Head Case

by Michael Wiley

  At 11:30, he listened to the news on the radio. There was no mention of a night of unexplained gunfire on the northwest side of the city. The weather would continue cold, cold, and colder.

  Kelson used his phone to search online for any mention of the shooting. He found none.

  He checked the weather. Still cold and colder.

  He watched the entrance to Kiko’s.

  Strangers came and left.

  At 11:55, Caroline Difley, wearing her camelhair coat and a pair of brown leather boots, walked down the sidewalk and went into the restaurant.

  Kelson looked at himself in the rearview mirror. ‘One should never be careful in love?’ He considered Frida. She’d never responded to his text from the back of the police cruiser. He considered his phone, as if Frida lived inside it. He brought up the string of text messages he’d exchanged with her. He typed, Hey …

  He almost missed Kovacic crossing the street and disappearing into Kiko’s.

  He brushed his fingertips over the grip of his KelTec, got out of the car, and jogged across the street. He caught his breath and pushed through the door into the restaurant.

  Kovacic and Caroline Difley sat in the same green booth where they’d sat on the day she introduced him to Kelson. They weren’t holding hands yet, but they were smiling at each other in a way that said they would be soon.

  Kelson slid on to the bench next to Caroline Difley.

  She and Kovacic looked startled, but Kovacic gave Kelson a shy smile. ‘I followed your advice. I admitted my feelings to Caroline. Thank you.’

  Kelson drew the pistol from his belt. He flashed it at Kovacic, then lowered it under the tabletop and aimed it at the man’s belly. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, OK?’

  Caroline Difley made a squeaking noise.

  Kovacic said, ‘Please, Caroline, it’s all right.’ An Eastern European accent tinged his voice again. He stared, unblinking, at Kelson. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Tell me what happened in the alley across the street last night. Tell me where DeMarcus Rodman and Marty LeCoeur are.’

  ‘Alex?’ Caroline Difley said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caroline.’ Kovacic held his eyes on Kelson, as if looking for a signal whether Kelson meant to shoot him. ‘Maybe we can talk in another place.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere until I get answers,’ Kelson said, ‘and neither are you.’

  ‘I can take you to Rodman and LeCoeur.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Come,’ he said, standing. ‘Nothing about you scares me.’

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Kelson drove with Kovacic beside him and Caroline Difley in the back seat.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caroline,’ Kovacic said again. ‘I lied to you.’

  She pulled her coat close around her. ‘The old lies, or new ones?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You know why – what would you think of me?’

  ‘Don’t get carried away with that, Romeo,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ Caroline said. ‘All of it. Now.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Kovacic said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would be unsafe – for you.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Kelson said under his breath.

  ‘I can’t be with you unless I know who you are,’ Caroline said.

  ‘I can’t …’ Kovacic said.

  ‘Let me out,’ she said to Kelson.

  Kelson slowed, pulled to the curb.

  Before she could climb out, Kovacic said, ‘When I was a senior in high school, I did a project on Bosnia. I became obsessed with the war – the rapes, the killings. My mom and dad came from there, and I grew up with stories about it before the war. My mom’s parents and sisters still lived in Vitez. Later, her mom and dad – my baka and deda – died, and one of her sisters disappeared – just disappeared. After I finished the project, I couldn’t get Bosnia out of my head. I started college, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I spent all my time trying to find out what was happening in the war. I wanted to be part of it, you know? The fighting. Nothing else mattered. I left school and went to Bosnia.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Kelson said.

  ‘I went to Bosnia,’ Kovacic said again. ‘My cousins were there. My uncle was a captain. I joined them.’

  ‘I’d get out, if I were you,’ Kelson told Caroline Difley.

  So Kovacic unbuttoned his shirt.

  ‘What are you doing, Sugar Shack?’ Kelson said.

  Kovacic peeled off the shirt. Over his right nipple he had a tattoo of a ringed cross with three pine-like branches sticking from the top. Over his left nipple he had a tattoo of a three-striped flag. Extending from the base of his left shoulder to his elbow, he had the rips and divots of a terrible scar.

