by Eric Beetner
“How hard were you trying?”
“Not hard.” I hated not being able to lie. Lies buzzed in my head like angry bees trapped in a jar. My tongue wouldn’t let a single lie out to sting anyone, so they all turned on me. My brain pincushioned with a thousand tiny pricks. Telling the truth is supposed to be cathartic. And for a secret I held in this long, I should be feeling a weight lifted off my shoulders, right? Wrong. I stood in a hole I dug myself and felt the growing weight of the dirt as it rose higher and I sank deeper.
“Blake, you’ve got to understand,” I said. “I’m going to try to make this right. I know I can’t make up for what I’ve done, and what’s happened over the last day and half. Nothing can. But, I’m going to make sure Calder and Rizzo go down and I know it will bring me down in the process. I don’t think it’s just because I can only do the right thing. It’s deeper than that. Or maybe it isn’t. The thing I do know,” I leaned back from his shoulder, a fresh bandage of torn Motel towels keeping the bleeding in check. “This side of me was always in there. It got covered over, or maybe beaten down by her. The other side of me. But, this Samantha, the good Samantha, the one you knew. She’s always been there.”
I know how pathetic I sound. I do. It’s the truth, though. I couldn’t tell anything else.
And Blake’s eyes? Soft again. Softer anyway. That’s something. If anything came out of this, forgiveness from Blake and from Lucas would be the greatest reward.
That and living through it all.
HOT & WET
I took a shower. A gloriously hot shower. I set it to scalding and grit my teeth until I got used to the scorch, but then it felt amazing. As amazing as you could get in a shower/tub combo with a dark ring around the tub like a ghost of ten thousand dirty hotel guests before me. And I’d bet you a thousand bucks at least one person hung themselves off the rusty shower head at some point.
But with my eyes shut, and my brain beautifully blank for a change, I let the white noise of the water rushing past my ears block out everything for a while.
I thought of Blake in the next room, and wondered if he thought of me. Even after the change in him, the obvious disgust for what I’d done, did being this close, naked and soapy, did it turn him on? Making him think of what could have been in other circumstances in this dingy motel room?
I surveyed my bruises, searched for some signs of a wound on my arm where the stabbing pain of Blake’s gunshot made it seem like I’d be staring down at an exposed bone, but nothing. A few freckles, that’s it.
I shut off the water, not quite ready for my mini vacation to end but the water started to cool off. I think I’d drained the hot water heater for the whole motel. The fan in the bathroom didn’t work (Shocker!) so the air hung thick with fog and the mirror turned opaque. I wiped my palm over the fog and in the clear patch saw the light bruise on my cheek from the punch I’d given myself. The swelling wasn’t too bad. The mirror fogged up again quickly.
I slung a towel around me and dreaded the idea of getting back into the same clothes I’d been wearing for two days straight. A little late to ask Blake to take me shopping. Only place to get clothes at that hour of the night is a XXXL tee shirt with a bald eagle or American flag on it at a truck stop.
Again, not my style.
I hated to tease Blake by coming out in a towel, but since I thought that attraction pretty much dead and gone, I risked it.
SURPRISE! AND IT’S NOT ROOM SERVICE
Blake was not alone. I instinctively put a hand on my towel, feeling ridiculous being nearly naked. My fear of the strangers was tempered by what I knew about them.
It wasn’t Calder and Rizzo’s guys. They were DEA. If they’re backs were to me I’d have seen the giant white Helvetica letters on their windbreakers, but even without that clue I can spot a fellow agent at a hundred paces. I felt like my badge would be going bye-bye real soon.
“Samantha, I can explain,” Blake said. Ah, that old chestnut. A line spoken by someone who is about to tell you something you don’t want to hear, designed to make them feel better, and which doesn’t explain things at all. “I called them. They can help. This is bigger than just you.”
Run? No. Fight? Can’t. Slump shoulders and ask permission to put on my panties? About all I could do.
THE WALK OF SHAME
I wouldn’t look Blake in the eye. He didn’t seem too eager for eye contact himself. Things couldn’t have been more awkward between us if we did have sex in this shitty motel.
A female officer came into the bathroom with me to put my old clothes on. Hey, maybe I’d at least get a spiffy orange jumpsuit out of this. They put cuffs on me, as I expected. When we left there were no news crews, no gauntlet of cameras, no gawking looky-loos. Anyone else staying at an out-of-the-way shitbox that rents by the hour isn’t exactly going to jump up and volunteer to be seen by a parking lot full of DEA agents. They were all hunkered down sweating their asses off and probably swallowing condoms filled with dope.
While I waited to get stuffed into the back seat of a navy blue sedan I saw two agents with their backs to me. The one on the right turned his body in such a way the giant letters on the backs of their jackets spelled out DEAD.
Great. As bad omens go, I might as well have been riding a black cat under a ladder while breaking thirteen mirrors.
Blake came up to me before they took me away. I could see him get permission to talk to me first.
“It’ll be alright, Samantha. These are our people. They can help.”
“Did you explain it?”
“No, not yet.” He looked at his shoes. “I thought you should do that. I’ll screw up the details.”
