Painkiller, Princess

by Chester Gattle

  “You are White,” Oscar exclaimed, drawing Jacob’s attention back to the men.

  “You didn’t know? Jesus,” Rubén said.

  “I knew, asshole,” Oscar pointed his gun at Jacob, his finger on the trigger.

  Emmelia, who hadn’t said a word since Chrome Dome had first appeared, now snarled, “Don’t.” She’d pulled a gun of her own from the drawer and was pointing it at Oscar’s head. “Don’t.”

  “Whoa, shit, little lady. Be careful,” Oscar said.

  “What the fuck?” Rubén crouched behind the other sicarios.

  “‘Me and Oscar get the girls’?” Emmelia repeated. “You touch us, I’ll kill you.”

  Oscar laughed; the other sicarios joined in. “It was a joke.”

  “Not when it comes from you,” she said. “Now get out.”

  Jacob couldn’t understand this bizarre exchange. They all acted like they knew one another.

  “We’ve got a job to do.” Oscar waved the barrel of his gun at Jacob.

  “And I’ve got my operation to run. So you three can fuck off,” Emmelia said.

  Jacob studied the pepper spray in Oscar’s breast pocket, calculating the odds of successfully grabbing it. Were they better than the odds of getting to the knife block?

  “What’re you looking at?” Oscar growled.

  Jacob shifted his eyes to Oscar’s face. “What?”

  Oscar came at him, gun raised. Quincy scurried out from between Jacob’s legs and ran to the couch. Jacob decided on the knife block.

  But rather than race around the table, he thought it better to crawl under it. That was the straightest path, and it seemed the right thing to do, but he hadn’t even squirmed between the chairs before Oscar caught him by the ankle and yanked him out.

  The sicario stood over him, pointing the gun between his eyes. Jacob winced.

  “What? Now you don’t want to stare?” Oscar said, laughing.

  “Get off him,” Emmelia ordered.

  Oscar grabbed Jacob by the shirt, pulled him from the floor, and shoved his face onto the table. He pressed hard on Jacob’s head and told Emmelia, “He’s coming with us.”

  “I had this under control, you dumbasses,” Emmelia said.

  “Now we’ve got it under control,” Oscar sneered.

  “Just go,” Emmelia said. “Take him. Get the others and go. If anyone turns up dead anywhere near here, though, I swear to God I’ll come after every single one of you.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Oscar jerked Jacob upright.

  Emmelia scowled. “I should kill one of you right now so you’ll know how fucking serious I am.”

  “Don’t be a bitch about this,” Rubén said.

  “You want to see me be a bitch about this?”

  “This one,” David said, smiling at Emmelia, “this one’s the real deal.”

  Rubén chuckled. “Like your mom.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “No need to with your mom around.”

  David punched Rubén in the kidney.

  “Fuck.” Rubén grasped his back.

  Oscar led Jacob around the men. There was a moment where Jacob could’ve grabbed one of their guns, maybe, but he didn’t recognize the opportunity when it presented itself. Oscar had a knotted grip on the back of his shirt and kept him marching forward.

  “Jacob. Jacob!” Missy cried as he went down the hall.

  ~

  Emmelia exhaled and set her gun on the table when the men had left. Missy raced down the hall with Quincy trailing after her.

  “Get back here!” Emmelia caught Missy before she could bolt out the door. Without thinking, Emmelia blurted, “I’m DEA.” She spun Missy around and stared at her behind sweat-drenched bangs. “I’m DEA,” she repeated, slowly.

  “What? What does that mean? They took Jacob.”

  Quincy pawed at the door.

  “We’re going to get him back.” Emmelia tightened her grip on Missy’s shoulder and guided her toward the kitchen.

  Missy shook her head. “They took him.”

  “It’s okay. It’s fine.”

  “Fine? They took him. You’re DEA?”

  Emmelia leaned Missy against the back of the couch. “I’m undercover.”

  Quincy gave up on getting out and retreated back to Missy’s side.

  “I’m calling the police,” Missy said.

  “No.” Emmelia grabbed the phone from her hands. “You’ll blow everything. You’re safe. You’re okay. Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry?”

