Angry Jonny

by Joaquin Emiliano

  The Verona Observer had changed overnight.

  No pop, no chatter.

  No Al Holder.

  From across the room, Celia halfheartedly waved for Jessica to join her.

  “How is he?” Jessica asked.

  “He’s going to need surgery.”

  “I’m going to stop by and visit once I get off. Three o’clock. Want to punch out early, come with?”

  “Can’t.” Celia sniffed. “Ethan needs every available man… oh, and he said he wants to see you in his office.”

  When Jessica opened the door, there was nobody waiting.

  She rolled her eyes, understanding exactly what had been lost in translation.

  “His office, my ass,” Jessica muttered, trudging next door and knocking on Al’s door. She walked in, physically repulsed at the sight of this worm all settled in behind the desk. “What’s this, Ethan? Haven’t measured for curtains yet?”

  Ethan pushed the keyboard aside with a humorless sigh. “It’d probably be a good idea for you to start calling me sir. Or Mr. Prince.”

  “How about Freddie Prinze?

  “I think you mean Freddie Prinze Junior.”

  “I’m old school.”

  “Who cares?” Ethan leaned back in the chair, testing its resistance. Visibly pleased. “So your buddy, Malik…”

  “Not my buddy.”

  “Buddy, boyfriend, baby-daddy. Again, who cares? He’s shirked his responsibilities around here for too long, so he’s fired.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since as soon as you tell him.”

  “You are a brave, brave man, Ethan –”

  “Mr. Prince.”

  “– But I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”

  “Crack investigative reporter like you?” Ethan smirked. “I doubt it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Splendid.”

  Jessica didn’t budge.

  Ethan shot her an impatient look, motioning for her to bring it.

  “Look…” Jessica slid Dinah’s bag to the crook of her arm. “About my editorial; I’ve temporarily misplaced my book bag –”

  “What editorial?”

  “My editorial on Camelot Apartments? Daedalus, the takeover –”

  “No, I know which editorial,” Ethan clarified. “I mean what editorial. As in we’re not running it. Not anymore. Ain’t happening.”

  “Well…” A confused smile snuck in through the corners of her mouth. “You can’t do that.”

  “Can’t I?”

  Jessica’s smile died on her lips. “No. You can’t.”

  “As the new chief editor –”

  “Acting chief editor –”

  “ – And you are an intern!” Ethan yelled, rising from his desk. “You don’t get to play Nancy Drew and put together little exposés. High school student. Pens. Paper. Coffee. That’s you. Chief editor, boss man; that’s me. And I can do whatever I want!”

  Jessica couldn’t bring herself to admit how very right he was. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Why are you still here?”

  “I asked you a question –”

  “OK, let’s make this easy.” Ethan put his palms together in a condescending prayer. “You either deal with this, right now… Or you can consider yourself gone along with your buddy Malik.”

  Jessica held up her hands. “Fine.”

  “Fine yourself.”

  “Just how thrilled were you when Angry Jonny started picking people off?”

  Ethan smiled sourly. “If it’s a matter of who benefits, just how thrilled would you be if he did the same to me. On a scale of one to ten?”

  “What’s the number after you’re an asshole?”

  “Get out.”

  “I’m gone.”

  Jessica violently stalked past the wide eyes and flabbergasted expressions of those who were once her coworkers. Face set in stone as Ethan began to yell after her.

  “That’s right, you keep walking, Jessica! Keep right on walking! Don’t think I won’t be telling security about this, and don’t forget to let the door hit your ass on the way out!”

  As she passed by a red-eyed Celia, Jessica kept her voice low. “I’ll tell Al you said hello.”

  With a solid wink, she kicked the stairway door wide open.

  Her ass making it through just fine.

  ***

  After laying her prying eyes on Anita Montero’s hospital bill, Jessica had to wonder what this near-death experience would be costing Al Holder. Artificial respirator, EKG monitor, IV drip. Hospital gown, extra pillow beneath his head. Little paper cup with a pair of aspirin resting by his side. Jessica had half a mind to close the blinds, just in case sunlight was extra.

