Murder Aforethought

by Parker St John

  “What are you still doing here?” he asked.

  He was shivering in his thin t-shirt, so he shoved his hands into his pockets. Like a true Oregonian, he never carried an umbrella, and he only remembered a jacket half the time.

  “I availed myself of some station coffee before I remembered they source it from the MAX platform gutters.” Kovalenko smirked. “The people with the worst coffee are always the ones who need it the most. Don’t get me started on hospitals.”

  Val felt his eyebrows pucker together in bemusement. He wasn’t shaking anymore. “Spend a lot of time there? What, you chase ambulances in your spare time?”

  “I practically lived in the cancer center when my mother was dying.”

  Val opened his mouth, but nothing except a puff of steam came out. Hadn’t he been grateful when Kovalenko didn’t shower him with insincere condolences? He wasn’t going to shove unasked for sunshine up the guy’s ass.

  “I guess we have something in common,” he muttered.

  Kovalenko’s arctic blue eyes met his. “Yes,” he said.

  He was a good looking guy, despite the hundred dollar haircut and tailored suit that usually turned men into shmucks.

  He was probably closer to Pop’s age than Val’s, early forties, maybe? It was tough to tell. He had a youthful face that made his silver hair seem premature. There was something familiar about his eyes, a barren chill similar to the one Val saw whenever he looked in the mirror.

  He shifted and glanced around uncomfortably.

  People hustled indoors, and the crowd thinned as it began to rain in earnest.

  He coughed. “Look, I want to thank you for what you did in there. You aren’t what I expected when I asked for a public defender, but you were right. It was my lucky day.”

  Kovalenko’s mouth twitched into a tight smile. He didn’t look like a man who smiled much. Not sincerely, anyway.

  “You’re welcome. They’re going to come at you again for further questioning. Feel free to contact me when they do.”

  He dug into his breast pocket and pulled out an embossed business card, which he proffered between two fingers. Val accepted it, running his thumb against the beveled lettering.

  “Won’t your good Samaritan day be over by then?”

  “Once I accept a case, I’m yours until it’s resolved.”

  Hair prickled on the back of Val’s neck. Something snagged his attention, some note of disharmony mingled with the rattletrap hum of traffic.

  He cast a wild glance around the street. Alarm slithered down his spine and turned his skin clammy.

  Kovalenko was still speaking, opening a navy umbrella and shaking the rain from it, but Val didn’t process the words.

  He watched with slow motion horror as a black SUV with aftermarket tinted windows broke from the flow of traffic and pulled alongside the curb. The rear window eased down a few inches.

  Something about those windows bothered him. No, that wasn’t it. What was it? It was…

  He spent too long scrabbling for the correct jigsaw pieces. The puzzle flew together a split second before two rapid shots burst from the rear window. Chips of concrete flew up at their feet.

  “Jesus! Get down!” Val dove for his attorney.

  Kovalenko didn’t seem to immediately realize what was happening. He yelled as Val slammed into him and took him hard to the ground. A funnel of concrete dust flew up a mere inch from Kovalenko’s head as they struck the sidewalk.

  Val wrapped an arm around his shoulders and gave a ferocious yank, sending them rolling into the scant shelter of the building’s recessed entry.

  They collided with the stone archway, and Val’s flank began to burn something fierce.

  He scrambled atop Kovalenko and forced his head down, protecting as many of his vital points as he could cover.

  Tires squealed. A hail of bullets trailed in the wake of the SUV as it rocketed into traffic. He heard the crunch of colliding fenders and an asynchronous blast of horns, but it all dropped to the background as he counted shots without even realizing it: six, seven, eight…

  Then it was over.

  “Good God!” Kovalenko gasped.

  Val heard the clatter of boots on marble floors and shouts from inside the precinct. He knew deep in his gut how bad it would be if the cops reached them.

  Being caught near a mob associate’s murder scene was one thing. But someone trying to take him out the moment he stepped outside? How did they even know he’d been arrested? How did they know he’d been released? It hadn’t even been ten minutes.

