Murder on the Rocks

by Shawn Reilly Simmons

  “One of the important events the movie will dramatize is the Battle of the Sexes tournament where Helen beat Phil Neer, the eighth-ranked male tennis player at the time,” Arlena said, digging back into her breakfast.

  “Wasn’t that between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs?” Penelope asked, pulling her attention back to the conversation.

  “That one happened years later. The very first one was at Wimbledon in 1888,” Arlena said. “Helen was the third, and she was the first female to win one.”

  “Someone has been doing background research,” Penelope said.

  “That must have been something to see,” Nadia said. “I wonder how Helen’s opponent took the defeat.”

  “According to what I read in the script, not great,” Arlena said with a sly smile.

  “I can imagine. Especially back then. It’s still hard for the guys to lose to one of us,” Nadia said.

  “So that’s it,” Arlena asked. “And working with Penelope and the nutritionist for my meal plan. You’ll be paid per diem as a consultant. And you’ll get a film credit, I’ve already confirmed that with the director.”

  Nadia sat back in her chair and put a hand on her chest, a grin spreading across her face. She reached down and pulled her phone from her bag and said, “Can I get a photo of us, so I can remember the moment I became a movie consultant?”

  Arlena hesitated for a second and then said, “Sure.” Nadia popped up from her chair, and she and Arlena smiled at the device while Nadia snapped several photos.

  “I’ll tag you,” Nadia said, retaking her seat.

  “Oh, I’m not on social media,” Arlena said. She watched Nadia type quickly with her thumbs.

  “What?” Nadia asked. “Not even Facebook?”

  Arlena smiled sheepishly. “Nope.”

  “Your publicist doesn’t think you should have an online presence?” Nadia asked distractedly.

  “I don’t have a personal publicist,” Arlena said, shrugging at Penelope. “Each movie has a promotional team. I haven’t seen the need to hire one of my own.”

  Nadia set the phone down. “Interesting,” she said under her breath.

  Penelope listened to the conversation, but kept the man across the street in her peripheral vision. Arlena had been approached many times by over-enthusiastic fans, both on movie sets and in regular life. Penelope had gotten used to being more vigilant when they were out together, for Arlena’s safety as well as her own.

  “Anyway, use me however you want. Maybe I can give you some social media tips too—” Nadia was cut off by a happy squeal from the next table. The little girl with the ribbons in her hair was clapping at the bunny ear shaped pancakes Sonya had placed in front of her.

  Nadia smiled at the family. “I wonder what it’s like to have children so close together in age, all babies at the same time.”

  Mirabelle approached their table with a coffee pot held tightly in her fist. “Refill?” She reached over to begin pouring before Penelope could answer. “Anything else we can do for you ladies?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Nadia began, picking up a nearby menu and looking through it quickly. “Do you have fresh avocado?”

  Mirabelle pointed at the menu with her pinkie. “Yes, it’s there under the sides.”

  “Are they ripe, though?” Nadia asked. “I can’t stand under-ripe avocados. I like them on the soft side.”

  The girl nodded crisply, her ponytail bouncing on her shoulder. “I’m sure they are, but I can check before bringing you some.”

  “Great, I’ll do that then. And an order of turkey bacon—”

  A crash sounded behind them when a pitcher of ice water smashed onto the ground from the corner of the patio. One of the boys Penelope had seen earlier on the sidewalk had placed his backpack over the sharp points of the railing and jumped onto the patio. He pulled the bag back over his shoulders and began shouting at the stunned diners, who either stared at him, mouths open, or stood up quickly from their chairs. He yelled what sounded like “plate it” several times, his face red and shiny from sweat, his dark hair stuck to his forehead. He waved his hockey stick in an arc over his head, then crashed it down onto the table nearest him, sending plates and glasses flying. Someone inside the restaurant screamed, and a car horn sounded on the street.

