Undercard

by David Albertyn

  Poised beside the open doorway, he thinks it is good to feel fear again. Fear like this. He could run a world record jacked up like this.

  You better, a voice inside him says.

  His men unleash a wave of covering fire, the starter’s pistol for him. He bolts, sprinting as low and as fast as he can. He can hardly see anything through the smoke, and his eyes are down to make sure he doesn’t trip on the uneven ground.

  The gunshots are relentless, filling his ears from every direction like he has plunged into a barrel of exploding firecrackers. The bullets whizz by his face, blow a kiss as they hurtle by. He pumps with the M4 assault rifle in one hand like an oversized baton. His throat and lungs burn from smog and exertion. The scorched carcass of a van suddenly looms out of the coils of smoke, and he almost crashes into it.

  Where is he? Where is the burning Humvee he had been aiming for?

  There is such a cacophony, outside him, inside him, such burning stinking fumes in his nostrils and in his mouth, he cannot think. He sprints harder.

  The smoke starts to clear. He is in an open stretch now.

  The roasting Humvee is way out to his right and already behind him. He glances at it over his shoulder as he keeps on sprinting, while the apartment tower rises before him, AK-47 barrels poking out its windows like bristling thorns. Among all the windows, and the holes blasted through the walls, Tyron somehow spots one gunman, lining him up perfectly. He won’t miss. Tyron knows it as much as he has ever known anything. Time, already slowed to a fraction of its speed, seems to stop altogether, and all he can think in this frozen moment, his final moment, is simply, This was a stupid idea.

  The gunman’s head jerks. He tilts forward, over the sill. The AK-47 falls from his grasp and drops slowly through the air. Every Marine is a rifleman, Tyron thinks, thanking God for his men’s accuracy.

  Dirt sprays up around him with wayward bullets. He leaps into new plumes of smoke. Coughs violently but doesn’t break stride. Almost there, you fuck, let’s go. He bursts out of the smoke right at the smashed opening of the building. Crosses the threshold into a stairwell, and no finish line has ever given him such a sense of triumph.

  Springing over the bottom broken steps, he charges up, thunking grenades with his M203 launcher attached to the underside of his M4. As explosions rock the inside of the building and his enemies scatter, he notices that he is bleeding in three places: the outside of his lower leg, just above his boot; his left shoulder, which he now realizes aches like a knife is stuck in it; and his right side, below his ribs, where the blood is slickest. Sweat streaks onto his lips and it tastes thick and coppery: he is bleeding from his face too. The wounds occupy his thoughts for half a second at most.

  He advances down the hall, launching grenades and firing bullets, a wolf loose in the sheep yard.

  * * *

  “Ty! Ty! Wake up, you’re going to make us crash! Stop punching. What’s wrong with you?”

  He is inside a vehicle. Not a Humvee, just some regular compact car. His arms are moving of their own accord; he pulls them into his body. Looks around. He is in the front passenger seat. Tara is driving. She keeps looking over at him like he’s a rabid dog.

  “I dozed off,” he says.

  “Dozed off? You call that a doze? You’re lucky we didn’t crash.”

  “What happened?”

  “You were rocking and swinging and shaking the whole damn car.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She takes a deep breath. “It’s all right. You just scared me is all. No more naps in the car, okay?”

  She winks and he feigns a smile, though inside he is thinking, What the fuck is wrong with me?

  A few minutes later they arrive at the Las Vegas Convention Center Bronze parking lot, the meeting site for the rally. Tyron is surprised by the number of people already gathered, with more arriving every minute.

  They find Auntie Trudy near the centre of activity, where the organizers are at work welcoming protesters, handing out signs, and giving instructions. Tyron notices that most of the people running the show are women. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t expected white people to be there in solidarity either. When he hugs Auntie Trudy, the first thing she says to him is, “Have you seen Marlon?”

