by Henry Perez
Stealing a glance in a mirror along a column, Chapa confirmed that his newest fan was still hanging around and doing a piss-poor job of appearing to be interested in some iCarly T-shirts. The guy was tall and slender and fidgeted a little, like someone in need of a fix. The bottom half of his face was pocked with uneven stubble, not enough to be a beard but too much to suggest any other intent.
Where the hell was Tim Haas? And was it a good idea for Chapa to try to find Tim as long as he had a tail on him? Probably not.
Chapa walked by a small café along the front of the store, scanning the tables as he passed. He considered taking a seat at one and waiting. But then what?
He continued walking down the main aisle that ran along the front of the store, leading to the registers. When Chapa saw the sign for the men’s room, he cut through an empty checkout lane and rushed past a store employee who looked at him as though he couldn’t decide whether he was a shoplifter or someone who had to go real bad.
A set of ripe odors invaded Chapa’s senses as soon as he pushed open the scuffed and finger-marked red door. It was a mix of industrial cleaner and shit, and he couldn’t tell which one was covering up the other.
“Tim,” Chapa said, not quite yelling.
No response. Chapa had not expected one, and quickly left the men’s room.
Something was very wrong. All of it was wrong. Tim’s anxious phone call, this meeting place, the guy trailing him—wait, where was the guy?
He scanned the area, then walked back through the still empty checkout lane, smiling at the confused cashier as he passed. Again, he surveyed his surroundings. The guy was gone.
Maybe Chapa’s imagination had overtaken his better judgment. Could be the guy had not been trailing him. Or if he was security, he might’ve called the cops as soon as he saw Chapa rush past the cash registers.
He decided to give the store one last thorough search. Just in case Tim Haas was cowering in sporting goods, or had forgotten why he was here and was shopping for auto supplies.
Chapa was tired of this runaround, had been even before he walked into the store, before he got that call from Tim, too. He wanted to be with Nikki, and Erin, and Mike, and that was all he’d wanted for most of the past few days.
It seemed like the folks in downtown Oakton had created their own little fiefdom, and someone was butchering anyone who threatened it. Chakowski stumbled into that, Clarkson too, maybe. And Chapa now felt like he was lost in the middle of a maze that he didn’t recall ever walking into.
He started at one end of the store and weaved through the aisles, turning anytime he hit a dead end, scanning each row for a man that he’d spoken to just twice before tonight, but one who chose to call him when he was in trouble.
But was Tim Haas in trouble? Chapa stopped asking that question when he noticed that his persistent friend was back. He seemed to have picked up Chapa’s scent just past house-wares, and was now in lockstep pursuit.
This guy was no security officer. Chapa glanced up as he passed a circular security mirror near the jewelry counter. The guy had his left hand tucked inside a coat pocket. He was looking down, as though he wanted to avoid eye contact with other customers, store employees, or…
Now Chapa understood why he hadn’t been followed through the checkout lane—security cameras. The pay areas were littered with them, blanketing every square inch. The cameras throughout the store were there to spy on shoplifters, but the ones by the checkout spied on everybody, customers and employees alike.
This was not good. The guy was a pro, and he had a plan. One that involved not giving the cops a look at his face after the fact.
Chapa thought about finding store security, telling them about this man following him. But then what? His shadow would vanish. He’d walk out with the next group of people leaving the store, then wait for Chapa by his car, or worse, at his house.
The idea of running held no appeal at the moment. Something had happened to Tim Haas, probably something very bad.
Chapa didn’t feel like running, especially when he wasn’t sure who or what he was running from. Besides, what had Bendix said to him just a few hours ago? It’s going to happen soon.
Maybe it was happening now.
Chapter 83
Alex Chapa’s last year in Cuba was the most trying for him and his mother. The man in their lives was gone, and food shortages had become as common as government crackdowns.
Toilet paper and toothpaste would vanish from the shelves of government-run stores, not to return for weeks at a time. Even basic items like milk and bread were often hard to come by.
Chapa’s memories of that time were incomplete. Not only was he a young child, barely four, but he was sheltered from much of the hardships by his mother and grandparents. A fact he would learn only later in life, and one that made him feel both grateful and a bit guilty.
He understood that the people who loved him had constructed something of a false narrative, shielding him from much of the horror that was taking place just outside the front door of his home in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood.
One thing that he remembered with great clarity was the abundance of avocados and how his mother used them as a fallback meal anytime there was nothing else to serve. The fruit was easy to grow in Cuba, and he recalled seeing some of his neighbors picking them off trees in late summer and early fall.
The West Indies variety of the fruit was not small and dark like the avocados most Americans are accustomed to. These were larger, sometimes as big as a small child’s head.
Chapa wasn’t finding any quite that large now as he stood in the grocery half of Lansford’s Megamart, sifting through a basket in the produce department. But he was more concerned with firmness than size. He found three that were heavy and felt solid, slipped them into the plastic bag, and then confirmed that his unwanted company was still standing nearby. Chapa spotted him pretending to be checking out the green apples.
