Night As We Know It

by H. L. Sudler

  The evening was going well until Johns received a text. He looked down at the message on his phone while he was driving, and his face went pale. He glanced Nick, before looking back at the road.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

  Johns shook his head, bit his bottom lip, but didn’t respond.

  “You know, I meant to ask you something.”

  “What?” Johns asked, a little snappier than he intended.

  “How much does that palace you live in set you back in mortgage? Looks expensive. You got it like that?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How much is your condo? It seems expensive to live in Santa Monica.”

  “Not that expensive.”

  “I just remember you saying that your wife had taken you to the cleaners. And I didn’t know cops made that much.”

  Johns sighed heavily, not answering the question. He looked into the night as they drove down a darkened stretch of Mulholland Drive.

  “I do side work,” he said finally.

  “Side work.” Nick repeated. He was turned to Johns, who did not look back at him. “What type of side work?”

  Johns took a moment to answer. “Security. Cops do it all the time. You need some extra cash, you do security.”

  “Really?” Nick said, as if this were a revelation. “So where do you do security work?”

  “Different places.” Johns was sweating a little. On the brow of his head, on the top of his lip. His hands were grasped white knuckle around the steering wheel, his eyes unblinking on the road.

  “What places?” Nick pressed.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Johns yelled. He glanced over to Nick, and was surprised to see a familiar look. One that stretched all the way back to high school. Nick’s eyes were slit, studying, the wheels, the wheels, the wheels, behind them churning, grinding as he thought.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Johns repeated.

  “I think you know why.”

  Johns’s phone buzzed again with another text. Johns looked at it agitated, then at Nick. “I’m taking you to my house.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t have to answer your question, Nick.”

  “Why are you so hot? I’m just asking a question.”

  “Because I don’t know what you’re asking me!”

  “Where are you getting your money from?” Nick yelled, so loudly that a heavy silence fell over the car. “Are you tied up in something?”

  Johns shook his head in nervous denial. “I’m dropping you off somewhere. Find your way back to the house. We’ll talk when I get home.”

  “No!”

  “What do you mean no?” Johns argued.

  “You’re tied up in something. It’s all over your goddamn face. Like the Devil’s got ahold of your ass and you can’t shake him.”

  Johns’s phone rang. He looked at the number, then let it go to unanswered. The phone rang again moments later.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  “Nick!” Johns shouted. “Enough!”

  “Who’s on that phone that you don’t want to talk to in front of me?”

  “None of your fucking business!”

  The phone kept ringing, insistent. Johns looked at it, huffed, and turned to Nick.

  “Don’t you say a word. Just be quiet.”

  Johns answered, sounding chipper. “Hey!”

  The person on the other end answered not so chipper. “Where the fuck are you?”

  Johns looked at Nick, the voice on the phone so loud he was sure he’d heard every word. Nick was looking at him with unblinking eyes, a snake’s, knowing, studying, watching, recording.

  “Hey, give me a break,” Johns said again, chipper. He was trying to lighten the mood, but his face was ashen with fright.

  “Where the fuck are you, dickhead? I sent you two text messages and called three times!”

  Nick recognized the voice as one he’d heard before. When he first reached out to Johns. A cop named Greenleaf had answered the phone.

  “I couldn’t get to my phone. I’m on the road,” Johns said. His voice quivered.

  “You know what, Johns? I always knew you were a fuck-up. I always knew you would screw everything up. I ought to get someone to blow your fucking head off.”

  Nick frowned, hearing this.

  “Dude, calm down! Calm down! I’m on the road.”

  “I don’t give a shit where you are. You’re supposed to be here! Now! Doing a job!”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “I don’t give a shit how sorry you are! When I say to be someplace, your ass is to be there! I could be in West Hollywood getting my dick sucked right now, but instead I’m out here waiting for your clown ass! Get over to the Chateau Marmont Hotel! I’m outside waiting. You got five fucking minutes, idiot!”

  Greenleaf disconnected, and Johns looked at the phone, dropped it on his lap as he crossed over from Hollywood Boulevard onto West Sunset Boulevard. Nick was quiet, but his eyes never left Johns’s face, which seemed on the edge of crumbling. Johns was trying to hold it together. Trying to think of something to say. Trying to think of a way out of a mess he was obviously in.

  “I’m coming with you,” Nick said quietly.

  Johns turned to him, and he looked nearly ready to cry. He turned away to face the road. His hands were still wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.

  “I can’t drop you off,” Johns said, finally, softly. “I’m too late already. I need you to do exactly what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?”

  Nick didn’t answer right away. “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to leave you in the car, and I need you to stay in the car. Don’t get out. Don’t move. I’ll be gone less than five minutes.”

  Nick remained silent but watchful, as they pulled up at the corner of Monteel Road and Selma Drive and parked in the shadows. The Chateau Marmont Hotel sat on a rise and looked like something constructed in the heyday of Los Angeles, back when there was such a thing as Hollywoodland. It was a still and regal, but spooky castle-like structure filled with ghosts, and the ghosts of parties long gone. It was as if the hotel was a living, breathing entity that had claimed its fair share of souls.

