It’s Begins!

Midnight of November 1st was the start of this year’s NaNoWriMo competition.

It’s a cool idea, where you have to pump out 50,000 words of a novel in November, and I’m taking part.

You can read it all here as I go along.

For some info, you can check my About page, or read up on the website.

The first three chapters are up. You can read them at the Chapters page. More will obviously be coming down the pipeline as the days wear on.

Thanks for coming along! Hope you enjoy it.

CHAPTER 20

“Pick up, Uncle Ian,” Eli says into the ringing phone.

The clock on the car dash reads 10:32. Who is anywhere other than at home at 10:32 on a weeknight?

“Hi. You’ve reached Ian–”

Eli hangs up.

He takes the phone from between his shoulder and ear and hits redial, trying his best to keep his eyes on the highway as he speeds along on route to downtown Tucson. The I-10 is underpopulated, something Eli is thankful for as he swivels the steering wheel with his knees. The phone starts ringing again and he re-wedges it against his ear, replacing his hands at ten and two and gripping tight.

Ring. Ring. Ring. “Hi. You’ve–”

He pulls back his shoulder and snatches the phone in midfall in a slick maneuver that he wishes someone had witnessed. This time he dials 911.

“911 emergency, how can I assist you?” asks a voice.

“Hi, my name is Eli Malcovic,” Eli says. “I’ve got a problem, I guess.”

“Go ahead, Eli,” says the operator.

“Well, um, do you do connections and stuff? This is for the Police Department in Tucson.”

“What is the emergency?” the operator asks.

“Right. I heard some guys talking about breaking into a police station. The one in Tucson.”

“Which station in Tucson?” asks the woman.

“Oh,” Eli stops. “I don’t know. Uh, I think it’s the one that has Johnny Z in it.”

“Johnny Z?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause on the other end. “Who’s Johnny Z?”

“Right, right. He’s an arsonist. He set fire to some building near Tucson and now they arrested him and some people are going to be–” there’s a beep on his telephone. “Hold on a second,” he says to the operator. “There’s someone on the other line.”

He hears the faint voice of the 911 operator as he pulls the phone away. “Wait, sir!” she says. He checks the display, sees ‘Uncle Ian,’ and holds the phone back up to his ear.

“Nevermind,” he says.

“Sir, if I can just speak with you for a–”

“No, no, it’s okay. They’re calling me back, so I can just talk to them.” The phone beeps again and a sense of urgency creeps into Eli’s voice as he rushes to catch the other call. “Okay, bye. I’ll call you if there are any other problems,” he says, flashing to the other line. “Uncle Ian!”

“Who is this? And why all the phone calls?” asks the gruff voice on the other side. “It says you called me four times.”

“It’s Eli.”

“My nephew?”

“Yeah,” Eli responds. “Um, yeah.”

“Well, what do you need, kid?”

“Um, you’re still a policeman in Tucson, right?” Eli asks.

His uncle laughs. “Yeah, close enough to it,” he says.

“Okay, that’s good. Well, not ‘good’ but, um,” Eli clenches his eyes to think, then remembers he’s on the road and shoots them wide open. “Do you know a man named Johnny Z?” he asks.

There’s silence on the other end. “Yeah,” says the voice finally. “What’s this about, Eli?”

“I was just at a McDonald’s, right, and there were two guys. Well, wait. Earlier today I was getting coffee and I saw on the TV that a guy named Johnny Z was arrested for starting a fire and killing some people, and they said that he is being held in Tucson, and that made me remember that you work in Tucson and maybe you heard about it ‘cause it was interesting, but that’s not what this is about.”

“Slow down, Eli,” says uncle Ian. “Relax.”

“Okay, okay,” Eli says. He takes a few deep breaths before continuing. “But then at the McDonald’s, I heard some guys talking in Russian about storming the police station where he’s being held. They said something about having guns in their car and killing people, and then hiding out in Mexico. I got their license plate, too. It was an Audi, I think an oh-seven A4 hatchback. 4MTT084.”

“Okay,” says the voice on the other end. “You did the right thing, telling me.”

The Audi overtakes him almost before he hears the roar of its engine, speeding and weaving through traffic.

“There they go!” Eli shouts into the phone. “They just passed me!”

He hears shuffling on the other side. “What? Where are you right now, Eli?”

“I’m on the highway.”

“Yeah, but going where?”

“Oh. To Tucson,” Eli replies.

“Why the Hell are you coming to Tucson, Eli!?”

Eli stops himself from saying it’s to save Johnny Z. “Well, uh–”

“Go home, Eli,” Ian says, cutting him off. “There is some dangerous stuff coming up, here, and you shouldn’t be anywhere near it. Don’t think about being a hero or anything, kid. That’s how people get shot.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eli responds. He suddenly feels stupid. If he had beat the Russians to the station, he would have been caught right in the middle of the firefight. Even if he gets there right after them, what can he do? It’s a building full of armed and trained police officers, and he’s a twenty-three-year-old civilian, who has never been in a fight, never held a gun, and, until recently, has never even dreamed of coming close a dangerous situation.

But he’s strangely excited by the idea. He’s excited to be doing something crazy, even if he would end up just being a witness to the action. And that experience, translated onto paper, would be likely to excite other readers.

The thought makes him want to be more adventurous.

“I’m serious, Eli!” continues his uncle, interrupting his thoughts. “Turn the car around and go home. Let me take care of this. You did a good thing letting us know that these guys were coming here, a really good thing, but that’s where your service ends. That’s why you have to go home, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me you’ll go home, Eli?” his uncle asks.

Eli pauses. Of course he’ll go home. Eventually. “I promise,” he says, smirking. “But you’d better hurry, Uncle Ian,” Eli says. “I’m only an hour outside of Tucson, so they have to be pretty close.”

“I’m already ready,” his uncle replies. “Now turn the car around, Eli. And thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” Eli says, jamming on the gas.

to Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

“Get back in the car, Eli!” Johnny shouts, running to the driver’s seat.

Eli tries to sit back down, but Johnny pulls him out. “The backseat, Eli! You’re not driving!”

He tosses the bag of guns and ammo into the backseat and shoves Eli after it, then pushes the seat back and piles into the front, setting his shotgun across the console. He slams the door and, finding Rosa sitting next to him, boots the little car into motion.

The added weight of two extra passengers makes the car sluggish. Johnny spins it around, forcing an oncoming car onto the sidewalk and into a parking meter. He presses hard on the gas and the Metro slowly picks up speed.

“Careful!” shouts Eli nervously. “This is my brother’s car! I promised not to hurt it.”

“Your brother’s car is a piece of shit,” Johnny says. “And it’s probably gonna get totaled.”

Eli’s jaw drops to the floor. “Wha? Why would you do that?!” he asks, almost in tears.

“I’m not doing anything!” Johnny shouts, pointing to his rear view mirror. “It’s those fuckers!”

Eli spins in his seat and looks through the back windshield. A pair of cruisers pull around the corner, followed by the big, lumbering APC with a front end that points to the sky at a forty-five degree angle and a long, metal cylinder mounted to the roof. The cruisers speed toward them, shifting in and out of lanes and working their way through traffic, while the APC just moves in a straight line as civilian vehicles clear out of its way.

“Holy shoot,” Eli says quietly.

Johnny veers left, plowing down a one way street. “We’re fucked,” Johnny says. “Maybe not as bad as those idiots, but we’re fucked.” He doesn’t slow for the wide speed bump in the road, and the car jumps a few feet clear of the ground. It slams back down hard on the pavement just in time to hit another one.

“The car!” Eli shouts.

“Forget the fucking car already!” Johnny yells back. “I’ll buy him a new one!”

In his rearview Johnny sees the cruisers skid through the turn and race after them. He looks away before the APC speeds past the entrance.

“These guys need a lesson in tact,” Johnny continues. “You can’t go around shooting up cops and having car chases without attracting too much attention,” he lectures. “Pretty soon the good guys will outnumber you. They’ll have helicopters and SWAT teams and all kinds of shit on them in a few minutes, and that means that we’ll have all that on us, too.”

“So we gotta lose them quickly,” Rosa says.

“Exactly.”

He pulls a hard right and stomps on the gas. The little car picks up slowly toward the next intersection, a T-junction showing a red light. Johnny shows no sign of stopping. “Hold on to something,” he says.

Cars making left turns leave no gaps for the Metro. He hammers on the horn to warn them, hoping that they’ll notice him and leave a space.

Instead there is a loud crash, and the APC appears, picking up a car with its angled front end and pushing it roughly through the light. The small sedan collides with a parked car and flips onto its roof, and the APC crunches into their sides, flattening both against the building opposite.

Johnny veers around the back end of the armored vehicle, his side mirror exploding into sparks and shards of glass and metal from the almost-too-close evasion. They burst out on the other side of the intersection and speed away, but the APC spins quickly and follows.

Johnny watches it slowly growing larger in his rear view. “Shit, that thing’s fast,” he says quietly.

A hatch on the side of its roof pops open, and a man with long, black hair and face-hugging glasses reaches his torso out and laughs like a maniac. He pushes out of the vehicle and onto the roof, slowly crawling up toward the centre plateau where a long, thin cylinder is mounted.

“Is that what I think it is?” Johnny asks.

Eli turns and looks. “Holy shoot,” he says. “Is that a gun!?”

Johnny passes a slow car by hopping in and out of the wrong lane, weaving back just in time to avoid hitting an oncoming truck. Behind them the car sees the APC and volunteers its place on the road by pulling off onto the sidewalk, and the truck, too, turns into a vacant parking spot to be safe.

The long-haired man grabs on to the mounted gun with one hand and, seeing this, Johnny jerks the Metro left down another street. The APC chases behind them, the force of the turn keeping the climber on top horizontal for a moment. He slams hard back into the armored side but doesn’t let go, and quickly begins his climb again, grinning and laughing.

The road bends right up ahead, keeping the climber pinned to the starboard side of the APC. But now the only option is straight for a half a mile, giving Johnny no way to shake the gunner off.

Rosa snatches the shotgun from Johnny’s side of the car and begins rolling her window down. “Don’t crash,” she begs as she undoes her seatbelt and lifts herself out of the window. She sits down on the ledge and wedges a leg between the front seat and the door.

“Get up here, Eli!” Johnny shouts. “Hold onto her!”

Rosa pulls the shotgun outside as Eli climbs awkwardly into the front seat. He stares at her figure for a second, trying to determine which part he can grab without feeling like a predator.

“Her jacket, Eli! Hold on to her jacket!” Johnny says, reading his mind.

He latches on just as Rosa brings the shotgun to her shoulder and aims.

Looking back, Johnny identifies this moment, of Rosa leaning out the window of a speeding car, with the wind blowing her dark hair over her face and flapping her shirt against those subtle curves while she fires a pump-action shotgun at a man eager to kill them, as being the exact moment when he fell in love with her.

But the first shot is timed with a bump in the road, and goes wild to hit who-knows-what. The man latches on and pulls himself up as Rosa pumps the next round into the chamber, but he slips into the recessed seat behind the mount and her second shot pings harmlessly off of the APC’s armored hide.

“Get in!” Johnny yells.

Rosa drops the shotgun inside and Eli pulls her off of the window ledge, landing her squarely in his lap.
He avoids the moment by looking over his shoulder at the oncoming APC, watching the long-haired man unlock the mount and train the long gun on the Beast while trying not to think of her backside pushing into his crotch.

“Via con Dios, amigos!” shouts the long-haired man over the roar of engines and wind, flicking up the translucent red covers guarding the triggers.

