Painkiller, Princess

by Chester Gattle

  It’d work.

  Just as long as Jacob didn’t do anything stupid in the meantime. Despite his unnatural survival abilities, he was a bit of a doofus, and she could absolutely see him tooling around the city looking for his dog and then running into ROD. If that happened, she’d might as well pack up and leave town herself. She’d have to go to St. Cloud or Grand Forks. There’d just be no way an organization of her size could keep operating out of Duluth after that. The city would go back to the small-time dealers, the high school kids pushing Xanax and the gas station attendants offering shit weed from Colorado.

  Fifteen minutes after having left her coffee shop, Emmelia pulled into her driveway, smiling at the sight of the little Honda Fit. Still here. Jacob hadn’t screwed anything up so far.

  She went inside and found Missy sitting on the living room couch in the dark, her phone lit up in her lap, hands folded around it.

  “What’re you doing?” Emmelia flipped on the kitchen light. “Where’s Jacob?”

  “Across the street,” Missy said, nodding at the picture window.

  “Shit. Why?” Emmelia composed herself and asked again, calmer, “Why?”

  Missy didn’t answer but asked instead, “Who lives there, Emmelia?”

  No one “lives” there. “What’s he doing, Missy?”

  “Do you know them?”

  “When’d he go over?”

  Finally an answer: “Five minutes ago, maybe.”

  Again, “Why?”

  “Quincy might be there.”

  “Text him. Get him back here.” Emmelia did her best to casually walk behind the couch and pat Missy on the shoulder. “Tell him to come back.”

  “The guy said he has Quincy.”

  “What guy?” Please don’t tell me ROD is over there. The dozen stash houses she had around the city were mostly used for storage and distribution, but the cartel, ROD included, had access to them all if they needed them. And since ROD was still refusing to tell her what they were up to, her mind was now racing.

  She’d checked the house across the street that morning, and when she’d driven by later, it had looked quiet, but did that mean it was still empty? Should’ve gone up the driveway and checked, you moron.

  Emmelia rubbed her temples, then urged Missy again, “Get him back here. He shouldn’t be out. The cartel, remember?”

  “I know. But we need some evidence for the police. They didn’t go in the first time.”

  “The first time?”

  “They didn’t do anything. Jacob’s scoping it out, so when they come back, they’ll go in.”

  “They’re coming back?”

  “Not yet. When Jacob gets back.”

  Emmelia looked over her shoulder at the fridge where she’d left the xylazine. She could slip the drug into a cappuccino the second Jacob was back. If he comes back. Except the espresso machine isn’t working. So she’d get a needle from the bathroom, fill it up, and jab it into his neck. Jab two needles into his neck. And a third for Missy. Then she’d haul them into the countryside.

  Way out there. To the middle of South Dakota? Sure.

  She could leave them at the doorstep of some farmhouse like a box of unwanted puppies. And if ROD tracked them down, so be it.

  But Jacob’s famous.

  If he turned up dead, no matter where that was, wouldn’t there be an investigation? At this point, how couldn’t it not come back to her and the Coffee Princess?

  So just wait it out. Drag them down into the basement and keep them there hidden and safe. ROD won’t stay forever. They’ll give up at some point. After a week, after a month, they’ll leave. But then what? Then she was stuck having held Jacob and Missy captive. How do I explain that?

  Emmelia wanted to scream. What the fuck had she gotten into? And for what? Revenge? That victory had been short-lived. Bump’s closed-casket funeral wasn’t even on her mind anymore.

  One thing at a time. Emmelia squeezed Missy’s shoulder. “Tell him to come back. He needs to come back.”

  Missy said, “He’s just been sneaking around in the woods,” but she still sent him a text.

  “Let’s just get him back here,” Emmelia said, silently cursing herself. Of course ROD had holed up over there. It was a great spot. It was why she lived across the street. It was secluded and quiet and only had the one neighbor at the turnaround (whose house she planned to buy the moment they put it on the market, just like she’d done with the house ROD was in).

  Emmelia leaned over Missy’s shoulder, peeking at the phone in her lap. “He text back?”