  Worse, it wasn’t just him they were aiming for. It was his lawyer too. The lawyer he might have spilled his guts to for all anybody knew.

  “Fuck!”

  He leaped to his feet and tugged Kovalenko up beside him. He couldn’t allow him even a second to regain his balance before pulling him into a run.

  “Stop!”

  Was that the cops or Kovalenko? Didn’t matter.

  Radios squawked behind them, but the sounds of utility boots on pavement were almost completely drowned out by the pounding rain.

  Val didn’t dare look behind to see how close the pursuit was.

  He cut down an alley and into a parking garage.

  “Why the fuck are we running?” Kovalenko yelled over the white noise of rain, footsteps, and heavy breathing.

  He sounded winded, but he was keeping up admirably. Val was astonished and grateful that he wasn’t fighting. Not the type of man to react without all the facts, his attorney.

  “Keep running!” he shouted. “I’ll explain, I promise!”

  They wove and dodged their way through a ground level parking garage and out the other side. The roar of pursuit had lessened, so Val paused to get his bearings. He was shit with navigating this part of town.

  “That way,” huffed Kovalenko. He was bent double with both hands on his knees. “It’s the cellar entrance to a… boba shop. Go up the stairs… exit onto 3rd.”

  Val grabbed his arm and propelled him in the indicated direction. They trotted down a hidden stairwell and through a door with a giant lotus flower painted on the glass.

  Val had no clue what boba was, but the interior looked like a trendy café with Asian flare. They got a few startled reactions as they wound their way between tightly packed tables.

  He reluctantly allowed Kovalenko to take the lead when he realized he had no idea where they were going. The man’s glossy loafers squeaked as he double-timed it up a narrow wooden staircase that led to a street level boutique.

  Val had to give the man credit: he moved well in such a tight suit.

  Sure enough, the door dumped them right onto the sidewalk of a street filled with quirky bistros and gift shops. All signs and sounds of chase had fallen away after they’d exited the garage, and thankfully, the streets were mostly empty due to the rain.

  Val felt confident enough to slap a hand across Kovalenko’s chest and pull them to a stop.

  “We can rest a second,” he croaked.

  “Good,” Kovalenko wheezed. “Treadmills don’t prepare you for something like that.”

  Val wished he had a comeback, but the stitch in his side was getting worse.

  He’d been working out solidly every day since he left the Corps. Granted, he wasn’t doing misery runs with a rucksack and gas mask anymore, but how could he have lost conditioning so quickly?

  He pulled himself upright and struggled to fill his lungs.

  “Where are you parked?” he asked. It was only a matter of time before a cruiser or two would be combing the vicinity for their escaped witnesses. If they weren’t already.

  Kovalenko sighed and straightened out of his tripod position.

  Val realized they were the same height when he got caught by the spear of his cold blue eyes.

  “In the garage we just ran through.”

  Val winced. “Okay, so we get a cab.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Look, I know you don’t understand�
�”

  “Oh, I understand perfectly.” Kovalenko’s expression was frigid. “I understand that whatever you’re involved in has reached the level where collateral damage is the cost of doing business. I understand that whoever you’ve crossed would rather pull a hit in front of a hundred cops in broad daylight than let you keep breathing a moment longer than necessary. I understand that, as your attorney, it’s easier to put me down than to figure out what you told me.”

  Val tried to smile, but he knew it came out sick looking. “Pretty quick on the uptake. So then why—”

  “Because you would bleed out all over the seat of a cab, and the driver would call 911.”

  What? The words rattled meaninglessly around his brain like stones in a tin can. His head felt like it was full of white static.

  “What are you talking about?”

  His right knee buckled. If not for the iron grip suddenly clamped beneath his elbow, he would have hit the ground hard. He staggered, but Kovalenko easily took his body weight.

  Had he been hit? He glanced down at his legs, but his jeans were clean.

