Ride the Lightning

by Dietrich Kalteis

  She couldn’t sleep on account of the pounding outside, the windows rattling and Karl’s bed feeling like it was vibrating. The garbage truck four floors down made more noise than the bridge crew, the driver rolling the metal bins to the truck and hoisting them up. She should have stayed home last night, but Karl convinced her it would do her good to get out of the house, stay at his place. He was being a sweet guy, wanting to take care of her. Made her a decent bowl of soup. She ate and tried to believe him that things with Dara would turn around.

  He went to Sea-to-Sky early, saying he had a couple of serves waiting, told her to take more of the NyQuil, told her there was more soup in the pot, told her to get some sleep. Nice that he cared. She lay there knowing he was getting the names for Artie Poppa.

  Wrapping the pillow around her ears like a wonton did no good. Her mind fluttered with thoughts of Dara, Popsicle wrappers, a boob job, and mother and daughter like oil and water.

  She couldn’t picture Patrick’s face anymore, the senior who took notice of her so long ago at Rockridge Secondary, offering her rides home in his mom’s Regal. All it took were a couple of sodas and tickets to the Five Man Electrical Band. PJ went from the front to the back seat to breastfeeding and changing diapers. And in the same wink, Patrick dropped out of school, got a job, got canned, got another job, got canned again, then dropped out of sight, borrowing his mom’s Regal and driving to Calgary, starting life fresh, stocking Save-On shelves. The next nineteen years left PJ putting the ends together, alone, living from one child support check to the next.

  She rolled one way, then the other, the pillow feeling like second base under her head. “Who can sleep in this place?” she asked Chip, sat up, kicking off the blanket, wrapping herself in Karl’s robe, tempted to go on the balcony and throw a finger at the guys in the hard hats working the heavy machinery. The steam whistle sounded from over in Gastown, barely audible over the pounding. God, it was noon already.

  Going into the bathroom, she guessed what she stepped in before she looked down. A flick of the light switch showed her foot well-coated in cat puke, squishing between her toes, cold, wet, and sticky. Nothing cute about her pink toenails now, the furball looking like a hair-encrusted kabob under her foot.

  “Believe this belongs to you,” she said to Chip, sitting by the door with his yellow-eyed indifference, licking a forepaw. PJ was pissed, but it wasn’t Chip, and it wasn’t the fever or the bullshit with Dara or the pounding from outside.

  It was Karl. More cocky than cute, thinking he had things with Artie Poppa under control—the macho gene’s dark side. From the start, he was all sweetheart and good looks, charming her pants off with those Clooney eyes, turning her inside out. Now she was looking at it, thinking maybe he was like the rest.

  She stiff-legged it to the sink, lifting her foot under the spray, balancing herself, the water’s jet giving back her pink toes. No towel on the rack, she just let her foot air-dry, thinking Karl was right about one thing: a vacation sounded pretty good.

  Out the window, swallows darted between the buildings as a siren wailed over the pounding. Chip rubbed himself against her leg, his motor purring. She wondered how long before Karl got back.

  a cafÉ con leche thing

  “The kind of guy who would roll over and plead down,” Miro said. He got up, hobbled to the fridge and handed Wally a beer, then sat on the arm of his sofa, his leg throbbing and stinging. “Tell you the guy’s a chickenshit, and what the fuck was he doing on the ferry, man?”

  “Does it every time we get in a tight situation,” Wally said, choking back a laugh, thinking Mitch was right about the flattened nose giving Miro a gay Rocky look, made him sound funny, too.

  “How you mean, he shits himself?” Miro asked, thinking Wally was laughing at Mitch.

  “Yeah, but you fucked this up,” Wally said. “Pumping in gas, telling bullshit stories about mudmen.”

  Miro kept it in, saying, “You want to frag a place with a rocket launcher, you can’t have a candy-ass around. Hey, I admit, maybe I fucked up, but shit happens, and when it does, it’s the weak links that get you screwed. Am I right?”

  Wally couldn’t argue that one.

  “I mean, hey, if you hadn’t kicked the door in . . .” Miro offered his hand, saying his ears were still ringing.