  Missy shook her head.

  Emmelia couldn’t wait. She hurried from the house to get Jacob before he went knocking on the front door.

  ~

  He wasn’t knocking on the front door, of course. He was already inside, in the basement with an ear pressed against the stash-room door. Not a sound. Resting his hand over the doorknob, he gave it a twist. The latch bolt scraped against the strike plate, and then the jingle of a collar sounded.

  His heart told him it was Quincy—he pushed open the door—but deep down, he knew the jingle wasn’t quite right. The sight of the shimmering purple monster confirmed as much. He jerked the door shut, but the stringy little animal was quick, and everything except the last bit of its tail slipped through the gap.

  Caught, the dog screamed like a banshee, then yanked itself free and went flying up the stairs.

  The men’s voices rose in volume, first with forceful questioning—“Where’d you come from? How’d you get out?”—then with shouts of profanity—“Get the fuck away from me! Shit! Kill the fucker!”

  The heavy pounding of footsteps shook the pipes and support beams overhead as tiny toenails skittered across the hardwood. The dog’s ravenous barking paused—a howl of pain from one of the men burst forth—then the barking, stomping, and shouting continued.

  Amid the commotion, another more familiar barking began. This time Jacob absolutely knew it was Quincy. He bolted across the basement to the other stash room and flung open the door. In the center of the small space, a woman, the sicario who’d attacked him, was tied to a support pole.

  She looked at him, confused, surprised, and angry. “You fucker. I’ll kill you.” She attempted to stand, but her bare feet slipped on the floor, and she slid down to her butt with a smack.

  Quincy waited in the near corner for Jacob to notice him.

  Then finally, “Quincy!”

  The dog ran, and Jacob hugged him hard. He inspected him for any injuries, but other than a slight adjustment of the eye patch, Quincy needed no care. He was perfectly fine.

  Unlike the men upstairs. They were still shouting and stomping around after the purple dog. By the sound of it, they were at the back of the house now.

  He and Quincy had to go. But Jacob paused for a moment, thinking he should untie the woman or at least loosen the ropes. Even though she’d tried to kill him (twice), he knew what the cartel was like, and it didn’t seem right to just leave her.

  But there was no time. A parade of footsteps rumbled to the front of the house. The purple dog and the men were apt to come bounding down the stairs any second. And the woman, still cursing at him, probably would kick him in the face the moment he got near her anyway. Jacob fled.

  XX.

  Day Thirteen, Still Tuesday

  Three Dead

  Emmelia raced down the driveway, the snap of her sneakers carried off by a northerly wind rustling through the woods. If she didn’t spot Jacob out front, she intended on circling the house, hoping to find him crouched under a window or hiding in the thicket. She hit the street at a full sprint, a blur flitting by the decorative lamppost at the end of her driveway.

  As she drew near the stash house, the shouting from within had her fearing a repeat of what she’d walked in on at Fitger’s: Jacob clinging to Bump’s back and thumping the side of his head like a whacked-out circus monkey. Whatever Jacob was doing to ROD now, it sounded like absolute chaos.

 
She bounced through the landscaping, taking the straightest line to the front steps, and singled out the appropriate house key.

  The angry snarls of some animal rose and fell amid the hooting and hollering. Jacob had caught himself a raccoon and slipped it through an open window.

  She popped the door open. To the left, the men were cornering a small but unidentifiable animal in the living room. They looked back at her, and the nameless animal raced between Rubén’s legs. Emmelia’s face twisted in disgust as the deranged, nightmarish Muppet tore across the room. The thing, purple and toothy with a scattering of frizzy hairs, appeared very, very ill—and it was coming straight for her. She jumped, grabbing the top of the door, and raised her legs up to escape the monster’s reach.

  It barely glanced at her, fleeing into the night chortling to itself.

  Oscar hurried over, grabbed her off the door, and kicked it shut. Before she could utter a word, he pushed her against the wall. “Who the fuck are you?” Sweat was streaking from his temples toward a collection of shimmering droplets under his chin.

