Never Go Alone

by Denison Hatch

  At first, there was nothing.

  Then—the supernova.

  A tremendous force rippled from within the interior of the machine—molecular chaos extrapolated to a macro-scale—as a gargantuan explosion erupted. The fireball was next. It was a tongue of red-hot terror, a whirling dervish of insanity, ripping the skin from the machine itself and blasting its screws, plastic sheathing, and metal supports in every direction. The sound followed the light, echoing down the street and unmistakable in its power.

  His back still turned, Jake felt a ringing in his ears take hold. Tinnitus—his old friend from the rock clubs—back in action. Or was that screaming? It sounded like a wild, panicked yell. Jake glanced over his shoulder as he shut off the oxygen, past the ATM that was beginning to expel a cloud of black smoke and still flickering with small flames, and across the street.

  “What do we do with her?” Shrek yelled.

  Shrek was holding a gun to a young woman, nervously clutching her purse across the street. That was what Jake had heard. An eyewitness. She had turned the corner just as the explosive gas erupted.

  “Jonny, grab the cash,” Hector commanded. He turned to cross the street. Jake followed.

  “We gotta take her out, boss.” Shrek trembled under the influence of his own weapon and blood zeal.

  “What’d you see?” Hector asked her.

  “What? . . . Nothing! . . .” she quivered.

  “Give her to me. I’ll do it clean,” Jake said. He held his hand out for Shrek’s gun.

  “No. I want the bitch,” Shrek replied.

  “We have four minutes, max. There’s no time for anything except a skullshot—you ever killed a person, Shrek?”

  “Uh . . . I want to,” Shrek said.

  Jake reached for Shrek’s gun hand while jacking his right elbow up and into Shrek’s windpipe. “Get the cash,” Jake said.

  Shrek reluctantly dropped the pistol into Jake’s hand, and ran back across the street towards Jonny Diaz and the cash machine—guts open to the world and filled with crisp bills, half still in the machine and half littering the street.

  “I’m good. Don’t worry ’bout it. Keep an eye out for fivers,” Jake nodded to Hector as he slapped the girl roughly and pulled her into an alley across the street.

  He pushed the women against the brick wall, nestling his chin against her neck, centimeters from her ear. She was crying—bawling, actually—a poor soul who had found herself suddenly and accidentally standing on death’s doorstep.

  “Shut up,” Jake addressed her roughly. “You are going to lie down on that ground, and you are not going to move for twenty-five minutes. Do you understand?”

  “What . . . are you—”

  “It’s a yes, or die.”

  She didn’t say another word. She immediately collapsed onto the pavement. Jake placed his gun an inch to the side of her head and pulled the trigger—twice. Bang. Bang. The shots echoed out across the street.

  “Don’t move,” Jake said.

  Jake turned heel and headed back towards the ATM. He reluctantly took a step onto the street when the sounds of police sirens began to rain through the air. The noise was very faint but sure to increase exponentially in volume within a minute or two. “Hector, we gotta go. Cherry tops are ringin’!” he yelled.

  Hector, Jonny, and Shrek raced towards the car, where they met Jake. The four men piled into the vehicle. Hector started the engine and accelerated away from the destruction as the police sirens crescendoed.

  And through it all, the blue pillars of the bank’s branch shone bright, although the logo above the cash machine flickered on and off. The ATM itself was now nothing more than a gouged-out cave—appearing as if an asteroid had arrived from outer space and dug itself a hole where the machine used to be. Smoking detritus was strewn across the street, and for a few seconds more, the only living thing was the young lady.

  But Hector didn’t know that.

  “You the real deal, Eastie . . . Holy shit! The Iceman cometh. Ice in the veins all the way to ’da heart . . . Exactly the way I like it. My boy! Welcome to the fuckin’ crew.” Hector grinned wildly at Jake as they fled the scene. Jake grimaced—a passive confirmation of his badassdom. Hector and his crew thought this was living. But Jake was quite sure that it was closer to dying.

