Nomad: A Story from The Reels

by Brian Ewing

  Sisto made a scene at the back-entrance doors, as two new men were now guarding the door again from being entered. Covered in blood, he must have looked like a maniac but put on his best performance. Pretending to be outraged, Sisto demanded to be let in to advise Púca about a situation on the event ground. After thirty seconds of a bloody maniac giving them a hard time, the second man got on the radio and explained Tom Sisto had Mason Wilcox and his crew at the door and they had to go over something important. The radio was silent a few seconds, then a choppy reply came, and the man on the radio tapped the first man to stand down.

  The first man opened the door for the five men then entered himself and led them to Púca’s office. The tactic was to give Púca and Fitz enough time to clean up, as Sisto was not sure what their status was at the early hour. The man guided the group in an alternate way than Sisto had taken the night before. They walked through the main hallway towards the front of the building and off to the left was a set of elevators. The man stuck a special key in and turned it, activating a light and seemingly power-up the elevator for use. Sisto assumed between the hobbling man in a brace covered in blood and the fat man with soiled britches, no one was in the mood for walking up a flight of stairs.

  “I didn’t think this was active yet?” Mason asked.

  “Electronic security panels are going in over the next month but Púca wanted to ensure this was active first, in case any of his handicapped clients stopped by for a visit.” The guard replied, looking at Sisto as the second part of the explanation was spoken.

  Everyone looked at Sisto, which he felt was unwarranted but wearing his brace and sling, nodded acceptingly as everyone entered like a herd of cows into the confined space. There was a visible hold your breath look among them, as Road House kept his head down in shame. The chrome-coated coffin started to become engulfed in the reek of human feces. Sisto was thankful that it was only one level up or didn’t think he would make it. Looking around, it was safe to say everyone felt the same.

  Sisto noticed that Andy didn’t have much to say since the incident occurred with Rug. He felt that Andy had his eyes pinned on what Mason was doing. It made Sisto wonder if the man was an amateur detective and had suspicions about Mason Wilcox as well. A quiet and reserved man, Andy seemed like he just got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Sisto decided that he would give some words of wisdom to the man after the situation was over. No reason that Andy and Rug or even Freddy should continue their existence as bottom feeders, just because they unwittingly follow a murderous scumbag.

  The bell pinged and everyone rushed off the elevator. The guard walked the men down the hallway and past the half-constructed break room until reaching the next set of offices. The curtains remained up and Sisto determined during the daytime, it was more about privacy than a romantic atmosphere. The guard stepped in first and shut the door behind him. Sisto could hear a very brief interaction before the guard opened the door and let everyone in. Mason stepped in first but paused halfway in to advise Rug to remain out of the office. It was more for everyone that was within the office wall’s sake but didn’t outright say it. Rug nodded and after Mason, Andy proceeded then Freddy, and finally Sisto.

  “Jesus Christ!” Púca said once he lay eyes on the bloody presentation Sisto held. “What the fuck is going on here? I called Ackerman once my men notified me that you had an issue, Mr. Sisto. He should be here any moment.”

  Sisto assumed Fitz was hiding just outside the stairwell door and would show up as if he just arrived back at the campground.

  “That fat bastard, Rug, or Rag, or whatever his dumb nickname is, stole my property.”

  Púca didn’t know what to say or what direction Sisto was trying to lead the conversation, so he simply looked at Mason.

  “I don’t know, Púca. The rings were in the tent, but we don’t know the first thing about this guy. He could have planted them there himself.”

  A gentle knock on the door occurred just then. Fitz Ackerman let himself in, standing directly to the left of the door. He looked at Sisto and his eyes started to widen.

  “What the —”

  “Already asked that.” Púca cut him off.

  “And?”

