The Single Twin

by Sean Little

  “Oh, shit. You guys were in the Army together, weren’t you?”

  Tasker and Lafferty broke their embrace and looked at Duff. “What does that matter?” said Tasker.

  “I was just wondering how two guys could get so blood-pact to the point they’d kidnap a baby and cover up a murder or two, but old Army buddies makes sense. Crazy. Makes me wish I’d joined the Army, but I doubt I would have done well. I mean, take a look: not exactly a body built for basic training. Stevens wasn’t in the Army, was he? No. No, he protested the war. Hey, Ronnie—do you have prostate cancer, too? I’ll bet you do.”

  “You talk a lot,” said Lafferty. “That ain’t a good trait, son.”

  “I know. It’s a stupid habit. You see, I tend to get jibbery when people are about to die in front of me and I’m about to ruin some rich asshole’s day.”

  Tasker laughed. “How are you going to ruin my day?”

  “You’re on candid camera!”

  Tasker seized up. He brought up the hand holding Duff’s Walther and trained the barrel on Duff’s chest. “That’s a lie. First thing we did was sweep this rat-hole for cameras and mics.”

  “I know. We’re not wealthy. We don’t have visible cameras, but the fact of the matter is my buddy Abe has been outside the window by the kitchen recording you since I started my recap.

  “That’s a bluff. We’re two stories up. There’s no balcony, no fire escape.”

  “No. But, there is a crap-ton of scrap in the alley, and I gave him the idea to do up a makeshift periscope. Abe probably mounted his camera on a couple boards or a length of pole and stuck it in the window to catch every word I just said. You boys are humped.”

  “Lies.”

  Duff moved to the window and punched out the screen. Abe’s iPhone was exactly where he said it would be, Ace-bandaged to a length of metal pole Abe found in the alley, camera still recording. “That looks like it captured some hardcore evidence, doesn’t it? Like I said: you boys are humped.”

  Then everything went south in a hurry.

  -17-

  TASKER’S ARM dropped slightly when Duff had gone to the window to show him the camera. His face twitched with rage and he immediately brought the gun back up and fired blindly.

  Duff, seeing him begin to move and knowing full well what he was about to do did the only thing he could think of doing, and he went headfirst through the window. For a forty-four-year-old fat guy, this was not the wisest of decisions. There was a time perhaps, maybe back when he was eighteen or nineteen and obsessed with professional wrestling, he might have willingly made a fifteen-foot leap to pavement below, but when he was over the hill and lugging around a hundred and forty extra pounds he just didn’t need to have on his frame to begin with, dropping out a window was a recipe for disaster.

  There was nothing graceful or athletic about Duff’s fall. He drove forward into space. He managed to clear the low windowsill with his legs. If he had not, he would have been tipped up headfirst to the ground. He sprawled out bodily and dropped like a rock. On the way down, he clipped Abe’s shoulder and sent him spinning. Duff managed to get his right leg underneath him to break the fall but managed to break his ankle and jam his knee as he landed in an awkward, heavy lump on the pavement. Parts of his body slapped concrete and pain radiated through every inch of his frame. There was so much pain he could not even summon a noise. He just seethed with agony.

  Duff wanted nothing more than to lay still and not move for a month or two, but he had the presence of mind to realize Tasker was coming to the window with a gun. Duff’s right leg would need surgery, he could tell. It was useless, but he still had some movement, albeit painful movement, in his left leg. Ignoring the massive flair of pain along his back, he rolled to his side and used his left leg to propel himself along the pavement toward the building. There was a slight overhang between the first-floor commercial areas and the second-floor residential areas, and it might be just enough to provide him some cover.

  Tasker appeared in the window and fired off three shots. Somehow, he managed to miss Duff with all three. Bullets ricocheted off the ground around him, though. Duff tried to summon the strength to say something witty, but he was in too much pain. Only adrenaline was fueling him at that moment.

  Mindy Jefferson stepped out of the shadows of the alleyway and returned fire with her Beretta. She put three rounds through the second story window but could not tell if she hit anyone or anything. She dove for cover behind a large, green dumpster. “If that doesn’t bring the local P.D. running, I don’t know what will.”