Johnny jams quickly on the brakes, and the Geo Metro slips right in front of the APC. The gunner tries to follow, but the mount clanks as it pivots to the extent of its range and can only see the empty asphalt in front of its target.

The APC itself, however, still has the Metro in its sights, and it growls hungrily as it prepares to pounce.
Johnny hits the gas again, revving the engine into the red. The Metro screams as it tries its best to gain back enough speed to keep from being overtaken. The APC’s massive tires chomp up the pavement with their enormous tread, and the upturned front comes so close it casts a shadow over the back end of the tiny car.

The Beast shifts itself into top gear and turns from a scream into a loud hum. To the fleeting relief of its occupants, it steadies out and stops just a few feet away from the real monster. But its top speed falls short of its pursuer, and those few feet slowly disappear.

“What now?” Eli asks, breathless.

“We die,” says Johnny Z without emotion.

Eli gulps.

An eighteen-wheeler is amidst the traffic in the oncoming lane, and Johnny’s eyes suddenly glow with an idea. “Put your seatbelt on,” he says quietly, his voice almost lost in the noise of the moment.
Eli hears him loud and clear, and reaches around Rosa to strap the pair of them in. “I don’t know if this is legal,” he mutters uselessly.

Behind them, the gunner leans over to the hatch in the roof. “Brake!” he yells down into it. “Slow down and I’ll shoot the fuckers!”

But inside there’s a hungry smile on the pilot, and he finds himself licking his lips as he watches the Beast through his reinforced porthole, so close he feels like he could reach out and touch it. “No!” he shouts back up. “They’re mine! I have them!”

The roof of the Metro catches on the underside of the APC’s giant front lip, and the armored predator slowly clenches down on the Beast. The front wheels of the Metro lift an inch off of the ground as the APC takes its first bite, crunching the roof in a foot, shooting sparks in every direction and shattering the back windshield. The shocks kick the back end up, which forces the front tires onto the ground. They struggle against each other over which gets the most traction, and after a frightening few shifts and squeals back and forth, they call it a tie and the car evens out.

Johnny watches the transport truck as it speeds toward them, gripping the wheel tight.

The push given to the Metro by the APC wears off, and it slowly succumbs once again to the surprising fast armored car.

It wants to take a second bite, and its mouth reaches forward to get a taste. But Johnny veers the Metro quickly to the left, cutting straight through the onrush of cars in the other lane. The eighteen-wheeler hits the brakes hard to keep from crushing the Metro, but the little car squeaks by and hops up onto the sidewalk, pushing pedestrians up against shop windows.

The APC continues on, ready to ram into the Metro once it clears the cover of the big truck.

The Beast doesn’t show. The APC only sees two red lights, shrinking quickly down a crack in the row of buildings.

Eli thanks the stars that his pants stayed dry.

The pair of cruisers turn in behind them, revving hard to catch up. The Metro squeaks out the crack and onto the road on the other side, forcing traffic to a quick, skidding halt. They exit down a residential street, cars beeping their horns and colliding in their wake. The cruisers follow close, threading their way through the gaps in traffic and somehow coming out clean on the other side.

Rosa spins around in the front seat, straddling Eli and reaching both arms over his shoulders, her chest pushing into his face.

“Uhm,” he says, muffled.

She says nothing as she pulls the duffel bag out from the backseat and plants it between them, searching it with both hands.

“What’s in that thing?” Eli asks, feeling her digging in his lap.

Her hands come out with a pair of grenades.

He sits back hard in his seat. “Holy shoot,” he says again.

“Shut up, Eli!” Johnny and Rosa shout in unison.

Rosa drops the bag to the floor of the front seat and holds the grenades in her hands, weighing them carefully. “How long is the fuse?” she asks Johnny.

A bullet screams by the Metro, hitting a parked car just ahead of them. Rosa sees short bursts of light out the window of the closest cruiser, and more bullets plunk into the Beast.

Johnny clocks the wheel quickly and turns right onto another road, then, before the car has a chance to right itself, he turns left into a side-street. The back and forth bounces Rosa on Eli’s lap and he tries hard to remember the roster of the ‘92 Blue Jays.

“Five seconds,” Johnny says, veering around a trash bin.

“Five seconds,” Rosa repeats. She watches over Eli’s shoulder, nodding her head as she counts. “Are you sure?”

Johnny shakes his head. “No.”

Behind them a cruiser misses the turn, but the second one follows them in. It scrapes against the garbage bin and rockets it sideways into the backdoor of one of the brick buildings.

“Seven,” Rosa says. “They’re seven seconds behind us. What should we do?”

Johnny points ahead. “Up here,” he says, looking at the next turn. “The road bends to the right. When we get past it and start accelerating, you toss it behind us.” He turns and looks Rosa in the eyes. “Okay?”

She pulls the pin from the end of the grenade and squeezes it tight. “Okay,” she says.

More shots crash into their car, one cracking the rear windshield. Eli covers his head with his arms and Rosa hugs his chest. He doesn’t realize that she’s using him as a human shield until later.

Johnny grips the wheel tight and prepares for the turn. He jams on the brakes and the Metro screams as it struggles to halt. A rapidly-approaching sign warns of a ravine just ahead, blocked off by two rotted plywood strips and an orange cone.

At the last second Johnny spins the wheel and the Beast banks around the corner, tipping hard to the left side as its squealing tires skip across the pavement.

“Now!” Johnny shouts.

Rosa lets fly out the window in a long, tall arc. The grenade tumbles end over end and clunks onto the asphalt right on the corner, just as their tail slows to follow them around the bend.

It explodes with a loud crack, pushing the cruiser off of the ground long enough to prevent its tires from catching as it tries to turn the corner. Momentum keeps it hurtling forward and it rams through the warning sign, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris as it plummets into the ravine with a crash.

The Beast’s occupants have no time to celebrate, though, as the missing cruiser pulls up just ahead of them and blocks off the street. The doors swing open and the two men inside step out and search for cover. Even in the low light Johnny can see the big guns in their hands, likely assault rifles that can tear this tiny car to shreds.

Johnny pulls the car to one side and spins it quickly to a stop. “Ditch!” he yells, opening his door. Rosa grabs the duffel bag from the floor and Johnny pulls her out the driver’s side, dragging her across the console. Eli follows them, climbing over the console and falling out onto the pavement.

He scrambles to his feet just as the rifles burst into fire, and the three run low to the ground back toward the bend as the Beast soaks up all the bullets. Smoke rises from a crater in the ground where Rosa’s grenade hit its mark, and they hop over the cracked hole and turn the corner.

The APC is staring them in the face, the gunner up top beaming at them with a wide smile. He raises the turret and sights them quickly.

“Aw, fuck,” Johnny says.

The long-haired man pulls the trigger and the guts of the APC rumble to life. A torrent of water sprays from the gun, crashing into the three with such force that it sweeps them cleanly off of their feet. The strong burst pushes them fast toward the ravine, their feet unable to catch anything in the now-slippery ground.

Johnny is the first to tumble over. He sees the bottom, a dozen yards below, where the ruined cruiser’s taillights stare back, casting a dull red glow on the foliage and shallow stream beneath them. He falls over the lip, his feet finding air underneath them. The others follow him over, both of them screaming as they realize the angle of descent.

Johnny’s feet catch sloped ground, and he hits it running. A bush folds out of his way as he crashes into it, and he feels himself slowly tipping forward. He speeds his feet up to counteract the fall, steadying himself momentarily but quickly running out of room. The last bit of the valley, where water might rise up in wetter seasons, is instead a sheer drop, and Johnny catapults over the edged and slams hard into the rough dirt at the bottom. He slows the impact with his arms but still catches a blow to the side of his head that sends shocks through his spine.

Rosa follows after, crashing onto her shoulder and dropping the bag in the shallow creek. Eli reaches the bottom finally, moaning as he plows into the bag of guns and ammo, using it like a pillow full of hard, sharp corners.

Johnny climbs to his feet, watching two-of-everything fold slowly into one concrete visual. “Get against the wall,” he says quietly.

Rosa stands with a limp, her foot bleeding from a deep cut. Johnny remembers that she isn’t wearing shoes and clenches his teeth. “I can’t walk,” she says, sitting up against the side of the ravine.

“Eli,” Johnny says. A trickle of blood falls down his forehead from a fresh cut and he wipes it away.
Eli sits up slowly. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Get over here,” Johnny tells him. “Bring the bag.”

Eli fumbles to his feet in the dark, picking up the bag and creeping over to cover.

Above them they hear shouts in Russian.

“They’re coming after us,” Eli says. “But one of them doesn’t want to. He says it’s not worth it. They sound like those skinheads from McDonald’s.”

The others ignore the last part. “We have to keep moving,” Johnny says. “I’ll carry Rosa. Eli, you get the bag.”

“It’s too heavy,” Eli says.

Johnny glares at him. “Man up, kid. We’re gonna need it, so you’re gonna carry it.” He stoops low and lifts Rosa off of her feet, staying near to the ravine wall. “Come on.”

They step quickly along the bottom of the valley, the wet floor sticking to their shoes and whispering sucking sounds each time they pull a foot free.

They pass the ruined police car, stuck in the ground across the stream. The driver’s side door is open and Johnny sees a man lying outside of it, but he’s face-down in the water, dead.

They hear the quiet sounds of a helicopter cutting through the distant sky, no doubt on its way to find them and their attackers. Ahead of them is an overpass crossing over the ravine. Even from their place on the ground they can see the headlights of rushing cars breaking up the darkness.

“We’ll climb up there,” Johnny says, spying a pathway. “Hopefully I can boost a car and get us somewhere safe.”

“I know a place,” Rosa says, her arms around Johnny’s neck. “I don’t think it’s far from here, either. It’s my friend’s.”

“She won’t mind us crashing there?” Johnny asks, jumping over a wet gap in the ground.

“Um, my friend’s in Europe for the summer,” Rosa replies, shrugging.

They find the pathway up just as the others finally reach the bottom. Johnny leads the way, his burning legs pumping hard despite the pain, followed by Eli, who’s struggling to keep up with the duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

The top of the path leads to an industrial sector, the backlot of a storage site. Sirens are blaring from every direction as the police search for a lead. Johnny sees two vans parked in the back next to a forklift, and he perches Rosa behind them.

“You ever shoot a man?” he asks her.

She stares up at him for a moment before shaking her head.

“It’s easy,” he says, speaking from experience. “Just aim for the chest, breath out and shoot twice. Wait out the recoil, but make the second shot quick so you don’t have to re-aim. Okay?”

She nods.

He grabs two pistols from the bag and hands one to her. “They’re gonna come up that same way,” he says. “Just hide out behind the forklift and shoot. Make ‘em count.”

Across the ravine Johnny can see the top of the APC, probably abandoned once the sirens began to sound. He turns his attention to the van next in line and uses the butt of the pistol to crack open the driver’s window.

The alarm blares, and shouts of Russian reach up to them from below.

“They’re up there,” Eli translates in a whisper. “Come on or hurry, something like that. We’ll send the others around.”

Johnny is inside the van, pistol-whipping the ignition until it breaks apart. “You speak Russian?” he asks, uncoiling some hidden wires.

“Da,” Eli responds.

Johnny shakes his head as he scrapes away the plastic coating with his nails. “Get in the other side, and dump the bag in the back. Quick.”

Eli does as he’s told, running around the front of the car and standing outside the passenger door until Johnny reaches over and unlocks it. He climbs into the cab and dumps the bag in the empty back.

“You’re going in the back, kid,” Johnny says, tapping the wires together. They spark and he jams on the gas, bringing the engine to life.