  He is unsure how she means the question. Has he seen him today? Has he seen him here, right now? Is she worried that Tyron hasn’t spoken to Marlon yet or is she worried that Marlon isn’t here yet? But what is apparent is that she is definitely worried.

  “I was at his house a couple hours ago,” Tyron says.

  “When did you leave him?”

  “About o-six-forty.”

  “You haven’t seen him since then?”

  “No. Why?”

  “He hasn’t shown up. And no one can get a hold of him.”

  A chill seizes Tyron.

  Tara runs through the usual questions: When was he supposed to be here? Have you tried his cell? Has anyone else heard from him? Did someone go by his house? Who was the last person to speak to him? The answer to Tara’s final question is Tyron. He was the last person to see or speak to Marlon.

  Even hung over, the instincts Tyron developed overseas uncoil and worm through his body. It was gatherings like these — a large mass in an outdoor space — that always scared him over there. An obvious target, easily infiltrated. Looking out at so many people in one place he cannot help but feel that he is in another target primed to be hit.

  And Marlon. He wouldn’t miss this. Tyron is certain of that. What if the man wasn’t being paranoid? What if people actually were following him? What if his absence now isn’t a coincidence?

  “I’m going to look around for him,” Tyron says in a plain voice, masking his concern.

  “Let us know if you find him,” says Tara, who doesn’t seem too worried.

  Tyron weaves through the crowd, scanning faces. So many. Such a target and Marlon absent: Tyron can’t quiet his racing mind. He moves faster through the crowd. The faces are unknown to him, a stranger in his hometown. And then he sees a familiar face, and is comforted a little.

  “My man!” Ricky says, slapping his hand and embracing him. “What a night. What a night.”

  “Rick, Marlon’s missing. No one can reach him.”

  Tyron tells Ricky the full story. Ricky’s expression empathizes but doesn’t agree. “Ty, there could be a million reasons why Marlon isn’t here and isn’t answering his phone.”

  “Or answering the door at his house.”

  “Or answering the door at his house,” Ricky says. “He’s out, he’s not answering his phone, he’s not here yet. It’s too soon to panic.”

  “I got a bad feeling, Rick. It’s been building since yesterday, and I can’t shake it now. By my last tour, if I got this feeling, I was always right. I knew. And the stronger the feeling, the closer it was to something going down. To people getting killed.”

  Ricky puts his hand on Tyron’s shoulder and shakes him lightly. “You’re home, Ty. You’re not over there anymore.”

  Tyron shakes his head, frustrated. “This isn’t PTSD or some shit you’ve seen on the news. I know something’s wrong. And I’m powerless. I’m powerless to stop it. I’ve got no men. No guns. No intel, no rank, no contacts. No understanding of anything. No fucking nothing, man. I’m no one back here. I know something is wrong and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.”

  “Hey hey,” Ricky says. “You’re cool, dude. You’re cool. We’ll find Marlon. And you ain’t no one out here. You the last thing from that. I never met anyone as loved as you. I’d hate you with jealousy if I didn’t love you so damn much myself.”

  Tyron laughs, just once, in spite of himself.

  “And I know it’s not a company of Marines, but you got me, brother,” Ricky says.

  “Yeah, I got you, Rick. God’s looking out for me.”

&nbs
p; “Well, you don’t got to be sarcastic about it.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Tyron embraces the smaller man, and the anxiety that was cresting inside him recedes. “I’m still right about Marlon, though. He’s in trouble.”

  “Okay, so what do you want to do? I’ll leave with you if you want to go look for him. But I don’t know where to begin. And he might show up here anyway.”

  Tyron thinks it over. “Let’s keep looking here for now. You’re right, he might show up.”

  Together they scour the vast parking lot and the many people in it, while continuing to call and text Marlon’s cell phone. When they come across someone they know, they ask if the person has seen or spoken to Marlon. No one has. At the edge of the parking lot, Tyron looks across a narrow road at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department station. It was there that Antoine was caught breaking in all those years ago, when he was still new to the Shaws.

