All the Way Down

by Eric Beetner

  At first no one noticed the bloody and armed strangers in their midst. The windows on either side of the narrow floor let in light in a way nothing above them had. Each office was a mirror image of the one across the hall. It seemed a bright, cheerful place to work. Office walls were glass, creating an open work environment. The fixtures and furniture were new and modern, the lighting was all energy efficient. The plants all meticulously groomed and watered.

  A young woman at a desk tapped on her keyboard, eyes focused on her monitor.

  While Lauren scanned the floor for her “boyfriend,” Dale thought he could at least use this strange scenario to his advantage. “Can I use your phone?”

  The secretary looked up and her mouth gaped. The front of Dale’s shirt was a splotched mess of dried blood and his ear looked chewed by a raccoon. She couldn’t see his foot yet, but she could see the machine gun slung over his shoulder.

  One by one the other workers began to notice the intruders. Work slowed, then stopped. Fingers lifted off keyboards, rendering them silent, phones were hung up.

  “Sure.” The woman slid her chair back on the plastic pad that covered the carpet under her and let the wheels of her chair roll. “Go ahead.”

  Lauren watched the faces of the fourth-floor workers as Dale dialed the phone. She saw fear, something she never thought she’d inspire in people. She didn’t even realize the gun was still in her hand until she saw one young secretary whisper behind a cupped hand to another and point. She thought at first the woman must be pointing at Dale’s ruined foot since he was the scary one in their midst, but she followed the woman’s finger and it led to her.

  Dirty, bloody, and the only one besides Dale who was armed, Lauren hated to think what she looked like.

  “It’s okay, we won’t hurt you.” She felt compelled to say something reassuring. “I’m looking for Tyler.” When she was met with blank stares, she suddenly realized she didn’t know his last name so she couldn’t even ask a more pointed question in case maybe someone only knew him as Mr. Smith, or whatever the hell he was called. Creeping guilt invaded her normally cool demeanor. “Anyone know where he sits?”

  Dale hung up the phone. No answer. Still. He remembered Tat’s instructions, “Bring her here.” Dahlia could already be in the building. They would take her to the top floor, but find Tat wasn’t there. None of the possibilities he could think of were good. Still, the only thing he could do was to get out and go look for her. Get out and hope for the best.

  A thought lit like a match head in his thoughts. “Oh, Jesus.” Why hadn’t he thought of it?

  Dale dialed again. A woman answered. “Chief Schuster’s office.”

  “Danni, get me the chief.”

  “He’s on assignment, may I take a message?”

  “Danni, it’s Dale. Put me through.”

  There was a pause. Dale heard it as an unspoken statement. I thought you’d be dead. Then, “Hold, please.”

  Schuster checked his watch. Any minute now, Greely would be on his ass again for a decision. He’d have to send the boys in, guns blazing. Well, shit, better to be seen as too tough on crime than too soft.

  The phone buzzed on Schuster’s belt. He jerked a little bit at first, startled by the vibrations, then clawed at the clip to release the phone. “Hello?”

  Danni put him through.

  “I have the girl, we’re almost out.”

  “Good God, Dale, where the hell have you been?”

  All eyes in the tactical van turned to him, awaiting word.

  Dale didn’t even know where to begin. It was all so ridiculous when he thought of it. “It’s been…a challenge, sir.”

  “But he gave her up? You’ve got Lauren?”

  “I have her. I wouldn’t say he gave her up.” Dale wanted to make a deal then and there, to plea bargain for a reduced sentence, but he knew it was stupid. “It’s been a hell of time, Chief.”

  Schuster exhaled for what felt like the first time in an hour. “But you’re almost out. Good. Damn good.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Are you bringing Tat out with her?”

  “No, sir. Just the two of us. You want Tat, you’ll have to come in and get him, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Schuster kept his back to the men awaiting orders. “Where are you now?”

  “Fourth floor.”

  “I’m sending out the welcoming committee.”

