“You going to be okay?” he asked.
“Seems quiet now,” Bob said. “But goddamn, things went to hell fast.”
“Stupid,” Eli said. “Stupid escalates fast.”
“Bob Hoang,” Parker said by way of introduction. “Meet Eli Majors, my neighbor. He’s sort of a douche-canoe, but what’re you gonna do?”
“Screw you, Parker.” Eli smiled.
“Good to meet you,” Bob said. The two men shook hands. “I appreciate your help.”
“I’m only along for the ride,” Eli answered, keeping his reply modest. “Parker was very keen to make sure you were doing okay.”
Bob turned towards Parker and grinned. “You sure it wasn’t the corndogs and Red Bulls you were looking to get?”
Parker laughed. “The eating habits of cops on graveyard shift are, perhaps, not the best.”
The wounded vigilante moaned again and Parker scowled, looking down at him. “I think you should go find your friends before I lose my patience.”
“Gun,” the man mumbled. “I need my pistol.”
“Screw that,” Eli said. “You’re a motherfucking menace to society.”
Parker turned to Eli. “Let me see it,” he said.
Looking dubious, Eli handed it over. Taking it, Parker dumped the magazine out and racked the slide, expelling the chambered round. The dull brass spun through the air and bounced off the cement.
“Here,” he said.
He walked over and shoved the unloaded weapon into the man’s shaking hands. The vigilante started to say something and Parker made an abrupt slashing motion with his hand, cutting the man’s protests off.
“Shut up,” he said. “Shut up and go. You ought to be in jail, but that ain’t going to happen, so go.”
Stubbornly, or stupidly, the man seemed ready to argue the point further. Eli leaned down and looked him in the eye.
“Seriously, get out of here. I got PTSD from Iraq and it makes me all crazy with suppressed anger and unpredictability.” He rested his hand on the grip of his holstered Colt Python.
The man scrambled to his feet and, turning after one last look at where his friend lay on the ground, he took off on unsteady feet. The three men watched him go. After a moment, Parker turned to Eli.
“PTSD?”
Eli shrugged. “I get into one more fucking shoot-out tonight and it might not be meant sarcastically.”
Parker turned to Bob. “Take the AR; lock yourself in the store. I’d stay to help, but we both have people we’re responsible for.”
Bob shook Parker’s hand. “I understand. Again, thank you. I doubt many looters will be back soon, not after word spreads about what happened here.” He looked at the corpses on the ground. “At least tonight.”
“Take care of yourself,” Eli told him.
“Me?” Bob asked in mock surprise. “I got a brand new rifle and high capacity magazine, I’m going to be just fine. You two watch your asses out there. The whole damn city went crazy at the same time.”
“It does feel like things went to shit awful fast,” Parker murmured, almost more to himself than the others.
Bob nodded. “Yeah, it did. Of course, getting held up at gunpoint was always a risk of doing business in this neighborhood. The blackout only upped the ante.”
Eli turned his head and spat. “We’re no better off than Detroit or Flint,” he said, voice quiet. “They pulled the big factories out, moved them to Mexico or overseas, and suddenly our guts got ripped out. We weren’t diversified like Louisville to the south. Those manufacturing plants were all we had.” He looked at Parker. “Christ’s sake, Jim, you saw it.”
Parker nodded. “Yeah, it’s been bad around here for a long time.”
And it was true.
Prescription pill addiction and abuse. Public services stripped down to the bone, including Fire, Police, and Emergency medical. And the criminals, who seemed to grow in number by the day, knew it. Police didn’t respond to certain neighborhoods, because they couldn’t. Fire didn’t roll on some calls unless guaranteed police support. People who couldn’t get to ERs on their own died because ambulance service didn’t come to them.
There were entire neighborhoods (mostly those administrated by Human Urban Development programs, or industrial boroughs where the skeletons of factory buildings stood abandoned) that consisted of nothing more than burned out hulks—home only to feral dogs, rats, and the homeless. City mental health services were run on shoestring budgets and the psychiatrically ill with no family to turn to begged in the streets, dying by the dozens in the harsh winters. And this was what their home had come to.