  Emmelia told him, then she added, “I talked to you—or one of you—a couple days ago.” She glared at the men crowding around.

  “Me,” Rubén confirmed.

  Emmelia stared at Rubén’s missing left eyebrow and, for a second, wondered if the animal had taken it. But it wasn’t a fresh wound. The absent brow, like all the other divots and trenches on Rubén’s face, was old. His hands, dotted with bite marks, had taken the brunt of the recent attack. Each of the men, in fact, had reddened, raw hands and forearms. Blood soaked through Oscar’s jeans near his ankle.

  Emmelia pushed him away and slipped from the wall. She peered down the empty hall. No Jacob. “What was that thing? I heard you across the street,” she lied.

  “A dog,” David said. He tossed aside the hardcover book he’d been using for defense, went to the living room, and fell onto the couch, smearing the upholstery with blood and sweat. His eyes fixed on her.

  She glanced down the basement stairs. Sounded quiet. If they were aware of Jacob’s presence, they were doing a hell of a good job hiding it. “Was that your dog?”

  “Fuck no,” Oscar said, following her as she snooped around.

  She continued down the hall and surveyed the kitchen. Empty. “Where’d it come from?” she asked when she’d returned to the living room.

  “The dick in the basement,” Rubén told her as he joined David on the couch.

  “And who’s that exactly?” She went to the top step. If Jacob’s down there dead…

  Oscar came up next to her, brushing his hip against hers. “Gregory something,” he said.

  “Gregory Johnson?” She inched away.

  “Maybe.” Brushing hips again.

  “‘Maybe’ because you’re playing games with me, or ‘maybe’ because you don’t know?”

  “I didn’t ask him what his name was.”

  Emmelia started down the stairs. When Oscar tried to come along, she turned and instructed him: “You stay up there.”

  He gave it a moment’s thought, then shrugged and resumed his post at the top.

  The staircase bent ninety degrees, and as Emmelia followed it, she could see from the corner of her eye that Oscar was still keenly watching her. There were enough stories floating around that she knew not to drop her guard around these men, especially the one with the shaved, misshapen head who was keeping close watch over her. Taking the last few steps, she vanished from his sight.

  The basement was empty and the air surprisingly fresh, almost as if the door had been left open, but no, it was firmly shut.

  She circled the staircase to her “discussion” rooms. They’d been constructed a couple of years back for some one-on-one talks with a few misinformed individuals who’d diverted product for their own purposes along the way to Winnipeg. The men had turned into very reliable drivers after that.

  Both “discussion” doors were closed. She went left, and laughed when she saw Tiff plopped on the floor, tied to the support pole. Tiff called her a bitch as she shut the door and went to the other room.

  “Gregory Larry Johnson.” Emmelia smiled at him, and he gave a nonplussed stare back. They had a few words, and she let him be. Jacob wasn’t there.

  “You bitch. Let me out of here,” Tiff was still screaming. “You bitch!”

  Emmelia ignored the wailing. Where’s Jacob? And what the hell was going through his head? Surely he’d seen what was over here.

  ~

  Jacob wasn’t thinking much at that point, honestly. He was just going, running along the edge of the woods with Quincy clutched tightly to his chest, crossing the street, then bolting up Emmelia’s driveway. Time to call the police. He would’ve been calling them right then if Quincy hadn’t been in his arms, but since Quincy wasn’t at all the sprinter type, the call would have to wait.

  At the top of the driveway, Emmelia’s car, parked in the garage, came into view. She was home. She won’t believe what I’ve uncovered.

  Apparently Missy had been watching him race up the driveway, because she was now waiting at the back door.

  “You got Quincy,” she cheered, stepping aside to let them in.

  “It’s a stash house,” Jacob said, gulping for air. He set the pug down, shut the door, and shoved his pepper spray into his back pocket. “The cartel’s over there. Where’s Emmelia? Emmelia!”

  “She went to find you,” Missy said. “What happened?”

  Jacob paused, breathing. “Went to find me? She’s over there?”

  “Yeah. She went to get you.”

  Jacob rushed down the hall, killing the lights, then stepped up to the front window. “We have to call the police. There’s a bunch of sicarios over there.”

