by Kurt Douglas
“That’s up to you,” Frank replied, tossing his smoke into the street and holding out his hand. “Thanks for coming.”
The two men shook and Frank pointed out to the Valley.
“Remember when it was all dark?” Frank asked.
“It’s darker now if you ask me.”
“Quieter,” Frank breathed. “I do.”
“Easier,” Rick added as he fished a silver flask from the back of his trousers. “Hell, I remember when they used to test missiles up that way.”
Frank nodded. Rick took a gulp from the can then capped it and slapped the flask into Frank’s hand.
“Thought you might like a bit before we did this,” Rick said.
Frank twisted off the cap. His lip curled into a half smile as the cedar and citrus beckoned him. For a moment, Frank’s bruises didn’t feel that bad.
Sniffing the stainless steel grooves, he said, “Glenlivet. Not bad.”
He swigged back and cleared his throat, saying between two breaths, “Not sure why I never liked you.”
Rick’s head tilted into his shoulder and his eyebrow went aloft, but before he could beg for clarification, Felicia chirped Frank’s name from the front seat yet again. Frank grunted.
“Who you got there?” Ricked ask.
Frank swigged back again, cleared the burn from his throat and wiped his lips on his sleeve.
“Come on,” he said, motioning with his hand.
Standing on the sidewalk, Frank tossed the flask back to Rick and wiggled his fingers at Felicia, taunting her through the passenger window. Felicia bared her teeth like a dog. She glared first at Rick and then at Frank. With a purse of her lips, her pearly white vanished and she heaved her throat, hocking a slimy hunk of spit across the glass. It splattered into a mangled butterfly and slithered down into the door.
“Classy,” Rick quipped.
Frank tapped the window and shook his finger.
“You’ll be good?” he warned. “Seriously, Felicia. Be good.”
She sank into her seat with a sneer and tucked her hands between her legs like they were her tail. Frank tripped the lock and swung open the door. The sting of fresh piss filled Frank’s nostrils.
“When a girl’s got to go.” She grinned up at Frank, cupping the wet spot in her jeans.
“Foul,” Frank said. “Whore, meet Dick. Dick, Whore.” He held his hand out and bowed in introduction.
“Name’s Richard,” Rick introduced with a half salute.
“Fuck you, Frank,” Felicia spat, pulling against her restraints.
Frank cooed, “Afraid we already played that game, my dear.”
He reached toward her soft cheek, his finger bent to stroke her. She nipped at him and showed her teeth. She jerked forward trying to bite him once more. She squirmed and thrashed, snapping her teeth, pulling against the lap belt like a dog on a leash. Frank took his time pulling his hand back, admiring her determination.
“Feisty one, eh?” Stromwell cracked.
“Sure is,” Frank agreed.
Frank slammed the door on Felicia, trapping her with the stench of raspberries and pee. He moved back to the trunk. Rick followed and stood behind Frank. With a turn of the key, the lid popped ajar and Frank lifted it open with one hand.
“Take your pick,” Frank beamed.
Inside the trunk was an array of firearms. A bushel of shotguns lay wrapped in a belt of large ammunition shells on one side of the trunk. Near the front was a milk crate loaded with two MP7s and a variety of semiautomatic handguns. Three Browning nines sat atop the pile. It was a bit easier to fill the trunk with the spare tire taken out. It's empty circle was replaced with a bucket of binoculars, night vision scopes and other optical devices. The ruby red carpet of the trunk could only be seen in patches beneath the jumble of cartridges, the makeshift buckets and the loose brass. You could arm a small battalion with the contents of Frank’s trunk.
“I thought you liked working with your hands,” Rick said through a growing smile.
Frank turned to Rick and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “You never know. You never know.”
“Apparently,” Rick breathed. He reached in the trunk and ran his fingers along the rifle box tucked in the back.
“It’s yours when we’re done,” Frank said as he leaned in and clicked open the box.