  Mason explained what he knew, from Rug seeing Sisto snooping from the buffet line to Sisto accusing Rug of stealing, to their fight. As the words came out, Mason became more enraged. It was visible that the situation had embarrassed him but also got under his skin. Sisto probably figured he needed to get out of the office so he could find his next target to murder. Sisto had a rough count of four minutes left until Norton and the rest of his SWAT-mates broke in and took Mason down. No better time for a confession than right then.

  “Why did you kill Morris Tearney?”

  The question silenced the room. Sisto directed the question to Mason but Andy and Freddy, as well as Púca and Fitz, all looked shocked as well.

  “Was it because he was working for the DEA?” Sisto continued. “Is that why you stabbed him in the neck and watched him bleed out? Did he make a deal to snitch on you, or was it bigger?”

  “What is he talking about, Mason?” Púca asked, concern rising in his voice.

  Freddy stammered, “Isn’t Mole’s real name Morris?”

  Mason looked back at him, then over to Andy. Andy looked like he was watching a soap opera unfold. He was trying to put the pieces to the puzzle together as well. He must not have realized the man he was getting close with had actually been a pretty sick sonofabitch.

  Mason pulled out a gun and pointed it right at Sisto. Before words could escape his mouth, both Fitz and Púca pulled guns as well and put the crosshairs on Mason. Sisto was shocked that Fitz had a gun on him until he realized Púca had probably given him one once he got the call there was a situation.

  “Who are you, DEA?” Mason asked. “There is no way you could have known all of that about Mole unless you were. You little weaselly sack of shit!”

  He then pointed the gun towards Fitz, “And he is here with you. You work for the DEA? You turn on your brothers, you lowlife?”

  Before Fitz could reply, Sisto interjected, “I know that you are a sick bastard.”

  All eyes turned to Sisto.

  “You have killed over a dozen people in the last three years on this trail. Probably more outside of the event timeframe. You get bloody if you have to but prefer to get up-close and look them in the eye as they die. You rent homes or hotels under false identities and go just far enough outside the event site, so no one is the wiser. The thing you didn’t think about though, is when you compound the murders on a map, taking away the factor of different years, there is a clear path of destruction that led us right to you.”

  Freddy was visibly hurt about the possibility his role model would kill one of their own. He could barely squeak out, “Mason?”

  Mason looked at Freddy then back at Sisto. Mason had a look that concerned Sisto but before he could do anything about it, Mason made his next move.

  “You know what,” Mason started. “I have bled for my country, for my brothers. I have been through hell and back in my forty-seven years on this green Earth. I would never let an insect that would betray this brotherhood get away with what he had. Mole had to go. And it sounds like you also work for the DEA, which means Fitz, you are both pond scum in my book.”

  There was an audible scuffle outside the office door now. It was Norton’s team.

  “This all calls back to a weak link in leadership,” Mason spoke softly.

  The office door shattered at the frame and Kendrell launched an enforcer tool towards the base of the lock. The door whipped open, but it was too late as Mason held with a look of acceptance for his sins and rose his gun, releasing a chamber towards Púca. The room filled with gunpowder as Púca released a shot after the impact of Mason’s bullet struck his left collarbone. Instinctively, Fitz put a bullet in Mason’s head. Sisto saw Fuller and Norton assess the room and had been ready to shoot anyone that moved the wrong way, but the only m
an standing with a smoking gun at that moment had been Fitz Ackerman.

  Mason’s jolly body was now a heap on the west wall of the office, brain matter decorating a substantial circumference of the newly painted stucco. Neither Freddy nor Andy, made any moves and after Sisto broke through his thoughts and called out to Fitz, the pacifist biker lowered his weapon. Norton took the East wall, passing Sisto with an unappreciative glare, along with Andy who had been next to him. He went behind the desk to view a fallen Púca, bleeding steadily from his shoulder. Norton reached for his radio.

  “Tomb, I need a bus, stat. Got one man bleeding out, another that has a second asshole in his forehead.”

  “Roger.”