  Abe was picking himself up off the ground. His right shoulder was on fire where Duff had fallen on him. His hip had gotten jammed somehow on the impact. It felt like he’d torn a muscle in his lower back, too. Abe ripped his phone off the end of the makeshift periscope and pocketed it. He limped over to Duff. “You gotta get up. We gotta run.”

  Duff was breathing hard. “I don’t have the ability to think right now, let alone get up and run.”

  “They’re coming. They’re going to come out here.” Abe slipped his hands under Duff’s arms and tried to drag his partner to better cover. Between Duff’s girth and the pain in Abe’s back, it wasn’t going to happen.

  A hand stuck out of the window and fired two more rounds. They zinged off the pavement. Mindy returned fire from the dumpster and chased the gun-arm back to the cover of the window.

  “That was too close!” Somewhere from the unplumbed depths of his core, Abe was able to summon some sort of adrenaline-fueled super-strength, the same type of power magically gifted to women who had to roll overturned cars off their children. Abe dug deep, flexed hard, and dragged Duff to safety next to the wall of the taqueria. Then he promptly collapsed in a heap next to Duff. Abe was not one who enjoyed physical contact from strangers, but given the pain radiating out of his lower back, he knew he was going to treat himself to a massage in the near future if he managed not to get killed.

  Another volley of gunfire was exchanged in the alley. Tasker fired on Mindy; Mindy returned fire on Tasker. Abe wished he had remembered to count the shots. How many had been fired so far?

  The side door to the taqueria opened. One of the cooks cautiously poked his head out. “Hey, boss. Ven aca. Vamos.”

  Abe dragged himself to his feet, his back screaming a twisted chorus of fiery pain. Abe grabbed Duff’s arm. Duff reached out with his other arm and grabbed the proffered hand of the cook. Together, Abe and Dom dragged Duff into the kitchen. Abe held the door for Mindy, but she stayed put behind the dumpster.

  In the distance, sirens were growing closer. Lights were popping on in the apartment complex. People were gathering at their windows, sleepy and confused.

  Abe gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath. “If Tasker or Mindy shoot errantly, someone could die.”

  “If they shoot accurately someone could die.” Duff was gritting his own teeth so hard they squeaked. “That’s the magic of bullets.”

  Abe felt helpless. Powerless. He pulled out the .38 from the holster at the back of his pants.

  “Abe, you got an I’m-gonna-do-something-stupid look in your eye.”

  Abe looked down at his partner. “I probably am.”

  “If you get your dumb ass shot, Katherine will murder me.”

  Abe did not respond to Duff. Possessed by the ghosts of every heroic movie hero he’d ever seen, Abe kicked open the door of the kitchen and sprinted to the sheltered spot by the stairs. He shouldered the wall and raised his gun to a ready position, right hand clutching the grip, left hand supporting the right. His finger was poised on the trigger guard, ready to slip down and begin squeezing off rounds. He had six shots. He was ready to leap into action.

  Abe chanced a glance around the corner of the stairs. At the top of the stairwell, there was a silhouette of a large man. He couldn’t see a gun, but he did not keep his head around the corner long enough to find out. A split-second after he yanked his head back, a bullet chipped the corner six inches in
front of his face. A slick, cold sweat burst out down Abe’s back.

  He had a flashback from childhood. While all the other boys were pretending to be Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, he was pretending to be Obi-wan. Wise. Confident. No running or ducking. That was who he was meant to be. He was no gunslinger. He was not the guy on the front line.

  Footsteps started echoing in the staircase. There was no cover there. Was the guy trying to commit suicide?

  Abe swallowed hard. All he had to do was pop around the corner, gun up, and squeeze the trigger as fast as he could until the guy on the stairs was dead, or he was. It would be that simple. Abe squeezed the grip of his gun hard. He squeezed his eyes shut. Now or never. Hero or zero.