  “We’ll get him back.”

  “A badge. Where’s your badge?” Missy asked. “Show me. I need to see your badge.”

  “I’m undercover,” Emmelia repeated. “I can’t carry a badge.”

  “Show me something.”

  “You ever see The Departed?” She hoped Missy had watched the Scorsese movie about an undercover cop who’d infiltrated the mob.

  Missy nodded. “Jacob and I watched it once.”

  “Well, it’s like that. I’m deep undercover.”

  “You work for them? The cartel?”

  “I pretend to work for them.”

  Missy eyed Emmelia’s gun on the table and asked, “Did you tell them Jacob was in Duluth?”

  Emmelia grimaced. “No. Come on. It was me who saved him at Fitger’s.”

  “You?”

  “Let me figure this out, okay?” She squeezed Missy’s hand, then walked into the kitchen to stare out the window over the sink. “I’ve been working this for years,” Emmelia explained. “We’re going to shut down the CJNG’s operation from Chicago to Winnipeg. Those guys”—Emmelia pointed at the door—“are sicarios with the CJNG.”

  “Obviously.”

  “They want Jacob’s head.”

  “I know.”

  “But I can’t just tell them to stop. It’ll blow my cover.”

  “You sure as shit better do something,” Missy cried.

  Emmelia stared at nothing in the darkness as she thought for a moment, then she went to the fridge, searching behind the milk and soda. She said, “I bought us some time. The sicarios are going to take Jacob outside the city. They’ll probably take him up north.” She grabbed the vials.

  “How do you know that?” Missy asked.

  “I’ve been doing this for the last five years. I know how they behave.”

  “So what? They take him north, and—”

  “They’ll be stopped. I’ll have agents watching the highways.” Emmelia closed the fridge, cupping the xylazine. “You have to promise me, no matter what happens, to keep quiet about this. You talk to anyone, you blow my cover. You’ll get me killed.”

  “Call the agents, then.”

  “Will you be able to keep quiet?”

  “Get Jacob back, then sure. But if he dies…”

  Emmelia sighed. “You’ll blow my cover?”

  Missy studied her, then said, “No.”

  There was no honesty there. Or more accurately, no conviction. Emmelia knew Missy wouldn’t keep any of this under wraps.

  She pocketed the vial and was about to head to the bathroom for the syringe when Oscar, Rubén, and David returned.

  Rubén half led, half dragged a barefoot Tiff to the end of the hall. Oscar and David stood behind them, holding Jacob, each clasping an armpit.

  “Jacob!” Missy cried.

  Rubén glared at Emmelia. “What did you do with the little pecker?”

  Emmelia could only stare.

  “Gregory,” David added. “What did you do with Gregory?”

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “He wasn’t there,” Rubén said, his hand cupped against the side of Tiff’s neck.

  Tiff tried to shrug Rubén off, but his hand remained clamped tight. She crossed her arms and swore under her breath.

  “Shut up,” Rubén muttered.

  “Was he there when you went downstairs?” David asked, his fingers flexing over the grip of his gun.

  Emmelia said, “Tie
d to the pole.”

  Oscar scanned the kitchen, then the living room. “Can’t find Xiaolian either.”

  “There you go,” Emmelia told him. “She took Gregory.”

  “Why?” Oscar pressed.

  “What’s it matter?” Emmelia glanced at Jacob. ROD hadn’t even tied him up. They really had no idea who they were dealing with.

  “Xiaolian’s fucking trouble,” Oscar said. “Shouldn’t even be here. And look, the second she vanishes, we get White.” He shifted his eyes to Jacob and chuckled.

  To Emmelia it looked like Jacob was trying to make a decision. He was flipping imaginary coins, deciding whether to unleash the monster hidden within. Heads or tails? She tried to distract him. “Jacob. Jacob?”

  His eyes roamed the room, snapping back and forth. Heads or tails? Did he just eye my gun?

  “I’m having a look around.” David released his grip on Jacob.

  Shit.

  Jacob sprang free and went for her gun on the table.

