Mondo Crimson

by Andrew Post

  “You won’t be safe until Felix and Merritt are dealt with. But let’s just take a breath, slow this down.”

  Mel kept shaking her head. “No. No. I think what should happen is you should let me and Amber get in her car and go and we’ll just leave you to handle all this shit on your own. You seem like you know what you’re doing.”

  “Being ‘caught in his bullshit web’ might explain your situation but Amber’s case is different,” Brenda said. “She likes presenting herself like she’s this long-suffering survivor just because she got a leg cut off a few years ago, but working for Felix was a choice she made. How I hear it, she approached him for a job. You and her are not in the same boat.” Brenda gestured to the empty bottles all over the kitchen. “Hers appears to have a leak in it, for one.”

  “Either way,” Mel said. “Neither of us should be stuck in this. This is your thing. Just let us run, Brenda.”

  “You’re adamant about taking her with you. Why?”

  Mel rubbed her face. “I don’t know. I feel bad for her. It’s probably just a cousin of Stockholm syndrome or something.” She raised her head and glanced toward the living room. “Please don’t tell her I said that.”

  “Stockholm syndrome is something, as I understand it, that a captive starts to feel toward their captor. Would that mean you’ve started coming around on me too?”

  “I mean, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, you’re still scary as fuck, lady. Thanks for not murdering me, appreciate it, but as far as us being anything resembling friends, I’ll be honest, I’m sorry, but I—”

  “Relax, shithead. I was just pulling your leg. You kids always think everybody’s got to be your buddy. You and me, we’re just two strangers who happened to step directly in the same pile of dog shit at the same time.”

  “Except one of those strangers is armed.”

  “True. Speaking of which, you’re seriously going to sit there and tell me you’re not the least bit interested in seeing Felix get what’s coming to him? You can just watch if you want. I’ll try not to get any on you.”

  “No, Brenda, I don’t.”

  “I’d say you’ve earned yourself a front-row seat.”

  “I can say with confidence that is something I’d rather not see happen. Not even to him, Brenda. All I wanted was for Felix to leave me alone.”

  “I knew I should’ve never told you my name.”

  “Why? Does that bother you?”

  That got a brief smile out of Brenda. She nudged the burner phone closer to Mel. “Call the hospice, shithead. Leave out the details and just say something like it’d be in their best interest to bring on the whole security staff for the next few days.”

  Mel dialed the hospice. Someone picked up but didn’t say anything. Mel could hear a lot of commotion going on in the background. Hurried footsteps, people screaming and yelling, the robotic tones of orders being shouted over walkie-talkies. Her stomach dropped.

  “Presque Isle Hospice Care,” someone said, sounding out of breath.

  “This is Melanie Williams, Craig’s niece. Is everything okay?”

  “Melanie. We’ve been trying to get ahold of you. Have the police spoken with you?”

  It was an automatic thing for Mel to stand up. The house seemed to dissolve from around her. With it, Brenda and her goddamn gun, the fear of someone named Merritt Plains trying to find her and hurt her. All of that disappeared. She couldn’t take a full breath, but managed to say, “What happened?”

  “Melanie,” the hospice staff member said, “I don’t know where you are right now, but I think you should probably find somewhere quiet and sit down. I need to tell you something and I’m afraid it’s going to be upsetting.”

  “Is he all right? Is my uncle okay?”

  “There’s been a shooting. They shot four of the staff members who were working the breakfast shift and then they went from room to room killing patients. Nobody knows why. I don’t know if you’ve met Cal, our new orderly, but he tried stopping them and they killed him too. They got away before the police got here, they just—”

  “My uncle. Is he okay?”

  “Melanie, I’m so sorry, honey, but your uncle, they—”

  Mel dropped the phone. Brenda started to ask what was wrong but Mel knocked the rest of her question out of her mouth, sending her tumbling to the floor. Mel climbed on top of her and swung with her cast, jerking Brenda’s head to the side with the blow. Mel saw blood had started to come out of her nose, but struck Brenda again anyway. Her broken arm inside the cast felt like it was on fire, the vibration of the impacts making the fractures shift and grind. But it didn’t stop her. She struck Brenda again, only stopping when she felt something hard and cold press into her side.

  Brenda’s gun.

  Bleeding from the lip, Brenda said, “Melanie. Get off me. Now.”

  “He’s dead. They killed him. All because you told Merritt I’m still alive.”

  “Felix would’ve done it either way.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. You don’t.”

  “You’re right, I don’t know that for sure, and I can appreciate you’re upset, but I didn’t do that. Felix did. Same as he’s responsible for all this shit. So I’m going to need you to take that feeling you’re experiencing right now and hold on to it. We’ll take it to Felix and you can give it to him, directly.”

  “That won’t fix anything.” Mel sobbed into her hands. Her arm hurt. Her heart hurt.

  “Melanie?” Brenda said. “I need you to look at me.”

  Mel lowered her hands and looked down into Brenda’s bleeding face. “Yeah?”

