Unhinged

by Barbra Leslie

  Fred looked disgusted. He knew me better than Smith ever would. He knew I would never come on board, but he was obviously accustomed to bowing to the boss.

  “I loved her, if you must know,” he said.

  “Ann? That little girl? That’s who you were…” I hadn’t thought I could be any more disgusted. I was wrong. “You were screwing your son’s girlfriend?”

  “I knew her long before she met Luke,” Fred said. “She was trying to make me jealous. Playing some kind of game.”

  Smith looked at me with raised eyebrows, in a kind of isn’t he a poor deluded fool look. As though we were shooting the shit over beers, talking about the miserable state of our love lives.

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, attempting a calm tone. “You killed your fifteen-year-old girlfriend because she was two-timing you with your son?”

  “To be fair,” Smith said, “it was a bit more complicated than that. Ann was Cliff’s daughter. You remember Cliff? Fred’s friend?”

  “Of course,” I said. “He wound up dead in my TV room last night.”

  “The very one,” Smith nodded. “Stupid business, that was.”

  “Nothing to do with me, that one,” Fred said, hands in the air.

  “I’m aware,” Smith said. I watched their banter, and felt more and more like a fool. “Anyway, Ann’s been part of The Family since… well, birth, really. She was wise beyond her years.”

  “An old soul,” Fred said. He was playing with the Taser and looking wistful.

  “But she was – well, I think – and it’s just my opinion, Fred, you can take it or leave it – that she’d actually fallen for young Luke. She wasn’t ever asked to meet, uh, gentlemen outside of the club. Because of her status as Fred’s paramour, she was exempt.”

  Fred nodded.

  “Nevertheless, she was making threats about going to the police. Saying things that she knew very well enough not to say.”

  It was my turn to nod.

  “And is that why Cliff—” I started to say, and Smith cut me off.

  “We think so. We think he wanted to probably kill Fred here, and take off with his computers. All The Family business. Who knows what he thought he was going to do with it all.”

  “So it was just a fluke that you had gone out for a run?” I said to Fred.

  “I know, right? Talk about luck.”

  It was that which set me off. That Fred grin, the shake of his head with amazement at his own luck. I couldn’t look at it, not for another minute.

  I exhaled, took a sip of my wine, and then I moved.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I threw my wine glass, hard and precisely, at his head. I used to be a pitcher, back in my baseball days. My muscle memory didn’t fail me, and the coke gave me an added burst of strength. At least I thought it did.

  I launched myself off my bar stool, ran a couple of paces and jumped at Fred where he’d been pacing, while he was still stunned from taking the glass to the middle of his forehead. The glass didn’t break, but it knocked his head back when it hit his forehead. He brought the Taser up just as I tackled him – he seemed to remember suddenly that he was holding it – but I knocked it out of his hand easily. Straddling Fred’s chest, I grabbed the Taser from the floor and brought it to his face. I paused for a second, deciding whether it would be more painful in the eyes or the mouth.

  Behind me, I heard the unmistakable click of a gun’s safety being disengaged.

  “That’s enough, Danny,” Smith said. “Get off him. Slowly. And slide that stupid weapon toward me.” He sounded amused.

  For a second or so, I thought about Tasing Fred anyway, and risking a bullet. Smith wouldn’t kill me yet; I hadn’t transferred money, and he now knew that he wouldn’t be able to get it from my family if I was dead. But that wouldn’t necessarily stop him from shooting me in the knee or the elbow, somewhere painful and debilitating, putting me out of commission physically. I couldn’t afford that. Not yet.

  I slid the Taser away, and before I stood, I paused.

  “One punch,” I said to Smith. “I think I deserve to be able to hit him once, don’t you? I won’t kill him. You have my word.”

  “Your word is good with me, Danny,” Smith said. Weirdly, I knew it would be. “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and as Fred was opening his mouth to protest, I hauled back and punched him in the mouth as hard as I could.

