by Dan Taylor
I position myself at the left side of the room, so that the open blast door’s hinges are nearest me. There’s a window in it, which will allow me to see when someone walks past. Then bam! Right in the ankle or calf, somewhere that puts either one of them down.
Fuck, I’m shitting myself. I’d like to be the hero for you. The guy with unshakable nerves, steady hand, and steely-eyed gaze. But I’m a shaking mess, fringe flopping down into my eyes, which I ham-fistedly move out of the way before it flops back down again. I don’t quite know what to do with my legs. Bent seems like a good, solid tactical stance, but when I bend them, my knees start to knock together. Straight it is. I take a deep breath, steady myself.
Any moment now. Any moment…
The footsteps are getting closer. They’re in the porn shop storeroom now. They stop, and I think whoever it is has seen Kevin lying there.
Any moment.
He’s coming. I’m sure of it.
He walks past the blast door, and I’m sure that it’s…
“Leo!”
He turns to me, nearly jumps out of his skin, and puts his hands up.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Don’t shoot!”
“The hell I won’t.”
I aim the rifle at his legs, think of putting a bullet in them, but they’re so damn skinny. Seems safer to keep it trained on his body. I won’t shoot him there, but he looks unarmed, anyway.
He looks confused.
I say, “I was just thinking about whether or not I was going to shoot you in the leg.”
“Oh.”
I glance down at Kevin, remember something. “If I said I was going to shoot at you, would you think I was going to shoot you or just shoot about your person?”
“I don’t know…”
“Just answer.”
“Not shoot me, I guess. Around me.”
“Right!” I look down at Kevin, say, “See?”
Leo follows my gaze. He must’ve not noticed him before, what with my pointing a gun at him, because his demeanor suddenly changes when he sees him lying there. He doesn’t seem concerned with me pointing a gun at him anymore. But with Kevin!
He kneels down by the side of him, says, “Boss!”
“Boss?”
He starts to examine the ball gag, lifting Kevin’s head up, presumably looking for the buckle. “I’ll have you out of this thing in no time.”
I notice something. There’s no blood coming from the wound I inflicted on Kevin’s hairline. None of this makes any sense. But there’s no time to think about that. “Stand up, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in your…thigh.”
He doesn’t listen to me, just keeps on fumbling with the ball gag.
“I’ll do it. I swear.”
He looks up. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
He’s right. But I’ll shoot at him. I aim just above his right shoulder, shoot, and a bullet ricochets around the storeroom. Leo and I duck.
He says, “You dumb son of a bitch.”
“Stand up.”
“No!”
He turns his attention back to Kevin. I think, What the hell! Take the ball gag off. I’ll still have the gun trained on them, and with Kevin’s ball gag removed, I can get to the bottom of what’s going on here. So I stand there and watch as Leo finally works out how to remove the thing.
When he takes it off, Kevin gasps for air.
I frown.
Leo looks up at me and says, “He’s got a sinus infection, you dick!”
What Leo does next makes me step back and nearly vomit.
He digs his hand underneath the flap of skin I tore when I hit Kevin with the dildo, and removes Kevin’s face.
42.
I STEP BACK. “What the…?”
Turns out Kevin’s face was just a latex mask, like one of those in Mission Impossible II. I can’t make out the face underneath. There’s stage glue all over it. And Leo’s partially blocking my view of it as he hovers over him, saying, “You okay, Boss?”
“Can someone tell me what the hell’s going on here?”
Seems Leo didn’t hear me at first, but then he answers, “You got about two seconds to drop your weapon and tell me where the key is to these handcuffs.”
“Why would I do that?”
The answer comes a second after, and not from Leo’s mouth. But a click from behind me and to the right. The click of a rifle. I turn, see Terry standing there, at the foot of the stairs, that bazooka-like rifle he used to blow Ibrahim’s head off pointing at me. He winks.
And the guy that had been posing as Kevin catches his breath and says, “Pretty please, with fucking sprinkles on top.”
43.
“CHARLES?”
“You got it in one, numb nuts.”
Leo comes over to me, and I freeze, allowing him to take the rifle from me. He drives the butt of it into my forehead, knocking me back, making me see stars. When my vision clears, he’s pointing the rifle at me. Sly little smile on his face. “Where’s the key?”
“There isn’t one.”
“You better start making sense.”
“At least I didn’t take it out of the box. You can just click a button to release him.”
Leo’s face flushes with blood; Terry, who has moved from the foot of the stairs into the storeroom proper, shakes his head dismissively at him, then says, “Go and press it, dipshit.”
Leo seconds that, “Yeah, dipshit!”
I start tentatively making my way over.
Terry says, “Not you! Leo!”
Leo turns to him. “Me?”
“Yeah, you, dipshit.”
“Why me?”
Charles interjects by shouting, “Will one of you numbskulls please press that fucking button and release me.”
Leo shakes his head, his face now bright red.
I whisper, “Pretty please, with fucking sprinkles on top.”
Which makes Leo clench his jaw and scowl at me. But he goes over like a good little dog, tail between his legs. He fumbles for a second, then manages to release one of the handcuff latches. Then the other.