  ▪

  The warehouse doubled as a supply depot for Hector’s “legitimate” motorcycle-part distribution business, Fireblade Motortech. It was a bare bones and run down spot with just enough shelving and lighting to maintain a small operation. The four men stood around a table and inspected their haul. Jake and Shrek organized the bills, while Jonny—finally back on Wi-Fi—played on his cell phone by the door. Hector placed a cash counting machine on the table. Some of the bills were charred beyond belief, others ripped in shreds. The useable paper had been placed in piles of similar denominations. Hector reached for each stack, ran the cash through the machine, and compiled the corresponding results.

  “Twenty-seven,” Hector announced.

  “Solid haul,” Jake said.

  “Maybe our definitions of ‘solid’ are different,” Hector chuckled as he continued to count the cash. “Then again, you probably went to school longer than I did. That’s a guarantee.”

  “Military school,” Jake said.

  “No shit? Sounds posh.”

  “Sure, if you like getting waterboarded for fun.”

  “Twenty-nine,” Hector continued counting.

  “Whatcha think we’ll get to?” Jake asked.

  Hector gazed out across the table, filled with cash. “Maybe seventy or eighty, tonight,” he replied. “Your average ATM holds up to two hundred thousand dollars. But that’s rare. We only hit one like that. Remember that place down in Brooklyn, Shrek?”

  Shrek only cackled. He didn’t talk much, and Jake considered that a beneficial fact in the long run.

  “You’re pullin’ in a lot of dough,” Jake said.

  “What of it?” Hector asked.

  “Nothin’. Just impressive. Hat’s off. I been around the block a few times but ain’t seen nothin’ like this operation.”

  “Learned from the best.”

  “Who’s that?” Jake asked.

  Hector gazed towards Jake, who knew that he stood at a precipitous moment. But Hector wasn’t suspicious. He was proud, and he wanted to impress Jake—because Jake had just upped him. Vanity destroys every man and Hector was no different. He lacked the circumspection to put up strong defenses. “Honest-to-goodness truth? I don’t even know his name.”

  “Call him the Leviathan!” Jonny yelled from the door.

  “Huh?”

  “Truth,” Hector said. “There’s an organization. I don’t know the top guy. No one does. He’s the Leviathan. Rest of them are just like us—doing his bidding. That man controls everything. He gets a piece of this cash tonight. That’s for sure.”

  “For serious? You do someone’s bidding? I find that hard to believe,” Jake said incredulously.

  “Musta been a year and a half ago. Back when Jonny and I were just doing strong-arms and takin’ down check cashing places. I was down at the Pickle and this Scandinavian bastard—Leviathan’s top man—sits down next to me. He’s got blond hair like yours. Nah. Actually, it’s white as shit. Ain’t never seen a man with hair like that. So I’m thinkin’, this guy might be in the wrong place. Maybe he’s some maggot. Might be a good mark. But then he leans over and he says, ‘Hector, you pulled down what? Ten thousand last month bustin’ check joints? Want to make ten times that?”

  “No way,” Jake replied, with a grin. “That sounds like 5-0.”

  “I put some feelers out. Everybody knows this guy. I mean everybody. Raffaeli’s crew. The Belarusians. The Triads. Every single one. Call him the ghost. A week later, he gets in touch again. Like some spy,” Hector held up his phone, “always from a different number. Always just a mumble: ‘It’s me.’ I meet up with him. They blindfold me, drive me around all night. Bring me to a
warehouse, like this one, and it’s got an ATM right in the middle of it. And the ghost spends six hours talking. Teaches me the whole bust, right then and there. But that’s not all. He funds it all. The burner phones, the cars. The gas. All I have to do is hit him back with twenty-five percent of the take.”

  “I had no idea . . .”

  “Don’t tell you everything. You’re still a lil’ wet behind the ears.”

  “Well, let me ask you the obvious question . . . You’re a man with larceny in your blood. How would anyone know what twenty-five percent is?” Jake asked.

  “You ever heard of a snuff video?”

  “Of course,” Jake replied.

  “Showed me a guy who stole from them. Got the whole family there . . . I can’t even tell you what they did to that fool. Sick fucks. Scared me, and you know I got thick skin.”

  “Crazy, dude. You said he’s got a boss . . .”