  Al smiled at her through the plastic mouth piece.

  Not the reaction she had been expecting after recounting her showdown with Ethan Prince.

  “What’s that look?” Jessica asked.

  “Oh…” Al shrugged with his eyes. Took shallow breaths, taking his words in small doses. “I was going to… deliver this speech… about what journalism used to be like… used to mean… what a joke I’ve become…”

  “Sir, I don’t think –”

  “But I’ve got something better…” He lifted a few fingers and wrapped them around Jessica’s hand. “You saved my life, Jessica.”

  “That college recommendation ain’t going to write itself, sir.”

  “Oh, you… you can joke all you want… but thems the facts… the only reason I’m alive is because of you… you’re one of the best people… I’ve ever had the honor to work with.”

  Jessica glanced up at the local news on the television. “I’m not much of a best person, sir.”

  “Stop.”

  “This whole summer, it’s just been… one step forward, two steps back. There’s days, these days… I swear I can feel myself slipping away from my own body. You know?”

  “A teenager with an identity crisis… Stop the presses.”

  Jessica smiled.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he said.

  “You can’t deliver on a promise like that.”

  “I’ll show you what I can… Deliver.” He moved his eyes towards the coat rack. “Get me my phone, would you…? Front pocket… got to turn it on.”

  Jessica did as she was told, a little worried about possible effects this might have on the equipment.

  “Dial star-four.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ethan’s office.”

  “Yeah, you might want to try calling your own.”

  “That shifty bastard…” Al wheezed shallowly. “Dial star-seven.”

  Jessica punched it in.

  “Let’s get this on speaker, shall we?”

  Jessica held the phone to the air holes in Al’s mask. When Ethan finally picked up, voice at an obnoxiously professional register.

  “Ethan…” Al put on a few pounds of authority himself, voice deep and foreboding. “This is Al Holder.”

  “Al?” Ethan’s voice went up an octave. “What’s going on? Where are you calling from?”

  “Take a wild fucking guess.”

  A few seconds of silence passed before Ethan responded. “Is she there?”

  “Yeah, she is… And you are officially suspended for two weeks.”

  “Wait, Al –”

  “Nobody talks to my staff that way,” Al growled, steamrolling right over him. “You get tomorrow’s edition wrapped up. Then go home. And you stay there.”

  “I will call Williamson, Al…” Ethan was trying to play the threat card himself, fighting back through clenched teeth. “I’ am not kidding, I will call the president –”

  “What a coincidence… I’m just about to call him myself.”

  “Are you listening, Jessica?” Ethan yelled, white-hot fury distorting the transmission. “I hope you are, because I am done playing around! I will get you for this, I will fucking destroy you, you bit
ch!”

  Al tapped Jessica with his thumb. “You can hang up now.”

  Jessica was happy to comply.

  They repeated the process once more, only this time there was no doubt Ethan wouldn’t be calling the shots for a very long time. Al’s talk with the Observer’s president was brief. Calling from the hospital was an inadvertent stroke of genius, underscoring just how important Al regarded his decision.

  When it was over, he nodded weakly. “There you go.”

  “Thanks Al.”

  “Williamson’s going to be… covering things for a bit… Finish up your editorial… have it for him day after tomorrow.”

  “Thanks again…” Jessica grabbed his hand. “You want me to stay a while?”

  Al shook his head. “They’re going to… prep me in… a few hours.”

  “Is the procedure complicated?”

  “Not like it’s brain surgery or anything.”

  Jessica smiled weakly. “I’ll be waiting when you come out the other side.”

  Al’s eyes fluttered. Spiraling towards sleep before catching a sudden updraft. “Hey.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Good call on that… card game… they know who Charlie Savage’s killer is.”

  Jessica came close to uttering Malik’s name. “Who?”

  “Some punk… Small fish… Still looking for him… Got his gun matched with ballistics.”

  She sighed, relieved as she dared to be. “Just another Angry Jonny wannabe.”

  “Maybe… maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was some blood… blood on the butt of the gun… they checked it out… Not Casey’s.”

