Desperate By Dusk

by Alexander Salkin

  It continued like this for some time before they seemed to just give up and drive off together to that third gate, pausing briefly, probably to lock it behind them. Simon sat quietly on the rain swept roof. Weren’t there five cars at some point, not four? He knew he messed up the initial count of these black clothed men, but still. In hindsight, he realized he heard a crash earlier. Maybe something happened to one, but he wasn’t sure where it was.

  In any event, it seemed to be over at last. Simon climbed down from his perch and cautiously made his way to the fence, taking his time in case some of them were on foot still. However, his heart almost stopped when a meaty hand grabbed him by the scruff and slammed him against a wooden wall.

  "You think you’re re- uh... Simon?!" It was a voice that meant business but quickly descended into confusion. It was nice to see there was a different sort of ‘man in black‘ waiting in the wings. With a soaking wet tire iron raised in the other hand. Ramone immediately released a now thankful to be breathing Simon and lowered his closed fist with the automotive tool in it. "Thank god you’re alright, man! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! C’mon, I got Jessie waiting down by the car for us. Let’s get out of here before those nutters come back." Simon almost vomited up his heart out of delayed terror. Or so it felt.

  "It’s good to see you, too. You guys okay?" he said with a hoarse cough. The two hustled back to the Fairlane, ducking under the fence.

  "Yeah, we’re fine. Jess’ kind of shook up. I think he might’ve hurt one of them," Ramone told his friend. "Not that I blame him. I don’t think he’s been in a fight for a long time. Or, that he’s ever won any of them. You know? If anything, though, I’m glad tonight was the night of all nights he came out slugging, so to speak."

  Simon nodded in agreement. "By the way? Thanks for coming back for me."

  ‘‘Ahh, it’s nothing, man. You’d do the same for me and Jessie, I’m sure. I wasn’t just going to leave you there to hang. Once I saw you guys weren’t at the car, what else could I do, y’know?" Ramone slapped him hard on the back. "Let’s roll out of here. This was probably one of the most stupid things we ever tried to check out. Heh. Oh Man… you remember that time with Farmer Anton chasing us with the pitchfork tied to a shotgun? Coz he thought we were checking out his daughter at night?"

  Simon started to disintensify, although he still shook. Ramone could have that effect. "Heh, I do actually. How could anyone forget? Jessie thought the place had gone fallow and Farmer Anton foreclosed on the place so Jess had us looking for... what was it? Talking scarecrows or something?"

  "No, it was 'lucky crickets'. Oh, that was a great one."

  "Lucky crickets! That’s right. We joked we should make a band named that. The Lucky Cricket Experience featuring Jessie Aberdeen."

  "Now it’s comin‘ back to ya! Yeah, it was something about ol' Anton having a sudden cash crop where he sells three thousand dollars worth of corn in a single day to some bennies from out of state forced to make a larger detour past his stand. I mean, come on. Lucky crickets? Where’s that boy find these things? And how convenient was it that he was suddenly all sick that day?"

  "Hey. Did you mean it when you said I’d come back if you guys were in trouble?" Simon asked, sobering after a moment of shared nostalgia.

  "Well... yeah. Wouldn’t you?"

  "I’d like to think so."

  "Then where’s the problem? Gods, man! You two worry too much. Leave it to Jessie to mull over if the sky is falling, Simon. You’re a better sort because you're easy going."

  Simon let the conversation fade as they hastily approached the Ford Fairlane. He muttered something non-committal under his voice as they saw Jessie sitting in the back seat. For his part, Simon was more than content to get out of the rain again. The cold and damp was catching up where the excitement of the night was coming to a close.

  "Okay, happy campers," Ramone grinned, somewhat forced. "Let’s get the fuck out of Dodge. I’m sick of this place."

  "Here, here," Simon seconded with his fading energy. He leaned back in his seat tiredly, beginning to wonder what happened with Jessie.

  "So, where to? It’s only about one and a half in the morning. C’mon, we got so many options. Waffles? Chicken and waffles? The Greasy Spoon on Main Street? I hear they got waffles there. You know. For a change."

  "Ramone, get us out of town," Jessie said with no humor in his low voice made scratchy by the rain.

  Simon could just feel the mood drop in the car as Ramone fired it onto the road after a bit of a kick from gathering traction. "Any reason...?" Ramone asked innocently.

  "You didn’t hear me before. Or you weren’t listening-"

  Ramone tried to chuckle. "What, you mean that fight you got into...? Bah, that’s nothing-"

  Jessie shot up in his seat with a look of frustrated anger in his eyes. "No, you don’t get it. I didn’t get into a goddamned fight, Ramone. I got some asshole killed. Okay? He’s dead. There’s some... guy, for lack of a better word, sitting with his head burst like a fucking melon in his Lincoln in an old military base waiting for scavenging animals and forensics to go claim his carcass. I killed him. With a fucking flashlight! He got... he got blinded and drove into a building. I didn’t m-mean... for him to die or anything. But he kept coming after me... what was I supposed to do? I’m not fast like you two. I can’t even go faster on this bum knee, if my life depended on it. Because it did." Jessie slumped and hung his head down.