  Of course, Smith probably hadn’t noticed that I was wearing my heavy rings for just this reason, with my knuckles and fingers taped underneath. I’d done that hoping to get a chance to punch Smith, or Dave, knowing that one punch was probably all I would get away with today. It made the blow extra hard and bloody for the recipient, and protected me from breaking a knuckle or a finger. Win-win, you might say.

  I stood up as soon as I’d punched him, and put my hands in the air, backing away. I smiled at Smith, and nodded thanks. Fred was on his side spitting blood onto the floor, and when he stood up, I saw that I’d knocked out two teeth. My smile got wider.

  I knew that this was as good as it was going to get tonight. My brother-in-law was working with the man who had orchestrated my sister’s – Fred’s wife’s – death. My boyfriend was somehow working with the whole bunch of them. And if I allowed myself to be killed before I got in touch with Darren, my nephews would still be in this man’s care.

  I sat back down at my bar stool, and Smith went behind the bar. He deftly poured us all soft drinks. “No ice, I’m afraid,” he said. I raised my glass to him and drank. Punching people is thirsty work. Especially when you throw cocaine into the mix.

  Fred was wrapping up the teeth he’d lost in a napkin. His mouth was cut and bloody, and I was hoping that he’d start crying any second.

  “Are you happy now?” he said. It sounded like speaking hurt. Good.

  I smiled. “I’ll never be happy again, Fred,” I said. “You know that.”

  “Well, you got that out of your system,” Smith said. “Feel better?”

  “I do,” I said. “Thank you.” I wanted to shake my hand out – no matter what, it hurts to punch somebody in the face – but I wasn’t going to give Fred the pleasure. “So. I take it you’re the Kinder Group,” I said.

  “It’s a legitimate business,” Smith said, nodding.

  “Aside from the enforced prostitution,” I said. Smith shrugged. “But why try to get me working here? It doesn’t make sense. You had to know I’d find out eventually.”

  “That was my idea,” Smith said. “I wasn’t planning on spending much time here in person, at least at the beginning. And as I said, I wanted you with us. We thought you’d make a good doorperson,” he added.

  “And you were bouncing off the walls, and obsessed with finding him.” Fred tilted his head at Smith, and winced. “We thought it would be a distraction for you.”

  “What can we say? Good help is hard to find,” Smith added. “As far as I’m concerned, the best businesses are family businesses.” He was being serious, and I was reminded again of his bizarre, seemingly earnest, code of conduct.

  “And Garrett? Kelly? Why did they have to die?”

  Smith laughed, and Fred looked a little green. I didn’t know whether it was pain from losing teeth and having his mouth cut up, or from a reminder of the death he had surrounded himself with. Voluntarily. Fred was both weak and greedy, but it had never occurred to me that he could be actually evil. By aligning himself with Smith, he had signed away his humanity. Whatever else happened here tonight, I couldn’t let Fred walk out of here.

  Smith had my gun, and probably one of his own, and Fred had the Taser in front of him on the bar. I had nothing but coked-up energy, and my other gun in my go-bag, fifteen feet away where I’d stashed it under a table before I’d walked into the bar. I had to keep Smith talking. I had to think. I cursed myself for destroying my old phone. Darren and Rosen could have tracked me here with it. I’d wanted to protect them, but yet again I’d miscalculated.

&nbs
p; “Garrett was my fault,” Smith said. He looked at me seriously. “One thing you must know about me, Danny, is that I always admit my mistakes. Any man who won’t admit when he’s wrong can’t call himself a man.” He was polishing glasses, looking perfectly at home behind the bar.

  “No argument here,” I said. “I screw up daily, and I don’t mind admitting it.” Fred grunted his assent. I turned my head slowly and looked at him, and he looked away. Coward.

  “Whether you want to believe it or not, Danny, you and I are cut from the same cloth,” Smith said.

  “Oh?”

  “We don’t let society tell us how to live our lives,” he said. “We believe in family, and we’re ruthless in pursuit of keeping our families together.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Was Garrett a member of your Family?”

  “No, no,” he said. “His late wife was. I knew Amy from the time she was a teenager.”