  “We’ll be damn glad to see them, sir.”

  They hung up. Schuster turned with a look of pride in his face, of having made the right call. “Prep your men, Captain.”

  The team leader nodded. “They’re ready to go.”

  “When they come out that door, I want them escorted and brought right to me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Aw, shit.” Why hadn’t Dale thought of it before? He redialed Schuster, got him on the line again.

  “Chief, my wife. You’ve got to send someone out to the house to check on her. Tat said he was going to grab her, bring her back here to prove some point to me. I haven’t been able to get in touch with her.”

  “Settle down, Burnett. I’ll send a patrol car. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “Thanks. Can you make sure they stay there? Leave a few guys to act as sentry.”

  “Will do. Now get that girl out of there.”

  Dale tried sounding official, respectful. Try it on for size, see if he still knew how. “Yes, sir.” Dale hung up. Lauren was gone, off wandering the floor in search of her contact. He spoke to the secretary, “The elevator work?”

  The girl at the desk hadn’t stopped staring at Dale when he was on the phone. His words didn’t seem to penetrate the shock at the man in front of her.

  “I asked if the elevator is working on this floor.”

  She snapped to attention, afraid she might have angered him with her daydream.

  “I think so. I don’t know, I haven’t used it since this morning.”

  Dale looked to the far end of the floor. “That way?”

  She nodded. Dale thanked her and went to follow Lauren as the workers silently watched him. Higher ups in their glass-walled offices sat still at their desks, secretaries rotated silently in their chairs as he passed by.

  “Lauren? What are you doing here?”

  She had almost walked right past his office. She knew her head was scrambled from the day she was having, but she chastised herself again for not knowing a whole hell of a lot about this guy.

  “Tyler, thank goodness.” She went to hug him, but he pulled back.

  “They said he had you upstairs.”

  “He did.” She noticed him looking at her soiled and blood-spattered clothes. Outside the glass wall, Dale arrived looking even worse. Tyler gave him a look, then came back to Lauren. “I got away and now I need your help.”

  “You got away from Tat?” Tyler couldn’t seem to wrap his head around that one.

  “Yes. And I need files. Accounts. Something to link my father and Tat’s organization. Something direct. Something that could be used in court.”

  Confusion on Tyler’s face turned to shock and disappointment.

  “You’re trying to bring him down?”

  She wasn’t sure which him he referred to, but it didn’t matter. The answer was yes on both fronts. She eyed his laptop.

  “Can you let me borrow that for a few days?”

  “Lauren, did you use me to get inside here? Is that all this was?”

  She didn’t have time for this broken heart shit. “No. No way. But now I need your help.”

  Dale chimed in from the hallway. “And the clock is ticking, pal.”

  All around him the workers started gathering in small cliques, whispering behind their hands. They moved slowly and reached into drawers. Something felt off about it and Dale became even more anxious to hit the elevators and get out.

  Lauren didn’t seem to be making much progress wit
h Tyler. He sat down at his desk and made a slow reach for his own drawer. Dale instinctively tightened grip on his gun.

  Lauren tried to soften her voice, play the girlfriend role—a role she had to admit she’d been playacting since the first.

  “Look, you’re not like the rest of the people who work here. You can help me. I bet you don’t even know everything that goes on here. You want this brought down just as much as I do. You’re not like one of the soldiers on the higher floors.”

  Tyler gave her a level stare. “We’re all soldiers here.”

  Lauren wasn’t sure what that meant but didn’t like the look in his eyes.

  “I know what goes on, Lauren. I help make it run. And yes, your dad helps us, too. Do you know how much money is at stake here?” He pointed to his laptop. “Do you want to see the numbers? Is that what you want?”

  “I just want to see justice done.” Her words came out weak.

  “We have our own justice here.”

  Tyler lifted his hand out of the drawer. A mean-looking pistol sprouted from his fist. Behind her, Lauren heard Dale lift his machine gun.

  “Stop!” Both men froze.