  An SUV with spinning reds-and-blues crow-hopped the curb with a squeal of tires and skidded to a stop. Two of Chicago’s Finest popped out of the cab, guns drawn, and started shouting commands. “Drop the gun! Get on the ground! Put your face on the ground!”

  Abe tossed his gun to the side and hit the ground. Under his breath, he muttered a prayer of thanks to any deity who might accept it.

  “Get on the ground, now!” The cops continued to point their guns.

  “I am on the ground!” Abe tried to press his face further into the concrete.

  Two shots rang out from the stairwell. The cops returned fire, both officers pumping five shots each into the dark of the stairwell.

  Abe heard someone grunt. There was a clatter of noise as a body stumbled down the stairs and face-planted the concrete in front of him. Abe found himself looking directly into the wide-eyed, vacant stare of the freshly deceased Uriah Lafferty.

  Another gunshot sounded from their office upstairs. Single. Quick. There was a dull thump as a lump of metal hit the worn carpet a second later.

  Ron Tasker had taken the easy way out.

  A CIRCUS OF activity sprang up on the street around Duff and Abe’s office. A small army of cops showed up to start processing the scene. As the story began to slip out to the media, dozens of TV trucks and print journalists showed up. The more people who gathered on the street, held back by the hastily erected police barricades, the more people from the apartments around the scene showed up. A few enterprising cart vendors took advantage of the crowds and the unusually warm early morning hours to make a few bucks selling tacos and hot dogs. Even the F.B.I. showed up because all this involved a sitting U.S. Senator.

  The news spread very quickly. Once the TV cameras were up and broadcasting, the C.P.D. had little choice but to stick a spokesman in front of the cameras to give what little information they could give. The official story was thin, at first: Two people shot, one by police, the other by suicide. It had something to do with Robert Stevens’s campaign. There is no more threat to the public.

  Because of telephoto lenses and photojournalists who knew what they were doing, it was not long before someone figured out the body in the stairwell was Uriah Lafferty, the brother-in-law of the senator. Then rumors began to spread like crazy. Twitter exploded with all manner of hearsay and conspiracy. Reporters began to hypothesize possible scenarios. The news went so fast the Chicago Tribune was able to get a short blurb about it in their second run of the morning’s presses. When the morning news shows started, the story about Uriah Lafferty was broadcast as if it was gospel, even though the name of the deceased had not officially been released by the police.

  “All in all, it’s a shitshow.” Mindy took a bite of the hotdog Abe had bought her.

  “Accurate.” Abe took a bite of his own hot dog. They leaned against the unmarked car Betts drove. They had been ordered to stand there until they were told they could go. Abe had taken a liberty in getting hot dogs, but Betts could moan about it if he wanted to. Abe had heard it before.

  Duff had been carted into an ambulance and driven to the University of Illinois Hospital. He would need pins in his ankle and some work on his knee. Not to mention treatment for his various aches, pains, and abrasions.

  Abe was okay. He would be sore for days, certainly. He would treat himself to the massage, as well. He would survive. He’d be stiff and move awkwardly, but he would survive.

  Betts and Gates walked over to the car. “This is a real shitshow,” said Betts.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Mindy.

  “I told you to get me evidence, not get people killed.”

  “This was faster,” said Abe. With the crime scene techs’ help, Betts retrieved Duff’s phone. The picture of the smashed-up Mercedes van in Lafferty’s garage was still on it. Abe had taken the pictures of the two babies from Duff before he left on the ambulance. The pictures clearly showed two different babies.

  “And you don’t think Senator Stevens had anything to do with this?” Gates held the baby pictures up to the streetlight to get a better look.

  “I don’t have proof. Just a gut feeling. I’d be willing to put a healthy bet on it, though.”

  “I got fifty bucks says even if he did know, he’d never admit to it.” Betts thumped a fist off the roof of his car. “I wish I’d picked up my phone when you idiots were texting and calling earlier. Maybe we could have ended this with living bodies instead of dead ones.”

  Abe flagged down one of the techs processing the bodies. “What’s my office look like?”