Eli shrugged. “It might not be this bad everywhere, however far out ‘everywhere’ is. But we already had trouble with a capital ‘T’ right here in River City,” he said. “This blackout pulled the rock back.”
“No place like home,” Bob said.
After helping Bob retrieve the weapon and watching him lock himself inside of his dark store, and because there was nothing else for it, Eli and Parker started out again. Behind them, the bodies of the dead lay still, rapidly cooling in the night air.
8
The Ohio River flowed under the West Street Bridge in the same sluggish manner it always did, looking cold, deep and very dark. No one was on the span way, though about eight vehicles, including a semi-tractor, sat idle. There weren’t any wrecks, so the way across was open and clear.
Eli and Parker stopped on the sidewalk. The address Parker had managed to ferret out for Ava lay in Northside.
“This is me,” Eli said. He held out his hand.
Parker took it. “Yeah, I guess so. You take care of Jen, okay? Stay frosty, too; people have lost their minds since anarchy happened.”
“Yeah,” Eli said, his voice as dry as usual. He looked at Parker. “Seriously, though, I’m holding up at Mary Margaret’s. There’s zero chance I’m trying to get back to our neighborhood until this blows over. You need a place, go there, brother; you’ve got the address.”
Parker nodded. “I appreciate that, Eli.”
Eli opened his mouth to speak again, but then hesitated. After a moment of internal debate, he pushed ahead. “Look, Jim, I know you’re doing the right thing, and I know you can damn well take care of yourself. But you are risking a lot on a very iffy long shot. You have to be ready if this doesn’t…” he struggled to find the right words, and settled on, “end well.”
Parker nodded. “This is what it is. I know that. I have to try.”
“I get it,” Eli said. “We’ll have a cold one when it’s all over.”
“We’ll have ten,” Parker laughed. They touched knuckles. “I’ll see you then,” Parker said.
The two men separated with that, and Parker began walking towards the bridge. The structure was a long one, some four hundred yards from bank to bank. At the moment, it looked utterly deserted, and a slight breeze blew across the guard rails and cooled him as he walked.
He wanted a drink badly, and as before, he wanted an Ativan just as much. He grudgingly admitted to himself that his decision not to bring any of his prescription meds along had been a smart one. Already, he’d have begun talking himself into thinking there’d be no harm in taking something.
The desire to take one was a nagging, persistent itch he couldn’t entirely take his mind off. Trying to get away from it, he closed his eyes and the breeze made a slight whispery whistle in his ears as he walked. He pushed his mind away from distractions and picked up the pace.
Soon enough, Parker was able to see that Ava had not come from a great neighborhood.
There were plenty such spots in the northern Louisville suburb now that most of the heavy industries had pulled out of the Rust Belt. He didn’t think the current President was going to be able to bring those jobs back, either, no matter what he’d promised—not in great enough numbers anyway. Globalization had worked for the factory owners and manufacturing conglomerates; industries weren’t going back to less money. The very idea wa
s un-American to them.
Ava’s apparent house was a rundown one-bedroom with a sagging porch, peeling paint, and a lawn that was one step away from going to full-out jungle. Opening a rickety gate falling off its rusted hinges, Parker walked down the cracked pavement of a sidewalk. He approached with the assumption that the house was occupied in some way, though he didn’t know yet if Ava herself lived here or if this was her parents’ home.
Either way, he didn’t want to startle or surprise any occupants inside the decidedly decrepit house. “Hello to the house!” he shouted. Climbing the heavily bowed steps, he walked onto the porch and up to the front door.
Bags of trash sat piled on either side of the door. The stink was considerable and buzzing clouds of black flies lifted in clouds as he moved past. Startled and disgusted, he waved them away, managing to be only partly successful.
