth of mud-splattered steel in a terrifying span of seconds. She looked at the man seated next to her for guidance, but his eyes told her everything she needed to know. They said, whatever you do, don't slow down...
POP! Lauren heard a flat, harsh sound, remembered getting so angry with a man for cheating she'd slapped him across the face; it was that kind of sound but smaller somehow, more compact. The wind screeched into her face. With a feeling of dread she located the tiny spider web shape in the safety glass inches from her headrest. A bullet hole. The men in the other car were shooting at them. One round had come within inches of erasing her life. The sound came again.
She panicked a bit and their car fishtailed down the highway, an accidental but effective evasive maneuver. Lauren slid from the road and danced along the embankment, flattening wheat. She briefly wondered if she should gun the engine and try her luck in the fields. But they had no idea what was out there in the rows and rows of wheat, ditches and sink holes and rocks perhaps, scores of ways to stall the car. On the other hand they would be free to run on foot and covered by the seemingly eternal ocean of tall wheat?
The combine driver leaped from the machine and Lauren jerked the wheel left, crossed the road and bounced the car into the field. Her sense of direction was nearly always wrong and she was counting on that, heading opposite of what felt right to get to Kansas City. For over ten years, the darkness of LA clubs had replaced the open sky bordered by glistening grain, beauty she still hoped to reclaim.
Paolo turned. "Shit!"
Her lip curled and trembled. "You're the one insisted on coming."
"I saved your ass!"
She clenched her jaw and checked the road. No car on the hill. Ahead, one hope for cover; a sloping barn against the blue.
What had she been thinking? After two years of marriage, watching Jimmy's drug money grow and keeping her Kansas roots secret, she'd sacrificed her lead-time. Her little farm, the herb garden, dogs, chickens, the pot-bellied pig . . . all her dreams traded for a one-night stand. Now up to three nights. If she'd known that Jimmy was so well connected—but no, it was her stupid drinking that got her into trouble again.
She glanced out the side window. The other car still hadn't crested the hill. Christ, yes! A few more seconds! She glared at Mr. Smooth-face-square-jaw, his wide eyes shifting between barn and highway—what the hell was his last name? She should be sick of those thick lashes and muscular lips, finished with all six foot three of him, but she still felt the warm sting, making her want it again—if only she could find the fucking highway.
"Pull into that barn," Paolo said.
She shot him a glare. "What the hell else did you think I was going to do?"
But she did it anyway, sliding through the open doors that seemed to be waiting for her. She didn't wait for the jerk's help - she scrambled out, shut the barn doors, the scent of hay strangely comforting. In some weird way, she was home.
"We'll wait it out," she said, and turned, and the handsome prick was grinning at her, the Kimber pointed right at her.
"Fuckin' funny," he said.
"I was just thinking that."
"You figured they were after you. No. Me."
"They're not Jimmy's people?"
"No."
"Who are they then?"
"Does it matter? You knew I worked with Jimmy. You knew I swam in those waters."
Talkative now, all of a sudden. Why hadn't he shot her?
Of course. The farmhouse. A shot might bring Farmer Brown. But this move - pulling the gun on her - it spoke volumes: he was stupid. He could have picked the right moment to show his hand. Too early in the game....
"You don't need that," she said, gesturing toward his gun-in-hand. "We're in the shit now. Together. I'm helping you. Why — "
"That's the funny thing. Jimmy hired me to take care of you."
The prick had picked her up in that bar and screwed her silly for how long? And his end game was a bullet?
"Sit over there."
Apparently he didn't see the pitchfork leaned against the post.
She knew she had only seconds to fill her fingers with the pitchfork handle then turn and stab him before he could get an accurate shot off. She remembered how he'd complimented her after their fourth round of lovemaking. She obviously inspired him. Now she hoped that doing a slutty walk in her tight red skirt and sweaty white blouse could distract him from the Kimber in his hand.