  Johns said to Nick without looking at him, “Stay here.” He pushed himself out of the car, and headed for the hotel down the street, eventually disappearing around a corner. Nick pulled out his phone to check his emails, and was surprised to see one from Rod Tomes. He opened it and read.

  Nick, look. I know you’re trying to do good. You’re a good guy, but I can’t get involved any deeper in this shit, or risk my family anymore after this. I got what you asked for earlier today, and that’s that. No more. I called some contacts at the police department out in L.A. See my notes below. Take care, Nick. Have a nice life. We square now.

  Nick read Rod’s notes. There was a high number of fatalities caused by police officers, a low number of arrests, and no convictions. He looked at the high number of attacks by hate groups, the low number of arrests, and the even lower number of convictions. The suspended sentences, and hung juries, then the names of cops who’d gotten off, and the names of judges who’d heard their cases.

  Nick jumped when Johns snatched open the driver’s side door. He glared at Nick after he sat down next to him and slammed the car door shut. He leaned over so they were face to face, barely inches apart.

  “You’re coming with me,” Johns hissed.

  Nick stared back at him.

  “You want to know why?” Johns asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because I know why you’re here in L.A.!” Johns screamed at Nick. Then he started the car, floored the gas, and skidded down the street, speeding the car into the night.

  When Nick asked where they were going, Johns yelled, “Bel Air!” />
  “Why are we going to Bel Air?”

  “Don’t you know? You know everything! You’re so fucking smart!”

  “Dude, slow down. You’re driving too fast,” Nick said pointing to the road in front of them, blackness up ahead, the intermittent illumination from street lamps whizzing by.

  “Of course I’m driving too fast!” Johns roared. “I have a fucking job to do! I’ve got alimony to pay, Nick! You know what alimony is? Of course not! You’re not married!”

  “Dude, slow down!”

  “NO!” Johns barked. His eyes were glassy now. His hands were again wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, as the car sped down the road, hugging the curves of Sunset Boulevard. “I got somewhere to be…and you’re coming with me. My old pal from school. My good buddy, who would never fuck me over. But I can’t leave him alone for one minute. I gotta keep both eyes on him. ‘Cause he’s found me out, knows I’m stupid, knows I got my ass in a jam. Thinks I’m a Guinea wop from South Philly who doesn’t know how to handle his shit. Well you know what, Nick? I am stupid! I am in a jam! And I can’t get out!”

  “Slow down!” Nick yelled. He was looking at the road, his hands braced for a crash, they were going too fast.

  “I can’t get out, Nick! I need money! My ex has my balls in her hands! Everybody’s got my balls in their hands! And they’re squeezing them, Nick! Really tight!”

  Nick swallowed, his eyes glued to the road, midnight blackness up ahead. He thought enough to ask something, to distract Johns with a question. “What’s going on, Johns? What are you into?”

  “Don’t you know, Nick? You know everything! You sit across from me at lunch when we were kids, just looking at me, ‘cause you got everything figured out, got me figured out!”

  “Johns, what the fuck is going on?”

  “I’m a runner, Nick! A runner! ‘Cause I’m too stupid to do anything else! I take money from one place to another. That’s my job, that what I am, that’s who I am!”

  Nick dragged his eyes off the road, turned to Johns. “Money for what?”

  “Payoff money! Someone does a job, they get paid off! And I deliver the money! The good-looking stud cop with no brains! Good for two things, running money and fucking!”

  Nick was quiet a moment, and the sudden silence in the car became painful.

  “What’s the money for, Johns?”

  “Payoff money!”

  Johns’s face was red, in anguish, tears banking over his eyes and down his cheeks.

  “I’m a fuck-up,” he said just above a whisper. He slammed the steering wheel. “I’m such a fuck-up!”

  Nick swallowed, shook his head, touched Johns’s arm. “Hey…”

  Johns turned to look at him.

  “You’re not a fuck-up. Just…just tell me what the money’s for.”

  Johns looked away, to the road. Didn’t answer.

  “Who is the money for?” Nick asked instead. “And what’s in Bel Air?”

  Johns quivered, shook as if he had a chill, and Nick realized Johns could barely get the answer out of his mouth. The answer alone would acknowledge how much shit he was in.

  “Rich people,” he uttered finally. “Rich people live in Bel Air.”

  Nick leaned close to Johns. Whispered. “Who in Bel Air are we going to see?”

  “A…a judge…”

  Nick sat back in his seat, finding it hard to breathe, the gravity of the night on him heavy like lead. “What’s his name?”

  Johns said it, and Nick closed his eyes and felt his stomach sink in on itself. He recognized the name from the information Rod Tomes sent him in his last email. Nick thought he’d be sick. The reality of it all, the realization that he was right, haunted him. He was face to face with the ugliness. Face to face with the Devil.

  They arrived in Bel Air. If Nick thought he knew this story, he suddenly realized how wrong he was. Bel Air was gorgeous, filled with stunningly beautiful homes and mansions, lit pools, manicured grounds, palm trees, creeping vines, topiary gardens, and gurgling fountains. Nick looked around as they drove past one immaculate property after the other. Not one skinhead or neo-Nazi in sight. Nothing that indicated any association with White nationalists at all. It looked like a dream here. A fairy tale.

