by Luis Samways
Harry Donavon was as free as a bird, and that was how he’d stay. They shouldn’t have underestimated the big man. He always got his own way.
Harry walked off into security and went through the metal detector. It didn’t sound off. That was when he knew he was free. And that planted an even bigger smile on his face as he strolled off down the hallway and into a café for an early morning, pre-flight donut and coffee.
Fourteen
Frank McKenzie and Santiago were just about to turn into the warehouse crime scene when they spotted the green smoke mushroom-clouding around the area.
“Holy shit! What happened here?” Frank asked out loud.
“Get onto the radio. I think the warehouse has been hit,” San said as they screeched into the parking lot just outside the warehouse. He rushed out of the car and went running into the building with his sleeve over his mouth.
“San, wait up, man!” Frank shouted out the window, but to no avail. Santiago bolted into the mist and left Frank in the car.
Frank reached for the radio and clicked it on.
“Dispatch this is car 187, we have a possible 82 down at the warehouse we were called to. It’s on West and 11th, situated a mile or so from the airport. It looks as if the place has been hit. I see a couple of DEA agents down on the ground. Requiring assistance in the form of an ambulance and armed backup.”
Frank slammed the radio back down and got out of the car. He nearly tore the seatbelt off the seat as he lunged out of the vehicle. He got up and ran to the entrance. He spotted a downed agent and checked his vitals. The guy was alive but knocked out. He had a steady rhythm. He checked the other agent next to him. He, too, was alive.
Frank heard San from the inside:
“We have multiple agents down. Looks as if they are not fatally wounded. They were knocked unconscious. Must be this gas shit. I’m feeling a little woozy, Frank. You’re going to have to come in and….” Then San went quiet.
“San! SANTIAGO?” Frank screamed. Without hesitation Frank went flying into the misty warehouse. He saw Santiago on the floor and hoisted him up to his feet. The detective was a little unsteady, but both of them came running out of the smoky warehouse and into the sun-baked morning air. Santiago coughed a few times, clearing his throat from the green substance he had just inhaled.
“What the fuck is going on?” Frank gasped as he tried to suck at the clean air.
“I don’t know, man,” San said, also struggling for air. “The warehouse has been cleaned out. All the gear is gone. The drugs and the money…I think the owners came back,” Santiago managed, falling onto the floor face first. He was out cold. Frank could see it. He knew what was going on, but it was no good. He was succumbing to the tainted air as well. It wasn’t long until he was also face down, knocked out cold.
The backup arrived five minutes later. They were as shocked as one might expect, seeing all the agents on the floor. They feared the worse but were relieved when people started coming to. No one had died, but the city’s pride was hurt. Gutsy criminals had managed to capture what was theirs, and the city lost a lot of respect from the D.A.’s office. The DEA were embarrassed and didn’t take the loss lightly. A few revenge drug busts were taken, and the biggest drug bust in Boston’s history was soon forgotten. The DEA were heroes again, and Frank and San were left to homicide cases.
As with all murders, some got solved while others lay cold. Frank and San never forgot the day the DEA came tumbling in and fumbled one of their biggest cases. It stuck in the minds of most people in the P.D. They hadn’t managed to capture the people who raided the drug bust, nor did they catch the guys who popped the delivery man. It was a cold case not long after it had begun. It didn’t stop Frank and Santiago from going on to solve more cases. But as with every case that turns cold, some haunt the detectives more than others. This case in particular did more than haunt McKenzie and Santiago. It left its cold mark on their case files.
Luis Samways
Death Roulette
A Killer Short
One
Seth and the “Gang”
So the night began. Well, I say “began,” but it was more of a happening than a “began.” Hell, I’d even go as far as saying that the night didn’t begin as much as it just happened. As usual, we had a plan.
