Assume Nothing

by Gar Anthony Haywood

  ‘What about Reddick?’ she asked.

  ‘Reddick’s a non-factor,’ Cross said. ‘He caught us by surprise this morning, but that’s all over. Now that we know he’s gunning for us, we’ll be ready for him next time.’

  ‘And if there is no “next time”? If he decides killing Andy was revenge enough for what the four of you did to him, and leaves the rest up to the police?’

  ‘Did he say that?’ Cross asked hopefully. ‘Is that what he said he intends to do?’

  ‘Not in so many words. Answer the question, Perry.’

  ‘Well, first of all, “the four of us” didn’t do anything to him. I keep telling you that. But if Reddick wants to let bygones be bygones, hey, I’d be happy to do the same, of course. That would make just one less thing for us to worry about.’

  He was lying again and this time, Iris called him on it. ‘I don’t want him hurt, Perry. None of this was his fault. If the poor bastard killed Andy like you say, he’ll probably do time for it, and that’s punishment enough, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s not forget what he did to Ben.’

  ‘Ben had that coming, and more. To hell with Ben. If you want me to help you, those are my terms, take it or leave it. I don’t want Reddick hurt.’

  Cross would have liked nothing better than to tell this fool bitch again to go fuck herself and walk away. Who the hell did she think she was, Reddick’s mother? But his present circumstances did not allow for such indulgences; Iris was the rock and Ruben was the hard place, and between the two, he had no room to do anything but bend over and capitulate.

  ‘OK. You’ve got my word that as long as he doesn’t fuck with us, we won’t fuck with him,’ he said. ‘Fair enough?’

  Hell no, it wasn’t fair enough, Iris thought. Not to Reddick and certainly not to Gillis Rainey. But it was the closest thing to a square deal she was ever likely to get out of Perry Cross and she’d just be wasting her breath trying to negotiate something better out of him.

  ‘I’ll give you two days,’ she said.

  ‘I need to the end of the week.’

  ‘Two days. No more and no less. After that, I go the police alone and let whatever happens happen.’

  Cross hesitated, conflicted. ‘I don’t suppose . . .’

  ‘No way in hell. I’ll let the seventy-five hundred you’ve already stolen from me ride, but that’s it. The rest you’re going to have to raise on your own.’

  Perry looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Had she always been this fucking hard, or was this change in her something new, just one more unintended consequence of his own recent stupidity?

  ‘Fine. Two days.’

  She rose from the table again, making sure this time to be too quick for him to stop her. ‘I don’t know what happened to you, Perry. Maybe you were always this way and I just didn’t see it. But you need help, and I hope you live long enough to get it. I really do.’

  He had a comeback ready on his tongue, but she was gone before he could open his mouth.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The melody was familiar. Clarke was sure he had heard it a thousand times before. Still, he couldn’t place it.

  It came and went, long stretches of silence sandwiched between iterations, a tinny chime over dime-store speakers nagging him for attention. Finally, he gave in and opened his eyes, blinked through a haze of pain into a dark room turned on its side: his bedroom.

  He peered into the shadowy void, tried to remember what he was doing here, on his stomach in his bed, aching from head to foot. The incessant jingle persisted. At last, he recognized it for what it was: the theme music from Rocky, clipped and denuded down to the flat-note triviality of a cell phone ringtone. His cell phone.

  Where the hell the instrument was in the room, Clarke couldn’t begin to guess, but he knew he lacked the will to ignore it for another second. To anyone else, it would have been a minor irritant at most, but to him, at this moment, the sound of the phone held all the aural power of a running leaf blower strapped to the side of his skull. And there was no point in shouting out for Cross or Sinnott to put an end to it; his throat was as dry as soot and the effort of raising his voice loud enough to be heard beyond the bedroom walls was likely beyond his means.

  Slowly, he rolled to one side on the bed, encountering pain so intense he thought for sure it would prove fatal. His head felt like a block of iron wedged in a vise and his ribcage cried out in agony with every intake of breath. Even the tips of his fingers hurt.

