by Alda Grand
The Doctor yelled something and the nurse ran into the room with a syringe. Lana felt a sharp sting in her arm as the nurse withdrew the tip of the needle from her. A liquid warmth began to spread up her arms, her chest began to relax and her wracking breaths slowed down as it became easier to breathe. She lay down on the pillow and its softness seemed to beckon her down into its welcoming embrace.
“What did you give me?” She said slurring.
“A sedative, it will help you to relax. You were starting to have a panic attack which is understandable after what you have been through,” the nurse answered.
The doctor finished bandaging her eyes as Lana lay there on the precipice of sleep. Her limbs wouldn’t move as if they were magnetised to the bed. If she tried to raise them they immediately fell back down onto what felt like the softest bed cover she had ever touched. Her whole body hummed at an agreeable frequency and she couldn’t fully piece together where she was. She knew she had gone fishing with an old man, maybe she had fallen overboard was the best answer her woozy brain could throw up.
Einar came back and spoke to the doctor and nurse before they left him alone with Lana. The noise of a chair being dragged to her bedside sounded like a trumpet played down a long concrete pipe. He took her hand again and squeezed it and said, “The doc said you may drift off to sleep in a few minutes. I’ll wait here until you wake up.”
Lana had a dim recollection of who was talking, had he saved her from drowning she thought. She liked how his hand felt wrapped around her. It felt like she was melting into him and they were becoming one interconnected person. Could he hear her thoughts she wondered and then realised she had said it out loud.
Einar laughed and said, “I think thats the meds kicking in, you are a little loopy.”
It came back to Lana in a fragmented and broken flash, this man holding her hand had saved her life. She owed him her life. She spoke and her words come out slurred, “Can I kiss you, you’re my hero,” she said as she puckered her lips and then the sedative took hold and like a light going off she was unconscious.
Einar looked down at her as her breathing relaxed. “I’m no hero,” he said and got up and left her room in search of a cup of strong coffee.
Chapter 12
Gus looked through the browser history on Lana's computer. “Look at this,” he said pointing to a line of text on the screen.
Brad knew next to nothing about computers. He relied on his brain and his brawn and the combination of both had gotten him this far, he wasn't going to start relying on some electronic device now. “Enlighten me, what does it mean?”
Gus sat cross legged on the couch beside Brad, his silk kimono was open and exposing more of his flesh than Brad was comfortable seeing. “Its Lana's search history. Its what she did on the computer the morning before she came to me with the supposedly only copy of the video. This shows that an hour before she met me she accessed a digital locker and uploaded a file named video0002. The bitch has a copy saved and she can access it any time and any where,” Gus said.
“Can’t you just delete it from her account.”
“Nah, the bitch was careful. Her account locked itself as soon as the file uploaded. I have a guy who can take a look, maybe she got careless and he can hack the account. It could take hours or days, who knows with these sort of things. We need to squash this thing before it snowballs out of control. Pick them up and bring them here. We can deal with them then. I was hoping not to have to lose such good earners. The black one especially, the clients loved her.”
“Are you sure you want me to bring them back here?” Brad asked.
“Ive grown bored of this place. I was thinking it was time to move on any way. Try not to hurt them, there will be plenty of time for that once they get here.”
Brad nodded and got up to go and then turned back to Gus. “I might have been seen at the dorm earlier today. I’m going to bring on two other trusted men to handle the snatch and grab. I’ve used them before, they are both pros.”
Gus nodded and said, “Use whoever you need to. Remember it comes from your cut. And Brad darling don't fuck up, you don't want your boss finding out about the existence of this video. You know how it will end if he does.” He blew a kiss in Brads direction as he turned his back and left.
Brad sat in his parked car and rubbed his temples. He could feel the slow tectonic plates shifting beneath him, slowly sliding over each other until out of nowhere they slammed together sending shockwaves reverberating outwards. He felt completely powerless and knew in his weary bones that a tsunami of shit was heading his way. He flipped open his phone and dialled. After two rings someone picked up on the other end. “I need some help on a job,” Brad said into the cell phone, “The usual. I need you and another trusted guy.” Brad nodded his head as the voice on the end of the phone spoke and then he continued, “It will probably be broad daylight. Yep you get extra for that and I need your help in less then two hours. Ok I can do that, I’ll pick you up there,” and he flipped the phone closed and ended the call. He gunned the engine and headed to the designated pickup spot.
The diner was dimly lit with a few fossilised patrons sucking down bowls of soup. Brad sat in a booth that gave him full view of everyone that came and went. The walls were the kind of brown that was never in fashion in any era and several pencil drawings of long dead celebrities from another country hung on the wall. The framed drawings were yellowed and sun damaged and the one closest to Brads booth had a long dead wasp trapped between the drawing and the glass front. An african american in his seventies with a limp filled Brads cup of coffee for the third time. Brad nodded and the old man reciprocated and shuffled away. This was the kind of place that Brad felt comfortable in, somewhere he could fade into the background and not be noticed. In his line of work the less attention he could draw to himself the better. He sipped at his black and oily coffee and took out his notebook. He held it tight in his hand like a sick man might grasp the bible. To Brad the thin scrawls contained in the pages were his salvation. Every time he got to cross another debt off the list and close another door to the hungry wolves he felt one step closer to the chosen land, a place were he could put this life behind him and truly start over. His sins would be washed away and he would be reborn. All he had to do was keep it together for the next six months to a year, continue to take out the trash and clean up after the men he worked for, then and only then could he grow a conscience.