  The next hour had everyone present in the office at the time of the shooting giving statements, including Sisto and Fitz. Tomb and Powers pulled to the front of the building, waiting for backup to keep the hundreds of partying bikers in the back of the building from fleeing. Fitz was distraught at the fact he killed Mason, even for a good cause. He had changed his ways and followed the mantra to live a peaceful life, in recent years. He didn’t like the idea of harming anyone but if anyone were to get him to break his rule, a murdering bastard that just shot his boyfriend was probably as good an option as any.

  Púca was in pain, yet it looked like the wound wasn’t mortal. A string of colorful curse words escaped the man from time to time until the ambulance pulled to the front of the building and he finally got escorted to Mustain General Hospital. Fitz was allowed to go with him on the condition that an officer followed them to obtain a statement once they took Púca back for potential surgery. A look captured in Fitz’s eyes had hit Sisto in the heart. He felt bad for his friend but based on what the medic had said before escorting Púca out on a stretcher, it sounded like they would have plenty of time to figure out the next steps for a future together. The female medic had also cleaned Sisto’s face with saline and gauze and inspected his nose before determining it was not broken.

  Sisto was told to just stay in Púca’s office until they had finished interviewing everyone else. Protocol stated they still get a statement from Sisto, but being an actual officer of the law, there was no concern of him being a flight risk. Sisto had finally removed the brace and sling and it felt liberating. His left leg and right arm were sore from the unneeded support. He stretched and realized if someone had walked in at that moment, it would have looked awkward. He was in the middle of doing some light squats, to get the muscles in his left leg circulating. Following that, he started extending and retracting his right arm at the elbow, similar to someone that slipped some WD-40 in the hinges of a door and was opening it a few times to make sure the lubricant got into the cracks.

  Another few minutes had passed, then Fuller walked in, instantly frowning.

  “Norton not in here?”

  “No, I thought he was in one of the rooms with Freddy or Andy.”

  “Yeah, Andrick Walsh. The guy said he was diabetic and needed insulin from his tent. I guess they are still down there. I just figured they would be back by now.”

  “Oh, no worries. I could use a coffee anyhow. I’ll grab one and tell him you’re looking for him.”

  “Thanks,” Fuller stated.

  “You don’t think that kid had any prior knowledge of what was going on, do you?”

  “Freddy Campbell? No, he is just playing pretend with the older kids. It doesn’t sound like he is kept in the loop on anything.”

  Sisto nodded, figuring as much. “You need a cup while I am down there?”

  “No, I am fine, thanks.”

  Sisto, fully operational without his disguise on, walked out of the office and decided to take the stairwell down. While Fuller was in an empty office two rooms down with Freddy, Kendrell decided to hold his interrogation in the open floor plan of desks. He was a good few feet away from Rug as well, who happened to release an unfriendly scowl in Sisto’s direction, as he passed the two men. Sisto was happy to have caught the bad guy, but what he was more excited about was to tell Ama about the fact he accidentally punched a man in the armpit and proved the urban legend true.

  Sisto decided to wrap around the back of the building instead of head out of the door at the bottom of the stairwell. He had smelled enough human excrement for one day and chose to avoid the rows of mobile restrooms. Walking out the back door, he saw the exit was no longer covered by Púca’s men. Looking around, there were now over twenty officers integrated into the massive party ground, trying to maintain order while an investigation would be underway. Sisto could see most were talking crap to the officers but not displaying violence. Only a few pockets of the group had been acting aggressively. Sisto assumed the few people that were putting up a fight were not the weekend warriors, but lifers that had some sort of arrest warrant somewhere.

  Sisto filled his coffee and breathed in deep delight. He felt good about his contribution to taking out a murdering bastard like Mason Wilcox. The countless lives he may have inadvertently saved by putting his reign of terror to an end could boggle one’s mind. Sisto didn’t see many corners to escape and simply take a moment to himself with all the officers riling up the visitors. He took his first sip of the hot coffee he had poured and remembered the first sip he enjoyed that same morning. He looked over and saw the two piles of manmade dirt mountains next to the bulldozer. Sisto decided he could perch in solitude for ten minutes before finding Norton and heading back up to give his statement.

