by Jack Kilborn
Dr. Patel moved the camera again, and then asked, “Would you like to hear his heartbeat?”
A sound came on, a rapid WHOOSHTAPWHOOSHTAPWHOOSHTAP, so fast the beats all ran together.
“You hear that?” Tangi said. “That’s Harry McGlade Jr.”
And for the second time in my life, I had nothing flippant to say.
I left the doctor’s office with mixed feelings. Overwhelmed, by the responsibility I now had. Exhilarated, by the thought of actually being a father. Relieved, because I didn’t have some parasite growing inside my gut.
Tangi gave me a mean elbow in the ribs as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Next time we visit Dr. Patel, could you try your best to be less of an asshole?”
Add annoyed to the list, because out of all the women I could have knocked up, it had to be this piece of work.
“Are you going to act this way around our kid?” I said. “All ball-busting and bitchy?”
Her eyes became burning lasers. “You’re worried about my parenting skills? Seriously? You’re the most irresponsible man I’ve ever met.”
I folded my arms. “You dated a mobster and a killer.”
“He was a responsible mobster, and was very selective in the people he killed.”
“You can’t possibly think that some jackass wise guy would make a more responsible father than—”
I was so distracted by Tangi’s idiotic prattling, I didn’t notice the black sedan speeding toward us until I heard the tires squeal. The front end hopped the curb. It skidded to a stop a few feet in front of us on the sidewalk. I pushed Tangi behind me and reflexively reached for my Magnum. Just as my hand slapped leather, I saw the shotgun sticking out of the passenger side window.
“In the car,” Tony said. “Both of youse.”
Tangi made a whimpering sound.
“Hi, Tony,” I said, raising my hands. “You going to shoot us? Right in the middle of the street?”
He looked me dead in the eye. “Yes. I am.”
I could accept that. But I couldn’t accept getting into the car with him. I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, like betting $25,000 on midget wrestling and having sex with Tangi. But I wasn’t stupid enough to get into a car with a mobster, just so he could take me someplace private and spend a nice, long weekend torturing me to death.
“Run,” I told Tangi, shoving her away—
—right into the arms of the two smartly-dressed wise guys who had snuck up beside us on foot.
Oops.
Now I did reach for my gun, but the nearer and larger of the two hit me with a right cross that sent stars circling my head like something from a damn cartoon. Except there was no funny music in the background, and the side of my head didn’t take on any humorous shapes, at least not that I could tell.
I stumbled back and fell on my ass, catching the thug’s foot in my face, which hurt like getting kicked in the face. Somewhere among the clanging in my head, I heard Tangi scream. I finally managed to liberate my gun, and while debating which one of the nine blurry guys to shoot, the other nine blurry guys hustled nine Tangis into nine sedans. The other nine followed those first eighteen inside before my math deficiencies caught up with me. Finally the nine cars drove away, leaving me on the sidewalk alone, possibly with a concussion.
Or nine.
I sat there for a few minutes, waiting for the little birds to stop circling. Of course they didn’t, because they were city pigeons and no amount of shooing can ever make them go away. I had to wonder why they had taken Tangi and not me. After both a fist and a boot to the face, I wasn’t my usual lethal self, yet they’d left me littering the sidewalk like a giant candy wrapper that looked exactly like me. Sure I had a big gun. I also had a .44. But I was in no shape to use either.
Unless they assumed I wouldn’t follow them.
I thought about that for a minute. If I just left things alone and walked away, Sal would no doubt take his revenge out on her (responsibly, of course), and I would no longer have to worry about turning my home office into a nursery or bribing the University of Illinois to overlook Harry Jr.’s failing grades.
A normal guy would examine his conscience when deciding whether or not to leave his unborn child and the tyke’s nasty shrew of a mother to a terrible, mobster-induced fate. Since I don’t have a conscience, I did the next best thing.
“Jack,” I said into my cell phone, talking to my sister’s answering machine. “It’s Harry. Pick up.”
She didn’t.
“I’m nearby and I’ve got a box of chocolate Zingers.”
“How close are you?” Jack said, slightly breathless.
“I need your help. Sal Dovolanni just kidnapped the mother of my kid.”
“So call the police. But first, drop off those Zingers.”
“He’s going to kill her, Jack.”
“So what are you thinking? That you’re just going to march in there alone and rescue her?”
“Actually…” I let my voice trail off.
“Oh. You’re thinking of not doing a damn thing. Christ, McGlade, you’re a jerk.”
“Well, yeah. But it would sort of eliminate a lot of my problems at once. Does that make me a bad person?”
“You’re already a bad person. That would make you a monster. If you don’t call the police, I will. Wait… did you say this was Sal Dovolanni?”
“Yeah.”