  Missy grabbed Quincy and held him tightly as she said, “Get away from the window, then.”

  “They can’t see in here. It’s dark.” But he still backed up to where Missy stood near the kitchen table.

  The door down the hall popped open, and they all jumped. The lights flicked on.

  “Emmelia,” Jacob called out. He rushed over and glanced behind her into the garage. Nothing but the ATV and CR-V. “Did they see you?”

  She studied him for a few seconds, then said, “No, no one saw me.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “Them?”

  Jacob shut the door and showed her the video he’d taken.

  “Yeah. I saw.” Emmelia pushed the phone aside.

  “I was in the basement,” Jacob told her.

  “In the basement?”

  “Jacob!” Missy yipped from the kitchen.

  “How else was I going to get Quincy?” He pulled his pepper spray out and held it aloft. “I had this.”

  Emmelia grabbed the canister. “Don’t point that at me.”

  “I’m calling the police,” Missy announced. “And we’re leaving. We’re going to Fargo. I don’t care if Breeland’s watching out for us.”

  “Fargo?” Jacob let Emmelia keep the pepper spray and went back to the kitchen, where their suitcases were propped against the wall. “If we’re going somewhere, I should go back to Tijuana and finish what I started.”

  Missy searched for her phone in the living room with Quincy close at her heels.

  “Let me call the police,” Emmelia offered, still standing by the garage door. “You guys just get out of sight. Get in the basement. There’s—”

  The door burst open, hitting her square in the back. She dropped the pepper spray and went stumbling toward the kitchen.

  One of the cartel men, the chrome dome, walked in, a pistol gleaming in his hand. “Oh. The party’s over here, huh?”

  Quincy barked and charged down the hall, but when the man growled, the pug skittered away.

  As Chrome Dome slowly scanned Emmelia from head to toe, Jacob’s stomach knotted. He backed up against the kitchen table. I have to fix this. But the pepper spray was out of reach, resting near Chrome Dome’s feet. And Missy’s pepper spray
was in her purse over by the window. What else?

  To his right near the sink was a knife block. Three steps around the table and he’d have one of the blades. Grab the largest of the handles.

  With a grunting throat clear, Chrome Dome picked up Jacob’s pepper spray like he often found such things on the ground and dropped it into his breast pocket. He started down the hall.

  Emmelia backstepped into the kitchen and around the table, opposite Jacob, within arm’s reach of the knives. When he made his move, he could only hope she’d go for one too.

  And maybe Missy would grab her pepper spray. She looked to be frozen stiff against the back of the couch, but maybe they could all have a part in taking the sicario down.

  Chrome Dome, stopping at the kitchen’s threshold, looked at Emmelia, then Jacob, then Quincy, who had managed to squeeze between Jacob’s legs. “You took the pug.” It was just a statement of fact. His eyes moved on and found Missy. He grinned. Gesturing at her and Jacob with a flick of his gun, he said, “Really is a party. So who are these two, Emmelia?”

  Odd. The man knew Emmelia’s name.

  Before Emmelia could answer, the garage door popped open again, and in came Terrance and Mr. La-Z-Boy.

  Yeah, Jacob thought, this is a party. He studied the knife block. No party like a knife party. Except Chrome Dome and the newest entrants had guns. Maybe the old saying about knives and gunfights was wrong?

  Terrance stepped beside Chrome Dome. “Figured you came over here,” he said.

  Mr. La-Z-Boy, his face pockmarked and scarred, came and stood behind his fellow sicarios. He poked a finger into Terrance’s side and pointed at Jacob. “You can have him, David. Me and Oscar get the girls.”

  “Fuck you, Rubén,” David (Not Terrance?) said. Nevertheless, David still turned his attention to Jacob. “The great Jacob White.”

  Pride and presentiment flushed through Jacob, or maybe, facing these three miserable sicarios, his bladder just let go a touch.

  Emmelia reached for something in a drawer under the espresso machine. Jacob braced for the sicarios’ gunfire, but they hardly glanced at her. Strange.