  The emotional weight of seeing so many horrible things The Reels had shown him, was finally starting to catch up. Sisto decided once he gave his statement and got back to Saratoga City, he was going to take a very long, hot shower, followed by sleeping at least two days straight. He approached the dirt piles and was ready to ascend much easier than he had done with the brace on, earlier that morning. Something stopped him dead in his tracks. He slowly moved closer, as if what he saw was a living being and he may scare it off if he got too close. Walking towards the other dirt pile, the one he was not sitting on earlier, he noticed the spots where his new friend, Andy, had exited the hill.

  Sisto knelt over an imprint of a shoe that had a massive “X” on the tread. Sisto knew it meant something and recalled back the last forty-eight hours in an attempt to remember why it was a concern. It struck him as he remembered being at Flashy Jack’s when Mitchell and Wallace explained there was a boot that matched that description at more than one of the crime scenes. Sisto felt his stomach start to churn as he realized that, yes, while they may have put an end to a manipulative criminal, it may not have been the one Sisto was tasked with finding. He cautiously put his hand in the dirt, over the footprint, letting The Reels shine some light in great detail about the dark side of his polite coffee buddy.

  CHAPTER 32

  Andrick was giddy at the thrill of everything that had just occurred. He couldn’t have asked for the stars to have aligned any better than they had for him. He had thoughts of how he would kill Mason himself, being that he was framing Andrick for Mole’s murder and feeding him to the DEA. He owed a lot of his joy to that liar, Tom Sisto. Because of him, it was revealed why Mason set his plan in motion. To think, Mole was smart enough to draft a deal with the authorities. It was almost inconceivable until Andrick remembered a documentary stating how cockroaches could survive an atomic blast. The entire event leaving the office complex replayed in his head as he drove down Archibald and headed towards his Airbnb at the North point of Saratoga City.

  While he was thankful that the murder of Mole and the intended frame job was no longer an issue, there was still the fact of what was said in the office that gave him concern. Tom Sisto said that they had a map that captured many kills over the last few years, all within the range Andrick tended to drive out towards. He thought he had been so clever, restricting his kills on the trail to only a few times each year. He felt his face flush at the fact that he was discovered and was almost physically apprehended. Andrick reviewed in his mind the conversation, to see if there had b
een anything else, he potentially overlooked.

  He knew that Tom Sisto worked for the DEA or some level of a government authority. That meant that Fitz Ackerman, the false bravado of a man that presented himself as an outlaw, had probably also been involved. Andrick decided after he got cleaned up at his Airbnb, he would have to burn all his alias identities and pay a hefty penny to have new ones created. He also came to the realization that if he were to continue to try and elude police, he would have to regain control of his recent outbursts. Just the thought of that made a nerve behind his neck twitch.

  Andrick thought about the moments after watching Mason get his brains splattered against the wall. Emotions ran high in most people, and in other circumstances, Andrick may have been upset a perfectly good candidate for watching the life light slip out had been stolen away. The fact he had not only had someone else wrap up his loose ends but an officer of the law no less, brought Andrick to relax as he felt his cover was still intact, for the next hour at least. Other thoughts crept into his mind shortly after though. Within minutes of the authoritative figures storming into the office, everything had changed.

  Each man was escorted to a separate room, Andrick’s being adjacent to the room Mason and Púca lay covered in blood. To Andrick’s surprise, however, while being interrogated, he could have sworn that he heard one of the paramedics on scene say that Púca was not only alive but in stable condition. He could not be sure as the voice of the man interrogating him, an Officer Norton, had a loud, booming tone that drowned most secondary sounds outside the office room. Norton had not been talking to Andrick like a suspect, however, which pleased Andrick. It seemed Norton and everyone else involved in the sting operation was simply ready to accept that Mason had been the bad apple of the bunch.