by Rob Cornell
“I am doing my best, Mother,” he said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
That image of her gagging on her television remote resurfaced in Jake’s mind. The corner of his mouth twitched as if he meant to smile, though he had no conscious intention of doing so. Mother would want to know what he thought was so funny. He’d be inclined to tell her. Better yet…
Show her.
More ridiculous fantasies.
He pushed away the thoughts. He’d come here for a reason. Best to stay focused on that. “Brenneke called you about Mr. Hart’s visit?”
Mother laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m the last person the mayor wants to talk to.” She tilted her head back to look at Jake down her nose. “I’m your mother, Jacob. I make sure to check on you every now and then.”
Footsteps on the patio tiles echoed from behind Jake. He turned to find Arlie standing there with his big hands shoved in the pockets of his slacks, a smug grin on his face. He wore a small bandage over the gash behind his ear.
“Hello, Jakey.”
“You’ve been…?” Jake turned back to Mother. “He’s been following me?”
Arlie said, “You’re a lot easier to tail than you private eye friend.”
“He isn’t my friend. I’m just trying to get your files back, Mother.”
She nodded slowly. “Then why are you here?”
“Like I said, Brenneke won’t talk. He’s a fool. Mr. Hart was wondering if there were…smaller fish was how he put it. We certainly can’t pressure the Sterling Heights mayor to cooperate—”
“Well, we could,” Mother said, “if we still had the file I have on him. We could make him chatter just fine.”
What felt like a bubble of acid popped in Jake’s gut. He pressed his hand more firmly against his stomach, took a deep breath, and pushed on. “Have you heard from anyone else on your list? Perhaps someone with a lower profile than Brenneke? If this new blackmailer has targeted someone like that, we might have a better opportunity to enlist their cooperation.”
Ona smiled. It looked genuine, which unnerved Jake.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “there are three possibilities.”
Three? Dear lord, then why was she smiling?
Some of his surprise must have shown on his face. Her smile widened. “That’s right. Whoever has my files sure is enthusiastic.” She cackled at her choice of word.
Thick lava poured its way through Jake’s intestines. He grimaced at the pain. His body seemed to sense a threat Jake himself hadn’t worked out yet. He only knew that Mother’s tone sounded all wrong for the circumstances.
“All right, Jacob. I see you’re putting an effort forth. I’ll give you all three names. Will that help?”
“Y-yes. It would.”
“We only have to work out one thing before you get back to it.”
“What’s that?”
“Your punishment.” Her gaze moved to a point over Jake’s shoulder. She nodded.
Oh, shit!
Before Jake could turn, Arlie’s arm wrapped around Jake’s neck from behind, caught his throat in the crook of Arlie’s elbow. The fabric of Arlie’s coat sleeve felt rough and irritating against Jake’s skin. A minor discomfort compared to the growing pressure Arlie applied to his neck.
Jake clawed at Arlie’s arm, but the other man was too strong. The pulse of Jake’s heart grew louder and louder in his ears while his whole head seemed to throb in time to the beat. The edges of his vision closed into a red tunnel down which he watched his mother stand and approach.
“I told you I didn’t want to see you until the job was done.” She reached up and stroked his cheek. “A mother’s word is only good so long as she keeps it.”
There! In her eyes. That look again. Pity. Or…tenderness?
Jake blacked out before he could decide.
Twenty-Six
Since the ball was in Jake’s court on his case, Harrison spent the rest of the day catching up on other work. This meant spending a lot of time staring at his computer screen, frying his eyeballs. On his way home that evening, he picked up dinner for Dylan and himself—a large deep dish Detroit-style pizza from Jets with pepperoni and jalapeños.
A worthy peace offering.
He decided to make sure they talked. No more avoiding the uncomfortable, but necessary, conversation. If Dylan truly thought he’d be better off without Harrison, they needed to discuss it, much as Harrison hated the idea of abandoning his brother.
You’re not abandoning him if it’s what he really wants.
