Black Cat Weekly #5

NOT DONE WITH THE NIGHT by Jay Brandon-2

Fresh hell.

This was the woman he had given up his life for, and now had given up a stranger’s as well. The kind of woman who could hear that someone was being killed in her place and smile and kiss him for it. Then walk out the door, not wanting him to know where she’d hidden the money. She’d only been here waiting because she hadn’t been sure yet he’d thrown their pursuers off her track, worried she might still need a protector. Now she knew she didn’t, and she was leaving.

Gerald looked out the window and saw his car pull away. Its taillights didn’t even flicker at the stop sign at the corner as it picked up speed. He had a sudden feeling she was going the wrong direction, that Angela would circle the block once she was out of sight of this window.

Gerald kept his back turned to the crummy little apartment, a furnished one Angela had gotten the landlord to let them have for a week. He kept looking out the window, seeing no movement in the night. He’d done a good job. He hadn’t been followed. But he understood why. They’d never really been after him.

Still looking out the window, he got out his phone and redialed the last number.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up.”

They’d be curious who was calling. They might already know they’d made a mistake.

On the fourth ring, just before voice mail picked up, Karen’s voice answered, sounding shaky. “Gerald?”

“Put the man on the phone. The one who grabbed you.”

She didn’t argue. A few seconds later a much deeper, rougher, angrier voice said, “Yeah?”

“You realize you’ve got the wrong girl?”

“That’s what she says, but that’s what they always say.”

“But your boss knows, right? Hasn’t he seen her yet?”

“He’s on his way.”

“Gonna be hell for you when he gets there and sees you grabbed the wrong woman and lost me in the process. I’d rather be me than you right now, that’s how bad it’s going to be.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, but not the silence of a dead line.

“You wanna fix it? You want to have something else to give him when he gets there? Sure you do. Why am I even asking? Tell him you can still find me. I’ll tell you where I’ll meet you.”

A shorter silence, then: “Why?”

“I think Angela’s planning to cut me out of my share of the money.”

A dry chuckle. “That would be her style, from what I hear.”

“But I know where she’s going. I’ll give her to you if your boss will promise me a finder’s fee.”

“How much?” The lack of a pause told Gerald what he needed to know. The guy would promise him anything, no hesitation. He heard fear creeping into the man’s voice. The boss must be getting close.

“I’ll give you my address. But bring the girl. The one you’ve got there. That’s part of the deal.”

“Why? She’s unnecessary to any of us.”

“She’s innocent. She doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

“Yeah, just one of your tragic mistakes.”

Gerald swallowed, shifted the phone to his other hand. “Look, you bring her or no deal. I’ll give you an intersection, but you won’t even see me unless I see her standing there with her own car, safe and sound. Understand? Here’s the address.” He rattled off two street names, then ended the call. No point continuing to negotiate with somebody that low in authority. Once the boss got there, the one Angela had conned out of the two hundred thousand, he’d know he had no choice but to do what Gerald had said.

Gerald paced the small apartment for twenty minutes, then started to think about everything he’d ever done wrong, ending with Angela, the most spectacular mistake ever. He hoped that meant it was the culmination of mistakes, but maybe it was just moving to a new plateau. Wondering about that did him no good, so he went downstairs and hid under a stoop within sight of the intersection.

He should have given them a deadline. Said, Be here in twenty minutes or you’ll never see me. Not given them time to think or plan. But they got there quickly enough. They were motivated. He’d only been under the stairs long enough for the night air to clear his head when two cars pulled up at the curb across the street. The one in back, the light-blue Prius, was undoubtedly Karen’s. Thoughtful girl.

The two guys from the bar got out of it. Obviously they were being punished, made to drive the girly car. One was tall; the other had a shaved head. They looked mad as hell, meaning they were scared too. As they came around the car they bumped shoulders and scowled at each other. Gerald noticed.

After a moment, the car in front, a black Escalade, shifted on its axis, and a big man got out of the back. He made his gray suit look like sausage casing. He glared around searchingly, then reached into the back seat and pulled Karen out. She wasn’t tied and she didn’t look hurt, just very, very scared. She only had one shoe on. Even so, she tried to jerk out of the big guy’s grip.