Grimacing, he knocked hard on the door to alert any residents. He spoke again as he knocked. “Hello!” he called. “My name is James Parker.” He paused, and then added when there was no response from inside, “I’m here for your daughter!”
He closed his eyes in self-recrimination. Really? He thought. ‘I’m here for your daughter,’? Not a way to introduce yourself on a dark night, genius.
He knocked again, and suddenly the door—obviously not locked and apparently not even latched securely—swung open part-way under his hand.
“Hello?” he repeated. Was no one home? Had they left earlier in the night for some reason of their own? He had a lot of questions, and only one place to find answers for them. He reached out and pushed the front door the rest of the way open.
“Again,” he said in a loud voice, “not here for any trouble; I’m looking for your daughter. I’m worried about her safety.”
When again there was no response, he bit the bullet and entered the house. He hadn’t walked halfway across the city only to turn around and leave now. He’d shot two people already, rivaling the number of times he fired his weapon the entire time he’d been a LEO.
Walking into a house uninvited seemed inconsequential by comparison.
He pushed the door open further, revealing an interior that was dark as a mausoleum. The hinges, badly in need of oil, groaned loudly. He stepped to his right to avoid silhouetting himself in the doorway and immediately knocked over some sort of end table, sending several crumpled and empty beer cans rattling across the floor.
Cursing, he caught himself against the door jamb and unclipped the Maglite secured to his pack. He clicked the powerful flashlight on and shone it around the room.
There was no denying he was in conflict with himself. Common sense and every training session he’d ever received screamed at him to draw his weapon. But he wasn’t a cop anymore, he didn’t have any authority, and he’d entered this private residence uninvited and without the slightest indication that the occupants were guilty of any crime other than being poor housekeepers.
Really poor housekeepers.
In a situation like that, on a night like tonight, could he blame a home owner for greeting him with the business end of a shotgun? And if forced, in the moment, could he really bring himself to shoot a frightened citizen defending their home? Hi, I’m here to save your daughter; bang bang.
He left his weapon holstered. It wasn’t smart, but it was right. He deeply hoped he wouldn’t regret the decision. He played the light around some more. “Hello?” he repeated.
The place looked like a bomb had gone off inside. The level of filth was astounding. He saw a broken, sagging old couch, the fabric on it so old and dirty it was hard to determine the original color. It was now only the nonspecific gray of grime. Empty Doritos bags, candy, and candy bar wrappers lay scattered among mounds of dirty clothes.
A long rectangular coffee table sat in front of the couch, appealing as a septic tank. Battered and scratched, it showed the black scars of numerous cigarette burns. Four separate overflowing ashtrays took up space among the almost innumerable empty beer bottles and cans. Brown filtered Marlboros mixed in with slimmer, all white, Newports. His mind registered the fact and determined it was likely proof of both a male and female presence.
Somewhere.
Playing the flashlight around, he saw a battered television from the 1990s sitting in one corner. It had a red plastic ashtray on top of it next to three empty forty ounce bottles of Old English 800. Cigarette butts—again, both brands—spilled out of the ashtray. There was another pile of dirty clothes on the floor next to it. Beside them, he saw a ratty pair of Adidas running shoes; Men’s size ten, he judged, and near to falling apart.
He smelled trash as he moved his flashlight along the wall, coming to the opening of a hallway leading to the back of the house. He was about to walk forward when suddenly something he’d seen clicked with him. He turned and shone his light on the coffee table again.
There, among the trash, he saw what had bothered him... a spoon lying next to an empty bag of Cheetos. Curious, he stepped closer. The spoon was bent oddly and the concave bowl of it was stained black with soot. He frowned. Reaching out, he pushed the empty chip bag aside.
There on the table next to a filthy cottonball sat two empty hypodermic needles. Beside them was a little plastic bag. Parker lifted his lip in disgust. He’d have to check closer to find out but, most likely, he was dealing with either heroin or, even more likely in the heartland, meth.