Only Harrison would never believe that.
The moment he stepped through the door, pizza in hand, Harrison sensed something was off. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. The smell of hot cheese and tangy jalapeños went from enticing to stomach-turning. But he couldn’t say what made him feel this way. The front room looked like it always did.
Mom’s mahogany upright piano stood against one wall, an undisturbed layer of dust on the keys. Mom had played a lot when they were kids. She would dedicate songs to him and Dylan. All Beatles songs were dedicated to Harrison—for his name sake. All Bob Dylan tunes, of course, went out to Dylan. Harrison knew she once had big dreams about her music, but never learned what had stopped her from following them.
Now, he’d never know.
The rocking chair and the curio cabinet they hadn’t managed to sell during the estate sale still held the same positions they always did. The only thing odd was that, as far as Harrison could tell from the front door, none of the lights were on. Harrison had assumed Dylan was home since his new junker was parked in the driveway. But that didn’t really mean much. If Dylan was down in his studio, he wouldn’t have had reason to turn on any lights upstairs.
Harrison carried the pizza into the darkening kitchen and set it on the table, then turned on the light.
The crisp white envelope on the table caught his eye. The words, “I’m sorry,” in Dylan’s familiar blocky style written across the front of the envelope sent a chill through Harrison.
All at once, he knew what was happening.
“No. God, no.” For a second, Harrison froze, uncertain what to do. He called out Dylan’s name twice. Didn’t get an answer. Didn’t expect one.
He knew what was happening.
He knew.
God, damnit.
Finally, he broke loose from his paralysis. He ran out of the kitchen and headed upstairs, leaping up three steps at a time. Sprinted down the hall. Reached Dylan’s bedroom door. Tried to open it.
Locked.
Light from inside the room spilled out from the under door’s bottom edge.
Without thought or hesitation, he backed up three feet and charged the door, ramming into it with his shoulder. The doorjamb splintered. The door flew open. Harrison followed his momentum into Dylan’s room.
He found Dylan on his bed, sprawled limply on top of the covers. A musty stink filled the room, probably from the overflowing laundry hamper in the open closet. The air in here felt several degrees warmer than out in the hall, but that could have been adrenaline messing with him.
He rushed to Dylan’s bedside. Was his chest moving? Was he breathing? He looked as pale as some corpses Harrison had seen before. The freshest of them. A vision of that fly crawling into Jankowski’s open throat barged into Harrison mind for an unwelcome instant.
Dylan’s chest rose slowly.
This only gave Harrison a tiny sliver of relief because of what he saw on the nightstand. Empty pill bottle. Dylan’s lithium.
“Dylan? Dylan, wake up.” Harrison drew his cell and dialed 911. With the phone to his ear, he patted Dylan’s cheek with his free hand. “Come on, Dylan. Talk to me.”
Dylan moaned.
“That’s it, bro. Wake up.” He smacked his brother’s cheek a little harder. “Come on.”
The emergency operator came on the line. Harrison quickly explained that it appeared his brother had overdosed on lithium and urged t
hem to send an ambulance.
The operator kept him on the line and asked him a bunch of questions he answered and then immediately forgot. His attention stayed on trying to rouse Dylan.
Dylan’s one pale cheek began to pink up from all of Harrison’s smacking. But it was getting the desired effect. Dylan scrunched up his face and groaned. His eyes fluttered open.
“Yes. Stick with me, bro.”
Dylan looked up at Harrison. Tears ran down the sides of his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Harrison grasped Dylan’s hand. “No, Dylan. No. I’m sorry.”
Twenty-Seven
When Jake came to, he couldn’t see anything. Total blackness. He kept blinking his eyes to make sure they were open. But the view never changed. It took him a few groggy seconds to realize why. Something like a bag was pulled over his head. The fabric was soft and smelled of sweat. His own, he suspected.
This discovery trigged a few others. Such as his hands being bound behind his back and his ankles tethered to the chair he sat in. Based on the feel of the frame, Jake figured the chair was one of those metal folding kind. If he jerked hard enough, he could get the chair to move a little.