  He touched the scar. ‘Like you,’ he said to Kelson, ‘I was shot. Like you, I lived. I spent a year in my uncle’s house, recovering.’ He turned to Caroline. ‘If you want to know all of the truth, during that year, I fell in love. She fell in love with me too. I planned to stay. Then they killed her. They killed the girl I loved.’

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said.

  ‘I came home – if you can call this home. That’s the truth.’

  Caroline said, ‘If it is, why wouldn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘I broke the law by fighting. I would’ve been arrested when I came back if anyone knew what I did.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Why lie about it now?’

  Kovacic tilted his head back, exposing his chin to her, as if her question poked a painful part of him and he was readying himself for another blow. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You should go.’

  She gazed at him. ‘Uh-uh.’ She slid to the middle of the back seat. ‘Tell me.’

  Kovacic shook his head.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  Kovacic put back on his shirt. He did the buttons. He screwed his mouth. He put his hand on the door handle as if he would get out and force Caroline Difley out too.

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  Kovacic let go. He sighed as if breathing tore at his insides. ‘Terrible things were done to my family – my grandparents, my aunt, the girl I wanted to marry. So I did terrible things too. That’s the truth. I was at the Ahmići massacre – you can look it up. After the war, I came home. But the things I did don’t go away. There are still people in Bosnia who would kill me for what I did – families who want revenge for their sisters and brothers the way I wanted revenge for the people I loved.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Caroline Difley said. She sounded more sympathetic than disturbed by the confession.

  ‘No,’ Kovacic said. ‘Some things, no. I was a soldier, but in Bosnia there was no innocence in that.’

  ‘How the hell do DeMarcus and Marty tie in?’ Kelson said.

  Kovacic sighed. ‘Last night, I ate dinner at Kiko’s. When I left and was crossing the street, someone started shooting at me. I couldn’t see the shooter. I ran into the alley and hid.’

  ‘What about DeMarcus and Marty?’

  ‘I knew for a long time this might happen,’ Kovacic said. ‘Someone would come for me, or someone would hire a killer. The shooter fired at me five or six times from a car. I had my revolver’ – he glanced uneasily at Caroline Difley – ‘so I shot back once, and then I hid in the alley. The first lesson I learned in Bosnia was to never leave a hiding spot if a sniper stops shooting. I hid a few minutes, and then Rodman and LeCoeur walked into the alley. I thought they must be the ones who shot at me from the car. They were careless – the little one was on his phone. Foolish.’

  ‘No one gets the better of them,’ Kelson said.

  ‘I shot the big one in the leg,’ Kovacic said.

  Kelson jabbed the KelTec at him. ‘You shot DeMarcus?’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Kovacic said. ‘Some blood. But he’s got a lot of blood in him.’

  ‘If he isn’t OK, I’ll kill you,’ Kelson said.

  Kovacic shook
his head at him. ‘You’re as foolish as they are.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘A friend of mine is watching them at my apartment. You understand, I needed to talk to them – to find out what they were doing. The little one just kept telling me to fuck myself. I had to gag him.’

  ‘Why were they even in the alley?’

  ‘The big one – Rodman – said they were following someone – he wouldn’t say who. He said they were circling the neighborhood and heard the gunshots. They saw casings on the street. That’s all he would say and it sounded like a lie. I needed to figure out who they were.’

  ‘And then you thought you’d just slip out for a date?’

  Kovacic gazed at him coolly. ‘I needed to act as if everything was normal in case anyone was watching. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Also, I really wanted to see Caroline.’

  ‘Take me to them,’ Kelson said.

  Kovacic turned to Caroline. ‘You can get out now – if you want.’

  She had tears in her eyes, but she shook her head and sank deep into the back seat.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Kovacic’s friend – a thick-necked man with a graying buzz cut – was watching a soccer game on TV when Kovacic, Kelson, and Caroline walked in. He’d positioned his chair so he could also keep an eye on Rodman and Marty, who sat on an old brown fabric couch. Duct tape bound their ankles. Marty was gagged with a cloth and more tape. Rodman, stripped of his pants, wore red boxers and, over his right thigh, a section of gauze was wrapped to his leg with medical tape. His wrists were tied behind his back. Marty’s one hand was cuffed to a bike cable extending from a radiator. The room was hot and smelled of sweat and stale cigarette smoke. Venetian blinds hung over the windows.