  “If you ever hit me again, I’ll kill you.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, too fast to register what was happening, Mel saw Brenda move her fingers and spin the gun around in her hand, gripping it now by the silencer. A blur of black metal, charging toward her face. The sound like a grenade had just gone off inside the left side of her skull. A wash of comets in front of her eyes. The floor rushed up to catch her.

  * * *

  Brenda climbed out from under the shithead, tore a fistful of paper towels off the roll, and held them to her face. She looked down at the girl, sprawled on the lino like Amber probably was once a week, blacking out in her kitchen, and sure, maybe Brenda did feel kind of sorry for Melanie. There was no reason for Felix to take the time and pay someone to go kill her uncle. It felt so unnecessary, even for him. Cruel just to be cruel. Brenda winced and peeled the towel away and looked at the red stains on the white-white paper. It’d been a while since she’d seen her own blood. Shithead had a mean right hook on her and that cast made it into a goddamn sledgehammer.

  Amber was standing in the doorway. She’d put on pants and a coat. A bulging suitcase stood next to her, ready to go. “You killed her already? That didn’t take long.”

  “She isn’t dead. I just rung her bell. She’ll be fine.”

  “We should probably move her to the couch. I doubt it’s good for an unconscious person’s brain to lie face-down on the floor.”

  Brenda made no moves to do so. “Going somewhere, lush?”

  “Listen. You don’t strike me as the type that’ll like an idea unless they came up with it, and I know you said we’re not voting, but I figured we’d be revisiting the topic of running away sooner than later. That and it’s not easy for me to change pants.”

  Brenda got the key to the rental out of her pocket. “That hunk of shit in your driveway run?”

  “Most of the time.”

  Brenda flung the rental’s key at Amber. “Trade you.”

  Amber, surprisingly, caught the key and looked at it, then at Brenda. “This is a rental.”

  “Doesn’t mean you have to give it back.”

  Amber only sighed.

  “You’ve been trying to think of an excuse to not come with us for
the last hour,” Brenda said, dabbing at her split lip. “So, there’s your out.”

  Amber took down the keys to her own car from the hook on the wall and tried flinging them underhand toward Brenda but instead pelted Mel with them, who, if she felt the heavy ring of keys collide with the back of her head, had no remark.

  Brenda picked up Amber’s keys and pocketed them. “What was that about things not being good for an unconscious brain?”

  “Does she get a choice in this?” Amber said. “Or were you just planning to toss her in the trunk and hope she doesn’t mind when she wakes up? If she wakes up.”

  “She’ll wake up. She’s breathing.”

  Amber didn’t stop frowning.

  “What? She was freaking out. Look at my face.”

  “Not that. Fuck your face. Let her get on a bus and go home.”

  “Felix killed her uncle.”

  “I heard. The walls are basically cardboard in this place. Call it Stockholm syndrome if you want – yeah, I heard that too – but I like her, I think she’s a good person. She’s not built for this and you know what? I say good for her. There’s not enough people like that around, who haven’t gotten so desensitized to all this crazy shit that they’ve—”

  “Turned into people like us?”

  “Didn’t really need to be said, Brenda, but sure. You know she has no business being around all this. What she’s seen already has probably fucked her up enough for one lifetime.”

  “Maybe she didn’t fall into this shit by choice, no, but she’s still in it nonetheless. She should be there,” Brenda said. “Everything he’s done to her? She doesn’t know she needs to see this thing through to its end, but she does.”

  “If she doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t want to go. You can’t use her as an excuse.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But you are.”

  “He tried to have me killed, Amber. It’s not just about her, this is our thing.”

  “I don’t think she feels like it is.”

  “If she walks away now,” Brenda said, “she has no idea how much it’ll eat at her the rest of her life. She’ll always think he’s out there. She’ll never be able to sleep without one eye open or place trust in another person. Everybody and everything will be suspect, forever. But – but – if she’s there and sees him die, it’ll give her closure. She’ll be able to more easily move on, be—”

  “Not everybody’s got a big old stiffy for payback,” Amber said. “Normal people don’t look forward to having an enemy. She fucked up, bad, no question. But spending a day with you, I’m positive she’s more than learned her lesson.” Amber paused. “You know, this is kind of shitty of us putting words in her mouth, but since you didn’t leave her much option, I’ll just remind you that she told you not ten minutes ago: all she wants is to just go home. I say let her.”

  “That was before she knew Felix killed her uncle. She might feel differently now.”

  “Okay, then let’s ask her, shall we? Melanie? What do you think? Do you want to go home or would you rather go with Mrs. Brenda here and most likely end up dead?” Amber turned her head, aiming her ear down at the unconscious young woman on the floor. “Mel, you’re going to have to speak up.”

  Mel snored against the linoleum.

  “Oh, it’d appear you’re still unconscious. My bad.”

  “I had to,” Brenda said.

  Amber laughed. “That’s a convenient little saying. I like that. I’ll have to remember that next time I get pulled over.”

  “Surprised you still have a license.”