Charles rises slowly and dusts himself off, then slaps the crown of Leo’s head. Dusts himself off once more.
Leo resists the temptation to rub his head, tears welling up in his eyes.
As he peels glue off his face, Charles says, “Leo, handcuff that piece of shit to the pipe.”
Leo puts down the rifle, bends down, picks up the fluffy pink handcuffs and starts making his way over.
Terry laughs.
And Charles steps forward and slaps the crown of Leo’s head again, jarring the handcuffs from his hands. “Not with those handcuffs, you numbskull. Go and get some more. Ones which you can’t just press a button to release.”
Terry’s got tears in his eyes now, because he’s laughing so hard. Charles silences him with a fierce look as Leo heads through the blast door to the porn shop.
Charles picks up the rifle, points it at me. “Go and take a seat, kid. We’re going to have a talk.”
I go and sit by the pipe I handcuffed Charles to.
Terry notices the dildo on the floor. His face screws up, seething with a mixture of anger and disgust. “Don’t tell me he did that to you, Boss?”
Charles is momentarily confused, but he works out what Terry’s asking when he notices Terry looking at the dildo. “What…? No!”
“Good. Though it would be all right if he had. I mean, I wouldn’t think any less of you.”
It’s Terry’s turn to have his head slapped by Papa Bear. As Terry rubs his head, Charles says, “Just keep the rifle pointed at him.”
He turns to me and frowns when he looks at me.
I think I have a stupid grin on my face.
Charles asks, “Why have you got a stupid grin on your face?”
“I just realized that my ex-wife didn’t have an affair with Leo.”
He ignores what I said, and responds, “I’m going to ask you a q
uestion, and if I don’t get a truthful answer, Terry here is going to use that big black dildo in the fashion nature intended.”
Terry eyes nearly pop out of his head, and he whispers, “I am?”
Thinking I won’t notice, Charles gives a minute shake of his head. And Terry calms down some.
Charles says, “So if you like your asshole the shape and size it is, you better give me a straight answer.”
Terry says, “Straight answer…” Suppresses laughter.
“Terry! Mind on the job.”
Terry coughs, gets a hold of himself, with a smile lingering on his face as he points the rifle at me.
Charles says, “Where is she, Jake?”
I pause for effect, look into Charles’s eyes, and say, “At this present time, I imagine Regan’s sitting at a bar in Departures, at one of the airports in the area, sipping overpriced mimosas and imagining how good she’ll look after a couple months in a warm, sunny climate.”
After processing what I said, his eyes narrow, and he licks his lips, then says, “I call bullshit.”
“‘Call it whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it any less true.’”
“You son of a bitch.”
He starts pacing, and Terry has a hard time keeping out of his way. He hops from one place to the next, nervously avoiding Charles’s hulking, marching form.
Charles stops, points at me with an accusatory finger. “The only way you’re getting out of this alive and with your butthole intact is by telling me exactly which airport she’s at and what sunny destination she’s flying to.”
Before I can reply, Terry adds, “And at which bar in the departures lounge of said airport serves overpriced mimosas!”
Charles and I look at Terry, then Charles slaps the back of his head, mumbles something like “if you want something done, do it yourself…”
As he checks for blood, dabbing the crown of his head with his knuckles before inspecting them, Terry says, “What did I say wrong?”
Charles shakes his head.
I say, “I think you should upgrade Terry’s health insurance to include psychiatric.”
Terry snaps, kicks me in the shin.
Charles pulls him back by his tracksuit jacket, looking like he might be restraining a five-year-old from attacking another. “Don’t kick the man yet. How can he answer with you kicking holes in his legs?”
I say, “Good thinking, Charles. Terry, let me answer.”
They both wait expectedly as I smile wryly. Before they say in unison, “Well?”
“She’s at Bob Hope, and she’s flying to Mali.”
Charles pushes Terry towards the stairs, says, “Go and make some calls.”
Before he makes it out of the room, I continue, “No, wait! I think it’s Long Beach and Canary Islands.”
Terry stops, looks at me and then Charles, hoping to understand by Charles’s reaction.
Charles says, “Okay, Terry, now you have permission to kick the son of a bitch.”
Unsure, Terry says, “But he just told us. Why do I need to kick him?”
Charles looks to the heavens. “Christ, give me strength!” He grabs Terry by the collar, flings him towards me.
His heart isn’t in it, but he does his best, kicking me for reasons unknown to him.
I’m not going to lie, it’s torture. By the time he’s done, he’s kicked fifty shades out of me and I imagine that my back and legs look like something you’d grind up and feed into sausage casing.
When I’ve recovered some, Charles says, “Okay, now are you going to tell us where she’s really flying from and to?”
Terry has a ‘eureka!’ moment. “Ohhhh, now I get it.”
Leo comes in at this point, carrying with him a boxed cowboy fancy dress costume, in which must be a plastic set of handcuffs. He says, “I could only find this, Boss.”
Nearly at the point of blowing his top, Charles grabs the box, flings it across the room and into a wall. Its impact sounds measly, which enrages Charles further. “Just use the pink fluffy ones.”