Eli stares at him. “There aren’t seats back there,” he says.

“I’m not putting the woman in the back,” Johnny tells him.

“She can’t sit on my lap again?” Eli wonders aloud.

Johnny’s silence tells him to get into the back, and he does.

Bushes rattle from the pathway and a man runs into the open, skinned-head and tattooed. Rosa follows her instructions and fires two bullets, and even though only one of them connects, the man slips backward and falls flat on the pavement.

“You faggots!” yells his friend, running and gunning out of the path. Rosa ducks behind the forklift, bullets ricocheting off of its metal hide. Johnny and Eli duck as well, Eli crouching fetally against the wall of the van.

Rosa screams, pinned behind the forklift by the attacker’s fire.

Johnny sits down in front of the steering wheel with his feet wedged under the console. He breaths hard and leans back flat out of the open driver’s side door, extending the pistol and quickly taking aim. His arm leads ahead of the running man and he pulls the trigger four times, catching a thigh with the third and a hip with the fourth.

The man tumbles to the ground on his elbows and screams in pain.

Johnny puts the fifth shot through his jaw, splitting it from his face to leave ragged bits of muscle and skin. He stops moving, blood oozing down his exposed tongue and painting the grey pavement red.
Johnny drops the gun on the seat and rights himself with the help of the wheel. Rosa is limping toward him, and he rushes over to help.

“I got you,” he says, tucking himself under her arm and lifting her up. He jogs her to the van and hoists her in, and she shifts over to the passenger side herself.

He gets in after her and shuts the door. The dull ache in his shoulder reminds him that there’s a bullet lodged in there, and he realizes he wants nothing more than to have a beer and fall asleep.

“Where are we headed?” he asks Rosa, shifting the van into drive.

CHAPTER 19

NOTE: I’ve changed Eli from a film-maker wannabe to a newspaper reporter wannabe. The bag WAS full of camera equipment, but he doesn’t need that anymore so it’s been thrown into the gully.

Of course, this leads to other things, like, “Why didn’t Eli report on Johnny Z blowing up the bar in Mexico?”

Well, Eli’s a bad reporter.

Eli swims with the flow of traffic from an exceedingly safe distance, creeping along in the slow lane behind an eighteen wheeler in his brother’s old Geo Metro. He hums to himself and pats the steering wheel along with the impromtu tune, keeping his eyes peeled for signs pointing him to Tucson.

The night, like his trip, is just beginning.

“This is crazy,” he thinks to himself. He’s never driven for more than three straight hours, and here he is embarking on the seven hour trek from his brother’s place just east of Hollywood to Tucson PD. And for what, he’s still unsure.

He looks at the gas gauge, full to the brim. He has two twenties, three fives and three ones in his wallet, and a handful of change in a bag on the floor that, while not exactly his to spend, could be useful for tolls and snacks and he promises he’ll replace whatever he takes. He quickly does the math for the trip, sticking to his Canadian roots by converting everything to Metric. He estimates the Metro at four litres per hundred kilometres for the sixteen-hundred kilometre round trip. Sixty-four litres. Gas was 2.388 a gallon last time he saw it, so that makes it just over sixty-three cents a litre or forty bucks for gas, if he wants to be nice and return the car with a full tank. He always wants to be nice when he can, so if he can afford it he’ll do it.

McDonald’s will feed him cheap. He can live on junior chicken combos.

But where will he sleep?

He looks around the interior of the car. He’s too tall to fit in the back lengthwise. In fact, pretty much any human being is too tall to fit back there. He wants to wait for a red light before testing out the recline of the driver’s seat, but assumes its not very comfortable. He understands that he’s confined to these two options unless he wants to put the rest on credit card and start leaving a paper trail, which he’s certain he doesn’t want to do.

He decides he’ll be sleeping reclined in the passenger seat. It’s rough, yeah, but that’s just like real reporting. You have to chase the good stories. This leaves him in the black for now, barring any unanticipated expenses. He figures he’ll have somewhere between two and three dollars, enough to buy a Red Bull for the drive.

And all this to get an interview, which, now that he’s thinking about it, he realizes he probably won’t even get. Johnny said he wouldn’t do it. Why should he change his mind now?

Well, for one thing he’s in jail. His quest is over, that’s for sure, and that was probably the main reason he wouldn’t do it in the first place.

Getting in to see him will be an issue, as well. He’s hoping his uncle Michael can help him out with that – unless something has changed, he’s still working for the force in Tucson, and he’s always been the shadiest of his uncles so he should be able to convince him. They can say he’s a lawyer or friend or whatever else to get him into the cells. Or, failing that, Eli wonders if maybe he can be ‘fake arrested’ and put up in the cell opposite Johnny’s.

This makes him think there might be more news on Johnny Z, if maybe someone has already beaten him to the punch. He taps the power button for the radio. Smooth jazz fills the small car, and he laughs thinking about his brother’s eclectic music tastes while he spins the dial around, searching for some kind of all-news station.

He finds a station talking about local news, but nothing about Johnny. The next station has a loud, angry-sounding man talking about Arizona, but it turns out he’s a hockey fan. He keeps going, stopping every time he hears a droning voice, but maybe it’s not as big a story as he thought.

He’s sure it will be, though. He remembers Johnny. He knows there’s something behind this, something big, he hopes, and now Johnny might be willing to talk. Maybe this’ll be his big break?

The thought makes him grin.

Here’s his chance to show them all.

His stomach growls, and he paws at it to calm its anger. The last thing he ate was a muffin, probably 4 hours ago. Before that it was a stale bagel. Before that was a bowl of cereal and an apple. And before that he was sleeping. He’s suddenly surprised that it took this long for his body to figure out it was starving.
In the distance shine the Golden Arches at a highway rest stop, and he salivates like Pavlov’s dog. Now is as good a time as any for Junior Chickens, he decides as he flips his blinker on. The car turns slowly to the off-ramp, rides down the long, thin stretch and finally slips into a free parking spot near the entrance. He tames the Beast with the handbrake and exits, locking the car the old-fashioned way by sticking the key in and then turning.

He does this four times to be extra sure.

The smell of french fries greets him outside the building. It only makes him hungrier and he finds his feet shuffling with a sudden intensity.

A half-asleep cashier stands suddenly alert when Eli reaches the counter. “Uh, hello, sir,” says the teenager, scratching his pimply forehead raw with the same hand that’s likely making Eli’s burger. “How can I help you?”

Eli orders. Beep beep beep. Beep. He gets his food and finds a spot in the nearly empty ‘restaurant’ where he can eat in silence, and gets three bites into his sandwich before it’s interrupted by the pair of bald, tattooed thugs pushing their way into the building.

One of them walks with a limp, the other with an exaggerated swagger that might be mistaken for one. They laugh and shout and shove each other around. “You’re paying!” one of them yells, but in Russian.
The other grabs the first by his jacket and shakes him up, pulling free with a wallet and smiling. “Sure,” he replies, also in Russian. He’s laughing. “With your money!”

Eli watches their reflections in the window. The only foreign language one tends to hear in the Southern US is Spanish, and the stretch of nothing between Hollywood and Tucson isn’t really a tourist attraction. Maybe they’re locals, immigrants sticking to their roots instead of melting into Americans.

“Your mother is a pizza slice,” says the first in response to the theft.

Eli chuckles at the strange metaphor, realizing afterward that he probably just mistranslated it. He was never good at Russian. Spanish, German, and Italian, yes. His French was even better. But Russian he only mostly understood, and was never comfortable speaking it. It was a tough language for him to get the hang of.

The two men approach the counter and comment rudely about the cashier and his mother’s sexual proclivities, safe behind the language barrier. After repeatedly asking what they wanted to eat, the visitors finally switch to English, albeit an extremely broken variation.

“I have one combo one, and one combo, uh, this many,” the first says, showing four fingers.

“Two Big Mac,” says the other.

They pay in cash pulled from a roll and sit on the other side of the McDonald’s, chomping away. Eli does his best to ignore them, telling himself that eavesdropping is rude and that he shouldn’t be doing it. But they don’t make it very easy for him to tune them out.

“Can you believe what they’re paying us for this shit?” asks one with his mouth full. The pair have switched the conversation back to Russian, and are shouting the short distance between them with the mistaken idea that nobody else can hear their conversation, or at least make sense of it.

“Not here,” says the other. He kicks his heavy boots up onto the chair opposite him and leans back in his seat so far that he has to do sit-ups to reach his food. He looks around the room, first at the cashier who’s fallen back asleep somehow, and then over to Eli. He looks away from the window, afraid the man might catch his eyes in the reflection.

“These faggots can’t understand us,” the first says, laughing.

The other gives him a stare. “Wait until the car, Dmitri,” he says.

Dimitri chuckles. He stands up and climbs aboard the table. “Hey fuckers!” he shouts, still in Russian. “We kill people for a living! Fuck, I killed someone this afternoon! We have guns and drugs and bootleg pornos in the car outside right now!”

After some inner deliberation, Eli decides it’s best that he turns his head to look. If someone started shouting what you took for gibberish at the top of their lungs you would turn to look. And so he does, and lets them see him raise him narrow his eyebrows before turning back around in a hurry.

“I think that one just shit his pants,” Dmitri says, pointing at Eli. He hops down into his chair.

“Shut up,” says the other. “And get the fuck off of the table. Even if these two goats don’t understand, there are cameras and now they’ve got pictures of you being stupid.”

“Relax,” Dmitri says. “None of that matters. We’re going to be out of the country in 12 hours.”

“Or dead,” says the other.

Eli’s Junior Chicken is long gone, and he realizes he’s been eating his fries one at a time, each one chewed into a liquid. He’s forgotten that eavesdropping is rude.

“Why are you always so morbid, Alexei?” asks Dmitri. “Always going on about us dying.”

“It’ll happen one day,” says Alexei.

“Yeah, well, I’ll worry about it then,” replies the other. “When we finish this, alive and well,” he continues, stressing the sentence. “Are we going to Mexico or back to Russia? That bitch Marta won’t stop texting me.”

“Mexico then Russia,” says Alexei, resigning, but at least bringing the volume down. “I don’t want to wait around in this country after what we’re doing.”

“I still don’t understand how they say breaking in will be easy,” Dmitri says. “Or why they don’t just poison his food.”

The other shakes his head. “El Pirata wants him alive, if possible. That’s what we want, too, because we get quadruple the pay.”

Dmitri nods. “Yes. But I don’t know any police station that is easy to break in to.”

Eli stops savouring his fry. He suddenly thinks he might be in a race for the next few hours if these two are headed where he thinks they’re headed.

Alexei shrugs. “The Wolf says he has taken care of it,” Alexei responds. “That means a pig has been paid to kill the others, I think. If the Wolf says it’s taken care of, it’s taken care of.”

Dmitri nods. “I think that’s why I’m worried,” he says. “Why would they need us if that’s the case?”

Alexei thinks for a moment, chomping on his Big Mac. “I see,” he says finally after swallowing hard. “Maybe they’re short staffed after the idiot burned down the Three Eagles. That must be it.”

That idiot is Johnny, Eli is sure of it.

He wonders what the top speed is on the Metro, and how fast these two will risk driving with a car full of guns, drugs and bootlegged pornos. He thinks about the damage the increase in speed is going to do to his planned kilometres to a hundred litres and frowns. Maybe he won’t have enough money after all. He hates the thought of his dad seeing his credit card statements and wondering what he was doing in Arizona if it obviously wasn’t visiting family.