  They came to a stop on a winding road that led up a hill to a large house, surrounded by three small buildings. What Nick guessed were ranch bungalows with garages. The sky overhead was black as ever. It was long past midnight and the only illumination in the area came from the property above. Nick looked at Johns. Although the car was stopped, Johns held tightly to the steering wheel, his head leaned on it.

  “This is not where I should be,” Johns muttered. “This is not where I should be. I had plans. Plans. I was supposed to be on fucking ESPN by now! And you came all the way out here just to find out that I’m a fuck-up. You heard I was doing bad, and you had to see for yourself. Had to see if it was true. Had to make me feel like shit, taking me out to dinner, for drinks, ‘cause you knew I was low and strapped.”

  Nick remained quiet, watched Johns get himself together. He wiped the tears from his eyes then checked his face in the mirror. He turned to Nick.

  “I have to deliver this money,” he said, patting his sports jacket pocket. “Then we need to go somewhere and have a talk.”

  Nick remained silent as Johns exited the car and trudged up the hill to the property above. That’s when Nick got an unexpected call from Rod Tomes, screaming bloody murder.

  Rod Tomes had dozed off on the sofa after putting the kids to bed. His wife had gone upstairs to sleep. He had drank a few beers while watching a late Saturday night movie. Schwarzenegger. Predator. He’d no real interest in seeing it, had seen it a million times already. He only wanted to be alone. With his drink. Out of the presence of his wife. He was troubled. His conversations with Nick Fullwood left him unsettled, worried that he’d gotten himself into something with no clean exit.

  He knew Nick was doing good work, but Rod realized that he would have given his eye-teeth not to be involved in it, to not know Nick Fullwood. He dozed, thinking of all the ways Nick’s investigation could lead back to him, that Nick’s snooping could prove deadly for everyone.

  Screaming from upstairs jolted him to his feet. He recognized his daughter Tori’s high-pitched squeal, and he raced out of the living room, up the stairs, meeting his wife in the hallway. They burst into their daughter’s bedroom, and there she was, unharmed, as beautiful as ever in her pink and white pajamas, holding her teddy bear. She was screaming and pointing out of the window.

  Rod’s wife snatched her up off her bed, asked her what was wrong. But Rod had gone to the window and saw it already. Saw what young Tori had seen, and he gasped in horror. Outside her window was a large oak tree. And in the middle of the night, in this suburban Philadelphia neighborhood, outside his door, on this tree, hung a life-sized dummy, the size of a man. Its face was painted black, and its hands were roped behind its back.

  It was hung by its neck.

  And it was on fire.

  “What have you done?” Rod screamed into Nick’s ear. He was almost hysterical.

  “What are you talking about?” Nick asked, sitting up in Johns’s car. He heard fire truck sirens behind Rod’s voice.

  Rod stood outside his Wynnewood home, a bank of fire trucks and ambulances nearby. His wife had their daughter and son in her arms as she spoke with police. Neighbors were watching from their yards. The elm that sat next to Rod’s house was fully on fire now. The dummy had fallen and set the surrounding grass aflame. The side of the house had been ignited.

  “They got me, you son of a bitch!”

  “Rod, what are you talking about?”

  “They set my fucking house on fire, because of you! This is all your fucking fault!”

  “Rod, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Rod explained. His daughter, t
he tree, the dummy with its hands tied behind its back, hanging by its neck, its face painted black. The dummy on fire. How the tree was now on fire. So was the lawn. So was the house.

  Rod panted, hearing only silence on the other end of the line. He spun in a circle, looking at his neighbors looking at him, his home, watching the spectacle of the firefighters battling the blaze. He knew then that the perpetrator was also watching him, right now, among the many faces here, as he and his family stood in anguish, as the news crews scrambled to set up for a live shot.

  This was a warning to back off. For Rod to mind his own fucking business. Someone had gotten wind of his snooping, either here or in Los Angeles. And because they were well connected, they got to him easily. The next time, he and his family would not be so lucky. A missing child. A dead wife.

  “Nick!” Rod screamed into the phone, over the sirens.

  Nick Fullwood was no longer on the line. He had hung up, and was following Johns to the house on the hill.

  He did not see Johns in the dark of night, among the quiet shadows. What Nick did see was a party in full swing inside the main house. He heard music and laughter coming from inside. He saw expensive sports cars parked outside. Porsches. Maseratis. Jaguars. BMWs. A Ferrari.

  Nick skulked in the shadows, peeking through the hedges. Nick looked through the large windows at the front of the house. Johns did not appear to be inside with the party. His attention was drawn to the three small bungalows surrounding the property. They weren’t bungalows at all, as much as they were garages. When he crept closer to one of the buildings, he spotted three luxury automobiles. It seemed the judge was a car collector.

  Nick crept around the property, and headed for a second garage uphill from the house. He saw Johns inside, counting cash. A man walked out, headed back to the main house, to the party. Nick slipped inside the garage and closed the door, startling Johns.