Pursuing Chase

by C J Schnier

  Alonzo attacked again and again, and each time I managed to dodge his attack by the narrowest of margins.

  “It is only a matter of time amigo. You can’t run from my blade forever,” he taunted, taking another lunging attack at me.

  I dodged again, but my foot stepped back and found nothing but air. I teetered, balancing on the edge of the dock for a moment. Alonzo, seeing my weakness lunged yet again. I launched myself sideways, rolling as I hit the dock and bounced immediately back up to my feet. As I turned to face him again, I registered a new pain in my right leg. Looking down I could see blood already starting to flow from a gash on my thigh.

  “Stings doesn’t it?” He laughed.

  The hitman was right, I couldn’t run from him forever. He was too skilled, and I was just too inexperienced. Looking around again there was still nothing that could be used as a weapon. When were those cops going to get here?

  “I bet she was a good fuck, no?” he goaded, nodding towards where Kelly laid next to Jim on the dock. “Oh well, just another dead whore and a paycheck for me.”

  I could feel my ears turn red with rage and my fists clench. The desire to charge him, armed or not, nearly overwhelmed me. However, I knew charging in was what he wanted. He was playing psychological games with me so that I would make a mistake. I needed to do the same if I had any chance of getting out of this alive.

  “At least I got to sleep with her. See, Kelly on likes real men and as I hear it, you weren’t even man enough to get a piece yourself. A skinny little girl, tied up and gagged managed to fight you off. Pathetic.” I retorted.

  “You shut up amigo.”

  “I’m not surprised though, you’re nothing but a little bitch. Can’t even handle yourself in a fight.”

  “And which of us is bleeding right now asshole?”

  “Who was too much of a pussy to hold on to their gun? In fact, you’re nothing but incompetent. You got lucky knocking me overboard, but I had you beat. Then I whooped your ass the second time. You couldn't even hit us on a calm day with a sniper rifle. I’d be surprised if Santiago doesn’t have you killed for embarrassing him,” I continued.

  “I’m warning you…” he threatened.

  “You even lost a boat because you were too stupid to realize that I had swum out to it and fouled the anchor. Right there, not two feet away from you and you had no clue. You’re no world-class assassin, you’re just a child playing a game you don’t know how to win. In fact, you’re less than that, you are nothing. You can’t even kill an unarmed boat bum. Just another coward with a gun, take it away, and you’re nothing but a bitch with a limp.”

  Alonzo howled with anger and ran towards me. His attack was vicious but sloppy, and I was ready for him. The knife rushed at me, and I snaked my hand out to intercept, catching him in the wrist and stopping the attack. The blade cut into my forearm, leaving a small inconsequential scratch. My fingers clamped down like an iron vice, and I twisted his wrist, moving the knife's point away from me.

  Utter surprise replaced the rage on the hitman’s face. Realizing how incapacitated he was in my grip he tried to punch me in the ribs with his other hand. On the second hit, I managed to trap that arm too. I held him like that for a moment, drawing him up straight so that he had to look me in the eye.

  “And now we dance,” I said.

  “What?” he started to ask.

  Using the best weapon at my disposal, I drew my head back and delivered a devastating head butt into Alonzo’s nose. His nose exploded with blood. He howled and tried to stagger backward, but I held him close, twisting even harder on his knife hand. I let go of his free arm and applied more pressure on the side of the blade, finally causing him to drop it. As soon as it hit the deck I kicked it away and with my free hand I delivered a hammer blow to his twisted elbow. A satisfying crunch, followed by a fresh howl of pain was music to my ears.

  The savageness of my attack continued. Grabbing the hitman by the back of the neck I drove a powerful knee into his ribs twice, before landing an elbow to his jaw with another faint crunch. Alonzo’s head lolled back and forth, he was nearly out cold when someone stopped me.

  Jim grabbed my arms and pulled me backward off of the killer. He struggled to hold me back, shouting something in my ear. It was several seconds before I heard what he was saying to me.