Leo handcuffs me to the pipe, then joins Charles and Terry, who are standing in front of me. He sees that they’re looking expectedly at me, so he follows suit, puts his hands on his hips, and pulls a face like a good-natured dad who’s trying to scold his son for doing something humorous but unacceptable.
In unison again, Terry and Charles say, “Well?”
Leo says it also, a fraction of a second afterwards.
“I don’t know what to tell you boys. Even if I did know where she’s gone, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Charles says, “Okay, Terry, pick up the dildo. Leo, pull down his pants.”
Terry says, “But you indicated I wouldn’t have to do that.”
Now firmly playing the role of the disappointed father figure, Charles says, “The hell I didn’t!”
“You did…” he says, despite picking up the dildo.
Leo says, “Why am I pulling down his pants, Boss?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?”
I interject, “I think you might.”
“You shut up…you.”
The timing couldn’t be better, or worse, depending on perspective. Imagine it. Me handcuffed to a pipe by fluffy pink handcuffs; a bald man in a tracksuit kneeling next to me, dildo swaying to and fro, his face screwed up in disgust; Papa Bear pointing the rifle at me, looking pissed, as he says, “And his briefs, too”; Leo struggling to undo the clasp on my pants, saying, “Hold still!”
All happening as Officer Dukes comes down the stairs from the bureau de change, points his pistol in our general direction, and says, “Freeze, shit faces!”
44.
SO WHEN I phoned my guy with the brother who owns the bureau de change, I also phoned one part of the disastrous cop duo of Officers Dukes and Peoples.
I told Officer Dukes that the guy who shot and killed a cabdriver called ‘Ibrahim what’s his name’ earlier in the evening would be in the storeroom of a bureau de change off Boulevard, and that there would be other characters there that the force might be interested in. I also told him to bring backup.
Seems he listened to everything just fine, apart from the backup bit.
I suspected Kevin was working alongside, or for Charles, pretty much since he turned up at my apartment. And it was pretty obvious that Kevin was leading me into a trap, where Terry and Charles would turn up, hoping to kidnap Regan, and finish off their gig. What I didn’t expect was for Kevin to be Charles!
Anyway, back to the action.
Per Officer Dukes’s instructions, all the shit faces have frozen. There’s Terry holding the dildo, Charles with the rifle trained on me, and Leo with his hands on my pants.
I don’t know what Charles is thinking—whether this fine police officer has just wandered in off the street—but what he says nearly cracks me up, “There’s nothing untoward going on here, Officer.”
“I said freeze, shit face!”
I don’t know what Officer Dukes’s definition of freeze is, but I’m with Charles, even though I think he’s a dick. talking should be allowed during freezing.
“If I can just say my peace, I won’t move a muscle.”
“Okay, shit face. Talk.”
“And if you can stop calling us all shit face, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“You’re wasting my time, dirt bag!”
“That’s a bit better. Not great, but better.”
“You’ve got a minute, then I’m going to arrest all your asses.”
“Okay. Let me explain—”
“Please do.”
Charles closes his eyes, momentarily pissed that he was interrupted. Then continues, “You’ve just caught me and my friends here in the middle of a practical joke. You see, Jake here, the guy lying on the floor, is getting married this weekend, and we figured we’d bust his balls a bit before the old ball and chain gets attached. We’ve been drinking, and figured it would be a hell of a laugh if we had a bit of fun with him.�
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“By sodomizing him?”
“We weren’t actually going to do it, Officer. Just make out we were going to do it. Horseplay, you understand. Then we were going to help the man up, high-five each other, then go back to giving him a good send off, maybe at one of the strip clubs on Boulevard. You understand, Officer.”
“Then why are you pointing a rifle at him?”
“Oh this,” Charles says, moving the muzzle up, “this is just a toy.” And in one smooth motion, he turns and points the rifle at Officer Dukes.
Now it’s a Mexican standoff. Great.
I say, “I think this is the point at which you tell him to drop the rifle or you’ll shoot, Officer Dukes.”
Terry and Leo look at me, surprised that I know the officer’s name.
Without looking at me, Officer Dukes says, “I can handle this, sir.”
“And what a fine job you’re doing.”
Charles shouts, “Will you two knuckleheads shut up! I’m trying to think here.”
Officer Dukes says, “Drop the weapon, sir. Or I’ll shoot!”
“No you won’t.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Name your price.”
I shake my head.
“I’m going to count to five, then you’re going to put that toy rifle down. Hold your hands up. And face the wall at the back.”
I shake my head again.
“One…”
“I’m going to count to three!”
“Two…”
“One…”
“Three…”
“Two…”
“Four!”
A part of me wants to see how this plays out, but I don’t get the chance, as from behind Charles—surprising even me—appears Officer Peoples. He has a dumb look on his face and is pointing a pistol at Charles as he comes through the blast door.
What he says makes Charles mumble curses. “You with the rifle, freeze, shit face!”
45.
“OKAY, YOU WIN,” Charles says, then goes to throw the rifle.
Officer Dukes stops him. “Don’t throw it, dirt bag!”
“Why not? I thought that was procedure.”
“Even though you said that’s a toy weapon, I suspect you were lying. If you were to throw it, it could discharge, injuring anyone of us here.”