A single-shot bolt action AR-50 rifle sat in six parts in the box. At the top, its thirty-inch matte-black barrel was cradled in molded gray foam. Below it were the butt-stock, the oversized scope and the grips. The tripod was folded up beside the other parts, tucked away in the corner of the case. Rick ran his finger along the fluted box on the end of the muzzle, then the length of the gun. He caressed the rifle inch by inch, gliding his finger over the hard edges of black metal. Reaching the trigger, he moaned out loud and pulled back his hand.
“That’s quite a girl you’ve got there,” Rick sighed.
Frank asked flatly, “Will it do the trick?”
Rick replied with his head cocked to one side and his hands shoved in his pockets. His eyes looked the gun over as he said, “It’s more than enough.”
Frank locked up the rifle case and heaved it to Rick. Dipping back into the trunk, he pulled out a box of rounds and a rolled-up mat.
Handing the items to Rick, he said, “Good. You’ll need these too. Find somewhere with a view of the lobby. Wait for my signal. Me and Princess Charming are going inside.”
Frank placed his hand over the rifle case and said, “Once it’s done, disappear. This isn’t your problem.”
“Ten-four,” replied Rick with a salute, then he turned and disappeared up the hill of ivy and behind the tree line.
Frank went back to the front of the car. Tossing open the door, Frank yanked Felicia by the arm, dragging her onto the pavement. She dropped like a sack of potatoes. Frank’s seat was soaked deep with urine.
“Get up,” Frank hissed. “Time to see Daddy.”
He pulled her up by her cuffs and pushed her forward. Walking an arm’s length behind her, Frank jabbed at the small of her back. He forced her over the hills and valleys of the broken sidewalk ’til they arrived at the concrete slab of the entrance. Frank lit another smoke with his butt and mashed the old cigarette into the top of the sign.
“Keep moving,” he growled.
There was no pedestrian path so the two remained in the center of the black road. They wound through shaded concrete benches and rows of low-sitting palms. Shadows stretched across the yellow bumps that peppered the way ahead of them and at the end stood the towering complex of plate glass that made up the front facade of the insurance company. The L-shaped building stretched across the property, meeting with a mirror image of itself on the opposite corner. The three buildings surrounded a large circle where the driveway looped back around on itself. In the center of the circle was a dead fountain, the lights and the water turned off for the night. All it was now was a cumbersome concrete boulder atop an overturned horseshoe.
The two of them moved eastward at the fountain and arrived at the towering glass front of the main building. Frank eased open the door and pushed Felicia inside.
The lobby was dark. Only the small after-hours dome lights high in the corners lit the expanse of the large three-story room. The smell of soot, charred cotton and wool was suspended in the still air. The room was surrounded in columns that reached upward to a second-floor balcony and continued to the arched ceiling of the lobby thirty feet above. Dalton waited for them in the open. Facing the entrance, he stood before the large, half-arc reception desk, leaning against it like he was waiting for his order at the cafe.
“Welcome!” he exclaimed.
Only his mouth moved. His words bounced off the walls, amplifying the thinness in his voice.
Frank could see the glint of the cold steel in Dalton’s hand, an old .44 single action Merwin-Hulbert with an ivory grip—a hundred-year-old antique. Frank watched as Dalton walked along the desk, tracing the gun against the tops of the em
bossed letters on its face.
S...A...W...I...C...O
As Dalton traced the letters, he stared Frank down. Then, reaching the end of the marquee, he turned his eyes toward Felicia.
Frank’s fist tightened around Felicia’s cuffs, yanking at her wrists as he stepped toward Dalton, letting the glass door whisper shut behind him.
“Drop your gun, Black,” Dalton hissed.
Frank let go of Felicia and lifted his coat with both hands. He twisted in place showing he was unarmed. When Frank had completed his spin, Dalton raised the pistol. A flash lit the dark lobby as he pulled the trigger. The air broke. Frank felt the searing blow of the .44 caliber brass explode against his chest.
He fell to his knees.
He grabbed at his heart.
His ears rang from the echoing gunshot.
Felicia clapped and laughed. Her cuffs clanked. She jumped up and down like a kid on Christmas and her cuffs were the damn sleigh bells.