  “Chase, stop. Stop! He’s done. He’s done. Do you hear that? The cops are almost here. He’s not going anywhere but to jail. Let him be now.”

  Gathering my wits, I looked over to where Kelly still lay motionless. As I turned my back on her murderer and shuffled over to her, I realized that Jim was right, you could indeed hear the sirens of the police cars. Their lights were occasionally winking through the gaps in the trees.

  “Why did you stop me?” I asked, struggling to find my voice.

  “You’d have killed him, son, that’s why,” he said. “And killing him won’t bring her back.”

  “But it would make me feel a whole lot better,” I said, fury still simmering just below the surface.

  “Trust me, son, killing never helps anything.”

  “That’s a lesson that I’m willing to learn for myself.”

  We both felt him coming before we heard his cry of desperation and rage. The dock trembled with his footsteps as Alonzo ran towards us both. I turned just in time to see him moving with incredible speed across the dock, head down, arms outstretched as he ran into me full force. He carried me over the side of the dock, landing on top of me in the water, driving both of us under the surface.

  Realizing the danger, I tore and clawed at the crazed killer, fighting back up to the surface. I broke the surface first but was immediately pulled down again by the flailing Alonzo. Grabbing his arm I pulled myself back up again, sucking in a quick breath. My attacker tried to land a punch, but the awkwardness of fighting in the water caused him to miss. Grabbing his arm, I pulled myself behind him and wrapped my legs around him. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I put him in a classic sleeper headlock and held on.

  Alonzo panicked, twisting this way and that to throw me off his back. I just dug my heels in harder and tightened the hold on his neck. He rolled in the water, but I held my breath, all I had to do was hang on. He moved back, inching towards the barnacle-encrusted pilings. Swimming backward he drove me into them. Not with enough force to make me let go, but enough that the razor-sharp crustaceans sliced and tore at my back.

  Still, I held on, tightening my hold. He started to weaken, his efforts becoming less and less intense. When he was barely hanging on to consciousness, I leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

  “Time to die motherfucker.”

  The killer put up one last feeble attempt at resistance before succumbing to unconsciousness. When I was sure he was out cold, I held on for a while longer, feeling the life leave him before finally releasing him face down in the water. I swam a couple hundred feet back to shallow water, dragging Alonzo’s body with me. The sound of sirens was deafening now, and the whole yacht basin had that eerie quality when blue and red strobes break up the darkness.

  Boots thundered down the dock a moment later, and several bright flashlights lit me up.

  “Hands in the air! Do it! Now!,” a cop shouted.

  I couldn’t see anything through the blinding flashlights, but I was willing to bet that more than one officer had their gun drawn on me.

  “Whatever you say officer, but damn it took you guys long enough to get out here,” I said putting my hands up.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Three officers worked together to pull Alonzo’s lifeless body up the grassy bank while I sat on the back of an ambulance with an EMT looking after my wounds. Several lacerations, two of which would need stitches or staples, a plethora of contusions, and my bare back looked like ground hamburger meat from where Alonzo had tried to slam me into the barnacle-covered dock pilings. I wasn’t complaining though, nobody could deny that I was in better condition than he was.

  As
the EMT cleaned me up, another officer, a detective Loury, approached with a leather-clad notepad in hand and began asking me a barrage of questions. Questions that I was having a hard time making sense of. My physical senses were buzzing with extra adrenaline, but my mind was sluggish and foggy, unable to process all of what had just taken place.

  Jim and his wife Sarah, the marina’s proprietors, stayed by my side and fended off the more intrusive cops. It was Jim in fact who had managed to get the police to back down from arresting me on sight, calling several of them by their first names. After his brief explanation that Kelly and I had been attacked unprovoked and that I had only defended myself, they had finally backed down, becoming almost cordial, if cool towards me. For a moment I couldn’t help but think about how much paperwork I had just created for them.

  “Sir, have you ever seen your attacker before tonight?” the detective asked.