He debates internally about staying to hear the rest versus getting a head start on the road, folding his wrappers into neat little squares. If he leaves now he might miss an important tidbit of information, but if he doesn’t and waits instead for them to leave, then he’s pinned to his seat for an extra five minutes at least before he figures it’s safe to leave without causing any suspicion that he’s following the two.

So he stands and takes his tray to the garbage. He can’t be late.

“I hear Big Ivan was in there,” Dmitri says. “While it was burning to the ground.”

Alexei chuckles. “Yeah, I heard that, too,” he says, grinning. “That fucker is unkillable.”

Eli speedwalks to the Beast as soon as he’s clear of the exit. He sees the only car in the parking lot that wasn’t there when he entered, a charcoal Audi hatchback, and makes sure to memorize the license plate before leaving.

4MTT084.

He hops into the Metro and repeats it a few times until it sticks.

to Chapter 20

CHAPTER 18

EARLIER THAT EVENING

“Hey, Kevin. It’s Eli,” he says into the intercom, taking the heavy bag off of his shoulder and resting it on the tiled lobby floor. “I need your car.”

The other end is a groggy voice, scratchy and slow. “What?”

“I said I need your car,” Eli repeats loudly. “Please.”

“Who is this?” asks the voice.

“It’s Eli. I said that already,” Eli responds. “I mean, I think I did. Maybe I didn’t. Sorry.” He breathes deep, helping the air flow by twirling his hands toward his chest. “It’s Eli.”

The intercom buzzes and the door lock clicks open.

“Hey man, want a hit?” asks Kevin, holding out a lit joint. He’s shirtless, thin like Eli but with a belly sticking out of his midsection and a group of tattoos on his arms. He scratches his chest with his free hand.

Eli shakes his head. “No, I’m fine,” he says, avoiding the impulse to lecture the other about drug use. He can cite sources if he has to.

“So what did you want?” Kevin asks. “My car?”

Eli nods. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah, that’s okay,” says the other, bringing the proffered smoke back to his lips. “Shit, yeah. That’s what hombres are for, right? Cars?” He pulls and inhales. “What’ve you been up to, then, if you’re too busy to come say hi?”

Eli shrugs. “Working,” he says.

“Yeah, eh? Still with that kids show? With the, uh, the knights and shit?” Kevin wonders aloud. “I didn’t know they let you out this early…”

“What about you?” Eli asks.

“Nothing,” Kevin responds, blowing smoke. “Still living the high life,” he says with a smile and a wink. “You should visit more, though. Party sometimes, you know?”

Eli squirrels his face, eying the floor full of clothes, pizza boxes and other random garbage. “Sure,” he answers, but his voice says otherwise.

“I see how it is,” Kevin replies, plucking the roach in his fingertips and killing it. “I get it.”

“Sorry, man,” Eli says. “It’s just… I dunno. I mean. You’re always high.”

Kevin smiles. “Not always, man,” he says, grinning. “Not now.” He nods to the ashtray. “I’m just a little buzzed.”

Eli sighs.

“Whatever,” Kevin moans.

Eli scratches his arm.

Kevin stares at the clock.

Eli looks around the room. Eight bags of chips, most of them empty. Fourteen magazines piled on the coffee table. Three large pizza boxes, that’s eight slices a box so they could’ve held twenty-four slices.

“What’s in the bag?” Kevin asks, interrupting.

Eli looks down at the black gym bag. “Uh, well, I borrowed some stuff from work,” he explains. “Just for the weekend. I’ll bring it back Monday. I mean, that’s when the guy said it needed to be back.”

“Right,” says Kevin. “That’s cool.”

Eli bounces and fidgets. “So you’re sure it’s okay if I borrow your car? Positive? Just for tonight, I promise.”

Kevin nods. “Yeah. Yeah, man. Sure.” He digs under a chip bag to free the keys, then tosses them to Eli. They bounce off of his chest and he catches them in his cradled hands. “Don’t hurt the Beast, eh?” says Kevin, winking.

“Thanks. I won’t.”

to Chapter 19

CHAPTER 17

LeBlanc peers out of the cell block window into the station outside. “Oh shit,” he says quietly.

Fumbling with a set of keys, he rushes toward a box of switches on the wall. “Don’t get any ideas,” he says loudly. “I’m letting you out, but you’re gonna stay in there until I get to you. And if you don’t listen I’m gonna shoot you. You get me?”

“Yes I do,” says Johnny Z.

LeBlanc shoves the key into the lockbox and spins it quickly. The block buzzes and clanks as Johnny’s cell door slides open.

He jogs back and takes a light hold of Rosa’s elbow. “I’m going to need you to wait in one of these cells,” he says, pointing to the one in the far corner. “Hide out until help arrives. They won’t be long.”

“No no no,” Rosa replies, shaking her head. “I’m not waiting around like some sitting duck. I’m coming with you.”

“It’s too dangerous,” LeBlanc continues. “You’re staying here. I insist.”

He turns his back to her and focuses on Johnny. “Listen to me now,” he says. “You’re going to stay five feet in front of me at all times, and you’re going to do what I say when I say it. The plan is that I lead you down into the garage and we retreat to another location in a secured van. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure these don’t get you. Do you understand?”

Johnny nods, scratching his cheek. “Do I get a gun?” he asks with a grin.

LeBlanc laughs. “No. Now move toward the door.”

Johnny steps out of his cell. Rosa grabs his hand and stares up into his eyes. “Don’t leave me here,” she pleads.

“I can’t do anything about it,” he says with a clandestine wink. “Just wait here for the cavalry. I’m sure it won’t be long.”

She reluctantly steps back. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, I’ll wait.”

“Let’s move,” LeBlanc says.

Johnny rushes toward the cell block door and peers through it. He sees an officer pull a pistol from his desk drawer and slam it shut, then run out into an unseen hallway.

“And?” asks LeBlanc.

“I don’t see anyone,” says the other.

“Okay. When you get out there, look out for hostiles coming from the left. Find some cover behind a desk facing the left side of the room. I’ll be right behind you.” He motions through the walls with two fingers stuck together. “The elevator is through the double doors on the right once you exit this room. It leads only to the garage, which is secured tight from outside invaders, so it should be a clean trip if we hurry. Do you understand?”

Johnny nods. “Yeah, I get it,” he says.

“Alright. Open the door and exit into the hallway.”

Johnny clicks the door open and steps outside. LeBlanc moves to follow him, but the door is quickly shut in place before he gets near enough.

“Wha–” mutters LeBlanc, annoyed. “That idiot can’t hold a door open?”

He turns the handle and steps out to trail Johnny, but catches a fist with his teeth instead. He falls to the floor and gets sandwiched lightly between the door and the doorway.

Rosa peeks out of her cell. She watches a hand reach down and pluck LeBlanc’s pistol from his fingers, then rummage through his pockets for the keys. The hand leads a body back into the room.

Obviously, it’s Johnny Z.

“Come on,” he says, motioning her toward him. “The cavalry is here.”

She runs quickly to him, taking her heels off as soon as she realizes the noise they’re making. “Watch your step,” Johnny says, taking her hand to guide her over the unconscious LeBlanc.

He sees Sully’s office, still dark, and hopes that he made it out before the gunfight began. He can still hear off past the doors at the left side of the room.

They dodge between Ikea desks toward the flimsy double doors on the far right. That the department doesn’t spend frivolously on desks gives Johnny the hope that they make it up in more necessary areas, although he worries that they might just be victims of rampant budget cuts in a poor economy.

Rosa follows his lead as he dips low to the ground, squirreling from one desk to the next. If it comes down to it he knows they wouldn’t give an ounce of protection, so he makes their advance quick.

They come up to the double doors, set on swinging hinges so that they can open each way. There are no windows for him to scan through.

He sets Rosa aside near the wall, away from the doors, and motions for her to stay low. She crouches. He covers his ears, and then points to her, and she covers her ears as well.

He checks the pistol in his hands. It feels heavy enough, but he swings the cylinder open anyways, wanting to be positive. He sees five round eyes staring back at him, and one winking from its hiding place, the cylinder not falling out all the way.

The gun is reset with a quiet click. He puts his hand to the right double door and takes a low breath, then pushes, hard, striding forward with his pistol raised.

The hallway is empty.

He ducks back out and grabs Rosa’s hand. “Come on,” he whispers, tugging her into the short white hallway.

The ceilings are high, but with low-hanging lightbulbs that sway on long tethers. At the end is an elevator on the left, and a cabinet against the far wall that, in Johnny’s eyes, has a golden, glowing aura.

They jog toward it on the dirty white linoleum tiles. Johnny pulls out the set of ten or so keys, hoping that it won’t be much of a struggle to find the one that fits. But instead he finds that it must be his lucky day, as the cabinet hangs open an inch, already unlocked.

He hits the down arrow for the elevator first, having learned long ago that you never want to be caught waiting for an elevator to show up. It lights up a bright green and he turns his attention to the cabinet, swinging it wide open and smiling wide.

Shotguns, pistols, rifles, ammo, and a set of vests hang neatly all around, with a pair of duffel bags scrunched on the floor and a row up above of seven small keys. “Can you work a gun?” he asks Rosa.

She, too, is smiling into the cache. “Yes,” is her response.

He hands her a pistol and tucks his own into his belt, shoveling armfuls of ammo into the duffel bag, making sure to grab enough of every kind. He pulls a big vest and a little one out and the two strap up, then takes a shotgun and slings it over his shoulder.

Finally he steals a few sets of keys from the top row and dumps them into the breast pocket of his kevlar jacket.

There’s a ding and the large metallic doors slide open, revealing a relatively spacious, empty green elevator. They step inside and Johnny hits P.

“So what are you doing here? Really?” he asks her.

She fidgets. “I don’t think we have time here,” she says, turning her head to throw her hair onto her other shoulder. “It’s a long story. Maybe I can tell you once we’re out of this police station.”

“I guess I can wait,” Johnny replies.

She smiles nervously up toward him. He grins back in an effort to ease her down, but instead she starts backward.

“Did you know you’re missing a tooth?” she asks.

Johnny feels inside his mouth with a finger that tastes like gasoline. “Holy shit,” he says, pausing on his missing incisor. “That fucking Russian.”

The elevator slows and stops with a final shudder. It dings to announce its arrival, and the doors part ways slowly.

The parking garage is the standard, dim-lit underground parking you would find in any part of Tucson, with the only difference being that it’s full of police cruisers, undercover cars and trucks, SWAT vans, and an Armored Personnel Carrier with puncture-proof tires, a roll cage, and a mesh/window composite that can withstand temperatures more common on Mercury.

“I like the big one,” Johnny says, eying the APC.

“Don’t you want to be a little less obvious?” Rosa asks.

“I also don’t wanna get shot,” Johnny says. “But you’re probably right. We’ll take a boring one, then.”

They jog toward a line of plain, black sedans. Up close you can tell that they’re more than just regular automobiles, but they’re the least conspicuous of the lot, and Johnny’s confident that they can trade up once he’s out on the street.

One by one he takes the keys from his pocket and tries them out. They’re not remote-control like most models, and instead he has to take turns stuffing them into the driver’s side door lock and turning each one.

The third key brings the desired effect and the door unlocks with a muted thud. Johnny smiles and pops the back door open, throwing the duffel bag in before climbing into the front and letting Rosa in through the passenger side.

“It’s not so bad,” he says, palming the leather chairs.

He turns the ignition and shifts into gear, stomping his foot down on the gas and enjoying the exaggerated squeal of tires on interior asphalt. The front end pitches up and the car jumps forward, but it only gets around the first turn before Johnny has to slam hard on the brakes.