“He lives in the thirteenth district.”
“So?”
“I’m not plugged into the gossip mill anymore, but blue rumor has it he owns some cops in that district.”
“So I could call, and they wouldn’t do anything. Would that let me off the hook?” Maybe I was over-thinking this.
“We need to save her,” Jack said.
“We?”
“Pregnant women have to support each other.”
“Don’t you have special bras for that? And those ugly belts that hold up your Buddha bellies?”
“That’s what I mean. We can’t count on assholes like you.”
I considered it. “Maybe Sal won’t kill her. Maybe he’ll just disfigure her with acid or cut off her feet.”
“I’ll call Phin. We’ll meet you at Dovolanni’s place in half an hour.”
“Jack, I…”
“You can thank me later. And you’d better have those goddamn Zingers with you.”
She hung up.
By the time I caught up to Jack in the parking lot behind Sal Dovolanni’s house, it was getting close to rush hour.
“Where are they?” Jack’s eyes were narrowed to slits, and she couldn’t have looked more dangerous if she’d pulled her gun.
“Where are who? The wise guys?”
“The Zingers, you jerk.”
I had the feeling I’d forgotten something.
Besides the look of soul-searing anger, Jack also wore a designer knee-length coat large enough to fit several women at once. Within its spacious confines, it looked like she had a wildebeest tucked into her belt.
“Sis, you are huge.”
Jack tugged a .38 from her purse. “Do not fuck with me. I’m hormonal, and I’m armed.”
“Glowing too, I see. Pregnancy suits you.”
She finally lowered her gun, and I remembered how to breathe normally. “Phin on his way?” I asked.
“Should be here soon. I asked him to stop for mustard and vinegar.”
“What for? Some kind of chemical bomb?”
“No. I’ve got a mean craving for mustard and vinegar.”
“On what?”
“Straight out of the containers.”
“Seriously? That’s… disgusting.” And I liked me some mustard.
“Take it up with the baby.”
Then I heard it. It pierced the winter air, drawing our attention: a shrill female scream coming from Sal’s house. Although I’d never heard Tangi scream before, or even moan for that matter, I knew it was her.
“If I were still a cop,” Jack said, “that
would be probable cause for breaking the door down.”
“It’s too dangerous,” I said.
Jack made a face. “Pregnant or not, I can take care of myself, McGlade.”
“I meant too dangerous for me.” I turned and started walking back to my car. “When you rescue Tangi, tell her I won’t make the next doctor’s visit because I’ve left the country. Forever.”
Another scream, this one even louder.
Despite every fiber of my being telling me to keep going, my feet faltered. Damn. I obviously needed new shoes.
“So, you coming?” Jack called.
I shut my eyes. All my problems would be solved. All I had to do was be myself. Take a few more steps. Not look back.
I looked back.
“Come on.” Jack held her .38 in both hands and started waddling for the rear of the wrought iron fence surrounding Dovolanni’s house.
It didn’t take half as much time as I’d hoped for me to catch up. “The gate’s locked. I guess we’re out of luck. Well, we tried our best.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got a key.” Jack leveled the barrel of her .38 on the lock and fired.
The report cracked through the neighborhood, bouncing off concrete and pavement, echoing down alleys, and making my ears feel like someone had stuck screwdrivers in them.
Jack nodded at the mangled padlock. “It’s open now.” She tugged the gate open and held her revolver in both hands, having to bend her elbows because her belly got in the way.
“What about Phin?” I said. “We should wait for him.”
“No time.”
Unholstering my .44, I followed her into Sal’s backyard, pausing to admire a topiary in the shape of a woman’s ass. Those wise guys had style.
The house’s back door flew open and a guy wider than Tony filled the entrance, a shotgun in his mitts. I think I recognized him as one of the nine. Or nine of the eighteen. Or whatever.
Jack glanced back at me, already in motion. “Go find Tangi.” She waddled up beside shotgun dude in a blur of pregnant speed, popping him in the nose with the butt of her gun, yanking his weapon away from him, and then punching him, full force, in the crotch.
I winced. Hell hath no fury like a preggo denied Zingers.
She stepped over his hulking form and led the way into the house. I followed at a safe distance.
“Really feeling the hormones lately, huh Sis?”
“If I popped right now, I’d cover the entire Gold Coast with estrogen.”
“Nice. You should put that in a greeting card.”
We moved through the kitchen. When we’d reached a hallway leading to the house’s front rooms and had just passed the solemn portrait of Sal’s macho wife, I heard a feminine whimper coming from Sal’s man cave.
Something happened to me then. I no longer wanted to get the hell out of there. Just the opposite, in fact.
I certainly didn’t love Tangi. I didn’t even like her. But I couldn’t let anyone hurt the mother of my son.