  “Yeah, mine too,” Wally said, shaking his hand, not sure why.

  “Compared to Pinkie, guess we got off lucky,” Miro said.

  “The broad with the shotgun? Yeah. Man, whoosh, like she got shot out of a cannon—clear across the room.”

  “Used to go with her.”

  “No shit? Ah, sorry, man.”

  “It’s okay. Didn’t end well between us. Still, good to put some closure to it.”

  Wally picked up Miro’s Newports, tapping one out, asking, “You mind?”

  “Go ahead, keep ’em. I got a carton,” Miro said. “What we’re going to do now, you and me are going to get this right.”

  Wally squinted as he lit up.

  Miro said Artie’s other place in Burnaby was good for a thousand plants, cured, all pressed into bricks.

  “We struck out twice already. And there’s your leg.”

  “I’m a good healer.” Miro smiled, eyes glazed from the Oxy he got from the guy downstairs with the sandwich board.

  “And Mitch?”

  “No Mitch, just me and you and the rocket launcher.” Miro reached and pulled the baggie from the shelf and tossed it to Wally, liking how easy this was. “This place is bigger than Bowen, and no Loop or Pinkie watching it.”

  “Thousand plants, what’s that, like twenty pounds?”

  “Try over thirty,” Miro said. “Figure about fifteen hundred a pound, wholesale. You and me split it down the middle. No Stax, no Mitch.”

  Wally was working out his share, the knock at the door making him drop the ZigZags, Miro getting off the sofa’s arm, reaching for his holster.

  “Probably just Mitch,” Wally said, his voice low.

  “You tell him we were here?”

  Wally shook his head, forgetting he called Mitch earlier.

  Miro snapped his fingers, waited, then did it again, Bruna poking her head out from the bedroom. He motioned for her to get the door, her mouthing for him to get stuffed.

  “Don’t want to tell you twice.” He fairly hissed the words, sticking the four-and-five-eights barrel to his lips, motioning for her to get to the door.

  Bruna did up a couple of buttons and went through the living room, Wally seeing the tat one more time, betting Bruna’s olive skin felt as hot as it looked.

  The recliner became Miro’s cover. Wally left the makings on the table, crouching beside the sofa, fumbling the Smith from his jacket.

  Putting an eye to the peephole, she took in Karl’s smile. She turned and mouthed that it was the FedEx guy.

  “He alone?”

  She made a face and shrugged.

  “What’s he want?” Miro whispered a little loud, steadying his aim across the chair, thinking Morgen was out there with a sheriff, ready to drag his ass back to Seattle.

  “Like a word with Miro Knotts,” Karl said through the door, his hand on the Taser in the messenger bag.

  “He’s not here,” Bruna said back, looking through the peephole, guessing he wasn’t holding a bouquet behind his back.

  “Here’s a thing I like to do, Bruna, is it?” Karl asked. No answer. “See, I do my homework, that’s how I got your name.” He waited a moment before saying, “What I like to give the guy I’m coming after is fair warning, try to do things the easy way.”

  “You want your bogus papers back? ’Cause if you do, I got to tell you, Miro wiped himself with them.”

  “That’s real nice, Bruna. Something like that doesn’t surprise me, but that’s not it. See, what it is, there’s a guy wants some names.”

 
“So he sends FedEx?”

  “Sent me on account of how he’s funny about people burning his places down and stealing his stuff.”

  Miro was aiming past Bruna, a foot below the peephole, right about where Karl’s throat ought to be, remembering that stupid line: if your man’s breathing, Morgen would find him. He wanted to, but despite the painkillers making him high, Miro knew it would be stupid to shoot him here. The recording he made would have to do, enough to get his ass sent to Kent Maximum for taking out Mitch and Wally, something Miro planned to take care of personally. He got up, slung his hand-tooled holster over his shoulder, grabbed his jacket and went to the window, shoving it open. It hurt like a bitch, but he stepped out onto the fire escape, looking back at Bruna in his plaid shirt.