  When Kovacic’s friend saw Kelson and Caroline, he leaped from the chair and aimed a black revolver at Kelson’s chest.

  Kelson pointed his KelTec back at the man.

  ‘It’s OK, Tomo,’ Kovacic said.

  Tomo lowered the revolver.

  But Kelson held his own gun steady. ‘Put it all the way down.’

  A faint smile formed on Tomo’s lips and he raised the gun again.

  ‘Ne, Tomo.’ Kovacic spoke some more in another language – calming the other man or strategizing with him, Kelson didn’t know which.

  Still smiling, Tomo sat again and set the revolver on the floor.

  ‘How quick could he snap that up?’ Kelson asked Kovacic.

  ‘You wouldn’t even see it. But that’s as much of a compromise as you’ll get.’

  Kelson smiled at Tomo too and tucked the KelTec in his belt. Then he turned to his friends, frowning at the patch on Rodman’s leg where Kovacic shot him.

  ‘How’s tricks?’ Rodman said.

  ‘Cindi’s worried.’

  ‘She gets worked up about little things.’

  ‘How bad is it?’ He kept his fingers near the butt of the KelTec.

  ‘Blood and muscle. No bone. I can walk.’

  Kelson glanced at Kovacic and Tomo. Then he ripped the tape from Marty’s mouth and pulled out the rag.

  Marty spat – tried to speak – choked.

  ‘Water?’ Kelson asked.

  Kovacic went into the kitchen and returned with a cup.

  Marty sipped – spat again – choked – drank more – tried to speak. He rasped: ‘I fucking hate soccer. Ten fucking hours. D’you know there’s a Fox fucking Soccer Plus channel? Soccer twenty-four fucking hours a day – except, get this, when they have fucking rugby. I’m going to go home and kick a fucking hole in my TV.’

  Kovacic said, ‘Who’s winning?’

  Marty jerked his taped-up legs. ‘Unhook me and I’ll cram the TV down your fucking throat.’ He said to Kelson, ‘This guy shot DeMarcus. And then, you know what they made me eat? Goulash.’

  ‘No one makes you eat,’ Tomo said, sullen.

  ‘If I didn’t want to fucking starve.’

  Kovacic said, ‘Will you please put the gag back on?’

  ‘Marty, shut up,’ Kelson said.

  Marty turned his fire to him. ‘Don’t ever—’

  ‘Be quiet, Marty,’ Rodman said.

  Marty looked stung. ‘DeMarcus? No one talks to me like that.’

  ‘Yeah, but this isn’t the time. I’m kind of hurting.’

  ‘It’s whatever fucking time I say it is.’ But Rodman’s reprimand quieted him.

  Kelson stripped the tape from Rodman’s legs and untied his wrists.

  Kovacic and Tomo exchanged looks as Rodman stood up and tried his leg. ‘Thanks, man,’ he said to Kelson. ‘All this time I thought I was saving you from yourself, and you ride in on your little pony and rescue me.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ Marty said. ‘We wouldn’t be here to begin with except for him.’

  ‘You want to explain what happened?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Rodman said. ‘We were going after Scott Jacobson for you, and—’

  ‘You want to unhook me first?’ Marty said.

  ‘You promise to play nice?’ Rodman said.

  ‘I don’t promise a fucking thing.’

  Kelson tore the tape off Marty’s ankles anyway. He said to Kovacic, ‘Key?’

  Kovacic gave him the key to the handcuffs.

  ‘Was this a mistake?’ Tomo asked Kovacic.

  ‘They didn’t try to kill me,’ Kovacic said.

  ‘That’s what we fucking told you,’ Marty said.

  ‘But,’ Kovacic’s friend said, ‘we thought you are a fucking liar.’

  Which made Kovacic laugh.

  ‘Don’t fucking laugh at me,’ Marty said.

  ‘What happened?’ Kelson asked Rodman.