If Chapa was going to confront this guy, it was going to be when and where he chose. Would not be a good idea to do anything that might set him off. Picking up a series of more clearly useful devices could result in the man attacking before Chapa was prepared for him. That’s why he had refused to give in to a deep urge that swept through him as he passed the aluminum baseball bats display and then the golf clubs back in sporting goods.
After double-bagging the avocados, he headed toward the kitchen supplies. Chapa wasn’t worried about keeping an eye on the man—he didn’t have to. The guy had passed on at least two opportunities to take him out, which meant he was either waiting for some sort of signal, or planning to jump him in the parking lot.
Chapa wasn’t going to let it come to that.
He picked up a cheese grater—a large one with cutting areas of various size and shape—like it was nothing at all. Then it was back to the bathroom supply area of the house-wares department.
Chapa allowed himself a quick sideways glance and confirmed the guy was still there. It took about twice as long as he’d wanted to find a towel bar that was the right size. The one he grabbed off a shelf wasn’t perfect, a bit too small, just eight inches long and about five deep, but close enough to do the job.
He walked back into a main aisle and turned his attention to the store’s ceiling. To a casual shopper or bored employee, Chapa looked like someone who was scanning the various department signs. But Chapa wasn’t searching for any specific grouping of items. He was looking for a blind spot.
A few years earlier he had done a story on modern retail theft protection. Specifically, cameras and sensors. The store managers and security experts who served as sources on the story had shown him the inner workings of various systems. Chapa never stopped being amazed at the secrets people will tell a guy with a byline.
One secret, however, didn’t make it into the story. Chapa promised he’d keep it out. Every store he visited had blind spots, areas the cameras simply could not cover. And the bigger the store, the more difficult it was to s
ecure.
Some unsecured areas were the result of the surveillance equipment’s limitations, others were created by the store’s layout or displays. He knew nothing about this store’s system, but it figured to be fairly elaborate.
But he did know how to find a blind spot, and when Chapa saw a large beige banner that read Where the Good Life Becomes Great, hanging over the small furnishings department, he made a quick turn in that direction.
Chapa walked under two dark Plexiglas ceiling panels, the kind used to hide security cameras. There was another in the ceiling about thirty feet to the right and one more some fifty feet to the left.
The department appeared deserted, which was good. The smell of scented candles drifted down one aisle and crossed into another.
As soon as he passed under the banner, Chapa looked back and saw how it blocked all of the possible surveillance options. He double-checked that this store did not have any other devices tucked into the corners and edges of the ceiling. It did not.
Chapa then turned a corner, rushed down an aisle of shelves lined with lamps and fancy frames. Turned another corner, passed two aisles before hurrying down the third, which was home to all kinds of shelving units, ducked around the end cap, and waited.
A moment later he heard the sound of hard shoes slapping the tile floor in an uneven pattern. Not someone browsing, but rather the sound of a predator who’d misplaced his prey and was beginning to panic.
Chapa leaned back against a series of uneven shelves of clearance items as well as he could manage, and waited. For several more seconds, he stared at the rows of wall clocks in front of him while listening for the man’s footsteps.
Then it sounded like he’d started to leave the area, and Chapa realized he’d done far too good a job of hiding. Reaching blindly and grasping the first thing his hand landed on, he lifted a small plastic container of furniture polish and tossed it back on the shelf.
The noise it made wasn’t much, but the footsteps stopped immediately. Then they began to retreat, heading in his direction.
Chapa waited and listened, clutching the bag of avocados in his left hand, the grater and towel bar in the other. The sound was growing louder as it got nearer. Now even closer. The guy was heading down the aisle to Chapa’s left—not the one he’d prepared for.
Without hesitating, Chapa switched the three items from one hand to the other, so that his makeshift sling now dangled from his right hand. A moment later he saw the man’s crooked reflection in the curved crystal of one of the large clocks in front of him.
Could the man see him, also? That was Chapa’s first concern, but it didn’t last.
He was no more than twenty feet away, now. Chapa watched as the guy’s silhouette quickly filled the clock’s face.
In one fluid motion Chapa leaped into the aisle and swung the bag of avocados at the man’s face, putting all of his weight and strength behind the blow. For a what-the-fuck instant, there was a look of absolute confusion on the man’s face.
Then Chapa connected, hard to the chin, cheek, and up into the left eye. And the guy’s face wasn’t the same anymore.
A bloody flow erupted from his nose as his eyes drifted north. He stumbled backward, his right hand clutching his battered face while the left fumbled around in a coat pocket.
Chapa prepared to strike again, but the guy was dancing on ice, looking for someplace to fall. Chapa decided to oblige and kicked his feet out from under him.
The guy went down hard, but in doing so he appeared to get a grip on the object in his pocket. Chapa saw the zip gun, a small, crude single bullet device favored by low-level bangers and small-time thieves, an instant before the guy fired it.
He spun to the side as the bullet struck a large body pillow covered in a leopard skin pattern. Knowing it was a safe bet this guy had more weapons tucked away, Chapa dropped a knee on his chest, sending a fresh spray of blood arcing through the air.