  “Ghost just calls him Leviathan. ’Cause he’s huge. He’s got fingers everywhere. I know I’m not the only one. They’re funding crews all over the city.”

  “So he’s like some sort of . . . kingpin?” Jake said.

  “Why don’t you be a little less amazed, and do a little more counting.”

  Jake turned back to the cash at hand. He tossed a charred bill into the trash heap. It landed with a thud. Or at least it sounded something like that to him. Jake whipped his head around. He had heard something.

  Jonny did too. He was standing when—

  An eight-inch-wide battering ram destroyed the front door. Jonny dove out of the way as four SWAT members piled into the room, screaming bloody murder, “Police, hands up!”

  They quickly had Jonny in submission, hands over his head, hair pulled back, eyeballs exposed to burning flashlight rays.

  Shrek, however, had different ideas. He reached for a gun sitting on a table. As he rotated towards the assault team with the weapon in hand, the rules of engagement came into play and his destiny was predetermined. Three shots rang out abruptly. A tight circle of holes formed on Shrek’s chest. Dead center mass. Shrek collapsed to the ground.

  In the back of the room, Jake had already lost sight of Hector, who was sprinting through a door and holding a bag stuffed hastily with cash. With a millisecond to spare, Jake followed Hector as the assault troops crushed decibels. Jake and Hector tore through a supply room and out a back door. Although Jake expected it to all be over in this moment, it wasn’t. The police hadn’t covered this door, one of a labyrinth of small alleyways and access roads between the cavernous warehouses of the district. They pulled a trash dumpster on wheels until it crossed over the threshold of the door by a few feet and glanced down the alleyway. To the right—a no go. To the left—perhaps. They tore left.

  “Who cares about the bag?” Jake screamed, catching up with Hector.

  “I can’t lose this money.”

  “Huh?”

  “Somebody gonna kill me either way if I don’t have the dough. We go HAM. That’s the only solution . . .”

  They raced through another street and into a long alleyway. Past a fence, there appeared to be a wide-open exit ahead of them. They scaled the chain-link and sprinted towards the opening, dappled lights visible on the other side.

  As they reached the opening, Jake discovered that it wasn’t an exit at all. They stood atop a concrete bulwark about thirty feet in the air, a massive air gap below them. Down below the three-story open drop was the Cross Bronx expressway. Cars whizzed past with unprejudiced velocity. Hector reached the end a few steps behind Jake.

  “Yo!” Hector yelled, trying to get Jake’s attention. But Jake seemed to be transfixed by the height. The world was starting to wobble in his head, as if he’d suddenly ingested ten drinks in the timespan of seconds. Vertigo was a hell of a sensation, and its unyielding grasp had locked onto Jake. The feeling was similar to a trance—astonishing and emotionally gripping to the person afflicted yet also rendering them unable to react to the physical world. Hector suddenly pulled Jake out of his reverie. The two of them crashed down to the ground.

  “You ain’t gonna jump that, homie,” Hector whispered.

  “We’re toast,” Jake replied. They could now hear yelling down the corridor. A flashlight beam jostled up and down as it raced towards the chain-link fence separating them from the SWAT team.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Hector said.

  They stood up. Jake dusted himself off, glancing at the walls around him to see if it was possible to climb up onto the roof. But whoever had constructed these warehouses had done a good job, much to your average criminal’s chagrin. The sides of the warehouse were glistening with slippery, high-gloss paint. It would be impossible, especially with only seconds counting down. A second flashlight appeared at the gate, and then the screaming of the black-suited SWAT team.

  “Put your hands up! Don’t move!” the officers screamed. Jake and Hector could view the dark shape of the first member of the SWAT team climbing over the fence. Then a second. Time was beyond the essence. There were just seconds of personal freedom ticking down inside Hector’s brain, before a nice, long, and quaint spell in the pen. Better make the most of it. Jake also stared ahead at four SWAT team members racing towards them, their guns held forward. They were enraged, screaming like bloodhounds. And yet, neither Hector nor Jake moved.

  “Get on the ground!” SWAT yelled at them, converging in a semicircle about ten feet from Hector and Jake.