  “Another foster child?” Another teenage girl you used sexually before you pimped her out, I wanted to say. But I didn’t want to bring things to a head until I had a plan. Right now, the plan was simply to keep him talking, keep him occupied. Luckily, Smith loved to talk.

  “As a matter of fact, she was,” he said. He was removing all the wine from the fridge behind the bar and inspecting labels. “Garrett was lost when she passed. Absolutely lost. He’d worked in hospitality management, so I thought a change of scenery might do him good, him and the child.” He found a bottle of Prosecco and seemed pleased. And it didn’t require a corkscrew. He opened it and poured us each a glass.

  “So what went wrong? Apparently he wasn’t keeping proper employee records, or deducting taxes, things like that,” I said. “And I was told after the fact that I should never have been hired. You need a license to work as a bouncer.”

  Smith looked at Fred, who was avoiding his gaze. “Well, as I said, I take responsibility for putting Garrett into a position he wasn’t ready for. It was too soon after Amy’s death, I suppose. And your brother-in-law here wasn’t keeping a very careful eye on things.”

  “Maybe he was too busy keeping his eye on the strippers,” I said to Smith, who laughed.

  “That’s exactly right!” he said. “Exactly right. Classic fox in the henhouse situation.”

  Fred nodded like a chastened little boy. I hated him more with each passing second.

  “Do you mind if I do another line?” I said to him, wiping my face. “I haven’t been doing this, but in case this was my going-away party, I wanted to enjoy it.”

  Smith smiled sadly at me, and refilled my Prosecco. “Go ahead, dear.” Dear. Next thing you knew, he’d invite me to move in and let me choose the wallpaper for my room. But for the moment, at least, I was going with it. It was giving me the time I needed to think.

  I was trying to breathe. In for four, out for four.

  “I did love her, Danny,” Fred was saying. “Ann. Moira. Whatever you want to call her.”

  Then I heard Ginger’s voice, clearly, as plainly as if she’d been sitting directly behind me. Danny, pay attention. Protect them, she said.

  I opened my eyes, and Michael Vernon Smith was looking past me.

  Matthew and Luke, their hands bound in front of them, walking into the bar through the club.

  And Dave behind them. Holding a gun on them. He was holding a gun on my nephews.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Oh God, no.

  I kept my eyes on Matty and Luke. I tried to see if they were hurt anywhere. If I looked closely at Dave, I was afraid I would lose all control and get myself killed before I could get the boys out of here. Somehow.

  Luke was crying, his face red with rage. He was looking at his father with all the hatred I felt but couldn’t show.

  “Nice one, Fred,” Dave said. “Way to stay classy.”

  Fred looked like he wanted to die. “Luke, I am so sorry,” he said. He looked like he was going to say something else, but he shut his mouth.

  I got up and started to go to the boys, but Dave waved me back with the gun. “I’m sorry too, Danny,” he said. His face was hard.

  I was only about ten feet away from him. I could have gone for him, possibly before he could have gotten a shot off. But probably not; he was a very good shot, and his instincts – unlike mine – were nearly infallible.

  I was going to kill him. Fred first, and then Dave. Smith for last. This, I would do. I had cocaine and adrenaline and pure rage coursing through my veins. I was going to get blood on my hands tonight. More blood. And I was going to enjoy it.

  “Everyone, let’s all relax,” Smith said. He came out from around the bar, and started to move a couple of the high-top tables and chairs over. “Luke, I’m really very sorry you had to hear that,” he said. “What your father did was disgusting. Inexcusable.”

  “What are they doing here, Michael?” I said. I looked at the boys. Matty looked like he didn’t know who he should hate more – Smith, Fred, or Dave. Luke just looked broken. “You said Dave was out of town.”

  “A little white lie,” Smith said. “I wanted to surprise you. Besides, I wasn’t sure how long he’d be, and I didn’t want you getting impatient.” He seemed to be counting heads in the room, and dragged a couple more chairs over to the table.