Dropping the bag, Chapa got a firm grip on the towel rack and pressed it against the guy’s neck, slamming his head against the floor and pinning it there. Chapa then brought the cheese grater up and ground it against a fresh wound along the side of his face.
“You know, Buddy, I never imagined I had it in me. But someone gave my little girl nightmares, and that makes me want to cross all sorts of lines.”
“Fuck you.”
“Where is Tim Haas?”
He was drifting in and out, and Chapa knew he didn’t have much time. The only question was whether this guy would pass out before a store employee found them.
“Who are you?”
“Nobody,” he responded with great effort in a voice thick and moist with blood and pain.
“Why were you following me?”
He seemed confused by the question, then his eyes rolled back. Chapa was about to try to shake the guy back to consciousness when he heard the sound of a cell phone.
“You’re in deep shit now,” the guy gurgled, then smiled, revealing a front tooth that dangled to one side like a broken pendulum.
Chapa brought his left foot up, pressed it against the bar, and reached inside the guy’s coat. The cell phone buzzed and sounded again the moment Chapa touched it, and he flinched just a little.
The guy let out a slow, labored laugh that got slower near the end, like his batteries were running down. Then he drifted off.
Chapa carefully retrieved the phone and flipped it open.
“You there?”
He remembered what the unconscious guy had said—You’re in deep shit now. An already bad situation could get a whole lot worse in a hurry if the caller on the other end didn’t get an answer.
Chapa responded, holding the phone a few inches away from his mouth.
“Yeah,” he said in as indistinguishable a voice as he could manage.
There was a pause, and that made Chapa more than a little uncomfortable. Then Chapa realized that he might’ve held the phone too far from his mouth.
He brought it closer to his face and was about to respond again. Then he heard the caller ask, “You got him?”
“Yeah.”
There was another extended silence, and Chapa feared that this time the guy on the other end had figured out something was not right.
But the voice returned a moment later.
“Then bring him to the house.”
Chapter 84
As he drove out of the Lansford’s Megamart parking lot, Chapa repeatedly glanced in the rearview for any car that might be tailing him or to see if a security guard came running out of the store. He kept looking back during the first half mile driving down busy Remlinger Road, until he felt certain no one was following and nobody was coming after him.
Two thoughts invaded his mind.
One was a question—How did the guy know what he looked like? Chapa had never seen the man before.
The other was an assumption—He was never supposed to make it inside that store. That was where it all began to break down for the third-rate thug Chapa had left passed out and tucked neatly into a shelf, hidden behind large, soft body pillows.
Chapa had paid for the towel rack, grater, and avocados at a self-checkout lane, used cash, kept his head down as much as he could without drawing attention or suspicion. When he saw a 7-Eleven store up ahead, Chapa pulled into the parking lot, and drove up to a large brown wastebasket. He lowered his squeaky window and threw the bag away.
Chapa knew he’d been off his game all week. Maybe it was because Nikki had been around and his attention was divided. His recent troubles with Erin were also having a big effect. Whatever the reason, he’d been a step behind, and everyone else had seemed to know a little more than he did.
The house on Elm Grove Street was about five miles away. He understood now why Gladys Washer had been murdered—she’d stumbled across some very ugly people. Probably had no idea. Just another longtime resident concerned about her town, or an old woman making one last grasp at relevance.
Either way, she hadn’t
deserved to die, just like Chakowski’s life should not have ended as it did. Chapa’s colleague understood he’d uncovered deadly information, knew his life was in danger. That had made things much worse for him.
Chapa didn’t want to think about what Chakowski’s last hours must have been like. He felt a wave of acid roll through his gut as he turned onto Maryvale Avenue, and into the neighborhood he’d first visited just a few days ago.
Chapter 85
Eight blocks away, Charles Stoop is bound to a wall in a small, second-floor room of a house he’d never seen until a little over an hour ago. Has it only been that long?
He came to this neglected corner of Oakton on the promise of a possible landscaping deal. One that he was told could extend to every property in this forgotten neighborhood. It wasn’t the sort of business Stoop typically threw himself into, not big enough for him to bother with. But he was asked to look at it by a member of the business core, who convinced him it could lead to something bigger.
Charles Stoop believed he could sell anything to anyone, everyone knew that about him. He believed in his ability to turn any situation into a win. He’d spent much of the drive over devising the best way to say no if the deal wasn’t right, and still make it seem like he was doing everyone a favor. He was good at that.
Stoop’s cocksure swagger had slowed some as he walked up the cracked driveway, though he’d regained it by the time the front door opened. But Stoop has turned down enough dark and narrow streets in his life to know what trouble looks like—and as he stepped inside this house every cell in his being told him something was not right.
There have been times in Charles Stoop’s complicated past when he has been the source of darkness. Jagged nights and twisted days that he’d long ago put behind him came racing back when he felt the stun gun burning him from the inside out. And then Stoop knew that he’d been invited into someone else’s nightmare.