After another long moment the front door opened and a fourth man stepped out. The boss, obviously. A man wearing charcoal-gray slacks and a long-sleeved yellow shirt, looking as if he was about to pull on his tie and blazer and go to dinner at the club. Styled hair, stylish mustache. Even from across the street Gerald could tell his nails were manicured. He could see how Angela could have gotten to a man like this, appealing to how smart he thought he was.

“Well?” he said loudly, to the neighborhood at large.

“Let the girl go,” Gerald said. “Just put her in her car and let her drive away. Then you’ll have me and I’ll give you Angela.”

The boss looked disdainfully over his shoulder at Karen, who glared back at him. “We already know where this one lives, asshole. We know her license plate number. We know where she works. So just come out and talk to me like a man.”

Ah. The boss thought Gerald was a man like him, except a lesser version. He thought Gerald’s vanity could be aroused. Okay.

He stepped out from under the stairs, spread his arms. Then walked toward them. The guys from the bar put their hands inside their jackets, but the boss just watched Gerald come, growing a little smile. “You?” he said dismissively as Gerald stopped in front of him.

They’d never seen each other before. The boss just didn’t recognize Gerald as the kind of man who would challenge him.

“You can let her go now. Tell me what’s going to be my finder’s fee for giving you Angela.”

“Ten percent.”

Gerald shook his head.

“That’s the best you get, asshole. Take it or we do it my way.”

Gerald liked the fact the boss was bargaining with him, but didn’t think it was sincere. He was probably going to be dead in the next couple of minutes. He just wanted to get Karen free first. “Let her go,” he said again. The boss shook his head. “Stalemate, then,” Gerald said.

“Don’t be stupid. Marcello.”

The big guy twisted Karen’s arm up behind her while putting his hand over her mouth. Her eyes went very big from the trapped scream.

“We’ve got her to waste before we even start on you.”

“Look. Angela’s going to be gone soon. You gonna search this whole neighborhood room by room? Or torture it out of me? She’ll be long gone by then. You’ve only got maybe a couple of minutes before she blows. You know she doesn’t waste time once she’s on the move.”

The boss looked him in the eye for a few seconds, then made a head gesture to his thug, who took his hands off Karen. She moved shakily away from him.

“Tell me,” the boss said. “Then I got no more use for her and I let her go. Keep you here just in case.”

Gerald turned and nodded toward the apartment building across the street. “Over there. Apartment 4C. She’s coming back any minute. Before she comes in she’ll knock five quick, pause, then two more. Here’s the key. There’s no elevator.”

The boss smiled. “There never are in shitholes like this.”

He turned, gestured, and Marcello opened the front door of the Escalade and shoved Karen inside.

“Hey!”

But Gerald was no longer a factor. No one was listening to him. “You two,” the boss said to the jackets. “Keep these two here in the car. I want to be the one Angela sees first. I want to see her face. Don’t do anything until I give you a signal, until we know he’s told us the truth. This time get it right. Marcello.”

The big man almost managed to hide his displeasure at the thought of four flights of stairs after following his boss across the street. Meanwhile, the tall guy pushed Gerald into the back seat of the Escalade. The one with the shaved head got into the driver’s seat, up front with Karen. She kept her head down, not looking at anyone. Gerald wanted to say I’m sorry, but it would have just made her mad, he was sure.

The two guys didn’t say anything to each other or to their captives. They undoubtedly had their own grim thoughts. They’d screwed up already, in a business where mistakes weren’t punished by demotions in rank. Gerald remembered the way these two had acted in the bar, not talking. Two guys hired separately for a job, not partners. The silence was pushing to the point where someone could break it by clearing a throat, or screaming, when Gerald started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Tall Guy in Back said.

“They left two of you to guard us. You two.”

“And why’s that funny.”

“Because I’ve already bought off one of you.” Gerald held the tall man’s eyes, which had widened. A second later Gerald said, “Take him.”

The tall guy couldn’t stop himself. He had to turn toward the front. His gun went in that direction too. The guy in the front was glaring at him, his gun hand rising above the seat.

With the new angle, Gerald headbutted the guy in back from the side. Not in the forehead, like a wrestler who wants to draw blood for the crowd without doing too much damage. He butted him in the jaw, under the chin. As hard as he could, fueled by desperation. Gerald heard a crack and felt something give in the guy’s throat.

He jumped back in the confined space of the car, but Karen was quicker. She had already reached over the front seat and grabbed the tall man’s gun. She didn’t have to worry about her guy in front. Tall Guy had been faster. The man in front had a hole right in the middle of his forehead.