  “Brenda, if you’ll humor me, I’d like to get something off my chest before we ride off toward our separate sunsets. Here goes. I’m sure you think you’re being absolutely hilarious when you call me names like Drinky Doris – and I’m not so un-self-aware that I can’t see I have something of a dependency issue – but at least what I do only harms me. You probably look at what you do and call it work, that because it’s for money and not for pleasure that makes it, by some crazy-ass metric, somewhat okay, that you’re just a product of your environment or some other pat line like that, that you’re just the result of capitalism run amok crossbreeding with this country’s disconcerting okay-ness with gun violence. Whatever helps you sleep at night. But that doesn’t even begin to alter the fact even remotely that you’re still somebody who ends lives for a living. That girl lying right there? She is not like you and she does not want what you want. Me? I’m not like you and I don’t want what you want either. But that psychotic sack of shit you called – from here, even though I politely requested that you just take the burner and do it somewhere else – is the only thing approaching your match. I’m guessing me saying that upsets you, going by the face you’re making at me now, but I suggest when you two inevitably have your little OK Corral thing, you should precede it with going like they do in the movies and say to each other, ‘We’re not so different, you and I.’ Because in you two’s case, it’d be right on the nose.”

  “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about and I suggest you shut your mouth before I—”

  “Before you what? Before you what, Brenda? Shoot me? What a twist. It’s not like you haven’t threatened me with that or something similar since you broke in here demanding I help you.”

  “If he came here instead of me, there would’ve been no threats. There would’ve been no words at all.”

  “I send you money Felix labeled ‘for Orlando’, check my news app an hour later, and I see some girl not much younger than her––” Amber nodded down at Mel on the floor, “– got killed a block away from where two other people – who were listed on your work order – were murdered. Want to try telling me that was just a coincidence? You might think I’m stupid, but it didn’t take a genius to pin the tail on that donkey, Brenda. Maybe you should reconsider throwing around words like professional.”

  “You’re fucking exhausting, you know that?” Brenda said. She put two fingers under her nose and showed the blood to Amber. “See this? She did this. She hit me first.”

  “It’s like talking to a wall. ‘She hit me first’? Seriously? You’re a parent? I feel for the next generation who end up stuck in this world with your offspring running around.”

  “Mel is coming with me. End of discussion. Are you? Last chance.”

  “Nope.”

  “Then could you at least help me get her out to the car?”

  “Nope again. It’s been real, Brenda, and I do wish you and your involuntary road-trip partner all the best, but right now all I want is for you to get the fuck out of my house.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Hi, Felix. Merritt again. The time here is quarter after five p.m. and I was just checking in to see if you got my previous message. Sorry about that bad news but I’m confident with your guidance I’ll be able to find her. Brenda, that is. Sorry I’m talking so fast. I’ve had quite a bit of, um, coffee. It’s free in this motel’s office. The coffee. So I’ve helped myself to a few cups.

  “Nothing much else to do. I thought about getting back in the car and just driving around hoping by dumb luck I’d spot her, but I didn’t want to waste gas, plus the odds of that happening are pretty unlikely.

  “I always forget the Twin Cities is so big. It’s not like New York big or Los Angeles big, but it’s a good size. I could see living here. It seems nice. I might have no choice. I don’t think I mentioned it in that message I left last time but me and my mother, well, we had another one of our knock-down drag-out mother/son spats. She thinks it’s time for me to move out. I disagree, because she still needs help getting to the doctor, but I think maybe it’s because she thinks me living with her has, you know, put a crimp in my style or something, stunted me somehow. I know she probably wants grandkids like most ladies who have sons my age, but I don’t know if that’s in the cards for me. Have I ever told you
about my neighbors across the street? They have a son, Skyler, who I think is about thirteen or so. Great kid. Really bright. I can just tell he’s going places. Might want to keep an eye on him because I’ve watched him play those army guy games and…I mean, he told me he plays them. I haven’t actually seen him play any of them. We were getting the mail at the same time and I guess he just beat some really tough level and was all excited about it and told me that he’s good at those shooting games and that’s how I know.

  “Anyway, there’s an All in the Family marathon on TV right now. That was kind of a stupid thing for me to say, wasn’t it? Of course it’s on TV. Where else would a marathon of a television show be? Anyway, it got me thinking about that thing you said about how in a different life you and me could’ve been father and son. Not that Archie Bunker reminds me of you, just the whole idea of families and stuff like that. What I mean is, I really liked it when you said that to me. It made me feel really good.

  “So, you know, I just hope because this thing with Brenda Stockton has gone a bit sideways that hasn’t changed how you feel about me. I already think of you as my dad in a way, a second dad. The dad I wished I’d had.

  “I killed mine, my real dad. It was—”

  * * *

  “Hi, Felix. It’s Merritt. Guess I got cut off. Probably for the best. Please disregard that last message. I think the frustration of not being able to find Brenda was starting to get to me. I’m better now. I got another cup of coffee. It’s cold, but I don’t mind cold coffee, do you?

  “I forgot again we’re not actually having a call. Sorry.

  “I apologize too much, don’t I? I need to work on that.

  “Anyway, it’s just after seven. Brenda hasn’t called. I tried calling her, but it said that line is no longer in service. Burner, I’m guessing.