by B. K. Bass
Frank and I took a nearby elevator to the seventh floor, waiting out the trip in silence as we caught our breath. He was more winded than I was, but he didn’t take time to complain.
The elevator chimed as the doors slid open, and we walked out into the psych ward of the hospital. The walls were painted a powder blue that clashed with the glossy gray floor. A man sat behind a desk at the corner of two hallways.
“Room 763?” I asked, still holding my badge and gun. He pointed with a shaking hand to our left, and we took off down the sterile hallway. We passed a score of closed doors before we came to the one we were looking for.
I placed my hand on the knob and looked at Frank. He nodded silently, his weapon at the ready. I threw open the door and followed him inside.
There were four men in the room. Kristoff was lying in the bed, bound and gagged. Two brutes in jogging outfits stood near him. They each held an automatic rifle pointed directly at the door. The other man cut an imposing figure in what was surely an expensive suit. Gold ringed his neck, wrists, and fingers.
Boris.
The mob enforcer flashed a broad grin. “Well, nice of you two to join us. But you disappoint me. I expected to see you much sooner.”
Chapter Ten
After relieving us of our sidearms, Boris and his friends led us on a short walk down the hall to a service elevator. Once we reached the ground floor, they marched us through some suspiciously empty corridors. I knew we were in some of the less-used sections of the hospital once the light fixtures were flickering or dead around us. Soon we were in almost complete darkness. The two goons had Frank and me in tow, our hands bound behind us. Boris himself was leading Kristoff, who looked like he’d received another rough beating.
The corridors twisted, and the dilapidation grew. Tiles hung from the wall or were missing altogether. Abandoned wheelchairs and gurneys littered the hallway, covered in rust and cobwebs. We made our way down a stairwell so dusty we might have been the first to use it in years. The lower level was even more poorly maintained. Our feet splashed in shallow pools of water and broken pipes dripped rust-colored water on our heads.
Passing through some creaky doors, we entered a utility garage at the back of the building. There were open bays facing a shadowed alley lined with overflowing dumpsters. Between the piles of refuse was an unmarked box truck. Rats scurried away as we trudged through the litter-filled space.
“Well,” I said, “you guys couldn’t spring for the limo?”
A meaty hand cuffed the back of my head in response.
“Sons of bitches are gonna be sorry if you don’t let us go,” Frank said. The response he got from his escort was considerably less gentle than mine had been. He was bent over double and coughing with a fist in his stomach before I could even react.
“Boris,” I said, “you need to consider what you are doing here.”
“Oh? Really?” Boris said, turning around so quickly Kristoff was almost flung to the ground. “Who’s coming to look for you two rejects? Even in your own division, nobody likes you. You never called for backup. It’ll be days before anybody realizes you’re gone.”
“Not us,” Frank said, nodding towards Kristoff. “Him.”
“No worries there, friends. Young mister Tomlinson is in excellent hands, and the officials are aware.” Boris laughed and continued the trek towards the truck.
The goons tossed the three of us into the back. Chains and a lock rattled on the door. There was no way we were getting out until they wanted to let us out, and by then it would be too late. Boris mentioned the ‘officials’, so he must have had ties within the city, probably even in the police department, since he knew we didn’t call for backup. It made sense. Everybody knew he was a mob enforcer, but he was still roaming the streets.
“At least we have some quiet time with the boy,” Frank said as he struggled upright. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor of the truck as it lurched and began to move. It wasn’t traveling fast, so they had no worry about pursuit.
“You two fuckers are in big trouble now,” Kristoff spat.
The boy was about twenty years old and had the babyface and soft hands of a kid who never had to work a day in his life. He was still wearing only a hospital gown, but despite the indignity, he held himself with a pride born of always knowing wealth and power. His blonde hair was tousled and caked with sweat. Blood ran from a broken nose. Still, he had a pretentious way of carrying himself that made you want to shove a boot up his ass.
“Looks like we’re in the same boat, kid,” I said.
“I’m not a kid!” Kristoff yelled, spittle flying from his mouth.
Seemed like I found a sore spot. I could either press the advantage and try to break him, or play it soft and get on his good side. Considering our shared predicament, I decided on the soft approach.
“Fine. What kind of trouble are you in?”
“I ain’t telling you shit.”
Frank grunted, struggling with his own bonds. “Just wait until I get my hands free, you little punk.”
“Enough, Frank.” He wasn’t helping the situation at all. I needed the kid calm. “Listen, Kristoff. The way I see this, we’re all in the same boat now. Boris doesn’t have a reputation for being a gentle handler, so if he’s handling you now, you have some serious problems. You tell me what’s going on, and maybe we can figure a way out of this.
“Naw,” Kristoff said. “I’m good. Once they take care of you two, I’ll be back to mom’s mansion relaxing in the hot tub.”
“You are as stupid as you look, aren’t you?” Frank said.
Kristoff didn’t respond to that, but his expression said enough.