  But Rubén was faster. As Jacob made his move, Rubén punched him in the ribs. There was a crack, and Jacob gasped, crumpling to the floor.

  XXI.

  Day Thirteen, Still Tuesday

  Three Dead

  Emmelia had said there would be a lot of money (ten thousand dollars) and forgiveness (she knew about the fentanyl) if he helped her. She’d said he only needed to distract the sicarios. Unfortunately, it was possible Gregory had already failed.

  When Jacob had popped his head into the room, the purple dog had attacked him, and Jacob had closed the door so fast Gregory had been sure he hadn’t seen him sitting there. But when Emmelia had arrived shortly thereafter, she’d spotted him.

  He didn’t mention Jacob’s appearance. He simply agreed to provide the distraction, and she untied him. Regrettably his first go-around at providing said distraction hadn’t gone so well; in fact it hadn’t gone at all.

  He thought he could just sit in the room pretending to be tied up until one of the sicarios came to check on him—he’d then spring loose, bust out a couple of karate moves, and tie them to the pole—but no one came down.

  Still, that might have been a good thing, because as he’d been choosing which of his best takedown maneuvers to use, he’d started to worry about that Asian lady. She almost assuredly knew some excellent moves, since she was Asian (Which isn’t racist. Just the statistical probability.), and he didn’t know how he’d fare against her.

  So he’d sat, thinking his racist, courage-reducing thoughts, while the house remained quiet. No more dog. No more men. No more woman. Nothing. He brought his hands to his lap, giving up the charade. He’d have to earn his keep another way. Taking the rope he’d been tied up with, he left the room.

  The rest of the basement was as he’d remembered it, bare. Not a single item to be fashioned into a weapon. But that was okay. He had a key trait shared by some of the most lethal individuals of the world: resourcefulness. He could do plenty with just a length of rope.

  So he faced the stairs, thinking about the money coming his way and the stock options he wanted to bet on. Then, ready to raise a ruckus and give the mother of all distractions, he raced up.

  But no one was around. Not even the purple beast came to greet him. They’d all left.

  Gregory checked the garage; the SUV and his Nissan were still there. “Where the hell’d they go?” Had he already failed? Emmelia had told him to distract the sicarios, so they wouldn’t go over to her place across the street, but it looked like they had done just that. His reward and his stock options vanished.

  ABC, though.

  Just because the sicarios were over at Emmelia’s didn’t mean he couldn’t still be helpful, still salvage something. It didn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. She’d have to appreciate the effort—or so he hoped. Otherwise, he was in trouble. She’d told him she’d killed people for messing with her product in the past, and he believed it. She had that kind of face.

  Before popping over to Emmelia’s, though, he rummaged through the SUV. He’d seen what they had in the back of it, and he wanted a little something with Pop! (But not too much.) Emmelia wanted a distraction, not a bloodbath, so he skipped the AR-15s and settled on a serious-looking Colt pistol. He then snuck out the side of the garage, scurried across the grass, and slipped in among the trees.

  As he went, he thought how strange it was that the girl who ran the city lived in the woods like a hermit. He would’ve imagined her in one of those sleek concrete-and-glass homes that overlooked the harbor on Skyline Parkway. He’d definitely grab one of those if he had her kind of money.

  But maybe the neighbors were nosy over there. Rich people loved their neighborhood watch programs.

  He crossed the street, eyeing the lone house at the turnaround.

  For some reason, it looked familiar. Being the Uber driver he was, he assumed he’d probably dropped someone off there once. It was inconsequential; he had his cash money to get.

  ~

  Jacob was on the floor, lying on his side, the side that wasn’t burning, the side that wasn’t shooting lightning bolts through his chest with every breath. He was sure the rib had cracked and was now poking a hole through his lung. Air was bubbling out and collecting just under the skin. Soon it’d grow into a bulbous, baseball-size lump that one of the sicarios would pop with tortuous glee. So don’t breathe.

  But it was hard not to. The adrenaline ripping through his body had his muscles desperately crying out for oxygen. He had to breathe, filling his injured lung until the tissue touched the sharp edge of the rib and sent another rush of pain through his chest, making him cough and choke again.