“Stop that,” his mother said from somewhere behind him. Hard to tell where exactly because her voice had a slight echo. “You’ll just end up tipping yourself over.”
“Where am I? What are you doing to me?” Jake despised the shrill hysteria in his voice, but he couldn’t control it.
“Calm down. This will all be over soon.”
“What will be over soon? Mother, this is crazy.”
Something thumped Jake’s shoulder. A shriek clawed its way out his throat.
“Christ, Jakey. It’s just me.”
Arlie.
The thump came again. Now Jake recognized it for what it was—one of Arlie’s big hands clapping him on the shoulder as if they were bosom buddies and this was…what? The equivalent of a fraternity hazing?
Arlie gave Jake’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “I’m going to take the hood off now. Try to relax. I don’t want you hyperventilating on me.”
Jake pressed his lips together. He didn’t trust himself to speak without his voice cracking or shrieking again. His breath burned hot in his nostrils.
Arlie whisked the hood from Jake’s head.
Jake squinted at the sudden light. As his eyes adjusted, he glanced around at the white painted concrete walls, the gray cement floor, the exposed floor joists above. Apparently, they were in some kind of empty basement. It was clean, looked like it had never been used. Jake quickly realized this was probably a new home yet to have an owner. Mother had a contractor friend who often let her use houses in newly built neighborhoods as meeting spaces. The empty basements were especially useful since there weren’t any neighbors to hear screams, and the floors were easy to wash.
His heart thumped so hard he could feel it down to his toes. “Are you planning on torturing me?”
“Please,” Mother said. “Why would I do that?”
“Then what are we doing here?”
Arlie leaned down to look Jake in the eye. “Keep breathing, Jakey. If you pass out, this is all going to take a lot longer than necessary.”
Jake hadn’t noticed his breathing had stopped. That would explain the lightheadedness. He concentrated on taking several deep breaths.
Arlie clapped him on the shoulder again. “That’s a good boy.”
When Jake thought he could speak without choking on his own voice, he asked, “What are you doing, Mother?” He craned his neck around, trying to get a glimpse of her behind him, but couldn’t.
“I decided you deserve to see your wife,” she said. “But only a small peek.”
That set off every instinctual alarm in Jake’s body. Whatever she had planned, no matter how she currently made it sound, would not be good.
“Mother, just let me go so I can get your files back.”
Her footsteps scrapped along the concrete floor as she shuffled around him and into view. She wore a pair of rubber flip flops, showing off her fat toes and their ruby red painted nails. With this ridiculous footwear, she wore a turquoise muumuu that draped her large body like a fancy tarp with sleeves.
“You don’t want to see your wife?” she asked.
He swallowed what felt like a lump of sawdust in his throat. However he answered, he knew it would be wrong. “Just tell me what you want.”
Mother looked to Arlie, nodded.
Arlie disappeared behind Jake. A second later, Jake heard footsteps on what sounded like a staircase. Jake looked up as he traced Arlie’s footsteps across the floor directly above him, where they stopped. A moment of silence followed.
And then he heard a woman scream.
Not just any woman.
Jen.
Jake pulled against his bindings, making his chair jump and clack its feet against the floor.
Mother watched as he struggled, her expression calm, curious even. “What’s the matter, Jacob?”
“What are you doing to Jen?” he screamed.
As if in answer, Jen cried out again. “Jake, please, hel—”
She went suddenly silent.
Her voice, full of obvious pain, continued to echo in Jake’s ears. He glared at Mother. “What did you do to her?”
Mother narrowed her eyes and…smiled.
Arlie’s footsteps moved above them again. They reached the basement stairs and continued down. Jake twisted his head around as far as it would go as he listened to Arlie’s footsteps approach from behind him.
“What did you do to her, you son of a bitch?”