He told himself that this wasn't the time for weakness, the notebook was becoming lighter in his pocket every time he scratched off one more debt, and yet he was beginning to doubt himself and the things he had done. He had no other options, curl up in a self pitying ball on a dirty mattress in some flop house and pretty soon those snarling and rabid wolves would catch up with him and rip out his throat in a spray of red. No one would mourn for him, there would be no funeral with a doting and heart broken wife being held on unsteady legs by a caring family member. The most likely end for Brad if he quit too soon would be his brain blown out by a gun with the serial number filed off and the trigger pulled by someone who would disappear like a ghost. No one would mourn Brad, he knew this. What really burned in his gut like a broken bottle jammed into him and twisted, what really hurt him was he knew his daughter would be relieved that he was gone. She could finally relax knowing that he would never turn up on her doorstep again making promises he would never keep and repeating the same lies she had heard a hundred times before. He thumbed the pages of the notebook and thought to himself, soon I will be free.
The door to the diner opened and two men entered. A cursory glance would tell you that they were both either brothers or closely related. The older brother Serkin had a grey streak running from front to back in his always slicked back hair. His younger brother was called Roman and he usually said very little. They were both short and squat with ruddy cheeks that gave them the look of two angry chipmunks. Thin noses and even thinner lips that never smiled made most people glance quickly
away from these two men. They wore cheap track suit bottoms, bright white trainers and heavy black leather jackets that looked like they had been dragged behind a truck for several miles. They spotted Brad and nodded in his direction. Brad could see them subtly checking out every angle in the diner, where the exits were situated, how many customers were in the place, what the staff were doing and a hundred little things that someone who was in this business long enough observed any time a meet up was called.
The two men sat across the table from Brad and they both nodded to him in unison. The older brother spoke, he was usually the only one who did when Brad had any dealings with them.
“Whats the job?” Serkin asked. Brad could never place the accent, to him all eastern europeans sounded the same. All he knew was they always sounded serious and ready to get down to business straight away.
“Snatch and grab. Two college aged girls. My boss wants to speak to them as soon as possible. I left all the info in our usual drop off spot. We need this done as soon as possible,” Brad said.
“Ok we can do that,” Serkin said.
“Look when I say we need them straight away, my boss wants them already gift wrapped and waiting in his office. Don’t wait until night time to grab them, if you see them act on it straight away,” Brad said.
“You know it’s extra for this kind of work during the day, more people, more variables, more chance to be seen,” Serkin replied.
“I’ve taken that into account. There is a twenty percent bonus if you get them by this afternoon. If you don’t have them by eight tonight I have someone else to take up the job,” Brad lied.
Serkin turned to his brother and they spoke to each other in another language. To brad they both sounded angry, always angry and Roman nodded his head a few times until Serkin banged his fist on the table ending the conversation. He turned back to speak to Brad.
“This is all very exceptional. Without time to prepare we think a forty percent bonus should be fair. Otherwise we cant do the job on such a short time scale,” Serkin said.
Brad had worked with them enough times to know that they had already decided on doing the job just by agreeing to the meeting, these where not guys who messed around when it came to work. The one thing he could always expect from them was some haggling over price. They couldn't help themselves and he was always ready for it.
“Deal. My contact details are in the package, call when the job is done. Nice doing business with you as usual Serkin,” Brad said offering him his hand. Serkin shook it followed by Roman and the two left. Now came the worst part, the waiting. His guts churned and that old familiar pain began again behind his eyes. He knew what he had just set in motion and it was not going to end well for those two girls. Think of the notebook and the list he told himself, this will all be soon behind you. It felt like offering a man in a desert a thimble full of water. The pain increased and he winced, he continued thumbing the pages of his notebook like it was a religious icon and his one true path to, if not forgiveness, then maybe freedom.
Brad sat in the diner from another era for nearly three hours, feeling himself slowly seep into the walls like the decades of tobacco smoke. Until he was part of the place, another patron with his head in a cup of bad coffee trying to hide away from his past. He was about to order another cup of coffee when his new phone rang. It was purchased a few hours ago and the only people who had the number were the brothers. Once the job was completed the phone would be smashed and thrown away.
Brad picked up and said, “Speak.”
“It can’t be done. They are both gone. It is possible they have left the country. They were seen leaving in a hurry, both with bags. There’s too much heat around the dorms to check out their room. I have a cousin who can get me information on taxis taken in the area. It will take me an hour or so to get that info. How do you want us to proceed?” Serkin said.