He quelled any feelings of outrage he felt growing. In his experience, addicts fell into two broad groups, like the rest of the people living in the criminal underground. They were either predator or prey. Predators stole by force, broke into homes, beat the weak, mugged the elderly, or sold their children into sexual slavery.
Prey were frequently more dangerous to themselves than others. They were the prostitutes, the missing children, the hollow-eyed actors in gonzo porn productions. Occasionally, they could get themselves together long enough to run identity theft scams or function in shoplifting rings, but in the end, the more savage ones up the food chain used them up and threw them away.
And besides... as of late, his capacity for judging others for their weaknesses had taken a hit. He hoped Ava was still a person worthy of saving; the frightened voice he’d heard on the phone had seemed that way to him. He wasn’t going to give up on her because of this scene. Not yet.
He flashed his light back to the hallway, reminding himself that there was still the question of the unidentified male player in all of this. He walked toward the hall.
A figure moved, and he jumped in surprise. He had time to form a quick impression; Caucasian male, average height, thin to the point of scrawny, hair blown up in a ragged halo around a drawn and haggard face that was covered in patchy stubble. A grungy bathrobe hung off the scarecrow frame, open to reveal a stained wife beater t-shirt and urine-stained boxer shorts that were so worn they were almost see-through.
The man opened a nearly toothless, sunken-cheeked mouth and shouted something. His bird-like arm came up as he squinted under the glare of Parker’s light and swung a baseball bat. Parker stepped back and the bat passed by him. The guy was not an athlete.
“Easy,” he said. “I’m not he—”
The man screeched again and swung the bat. Parker jumped straight back to avoid being clocked, feeling the fetid air of the house swish by his face as the bat passed within inches of his head.
“Easy, goddamnit!” he shouted. “I’m not here to hurt you!”
“Screw you, nigger!” the man shrieked.
Parker felt a surge of rage. The bat came up again, and he reached out with his hand and caught it. He’d wrapped his fingers around it like the jaws of a trap closing and now he held it firmly. The man’s struggle was futile, his grasping the handle with both hands and straining almost comical.
Parker curled his other big hand into a fist. He didn’t appreciate racial epitaphs. What he should do was break this motherfucking racist’s jaw for him. He felt the man’s weakness as the guy tried to pry his weapon free—r
idiculous high-pitched grunts and squeals coming with the effort.
Sighing, Parker uncurled his fist. He was an uninvited intruder in this man’s home. Maybe he was a strung-out junkie, but awakening in the middle of a disaster to find a large man in your home was stressful; it didn’t exactly bring out the best in people.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered.
He jerked the bat out of the man’s hands and tossed it behind him. The guy fell back in panic, yellow-tinged and bloodshot eyes rolling like a spooked horse’s in fear. The guy pressed himself up against the wall in panic.
“Please, please,” he stammered. “The woman in the next room, she’ll do whatever you want! Take whatever you want—just don’t hurt us!”
Parker’s stomach knotted in disgust and he pushed down a fresh surge of anger.
“Ava?” he demanded. “Is Ava in the next room?” His voice had dropped an octave, turning into a threatening snarl.
The man blinked against the light, confused. “Ava?”
“Yes, goddamnit, Ava,” Parker said.
“Ava’s not here, man,” the guy said.
A woman’s voice, harsh from decades of liquor and cigarettes, shouted out from down the hall. “Who is it, Bobby? Who the fuck is it?”
Bobby turned his head, obviously pissed at being interrupted. “It’s a goddamn big nig—” he cut himself off and looked back at Parker, attempting an apologetic smile. “...Guy,” he finished. The attempt was lame. “Says he looking for Ava!”
“Ava?” the woman all but screeched. “Why the fuck is he looking for her here?”
“How the hell should I know?” Bobby shouted back. “Shut the fuck up, Annie, and let me talk!”
“Screw you!”
“Uh, hey,” Parker began.
Bobby waved a hand at him, still addressing the female voice. “I’m handling this, woman!”
Dead Lines [911] Page 10