Arlie circled around Jake and came to a stop directly in front of him. He held a wadded up handkerchief in one hand—white but with wet blotches of red that Jake knew was blood. What else could it have been?
“Keep breathing, Jakey,” Arlie said, then held out the bloody handkerchief. He carefully opened it to reveal something wrapped inside.
The first thing Jake noticed was the way the light glinted off the large diamond of Jen’s engagement ring. Jake had paid a pretty penny for that expertly cut one-and-a-half carat rock. Then he noticed the finger the ring still adorned, its bloody ragged end, a shard of bone poking out.
A gout of vomit shot up Jake’s throat and out his mouth. It spattered his lap, soaking into his tan slacks, sticky and hot.
“Aw, Christ,” Arlie said and jumped away to avoid the spray.
The inside of Jake’s belly felt like he’d swallowed a swarm of wasps that were madly drowning in his stomach acid. Another wave of nausea teased the back of his tongue. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on keeping his gag reflex in check. The acrid fumes of his vomit wafting up from his lap did not help. His face prickled with cold sweat.
“Put it away, Arlie,” Mother said. Jake sensed her move closer to him.
He kept his eyes shut. Looking at her would make him as sick as seeing Jen’s finger…oh, God, her finger. Arlie cut off her finger!
“Are you angry?” Mother whispered into Jake’s ear.
He didn’t dare open his mouth to answer. He’d puke again, sure as the moon follows the sun. He nodded.
“Are you afraid?”
He nodded again.
“Good,” she said. She pressed a small folded square of paper into the palm of one of his hands bound behind him. Jake instinctually closed his fingers around it. “Go get me my fucking files.”
Jake felt her presence move away from him.
“Cut him loose,” she said, then Jake listened to her walk away and trudge up the stairs.
Jake kept his head down and his eyes closed while Arlie cut the ropes around his wrists and ankles. The sight of Jen’s severed finger had burned itself against the backs of his eyelids. The sound of her screams, her call for help, rang over and over in his mind.
Once he finished with Jake’s bindings, Arlie gave him yet another congenial clap on the shoulder. “I’ve got a rag out in the car. Let me go get it so you ca
n clean yourself up a little. Then I’ll drive you home. Sound good?”
Sound good? Really? Rage burned away Jake’s nausea. His stomach went from weak and quivering to hot cast iron. He opened his eyes and looked up at Arlie. “What about Jen?”
“One of the other guys took her.”
“Took her where, Arlie?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.” He patted Jake’s back and left him there.
Jake opened his hand with the piece of paper Mother had given him. Looked like the stationary she used at the office. He unfolded it.
In Mother’s neat cursive were written three names with addresses below the underlined heading, “Smaller Fish.”
Twenty-Eight
Harrison met Kamille in the hall outside Dylan’s room in the ICU. The hug she gave him felt like she might crack a rib if she squeezed any harder. Harrison’s eyes watered. It was exactly what he needed.
The floor seemed to tip under his feet. He hung onto her, afraid he might fall over.
The bill of Kamille’s Tigers cap rubbed against the side of Harrison’s head. “How is he?” she asked.
“Stable.” His voice shook. “I found him not too long after he took the pills. I guess that was lucky.”
Kamille let go and leaned back to look Harrison in the eyes. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Never said it was.”
“You didn’t have to say it. I can hear it in your voice. Dylan is ill, Harrison. You have got to remember that.”
He knew she was right. At least, he hoped she was right. But Harrison couldn’t get the end of his last argument with Dylan out of his head.
Having you looming over me all the time? That makes me want to kill myself more than anything.
Kamille took Harrison’s hands in hers and squeezed. “Nothing I say will make you stop torturing yourself, huh?”
Harrison managed a half smile. “Probably not.”
They both turned toward Dylan’s room and peered in through the glass wall. Dylan looked frail and small, asleep under the covers except for the arm with the IV in it pumping him full of the fluids meant to help wash out the excess lithium in his system. His black hair covered one cheek, contrasting against his pale skin.