  On Tyron and Ricky’s return to Tara and Auntie Trudy, Tyron’s phone rings and his heart skips a few beats. But his hope is for naught. Had Naomi called an hour earlier he would’ve been thrilled to hear from her; now he is disappointed and frustrated that she is not Marlon.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey. You okay?” she asks.

  “No. What’s up?”

  While Naomi starts talking about Keenan and Antoine and the murders last night, he and Ricky move through the crowd to the front. A few women in their twenties and thirties with loudspeakers are indicating to those around them that they’re about to get things under way. Naomi is still talking.

  One of the women welcomes everyone, thanks them for coming, then asks if they’re ready to fight injustice. The answer is unanimous.

  Tyron is not sure he heard Naomi right in all the cheering, but he thinks . . . he thinks she just said his parents were assassinated. By the same guys that Antoine killed last night.

  The woman on the loudspeaker shouts chants and questions and the crowd repeats the chants and answers the questions, all in one booming voice. He presses his ear harder against the phone but cannot hear what Naomi is saying, except that it has something to do with Keenan.

  “Naomi, I can’t deal with this now. We’ll speak later.”

  He ends the call and shoves the phone in his pocket. His parents were assassinated by the guys Antoine killed, what the fuck? Who knows what is truth, what is disinformation, and what is misinterpretation. I got to get out of the desert, he thinks. I’ll go north. Far north, where it’s wet and cold and green, and where there’s only one person I have to worry about.

  He looks over at Ricky and Tara and Auntie Trudy, pumping their fists and shouting their support. Tara catches his glance and smiles at him.

  I’m here, he thinks. For today at least, I’m here.

  He listens to the leaders of the protest and tries to forget everything else. Everything other than that Black lives matter.

  10

  9:07 a.m.

  Keenan walks to the end of the police station’s rooftop parking lot, so he can have a better view of the rally across the street. He grew up often being the centre of attention, at home, at school, but never has he been the focus of so many people at once. He wonders what the crowd would do if they knew that he is here, almost on top of them. He wears a black cap and sunglasses to disguise his appearance, but still stoops against the low-rise wall enclosing the rooftop to keep from being seen. Looking down on the street below, he wonders how much damage a drop like that could do. It’s not a high building. A few broken bones, he imagines. Unless he dove headfirst. What would the protesters make of that? What would Naomi make of it? Maybe she’d feel responsible. He experiences a sudden morbid delight in the anguish it would cause her. A final payback for not loving him anymore.

  He sniffs back tears, disgusted with himself for thinking such a thing. Looks over the edge again. Just do it, you pussy.

  There are uniformed cops on the rally’s perimeter. Keenan can’t imagine they’re the best sight for the gathered protesters, nor that the cops are looking on with impartiality. On that note, the cops in this building can’t be too happy either — a rally against police violence right outside their windows. He wonders if the location was coincidence or intentional. Perhaps both. Some minutes later the cops start blocking off traffic on Sierra Vista Drive. The crowd turns and shifts and lumbers forward. Keenan stares a minute longer, then turns away, frightened of being spotted by the marching protesters.

  * * *

  Fitz is inside hunting for information about the Shaws’ murder. Keenan didn’t bother asking if he could come along.

  He returns to his car and sits on the hood. The climbing sun beats down on him and sweat forces his shirt to cling to his spine. After about ten minutes, Fitz comes out with a pleased, confident waddle, flapping his notebook at Keenan like it’s a winning lottery ticket. “We’re in business.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I’ll tell you on the drive over. We’ll take my car.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Reef.”

  At the mention of the casino, Keenan feels immediate trepidation. “The Reef?”

  “The Reef, baby.” Fitz takes his keys out as he walks around the car to the driver’s side. “This is some can of worms you’ve opened for me, Keenan. But I’m not complaining. I love a good challenge.”