LeBlanc is standing in the middle of the drive, gun drawn. He straightens his hat. “Get out of the car!”

Johnny grabs the intercom from under the dash and jams on the talk button. “Please move away from the front of the vehicle,” he says in a mock authoritative voice.

“Those windshields aren’t bullet proof, Johnny,” LeBlanc returns.

Johnny shrugs. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “Now get the fuck out of the way, dick! We’re leaving!”

A quiet ding from the other end of the parking lot is lost beneath the idling purr of Johnny’s borrowed vehicle. Shadows shuffle out in ranks and step quickly and quietly from car to car.

“I’m coming with you,” LeBlanc states. “Or I’m not moving, I promise you that.”

A gunshot sounds from the back of the garage, leading the charge as the rest of the shadows open fire. LeBlanc sprints forward and crouches against the hood of the blocked-in sedan, his promise broken almost immediately.

Bullets plunk into the trunk of the car, one into the driver’s side mirror, and the rest astray as Johnny shifts it into gear and jams on the pedal, savouring the look on LeBlanc’s face as he does. The officer manages to leave his feet before the car gets a chance to drag him under, and instead finds himself standing on the bumper, splayed out and hanging on to the hood of the car, fingers jammed in the crevasse before the windshield.

“What are you, nuts?!” LeBlanc asks rhetorically, screaming through the windshield. “I could’ve been killed!”

“There’s still time,” Johnny returns, ducking his head back and forth to see past the shocked LeBlanc as he weaves through the parking lot.

The shadows step out of cover behind them and continue firing. Johnny catches a glimpse in the rear view mirror of the attackers, his glance showing a one-armed giant among them.

“That fucking Russian again!” he shouts, ducking as a bullet streaks through both windshields and out the front, knocking the hat off of LeBlanc’s head.

“I told you they weren’t bullet proof!” LeBlanc says.

The car careens around a final bend, its hood ornament somehow staying glued on. When they straighten out LeBlanc looks over his shoulder and gasps. “The door, Johnny!” he shouts.

Johnny sees it, too, but also sees the gunmen running into position behind them at the bottom of the exit. Stopping won’t help at the moment. “How do I open it?” Johnny shouts.

“The visor! In the visor!” LeBlanc replies in a squeak.

Johnny reaches up above and fumbles for the remote while struggling to keep his eyes on the road. If it comes down to it, he’s already decided that he’s going to plow through.

His fingers find the opener and he pulls it free, but it slips his grasp and drops to the floor on the driver’s side.

Rosa buries her head in Johnny’s lap without missing a beat, hands frantically searching the ground. She ducks just in time to avoid a fresh bout of gunfire from behind them, most shoot wild but two find their general targets, one catching Johnny in the shoulder just right of his vest, and another striking low on the right rear tire and bursting it instantly.

The back end falls half a foot and the left side of the car lurches with the sudden redistribution of power, sending the car spinning to the right and Rosa even further into Johnny’s lap. He quickly counterclocks the steering wheel left with a grunt of paint, but the act doesn’t come quickly enough. The right bumper hits first, crumpling and sparking against the concrete walls, followed by the headlight that cracks into pieces. The side mirror spins as it connects with the wall and flips up and over the car, and the hood bends in at a speed that makes LeBlanc’s sphincter waver. But the car bounces off and back on track just a millisecond short of LeBlanc emptying his bowels and a dozen meters from still-barred exit.

The swerve left pushes Rosa back off of Johnny’s lap and into her seat, her hands coming up clutching a small, black device.

She presses the button frantically and they all watch with smiles as the door begins to open.
Slowly.

“Fuck,” all three seem to say in unison, Johnny and Rosa whispering and LeBlanc cursing at full volume.
In what he sees as a supreme act of generosity, Johnny lays up on the gas in the hope that the door will open fully by the time they reach the exit, despite the continuing gunfire behind them.

But then he notices that the gate is angling open, with the bottom rising up toward the outside. If it stays low and the bumper catches it first, the force might shoot the door upward over the roof of the car, leaving them all safe and mostly sound. But if they hit it any higher up on the car, it’ll likely crush LeBlanc’s spine. The passengers would be safe, of course, but murdering a cop intentionally is something Johnny was hoping to avoid.

He grits his teeth and jams on the gas, downshifting for more speed up the ramp. “Hold on!” he shouts to LeBlanc as the car speeds toward the summit.

LeBlanc’s eyes flare wide with shock. Rosa covers her face with both hands. Johnny clenches his teeth tight and grips the steering wheel so tight he’s sure he’s leaving permanent marks. The car rockets over the precipice, the front end leaping into the air. The bumper connects solidly with the slow-rising garage door and it flies up, breaking free of its hinges and spinning high into the midnight air. The nose of the sedan is forced back down into the ground and it bounces hard. LeBlanc stays attached with inhuman grip, and manages a laugh and a wide smile before being plastered into the car when the shocks kick the hood back up. The blow doubles his vision and his fingers lose their glue, slipping from their hold.

With stored inertia the sedan powers forward still, before it is finally coerced to stop by an unlucky Smart Car in the school of traffic. They slam into the smaller car’s side, flying LeBlanc up, over the road and into a fortuitously-placed garden on the other side. Johnny and Rosa plow into their airbags, safe but dazed. The Smart Car skids sideways on the edges of its tires and into on-coming traffic, while the rush of cars jam simultaneously on their brakes. The first collides only mildly, but behind it the tailgaters can’t stop in time and the far side of the road quickly piles up.

The few pedestrians outside the back end of the station watch the carnage with slack jaws. One spots the loose gate as it starts its decline, aimed by fate at an unlucky other rushing to check on LeBlanc. “Ahh–” is all he can muster before the garage door crushes the pedestrian with an inappropriately comic splat.
Johnny catches his wits and begins pushing into the air bag, the adrenaline dampening the pain that the bullet lodged in his shoulder generates when he moves his right arm.

He pulls on the handle and shoves his door open with his shoulder hard, knocking it open and falling out onto the ground. Useless onlookers ask, “Are you okay?” as he scrambles wordlessly to his feet and runs across to the passenger side.

The man who witnessed the gate crashing is screaming, “Holy shit! Holy shit!” Johnny pushes past him and yanks on the other door, but its crushed in place by the collision. He sticks his boot against the back end of the car and tries again, but it only reminds him that there’s a bullet in his shoulder and it hurts to do strenuous physical tasks. Finally, Rosa uses the butt of her pistol to break the window and looks out at Johnny. He smiles and reaches in, and the two lock arms. He pulls her free.

“Let’s go,” he says.

They run into traffic, but Johnny stops and holds up a finger. He turns back to the car, reaches through the broken window, and yanks the duffel bag from the backseat.

“Can’t forget–” he manages before a bullet pegs him in the chest.

He stumbles back, still clutching the bag, and leans against the car for protection. The crowd screams and dissipates in every direction but toward the garage. Rosa finds cover behind the smart car, the driver of which is still leaning against the window, unconscious or dead. She raises the pistol over the car and shoots wildly.

Johnny slings the duffel bag over his shoulder, using the covering fire to sprint toward her, grab her hand and pull her with him. The pain from exerting his bullet-torn muscles seems like it’s becoming a constant, but he’d rather that then work with just the one arm.

He leads her around a corner and temporarily away from their attackers. He lets go of her steps into traffic, rummaging through the bag and pulling out a shotgun. He pumps it in the air and aims it at the first car in line.

“Get the fuck out of the car!” he shouts, bringing the pistol up in line with his shoulder with a barely visible wince.

The driver pops out instantly with his hands in the air.

Johnny lowers the gun. “Eli!?”

to Chapter 18

CHAPTER 16

Johnny can’t remember how he got into the back of the police car. Out the window he can see the bright lights of Tucson approaching on the horizon.

“What’s going on?” he asks, still groggy. His jaw feels like its detached from his skull right around the temple, and reaching back he feels a welt like a golf ball sticking out. It’s like lightning to the touch.

The officer in the passenger seat, a massive beast, turns around and smiles. “There you are!” he says. “Up and at ‘em, Johnny Z!”

“Fuck off!” Johnny shouts in surprise. “How the fuck did they let you become a cop?”

Terrence Parker shrugs. “For starters, I don’t go around burning down buildings full of innocent people,” he answers.

“Nobody’s innocent in there,” Johnny tells him.

“Yeah, well, that’s why you’re the psychopath,” Terrence responds.

They weave their way through the sparse late-night traffic of downtown Tucson, blinkers off but speeding anyways.

“I used to know this guy, eh LeBlanc?” Terrence tells the driver, nudging him in the arm. “Went to high school together. He was a crazy fucker then, too.”

LeBlanc stares back at Johnny through the rearview mirror. He scratches his short, fiery-red hair. “Yeah. Looks like a nut-job,” he says.

“That Bravado is a fucked-up place,” Terrence continues. “Sully’s told me some stories, man. Crazy shit going on there. He been thanking Jesus since he got promoted. That guy sure loves Christ, I’ll tell you.”

“Sully?!” Johnny asks, sitting forward in his chair. He remembers the man as mostly ineffectual, cracking down on petty crime while turning a blind eye to the real problems in town. Growing up he thought it was because Sully was just another idiot, the same way he felt about all people with authority. But since then he’s figured out how life works. Sully was on the take, he had to be.

“Hah! Yeah, Sully,” Terrence says. “You were practically raised in that old fart’s lap!” He laughs. “He’s head of the district now, you know. Earns a big, fat paycheck. I don’t think it’ll be a fond reunion, though, with the massacre and all.”

They pull into the station and park among the other cruisers. Terrence dislodges himself from the passenger seat and pulls open the back door. “Come on, let’s go,” he says in a voice gone monotone after repeating the lines a thousand times over.

Johnny shuffles out of the back and stands. Terrence grabs his hands, cuffed behind his back, and leads him into the building.

Johnny can see Sully’s office in the corner, with large, glass windows and a small computer screen. The room is dark save for a desk lamp turned up toward the ceiling. He sees the cushioned chair and imagines that Sully’s gone even softer since he left the streets.

The cell is small and clean, with a fold-down bunk that’s a foot too short for a midget, and a barred window that filters orange streetlight into the room. The walls are all a light blue brick save for the entrance, which is a set of painted-white composite bars hooked up to an electronic lock. There’s a small, burned out pot light overhead, sealed behind a grate in case a cutter gets any ideas.

He’s one of six cells in the block, the only one that isn’t empty, and there’s a closet full of cleaning supplies at the dead end. The other doors stay wide open when not in use, waiting to swallow up prisoners.

Has he been here for one hour or six? It’s tough to determine in the unchanging atmosphere. With nothing to do, he’s spent the time counting the tiles, the bricks, the bars, and the flies, but he keeps losing count. He’s never been able to concentrate for extended periods of time.

There’s a dull beep and the clack of a lock jamming free, and he hears the door to the block swing open on its squealing hinges. A single pair of thick-soled boots pound on the linoleum as they approach his cell.
Sully rounds the corner and stares into the cell. He’s lost weight and seems almost gaunt, with an unshaven face and dark circles under his eyes.

“Johnny,” he says sadly.

“Yeah, it’s me,” replies the prisoner.

“This is bad, Stretch,” says the officer, using the nickname he gave Johnny after their first few run-ins. The younger one was going through puberty at the time, and Sully remarked on how quickly he was growing toward an adult offender. “Terry called me at home to get me here. I didn’t think I’d see you again, Johnny. Thought you were gone for good.”

“Well, I came to my senses,” Johnny says.