  Reddick.

  He used the man’s name as fuel to continue his ascent, pulling himself all the way upright while envisioning their next meeting, and the myriad ways he might end it: with a knife or a sawed-off baseball bat, or a fireplace poker glowing white with heat.

  Still half-blind in the dark, Clarke glanced about for the ringing phone, took a guess it was on the nightstand nearby, where a digital clock announced to the world that the time was 6:42 p.m. He’d been asleep for over three hours. Summoning all his strength and tolerance for pain, Clarke pushed a hand forward, groping, Cand found the phone. He thumbed the answer button to silence it and gingerly brought it up to his bandaged head.

  ‘Yeah?’

  The caller made him wait a few seconds for a response. ‘So you pulled through. Guess I should have tried a little harder.’

  Clarke recognized the voice immediately, stomach churning like a cauldron brimming with acid. ‘You motherfucker! You cock-sucking sonofabitch—’

  ‘Take it easy, Mr Clarke. I didn’t call to get your feathers up. I just wanted to know where to send the flowers, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re all dead, Reddick. You, the bitch and . . . and your little boy – you’re all fuckin’ . . . dead, I swear to God!’

  ‘Yeah, I remember you saying that once before. Your pal Baumhower made me the same promise last night – and we all know how unlikely he is to make good now, don’t we?’

  ‘You wanna try me again . . . asshole?’ Clarke sputtered, a spiraling rage sapping what little strength he had left. ‘Just name . . . the time and place.’

  Again, the man on the other end of the line fell silent. Then: ‘No problem. The time is now.’ Reddick lowered his voice to a mere whisper. ‘The place is here.’

  He hung up.

  Here and now. Clarke tossed the phone to one side on the bed, feeling lightheaded and nauseated. What the fuck did Reddick mean? Could he be here now, somewhere outside, waiting? Maybe even inside the house, in the very next room? Was that possible?

  ‘Perry! Will!’

  He was screaming at the top of his lungs, but it was a pointless waste of energy; in his present state, he couldn’t muster the volume of a Chihuahua choking on a bone. He decided Cross and Sinnott were gone, in any case; were either man still here, playing nursemaid, he surely would have saved Clarke the trouble of answering the goddamn phone.

  Clarke was on his own.

  He was sick to his stomach and wracked with pain, as close to the doorstep of death as a man could come and not cross it, but he had to move. If Reddick was here and coming for him, he wasn’t going to find Clarke laying helpless on the bed, just waiting to die. Clarke had made it that easy for him once already, and he wasn’t going to do it again. This time, he was going to be ready when Reddick showed his face, and the outcome of their next meeting was going to be significantly different from their last.

  Anticipating this moment, he’d made a point of leaving a loaded Glock on the nightstand near his phone before taking to his bed. Remembering the weapon now, he reached out to take it into his right hand, then pushed himself to his feet, stifling a war cry of agony to block out the pain.

  Taking one humiliating, baby step after another, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom.

  Reddick didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Ben Clarke was still alive.

  It was good to know he wasn’t a patient in a hospital somewhere, however. By answering his own cell phone, the big man h
ad all but ruled that possibility out. Cell phones weren’t allowed in ICUs. So Reddick didn’t have to worry about getting to Clarke again without creeping down hospital hallways and stairwells, trying to evade security guards and medical staff.

  Though he’d led Clarke to believe otherwise, that he was somewhere outside of a hospital room was all Reddick actually knew about the big man. Sitting in a strip-mall Mexican restaurant in Manhattan Beach, miles from Clarke’s Culver City home address, Reddick had only made the call to Clarke’s cell phone to find out if he was still breathing and, if he was, how hard it might be to finish him off. He hadn’t planned to speak a word into the phone until he’d heard Clarke’s voice on the other end of the line, sounding all hurt and pathetic, and the temptation to put the fear of God in the asshole became too great to ignore. Reddick was the angel of death and he wanted Clarke to know it, and he liked the idea of the big fuck pissing his pants wondering if Reddick wasn’t right there with him somewhere, waiting just around the next corner to put him out of his misery.