  “No, never,” I lied. “We had just gotten into town, sailed up nonstop from Florida to get away from the storm.”

  “Did he ask for money?”

  “I can’t recall. I don’t think so. When I saw the guy coming towards us, I felt something was wrong. Like I told you, he was sitting in the dark with a hat and a jacket on, something just felt like this was bad news. When he came right for us, I told him that we didn’t have any money and he needed to leave us alone. Then… then Kelly came up beside me and asked what was going on, and he just shot her. No warning, nothing, just pulled the gun out of his pocket and fired once,” I explained, sticking as close to the truth as possible. I’ve always found it is easier to lie when the lie is based on reality.

  “What happened next?” the detective prompted.

  “We’ve been through this already detective. I told you, I caught Kelly as she fell, held her while she died and right when he was about to kill me Mr. Jim here startled him. I saw a chance to save myself by attacking him, and that’s what I did,” I explained, annoyed that I was being forced to repeat my story over and over.

  “I know we’ve been through this, it’s just incredible that an unarmed, kneeling man managed to singlehandedly overwhelm, disarm, and eventually kill his armed attacker. A man who was armed with both a gun and a knife. Now tell me the truth Mr. Hawkins, what happened?” he demanded.

  Jim stepped in between us, putting his hands up in a placating manner. “Detective, what he’s told you is the absolute truth. If you don’t believe us, I have it all recorded on surveillance. There are three cameras, and I’m sure at least two of them caught the whole exchange. The truth, son, is that Chase fought like hell and stopped this guy from killing him, me, and maybe even my wife here. Who knows how many others might live because of Chase. This man is a hero in my book.”

  The detective sighed. “It’s just damn difficult to believe is all. I’m going to need those tapes.”

  “I can get those for you,” Sarah said.

  The detective sent a pudgy young officer named Wilkins to retrieve the tapes with Sarah. He continued to question me for a few more minutes until I saw a gurney being wheeled down the dock. A plain black body bag lay on top.

  “Excuse me,” I said, brushing off the EMT and sliding past both the detective and Mr. Jim. Neither tried to stop me as I approached the stretcher. “Hang on a second fellas, I just want one last look if you don’t mind.”

  They glanced from me and to Detective Loury with a questioning look. Loury nodded his head understandingly, and one of the paramedics unzipped the bag. Her face was peaceful, at rest. I touched her cheek, wishing she would open those gorgeous green eyes. But she didn’t. She never would again. Fresh pain and sorrow washed over me, followed immediately by a burning hatred, and finally remorse. If I hadn’t tried to save our skin with the DEA, she’d be alive now. Serving prison time for trafficking, but alive. It was my fault she was dead.

  “Goodbye my love,” I whispered.

  Nodding to the paramedics that I was done, I turned and walked back to the waiting detective.

  “Is there anything else?” I asked, collapsing back down on to the back of the ambulance.

  Loury paused for a moment before answering. “Not right now. Do you have a cell phone that I can reach you at?”

  “No,” I responded automatically. “Wait. Actually yes. I have Kelly’s phone on the boat. I’ll give you a call with the number. I don’t know it by heart.”

  “That will work, and if you could do us a favor and not leave town until our investigation is complete, we’d appreciate that. I’m sure we’ll have some more questions for you soon.”

  “Where would I go? There is a category four storm only two days away. I don’t have a car, all I have is my boat,” I replied, realizing for the first time that all I did have now was the boat.

  “Alright,” he said after another brief pause. “But you should make sure you go to the hospital, some of those wounds look rough.” He turned to walk away, stopped himself, and looked back. “Mr. Hawkins, I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

  ***

  Nobody likes hospitals. The smell of antiseptic cleaner in the sterile air, mixing with the stench of sickness and plight. By definition they’re basically places of misery, a place for painful procedures, debilitating diseases, and yes, even a place to die. I had seen my fair share of hospitals over the years, and I wasn’t in any hurry to be in another.

