No Good Deed

by Victor Gischler

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Jesus.”

  The sedan took a left, and the cabbie had to run a red light to keep up. More horns and rude gestures.

  The traffic was lighter here, and the sedan cut across two lanes and took a sudden right. The cabbie followed. The sedan took another sharp left, and the taxi squealed tires keeping up.

  “They might be onto us,” Brad said.

  Francis fastened his seat belt.

  “What about a private eye?” Brad asked. “You a shamus?”

  “I’m just trying to help a friend,” Francis said. “She’s in trouble.”

  “A girl.” Brad nodded liked he’d known it all along. “It’s always a girl.”

  * * *

  “You trying to fucking kill us?” Cavanaugh said. “What’re you driving like that for?”

  Cavanaugh and Ernie sat in the back seat with Emma between them. Ike drove, his eyes bouncing back and forth between the rearview mirror and the side mirror.

  “That taxi is following us,” Ike said.

  “Bullshit.” But Cavanaugh turned and looked out the back window. The taxi was there a few car lengths back, but New York was lousy with taxis. “Take the next turn as sharp as you can.”

  Ike jerked the wheel hard, and the sedan fishtailed, tires squealing again as they took a right onto a narrow street, the back tire going over the curb, a hubcap spinning away in a metallic clamor. Ike leaned on the horn to warn a woman with an armload of grocery sacks. She had to step back quickly to keep from getting clobbered. She shouted obscenities after the sedan. Cavanaugh heard the word cocksucker.

  All three of them in the back seat had slid across to the left and piled up on each other.

  “Hey, get off!” Emma said.

  “Shut up.” Cavanaugh looked back. The taxi was right with them. “Shit.”

  “Who is that?” he asked Emma.

  “Do I know? You tell me.”

  Cavanaugh pulled the little automatic from his pocket and pushed the cold barrel against a smooth patch of skin just under her ear. “I don’t have a lot of patience right now.”

  Emma’s upper lip curled into a sneer. “Please. You’re not going to do anything to me, and we both know it.”

  “Accidents happen.”

  “You’re not the only ones after what I have,” she said. “It could be anyone back there. Hell, the Japanese offered me two million for it three days ago.”

  Cavanaugh open his mouth to say something, closed it again when her words sank in, and looked at her quizzically. His orders had been clear. Get the girl. Get what she has. The details had been sketchy.

  “Holy crap, you didn’t know,” she said. “You have no idea why he sent you after me.”

  “I know plenty,” Cavanaugh growled. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the pursuing taxi. “Ike, lose the bastard.”

  “Right.”

  Ike stomped the accelerator flat, passed a Mini Cooper on the left, and then cut back right in front of it. The Mini Cooper slammed on its brakes as the sedan took a hard right. Cavanaugh watched the taxi zig and zag to avoid the Mini, almost annihilating a bike messenger. Horns and shouts and general New York uproar.

  “I’ll take us through the park,” Ike said, jerking the wheel again.

  Cavanaugh was still watching through the back window. The taxi was coming fast. “Whoever the hell they are, they mean business.”

  * * *

  Francis held on to the handle over the door with a white-knuckled grip. I am going to die.

  “They’ve definitely made us,” Brad said. “Don’t worry. I’m on him like a bad rash.”

  The sedan ran a yellow light, and by the time the taxi hit the intersection, the light had turned red. The ongoing sound of brakes and tires and angry horns had faded to background noise. Francis’s fear of a sudden fiery death was still front and center.

  The sedan turned into Central Park, and the taxi followed.

  Again, Francis realized he had no idea what he’d do if they actually caught up with the car ahead of them, and his brain strained to come up with some kind of plan. When he’d hopped into Brad’s taxi, Francis had envisioned the sort of stealth in which he might locate the bad guy’s hideout and …

  And then what? Hideout? What am I, after the Joker? What the hell was I thinking?

  “I think we got ’em,” Brad said.

  Francis looked to see what he was talking about. There was a traffic jam up ahead. The sedan was slowing down and would eventually be forced to stop. And then what?