  The tech, a young woman in a blue Tyvek clean suit and surgical mask shook her head. “I hope you weren’t attached to that carpet.”

  Abe tried to smile. “Not anymore, I’m not.”

  “Have the F’bees gone over to the Stevens house, yet?” Mindy asked.

  Gates shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. You already know how it will go. They could be guilty as hell, but they’ll skate.”

  Abe’s phone began to ring. He looked down at the screen. It was five in the morning and Katherine was an early riser. The number was an unknown number with a St. Louis area code. Abe guessed it was Katherine. He answered.

  “Jesus, Abe! I just turned on the TV and the news are showing pictures of your office building. They showed a corpse being wheeled from the scene. Please tell me you and Duff are alive.”

  “We’re alive. I’m in one piece. Duff, not so much. He’s having surgery.” It made Abe feel good to know Katherine was still concerned about him. The worry in her voice was genuine. It wasn’t an act.

  “Surgery? Did he get shot?”

  “He wishes. He jumped out a window, broke his ankle and maybe his knee.”

  There was a huff of breath in the receiver as Katherine sighed heavily, the relief in her voice was audible. “Thank goodness you’re both okay. Although, I cannot imagine the pain in the ass Duff will be if he’s in a wheelchair.”

  “We’re still waiting for news, Katherine. Can I call you later?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Can Tildy and I come home? We’ll want to see Duff in the hospital when he’s out of surgery.”

  “I think you’ll be safe enough. This case is winding down. It’s just a matter of connecting the last few dots.”

  “We’ll come home, then. See you soon.”

  “If you’re in St. Louis, you know Duff will want barbeque.”

  “I’m not in St. Louis, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  Abe ended the call and slipped his phone into his pocket. “What’s the next step?”

  Betts looked around at the activity. “We’re going to get our butts chewed. You’re probably going to get yelled at by the chief. The F’Bees are going to take over the investigation, and we’ll all get zero credit. Sound about right?”

  Already, an F.B.I. spokesperson was standing up in front of a mob of video cameras and flashes from the still cameras of the newspaper shooters. They were giving an update to the situation. The agent, a pretty Latina woman dressed in a sharp blue suit, was clearly trained in the art of saying nothing while talking ceaselessly.

  Abe nodded to Betts. “Sounds about right.”

  “We should go over to the Stevens’ residence, though. I’m betting the F’Bees are swarming thick over th
ere,” said Gates.

  “Might as well.” Betts opened the door to his car. “Abe, you want to come? Bring your new friend, there?”

  “Sure.” Abe opened the rear door of the unmarked. Mindy slid into rear seat first. Abe followed.

  “If nothing else, I’m sure Ms. Jefferson would like to meet her brother, maybe get a D.N.A swab to prove relation.” Betts shut the door behind Abe. He and Gates climbed into the front seat of the car and the four of them headed toward the expensive side of town.

  A BOLO came over the radio. A bored-sounding dispatcher’s voice crackled over the bandwidth. “We have an emerging situation. Be on the lookout for a black Lincoln Continental with tinted windows and state department plates.”

  Gates frowned. “State plates?”

  “The driver is Mrs. Kimberly Stevens, wife of Senator Robert Stevens. She is considered missing and possibly suicidal. If you see her, you may approach if she appears distraught but use caution; she may be armed.”

  “Well, there’s a twist I didn’t expect,” said Betts.

  “Running makes you look guilty,” said Gates.

  “Being guilty makes you look guilty,” said Abe.

  “You know where she is?” Betts glanced in the rearview to make eye-contact with Abe.

  Abe shook his head. “Knowing weird stuff like that is Duff’s domain.”

  “Think he’d know?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I bet she’s running. We should go scope O’Hare or something,” said Gates.

  Abe knew O’Hare would be fruitless. “If she’s going to run, she’s not going to do it at the largest airport in the area where she would have to clear security. If I were her I’d ditch the car, get incognito, and travel quietly.”

  “But travel where? Go where?”

  Abe called the hospital. Duff would know. It was his purpose for being on Earth, to know things.