The tectonic plates in Brads mind shifted and then slammed into one another sending sharp thunderous blows of pain throughout his skull. His stomach rolled greasily from the eight cups of coffee and for a second he could feel it pressing down on him. This was the end, this job was going to get him killed and he would never be free. The feeling passed and he refocused as Serkin repeated his name again on the other end of the phone.
“Find out about the taxis and get back to me as soon as possible,” he said hanging up the phone. He took out his regular phone which was always ditched and switched out with a new number on a weekly basis and called Gus. He picked up after three rings.
“Do you have good news?” Gus asked.
“I spoke to my guys. It looks like the girls have gone, possibly out of the country. I’ll know more in an hour,” Brad replied.
Gus let out a long sigh and then spoke really slowly as if he was talking to a child who needed to be chastened, “I don't care if they have hopped on a rocket to the moon. You find those two bitches and bring them to me. You know how my clients are about privacy and if any of this gets back to them, I can assure you Brad that you will be nothing more than food for the fucking seagulls at the municipal dump if these two are not found. Do what needs to be done and bring them here. Keep me the fuck updated,” he said ending the call.
Brad knew that there was no use in arguing with someone like Gus. There was a food chain and Brad was somewhere close to the bottom. He was more trusted than some street corner hustler, or low level thug. He was even allowed to see some of the inner workings of the black empire that he was a part of. This was no comfort to him at all, he was just as disposable as the dealer who tries to fuck over his next in command, in the grand scheme of things Brad was a nothing. He had seen other bag men think they somehow lived in rarified air that floated above the lower down criminal classes. The truth was if you made a mistake, if you tried to skim a little something for yourself, you would get caught and this operation had no interest in loyalty, or who you were related to, they were as cold and unblinking as a shark eating its own live young. Brad was not going to end up like so many before him. He held his notebook in his sweaty grip. He was so close to freedom now, he could not let a pair of college aged escorts, no he told himself call them what they are, a pair of college aged hookers to derail his shot at freedom. I am coming for you both and I will be merciless in doling out my masters wishes, he told himself. What scared Brad the most was that he knew he had no other choice. He waited for the call from the brothers as a storm brewed in his head and he prepared himself to go on the hunt.
A supernova of pain exploded in the back of his head at the words Serkin had uttered. He fished out a half empty bottle of pain killers a backstreet doctor had given him. The pink and blue pills usually obliterated the splinters of pain in his skull although lately he was finding that he would have to choke down two or three of them to have any effect.
“Are you sure,” Brad asked as he swallowed the pills with a swig of cold acrid coffee.
“My cousin has full access to all the taxi records. He has a GPS log for the car and he spoke personally to the driver. The driver picked the girls up a block away from the dorms. They never spoke during the whole trip. The driver said they looked in shock. He didn’t push for conversation. He dropped them outside of the airport and the last the driver saw of them was them going into the departure lounge. We showed the driver a selection of pictures and he picked the two girls out. It was them one hundred percent,” Serkin said.
“Your money will be at the usual drop,” Brad said and hung up the phone. He suddenly felt old and weary and didn't want to get up from the table. He could see how this was going to play out in its grim inevitability. If he stayed put and drank his coffee a version of the world would roll forward where no one had to get hurt and the two girls escaped the grasp of the wrong people who they got mixed up with. If only it worked like that Brad thought, if his inaction stopped dead the events that would unfold once he made the call and everything was set in motion. One minute more he promised himself, he wanted to sit for one minute more and exis
t in a world were the death of those two college girls was not on his hands. He took his phone out of his pocket and dialled knowing he was making the first step towards obliteration for the two young women.
The call was picked up immediately. “Things have changed. It looks like the girls have left the country,” Brad said into the cell phone.
Gus exploded on the other end and shouted a string of curse words in cuban and german. When his outburst passed he said calmly into the phone, “You know what my client is going to say. You need to find them and close this chapter before it cause any potential damage.”
“I’m about to leave for the airport now. How am I to proceed if I find were they went?” Brad asked.
“You follow them and you finish the job,” he said hanging up the phone. Brad stared at the phone in his hand, you are in it now he thought, you have set the girls death into motion and he knew that there was nothing he could do about it. He got up and left the diner feeling like a man walking towards the open doors of an abattoir.
Chapter 13
Lana was dreaming of a flat grey ocean with low hanging wisps of clouds practically touching the slate grey surface. She was floating above the water and she could see something in its depths stirring, it was indistinct and nothing more than a slight change of colour as it moved below in the depths. Then it began to surface and take form. The first thing she could see clearly was the grey hair and the broad shoulders. It was the figure of a man quickly rising up from the depths, he was wriggling his body in a fluid motion like that of a fish and his speed was increasing rapidly. Please don't let him breach the surface Lana thought to herself. The man below the surface tilted his head back and he had the large silvery eyes of a fish. He reached his hands up before him as he sped towards the surface. Don't let him touch me Lana tried to shout and nothing but silent squeaks came out.