  Jessica felt one of Al’s knuckles crack as she clenched her hand.

  Al didn’t notice, eyes closing once more. “Test matches… the DNA… unknown DNA they found… they found on the third… on the third… Angry Jonny victim… Dr. Lazenby.”

  With that final herculean effort, Al slipped away.

  Jessica let go of his hand.

  She bent over. Put her lips next to his ear, because she had to tell someone, if only whispered in a dream. “That DNA belongs to Eli Messner. Eli Messner with a question mark…”

  She kissed his forehead and whispered one last time:

  Thank you.

  Chapter 59: I’m Your Boogie Man.

  Jessica set up shop at the corner table.

  She leafed through Eli’s file, periodically scanning the pool hall for all the usual suspects. And then some. No signs of Chaucer, Eli, or Malik; didn’t mean she wasn’t being watched. She took a sip of orange soda, playing make-believe as she fought the urge to leap behind the bar and take down an entire six-pack.

  Contented herself with the amusing image, and hit reset.

  Eli’s folder was anemic as the man’s body. Just a handful of documents, some Xeroxed yearbook pictures. Only scant notes from Mr. Chaucer Braswell; it appeared Easy Rawlins wasn’t all that without Jessica Kincaid doing his homework for him.

  Most of the information panned out. Went to Wilson Middle School in Tampa, Florida. Made it to seventh grade, after which he was homeschooled by his mother and father. Trevor and Sally Messner, both of whom died in a car accident, just as Eli had told her. After that, the trail went cold.

  Stood to reason. Eli had spent the rest of his life with no paper trail. Earning his keep in the underground card rooms. Crashing with friends, no lease. No bank accounts, no credit cards. Most recently there had been the renewal of his driver’s license in June of 2008.

  No living relatives.

  How could Chaucer have simply missed the grandparents in Brooklyn?

  Eli had ditched them at nineteen; could be they had since died.

  The alternative explanation was almost too colossal for Jessica to comprehend.

  From across the smoky room someone called out: “Hey, Casper! Is the jukebox broken?”

  “Nah, son!” Casper yelled back with his traditional reply. “Just needs some money!”

  One minute later, KC and the Sunshine Band were singing I’m Your Boogie Man.

  Jessica flipped back to Chaucer’s one and only page of notes.

  Slid her finger down past the bulk, and found an isolated clue in the bottom right corner.

  Written out in uppercase block letters was a word Jessica was confident the Oxford English Dictionary did not list: SLEHLAIDDMCMLMS!

  Next to that, scrawled out in Chaucer’s typical chicken scratch, was a two-word question: driver’s license?

  Jessica backtracked, searching the yearbook pages for clubs and activities; a section familiar to those who knew it was never too early to start padding out a college résumé. Near the top of the page, she found a group picture labeled Defending Life. There was Eli – or a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed facsimile – surrounded by similarly earnest teens. Each of them wearing shirts with the letters HLA printed across them. The faded copy made it hard to say for certain, but the stripes stretched across their shirts hinted at the red, white and blue.

  Jessica was familiar with the HLA acronym.

  Human Life Amendment; a broad category for any proposed constitutional amendment that would effectively outlaw abortion. The only law that had ever come close to passing was the Hatch-Eagleton amendment in1983, which had come up short eighteen votes for passage.

  What she had failed to notice the first time around was the club at the bottom of the page.

  There was Eli again. Standing in line with four other kids. Broad grins forming a bright, fluoride chain. The rest of them were all sporting white shirts with differing letters printed in bold capitals.

  CML, IDDM, SLE, MS.

  And smack in the middle was Eli, sporting the same Human Life Amendment shirt.

  Underneath the club was what might be charitably called their name:

  SLEHLAIDDMCMLMS!

  Jumble to jumble. The name of their club was clearly an amalgamation of their t-shirts, including HLA.

  “Still, what the hell?” Jessica asked.