  “I asked Dave to bring the boys along because everything we have to say concerns them,” he said. “Like it or not, we’ve all wound up in each other’s lives. We all have grievances to air. Stories to tell. I want a clean slate, Danny. You said I could take your life in exchange for your family’s safety and freedom. But first—”

  “No!” Matt said. “No way. We won’t let you.” He was starting to cry now. They were still twelve years old. They might look fifteen, but they were twelve. They shouldn’t have to hear any of this, let alone see it.

  “It’s okay, guys,” I said. “Sometimes you have to know when to fold ’em. Remember?” Poker and Kenny Rogers.

  “No, you don’t,” Luke said. He had snot on his face mixed with the tears. I grabbed some napkins off the bar and marched over to him. I glared at Dave as I did, daring him to shoot me. He just shook his head, and I wiped Luke’s face. I hugged him. I hugged both of them, and Matt whispered something to me, so quiet I could barely hear it.

  “He’s with us,” he said. Or at least, I was pretty sure he said. I looked at Luke, who didn’t look at all okay.

  “Danny, please take a seat now,” Smith said. “Boys, I understand that this is a difficult evening for you. But it’s time you learned to be men.”

  “They are twelve fucking years old,” I said. Actually, I’m pretty sure I screamed it. “And thanks to you, half their childhood was stolen already.”

  I could feel the control slipping away. I was okay, until I saw the boys. I would have gotten through it. But having Michael Vernon Fucking Smith tell those boys they needed to be men? No. No goddamn way.

  I started toward the table where Michael was standing. I took a deep breath, and kept my body language submissive and resigned, despite my outburst.

  As I was close to where Fred was sitting at the bar, I moved.

  I slammed Fred’s head down on the bar hard with my right hand, and grabbed the Taser with my left. As Smith was reaching for one of the guns he had on him, I Tased him. It hit him mid-chest, and he went down. I kept the power surging – really, you’re only supposed to use the Taser in five-second bursts, but I kept the juice flowing – while I felt his outer pocket and pulled out my gun. Before Smith could recover, I kicked him in the balls. With my steel-toed boots. Hard.

  I twirled around with the gun, shouting at the boys to move away from Dave. They didn’t move. Then Matty slid out of his cuffs, and so did Luke. They were waving them, and gesturing at Dave and yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear them over the pounding of blood in my ears.

  My ankle shattered, and I went down, the gun skittering across the floor.

  Smith had shot me. Shot me with what looked like a small cannon. It was on him, inside
his jacket maybe, or tucked into a holster around his ankle. I’d missed it.

  Chaos. I registered the boys running over and Dave pulling them back. Thank God. Smith was aiming again, but wildly. He was clutching his chest and curled up in the fetal position from the groin kick, but he had the gun in his other hand.

  Then Fred was there, standing over Smith, and he kicked the gun out of his hand. It was the first time I’d ever seen Fred make contact with something he was trying to kick, and I had watched him try to play soccer in high school. Then Fred slid to the floor, his back to the bar.

  Things went in slow motion then. I made the mistake of looking down at my leg. It seemed to end in a mess of bloody pulp and white bone. What was left of my foot was sitting at an unnatural angle, like one of those wooden marionettes on a string. And it was twitching frantically. My foot was twitching like a seizure victim, and I wasn’t in control of it at all. It was mesmerizing, for about a second.

  Until the pain hit. The pain didn’t hit until I saw it. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and breathed deeply, willing myself not to faint, willing myself to let adrenaline take over, just for another few minutes.

  “Keep the boys back,” I yelled to Dave. “Repeat!” I’d somehow gone back to the shorthand we’d developed in the short time I was working with him.

  “Keeping the boys back,” he called back. “EMS?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Waiting on your word,” he called.

  I looked at Fred, who was alternating between staring at my leg and at Michael Vernon Smith, who was lying on the floor, his shirt drenched in sweat. There was no color in Michael’s face, and he was clutching at his chest, or trying to. His muscles still seemed locked.

  “My heart,” he said. His face was sweating.

  I glanced back at Fred. “Don’t you fucking move,” I said to him. He nodded. I doubted he could if he wanted to.

  “Do you need medical attention?” I said to Smith, quietly.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Maybe he had a pre-existing heart condition. He wasn’t a young man, and I had juiced him, but good.