  “What the hell…” he began blurrily.

  Kovalenko huffed and wrapped an arm around Val’s waist. Red hot agony instantly ripped through his torso and up his chest, temporarily stopping the air in his lungs.

  After an agonizing, breathless moment, he expelled a gusty, “Holy fuck!”

  He stared incredulously at the steel arm circling his waist and realized the left side of his t-shirt was soaked a dark red. His flank began an incessant throbbing as soon as he recognized what he was looking at.

  “Oh,” he said blankly. “Damn.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll allow me to take you to a hospital?”

  Val shook his head. 3rd Street whirled like a drunken carousel. “If they found me that quickly at a police station full of armed cops, what do you think would happen at a hospital?”

  “We need to stop the bleeding and assess the damage, at least,” Kovalenko said roughly. “If you’re going to die anyway, you might as well do it in a hospital with clean sheets.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m not injured.”

  “No.” Val pried himself free and stood under his own power. His thighs quivered, but he sucked it up and braced his legs like a newborn foal. “If I’m at the hospital, where are you going to go? Home? They’re probably already there. Work? They just shot up a police station. You think they’d hesitate to catch a few lawyers in the crossfire?”

  The silence was heavy. A muscle ticked wildly in Kovalenko’s jaw as he ground his teeth. “Damn you,” he swore, low and furious.

  Val accepted his judgment and moved on. “We need a place where I can sit down for a minute,” he said. “So I can check how bad it is. I’m still standing, so I figure they just clipped me. Are you familiar with this street?”

  Kovalenko’s sharp, aristocratic features were drawn tight with anger, and his expression was dark, but he obligingly scanned the eclectic mix of shops.

  “There’s a pub that doesn’t open until four,” he suggested in a clipped voice.

  Val checked his watch. He began to shake his head, but he cut that shit dead when he realized it would knock him on his ass. “The managers are always there this time of day, taking shipments and stuff.”

  Kovalenko cursed but then appeared to have a lightbulb moment. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “There’s a twenty-four hour laundromat a couple blocks away. It should have a bathroom with a lock on it. But can you make it that far?”

  “Yes.” Val would make it as far as he needed to reach safety. There was no other option.

  Kovalenko once more cupped a hand beneath Val’s elbow and guided him down the wet sidewalk. The help stung his pride, but Val needed it too badly to object.

  He kept a hand clamped to his side, mostly to slow the bleeding, but it did jack shit to obscure the crimson soaking his shirt.

  He would have asked for Kovalenko’s jacket except he doubted he’d be able to get the sleeves past his elbows. They might be the same height, but he had probably fifty pounds of muscle on the man.

  His attorney was fit and undeniably strong enough to keep Val upright whenever he wobbled, but his frame was more about lean angles than layers of meat.

  The rain was a godsend, and no one lingered on the empty sidewalk patios. If passing vehicles noticed anything amiss, which Val doubted considering how many of them whipped out their phones at every red light, they were proper city folk and minded their own business.

  The world was washed gray by the downpour. Or was that just his vision going on the fritz? Not much farther now, though. They’d already traveled more than a block.

  The old Portland sidewalks split around tree roots and rolled under his feet.

  Val stumbled and was hauled bodily against a broad chest. A rich, woodsy cologne filled his nose.

  “This is stupid,” Kovalenko muttered. “This is so damn stupid. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “No.” Val held his wrist as he reached toward his pocket. “No. You don’t know these people. They will kill you. Please, Maksim.”

  Something flickered behind those narrowed eyes.

  “I’m okay,” Val promised. He forced himself to stand under his own power and spread his arms as if to say: See? All better. “I’ll be fine. Just get me somewhere I can sit down.”

  Maksim cursed, but he did just that. He draped Val’s arm across his shoulders and dragged him the final block until they came to a small building with a row of grimy front windows. A sign above the door had a picture of drooping pants over a bare ass and the name Full Moon Laundromat.