  The young man then flipped the table over and the couple sitting at the next closest one scrambled away, toppling their chairs as they ran inside the restaurant. Penelope stared at the boy for a second, frozen to the spot, in disbelief that this was happening. The straps of his bag pulled down his shoulders and Penelope irrationally wondered what was inside the dark blue satchel. The word bomb crossed her mind and spurred her into action.

  “Get down!” Penelope shouted to Arlena as she jumped up from her seat and moved toward the family with the children. Arlena was frozen, staring at the far end of the patio before reacting. Mirabelle bolted towards the restaurant with Nadia close on her heels, her purse clenched tightly to her side. “Let’s get out of here!” she shouted back over her shoulder to Penelope.

  The mother leapt up and pulled the little girl from her booster seat. The child wailed in protest, her cheeks turning an angry pink.

  Penelope reached her hands out to the woman. “I can take her. Get over the fence and I’ll hand her to you.”

  The woman stared at Penelope in shock, then hugged the toddler closer to her chest. She turned away and stared at her husband. He had followed her lead and grabbed their son, who was letting out his own squeals of protest.

  Penelope heard another crash and watched the young man swing at one of the flower pots suspended over the patio with his hockey stick. The clay burst into pieces, and soil and flowers flew through the air before falling to the ground.

  “Go over the railing,” Penelope urged the couple, who watched several people retreat into the dark interior of the restaurant.

  The woman looked back at her with a terrified expression, then at the spikes on top of the wrought-iron fence. She finally nodded tightly and turned back to her husband.

  “Follow me,” he said to his wife, and started toward the restaurant door. The woman threw Penelope a glance of startled apology, then followed him. Her husband crushed their son to his chest and hurried inside, the little boy’s feet dangling at his belt.

  Penelope ducked under the table where Arlena was hiding and grabbed her wrist. “Let’s get out of here.” She flicked her eyes at the fence.

  “Wait, no!” Penelope heard someone shout, and then another crash and a cry of pain. She peeked out from under the table and saw the boy swing his stick in an arc, then head inside the cafe. The older man who had been sitting alone on the patio was holding a hand to his forehead, blood streaming through his fingers.

  Penelope’s knees weakened. “Someone’s hurt,” she said, working to keep the alarm out of her voice. Arlena’s arms grew rigid as she pulled them around her torso in a hug. “Call the police,” Penelope said, eyeing Arlena’s bag on the ground. “I’ll go help him.”

  Arlena’s hand clasped Penelope’s wrist and pulled her back just as she began to stand up from her crouching position. “No,” Arlena said simply. “What if he comes back out? What if he has a gun?”

  “A gun?” Penelope asked.

  “How can we be sure he doesn’t have a gun?” Arlena said firmly. She released her grip on Penelope’s wrist and dug in her purse for her phone.

  Penelope watched the dazed man as he sat on the patio and listened to Arlena whisper to the emergency operator, trying to decide how injured he was. A flash of red near the front door of the cafe caught Penelope’s attention. She straightened her back and eased forward slightly, craning her neck to get a better view. Their attacker’s companion, the one she’d seen him with earlier on the sidewalk, was leaning casually against the front door. Penelope watched him eye an older couple walking by, his r
eddish blonde bangs flopping over his forehead, and reach slowly into a side pocket of his cargo shorts. Penelope’s heart began to race when she thought about a gun being hidden there. The couple veered off just before they reached the cafe and jaywalked across the avenue, a large dog on a leash pulling the man toward the park, the woman talking on a phone pressed tightly to her ear. Penelope looked toward the now empty bus stop and the passing cars on the street. No one driving past seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary happening at Sonya’s.

  Penelope heard yells from inside the restaurant, and the words “plate it” again. She thought the boy had some kind of accent, but the sounds from inside were muffled, and she couldn’t place it. The boy guarding the front entrance looked up and down the sidewalk after the door bumped him from behind, then pressed his back harder against the wood.

  “What is he doing in there?” Arlena hissed in a panicked whisper after she hung up with 911.

  “Not sure,” Penelope said. “A robbery maybe?”

  “In broad daylight?” Arlena asked.