My son.
I’d heard endless stories from parents about all the cute shit their stupid kids did, and I always rolled my eyes and thanked the universe that I would never be forced to endure any of that myself.
But all of a sudden, I didn’t feel that way anymore. I wanted to endure it. I wanted to watch Harry Jr. being born, and to be the first person he saw when he opened his eyes. I wanted to watch him learn to crawl. I wanted to hear his first words. I wanted to help him grow to become a better man that I’d ever be. I wanted to someday sit down with him, raise my whiskey glass to his and say, “You know what, kid? I’m proud of you. I’m so damn proud of you. And happy fourteenth birthday.”
Clutching my Magnum tight in my fist, I kicked Sal’s door in, ready to shoot, ready to kill anything or anyone who dared to hurt Tangi WhateverHerLastNameWas and Harry McGlade Jr.
I burst in just as Tangi screamed again. Screamed long and loud as Sal knelt before her, showing me his naked, flabby ass, her leg up over his shoulder, his mouth on her…
“Aw… God.”
“Harry?” Tangi’s eyes focused on mine, coming back from the brink of ecstasy. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Sal, face glistening, grinned at me like the old idiot he was. “Ha!” he said. “She’s all woman! No dick here!”
I was disgusted, repulsed, and only a teeny bit aroused.
Jack put her hand on my shoulder. “This is what we were saving her from? Orgasms?”
“Women can have orgasms?” I said.
Tony and five or six other thugs converged on us, but Sal ordered them to stand down.
“Here’s the deal, Mr. McGlade,” Sal said, wiping off his chin. “I see why you tried to protect Tangi. She’s pregnant with your baby. I understand. That was a noble thing to do. But I love her. And while I’ll allow you visitation rights with your son when he’s born, Tangi is going to marry me, and they’re going to live here.”
“What about Mrs. Dovolanni?” I asked.
“My lovely wife. The poor woman choked on a chicken sandwich last month, God rest her soul.”
All the wise guys made the sign of the cross, Sal included.
“You’re an asshole,” Jack told me. “This was a complete waste of my time, and I’m fucking starving.”
She turned and left. I shrugged. “Okay. So we’re… uh… even, I guess?” I said to Sal.
“Far from it. You owe me the five thousand dollars I told you to give to Tangi.”
Tangi’s face went from flushed to pissed in a nanosecond. “What? Sal, baby, you gave this idiot five grand?”
“Well, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” I said, backing out of there. “Tangi, gimme a call when you’re having your next appointment thingy with Dr. Patel.”
“You son of a bitch! Why didn’t you give me that money?”
“Gotta run. Stuff to do.”
We got out of there, fast, and the only thing that saved me from Jack’s wrath was Phin showing up with an entire 7-11’s worth of junk food. It’s hard to bitch with a full mouth.
A few months later, my son was born.
And when I held his pink, squirming body in my arms, for the third time in my life I had nothing flippant to say.
This is an excerpt from the spy thriller FLEE by J.A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson. It is a continuation of the excerpt found in the ebook Wild Night Is Calling
I flipped the shotgun, grabbing the grip in the air just as the elevator exploded and the man came charging low out of the stairwell.
Ears ringing from the grenade, I didn’t hear the next thing Cory said over the phone, nor did I hear the shotgun go off when I pulled the trigger.
The force tore the weapon from my grasp and tore off much of the stairwell man’s face. I never saw the woman in the elevator, but this one was dressed in blue coveralls and white latex gloves. His dead hand still clenched a semi-auto with a suppressor screwed on.
Spent gunpowder clogged my throat. I pinched my nose, held my lips closed, and tried to breathe out, forcing my ears to equalize. I still couldn’t hear very well.
“This connection is terrible,” I said into the phone. “You’re breaking up.”
My hip buzzed. I startled, whirling around, then remembered my encrypted cell. I dug it out of my panties.
Now I had no choice. I couldn’t talk to Jacob while listening to Cory’s ransom demands. And Jacob had priority over everything else. I squeezed my eyes shut, hands shaking, and hit the disconnect button on my land line. I’d know in a few seconds how Kauffman suffered for my decision.
“Is Wanda there?’ Jacob asked. I could barely hear him.
I’d already used the Milan code phrase, so I used the follow-up. “She’s visiting her cousin in Nebraska. Can I take a message?”
“Are you out of the building yet? The Carmen Sawyer ID is burned. Word from the Chicago PD is that there are state and federal warrants out on you. I count at least ten squad cars heading toward your apartment. Two of them are pu
lling up right now.”
Standard operating procedure. Someone higher-up trumped up some fake charges so the feds and local law enforcement brought me in. But were they trying to save me, or bury me?
I shook my head. Think. I needed to think. Kauffman first.