“Good one, Daddy!” she shouted. “But he wears a vest. Shoot him in the head.”
Vest or not, it still hurt like hell. Frank gripped the entry hole on his chest. Struggling to one knee, he looked up at Dalton. Dalton pointed the barrel down on Frank.
Click.
His lips curled and his brow furrowed.
Click. Click.
Dalton turned the .44 in his hand, checking the chamber.
Before he could inspect it, Frank threw his palm upward, knocking the pistol from Dalton’s grip and sending the gun sliding across the floor.
Frank stood. He rubbed at his bullet hole.
“Old gun, Jim,” he chided. “Belongs in a museum.”
He stepped toward Dalton, fists clenched.
Backpedaling, Dalton slid a small metal square from his pocket. He taunted Frank with the big red button on its face.
“Ah ah ah,” he warned, shaking his finger. “I’ll blow it all to hell.”
He pointed all around the lobby. “Homemade pentolite packs quite a punch, Mr. Black.”
White lumps of plastic explosive hugged the beams overhead and, beneath the second-floor balcony, each of the thirty-nine columns of the lobby sported more of the white blobs. The faint flicker of red glinted within the lumps of pentolite, a sign of the active detonator shoved into each one.
“It’s all over the grounds, Mr. Black,” Dalton said. “Not only in here.”
“Let me be Frank,” Frank said, glaring. “Mr. Black is my father.”
Dalton sloughed it off with a shrug of his shoulders and held the detonator close to his chest. He retreated further away from Frank, hovering his finger over the button each time Frank gave any sign of movement. Frank stepped forward without hesitation, trying to keep his weight off his sore ankle. Each step dared Dalton to ignite the whole complex, but Dalton didn’t. Frank kept moving forward, forcing Dalton this way and that. Circling him from out of the shadows and into the light of the moon.
“You don’t have to do this,” Frank barked as he lunged forward.
“Duty,” Dalton growled as he backpedaled. “Something you wouldn’t understand, Mr. Black, but we all have things that must be done.”
Frank shook his head.
“You have been up to a lot, Jim,” Frank said. “But this won’t solve it. They didn’t kill your wife.”
“They did,” Dalton cried. “They did. They did so. They let her die. They took her. They killed my little girl’s mother.”
Dalton’s thumb jabbed into the red button. The walls rumbled. Beyond the plate glass windows, the west wing splintered and cracked, swelling outward as it exploded in a burst of concrete and fire. The floor quaked as the structure next door fell into itself, pelting the ground with debris and sending a plume of ash and smoke high into the blackness of the night sky.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Frank growled.
“You know they gave the shit in this to my wife? Pentaerythritol tetranitrate,” Dalton shouted over the drum of falling concrete. He shook the detonator. “It’s what they gave her for her heart! This is what they had for her!”
Dalton paused, smiling at the flames across the way, then rambled on, “It gave her migraines. Made her incontinent. Headaches. Breathing problems. Anemia. It took her sight. It made her weak, nauseous. She was sick all the time. But it took care of that damn chest pain. It cured the fucking dizziness.”
The remains of the west wing smoldered beyond the window as Frank listened. The fire crackled and popped beneath the hum of Dalton’s words.
He shook the detonator. “Thousands of dollars a pill. This was their solution. One of many that didn’t save her. Just like me. It wasn’t ’til years later that I found out I could make it in my basement. Seems only fitting, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Black?”
Frank hissed, “Frank.”
Frank spat on the floor and growled, “I’ve still got your daughter.”
Dalton shook his head.
“No. You don’t,” he said.
Frank raised an eyebrow and turned his head. There was no trace of Felicia; only his cuffs lay empty and open on the floor.
“No matter,” Frank said.
Taking a few steps back, Frank extended his fist to Dalton. He rolled out his index and middle finger and stuck up his thumb, pointing his hand like a gun. He closed one eye and looked down his fingers, Dalton in his crosshairs.
“What are you going to do with that?” Dalton scoffed.
Frank pulled the trigger.
CRAAACK!
The detonator flew from Dalton’s hand. Glass streamed down into the lobby from above.