  Missy tried to kneel next to him, but Oscar shooed her away. Only Quincy was allowed to be at his side. Missy could only crouch near the couch, her arms wrapped around herself, giving Jacob a few words of reassurance while the pug slunk low, head bowed, curly tail tucked, pressing against Jacob’s back.

  Rubén and David must have liked what they were seeing, because they came closer, stepping into the kitchen, pulling Tiff alongside them. Rubén grabbed his phone and recorded Jacob’s sorry state.

  “Here he is, El Avispón,” Rubén announced. “Jacob White, as we promised. Hurt him good.”

  David tapped Rubén. “Get us all. Show him who’s all here. And who’s not.”

  The men grouped together for a victory video.

  “You guys didn’t do shit,” Emmelia said.

  “Not how I see it,” Oscar argued. He looked directly into Rubén’s phone and said, “Let’s shoot this fucker right now.”

  David and Rubén whooped in celebration.

  “You sons of bitches,” Emmelia spat.

  Jacob tried to get up, but he couldn’t uncurl from the fetal position. Any effort to do so sent a wave of paralyzing bolts down his back. He could only lie there and watch.

  But from that position, he was able to see the garage door open a touch. Someone snuck a peek into the hallway, then came in.

  Gregory, holding a pistol this time and not pepper spray, approached on tiptoe, closer and closer.

  Not that anyone would’ve heard him anyway. The sicarios were laughing and having a good time holding the phone up high, staring at themselves on the screen. Only when Gregory emerged from the hall at the threshold of the kitchen did the sicarios finally spot him. Their smiles dropped.

  “Don’t move,” Gregory yelled. He pointed the gun at the men, but even Jacob, with his eyes full of tears, saw Gregory’s hands were shaking.

  Giving cockeyed glances to one another, the sicarios slowly turned to face the interrupter of their fun, their guns at their sides.

  Gregory repeated, “Don’t you move.”

  So the sicarios stood still. But Tiff moved. She kneed Rubén in the groin, dropping him to the floor like a bag of dirt. She tried to get Oscar, but he saw it coming and blocked her with a deft turn of his hip.

  Snarling, he shoved her, two hands on her chest, and she went crashing i
nto the cabinet below the espresso machine.

  Jacob made his own effort to escape, but his chest felt like it was full of pins, and he fell back to the floor, relegated to being an observer—which wasn’t all that bad, because he wouldn’t have believed what followed (or had the imagination to hypothesize anything close to it for his book) if he hadn’t been paying attention.

  Gregory’s gun went off. Whether this was a warning shot or the man was utterly off his mark wasn’t clear to Jacob, but either way, the bullet went sky high and struck the ceiling.

  Rubén, on his knees, still trying to catch his breath, didn’t notice, but Oscar and David looked at Gregory.

  “You shot at us,” Oscar stated.

  Tiff pushed from the cabinet, got to her feet, and took off toward the hall.

  The pale security expert seemed to think she was coming for him, so he fired.

  Three shots. Less than four feet between them, but he still missed. The bullets struck the espresso machine with a ping, a plink, and a hiss, and the boiler went off like a stick of dynamite, blowing the machine to bits. The counter upon which it sat and the wall behind it turned to dust and splinters.

  The blast knocked Emmelia on her back and sent Tiff airborne, slamming into Gregory like a linebacker. He hit the wall behind him with enough force to leave a Gregory-size indent several inches deep.

  David and Oscar were far enough away from the blast that they remained on their feet, but they got nicked and sliced seven ways to Sunday by the shrapnel—neither ever being able to say another word to Rubén about his scars or missing eyebrow. David even lost a chunk of his ear as the chrome-plated brass portafilter zipped by.

  Jacob and Missy were left relatively untouched. Only a warm touch of dog urine crept across Jacob’s back.

  “You stupid fuckers,” David yelled, shooting at the unmoving pile that was Tiff and Gregory.

  Rubén staggered to his feet. His balls might’ve been crushed, but they still drove ninety percent of his thoughts, and he shoved David. “What’d you shoot her for?” He gestured toward Tiff. “I wanted her, you jackass.”