They scrambled out of the car. Inside it, the only movement was the guy in back, gasping. His last gasps, either now or when the boss came back. “Come on!” Karen called. They ran back to her car, Gerald looking into the driver’s window. “Did they leave the keys in it? s**t, no!”

Karen held up the key, said, “I grabbed it,” as she jumped into the passenger side. Gerald got in the driver’s seat, looking at her a little wonderingly.

Karen had pushed the start button. The car was so quiet she had to tell him it was on. “Go, go, go.”

So he did, took off as fast as the little car would go, and drove like a bat out of Helladelphia.

* * * *

He just kept going in the direction the car had been pointed, pushing the car hard until Karen put her hand over his on the steering wheel. “A car wreck will kill us just as dead,” she said quietly. Then, “What’s the matter?”

He couldn’t speak for a few seconds. My God, even Norah Jones wouldn’t sing something this lame. The touch of Karen’s hand was cool and soft. In spite of his days and nights with Angela, this felt like the first time a human being had touched him in months. Gerald felt like he’d just relived his whole life in seconds, like a dying man, but subtly changed along the way so that he’d be a man who belonged here, in this car with her. He glanced over at Karen. She didn’t look at him, but her expression wasn’t angry or scared anymore. And she kept her hand on his for another few seconds before taking it away.

After twenty minutes he stopped on the outskirts of the city. He’d stayed off the freeways, and now was in a business district where everything was closed for the night. It was the midpoint of the night, the tipping point, thousands of miles of darkness in every direction.

He knew he should leave her alone now. Instead he sat. It was Karen who seemed concerned about him. “Do you have any place to go?”

He shook his head. Then Karen laughed. “Neither do I, come to think of it. Do you think your friend will come back to that apartment?”

“Only if she loves me. And trusts me. I don’t think either of those is in her repertoire.”

Karen was very quick. Sitting there, he could feel her understanding. Gerald had fallen in with a woman so seductive he had given up everything for her, just like that. He’d needed to find a replacement just long enough to get rid of his pursuers when he’d walked into the bar where Karen was sitting. She understood that. She also understood that Gerald had given up that other woman in order to rescue Karen. He had regained his decency. Maybe in those ten minutes with her in the bar.

“How did you know that would work? Your trick in the car.”

Gerald considered. He wasn’t sure he’d even been thinking. His plan had been to divert the guys’ attention to him and hope that Karen was alert enough to get out of the car. “I remembered the way they were in the bar, not talking. Not even the kind of small talk people who work together make. I realized they were probably hired separately, deliberately so they wouldn’t trust each other. So they wouldn’t plan anything on their own.”

Karen rolled down her window. It was a pleasant night. And seemed at the moment so empty. This was where he should get out and walk away, let her get on with her life. Let her find what she deserved, that lunch table overlooking the ocean, the walk in the park.

“Do you have any money?” she asked.

“Some.”

Karen laughed, looking at him sidelong. “Three days’ worth?”

She’d remembered his Bahamas vacation. Gerald nodded. “About that.”

Then he said, “Would you like to go for a long drive? Talk?”

Her posture remained relaxed, now more confident in fact. She was a remarkable woman, after all this. She didn’t say yes or no, but “where?”

Gerald breathed in the night air. “The ocean. I don’t know where. As far down the coast as we can get. Some place with a view of the water.”

She turned in her seat so she was facing him. “What do you have in mind?” She didn’t say it leeringly or slyly. He didn’t think she was capable of that. Just a thoughtful question. He turned to her, took her hand, felt that shock of recognition again, felt her feel it too, and put everything he had into his answer:

“Lunch.”

For answer, she turned on her CD player. She caught Norah Jones singing how she wasn’t done with the night.

Gerald put the car in gear. “I was just flirting before. Actually, I like Norah Jones.”

“I know,” Karen said. “Everyone does.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jay Brandon writes legal thrillers and mystery suspense. His novel Afterimage was hailed as “perhaps the finest legal thriller since Presumed Innocent.” His novel Fade the Heat was nominated for an Edgar Award for best mystery, and his short story “A Jury of His Peers” was included in The Best American Mystery Stories edited by Lee Child. His books have been published in more than a dozen countries and have been optioned for movies by Steven Spielberg, among others. Learn more at h***:://www.jaybrandon.com/.