  She zeroed in on CML. Along with Eli and his star-spangled shirt, this kid also stood out from the rest. Shirt hanging from his skeletal frame. Head balder than a baby’s. Happy-go-lucky smile contrasting sharply with worn eyes, dark circles that bore a striking resemblance to someone Jessica had recently met.

  A cancer stricken woman by the name of Anita Montero.

  Jessica stuffed the file back into Dinah’s bag, yearbook page clenched in her fist. Stood up a little too fast. Bumping the table with enough force to send her soda rolling down the table. She was already at the bar by the time it shattered on the floor.

  Casper gave her the eye. “That’s it. You’re officially cut off, gosh-dammit.”

  “I’m not giving you my keys…” Jessica perched herself on a barstool and leaned over. “This might sound strange, but… is there a doctor in the house?”

  “You OK?”

  “Sudden attack of curious.”

  Casper nodded. Hands cupped around his mouth, he called out across the bar: “Keisha, get over here!”

  From over near the jukebox, a six-foot knockout cat walked across the room. Dark skin glowing, frizzy hair pulled back. Limber legs, arms swaying gracefully; a magnet for the eyes of men and more than a few women.

  Even Jessica had to grip the counter to keep from falling into her enormous, mahogany eyes.

  “You rang?” she asked.

  Casper nodded. “This here is Jessica Kincaid, and she’s got a bad case of the snoops.”

  “Hey there, little sister…” Keisha smiled warmly, holding out her hand. “Keisha Jennings.”

  They met with a firm shake. “Jessica Kincaid.”

  “KJ and JK. How about that?”

  “Not a bad Hold ‘Em hand, either way.”

  Keisha laughed. “OK. You got a sense of humor. And a question, I gather?”

  “You a doctor?”

  “Gonna be, baby.”

  “So if I can j
ust quiz you then…” Jessica swallowed her girl-crush and unfolded the page from Eli’s yearbook. “What does the abbreviation CML mean to you?”

  “Not much for small talk, are you?”

  “Word is, I got a case of the snoops.”

  “CML is short for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. It’s a chronic form of myeloid or nonlymphocytic leukemia…” She threw her hands up in the air. “What’s up!?”

  Casper slapped her a high five.

  Jessica tried to smile. Didn’t like where this was going. “How about IDDM?”

  “Diabetes Mellitus, type one. Otherwise known as type-one diabetes. AKA juvenile diabetes.”

  “SLE?”

  “Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Or just plain Lupus. Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty.”

  “Speaking of things I get…” Jessica went down the list. “I’m guessing MS is short for Multiple Sclerosis.”

  “Aw…” Keisha stroked Jessica’s cheek. “You watch TV. How cute.”

  “No, but I play one in real life. What have you got for HLA?”

  “Human Leukocyte Antigen…” Keisha grinned, waving her finger in Jessica’s face. “Nice try with the trick question.”

  “Now talk to me as though I were your goldfish.”

  “HLA’s not a chronic disease. It does, however cause a cell-mediated immune response against the body’s own liver, resulting in autoimmune hepatitis.”

  Jessica could only imagine how pleased the young Eli Messner must have been to find his condition and political statement were a perfect match.

  Perfect for his tiny, Junior High club of chronically ill children.

  “So it all comes back to the liver?” Jessica asked.

  “Not a very happy liver. With proper treatment – glucocoticoids, maybe combined with azathiorpine - autoimmune hepatitis can go into remission. Though relapses abound. You could go with other immuno-suppressives like cyclosporine, methotrexate…”

  Jessica couldn’t decide whether to catch Keisha’s infectious smile or simply shut down, right there. “So how wise would it be for someone with autoimmune hepatitis to regularly consume alcohol?”

  “How regularly we talking, little sister?”

  “Regular enough to qualify as a serious irregularity.”

  “Barring a liver transplant, anybody who drinks that much juice ain’t going to last long on this planet.”

  She wasn’t sure if Keisha caught the artificial undertones in Jessica’s laughter.

  Casper seemed to be enjoying himself just fine.

  All the while, the question mark on Braswell’s file continued to grow.

  Finally eclipsing the good name of Eli Messner.