by H. L. Sudler
“What’re you doing here, Nick?” Johns asked angrily, looking antsy. He still had cash in his hands. “I told you to stay in the car.”
Nick walked around the vehicles, toward Johns. “You know what this is all about, Johns?”
“No,” Johns whispered, getting more and more agitated. He looked out of the garage windows for anyone who might be approaching. “And I don’t want to know.”
Johns stuffed the cash in his pockets, not bothering to count his cut any longer.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said.
“You don’t want to know what any of this is about?” Nick persisted, walking closer to Johns.
“No!” Johns growled.
Nick was silent a moment before he spoke. “It’s why I came to L.A. For this. Not to see if you failed, but to get this story.”
Johns turned to Nick, grabbed him by his arm and tried to pull him out of the garage in a hurry. Nick snatched his arm away.
“I came for this, Johns. I knew you had been put on desk duty when I first called. I’ve been keeping up with you all these years. I didn’t know why you were on desk duty, but I knew you needed someone in your corner. Maybe you rubbed somebody the wrong way. These guys. A fluff piece on do-gooder cops would help you out. In return, you could help me get a story I’ve been after for a while.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The shit you’re tied up in…paying off judges…is all tied to something bigger. White supremacy. Alt-right groups. Neo-fucking-Nazis. You know it. And now I know it.”
Johns stared at Nick, enraged. “You used me?”
“Let’s just say I needed a favor, and I knew that you would kick back if I asked you outright. I just needed an in to this story. White nationalists infiltrating local government and law enforcement in Southern California. Judges who are lenient with skinheads, but tough on African-American men. And we’re not even talking about the military.”
“You used me…” Johns repeated.
“Johns,” Nick said, but then Johns came for him quickly, punched him hard across the jaw, knocking him to the floor. Johns fell on top of him, punched him repeatedly across the face.
Nick struggled against him, but Johns was bigger, stronger, more powerful, and he was furious. There were tears in his eyes, and his face burned scarlet. He punched and punched, until Nick squirmed out from under him and threw him off. Nick’s face throbbed with pain, and he was bleeding and dizzy as he struggled to his feet.
Johns stood, panting hard, his fists balled, his knuckles bloodied. He pointed to Nick, and was on the verge of crying. “You always…always thought you were smarter than everybody else. Always so smug. Always made me feel like a little shit, because you’re so fucking smart. And now you come here, and you try to ruin me. You don’t know shit about my life anymore, Nick. Not shit. I need this, here. I need this to survive.”
“Johns, listen to yourself—”
“No…you listen to me. You fucking betrayed me. You know…you news guys always play like you’re better than everybody else. Holier-than-thou, but you’re not. You’re just as sneaky as everybody else. Just as two-faced as everybody else. Down in the mud like pigs.”
Johns walked up to Nick and pushed him. Then pushed him again. Nick held on to a car for balance.
“I used to know guys back in South Philly, back in the neighborhood, just like you. Thought their shit didn’t stink,” Johns hissed. He slapped Nick hard across the face. Then again. “They were the same as everybody else!”
Johns threw Nick down. He grabbed his hair with both fists and hammered his head to the floor until Nick’s eyes rolled up into his head.
“But everybody’s got a price. Right, Nick? Right? What I want to know is who owns you, Nick? ‘Cause everybody’s owned by somebody! Everybody is somebody’s bitch. Who owns you, Nick? WHO! OWNS! YOU!”
“Please…” Nick managed, chocking on his own blood, his hands limp against Johns.
Johns grabbed Nick up by the collar, then threw him back down to the floor. In the sudden silence, through the cool night air, were sirens in the distance, coming closer, approaching the house. Johns saw the flashing lights of police cruisers.
“Shit!”
Officer Todd Greenleaf got out of one of the cruisers, while other officers exited their cars with their guns drawn. Greenleaf pointed around the property and then headed to the main house. Johns turned to Nick, who had struggled to his feet. They looked at each other, horrified.
“They know,” Nick said, above a whisper. “They know.”
“They know what?”
“That I know about them. That I’m with you.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure,” Nick said, watching the officers looking around the grounds, heading for the garages. There were many of them. “Or maybe they don’t know about me. But they think you’re up to something.”
“What the hell are we gonna do?”
Nick looked around at the cars, then saw something in the corner. He pointed to three large kerosene cans next to a generator. “They’re going to kill us. They don’t want any loose lips. We need a distraction, and some insurance.”
“What the hell are you going to do? We can’t sneak off this property. They’ve probably already seen my car.”
Nick didn’t answer. He pulled out his phone and began typing furiously. Johns watched him for a moment, then peeked out of the garage window. The officers had gone to one of the garages and were now on their way to the second. People from the party began to spill outside, including the judge.