  The car was silent for a minute. Jessie shook his head. "He had sunglasses on and everything. It shouldn't have worked and it was a complete crapshoot... I couldn't think of anything else to do. It... should not have worked. Not that well." He sounded exasperated.

  "Well..." Ramone started slowly, finally losing the undesired happy-go-lucky tone. "Maybe you did what you had to do. I heard gunshots at one point. Jessie, those guys weren’t playing around. Maybe it’s true; we really shouldn’t have been there. They definitely did not want to be found. But is a man really all that innocent if he just starts shooting at you out of the blue?"

  Jessie groaned but he didn’t contradict Ramone outright on that one. "I heard some shots too, but the guy only drew his, I later found out. He never actually shot anything. I just wanted to make him stop. I didn’t want him to die... especially not horribly."

  "Uh, not to discount anything you've said, but I can confirm it was me they were shooting at. For the record," Simon entered. "Look, I understand what you’re saying, though. Not too many people really want to have that on their hands. Maybe not even some mafioso types. What can you do, though? Those were people who weren’t going to listen to apologies. We got in the middle of something we weren’t supposed to- but they acted more than unreasonably about it, I’d think. You’re allowed to defend yourself."

  "Y-yeah... you’re probably both right. But, that’s the thing. I don’t know what I killed."

  "What do you mean, Jess?" Ramone asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

  "He had two left feet. Literally. With mismatching shoes, just like the prints we found. Like, a boot or a sneaker, I think? And a dancing shoe. What kind of federal agent does that? Shoot. What mobster does that?"

  No one had an answer.

  "Wha-? Jess, you sure about-?"

  Immediately, Jessie pulled out his cell phone and showed the two a picture of the man’s feet, proving exactly what Jessie said.

  "Well, I’ll be damned. Look at that!" Ramone said with surprise, craning his neck while waiting at a light. "They were all doing that with their tracks to some degree, weren’t they? Who do you think they were? Those Men In Black people you talked about?"

  Jessie shook his head. "Truthfully, I don’t know. It’s possible- they superficially looked like they could have been MIB’s, I guess. Supposedly they're aliens, but it’s hard to say anything concrete. But I’ve never heard rumors of MIBs with impractical footwear fashion issues. That would be something pointlessly distinctive, something MIBs generally don’t want descri
bing them. And unfortunately, his head was just a splattered glob of paste. Egh... I couldn’t even figure out where anything was originally. But... that’s not all."

  "There’s more?" Simon asked, turning in his seat.

  Jessie passed him the looted suitcase that was resting at his feet.

  "I haven’t opened it. Does it answer your question, Simon? Because it makes a lot more for me and I’m too shaken to open the thing, frankly."

  Another moment of quiet settled over the car.

  "Out of town for dinner tonight, it is." Ramone said matter-of-factly. Not a further word was said.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was twenty silent minutes later when Ramone pulled the Fairlane up to Shirley’s Shire in Heiowah. It was a non-franchised trucker’s stop with the usual mirror reflective chrome siding, and all of it was part of the increasingly irrelevant interstate to this area. No one really had business in this part of Jersey anymore. Too boonie for most people in the modern day. It was mainly visited by grizzled old men in baseball caps dropping off trailers for grocery chains. Even a backwater town like Dresden Port still had one of those.

  The Shire, so named for resting upon a fairly modest hill with secretly spray painted green grass, was probably a bigger thing back in the fifties. Less competition and the changing of the times in this poke had directed lateral traffic more towards Pennsylvania. Probably. Now, it was just some place with a light on at night and a mere three calendars on the wall, where the wait staff that didn’t ask too many questions beyond if you wanted tea and cobbler with that yankee pot roast.

  Rain had slowed to a negligible drizzle by the time the boys, with their rain slicks stored in the trunk, wearily made their way into the diner after a short flight of chipped concrete stairs. Ramone remembered being a far younger tater tot of a boy with his now retired father when he first came here. The flowery imprints that were once so rose toned had weathered to a bland grey and yellow, like some faded color TV set. One could tell there was a color once, at least.

  The diner was neither full, nor empty. It was a modest after hours crowd, the best the Shire could have hoped for. Random elements like the three wet-behind-the-ears who just walked in, probably from some New York City club, were the IV drip keeping this place alive through the weekends. The original clientele of working men and smiling families in nice suits on their way to some denomination of a church were gobbled up with the times. So was the Camel cigarette machine with the pull action levers. It stood with rusted internals and a sign asking others not to touch it, as it hadn't been stocked in ages due to changed legalities with cigarette sales in the Garden State.

  They set down as a semi-disinterested waitress in her fifties with tired heels dropped off three menus plus a copied piece of paper for ‘specials‘. The younger ones like these bucks ordered from the specials menu maybe five percent of the time. Estelle had to put it out anyway. The boys went with hot coffee. One could never have too much at their age.