  Penelope shrugged. Another crash from inside convinced Penelope to act.

  “What about Nadia?” Arlena asked, darting glances toward the restaurant.

  “His partner is guarding the door. She’s trapped in there with everyone else.”

  “We have to get out of here,” Arlena urged.

  “Yeah,” Penelope said, looking up at the fence behind them. “The spires on top look sharp, but maybe we can use a chair.”

  “It’s to keep the pigeons off,” Arlena said. “I’d rather get poked by a fence than attacked by a violent maniac with a big stick.”

  As they inched closer to the railing, Penelope looked back at the man on the patio. He’d begun to crawl their way, his progress slow.

  “We’re not leaving him behind,” Penelope said. A sickening series of thuds and a hoarse scream from inside the restaurant made Penelope’s legs go weak.

  Arlena edged a chair closer to the fence, making a loud scraping sound on the cement. Penelope’s heart rate quickened when she thought about them attracting attention to themselves out on the patio. She took a deep breath and hurried to the man. She crouched down next to him, and gently pulled his arm over her shoulders. “Let’s go,” she said as she helped him up and moved quickly back to where Arlena was waited. Penelope grabbed a napkin from one of the tables and handed it to the man, who held it against his bleeding head.

  The sound of a siren approaching provided temporary relief, quickly replaced by panic when she thought about how the boys might react when they learned the police had arrived.

  Arlena helped Penelope onto the chair and waved for her to go over first. “We’ll help him from both sides,” she said in an even voice. The man looked at Arlena doubtfully as Penelope made her way over. The old man clambered onto the chair, then toppled awkwardly over the fence, falling onto Penelope who did her best to keep them both on their feet. Holding onto the railing she managed to steady herself, then helped Arlena meet them on the other side of the fence.

  Penelope felt a sense of lightness and intense relief as they stood on the pavement. She peered around to the front door of the restaurant and saw the accomplice who had been holding the door closed was gone. People from inside the restaurant were tumbling out the door and a few people had gathered on the sidewalk, watching them emerge. Some were squinting curiously at the panicked faces of the diners. One man held his phone aloft, recording the scene. Penelope’s knees began to shake as a burst of adrenaline rushed through her.

  “We’re safe now. It’s going to be okay,” Arlena said.

  “What about Nadia and that young family?” Penelope asked, her voice much louder than she’d intended it to be. “He’s still in there with them.”

  Arlena hugged Penelope close and eyed the man they’d helped over the fence. He was perched on a ledge on the building next door, muttering to himself, the white napkin turning red from his blood.

  A police car screeched to the curb, and two uniformed officers jumped out. They scanned the gathering crowd before rushing toward the front door of the restaurant. Several people stepped forward to try and speak with them, but they waved them off as they drew their guns and hurried inside. A second patrol car arrived shortly afterwards, and those officers began ushering the onlookers to the opposite side of the street.

  “Did you get a good look at him?” Arlena asked.

  “No,” Penelope admitted. “It’s weird because someone just before caught my attention and I was kind of focusing on him. It seemed like he was looking at us too closely or something. But maybe he wasn’t watching us at all. Maybe he was just a guy at a bus stop.” Penelope laughed suddenly, then placed a hand over her mouth.

  “Penelope, what are you talking about?” Arlena asked gently. “Are you okay?”

  Penelope dropped her hand from her mouth and nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t get a good look at the boy inside, but I did see the one guarding the door. I saw both of them, kind of, I guess.”

  “Well, at least you saw something,” Arlena said. “I was taken totally off guard. I was so focused on talking about the movie with Nadia.”

  Just then a gunshot rang out from inside the restaurant. The small crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk ducked down as a group, a few of them backing further away from Sonya’s.

  “Oh no,” Arlena said.

  The old man looked at them with a stunned expression from behind his napkin. “The children,” he muttered.

  An ambulance bounced up the avenue, coming to a stop at the curb, sirens off.

  The mother of the two small children emerged from the front door of the restaurant, escorted by one of the officers. She held a crying toddler in each arm, keeping them pressed against her torso, her expression a mask of terror.