  “When I give Miro up,” Karl said through the door, “I don’t want sleepless nights. Even a dirtbag deserves better.”

  “Let me get you right, you’re the clown that dragged him off that couch in Belltown?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “And you pulled your FedEx stunt, served up your papers, just to piss him off.”

  “Maybe that time in Belltown I got a little carried away, seeing him, two in the morning, wrapped around a child.”

  “Went from a bounty hunter to process server. Now you’re a boy scout,” she said, turning to see Miro climbing down the fire escape, Wally right behind him.

  “Came to give him an hour.”

  She was sweating under the arms, about to do something that could backfire in a big way. She flicked off the chain and pulled the door open.

  His eyes darted past her.

  “They went out the window.”

  “They?”

  She turned for the kitchen. “Going to put on some coffee.”

  Karl ignored her, half-expecting an ambush, he looked around the apartment, his hand on the Taser.

  “You take cream?”

  “No, but I’m glad to see you’re a grown-up.”

  “I’m a lot more than that.”

  “Yeah?” Saying he’d take a rain check on the coffee, Karl turned for the door.

  She called to him. “I’m not the kind of girl who takes no for an answer.”

  “Honey, you want company, switch on Oprah or go knock on a door.”

  She followed him into the hall, enjoying this. “Got me figured out, huh?”

  “I need my shoes shined, I know where to find you.” He was reaching for the elevator button.

  “Didn’t guess I’m a cop, huh?” She liked how that stopped him and the dumb look that followed. She wagged a finger at him, told him, “Come on back in, and I’ll flash my badge at you.”

  Karl stood dumbfounded, the elevator door opening with a ding.

  “It’s just Nescafé, but I do a kind of café con leche thing. It’s not half bad.” She turned and went inside, knowing Karl would follow her.

  flipped over

  The first day he laid eyes on her, she was waving a Thermos. Today she flashed her badge.

  Sitting him down over the café con leche, Bruna told him he was playing a game that could get him being charged with conspiracy. She knew about Artie offering him money, telling him how Miro had Stax tape the conversation down at the beach, trying to frame him for a double homicide, telling him it was Artie she was after, how she suspected Artie was wearing a fed wire. Not telling him about the two detectives who busted the warehouse Miro and Stax had been using, finding a quantity of marijuana along with a bloodstain on the ground, along with a witness that put them there. Meaning time was running out and everything she had done here could end with her back in a uniform, or worse.

  “Why you telling me?” Karl asked.

  “Here’s your chance to put yourself on the right side of things.”

  “How?”

  “You drive over while I take care of the warrant for my own wiretap, keep your phone in your pocket, on or off it doesn’t matter. Wait till I call you, then go down, give Artie the names and get him talking. We’ll be right behind you.”

  “You just said Artie’s good as wired. Can’t you people share?”

  “What I can do is charge you with obstruction right now. Can have a black-and-white here before you finish your cup—tack on a weapons charge.”

  Karl made the call in front her, telling Stax he was on his way, said yeah he had the names.

  Leaving her to make her own calls, he stepped back on the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. The elevator dinged off the floors, Karl looking at his phone, hoping her tap worked better than the wireless router he got from Shaw, the piece of shit cutting out at random. The elevator stopped at the lobby, and the door slid open. There stood Mitch, eyes going wide, his hand reaching inside his jacket.

  “Don’t do that, man.” Karl put up his hand. “Look, Mitch, right? I’m going to tell you the same thing I came to tell your buddy, Miro.”

  “Don’t know any Miro.” Mitch put his hand on the Walther.

  “Guy who went out the fire escape.” Karl stepped past him and spoke over his shoulder, “Artie sent me to get your names, all three of you.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.” He had the gun out, pointing it at Karl’s back.

  “Guy whose house you broke into—grow house you blew up.” Karl was moving for the door. “Want my advice, turn around and split town before the shit truly hits the fan.”

  “Suppose you don’t make it to the door?” Mitch waited for Karl to half turn and see the Walther, the lack of conviction in Mitch’s eyes.