“I wish you hadn’t,” Sully replies. “There’s no way out of this one.”

“Wasn’t expecting one,” Johnny tells him. “Just wish I’d had a bit more time to finish the job.” He looks up at the old sheriff as if expecting some help.

Sully laughs. “I think you’re crazy,” he says. “Certifiable. You can’t just go around killing people.”
Johnny says nothing.

“Some of them were bad. Right, sure. But not all of them. And none of them would’ve gotten death for it, that I know. Maybe life if…” he trails off. “That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t factor into the equation at all, Johnny. You can’t go around killing people. That’s the law.”

Johnny shakes his head. “The law doesn’t apply to me,” he says. “It was never around when I needed it, never around when Bravado needed it. I was doing everyone a favour burning that place down. I had a plan full of favours, you know.” He scowls. “But police around here seem to side with the criminals more than the citizens.”

Sully slams his palm into the bars and they shudder from the hit. “What was I supposed to do, Stretch? Huh? Tell me what I was supposed to do?”

“You could’ve started with your job,” Johnny tells him. “‘Serve and Protect.’”

“It’s not that simple,” Sully tells him. He lowers his voice. “They threatened to kill everybody, Stretch,” he mutters. “The whole town. They warned me that they could make it look like an accident, like a gas leak or something. They said they had the whole thing set up already. I wasn’t going to take any chances. I couldn’t meet the Good Lord with that hanging over my head.” He pauses to wipe his mouth with his sleeve. “They gave me those ‘deputies’ to watch over me and make sure I didn’t cave. They were on my back all day, every day. They put cameras in my house, Johnny. In my bathrooms, in my bedrooms. How am I supposed to take a shit when I know some sick fucker is watching me? How am I supposed to make love to my wife, huh? Tell me that?”

Johnny recalls the Sheriff’s wife, a slim, pretty-faced woman, and the messy divorce that was the talk of the town. Rumour was that Sheriff Sully couldn’t shoot his gun anymore. Now it made more sense.

“I know you got the shit end of the stick, Stretch, but it wasn’t just you,” he sighs. “It was all of us. The whole town’s fucked just cause they decided to set up shop there.” He looks back through the door, imagining his office seen with X-ray glasses. “You know I only got this promotion cause they forced one of their own men into my spot in Bravado? Some fucker named Woon. I don’t know if they got some pull with the higher ups or politicians or what. Maybe we’ll find some of their names on the ledger. But they pushed me out so they could keep a closer watch on the action.”

Johnny’s head drops.

“I know you think you’re doing good with this Rambo shit, but you’re fucking everything up!” Sully’s voice has risen on its own. He wills it back to a whisper. “We had people on the inside. We had a plan. We’ve got a file six-inches thick sitting in my office, Stretch. We’ve got cork boards with dozens of headshots and arrows and links to crime and trafficking that was gonna lead somewhere. I’ve got home addresses and satellite photos and birds that were singing. They were singing operas, Stretch! That’s how you make a real difference. That’s how you make it safer for everyone. Maybe not today, but eventually. One by one it’s getting better. Or was. Now because of some homicidal maniac I’m gonna have dozens of revenge slayings to keep up with, and people hiding out for months because they’re afraid of doing business. They’re gonna say you’re with the Tomasulo’s and start all kinds of shit, and all those files and photos that we paid for in blood aren’t gonna mean shit!”

A phone dings. He pulls his Blackberry out of its leather case and examines it, frowning. “They can’t find him. Woon. You better hope he’s not that poor fucker that was burned to a crisp. You’ll never see the light of day, no matter how many times his name is on the ledger. Not that you’ve got much chance, anyways.” He shakes his head. “It’s not looking pretty, Stretch. I want you to know that I’m gonna side with you. I’ve got some clout, now. I push a big pencil. It’s not your way, but get used to it cause it’s the only way we’re saving your life. If we get the right judge, you might even get out of maximum and into a psych ward. You’d have to hang with crazies and take some pills from time to time, but its got shuffleboard and Monopoly and satellite TV.”

“Sounds like paradise,” Johnny mumbles.

“You’ve got no reason to complain, based on the circumstances.” says Sully. “I don’t feel great either pulling strings for a murderer. Now I’m sorry that things didn’t work out better for you. I really am. You’ve got a head for planning, it looks like, and good aim. Don’t tell me where you learned any of that shit, cause I don’t wanna know. I’m just saying that you could’ve been a good cop if you weren’t so fucking crazy.”

He takes a step back and looks toward the door. “You’ve got a visitor. Normally visiting hours are over, but you trying saying no to this girl. Not only is she pretty, but she’s sharp as a tack. Says she knows you from a gig you played in Mexico?”

Rosa? It can’t be her.

“I don’t know how someone with such an ugly mug can get lookers like her to visit, but don’t get any ideas. This place ain’t equipped for conjugals.”
Johnny laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

He shrugs. “Just wondering when you started talking like some 50’s cartoon Dick Tracy wanna-be,” he says, finding a smile. “‘Ugly mug?’ Really?”

“Har har,” Sully says. “It comes with the corner office.” The door buzzes and creaks open, and Sully turns and nods. “LeBlanc is gonna be watching you two, so no funny stuff. Okay?”

“Okay,” Johnny says.

Sully nods, satisfied. “Alright. Hang in there, Stretch. It’s gonna get bumpy, but I’m looking out for you now. I owe it to you, I think. Us bastard children of Bravado gotta stick together.” He turns to the door.

“Alright, let her over.”

Sully disappears. The deep thud of his boots mixes with a pair of loud heels until the heels win out.
Sure enough, Rosa appears, dressed in a floral skirt and a blouse that’s been designed without the top buttons. Her hair is tied back and there is a pair of large, dark sunglasses hanging from her breast pocket.

She’s biting her lip in a way that makes Johnny nervous.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“It’s a long story,” she says, hushed. “And you don’t have time to hear it. Pippo is after you, Johnny. He’s coming after you, even in here. It’s a miracle I even beat him here. You have to get out.”

Johnny shakes the bars, or at least he tries to and instead shakes himself. “Rosa,” he says, feeling that he doesn’t need to give any further explanation.

“I know, I know,” she continues. “But that’s not going to stop Pippo. Tell your friend to have you moved, the Officer Parker. Anywhere.”

Johnny’s brow narrows. “Terrence?” he says. “He’s not my friend.”

“He said he was,” Rosa replies. “Ask the other one, then, Johnny. Do it quickly.”

Johnny sighs.

“Please, Johnny, just listen to me!” she says, almost shouting. “I came here to save your life, just like you saved mine. I owe it to you. You just have to trust me.” She pauses, locking eyes. His dull greys stare back at her. “Do you trust me?”

Johnny hesitates. Women have always led to trouble in his life. They always find a way to make you do stupid things, where the best possible outcome is that you live to regret doing them.

But something about Rosa is different. He feels like she is different. He feels like she can change him, for better and forever. She smiles and he melts against the cell gate.

He finds himself wanting to say yes. In the past he’s made it a rule to keep people at arms length, but he seems to be breaking it more than he thinks is safe.

He opens his mouth, prepared to break it again, but isn’t given a chance.

Gunfire interrupts him from out in the hall.

“Oh no,” Rosa says, her lower lip quaking. “They’re here.”

to Chapter 17

CHAPTER 15

“Eli!” comes a voice through a megaphone. “Eli, where are you?”

Eli drops his magazine and jumps high out of his chair, running as soon as he hits the floor. “Excuse me,” he says, slipping by two men wearing work gloves. “Whoops, careful there,” he tells a kid who runs full speed into his leg. “Slow down, maybe.”

The assistant director claps his hands to his legs when Eli finally reaches him. “Where the hell have you been!?” he asks. “We can’t shoot this scene without you.”

“Okay, sorry. I’m sorry, my fault,” says Eli. “It’s my bad. I’ll stay closer.”

“Don’t be such a little bitch, Eli,” replies the AD.

Eli stares in disbelief, motioning to the gaggle of six-year-olds playing within earshot. “Mr. Jamieson, sir. The kids!”

“I don’t give a fuck about the kids,” says Mr. Jamieson. “Karen’s hair is going frizzy and we need this shot in the can immediately. The grips are out of C-stands and there’s a tree that’s falling over, so you’ve gotta stand there and hold it.”

“Got it,” says Eli with an upbeat optimism that makes Jamieson squirm.

“Yeah, good. Great,” he checks his watch. “Then we’re gonna need a new round of coffees for the crew and a ton of sweets for the kids, the kind that have coffee in them in some shape or form. It’s gonna be a late night, and I think the parents are getting pissed about all the soda. So hurry back when you’re done.”

“Yes, Mr. Jamieson, sir,” says Eli.

Jamieson watches him for a moment, and Eli stares back. Jamieson brings the megaphone to his mouth. “Get out there!” he yells into it.

Eli nods and runs onto the set, hopping over the cutout bushes and past the castle gate. “Hi,” he says to Sir Reginald, the bravest and kindest of all knights.

“Fuck off, Eli,” Sir Reginald replies.

“Yes, my liege,” Eli says, bowing gracefully.

He arrives finally at the faulty tree, leaning up against the green screen backdrop. He grabs it and stands it straight up into the air, smiling triumphantly.

“Alright, places people,” shouts Mr. Jamieson. “Eli, you’re in the shot. Duck, Eli. That’s good. A little more, a little more, okay. Good. Perfect.”

Eli’s knees are bent 300 degrees, and his head is stuffed between his lanky legs. He’s a small, curled up ball with a stem sticking out, keeping a plastic tree standing with just a couple of fingers.

“Okay kids, everyone gather round,” Jamieson continues. “In this scene, Sir Reginald has just saved the town from the Evil Warlock Harrison,” he says. “When he reads the line, ‘I do it not for myself, but for the virtue of the princess,’ you all jump up and cheer! Okay! Everybody ready! Let’s do this!”

Eli waits patiently in his ball for the whole take. He waits patiently for the second and third takes after Sir Reginald flubs his lines. He waits patiently for the fourth take when the princess laughs for no reason. He waits patiently for the fifth take when a kid raises his hand to say he needs to use the bathroom and that it’s an emergency. He waits all the way until the twelfth take when everything goes right, then drops back onto the floor and clutches at his stinging muscles.

“Eli! Get over here!”

He runs quickly back to the AD’s table and stands at attention, although minus the salute. “How did I do?”

“Where are those coffees?” Jamieson asks, ignoring him. “I asked for them twenty minutes ago.”

“I was holding the tree, sir,” Eli reminds him.

“The tree? That tree? We framed it out, Eli,” he says. “You were in the shot. You’re lucky you’re not fired.”
Eli deflates.

“The coffee, Eli,” Jamieson reminds him angrily.

“Right! Right, I’ll get right on that,” he says, running out the door.

“You’ve got ten minutes if you want to remain employed,” the AD yells after him. “And believe me, you do. It’s a tough economy out there!”

The line at the Starbucks is out the door.

“Aw, fudge,” he says.

He waits patiently anyways, because that’s what he’s good at. Mr. Jamieson was a tough talker, but he doesn’t think he’ll actually fire him. He likes to think he’s too useful on the set.

He might have to work overtime, though, and not for overtime pay either. Non-union work was always Hell for Eli, because nobody ever spoke up for him.

A man walks out the door with three trays stacked on top of each other. Eli wonders if he was the hold up as he twiddles his fingers and counts the window panes on the apartment complex across the street.
88.

After another minute of waiting there’s finally room for him inside. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other and then back, then balances on both, then just on his toes, then on his heels, then he stops moving altogether as he catches a familiar face on the television perched above the counter, with short brown hair, grizzly black stubble and a long, pink scar down his cheek.