“Seriously,” I cut in, “you have to realize you’re not Boris’ guest. You’ve been beaten, tied up, and thrown into the back of a truck. Give me something to go on and maybe I can help. What does all of this have to do with the girl from Dreamworks? Why did they kill Evie?”
“You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?” Kristoff asked. “Well, it doesn’t matter. She’s gone, and nobody is going to miss her.” He didn’t sound convinced. In fact, his voice trembled when he spoke of her. So, there was a connection between the two of them. Maybe they had used her to get to him?
“You cared about her. Help me get justice for her. Tell me why they killed her.”
There was a hint of tears welling up in his eyes. He was fighting it, but I could tell he was struggling.
“It was my fault,” he said.
With that, the truck lurched to a sudden stop. We hadn’t gone far, but in the middle of the city, we could have ended up anywhere. The chains rattled on the doors before they swung open. Faint lighting outside of it barely dispelled the darkness in the back of the truck. We must have been in a warehouse or garage of some sort. High overhead, dim lights flickered. They were haphazardly spaced, probably just a remnant of the building’s original complement. The two thugs dragged us out, letting us fall to the bare concrete floor. I felt more than heard a loud crack as my skull struck the ground. My head swam, and bright white filled my vision before everything turned to darkness.
A LOUD RINGING FILLED my ears before I realized I was awake again. It was like the whine of a jet about to take off. I opened my eyes to find the source of the noise, but either I was in complete darkness or the blow to the head had robbed me of my sight. I blinked the stickiness from my eyes and tried to lift a hand to hasten the process, but they wouldn’t move. The noise subsided, and as coherent thought returned, I realized it was just a ringing in my ears.
I had a headache worse than what one would expect from sobering up after a seven-day bender. It felt like someone was squeezing my eyes in a vice, and that was with no light at all. I would have liked to see where I was, but the darkness was a blessing, considering the pounding in my head. I tried again to move my hands and realized they were tied down somehow. I was sitting upright, so probably tied to a chair. My legs were likewise bound.
“Frank?” I call
ed out in a horse whisper. The only reply was a soft moan. At least that was a sign he was still alive, if it was him.
Suddenly the lights came on, and a fresh wave of pain shot through my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut against the onslaught, then slowly opened them as they adjusted. Frank was there, facing me from six feet away and also tied to a chair. We were in a small utility room in what seemed likely to be the sewers beneath the city. It looked like nobody had been here in decades from the amount of grime and algae covering everything. Boris stood by a single doorway leading from the room, flanked by his two flunkies. Kristoff leaned against the wall, unbound, with a wry smile on his face.
“Looks like you were wrong,” the mayor’s son said. “It’s only you two that are fucked. I told you I had nothing to worry about.”
“Shut up,” Boris said.
Kristoff blanched, but had nothing smart to say. It was obvious who was in charge here.
“Boris,” I slurred through the haze of an obvious concussion, “you better think about what you’re doing. If you kill two cops, the entire department will come down on you.”
The stocky Russian laughed. “You think you’re a cowboy cop in some twentieth century movie? You think anybody actually cares if I kill you?”
Kristoff was grinning again. I really hated that punk.
“But,” Boris continued, walking around behind me where I couldn’t see him, “I will not kill either of you.”
“What?” Kristoff cried. “You said they would get what they had coming to them. I want these pigs dead!”
“I told you to shut up,” Boris said calmly. He must have signaled to the two goons from behind me, because one of them grabbed Kristoff while the other planted a fist so deep into the kid’s belly it surprised me it didn’t pop out of his back. Kristoff gasped in pain and fell to his knees. The other enforcer still had a grip on his shoulder.
“Now,” Boris said, closer behind me, “hopefully we will have no more interruptions. Mister Jacobson, you have stirred up the proverbial hornet’s nest. You’ve dug into things that shouldn’t be disturbed. You are right, I can’t just kill you. Your superiors will know where you were digging, and then they will send others to dig in the same place. They won’t miss you, but they will disturb the business plans of my employers. We can’t have that.”
“Sounds like a problem,” I said.
“Always with the jokes.” Boris untied my right hand.
What was he doing?
“However,” Boris continued, “you are correct. This is a problem.”
Frank moaned and stirred. The old man was finally waking up, just in time for the big villain monologue that explains the entire plot.
That’s right before the hero escapes, right?
Boris spoke again as he pulled the last of the rope from around my wrist. “So, we have a solution. We give them something else to worry about.” He placed something in my hand and pulled my arm out in front of me. There was a pistol in my hand, Frank’s hand cannon, and Boris had his hands clasped around mine.
He aimed the weapon at Frank. “So, what’s more interesting than a cop-killer?”
“Your mother?” I asked. I got an elbow to the nose for my trouble.
“No, a cop who is a cop-killer.” Boris squeezed my finger onto the trigger.
The world exploded as the sound of the gunshot filled the small room and echoed down the open corridor. I wanted to close my eyes, but something made me keep them open. Frank’s face blossomed into a fountain of red as the bullet tore through it and passed out of the back of his skull. Blood sprayed against the wall behind him in a neat circle of red spatter. Frank’s body surged back against the wall, chair and all, then slumped limp to the ground.