  ‘We caught up with Scott Jacobson at Clement Memorial,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what he was doing there. Visiting his dad or brother maybe. Or stealing drugs from the supply room. He drove from the hospital to your office building. He slowed long enough to check if there was light in the window. Maybe he still thought you’d keep your appointment. I don’t think he knew Marty and I were following him at this point. He drove to Club Richelieu and went inside. We figured we’d grab him and have a talk when he left, so we parked by his car and waited. Forty-five minutes later, he came out with Jeffrey Vargas – the guy who owns the place, right? They got into Vargas’s Porsche and took off. We took off after them, and now they knew we were following them. I mean it was a Porsche, and Vargas drives fast.’

  As Rodman told the story, Tomo got up and drifted over to Kovacic and Caroline Difley, leaving the revolver on the floor.

  ‘We followed the Porsche most of the way back to the hospital,’ Rodman said. ‘Then they seemed to change their mind – or maybe they got tired of us following them. They headed north. We thought they were going to your office again, and we let them get a little ahead, figuring we’d catch them when they got there. But then they cut over to Lincoln Avenue, and we lost them at a light. We were looking for them when we heard gunshots over by Kiko’s Restaurant. We figured it had to be Scott Jacobson – who else but your ceiling shooter would be blasting at the neighborhood on a freezing night? So we took a look. That’s when this guy’ – he meant Kovacic – ‘decided I’d look good as a peg leg.’

  Kovacic and Tomo were whispering to each other – heatedly. Then Kovacic went back to Tomo’s chair and picked up the revolver.

  Kelson fumbled with the KelTec.

  But Kovacic turned to Rodman. ‘Thank you. That’s what I needed to know. I’m very sorry about the misunderstanding.’

  ‘A misunderstanding is what you call shooting a guy in the fucking leg?’ Marty said.

  Kovacic took Caroline’s hands in his. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. He kissed her cheek. ‘Maybe – but not now.’ He walked out of the apartment.

  She looked stunned.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Marty said.

  FORTY-NINE

  At three o’clock that afternoon, Rodman and Marty met Kelson at his office.

  Rodman limped through the d
oor with a duffel bag on his shoulder. He had a gentle smile.

  ‘You’re a beast,’ Kelson said. ‘The Terminator. The Energizer Bunny. The—’

  Rodman set the bag on a client chair. ‘I grind my teeth every time I put weight on it.’

  ‘You should get it looked at,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Cindi took a peek. She says it’s as pretty and clean as anything she’s seen a doctor do.’

  ‘Did you tell her a janitor bandaged it?’

  ‘I told her it was a guy with field experience.’ He pulled a Walther semi-automatic from the duffel and laid it on the desk.

  While students in the neighboring classrooms learned Advanced Web Design and Adobe Photoshop, the three men set five other guns next to the semi-automatic.

  Kelson’s KelTec and Springfield XD-S.

  Rodman’s Beretta and snub-nose Colt.

  Marty’s ‘Dirty Harry’ .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson.

  ‘Might be a bit much for the circumstances,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Fuck if it is,’ Marty said. Inside his unzipped parka, he wore a bright-yellow bulletproof vest.

  ‘We can keep the big firepower in the trunk,’ Rodman said, ‘but what’s it hurt to have it with?’

  They stuffed the guns into their coats and rode the elevator to the lobby. Marty clambered into the back seat of Kelson’s Dodge Challenger, and Rodman eased into the front passenger seat. Twenty-five minutes later, they parked outside of Club Richelieu.

  The lights inside the club were bright and made the white furnishings look cheap and grimy. The air smelled of stale alcohol and bleach.

  The main room was empty except for Jeffrey Vargas, who sat on a white barstool at a white high-top table. He was dressed all in black and had a little glass of ice and whiskey.

  ‘It’s Johnny Cash,’ Kelson said.

  ‘More like fucking Hamlet,’ Marty said.

  ‘Sometimes you surprise me,’ Kelson said to Marty.

  ‘’Tis not alone my inky cloak nor customary suits of solemn black,’ Marty said, and pulled the Magnum from inside his parka. He pressed the barrel against Vargas’s head. ‘Give me the keys to your Porsche,’ he said, ‘and to your house.’