Dalton clutched his wrist. Falling to his knees, he held up his stump in a hysterical display. Blood spurted from the end of his arm, streaming over his slacks and spilling onto the ground.
Shaking his bloody arm at Frank, he cried out, “What did you do?”
Frank kept his trigger finger ready, leaning over Dalton.
“Unlike you, I brought backup,” Frank said. “Real backup.”
Without looking away, he pointed across the room and through the wall of plate glass, adding, “Specifically, a man over there holding an AR-50 sniper rifle retrofitted with a high-velocity Barrett .416 cartridge. That’s what you felt tear through your hand. Less than a second to impact, I’d say he’s no more than three hundred yards from here. An ounce of solid brass… that’s about three tons on impact. How’d it feel?”
He pointed down on him, poking his fingers at Dalton, threatening him with his gun. Dalton tried as best he could to hide his face behind his shoulder, cowering from Frank’s finger-pistol as if that’s where the bullets were. He writhed as he tried to slither away. His body curled and uncurled like a dying snake, smearing his blood into a terrible set of red wings against the marble.
Frank kicked his functioning arm away and pressed his boot into Dalton’s severed wrist. Driving his heel between where the radius and ulna meet the palm, he twisted. The bones crunched. Dalton screamed.
“Where’s Amy?” Frank demanded.
Dalton whimpered and drooled, tears pouring out of his eyes. His face contorted as he tried to stomach the pain. He tried to get away. Twisting and reeling, he sucked air into his lungs, but it was no use.
Frank eased up. And just as Dalton began to calm, Frank twisted his boot heel once more. Blood squirted out like a ketchup packet.
Dalton gasped and sobbed. His breath accelerated as his brain tried to shut him down.
“It’s over, Jim,” he pressed. “Where is she?”
“Top floor. East wing,” he bellowed through his gasps. “Just stop.”
Frank didn’t lift his boot until Dalton passed out. Then he took out his phone and punched in three digits.
Holding it to his ear, he said, “Yeah, I’m going to need an ambulance at Still & Wersner Insurance Company. Gunshot victim.”
He shoved the phone back in his pocket and walked to the empty cuffs on the floor. Taking them in hand, he returned to Dalton. He slapped one
cuff around Dalton’s ankle and the other to his intact wrist.
Frank disappeared up the stairs and headed east. By the time he reached the sixth flight, his lungs burned and his chest ached. He clutched his cracked rib and suffered the last dozen steps. Flailing through the emergency exit and onto the top floor, he hurried down the long hall. His slight limp transitioned into a sprint as the walls spread into a wide cubicle farm. He sped around the blocks of gray carpet and across the room. The walls tightened again and the flat plaster was replaced by Brazilian teak panels as Frank entered the executive corridor.
He called out, “Amy?”
There was no response.
He advanced and called again, “Amy?”
He stood still, listening for a response.
Muffled but clear, Amy called out from behind the furthest door, “Frank? Is that you?”
“It’s me,” he answered in a shout as he moved toward her.
He came on the large, double doors that separated her from him. Testing the handle, he found it locked.
“It’s locked,” he shouted through the door, “Can you unlock it from your side?”
He held his ear to the wood.
“Yes,” she replied.”
“Then unlock it.”
After a long pause, she said, “No.”
“What? Why?” Frank tugged the handle again then mashed his shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge.
Holding his shoulder, he shouted, “Why not, Van?”
He slammed the butt of his fist against the wood. “Open the damn door.”
There was another long pause then the knob jiggled and the door popped ajar. Frank eased it inward ’til the door was open wide.
The office was bare but for an oversized desk and a clutter of white boxes. Frank tried the light switch, but the recessed lights overhead held no bulbs. Amy’s body was framed by the glow of the window. Her long silhouette, slender legs, and thin waist were prominent in the darkness with but the moonlight and distant Valley lights illuminating her. As Frank moved closer he noticed the blinking clock and brick of clay sticking out from her naked body. She backed away, crossing her hands over the short tuft of hair between her legs, trying the best she could to cover herself.