  Francis reached for the door handle.

  * * *

  “Why are you slowing down?” Cavanaugh asked.

  “Logjam.” Ike gestured at the traffic ahead.

  “Think of something,” Cavanaugh demanded. “Right fucking now.”

  Ike turned the sedan onto the sidewalk and headed into the park, crawling along at ten miles per hour. Pedestrians scooted out of the way, giving them annoyed looks as they passed.

  “Not cool, dude!” a skateboarder yelled at them.

  “Did we lose him?” Ike asked.

  Cavanaugh looked back. The taxi was twenty feet behind them.

  “Floor it!” he told Ike.

  Ike floored it.

  The engine roared, and the sedan leaped forward. People scattered off the sidewalk and into the grass and bushes. No hard stares this time, just screams and panic. The sedan came within three inches of a woman who was barely able to yank a stroller out the way.

  Cavanaugh felt a stab of alarm in his gut. “Jesus, Ike!”

  “You wanted fast, you got fast.” Ike jerked the wheel at the last minute to avoid a man with a dog on a leash. Ike hunched over the wheel, eyes wide, sweat pouring down the back of his neck. He kept hitting the horn with one fist. “Out of the way, assholes!”

  “You’re going to kill us,” Emma said.

  Cavanaugh wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, but to Ike, he said, “Maybe you should ease back, pal.”

  Rocks and trees rose up on either side of the narrow walkway. Ike said, “No, it’s cool. I think I know where this comes out. If we can get to the freeway—”

  The sedan rounded a gentle curve. A horse and carriage clopped past at the crossroads in front of them. Ike slammed on the brakes. The two tourists in the back of the carriage froze, terrified and wide-eyed. The carriage driver was an old man in a battered top hat, reins in clenched fists. He tried to control the horse as it reared up, whinnying panic, hooves swatting at the air.

  Ike lost control of the sedan, and it went off the walkway. There was a terrific slam-crash-bang as the left tires went over a low boulder humped up from the ground, scraping metal before the car slammed down again on the other side. It flew headlong into the wide trunk of an old elm with a deafening pop-crunch. It sat there with the hood pushed in like a cartoon accordion, steam hissing from the cracked radiator.

  Cavanaugh found himself on the floor, not sure how he’d gotten there. The world had blurred through the front windshield, then bumps and jerks and then tossed around like flakes in a snow globe. He inferred they’d smashed into something, but didn’t know the extent of the damage.

  He pulled himself back into the seat, dazed, blinking stars out of his eyes. “Ike?”

  Ike didn’t answer.

  The bald thug had been thrown forward over the steering wheel, cracks in the windshield radiating from the point where his forehead had struck glass. A thin line of blood trickled past his ear.

  “Shit.” Cavanaugh’s fist closed around his little automatic, and he shoved the car door open, staggered out, knees wobbly.

  Something slammed hard across his hand, and the pistol went flying.

  He screeched pain and drew his arm up against his chest. Same fucking wrist.

  Cavanaugh looked up to see who’d jacked him, and a big alligator suitcase came down hard square on his forehead.

  9

  It was a sturdily built piece of luggage,
Francis had to admit.

  He watched Cavanaugh feebly pull himself along the ground with one hand, the other palm over the spot on his forehead where he’d been whacked, blood seeping between fingers and down into one eye.

  Francis slammed the suitcase down hard again, this time across Cavanaugh’s back. The guy flopped flat, kissing dirt.

  Francis cranked the suitcase back for one more wallop, but Cavanaugh made no effort to get back up again.

  The gunshot crack was so loud, Francis felt it in his teeth. He had to clench himself to keep his bowels from letting go. I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead.

  He checked himself. No bullet holes.

  “Hands off, ya bitch!”

  Francis looked to see Emma grappling with the mustache thug on the other side of the sedan. She’d grabbed his arm, the thug’s gun pointing off into the woods. He backhanded her, a crisp smack of flesh on flesh.