  Fitz beeps the doors unlocked, and he is as eager behind the wheel as he was on foot. He zooms out the building, turning east to avoid the protesters.

  “Who do you suppose was first on scene when Raul Deco’s body was found?”

  Keenan shrugs. “My father?”

  “No.” Fitz glances from the speeding road to Keenan. “One Jacob Fischer.”

  “Fischer? You think that means something?”

  “I don’t know. It might, it might not. Who do you think ran the investigation of the Shaws’ murder?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The current undersheriff: Jake Fischer. And both times he came up with nothing. Just the assessment that both sets of killings were gang-related, even though there was no real evidence to support such a claim.”

  “Fischer,” Keenan says. He wants to believe it’s him. Him and not his father. But Keenan also doesn’t want to jump to conclusions just to ease his mind. “It doesn’t mean much, though, does it? It could all be coincidence. And what does the Reef have to do with it?”

  “It definitely could be coincidence,” Fitz says, “but it’s something. And I’ve got something else for you. When Fischer was partners with Monk, they were called to the Reef all the time. Got all the collars that occurred on that property. The same thing when Monk was partners with your dad.”

  “But all that does is confirm that Monk was working for Bashinsky, which we already knew. Fischer and my dad could’ve just been along for the ride.”

  “True, but a lot of things are adding up. We’re not trying to build a case yet, just trying to get some answers. Then we’ll go from there.”

  “And the Reef might have them,” Keenan says with a nod, understanding Fitz’s line of thinking.

  They turn onto Las Vegas Boulevard.

  Fitz says, “Someone there must know something. And whoever it is has to be rattled with Bashinsky not twelve hours dead yet. I figure we can lean on them, see what falls out.”

  Keenan tilts his head to give Fitz a sideways look of approval. “I see why you got promoted faster than me.”

  “Let’s see if I’m right first before you say anything like that again. What the hell is this?”

  Up ahead are cops, lots of them, on the sidewalk and in the street. They look like soldiers with their automatic weapons, black bulletproof vests, and grim expressions — soldiers setting up a militarized roadblock. The two men realize simultaneously that all these uniformed cops are for the protesters who wil
l march this way, here to block off northbound lanes of Las Vegas Boulevard and to be on hand to quell any subversive behaviour toward the protesters. Or by them.

  “I can’t believe the city agreed to block off traffic on the Strip,” Keenan says.

  “I think they figured it was better than a riot. And I know people are checking out of the hotels, but nine on a Sunday morning isn’t exactly Mardi Gras.” Fitz looks over at Keenan as they approach the police hot spot. “You better keep your head down. As inconspicuous as you can get. Everyone remembers the catalyst for all of this.”

  Keenan is exhausted of hearing about what he has done wrong. A never-ending loop. You’ll never escape it, he thinks. And you don’t deserve to. There’s only one solution. Only one way out. Get to the bottom of this first. That is a must. And then it’ll be over. It’ll all be over.

  So sharp is this idea in his mind, and so calming, that his vision crystallizes into pristine details. The glinting badge of the cop waving them through onto the casino grounds, the pores on Fitz’s cheek above the line of facial hair, the glossy windows of the awesome structure they are approaching, all clearer than ever. His senses experience a surge in awareness: the cold artificial air of the car in his nostrils, the purr of the motor in his ears, the feel of the seatbelt against his sweat-stained shirt. He is alive in a way he hadn’t been a minute earlier.

  Soon, he thinks. Soon it’ll be over.

  9:18 a.m.

  Craig has turned the television to the local news, and the three of them sit on the beds watching the march. The newsfeed alternates between an aerial view from a helicopter and handheld shots beside the protesters. “Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot!” the protesters cry, again and again, and then they chant, “No justice, no peace! No racist po-lice! No justice, no peace! No racist po-lice!” From the aerial view, the line of people stretches beyond either end of the frame.