“I told you!” Kristoff screamed from the side of the room. “I told you you were going to die for what you did to me!”
Boris, his face close to mine, smiled. His breath reeked of expensive vodka and cigars. He pulled my arm to the side, aiming the gun right at Kristoff.
Well, this is ironic.
“Wait!” Kristoff cried out. “Boris, we had a deal. You can—”
Before he could finish, Boris squeezed my finger down on the trigger again. A bullet tore through Kristoff’s shoulder, spinning him around before he slammed into the wall. With his back to me, Boris squeezed my hand again, and again, and again. Three more bullets passed through Kristoff from behind before he slumped to the ground in a growing pool of his own blood.
“And why do you think a detective such as yourself would kill his partner and the mayor’s son?” Boris asked as he removed the gun from my hand.
“You’re going to tell me, aren’t you?” I asked.
It was over. There was nothing I could do to change what just happened. And I was still at the mercy of this gangster.
“Because you’re a drug addict,” Boris said. He slid a needle into my arm and depressed the plunger on a syringe.
I didn’t see that coming.
Boris untied my other arm as one thug untied my legs. I might have jumped up and fought back, but it felt like the world was falling away beneath me. When I tried to move, I fell from the chair to the floor.
My vision swam as the three men left the room without another word. The lights turned off, but I could still see the bodies of Frank and Kristoff in my mind. There were bright motes floating before my face trailing a multitude of colors. The light faded slowly, and I slipped into blissful oblivion.
Chapter Eleven
I don’t know how long I was out. The room was silent when I woke up, so at least it wasn’t long enough for anybody to find me. No doubt Boris called in a tip to the department, so I needed to get out of here as fast as I could. I tried to stand, but a wave of dizziness washed over me. I don’t know what he injected me with, but the after-effects were still hitting me. It felt like the floor was spinning and wobbling underneath me, and my head was in a fog. I crawled across the floor, not even knowing if I was going in the right direction until my hands felt the sticky wetness of drying blood. The body before me was slender, so I knew it had to be Kristoff.
The mayor’s son was an asshole, and apparently a worse criminal than I expected, but he probably hadn’t deserved to be gunned down in cold blood like that. I pulled myself around his inert form and found the wall. I lurched to my feet, using the wall to hold me up, and hit the light switch. Pain shot through my brain again as the fluorescent lights flickered to life. There was the body of Kristoff at my feet, and across the room was Frank. They had untied him from the chair and removed any evidence someone had bound here either of us. They’d even taken the chairs. My gun was in Frank’s hand, his body positioned as if I had gunned him down while he tried to defend himself.
I stumbled across the room. I needed to get out of there. An entire reaction squad would be down any time, and if they caught me like this, there was no way I could clear my name. The only way I could do that was by figuring out how all of this tied together.
I puzzled through the fragments as I stumbled down the dimly lit steam tunnel. Kristoff had been the key, but now he would not be saying anything. He had been a client of Evie, the body that had started this entire thing. Either he killed her and the mob tried to cover it up, the mob killed her to get to him, or she got tangled up in the whole mess. But he wasn’t important to them since they had so casually disposed of him. The money said his uncle must know about his visits to Dreamworks, and Talbot was rumored to have ties to the mob, so that was the next strand in the web. The mayor’s family was deep under the sheets with the mob, but I still didn’t know why.
I came to a ladder and climbed the cold steel rungs. It brought me to a manhole cover I struggled to push out of the way. I came out onto the surface in a dark alley. I did not know what part of town I was in, but from the deserted streets, it must have been far from downtown or any other busy neighborhood. I couldn’t go home; they would look for me there. I needed somewhere to sleep off the drugs and figure out my next move.
>
I heard snoring nearby. I spun around with Frank’s gun at the ready. There was a homeless man sleeping in the alley, bags of trash pulled over himself for insulation from the night’s chill. I slumped against the wall across from him and tucked the gun away behind me under a few discarded palettes.
Well, this is as good a place as any.
With the threads of the mystery still knitting themselves together in my mind, I drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, I would be back on the case.
I would also be on the run from the law.
About the Author
B.K. BASS IS THE AUTHOR of over a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror inspired by the pulp fiction magazines of the early 20th century and classic speculative fiction. He is a student of history with a particular focus on the ancient, classical, and medieval eras. B.K. has a lifetime of experience with a specialization in business management and human relations and served in the U.S. Army as a Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Operations Specialist. When B.K. isn’t dreaming up new worlds to explore, he spends his time as a bookworm, film buff, and strategy gamer.
Find out more and connect with B.K. at https://bkbass.com
Harold’s story continues in Night Life!
ON THE RUN FROM THE law, detective Harold Jacobson delves into the gritty underbelly of New Angeles. To clear his name of one murder, he must first solve another. As Harold follows the threads of the mystery through the night life of the city, he risks becoming part of the criminal element he once hunted down.