  She reeled, and the thug brought his pistol around again.

  Francis flung the suitcase.

  It spun through the air and collided with the thug’s bandaged nose. He bellowed furious agony. “Motherfuckers!”

  Francis scooted around the car in a flash and arrived just as Emma regained her feet. They both leaped on him, and the three went down in a pile. They hit the ground on top of the thug, the air huffing out of him. He flailed blindly, eyes closed tight against the pain.

  “Get his gun!” Emma shouted.

  Francis held the thug’s arm against the ground with one hand, leaning all his weight into it. With his other hand he tried to pry the thug’s fingers off his pistol.

  “Get the fuck off me!” the thug yelled.

  Emma balled up her little fist and popped him on the bandaged nose. Fresh blood squirted from his right nostril. He screamed and thrashed but let go of the gun.

  And suddenly the pistol was in Francis’s hands. The weight of it surprised him. “I got it! I got it! What do I do? Do I shoot him?”

  “No! Just knock him out,” Emma told him.

  Francis slammed the butt of the gun against the side of the thug’s head.

  “Fucking … shit.” He wasn’t knocked out but dazed.

  Sirens rose in the distance.

  Emma scrambled to her feet, grabbed the suitcase. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I’ve got a taxi,” Francis said. “Right over here—”

  He pointed at the taxi just as Brad put it in reverse, the tires smoking as it backed up at full speed, fishtailed around, and headed back the way it came. Apparently, the sirens were all Brad needed to hear to decide his adventure was over.

  Emma offered Francis a blank look. “You were saying?”

  “Come on!” Francis ran toward the horse and carriage.

  The two tourists had climbed down from the carriage and huddled off to the side, gawking at the spectacle. Skaters and joggers had stopped to look too.

  The carriage driver saw Francis coming and held up a hand to fend him off. “Don’t want no trouble here.”

  “Look, we just need to get out of here.” Francis took his wallet from his back pocket, opened it. “I can give you … shit. Eight bucks.”

  Emma took a wad of cash from the front pocket of her jeans. She peeled off five crisp bills. “Five hundred dollars.”

  The carriage driver eyed the cash. “Get in.”

  They climbed aboard, and the driver clicked his tongue. The horse and carriage headed away at a fast trot. Not the speediest getaway in history, but faster than on foot. Francis looked back. The small crowd watched them go, but nobody seemed eager to do anything about it.

  Francis sank into the seat, heart hammering the inside of his chest. He blew out an exhausted, relieved sigh. “That was messed up.”

  “We’re not clear yet,” Emma said. “Those sirens are getting louder, and there’s plenty of bystanders who’ll be happy to tell them which way we went.”

  “I can take you to the edge of the park,” the driver called over his shoulder.

  “That works,” Emma said.

  “And then what?” Francis asked.

  “We need a place to lie low.”

  “I need to hit an ATM,” Francis said.

  “Are you an idiot?” she asked. “No bank cards. No credit cards. That’s how they find you. Give me your smartphone.”

  He fished it out of his pants pocket and handed it to her.

  She dropped it on the floor of the carriage and smashed it with her boot heel.

  “Hey!”

  She picked it up again and flung it into the bushes.

  “What the actual fuck?” Francis said.

  “They can track it.”

  “Okay, then, you have all the answers,” Francis said. “Where do we lie low?”

  She sat back, hugged the suitcase close to her like she’d found a lost child. “I think I have an idea.”

  10

  The whole place was a circus.

  Middleton had been excited at first when the JetVan had driven through the old stone gates and past the rows and rows of grapevines. The new vines were still being trained to the guide wires that ran the length of each row. Once past them, the rows of mature vines stretched out for acres and acres. The Sonoma vineyard had been producing quality grapes since the 1940s. It had been in the same family since that time, and Middleton had simply thrown money at them until they’d cried uncle.

  Middleton rarely drank wine, but the idea of a vineyard appealed to him. It brought an old-world vibe to his life that balanced out all that gleaming Silicon Valley high tech.