He steps right out of line and approaches the counter. “Can you turn that up?” he asks of the black-haired attendant with the spacers in his ears.

“There’s no speakers in here,” answers the man, flipping his hair to the side. “It’s not hooked up to anything.”

“I can’t just turn it up?”

“Well, yeah, but,” he pauses. “Okay, sure. Whatever.”

Eli climbs onto a stool and presses the volume button in. Slowly the newscaster’s voice overpowers the blenders and order-shouting.

“…in the small town outside of Tucson. There are at least seven fatalities, and thirteen others have been taken to hospital where three remain in critical condition. No witnesses from town have stepped forward, but police do have the suspect in custody.” The picture flashes on screen again. “The suspect goes by the name of John or Johnny Z. He was found unconscious at the scene of the crime near a spent pistol, which police believe was the murder weapon used to kill victims as they jumped for safety from the third story window of the burning building. Originally believed to be an inn, police investigation following the fire found evidence of prostitution and drug production, including syringes, drug-use ‘kits,’ sex toys and devices, and a half-incinerated ledger that reportedly contains records of the many visitors to the brothel. Many theories abound as to the nature of the arson, but sources call it drug related, perhaps a retaliation for an earlier crime or a move to recover or defend valuable trafficking routes through southern Arizona. We’ll have more on the story as it develops.”

The television blinks off.

“That little fucker, heh?” Pippo says, chuckling. He pulls a red-haired head out of his lap and shoves the nude woman aside, standing to shout at his 60” television in an open robe with his now monstrous gut hanging out. “You fucker! You came back to finish the job, heh?! I thought I taught you a lesson!? I thought I showed you what happens to people who fuck with me!?”

He turns round and slaps the kneeling woman hard across the face. “Bitch! Get me the Wolf!” he yells at her, spraying spittle across her face. “I’m gonna bring this fucker here. I’m gonna bring him here and I’m gonna cut him into pieces. Hurting his friends don’t seem to make him learn, so I’m gonna have to teach him for good. I don’t care who we have to kill or who we have to pay. I’m going to skin this man alive.”

to Chapter 16

CHAPTER 14

“Fellas!” Johnny shouts excitedly. “How’ve you been!?”

He jogs up to the guards at the Red House – one tall and one short – with his arms opened wide. The contents of his satchel clink loudly as they bang against each other, but he doesn’t worry.

The Red House towers over him. He struggles to see any lasting damage from its last bout with fire, whether because he recalls the blaze as being much larger than it was, or because it has since been given an expensive face lift. Although, since the red paint is chipped and faded and the wood worn in spots, any work must’ve been done years ago.

The guards look up from their post, standing in a way to showcase the pistols holstered under their leather vests.

“You remember me?!” Johnny asks with a wide grin. He spins to show them his good profile, hiding the scar. “Eh?”

“We don’t know you,” says one guard. “Are you going in or what?”

“Come on!? Really?” Johnny asks, all smiles. “Al Valentine? My dad ran the bowling alley.”

“We’re not from here,” says the taller guard. “Quit this shit or I’m showing you out.”

“Okay, okay,” says Johnny Z, pulling his wallet from his pocket. “Just look. This is me when I was younger. I’m telling you, just take a look.” He hands his glossy school photo to the guard. “You, too,” he says to the other.

The short one reluctantly looks down at the picture, and the other peers over his shoulder. He wonders why the photo is covered in red splotches before realizing that it’s streaming fresh from a wound in his neck, sliced open with a serrated cutting knife Johnny had palmed from his old kitchen. The other target missed the mark but still sunk in deep. The taller one finds himself alive a moment longer, but Johnny soon fixes his mistake with a stronger strike through the man’s ribcage.

Grabbing both by the collar, he helps them slink quietly to the floor, eying around town to check for witness.

Finding none, he checks their pockets and steals a set of keys from each before throwing them off behind the patio on the side of the dusty expanse, hoping to hide them from town.

He turns to the parking lot and aims the first set of keys, pressing the ignition button on a black Toyota remote-starter. He sees the lights on a silver Matrix hatchback blink twice and hears the engine quietly cough and purr. He drops the other set back in his pocket and runs toward the idling car.

The door swings open and he steps in, shifting it quickly in reverse. He weaves it through the line of cars and aims the tail end for the front door of the Red House. With a strong rev he climbs it up the patio stairs, stopping an inch short of the front door. He pulls the parking brake hard and jumps out of the car.
He runs to the side of the building and drops his satchel carefully to the floor. He empties the contents by hand, standing each bottle upright on the red clay. The aromas of gasoline and alcohol coalesce into a smell not unlike a punch to the nose.

The Red House has one door and three windows: two on one side, and the small one high in the back that he remembers so well. Johnny imagines the one door makes it easier to defend, and the three windows keep prying eyes from seeing in. But he wonders why they didn’t add another exit for emergencies after it came so close to burning down. It might’ve helped them now.

He produces a cigarette and lights it in a flash. He holds the flame a little longer, stooping to grab one of the bottles and igniting the vodka-soaked wick at the end.

Squinting, he gauges the distance and ponders the best arc to land his molotov through the upstairs window. Satisfied, he rears back and lets fly. The bottle sails high in the air and plunks into the wood a foot left of his target. The bottle ruptures, spilling sugar-soaked droplets of gasoline that stick to the building, flaring up immediately.

He has four more tries. The second one crashes through the leftmost window and shatters inside, turning the room a bright orange. The sound of a man shrieking penetrates the quiet outside air, and it makes Johnny smile sadistically. He’s lost his mind, he thinks.

The three remaining bottles are snatched up from the ground and he lights them simultaneously. The first two miss, one low by a foot and one high onto the roof, burning the tar of the shingles into a pitch black smoke. Johnny takes a deep breath and kisses the side of the last bottle before hurling it straight through the window.

“What a shot!” he says, smiling to himself as he wanders into the backyard.

He can hear shouts and screams from inside, men and women panicking in the fire. He hears pounding at the front of the building as tenants of the Red House try unsuccessfully to push open the door, finding it wedged shut by three tons of reliable Japanese manufacturing. He hears instructions being yelled, and instructions being contested by more yelling.

Moving on quick feet as if the clay was quicksand, he reaches the backside of the building and searches for some cover. There’s a well with bricks layered three feet high and he squats behind it, drawing a silenced pistol and waiting patiently for desperation to set in.

It doesn’t take very long.

The third story window flies off of its hinges, kicked away by an army boot that now sticks out into the fresh air. The frame crashes down fifteen feet from the base of the building and shatters.

Johnny watches the man slide his legs out the window, wearing nothing but his boots. He grabs hold of the windows edge and lowers himself until his arms stretch their full lengths, then dangles, still twenty feet in the air, as if wondering if he should climb back up. The distance must not look quite as manageable when it’s staring him in the face.

His decision is made for him. “Hurry the fuck up!” shouts the next man in line, bringing up his foot and smashing it onto the fingers of the first.

With a howl the naked man loosens his grip, and he falls straight down for a full second before hitting the ground. Johnny can hear something crack like a whip and the man grabs his ankle, rolling on the floor with a grimace.

Johnny watches and decides to spare this one. Customers are bad, too, but not as bad as the men running the place, and this one’s suffered enough with the broken ankle, he thinks.

The next man spares no time, climbing straight out and falling without waiting for the ground to clear. The naked man unwillingly breaks the other’s fall, getting a knee to the stomach that stops his howling as the newcomer rolls off, almost unhurt. This one’s in the black leathers of a worker. He spots Johnny just in time to see the pistol flash and hear it fire with a sound not unlike a camera shutter clicking closed. Two bullets pierce his chest and he tumbles over the moaning pillow, landing on his back just in time to cushion a naked woman’s fall.

She screams as she drops, bouncing off of the dying worker’s chest and right up onto her feet, the blood from the man’s bullet wounds stamped onto her backside.

The Red House crackles and burns brightly in the dusk, flames pouring out of every window and every crack. Johnny smiles at the clear sky. The only rain coming is that of people pouring out of the back window and onto the ever-increasing pool of moaning bodies below: guards and hookers and clients all grouped together. It’s now stacked up over five feet tall, and makes for a much more survivable fall, but he’s noticed that its missing a certain one-armed Soviet. He wonders how the naked man at the bottom is holding up, and thinks maybe he should have put him out of his misery.

He fires another pair of bullets at a fallen worker as he crawls away from the pile, and two more at a tattooed bouncer in mid-descent.

There’s a loud bang and a crack, and the roof groans and collapses. One last man squeaks out before the third-story exit is sealed by debris, and he jumps clear of the pile, waving his limbs frantically. He’s trailing fire, his upper half engulfed and burning fast, and he lands hard, rolling in the clay.

Molotov’s don’t snuff out easily. Johnny ends him quickly.

He pulls on his cigarette and watches the carnage for a moment, seeing the flames eat away at his childhood tormentor. A distant siren wakes him up, and he decides it might be best to take his leave.

Fishing through his pockets he finds the other guard’s car keys and pushes the button to unlock. A musical beep comes from what is likely the least inconspicuous vehicle on the planet: a bright pink 50’s hard-top Buick, with purple flames, a leopard print interior, and fuzzy hat on the antenna.

“I guess that’ll have to do ‘til Tucson,” he says as he runs past the front of the house.

He doesn’t notice that the door is missing, torn off of its hinges and thrown aside on the patio. He doesn’t notice the line of blood trailing along the parked Toyota where a body had squeezed through. And he certainly doesn’t notice the man crouched behind the car, with skin so hot that it steams in the summer air.

The sharp left hook sends him reeling back, knocking the cigarette from his mouth and the pistol from his grip. The fierce kick to the chest that follows sends him right off his feet.

He crashes into the ground beside a Volkswagen, and has just enough time to roll under the car before a boot stomps into the ground where his head was, kicking up chunks of red clay.

Ivan’s square face stoops low to the ground, peering at Johnny under the sedan. “Come here, boy,” he says, reaching for a leg.

Johnny slides out the other side. “Where the fuck did you come from?” he asks through the car.

Ivan answers by gripping the undercarriage and shoving his shoulder into the car, tipping it up and over. Johnny manages to jump out of the way before it plows sideways into the lot, kicking up dust.

The two men stand opposite each other, Johnny breathing heavily and the other calm and focused. Ivan is easily a foot taller, and even without the one arm must weigh a hundred pounds more.

“I knew you would come,” he says. His undershirt looks like it has melted to his skin with black, up-curled edges. “Pippo said you were too scared. He laughed about you. But I saw it in your eyes – I saw a killer.” He marches forward with his one arm raised high in the air and swings it down with a whoosh, but Johnny dashes aside and escapes the monstrous fist.

He swipes the knife from his boot and holds it out toward the giant Russian, showing the blade still red with blood from the guard at front door. “I was looking for you,” Johnny tells him. “I was afraid the fire took all the fun.”

“Hah!” laughs Ivan, clutching his side. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I saved the fun for you.”

He stalks Johnny slowly, keeping just enough distance between them to stay out of range of the blade. The sound of approaching sirens is getting louder and louder, and both men feel their time to strike is closing in.

Johnny makes the first move. He lunges and swipes overhead with his knife, but misses the moving target. He spins to slash a second time, but this horizontal strike only cuts the air.

“You move like old woman,” says Ivan, grinning. “I thought maybe you were tougher.” He steps quickly forward and extends his leg, but Johnny slips left of it. “Ooh! Fast moves!” he laughs.