  Yet, the medic had insisted that I go anyways. Jim and Sarah followed my ambulance to the East Cooper Regional Medical Center where I finished getting patched up. The hospital, though far from new, proved to be clean and the doctors wasted no time in getting me put back together. After eight staples and a cursory look at my back, the doctors released me.

  It was nearly 10:00 when we left the hospital, and the oncoming storm was already making itself known. The outer bands were beginning to dump their rain. Nothing substantial yet, just a shower here and there, but we all knew more was coming. Every TV in the hospital had been set to the Weather Channel which covered the storm continuously.

  Irma had made landfall on Cudjoe Key as a category four storm, obliterated the keys, and had carried on slightly weakened as a high category 3 storm, only to make landfall again on Marco Island. The storm was massive, covering the entire state of Florida, promising plenty of damage as it worked it’s way up the western side of the state.

  The East Coast of Florida didn’t escape damage, though its impact was indeed less than in South West Florida. Anything was better than the destruction in the Keys. Preliminary images, the few that could get through to the network, showed near total devastation. Like so many of the eastern Caribbean islands that Irma had wrecked, the Florida Keys looked utterly inhabitable. House after house, built to stringent state-mandated hurricane standards, had crumbled, collapsed, or just been washed away. Washed away too were many of the streets and roads of the middle and upper Keys. Most were still under water. Key West alone seemed to avoid the worst of the damage. Flood and tidal surge wreaked its havoc there as well, but they had fared well considering it was only twenty miles from the eye.

  Miami had flooded. Irma’s storm surge had sucked half the water out of the Bahamas, leaving some patches of the ocean as dry land for as far as the eye could see. Then it dumped all of that water on South Florida. Miami’s glitzy downtown streets had been turned into rushing rivers of water. Irma’s current track didn’t have her coming to Charleston, but the three of us knew that the lowlands of South Carolina flood with light rain, and there was no way we were only going to get a light rain.

  Jim pulled down the gravel drive and parked as high up on the property as he could. “What do you say to a bite to eat Chase? It’s been a hell of a night, and Sarah has to open up the restaurant anyways.”

  “You’re more than welcome hun,” Sarah added.

  I thought it over for a moment. Food was the last thing on my mind, but I also did not want to be alone. I knew that if I were alone, I would fall victim to my grief, and that wouldn’t do any good.

  “Yeah, I’l
l come up in a while. I want to check on Paramour, and maybe put on a real shirt,” I said, trying to force a laugh. I was still wearing the gown from the hospital, my discarded shirt having been collected for evidence.

  “Absolutely hun. I’ll be up there whenever you’re ready,” Sarah replied.

  Letting myself out of the car I limped down the dock, nursing my cut leg with its new stainless hardware holding my wound shut. Sarah headed for the restaurant while Jim walked ahead, claiming he was going to do another check on all the boats. Judging by how often he glanced back at me, I was sure he was more interested in checking to make sure that I was alright than he was the boats under his care.

  Gingerly I boarded Paramour and let myself down below. She was just as we had left her. A pair of Kelly’s shorts and a tank top lay piled in a ball on one settee. Seeing that reminder of her was more painful than any cut. Pushing my feelings aside for the thousandth time, I stripped myself and turned on the shower in the head. Hot water poured from the handheld shower nozzle as I studied myself in the mirror.

  My long hair was tangled and greasy looking. My beard looked more homeless than it did seafarer. My body was polka dotted with purple bruises and angry red cuts, complimenting the massive bags under my eyes. In short, I looked like shit.

  I showered as best as I could, trying to avoid aggravating my injuries further. Once done, I picked my only clean pair of jeans and an old band t-shirt out of the locker above the v-berth, careful to avoid looking at Kelly’s side. I removed my ID, and cash from my wallet, which was still soaked from my swim with Kelly’s killer, and slipped on my topsiders. I fished the loaner car keys out of the shorts I had worn last night and stuffed them into my pocket.