  Val snickered. “Full Moon. Get it?” he gasped.

  Maksim tossed him an incredulous look. “I realize getting shot might be no big deal to you,” he muttered as he braced Val with one arm and pulled open the door with his free hand, “but how are you laughing with a bullet in you?”

  “I think it just grazed me,” he said idly. “Would you believe I’ve never been shot before? I’ve been to Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia, and I get shot in fucking Oregon.”

  He staggered into the humid air of the laundromat and scanned the room. The place was old and dingy, despite the pervasive smell of soap and fabric softener. The linoleum looked as if it would give hepatitis to anyone foolish enough to touch it. There was no employee desk, only a couple of change machines and a smattering of handwritten notices: DO NOT OVERLOAD and CAMERAS PRESENT.

  That last one might be a concern. But Val was placing his bet that the cops would be more focused on finding the shooter than casing a vast downtown for two witnesses.

  “You could just stuff me in one of those,” he pointed at one of the plastic laundry carts, “and wheel me to the back.”

  Maksim was unimpressed.

  “The bathroom is back there.” He gestured past a bank of dryers, toward the rear of the building.

  “How the hell did you know about this place?” Val asked. He forced himself to take a step. Then another. “No way you take your boxers to a place like this.”

  “I represented the owner in a dispute last year.”

  “Did you win?” he asked absently as they pushed into the single use bathroom. He slammed the door shut and flicked on the light.

  Something skittered behind an overflowing trash can.

  Val glimpsed his pale face in the cracked mirror above the sink and cringed. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple.

  “I always win,” Maksim said matter-of-factly. Then, “You can’t stop here. You’ll get an infection.”

  “Just don’t touch anything,” Val laughed.

  4

  Maksim

  Maksim crossed his arms and watched as Val kicked the toilet lid down with the heel of his boot and sat heavily atop it.

  His shirt was stuck to his wound, and he winced as he began gingerly pulling it clear of his skin. That was a good sign, Maksim figured. If the blood was getting tacky that meant th
e wound was clotting. He wasn’t going to bleed out, no matter how pale he was under his golden Italian skin.

  Val began to yank the wet shirt over his head, but he only got his arms lifted halfway before his breath hitched and he froze.

  “I’ll do it,” Maksim volunteered.

  He grabbed the sodden edges of the shirt and swiftly yanked it over Val’s head. He almost tossed the damned thing on the floor before he thought better of it. He began folding it into a large square with the cleanest side facing out.

  “Use this to stop the rest of the bleeding,” he ordered.

  Val gave one tiny nod. He stared down at the ugly purple striations of his torn flesh. It wasn’t pleasant by any means, but Maksim had feared much worse when he’d seen the volume of the blood loss.

  The bullet had clipped his flank above the waistband of his jeans, too low for the kidney and too far to the side to bury itself in his gut. Bile rose in Maksim’s throat at the mental image.

  “Can you check my back?” Val rasped. “Just make sure the path was as straight as it looks. Make sure nothing is buried in there. It hurts too bad for me to be sure.”

  “Oh my God,” Maksim muttered. “You know, there’s a reason I went to law school and not medical school.”

  Val leaned forward to give him access, and he dutifully swallowed his disgust and craned his neck to see. The long broad planes of his back were smooth and unblemished.

  “Grazed you,” he said decidedly. “Too bad you don’t have any fat on you. It took out a nice chunk of muscle instead.”

  “I’ve got enough to spare,” Val muttered. “Give me the shirt.”

  Maksim handed him the makeshift cloth pad and Val shifted around uncomfortably until he could clamp the fabric against both the entry and exit points. He pressed down so hard that his knuckles blanched, but he didn’t make a sound beyond his labored breathing.

  Maksim whined for him. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  Eyes the color of wet slate glared at him.

  “What I mean to say is, loosen up a bit, or that shirt will wind up stuffed inside you.”

  “How many battle wounds have you dressed, Kovalenko?” Val snapped.