Johnny smiles back. “You like that one?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. He spins his wrist forward, letting go of the knife and watching it fly. It tumbles through the air, end over end, and sticks straight into Ivan’s right foot.

The big Russian squeals angrily. He reaches down to pluck the knife free and Johnny meets his lowered jaw with a tightly clenched fist. Ivan staggers backward with the blow and Johnny trails him, continuing the assault. He delivers a kick to the inside of his left knee that bends it sideways out the right, then drives his boot into the giant’s chest.

But Ivan recovers quicker than Johnny anticipates, and catches his leg before Johnny has a chance to recoil it. With a grunt he pulls the leg hard and to the side, bringing Johnny in close enough to strike. He cocks his head back and  brings it down into Johnny’s onrushing temple, flooding his vision black and ringing bells in his ears.

Johnny drops limp to the floor, sleep forced upon him.

“Fucker!” Ivan yells, holding his knee. It’s bent at an unusual angle. He rights it by stamping his foot in the ground and, with an immeasurable degree of pain, clocking his thigh outwards.

He spots blinking lights approaching from the distance and decides to finish this another day.

His Mercedes coughs up a long cloud of dust as it speeds into the desert, leaving Johnny for the pigs.

to Chapter 15

CHAPTER 13

A car horn steals him from his memories.

The shiny new Mercedes slips into the parking lot outside the Red House and stops. Its door pops open and out steps a man in dark cargo pants and a wife-beater, with a mostly familiar face: balding, square, and with a long, sour frown.

Ivan, he recalls.

Only there’s something immediately different. The hulking frame that he remembers, although still there, is now shaped more like the wing of a plane. His left side is thick and frighteningly muscular, but his right tapers off quickly, ending in a sharp edge where his arm should be – only it’s completely missing, replaced with a gnarled patch of skin.

And even from this distance he can see the face has changed, too. More than just the two Jolly Rogers on each side of his neck, Ivan now has a scar not unlike Johnny’s own, only in a set of four drawn down his cheek. He watches the guard greet another man with a half smile – evidently his wound went deeper than Johnny’s, severing the muscles in his cheek and forcing that side into a permanent frown.

He watches Ivan make his way into the Red House from across the road, the door opening outward as he disappears inside. His fists squeeze tight, and he realizes that he’s smiling.

An intense yearning builds within him. He needs his supplies.

Moving briskly he finally arrives at the endless back yard of his childhood home and peers through the back window. The lights are off, but the glow from outside turns the kitchen bright red. He sees a small wooden table with one chair sticking out where he used to eat noodles and oatmeal while his mother chewed over the sink for a lack of room. He sees the decades-old stove, the kind that was unpopular in the fifties and was therefore extra cheap. There’s a mitten with a heart on it resting on the floor, something he’s unfamiliar with. They always used rolled up towels. The pantry cupboard is open and he can see straight into its guts: cereal, oatmeal, canned fruits and vegetables. If the house was abandoned the goods would have been scavenged by now, stolen by neighbours or men traveling through.

Someone must be living here.

He reaches for the backdoor handle, remembering what his grandmother once said: “Locks only keep honest people out.” It follows then that it should be unlocked, since there are no longer honest people in Bravado.

And, turning the knob, he learns that it is.

He steps into a familiar smell but an unfamiliar creak in the boards, new to him either because the house has grown older or because the weight he’s put on since leaving has made him harder to bear silently. Or, most likely, a combination of the two. The house was never of fine construction, even brand new. It only makes sense that it would grow old without grace.

Moving forward, Johnny is careful to take slower steps, hoping that the gradual weight will lead to fewer groans. It does, and he begins pacing about the house like a true thief. He hopes he can avoid an encounter with any residents until he’s prepared.

He finds the liquor cabinet, high up from the floor in his old living room. The fearsome padlock that barred his younger self now looks, fittingly, childish in the light of his years of experience. The spiked end of his lucky pick slices past its petty tumblers and the shackle pops free, and he swings the door down until it sits like a table.

Scanning through the dusty bottles he finds a tall, generic brand of vodka and pulls it free. It’s mostly full, but not enough. He grabs a pair of rum bottles to go with it, one gold and one white, and then a few random, emptier companions to do the dirty work.

He returns to the kitchen with his bounty and dumps the contents of the random ones into the sink. He sets the others down quietly on the counter and begins sifting through the lower drawers.

There’s a roll of silver duct tape, which he snatches up and places next to the bottles. He opens another drawer and rifles through the dishtowels inside, pulling out a pair of blue ones.

“Now for some sugar,” he mumbles.

“Sugar’s on the top shelf,” says a voice.

He spins to face it. “Grandma,” he says, smiling at the woman he remembers being much taller and fuller. “You got any gasoline in the house?”

She finishes boiling the potatoes and plates them with the rest of the meal. Johnny’s mouth waters in anticipation, but the precedence was set years ago when there was money to go around, and the plainness of this dinner almost makes him doubt his memories.

But he says nothing, and enjoys his first home cooked meal in months with a smile, sitting by himself by the kitchen window, watching the sun go down. The slop tastes better than it has any right to, a testament to his grandmother’s kitchen wizardry that always amazed him as a child.

“So what are you doing here, after all these years?” she asks. Her southern accent surprises him, poured on thicker than he ever remembers. Maybe inheriting a country tone is part of growing older. “I can take a guess.”

He swallows a chunk of chewed broccoli and chases it with the glass of milk she’s placed before him. “I dunno,” he says. “Came to make things right, I guess.”

“Bah,” is her response. “For who, Johnny?”

He shrugs, shoveling another forkful into his mouth. He didn’t feel this hungry when he arrived, but that might be some of his grandmother’s magic. “I’m making it right for me, and wrong for them,” he says, nodding toward the Red House through the walls. “I did a bad thing, Ruth. Well, a lot of bad things.”

“Call me Grandma, Johnny.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I just figured I’m old enough now.”

“You ain’t never gonna be old enough to call your Grandma ‘Ruth,’” she says. “Even on your deathbed, though I’m sure I won’t mind by then.” She smiles, a warmth coming to her wrinkled face. “But for now I insist. I’ve earned it, I think.”

He forces himself to grin. “I’m sorry,” he says after some quiet thinking. “Not so much about calling you ‘Ruth,’ but about, well, about everything else.”

“Aw, hush.”

“No, no. Let me apologize.” He washes down a mouthful of tough chicken with a loud gulp. “I left everybody, Grandma. I left you, I left Ma, and I left Gwen. And I can never change that. But I’m a different man, now. I’m gonna make things better the only way I know how.”

“Revenge don’t make anything better, ‘cept for the undertaker. We’ve had some bad times, this family. Bad, bad times. And there was nothing we could do to stop it then, don’t care what you think. When you and Carl had your stand off there, what did that solve? They still got my baby Gwen,” she says, crying. “And they got Carl, that little rascal. It’s a miracle they didn’t get you, too. There was nothing you could do ‘cept let it happen or make it worse. It was brave what you did, Johnny. Brave but stupid.”
She sighs. “It wasn’t so bad when you left. Hernan said that you’d run off with Gwennie, and I believed him for years. I imagined the two of you traveling the world with a pair of backpacks. Tom took care of me and let me work at his shop. Paid me good even though he wasn’t making much money himself. I think Sully had a deal worked out with them, you know, cause they never seemed to bother us. Never stole from me or anybody. Maybe he said he’d forget their other crimes if they just let us be. It wasn’t so bad. We just went on living.” She smiles at her memory. “When Sully finally told me what happened I went crazy a little. More than a little, maybe. Couldn’t stand thinking about what she was going through… can’t stand it even now.”

“Don’t have to worry yourself anymore,” Johnny tells her. “She’s dead.”

He expects tears, and they come. “Oh, my baby,” she says quietly. “I always hoped she’d escape one day, y’know? I didn’t think it’d happen, but I hoped anyways. But I suppose it could’ve been worse,” she says. “That little angel must’ve been living in Hell. At least now she’s with her mama, I hope.”

Johnny remembered his mother. He had called the clinic to find out her fate, not long ago. They had to check through years of records – it took an hour over the phone. All that waiting to find out she’d died a week after being checked in. What a terrible month that was.

“How did you find out?” Ruth asks.

“Hernan told me,” Johnny says.

“Hernan, eh?” replies the woman. She reads his face perfectly. “I’m guessing you killed him?”

Johnny nods. “And then some.”

Her eyes shine in the dim room. “You can’t change the past, Johnny,” she says.

“But I can change the future,” he explains. “I can make ‘em pay.”

“I ain’t saying I don’t hate ‘em,” Ruth replies. “I’m just saying that you can’t live life filled with hate. God’ll take care of the bad ones in the end, Johnny. I just hope my grandson will avoid his fury.”

Johnny shrugs. He’s not much of a believer, but doesn’t dare let her know. She’ll tear his ear off.

Ruth sees a losing battle ahead. Butting heads with such obstinate fools was a practice she’d abandoned a lifetime ago. When her husband died, if she recalls correctly. “I think the best you can do is live good from now on,” she says. “It’s all most of us can do.”

“Well, I’m different,” Johnny says. “I don’t have any good left in me. Haven’t for years.” He finishes his plate and chugs the last of his milk, then stands and puts his dishes in the sink. “This is for you,” he says, reaching into his pocket. He slaps his car keys on the counter. “You’re retiring.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, puzzled.

“You’ll see,” he replies. “It’s parked opposite Carl’s old place. Black Civic.” He hugs her, careful not to squeeze too tight for fear of crushing her. “I can’t lie to you,” he says. “I’m set on what I’m doing. But I want you to live better. I owe it to you after stranding you here for so long. You’ve had it bad, watching your whole family go from good to gone. You deserve some peace.” He kisses her softly on the forehead.

“Well, don’t say I never tried,” she said. “But I ain’t running, Johnny. I’m staying right here ‘til I die.”

“Then at least fix it up a little,” he says, stuffing the booze into a satchel he found and moving to the front door.

But he stops at a wall full of photos.

There’s his father and his mother on their wedding day, smiling like he could never remember. There’re baby pictures of Gwen and one of Carl and Johnny in oversized helmets and matching football uniforms. There’s another of him from grade school, posing in front of a fake backdrop of books with his hair neatly parted.

He doesn’t pause to reminisce. “Can I take this, Grandma?” he asks, pointing to his school photo.

“All I got are memories,” she says. “Don’t need the proof.”

“Thanks.” Johnny steals it from its frame and stuffs it into his wallet. “I’m leaving again, Grandma. For good.”

“Figured as much,” she says, smiling. “Think about what I said. I know you won’t, but I gotta say it anyways.” She sighs and a tear crawls from one line to the next on her cheek. “It’s funny. You get used to people being dead, but people dying never gets any easier.” She puts her frail, spotted arm on his cheek, running it along the pink, cross-hatched scar. She pinches lightly. “I love you, Johnny. I hope you do good.”

“I love you, too,” he says.

“Just remember,” she whispers, showing him to the door. “It’s just me and you, now, and you’re the only one that’s got some livin’ left to do. Take care of yourself, and don’t be afraid of running if you gotta. I know you ain’t fond of it, but it’s kept you alive this long.”

“I don’t run anymore,” says Johnny Z. “Take the Civic for a test drive. Don’t come back ‘til tomorrow.”

to Chapter 14

No more of the Facebooking

I feel like a schlub with all the Facebook status promoting, so I’m gonna put an end to that.

Keep on reading, though, if you find it interesting at all. I’m digging the comments and suggestions from everyone.

You can expect a new chapter every day, pretty much, so check back at least that often.