  Lauren turned to Dale to make sure he complied. That’s when she saw the other office workers mimicking Tyler, drawing weapons out of hiding places in their desks. He was right—they were all soldiers here. The floor came alive with the sounds of safeties being clicked off and bullets being racked into their chambers like a chorus of crickets on a summer night.

  Dale turned and raised the machine gun. Five gun barrels aimed back at him. He looked beyond the glass office walls. Managers held even bigger guns on them. Dale spun back around to face front and discovered the other side of the floor had taken up arms as well.

  Twenty-two people in all. Twenty-two guns. Guess they did know who they were working for all along.

  We’re not making it to the elevator, Dale thought. He couldn’t muster the same animosity for a bunch of office workers in their sensible suits and polished shoes as he could for a bunch of thugs with too many push-ups and not enough brain cells. Then again, they were holding guns on him.

  Dale eyeballed the secretarial pool from his stance in this standoff. Twenty-somethings, all of them. Fit, attractive. A world away from the whores up on the eighth floor, but he didn’t know yet if they were as loyal.

  He didn’t want a slaughter. He didn’t want a bloodbath among the young men and women. That didn’t play into his plan for contrition, his turn for good. Even though if SWAT ended up coming in, none of these people were safe.

  “We don’t want to hurt anyone.” His words were met with blank stares. It was like they’d encountered a floor of automatons. “All we want is to leave with no trouble.”

  Nobody lowered their guns.

  Lauren had her pistol raised at Tyler, tears now brimming in her eyes.

  “Don’t do this.”

  “This was you.” The hurt in his eyes turned to steel. “You brought this here.”

  She couldn’t deny it. She also couldn’t deny that she had started going out with Tyler for his access. But there were feelings there. Enough to overcome a gun pointed at her? Maybe not. He’d shown his loyalties, but did she have the guts to take what she needed by force?

  “Tat’s done. It’s over already and he’s going down. You’ve got nothing to fight for.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “See that guy?” She pointed to Dale. “He’s a cop. There’s more cops outside. It’s done.”

  “We own the cops. Want to see a record of payments?”

  “He’s on that record. Even your lackeys are turning. It’s over!”

  She could see on Tyler’s face that the only reason she was still alive was some sort of feeling he held for her. Muscles in his hand twitched, his finger tightening on the trigger and then backing off. She thought she saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes. They’d all been trained for this moment, but now that it was here, they were still only accountants. But they were paid well and money can buy loyalty. Plus, there was what would happen if they didn’t follow orders. Money and death—the ultimate motivators.

  Muscles in Tyler’s arm flexed again. A long, slow reaction that started at his shoulder and moved down his arm. Synapses firing in slow motion, his brain fighting with itself to do it and not do it at the same time.

  Lauren had learned a thing or two about survival in the past hour. Rule number one: don’t hesitate. Swallowing a lump in her throat, Lauren fired. She hit Tyler in the chest. He fell back with a look of betrayal frozen on his face. She didn’t have time to mourn as the entire floor erupted in gunfire. Dale saw it coming and was ready. He dropped to a knee, aimed low, raking the barrel of the gun across the feet of desks and the glass walls only a few inches off the floor. The sudden burst of machine gun fire scattered the office workers like cockroaches with a light on. The sound of pounding bullets became swallowed by shattering glass as floor to ceiling sheets like the walls of giant fish tanks exploded under the relentless firing.

  “Let’s go,” he called out to Lauren. He saw her step quickly over to Tyler’s desk amid a hailstorm of falling glass and snatch his laptop off the desk.

  Dale moved forward as he fired and Lauren was right behind him, getting off a few of her own suppressing shots with the laptop tucked under arm. Several shots came back their way, but they were fired by people in retreat and didn’t come close.

  The barrel of the gun spit bullets at an alarming rate as Dale kept his finger pinned to the trigger. He hoisted his bad foot as he shuffle-stepped as fast as he could across the carpet. He aimed for the elevator at the far end of the floor, but knew it was a long shot.