  “We both know that’s not what’s going to happen.” Feeling the tingle at the back of his neck, he opened the door for the grey-haired lady coming in with her Boston terrier, hearing the elevator ding behind him.

  change of plans

  The alley smelled of puke. Trash cans and ripped chunks of drywall piled against a Dumpster, a scaffold up against the side of the building. Sections of stucco had been patched with concrete. Pigeons pecked at a clamshell, going for a bit of chicken nugget.

  Miro lit a smoke, thinking this through. Wally had hit Loop dead center, clipped him with three rounds. Pinkie must have survived the blast, and Morgen got to her lying in a hospital bed, getting her to give him up along with Mitch and Wally. Morgen at the door, Miro not sure why, maybe to have it out, something Miro would be happy to oblige, guessing Morgen would be heading to Wreck Beach next for his sleazy reward.

  Taking out his cell, Miro punched in a number, limping past the Dumpster out of Wally’s earshot. His leg was hurting like a son of a bitch, the Oxy doing dick for the pain but turning his stomach and putting his head in a fog. He picked up a length of two by four, paint splattered on it, using it like a crutch, careful of the rusted nails sticking out. He waited for Stax to answer.

  “Think Morgen’s coming your way,” he said, the reception crackling.

  “Artie’s farming this one out,” Stax said.

  “Fuck that.”

  “You need to get this revenge shit out of your head, brother,” Stax said. “Get your head on right and no more screw-ups.”

  “Who the fuck let fifty grand of my oil sink?”

  Stax hung up, leaving Miro looking at the phone, throwing it against the Dumpster.

  Wally lit a Newport, watching Miro have his Oxy tantrum, then hobble back with the two by four, Miro asking, “You any good in a fight?”

  “Me? Hell, yeah. Why?”

  “What kind of ride you say Morgen has?” Looking down the alley to the parking garage.

  a cop when you need one

  The bank of fluorescent lights was out near the Porsche parked between the two pillars at the end of the parkade’s main level. Karl held the ring of keys so the ignition key stuck out between his index and middle fingers—learned that when he was a kid growing up on the tough streets. He kept his other hand in the messe
nger bag. Call it a feeling. Aside from the junkies and hookers down in this part of town, Karl guessed Miro would be looking to square things, sooner than later.

  He passed the booth, the teenaged attendant reading a Justice League comic, headphones on his mohawked head. It got him thinking of PJ’s old man working the Park’N Go all those years ago, raking in the chips and leaving his wife and kid, never showing up again.

  Karl’s footfalls echoed on the concrete, his car at the back. Stepping on broken glass from the smashed fluorescents, he took out the Taser and got as far as sticking his key in the lock.

  “Hey!”

  It was the years on the hard streets that got him ducking instead of turning. Jumping out of the shadows, Wally swung the two by four with the nails, knocking the Taser away. Karl kicked, catching Wally on the backswing. Wally’s next swing took out the side view. The sucker punch had him doubling up, the board clattering down.

  Hobbling in from behind a pillar, Miro pulled his piece, Karl feinting right, stepping in, blocking the gun hand, catching a fistful of Miro’s hair, twisting and snapping him over his shoulder. The gun flew from his hand, hitting a Volvo, its alarm going off, Miro crawling for it, Karl stomping it from Miro’s fingers, sending it spinning under his car.

  Wally grabbed him from behind, Karl sending back an elbow, turning and jabbing, landing a straight right, Wally tumbling over the back end of the Roadster. Boxing moves Karl learned at Cappy’s Gym back in Belltown. Catching hold of Miro’s bum leg, he dragged him away from the pistol, Miro screaming, kicking his other leg out at him.

  Snatching the two by four again, Wally waded in swinging, putting him down; Wally hitting him again, the nails biting into his shoulder.

  “Police!”

  The shout and running feet had Wally dropping the board, Miro grabbing for the gun, the two of them hurrying through the parked cars.

  The attendant with the mohawk ran up, fire extinguisher in hand. Looked to see they were gone, then he knelt next to Karl, seeing the blood spreading over Karl’s shoulder, telling him he needed a doctor, wanting to call the cops.