“Tonight, gentlemen, we get wasted. We snort coke. We fuck women. We do what we always do,” Seth would tell us during his usual pep talk. The pep talk hadn’t quite happened yet because I was running late. I was at home as usual, playing video games. I like gaming, and I won’t hear anyone tell me any different. Plus, from what I have just told you, you would probably envision me and my pals as some Jack the lads. We are more “Jack the don’ts,” as in, “Don’t you feel bad you’re still a virgin?” Yes, I do. Damn right I do. But hey, what are you going to do? Bitch and moan about the fact that no girl wants to sleep with you? No, that’s not how I roll. I don’t socialise very well. I hate big crowds and dislike confrontation. It’s just nonsensical that someone would pick a fight with anyone…but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Now, let’s talk more about Seth’s pep talks. You see, I may be a “Jack the don’t” and so are most of my friends in our tight group, but Seth isn’t. This guy can party for the world, not just any given country but a flat-out jig to the planet’s rotation. He’s a heavy hitter. He likes women, and women like him. That’s all there is to it. He goes into a club, and we watch him accumulate a wad of girls’ phone numbers. It’s quite impressive, if you ask me. But that’s beside the point. Seth may be a good-looking all-out ladies’ man, but we — the “gang,” as he likes to put it — are not good-looking guys who are brilliant with the females. I wouldn’t say we are bad-looking gentlemen, but women don’t flock to us in clubs. We haven’t got the Seth whitened teeth. We don’t have the Seth charm, nor do we have the Seth charisma. Now, you’re probably thinking that I’m being too hard on myself. I probably am, but the truth is that Seth always reminds me and our “gang” of how much we need him to score with chicks.
It’s not that he sticks his fingers out and says stuff like, “Smell that, boys? That’s the smell of a man getting pussy.”…Okay, maybe he does. But he’s a good guy. In comparison he leads the same style of life that all of us live in our group. We go to the same college, and we live in the same suburban shithole. The similarities end there, I’m afraid. Since we started college, the guy has changed. He fell into the mid-popular range while we dwindled in the lower leagues when it came to school popularity contests. I don’t know how he became so popular so fast while we remained so unworthy. Nothing new on our side, though. He was there at one point with us, in the same shitty twilight zone, experiencing the same lack of appreciation or pure acknowledgement of our existence. You know how the system works. Be an asshole, and your fellow students cheer you as you walk down the corridor on the way to home-mech; be academic and have aspirations of moving out of your hick neighbourhood, and you get slammed into the lockers and made to look like a victim. I know that system, and I appreciate my place in it. Seth, however, did not. That’s why he brought a baseball bat to school and gave the resident school asshole a new face. That’s why he is where he is now. With that incident he managed to grow some confidence along with his newfound balls. Yeah, that’s Seth all right…push him and he pushes back. Still, though, the guy can party!
Two
Me, Myself & the Mirror
Confidence is something I personally lack. As you can probably tell, I have a certain disdain for over-the-top arrogance. Seth aside, I hate the popular people. They are popular for all the wrong reasons. If you ask me, we so-called nerds are the true gatekeepers of the universe. While most of these jocks and sluts will go on welfare for the rest of their lives while they rear children like cattle at a dairy farm, we nerds move on to bigger things, super-hot models and fast cars, well-paying jobs and self-respect — well, that’s what Seth tells me.
Enough about him for the time being. Let’s talk about me. My nam
e is Toby French. Yep, that’s right; my parents are condescending assholes. It’s not that I don’t like my name, it’s just that’s it’s so, you know…meh. Anyway, you can imagine the sort of nicknames I get at school. “Toby the Turtle” is one of them, maybe because I have a slow pace about the way I walk. Well, that’s what I like to think. But I know it’s probably some juvenile way to go about calling me slow, as in retarded, even though I get straight A’s all year round and never flunk a class. But in high school that sort of success means you are “retarded.” I should have known that the most successful people in the world drank from beer bongs and had sex with multiple brain-dead cheerleaders. Oh, well, I guess I’ll just have to stick to my 185 IQ and “retarded” grades.