  After settling in and enjoying a warm light again like they hadn’t done properly in several hours, they sat there with the strain of a difficult night setting in. Ramone slumped back in his booth seat next to Jessie. The swarthy man in the leather jacket lazily eyed the chicken wraps. He grimaced, running his hand through frizzed up long hair, no thanks to the rain and moisture in the air. Jessie brought the damn suitcase with him, tucking it between his lap and table. He was perhaps the most interested in what the Shire had to offer, either from hunger or a need to stress eat. Simon tried to study the menu but his attention span was wandering back to earlier. Here he sat in a post midnight diner with friends trying to decide whether or not to get coleslaw with his turkey burger, when just recently he was getting shot at multiple times, which couldn't have been more than an hour ago. Somehow, the story he lived through seemed less believable now that he sat down in the diner. It felt surreal. Wasn't he just some guy who delivered circulars?

  Estelle, with her thick glasses on a chain and curled grey hair worn neatly, made her way back to the boys. Ramone got the poultry wrap and fries. Simon got a well done burger but forgot to ask for no coleslaw (he hated the stuff). Jessie ordered the Tilapia Special. Estelle politely stifled a reaction and took the menus back to get underway. Back in the kitchen, she marked a notch on a chalkboard for the week, giving one of the cooks a cheap laugh when he glanced up from a soup pot at the right time. Five percent, the old formula didn’t lie.

  "People might think we’re drug runners with that suitcase you’re concealing. Stupid drug runners," Ramona said quietly.

  "You’d rather I’d left this thing in the car? Do you believe they aren’t looking for us?" Jessie hissed.

  "Well... seeing as they just gave up for whatever reason, no, I don’t think they’re looking for us. They never saw the car crash as far as it sounds. And they were able to follow me around like a damn magnet. If they wanted after us, I’d think they could find us. Look, I’m not going to try and make sense of what happened tonight. We’re very amateur hour about this. We had our thrill, we go home. That’s how it usually works. You got your souvenir for your forum. If you’re not going to show us what’s in it, then let’s just drop the matter."

  Jessie was beet red. He didn’t like the insinuation that he simply couldn’t open the suitcase. Or that it was his alone. Ramone often overstated how involved Jessie was with the conspiracy groups online. But before he could speak in defense or to make an excuse, Simon leaned forward.

  "Actually, I wanted to say the same thing. About them following. It wasn’t just you? I swore those guys were practically homing in on me until I got on the roofs. They were shooting before that but once I was up there, they seemed almost blind suddenly. I watched them aim at random places... roofs I hadn’t even tried to go to."

  "They were coordinated and organized?" Jessie pondered. He thought similarly, but he hadn't expected to hear those very sentiments from anyone else.

  "Until I got above them. That’s when I noticed they eventually gave up and drove off."

  "Hang on a second- Simon, did you actually see them check the wreck where Jessie was?" Ramone interjected.

  "No. All I know is four cars drove off. I had no idea at the time about what happened with the fifth guy’s car. Although I think I heard it smack in the background before I went to the roof."

  "Okay," Ramone began. "So, I don’t get how many there really were, but do we know that this was even the suitcase they were futzing around with? Is it possible it was just some other guy’s suitcase? They were in suits so what's to say they didn't have more than one? We never noticed when we walked onto the scene. And maybe they simply left the dead guy and all, while they didn’t know something happened to him? Or, who knows, they might've had some actual reason for leaving him. Maybe that case doesn't contain anything important, nor was it the one- it might be wet, but Jessie said the roof collapsed on the car. It's possible some rain got onto it that way."

  Jessie and Simon blinked. It was hard to say what the truth was. But Ramone made some good arguments about the case. "I mean, sure, I suppose you have a point. Maybe this suitcase isn’t anything special after all," Jessie considered. "Still, there’s something in it, I can feel the weight."

  "Can I point out that I’m still curious as all hell as to what’s in there?" Simon asked, with a pointed motion of his finger. "That is to say, is there anything stopping us from having a peek? This whole thing is weirding me out."

  Jessie stared at the case, considering what was inside. He was still shaken from previous events, but what was so intimidating about a briefcase? It was more the bizarre and yet monotonous exchanging they were doing that stuck with him."Well... sure, why not? Somehow it doesn’t seem as strange to me suddenly. Proud day of my life. Scared by someone’s leather carrying case," Jessie said with an uneasy grin as he came to terms with the container's origin. "Sure, let’s pop the damn thing open already."

  "That’s a good man. Who knows, maybe there’s something cool inside.
Shoot, we got time before food arrives. Like you said, crack it open!" encouraged Ramone.

  "All right, all right. Here goes."

  The three friends leaned in as the wet case was put on the table. It looked a little used, but in good shape. The locks were just suggestions in the form of two childishly simple closed latches on either side. Jessie flipped them open and opened the case for all of them to see.

  The inside was composed of a faux cream colored satin lining with mattress-like stitching. Quite tacky, really. There were several places to hold writing utensils plus some sleeves for paper. Disappointingly, there was nothing obvious inside except for an unused #2 Ticonderoga pencil and a lined legal notepad, quite visibly blank.