  “Where’s their dad?” Penelope asked, taking a step closer.

  A faint radio crackle drifted across the air and the team of paramedics sprang into action, hurrying into the restaurant.

  “If they’re letting the EMTs in, they must have gotten that maniac under control,” Arlena said.

  One by one, people exited the cafe, most visibly shaken, some crying and looking around like their surroundings were unfamiliar. A few pressed cloth napkins to their faces. Penelope couldn’t tell if they were to wipe away tears or to tend to injuries. A bulky man in a stained white apron had a bloody towel wrapped around his forearm. An EMT guided him toward the ambulance.

  “Sir, we should get you some help,” Penelope said to the man with them. “What’s your name?”

  “Fred Eames. And I’ll be fine,” he said. He pulled the napkin away from his forehead and Penelope saw a purplish welt, and a gash. The bleeding appeared to have slowed, she noticed gratefully.

  “Mr. Eames, you’ve got a head wound...” Penelope said.

  “Worse things have happened to me,” Mr. Eames said. “Let them look after the women and children first.” Penelope looked down at his shiny windbreaker and a collection of small pins. They looked military in nature, with emblems and stars and stripes, one in the shape of an eagle.

  A paramedic emerged from the cafe and called to the ambulance driver. “I need a hand.” He nodded and joined her, then the two of them wheeled a stretcher into the restaurant, the wheels bouncing over the cracks in the sidewalk.

  “Who would do something like this?” Mr. Eames said, shaking his head. Arlena sat down next to the man on the ledge and they both stared toward the cafe.

  Another ambulance pulled up just as the first set of EMTs rolled a stretcher carefully through the front door. Penelope caught her breath. “Look!” She took a few stiff-legged steps toward the cafe, keeping her eyes on the young father’s face, which was red and pinched with pain. His left arm was secured in a stabilizing brace. Penelope was relieved to see Nadia behind him. Her jaw was set in a defiant line, and she appeared to be
uninjured.

  The last people out were Sonya and her niece, Mirabelle. Their arms were linked tightly together and they leaned into each other as they stepped gingerly to where the ambulances were waiting. Sonya’s cheeks were wet with tears, but she looked to be unhurt.

  Mr. Eames sighed loudly, and he attempted to stand up from the ledge, but his legs wouldn’t hold him. Arlena urged him to stay put, and he reluctantly nodded and sank back down. He kept his eyes trained on the people emerging from the cafe.

  “Nadia!” Penelope called as she approached the fence. Nadia scanned the crowd outside until her eyes landed on her old friend.

  “Nadia, are you okay?” Penelope asked, thinking that of course she wasn’t. But what else was there to say?

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly, a hand wrapped around her wrist.

  “What happened in there?” Penelope asked gently.

  “It was awful,” Nadia said, shaking her head. “All of those innocent people, suddenly under attack. We were trapped. Scared.”

  Penelope looked down at Nadia’s wrist, which was beginning to swell.

  “Let’s get someone to look at that,” Penelope said. The EMTs were rushing around, helping people who were bleeding or in obvious distress. The chaos was unnerving.

  “We heard a gunshot. Did he have a weapon besides his hockey stick?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “If they captured him, where is he? They haven’t brought him out yet.”

  Nadia shook her head. “From what I overheard, he must have escaped out the kitchen door through the back alley.”

  “What?” Penelope asked. A shot of fear coursed through her. “How can that be?”

  Nadia pressed a shaky hand to her forehead. “He broke that man’s arm, the one with the kids, because he got in front of his family after he took a swing at me.” She looked down at her wrist and her voice broke. “Then that maniac dragged that poor young father into the kitchen when he heard the sirens approaching. His eyes were wild, like he was out of his mind. Pure hatred.” Her eyes flicked to the ambulance that was just pulling away from the curb. “Then the police came in, and we pointed to the kitchen. Next thing we heard was a gunshot, the door slamming, and then silence, which was scarier than anything else.”