My real friends (Seth included) call me “Frenchy.” It’s nice, I suppose, but nothing that flatters the pants off me. I would rather be called Toby, seeing that’s my name, funnily enough. Moving on, I’m a pretty sarcastic and easygoing fella. I enjoy my video games, as previously stated, and really enjoy my math. I don’t know what it is about math that makes me hard, but I tend to sway to the point that maybe it’s because math is problem-solving and my life is chock block full of problems. I also like drinking. I mean, what self-respecting under-twenty-one-year-old American doesn’t? Plus, when the parties flow, the beer usually does the same. Not to mention all the hot girls. I guess the only bad thing about these parties is most of the company. You get the jocks being assholes and the women admiring the assholes for some ungodly reason. Don’t get me wrong — I, too, would behave like a menacing alpha-male jock if I had the ability to, but the truth is I’m five foot eight on a good day and a buck ten on a fat day. So you can imagine the six-foot-five guys weighing in at a muscle-y two hundred and twenty being more of a babe magnet than me, who in fairness is more of a punch magnet. Not that I get blasted in the face or anything, but the jocks do like to give me a dead arm once in a while. Not too often, just a few times a day. They like to approach me and say things like,“Frenchy, good to see you, buddy. Oh, by the way, I appreciate you doing my essay for me. Sick website, man!” Then bam, the inevitable punch in the shoulder. Oh, how that makes me feel like “one of them.”
The website they are referring to is the one I set up myself: willdoyourhomeworkforyou.net. It’s a little venture I thought of all by myself. People go on there and fill out a form, attach a Word document, and send me $10 to complete it. It’s usually pretty easy; I mean, most of them send me math and English work. Some of them on the odd occasion make it hard on me and send me essays on football so they can pass their scholarship. I get Seth to help me out with those. We split it five bucks a piece on those occasions. I tend to make about $500 a week. It’s a good little earner. No Saturday job for me, just all the Cheetos I want and an everlasting cash pile for my video games. Not to mention that it’s made me less of a punching bag and locker-dwelling nerd, and more of their homework friend, which in point gets me and the boys into all of their parties. Yay for me!
Three
The Phone Call
I’m sitting in my room as usual, playing the greatest game of all time, World of Warcraft. It’s an MMORPG. In other words, it’s a game where loads of people play it simultaneously while going about their daily business such as looting gold and armour in dungeons or playing through the thousands of quests that are available to complete. The game rocks, and I enjoy it immensely. It’s rather expensive, as you have to pay a monthly subscription to play the damn thing. Fifteen bucks a month is no easy steer for a guy in college. But my brilliant website takes care of that for me, so who cares, right? I look at the time as I glare down at my watch.
It’s eight-thirty. I need to get moving and get ready. Seth will be calling me at any minute telling me that he is outside. He picks me up on a Saturday night. He’s got a Scooby Doo–type van, old hippy type of body work. Seth actually went out of his way to deface the peace sign that stretched out on the van’s side. I don’t exactly know why, but I think maybe he was worried by what sort of message the peace sign would send. After all, he did just break out into the major leagues of college rep.
I get up from my sturdy black foldable chair propped nicely under my lavish metal desk that supports my budget PC. I stretch a little to get rid of those creaks and cracks that make the life of a PC gamer hell. I widen my arms out, and I hear them snap. Ah, that’s better. I feel like the Tin Man with a new oil job. I look at myself briefly. As usual, I look like shit, nothing new there. I grab some hair gel and smooth my black hair over. It looks queer, but that’s what everyone is doing these days. Got to stay fab for the girls! Not that it ever gets me a girl. Peer pressure is a wonderful drug.
I look around my room and marvel at its dingy euphoria that engulfs the four walls. Metallica posters don my walls as Persian rugs sit nicely in a mansion. You got to love the metal, baby. I sift through a couple of piles of clothing, nothing too miraculous, the usual black-on-black gothic look. Today I’m going for something a bit more Peter Parker. I get my glasses from my metal desk. They sit nicely perched next to my mouse. I put them on and can instantly see better. I guess that’s why I get headaches at college. I know what you’re thinking — yes, I don’t wear them because I don’t want to be more of a nerd than I am. High school b.s., I know. It’s still ingrained in me, I guess. I swap my Family Guy T-shirt for a polo shirt. You know the type, striped and blue. I leave my jeans on; they will do for this occasion. After all, it’s just a night out with the boys. Hit a few student clubs (a lot of seedy places that will serve underage drinkers in Boston, you know).