  That moment was coming, of course, for Clarke as well as his two friends Perry Cross and Will Sinnott, but for now Reddick was content to bide his time. He was a walking wreck, emotionally spent and sleep deprived, and he desperately needed some rest. While the clock was still ticking on the twenty-four hours he had asked Cross’s girlfriend to give him before calling the cops, he thought it better to back off and regroup than push ahead and risk making a fatal mistake. Wherever Clarke was, he could wait.

  But he wouldn’t have to wait long.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Given explicit instructions by Cross to go straight back to Culver City to watch over Clarke, Will Sinnott had gone looking for Iris Mitchell instead.

  When he rang the doorbell at the Brentwood home of Lester and Ellen Mitchell, Iris’s parents, a few minutes after seven p.m. Sunday night, it was Iris herself who answered the door. He thought she might slam it right back in his face, so obvious was her impulse to do so. But she didn’t.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  Sinnott shrugged. ‘I’m a lush. Not an idiot. You weren’t at home, so . . .’

  He’d been here once before, at a Christmas party last year, and it wasn’t the kind of home one could easily forget. Set far back from a curbless street off San Vicente, at the end of a driveway that seemed to go on forever past walls of hibiscus and azaleas, the Mitchell estate was a single-story monument to postmodern architecture, turrets and columns intermingling with gabled roofs and oversized windows. It had every right to be an eyesore, but the overall effect was stunning, especially in the muted light of early evening.

  ‘What do you want?’ Iris asked. She was thankful now that she’d decided to hide out with her parents for a while; she hadn’t told them anything about her reasons for coming, but her father was upstairs in his study and could be counted on to help if Sinnott made any attempt to lay a hand on her.

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Iris. Jesus. I just need to talk to you, that’s all.’

  She surveyed the dark carport behind him. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Of course. And no, if you’re wondering, Perry doesn’t know I’m here.’

  She gave him a lingering look, then nodded her head and ushered him in.

  They settled in a living room as spotless and beautiful as a furniture ad in a magazine, burning logs snapping and popping discreetly in the fireplace. Iris didn’t bother offering Sinnott anything to drink.

  ‘Well?’

  He just sat there for a moment, trying to convince himself all over again that this was the right thing to do, and not an act of cowardice he would long regret. ‘Are we alone?’

  ‘Mother’s out, but my father’s upstairs. If I were to scream, he’d be down here in three seconds with the loaded gun he always keeps in a desk drawer.’

  ‘Have you—’

  ‘No. I haven’t told either of them anything. Hurry up and get to the point, Will.’

  Sinnott nodded. ‘I know you told Perry you wouldn’t go to the police until we’re sure we can pay Ruben off. But I wanted to hear you say it for myself. I need to know you intend to keep your word.’

  He didn’t care if he was being paranoid. Once Cross had told him how his meeting with Iris at Farmer’s Market had gone down, that he’d been forced to tell her everything there was to tell about Gillis Rainey’s death and Clarke’s attack upon Joe Reddick’s family, Sinnott had been consumed by fear. Despite all of Cross’s assurances, he simply couldn’t believe Iris would make good on her promise to remain silent, even if for only forty-eight hours.

  And he had good reason to be concerned, because Iris herself was indeed having similar doubts. In the two hours-plus since her rendezvous with Cross, she had picked up the phone more than once with the intention of calling the police, convinced she’d been a fool not to do so sooner. But she had yet to follow through. Each time she tried, she thought of Reddick, and remembered the crazy man Cross had said he and his friends were in debt to, and what he was likely to do to them if they were unable to pay him off. It sounded absurd, yes, like just the kind of oversized lie Cross might tell to save his ass, but there was no way to test its validity without risking the unthinkable, having to live with the knowledge that some maniac had skinned three men alive – or worse – because she’d made a simple phone call.