She might have been a stripper strutting her stuff as she walked away from him and toward the bale of hay where he wanted her seated. Subtle he wasn't. In the dusty confines of the barn, lazy dust-filled sunlight streaming through the shattered windows, his breathing became loud and short. Horndog.
As she approached the post the pitchfork leaned against, she put her hand to her backside and rubbed, as if giving herself pleasure.
Harder and harder came his breathing. That wasn't the only thing that was harder no doubt.
God, could she actually pull it off? Suddenly the whole plan seemed absurd. He'd kill her right here and right now. What had she been thinking?
But wasn't he going to kill her anyway? What did it matter where she died?
At times in her life she'd been so frightened that she seemed to be watching herself from a distance. A woman who was her twin sister would be trying to extricate herself from a dangerous situation. But Lauren Blaine had the easy part. All she had to do was watch.
"Drop it."
She turned toward him still holding the pitchfork. Fuck, she was angry. She wasn't sure if it was at this prick or at Jimmy, but her rage was near choking her. "Why don't you just shoot me already?" she demanded.
He scratched lazily along his jaw with one hand as he trained his .45 toward her chest with his other. Showing a thin smile, he said, "I'm not done with you yet."
"What do you mean not done with me? In helping you get away from those men or in fucking me?"
"A little of both."
The prick! Those words were like pouring gasoline on her rage as it exploded within her. She charged him then without realizing it, and when he fired a warning shot Lauren threw the pitchfork as she dove to the ground. Something wet and sticky hit her. When she looked up, she first saw the blood spray, then him, his eyes confused, the pitchfork sticking into his thigh and blood spurting from the wound. She had hit an artery and he was bleeding out fast. The confusion drained from his eyes as they became cold and reptilian. He shot at her to kill but he was too woozy to see straight, and the bullets bit into the barn floor next to her. He fired off two more shots as he fell backward. After a few twitches he stopped moving.
It became deathly quiet inside the barn. She heard a car pull up and held her breath as the engine was killed, then doors opened and closed.
Lauren didn't waste any time looking for a place to hide. She scuttled over to Paolo and jerked the .45 from his cold dead fingers. Okay, so they weren't cold. What the hell.
Paolo had fired three shots. How many were bullets were left in the magazine? Four? Ten? A hundred? Lauren didn't have a clue. She pointed the pistol at the doors.
One of the barn doors opened.
A man poked his head inside.
Lauren pulled the trigger. The .45 slug tore through the wooden door about three feet to the left and a foot above where the man's head had been. Lauren wasn't much of a shot.
The door opened all the way, and the man stepped inside. He didn't seem afraid. Lauren didn't blame him, but she fired the pistol anyway. And missed again, still wide left.
The man didn't even blink. "You're wasting your time," he said. "My friend's waiting outside, so even if you get me, which I doubt you will, he'll come in and take care of you."
Lauren pulled the trigger. The bullet went wide to the right this time. Over-correction.
"That pistol's a Kimber," the man said. "I heard four shots before, so that means you got one left. Wanna try again, or you just wanna come with me and Frankie? Jimmy wants to see you. Says you got something belongs to him."
Lauren heard a low rumble. It was getting louder. She looked at the Kimber. It might as well have been a water pistol for all the good it did her. She dropped it to the dirt floor.
"Why did Jimmy send three, for insurance?"
That rumbling sound. Hadn't he noticed? No. He was too busy studying her breasts. The man nodded. "We gave Paulo his space until you two took off. It looked like he was more up for dipping his wick than carrying out orders. So we lit out after you." He looked at Paulo's corpse, skin so waxen, the dirt and straw darkly stained. "Thanks. You didn't waste him, we would have had to."
And then he finally heard the noise. Stiffened.
"Is this some kind of convention?" Lauren asked. The stranger moved from registering the rumbling sound to something else, something more sinister. Lauren could see his mind struggling. Jimmy wants it back, but he also wants the bitch dead. What do I do now? Now that there's some other car.
"Hustle up, dude!" The guy outside. The one he'd called Frankie. High voice, California accent. "We got company!"
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