  The JetVan had then driven by the barn and the outbuildings and the main house that had come with the property. The house was done in a Californian mission style, a handsome five-thousand-square-foot structure, and had been refurbished for the family who would oversee the vineyard operations. Middleton himself had little interest in getting dirty or fooling with the minutiae involved in running a vineyard and winery.

  They’d kept driving, the road now clearly new construction, back into the heretofore undeveloped part of the property to the plot of land overlooking the small lake. Middleton had picked the spot himself and hadn’t been back since. The eagerness to see his finished home was a palpable thing filling up his chest.

  But then they’d come through the wooded area into the clearing and saw the circus, moving trucks stuck in a half-flooded yard, dozens of people milling around, talking in little groups. Workers went back and forth with wheelbarrows. Other workers leaned on shovels, watching. None of this random activity seemed coordinated or useful.

  The JetVan parked off to the side, and the driver came around to slide open the door for Middleton and Meredith.

  “I thought they’d be finished.” Middleton said it sort of breathlessly as he stepped out of the van, as if he found the spectacle fatiguing and intrusive.

  “Just hang back,” Meredith told him. “I’ll find out what’s happening.”

  She stepped out of the van, her shoe squishing into the wet ground. “Maybe a leak or something? Damn, okay. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  Meredith headed for the crowd, game face set in stone. Middleton didn’t hang back, followed after her more slowly, each step spongy and wet. Each step also brought a growing sense of dread, but he pressed on doggedly.

  He didn’t really care about wet shoes. Okay, he cared a little. But he was looking past the confused throng of people at his new house beyond.

  It was beautiful. Naturally he’d seen pictures as the construction had progressed, a chunk here and there, but it was different seeing it like this. It was real and right there in front of him.

  Gleaming white stone, every angle so sharp you could shave with it. Wide windows stretched along most of the external surface, but they were currently covered by highly polished accordion shutters. A simple command would open or shut them. A set of metal double doors ten feet high guarded the entrance. From above, the house looked like a huge circle, a central hub from which radiated three lar
ge wings. The house was a single story except for one area perched atop the center of the hub, accessible by elevator or a narrow spiral staircase. It sat up there like a dome hunched up slightly from the rest of the building, round windows like portholes circling the entirety of it. Francis had deliberately avoided using the words bridge of a starship when talking to the architects. People already thought him eccentric enough. It would be his personal office, his private inner sanctum. But it would also be more than that. It would be the command center from which he would take on the world.

  Middleton walked toward the house. A home. His home. It was almost as if he floated, mesmerized. The world went mute, faded into the background. His new home glowed in the light of the setting sun. His own personal sanctuary.

  “Hey, you Middleton?”

  The world came tumbling back down on top of him.

  Middleton blinked, turned to see a big man huffing toward him, sweaty T-shirt, threadbare jeans. A ball cap that said BRUINS. Meredith’s head snapped around, watching the guy with a blend of alarm and annoyance as he approached Middleton. Part of Meredith’s job was to be a buffer between Middleton and the myriad of people clamoring for a piece of his limited schedule.

  “I’m Aaron Middleton,” he admitted, wishing briefly he could be someone else.

  “Look, the guy in charge said to only unload a few rooms, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  The guy shrugged. “No point in getting the trucks unstuck just to come back in the morning and get them stuck again.”

  “Stuck?” Middleton looked the trucks. The main effort to get them unstuck consisted of men looking down at the tires and shaking their heads.

  Meredith was there suddenly, tying to subtly maneuver herself in between the guy and Middleton. “Hi there. Hello. I’m sorry, but we’ve just arrived, and we’re just trying to get a handle on things. You are?”

  “Ray.”

  “Hi, Ray, I’m Meredith. Just give us a minute to assess the situation, will you?”

  “Okay, but we’re burning daylight,” Ray said. “Sooner we get started, sooner we finish.”

  “Don’t listen to him!” someone shouted.

  All three heads turned to see another man running at them, arms waving.