“Nick, whatever you’re doing do it fast.”
“Johns,” Nick said without looking at him. “Pour the kerosene in one of those cans over the ground.”
“What?”
“Do it! Now!”
Johns picked up the can full of kerosene, and began to splash it all around the garage.
“Now open the back door a little and let the rest run downhill to the main house.”
Johns looked at Nick, stunned.
“Do you want to live?” Nick asked. “That kerosene may be the only thing that saves our lives.”
Johns said nothing, but did as he was told.
“We need to call everybody’s attention to Bel Air. The fire department. The news. Everybody.”
Nick walked over to Johns, and touched his friend on the shoulder. They watched the kerosene flow down the hill, toward the main house, toward the cars.
“You ready for this?” Nick asked.
Johns looked at Nick. He said, “I’m sorry.”
Nick shook his head. “Don’t be. Just follow my lead.”
Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out the box of wooden matches from the Q Hotel.
“You smoke?”
“Weed is legal in California, bro. Hadn’t you heard?”
Johns’s eyes smiled. Nick struck a match and threw it behind them, toward the cars. The flame caught immediately and grew.
“Let’s get outta here,” Nick said.
Once outside, they struck two more matches and set it to the flowing kerosene along the ground. A trail of fire snaked down toward the house, toward the cars there. One of the guests noticed it first and screamed. Her scream was followed by an explosion from the garage. Then another. And another.
People ran for their cars, but then stopped. The flames got there first. The automobiles were immediately engulfed. Guests scattered. The police scattered. Greenleaf saw Nick and Johns attempting to sneak off the property. He yelled at one of his officers but the explosions were too loud and drowned out his voice. Greenleaf took out his gun and fired it at Johns, hitting him in the arm. Johns fell, and Nick came back for him. Greenleaf fired again and missed. He hit one of the cars parked out front, and it exploded.
Another car exploded. The kerosene had flowed to the lawns and now was on fire, just outside
the main house. Greenleaf raised his gun and ran over to Johns and Nick.
“Get on your knees, motherfuckers! Get on your knees!”
Other cops gathered around with their firearms raised. Another car exploded, and everyone outside dropped to the ground and covered their heads.
“Please tell me you have a plan,” Johns whispered over to Nick.
“Yes, I do. I sent texts to the TV news stations telling them there’s been an explosion here, casualties. Then I sent an email to an old friend of mine.”
“Who?” Johns said, pushing up to his knees.
“Jenny Richardson. Remember, her brother Axel’s a lawyer. Works with Walsh Publishing. I sent her my notes, told her to hold on to them.”
Johns looked at Nick, but Nick didn’t look back. “What did you do for her that she owed you?”
Nick answered, “She was on the debate team in school and needed my help. She won first prize.”
Greenleaf came over to them, still holding his gun. He looked at Johns.
“You have caused me a lot of trouble today, partner. You couldn’t just do as you were told, could you?” Greenleaf looked at Nick. “And who the fuck are you?”
Nick looked up into Greenleaf’s eyes and read him, the way he read everyone. The wheels turned behind his eyes, and Greenleaf stepped back a little and frowned. The judge walked up behind Todd, and Nick’s eyes jumped over to him.
“Who the hell is this, Todd?” the judge yelled, pointing to Nick.
“I don’t know.”
Greenleaf looked at Johns. “Who is he?”
Nick cleared his throat. He heard a helicopter in the distance, heading toward them. The fire was bright in the night sky, and the copter’s headlights were already on them. Likely from a news station.
Johns looked over to Nick. “Tell them a story.”
Nick smiled a little, his brain racing. Wheels turning. If he could live past tonight, he’d have the expose of a lifetime.
Author’s Note
Noir is my favorite film genre. Dark nights. Slick, wet streets. Gun molls. Lots of smoking and drinking. A gray, morally-ambiguous universe, where no one is all good, and no one all bad. To this recipe, I mixed two respectable professions at odds with each other, in order to expose the underbelly of each profession. Noir-heavy Los Angeles not only became the perfect backdrop, it became a character in itself.
About the author
H.L. Sudler is the author of six books, including Patriarch: My Extraordinary Journey from Man to Gentleman, CafeLiving’s Favorite Cocktails (with Keith Vient), Man to Gentleman: A Beginner’s Guide to Manhood, his short story collection The Looking Glass: Tales of Light and Dark, and his thriller novel series Summerville and Return to Summerville. His short story The Way of All Flesh was selected for the PATHS Humanitarian Writing Award. He has served as a magazine publisher, a newspaper editor, and a contributing writer to numerous anthologies and periodicals. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but is now married and lives in Washington, DC.