  Still, with every passing minute, her resolve to keep silent had been wavering more and more, just as Sinnott feared it might – until now. The look on Sinnott’s face, and the terrible apprehension his inebriation couldn’t hide, seemed to erase any doubt that what Cross had told her was true.

  ‘I haven’t called the police yet, and I have no immediate plans to do so,’ Iris said. ‘Is that good enough for you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sinnott said, ‘but I had to be sure. You don’t know this guy, Iris. What kind of animal he is.’

  ‘You just said his name was “Ruben”? Is that right?’

  ‘Ruben Lizama. Yes.’

  ‘So tell me. Who is he? And what kind of “animal” is he, exactly?’

  ‘Perry didn’t say? I thought—’

  ‘He only gave me a rough outline. But since you’re here, Will, you may as well enlighten me further. If I’m going to continue to be an accessory to kidnapping and murder for you boys, that’s the least you could do in return, don’t you think?’

  Sinnott hesitated. If Cross had been vague with her in regards to Ruben, he must have had his reasons. Still, Iris was right: In exchange for what they were asking of her, telling her what little of the truth she didn’t already know seemed a small price to pay.

  ‘You can never repeat what I’m about to tell you,’ he said, ‘most especially to the police. You can tell them everything else, but not this. Your life, as well as ours, may depend on it. Swear to me, Iris.’

  Her life might depend on it? This was something Iris hadn’t been prepared to hear. Still, she nodded in agreement.

  ‘His full name is Ruben Lizama, like I said. He’s a friend of Ben’s. His father is Jorge Lizama, head of one of the largest and most powerful drug families in Mexico. Ever hear of him?’

  Iris shook her head. A Mexican drug family. God in heaven, was there no end to how bad this nightmare could get?

  ‘These are the people leaving notes for the federal policia on headless bodies all over Michoacan. The ones who walk into drug rehab centers in broad daylight and kill everybody inside just to make a point, women and children included. Ruben does the worst of their dirty work and he does it because he likes it.’

  He told her all the rest: How Ben had talked them into agreeing to launder a quarter million dollars of Lizama family money, just so the moron could say he was in business with a criminal he admired; how one crazy thing after another had conspired to prevent them from paying Ruben off on time. First, Cross had made the insane decision to feed his pathetic gambling hab
it with Ruben’s money, then Gillis Rainey refused to return the $100,000 they’d foolishly entrusted to him, money they could have used to make up for Cross’s losses. Their botched kidnapping of Rainey, resulting in his death; Andy making a possible witness out of Joe Reddick after disposing of Rainey’s body; Ben unilaterally attempting to ensure Reddick’s silence by threatening to kill him and his entire family; Reddick responding to Ben’s threat by seeking to kill them all. Sinnott left out nothing, telling Iris the whole, sordid story in intricate detail, unable to see how holding back now could serve any possible purpose.

  He was pleading for mercy, hoping once she’d heard just how badly fate had fucked them over, how the most innocent of their intentions had led to a disaster beyond their control, she’d have no choice but to empathize and cut them some slack. Andy having a fender bender with Joe Reddick, the worst possible person to run into that night, was just one example of how doomed they’d been from the start.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Iris asked.

  Sinnott told her what he’d read about Reddick on the Internet, about the family he’d lost nine years ago in Florida to a maniac not that far removed from Ruben Lizama.

  ‘He was probably already insane. God knows I would have been. Starting all over again here in LA just to have Ben put a knife to his wife and son’s throats must have been all the excuse he needed to lose it completely.’

  Iris was struck dumb. Her inclination to take Reddick’s side over Cross’s had been a mystery to her, but now she understood what it was about him she had found so deserving of her sympathy. For once, the pain and vulnerability she’d sensed in a man she barely knew had actually been real, and not just a figment of her imagination.