Right. He didn’t want to sound crazy. I felt a scathing rant in the back of my throat, expletive-laced and cruel. My tongue shut down. I could only nod and look like my name had been called to the principal’s office.
“I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“No,” I said. “You have to find Lucas. Please. She’s still out there. We’ll run out of time.”
“Okay, okay. It will take some time for you to be processed anyway. And I know I can’t sleep right now.” He ran a hand through his hair. Nice hair. I’d never noticed before. “I’ll do what I can, but Sammy, these are the people we want on our side.”
“These are the people I betrayed,” I said. “Why would they do anything to help me?”
“Because it’s their job.”
“It used to be my job too.”
A gruff officer muscled in between us and folded me in origami shapes until I fit into the back of his car. As we drove off I watched Blake. The doubt on his face read like a book. He wondered if he’d made the right choice. If only he’d asked me first, I could have saved him the agonizing question hanging over him. No. Wrong choice. Bad idea. Go to sleep.
Jesus, if only I’d fucked him he never would have gotten to the phone.
JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM
The local cops were thrilled to have me. We did have a holding cell at the DEA office, but by then the whole building would have been turned into a crime scene since they took Blake’s call and searched the place.
An agent stayed with me as the cops booked me in.
“Charge?” the desk sergeant asked.
“DEA custody,” my handler said.
“That’s not a charge.”
“Just write it down.”
“But it’s not a charge. What’s the crime she did?”
“Okay, how about you write down none of your fucking business? Will that fit on your form?”
“You don’t gotta be a dick about it.”
“And you don’t have to fuck with a homeland security case.”
Any agency under the umbrella of homeland security these days loves to toss that kind of rhetoric around. It’s the twenty-first century version of, “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” Act tough, wave the HS flag and you get away with anything in the face of
a lower rank public official. Hell, I’d done it before when local cops almost derailed a fake drug buy of mine.
I got stuck in the drunk tank overflow cell all by myself, but with the drunks only a row of steel bars away.
“Agent Whelan, we’ll be by in the morning to get more statements. Until then, get some rest.”
I never did get the agent’s name who checked me in. He leaned against the bars and spoke to me with respect. That’s when I knew for sure Blake had fed them a line of bullshit about me.
“And, ma’am, I’ve seen the agency office. It’s a miracle you made it out alive. We’re glad to have you with us still.”
I nodded my thanks. I didn’t dare open my mouth and screw it all up.
I tried to piece together what Blake told them about the case. All I could get is he said it wasn’t me who killed everyone. I’d be held as a material witness instead of a suspect in the crime. All that would change, I suspected, when they looked at the security tapes from the office. They’d see me shooting up the joint, then they’d see me on the tape in a different room. Then I’d have some serious explaining to do.
For the moment I was safe, like Blake wanted. Lucas wasn’t. That’s what I wanted.
It seemed like everyone went home or maybe back to the scene. They could all be out looking for hotel rooms because these were guys from another agency. I’d never seen any of them before and I knew first hand my office was all dead except for me and Blake. And lucky Hamilton down in Cabo.
It had to be late, or maybe it only felt late because I was so damn tired. Exhausted like I’d never been before. If I knew the agency (and I do) I’d be stuck down in the basement cell for days before they got their act together enough to transfer me or figure out what to charge me with. Anything I say about government bureaucracies and their tendencies toward slowness would be repetition.
The concrete floors, cinder block walls and rows of metal bars made the place feel even colder than it was. Florescent lights buzzed overhead showing no signs of turning off for the night. A lone cop sat at a desk what must have been fifty feet away, reading a magazine. Biding his time until he could get a transfer up and out of the dungeon. Only difference between me and him were the bars. He was just as stuck, though.
Plus, he was a cop. Not as bound to morality and good deeds as I seemed to be.
I stretched out on my cot listening to a drunk in the next cell moan and dry heave over the communal toilet. The three other guys in the cell ignored him, or maybe were passed out. They still call it a drunk tank but really it’s a holding cell for anyone they bring in on a good night. The guy retching fit the bill for a junkie coming down off a meth or heroin high. A blackout drunk would be comedically quaint in the big city today, like Otis on the Andy Griffith Show. (one of Daddy’s favorites.)
I closed my eyes, inviting sleep like a whore on a street corner. I’d have to wait.
WAITING ON A FRIEND
In the relative quiet and low lighting, with my eyes shut and my heart rate slowed to something resembling normal, I tuned in a crystal clear image of Sam’s eyesight. HD, baby. 16X9 letter-boxed. Cinemascope and 3-D.
Nothing else was on so I watched the show. I’d gotten used to the dull throb in my head when I listened in.
I recognized the building first. She’d gone to Calder and Rizzo’s condo. I doubted the boys had been back to the office building since the explosion. Big bangs like that do tend to bring around the cops and the scrutiny that comes with them. I already knew from Lucas that the boys were always one tiny misstep away from getting busted so the smart play was to clear out of an active crime scene. And Calder and Rizzo were smart, if nothing else.
She called the elevator, turned her/our eyes to the camera mounted above the doors and smiled. Satisfied, the elevator moved down. Calder and Rizzo never let up anyone they don’t know. My (our) face became my permanent passport up.