Right on cue my iPhone rings, just as I’m contemplating whether to shave or not. It’s not that I have an abundance of facial hair; it’s just I’d rather not look like I’m still struggling to grow some at the ripe old age of nineteen. It tends to be a bit sparse. It’s missing the nine o’clock shadow. I fish the phone out of my pocket. It rattles in my hand as I try to unlock the thing. I slide my finger across the screen and hit the green button.
“You got Toby,” I say while admiring my appearance in the mirror — in other words, having second thoughts on the outfit.
“Hey, Frenchy, get your ass outside. The boys are here. And so is the man,” Seth says into the phone. Oh, his way with words amazes me.
“Okay, I’ll be two minutes.” I hang the phone up and shove it back into my pocket. I smear my hair one last time for good luck.
Four
The Van Ride to Fun
I say goodbye to my folks. As usual, they are watching the TV, some stupid game show about words and numbers. Believe it or not, that isn’t my sort of show. They briefly acknowledge me with a grunt as I stand in the hallway, looking into the living room. Dad remains seated, beer in one hand, remote in the other. Mum looks at me briefly and then back at the TV. There’s no point in me trying to connect with those two ever since Luke died. Oh, well, time to get shit-faced. I crank open the front door and skid down the pathway. I see the van pulled up on the curb across from my house. The thing looks like it dropped out of space, seeing it’s oozing smoke from the windows like a cow carcass in a freezer. I walk up to the driver’s window and give it a rattle. Seth smiles as he unwinds the window with the world’s biggest spliff in his mouth. The waft instantly hits me.
“Not outside my house, dude,” I say to him, like it matters anyway. The guy always seems to forget my dad is a court bailiff.
“Whatever, Frenchy. Get in the van — we got places to go.”
I oblige and swing the heavy sliding door open. The stench is stronger this time as a mixture of weed and beer hits my face. I hoist myself up and take a seat. The whole gang is here. Dwaine, Mike, Rocco and Elle. As usual the boys look shit-faced, all of them enjoying the music, beer, and drugs as they say hello to me and carry on talking about whatever they were talking about before I entered. Elle, on the other hand, just smiles at me with those gorgeous beautiful eyes that only she can sport. I swear, every time she looks at me it’s like a dagger in my heart
. Her warm lips beckon to me, and her rocking body makes me want to scream to the heavens. Not that I would tell her that, of course. Not shy old me. She looks amazing, as usual. Her brown hair sways down to her shoulders. Her tight blouse supports her amazing figure. She definitely makes the nights out with the boys more interesting, especially in the eye-candy department. The only thing is, she is more of a guy than any of us could ever wish to be. She drinks more than I do and she gets into more fights than I do. All of the guys have accepted her as one of them. All but me, for I see her as the girl of my dreams. Not just because she is insanely hot and has those amazing lips. She is a hell of a lot of fun, too. I lean in closer to her and put my hand on her knee.
“What’s up, babe?” I say to her, my ever-growing love evident in my eyes. She smiles back at me and leans in, meeting me half way. Her perfume surrounds me as she opens her mouth, revealing her beautiful teeth.
“Get your hands off me, Frenchy, or I’ll smack that stupid look off your face.”
I told you she’s a lot of fun. I obviously oblige and quickly take my trembling hand off her knee. She smiles at me and blows me a kiss. Oh, what I would do to land my lips on hers. Oh, well, a guy can dream…right. Seth looks back at me and winks. He turns back around and puts his foot down on the accelerator. We haul ass out of my street faster than ever. I buckle up, because as usual Seth makes me want to fear for my life when he’s driving. At least I have a perfect view across from me as the ever beautiful Elle looks on and mocks me with her tongue sticking out. I try to not look as if I’m blowing chunks out of my ass, but it’s hard to when you fear your about to plow into oncoming traffic. It’s just another routine Saturday night out on the town for me and my friends.