  “You thinkin’ like me?” Hector asked Jake.

  “For sure . . . Ride or die, baby. They try to teach us a lesson? We make it a good one,” Jake replied.

  “That ain’t no question,” Hector said.

  Jake and Hector slowly raised their hands into the air.

  “We have no weapons on us,” Hector replied calmly to the approaching monsters.

  “On the ground!” SWAT yelled. But the two suspects didn’t move. It was a standoff worthy of Sergio Leone ambitions. Two of the four SWAT members lowered their guns and reached to their belts. They pulled out expandable stun batons, nasty contraptions in the shape of large Maglites with an electrical charge running throughout.

  Hector channeled an NFL linebacker and dove headfirst at the oncoming SWAT officers. The officers smashed the back of Hector’s head and his shoulders with their batons, electricity crackling into the air. Hector quickly succumbed, slumping to the ground in a lump.

  Two more SWAT officers approached Jake. They bodyslammed him into the ground as more officers piled on. His eyes wild and wide as saucers, his long and dirty blond hair pulled behind his head, Jake was screaming as loud as he could. “You want me? You’re gonna have to earn your pay!” He stuck his ass into the air.

  Hector chuckled from his bloody and broken face as he watched Jake’s histrionics.

  The officers hit Jake repeatedly, finally forcing him into a prone position on the cement. Blood erupted from his nose, a hand jammed hard against his face, his cheek meeting the cement below like sandpaper on driftwood. But there was a maniacal grin on Jake’s face the whole time. Almost like he was enjoying this.

  And the truth was that . . . he did.

  Because Jake was an actor in a play. The stage was his life. His circumstances weren’t scripted, but they were absolutely predicated. And the other actors in the sphere? Some of them knew who he was behind the mask. And the rest—like his main man, Hector—certainly did not. If this were Broadway, he’d have champagne and air kisses waiting all night in the wings. It wasn’t. There was only reality out there, blood dripping from his face, surrounded by the horrible people that operated within it.

  The sets changed, but the lights burned hot as ever.

  He wanted to scream out loud. He expanded his lungs as much as he could, and he tried to—but then Jake Rivett passed out.

  THREE

  JAKE’S HEAD SWAYED BACK AND forth groggily in the back of a police cruiser as he came to. He was alone in the backseat. Hector was nowhere to be seen. He could feel the early m
orning rays of sunshine against his face. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but in the meantime, the morning had sprung. As he peered out the window, his blurry vision eventually found focus. It was nature. He saw the bluffs of Rodman Neck and the Pelham Wildlife Sanctuary ripping past the windows. He knew exactly where he was being driven: along Shore Road, about to pass the golf course and enter New Rochelle proper. Although it was a beautiful and serene little town, it was the last place that Jake wanted to be. He avoided the place like the plague because he saw too much of his own self in the little house with the parents who told him what to do. He slammed his hands against the glass partition separating him from the blues in the front seats.

  “Don’t hurt yourself, Rivett. We’re gonna write it all up,” the officer in shotgun turned and stared daggers at him.

  “Oh, come on . . .” Jake replied, “They pulled me in?”

  “Mommy and Daddy are real pissed at you,” the cop replied.

  ▪

  The police car slowly maneuvered through the bucolic roads of New Rochelle, where city blocks gave way to tree-lined boulevards and grand homes with a slight fade. They eventually arrived at a perfectly suburban brick colonial at the end of a long cul-de-sac.

  The front door to the large house opened, and a man and a woman stepped out, extremely irate looks on their faces. Jake watched them, standing with their arms over their chests like two stern Politburo officials. One of them—the one who looked like a third-grade teacher—he knew very well: Tony Villalon. And the other was Susan. Oh, Susan. How he loathed Susan Herlihy with every thumping beat of his heart.

  The world had changed dramatically around Jake in the course of twelve months. It was still moving, actually. As much as he’d tried, he wasn’t designed for the system and it felt the same way about him. A year ago—after he’d cracked the Montgomery Noyes gold robbery case—both he and Tony had been rewarded with the pick of the litter when it came to the trajectory of their careers.