She stepped out and moved slowly. I expected maybe she would come out shooting. After all, it had been a long time since she killed someone and maybe her employers were next on her list. But she played it calm.
She submitted to a pat-down by two of the office guards. Burly Mexicans with long sideburns and slicked back hair like it came with the uniform.
Sam stepped into Calder and Rizzo’s place. I’d only been there once before and I could never tell if they lived together, next to each other, or just had this place for meetings and overnight stays. It seemed more remote office than comfy home. I watched from my jail cell. It felt like being fully awake for a dream.
She stood while the two brothers stayed sitting behind their twin desks. The two men who patted her down disappeared behind her, but I knew they were still in the room with hairy knuckles griped over waistband guns.
“You’ve been a busy girl,” Calder said.
We nodded our head.
“Not exactly discreet…” he added. She stared straight ahead. I wondered if she knew I was watching. “Normally we don’t like such vulgar displays, but it seems nothing has been traced back to you or to us.”
“Yet,” Rizzo said, letting the weight of the word settle over the room.
“And it won’t,” she said.
“I’d feel better about that if you stopped showing up here unannounced. Even in the best of times we are being watched. You should know better.”
“You told us,” Rizzo said and then laughed.
“I want half,” she said, cutting off his laughter.
“Half of what?” Calder asked.
“Half the money. Ten million.”
Calder seemed genuinely perplexed. “What for?”
“The job is half finished. More than half.”
“We’re not paying you for half.”
“Did you hear about the judge?” she said.
“Yes, we heard about the judge.”
“That will delay your case by at least a year.”
“We want it gone completely,” Rizzo said. “I don’t give a shit about a year or ten years. Ten million doesn’t buy you a year.”
“What about the DA?” Calder asked. “Your boyfriend.”
Fiancé!, I wanted to yell. “Shut up!” came from the cop at the desk. Guess I said it out loud after all.
For the first time Sam looked away, down at the floor. “He’s proving harder to find than I thought.”
“Look, Samantha, you’ve obviously been working hard out there. It’s impressive. None of our men could do the things you’ve done.” Calder and Rizzo exchanged a look. “Really, we didn’t know you were capable. And we didn’t really know what we were buying. This is a lot of attention.”
“Unwanted attention,” Rizzo added.
“You say it can’t be traced, then we believe you. But, we can’t make payment until the job is done. And the job isn’t done until the lawyer is dead.”
It struck me how close this felt to wearing a wire. If only. A recording of this conversation would be the end for Calder and Rizzo. Unfortunately my brain isn’t a tape recorder.
The edgeless pain in my skull sharpened and felt like it expanded, the bones in my head straining against the pressure.
She attacked.
“What are you doing?” I yelled out. I got a loud bang on the bars from my cell neighbors. Guess I’d disturbed their cold turkey night.
She walked several paces forward and reached out for Calder. She had no weapons and I knew she could move faster. She moved with such steady restraint, I got a sense she might be trying to hold herself back. Somehow I knew hate propelled her, not logic. Another one of those things I knew, but didn’t know how I knew it.
I felt pressure on my shoulders and her vision snapped back by several feet. I heard shouting in Spanish. The two guards held her from behind.
“Samantha!” Calder said from the safety of his chair, though he looked clearly rattled.
My body tensed with hers and she swiveled. Next thing I knew one of the guards we
nt sailing over her shoulder. She reached forward, grabbed a tiny Mexican flag off Rizzo’s desk and spun. I watched a close-up view of the little wooden flag pole spiking into his neck.
The man reached for his throat. It looked like he only pushed the stick in deeper as his hand slapped over the wound. On the carpet below I could see the other guard rolling and holding his crotch.
Our view spun back around and then my field of view filled with a fist. My nose radiated with a faraway pain and as the fist pulled back I saw Rizzo gritting his teeth angrily. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him standing up before.
I called out in pain, got another rattle on the bars and a, “Shut the hell up” from the next cell.
Sam staggered back. Rizzo did not follow on the attack. He only stood to prove his point. My pulse raced. She was going to get us killed.
“Get the fuck out,” he said.
“I’ll do the job,” Sam said. “And when it’s done I want my money. All twenty million.”
“You’ll do the job because if you don’t we’ll kill you,” Calder said. “Fucking crazy bitch.” His accent came out heavier than ever. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
If he only knew. Hell, if I only knew. I got one of those strange sensations she didn’t quite know the answer either.
“You owe me for this rug,” Rizzo said looking down. “God dammit, he’s bleeding fucking everywhere.” He spoke to the other guard. “Get him the fuck out of here.”
“I’ll be back,” Sam said.
“You call next time,” Calder said. “No more unannounced. I want to hear the job is done. You come back here before that, you’re dead. And you better fucking be sure nothing can be traced back to us.”
Sam stumbled out. The angry Spanish yelling of the guard who still had a throat chased her out the door.
I writhed on my cot like a kid with a nightmare. My eyes were crazy glued shut as I watched her fumble her way to the elevator and ride down, checking her reflection in the mirrored walls and gently touching her nose to see if it was broken. It didn’t appear to be.