  Lauren swung her body around as she retreated with Dale. She remembered something her mom used to tell her about a woman’s place in the world. It seemed like an excuse for how she felt her own daughter must see her—as a spoiled rich wife attending gallery openings and well-orchestrated charity events meant to give the appearance of social do-gooding while keeping the patrons hermetically sealed away from the true blight of the issue they were raising money for.

  Lauren remembered her words as she back pedaled behind Dale, swinging her gun side to side hoping not to have to use it. Her mom told her a woman’s work often goes unseen. After all, remember Lauren, Ginger Rogers matched every step Fred Astaire did, only she did it backwards and in high heels.

  To her right, a woman stood from behind a desk. She popped up like a creature in a haunted house and fired a shot at Lauren almost point blank. The bullet passed Lauren so close her hair puffed out like a hummingbird had flown by. Lauren spun without thinking and fired a return shot. The secretary stiffened, her face went slack and Lauren saw the burst of red in her chest. The woman slumped and fell back into hiding behind the desk, but Lauren knew she wouldn’t be coming out again.

  Goddammit. Killing did not get any easier the more she did it. Lauren felt that the building and the people she killed would be with her forever, provided forever was more than the next sweep around of the second hand. She’d taken lives, something never in her life plan. The faces would haunt her, even if they were devoid of detail. Blank skin over nondescript human-shaped forms who would crawl around in her brain and wait for a moment when she didn’t remember. A tiny respite when her actions had faded away. They would be there quickly to crawl through her brain and loose the memory again from slumber.

  She would never forget, and yet, what choice did she have? Someone shoots at you, someone evil, you shoot back. Its primate logic played out with all-too-human tools.

  Dale saw the kitchen and angled for it. His clip ran out, the gun clicking a rapid empty sound as his finger still clamped down on the trigger. He thumbed the release, let the empty clip drop, and reached into his belt for the new one.

  Four rapid shots shattered glass next to Dale. He turned to see one of the manager types inside an office, but one with no walls, only shards of falling tempered glass. T
he manager held a black pistol at arm’s length and fired two more shots. Dale felt the air move as they went past. He banged the heel of his hand on the new clip and rammed it home, turned the gun on the manager, and let him see the barrel and the sight trained on his chest.

  The manager dove for the floor, sliding among the bed of glass to hide. Dale turned the gun away and kept moving for the kitchen.

  White floor tile ran the length of the narrow room. A fridge, double sinks, coffee maker, microwave, juicer, and a wide array of snacks and fresh fruit awaited him. At the end of the counters stood the silver doors of a freight elevator.

  Dale turned and upended a desk nearby, slinging the gun over his shoulder as he toppled the black rectangle. Lauren reached him and he pushed her inside the kitchen as he slid the desk to cover the doorway. Bullets clipped the wall and exploded a thermostat. A ficus tree in a wicker basket took a bullet and slumped forward on a broken trunk.

  “Press the button.” Dale pointed to the elevator. Lauren followed his command, cradling the laptop like a football in her arm. Dale stood at the overturned desk and felt like Rambo as he laid down a wide arc of suppressing fire. This time he shot high, taking out an exit sign, the last of two glass walls on this end of the floor, and several ceiling tiles. Workers dove for cover and burrowed in place until the shooting stopped. Soldiers, maybe, but quick to retreat, luckily.

  “Come on.” Dale turned to see Lauren waving him in to the open elevator. She stood with her hip against the door to keep it open. She looked like a Navy Seal. If this ordeal hadn’t reignited a love for his wife, he’d have fallen for her there with a gun in her hand and a command in her voice.

  He turned and ran. When his firing stopped, several bullets followed him into the kitchen. As he hopped on one foot, then pushed forward with the other, shots took out a trio of bananas, a selection of teas and several boxes of cereal.

  Dale reached the elevator and spun to face out as Lauren slid inside and reached for the button. There was only one, marked with a K.